The Seattle Republican. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1???-1915, 1909-02-19


RIGHT OF TRIAL BY JURY DENIED.
The prohibitory law declared any place
wheer liquor was kept or sold to be a
| ton Of the chancery courts to enjoin such
nuisance and thus the right of trial by
jury was denied, and the constitutional
right nullified.
Under what was called 1.-THE Dis
closure the fundamental principle that
no man shall be bound to give evidence
against himself was violated.
In the struggle to make the law more
effective, essential principles of Ameri-
can government were ignored. 1t was
decreed that the home, baggage, and
even the person of any citizen, sojourner
or traveller in the state could be searched
for liquors without warrant and on mere
suspicion. In such search any liquor
found either on the person or elsewhere,
no matter for what purpose intended, was
confiscated, and the person in whose
possession it was found arrested and
held guilty of violating the prohibitory
law, unless he could prove the right to
have the liquor in his possession. Under
this law, no visitor to the state could
carry his own liquors for strictly per-
sonal use. Anyone so inclined could stop
any person on the highway, search his
person and baggage without warrant,
and sieze any liquors that might be
found in his possession. The law in
stead of following the ordinary rule
which considers every man innocent
until he is proven guilty, held those, in
whose possession liquor was found, to
be guilty until they proved themselves
innocent
After fifty years of trial and after
committing thousands of crimes in the
name of prohibition, Vermont finally
awoke to the fact that immortality had
steadily increased So had intemperance
and contempt for law The jails of the
state were full.
The report of the United States Com
missioner of Internal Revenue showed
one license to sell liquor to every 100
voters in the state, a number greater
than the average in the license states.
Puritan Vermont no longer ago than
1908 repealed a law because impossible
to enforce that some misguided people
are trying today to foist on Cosmopolitan
Washington.
New Hampshire also tried prohibition
for half century. Legislative ingenuity
was taxed to the utmost to devise means
for it's enforcement Extraordinary, in
quisitorial and tyrannical laws were en-
acted and vindictive punishments de-
creed and in New Hampshire, as in every
other state where it has been tried, pro-
hibition was a failure Here also ar
rayed against the real friends of tenn
perance, were the prohibitionists, the
! Illicit sellers of liquors and a class of
lawyers who profited by defending those
engaged in the business. Nothwithstand-
| ing this unholy alliance a license bill
passed the lower house on March 18,
! 1908, by a vote of two to one; a few days
later it passed the senate by a vote of
three to one and was signed by the Gov
ernor March 9th, 1903, and New Hamp-
shire had taken her place among the
states having rational laws for the regu-
lation of the liquor traffic. common
| assertion made by the Anti-Saloon
League apostles when working on the
emotions of the people is that the
licensed saloon is responsible for most
of our poverty.
Take the New England states as an ex-
ample. Bear in mind that the larger
cities of New England are in Massachu-
sets, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont
have the greater rural population. Bear
in mind also that from these conditions
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con
necticut should have the greater proper
ton of paupers
Take the United States census report
for 1890 and you will find that the states
of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont
had fourteen per cent. more paupers in
proportion to the population than the
states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island
and Connecticut.
When you consider that for nearly
forty years prior to 1890 Maine, New
Hampshire and Vermont had prohibition
and the states of Massachusetts,, Rhode
Island and Connecticut weer license
states, that argument in favor of pro-
hibition is exploded.
One more example: Kansas and Ne
braska have the same kind of people,
presumably possessing the same habits;
they have the same climatic conditions;
the soil of one is much like the soil of
the other. Here, too, is fair COMPARE
son: Kansas has 416 paupers for each
million of population, while Nebraska
has 275 for each million. This argument
cannot be answered by accusing the Sen
ator from Thurston of favoring state
wide booze.
Don't license the sale of liquors and
crime will cease" is another slogan of
the Anti-Saloon League.
This is phrase that rolls glibly under
the tongue and sounds well, but it is not
true The facts are just the opposite.
Under prohibition statistics show crime
to have steadily increased. In Maine in
| the nrnnnrtinn of four to one. in New