The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1915-10-14
SOME STRAIGHT TALK ON PROHIBITION
BY FORMER U. S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL

registered distiaiorIss in operation.
And the Lord only knows how many
there were that were not captured.
More than SO'per cent of the Illicit
traffic in hQuofs was IN the iso-called
prohibition states.
The worst feature connected with
prohibition" declared Mr. Cabell, "is
the blind tiger and the real question
involved in prohibition is whether the
regulated business is better than the
bdnd tiger"
When asked for his opinion az a re-
suit Of his findings, as to the best
way to settle the liquor question, Mr..
Cabell said:
Home RdIe Best.
THE manufacture and sale Of aleo-
hOlic beverages, like the manufacture
and sale of other articles OF food or
drink. must be dealt with in accord
ance with the fundamental principles
Of American institutions that Is, the
people Of each self-goVerning commu-
nifty must themselves decide as to
whether or not the manufacture and
sale shall be permitted in such COM
munity and, II permitted, what regula-
tions shall be imposed on the bust
ness.
There is no question but that the
application OF these time-honored
principles constitute the solution of
the liquor question.
The voters Of each self-governing
unit shall decide whether or not liQ-
uor shall be made or dispensed with
in said communities.
Such action" declared he, lis in ac-
cord with the genius Of Anglo-Saxon
institutions.
But when the voters of one self-gov-
erning community take on themselves,
or assume to say. that in order to at
tempt to eliminate the abuse Of an
article of diet. they not only will pro-
hibit it's manufacture and sale in their
community, but they demand the right
to say that nowhere in other counties,
some of which are empires in them
selves, or in the entire state, shall this
article be manufactured or sold.
The voters who approve such q
proposition abandon the foundation
principles of our government.
Effects Of Prohibition.
The evils Of drink lend themselves
to lurid Word-painting and emotional
appeal and many honest and sincere
men lend themselves to a movement
which they believe may result in some
benefit to certain of their fellow men,
without stopping to consider that no
policy can be sound which ia founded
on emotion and sentiment.
They do not stop to consider that
the prohibition theory Is not a new
thing; that 1t has been tried at one
time or another in twenty-five states
in the Union, and that in the few at
this time which have the laws In force,
only in two or three, is there an ef-
ort made to enforce the law other
than in spasmodic or periodical efforts
for political effect
And instead of the millennial con-
ditiOns promised, they have only sub
stituted the blind tiger, the den and
the dive for the regulated place of
business. And, as result, they have
in those communities, where public
sentiment does not sustain the law,
disregard for all law, intemperancO
increased, taxes increased, lAwlsss.
ness increased, commercial disturb.
anceS, and worse than all of these, the
idea prevalent and growing, that dss.
pOtism 10 preferable to the freedom,
for which our fathers fought and died"
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