Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-03-03
Sources of Revenue"

Sources of Revenue"
Under the caption Partners in
Vice." the Saturday Evening Post last
week published an editorial quite re-
markable for the grip it gets upon the
average mans common sense:
"That there is no profit to the pub
lie in a partnership with vice is the
outstanding fact in Abraham Flex-
ner's report to the Rockefeller Bureau
of Social Hygiene on conditions in
Europe.
"Poice records show that there is a
more or less constant quantity of
burglary in every city. Your hopeful
theorist might say: Since we are
bound to have about so much burglary
anyway, why not license our burglars,
make them report periodically to the
police and put them under bonds not
to murder anybody while burgling?
Thus, by restricting the number OF IL
censes we shall be able to keep burg
larry down to the irreducibIe minimum,
and shall be sure that though citizens
are robbed they will not be killed."
"That might have a plausible sound,
but experience would show that under
such a system you would have your
licensed burglars and then just as
many unlicensed ones as there were
before the system was adopted.
$50, on a more or less plausible
theory that tho social evil might be
kept down to an irreducible minimum
and the spread of disease prevented,
system of licensing, with medical ex-
animation and police regulation, was
very general in Europe a dozen years
ago.
"Mr. FIexner's report shows clearly
that this system has everywhere brok-
en- down and is now either abandoned
or in the way Of being abandoned. 1t
did not in the least keep the social
evil within set bounds. II did not in
the least prevent the spread OF DIS
ease. There was the licensed wee aha
then an equal or greater quantity OF
unlicensed vice. BY its poi'oy OF TOT
Grating organized, established, adver.
tised vice the licensing city merely got
dirty hands and more vice than before.
"No profane law can prevent wee,
but any profane law or ordinance thar
expressly or by implication sanctions
it-as by licensing, segregation, ana
the ike-wil probably do much more
harm than good"
For generations misguided indlVldu-
ais who are opposed to evil, have gone
on listening to the voice of the COM
mercial monster and have honestly
urged partnership with the devil that
we might depend upon his "regula-
ton" of his vices.
For scores of years we have per-
mitted our government to reap "reVe-
nue." from the business conducted by
his soul grinding partners, and we'
the people, have struggled heroically
To raise ten times that revenue" for
the support of the victims of the firm
of Uncle Sam s. the Rum Trust.
WHY not license a few slave hold
ers? The government could get
handsome revenue" from permitting,
for a certain high consideration, q lin
tied number of wealthy combinations
of gentlemen" to engage in human
slavery. The business would not ruin
a thousandth part as many human
bodies as the booze traffic destroys or
renders unfit for the tenancy of
soul. nor would it cause one-hundredth
part of the heartaches that slavery 70
the rum traffic causes.
And what II II did? II the United
States could derive revenue" from the
business, what if it did cause inn
measurable earthly suffering and send
scores of thousands of men and women
to heIl7
What does Uncle Sam care how
many Of his innocent boys in the pride
of their dawnins manhood are in
vsioled by the trickery of his rum
trust partner into forming destroying
appetites? RE is raising revenue"
from them!
What does Uncle Sam care how
much his partner advertises to in
crease the hellish business; how many
newspapers are hired to print false edi-
torials where states prohibit ad-
vertising: how much attractive dis
play of the poisonous goods is made;
how many idiotic saints in the world
go on Numbering about the useless
ness Of opposing evil, might as well
get what you can out of it, 1t will
flourish anyway; how many social
organizations clamor for their per
in maudlin lunacy, if not irretrievable
folly or uncomfortable crime in the pur-
suit Of "pleasure"-what does Uncle
Sam care how greatly these things in
crease, when they produce revenue"
for him2