Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1909-01-27
LIQUOR QUESTION
BELONGS IN POLITICS
DECLARES DR.. CALLEN OF KAN
SAS AT MEETING OF MODEL
LICENSE LEAGUE.

Louisville, KY, Jan. 22.-National
regulation of the liquor traffic was
urged by DR.. j. F. Callen, of Pittsburs
Kansas, a. speaker at the convention
of the Model License league yester-
day. THE liquor question" the speak
er said, belongs in politics; it is a
national question, not question that
can be determined in vast meeting
or even in one state legislature; and
it should be governed and regulated
from the head of the nation. The
United States owns every drop OF
liquor and beer in the country today
There is not a distiller in the state OF
Kentucky, or any other state, that
dares to make me present of gal
lon of whisky today, that cost him to
make and store twenty-five cents, un'
less he first pass Uncle Sam SLID,
and the state, or states, that set up
laws to prohibit the sale of this prod
uct are in a measure boycotting, not
only a product of the Government,
but fifty-seven per cent of the entire
cost of the war, or in other words.
eighty-three per cent o. the combined
cost of the navy and pension depart
ments.
IF the federal government needs
the revenue it collects from liquor, it
should lend it's protection to the man
who dispenses the product and who
pays the government tax.
Prohibition is not temperance
movement as applied to the sale and
use of stimulants Prohibition move
ments seek to wipe out the legal sale
of all alcoholic stimulants and bever-
ages-that is, if we are to believe the
advocates Of the cause who are stump
ing the country. But prohibition does
not mean that, out in Kansas where
live. Prohibition out there means
graft. The prohibition law out there
is the power that upholds graft and
enables dishonest officials to play fast
and loose with "JointistsF'.
Il believe that state wide prohibi-
ton would never be mentioned if it
were generally understood by om
people, that prohibition is but the
name for law that takes the sale OF
liquors out of responsible hands and
places it in the hands of men who
are desperate enough to defy the law,
that instead of protecting the young
from the temptation to drink, brings
the vilest decoctions to the very shad-
ows of the home and that there is no
way to protect the youth from the in
fluence of the boot-legger who is mere
today and there tomorrow who has no
responsibility, and whose only aim
like that of many of his more respect
able brothers, is money, only money.
IF it should be more generally un-
derstood that the quantity of liquor
consumed is as great or greater in a
prohibition state than in others. thai
there is no regulation of the sales OF
of the quantity of the stuff sold, no
revenue to the state from such sales
in prohibition states, and that often
the prosecutor becomes persecution
who alternately protects and perse
cuteS.
Prohibition means not temperance
but lawlessness, and the more power
full the movement becomes and the
more numerous its advocates, the
nearer we approach the. reign of an
archy and outlawry.'
DIR. Callen discussed the effect OF
the anti-liquor law in Kansas, particu
larly in Salina and Pittsburg- As 9
temperance movement. he said, pro
hibition in Salina is a failure, boil
morally and financially. and the enc
is not yet. This was true of Other
cities in the state, he asserted.