Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1914-06-18

manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors, brings to the front
so many questions that the genuine friends of temperance
may well be perplexed. These problems are economic, con-
stitutional and moral as well as political in the broadcast
sense of the term, and, while believers in prohibition would
naturally like to see their cause prevail throughout the coun-
try as a whole, these questions cannot be overlooked.
One of the first questions to be considered in this con-
nection is the economic and industrial problem of heat, light
and power in the years to come. Not a few men of an in
ventive turn of mind have been looking to alcohol as the sure
solution of the fuel problem, especially in all kinds of loco
motion when oil wells run dry and before the ultimate use of
storage electricity provided without fuel as an intermediary
agency of generation has arrived.
Every farm produces vegetation where waste can be con-
verted into alcohol, and in the not distant future invention is
likely to make the alcohol engine more common than is the
gasoline motor of to-day. When that period arrives no com
munity producing cornstaks or any other product capable of
fermentation will be obliged to depend upon distant oil fields
for fuel To prohibit the manufacture of alcohol by consti-
tutional law might eliminate this whole possibility, unless
proper care were exercised in the framing of a provision
against all alcoholic products.
Moreover if the prevention Of manufacture is the solu-
ton of the problem Of alcoholism, then apparently we must
run the whole gauntlet of habits to which human flesh falls
a victim and stop the production of cocaine and morphine and
a host Of other drugs which are extremely helpful properly
used, and say that because people abuse them, we must stop
their manufacture It may be that all this will yet become
necessary, but we should not take any of these steps blindly
without weighing the results and guarding carefully future
developments in the fields of industry and medicine. It will
be well worth while at all times to distinguish between argu-
ments in favor of national prohibition of manufacture Of
alcohol and national prohibition of sale of Intoxicating liquors
as a beverage.
Turning to the political features of the problem, it is to
be noted in the first place, that if the American nation is ever
to substitute national prohibition for more restricted pro-
hibition and to make the unit of option national instead of
State or purely local as we understand the term, then great
care would have to be exercised lest in guarding against one
evil we open the door to numerous possibilities not contenn-
plated.
The police power is one of the most important functions
of our States individually. The use of authority to say
whether prohibition shall prevail is a State right which has
not been surrendered to the federal authority, although it
must be confessed that the tendency of developments in the
regulation of public service would strengthen the demand that
the nation be given the right to exercise the police power
over the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage also.
A strong argument for national prohibition of the sale of
Intoxicating liquors as a beverage is to be found in the efficacy
of the internal revenue tax, which some people wrongly in
terpret as a federal license, but which gives no person the
right to sell such liquors unless the State first gives them
that right. Everybody knows that few persons run the risk
of selling liquor without paying the federal tax, and the GER
tainty of punishment as we'll as the weight of the penalties
are so generally recognized as to cause people to turn natural
ly to the same government for the enforcement of prohibi-
ton of the sale of Intoxicating liquor as q beverage.
1t must be admitted there is room for debate as to the
unit of local option and prohibition which in the long run is
likely to prove most satisfactory on the whole. Vermont has
unquestionably experienced an increase in crime since local
option in towns took the place of Statewide prohibition in
1902, although it would hardly be fair to ascribe all this in
crease to change in law in the face of the advent of foreign
nationaEties much given to crime. Where crime is commit
ted by natives, however, we must look to local influences, and
it must be admitted that crime has increased outside of our
foreign pOpulatlOn since the advent OF license IN Vermont,
although in a host of towns stricter prohibition is enjoyed un-
der the heavy penalties now enforced than was experienced
under State prohibition.
On the whole, however, there is a manifest trend toward
State prohibition throughout the country as a whole, and
curiously enough the Southern States, which started this
new wave, are now the principal center of the movement for
national prohibition.
The people of the Unitetl States as a whole are evidently
not certain which unit of option would be the most effective
as to prohibition, national, State, town, or district. Temper
ance organizations favor one of these in some sections of the
country and another in other sections according to condi-
lions. In some States local option is unquestionaby all adj
vance upon existing conditions under State excise, which is
the opposite Of State prohibition, while State prohibition en-
forced would prevent license towns from flooding adjacent
prohibition territory.
The chief argument as we understand the situation for
Tie national prohibition of the use of Intoxicating liquor as
& beverage is the same idea on a larger scale that it would
prevent transportation Of foreign products as well as the
American manufacture.
Right here we have an illustration of the effect of CIV
ing the national government complete control of interstate
commerce upon a problem never contemplated at that time,
and while all right thinking people want the greatest pos