Year: 1874

, your position. The license clause is al
follows: License to traffic in spirituous
: vinous, or malt liquors, under such regu
lations and limitations as shall be pre-
scribed by law, may be granted; but this
section shall not prevent the Genera
Assembly from passing laws to restrict
such traffic, and to compensate injuries
resulting therefrom. Now, under thi:
clause, what are the powers of the Legis
lature?


l. The Legislature may license thu
traffic under such regulations and limit
ations-that is, fix the price and othel
conditions of icense-as shall be pre-
scribed by law


2. The General Assembly may restrict
(not prohibit) such traffic.


g. The General Assembly may require
compensation to the injured by such
traffic.


4. The General Assembly may leave
the traffic free.


The principle of prohibition" is not
acknowledged at all We think it is
plain that the adoption of this clause
precludes prohibition" If not, why
was it not named as one of the things
the General Assembly might do, as it is
in the mo license clause p


The effect of its adoption will be to
close the door to legal prohibition for the
next twenty years. This is the reason
No. why we cannot vote for it.


II. To vote for this clause is to indorse
dangerous principle. 1t is to say that
what is known to be an evil to society
may be licensed" under certain condi-
| tions, or may be permitted legal exist
ence by. the payment of certain sum
to the State.


The principle you advocate with such
zeal is entirely inconsistent with your
opposition to the licensing of "houses of
i'll fame" in your city. From their num-
Der and influence, you cannot hope for
their speedy eradication from your city
limits Why not impose upon them a
stringent license?' OF course you need
not ''legalize prostitution" by such Ii
cense, but only collect a special tax"
from every old "hag" or despoiler of vir-
tue that your city is cursed with.


Again, your objection that prohibition
can not be enforced very thoroughly is
point which the prohibitionists apprecis .
as thoroughly as yourself I have not
yet seen that ignorant fellow to whom
you refer, who thinks the effect of the
adoption of the "no license clause will
be total prohibition at once. That is not
the ground assumed by clergymen even,
ignorant as they may be as class. No;
the effect will be to leave the General
Assembly free to prohibit when public
sentiment demands it, and will guard our
honor from the disgrace of legalizing an
acknowledged wrong


Your objection that prohibition can
not be enforced holds with equal force
againts all laws of a prohibitory nature.
Because such horrors as the Lawrence
burg murder will occur every day or two,
shall we, therefore, blot from our stat
utes the laws which "prohibit'' murder,
and adopt stringent license law? We
legislate to prohibit dishonesty, yet the
land is filled with men who have filed
their Golfers dishonesty. Shall we, there
fore, try license2 No: we can succeed
with prohibitory measures against all
other crimes We can not vote to legal
ize one crime while we vote to prohibit
all others.


III We can not vote for license, be-
cause we can not see that even "strin-
gent license" enacted by the General
Assembly, will reduce to any appreciable
extent the number of saloons.


We have in out town a "Teutonic'
brewer who supplies number of petty
saloons with his Teutonic slop. Now,
this man knows his interest too well to
allow any of these 'slop shops to go
under, as the result of Incense. 1t would
be money in his pocket to assist them to
procure license. The effect would most
certainly be the elevation of these places
of filth to the position of respectable
"Hcentiates."


". We can not vote for principle
which is claimed to favor a monopoly.
If the principle of license operates as its
friends claim, its merits will be those of
propagator of whisky monopolies."
We have heard of railroad monopolies,
of land monopolies, &c, but who can con-
tribute to the production of whisky
| monopoly?"- Some of the reasons offered
to our ladies while visiting our saloons
to pray and plead with the proprietors
why they (the saloonists) were found in
the business were these Loss of health
so as to unfit them for hard labor, or pov-
erty of means to engage in any other
calling. One man called attention to his
! four or five orphan children that he must
support, and, as he was poor, and short
of means, selling beer was the most avail
able method of supporting them. Now,
if there is any valid excuse for any one
angaging in the saloon business, it is to
be found among the very class of saloon
lists that you propose, by stringent IL
cense law to drive from the business.
From your own standpoint, this license
system is species Of class legislation
which is inconsistent with the principles
of true republicanism. You propose to
create an aristocracy of crime perpetra-
tors, who shall walk our streets as priv
ileged class of wealth. which wealth they
have gotten without giving farthing in
return. No, sir; defeat is preferable to
such compromise of the principles of
humanity and justice.


V. We expect to vote for the "no Ii
cense clause


First, because it denies the right of the
State to license crime.


Second, because it empowers the Leg
islature to prohibit the. traffic when pub
lie sentiment demands it.


Third, it gives power to restrict the
traffic, or to provide against evils result
ing from it.


Fourth, because the mo license clause
leaves open the door to legal prohibition
for the next twenty years, while the ''li
cense" clause effectually closes the door.


I must say that the course of the Ga.
zette seems strange indeed to at least
three fourths of its readers. 1t has al
ways been the "herald of REFORM" but
we who have read it for long years, and
have approved it with pride. can now
only mourn its strange detection from
! ba RIGHT M @