The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-03-13
A WAY TO REAL REFORM.

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terra and without being stampeded by extrem
lists into sacrifice Of their traditional ideals OF
personal liberty. They have in England what
lis called the public house trust which is doing
remarkably effective work for temperance by
furnishing comfortable houses where working
men and others can obtain good food and
drink including a alcoholic beverage If they
wish, but without having it forced upon them.
/ The Earl of Lytton, who is enthusiastic for
the new system, points ont that two schools OF
thought have sharply contrasted views as to
the best means of controlling admittedly dan
/ gerous trade. one of which would have the gov
eminent regulate every citizens life while the
other would defend individual liberties against
Iencroachment. One body OF opinion maintains
that alcohol is ever beneficial but always harm
full, and would prohibit its sale by law. On the
other side is a still larger body of opinion
which contends that intemperance is an indi-
vidual vice and not a community vice and that
to prevent whole community from INDUCING
la taste that is entirely harmless if kept within
limits because certain members of society are
|guilty of excess would be an outrageous and in
tolerable abuse of the functions of government
and interference with individual rights.
The license system has the recognized weak
mess that it draws into the liquor business men
whose livelihood depends on the amount of it
they can sell; and that the manufacturers In or
der to market their products establish retail
places wherever trade can be worked up. To
correct this, Earl Grey and others started the
public house trust movement some years ago
which is a compromise between the opposing
schools, the main principles of which have come
to be recognized as essential to any reformed
system of state control Briefly, the plan is to
establish clean, CHEEKY, comfortable houses
which furnish every other kind of refreshment
as well as alcoholic drinks. The company buys
all wines, beers and spirits, fixes their selling
price and places these model houses in charge
of salaried managers who make no profit on
the alcoholic beverages sold but do make COM
mission on the food and nom alcoholic drinks
supplied to customers.
All over England such canteens inns, hotels
and public houses are to be found, in cities,
villages, secluded districts and along motoring
highways. All of them do well and drive the
dirty, dingy, degrading, or immoral public
house of the old sort out of business. There is
far less intemperance, less secret and excessive
drinking, where these well-kept, respectable,
wholesome houses are found in which decent,
self-respecting people can obtain social recrea-
ton and good refreshment, including wine or
beer with their meals if they desire, under con-
ditions which make for temperance, good be-
havior and good fellowship.
Perhaps it is hardly to be expected that our
professional prohibitionists and extremists of
the rabider sort would accept such houses even
though it was absolutely certain that they
would end the excessive use of alcohol and re-
duce intemperance to minimum. Many re-
formers of this school appear to prefer the
dirty and debasing dive to the well-conducted
hotel with license as more effective object
lesson and argument in support of their plan
to dragon the rest of the human family into
living such lives as they approve and permit
But this question will not be settled until it is
settled right. Drastic laws invasive of indi-
vidual liberty do not settle it but tend as in
the state of Maine to intensity the evil and
make public drunkenness more in evidence
than anywhere else in the United States. The
liquor interests of our country have been as a
rule so greedy, constituencies and law-defant
that there would be very general appreciation
of movement here like that in England to put
the business in the hands of men who had no
pecuniary interest in promoting intemperance
and would conduct it in decent, strictly legal
way.
Kaiser Wilhelm has decorated Crown Prince
Ruprecht ''for winning the battle of the Som
me-, - thus utterly ignoring the decision of the
war umpires that the affair was a draw and the
demand for recount made by General Haig of
+ oil