The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1914-10-30
now IT WORKS TN
WEST VIRGINIA
A

Hilton, editor of The Weeling CIV. Va
Majority, under date of July 2, 1914
makes number of decidedly perth.
ent comments regarding the immediate
effects of Statewide prohibition. Edi-
tor Hilton says:
Prohibition as a legal fact is now
with us in West Virginia. That it will
be fiction in practice is certain Tax
Commissioner Blue has already made
this sure by his rulings, and now
comes the Supreme Court of the State
with still broader Interpretation. We
are already informed that liquor can
not be produced 'eXcept'-under GER
the Yost law reads very plainly, dis
tinctly and specifically that liquor
could not be used as a beverage in
West Virginia. Mr.. Blues interpreta-
tions and the Supreme Courts rulings
have shown ways by which every man
and woman in the state, who has the
price, may get the booze.
at seems that the prohibition law
was entirely too strict for the prohib-
itionists. They never wanted the state
dry They only wanted the open
saloon abolished. They did not want
liquors offered for sale to the COM
mon people over the open bar, but
they still wanted it for themselves in
the eXclusiveness of their own cellars.
about the only claim left to them
is that it will make liquor more diff
cult to get; that it will save the aver
age man who will not trouble to look
up speakeasy, and will save the boys
who will not have it held temptingly
before them by attractive saloons. We
can tell surely about this in five hun
dred years from now. 1t is certain
that any briefer time will be too
brief, for in all the thousands of years
of recorded history, whether the laws
were open, restricted, regulated or pro-
hibited, every race everywhere has
had its intoxicating liquors. The
beers 1000 years before Christ. We
don't know how long before that peo-
pie were getting drunk, but we know
that they have been getting drunk
ever since
primarily, the desire for intoXicants
is the natural desire for pleasure. We
eat to live, but we choose viands with
the most pleasant taste. In other
words, we seek to effect the most
pleasurable emotions. The desire is
made more keen by the misery that
surrounds us. A very we'll known man
in this city, few years ago, being
broke said: I've got fifty cents. I'm
going to go and get five WHISTLES, and
I'll be as rich as Rockefeller And
he did and was. Though, of course,
he was poorer than ever soon after
ward.
But how many of us grasp a fleet
ing pleasure of the moment without
reckoning the price of pain that must
later on be paid? The drunkard, the
dope fiend, the degenerate devoted to
every artificial and unnatural pleasure
is simply one who does not know
enough to-realize the long price that
he must pay for a short pleasure.
But those who think do know bet
ter are mostly those who have,
through accident of birth or environ
ment, found other pleasures. Being
themselves satisfied, they can not
imagine why everybody else should
not see joy in the same things that
please and satisfy them. Sometimes
they get pleasure in just denying
pleasure to others. Some men with
twisted minds, like Harry Thaws, get
pleasure from inflicting torture.
This is not insane. Sanity is utility
Utility is the good of mankind Any
thing that adds to the misery of one
individual is hurt to mankind-un
less, by mtllctlng the pain tnere is
a corresponding or greater benefit de-
rived for that individual or for society.
To deprive drinking man of his
drink is a good thing only if his drink
ing brings injury to himself or others.
Thousands of West Virginians do not
believe that this is So But ninety
thousand more than them believed it
was So And, if we believe in any
thing in these democratic days, we be-
lieve in democracy-the rule of the
majority.
Whether or not the new regime will
in the end improve so-called morals,
certain it is that it will not affect pow
erty. Poverty and wretchedness are
much more often the cause rather than