Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-06-05
Editorial Comment
sunptuary Laws and others.
Gewiston JournalD

| Lewiston JournalD
| any law forbidding an evil or pun
ishlhg crime is prohibition.
Long ago the ten commandments
lset up ten acts of prohibition. Our
statuary laws prohibit all forms OF
felony from murder to assault. There
are prohibitory laws against stealing
IN all degrees. There are prohibitory
| laws for crimes against nature.
There are prohibitory laws against
perjury and bribery. You are pro-
hlplted from standing on street cor
hefs' thereby obstructing travel You
are subject to prohbitory laws
against speeding in your automobiles.
"hlch one of these is in abrogation
oil your liberty? Which one of these
depriVes You of your freedom? Is 1t
any more a curtaiment of your lib
erty for law to arrest and fine YOU
Tor running Your automobile over
quiet country road at 40 miles or so
an hour than il is to arrest and fine
you for keeping and maintaining a
nuisance in the form of a place where
men gather to drink themselves in
sensible. The ethical and legal side
OIL the law prohibiting the sale of
liquors is not to be controverted. 1t
mas been maintained in all courts.
1t Is not even "sumptuary law" in
the sense applied to 1t when our IL
cense friends attack it on that
grounds. Primarily sumptuary laws
We're aimed to prevent extravaganza
III private expenditure. Ancient
legislation is full of sumptuary laws.
Greece used them to enforce simple
habits on the people. The laws of
SCION, we are told, forbade costly ban
quets and funerals. The Romans had
cehsors who punished people. guilty
| of luxurious living. This was the
original sumptuary legislation at
which our license friends rail but this
is not the form of sumptuary Iegisla-
ton indicated in the laws prohibiting
the sale of liquors, drugs, poisons and
other Injurious things. The mercan-
tile interests of the world fought
against the curtaiIment of individual
rleht to spend money as it pleased in
Injuries. France has seen laws pro-
hipltlng the wearing of silks or fine
linens. II is this form of SUMMARY
legislation that has been condemned
out, state and federal constitutions
today the world over recognize tho
right of law to prohibit the sale or
traffic in things that destroy the
ieaith' degrade the morals and de-
base the people of the nation. The
same right to prohibit the sale of
liquors, that debases. debauches and
destroys the individual exists in
fundamental laws as exists in the
same fundamental law to arrest and
punish the man who adulterates or
misbrands a food product.
II seems odd therefore that those
VINO contend that prohibition is
fundamentally wrong and i'm abroga
tioh OF individual rights should single
OUT only one form of prohibition-the
SAFE OF liquors. Confessedly the sa-
loon is the greatest evil of the age
confessedly the world were better
We're all liquor wiped out of en-
istehee. 1t is admitted that the sa :
loon is an economic burden. These
tIiihgs admitted. the only response is
mat the prohibitory laws do not pro-
hibit. ~ p'o
10 this the reply is that they nro-
hloit as well as any other law pro-
hiplts. And beyond this the conten-
ton is reasonably well sustained that
conditions under prohibition are far
superior. taking all into consideration
and recognizing even the fraiIty of
the Covered Bridge to conditions in
Incense communities or even in no.
license communities that border on or
are hedged in by license towns.