Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1916-03-03
THE MAIN QUESTION.


our Windham county community to de-
eide how their votes shall be cast on
the question of statewide prohibition
as against local option. We think it
is not even desirable to do so, for all
such discussion only tends to obscure
the main questions: What is the best
way for the people of Vermont to con.
troll, or get rid of, the liquor traffic9
There are few men or women, who
are in normal possession of their NOR.
al sense, who do not regard the rum
traffic ms q menacing evil. Equally
few, we believe, are those who do not
look with far greater sympathy and
forbearance on those who have fallen
victims to the liquor habit than on
those who sell them liquor either open
ly or clandestinely. If it were posi-.
BILE, by the simple enactment of n
law, to wipe out the liquor business in
Vermont once for all it would be done
by an overwhelming majority, and In
support of such an enactment no line
would be drawn between prohibition.
lists and believers in local option.
Shorn of all bubbles and fine points
OF argument, our real home question is
whether conditions in Windham coun-
ty have been better, or worse, under
the past 10 years of local option than
they were under the -, or twice 10
years of supposed prohibition. There
are large number of our younger
men-voters now in their twenties and
some in their thirties-who do not re-
call, or know, as those who are a lit
tie older do, what the actual conditions
were in all the later years of the pro-
hibitory law They do not know un-
der what cover of deceit and fraud and
corruption the sale of liquor was ear
ried on-too often with the evident
knowledge of those whose duty it was
to enforce the law. 1t is humiliating
to remember how hotels, for an illus
tration, were owned and run, or leased,
in which liquor was sold with hardly n
pretence of concealment, and where, if
raids and fines became too frequent and
expensive, convenient changes of pre-
tended ownership allowed the business
to continue in the same old way. And
there were other conditions equally
bad. Thc worst OF it was that too of
ten such a state of things came to be
taken for granted, with its inevitable
effect on the moral sense of the com
munity, and especially on the young.
While it may not be maintained that
the operation of the local-option law
has been perfect and ideal, is it not
true that under it, here in Windham
county, the community moral sense,
and feeling of moral responsibility.
have been awakened and kept awake.
and that conditions have become far
better than they have ever been under
prohibition? And has not the deter.
mining influence been the fact that the
question has been put cup to- every
voter once every yearl
We began in l903-in a sort of &" Hur
rah! Now we II be up-to the-times -
break away-with six Windham county
towns voting for license, or eight if we
include in these figures Somerset and
Stratton, which for obvious reasons
have never taken out licenses. In 1904
the number of licensed towns was the
same-and then the commonsense of
our people asserted itself and the hur-
rah died out Even the most ar.
dent advocates of license didn t like
what the saloons brought with them,
and today Windham county is, as it
has been for the past three years, prac.
tically prohibition county, for the
yes vote of town like Somerset, as
already minated doesn I count in an
estimate like this.
There is no occasion for heat or ac.
cusation by either side on this issue.
because earnest and sincere advocates
on both sides have the same end in
view-the elimination or control of the
liquor traffic to the greatest extent pos
sible 1t is just straight question of
means to an end. We do not doubt
the entire sincerity of the advocates of
statewide prohibition. But we think
they overlook the fact that it is a con-
dition and not theory which we
have to deal with; that unconsciously
they put the emphasis on the name of
the weapon which they purpose to use
and not on the end which they hope
to gain.
The essential argument for the Per
ry law is that its endorsement by ref
erendum vote will simply make the
no-license feature of our present law
statewide and imperative. Our OBJ
lection is that we do not believe it
would do this in its practical and ulti
mate effect.
Looking back to conditions before
1909, we believe that cutting out the
local-option feature would mean cutting
out the vital part of the law. The