Emmons County record., 1909-12-02

q
Elsewhere in this issue will be
found an Associated Press dispatch
giving the result of the vote last
Monday in Alabama on the question
of constitutional prohibition. Those
in favor of attempting to make peo-
Pile teetotalers by law. instead of
by moral suasion and the force OF
example, have had much to say Of
late about the prohibition wave"
in the south. Whenever the white
people of state or county in the
south have adopted the well-known
Dixie plan of passing laws which,
while allowing many loop-holes for
the well-to-do classes, make it prac-
tically impossible for the worthless
darkey the class to whom the pos
session of six-bits of monetary sur
plus is a fortune to obtain intoxi-
eating iqour, there has been great
jubilation among those who believe
that so-called prohibition by law is
better system than license for
regulating the admitted immense
evils of the excessive use of strong
drink. 1t is true. however, that all
the states which have adopted pro-
hibition in recent years have done
so for the first time. No burnt
child" has in this matter forgotten
TO fear the fire. There is not a
single state that has had taste of
prohibition which has. after throw
ing off the incubus, gone back to it.
In South Dakota the prohibitionists
were unable last year to even get a
majority at the polls for county op-
tion. altough it was a measure
identical in principle. and almost SO
in diction, with the writer's resub-
mission bill which the prohibition
lists defeated in two sessions of the
North Dakota Legislature. while the
same argument of the state being
too large a unit was being used by
rasubmissionists here and prohibi-
tionsists in South Dakota and Min
nesota. And in the latter state
where the county optionists made
tests in many districts when choos-
ing members of the legislature they
met losses instead of gains in MEM
bership last year.
Prohibition comes in waves or
cycles; and, after an extended ex-
perience is had of the absolute fu-
Itility of attempting to legislate the
evil of intemperance out of exist
ence. the states return, like YER
mont and New Hampshire in the
east and Iowa and South Dakota in
the west. to rational regulation of
an unfortunate condition that can
not be prevented until men become
much more angelic than they are at
present.
Fifty years ago craze for prohi-
bition by statute spread over the
country, and the laws passed in
many states to 'pulverize the rum
power" as the Toledo Blade had it,
have not been exceeded in severity
by the recent drastic enactments
along that line.
In our judgment. were there a
sure method without the hypocrisy,
humbug and cant that prevail where
a prohibition law is in existence
of enforcing such a law. every state
in the union would quickly put
it in the constitution or in the
code. But experience everywhere,
and particularly here in North Da-
kota, has demonstrated that the basic
aim of the consistent enemies of the
liquor traffic (Which is to prevent or
lessen the consumption of liquor) is
lost sight of, and the statute be-
comes simply a medium by which
time-serving politicians may attest
their loyalty to that particular
law, regardless of the many other
laws that are as much in need of
revival methods for their en-
forcement. Such demagogues get
upon the housetops and shout for
prohibition because, although the
prohibition following may have fall
en- to a minority, they are organized,
while the license people are scatter
ing their shots.
South Dakota is settled by identi-
cally the same class of native and
foreign born people that inhabit
North Dakota. South Dakota adopt
ed the appetite-regulating law, and.
when they found it was a failure
the voters of the southern sister nut
IT aside through the medium of
their Referendum. And yet. If any
means could have been found by
which to make it a success, without
the accompanying train Of evils that
we have in this state and thew had