Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-06-06
Prohibition and the War
[Christian Science Monitor1

There is one fact which has stood
out so clearly in relief against the
background of the great war, that no
person, not having purely selfish end
10 serve has cared even to dispute it.
II is the unquestionable advantages
accruing from prohibition. The facts
are so unanswerable as to stihe any
attCmpt at argument, other than the
argument of the liberty of the in
dlVidual to indulge himself or not. as
he pleases. Even this argument how
ever, is a fallacious one when il is
stripped of its false premises, for the
uncontrolled liberty of the individual
never has been conceded in practice or
even claimed in the Utopias, and is
very largely based on thoughtless de-
ductions drawn from glittering gen
elalities such as are contained in that
famous aphorism of Rousseau's, Man
IS born free, but everywhere he is in
chains"
Now the worst of paradox-monger-
ing is that it substitutes sound for
sense, or as famous Chinese sage
puts 1t, makes a noise to drown an
echo. The fact is that no man, in
any condition Of society, ever has been
born absolutely free or ever can be.
He is born, on the contrary, like the
bee, subject to the law of the hive.
To be born free in Rousseau's un-
qualified sense, or in the sense of the
defenders of free alcohol, would be to
be born free from or independent of
law of any kind, which as the books
on geometry say is absurd 1t is true
that certain number of very earnest
people defend the free use of alcohol,
which they loathe, out of fear that the
support of prohibition would pave the
way for further and deplorable in
fringements of liberty But, as a mat
ter of fact, does not the whole theory
1 f01c ant
of personal liberty? The one thing,
indeed, it is possible to predicate safely
OF any man Is that he is not born
free. He is born subject to an army
OF restrictions as artificial and
arbitrary as they are inevitable and
necessary. The distinction between
good government and bad govern
ment, between liberty and license, be-
tween freedom and repression, is not
the existence of restrictions, but their
nature. The very law which, for in
stance, permits a man the free use of
alcohol, limits his right to abuse the
privilege in certain circumstances. He
may get drunk in private but not too
publicly; he may fuddle his so-called
intelligence, but he must not resort to
physical violence; he may smash his
own belongings so long as he respects
the property of his neighbors or the
State. Now these restrictions though.
dS pelore Fenlafked, tney may be
thought to be altogether inevitable
and entirely necessary, are, none the
less, equally altogether arbitrary and
| equally inevitably artificial. WHY. for
instance, should it be legitimate for a
man 10 wreck the lives of his wife and
children, and illegitimate to break his
aunt's decanters or his cousins whisky
bottles? Why should it be forbidden
/ to him to throw a stone through a
pane of glass belonging to the State,
and permitted to him not merely to
render useless his own ability for
/ labor, which is the most valuable asset
the State possesses, but even to i'm
/ pose himself as a charge upon this
State2