The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-02-24
Thinks Perry Bill Nullifies
Right of Local Self
Government
COMMENTS ABOUT
FORMER HOTELS
Says Attorneys Remarks Were Serious
Reflection Upon Present and Rising
Generations of Vernon, Guilford and
DummerSton.

~foi1oAA U1olo VI Nc1uou, Ot1IIOfQ ana
Dummerston
Editor of The Reformer:-
In introducing into the legislature a
statewide prohibitory bill, no doubt
Representative Frank E. Perry acted
from a sense of conscientious duty and
it must have surprised him when Clarke
! G. Fits declared In the First Baptist
church last Sunday that he hesitated
before bringing himself to the support
of Mr.. Perry S measure. The bill en-
braces all that the most ardent pro-
hibitionist could wish for and conforms
| to Mr.. Fits s repeated public declara-
lions for many years, hence Mr.. Fits
did not compliment Mr. Perry in his
singular declaration. Did the speaker
hesitate all these months to enable him
to use his chart and compass to sight
popular wave over which he could
! steer his political craft in the uncertain
sea of public opinions If Vermont IS
newspapers reflect public sentiment this
bill, multiplying the sacred and time
honored right of local self government,
has little chance of adoption by a ma
lorlty vote in the coming March meet
ings.
| The informed and truthful citizen ad
in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts and
every other state in which it has been
unsuccessfully tried. Southern states
| vote for prohibition, but simply to
check the excessive indulgeaces of their
NEGRO laborers. In the last year of
state prohibition, II town liquor agen-
cies sold upwards of $3.50, 900 worth of
strong drink, which would simply i'm
ply that for stiff prohibition Vermont
contained great many people who be-
lieved that little for mechanical pur-
poses always tasted good. The Brattle-
boro agency boosted of annual sales
of $4,000 to $4,000 and it made no
secret of the fact that prescriptions
from regular physicians had little to
do IN determining its sales-the recepta-
Gle and wherewithal being the only
requirement for rderflling.
There are many appetites quite as
much in need Of education and restraint
as the unfortunate appetite for drink.
Ism t 1T probable that as many Ameri-
cans are incapaeitated for energetic aad.
successful work by their habits of
slowly poisoning themselves with three
or four gluttonous meals day, as by
the excessives use of strong drink?
The late Dr.. A. p. Grinnell of Burlino-
ton made a canvass the year before the
Vermont prohibitory law was repealed
and declared that in the general stores
of SO towns, where drugs and narcotics
We're sold, it was found that the month
~ sale of gum opium was AZ pounds. -
ounces; of morphine powder 10 pounds.
10 ounces; of morphine pills 3,33S
grains; of dovers powders IS pounds:
of paregoric 30 gallons, | quart; of
laudanum 30 ounces, ! quart; of CO.
calne p ounces, l dram and 30 grains;
of choral 32 pounds, 4 ounces; of In
dian hemp 81 ounces; of quinine powder
10 pounds, 10 ounces; of quinine pills
74,200. Where the returns were indefi-
mite the amounts We're put down as zero.
This report was read before the Yer
mont medical society, and DR.. Grinnell
stated that his figures should be multi
piled by FIVE to obtain the actual
amount of drugs sold monthly in Yer
mont. What was the moral of that
story about delegate to prohibition
/ convention whom the doctor found in
state of utter collapse through drink
ing 10 cups of coffee a day2
Temperance is virtue, but the pro-
hibition orators of Clarke c. Fits s
school declare that total abstinence
from liquor, beer and wine is temper
ance, while the dictionary definition
gives it as moderation, applicable to
every human habit. 1t ought to be a
source of qualification that the deplor-
| able drink habit, evea, is on the de-.
crease and right in states that main
| tam local option or some form of ex-
else. 1t has been on the decrease local
ly since the good, old town agency dis
Ipensed so freely in open violation of
statutory law. Many grasping LAWYERS
assert that drinking is not matter of
taste, inclination, individual choice. or
individual judgment, but crime, a yio-
1at1on of fundamental moral law and
they ask for a law which even makes it
a crime to take stimulants to the sick
room on prescription of the attending
Physician law which would enable
them to dispossess the family of its
home and landed estate upon a proven
j violation.
| 1t is most fortunate that excessive
drinking is no longer great danger.
whatever 1t may have been half cen
tury ago. A well-known temperance
writer says: "tThis most ENCOURAGING
change has been brought about, aot nv
sumptuary laws, but solely by the in
crease of intelligence and the increasing
necessities of using ones brain power
in order to gain livelihood. 1t doesn T
make particle of difference what Won
believe about drinking, one must see to
it that the brain and nerves are in con
editian for the daily and hourly strug-
gle. = The tippler is compelled to ston
Tipping under penalty of losing his lob
and being unable to get another. and
the drunkard IS flung upon the refuse
heaps of civilization. If temperance
refofmers would enforce the lesson of
self restraint, by moral suasion. as vio-
! orously as they denounce the depIorable
drink habit of their brothers. then
moral crusaders might receive some
credit for the remedial work in the
hopeful change 1ow so apparent.
Mr. Fits refers to the Brattleboro
and American Houses and the Island as
,..eenters of activity for the liquor traf.
ne IN prohibItory days. If these cen
ithey were certainly doing business when