Belt Valley times. [volume] (Armington, Mont.) 1894-1977, 1923-03-01
THE RULE OF THE voCIFERoUs MINORITY.

This begins at home when the first born in his teething Iag
learns that his solcitous parents may be made to answer his bee
and call and become his abject slaves, the penalty for failure ben
a spasm of walls roars and holding of breath.
Many a man has been kept in subservience to a peevsh wifi
because he has learned that any show of independence will be i'm
So, often, in the state a loud mouthed minority DULLES the OF
ficers, frishtens the politicians id terrorizes the candidates am
This is especially true of sumPtuary laws as we have abund
drinking, very few would like to see the former saloon return will
its attendant evils, but no one outside of the vociferous minorit,
gold reserve to back it is almost worthless. Witness the value O
the German mark today. 1t is fiat money. 1t is easily manufac
Look at the blue Sunday laws of a generation ago. They stoot
on the books for many years, backed by the vocIferoqs minority
to be a day of rest, of change from the routine of week day labor
to snS nh ts1a i IT r%i ssa II f be%IongedI RsDp, church meG an i not the state aa sn0S'
The result: The working man may now o take his family to
sunshine and that sweet smell of things growing. Heretofore he
had been condemned to a life of drudgery with no CLEAN of sun
shine to brighten his life or to give him hope for the years ahead
We have fiat prohibition but the man must be blind who will
family made a few bottles of wine for family consumption, many
made homemade beer, but we can not remember of having heard
of a moonshiner outside OF the mountains of the south.
At the present time every community in the United States
has developed at least one. Intoxicating liquor is easily made. Let
few weeks and you have it. In addition to and as an improvement
man has invented the still Until prohibition went into effect, not
one man in twenty could explain to you the use of a still, while now
the children are wiser than the grownups were formerly. The
Indian wards of the government were formerly guarded from the
influence of whiskey with very fair results, but today the Indian
has discovered that he can make fire-water even better for his
consequence, as an Indian agent recently told the writer, there is
more drunkenness and debauchery among the Indians now than
ever before.
In every town in the country there have been more or less flag
rant cases of young boys securing liquor and disgracing their fam
lies and themselves. We hear the reports of girls who have been
under the influence of intoxicants.
The U. S. government has an army of men engaged at enor-
nous expense to prevent the ingress of spirtuous liquors and it
has another army in the interior hunting stills and chasing boot
go fi%fty-fifty.
Before the days of prohibition the liquor traffic paid to the
.. S. government nearly $7o0,0ooooo q year besides what it paid
the state, the counties and the cities. Now this revenue no longer
as an p ;neffec y on at 4 ua't to sop utrS nearly fSs iyi q < ; smoun Na : spe ! til IN
lion and a half of dollars are lost with compensating losses for any
advantages gained:
Drug addicts have increased one thousand fold since the ad-
vent of prohibition. Our prisons were to become useless things as
soon as prohibition, was an accomplished fact, but in reality they
are more crowded than ever before.
Millions, yes millions, of people who never made any serious
infraction of the laws of the land before the new system, have de-
hberately set about to disregard the statutes governing the man.
ton of our population law-breakers through a mistaken policy of
trying to force absolute prohibition on the people when the vast
majority do not desire it.
Who shall we blame for this state of affairs? The vociferous
majority? The conservative citizen who has his own ideas but
We hazard the opinion that both are to blame. the former for
attempting to put over a deal impossible of successful accomplish
ment. The second class for their amused tolerance of the imprac-
teal Pr proposals. 49, 80.
worse now than in the days of the open saloon? Win
the desire for liquor die out with the present generation? And
lily is in better condition now than formerly, they have better
clothes, better food, more money to spend. but on the other hand
disregard disregard for law Which is ominons for ~t fbe f"tur nase we Is : do :
veloped an immense army of federal agents, enforcement officers
and booheggers who will oppose any movement which may jeopar-
die their jobs or their business. Our jals are as full as formerly s
and our young people have become infected with the germ which
leads to law breaking and to intemperance l.
In answering the second question, our thoughts have wan d
back to the days when over the doors of many saloons in
Montana we could see the sign Licensed Gambling House." Soon R
law was passed prohibiting gambling in any form. And the vo-
sferous minority sat back with that SNUG, self-satisfied express r
lon OF righteousness and said Gambling Is Dead" But after 25
we venture to say that there is just as much gambling in n
he state of Montana as there was at that time. 1t may not be as
but if your 15yearold boy wants to gamble that law will not q
top him.
The law is practically a dead letter as one may infer from r
eading OF the abatement proceedings in a neighboring city. The
'ociferous minority who put over this reform grew tired of at T
empting to enforce it and sought a new ~paything.
We venture to ii that the prrhfhifion lou will foIou tho
anne course because apparently people are very evenly divided
yer the policy of enforcement. 10
We venture to express the opinion that if it is found impossi- in
lie to enforce the present laws, it would be better to recall the
mendment and TO adopt a different plan rather than leave the m