Grappling with the Monster Part 19

WORSE AND WORSE.

How successful the good people of Ma.s.sachusetts were in holding in check and regulating the evil which they had clothed with power by license, appears in the preamble to a new Act pa.s.sed in 1711, "For reclaiming the over great number of licensed houses, many of which are chiefly used for revelling and tippling, and become _nurseries of intemperance and debauchery_, indulged by the masters and keepers of the same for the sake of gain."

So it went on, from bad to worse, under the Colonial Government, until 1787, when the State const.i.tution was adopted. To what a frightful magnitude the evil of drunkenness, provided for and fostered by license, had grown, appears from an entry in the diary of John Adams, under date of February 29th, 1760, in which he says that few things were "so fruitful of destructive evils" as "licensed houses." They had become, he declares, "the eternal haunts of loose, disorderly people of the town, which renders them offensive and unfit for the entertainment of any traveler of the least delicacy." * * * "Young people are tempted to waste their time and money, and to acquire habits of intemperance and idleness, that we often see reduce many to beggary and vice, and lead some of them, at least, to prison and the gallows."

In entering upon her career as a State, Ma.s.sachusetts continued the license system, laying upon it many prudent restrictions, all of which were of no avail, for the testimony is complete as to the steady increase of drunkenness, crime and debauchery.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN ADAMS.

Writing to Mr. Rush, in 1811, John Adams says: "Fifty-three years ago I was fired with a zeal, amounting to enthusiasm, against ardent spirits, the multiplication of taverns, retailers, dram-shops and tippling-houses. Grieved to the heart to see the number of idlers, thieves, sots and consumptive patients made for the physicians in these infamous seminaries, I applied to the Court of Sessions, procured a Committee of Inspection and Inquiry, reduced the number of licensed houses, etc., _but I only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an ambitious demagogue by it_. The number of licensed houses was soon reinstated; drams, grog and sotting were not diminished, _and remain to this day as deplorable as ever_."

OPENING A WIDER DOOR.

In 1816, so demoralized had the sentiment of the people become, and so strong the liquor interest of the State, that the saving provision in the license laws, which limited the sale of liquor to inns and taverns, was repealed, and licenses were granted to common victualers, "who shall not be required to furnish accommodations" for travelers; and also to confectioners on the same terms as to inn-keepers; that is, to sell and to be drunk on the premises. This change in the license laws of Ma.s.sachusetts was declared, by Judge Aldrich, in 1867, to be "one of the most fruitful sources of crime and vice that ever existed in this Commonwealth."

Up to as late as 1832, attempts were continued to patch up and amend the license laws of the State; after that they were left, for a time, to do their evil work, all efforts to make them anything but promoters of drunkenness, crime and poverty being regarded as fruitless.

"Miserable in principle," says Judge Pitman, "license laws were found no less inefficient in practice." Meantime, the battle against the liquor traffic had been going on in various parts of the State. In 1835, a law was secured by which the office of county commissioner (the licensing authority) was made an elective office; heretofore it had been held by appointment. This gave the people of each county a local control over the liquor question, and in the very first year the counties of Plymouth and Bristol elected boards committed to the policy of no license. Other counties followed this good example; and to bar all questions of the right to refuse every license by a county, the power was expressly conferred by a law pa.s.sed in 1837.

A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

The good results were immediately apparent in all places where license to sell intoxicating drinks was refused. After a thorough investigation of the matter, the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature reported the evidence to be "perfectly incontrovertable, that the good order and the physical and moral welfare of the community had been promoted by refusing to license the sale of ardent spirits; and that although the laws have been and are violated to some extent in different places, the practice soon becomes disreputable and hides itself from the public eye by shrinking into obscure and dark places; that noisy and tumultuous a.s.semblies in the streets and public quarrels cease where license is refused; _and that pauperism has very rapidly diminished from the same cause_."

An attempt to prohibit entirely the retail liquor traffic was made in 1838, by the pa.s.sage of what was known as the "Fifteen-Gallon Law,"

which forbade the sale of spirituous liquors in a less quant.i.ty than fifteen gallons, which had to be "carried away all at one time;" except by apothecaries and practicing physicians, who might sell for use in the arts and for medicinal purposes.

But this law remained in operation only a year and a half; when, in concession to the liquor interest of the State, which had been strong enough to precipitate a political revolution and get its own men in the legislature, it was repealed.

"But the State," says Judge Pitman, "while the memory of license was fresh, was not to fall again under its sway. The struggle for local prohibition was at once renewed, and in a few years license had ceased throughout the Commonwealth. The statement may surprise many; but I have the authority of the city clerk of Boston for saying, that 'no licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors were granted in Boston between 1841 and 1852.' * * * And so the chapter of license was apparently closed. It had not only had its 'day,' but its centuries in court; and the well-nigh unanimous verdict was: '_disgrace_--_failure_'"

So strong was this conviction in the minds of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts, that Governor Bullock, in 1861, while acting as chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House, gave it expression in these notable words: "It may be taken as the solemnly declared, judgment of the people of the Commonwealth, that the principle of licensing the traffic in intoxicating drinks as a beverage, _and thus giving legal sanction to that which is regarded in itself as an evil, is no longer admissible in morals or in legislation_"

THE LIQUOR POWER IN THE ASCENDANT AGAIN.

But in 1868, adverse influences prevailed, and after all her sad and disgraceful experience, Ma.s.sachusetts abandoned her prohibition of the traffic and went back to license again; but the evil consequences began to show themselves so quickly that the law was repealed in less than a year.

Governor Claflin, in his message to the legislature in January, 1869, thus speaks of the effect of the new license law: "The increase of drunkenness and crime during the last six months, as compared with the same period of 1867, is very marked and decisive as to the operation of the law. _The State prisons, jails and houses of correction are being rapidly filled_, and will soon require enlarged accommodation if the commitments continue to increase as they have since the present law went in force."

While the chaplain of the State prison in his annual report for 1868, says: "The prison never was so full as at the present time. If the rapidly increasing tide of intemperance, so greatly swollen by the present wretched license law, is suffered to rush on unchecked, there will be a fearful increase of crime, and the State must soon extend the limits of the prison, or create another."

This law was repealed, as we have seen. A year of its bitter fruit was enough for the people.

SUBMITTING AGAIN TO THE YOKE.

But, strange to say, after all she has suffered from license laws, the old Bay State has again submitted to the yoke, and is once more in the hands of the great liquor interest. In 1874, she drifted out from the safe harbor of prohibition, and we find her, to-day, on the stormy and storm-wrecked sea of license. A miserable attempt has been made by the friends of this law to show that its action has been salutory in Boston, the headquarters of the liquor power, in the diminution of dram-shops and arrests for drunkenness. Water may run up hill in Boston; but it obeys the law of gravitation in other places. We leave the reader to draw his own conclusions from this extract from the report of the License Commissioners of that city, made February 1st, 1877: "It must be admitted that the business of liquor-selling in this city is, to a very large extent, in the hands of _irresponsible men and women_, whose idea of a license law ends with the simple matter of paying a certain sum, the amount making but little difference to them, _provided they are left to do as they please after payment_. Besides the saloons and bar-rooms, which are open publicly, the traffic in small grocery stores, in cellars and in dwelling-houses, in some parts of the city, _is almost astounding. The Sunday trade is enormous, and it seems as if there were not hours enough in the whole round of twenty-four, or days enough in the entire week to satisfy the dealers_."

The experience of Ma.s.sachusetts is, as we have already said, the experience of every community, State or nation in which an effort has been made to abridge the evils of intemperance by licensing the dram-shop.

And to whom and to what cla.s.s of citizens does the State accord, under license, the privilege of making gain out of the people's loss? For whom is every interest in the nation taxed and every industry hurt? For whom are the houses of the poor made poorer; and the supply of bread diminished? For whom are a crime-a.s.saulted and pauper-ridden people driven to build jails and poor-houses, and insane asylums, and maintain courts and juries and a vast army of police, at the cost of millions of dollars every year?

For great benefactors to whom the nation owes a debt of grat.i.tude? For men who are engaged in great industrial or commercial enterprises?

Promoters of education? leaders in the great march of civilization? Even if this were so, better not to have accepted the service than pay for it at so fearful a cost.

Who and what are these men?--this great privileged cla.s.s? Let us see. In Boston, we have the testimony of the License Commissioners that liquor-selling is in the hands of "irresponsible men and women," who pay a license for the privilege of doing "as they please after payment." And for the maintenance of these "irresponsible" men and women in their right to corrupt and degrade the people, a forced tax is laid on every bit of property and every interest in the great city of Boston! What was the tax on tea to this? And yet, Boston patiently submits!

Is it better in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago or any other of our large cities? Not a whit! In some it is worse, even, than in the capital of the old Bay State. In one of these last-mentioned cities, where, under the license system so dear to politicians, and for which they are chiefly responsible, between seven and eight thousand places in which liquor is sold at retail exist, an effort was made in 1876 to ascertain the character and antecedents of every person engaged in dram-selling. We are not able to say how carefully or thoroughly the investigation was pursued, but it was in the hands of those who meant that it should be complete and accurate. One fact elicited was, that the proportion of native-born citizens to the whole number engaged in the business was less than one-sixth. Another was, that over six thousand of these dram-sellers belonged to the criminal cla.s.s, and had suffered imprisonment, some for extended terms in the State prison. And another was, that nearly four thousand of the drinking-places which had been established under the fostering care of State license laws were houses of ill-fame as well! Comment is unnecessary.

We cannot lessen the evil nor abate the curse of drunkenness so long as we license a traffic, which, from its essential hostility to all the best interests of society, naturally falls into the hands of our worst citizens, who persistently violate every salutory and restrictive feature in the laws which give their trade a recognized existence.

What then? Is there any remedy short of Prohibition? We believe not.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PROHIBITION.

It has taken nearly half a century to convince the people that only in total abstinence lies any hope of cure for the drunkard. When this doctrine was first announced, its advocates met with opposition, ridicule and even insult. Now it has almost universal acceptance. The effort to hold an inebriate's appet.i.te in check by any restriction that included license, has, in all cases, proved so signal a failure, that the "letting down," or "tapering off" process has been wholly abandoned in inebriate asylums. There is no hope, as we have said, but in complete abstinence.

NO REMEDY BUT PROHIBITION.

Is there any other means of cure for national drunkenness? The remedy of license has been found as valueless for the whole people as restriction for the individual. Appet.i.te, when once depraved, becomes, in the individual, lawless, exacting and unscrupulous; not hesitating to trample on duty, justice, humanity and every public and private virtue.

It will keep no faith; it will hold to no pledge, however solemnly taken. It must be wholly denied or it will be wholly master.

As in the individual, so in the nation, State or community. Appet.i.te loses nothing by aggregation; nor are the laws of its action changed. If not denied by prohibition in the State, as by total abstinence in the individual, it will continue to entail upon the people loss and ruin and unutterable woes. License, restrictive permission, tax, all will be vain in the future as they have been in the past. There is no hope, no help, no refuge in anything but _Prohibition_!

And here we art met by two questions, fairly and honestly asked. First.

Is prohibition right in the abstract as a legislative measure? Second.

Can prohibitory laws be enforced, and will they cure the evil of drunkenness?

First, as to the question of legislative action. Can the State forbid the sale of intoxicating drinks as a beverage without violating the natural right of certain citizens, engaged in the manufacture and sale of these articles, to supply them to customers who wish to purchase?

We answer, that no man has a natural right to do wrong; that is, to engage in any pursuit by which he makes gain out of loss and injury to his neighbor. The essential principle of government is the well-being of the people. It guarantees to the weak, security against the strong; it punishes evil doers, and seeks to protect its citizens from the evil effects of that unscrupulous selfishness in the individual which would trample on the rights of all the rest in its pursuit of money or power.

Now, if it can be shown that the liquor traffic is a good thing; that it benefits the people; makes them more prosperous and happy; improves their health; promotes education and encourages virtue, then its right to exist in the community has been established. Or, even if the good claimed for it be only negative instead, of positive, its right must still be unquestioned. But what if it works evil and only evil in the State? What if it blights and curses every neighborhood, and town, and city, and nation in which it exists; laying heavy taxes upon the people that it may live and flourish, crippling all industries; corrupting the morals of the people; enticing the young from virtue; filling jails, and poor-houses, and asylums with a great army of criminals, paupers and insane men and women, yearly extinguis.h.i.+ng the light in thousands of happy homes? What then?

Does this fruit of the liquor traffic establish its right to existence and to the protection of law? Let the reader answer the question for himself. That it entails all of these evils, and many more, upon the community, cannot and will not be denied. That it does any good, cannot be shown. Fairly, then, it has no right to existence in any government established for the good of the people; and in suppressing it, no wrong can be done.

PROHIBITION NOT UNCONSt.i.tUTIONAL.