The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1914-08-21
Incorporate Temperance.
Food for the Temperate and Intem-
perate to Ponder Over.

perate to Ponder Over.
But this is furnishing crime by anticipation. The law
can only take cognixance of what man has done, it
has no right to punish him for what he may do Be-
cause certain percentage of honest men become
thieves every year it would be monstrous injustice
serve term at the pententiary.
Besides If this prohibition legislation is to be per-
mitted where is it to stop? The excessive use of
smoking and chewing impars just as much excess
sive drinking does-the physical mental and moral IL
berty OF those who indulge in it. Now would the to-
tai abstainers from intoxicating drinks many of whom
excessive smokers and chewers and the majority
of whom, perhaps use tobacco moderately-how would
they like law to be enforced prohibiting the growth
manufacture and sale of tobacco? There is Just as
much reason for the for the other-that is to
say, there is no reason at all Vegetarans assert and
they are quite positive and quite conscientious in the
assertion they make, that well nigh all the evils of hu
manty directly traceabe TO the of animal food
just the Prohbitonst processes to trace all the
evils which act society to the moderate use of those
drinks So does the vegetarian profess to trace all
social evils to the eating of mutton chops and beef
stakes Precisely the same line of argument which
justies the total abstainer in agtating for law to
prohibit the beer and liquor trade would justify the
vegetarian in agitating for a law to close all meat
markets! So that if the principle which governs this
prohibtory legislation is allowed to be just one then
every crochet monger who conceived the idea that the
doing Of this that the other thing was injurious to
what he deemed the best interests of society provd
ing he could get sufficient number Of fools and fana
ss to 81 n n ms crochet to- on all the
tyranny more odious than any tyranny under which
mankind has eyer groaned. The only just and there
fore safe principle to go upon is this The law can
only be allowed TO touch actually committed offenses
1t may touch the thief it has right to hang shack
les the limbs Of the honest man. the ground that
it is within the limits of possibility that he may turn
out thief may restrain the drunkard but it has
no right to interfere with the sober man on the ground
that as eeytain number of sober leave their
briefly esery,year and become drunk and he may pos
siby turn out like one of them father who whipped
his child today on the ground that in all likelihood the
child would do something to deserve the whip tomor
row, would be denounced as brute who deserved to
be whipped himself
Then again assert that this prohibiiory legislation
wherever It has been tried has failed in its object. 1t
has not made people sober Admitting drinking to be
vice it has turned an open grapabe tangible vice-a
vice capable therefore of being restrained and eguat
not capable of being restrained and regulated Socie
ty is no gamer by change of this sort. In the days
Of Sir Robert Walpooe in England drunkenness assum-
ed amongst all ranks OF the English people perfectly
colossal proportions. 1t drew general attention. At
tempts at legal prohibition We're made, but the law
was everywhere evaded Drink was still sold but sod
secretly and under fancifu names The evil increased
instead Of diminishing and Wapooe had to confess to
failure 1t was the moral influence of Methodism
which did SO much toward soberng the English people
not the legal influence Of prohibition The same thing
has happened in this country. read quotation the
other day from the report of the Massachusetts bur-
Of statistics of labor that the number of arrests
for drunkenness under prohibition law had been rs
per cent greater than under the licensing law; and
that the number of places where liquor was illegally
sold, under the prohibitory law 1886 larger than
the whole number of places in which liquor had been
legally sold under the licensing law. Thus it would
seem that you do not lessen the evil by these prohibit
ory measures, while you get in addition prodgious
amount Of contempt for law, resulting in nnumerabe
.evasons and violations of it.. Laws can only be en-
forced when they accord with the general intelligence
and sense Of right existing in the people, but if the
general intelligence and sense of right existing in the
people taught them that the habit of drinking
wrongful habit there would be need of laws to pro-
hbit the habit. And until that general intelligence
and of right be created in the people by edu
cationa and by moral means, all prohibitory laws must
not only fail Of their object but must lead to their
own violation and evasion; while tn again lead to
disrespect for and disoyalty towards ALL law which