The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1914-06-01

has worked so much better than state
wide prohibition that it is extremely
doubtful whether there is any wide
spread demand for a change
boro Reformer
There are always people who desire
change in respect to things they are UNI
able to control in their own way. Pure
result cuts little figure if it happens to
be contrary to their own restricted no.
tons. They oppose fruitlessly, bow
grudingly to majority rule and place
above all their petty individual preju-
dices and opinions, based on nothing so
definite as knowledge or so reasonable
as experience.
From such sources come mostly the
infrequent demand for a referendum on
the present local option law. Its adyo-
Gates are not content to make their own
towns "dry" and their own communities
saloonless. They are not even content
to express their desires through the es-
tablished medium of the press or the
public rostrum and concentrate any as
sembled force they may possess on a
given locality. They desire, rather, to
array country against town, class against
mass and prejudice against practice in a
statewide campaign.
There are actually but two reasonable
criticisms of the present local option
law, and those are the provision for the
appointment of license commissioners by
the assistant judges of the county court
and the failure Of "dry" towns to keep
their drunkards at home, or, as the
statewide prohibitionsts would have it,
t.l - go H. 1a.., H. Ds.A
land from debauching Ludlow" or Bur
lington Shelburne, or Montpelier Mid
dlesex, or st. Adams Sheldon, as the
case may be.
The first objection is somewhat serious
and the ermine of the bench has not
been kept so excessively clean of scandal
as to provide any effective defense
against the argument. 1t Is a provision
OF the law which The Herald never really
liked and its operation has given in some
cases Just cause for criticism and alarm.
Some other provision should be made for
a licensing board but surely the legisla-
ture is fully sufficient to cope with the
situation without the wasteful conduct
OF a state campaign.
As to the locality argument, it is true
that dry-town people may procure liquor
in adjacent "wet" towns. It is also true
that inhabitants of dry Vermont could
purchase liquor in wet New York. Even
if the entire United States were dry,
there are some so persistent in their de-
sires that they might presumably import
liquor from Canada.
Worldwide prohibition is hardly prac-
teal as an international affair, yet the
only logical outcome OF the locality ar
gument would be to make America, Eu
rope, Africa and Asia, with all their
island dependencies, as dry as st. Johns
bury in its most dessicated year.
Education, agitation and local regula.
ton have worked fairly well for 10
years. and The Herald inclnes to the be-
lief that there is no serious underlying
predominance Of desire for another ref
erendum on the question, with all that
ii entails. When there is, the legislature
should be responsive; it should grant
what the people demand, but meanwhile
the public should differentiate with so:zs
care between the spasmodic agitation OF
the professional prohibitionist and the
serious argument OF the voter who has
actually given the subject better than
local consideration Rutland Herald