DUKE UNIVERSITY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/prohibitionistst01 nati THE PROHIBITIONISTS’ TEXT-BOOK. ooliPBisrtro Arguments, Appeals, and Statistics, snowiNO THE INIQUITY OF THE LICENSE SYSTEM. A2iD THB RIGHT AND DUTY OF PROHIBITION. 4 NEW YORK: NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY AND PUBLICATION HOUSE, 58 READE STREET.* 1S81. CONTENTS NUMBER C« IRCBS. Prohibition Does Prohibit. J. N. Stearns, ... 49 Suppression of the Liquor Traffic. Rev. H. D. Kitehell, D.D., 48 The Throne of Iniquity. Rev. Albert Barnes, D.D., . . 23 Pruits of the Liquor Traffic. Sumner Stebbins, M.D., . , 24 Maine Law Vindicated. Hon. Woodbury Davis, ... 8 Review of Ex-Governor Andrew on License. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer 8 Indictment of the Rum Traffic. By Rev. W. W. Hicks, . . 4 The Fruits of License. Rev. William M. Thayer, ... 4 The Ballot for Temperance. Rev. James B. Dunn, ... 4 Natural and Reserved Rights. Rev. Joseph Cummings, D.D., 4 Evils of License. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer, 4 Rum and Taxation under License. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer, . 4 "Why We Oppose the Traffic. Rev. A. Sutherland, ... 4 The Rumseller a Robber. Rev. Luther Keene, ... 8 Accountableness for Evils of Intemperance. Rev. J. C. F oster, 8 The Evils of Beer Legislation. Rev. James B. Dunn, . . 8 What it all Costs. Ovid Miner, Esq., 4 Practical Workings of Prohibition. Hon Robert C. Pitman, . 8 National Legislation. A. M. Powell, Esq., .... 4 The Sabbath and Beer Question. Rev. Geo. L. Tsylor, . . 4 Moral and Legal Suasion. Hon. Robert C. Pitman, ... 4 The Results of Prohibition. A. M. Powell, Esq., ... 4 Law as an Educator. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer, .... 4 The Relations of Drunkenness to Crime. Elisha Harris, M D., 8 Constitutionality and Duty of Prohibition. Rev. H. M. Scudder, 4 Governor of Massachusetts Against License. Hon. T. Talbot, 4 The Street of Hell. Rev. R. T. Cross, .... .4 Second Declaration of Independence. Rev. A. W. Corey, . 4 Constitutional Amendment on the Manufacture and Sale of Intoxicating Liquors. Hon. H. W. Blair, .... 43 Prohibition in Maine. Hon. Nelson Dingley, Jr. ... 4 Total, ... 818 Prohibition does Prohibit; OR, PROHIBITION NOT A FAILURE. BY J. N. STEARNS. HE evils of intemperance are so great, so evident, and so wide-spread, that legisla- tion has always been invoked to regulate and, if possible, to remove them. License laws of a hundred different varieties have been enacted, but have always and everj'^where proved a failure. The evils increase as the traffic is made re- spectable by the legal sanction of government. Cen- turies of experimenting in laws which legalize, foster, protect, and defend the sale of intoxicating drinks have brought innumerable woes and crimes, and un paralleled taxation and misery. For this the license system, and not prohibition, is responsible. That something different and more radical must be done, is apparent to all. The effort to utterly and abso- lutely prohibit the traffic is comparatively a new one. The State of Maine, the pioneer in this new move- ment, has had her law but twenty-two years, a por- tion of which it was but partially executed, and much of the time had to fight its way through the courts. In fact, it is hardly yet in good working order, im- provements and amendments being made as loopholes and evasions are discovered. The friends of license and of the “ moderate ” use 2 Prohibition does Prohibit of liquors are free in their denunciation of prohibi- tion and loud in their cry that it is a “ failure.” Seve- ral books have recently been written against prohi- bition, declaring it “ uniformly a failure,” but in support of the declaration they utterly “fail” to give any proof save a reference to Boston, Providence, or some such large city, where their friends are either in office or control the police and city government, and where no honest effort is made for its enforce- ment. In searching for reliable testimony as to the effect of prohibitory laws, we are limited to comparatively a small territory and a short period of time. The uniform and accumulative testimony of reliable and responsible witnesses, wherever the law has been en- forced, is that “ prohibition does prohibit.” We pass over the question of the “ right and duty ” of prohibition, as that has been clearly, and fully de- monstrated by others. Our work is to gather proofs and present evidences as to the effect of the laws when executed ; and — 1. We find that prohibitory laws will not execute themselves, any more than will laws against thieving or murder. 2. Officers of the law in full sympathy with the drink-traffic will not execute the law, any more than would thieves the law against thieving, or murderers the law against murder. 3. There are prohibitory laws on the statute-books of some. States which are but partially executed, but this does not prove that “ prohibition is a failure. It only shows that the sworn officers of the law fail to do their duty. One of the strongest proofs that “ prohibition does prohibit ” is found in the fact that every liquor-dealer Prohibition does Prohibit. 3 and sympathizer with the traffic is steadily, bitterly, and persistently opposed to it. Another strong reason is found in the fact that liquor-dealers and their friends in legislatures always vote to repeal prohibitory laws and substitute “ li- cense ” in their places. Strong corroborative testimony is found in the fact that the great majority of those who use wines and liquors as a beverage, and especially newspaper edi- tors and writers, are opposed to that prohibition which makes it illegal for them to purchase their favorite beverages. The following positive, em- phatic, and reliable testimony shows conclusively that prohibition does prohibit wherever the law is enforced. MAINE. Governor Dingley, in his address to the Legisla- ture, January, 1875, says: “ The Attorney-General embodies in his report communica- tions from the several county attorneys, furnishing important offi- cial statements and statistics relating to the enforcement of the laws prohibiting drinking-houses and tippling-shops. The statistics show that during the past year, in the Supreme Court alone, there have been 276 convictions, 41 commitments to jail, and $30,898 collected in fines under these laws — more of each than in any other year, and four times as many convic- tions and ten times as much in fines as in 1866, when the general enforcement of these laws was resumed after the close of the war, which had engrossed the public attention and ener- gies, . It is significant, also, that during these nine or ten years of gradually increasing efficiency in tlie enforcement of the laws against dram-shops, the number of convicts in the State Prison has fallen off more than one-fourth. “ The report of the Attorney-General and the statistics ac- companying conclusively show that the laws prohibiting drink- 4 Prohibition does Prohibit. ing-houses and tippling-shops have for the most part been enforced during the past year more generally and effectively than ever before, and with corresponding satisfactory results in the diminution of dram-shops and intemperance. These results are due, to a considerable extent, to the increased efficiency given to these laws by the sheriff-enforcement act, but more especially to the improved temperance sentiment which has been created by the moral efforts put forth in this State within a few years. It is gratifying to know that this sentiment has become so predominant as to secure the very general suppres- sion of known dram-shops, and the consequent marked mitiga- tion of the evils of intemperance in four-fifths of the State.” The Attorney-General’s Report for 1874 contains, from the county prosecuting attorneys of Maine, reports as follows : “ Aroostook County. — There is less drunkenness and unlawful sale than a year ago. “ Cumberland. — (Portland is in this county.) I have met with no difficulty in prosecuting persons indicted for violations of the liquor law which does not attend the successful prose- cution of other criminal offences. “ Hancock. — There is hardly a town where public sentiment gives it any countenance ; in no place is liquor sold openly. “ Knox. — In farming towns there are practically no viola- tions of the law. Lincoln . — Several attempts have been made to open rum- shops, but they have in every instance been ‘ nipped in the bud.’ ^'■Penobscot. — Efforts put forth during the year past have been crowned with a fair degree of success. ^'Androscoggin. — (Lewiston, with a population of 15,000, is in this county.) Ever since the enactment of the liquor law, the faithful manner in which the same has been executed has rendered the county of Androscoggin not only an expensive field for the rumseller to ply his trade in, but a dangerous one, so far as his personal liberty is concerned. There is not as Prohibition does Prohibit. 5 open bar for the sale of intoxicating liquors in operation. It is not, as has been declared, an impossibility effectually to sup- press drinking-houses and tippling-shops. The newspapers in this county advocate in the strongest terms the importance of enforcing the liquor law. Kennebec. — One-third more successful prosecutions than during any similar period since 1866. “ Piscataquis . — I find no special difficulty in enforcing the law. “ Sagadahoc . — ^The law has been successfully adnii"istered in the county. “ York . — During the present year, signalized as it 1 is been by prolonged effort to suppress the traffic by force of law, crowned as this effort has been by success much exceeding our most sanguine expectations, the people of this county have marked the contrast between free rum and total prohibition. The absence of petty crime, the peace and good order m the community, are most marked. In the city of Biddeford, a manufacturing place of 11,000 inhabitants, for a month at a time not a single arrest for drunkenness or disturbance has been made or become necessary. In the city of Saco, it is doubtful if a single place can be found where intoxicating liquor is sold.” Governor Dingley, in his address to the Legisla ture in 1874, said : “ This system has had a trial of only twenty-two years ; yet its success in this brief period has, on the whole, been so much greater than that of any other , plan yet devised, that prohibi- tion may be said to be accepted by a large majority of the people of this State as the proper policy towards drinking- houses and tippling-shops. “ Where our prohibitory laws have been well enforced, few will deny that they have accomplished great good. In more than three-fourths of the State, especially in the rural portions, public sentiment has secured such an enforcement of these laws that there are now in these districts few open bars ; and 6 Prohibition does Prohibit. even secret sales are so much reduced that drunkenness in the rural towns is comparatively rare.” Governor Chamberlain, in his messag^e to the Legis- lature in 1870, said : “ The laws against intoxicating liquors are as well executed and obeyed as the laws against profanity, unchastity, and murder.” Governor Sidney Perham, in his message to the Legislature in 1872, said : “ The present law, when it is enforced, is, so far as I can judge, as effective in the suppression of the traffic as are Other criminal laws against the crimes they are intended to prevent.” Again, in 1873, Governor Perham said : “ It is probable that less intoxicating liquors are drunk in Maine than in any other place of equal population in the country — perhaps in the civilized world. Other States have temperance men and women as devoted and as efficient as ours, but, having no laws to aid them, the success they deserve is not attained.” Governor Nelson Dingley, Jr., said, in 1874, to the Commissioners of the Canadian Parliament; “ All organized opposition to the law has died out. The great majority, probably two-thirds of the people at least, heartily approve of it as the best system of restriction of the liquor-traffic yet devised, and the most of the minority acquiesce in it as a policy which deserves a thorough trial. “ The great improvement in the drinking habits of the people of this State within thirty or forty years is so evident that no candid man who has observed or investigated the facts can deny it. “ The city of Lewiston (with Auburn), with a population of about 30,000, has not an open dram-shop. Secret drinking has not taken the place of open drinking.” Mon. Wra. P. Frye, member of Congress and ex- Prohibition does Prohibit. 7 Attorney-General of Maine, writing^ to Hon. Neal Dow, says ; “ I can and do, from my own personal observation, unhesi- tatingly affirm that the consumption cf intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day one-fourth as great as it was twenty years ago ; that, in the country portions of the State, the sale and use have almost entirely ceased ; that the law of itself, under a vigorous enforcement of its provisions, has created a tem- perance sentiment which is marvellous, and to which opposi- tion is powerless. In my opinion, our remarkable temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate child of the law.” The above was concurred in by United States Senators Hon. Lot M. Morrill and Hon. Hannibal Hamlin ; also by members of Congress J. G. Blaine, John Lynch, John A. Peters, and Eugene Hale. In another letter, addressed to Geo. Shepard Page, Esq., dated Washington, Dec. 22, 1871, Mr. Frye writes : “ The ‘ Maine Law ’ has not been a failure in that, ist. It has made rumselling a crime, so that only the lowest and most debased will now engage in it. 2d, The rum-buyer is a participator in a crime, and the large majority of moderate respectable drinkers have become abstainers. 3d, It has gradually created a public sentiment against both selling and drinking. 4th, In all of the country portions of the State, where, twenty years ago, there was a grocery or tavern at every- four corners, and within a circuit of two miles unpainted houses, broken windows, neglected farms, poor school-houses, broken hearts and homes, it has banished almost every such grocery and tavern, and introduced peace, plenty, happiness, and prosperity. These two things, making the rum-traffic dis- graceful both to seller and buyer, the renovating and reforming of all the country portion of the State, are the worthy and well- earned trophies of our Maine Li(juor Law, and commend it to the prayers and good wishes of all good citizens. ... Of this law I have been prosecuting attorney for ten years, and 8 Prohibition does Prohibit. cheerfully bear witness to its efficiency whenever and wherevei faithfully administered. It has done more good than any law on our statute-book, and is still at work. With its provisions you can effectually close every liquor-shop outside your cities, and in them make the selling of ardent spirits a very dangerous and risky business. There cannot be found a man in Maine, who is not prejudiced by reason of being a seller, or drinker to excess, or by party passion, who will not concur with me in saying that its blessings have been incalculable, nor a respect- able woman who does not pray for its continuance. Thus briefly I have given my testimony, and I know whereof I affirm." Hon. Woodbury Davis, Judge of the Supreme Court for ten years, said : “ The Maine Law even now is enforced far more than the license laws ever were. In proportion to the number of people participating in the evil to be suppressed, it is enforced in the State as well as are the laws to prevent licentiousness.” Horace Greeley visited the State of Maine in 1855, and in the New York Tribujte gave the fol- lowing testimony : “ The pretence that as much liquor is sold now in Maine as in former years is impudently false. We spent three dSys in travelling through the State without seeing a glass of it, or an individual who appeared to be under its influence, and we were reliably assured that, at the Augusta House, where the Gov- ernor and most of the Legislature board, not only was no liquor to be harl, but even the use of tobacco had almost entirely ceased.” All of the prominent pastors in Portland signed the following statement: “ Portland, May 31, 1872. “ As to the effect of the Maine Law upon the traffic in strong drinks, we say, without hesitation, that the trade in intoxicating liquors has been greatly reduced by it. Prohibition does Prohibit. 9 “ In this city, the quantity sold now is tiut a small fraction of what we remember the sales to have been ; and we believe the results are the same, or nearly so, throughout the State. If the trade exists at all here, it is carried on with secresy and caution, as other unlawful practices are. All our people must agree that the benefits of this state of things are obvious and very great.” Benj. Kingsbury, Jr., Mayor of Portland, and four ex-mayors, united in saying that, “ As to the diminution of the liquor-traffic in the State of Maine, and particularly in this city, as the result of the adop- tion of the policy of prohibition, we have to say that the traffic has fallen off very largely. In relation to that there cannot possibly be any doubt.” J. S. Wheel wrig’ht, Mayor of Bang'or, says: “ It is safe to say that in our city not one-tenth part as much is sold now as in years past.” A Convention of Pastors of Free Baptist Churches in Maine, in 1872, declared “ That the liquor-traffic is very greatly diminished under the repressive power of the Maine Law. It cannot be one tithe of what it was formerly.” Judge Clifford, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, said : “ Under the operation of the law there has been a diminu- tion of crime, and the effort had been to make the sale of liquor disreputable, and to confine the traffic to the lowest class of persons.” J. H. Drummond, formerly Attorney-General, said : “ There were no more violations in proportion to the drink- ers, than there were violations of the law against theft in pro- portion to thieves.” W. W. Rice, Warden of the State Prison, Thomas- ton, said lO Prohibition does Prohibit. “That seven-eighths of the prisoners were there through liquor. The drinking customs are gradually diminishing. There are no places of open sale in thi-s town. The eflfect of the law has been to make the traffic infamous,” Hon. George G. Stacy, Secretary of State, Au- gusta, said : “ I have known the city of Augusta fifteen years ; there were then open bars, but now not one, and the law has been a success, though of course selling is not entirely suppressed. The effect of the law has been to largely reduce crime, espe- cially that class of crime such as gambling, fighting, etc.” General Dyer, Inspector-General of the Militia, Bangor, said : “That in his county (Kennebec), with a population of about thirty-nine thousand, containing three cities and twenty-four towns, the law was enforced ; that it was the best law they ever had; and that it materially improved both the moral and social condition of the people, as it reduced crime and poverty. ” Joseph Farrell, United States Justice, Rockland, said : “ He had resided here for forty-five years ; was mayor of the city from March, 1867, to March, 1869 ; remembers the period prior to the passing of the Maine Law ; at that time licenses were granted for one dollar; in this town then there were fourteen stores, and liquor was sold in all but two ; the drinking customs were universal — at every gathering, such as raisings, town-militia musters, huskings, and Fourth-of-July celebrations, fights were of frequent occurrence ; but now there is no open sale in the city. Is of opinion that the law being on the statute-book, even if not enforced, has a good moral influence, as it familiarizes the people with the fact that rum is outside of law.” Hon. S. L. Carleton, of Portland, said : “ The sale of liquor has been banished to the lowest street! Prohibition does Prohibit. II of the city. The law, in prohibiting the sale of liquor, has taken from it its only claim to respectability, and had outlawed it.” H. Clay Goodman, Judge of Police Court, Bangor, said : In some years the law was better enforced than others, and during the year in which it had been most stringently enforced, crime had decidedly diminished.” Nathan Frost, one of the Selectmen of Orono, said : “ The enforcement of the law has had a great effect upon Ihe social and moral condition of the people, and has very ma> terially reduced poverty within the last five years since the law was better enforced.” The Hon Wolcott Hamlin, Supervisor of Internal Revenue for Maine, in 1872, says: “ In the course of my duty as an internal revenue officer, I have become thoroughly acquainted with the state and extent of the liquor traffic in Maine, and I have no hesitation in say- ing that the beer trade is not more than one per cent, of what I remember it to have been, and the trade in distilled liquors is not more than ten per cent, of what it formerly was. Where liquor is sold at all, it is done secretly, through fear of the law.” Hon. Joshua Nye, late State Constable, and who is as well qualified to speak for the State as any living man, in a letter dated May 18, 1875, gives the fol- lowing : “ Within the past six months I have visited thirteen of the sixteen counties of Maine, and I know whereof I speak when I say that the cause of temperance never stood so well before. The law is well- enforced, and in nearly all the towns no intoxi- cating liquor is sold contrary to law. “ The temperance people are awake, and intend to prove t< the world that Maine will take no step backward in the tem perance work.” 12 Prohibition does Prohibit. Hon. Neal Dow, in a speech delivered in Associ- ation Hall in July, 1875, on the occasion of a recep- tion tendered him by the National Temperance Society on his return from England, said ; “They say the Maine Law has failed even in Maine. Now Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, there is not a word of truth in that ; it is all false from beginning to end. The Maine Law has not failed, directly or indirectly. Is there not any liquor sold in Maine or in any ^of the other Maine-Law States ? Yes, there is; but you do not infer, therefore, that it is a failure. If you can show that there is as much liquor sold in proportion to the population with the same effect as there was before the Maine Law, that would show the law to be a failure. But in the State of Maine there is not one-tenth part as much of the liquor sold as there was before the Maine Law. The whole character of the population is changed as the result of that law. There is liquor sold in Maine, but only secretly. I live in the largest town in Maine, and you see no sign of liquor-selling anywhere at all. If one went into a hotel and asked for a glass of liquor, I do not know but that a person who knew the ropes might get it. They declare, however, that they honestly keep the law, and apparently they do. Wherever liquor is suspected of being kept with intent to sell in violation of law, the officers search for it and seize it. Every two or three days we have some seizure, but usually in very small quantities — a quart, a gallon, and sometimes only a bottle from the pocket of a man who intends to sell that way. “ I remember the time when there were seven distilleries in Portland, running night and day, at the same time vast quan- tities of liquor were imported, especially in the ship Margaret^ one of the most famous ships in New England, whose cargo of St. Croix rum was spread out upon the wharves. How is it now ? We have not a distillery running in all the State of Maine, nor is there a puncheon of rum imported. I should be warranted in saying that there is not one-fiftieth part of the quantity of liquor sold now as was sold previous to the passagf Prohibition does Prohibit. n of the prohibitory law, but I will say one-tenth. Senators and representatives in Congress, judges of courts, ministers and merchants, have signed certificates which were sent to Eng- land, in which they say the quantity of liquor sold is not one- tenth so great as was sold before.” Hon. Woodbury Davis, Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Maine, in referring to the cry that the Maine Law is a failure, says : “ So its opponents have often alleged. ‘ The wish is father to the thought.’ So its friends sometimes have almost con- ceded. They have been too easily discouraged. They have hoped for results too large, and too soon ; and they have been disappointed. The law has not been a failure. It has already accomplished great results, though it has but just passed the ordeal of political agitation and judicial construction, in its struggle for permanent life. Every new system, though it may ride prosperously in its first success, is subject to the law of re- action. It must enter the lists, and conquer the place it would hold. The Maine Law has been no exception. Even in Maine, as we shall see, its friends have be-en, and still are, compelled to spend much of their strength in wringing from its enemies amendments needed for its success, instead of giving their time for its enforcement. Much has been done in this respect since the law was originally enacted ; but some things remain yet to be done. The period of growth is not the time for fruit, espe- pecially when the whole country has been swept by the storm of civil strife. That as much has been accomplished as ought to have been expected, an examination of the circumstances will show,” MAINE AND NEW JERSEY. The following from the United States Census of 1870, under the head of “Occupations,” contrasts prohibition and “stringent license,” the lesson of which is obvious : ‘4 Prohibition does Prohibit. Maine. New Jeney. Barkeepers 72 338 *Restaurant-keepers 280 f Liquors and wines 36 665 Brewers and maltsters 25 573 Distillers and rectifiers 8 43 MASSACHUSETTS. Hon. Thomas Talbot, in his message vetoing the Liquor License Bill in January, 1874, said : “ The history of the struggle with the evils of intemperance is most instructive. The earliest attempts to check the use of intoxicating liquors were in the direction of license and regu- lation. These attempts continued in the Commonwealth for more than two hundred years, with a constantly increasing stringency, which can only be explained on the ground that mild measures were found to be insufficient, until, in 1855, tho experiment was determined upon of adopting prohibition, as the only logical and effective method of dealing with the matter Without asserting that this has proved so successful in over coming the evils it was meant to remedy as was hoped by those who initiated and those who sustain the prohibitory policy, I am fully of the opinion that more progress has been made toward the desired end than was ever before made in the same period under any other system. In considering what has been accomplished, we must recognize the great changes that have taken place since this system was inaugurated. “ I am aware that it is said intemperance increases under our prohibitory law — that the sale of intoxicants is as great as it would be under a license law. But I call your attention to the absence hereof the flaunting and attractive bar-iooms, that spread their snares to capture the thoughtless and easily- tempted in cities where licenses prevail; to the constantly growing sense of disfavor with which the liquor traffic is re- * In Maine, the keepers of restaurants do not sell liquors. In New lersey, with hardly an exception, liquors are sold in these placet. t This refers to the number of State liquor-agents in Maine. Prohibition does Prohibit. 15 garded by the country generally ; and to the powerful, syste- matic, and unrelenting activity of those interested in it to break down the law and the officers who try to enforce it. Here is an evidence that the statute does impose an active and crippling restraint, from which relief is sought in the elastic and. easily- evolved providence of license.” Governor Washburn, in his Annual Message to the Legislature in 1874, said: “ Some honest reformers may urge the fact that the present law is not thoroughly enforced in our large cities as a reason for its repeal and the substitution of a license law in its stead. But shall we repeal the laws against gambling, prostitution, pocket-picking, and burglary simply because they cannot be thoroughly enforced in densely populated localities ? This would be equivalent to saying that we will not have any laws that are unpalatable to the worst classes in our cities. It would be sacrificing the State to the city; it would be levelling downward rather than upward. Furthermore, the idea that a license law would be efficiently administered through local agencies is a delusion and a snare. The experiment has been tried again and again. But did the authorities of these same large cities ever show any greater anxiety to enforce a license law than they now do to enforce the existing prohibitory sta- tute ? The friends of this statute may safely challenge its op- nents to the record.” Hen. R. C. Pitman, Judge of the Supreme Court, in an eight-page tract showing the practical work- ings of prohibition in New Bedford, presents statis- tics from official reports, showing a decrease of 37 per cent, in cases of drunkenness under prohibition, and an increase of 68 per cent, in the number of crimes, and 140 per cent, in cases of drunkenness, when license prevailed. He says : First. It has been fully demonstrated that, the prohibitory i6 Prohibition does Prohibit. law can be enforced to the same extent as other criminal laws. “ Second. That such enforcement would be productive of the diminution of crime in general and the promotion of peace and good order in our communities.” Captain Boynton, Chief of State Police in 1874, said : “ The law is only partially enforced, but in one-half the towns it has entirely suppressed the sale. There are five hun dred less places in Boston for the sale of liquor than there were two years ago.” W. J. May, District- Attorney for Suffolk County in 1874, said : “ The law is enforced generally throughout the State in the country towns, and with good effect. The shutting up of the open bar is certainly productive of a great reduction in drink- ing.” The Statistical Report of the State Police for 1873 shows 8,136 liquor prosecutions; 4,265 prosecutions for general offences ; 5,545 liquor seizures ; 105 gam- bling; total, 18,051. The receipts from all sources, $301,989 42 ; expenses of the department, $150,093 71 ; balance in favor of Constabulary, $151,895 71. Judge Sanger, District- Attorney of Suffolk, testi- fied before the Legislative Committee that the law “can in time be executed, and is executed.” In reply to a question as to what effect it had upon the sale of liquor in Boston, he said : “ It has a tendency to diminish it, and it has in fact dimin- ished it.” George Marston, District-Attorney for the South- ern District in 1S74. said : “ There can be no doubt that tlie enforcement of the law decreases crime. No other logical result can be reached. As Prohibition does Pfohibit. Intoxication is the cause of a large majority of tlie crimes that are committed, it follows, of course, when the sale of intoxicat- ing liquor can be suppressed or repressed, crime will decrease Experience shows that practical result ; when the law is most fully enforced, crime has decreased.” John B. Goodrich, District-Attorney for Middle- sex County, said : “ Generally, the strict enforcement of the law largely reduces the business of the courts.” Major Jones, formerly Chief of State Police, said ; “ The law is as well enforced generally through the State as any other law ; but in Boston the liquor sellers and dealers spend money freely, and are well organized. There are about three hundred and sixty towns, and in three hundred of them the law is well enforced, and it exercises an influence upon the others.” General B. F. Butler said : “ This law was enforced in all the cities and towns, with the exception of a few of the larger cities, as much and as generally as the laws against larceny.” . The City Marshal of Worcester testifies that drunkenness decreased 40 per cent, in that city in one year under the prohibitory law. Oliver Ames & Sons, I^orth Easton, say : “We have over four hundred men in our works here. “ We find that the present license law has a very bad effect among our employees. ‘■We find on comparing our production in May and June of this year (1868) with that of the corresponding months of last year (1867), that in 1867, with 375 men, we produced (8) eight per cent, more goods than we did in the same months in 1868 with 400 men. We attribute this falling-ofl entirely to the repeal of the prohibitory law, and the great increase in tho Use of intoxicating liquors among our men in consequence.” 1 8 Prohibition does Prohibit, At the great Boston fire, all the liquor-shops were closed by the authorities, and kept closed, so that the rabble might not get tipsy, and robbery, drunken- ness, and the like might not prevail. It was the uni- versal testimony of citizens and the press that this “ prohibition ” did effectually “ prohibit,’’ and Boston for once was sober and quiet. This was “ made rea- sonable by the extraordinary occasion,” says a promi- nent disbeliever in the “ morality of prohibitory laws,” but it is strong and emphatic testimony to the power and efficiency of the principle of prohibi- tion. Massachusetts repealed her prohibitory law in November, 1867, and substituted license. Governor Claflin, in his Message to the Legislature, January, 1869, said : “ 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 sooh require enlarged accommodation if the commitments continue to increase as they have since the present law went into force.” The Chaplain of the State Prison, in his Annual Report for 1868, says: “ The prison never has been 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 un- checked, there will be a fearful increase of crime, and the State must soon extend the limits of the prison, or erect another.” The Chief Constable of the Commonwealth, in his Annual Report for 1869, said; “ This law has opened and legalized in the various cities and towns about two thousand five hundred open bars, and over Prohibition does Prohibit. 19 one thousand other places where liquors are presumed not to be sold by the glass.” The Prohibitory Law was again enacted, and in force for several years. It was enforced so effectually, and the grip of the law was felt so severely, that the entire liquor inte- rest combined for its repeal. Party ties were ignored, tens of thousands of dol lars were raised, “ Personal Liberty Leagues ” were organized, and an entire political campaign was fought on the liquor question by the liquor in- terest. Prohibition candidates must be defeated and license men elected. Democrats and Republicans threw aside all party ties and party interests, united to ex- tend the domain of alcohol, and shook hands across the bloody chasm.” If any link was wanting in the chain of argument to prove Prohibition not a failure but a stern reality, it was the attitude of the liquor-dealers and liquor drinkers at the fall election of 1874, when they forsook ail party ties and principles, and took the one plank for their platform to “repeal Prohibitory law and substitute license.” Liquor triumphed, and license became the order of the day. The State constabulary and Prohibitory laws were at once repealed by the combined liquor interest. The charge that “ Prohi- bition is a failure,” in view of the above facts, is so transparently false that it needs no argument of ours to refute. Prohibitionists are not only not discour- aged by the action in Massachusetts, but, on the contrary, are more than ever convinced of the justice of their cause, and of the feasibility and effectiveness of the Prohibitory Law. 90 Prohibition does Prohibit, VERMONT. Governor Peck, a. so Jud^e of the Supreme Court, said : “ In some parts of the State there has been a laxity in en- forcing it, but in other parts of the State it has been thoroughly enforced, and there it has driven the traffic out I think the influence of the law has been salutary in diminishing drunken- ness and disorders arising therefrom, and also crimes generally. You cannot change the habits of a people momentarily. The law has had an effect upon our customs, and has done away with that of treating and promiscuous drinking. The law has been aided by moral means, but moral means have also been wonderfully strengthened by the law. “ I think the law is educating the people, and that a much larger number now suppoi t it than ivhen it was adopted; in fact, the opposition is dying out. All the changes in the law have been in the direction of greater stringency. In attending court for ten years, I do not remember to have seen a drunkea man.” Governor Convers said : “ The prohibitory law has been in force about twenty-two years. The enforcement has been uniform in the State since its enactment, and I consider it a very desirable law. I think the law itself educates and advances public sentiment in favor of temperance. There is no question about the decrease in the consumption of liquor. I speak from personal knowledge, having always liv^d in the State. I live in Woodstock, sixty miles from here, and there no man having the least regard foi himself would admit selling rum, even though no penalty at- tached to it.” W. B. Arcourt, Associate Justice for Washing-ton County, said “ Public sent ment is growing stronger m favor of the Ian every year.” Prohibition does Prohibit. 21 St. Johnsbury has 5,000 population, and the pro- hibitory law has been strictly enforced for many years. There is no bar, no dram-shop, no poor, and no police- man walks the streets. It is a workman’s paradise. RHODE ISLAND. At a Convention of the State Temperance Union, held in 1874, Gov. Howard in an address said : “ I stopped short without recommending particularly the prohibitory law. I did so because I was not fully convinced that it was the best remedy to be found ; but the law was adopted. After a long time, we succeeded in selecting such a force of men as was needed to execute those laws ; and now, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to-night especially for the purpose of saying, not from the standpoint of a temperance man, but as a public man, with a full sense of the responsibility which attaches to me from my representative position, that to- day the prohibitory laws of this State, if not a complete suc- cess, are a success beyond the fondest anticipation of any friend of temperance, in my opinion. “ Ladies and gentlemen, prohibitory legislation in Rhode Island is a success to a marvellous extent. I have desired, I have felt it incumbent upon me to make that declaration, and I desire that it shall go abroad as my solemn assertion.” Although the recent prohibitory law has been in operation but about ten months, the police records of the two principal cities show that the law has had the effect to notably diminish the arrests for drunken- ness. The Providence Daily Jsiirnal, a few months after the .aw went into effect, said : “ Whatever may be the ultimate results of the prohibitory and constabulary acts, it cannot be denied that up to this time their working has been rather salutary. There may be as much liquor drunk in private club-rooms and other out-of-the- way places as- formerly, but if it is so the dealers are clearly 22 Prohibition does Prohibit. taking pains to keep their workmanship out of sight. There has not been for years such an exemption from the indecencies of intoxication in our streets and the highways of our villages, as we have enjoyed for the last two months.” The Providence Temple of Honor saj's : “ Already in many of the country towns have the good effects of the prohibitory law been seen in the entire closing up of the places where intoxicating liquors have been formerly sold, and the lessening of crime and disorder. In this city there have been fewer arrests from the effects of this evil than before the law was passed, and those who are not blind to every good can perceive it. The croaking of some advocates of license in regard to club-rooms amounts nominally to no- thing.” At the annual session of the State Temperance Union, with a large attendance of delegates, the fol- lowing resolution was adopted: “ Whereas, This convention is fully satisfied tliat the pro- hibitory law now in force in this State is a grand success, and may be made the means of doing away with the liquor-traffic in our State ; therefore, “ Resolved, That it is the duty of every temperance man to make it a point to present himself at the polls and vote for those men, and those only, who are pledged to its support.” The arrests for drunkenness in the Cit}’’ of Provi- dence for the nine months from Jul}'' i, 1873, to March I, 1874, under license, were 4,351, while from July i, 1874, to March i, 1875, under prohibition they were 3,689. The difference gives 662 in favor of prohibi- tion. Fifteen thousand population had been added by the annexation of North Providence, and ti ere were quite a number of unexpired licenses still ir. force, faking into account both these facts, there was a relative decrease of 1,283. The cominitnieats to the Prohibition does ^Prohibit, 23 workhouse were 136 less in 1874 under prohibition than in 1873 under license. The commitments of common drunkards 116 less in 1874 than in 1873. In Pau tiicket, the arrests for drunkenness were 158 less in eight months under prohibition than license, and in Newport 86. CONNECTICUT. The State enacted a prohibitory law in 1854 by a vote of 148 to 61 in the House, and 31 to i in the Senate, which went into operation in August. Governor Dutton, in October, 1854, said: “ The law has been thoroughly executed with much less diffi- culty and opposition than was expected. In no instance has a seizure produced any general excitement. Resistance to the law would be unpopular, and it has been found in vain to set it at defiance.” In 1855, in his annual message to the General Assembly, Governor Dutton said : “ There is scarcely an open grog-sliop in the State, the jails are fast becoming tenantless, and a delightful air of security is everywhere enjoyed.’’ Governor Miller, in 1856, said : “ From my own knowledge, and from information from all parts of the State, I have reason to believe that the law has been enforced, and the daily traffic in liquors has been broken up and abandoned.” The New Haven Advocate said : “ From all parts of the State the tidings continue to come tc us of the excellent workings of the Connecticut liquor law. The diminution of intemperance, the reduction of crime and pauperism, the better observance of the Sabbath, are the themes of rejoicing from every quarter. Men who voted against the law, and who have been its bitter opponents, tue now its firm friends.” 24 Prohibition does Prohibit. Rev. W. G. Jones of Hartford, in 1854, said: “ Crime has diminished at least seventy-five per cent.” Rev. Mr. Bush of Norwich said : “ The jails and ilms-houses are almost empty.” Rev. David Hawley, City Missionary of Hartford, said “ That since the prohibitory law went into eSeot his mission school had increased more than one-third in number. The little children that used to run and hide from their fathers when they came home drunk are now well dressed and run out to meet them.” Mr. Alfred Andrews of New Britain said : “ This law is to us above all price or valuation. Vice, £rirae, rowdyism, and idleness are greatly diminished, while virtue, morality, and religion are greatly promoted.” Rev. R. H. Main of Meriden, Chaplain of the Re- form School, testified that “crime had diminished seventy-five per cent.” In New London County the prison was empt3’and the jailers out of business. In New Haven the commitments to the City Prison for crimes arising' from intemperance in Jul\', 1854, under a license law, were 50, while in August, under prohibition, there were onl)' 15. In the City Workhouse there were 73 in July to 15 in August, making a balance of 92 in both institu- tions in one month in favor of prohibition. Similar testimonies were received from all the prin- cipal towns in the State, giving the most unqualified approval of the law and admiration of its happy results Rev. Dr. Bacon of New Plaven, after the law had been in operation one year, said : “ The operation of the Prohibitory Law for one year is a Prohibition does Prohibit. 25 matter of observation to all the inhabitants. Its effect in pro- moting peace, order, quiet, and general prosperity, no man can deny. Never for twenty years has our city teen so quiet as under its action. It is no longer simply a question of tempe- rance but a governmental question — one of legislative fore- sight and morality.” The Legislature of 1873 repealed the law, however, subsituting license, and the official records show that crime increased 50 per cent, in one year under license. At a public hearing before the Legislative Com- mittee in 1875, Rev. Mr. Walker of Hartford pre- sented official returns showing that crime had increased four hundred per cent, in the City of Hartford since the prohibitory law was repealed. The report of the Secretary of State shows that there was a greater increase of crime in one year under license than in seven years under Prohibition. The report says : “ The whole number of persons committed to jail during the year is four thousand, lour hundred and eighty-one (4,481), being one thousand four hundred and ninety-six (1,496) more than in the preceding year. “ The two counties most clamorous for license in 1872 show the greatest increase of the crime of drunkenness in 1874- Hartford County has an increase of commitments for drunken- ness of 115 per cent., and New Haven County 141 per. cent. That is, Hartford County shows 215 commitments for drunk- enness this year for every 100 made two years ago, and New Haven County shows 241 for every 100 of two years ago.’’ HEW YORK. In 1845, a direct vote was taken for and against li- cense. Four-fifths of the towns and cities voted against it. The vote stood 111,884 177*^83 against. 26 Prohibition does Prohibit. The decision of the people was not consolidated into law at this time. In I854, the Legislature passed a prohibitory law in both branches by a large majcrit)y but it was vetoed by Governor Seymour. Hon, Hyron H. Clark, the ])rohibitory candidate, was elected Governor at the next election, and in 1855 a prohibi- tory bill passed the Senate, 21 to ir, and the House, 80 to 45, and was signed by the Governor. It never had a fair trial. The courts v/ere appealed to, and it was very soon declared unconstitutional. It was not without its good results while on the statute-book. Governor Clark in his message to the Legislature, referring to the law, said : “Notwithstanding it has been subjected to an opposition ■aiore persistent, unscrupulous, and defiant than is often incurred y an act of legislation, and though legal and magisterial in- duence, often acting unofficially and extra-judicially, have combined to render it inoperative, to forestall the decision of courts, wrest the statute from its obvious meaning, and create a general distrust if not hostility to all legislative re- strictions of the traffic, it has still, outside of our large cities been generally obeyed. The influence is visible in a marked diminution of the evils it sought to remedy.” The New York Reformer of that date said : “This law has done a wonderful -deal of good since it went into effect, notwithstanding the herculean efforts of its foes to render nugatory its beneficent provisions.” Every possible method was taken by its opponents to prevent its execution, and then these same men cry out “the law is a failure,” and do all they can against it. The Metropolitan Excise Law for New York and Brooklyn, passed in 1866, was absolutely prohibitory for one day in the week. Sunday is given to pro- Prohibition does Prohibit. 27 hibition. This law had the grip of prohibition. It closed the saloons on Sunday, and reduced the num- ber on the other days in the week by over 2,000. It was in operation thirty-one months, and brought in a revenue in 1866, $1,274,155.26 ; in 1867, $1,272,250- 54; in 1868, $1,390,299.57; making a total revenue of $3,986,705.37. The total receipts for the twenty-five years preceding were only $747,331 . 17. The first thirteen months under the operation of the law 6,021 arrests were made for intoxication on the Tuesdays, against only 2,514 on the Sundays of the same week, showing an excess of 3,507 of Tuesday over Sunday arrests. They had been nearly even previous to the passing of the law. From January i, 1867, to October i, 1868, there were 5,263 Sunday arrests to 11,034 Tuesday arrests, showing an excess of 5,771 in favor of prohibition. During all the time of the operation of this law, the Sabbath was quiet and peaceable, free from disorderly scenes and bacchanalian revels. The testimony of ministers, religious papers, public meetings in both cities, was hearty and enthusiastic over the good results of the law. The liquor dealers knew that prohibition prohibited effectually, and that on the most profitable day ol the w’eek for them. They went to -work at once to secure its repeal. Large sums of money were raised and sent all over the State, to elect a legisla- ture which should wipe it out of existence. They raised $50,000 and went to Albany, and were ready to give it if the Sunday prohibition could be repealed. Had the law been a “ failure ” they could have saved their money. Had “ more liquor been sold under prohibition than license,” as is falsely claimed, they could better have paid their money to have kept the 28 Prohibition does Prohibit. law in force. This law, and the prompt and decided manner in which it was executed in this stronghold of the rum-power, are the strongest evidence that prohibition can be enforced anywhere in the country wherever there is an honest effort among officials to put it into execution. VINELAND, NEW JEKSEY. The city of Vineland has 20 school-houses, 15 manufactories, 12 churches, 10,000 people, but not a grog-shop. Absolute prohibition of the liquor-traf- fic is the law of this city. Mr. Curtis, the constable and overseer of the poor, in his last annual report, says : “ Though we have a population of ten thousand people, for the period of six months no settler or citizen of Vineland has received relief at my hands as overseer of the poor. Within seventy days there has been only one case, among what we call the floating population, at the expense of $4. “ During the entire year there has only been one indictment, and that a trifling case of battery among our colored popula tion. “ So few are the fires in Vineland that we have no need of a fire department. There has been only one house burned in a year, and two slight fires, which were soon put out. “ We practically have no debt, and our taxes are only one per cent, on the valuation. “The police expenses of Vineland amount to $75 a year, the sum paid to me, and our poor expenses a mere trifle. “ I ascribe this remarkable state of things, so nearly ap- proaching the golden age, to the industry of our people and the absence of King Alcohol.” PENNSYLVANIA. For many years Potter County has had a prohibi- tory law for the entire county. Prohibition does Prohibit. 29 Hon. John S. Mann, speaking- of the law, says : “ There it stands, a shield to all the youth of the county against the temptation to form drinking habits. Under its be- nign influence the number of tipplers is steadily decreasing, and fewer young men begin to drink than when licensed houses gave respectability to the habit. There are but few people who keep liquor in their houses for private use, and there is no indication that the number of them is increased since the traf- fic was prohibited. The law is as readily enforced as are the laws against gambling, licentiousness, and others of similar character. “ Its effect as regards crime is marked and conspicuous Our jail is without inmates^ except the sheri^, for more than half the time. When liquors were legally sold, there were always more or less prisoners in the jail.” A local-option law passed in 1873, and forty coun- ties voted for prohibition. The law was in full ope- ration but a little over a year, when, true to their in- stincts, the friends of the liquor-traffic repealed it and substituted license. But the testimony that the law was productive of great good comes from a great variety of sources. The Commissioners of Public Charities of the State of Pennsylvania say : “The effect of prohibitory laws is strikingly shown by the comparatively vacant apartments in the jails of counties where the local-option law is in force.” This is the unanimous and universal testimony, that the jails, prisons, and poor-ho uses are emptied wher- ever prohibition is in force. The Pittsburgh Commercial recently published a letter from Butler County, in which the correspon- dent said : * We have now had two weeks of free rum, and once more 30 Prohibition does Prohibit. tre thus remanded back to the customs of a past age. Every-- where on our streets may be seen the sad effects of ‘ local- option repeal ’ ; but we must grin and bear it.” This is the testimony which comes uo from other parts of the State where licenses have taken the place of prohibition. MARYLAND. This State has a local-option law concerning cer- tain portions of territory, and several counties have voted to utterly prohibit the traffic. Mr. J. N. Emerson, of Denton, writing to Hon. W. Daniel, President of the State Society, saj’^s : “ There is not a drop of alcoholic stimulants sold in this county, and the contrast between the past and present is a wonder to tliose accustomed to behold tlie scenes of but a few years ago and now. Instead of wranglings, black eyes, and bloody noses, enmity and strife, drunken brawls and midnight debauchery, we have a peaceful and quiet community here and throughout the entire county. “ At the late sitting of the grand jury for this county there was not a single case of assault and battery before them, nor a single complaint of a violation of the public peace. Our jail is without a tenant, and has been for the past six months. At the recent session of our circuit court, had it not been for the old business which had accumulated under the whiskey reign, the term would not have lasted three days. The operation of the law has wrought a complete revolution here, and it is the greatest boon ever conferred upon our people by legislative enactment. It is a rare sight now to see any one u-nder the influence of strong drink. Before the operation of the law, it was almost an hourly occurrence to come in contact with some one in this bestial condition.” When the law had been in operation but about five months its beneheial effects were plainly ceen. In Talbot County they had discharged the last in- Prohibition does Prohibit. 31 mate of the jail, and the jailer had gone back to work on his farm. Caroline County had noi a pri- soner in its jail. The bill of expenses due the jailer in Worcester County for the five months previous to the taking effect of the law was about $800, and for the five months after but $50. Other counties gave correspondingly good results. GREELEY, COLORADO. This colony, founded upon the principles of Vine- land, N. J., has a miscellaneous population of about 3,000, and there is not a liquor-shop allowed in the place. There are no poor, no police needed, and pro- hibition has been not only a great success but a great blessing. A fair was held shortly after the colony was founded, and $91 was realized, which was put into a “poor fund.” Two years and a half passed, and there still remained $84 in hand, $7 onl}^ having been used for the support of the “poor.” There are quite a number of such towns now in the Western States, all founded and carried on with title- deeds which prohibit the sale of liquor, and such towns excel in thrift, prosperity, and good morals far above liquor-selling towns in the same region. ILLINOIS. Prohibition prevails in Bavaria, a town of 3,000 in- habitants. There is not a saloon in all the valley. The results are thus given by a correspondent, who says “ The sound of drunken revelry is entirely unknown to many of the peaceful inhabitants, and the sight of a reeling sot in the streets would provoke the greatest curiosity and amaze- ment, and it is also stated upon the very best authority that a dram cannot be obtained from any of the drug-stores, not a 32 Prohibition does Prohibit, drop of liquor in any form, except upon the prescription of a physician. And in this place there is not a pauper or a persoc requiring assistance from his fellows. On the contrary, almost to a man, the people of the town own the houses they live in, are free from debts of all kinds, and are abundant.’y able to make a good living.” FOREIGN TESTIMONY. Hon. William Fox, ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand, who visited this country in 1875 and at- tended the Right Worthy Lodge of Good Tem- plars and the National Temperance Convention of Chicago, on his return to London had a breakfast ten- dered him by the United Kingdom Alliance, on which occasion he gave an interesting account of his visit to the “ Maine-Law Country.” He told of his travels on steamboats, of his visit to Portland, Bangor, Lewiston, to Neal Dow, and Hon. Win. P. Frye, also his visit to other States and cities, and how he acted as ” amateur detective ” trjdng to find “ liquor and drunkards,” and said that “ nowhere could he meet with either.” He then visited Mr. Murray, the British Consul at Portland, who had been quoted in England as declaring the prohibitory law “ a failure.” Mr. Fox gives the following account of the interview. He says : “ Having an introduction, I went down to Mr. Murray, the British Consul. I found him a most courteous gentleman. He did his best to give me all the information in his power, and, finding we had mutual friends, we were soon on a footing of considerable intimacy. He spoke his mind to me without the least reserve, and allowed me to argue with and interro- gate him to any extent I pleased. I am bound to say that I think he entertains very strong prejudices on the question. Siakspere tells us of men ‘ who cannot endur e a harmless^ Prohibition does Prohibit, 33 necessary cat.’ Now, the Maine Law seemed to be Mr, Murray’s harmless, necessary cat. He alleged as facts all the a, priori arguments against it, such'as that it made men hypo> crites, was one law for the rich and another for the poor, and so forth. But when I asked him for facts, he seemed at a loss to supply them. I called his attention to the statistics ad- duced, on the other side, such as those contained in the Cloud of Witnesses’ and other documents, and I begged him to tell me whether the facts stated by General Neal Dow and others, as to the diminution of crime, employing of per- sons, etc., were true or not. Mr. Murray candidiy admitted that, if true, they went far to prove the success of the law. ‘ Then,’ said I, ‘ will you tell me if they are true or not ? ’ Mr. Murray admitted that he could not, and that he had no evidence to disprove them. The result of our interview was to leave the impression on my mind that Mr. Murray was much prejudiced on the subject, and that he had based his opinions chiefly on very limited observations of the excep- tional condition of the large seaport town in which he re- sided.” Mr. Fox gives much detail of his travels, and suras up as follows : “ To sum up the whole, and admitting all the facts I could get from Mr. Murray, I believe the condition of Che States of Maine and Vermont to be much as follows : If the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and all the country justices, mayors, and aldermen of Great Britain, and a small number of the lower classes— perhaps 200,000 out of a popu- lation of 28,000,000 — drank, and all the rest did not, you would have a state of things analogous here to what they are in Maine and Vermont. You would have a very small frac- tion who would get and use liquor, furnishing those shocking examples which some persons are in the habit of parad.ing before us as existing in those States, but the whole of the rest of the population would be sober. The effect on their geire* ral condition is something marvellous : a total absence, exter* 34 Pro-hibition does Prohibit. nally at all events, of all those vices and crimes which yon meet with amongst drinking populations, which is very agree- able and very surprising. The impression left on my mind by my visit to these States was a full confirmation of the state- ments made to you by the Hon. General Neal Dow and the documents which have been put forth : that in ilaine and Vermont, on the whole, the prohibitory law has been a great success, notwithstanding that it has been more difficult to carry out because of its non-permissive character.” PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY, ENGLAND. In February, 1869, a Committee of the Lower House of Convocation of the Province of Canter- bury reported 1,475 parishes where prohibition pre- vails, and sa}'- that “ Few, it may be believed, are cognizant of the fact — which has been elicited by the present enquiry — that there are at this time, within the Province of Canterbury, upwards of one thou- sand parishes in which there is neither public-house nor beer- shop, and where, in consequence of the absence of these inducements to crime and pauperism, according to the evi- dence now before the committee, the intelligence, morality, and comfort of the people are such as the friends of temperance would have anticipated.” A writer in the Edinburgh Reviezv for January, 1873, says: “ We have seen a list of eighty-nine estates in England and Scotland where t-he drink-traffic has been altogether suppressed, with the very happiest social results. The late Lord Palmer- ston suppressed the beer-shops in Romsey as the leases fell in. We know an estate which stretches for miles along the romantic shore of Loch Fyne where no whiskey is allowed to be sold. The peasants and fishermen are flourishing. They all hate tlreir money in the bank, and they obtain higher wages than their neighbors when they go to sea.” 35 Prohibitio7i does Prohibit, SALTATRE, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. Prohibition has prevailed for many years, and not a beer-shop or beer-house exists. The Daily Tele- graph says : “ In short, the stage of experiment has been long passed ; the scheme has survived open hostility, envy and detraction, and is now a brilliant success.” ■ BESSBROOK, IRELAND. Bessbrook, a town in Ireland, of 4,000 inhabitants, has no liquor-shop, and whiskey and strong drink are Btrictl}" prohibited. There is no poor-house, pawn- shop, or police station. The town is entirely free from strife, discord, or disturbance. TYRONE COUNTY, IRELAND. I This county contains 61 square miles and 10,000 people. No public-house is allowed. Right Hon. Lord Claude Hamilton, late M. P., said in 1870: “At present there is not a single policeman in that district. The poor-rates are half what they were before, and the magis- trates testify to the great absence of crime.” A year or two before his death. Father Mathew in a letter to Mr. Delavan, said : The principle of prohibition seems to me to be the on’y safe and certain remedy for the evils intemperance. This opinion has been strengthened and confirmed by the hard labor of more than twenty years in the temperance cause.” COMPARISONS. In Maine, under prohibition, the convictions for crime, in 1870, amounted to 431, or one for every 1,689 r.ouls; while in New York, exclusive of the city, the number of convictions was 5,473 ; or one in 620 souls. 36 Prohibition doa Prohibit. In Boston, the Chief of Police reports that for the .ast quarter of 1867, when the State was under pro- hibitory law, the number of arrests was i;530, lodgers, 2,617 — total, 4,147; wdiile in the correspoiid- ing quarter of 1868, under license, the number of ar- rests was 5,596, lodgers, 7,617 — total, 13,212, or 9,066 more under license than prohibition. Mr. Garrison gives the following facts to the “solid men of Boston ” : “From November to May, 1868, after the election, the sale of liquor was unrestricted. During that year there was a fall- ing off in the valuation of the State as compared with the two previous years of nearly $33,000,000, most of which was in personal property. During the two years of prohibition the personal property of the State increased nine and a half pcf cent.; in 1868, under the license lawn it increased two and two thirds percent. From i860 to 1865, Boston increased her valuation $12,000,000 annually; while from 1865 to 1867, during two years of prohibition, the increase reached $36,500,- 000 annually. During the two years of prohibition her in- crease was 7 per cent., but last year, under license, only I 3 per cent. PROHIBITION AND UNITED STATES REVENUE. The United States Commissioner of Internal Re venue, in his official report for 1873, under the head of “ Fermented Liquors,” notes the fact, as part of the history of that fiscal year, that during the year ])rohibitory legislation in some portions of the coun- try materially lessened the quantity of beer manu- factured and sold. He says: “ Within the fiscal year ended June 30, 1873, in portions of the country the sale of fermented liquors was prohibited by State enactments, and, niivilers of Ireioeries ucre thus cut short, by other than business causes of the time witJun the year during Prohibition does Prohibit. 37 ^vTlkh IHEY WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE CONTINUED TO OPERATE, and th« ’production of those contiwaing to manufacture in the States referred to has BEEN materially lessened.” This valuable official testimony was given wholly irrespective of the merits or demerits of prohibitory legislation as such, and solely with reference to its effect upon the public revenue in cutting short breweries and diminishing the quantity of beer manufactured and sold, and is therefore all the more significant. PROHIBITION AND LICENSE. The following significant figures, contrasting sev« eral States under prohibitory and license legislation, are compiled from the U. S. Census of 187O and the U. S. Internal Revenue Report of 1874. Ohio is classed under license, for although she has a prohibition clause in her constitution, it is not enforced. REVENUE ON SPIRITS IN 1 874. Population. Maine (under prohibition) 626,915 Maryland (under license) 780,894 Vermont (under prohibition) 330>55i New Jersey (under license) 906,096 Massachusetts (under prohibition) i,4S7,35i Ohio (under license) 2,665,260 New Plampshire (under prohibition).. 318,300 Indiana (under license) 1,680637 Michigan (under prohibition 1,184,059 Illinois (under license) 2,539,891 Revenue. $37,172 75 1,070,353 85 14,969 75 293.187 57 1,667,356 37 10,743,046 94 75,278 19 4,257,636 35 267,109 03 12,411,924 62 The five prohibitory States, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts (part of the year under beer license), Kew Hampshire, and Michigan, during the fiscal 38 Prohibition does Prohibit. year ending June 3O, 1874, v/ith an aggregate popu lation of 3,917.176; paid a revenue tax on spirits tG the amount of $2,061,886 09. The five license States, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, during the same period, with an aggregate popula- tion of 8,572,778, paid $28,781,149 33. With a little more than twice the population of the prohibitory States, the five license States paid nearly fourteen times as much revenue tax on spirits. Hon. D. D. Pratt, Commissioner of Internal Re- venue, wrote the following letter to Geo. Shepard Page, Esq., ol New Jersey: Washington, June 16, 1875. •Sir; In reply to your letter (not dated) just received at this office asking for the amount of production of fermented liquors in Jlaine tor 1873 and 1874, also for the amount of revenue returned from Maine and New Jersey derived from the manu- facture and sale of spirituous and malt liquors for the past five years, I beg to transmit the following statements, showing the returns from all sources relating to distilled spirits and fer- mented liquors, for the several fiscal years ending June 30,, 1870,1 871, 1872 1873 and 1874. riscai year ending . Ma i’ermented lUE.— — — V Distilled ■ NEW J Fermented EBSET. — » Distilled June 30 liquors. spirits. liquors. spirits. 1870.. . $4,233 95 $90,640 56 $439,2.15 63 $443,960 30 1671.... 9,090 03 73,528 17 617,555 83 385,653 S3 1872.... 7,494 89 77,751 99 573,452 19 442,472 79 1873 ... 9.410 19 81,114 80 605,746 11 773,188 44 1874.... 14,335 94 37,172 75 566,717 95 293,187 57 •‘The number of Darrels of fermented liquors on which the tax was paid in Maine in I873 and I874 was 5,043 and 11,447 le^pectively. Respectfully, “ D. D. PraIT, Commissioner.” Prohibition does Prohibit* 39 BEER BREWERS’ TESTIMONY. In the Fifteenth Annual Report of the United States Brew- ers’ Association, held at Cincinnati in June, 1875, a great wail was sent up on account of prohibitory laws. The following are two of the resolutions against prohibition which were adopted . “ Besolved, That where restrictive and prohibitory enactments exist, every possible measure be taken to oppose, resist, and repeal them ; and it is further “ Besolved, That politicians favoring prohibitory enactments, who offer themselves as candidates for office, be everywhere strenuously opposed, and the more so if it be found that their personal habits do not conform with their public profession.” The President of the Brewers’ Congress declared that pro- hibition “ has failed, and will ever fail.” Fred. Lauer, Chairman of the Agitation Committee, declared that “the evils of intemperance could not be cured by prohibi- tory laws.” The ofllcial reports, however, showed that there had been a reduction in the number of breweries during the year of “nearly thirty per cent.” There were 3,554 in 1873, and only 2,524 in 1874. J There was also a decrease of 30,194 barrels manu- factured during the year. ilr. Louis Schade, of Washington, D. C., editor of the Washington Sentinel, and the special agent of the Brewers’ Congress in Washington, in an address before the Convention explained the cause of the reduction. "We copy the following from his address : “ Very severe is the injury which the brewers have received in the so-called temperance States. The local-option law of Pennsylvania reduced the number of breweries in that State from 500 in 1S73 to 346 in 1874, thus destroying 154 breweries in one year. In Michigan it is even worse ; for of 202 breweries in 1873, only 68 remained in 1S74. 1 1 Ohio the crusaders destroyed 68 out of 296. In Indiana- the Bax- ter law stopped 66 out of 158. In Maryland the breweries were reduced from y.j to 15, some few of those stopped lying in those coun- ties in which they have a local-option law. We sincerely hope that 40 Prohibition does Prohibit, the Maryland Democracy , which had yielded too much to the woman crusaders, will ta;m an early opportunity to eradicate that unjust law which permits the people of a portion of the State to be put under the tyranny and despotism of those fanatics.” Mr. Schade also refers to the reduction of the number of barrels manufactured during the year of 35,966 in Pennsyl- vania, and ” in Massachusetts, in consequence of the prohibi- tory law, of 116,585.” He then refers to the increase in certain States, and speaking of the general reduction throughout the jountry, says: “There is no doubt that the temperance agitation and prohibitory laws are the chief causes of the decrease compared to the preceding year. Had our friends in Massachusetts been free to carry on their business, and had not the State authorities constantly interfered with the lat- ter, there is no doubt that instead of showing a decrease of 1 16, 5 8y bar- rels in one year, they would have increased at the same rate as they did the pieceding year.” This strong and emphatic ofhcial testimony of our opponents is the strongest in the already overwhelming chain of testimony presented, proving beyond doubt or cavil that prohibition does prohibit. We could accumulate equally reliable and em- phatic testimony from a large number of conscien- tious and disinterested witnesses sufficient to fill a small volume, but enough has been given to prove beyond cavil that “prohibition does prohibit.” We have summoned, as witnesses, Governors, United States Senators, Representatives in Congress, Clerg}- men. Attorneys general. Judges of Supreme Courts, Secretaries of State, State Constables, Ma3’ors of cities. Chaplains of prisons. Chiefs of police. Editors, Internal Revenue, prison, and poor-house statistics, all of which give united testimony to the benelicicnt effects of prohibition. The liquor interest is united, determined, and persistent against prohibition. This fact alone speaks volumes for the law. Prohibition does Prohibit, 41 A certain class of “ moderate drinkers” are also opposed to prohibition. A recent writer on the “Moraity of Prohibitory Laws” denounces them as “ frauds,” “ a hell on earth,” and says they have “ uniformly failed.” * The same writer reveals his own position by say- ing that “ the desire for the firr^. glass of liquor is le- gitimate” and that ” the traffic is necessary.” Of course all his instincts and habits are against prohi- bition, and his “ morality” takes shape accordingly. He lived in a prohibitory State, declared the law uniformly a failure, but says he “ was obliged to send to New York about this time for a jug of cooking wine.” And yet “ prohibition is a failure,” we are told. It “ failed” to allow the “ traffic” to supply the “ first glass.” We accept the “ failure,” and sincerely wish it might stop the sale of the last glass also. But we are told that in Ohio, Michigan, and some other States where prohibition is in the State con- stitution, liquor is freely sold, and the laws are not enforced. This is undoubtedly, true, but it proves nothing against the law, and only shows that the po- litical parties whose representatives are in office and refuse to execute the law are “failures.” But the laws are not failures^even in those States where they are not executed. Whea the crusading women visited the open sa- loons and pleaded with their keepers to close their dens of iniquity and shame and stop their devastating business, they could not point to the broad seal of the State as sanctioning and licensing them as they did in other States, and hence it was that “moral sua- sion” had so much more effect in these prohibitory States. Hence it is that the liquor interest in Ohio, 42 ProhihitioTi does Prohibit. Michigan, and Iowa has recently made, and i8 making, most desperate efforts to remove from the statute-book all laws condemning .and prohibiting traffic and substituting something which shall license and sanction the demoralizing sale of the “infernal stuff.” It was not our intention to give arguments in favor of prohibition, but only to collect in convenient and connected form some of the many proofs in relation to the workings of the law wherever enforced. Enough, however, has been given to demonstrate that, to the extent it has been tried, prohibition has always proved a beneficient policy, eminently success- ful as a means for the suppression of the liquor-traf- fic. One important fact has been developed in this investigation, which is, that wherever prohibition abounds, moral suasion much more abounds. Taken separately, either is weak and finds its efforts neutra- lized and to a great extent baffled. But united “ faith and works” go hand in hand to full deliv erance and assured ultimate triumph. Prohibition does Prohibit. 43 PROHIBITION CONSTITUTIONAL. The constitutionality of prohibitory lawi has been settled by the highest tribunals. The following ex- tracts are from the records of the Supreme Court of the United States : Chief-Justice Taney said : " If any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idle- ness, vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to prevent it from regulating or restraining the traffic, or from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks pro- per.’’ — 5 Howard, 577. Justice McLean said : ‘A license to sell an article, foreign or domestic, as a mer- chant, or inn keeper, or victualler, is a matter of police and revenue, within the power of the State.” — 5 Howard 589. And again: “ It is the settled construction of every regulation of commerce that, under the sanction of its general laws, no per- son can introduce iato a community malignant diseases, or anything which contaminates its morals or endangers its safety.’’ — Ibid. “ If the foreign articles be injurious to the health or morals of the community, a State mav. in the exer- cise of that great and comprehensive police power which lies at the foundation of its prosperity, prohibit the sah of it. — Ibid. 592. “No one can claim a license to retail spirits as a matter of right.” — Ibid. 597. Justice Daniel said of imports that are cleared of all control of the government which permits their in- troduction : “ They are like all other property of the citizen, and should be equally the subjects of domestic regulation and taxation, whether owned by an importer or his vender, or may have been purchased by cargo, package, bale, piece, or yard, or by hogsheads, casks, or bottles.”— 5 Howard, 614. lu answering the argument that the importer purchases the right to sell when 44 Prohibition does Prohibit. he pays duties to the Government, Justice Daniels continues to Bay : “ No such right as the one supposed is purchased hy the importer, and no injury in any accurate sense is inflicted on hun by denying to him the power demanded. He has not purchased and cannot purchase, Irom the Government that which it could not ensure to him — a sale ivdependently of the laws and folicy of the States.'’ — Ibid. 6i6, Justice Woodbury said . “ After articles have come within the territorial limits of States, whether on land or water, the destruction itself of what constitutes disease and death, and the longer continuance of such articles within their limits, or the terms and conditions of their continuance, when conflicting with their legitimate police, or with their power over internal commerce, or with their right of taxation over all persons and property within their juris- diction, seems one of the first principles of State sovereignty, and indispensible to public safety,” — 5 Howard., 630. Justice Grier said : “It is not necessary to array the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism, and crime which have their origin in the use and abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusivel}’' in the State, is competent to the correction of these great evils, and all measures of restraint or prohibition neces- sary to effect that purpose are within the scope of that author- ity : and if a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be a gainer of a thousand-fold in the health, wealth, and happiness of the people.” — Ibid. 532. RECENT OPINIONS. While alcoholic stimulants are recognized as pro- peity, and entitled to the protection of law, owner- ship in them is subject to such restraints as are de- demanded by the highest considerations of public ex- pediency. Such enactments are regarded as police Prohihitio7i does Prohibit. 45 Yegulatlons, established for the prevention of pauper- ism and crime, for the abatement of nuisances, and the promotion of public health and safety. They are a just restraint of an injurious use of property which tlie legislature has authority to impose, and the ex- tent to which such interference may be carried must rest exclusively in legislative wisdom where it is not controlled by fundamental law. It is a settled prin- ciple, essential to the rights of self-preservation in every organized community, that, however absolute may be the owner’ s title to his property, he holds it under the implied condition ‘‘that its use shall not work injury to the equal enjoyment and safety of others who have an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor be injurious to the community,” — Supreme Court New Jersey, 1872. “ Possessed of the power of absolute prohibition under the ConstiUition, it seems to follow that any relaxation from a plenary exercise of such power, or qualified or conditional enactment by the legislature, by which license to sell may be obtained in the way and sub- ject to the liabilities imposed by the act, cannot be an encroachment pf legislative authority, unless, in- deed, the legislature should transcend some settled principles of fundamental law respecting the trial or mode of prosecution or punishment of the party charged with an infraction of the provisions of the act. or with having incurred some liability under it. Acting in obedience to those fundamental principles, in accordance with which the guilt or liability of the party charged must first be ascertained and -estab- lished, and the judgment of the law rendered against him, it seems competent for the legislature to attach such consequences, civil or criminal, to the mere act 46 Prohibition does Prohibit. of sale as it pleases, even when such sale is made in pursuance of an authority of the legislature qualified or given for that purpose. Empowered to prohibit en- tirely, the legislature may license stib modo, or con- ditionally only.” — Wisconsin Sicpr erne Court, I873. "Under what is called the police power, the legis- lature has the right to authorize the abatement of a public nuisance ; and the carrying on of an illegal traffic in intoxicating liquors, and the assembling of idle and vicious persons for that purpose is a nui- sance, and may be so declared and abated according to law. — Illinois Supreme Court, 1873. “ In the exercise of its police power, a State has full pov/er to prohibit, under penalties, the exercise of any trade or employment which is found to be hazardous or injurious to its citizens and destructive to the best interests of society, without providing compensation to those upon whom the prohibition rests.” — Michigan Supreme Court, The People vs. Haw- ley. ^ ^ PROHIBITION TRIUMPHANT IN MAINE. Ex-Governor Dingley, of Maine, recently published the following statistics to show the great value of prohi- bition to his native State : ‘‘ In 1830, thirteen distilleries in the State manufactur- ed one million gallons of rum (two gallons to each in. habitant), together with 300,000 gallons imported — not including cider and other fermented liquors. Now there is not a distillery or brewery in the State. In 1833 there were 500 taverns, a l but 40 of them having open bars. Now there is not a tavern in the Prohibition does Prohibit. 47 State with an open bar, and not one in ten of them sells liquor secretly. In 1830 every store sold liquor as freely as molasses ; now, not one. “ In 1832, with a population of only 450,000, there were 2,000 places where intoxicating- liquors were sold— one grog-shop to every 225 of the population. Their sales amounted to $10,000,000 annualljq or $20 for each inhabitant. Last year the aggregate sales of 100 town agencies was $100,000, or fifteen cents per inhabitant. Including clandestine sales, even the enemies of temperance do not claim that the aggre- gate sales in the State exceed $1,000,000, less than $2 per inhabitant. This is but 07 ie-tenth what the sales were forty years ago, and but one-eighth what they are on the average in the remainder of the Union, which is $16 per inhabitant. Liquor-selling is almost wholly confined to the five or six cities of the State, so that hard drinkers are compelled to journey thither for their drams. Hence most of the drunkenness of the State is concentrated in those cities where the police arrest all persons under the influence of strong drink, making the number of arrests for drunkenness seem large in comparison with places where few arrests are made for this offense. “ In 1855 there were 10,000 persons (one out of every forty-five of the population) accustomed to get beastly drunk; there were 200 deaths from delirium tremens annually (equivalent to 300 now) ; there were 1,500 paupers (equivalent to 2,200 now) made thus by drink ; there were 300 convicts in the State prison and jails (equivalent to 450 now) ; and intemperance was destroying a large proportion of the homes throughout the State. Now not one in 300 of the population is a drunkard — not one-sixth as many; the deaths from de.iriura tremens annual ty are not 48 Prohibition does Prohibit. fifty; and criminals and paupers (not including rumselU ers) are largely reduced, notwithstanding the great mfiux of foreigners and tramps.” DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. The following is the Declaration of the United King- dom Alliance of Great Britain in relation to the liquor* traffic : 1 . That it is neither right nor politic for the state to afford legal protection and sanction to any traffic or system that tends to increase crime, to waste the national resources, to corrupt the social habits, and to destroy the health and live: of the people. 2. That the traffic in intoxicating liquors, as common beve- rages, is inimical to the true interests of individuals and de- I structive of the order and welfare of societ}', and ought, there- fore, to be prohibited. 3. That the history and results of all past legislation in regard to the liquor-traffic abundantly prove that it is iinposs’.ble satis- factorily to limit or regulate a sj^stem so essentiali}'^ mischievous in its tendencies. 4. That no consideration of private gain or public revenue can justify the upholding of a system so utterly wrong in principle, suicidal in policy, and disastrous in results as the traffic in in- toxicating liquors. 5. That the legislative prohibition of the liquor-traffic is per- fectly compatible with rational liberty and with all the claims of justice and ligitimate commerce. 6. That the legislative suppression of the liquor-traffic would bs highly conducive to the de’.-elopment of a progressive civilization. 7. That rising above class, sectarian, or party considerations, all good citizens should combine to procure an enactment pro- hibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages, as affording most efficient aid in removing the appalling evil of intemperance. SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. BY EEV. H. D. KrrCUEL. TX the progress of every great Reform there are successive I- stages, marked by new aspects of the work, and demand- ing from time to time new aims and measures. We com- mence tlie work experimentally. We know not where the strength of the enemy lies. Point after point of greater ap- parent vitality is assailed and carried, and yet the strength of the evil is not bi-oken. Gradually we come to know where the heart of the mischief is to be found. That heart itself is not stationai-y. There is in every great social wrong a shift- ing vitality, which retreats as It is assailed, and is found at last in what, perhaps, was once no vital point. Aiming evei at this, we must change as it changes, and strike at the life of the evil wherever intrenched. Meantime we are ourselves in a process of development. Our work educates us. Each stage prepares us for the next. The volume of reformed and reformino- sentiment is au"- CD O merited, and gathers vigor as it advances. Thus we come to each more desperate struggle trained to the requisite wisdom and strength. Rot an effort has been fruitless — not a delay, nor a reverse, nor an apparent failure has Ireen without its use. We do not find the last citadel of the foe until tho boarch has prepared us for victory. This has been eminently true in the Temperance Refcrm*- tion. Increasing wisdom and strength have marked its sufi- cessivc stages. As we have pursued the enemy from one stronghold to another, we have been disciplined for future efforts. Gradually we have learned the nature and methods 2 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. of Intemperance, and have been led onward into new fields of more decisive effort, to new positions commanding more vital points. It has been of necessity a slow and toilsome enterpT-ise. Xo such reform, involving in its success a revolution of popular sentiment and practice, can be rapid in its advances. Intem- perance was a broad and many-sided evil. It had long and universally prevailed, till it had shaped all things into conform- ity with itself. Its attitude was tliat of an Institution, i-est- ing its proud structure on the pillars of Appetite and Preju- dice, Interest and Law. It had grown to be a giant system of sin, more compact, more firmly intrenched, and capable of sterner resistance to every form of assault than any other. It stood defiant on the field, triumphant over the dictates of religion, the instincts of humanity, the promptings of selfi interest. Xow a system which could thus despotize over the strongest pu'inciples of human action could not be expected to yield to ordinary opposition. It has, indeed, resisted as no other species of wickedness ever did. The Adversary is not wont to yield such fields unfought. He has defended, and will yet defend, this favorite system with an unscrupulous and persevering energy, which could scarce be exceeded if this were the last citadel of sin, and the very kingdom of dark- ness were tottering in the struggle. And yet we are far from having labored in vain. "SVith any just conception of the nature of the work, the progress must be pronounced great indeed. But in order to any just estimate of the success which has crowned our past exertions, in order to appreciate aright our rate of progress in this en terprise, we need a distinct apprehension of the real scope and aim of the Temperance Keformation. A broad view of oul work in the fullness of its design will cure our impatience, and throw light on our slow and toilsome progress. What is Our Enterprise ? The great object of the Temperance Reformation is to edu- cate on this point the moral sense of the whole population, BO that as speedily as possible Intemperance, with all that produces and sustains it shall be regarded and treated as a SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIOt cnme. This, from the beginning, has been the real import oT our work. And through all the apparent defeats and tem- porary reverses which we have witnessed, this design has been steadily advancing toward a happy issue. We have undertaken, in this Reformation, to renovate the entire social body — to eradicate the strange prejudices and customs which have come down to us from the old Days of Drink — to en- lighten and purify and elevate all classes of men — in a word, to re-educate society and carry it over bodily to rational views and right practice. Look now at two pictures of society. In the one, we see the Avhole community utterly blind and stupid under the do- minion of Intemperance. There is little sense of the evil, and no conscience touching it. All drink — shame and misery abound — vice reigns — a horrid desolation is spreading; but a strange blindness is over all. The cause and the remedy of all this are uuthought of. To drink and provide drink — to sell and to use — these are among the chief ends of life, things necessary, ivith no character of morality about them. Society IS steeped in strong drink. Born, living, dying, no man can do without it. Such a state of things is possible — it has been • — and not many years ago it existed among us. It was in this condition of things the ivork of Reformation began. And now contemplate the other picture. It presents a community in Avhich, instead of a strange prejudice in favor of intoxicating drinks, there is a natural and intelligent dread of them — in which from their well-known properties, from their operation on the human systeii^ and on all human inter- ests, the use of them by any man as a beverage is looked upon as an act of wanton trifling with his own well-being and that of all around him. For a man to put himself into a state of intoxication, or make any voluntary approach toward tiia state, is regarded as a mad and criminal act. All see it as it is — a voamtary abandonment of his own rational and moral' being ; an expulsion of judgment, conscience, and self-control ; and a surrender of himself, for the time, into the possession of a demm, to be used by him as he will. All see and feel that no human beiim has the I’isht thus to turn himself loose and infuriated among his fellows, the ready agent for every 4 SUPPEESSIOK OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. •fihameful and infamous deed. And with equal clearness all see that for another to aid and abet such an act, and even tempt men to its commissioa by furnishing for gain the means of such derangement, is 5,11 intolerable wrong to the whole community. That a man siiould make it his business to sell what tends directly to madden and destroy his fellows, and expose every right aftection and interest of others — that he should live by making rutliless havoc all around htm — all look upon such an act as one of superlative guilt. In this condi- tion of society, voluntary inebriation is treated as a cnme ; and he who furnishes the means of intoxication is deemed guilty of a still higher crime. They have laws to that end, as clearly seen to be necessary and just, and enforced with as ready and unanimous approval, as our statutes now are against the thief or the burglar. Alcohol takes its place among the useful but dangerous drugs, to be treated as other poisons are. Drink it ! The man Avho does drink it is a man to be tivken care of — and he who should so trifle with the public security and peace as to give or sell it for a drink, and should talk of getting his liv- ing in that wajq he would have a living provided for him, more honest and honorable, in the State Prison. Now, from these two conditions of society, drawn only in outline, we may learn the nature of our enterprise. Our work is to cany over the entire body of the people from the one of these to the other. We have found it no brief and easy work. Patience must have large part iu it. The object being a great popular moral change, every principle must be tried, the expeiiment at every step must be tested. Positiona which were long since taken by those advanced in the work, are thrown back to be sifted by the people till they work themselves ont cleany among the mass of the community. ’The aim is not to see how speedily a few, or even a large part of men, can perfect this reform in their own views and practice, but how soon the rvhole body can be molded over. Therefore we go slowly. No such work can be done swiftly. And yet let no man grow faint in heart or hand. This great revolution will surely be accomplished. From the day of the first eifort, all along through these many years of argument SUPPBESSION OF THE LIQUOB TBAFFIC. 6 and entreaty, through all the successes and the reverses, the bright days and the dark, the great purpose has been steadily progressing. And, considered aright, the progress has by no means been slow. The first generation has not yet passed away since this reform was vigorously begun. Many who were in the first onset still live to render it efficient service, and to cheer us in the struggle. Yet in this one genei’ation ^Lat changes have been witnessed! And what elemcnta have been j^repared, assuring us of more blessed changes yet in the futui'e ! They who can best remember the times of darkness and drink, thirty years ago, will most readily concur in the belief that the work is more than half accomplished— that the widest and by fixr the most difficult part of the pas- sage, through which the social bodyjs moving in its ti’ansition from that fii’st to the second condition, just desci’ibed, ia already passed over’. Much labor still awaits us ; yet so far from yielding to discouragement, a strong and happy confi- dence should fill our hearts. No changes remain so great, so difficult, as those which have already been achieved. Wo have carried this Refoiination to the point where no power can turn it back or place it under permanent check. It may be cried down here and betrayed there — it may still have it* local and temporary reverses ; but as a xvhole, the great pur pose is advancing. The strong tide sets onward. The sur face may be swept hither or thither by the breeze, but the under current holds broadly and deeply on its coursq, and presses onwai'd with a steady and resistless force. Insensibly the whole body of society has changed and is changing. The leaven is working in all. Light has been poured abroad, till, willing or unwilling, the people understand this matter. Men know the nature and tendency of these drinks. We have enlisted the mass of the virtuous and influential. We have nearly the whole of the quite young. Even those who resist us are themselves changed. Many denounce and ridicule this reform with breath xvhich it has saved for them. Let us have patience — a steadfast, hopeful, patient activity. The change IS working slowly that it may be deep and sure. It has gone forward, and is still proceeding, as rapidly as so great a body cau be moved in a moral change. 3 SUPPhreSSION OF THE LIQUOE TRAFFIC. The Present Position of the Enterprise. And now, where is our position? What point have wo reached in the progress of this reform ? Society is yet in transition, slowly hut surely passing over to the condition of freedom from the dominion of drink. Step by step it has already gone through a revolution of opinion and practice it respect to the use of inebriating drinks, almost surpassing lie- liefi Our success has transcended the anticipations of the most sanguine. What stage in the process have we now reached ? And at what point is effort now demanded? Tlie t’^ue answer to this question should be earnestly sought by all who desire the consummation of this great work. And it will be found from a careful consideration of the present po- sition of the Temperance Enterprise. Looking back over the whole course of this reformation, we find a number of peiiods at which the work had become almost stationary. For a time no visible and decisive tokens of progress were discoverable. Such a pei'iod of comparative inefficiency occurred during the transition from the old to the new pledge; and such another just previous to the Wash- ingtonian movement. At each of these points the reform had run through an appointed stage and readied a crisis. A new direction of our energies was indicated ; a higher field cf effort was to be entered upon, and more decisive conflicts an 1 more signal triumjths were the result. For a few jmars past we have witnessed another such season of apparently susj.-ended progress. The rich veins which we have been wmrking, and which in their season furnished ua ample employment and large results, are no longer adequate to our full strength. We are ripe for more decisive Avork. And such work, Ave may be confident, aAvaits us. To reclaim the fallen can no longer be the one great aim of our eflbrts. The day has gone by AA’hen Ave could spend our Avhole strength on the circulation of the pledge. Least of all Avill it meet the wants of the time to busy ourselves mainly in shaping ovei the reformed material into ncAv and eurions organizations. We have yet much to do Avith the pledge, and much to do foi the salvation of the fidlen, and organization is yet a matter of liO small moiucnt ; but we can not i’est in these without a STTPPEESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 7 certainty of decline. Our safety lies in a vigorous onward movement. ' We must advance, or it will be difficult long to hold the ground we have won. A change of aims and meas- ures is now again demanded. There is some new field for ua to enter, richer in work and in victories than any we have yet occupied. And what shall this movement be ? It is clearly indicated by the exigencies of the work. Everywhere our exertions are met and repelled by one form of resistance. The force of opposition which now meets us comes of the Legalized Traffic in intoxicating drinks. It is this which now checks our pro- gress, and rolls back our work on us at every point. This free, universal, law-defended trade in drinks is proving itself strong enough to hold us at bay ; and with all our moral agencies a^one arrayed against it, it bids fair to give us vic- tories to win to the end of time. The matter continuing as it is. Moral Suasion alone on the one hand, and the Legalized Traffic in full blast on the other, our highest hope can be merely to hold Intemperance under check and limits, with only the distant prosj^ect of bringing it to an end. I'm- some years past this has been just the condition of this enterprise. Everywhere among us, at all. eligible points, the legally commissioned agents of Intemperance have jjlied their V'ork. They act as public functionaries. They spread forth everywhere, in full array, the means of intemperate indul- gence. All over the laud, by myriads, at every moment and with every advantage, such agencies are systematically and diligently at work to entice and corrupt — recruiting the wasted ranks of the fallen, and sustaining with terrible effi- ciency the whole baleful system of destruction. On the other hand, we print and preav'h, pray and persuade. We agitate, and organize, and Washingtonianize. And we stand amazed that the work does not go forward in. triumph. What we gain is evermore slipping from us, and comes rolling back on our bands. Fresh victims continually appear. We save many, and lose many. The truth has been too well demonstrated that, while sustained and sanctioned as it has been, the Traffic is not far from a match fbr all our moral suasives combined. Na art could devise a better scheme for perpetuating the conflict. i SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. I;et this condition of oiir work be carefully considered, for it points unerringdy to the next great step in tins reform. Wa have for years lieen skirmishing, over and over the held, wia- ning much, and finding mud) still to be won — victorious over an ever revi\ ing and still to be vanquished enemy. All our exeitions have only sufficed to limit and moderate the evil. ^Ve hush the wail in one sorrow-stricken circle, but it breaks foith afresh in others. We do much to mitig.ate and repair, much in the way of indirect prevention ; but the grand Law of Supply, the force by wnich the mischief continually reno- vates and reproduces itself, that force remains unbroken. And until that self-perpetu.ating power is bre ken, this Reform- ation must still lingei’ on its way. This vital powei- of Intemperance now lies in the Traffic, by which it assumes and maintains the attitude of an Institution. It has its system, and talks loudly of its interests and rights. It sustains a scheme of vigorous and almost universal opera- tion. Its dram-shops line our thorough fai-es, and float on all our watei's. Eveiy point of concourse is seized and occupied by its agents. The Tavern is perverted fi'om the Traveler's llome^nto a den of tipplers, and fitted out in the name of the State with all that can entice the temperate and push on the falling to their ruin. While this continues, we may bail away fm'ever at the pool of Intemperance, but this system will pour in ffiosh Hoods incessantly upon us. Let this horild enginery ]jlay on, and we shall forevei’ have woe to alleviate, pauperism to pi'ovide for, crimes to punish, and victims to pull from the bin ning gulf. Let us be weary of working so. We have rolled this stone of Sisyphus till patience has ceased to be a viilue. The Present Demands of the Work. The effoi't now on all hands clearly indicated^ for the ad \ ;ince)nent of this cause is a vigorous and united onset upon the Ti’affic. Let us. suppress this systematic agency for tho temptation and I'uin of men. While sparing this, we .allow in the field an enemy capable of coinitei’woi'king all our moral measui-es. With absolute certainty, while it continues, this Traffic will steiiily .and powerfully resist us at every point, U ia the only edective mode of opposition with wl*ich w« SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. b have now to contend, the only form of the foe which we have no weapons to reach. We have ran upon an obstacle which no zeal nor amount of exertion, in the old way, can ever sur- mount. Our moral means have no relevancy to this part of Jie work. The enemy is now intrenched in a fortress as im pregnable as rock to all mere influence and argumentation. Bhielded behind the ramparts of Law and Customs, the Traffic is proof against all those weapons which we have found effectual in other directions. It laughs at the shaking of our moral spear. The whole artillery of moral suasion glances from it as a powerless impertinence, harmless as the pattering of hail on a rock. The strong arm of Law alone can reach it. And this is the point which we have reached in die process of this reform. Our business now is with the Traffic. To this we are summoned now as our first duty. We must stop this authorized trade in destructive drinks. This has indeed begun to be felt. For some time past we have turned, as by one consent, to the consideration of Legal Restraints. By a common impulse, in this State and in sev- eral others, the public mind has raised the inquiry. Shall ive any longer afford the protection of Law to a business directly and visibly at war with all peace and virtue and eveiy inter- est of society ? Shall we not now begin to deal with tiffs traffic as it deserves to be dealt with, as a high civil as well as moral offense ? Criminal as it is before Divine Law, shall it any longer be suffered to shelter itself under human legisla- tion ? This is no question for remote speculation — it is the question of the day, of most urgent, immediate, practical in- terest. Already whatever of genuine temperance principle there is among us has felt itself moved in this direction. And we must go on to array ourselves more and more against the Ti'affic, or ffrll back from the work and be wanting in the tery crisis of the conflict. At the same time let it be kept in view that this special and etrenuous movement against the Traffic implies no abandoiv ment of other long-tried and approved methods of advancing this cause. We do not look to legislation as a substitute for moral means. Let us beware of the fatal notion that eveii best possible Law would perfect this reform without 10 BTJPPEESSION OF THE LIQUOE TEAFFIO. action on our part. We must not contemplate it as coming instead of our ordinary system of operation, or as designed to render any moral instrumentality less needful and pertinent in its place. All that we want of Law, all that the best enactments can do for us, is simply to clear the path for the legitimate and unimpeded operation of moral means. W e d(siro It simply to remove •impediments of a nature too gi’oss to feel persuasion or derive conviction from anything short of a statute. For a length of time, moreover, prohibitory Law in this matter must rest back on a vigorous prosecution of argu- ment and influence among the people ; and if these be relaxed, Law itself will be speedily swept away by the refluent tide of Intemperance. So flxr, then, from being at liberty to relax our present efforts, while we array the whole Temperance sentiment against the Traffic, we do but enlarge the field of action. The old fephere remains, and a new is opened. To our work, the great work after all, of winning to the side of virtue all who have conscience and heart, we do but add the task of legally restraining those wdio have neither. Our double duty will call for redoubled exertion. Let us ply witli fresh zeal the whole system of argument, persuasion, personal influence, and legal restriction. They are the parts of an entire scheme of action. Let our onset be simultaneous on both wings of the foe, bringing Law to bear on the Traffic, and Moral Suasion on the Vice — Restriction for the vender and Persuasion for his victims. Who is Responsible for the Continuance of the Traffic ? Not those alone who cordially desire and directly sustain it. The responsibility rests also on those who detest it and desire its overthrow, from the moment it comes into their power to destroy it by any legitimate means, by any measure of exertion not transcending the demands of the case. So Boon and so far as the friends of Temperance gain'the power to wrest perverted Law from the gi’asp of Intemperance and turn it on the foe, they are bound to do it. Neglecting this, they too are chargeable with the continued Traffic. Restrictive legislation against this pernicious business hag SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. li long since, as we shall presently see, received abundant war« rant. Our duty lies in the same direction. It is to urge tor- ward the plan of Proliibition, long ago sanctioned and very partiahy applied, just as fast and far as possible — to follow closely up every ineasui'e of change in the public sentiment with new measures of Prohibition, and embody every degree of reformed opinion in new legal restrictions. If at any time the Traffic is so deeply intrenched in the popular infatuation that it can not be wholly put down, let the Law stand at the ’fltmost practicable advance, yielding the least that it may, and that only to necessity. We are bound to carry our re- straints continually up to the point where the popular delusion meets us with superior force and compels us to desist. There is but one position we can innocently occupy in relation to this Traffic, that of uncompromising hostility, of ceaseless, ut- most opposition. It is a baleful and God-forbidden business, and we have no sanction, no permission, nor any such thing to o'ive it. If others have the heart and the strength to sus- tain it, we must endure it — but only because we must, and only while we must ; instantly as it becomes possible for us, we will push new and stringent restrictions up, fully up, to our power, and prohibit it wholly the moment we are able. Only as we hold this position are we guiltless of the Traffic. While we hold any other relation to-it than this, what con sistency, what rational and dignified purpose is there in oui temperance activities ? If we mean to conquer and not merely to fight, it is time that our scheme of operation included an earnest and resolute movement against the Traffic. To rectify the public sentiment by moral means is but nart of our work. i\nd even what Ave effect in that ivay will be insecure and perpetually sliding back on us, till we learn to clinch every degi'ee of reform by a corresponding advance in the system cf Legal Prohibition. For a long time after the commencement of the Temperance reform, its friends were shut up almost wholly to the use of moral means for its promotion. They could only reason, per. suade, and I'emonstrate. The popular prejudice and appetite demanded an almost unrestricted liberty in the vending of drinks. They wisely forbore to press for legislation while 12 BDPPEESSIO^ST OF THE LIQUOR TEAFITC. every such effort was certain to be defeated, and likely even to exasperate the evil. But the times are changed. Cust.un and commou sentiment have been so far rectified in several of our States, that the strength of society, the moral and the numerical strength, may Avith due exertion be relied on to sustain a decisive movement against this sorest of all our S(jcial evils. Wliy are we so slow then to arra}^ ourselves fully against this Traffic? Why do Ave labor on, year after year, sustaining hy our forbear anas a system directly counteract- ing all our effoi'ts? It is in the power of those Avho numbei themselves among the friends of this work, by adequate and sustained effort in this direction, to restrict, almost as far as tliey please, the traffic in intoxicating drinks. Instead ol sucli utmost possible restriction, it riots in gratuitous license. Our legal permissions equal its largest desires. Thus by om liberal alloAAmnce of the . traffic, Ave feed Avith one hand th«, fires Ave are striving to quench with the other. We create, by our permitted system of operations, the appetites ana misery, and povertv’’ and Avickedness Avhich by another scheme of effoi'ts we labor to correct. As citizens Ave permit the Ti'afHc ; by our forbearance the fata! enginery of corruption and ruin is still briskly at work; the cup is everywhere proffered to men’s lips Avith all the sanction of public author- ity ; this we permit, and then as Friends of Temperance we turn and bewail the legitimate and inevitable fruit of our doings — the Avoe, and beggary, and crime that floAV from causes operating by our jAermissdon ! While the matter continues thus, let us knoAv that this Avar is all our own— • both sides of it. When Avill the “Friends of Temperance” quit this Traffic ? When will this guilty connivance be Avitle draAvn ? It is beyond question, AAm think, that Avere the Avhole Aveigbt of the Temperance sentiment, in this State and several others, throAvn undividedly and without reserve into any legitimate form of opposition to the Traffic, it could not Avithstand the shock. We are able to carry Avhatever point we Avill within the limits of a Avise discretion. In large sections of country the numerical strength is clearly Avith us, declared to be so on every issue that has been made for years. And when wa STJPPBESSION OF THE LIQUOE TEAFFIC. la take into consideration the comparative weight and worth and prevalent inflnential power of character and position as arrayed on tlie two sides of this question, there is not room for a doubt that a resolved and persevering etfort, made with an energy and devotion such as the merits of the case wouhl amply justify, would triumph over every obstacle, and lay the gtern interdict oi Law on this business of death. We have faith ir the people, that light, and reason, and conscience wiH not go for nothing. Among the least reformed, convictions are at woi'k that Avill not leave them Avholly against us when the houi- of trial comes. We bi'ing to the struggle the advan- tage of heai'ts weakened by no secret misgivings ot our cause ■ — strong in the sustaining might of an entire conviction. The good, the wise, the influential are not equally divided. All the elements of prevalence are on one side. We need but united counsels and singleness of heart. Our position then is, that Ave can innocently sustain no other relation to the Traffic in intoxicating drinks than that of simple and strenuous opp>osition — undermining it, on the one hand, by the most vigorous scheme of moral influences, and cleaving it down, on the other, by successive prohibitory statutes, approaching as rapidly as possible the point of entire, legal proscription. While prejudice and appetite and cupidity can prevail to keep up the Traffic, our duty is to hold it strictly down to the minimum, and outlaw it as speedily as possible. It may be Avell to strengthen this position by shoAV ing how clearly it is justified by the merits of the case. The correctness of these vieAvs and of the coui'se indicated, depends entirely upon the estimate that is to be put on the Traffic. In this there is probably very little agreement among the patrons of this cause. If it be, as Ave regard it, the gush- ing fountain of mischiefs beyond description, if here lies' the gieat strength of the foe, then Avisdom demands that out attention and efforts be mainly and immediately directed to this point. Let us then contemplate the character of tlie Traffic in intoxicating drinks, and specially in reference to this inquiry. Is it such to admit and justify the application of restrictive Law ? 14 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. The Character of the Traffic. It is the systematic business of maintaining Intemperance, by sating the appetites already formed, and kindling them in others as widely as possible. It is purely an agency for evil, a fountain of unmiugled bitterness. And with all this iiicai culable and unredeemed damage to human well-being the Traffic stands justly chargeable. As a foe to all the social iutm'ests of men there is no other to be compared with this — no other that wars so ruthlessly spoil Home and all that sacred circle of interests of which Home is the center. Back of all the visible ravages of Intem- perance, and deeper than all these, there lies a field of devas- tation which has never been full}" explored, and can never be more than partially reported. It is the wasted realm of the social afiections, the violated sanctuary of domestic peace. From the under world of suppressed wretchedness there comes up to the ear of human ^^ity many a piercing cry of those Avho writhe under the slow torments of a desolate heart and dying hope. Yet all this which meets the eye and jiaias the ear is but the overflow of misery; this is what inadver- tently escapes through chasms violently rent open ; and it tells sadly of the sea of anguish that is stifled forever in its secret recesses. Within this sphere of social devastation the curse of Drink has a two-fold oijeration — the unseen and the seen, the pro- cess and the result. The first lies in that vast amount of uu- eold and unutterable wretchedness which is carefully hidden, 60 long as concealment is possible, within the bosom of multi- tudes of families which the Destroyer has entered and marked for his own. As yet his victory is inconpilete. His victim has not yet shaken offiall the restraints of aflection, nor burnt through the barriers of reserve and shame. He yet cleaves, with a sensitiveness that is very signifidvant, to his shattered Ecmnant of character. And others within that smitten home Ei'e still more fondly concealing the terrible change. Theirs is a wretchedness of which the world must not know, for it has in it the stain of shame. The keeifest inflictions are 'per- haps those which attend the incipient stages of ruin. Perhaps no aftej’-pang will ever distress the heart like that which BtrPPUESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 15 eomes with tae first conviction that the love of drink has gained the mastery over the beloved one. And from tliat point onward through all the unrecorded history of a drunk- ard’s progress, as seen and felt within the circle of those who love him, there is a bitterness of anguish which can be fully conceived only by those Avho have tasted the cup for themselvea. To those without that circle there may be little to awake sus. picion of the torture that is going on beneath the surface. It is not till the heart is consumed within them, not till despair has grown firmiliar, and the whole hidden process of depriva- tion has reached its maturity, that the result comes forth to the surface and show''s itself to the eyes of men. It is done in silence and secrecy, almost before we dreamed of it. h'rom this ]ioint the work is open and appalling indeed. Concealment is no longer sought, for it is felt to be no longer eitheT possible or of an}'^ avail. The fire burned long repressed and slowly eating away every support within ; now it has burst through and taken air, and the whole pile is ready to Cfdlapse in hopeless conflagration — and why should there be any further attempt at concealment ? And now look at the visible results of the Traffic on all the dearest interests of mankind. Look at its handiwork as written out in woe and desolation on the whole face of society. Look on these innumerable hearts that have long silently bled over the ruin of all their dearest hojies, till they can bleed in silence no more. Myriads of such still sigh among the living, and many, oh ! how many myriads have hidden their crushed and weary hearts in the grave ! See it yearly beggaring mul- titudes of families — quenching the light of many thousand homes in anguish and despair. Read the character and de- serts of this traflic in the air of thriftlessness and dilapidatLon which it is every year spreading over a countless numbei’ of once prosperous and hajrpy homes — read it in the depravation of character’, the growing sottishness of its victims, fallen fi’om the sphere of hope and virtue and love, and pushed r-apidly thi’ough a cai’eer of shame and sin toward gi’aves of infamy. How many such, with those that love them still, ai’e even now hiding their misery in obscui’e and comfortless hovels ! How these sad refuges of the once happy and hopeful stare upon 16 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. the traveler along all the highways and byways of our State . How they thicken within the broad circuit that is swept by the influence of some den of drink ! Could the map of oul State be so drawn as to present a full picture of its social con- dition, and reveal to us, as we gazed on it, all tl ese drink- ruined families, strown in their desolate huts over all its sur- face — could t be made transparent also, so as to reveal the burdens of grief that are hidden in these homes ; the burst- ing hearts of parents for their ruined sons ; of wives from whose life all joy and hope, all tenderness and comfort have been blotted out ; of children shame-crushed and doomed to penury and disgrace — could we thus look on all these stricken families, once affluent and respected, now doomed to mean- ness and want, each with its own peculiar history of sorrow, we should ask no further witness to the heinous guilt of the Traffic, or the righteousness of Law against the destroyer of all these ! We may well pause here for a moment to contemplate the dii’ect physical inflictions of this \ ice. These are indeed not the worst, but how great are even these least ! For the sake of completeness let us embrace these iu our view. And among these, mark the first blow that is struck. The finger of God has placed this significant seal of his disapproval on the intoxicating agents wliich man’s perverted ingenuity has devised : that tlieir use shall invariably tend to engender a burning appetite for more ; that he who indulges in them shall do it at the peril of contracting a passionate and rabid thirst for tliem, which shall ultimately overmaster the will of its victim, and drag him unresisting to his ruin ' Xo mac can put himself under the influence of alcoholic stimulation without incurring the risk of this result. . It may not be per- ceptible at oik e. It maybe interrupted. Whi.e the b.uidi are yet feeble, he may escape. But let the hal it go forward, the excitemeii} be often repeated, and soon a deep-wrc uglit physical eflect Avill be produced ; a headlong and almost de- lirious appetite, of the nature of a physical necessity, will have seized the whole man as with iron arms, and crushed fi'om his heart both the power and the wish of self-con ti'ol. The perpetually recurring thirst must be quenched with a draught SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. iJ which only adds fuel to the flame. It is a physical inflictio^i, Our nature and these articles stand so related to each oth>jS that their use invariably tends to this. The melancholy condition of drunkenness is another of these. It is seen in the unnatural excitement of body and aiind in the poor inebriate — in the derangement of all his powers, some of his laculties palsied, others wrought up to a pitch of action bordering on delirium ; the moral faculties, now more than ever needed to operate with special power to restrain, are enfeebled and at length obliterated, and the deranged man, with his brain fli-ed and whirling with excite- ment, his ijhysical power increased as yet, and all moral re- straints withdrawn, is rijie for any act which wild fancy, or a depraved heart, or a ready devil may suggest. At a stage farther onward the curse assumes another, and in some re- spects a sadder form. The stage of mad excitation has passed into that of stupefaction. It need not be described. The dark picture once seen never fades from the memory. That condition is God’s loud warning, uttered through our abused oatui’e, against the use of drink. Add now to these the sacrifice of health and life. There is DO disease, no liability or exposure to disease, that is not fos- tered and aggravated by intemperance ; while it has a list of maladies peculiar to itself, and of the most fearful character. Under disguised and softened names, these have been, and still are, covertly at work as the choice instrumentalities of death ; and the lying marble over myi-iads of grave thus filled glosses with soft terras the truth which the living would not know. Another of the physical effects of drunkenness has as yet been little considered — we mean its connection with Idiocy aa its prociucing cause. When fully ex])lored this field will exhibit results more appalling than we have conceived. The reader may gain some intimation of the more general fact by looking around him on the instances of partial or entire mental mbecility that are presented within the circle of his observa. tion. Let liim carefully trace their relations. Are these melancholy spectacles so utterly unaccountable, so dissevered from all traceable causes, as they are generally deemed f 18 SUrPEESSION OF THE LIQEOE TEAEFIC. They are in a very large proportion the offspring of drnnTccr parents! Rigid investigation, we are confident, whenever it shall be made, Avill sho-w that at least four-ffths of these help- less objects are ascribable tc intemperance, the living monu- ments of sin and shame by drink. The report of a Committee appointed to inquire in regard to the Idiots of INIassachuseKs, showed that eleven-twelfths of this pitiable class were born of intemperate parents ! Let the facts be ascertained, and results equally astounding will be brought to light in other States, Another crevice is thus opened through which we catch glimpses of the unutterable and revolting scenes of brutality perpetrated under the infenial stimulation of drink, and only coming to light in these their unhappy fruits. In all these forms the God of our nature has loaded the Traffic with an appalling burden of bitter and terrible results. There is not another form of unrighteousness against which we have a more clear and emphatic revelation of the Divine displeasure tlian against this, as seen in the legitimate con- sequences with which it is loaded. These constitute the natiiral revelation of the Divine AYill against this Traffic. All these results are its legitimate and well-known fruits. And the business of furnishing the known provocative of every species of evil is incomparably more guilty than the use of it under the phreusy of appetite or the demand of custom. By these inevitable results it stands branded with the most sig- nificant curse of the God of Nature — a curse ever deepening from the first cup down to the closing scene in beggary and infamy, delirium and the grave. But we have as yet contemplated only the least serious of its results. The moral influence of the Traffic is still more de- plorable. Everywhere it is the prolific parent and instigator of all that is unseemly and flagitious. It is a central vice, a radiating point for all crime. It creates an aptitude for all iniquity. It is the favorite and most successful device of the great Deceiver to steal away the judgment, stupefy the con. science, and remove all moral susceptibilities and restraints, and at the same time goad up every passion to a pitch of maddening excitement by the use of intoxicating drinks Often the evil-minded find themselve® incapable of the crimes SUPPKE8SI0N OP THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 19 they meditate, till qualified hy a degree of intoxication. Then all crime is easy. An instrument is then made ready for Satan’s using; and if there be any deed the drunken man does not happen to pei-petrate, it is not that he is not prepared fo? it. The helm is put into the hands of the fiend, and with canvas all spread, driving wildly before the storm' of excited passion, ho guides and wrecks the soul on whatever rock of crime he will. The guilt of the inebriate is great. In our reprobation of the Traffic and the Dealer, let us not palliate the offense of him who consents to stand in the double capacity of a criminal and a victim. But the most candid justice must pronounce that he has no guilt to match with his, w'ho furnishes the draught that qualifies him for any crime. Viewed consider ately, in the light of their respective motives, the drunkard will pass for an innocent and honorable man in comparison with the retailer of drinks. The one yields under the impulse, it may be even the torture of appetite ; the other is a cool, mercenary speculator, thriving on the frailties and vices of others. The one we commiserate while we blame; the other inspires’ us with indignant abhorrence, for he is a trader in tears and blood and crimes. To one he sells a capacity of brutal abuse to his family ; to another he sells theft, or lustful violence, or murder. His shop is a repository Avhere all the immoralities and iniquities are kept and sold on commission from the pit. There the incendiary lights his torch, and the assassin nurses his appetite for blood. There is sold by the glass that modern species of insanity which we hear pleaded in every instance of flagrant crime. It is simply the condition of being not in one’s right mind — sold everywhere among na for less than a handful of coppers. The character of the Traffic as an agency for the promotion of vice and immorality depends evidently to a great extent on tlie character of those who deal in drinks; and that hag sunk just as this Reform has advanced. It has become a di» ci’editable business, felt to be such, even by those engaged in it. It has been constantly falling into less and less scrupulous bauds. Hence these two results are natural — that our moral masion avails less with dealers than with drunkards — and that so SUPPETTSoiOir OF THE LIQPOE TKAFFIC. an almost incredible proportion of dealers tbemselv’es fall, ia one way or another, into the pit they dig for otners. In their persons, estates, and families they suffer beyond any oilmr equal class of men. How many of them -wear in their persona a badge of their calling! How many finhhed landlords I How many dealers in our State Prisons ! The investigation vas not long since made in the prison of a neighboring State, and gave as the result forty out of one hundred and seventy '-—nearly one in four ! But aside from the commission of crime and overt iniquities, the demoralizing influence of the Traflic is indefinitely great and defying all computation. These outrages, now and then startling us, are but the more obvious and striking results. Tliey are the ripe fruits — the prominences which rise to view out of a wide level of more common and every-day immorality A loose and dissolute spirit is bred by it, that penetrates society and loosens all the bonds of public and private virtue. It is seen in the quarrels and litigation, the riot and confusion which it breeds — in the debauchei’y of the moral sense and the reckless intolerance of restraint from any moral considerations • — in the perpetual tendency which it engenders to overstep every limit of order, decorum, and virtue. We need not dwell on consequences so obvious to every eye. They are directly fostered and perpetuated by the Traflic. Closely connected with its demoralizing influence is the disastrous bearing of the Traffic on the jouritu and prevalence of Religion. It creates a condition of mind in the individual and in a communit}’^ more impervious to religious truth and influences than results from almost any other cause. W e know of no bari-iers in the way of promoting genuine piety equal to those j^resented in the thriftless and decaying condition which is brought on a community by the jjrevalence of drinking cu9- toms. This outward decay is but too sure an index of disso hitcness vrithin. The heart has lost tone and vigor. The re- iigious susceptibilities are blunted, if not lost. The soul is bent downward and refuses to look up. The sensual spirit, like a strong man armed, keeps tlie house. In innumerable instances the incipient stages of l eligious improvement are effectually blight- ed, and the Spirit of God repelled from the soul by this causa. SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 21 It is one of the most blessed achievements of this Reforma- Sion, that it has so often jjrepared the way for the Gospel to work its higher reformation in the entire character and life. It has in countless instances removed impediments that had long entirely obstructed all gracious impulses, and would have rendered them abortive forever. Lying undei' the bondage of drink, the soul is hopeless of redemption. These chains must be broken, this moral besotraent must be removed, before the principle of purity and spiritual life can enter the heart. This has been witnessed in cases beyond iiumber wherever this re form has taken effect. It has wrought changes that paved the way for better changes. A happy multitude, who have thus been prepared unto good and brought within the scope of Christian influences, now rank among the accepted mem- bers of the Christian community as the brightest trophies of this reform. In the opposite direction we meet with equally convincing proofs of the bearing of the Traffic upon Religion in the in- roads it has made into almost every Christian community, and the blighted hojies and wreck of good it has ■wrought. From the Church, as from every other sphere, it has plucked down many of the briglitest stars. Probably no other stumbling- stone and rock of offense has troubled the Church like this. Either as matter or motive cause, the use of strong drink enters into avast proportion of the offenses which weaken and distract the churches and bring scandal on religion. But the question whether a commonwealth may legitimately apply legal restraints in a matter like this, may be felt to turn principally upon its bearing on the public interests and well- being of the State. In other words, it is a political evil ! Does this Traffic injuriously affect the sources of public pros- perity and happiness, the order, peace, and strength of the State? If it have this influence, assuredly it is among the powers and prerogatives of the Social Body to guard itself from its invasions. In what relation, then, does the Traffic in these destructive articles stand to the public ■weal? We confidently re]dy, in that of a virulent and iri-econcilable an- tagonism to all the true interests of a State. Directly and m- dirtctly it .'s at war with all the mean? and ends of the publie 22 StrPPKESSION OF THE LIQUOE TEAFFIC. good, and with all the sources of political prosperity. A car^ ful inspection will abundantly sustain this charge, and remova evei-y rational objection which may be taken to the applica- tion of Law. To this let us now turn our inquiry. Shall we look at it in the pecuniary aspect ? In this view il touches directly only the coarsest of all our interests ; yet tliese are not trivial, certainly not least considerable iu the estimation of men. To many it may be the most conclusive consideration that the traffic in intoxicating drinks, beyond anything else, devours the. substance and enervates all the ])roan. It is so nomin. ated in the bond. Let it be once stripped of this factitious protection, and it stands a naked and glaring nuisance, de- serving beyond any other to be instantly and indignantly chased from the haunts of men. Repeal these statutes which now shield it, and this business, resting on its own merits, would be indictable at Common Law. We could bring the dealer to justice on the manifest tendencies of his traffic, and as a wanton and felonious triller with the peace and virtue of society. While Law embodies the full temperance senti- ment of the community, and bears with all practicable force against the Traffic, it is well to have law ; but if we are left to choose between no Law, and such as for many years has at once stimulated and shielded the Traffic, give us none. Leave us to deal with it simply as an unprotected nuisance. Yes, this !=• a kncfid business, e.vceedingl}’ so , and that is the very [)oint of our inquirj-, whether we shall longer legalize this incomparable curse ? BUrPKBSSION OF THE LIQUOK TEAFFIO. J i But tlie claim goes further, and denies the right ot society to interdict the Traffic. We reply, it is the main prerogative of a civil government to pi'ohibit just such things as tl)is. Protection is its end and business — the protection of the pos- sessions, the rights, the industry, and the virtue of a commu- flity from the invasions of the lawless and mischievous. Hence the main funct'on of a C4overnment i?, prohibition. Its office is to supeivise tlie complicated and often clashing oper- ations of self-love among the associated thousands of whom Bociety is composed, and restrain its injurious workings. Wa need a civil government simply because in the social state we are exposed to injury from the evil-minded. Its end is pro- tection ; and its power to protect lies in this very power , to prohibit whatever conflicts with social order and private rights. Turn now to our Statute Law, and you will find this the real meaning of each enactment. Moi'e or less obviously, each statute is ^protective prohibition. It presupposes some lawful interest endangered, some laudable pursuit molested, some social or individual riglit invaded; and the statute is the arm of the social body stretched forth to protect the violated right by prohibiting the invasion. The only question then can be, does the Traffic in alcoholic drinks inflict any serious injury on the rights, interests, aflfec- tions, or virtue of the community? By th.at issue it must abide. It stands impeached in the name of every virtue, in the name of all things pure and beautiful and blessed, as the pitiless invader of them all ! Where else is there such another gushing fountain of derangement to all the interests of the social state? Society has no other enemy so injurious as this ■ — none from which all just rights and interests so earnestly cry aloud for i)rotection. We have pampered this traffic with our sanctions till it has wmxed fat and kicks at all restrictions. It devours its victims at noonday, and sows the land with Ihrifilessness and immorality, violence and crime — and paivsea from its banquetings on broken hearts, and laiined hopes, and fallen character, only to tell us with a front of brass that we have no remedy! We may proliibit theft and arson and Beveral other things, but not this! Away with a Govern- meul, then, as soon as you please; it is an unmeaning and 26 StJPPRESSIOIf OF THE LIQHOR TRAFFIC. worthless thing if you deny it, on prin.jjde, the power and tlie right to protect us by prohibiting such warfare on the social good. Bui we must Lsten for a moment to the dealers and their constituents. “You invade our liberties; we have a natural right to deal and drink as we please.” Let it be admitted that you liave a natural right to do so ; but recollect the whole theory of which this is a part. Recollect where you are. We are not savages. It is a good thing, we find, for men to dwell together in the social state; but in the social state, as this theory goes, every member yields mar y points of natu- ral liberty, as tlie price of protection from the injurious action of others. Go forth, then, out of the social state, away from any society of your fellow-beings to be injured by your doings, and then you may do what yon please, unre;-Ja‘icted^by human law. There you may enjoy this jirocions natui-al right to traffic in alcohol, and to make yourselves maniacs, ready for any deed, by the use of it. There, too, you may sell arsenic, may curse and blaspheme, profirne the Sabbath, and take what you can by the sole law of the strong hand. There you may turn to the left, instead of the right, on the highway; may set your slangliterhouse where you choose ; maj' coin your own money, fire your own dwelling. All these are as ti nly natural lights, and quite as defensible, as that which you claim. But as a member of a confederated human society, you may not do these tilings. Why ? Because others have lights as well as you. The common good requires that you ibrego these things. That is the condition on which we, any of us, remain in society and enjoy its advantages. There is no compulsion — go, if you like — go, if you deem these conces- sions of natural liberty too high a price to pay for the social benefits. Go where you can do better. But if you stay here in the organized society of men, you do it as consenting to forego these, and whatsoever other so-called natural rights, which that society shall find it necessary to prohibit as incoii- Bistent with the common well-being. Here, as a social being, you must turn to the right on the highway — no sort of -iberty left you to turn to the left. Here you may by no means coin your own money. And here, on infinitely higher grounds, SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 27 if ever consideration shall visit the souls uf men. and outraged society shall come to look at this matter with a sober eye, nere, then, you will have no right to wage at our charges this warfare on all we hold dear. It will throw light enough on the propriety a^jd duty ol legislation in this matter should we look out over our Statute Law and notice our legal treatment of certain other evils, the loins of which are not so thick as the little finger of this traffic in alcoholic drinks. It would be edifying also to the advocates of natural rights to consider how exten.S'ively they are bereft of their liberties by submitting to the social state. If, indeed, we have no right to prohibit this traffic — if every restriction laid on this and like things be an invasion of their rights — then have the whole body of retailers and their abettors, and all other aggrieved persons, in view of the multitude of ag- gressive en3.ctments of the same character, just cause to declare themselves oppressed beyond endurance, and taking up each one his cup and his keg, cry, “ Let us depart hence.” If it be the right and duty of a Legislature, watching over the interests of society, to interdict a demoralizing game, how is it not mucli more its right and duty to prohibit as far as possible a traffic which hourly proves itself an agent of mis- chief with which no other can compare? If liberty can sur- vive the one, how is it that the very peril of our liberties should be cloven down by the other? Yet you remember Avhat wailing and fierce protestations were heard from the champions of liberty and liquor against that unconstitutional statute which merely submitted it directly to the people them- selves in their primary assemblies to say whether they would invade their own liberties in this tender point! And many such things has social law presumed to decree A>n all hands lie our natural liberties smitten down by statute We prohibit theft, for example ; but for what reasons that di not with tenfold force demand the prohibition of this traffic . Is theft at war with the social interests ? Doubtless it is ; but the worst it does is but an occasional skirmish on some ol the coarser interests of mankiiul, compa'ed with the havoc this traffic continually makes of all that men shouid most highlj prize and most earnestly defend. 2S SUPPEESSION OF THE LIQUOK TEAFFIC. “ In which is felt, the flercer blast, Of the destroying Angel’s breath ? Which hinds its victim the more fast? Which aims at him the deadlier death f Will ye the felon fox restrain, And yet take oft' the tiger’s chain ? ” Yot the we sedulously hedge about with protective stat ates, while character and social morality, the lieaits and soul* of men, are open game for this legalized system of freeboot* hig ! Counterfeiting we can not tolerate for a moment, for a false bill is detestable and sorely injurious; but a system svhich continually produces and palms off on us the worst counterfeits of humanity, in the form of inebriated men, is most abundantly lawful ! The ddirium tremens closely re- geinbles and often surpasses in its hori’ors those of hydro- 'phobia ; and hundreds perish over the land by that terrific mania irom drink, to one that dies by the bite of a rabid dog. Yet it needs not five cases of hydrophobia per annum in the nation to keep every neigliborhood so tremblingly alive to the possibility of its occurrence, that an animal, showing the slightest symptoms of madness, finds instant death or eftectual restraint. We stumble at no plea for liberty in that matter. He would be dealt with as an execrable oftender who should spare him one moment at large. But to traffic in an article which, evei'v year th.at rolls over us, ripens for us a thousand times so many maniacs, pushed shrieking, trembling, specter- ridden to the grave — a traffic that directly produces every year more mischief and agony than all mad animals have caused for the last fifty years — that, forsooth, is a right to be held sacredly inviolate ! In the name of Liberty and Law, this maddest of all things mad, that fastens its tooth in the soul as well as the body, shall even have most public and eligible places appointed it, shall be lifted up by authority in conspicuous and alluring array, crowds shall be drawn within kts reach, and abundant fiicilitie&be given it to strike its deadly fangs into as many. as possible! And the attempt to di'ive it fiom these public haunts, and break up the reign of madness, and shield society from this bitterest of its curses, is the in vaaion of rights so loudly complained of among us ! But there is a view still more conclusive in justification oi StTPPKESSTON OF THE LIQHOE TKAFFIC. 2S prohibitory Law in this case. All legislative action touching this traffic has been, and from the nature of the case must be, pronibitory in its aim and operation. Suppose a time when as yet no statute touched this traffic, but all enjoyed the natu- ral right to deal at their pleasure in alcoholic d^nks. Pres- entlj^ some measures of self-defense are found necessary. The [license scheme is adoj^ted. What is it? It is a prohihition of the Traffic, ev^^^ept by a certain few, and in a certain way. A. B, and C, imd 2 r specified limitations may sell — all the rest 3f the alphabet may not. The very first step settles the whole question. It is based on the right to prohibit. From the bcgiuni: g Society has assumed the right in question, and a scries of statutes of a prohibitory nature have been enacted, under the name of License Laws, loose and utterly inadequate, it may be, but nevertheless restrictive of the Traffic, and estab- lishing forever the right to restrict to the uttermost. Thus the thing comes down to us branded from of old as a nuisance, with which Law not only has a right to deal according to its deserts, but which it has no right to let alone. The only questions are, what treatment does it deserve at the hand of human society, and how far are we able to treat it as it deserves ? This restrictive system was very early adopted. Even while society was steeped in strong drink, it was felt to be an evil and a bitter thing. Like a raging beast, it must be guarded. The attempt was made to methodize the madness, and reduce it to decency and order. Our fathers accordingly took the Traffic out of the hands of the multitude and gave it in charge to discreet and trustworthy men, numerous enough that none need go thirsty, elevated to the rank of civil func- tionaries, and commissioned to furnish this indispensable but perilous article discreetly, “for the public good.” Instead of a reproach, considering the time, it is a genuine compliment to the character of deacons that they so often were the men chosen to conduct this difficult business. They remained in it too long ; but it is a high testimonial of their worth and of the esteem in whi(',h they were held, that when a drinking generation felt urged tc seek out in all their coasts the men who would put the bottle to their lips 'in a sober and becom* SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. ing and make them drunken also Avith graA’ity and dis< cretton, they so often selected the deacons to do it. Now this is worthy of notice, that from the £rst we haA’e had restrictions on the Traffic. Let us do justice to our fa- thers. VVitji^all their infatuation on the subject, they hai e left us t' eir solemn testimonial that the ox gores so he must not go at large. In saying that this and that man might sell, they prohibited the sale by others. The form was permissive, but the whole purpose and effect restrictive. It is painful to think of more recent legislation in this light. Instead of an advance corresponding to the groAvth of the temperance sentiment among us, instead of applying new checks and limitations, such as the advancing reform author- ized and demanded, we hav'e suffered LaAv too often to reverse its action and operate as the ally of vice. And the Avhole work must continue to stand very nearly as it noAv does, until we condense this abundant temperance sentiment into LaAV, and precijhtate our whole force against the Traffic. But there is quite another aspect to this question of rights. Others too have rights and interests as well as those who deal and those who drink. Civil go\ ernment is not framed for the sole behoof of retailers and their supporters. It has certain other aims and uses than to secure to them the largest liberty in matters of drink. Tax-payers also have rights and interests. They are a class Avorthy of some regard. Without constant access to their pockets, this traffic would soon cut off its own supplies and perish by suicide. As it is, it has a lien on tho entire social body. Aside from the incalculable indirect waste and damage, this traffic cre.ates four-fifths of all our pauperism, and taxes every ratable dollar of our property for its support. It occasions three-fourths of our crimes and criminal prosecu- tions, and of our police and prison provisions, and hands over the heavy bill to be borne by the virtue and thrift of the com- munity. It creates crime for tis to mourn over and punish and pay for, and beggars for us to pity and feed. It infuses its poison through every vein of society, fostering every vice, stimulating every bad passion, and sealing bespotted souls to perdition. Whatever villainy can devise of knaA'ery and vio- lence, this traffic matures and pushes to execution. All who SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 31 have hearts to bleed over sin and anguish — aU wlio have loved ones in peril from the seductions of vice — every friend of virtue and order — eveiy man contributing to the support of society — ■ all who care for themselves or care for others, have rights and interests in this matter. Instead, therefore, of this preposterous clamor of dealers and their partisans for liberty to wage at our cost a deadly piracy on all our just riglits and dearest interests, it is time the tables were turned, and a peremptory demand made of these men that they cease swiftly from that business, and be- take themselves at their earliest possible convenience to some honest and innocent calling. The Character of those Engaged in the Traffic. It is only in one point of view that we wish to speak of the character of those who are engaged in this business. We shall find in it an additional and conclusive argument for the application of Law. ISTothing short of Law will avail rrs in dealing with such men. Gradually for twenty years the busi- ness of rum-selling has been sinking lower and lower, and in the same degree has sunk the character of those who can aflford to engage in it. By a necessity of the case, it has fallen more and more into the hands of men bankrupt in conscience and humanity, — of men, who, as a class, are beyond being disgraced by any business. Those with whom reason and moral considerations would have weight, have quit the busi- ness long ago. With such a race of dealers we can wield no efiectual argument but that of Law. In any other light than this, it would not be of much prac- tical importance what we are to think of the individual agents in such a business. Be the dealer what he may, it alters net the thing he does. It is that we have to do with. There may be individuals engaged in some forms of the Traffic who are in other respects estimable men. They may not merit entire reprobation. We can look at them only with surprise 2nd grief. But with dealers as a class, the case is very differ- ent. They are in it as a congenial calling. As there is m nature no rottenness so loathsome that it does not furnish the most attractive condition for some vile form of animal fife, so 32 SUPPEESSION OF THE EIQUOK TKAFFIC. there are men who find this trade of corrupting their fellow with all the moral and physical filth that gathers around the dram-shop, just their congenial work. And the wonder is that aU but such do not instinctively revolt from such a busi- ness, and leave it wholly in the hands of those whose gift it is to relish a work so mischievous and vile. But while there is this difference in the men, their work is the same — perhaps even worse, if you weigh the whole influence of his doings, when done by the quite respectable man who lends himself to this strange work, than when done by those whose vocation it is to do evil. It is ours to put au end to such a work, by whomsoever it may be done. But let us look at the RumseUer, that we may know with whom we have to deal. He is a man selling for gain what he knows to be worthless and. pernicious, good for none, dan- gerous to all, deadly to many. He has looked in the face the sure consequences of his course, and if he can but make gain of it, is })re])ared to corrupt the souls, embitter the lives, and blast the prosperity of an indefinite number of his fellow creatures. By the vending of these drinks he sees that with terrible certainty, along with the havoc of health, lives, homes, and souls of men, he can succeed in setting afloat a certain vast amount of property, and that as it is thrown to the winds, some small share of it will float within his grasp. Upon that chance he acts. He knows that if men remain virtuous and thrifty, if these homes around him continue peaceful and joy. ous, his craft can not prosj^er. But if the virus of drink can only be made to work, swfft desolation will come of it, and every pang will bring him pelf — each broken heart will net him so much cash — so much from each blasted home and shame-stricken family — so much a widow — so much an or- phan ! He does not expect to win all that he causes otherj to lose; so fitr from that, he is pierfectly aware that only a meagre percentage of the wreck will find its way into his hand. Yet for this he sets it all afloat! He fires a city that ru' may pilfer in the crowd. — There arc certain wild shores in> ested by bands of W reckers, Avhose business it is to watch along their dangerous coasts and seize whatever may float within their reach from the wrecks on the neighboring shoals 8DPPEESSI0N OF THE LIQHOK TKAFFIC. 3S To increase their chance of such accursed spoil, they set them- selves systematically to work to bring about as many ship- wrecks as they can — false signals are given — beacons quenched — movable lights devised, and every means employed to de coy vessels in the oiling upon the fatal shore. Figure that scene, when night and storm are on the deep, and the tem- pest liowls along the fa,tal reef ; and through the darkness, faintly heard above the roar of the surge, comes the boom of a signal-gun, announcing a vessel in distress ! A moment more and it comes again, more distinct, and yonder, at length, its light trembles to the eye, as some billow tosses it above the horizon. The wad of despair already comes to the aching ear ! And here on the shore are voices heard, and torches glance, but not in pity or for help ; and on the clilf above burns the false beacon that lured them to the rocks ! A mo- ment more and she strikes! And for an instant, while the storm lulls as if relenting, you hear the shrieks of the lost, the cry of the spent swimmer, and the crash of the vessel as she spills her treasures and lives into the deep ! Witness wh.at joy is felt on that shore ! Their work has prospered. A little floats to their hands — but ah ! how little of all that pre- cious cargo! Yet that is their reward. For this they lured so much to destruction. Such is their business — and the brother of it is here among us, this trade in drinks. There is a circumstantial horror thrown around the one, while the other works more quietly, under cover, and by piecemeal ; but in this essential feature they stand side by side— they each create a vast, indefinite amount of woe and damage to others, that out of the terrible wreck they may gain a little ! And if the one desein es legal protection, give it to the other too. To balance all this fearful array of mischief and wo, flowing directly from his work, the dealer can bring nothing but tht pk-a that appetite has been gratified, and “ some, since many die, have lived by rum.” There.are profits, doubtless: Doacb finds it the most liberal purveyor for his horrid banquet ; ano Hell from beneath is moved with delight at the fast-coming profits of the trade; and the dealer also gets gain. Deach, ilell, and the Dealer — beyond this partnership none are pi of iied. Not we — we have only to look on, give license, furnish S4 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. victims, pay so much on the dollar to sustain the operation, and bury the dead from our sight ! We meet with the Traffic in intoxicating drinks imder two forms, differing circumstantially, and viewed too generally wdth very difierent feelings. On the one hand we have it in hs own proper shape, undisguised, standing on its bare merits, in the simple grog-shop system ; on the other, we have the same traffic in the covert and disguised form in which it ap- pears wedded to the Tavern system. With the same deadly weapon, the one strikes ojjenly, the other under cover. Yet the latter seems to many, in virtue of its connection with Inn- keeping, almost Btript of its deformity ; and even among those who condemn it, and who are convinced that the sale of these drinks can never m any form be harmless, this is the last point on which they see clearly. The old prejudice, the power of custom, lingers in us still, and holds us too often divided be- tween speculative soundness and practical delusion. Tlae Dram-Shop Traffic. In .-espect to the class of dealers in this form of the Traffic, legal restraint is so far from being a premature method of treatment, that it is wonderful we have not long since quit every other method as impertiught to the, case. Let us under- stand our error. Legalize the Traffic, and there will not be wanting those who vvill carry it on ; and though they were to be, at the first, the most conscientious and tender-hearted of men, let them be schooled for a little time in the Traffic, familiar with all the effects of drink, daily making men drunken with their own hands, and pocketing by threepenuies the price of blood, and presently you have beings made of them steeled against all that other men feel. Waste no argument on such. Make it legal and gainful to sell, and they’ll sell Tbfc clink of the sixpence from the palsied hand of a custo- mer sounds louder in their ears than the wail of the widow and orphan, sweeter than the praise ol all the good. Look at what he does. He sells the provocative of every ehame and every sin. All forms of distempered fancy, wild and evil desires, unhallowed jjasrions, madness of brain, tho heart to cherish anc the hand to..execute the promptings of eupPKESsio^r op the liquok teaffic. 35 the Tempter — these are his wares. On his counter he sees laid down all things prized among men, in barter for the mad- dening di-aught. And he knows his work. It is Aviitten on the squalid and haggard persons of his victims. Day by day, as they visit his counter, he sees the progressive debasement and shame he is working. He marks the fiercer thirst that drives the ripening sot more frequently to his haunt — the hand more tremulous to-day — the raiment more filthy and worn — he sees the growing debauchery, and gives him still the “ wet damnation ” that has caused it all. Around him he reads his work in dilapidated dwellings and mortgaged farms, that have dropped, bit by bit, through his till. And these are to him the tokens of a thrifty trade. Pie must order larger supplies. Like the serpent fascinating the bird, and gloating on his prey as it flutters around him in ever narrower circles — such a thing is the grog-vender; and around him hover, smitten and infatuated, *^he crowd of his victims, draw- ing ever nigher unto death. Of aU that vice and wo and growing infamy, he there is the master-spirit. He kindled it, and fattens on it. Now give such men the sanction of Law, and what will your moral suasion avail? Let us well understand that this business has no claim on our forbearance. No just interest or right will be invaded by the most summary proscription. Perverted Law has long allowed the dealer his pound of flesh out of us, and coolly he has taken it, and patiently we have borne it. We abide by Law. While it compels us to stand the passive spectators of his ravages, we do so ; but no longer. We propose to abide by Law still. W e look on the drunkard-maker, with all the license earth could give him, simply as a privileged malefactor. In all his pomp of otfice, though rich in blood-bought bank stock and potters-field farms, ho is one whom half the poor wretches Le has bred for the prison might blush to be seen with. Be- tween him and them the only partition is that thin bit of paper called a license. The wealth he gets is the monument of his in- famy and the measure of his crime. For his thrift many have been made poor. Let no such men talk of rights. Their only shelter must be Law, and that shall not long be a refuge. They have appealed to Caesar, and* to Caesar they shall go. 36 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. The Traffic as Connected with Inn-keeping. ■ One of tlie strongest intrenchments which this traffic has reared for itself is found in the force of Custom. Usages which grew up in the Alcoholic ages, and won the thirsty generations of our fixthers to adopt them, have come down to us venerahle v'ith age, and with almost the force of law. Viewed in tho light which now shines on them, they may be grossly unwise and pernicious ; and yet they hold their ground. They may stand on no pretense of intrinsic fitness and utility, but simply on the ground of immemorial use and the authority of custom; and still to question their propriety may even yet startle many minds as a rash step. In just this way it has come to be almost universally regard- ed as essential to the being of an Inn, that it should be fitted out with all the variety of intoxicating drinks. In the popu- lar notion of it, one of the chief purposes of a Tavern is that it be a convenient and respectable place for drinking. '1 he prominent feature is the Bar. Remove that, and in popular estimation the Tavern is gone. Now we deny wholly the justness of this conception. V'e deny that there is, by either necessity or pro^xriety, any such bond of connection between the traffic in drinks and the busi- ness of Inn-keeping. It is no part of the appropriate functions of that calling to deal in liquors. A Tavern is not, in the na- ture and fitness of things, a grog-house, nor is a taverner in- herently a tapster. The two things are so far from being identical, that they are even antagonists ; their union is incon- sistent and disastrous, and ought to be at once prohibited by Law. And if to any one this proposition seems starthng, let him suspend his judgment and refiect a httle. There is a large variety of establishments passing under the name of taverns. At one end of the fist you have the genuins Inn, busied wdth its own appropriate work of public accom- modation. Of such establishments the demand wifi create and sustain a sujxply. The traffic in drinks is an impertinence and an incumbrance to their real business, a pernicious and need- less expedient for swelling gains already sufficient. Below these you have an innumerable host of grog-houses, swarming on all highways and bytvays, of all grades shade uuperceived SUPPKESSIOlsr OF THE LIQUOB TRAFFIC. 37 fitill softening into shade,” including at the nether extrema many of our barest dram-shops — all dignified v/ith the name of taverns! They vary. in their character according to the prominence given to the drinking department. Some of them are taverns kept in grog-shops, others are grog-shops kept in Caverns. They are for the most part in the management of men vdio can afibrd to defy the opinions of mankind, and stoop without a blush to pick a livelihood from the pockets of sots, A churlish and hard-hearted generation of publicans have thus stolen into their hands the whole class of third and fourth-rato Inns, and perverted them into the worst of dram-shops Under the abused name of taverns, what a multitude of such dens of ruin are swarming all over our State ! The travelef feels instinctively, as he approaches them, that he has entereO on the scene of many woes. The very air seems laden with sighs. Desolation sits throned on the leaning sign-post, and covers the sad scene with the spirit of his presence ; while doleful creatures are hovering around, grim shapes of ruined ones haunting the spot where they fell. This union of the Traffic with a useful calling, and the con- ception of it as a necessary union, are of such practical impor- tance as to justify a careful consideration in the view we are now taking. Intemperance has fastened no other abuse on a deluded world so strange as the perversion of the Tavern sys- tem into a universal agency for the ministration of drinks. It is at this point we are yielding the most infatuated and efiectual suppoi't to the Traffic. And here is one of the master- strokes of Satanic wit, to mask this traffic in its most energetic form under cover of such a business as inn-keeping, and then intrench the devilish injunction so firmly in the popular delu- sion, that while all other modes of this traffic attract attention and assault, this still sits secure and defies reformation. With wiOing blindness men still acquiesce in and continue the gross usurpation, by conceding practically that a tavern is, of course, and must be, a drink-house. 1. Now let it be considered how utterly inconsistent, in its tendencies and actual operation, the business of dram-selling is with every genuine purpose of an Inn. Every appropriate bud of such an establishment is marred, if not wholly defeated. 38 SUPPEESSION OF THE LIQHOE TEAFFIC by connecting with it this business of pandering to the lowest appetites, and exciting the worst passions that disgrace the species. Look at any legitimate design of a tavern. Is it in- tended for the accommodation of the neighboring public on occasions of business and general concourse? ' But if on such occasions we would secure the trustiest discharge of public business — if we would provide for peace and decorum among large and promiscuous assemblies — if we would not have noise and riot, brawling and violence, banish from the public house the temptations and facilities of drunken excitement. Is it iesigned, furthermore, for the accommodation of travelers, to provide for them a temporary home, and minister to their necessities? Then how preposterous to convert their home into a tippling-house, and render it the favorite resort of the idle, the impertinent, and the boisterous — to defeat, just so far as this business prevails, the whole design of accommodating travelers ! Two occupations are thus conjoined under the same roof and in the same person, which are every way antagonist to each other. The ends of the one must be saciliced, just so far as those of the other are attained. Both can not flourish. There can not be a good tavern which is also a prosj^erous grog-shop. The one implies peace, quiet, neatness, an orderly and ready ministration to the wants of the wayfaring ; whOe the whole tendency and inevitable operation of the 5ther, if carried on with any success, is to produce a scene of disgust- ing filth, confusion, and disquiet, not twice to be wUlingly entered by the decent. That this is a sore evil and a glaring inconsistency, I appeal to every reader who has had occasion to endure the accommodations of our common inns about the country. The last place on earth in which this traflic in the means of disorder and annoyance should be allowed, is the place to which we send the weary and way-worn for quiet and refresliment. And see how amply the public accommodation in this sort is provided for ! Along our public ways, often at every mile or tA\o, a suspicious-looking house with an importunate sign thrusts itself on the public notice, and begs a weary world to allow itself to be refreshed ! But the luckless wayfarer who is enticed to enter, pays for his temerity by finding himselt SUPPEESSHN OF THE LIQUOE TEAFPIC. 39 deemed and provided for as a tippler. And who will pretend that one-half of these so-called inns are needed for public con Venience, or that they derive more than a fraction of theii support from the appropriate business of an inn? Multitudes of them neither receive, nor from their situation and character could be expected to receive, more than a casual and meagre patronage as houses of public accommodation in any proper sense whatever. They are a dead weight on society — they are sustained at an immense public charge — and they inflict on the community the direst mischiefs in return. They are not Inns ; they are drink-shops in that disguise, licensed in a false name and on false pretenses, and designed as the con- venient resort of a wretched constituency of neighboring sots. Such are more than half the taverns in this State, as any traveler of sutBcient temerity may learn. Instead of being an advantage to the public or to the community in which they are located, they are at once a disgrace and a curse to their neighborhood. Each is a center of wide-spread debauchery and decay. 2. The practical difSculty will, in many places, be found to lie here: “Our tavern,” it will be said, “ can not sustain itself on the mere tavern-business of the place. It will fail, if we deny it this other source of profit from the sale of drinks. But we must have a tavei-n — therefore we must concede it the privilege of rum-selling.” It were a thousand-fold cheaper, then, to raise by tax and pay over to such an establishment in regular installments, from year to year, the balance of a fair support, rather tlian to make it a nursery of vice, and suffer 'it to support itself by deprav- ing the morals and preying on the thrift of the community. In the other case you say to the man, “ Keep us here a tavern ■—get what you can from it as a tavern — and for the' rest, keep drinks, teach our neighbors and sons to love them, and they’ll pay jmu the balance ! ” Such is the virtual compact on which many a tavern is opened. Pass on now a dozen years, and count the advantages of this economical scheme. It is less of a tavern now than at first, but it is a very public house. At first it found little help from the bar ; such were the general virtue and correct habits of the neighborhood, that it ^0 SUPPEESSION OF THE LIQTJOE TRAFFIC. yielded small gains for a time. But a beginning was madt\ Your neighbor A has paid a trifle there, and B sometimef drops in, and C just takes a drop» The work is well begun Your sou has learned the way there. A growing thirstinesg is among you. Loose habits gain ground, indolence prevailSj and strange medicines have come into vogue. And so, year by year, the poison works ever deeper and wider. And now, ten or fifteen years being past, balance your accounts with this cheap tavern. That fine young fellow then, rich in liealth and character and homestead — that is he, the ragged bully yonder, lounging at the tavern steps in the capacity of deputy hostler ! His wife and children are in yonder hovel. These have been terrible years to her and to him. Infinitely better and cheaper for him if years ago, when he first entered that tavern, he had laid down on the counter a deed of his hundred acres, as his share toward sustaining it free of drink. And where is jmur neighbor B, that man of office and leader of men ? Dead, three years ago ; he was singularly handled, had wild fits of fury at times, and saw horrible visions of serpents .and devils — “ Inflammation on the brain ’’ — and the town paid for his coffin! And his aged widow, and two in- temperate sons, and the sottish widow of his third son, who broke his neck at a raising, and her five children, are all counted among the town poor ! That man was worth more than many taverns. Insanity has prevailed too. Captain C, one evening of muster-day, after displaying all through the duties and trials of the day as much sanity as' military men in general, went mad at night and butchered his wife ! The State supports him now, the town his six orphans. And what a change for the worse all over the place ! It is not merely so many fitllen, so manj' bankrupt — not merely that many of your old acquaintances are sleeping now in prema- ture and shameful graves — nor oven that that son, who took his first glass in that tavern, now costs you thousands, and wrings your heart with every pang which a besotted ami vagabond child can inflict — but alas ! what a loose and grace- less generation has sprung up ! What indolence and mis- chief and vice abound ! Poverty fallen thirty per cent.— moi’als eighty 1 But you have had your tavern. You have 8ITPPKT:SSI0N of the LIQXJOjR TKAFFIC. 41 trio^ that sagacious expedient for sustaining it, not by put- ting your own liand in your pocket and paying what it was worth, but by letting tlie dealer put his hand in and help himself — and not int"' your pockets only, but into tlie heaTts and characters and lives ot you all ! You have paid him out Sf the best blood of your hearts. ?.. But a still more important consideration remains. By lliis pervei'se and unnatural union, the whole tavern system is surremlered into the hands of the enemy, and becomes a legalized and efficient agency for the continuance and exten- sion of intemperance. Here and there at suitable points over the country. Inns are needed ; and this necessity is made di- rectlj'’ subservient to the nurture and patronage of vice, by ^fastening to these useful establishments the i^ernicious system of dram-selling. The Traffic is allowed to seize upon them and appropriate them to its own use. At these places of most public I'esort are stored up and displayed the tempta- tions and facilities of indulgence, and the work of seduction is carried on at every advantage and on the broadest scale. They constitute a favored class of dram-shops, for on their premises depraved appetite may sate itself without restric- tion. Secure fi'ora responsibility, they smite indiscriminately among the multitude with the keenest weapon of death. Theirs is a dagger that kills not here and now, but hides its deep wound in the heart, and sends its victim elsewhere for a grave. They kindle and nurse the appetite that finds in other scenes its miserable maturity. The transient tippler who finishes his course with delirium in some loathsome cell in a distant city, has for years been imbibing that periiition per haps in half the taverns in the State ; and grinmng in fit demon form around hi lie need requires a real Inn, it might be sustained as suck We have now more than twice as many as are needed or can be sustained as taverns simply, and therefore they are de- graded into drink-houses. Now let these inconsistent callings of the inn-keeper and the dram-vender be forever separated. Give us only real taverns, and we will sustain all we Avant. We may be told that there is perfect freedom to ojten Tem- perance Taverns, if we wish; and that such bouses have 6TTPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TEAITIC. 43 failed often enough to show that only taverns of the old stamp can he sustained. This appears jdausihle, hut a little thouglit will show it to oe an entire fallacy. Temperance houses, that is, Taverns sti-ictly, have often and perhaps gen- erally proved failures. Why? Partly heeause they have not met with that ready and generous support from the friends of Temperance which they had reason to expect ; paaly be- cause they have not been opened at eligible points, but at third and fourth-rate locations; but more than for all other reasons, because of the multitude of rum-selling establish- ments, facetiously styled Taverns by the Authorities, swarm- ing at all corners, sustained in very small part by the rea» business of a tavern, the balance derived from dram-selling ; these mongrel establishments divide up the appropriate inn- custom into shares so small, that no tavern, as such, can live on it. A Temperance house, on the same spot where one of these could thrive, fails of course ; not because it does not. better answer all the real purposes of a Tavern, but simply because, with the scanty dividend of aiipropriate patronage which falls to its share, it will not eke out a support by strik- ing hands with death and pocketing the price of blood. It may also be said that there may be and are establish- ments that meet every reasonable expectation as Inns, and yet retain the sale of diinks. It may be ; but such instances upon examination will furnish us the clearest proof of the irreconcilable incongruity of the two employments. For one of these two things will be found true of every such respect- able exception to the ordinary vileness of grog-vendimr tav- erns : either its keeper is a man who carries on a strenuous and continual contest against all the legitimate tendencies of the Traffic, and thus by beating back the evil, maintains, in spite of it, a decent house ; or he has sunk the drink-depart- ment almost to nothing, withdrawn his bar, hidden it from Bight, and virtually discontinued the sale. In either case we have ^that most convincing testimony which a reluctant wit- ness yields against himself, that an irreconcilable antagonism exists between the traffic in alcoholic drinks and all the true ends of a tavern. We have dwelt at such length on the Traffic in ^is conneo SUPPRESSIOIT OF THE LIQrOE TRAFFIC. tion, because just here we are still making the most pregnant concession to Intemperance. At a time when entertainment and accommodation were synonymous with diink, it is not strange that a Taverner came to be regarded as, ex-officio^ a vender of this epitome of all comforts. In such times grew up the notion that, in the nature of things, a Tavern is a dram-shop with a bedroom and barn appended ; and its keeptcr a man cunning in the concoction of drinks, who incidentally also provides food and rest, such rest as can be had in the purlieus of a dram-shop. And to this day that is the preva- lent conception of a Tavern— the bar-room, as the central idea, to which are added, by-the-by, certain appendages for the accommodation of those who do not find in drink a sum- mary supply for all wants. And on this conception our laws are framed. In a word, there is no point at which this reform has made so little impression as at this; and any intelligent movement against the Traflic must include, as one of its chief aims, the redemption of our Tavern system from this strange abuse. Recent Attempts at Legislation. But we have already entered upon this last stage of the Temperance Reform. For several years past our work has been impelling us to a more direct conflict with the Traflic, and in several of our States this decisive battle is already begun. But our attempts thus far have only been introductory Assuredly we shall not rest in these indirect methods of legis- lation. It has doubtless been wise to approach the question of Law experimentally, until it shall have matured itself in the popular mind. And no plan could have secured this so well as that which we have been trying, by submitting the fate of the Traflic, town by town, to the suffrages of the peo- ple. But we shall have far other Law than this. Our aim ia to secure as speedily as possible direct legislation against tlio Traflic in intoxicating drinks, as against other pernicious and criminal practices. We shall not cease to demand legislative action until this work of temptation and destruction is di- rectly prohibited under severe penalties. Meantime we have . urged this scheme of local and popular legislation in the pri- erypRESsioN of the liquor traffic. 45 mfiry assemblies of tlie people only as an initiative. It is a very imperfect measure, but its excellence for the time lay in its imperfection. We should not tolerate such a mode of legislation against theft, nor shall we long tolerate it in this •case. Jbit have nut all our attempts in tliis direction failed ? Very fer from it. And if any are disheartened by recent apparent reverses, we would ask of tnem a careful consideration of the following thoughts. In the nature of the case, so wide a change in legislation as this is, from favoi'ing to repressing the Traffic in drinks, must be attended for a season with popular revulsions. There will be a period of fluctuation. This should have been anticipated by us from the first. As yet the people know not fully what they mean in this matter. The real intent and purposes of this State is that there will be Law against the Traffic, and that will at length be -the result. Meanwhile the wish of the people has not yet clearly become their will. Unstable souls are shaken from side to side. Tlie popular voice is uncertain All this is but natural. It is only the beginning of the end and should create no alarm. This cause has been inured from its infancy to popular clamor. In the midst of just such agi- tation and storiuful debate it has won its triumphs ; and now that it has reached a hardy and vigorous maturity, we need not fear to trust it once more to wind and wave. For a time it will meet with a doubtful reception, and with temporary rejection ; but it will return again like the stronger flow of obstructed waters, sweeping all obstacles before it. The question has gone down to work itself out among the people, and ere long it will emerge in the shape of an imperative and undeniable popular demand for prohibitory Law against this traffic. There is need among us of a more philosophic composure ir view of these temjjorary checks. We should mingle with our wishes more of hopeful trust in the strength of great princi- ples. Let us watch with confidence the process by which tho great exj^eriment is wrought out, possessing our souls in pa- tience as well as in zeal, sure that what men may call defeat, by God’s favor hides in it blessing and a victory. t6 SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. It is not now as it has been in years past, when the Tem2)erance sentiment was mainly operative in other directions, and conscious of weakness submitted to legislation which it could not avert. All parties have felt at liberty, in time past, to treat it with contempt and opposition, for it could i^e done mtli impunity. Kow it has gained strength ; and though it is the creature of no party, cwidg allegiance to none, and connecting itself with no party as such, it has nevertheless become a most influential element in the political world. The demand comes up more and more loudly from the heart of the people, for protection against the intolerable ravages of the Spirit-tratfic, for legal restraints on a source of wo, penury, and crime surpassing all others, and wdiich no- moral means can reach. It is rising, still rising, already passing into the ascendant, already having power to pull down and to set up. What they shall do with it — what it will do with them — are questions of deep interest to those who at this crisis have place and pow’er in the State. Will they consult for the right, or yield to the clamors of the thirsty ? Will they listen to the voice from above, or to the voices from be- neath ? To venture now on an esjsousal of the doomed traSic would be to share henceforth its falling fortunes. We do not anticipate an act of such blind infatuation on the part of any party. There is prudence enough to count the cost of such a step. There is yet another consideration which has not been sufiiciently weighed, and which will be still more needful in the future. Thera is an inherent impossibility that new Law should at once have aU Che force and easy applicability of that which is old. The conditions of the case forbid the perfect immediate operation of a recent statutu in a matter like this. And we call on all who are desirous of better Laws, to forearm themselves with considerate anticipations as to the immediate working of even a perfect Law, when we get it. The de- mand seems to have been, that in this transition state of the popular mind, when it has indeed made itself up prevalenth, but only par- tially, in iavor of restrictive Law — while as yet old prejudices, cus- toms, and appetite conspire mightily against it, and the ne'wness cf the Law forbids it those supports of age, authority, and usage cn which the efiiciency of the Laws so largely dej^end — that a roer-nt statute, amid all these obstructions, should go at once into smoctli and easy and universal operation ! There shall be no fair trial-time, no day of grace, no considerate allowance for the peculiarities of the case. Away with it if in one twelvemonth it do not show all the energy and authority of a Law of a hundred years’ growth against a crime universally reprobated ! The absurdity of such an expectation is apparent on the slightest reflection. And yet it is quite a cominco SUPPRESSION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 47 impression that, only once get right Law, it will immediately ba capable of complete ai:»plication. Suppose now that instead of possessing a clear and long-settled character as a crime, theft liad all along been licensed, defended by many as a natural right, and practiced with impunity. An opiiosiiig Bcntiment springs nj), and linally turns the drift against it. Still it iiolds ground, and jnultitudes claim it as an inalienable and consti- tutional privilege to steal. In short, let it stand just where this equal erime of drunkard-making now stands. Who does not see that to obtain and enforce Law against theft would in that case bo for a time as difficult and delicate a matter as we find this ? This impatience therefore is utterly unreasonable. It demands an impossibility. It overlooks all the conditions of force and authority in Law. An immense friction is to be overeome by any new statute in an unwonted direction, before it can have full force and easy ap- plicability — a friction which in some cases of reformatory Law may for a time almost forbid its present motion. This is inevitable and must be endured. Let righteous Law have its plaee on the Statue- book. It will be much that it stands there. For there is a power in right Law beyond its immediate availability. Like wisdom, it standeth in the top of high places, and its voice is to the sons of men. Law is itself one of our highest moral means, and has an edueative influence on the poirular mind and heart. Let there bo right Law, therefore, and we will ap2rly and enforce it as we can. Its restrictive energies will more and more develojr themselves ; and the time is not distant when no Law will have easier operation than this. It only remains tc consider now the plausible objeetion, that while the popular mind is yet so divided and unsettled, it is iiremature to demand legislation. Wait, we are told, till you are strong enough to carry and keeii a perfect Law. Wait till this moral want shall have become the undoubted will of the people, and they shall have made up their minds so clearly that there shall be none of this fluctuation and jiainful uncertainty. We must decline such counsel. We can not wait — we ought not to wait — and it would be ruinous to attempt it. We can not, for as by a Divine impulse the Temjierance sentiment is already every- where assuming the shajie of a struggle for Law against the Traffic. We have reached that stage of this Reform. The irrogress of things has brought us to this part of our work. It is in vain to decline it. The crisis has come, and we must meet it. Nor ought we to wait. Such is the character of this traffic, so fully is it now known to b« the fountain-head of all the evils of intemperance, that every just $8 BtTPPRESSIOX OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. principle and every right emotion impel us to hold no terrr/s with ft but (hose of resolved and utmost opposition. We feel it a shamePal and guilty thing that Law should countenance it, that it should not prohibit it, as one of the highest crimes among men. And we must clear our souls of the guilt of it by seizing the first moment of our r.bility 1o turn Law as decidedly as possible against it. And we gain nothing by postponing the struggle. To -^iiiit until the work of right legislation shall be easy, will be to wait forever. For while we delay, the Traffic retains its activity and holds us back. We rhall gain little increase of strength while it remains in unimpaired operation. Defer the struggle long as we may, there will still Ira the same intrinsic difficulty from the novelty of Law and the fiuo- tuations of popular feeling ; and equal incidental obstructions would still embarrass the undertaking. We are not premature, then, in our demand for righteous Law. We know it is an arduous struggle, but it must be made, and our strength will not be relatively increased by delay. The public mind will ne^ er make itself up for Law until it is put resolutely to it as a present question. We have been able to begin the work in this direction, and we are able to carry it forward. We are ripe for i movement in advance, and it would be neither wise nor right to ds- fer it if we could — uor have we the jDower to defer it if we would It is begun, and we can not look back. THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. BY KEY. ALBERT BARNES. • BUall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischlel by a law?” — Psalm xciv. 20. “THRONE of iniquity” is a throne or government that is founded on iniquity, or that sustains iniquity. Such a throne or government “frames mischief by a law ” when by its laws it protects or patronizes that which is evil, or when those who practise evil may plead that what they do is legal, and may take refuge under the laws of the land. Such a throne of government, the Psalmist says, can have no fellowship with God. H’S throne is a throne of righteousness. He makes no law to protect or to regulate evil. His laws, in relation to all that is wrong, only prohibit and condemn. They who practise iniquity iu any form c.aa never take refuge under his statutes; can never claim that what they do is legal under his administration ; can never plead the patronage of his government ; can never appeal to the sanction of nis laws against those moral influences which may be employ- ed to induce them to abandon their course of life or the business in wuich they are engaged. A iaw framed to vrotect evil is a method of framing mischief by a law. A law which assumes that a thing is wrong, and yet tolerates it ; which attempts only to check and regulate it, with- out utterly prohibiting it ; which aims to derive a revenue from it for tnc purpose of government; which makes that which is morally wjong Icyal^ is one of those things in human affairs with which the throne of God can have no fellowship. A law, foi instance, wnich should assume that lotteries are evil, and are of pernicious tendency in a community, and which should neverthe- less authorize them, and seek to derive a revenue from them, though under any restrictions, would be such a form of “framing mischief by law” as could have no “fellowship” with the “throne of God.” The same would be true of gaming establish- ments ; and the same must be true of all acknowledged forms of iniquity. 4 THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. An evil always becomes icorse by being sustained by the lawe of the laud. It is much to have the sanction of law and the moral force of law in favor of any course of human conduct. In tlie estimation of many persons, to make a thing legal is to make it morally right, and an employment which is legal is jiursuedby them with few rebukes of conscience, and with little disturbance from any reference to a higher than human authority. Moreover, this fact does much to deter others from opposing the evil, and from endeavoring to tui'P the public indignation against it. It is an unwelcome thing for a good man ever to set himself against the laws of the land, and to denounce that as wrong which they affirm to be right. It is a virtue to be law-loving and law-abid- ing; and it is a principle which every gooi citizen cherishes to do what he can to give additions,! force to the authority of law, and not to lend the sanction. of his name to that which would weaken its moral power. Hence r-uch men are often slow and reluctant in attacking that which an undoubted evil, for the attack seems to be made upon the legal fabric as such, and to do just so much to weaken the authority ot law. The good are deterred from opposing it, for they dc- not wish to seem to be arrayed against the laws. The bad are co»'ilrnied in their course, for they feel that they are sustained by the Vws of the land, and for them that is enough. They can claim *00, some popular sympathy when they are denounced for doine that which islegal. They can pursue their course in spite of all H'at others can do. Thus the evil grows in strength by all the boldness given to them by the sanction of the laws, and by all the reluctance of the friends of reform to denounce that as wrong which the Jaw affirms to be right. The same thing is true, when there is an attempt, nrt directly to sustain and countenance the evil as such, but to regulaU it God never does this in his government; for his law lends no sanction to that which is wrong, does nothing to regulate it, has no pro visions for deriving a benefit from it. It prohibits and condemns- and that is all. But much is done to countenance evil when th> law seeks to regulate it ; to check it, but not to remove it ; to tas it ; tc derive a revenue from it ; and to make supplemental provisions for the mischiefs which grow up under its own enact- ments. The laws in relation to the traffic in intoxicating drinks in this country have been, in the main, enacted on the principles just alluded to. The traffic has been admitted to be so full of peril THE THRONE OF INIQUITY, 8 that it needed to be checked and regulated, and the laws hava been made on the supposition that it could not be thrown open indiscriminately to all classes of citizens. Hence, it has been supposed that a special permission or license'' was necessary in order to guard the traffic, and that not a license, as in the case of dry goods and tin-ware, on the sole ground of raising a revenue, but on the ground that it was dangerous, and that, therefore, it should be entrusted only to those in whom the com- munity could confide, with the additional idea that the state had a right to raise a revenue from it, as a compensation for the pro- tection extended to it. In our country, it has never been assumed to be safe and proper that the business should be thrown open to any and all who might choose to engage in it, as any persons who choose and as many as choose, may engage in the business of farm- ing or gardening ; of making hats, or shoes, or coffins ; of build- ing houses, or manufacturing ploughs or wagons. It is assumed in the laws that it is to be a regulated evil ; and the object is not to prohibit it, but first to keep it within certain bounds, and then to provide for the evils which grow out of it by taxing the virtuous and industrious to bear the expenses of the crime and pau23erism which it was anticipated would be produced in spite of all the precautions of the state. There was once such legis- lation about lotteries; there has been such in some countries about licentiousness ; but, with some few exceptions, »t is be- lieved there is no such legislation on any other subject now in the world. The time has come when it is proper to enquire whether this is the true principle on this subject; whether a great and acknow- ledged evil can ever be suppressed in this way; or whether the traffic should be wholly prohibited by law, accompanied with suitable penalties. The evils of intemperance are in all respects so great, and are, in spite of all the legal enactments now existing, BO far spread and spreading in the land; the loss to the nation in its moral character and in its productive industry is so great; the cost of prosecuting for crime committed under the influence of intoxicating drinks, and the taxes to support paupers made by intemperance, are so great; the failure of the appeals made by argument and moral suasion are, in painful respects, so manifest ; the woes and lamentations caused by intemperance come uo still BO loud and so piercing from all parts of the ffind ; the ruin of the body and the soul of a human being is so dreadful; and the fact that tens of thousands of our countrymen are annually sent to a 8 THB THRONE OF INIQUITY. dishonored grave as the result of the “ drinking usages ol society ” — these things are forcing the enquiry upon the pub- lic mind whether it is or is not proper and practicable to prohibit the traffic altogether, and whether this is not the point which legislation must reach, and should reach, in regard to this great evil. We, who are assembled here, constitute a part of the commu- nity who, through our representatives, make and administer the laws of the land. Those laws wall be always in our country merely the exponent of public opinion, p-nd the nature of the pub- lic opinion will find an expression in the laws. With a view, therefore, to the formation of a correct public opinion as far as my voice may have any influence, and ultimately to a change in the whole course of legislation on this subiect in our common- wealth and country, and imitating the example of that great man who “ reasoned ” on temperance, as well as on “ righteousness and judgment to come ” — the one closely connected wdth the others — (Acts xxiv. 23), I propose to submit to you a tew considerations on the propriety of a law prohibiting entirely, wuth suitable pen- alties, the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a beverage. For so important a proposed change in legislation — a change affecting the business of so large a part of the community, and so much invested capital, and reversing the maxims so long regarded as settled on the subject of legislation — it is proper tbatreasons should be submitted to an intelligent public. Such a change is not to be produced by mere excitement, still less by denunciation. ' Such a law as is proposed cannot be obtained without appros'ing itself to a reflecting community ; such a law, if obtained, could not be enforced unless it should commend itself to such a community as founded on just principles of legislation. I propose, therefore, first, to lay down a few principles in reference to legislation as bearing upon public evils, and then to enquire into their applica- tion to this particular case. We have not now the point to argue that it is right and proper to legislate in regard to this trafllc. That point is acted, on by all the legislatures in the laud, and is acquiesced in by the people, ft is assumed in all the laws which pertain to the importation of spirituous liquor ; by all the statutes which relate to “ licensing ’’ public-houses to sell it ; by all the enactments in the several States to regulate the sale. , Wc have not now the point to argue that it is right to make laws, in certain cases, prohibiting the sale. The laws now assuma THE THKONK OP INIQUITY 1 that it 18 right to prohibit the sale by large classes of the citi- zens, foi the laws entrust the sale to a selected few. and restrain all others. We have not now the point to argue that such a law as is pro- posed, amounting to an entire prohibition, would be, in any one of the States, conformable to the Constitution of the United States for this point has been settled by the highest judicial authority in the land. In the celebrated “license cases,” involving the constitutionality of laws passed by the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, “ for discouraging the use of ardent spirits, by prohibiting their sale in small quantities, and without licenses previously granted by the State authorities,” the constitutionality of those laws was affirmed, and the following opinions were expressed by the justices on the general subject. See 5 Howard’s “Reports of Cases argued and adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States,” pp. 504-633. Chief-Justice Taney said : “ If any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calcu- lated to produce idleness, vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to prevent it from regulat- ing or restraining the traffic, oi- from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper.’’ — 5 Howard 577. Mr. J ustice McLean said : “ A license to sell an article, foreigB or domestic, as a merchant, or inn-keeper, or victualler, is a mat- ter of police and revenue, within the poioer of the State," — 5 How- ard 589. And again: “It is the settled construction of every regulation of commerce that, under the sanction of its general laws, no person can introduce into a community malignant diseases, or anything which contaminates its morals or endangers its safety.” — Ibid. “ If the foreign article be injurious to the health or mo- rals of the community, a State may, in the exercise of that great and comprehensive police power which lies at the foundation of its prosperity, prcA/Stf the sale of it." — Ibid. 592. “No one can claim a license to retail spirits as a matter of right.” — Ibid. 597. Mr. Justice Catron said : “ If the State has the power of restraint by licenses to any extent, she has the discretionary power to judge of its limits, and may go to the length of prohibiting sales alto- gether.” — 5 Ho-ward 611. Mr. J ustice Daniel said of imports that are cleared of all control of the government which permits their introduction: “They are like all other property of the citizen, and should be equally the Bubjects of domestic regulation and taxation, whether owned by aa 8 THE THEOKE OF INIQUITY. importer or his vender, or may have been purchased by cargo, package, bale, piece, or yard, or by hogsheads, casks, oi bottles.” — 5 Howard 614. In answering the argument that the importer purchases the right to sell when he pays duties to the Government, Mr. Daniels continues to say : “No such right as the one supposed is purchased by the importer, and no injury in any accurate sense is inflicted on him by denying to him the power demanded. He has not purchased, and cannot purchase, from the Government that which it could not ensure to him — a mh, independ/- *.ntly of the laws and policy of the States." — Had. 616. Mr. Justice Woodbury said: “ After articles have come within the territorial limits of States, whether on land or water, the destruction itself of what constitutes disease and death, and the longer continuance of such articles within their limits, or the terms and conditions of their continuance, when conflicting with their legitimate police, or with their power over internal commerce, or with their right of taxation over all persons and property within their jurisdiction, seems one of the first principles of State sovereignty, and indispensable to public safety.” — 5 Howard 630. Mr. Justice Grier said: “It is not necessary to array the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism, and crime which have their origin in the use and abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in the State, is alone competent to the correction of tliese great evils, and all measures of restraint or pro- hibition necessary to effect that piui'pose are within the scope of that authority. There is no conflict of power or of legislation as between the States and the United States; each is acting within its sphere, and for the public good, and if a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be a gainer a thousand-fold in the health, wealth, and happiness of the people" — 5 Howard 632. These opinions put beyond question the constitutionality of the law which is asked for. What is asked for, therefore, in this case is not that there shouldbe legislation on the subject, but that the legislation should be right. The principle now assumed in the legislation on the subject is that an acknowledged evil, which if left to itself would only spread woe and ruin through a community, is to be tole'''ated and regulated ; that a business always dangerous to the health, and morals, and souls of men is to be restrained, but nd forbidden. We ask that it should he prohibited altogether. THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. 9 The principles in legislation to which I referred as bearing on public evils are five in number. 1. First, society has a right to protect iUelf. I do not know that this would be called in question, for it is universally acted on ; but the importance of the principle itself, and its connection with the point before us, demand that it should be well under- etood, and that its bearings should be clearly seen. It is import- ant to understand that there is such a right, in fact, and to se» clearly to what it extends. («) In regard to the fact, it may be remarked that it is inherent in the nature of a right that there should be the prerogative of self-protection or self- defence, and that all societies and all indi- viduals act on it. God has a right to protect his own government, not to say him- self, and is constantly doing it, by all his prohibitions of certain courses of conduct ; by all the penalties affixed to his laws ; by all tfie punishments which he brings on transgressors ; by all that he does to overthrow and crush the enemies of himself and of hia kingdom. Man as an individual, or as the head of a family, has a right to protect himself or his family by all the wisdom which he has ; by all the strength, properly employed, which he possesses; by all the aid which he can secure from the magistrate under the operation of law ; and by all his appeals to the God of truth and justice. There are arrangements everywhere to secure him in the protection of his rights, and he does no wrong if he avails himself of these to defend those rights against all who would invade them. Society has a right to protect itself. The right is inherent in the organization. It is always acted on. If it were not so, the attempt to organize civil society would be a farce. In all civil society it is assumed that this is so. Hence the enactment of laws ; the affixing of penalties to laws ; the institution of courts ; the establishment of a police force ; the infliction of fines and imprisonment; the cutting off of those who are dangerous by capital punishment ; the employment of a military force to sup- press riot and rebellion; the resisting of foreign invaders; and the suppression of treason. All these proceed on the principle that society has a right to protect itself so as to secure the ends of the organization. (&) But to what does the right extend? Clearly to everything where injury or wrong would be done. In God’s government ii 10 THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. extends to everything where his honor or his law is involved ; in the case of man as an individual, or as the head of a family, to everything where he or his family have righU which are invaded oy others ; in regard to society, to every thing which pertains to the public, and which affects the public good. “Let a man,” says Blackstone, “be ever so abandoned in his principles, oj picious in his practice, provided he keeps his vrickedness to him' self, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself (as drunkenness or the like), they then become, by the bad example they set, of pernicious effect to society ; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them.” — i. 124. As this principle is interpreted by society, it extends to every- thing which would affect its good order, its safety, its pros- perity, its existence — a protection of society extended in lehaJf of all that would promote its welfare ; a protection against all that would injure, endanger, or destroy it. It is a protection ex tended to the peaceful pursuits of industry; to the person and reputation of individuals; to all that contributes to good morals and order; to the rights of conscience; to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a protection of the community against all which would invade it by force and arms ; against all which would corrupt or weaken it ; against all which would undermine the public morals ; against all vices, as Blackstone specifies, which are of a public nature, and which tend by example to be of per- nicious effects in society. On these principles of self-protection, society legislates against lotteries, against gaming, against counterfeiting the public coin, against drunkenness, against profaneness, against poisonous or corrupted drugs, against any employment that in its nature tends to endanger the public health, peace, or morals. No man, on this principle, is allowed to set up and prosecute a public busi- ness, however lucrative it may be, which will have either of these effects; for the public good is of more consequence than any private gain could be. If, foi instance, a man should set up a lahery in this city, in which, by the infusion of a deleterious drug into his bread, he would endanger the public health, society would not hesitate a moment in regarding this as a proper subject of legislation, and would never dream of tolerating it, or taxing it, or regulating it, or licensing it. If from the bakeries of this city, bread of such a character should go forth for a single THE THKONB OF INIQUITY. 11 morning, and there was a general concert and understanding among the bakers to continue this practice as the regular line of their business — if there was not law enough in the commu- nity to put a stop to it, thei’e would not be patience and for- hearmice enough to prevent a storm of public indignation that would in a day lay every such bakery in ruins. There arc not as many bakeries in this city as there are houses for selling intoxicating liquors. 3. I lay it down, as a second principle in regard to legisla- tion, that society should not by its laws protect evil. This, per- haps,. is sutEciently clear from the remarks already made, but the importance of the principle in itself, and in the application which I intend to make of it, requires that it should be made a little more distinct and prominent. The position is that the purpose of society in organizing a government, and the purpose of a government under such an organization, should not be to vro~ tect evil in any form. The law is made for the lawless and dis- obedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and pro- fane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for those that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, and for perjured per- sons ” (1 Tim. i. 9), and not to piotect those who practise these vices, or to protect anything which will give facility in practising them. The true object of legislation is to prevent.^ not to protect, evil. Gon never instituted a government on the earth with a view to its throwing a protecting shield over vice and immorality ; he has never commissioned men to sit in high places to accomplish any such work. The end of government, so far as it bears on that point at all, is to suppress crime ; to punish wrongdoers ; to remove iniquity, to promote that which is just and true. And it matters not what the evil is, nor how lucrative it may be made, nor how much capital may be invested in it, nor how much revenue may be derived from it, nor how many persons may have an interest in its continuance, the business of the lawgiver is to suppress it, not to protect it; to bring it to as speedy an end as possible, not to become the panderer to it or the patron of it. What would be thought of a government that should, under any pretext whatever, take under its protecting care thieves, couji- terfeiters, and burglars ? 3. A third principle in regard to legislation is equally deal and equally important. It is that society should not undertake fc> regulate evil hy law. Its business is to remove it, not to regu- 12 THE THRONE OP INIQUITY late it. This principle, also, would seem to be plain enough on its very announcement, but it bears so directly on the point before us that it is proper to dwell on it a moment longer. What would a government be that should undertake to regulate mur- der, arson, adultery, burglary, or theft ? What would laws be that should “license” such crimes in any circumstances and under any restrictions? What would a law be that should undertake to derive a revenue from the act of poisoning innocent children under suitable restraints and safeguards, or that should authorize the burning of a house or barn by night under proper checks, and with suitable security in regard to the good moral character of him who did it ? I admit that there have been times and countries in which the principle against which I am now speaking has been regarded as a proper principle in legislation. Theft was tolerated and en- couraged in Sparta when properly regulated. In France, at one time, it was regarded as proper that licentiousness should be taken under the protection of law, and should be licensed and regulated ; and so gaming has been licensed and regulated ; and so lotteries have been, and so horse-racing has been, and so bull-baiting, and cock-fighting, and brutal contests between man and man have been. You may find countries, I admit, where these things are still done ; but the progress of the world is towards that point which I have laid down as a principle in all just legislation — that the object of law is not to regulate, but to remove, evil. We have applied this principle to lotteries, to horse- racing, and to gaming. We have applied it to the crimes of arson, theft, murder, treason, duelling, adultery, and polygamy. We have practically applied it to the barbarous sports of the amphi- theatre, to bull-baiting, and to open and disgraceful contests between man and man. But we have7m< applied it to all things. There is one great evil that still lingers among us, where the principle is adopted and acted on it that is to be regulated, not removed; that it is to be placed under suitable restraints, and made subservient to the purposes of Government by raising a revenue. This stands by itself, perhaps the solitary instance of this kind of legislation in our land. In all other cases, the grand prineiple is adopted and acted on that no temporary bene- fit, no profitable investment of capital, no purpose of raising a revenue, would justify a legislative body jn tolerating an evil and regulating it by law. The doctrine which I am defending Is that this principle should be adopted in regard to aU that is THE THROVE OF INIQUITY. IS evil; that the great purpose of government is to remove it, not to patronize and regulate it. 4. I state, as a fourth principle in regard to legislation, tlial - society has a right to take efficient means to prevent or lemova an evil. As an illustration of this, and as bearing on the point before us, I refer to what comes under the denomination of a nuisance, I intend to use the word nuisance, not only in its proper legal signification, but in a large sense as extending to public morals, as well as to public comfort and convenience. The propriety of this principle is so well settled in regard to what ia properly and legally called a nuisance that it is needless to attempt to argue it here. A ‘ ‘ nuisance is that w'hich annoys or gives trouble and vexation ; that wdiich is offensive or noxious. A liar is a nuisance to society.” — Wehster's Die. It is a settled principle that a man may himself remove a private nuisance (3 Blackstone 5), provided he causes no riot by it ; a public nuisance is to be removed by proper process of law. What I am now saying is that society has a right to make provision by law for the prevention or removal of all that can properly come under this name, no matter w'ho is affected or how much property IS rendered worthless. Nuisances or evils that individuals or society have a right to protect themselves against are such things, as defined in the law- books, as rue following; a man’s building his house so near to mine that his roof overhangs my roof ; erecting a house or other building so near to mine that it obstructs my ancient lights and windows ; keeping noisome animals so near to the house of another that the stenen of them incommodes him, and makes the air unwholesome; a setting up and exercising an offensive trade, as a tanner’s or a fallow-chandler’s; erecting a smelting-house for lead so near to the land of another that the vapor and smoke kill his corn and grass, and damage his cattle. And so to stop or divert water that uses to run to another’s meadow or mill, or to corrupt or poison a water-course, by erecting a dye-house or lime-pit for the use of trade in the upper part of the stream, is a nuisance which society has a right to abate. — 3 Blackstone 317, 218. “ So clearly,” says the great author of the “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” “ does the law of England enforce that excellent rule of Gospel morality, of doing to others as eve would they should do unto ourselves.” And so the same great writer, in another place, says, “All disorderly inns, or ale-houces, bawdy-houses, gaming-houses, stage-plays unlicensed _ baotki 14 THE THEON’E OF INIQUITY. and stages for rope-dancers, mountebanks, and the like, ara public nuisances .” — i Blacks. 167. So lotteries hare often been declared public nuisances, and have been suppressed by law as such; and so the selling of fireworks and squibs, or throwing them about in the street, is a nuisance. — 4 Blacks. 168. On these principles, our own commentator on American law says: “The Government may, by general regulations, interdict such uses of property as would create nuisances, and become dangerous to the lives, or health, or peace, or comfort of the citizens. Unwhole- some trades, slaughter-houses, operations offensive to the senses, the deposit, of powder, the building with combustible ma^rials, and the burial of the dead, may be interdicted by law, ia the midst of -Jense masses of poimlation, on the general and rational principle that every person ought so to use his property as not to injure his neighbors, and that private interest must be made subservient to the general interest of the communit 3 u” — 3 Kent 340. These, then, are nuisances that may be abated; these are uses of p’-operty that may be interdicted by law for the sake of the public health, peace, comfort. Private interest is to be sacrificed to public good, and society is to take care that property shall not be so used as to be detrimental to the public happiness. This principle is of broad application in a community, and society acquiesces in it as just and equal. Law is not to protect any man who so uses his own property as to invade the rights, endanger the health, destroy the comfort, or peril the welfare of his neigh- bor or of society at large. There are moral nuisances as well as physical — nuisances affect- ing the peace, the good order, the domestic virtues of a com- munity, and all so much the worse, and so much the more dangerous, as the peace, the good order, the domestic virtues of a community are of more importance than its physical com- forts ; and if the one may be abated or removed, by so much the more may the other. A man has no more right to employ his p^perty so that in all probability, and as the regular result of his business, it will destroy domeslic comfort, reduce his neighbor to beggary, and bring upon him disease and death, or scatter discord and woe through a community, than he has to set up a tannery or a tallow-chandlery in a neighborhood, or to obstruct my “ ancient lights and windows ” ; and if society may extend its vigilance over the one, it may over the other. The property that does the most mischief, either under th« THE THRONE OP INIQUITY. 15 protection of law or without the protection of law; that does the most to increase the public burdens by making paupers and by multiplying crimes ; that causes most estates to melt away, and that most diminishes the productive industry of the nation by indisposing or disabling ruen from labor; that produces the most wretched forms of bodily aud mental suffering; that con- signs most persons to the grave and to perdition, is that which is employed in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks All the property employed by tallow-chandlers and tanners, and the makers or sellers of squibs, and by dyers, or in any other forms of nuisance, or that would be employed if there were no laws to prohibit it, and all the injury done to the prosperity or happiness of a community by employing property in such operations, is a nameless trifle compared with the evil done by the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks. It would be impossible to induce men, by any protection which the law could give, to em^floy property so as to do as much mischief in any other way. 5. A fifth principle in regard to legislation is that society has a right to prevent or remove an evil by destroying private prop- erty, or rendering it valueless, if necessary. This principle is recognized in a case where other property or where life may be endangered, as in blowing up a house to stop the progress of a conflagration. It is recognized in the confisca- tion of goods in a contraband trafiic. It is recognized in the case of damaged hides, or corrujrted drugs, or tainted meat in the market, or the tools aud implements of counterfeiters. ‘‘The acknowledged police power of a State, ’’says Mr. Justice McLean (5 Howard’s Reports 589), “extends often to the destruction of property. A nuisance may be abated. Everything prejudicial to the health or morals of a city may be removed. Merchandise from a port where a contagious disease jirevails, being liable to communicate diseases, may be excluded; and in extreme cases it may be thrown into the sea.” The object in these last cases is to put the property out cf Vi* way ; to prevent its doing evil; to dispose of it in such a manner that it shall not corrupt the health and the morals of a com- munity. The right to destroy such property is a right inherent in society, aud the owner of damaged hides, or corrupted drugs, or the dies and stamps used in counterfeiting coin, can have no right to complain, even if his property is rendered worthless o» is destroyed. And if the seller of corrupted drugs, or the 16 THK THRONE OF INIQUITY. owner of the dies and stamps of the counterfeiters, should com plain, and should assert that he had the right to use his propertj as he pleased ; or if the owner of tainted meat in the market should assert that society had no right to dispose of his property, there would he but one voice and one feeling in an indignant and outraged community on account of a claim so monstrous. Moreover, if, instead of destroying such property, or ih some other way putting it beyond the power of doing evil, any municipal body should authorize the business, though under certain restrictions, and should attempt to derive a revenue from (t at the expense of the life and health of large numbers of its citizens, it would be an outrage on all legislation, and would excite the scorn and the abhorrence of the whole civilized world. Yet there is no property that so certainly and so uniformly works evil jn a community as that which is employed in the manufac- ture and sale of intoxicating drinks ; and all the capital on the face of the earth invested in damaged hides, and corrupted drugs, and tainted butcher’s meat, and counterfeiter’s tools, is not doing an appreciable quantity of the mischief that is done by the property that is invested in this business. These priuciples seem plain, and are such as are acted on in the ordinary course of legislation. Society could not exist if they, all of them, or any one of them, were denied ; and, in ordinary matters, we all feel that in a case covered by these principles, we have a right to appeal to the interposition of the legislative power. It remains, then, only to enquire whether they have a proper applicability to the immediate matter before us — the evils, the woes,_the wrongs, the desolations of intemperance. A.nd in refer- ence to this, there are two enquiries : (a) Why should we invoke the aid of legislation at all ? And (b) why, if legislation is neces- sary and proper, should the principles which have been laid down lead to an entire prohibition of the tralBc ? {a) The first of these enquiries is. Why should we invoke the aid of legislation at all? That is, in other words, why should we not leave this, as we do other points of morals, and as we do reli- gion, to the influence of argument and moral suasion, to the reason, the conscience, and the interest of mankind ? This enquiry can be soon answered. I admit that argument and moral suasion ; that appeals to the reason, the conscience, the self-interest of men; appeals founded on the injury that intemperance does to individu- als and to the community — to the bodies and the souls of men ; THE THEONfi OF INIQUITY. 17 1 appeals founded on the due regard to health, to happiness, and to salvation, should be plied on every hand ; and I admit that much may be done by this, as there has been heretofore done, to stay the progress of this great evil in our land. I admit that in reference to large numbers of our fellow-citizens, it h;^^ been, and it will be, all that is needed. But I wish to show you, in few words, why this is not all that is necessary, and why the temperance reforma- tion can never be complete and triumphant except by that kind of legislation which I am advocating. 1. First, then, the state has vot chosen to leave it to argument and moral suasion. It has chosen to legislate on it. It has felt that it would not be safe to leave it, as it does religion and cha- rity, to the conscience and the good feelings of mankind. It has felt that it would not be safe to leave it, as it does religion, to God and to his Providence and Spirit. It has legislated upon it. It authorizes the sale. It seeks to regulate it. It attempts to derive a revenue from it — as it does not from damaged hides, and tainted meat, and corrupted drugs. We only ask, since the state will and must legislate on it, that it legislate in regard to this as it does to any other evil. 2. Secondly, you do not rely on argument and moral suasion in any similar case. Why not rely on moral suasion and appeals to the conscience in regard to lotteries ? Why not continue to license them, and regulate them, and derive a revenue from them ; and if, after every precaution, there are still evils in regard to them, why not endeavor to check those evils by appeals to the con- sciences and the reason of the men engaged in selling lottery tickets? Why not pursue the same course in regard to gaming establishments, and to horse-racing, and bull-baiting; and if there are still evils in regard to them, seek to persuade the men engaged in these pursuits not to carry them too far; and if there are young men liable to be led astray, endeavor by moral suasion to induce them not to do that which the law' allows? And why not extend the same principle to horse-stealing, and burglary, and arson, aacl rely on moral suasion in checking these evils? Yet not one of these evils does an appreciable part of the uiischiei in our land which is done by the traffic in ardent spirits. 3. Thirdly, there is a class of men, and those most deeply inter- ested in the matter, that you can never influence by moral suasioii There is a portion that you can. The conscientious you can. The • men that truly fear God you can. The men that ordinarily con- ?ene in a Christian house of worship you can. Many young ma* 18 THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. you can. Many farmers, mechanics, professional men you can. Many men engaged in the traffic you can, even when the traffic haa been long continued, and is deemed respectable. I began my ministry in a place where there were twenty stores in which ardent spirits was sold, and where there were nineteen distilleries in which it was manufactured. In my youthful ardor, I made an appeal to my people as well as I was able on the subject. I had the happi- ness of seeing the traffic abandoned in eighteen of those stores, and of seeing seventeen of those distilleries cease to pour out the streams of demoralization and death on the community, through the influence of moral suasion. But after all that you can do in such a case, do you not know that there is a class of men in every community that you cannot reach by moral suasion, and that must be restrained by law ? They are men who enter no sanctuary ; who place themselves aloof from argument; whose hearts are hard; whose consciences are seared ; whose sole motive is gain ; and who, if the moral part of the commuuity abandon the business, will only drive it on themselves the faster. What are you to do with such men ? Are you to protect them in their business against the general sense of the commuuity? Are you to throw' the shield of law over them, and sanction all that they do ? Are you to license them, and derive a revenue froiii their business? Are you to make supplementary provisions to sustain all the paupers they will make, and to pay the costs of all the prosecutions for crimes that shall result from their employment? How are you to check, restrain, control, such men ? Is it to be by moral suasion ? All our acts of legislation answer. No. You may go far in the tempe- rance reformation by moral suasion, but it has failed in removing the evil, and from the nature of the case must always fail, just as anything else would, while the state throws its protecting shield over the traffic ; and while there are men, principled and unprin- cipled, who w'ill take advantage of such protection, and resist your arguments, and soothe their consciences in the plea that what they do is legnl. 4. And, fourthly, the existing legislation does not prevent the evil, nor can any legislation that proceeds on that princijtle pre- vent it. All such legislation must be ineffectual on any sub- ject. It is a wrong principle to authorize anything by law from which men are to be dissuaded by moral means ; a wrong principle to bring the law's into conflict with those arguments which must be used to restrain men from vice and crime. I venture to • affirm that aU the laws ever made to prevent intemperance unde* THE THRONE OF INIQUITY. 19 the system of licensing persons to sell intoxicating drinks always have failed, and always will and must fail. Is any man restrained from becoming intemperate by the license law ? Do not men drink just as much as they choose ? Are there any fewer intem- perate men in any community in virtue of those laws ? Is it not for the interest of men who pay a revenue to the state for a license to sell as much of their article of traffic as they can ? Are they not authorized to do it to any extent, and to all per- sons, and to persons in all circumstances ; and is there anything in the nature of the case, or in their contract with the State, to prevent it ? Or if there is, can you prevent it ? When a travelling merchant has paid a tax to the state for the privilege of selling his wares, does he not feel authorized to prosecute his business to any extent, and does he not feel that L 3 has paid a consideration — an equivalent — to the commonwe£’.-.,h for this privilege ? Are not men authorised to sell ardent Sj .rits by a tavern license, and is not this the very thing for wh; ,h it was granted ? And what ground of ajjpeal have you to such men as long as they can plead the sanction of the laws of the land and the authority of the State ? Let a father approacli such a man, and remind him that his business is ruining his own son. That is an affair, he would say, of the State ; and he has only, in the face of such an aj^peal, to show his license. Let a wife come to him with tears, and tell him of the woe, and poverty, and wretchedness that his business is introducing into her once happy home. He has only to exhibit his license. Let a neigh- bor remind him of the evils that intemperance does in a com- munity, and entreat him, for the love of God and humanity, to abandon the business. He has only to show his license. Let the ministers of religion plead, and let them set forth the awful consequences of that business on morals and religion, in time and in eternity, and he has only coolly to show his license. He is doing a business which is legal — u.s legal as the work of the far- mer. the mechanic, the professional man. He throws off respon- sibility. He pleads the authority of the State, and shelters himself against all arguments, and all appeals, and all persua- sions under the broad shield of that protection. And I repeat, therefore, the declaration that, considered as a rest-aint on intem- perance, the whole license system has failed, and must aheays fail. Just as many men become intemperate as choose. No man is restrained from procuring the intoxicating cup. Intemperance in the land is under the solemn sanction of the laws. 20 THE THRONE OF INIQTJITT. 0) But why, if legislation is necessary and proper, should th* principles laid down in this discourse lead to an entire prohibi- tion of the traffic ? I may now answer this question in a very summary way: because society has a right to protect itself front one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, evils ever inflicted on humanity; because society should not protect such an evil by acts of legislation, or make that legal which good men are seek- ing to remove by moral means ; because society should not attempt to regulate an evil, but should seek to remove it ; because society has a right to make use of all proper means to prevent or remove an evil ; and because, if necessary, in doing this, it has a right to render property embarked in a particular business worthless, or to destroy it. On these broad principles, I advocate the propriety of endeavoring to obtain the jiassage of such laws as shall effectually prohibit, under proper and effective penalties, this whole traffic. I start no metairhysical and abstract question about its being a sin per se to drink wine, or brandy, or any other intoxicating drink. I look at the broad fact of the evil in the land, and say that an evil so great ought to be restrained; that the principles of legislation applied to other subjects ought to be applied to this ; and that there is no other conceivable evil that would he protected, patronized, shielded, regulated, as this is, in a civilized and Christian land. It was ascertained some years since, and the statistics would be more dreadful now than they were then, that thirty thousand American citizens at least died annually from intemperance, and that more than three hundred thousand of our people were intemperate in the proper sense of the word. It was ascertained that a very large proportion of these were young men — the bone and sinew of the Eepublic, the hope of the church and of the state, and many of them connected with the best families of the land. It was ascertained th.at many of the whole number were taken from the bar, the medical profession, the pulpit, from mercantile and mechanical walks, where they might have been eminently useful. It was ascertained that they sustained all the most interesting relations of human life, as fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers. It was ascertained that the vice was usually ac- companied with every other vice, and was the fruitful source of every kind of crime. It was ascertained — or there was strong reason to suspect — that among the number of the intemperats were some thousands of females — sustaining the various relations ©f wife, mother, daughter, sister. It was ascertained, on the THE THEONB OF IITIQUITT. 21 most diligent enquiries, that from three-fourths to nine-tenths of the prosecutions for crime sprang in some way out of intempe- rance, and that from three-fourths to nine-tenths of all the expenaa necessary to maintain the paujDers in the community sprang from the same source. It was declared by the great body of physicians, and as far as I know by all whose attention was called to the subject, that there is no nutriment in alcoholic drinks; that they furnish no permanent strength to the body ; that they are dangerous to health, and that on the tissues of the stomach they act like a slow poison, producing ultimate disease ; that among the maladies produced is one of the most frightful forms of insanity; and that the regular effect of indulgence, however hardy the frame may be, will be ultimately death. It was pro- claimed by the ministers of religion that there is no other single cause that gives occasion for so much discipline in the church ; that nothing stands so much in the way of the success of the Gospel which they preach ; and, as the physician made a state- ment about the body, so they proclaimed that nothing does so much effectually to destroy the soul. These and kindred truths were proclaimed through the land ; and there were none to gainsay them, for it could not be done. The people of the city and county of Philadelphia — and the same substantially is true all over the commonwealth and the nation — pay for the expenses of the criminal courts, and for the almshouses, somewhere about three-fourths of the whole as a premium on intemperance, and as the result of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. The taxes to meet these expenses are paid by the sober, the temperate, the industrious, the pious. Out State derives a revenue of about one hundred thousand dollars annually from tavern licenses — a “penny wise and pound foolish ” operation ; for in the city and county of Philadelphia alone, the expenses of maintaining the poor, made such by the business, and of prosecuting for the crimes produced by it, and of preventing disorder and riot caused by it, exceed by far all the revenue derived from this source in the whole common- wealth.* This is unequal ; it is wrong. It is a heavy and •The exact sum received in the city and county of Philadelphia for tayem licenses n the year 1851 was $60,302 ; the whole sum of tne State was about $108,000. The expenses for prosecuting for crime, and for the support of pauper- ism, consequent on intemperance, in the city and county, was, for the same yean us accurately as it can be computed, $365,000. As showing the nature and the extent of the burd ms restingr on the community as the result of the license system, •ndthe trafflt in ardent spirits, it may be proper to present some statistics respect' 22 THB THRONE OP INIQUITY. Bppressive burden. It exists in reference to nothing else. It ii worse than the “stamp act” and the tax on “tea.” Asa sobei and industrious citizen, I cannot be required on any just principle to support the pauperism and crime made by the business ot another ; and yet there is not a licensed tavern or an unlicensed tavern in the community, however low and vile, that dees not make it necessary to tax the sober and the virtuous to meet the evils which are the regular result of its business. Should an evil like this be protected by laws; should it be assumed that it is to continue to exist; should an attempt be made merely to regulate it ; should it have the patronage of the state, and be made legal ; should a virtuous community consent to be taxed to sustain it; should intelligent and pious men lend their countenance to it ? Shall a man be restrained from setting up a slaughter-house, or a glue manufactory, or dye-works, at my door, and allowed to open a fountain that is certainly destined to corrupt the morals and the peace of the neighborhood ; that is to multiply crime and pauperism ; that will ruin the bodies and the souls of men ? We shall be told, perhaps, that this is a free country, and that the proposed law is a restraint on freedom. Free it is ; but not for everything. It is not free to sell lottery-tickets, or to set up nuisances, or to counterfeit the coin, or to open houses avowedly of infamy. We may be told that it is wrong to prevent men by law from drinking what they please. That is not the point: it is that the state shall not authorize them to manufacture and sell what they please. We may be told that it is impossible to carry the legislature j)g the Philadelphia almshonse — an institution that may be properly regarded aa furnishing a fair illustration of the working of the present system throughout the land. It is taken from the report of the Guardians of the Poor : “ The number ef cases treated in the hospital in the Blockley Almshouse, in 1851, was 5,000. Intem- perate-males, 2,709; women, 897; total, 3,606, out of 5,000. There were also of mania-a-potu, with slight delirium, 34.3 : do., tvith hallucination. 114 ; ■Solent mania, 157 ; total mania-5-potu, 614.” Nearly four thousand persons supported ij the public expense, in a single city and county, as the result of the traffic in arcti.. spirits, and more than six hundred afflicted with the most dreadful form of insanity that ever comes upon man— a business tolerated, protected, sustained by law, and requiring heiivy taxes on the sober and industrious for its support 1 What Oihei conceivable business is there that in a civilized and Christian land would he pro- tected or tolerated, which would, in a single year, and every year, in a f itfl* county, dethrone the inteliect in more than six hundred cases, and convert man sis hundred citizens into frightful maniacs ? THE THRONE OP INTQUITT. 23 for the passage of such a law. That will depend on the wishes of the State ; for our legislators are the representatives of the people, and the people can do as they please. We may be told that the people cannot be brought to such a state as to demand the passage of such a law. That remains to be seen. It is not absolutely certain what would be the effect of a popular vote on the suliject to-morrow, if the question were submitted to the people. Besides, it is to be assumed in this country that the peojjle can be induced to demand the passage of any reasonable and just law. and that they can be prevailed on to send representatives that will do it. Moreover, it is sup- posed that there may be hundreds of intemperate men them- selves who would vote for such a law — men who see the evil of their course and their danger; men who desire to reform, but who have not strength to resist temptation, but who would feel that the brighter days of their early years would revisit them again if the temptation were removed for ever from their reach. We may be told that it would be impossible to execute such a law in our State, and especially in our great cities. That may he; but it is never to be assumed in this country that a law deliberately passed by the representatives of the people, and after it has been faiily before the minds of the people, cannot be executed. What law is there that has not been cxecutea ? What law is there that cannot be ? The remedy for obnoxi(/us laws in this land is not resistance, but change ; and io is always to be assumed by our legislators, and by the people too, that a law can be executed, and that it will be executed, until the contrary is proved. But it may be asked still, What if we fail — fail in gettii.g the law ; fail in its execution ? I answer, in the words of Lady Macbeth, “ We failP So be it. We fail now. We fail in all our attempts to stop the progress of intemperance. We fail in moral suasion. We fail under the existing laws. We /all in all societies; by all appeals; by all arguments; by all nrthods of influencing the public mind ; by all preaching and ie^^uring ; by all parental counsel; and by all the .jiortraying of the widespread evils of intemperance. In all these things we fau, A" bile the law patronizes it ; while the State legalizes it ; while cs 8, total abstainer, an advocate for, and a pattern of temperance. Such I am sorry to say, is not the fact. I am but too happy to acknowledge that tlicre are religious organizations in connection wdlli the Presby- terian, Congregational, and Baptist denominations, that require their menibers td assent to a pledge of total abstinence from intoxicating beverages. Could their noble example be followed by the 'W'hole Chiis- tian church, an overwhelming host would be marshaled on the sida of right, having power to banish the drink fashion, together with all taws which protect it, and thus bid the human intellect move in. Let 4 THE FRUITS OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, every professing Christian become an earnest teetotaler, and, oh. vrhel a change would hurst on our enraptured vision ! The drearj^ night of intemperance would break into a fairer and brighter morning than ever dawned on earth’s inhabitants ! I rejoice to know that a respectable portion of the best membere of our churches arc also members of tem- perance societies; but, unfortunateh^ they are forced to go outside of theii ledgious organizations to get into a strictly total abstinence associ- Jticn. So long as this is the case, there is reason to fear that a license lav? ivil! be more popular than a prohibitory law. Could the ten millioH «h arch members of the country all become earnest and consistent frien'la of temperance, Christianity, intelligence, virtue, liberty, and jiistie# would make more progress in the next fifty j'ears than has been wit- nessed since the downfall of the Roman Empire. The church has now within its fold a million citizens, who are an- nually giving their suffrages to candidates for the different State legisla- tors who are the frieuds and sustainers of license laws. Let these be simply withheld from all such, and the thing is done. If the Christiana of the country desire a prohibitory law, they can have it. It is not necessary to enter the political arena by organizing a political temper- ance party ; though that is purely a question of expediency, to be deter- mined by themselves. For the present, in most of the State.s, they have onl}' to stand manfully aloof, and refuse to vote for legislators who are for license and against prohibition. When the iioliticians come to see that there are a million voters, or even half that number, in the Unit- ed States whose votes can not be had except on condition that the voters themselves shall receive such protection as civil government is designed to afford, be assured their just demand will be complied with. In the mean time let all resolve, that come what may to the parties with which they have heretofore been connected, they will not con- tinue to steep their souls in guilt by voting for law-makers who are not outspoken opponents of a liquor license. Let them bear in mind that the horrible evil is now, and ever has been, upheld by the votes of professed temperance men and professing Christians, and that they have only to stand from under and let it fall. The world is in a slough of alcoholic debasement; the energies of the wise and good are para- lyzed by it. The church has power to roll away the stone from our mora. sepulcher, and bid humanity rise and go forth with a force and grandeur unknown to the race. Will she do it? or will she fold hei arms and permit the tide of iniquitv' to surge on? IT BLIGHTS OUR CHILDREN. There is an old proverb which says, “ If you let rum alone it will let vou alone.” The mere tact that it was ever accepted as truth, and passed current as such, is a striking evidence of a general and deplor- able delusion. So darkened is the human understanding in regard to die effect of the drink custom, that many are unable to discover the deep ^juries it inflicts on those who scrupulously avoid the custom, and on fkose who are too young to indulge in it They do not appear to SM AKD THE RESULTS OF PROHIBITION. 8 that »ne toper in a family is enough to destroy the peace and happiness o! every member of it, and often of others in his immediate neiglit)orhood. What is equally strange and lamentable, they do not i)erceive the uttei lack of security, to the lives, property, and well-being of a community, sc long as there is a class of crazy-headed tipplers in it. The more observant temiKjrance men and women are aw'ake to this truth, and they feel its lenible force constantlj^ and intensely. Hence their irrepressible desir? for some measure of defense and protection against the ever-reciirr:ns end ever-impending danger. It is this daily atllictiou, and continual dread of what may happen, that causes such a clamor for relief, and which has finally resolved itself into a steady demand for a prohibitory law. In the nature of things, this demand, so obviously just, can uevei cease until its object is attained. It is the unotfending but deeply out- raged sober class that call earnestly for it, as a means of protection from the unprovoked aggressions of topers and sots. They feel and know that the first and principal object of government is jrrotection — protection to the lives, the earnings, the peace, and comfort of each individual It was for this that governments were instituted. If the safety of the sober, the industrious, the useful, and the helpless can not be secured against the assaults of the profligate and vicious, then goverrment itself is an expensive sham and a useless burden. Among the abused ones that appeal to our tenderest sympathies and awaken our deepest compassion are the neglected children of the drunki,rd. We can not be idle spectators of their oft forsaken and pitiful condition. We have no right to permit the numerous afflictions thej- are compelled to endure. Our very manhood should prompt us to rush to their rescue. What we can rightfully do for their relief, we are cowardly as well as criminal for not doing. A child has no con- trol over the conduct of its parents, yet how much of the coloring of the whole long life of that child will depend upon the sobriety or drunken- ness of its father? We have laws to shield children from abuse, but a license law nullifies them all. The state should be their guardian, but it scoui'ges them with fathers made cruel and heartless in govern- ment dram-shops — its peculiar institutions. Alcohol is the only substance in nature that can extinguish parental affection, and this dehumanizing agent men are legalized to peddle out to such as have dependent little ones in charge ! What a horrid perversion of law W hat an outrage upon humanity ? Oh, shameful legislators ! Do you not blush for your deeds when you contemplate the result in the cold and hunger, in the filth and disease, the lingering tortures and heart piercing cries of your baby victims ? Think of the millions of su(;h festering in our cities, pining from want in our villages, and suffering everj'’wl:''re by- the presence of rum. Think not to escape the burning brand your atrocities merit. If the poor drunkard can not enter the abode of the pure and the just, what chance is there for drunkard maiers, especially for the worst of all drunkard makers, the framer? and sustainers of our license laws ? 6 THE FRUITS OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, IT MURDERS OUR WOMER. Though the evil spares none, there are four classes especially ifh* Buffer from intemperance ; 1st. The drunkards themselves, who num- ber at this time about a million in the United States. 2d. The soltei men of the country, who are exposed to all kinds of violence and out- rage from their drunken neighbors, besides having to raise annually s vast amount of taxes, which go to build poor-houses aud jails, and t» support the paupers and criminals made by the drink custom. 3i. The children of the drunkards, before alluded to, who may be fairly BCt down at two millions of innocent and helpless victims whose inju- ries from drunken fathers in an infinite variety of ways can be estima- ted only by the infinite mind of God himself. And 4th. The women of the nation, who are so unfortunate as to be the mothers, wives, sis- ters, and daughters of hopeless drunkards, a host of guiltless sufferers, amounting at a moderate calculation to at least three millions. It is of this last class that I would speak now. The consumption of alco- holic beverages is confined almost entirely to men. But few women can be found, except in the very highest and the very lowest circles, that ever use them. Notwithstanding their almost universal abstinence, they suffer more from this vice than from all other evils combined. The drunkenness of men has been the most prolific source of female misery for ages past. Reflect upon that immense load of grief and anguish that falls with crushing weight upon the gentler sex in our country 1 Think of the millions that have been the innocent victims of intemperate connections, that have toiled and striven, and hoped and prayed, until a cold, sad despair has fastened upon their hearts! IVIisery is a slow murderer; but how often has its vulture tooth sunk deep into the female breast in consequence of the neglect, harshness, and abuse which daily spring from intoxication, until death itself has beeome a blessed relief ! Who has not seen a lovely }mung female, reared in the arms of parental tenderness, her heart swelling with the delusive hopes of in- experience, led forward into connubial life with prospects as bright and unclouded as a summer morning ? Again, have you not marked the fitful melancholy, the fading cheek, and the anxious looks which told that agonizing suspicions as to him in whom centered all her hope* and afl'ections, were busy at her heart, until the fatal truth burst uj- on her as she found herself fettered to pollution and clasped in the arms jf living death embodied in a dnmken husband! She struggled on. against cruel disappointment, degradation, and anguish tmtil a kindly consumption geutly led her fi'om earthl}" suffering to a prematuro grave! Her circling Idndred and friends poured forth the tears of a Biitigated grief as they beheld this innocent victim of another’s guilt released at length from the pangs of tortured affection and consigned to that nairow bed “ Where lowly grief and lordly pride Lie down like brothers side by sida” AND THE RESULTS OF PKOHIBrnON. Such cases are not unfrequent in respectable families. Take the following sketch, which, with some modifications and interpolations, was drawn by the master-hand of the Hon. Edward Everett. “ A wcalthjf drunkard may have self-control enough to manage his property, and lioiiesty enough to keep out of jail, lie may fill what is called a genteel atatiou in society, and yet he may be the veiy t3U'ant of his household, never pleased, never soothed, never gratified, whes ths utmost has been done by everybody to gratify him, often turbn- lect and outrageous, sometimes cruel, the terror of those he is bound to protect, the shame of those who would love him if they could. A creature of this sort does not take refuge in the poor-house, or drive his family to it, but the coarsest and hardest crust broken within its walls is a dainty compared wdtli the luxuries of his cheerless table. Such is the effect of iutemperauce in the families of those who are otherwise w^ell off.” Look now for a moment at its effect upon the poor. There is in every community an honest dread of the poor-house. But the poverty out of the poor-house produced by intemperance is greater in the amount of suffering w'hich it occasions than the poverty in the poor- house. To the victims of drflnkenness wlioin it lias conducted to this sad refuge one bitter ingredient in the cup is spared. The sense of hon- est shame and the struggles of a commendable pride are at length over. They can sink no low'er, and may possibly become reconciled to their hard lot. Now, take a case offrequeut occurrence outside the poor-house. “ Suppose the man a hard-workiug mechanic or laborer, the woman an industrious housewife, with a family to be supported by their uniicd labor and economy. The man, as the phrase is, takes to drink. What happens ? The consequence is, the cost of the liquor is taken from his earnings, which were before barely adequate for their sup- port. They have no luxuries, and must pinch themselves in the neces- saries of life. The old clothes, already worn out, must be worn longer ; the daily fare, none too good at the beginning, becomes daily more scanty. Tlie leak in the roof, for want of a nail, a shingle, or a bit of board, becomes wider every wdnter. The number of panes of broken glass, w’hose place is supplied by old hats and rags, daily in creases; not so tlie wmod-pile, which no longer keeps out the winter's cold. Ere long, the children are kept from school, for want of books Slid .shoes ; and at length the wretclied wife and children are ashamed fip show tliemselves abroad. Things grow wmrse and worse; the head of the family earns less and less, and of this little spends more and more for liquor. This may go on for years ; but see at length to what they are reduced ! Look into this hovel wdien he comes home on a 8 It urday evening. Here will not be found the cotter’s blessed Saturday mght, so beautifully described by Burns — a picture of domestic life that might be realized by tlie poorest sober man in America. No; a far different scene presents itself. “The father and head of the family may not be staggering drunk, but in a worse condition ; he is heated 8 THE FTilTITS OF THE LIQTJOK TEAFFIO, ■with liqnor, and craves more. His week’s wages are already sqnan. derel. Listen to tlie brutal clamors, accompanied by threats and oaths, with whicli he demands of his hrmily the food which they hay* been unable to procure, either for themselves or for him. See the peot grown-up children — boys and girls — perhaps young men and women, old enough to feel the shame as well as the misery of their heritage- without a spark of youthful cheerfulness in their e}'es, silent and terr Bed, creeping, supperless for the night, to their forlorn garret, to escap*. outrage, curses, and blows! Watch the heart-broken wife, as witt countemince haggard with care and want she seeks in vain to hush the cries of a hungry babe ; and then return in the morning, and nuJ he: blood and the infant’s wet upon the hearthstone.” This is no imaginary picture, but, in some of its features, one of almost daily oc- currence ; yet we heed them not, or doze over them with cold and ig- noble apathy. In revievung the evils of intemperance, it will not do, I repeat, to confine our attention to those who drink, and to those who meeklj'and sheepishly pay the ta.xes occasioned by the poverty and crime which come from drinking. The principal sufferers .are thg women and children of the country, who themselves never touch the debasing stuff. The keenest pangs and the sharpest .agonies are endured by the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of the wretched sots with which our country abounds. Says the eloquent Dr. Kitchell : “ Much of this is concealed from the public gaze as long as concealment is possible. Back of the visible ravages of intemperance, and deeper than all these, there lies a field of devastation which has never been fully explored, and can never be more than partially reported. It is the wasted realm of the social af- fections, the violated sanctuary of domestic peace.” It is here that the higher and inner life of woman is marred and tortured, her most sacred and cherished affections crushed and blighted. These are pri- vate sorrows, that her most intim.ate confidant must not know, so anxious is she to sustain the good character of her husband, brother, or son. “ But from this inner world of suppressed wretchedness there will occiisionally burst forth to the ear of human pity' a piercing cry of tliose who writhe under the slow torments of a desolate heart and dying hope. Yet all this which meets the eye and pains the car is but the overflow of misery. It is merely what inadvertently escape* through chasms violently rent open, and tells sadly of a sea of angu'sb that is stifled forever in its secret recesses. The bursting hearts of lu.e 'h «rs for their ruined sons; of wives from whose life ail joy and hope, it Jove and tenderness has been blotted out; of daughters’ shame, crushed »ncl doomed to penury and disgrace — could we look on all these grief- stricken females, some of whom have been well off, happy, and respected, now doomed to brutality and want, each with her own peculi.ar history of woe, we should ask no further witness to the heiuoui guilt of the rum traffic, or the righteousness of taw against the destroyei of all these.” and the restjxts of peohibttion. 9 Thou shalt not kill, is an imperative injunction of the moral and »lvine law. How precious a thing is humiin life ! how ample and magnificent the provisions made for its sustenance and preservation For it the earth is clotlied witli verdure and the planets travel tncii rcunds. Yet how often and how thoughtlessly is it destroyed! A Sian may kill his wife by a long course of outrageous treatment and brutal behavior, and he may have an accomplice in the person ot /seme saloon or tavern keeper, and the communit}'^ will sleej) over tb< Simnnous crime. Can this be right? And if not right, how long must it continue ? Look for a moment at the magnitude of this evil I As 1 before remarked, we have in the Union one million of drunkai'ds, two millions of the chikh-en of drunkards, with not less than three millions of females who are so closely related to these drunkards as to be the victims of their vices and the partakers of their woes. Of this million of inebriates it is calculated that sixty thousand die an- nually. Now, let the mind go back for centuries, and comprehend if you can, this fathomless and shoreless sea of anguish. Could wa group together for ages gone by the annual sacrifice of human beings, until we should have collected into one great multitude the hecatombs of King Alcohol ; could we, in addition to this countless multitude, call up from their sepulchers the grief-stricken mothers, the misery-mur- dered wives, the sorrow-blighted sisters and daughters of all these wretched suicides, our conceptions would still fall far short of the awful reality. Our mental vision would have to reach back to the deluge, if not to creation’s dawn, and embrace every quarter of the habitable globe ; it would be obliged to people the earth with skeleton witnesses more numerous than all the tribes of living men ; and even then, after having brought into view this vast appalling host, we should still have but a feeble conception of the aching hearts, the bitter moans, the bodily throes, and the mental agony which they were made to endure before they sank to untimely graves. How ready and how easy is the remedy for all this ! Let every man, woman, and child (except the hopeless sot) form themselves into temperance associations, of wdiatever kind is most agreeable to their tastes, and continue faithful to the principle of total abstinence for the space of one generation, and the tiling is accomplished. Can that man be a true friend to the female sex who will not do this much to dry up their tears ? Surely not, and he should not be so considered. He may flatter as he will, but no true woman should give him her trast or confidence. He is not a friend but an enemy, and should b* regarded If such is the character of the man who keeps himself a. 'of from the temperance societies of the country, what must be said of all the women in the land who are equally hostile or inditferent to such associations ? Perhaps they do not know that they can in this way confer an incalculable benefit upon their suffering sisters, and upon the living and unborn millioirs of both sexes. But if the}' ould be ones brought to consider the subject, there could be no difierencs 10 THE FRUrrS Oi? TH.E LIQUOR TRAFFIC, «f opinicn among them. The thing is too plain, too self-evident, foi controveray. Let all who would remoTC this mountain of sorrow lose no time in doing this little thing. Let those who would he looked npon as the generous friends of injured innocence manifest their fiieud- Rhip by putting their names to the teetotal pledge, and by refusing ever after to vote for a legislative candidate that is not known to be ispposed to all license laws, and in favor of prohibiting an evri ii om which all other evils are hatched. Do not these atSicted women appeal to every fiber of our manhood for sjnnpathy and succor, and to our legislators tor adequate relief? IIow long must our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters be deprived of that protection which governments were organized to afford ? Has lovely woman no champion among the immortal heroes of the Repub- lic ? Will no legislator arise that can set forth her wrongs in a man- ner to stir the Anglo-Saxon blood and save her from the horrid tor- tures of a law-sheltered rum traffic ? An amaranthine wreath awaits him. Its leaves of endless green and flowers of fadeless beauty will yet be clutched by the hand of some wise and chivalrous statesman. IT DESTROYS NATIONAL WE.ALTH. That eminent statistician. Dr. Hargraves, of Reading, Pa., present as with the following facts and figures. Tiiey speak for themselves. “ By the census of 18G0, we find there were distilled, in the United 'States, 88,003,797 gallons of spirituous liquors, which if sold by the retailer at present prices would bring the sum of .8610,020,579. The same year there were brewed 5,115,140 barrels of fermented liquors, which at present retail prices would bring about 8123,000,000, making a total of §739,030,579, the net cost of spirituous and fermented liquors that paid duty to the Government, to say nothing of the wines manu- factured, or of the distilled and fermented liquors and wines imported. “ To comprehend clearly the magnitude of the cost of intoxicating drinks, let us go one step farther and compare its cost with some of the necessary productions of the country. By the census of 1860, we find Hie value of the six leading productions of the United States were . Flour and meal §ae4.000.000 Cotton goods 115.000.000 Boots and shoes OO.OOO.IXX) Clothing 70.000.1100 Woolen goods 09.000.000 Books, newspapers, and job printing 42.000 W Total $610,000,000 “ The *otal cost of intoxicating liquors that paid duty and were con* »umed in the United States, was §739,000.000, or in roimd numbers, one hundred and twenty-nine million dollars more than the value of all the flour, cotton goods, boots, shoes, woolen goods, clothing, ana printing books, newspapers, and other printing produced in the United States in die year 1860. The case is too clear to need comment We have seen what is the net cost of intoxicating drinks. We will endea- vor to arrive at the total proximate cost. AifD THE RESULTS OF PROHIBITION. 11 The actual net cost of liquors $739,020,579 Time lost by drinkin®, half as much 3fi9..510.289 Cost of crime caused oy intemperance 87,800.000 Cost of pauperism “ “ 27.000.000 Cost of litigation “ “ 241,000.i)00 Total proximate expenses for U.S $1,2-1(>,530,S08 “ Tlie civil and diplomatic expenses for 1862 tvere $11,595,188 47 Bad for 1863, $11,066,138 14. Tims tlie people tax themselves $728,- DOO, )00 more for liquor than the cost of the United States Governmenl in ordinary times. In an editorial article published in the New York Tribune, Decem- ber 25th, 1867, which is evidently from the trenchant pen of Mr. Greeley himself, we have a statement of the annual cost of liquor con- sumed, together with some of its concomitants, which varies but little from the figures of Dr. Hargraves. The follotving is an extract : “ The M’hole cost of liquors annually made and sold in the United States, that is, whisky either in a pure or derivative state, is about $500,000,000. In the consumption of this liquor, 60,000 lives are yearly destroyed, 100,000 men and women are sent to prison, and 200,000 children are bequeathed to poor-houses and charitable institutions. In addition, 300 murders and 400 suicides are committed, and the ex- pense connected with these events is $200,000. In our noble State of New York, of course including the city, one person in 15 is substan- tially made a pauper. Meanwhile, large sums are disbursed in erect- ing and supervising those imposing establishments, the common jails and the penitentiaries, for so far-reaching are the effects of the drink- ing of spirituous liquors, that our citizens are enabled to violate every law of the land.” What have we to show for this vast annual expenditure ? A mere glance at the result would fill a volume. That being no part of my present work, we will look for a moment at one fact only. 60,000 die annually ! A truthful record of the miseries of each would make 60,000 biographies every year ! That number of such sad narratives will never be written. Even a brief notice of the death and burial of each poor creature is more than we can expect. 60,000 a year is more than 1,008 a week, 144 per day, 6 for every hour, and 1 for every ten minutes 1 Could we have a bell large enough, and swinging high enough in the heavens to be heard over the entire Union, and could it be tolled every ten minutes for the death of a drunkard, its mournful dirge wo dd ring in our ears day and night the wlmle 3'ear round. It* sepulchrtd notes might be annoying to the sustaiuers of license ; but it ■woulil cause them to realize their individual responsibility for so many frightful and untimely deaths. It would help them wonderfully to per- ceive their ou n personal agency in the horrible work of blasting the temporal and eternal hopes of so many of their fellow-mortals. d’liere an; those who would blame the drunkards for all the evils of the license system. Surely they are neither its authors nor perpetua* tors. They are only its ripe and rotten fruit They did not originate 12 THE FRUITS OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, the drink fashion, of which they are victims, nor the law that fosters and protects it. They are but an odious excrescence, its natural devel- opment, which can not be shaken off. Unfortunately, they are the niost unpopular feature of it. I say unfortunate!}’, for surely they are not the worst. In an essay of mine, published in the Boston Nation, 3Iay 4th, 18G7, and also in a Review of the License Law of Pennsylvania, 1 proved beyond all controversy, that moderate drinking, aside from hs tendency to excess, is productive of for more evil in the worM thsm drunkeiiuess of the most beastly kind. Rot one argument in tho-i* productions has ever been touched, or can ever be refuted. That, so far as I am informed, opens a new chapter in the philosophy of tem- perance. That the moderate stage of the drink delirium is the most dangerous to society, should be known to all, for it is an indisputabl« truth. And if it be a truth, what ground have the license party, who are all opposed to what they call drunkenness, to stand on ? They acknowledge drunkenness to be an evil, and would banish it if they could, without putting a stop to moderate drinking. We prove that moderate drinking, if kept in all cases within the bounds of what they regard as moderation, is a greater evil than drunkenness. Row, where are they ? We acquit them of desiring drunkenness, but they desire that which we see and know to be worse than drunkenness, and which in addition to all the ills of moderate intoxication is the real and only cause of drunkenness. THE RESULTS OF PROnTBITION. If the suppression of the liquor traffic is right, the results of a pro- hibitory law must be good, provided it has any effect whatever ; and if it has no effect, it can do no possible hann, for it stands not, as some may suppose, in the way of anything better. If a license law ever operates as the slightest restraint on the traffic it is designed to “ regu- late,” it is because of its prohibitory clauses. But experience proves that they can not be enforced in connection with the legal traffic, while the very objects aimed at may be more certainly attained by a prohibit- ory law. For all the professed aims of a license law, a prohibitor}- law ia preferably. What are the objects of what is called “ a good license law ?” 1st. To authorize a select few, of good mora. character, to sell liquor to moderate-drinking adults only, in a quiet and orderly manner. 2d. IA forbid its sale to drunkards and minors. 3d. To stop its sale entirely ( a Sunday. Such are its main objects, without going further into detail Have these been attained by means of a license law in any part of the world ? Rever ! and from the veiy^ nature of things they never ctiu bd Under a prohibitory law that is not as rigidly enforced as it she tld be, all the objects aimed at by a license law may be obtained. Experience proves that in any locality where a prohibiton- law exists, and where pub- lic sentiment is unhappily so lax as not to require the entire suppression of Iram-drinkiug, the taw is used to regulate the traffic and moderate the evil to a degree that has never been accomplished by a license law of •ny kind. If any one is tolerated to sell at all, he sells by sufferance, AITD THE RESULTS OF PROHIBITION. 13 Mid not by '.egal right, which is a very different thing. He mnst be a very popular citizen, and one who conducts the ti’afflc in a very guarded and discreet manner. He knows that the lav/, like the sword of Damocles, is susjiended bj’' a single hair over his head. He must be one who will not deal out a drop to either drunkard or minor, cne who keeps a very orderly house, that is closed early in the evening, snd always on Sunday. The slightest deviation from this rule is fol- lowed by the confiscation of his liquor and the closing of nis shop. Here is a state of affairs the desideratum of all license laws, but it is what no license law ever effected, or ever can. It shows that a prohib- itory law not half enforced is more etficient than a license law. It sliows that the objects desired by the more respectable portion of the license party themselves are secured to a greater extent in a comnrunity not ready to eradicate the traffic, under a proliibitory law than under a license law. Therefore a prohibitory law that is not strictly enfcrced is the best law, moderate license men being judges, that can be enacted on the subject. All experience shows that a license law is more certain to be evaded than a prohibitory law, and for the reason that the section that author- izes the sale of liquor will invariably cause an infraction of all the other sections. The sale is quite unruly enough where it is forbidden by law ; where it is legalized, it breaks all bounds, and is as uncon- trollable as the w’inds. If temperance men could be induced to assist in the execution of a license law, its restrictive clauses might have some little effect ; but that is out of the question. A temperance man sees little use in prosecuting one man for doing w'hat another in the same place has a lawful right to do. Why should he be a prosecutor in such a case ? What can he gain by it, except ill-will ? Will the friends of a license law back him in its enforcement ? Not they. Their sympathies are generally with the culprit. If he convicts a landlord of selling to a minor, that will not stop him and others from selling to the same boy the day he is of age. If he convicts him of selling to drunkards, that will not stop him and others from selling to sober men, which is a greater crime, as it is worse to raise a new crop of drunkards than to peddle out drams to old ones. If he stops the traffic in his neighborhood on Sunday, it is only to see it begin agi.in more briskly on Monday moruing. He is painfully conscious that the most rigid execution of a license law, so far from accomplish- ing his desire, would only make rum-selling and rum-drinking more decent iu the estimation of the shallow-pated, and more popular with atoderate tipplers. Why should a temperance man be a volunteer in a Work so odious and bootless ? Wo all know how little the liquor party are to be relied on to enforoi tlte restrictive provisions of a license law, either against the vendei who oversteps its bounds, or against him who sells without a license. As a genera] rule, the mass of them care not a straw how much theit own law is violated, so long as liauor is plenty and cheap. Why 14 THE FKHIT8 OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, should they, when that is their main object? How rigidly moderat* drinkers apply its penalties to inebriates who indulg* in a “ bom” or two more than themselves, we all know from past experience. A stag- gering sot arrested by a fuddled constable and taken before a guzzling magistrate for examination is a sight that does not often occur, though well cakulated to excite the most varied and conflicting emotions. Ai well mif lit we expect burglars and thieves to be active in bringing fel ons to j.istice. Every law on the statute-book should be of such e character, that good men will not scruple to enforce it. A. license law will always be left to the care of its friends. The right to sell that which is a banc to virtue, is the only feature in it that is generally recog- nized, and that provokes a disregard of every other. The leg.d traffic may. therefore, be justly regarded as the parent of the illegal traffic in all its pnases, whether under a license law or a prohibitory law. The bitter fruits of license continue to manifest themselves long after a prohib- itory law is enacted, as the waves of the ocean continue to fret and rage after a storm. Having shown that a prohibitory statute is the only one under which the traffic dan be even partially controlled, I proceed to show that It is an agency by which it may be wholly suppressed. If it is not utterly annihilated in every State where such a law exists, the fault is not in the law, certainl}’’, but in its administration. A law does not execute itself. It is not of itself an actor, but s simply a rule of action. If the rule be a good one, it is always read ’ to be used effectually when needed. Impartial prohibition is so macifestl}' right and fair lO all parties, as to commend itself to the favor of ai’ good citizens. “ The reason of the law is the life of the law.” A prohi'>itory law is the per- fection of human reason, and the only one that is ever applied to the suppression of such crimes as are not to be tolerated If such a law can not be rigidly executed, the fault must be in its executors or in the people. It can not be in the latter, for it has been nowhere adopted without the sanction of the peoule by o 'erwhelming majorities. Its opponents are a minority wherever it exists Thej' do not openly rebel against it by force. They simplv evade it wnere they can. That was to be expected, as they have been debased under the pernicious effect of a license law. .iArtificial appetites have been engen- dered. These must have time to die out, or those who are sc unfortu- nate as to be controlled by them must have lime to die off. No such appetite exists except where it has been formed by a bad habit A person that never tastes alcohol never feels a particle of desire for it and ‘here would not be the least opposition to tne eniorcement ol a prohib’tory law if there were no unnatural appetites. Is it reasonable that the vices of the minority, which were developed and fostered by the old law, should be permitted to defeat the new one ? A righteous law is a beneficent educator of the people ; under a license law, drinking is legal and popular ; under a prohibitory law, it is illegal and unpopular. Under a license law. the world would Iona AND THE RESULTS OF PKOHIBITION. 15 hnce hive become worse than Sodom, had it not been for the countei' icting, yet almost thankless efforts of the oft-derided friends of temper auce. They alone, under God, have kept it worth saving, and a fit abode for Christians. Their main reliance now is a prohibitory law, and they will not abandon it because it is opposed by such as liave been demoralized by license. Those who di'ink to appease the cravings of a morbid appetite, will continue to drink under any law that can b« framed as long as they can obtain liquor. Those who drink occasii. u- aiiy foi mere fashion’s sake, will be less inclined to persist in it under tlie ban of law ; those who have not commenced the practice will be Bti.l less likely to begin it; and the longer such a law exists the more easy it will be to execute it thoroughly. Tliis is not mere theory, how- ever rational, but the experience of every State where it has been tried. It is what I myself witnessed during a four years’ residence in Iowa. Were it not for extending this essay beyond the required length, I might give a history of successful prohibition in Mohammedan coun- tries, New Zealand, etc. ; but I will begin with that State which has the credit of being the first in our Union to adopt it. RESULTS IN MAINE. One of the most important and interesting records that will engage the pen of the future historian, will be the struggle in the different States for a prohibitory law. That noble veteran, the Rev. .John Marsh, has commenced the work. When every State in our grand Republic shall be in the full enjoyment of its countless blessings, the history should be completed. I shall confine myself now to results. After various unsuccessful attempts, during a period of ten years, the real Maine Law was adopted May, 1851, and went almost immedi- ately into effect. The first seizure of liquor was made at Bangor, on the 4th of July following. Ten casks of it were emptied on the ground in the presence of glad people. Soon after the majmr of Portland did the same with $2,000 worth of liquor. On both occasions the people, male and female, witnessed the righteous act in respectful silence. Other like events followed without provoking serious opposition. Drunkenness and disorder quickly vanished. Poor-houses became empty; houses of correction and jails lost their inmates to such a (Icgice that some of them were entirely closed, and peace and plenty reign sd ; industry, frugality, and thrift vrere everj'where disclosed. 5'r. Neal Dow, mayor of Portland, makes a statement, Aug. 27th, 1853, which aJ who rejoice over the suppression of the evil will be glsd ic vsacl : “ The fatts in relation to the working of the law have been published often for tl-.e last two years, and never has any attempt been made by a responsible person to disprove them. At the time of the enactment of the law, rum-selling was carried on openly in all parts of the State, in Portland there were between three and four hundred rum-sbop«k and immediately after the enactment of the law not one. “ The wholesale trade in liquors was at once annihilated. 16 THE FETTITS OF THE LIQHOK TEATTIC, “ It was the tmanimous declaration of all the watchmen and police, tiiat the city was like an entirely new place. Many shops, whicli befor« were rum-shops, were converted into other branches of trade ; and almost every indication of intemperance was banished. A.t the end of tlie municipal year 18C1-2, an official report to tlic city council on tha operation of the law’ in Portland w’as ordered to be printed and ffis- tiibuted through the city; its statements were not at the time, nor have tliey since been, denied. The law had w’orked such wondere in tea Bionths as to cause a decrease of committals to the Alms-house, 100; to House of CoiTection for Intemperance, 36, making 142. At the same time the number of inmates in the Alms-house w’as reduced 22, while 1J*e number of out-door families requiring aid was 4) less than the ten tuoutlis previous. At the term of the District Court in March, 1831, there were seventeen indictments ; at the term for 1852 there was but one, and that the result of a mistake.” That was just what its most ardent friends predicted, and their Heaven-inspired hopes were now realized. Dr. Frederick Richard Lees, of England, whose profound and com prehensive works on the temperance question are unrivaled in our language, visited Maine about that time for the purpose of witnessing the effect of the law. He tells us that he sought for strong drink at several of the hotels in Portland, but could get none. Fearing that there might be places in the city where it was sold secretly, he met a mechanic on the street who he informed that he was a foreigner, and asked if he did not know where he could get a drink ? The answer was, “ Ho ; and if I did, I would not tell jmu.” Such was the com- mendable spirit of the working-classes. The mayor of Bangor, in his message to the council, April 22d, 1852, says; “ On the 1st of July, when I gave notice that I should enforce the law, 108 persons w’ere selling liquors here ; 20 of them have left the city. Of the remaining 88, not one sells openly. The number of inmates in our Alms-house and House of Correction have been reduced 3,104; the number of prosecutions has been reduced 43.” Such facts will bear w’itness through all time to the efficacy of prohibition. The marshal of Augusta reports, for 1852, as follows : “ Augusta had 4 wholesale liquor stores and 25 retail shops. Three of the wliole- sale dealers sent off their liquor to Hew York ; the remaining lina persisted in selling, until about $1,000 worth was seized. Liquor may be sold at the principal hotels, but stealthily. One of tlie keepers hf»e bsex. tw.ee convicted. The police used to be called up 100 nights i.a a year. Since the passage of the law they have not been summoned once.” Oh, happy, thrice happy Augusta ! Such facts tell a tale more convincing than tongue or pen. The report of the marshal of Gardiner is still more flattering: March 8th, 1852. At the commencement of the official term there were in the city 14 places where liquor was sold, some of them the AND TITE EESTTLTS OF PROHIBITION. 17 resort of drunken, riotous, and disorderly persons. But one person nas been convicted of drunkenness for the last four months ; but two sent to the workliouse for the last six months. The law has been rigidly and quietly enforced.” If in a place of that size, with 14 dena fiequentcd bj’- “dinnken, riotous, and disorderly persons,” the law was put quietly and rigidly into force, the same may be done any- where and everywhere. Gardiner has settled that question. The report from IVaterville is of the same character. “ Ten or eleven years ago the cost of pauperism rose in a manner unaccount- able, bitt for excessive drinking, from $T00 to $1,800 a year. This year, with twice the population, the cost of the poor will not exceed $1,000. The amount of crime is greatly lessened. Those who still deseiwc the name of dinnkards are mostly Irishmen and Canadians.” Prohibition is the thing to cure the Irish and make them the best people in the world Ireland has suffered more from whisky than from British tyranny. The banishment of alcohol would secure their freedom. So long as the}' indulge in that they must remain k- Bond- age, m spite of Feuianism. The Calais council report : “ Where enforced, the results ure good ; where not enforced, the old anti-Maine law justices are in fault. Many of those who sold liquor have given their attention to other busi- ness, and are now better off than when selling liquor.” No doubt of that, as the rum-traffic desti'oys about three fourths of those engaged in it. Professor Pond, of Bangor, writes : “ I have not seen a drunken man in our streets for the last six months. The House of Correction has been at times almost empty ; I know not but it is so now. The expense of paupers is greatly diminished.” The Hon. Sidney Perham, Speaker of the House of Representatives, says : “ My knowledge of the workings of the law extends over a large section of the State. I can assure you it works well.” What better evidence could we have of its efficacy? Such were the results of the law when it first went into operation, and at a time of course when its rigid enforcement must have been the most difficult. Testimonials to any extent, of a similar character, might be given, reaching through E period of sixteen years. How stands the case now ? At the National Convention held at Saratoga Springs, August, 18G5, that noble patriot and hero Gen. Neal Dow said : “ The traffic, in intoxicating liquor is considered as di.s- tepu.able in Maine as keeping a gambling-house. He admitted that the law had not been in such active operation during the war, as the energies of the people were directed to the salvation of the country • hu': hereafter they will go to work with increased zeal. In large dis- tricts of Maine the traffic is entirely unknown.” About the same time, there appeared before the public a witness whose word can not be doubted by the most zealous of the license party, and as it is a clincher, it is the last I shaL offer, so far as relate# to Maine. I allude to the valuable testimony of the Hon. Woodbiuy 18 THE FRUITS 'OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC, Davis, of the Supreme Court of that State. It appears from the stato «ient of Judge Davis, that the law, as it now stands, is not exactly what its friends would make it, but is crippled for want of adequaU penalties, such as imprisonment for its violation. This is the work of its enemies, and designed to prevent its execution. Notwithstand- big this defect, it is enforced, and that more rigidly than any license kw ever has been either in Maine or anywhere else. Its enemies are aol temperance men, who are disappointed in its operations, but the Aiends of the liquor traffic. Their ciy against it, because it is not en- forced, is altogether hypocritical. If they did not fee! Its fwce, they would not cry at all- and if it were more rigidly enforced, their cry would be all the louder. One would naturally expect to hear those Who raise this cry equally loud in denouncing the laws against gam- bling, licentiousness forgery, and theft, as failures, because of their constant violation. In regard to the daily and hourly iufiaction of those laws we hear scarcely a whimper from them. “ Thej- roar aa gently as sucking doves.” They should, to be consistent, demand the repeal of every law on the statute-book which is not rigidly executed ; and such crimes as have not been entirely prevented bj' law should be regulated by some sagacious sj^stem of license. Judge Davis shows that the complaint that a prohibitory' law can not be enforced is both false and liypocritical ; for it is enforced, and that more generally than its enemies desire. “No observing man” (says he), “ who has lived in this State for twenty years, and has had an opportunity to know the facts, can doubt that the Maine Law has produced a hundred times more visible improvement in the character, condition, and prosperity of our people than any other law that was ever enacted.” Mark that — “ than any other law that was ever enacted.” This law, so ably advocated in the British Parliament, in 1743, by Lords Harvey, Talbot, Stanhope, Aylesford, Beaufort, Lons- dale, Chesterfield, Sandwich, Bristol, Halifax, Haversham, Aylesbury, Gower, and Bedford ; the Bishops of Canterburj', Asaph, London, Norwich, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, and Salisbury, is now, and has been for sixteen years, the peculiar and eternal glory of the State of Maine, our serene and sober Eastern sister, whose benignant featiu-es are first gilded by the beams of the morning, and who has been *lie first to enjoy moral daylight. She first adopted it, and still clings to it aa the ark of her safety. The noblest of her sons testify tli.at it has been fraught with more home comfort and substantial prosperity than any ukase, edict, ordination, proclamation, or legislative act that ean be pointed to in the whole histoi-}' of man. IIoaTcn bless the 1-m.i of rock and pine ; may her prohibition of the Jenor plague bei i.une universal and remain forever ! Sixteen years .s something in the life of a State. That much at least is secure. Its benefits and blessings ere on record, and constitute the brightest page in the history of any commonwealth. It is some consolation to know that that cheering and inspiring record can not be blotted out AlTD THE EESTJLT8 OF PEOmBmOST. 19 j Judge Davis is simply testifying to what he has seen and knowa I ‘ Having served” (says he) “ for neai'ly ten years as one of the justices [ of our Supreme Court, I have tried many cases against common sellers ! Ln different counties, from one extreme of the State to the other. And aotwitlistanding the unthithfulness or timidity of temperance men, the difficulties in enforcing the law, the inadequacy of its peniltics, and I yie effect o:' the war in retarding its execution, I am coETtrxed by I wh-it I have seen that it has accomplished an incalculable amount of I good. 01 our four hundred towns and cities — making the cstin.atfl below w lmt I relieve the facts would justify — I am satisfied that in m.>re than one hundred the law prevents any sale of liquors whatevf r as a beverage. In at least two hundred of them it is sold only on the sly, just as in the same towns there are persons guilty of lewdness and other crimes. Such I believe to be a fair statement of existing fa( and circumstances connected with the Maine Law in this State. They prove the law, even with its inadequate penalties, to be far superior to any license law ; and that there is no such fiiilure to enforce it aa will justify either the friends or the enemies of the temperance reform in opposing it.” From this it appears that the law has a far more restrictive influence, even where it is most resisted, than any license law ever enacted. Who could expect, for the time it has been in djteration and the chance it has had, an exposition more favorable, or testimony more reliable, than we have in this truthful letter of Judge Davis, and for which he deserves the gratitude of every friend of human welfare. It is a thunderbolt from the right quarter, and has shivered and scattered to the winds the sophistries of all classes of advocates of schemes for the legal permission of sin and crime. The Maine Law is not a failure, but it is an abiding power in the land. Glory to the Highest for this glad evangel, this welcome assurance of the ultimate triumph of our Cause 1 There willoyet be peace on earth and good-will toward men ! PKOniBtTION IN OTHER STATES. A prohibitory law was adopted in Massachusetts, May, 1852 ; Ver- mont, Dec., 1852; Connecticut, June, 1854; Michigan, 1854; New York, April, 1855; Iowa, April, 1855; and in New Hampshire, Aug., 1855. It has become a permanent institution in all of the a. ve- named States, except New York, where, owing to some of its i»ecular provisions, it was murdert'd by an alcoholic decision of her Supreme Coimt. A very few out of many testimonials to its good results is all ] tavc room for. MASSACHUSETTS. I might j'ile up unquestioned facts to any amount showing the good results of ].roliibitiou in the Old Bay State, where its effect has been the same as in Maine. Tliat would be superfluous. A more imporinnt Bubjet t presents itself. What do the people of that historical comiron- wealth say of the law now, after fifteen 3mars’ e.xperience? It is well known to all that a majority of license men were elected to her Legi» 20 THE FETJIT8 OF THE UQTrOS TEAFFIC, lature on the 5th of November last. Does that prove that prohibition K a failure there ? No more than their defeat at Bunker Hill proved that the Revolution was a failure ; no more than the attempt to sunder oin Union proved the cause of free government a failure. The infan oiu Southern Confederacy promised success for awhile, and really did ex- ist as a power longer than a license law will ever again exist in 31i5s*- chusetts. Prohibition has met its first reverse in that State, and Ihvt is a.l. Every good cause is liable to that. Thej’ had enjoyed tha blessing so long that they did not appreciate it. They did not realize how much better off they were than their fellow-citizens in States cursed by a license law. If they require a severe lesson to open their eyes they may get it soon enough. If fifteen years of trial had shown it to be a failure, there would be no hope for it among the enlightened people of Massachusetts. But it is still cherished by all of her wisest and best ; and if it be an unqualified blessing, if it possess those in- nerent virtues its friends claim for it, though baffled and prostrate for a season, “ it will rise f.gain,” and irut forth increased strength. To doubt it is to doubt the omnipotence of Deity, and the ultimate triumph of riglit over wrong. The righteous have consolation in adversity ; the wicked have fearful forebodings in the hour of ^ictory, for they know their deeds wil' expose them, and that they can not agree among themselves. At this very moment the guilty autliors of this malignant change in Massachusetts are plagued with chilling apprehensions of the future. The bitter fruits of their temporary triumph are already disclosing themselves. Here is a specimen. The U. S. revenue tax on sales of liquor was reduced'in one district in Boston by the vigilance of the State constable, acting in obedience to the prohibitory statute, from $24,000 a month down to $6,000 a month. The recent victory of the liquor party has raised it already to $22,000 for the last month. I feel that I can not conclude this part of my subject better than by introducing extracts from an address, recently put forth b}' Gilbert Haven, A. A. Miner, E. P. Marvin, and R. C. Pitman, four men of as spotless honor, high social position, and distinguished ability as can be found in the State. Its vindication of the law is so complete, its explanation of the brief repulse of its friends so clear, and the reasons for confidence in the speedy recovery of lost ground are sc rogent, that it will satisfy all fair-minded men that prohibition has not been, aud can not be, a failure in Massachusetts. What is right never fails, though the ignorant and sordid may reject it for a time. Wrong always haa failed, and in spite of the “ archangel ruined,” it alwaj’s will. But if the address, every word of which should be copied had I space for it “ The Prohibitor}’ Law went into effect in all the towns of the Cem inonwealth. It was executed in everj’ city except Charlestown and Boston. It received the approval of ever}" legislature. It was earned up to our Supreme Court, and received the indorsement of Chief Jus- tice Shaw and his associates. It was attacked in Congress and in th« Bupreme Court of the United States, and both the national l^islaturt Airo THE RESTTLTS OF PKOmBITIOK. 21 md national court recognized its legality. While thus assailoi by in* terested enemies, it was carrying blessings through all the Common* wealth. Three fourths of our towns, including nearly every small vil- lage and most of our large towns, were without any public bars. Almost 6 generation has grotvn up in these places without beholding the opey sale of intoxicating spirits. “ As a consequence of this law, pauperism and crime had greatly Je- 51'easol in all localities where it was observed. In not a few of evea sur largest towns the alms-house had become an obsolete instituticn. “ The State constabulary was established, and has suppressed the sala «f spirits in many of our cities, aud greatly reduced it in the city of Boston. During the last two 3 'ears it has closed hundreds of dram- shojts. It has abolished more than twenty-live hundred open bars in tliis city. It has paid into the treasury of the State within the nine months ending Oct. 1st, 1867, in fines, $199 421 64; in value of liquors seized and sold, not less than $40,000 — a sum amounting to one hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars more than all the expenses of the police. “ If the present law is repealed and license substituted, we may ex- pect to see the statistics of intemperance more carefully collected and more faithfully disclosed in Massachusetts than has ever been done in any community on earth.” VERMONT. In no part ot the Union has the law been attended vrith happier re- sults than in the Green Mountain State. Of numerous testimonials in my possession, one is all I have room for. Mr. Underwood, State Attorney, says : “ The law has put an end to drunkenness and crime almost entirely.” That will do, as it proves that “ The Star That I^ever Sets” derives its quenchless luster from the prohibition of the liquor traffic. Brave old Vermont, may her waters be always pure, and her mountains always green ! CONNECTICUT. The Land of Steady Habits, where intelligence is so generally dit- flised, was the very State to embrace the righteous principle of pro- hibition. It always commends itself to the wise and virtuous as a shield against ignorance and immorality. Good old Connecticut adopted the law in June, 1854. The vote in the House stood, 148 for, to 31 against it ; in the Senate, 13 for, to 1 against it. This was a good beginning, and as might have been expected, it has been steadily justained from that day to this. Here, as elsewluie, the change foi which her greatest and best had toiled so long was so gratifying as to ihrow them off their guai’d and make them feel too secure. This re- laxation of vigilance and effort, the natural result of victory, prevented them from following up the routed and flying foe. They should havo piessea on, and given no quarter, until his last mercenary w'as captured. They have done well in Connecticut, and I feel confident they will tsre 1 mg do better, aye, much better. If there is a country on the glob* that should be rid of that intolerable scourge — a liquor traffic, it ia th« 22 THE FETITS OF THE LIQTJOE TEAFFTC. land of Edwards and Jewett. Like our friends in other States, they have their seasons of lethargy — perhaps of discourageteent, but they will never tern back to a license law That compound of folly and crime, that produces drunkards faster than they can be reclaimed, wil never again desecrate their soil. The act went into effect under the administration of that wise and pure statesman Gov. Dutton. Read what he said of its results. In a letter, dated New Haven, Oct. 20th, 18-54, he says: “The law has been thoroughly executed, with much less difficulty and oppcei- tion than was anticipated. In no instance has a seizure produced any general excitement. The longer the beneficial results of the law art. Been and felt, the more firmly^ it becomes established.” The Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D., of New Haven, says ; “ The opera- tion of the law for one year is a matter of observation to the inhabitants. Its effect in promoting peace, order, quiet, and general prosperity, no man can deny. Never, for twenty years, has our city been so quiet and peaceful as under its action. It is no longer simply a question of temperance, but a governmental question —one of legislative foresight and morality.” Rev. Dr. Kennady says : “ The law has produced the happiest re- sult — a great improvement in Sabbath-school attendance.” At the National Convention at Saratoga, 1865, Gov. Dutton said : “In our country towns, although the law is not commonl}' resorted to, yet it is held as a rod over the heads of those who would otherwise causa intemperance to spread into those towns. The law is not a failure.” NEW H.VMPSHIRE. The only witness of its benign power which I have room for is th# Governor himself Gov. Metcalf, in his annual message to the Legis- lature, 1856, said : “ The act is having a salutary effect. It is more fully regarded and practically sustained than any license law we ever had in the State. In many towns the sale of intoxicating liquors is wholly abandoned, and in others it is sold only as other penal offenses are committed — in secret.” Could anything be more authoritative or more conclusive? Such were the first results of the law. In what estimation is it held now ? The best answer that can b« given to that question is to be found in an able essay read at a State Convention held at Concord, Dec. 12th, 1866, by that ornament of the judiciary. Judge Upton. The Convention was composed of the mrst eminent men from all parts of the State, and they applauded and in horsed the essay. In the opinion of Judge Upton, the law is om of 4he most perfect ever framed. It had been matured by the ablest jurists in New Hampshire, and “ not a man,” said he, “ known in tlie pofitical history of the State ever recorded his name against it.” He regal ded it as vciy easy of execution, and very effective. In this opinion he was sustained bi^ the written statements of every prosecut- ing attorney in the State. His essay concludes with these words : “It has stood the test of judicial investigation, and has proved its powen AND THE RESULTS OF PROHIBITION. 23 Its effectiveness will disarm its opponents and perpetuate its existence." Who could wish for better testimony ? NEW YORK. The effect of the law in New York during the six months it lasted was quite as beneficent as in any other State, but the records of the happy change it wrought are too numerous to copy. Take the follow- tug as a specimen : “ Committals for offenses (without counting violations of the anti- tqucr law) in the counties of Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca and Ontario were reduced 153 in six months. The reduction of committals in five cities, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Auburn, and Rochester, for the same time, was 1,910;” making in all 3,063 less number of committals for crime in four counties and five cities during the six months of its blessed rule. Did any other statute in any part of the world ever do that much good in so short a time ? That was the happiest six months ever enjoyed by the good people of the Empire State. Such are some of the salutary results of a law that has been denounced as “ a failure.” There does seem to be a failure somewhere, but not in a prohibitory law, as the above fa^ts conclusively demonstrate ; and if not in that, it must be that its enemies fail to speak the truth. What is the present condition of New York under a license lawf We have the testimony of her best citizens, that drunkenness and crime are on the increase all over the State. Here is a picture just drawn, copied from the New York Times, a strenuous advocate for license. “ Last Saturday night, in a walk from Nassau Street to South Ferry, WB had ample food for comment upon the Fourth Commandment. Broadway was a perfect hell of drunkenness— a howling, staggering, r^pdemonium of brutalized men.’ The sidewalks were traversed by men in every stage of intoxication, reeling to and fro like ships in a »!orm. The air was laden with snatches of drunken songs, fragments of filthy language, or incoherent shouts from those who were too di'unk to articulate. Drunkenness in everj'^ dark lane and alley, only discov- ered by its disgusting ravings. Drunkenness in the wide lamp-lit streets, staggert?rg along with swimming heads, paralyzed Ihnbs, and countenances of imbecile sensuality. Drunkenness in the kennel, Btentoriousl}' respiring its fetid breath. Drunkenness clinging to the lamp-posts. Drunkenness coiled upon the door-steps, waiting to be robbed or murdered. Drunkenness screaming on the tops of solitary omnibuses, or hanging half out of the windows of belated hackney caba, and disturbing the night with incoherent melodies.” Such is the frightful condition of the greatest city in America under that paragon of legislative wisdom the Metropolitan Excise Law. A friend at my elbow assures me that the picture wou'd apply equally well to Pliiladelphia on Christmas night, 1867. Such is New York, Philadelphia, and eveiy other large city, under a license law. Bear in mind, that those who prate of the failure of prohibition are to a mao th« advocates of license — of that license law which has failed in ©very 24 THE frthts of the liqtjor teafftc. way, except in tlic production of such scenes as aboxe described 9ne of its friends ! In turning our otherwise fair heritage into a perfe<^ hell of turmoil, violence, and crime, its srccess has been unrivaled. As a moral and physical desolator, it has but one equal in the unit erse, and that is its father, the devil. Want of space compels me ver}- reluctantly to omit all reference to Uje operations of the law in other States and localities, where it ha* beat equally efficient in banishing poverty and disorder of all kinds. Ju d:fed by its results, there is no exaggeration in saying it is the best law ever enacted since the promulgation of the Decalogue, and ita universal establish’ment will continue to claim the earnest prayers, im- flagging labors, and cheerful sacrifices of every enlightened friend of humanity, until the drink fashion, that worst relic of ancient ignorance and barbarism, is banished fi'om the world. CONCLUSION. The length of my essay warns me to close. I do not expect to make men pious or virtuous by force of law, but I do rely upon law to make them peaceable and civil to one another, and assist, in connection with moral means, in the removal from their midst of that which has ever been a pestilent and venomous disturber. I am aware that there are some professed temperance men who have been led to think that a prohibitory law does no good where it fails to eradicate at once and forever the liquor traffic, whether executed or not. That certainly is a very preposterous idea. As well might a physician be reproached for having failed to effect a cure in a case where, through the negligence or treachery of the nurse, the reined}^ he prescribed was not half ad- ministered. The law, like ever}' other, does good just so fi»r as it is executed, and may be used to stop the evil entirely, and is confessedly the only law that can stop it. It being 'the only tiling that has ever made any impression on the nuisance it is designed to extenninate, the choice is not between it and a license law, but between it and none al all. Does the law of God which says “ Thou shall not kill” do no good, because murder is not entirely prevented ? Opposition tliere is, and always will be, to any law, otherwise there would be no need i«f law. Surely a law that can be effectually executed when needc>d, and that never fails when executed, is as good as can rationally be ci sirei The human intellect may be challenged to conceive of a better. untiJ me is ir vented that will go alone — that will execute itself — that ■will its ov n volition seize every liquor-seller and b.ing him to jusli-t«, nr, what would be better still, fasten upon the offender wlien about V] .wmmlt the act, and inflict the precise punishment mcritei.’. Such 3 Saw shou'd be omnipotent and omnipresent! Until we arc blcs.sed •sdtli one of that character, -we had better be content with tlie next t)> 3 sl thing, which is the Maine Law, aud blame ourselves if it is net ildroughly enforced. Tliere is no escaping the conclusion — if that cun not be enforced, no other can. It is not without reason, therefore, tlist all thoughtful, earnest, and well-informed temperance men are foi t- prohibitoiy lau — first, last, and all the time, and opposed, delermia Silly, ami I might add, everlastingly opposed, to all 4 thera. Wo. 11, MAINE LAW VINDICATED, BT HON. WOODBURY DATIS, lUDGS OB' THE 8UPEEME COURT OF MAINE. P ' has seemed to me, from the controversy bet^reenDr. Baconand otteis, that there is no little misapprehension, both of principle and facts, k> regard to what is known as the Maine Law. I do not wish to interfere in the discussion, but I propose to make a few suggestions, to which my opportunities of observation may possibly give some value. Without claiming to be heard merely as an advocate of the law, I would say some things as a witness for it. WHAT 18 THE QUESTION f It is important to settle this first. The rule of law, that the issue must be made up before the parties proceed to the trial, is simply the dictate of common sense. Until this is done, it can not be known to what point the advocate should speak, or the witness testify. If the question is, whether entire abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors, as a bev- erage, is a duty, the facts as well as the arguments necessary and perti Bent will be entirely different from those that would be required in considering the question, admitting the duty, whethsr the Maine Law is better than any other. The latter question can not be considered at all until the former is settled ; for the law assumes that it is settled, and is based upon the admitted duty. But Dr. Bacon makes no such admission, and much that he has said seems to imply a denial of any such duty. It is due to himself as well as to the cause of Temperance, which he professej to love, that he should state whether he admits the obligation of Total Ab- stinence. If not, the easiest way to dispose of the Maine Law is to deny ttis fundamental principle that lies at the foundation of it. If he demes the duty, and is arguing that question, we shall know how to UBderstand wnat he says. If he admits the duty, and is arguing the other qnestioa under that admission, then we have something by which to test his ar- guments. The unfairness of considering the latter question, while evading the former, must be obvious to every one. total abstinence a duty. In the suggestions which I propose to make, I may assume this. If vro flaay judge from the Saratoga National Convention, the sentiment of Temper- ance men is unanimous in this respect. The moderate use of intoxicating s MATITE LAW VlIIDIOATEr). liqaore by all, in any community, is an impossibility. Some penoBi, If they drink at all, will driak to excess. Every drunkard has been a croderate drinker ; and every moderate drinker, if not in danger of be- coming a drunkard, is encouraging others to drink, who cerwinly will become drunkards. A good man who drinks wine at a wed. ling, or at a social party, does more to increase intemperance than the erampie of many drunkards can do. If, therefore, he does not abstain fci nii eake, he will do so for the sake of others. The duty is plain. Christiai Quiches and ministers generally concede it. It is not strange tli&t Di . Bacon does not take issue directly on this question. SOME LAW NECESSARY. The necessity of some law to prevent the evils of intemperance is nn}- Tersally admitted. There have been laws in England, iirtended for tbU purpose, for centuries ; and we have always had such laws in this eoun- try. The use of into.xicating liquors is one great source of poverty, suf- fering, and crime. Lord Mansfield expressed the opinion, two hundred years ago, as the result of twenty years’ judicial observation, that three fourths of all crimes, of every grade, had their origin in this habit ; and the fact is as patent now as it was then. A vice which marshals th§ multitude* of prisoners who throng our criminal courts — who crowd our prisons, oar asylums, and our poor-houses — and has filled so many streets and dwell- ings with wretchedness and degradation,.surely ought to be prevented by a suitable law, if it can be done. WHAT SHALL THE LAW BE ? If entire abstinence from t^'e use of liquors, as a beverage, is the duty, then entire prohibition of the sale for such use should be the law. Tlis one is the logical sequence of the other. The law should allow the sal* for purposes just co-extensive with the proper use, and for no other. If over any proposition was sqjf-evident, this would seem to be so. And this has always been the rule iiitenoeu. in every law on this subiect that has ever been enacted. When moderate drinking was thought to b« the proper rule of use, moderate and careful selling was thought to be secured by the license laws. The old laws were in entire harmony with the prin- ciples of abstinence prevailing at the time. And when the rule of duty in regard to the use of liquors wa.s fixed at entire abstinence, except for medio- Inal and mechanical purposes, the proper rule of law in regard to the sah of liquors became, by a logical necessity, that of entire prohibition^ except for 8u;a purposes. And though it may be true that the license laws were prohibitorr to a Sertdin extent, and the Maine Law. with different previsions, is prohib- itory to a greater extent, it does not follow that the only difference is on* of “extent” and “method" As the difference in the fuadaraPEtal principles of the tvo systems is radical, so is the difference in the systenw. The difference between drinking one gMlon a mouth, for a beverag* and MAINE LA.W VINDICATED. 3 drinking ten gallons in the same time, is one of extent only. But th« difference between drinking one gallon and drinking none at all, is not one of extent, but one of principle. And this is the difference not only between the old and the new Temperance ideas, but also between the old and the new Temperance laws. The dift'erence is radical and entire. A law that allows one man in a town to sell, for every purpose, docs not differ from one that allows ten to sell, except in extent. And it hardly differs in that ; for the extent depends upon the demand ; and one maa may sell as much as ten. But the difference between a law that allows cae man, or ten, to sell for a beverage, and a law that allow no one thus to sell, is a difference, not in extent or method, but in principle, intent, snd effect. This is too plain to need argument, THE SELLER, AND NOT THE DRINKER, PUNISHED. This feature is dwelt upon by Dr. Bacon in his first letter, and discussed with renewed indefiniteness in his second. In all his complaints he does not say that he would have it otherwise. He kn' ns very well that all the license laws that were ever enacted, have been exactly like the Maine Law in this respect. This results from necessity. To purchase liquors, or to drink them, may be wrong ; but every wrong c^ not be reached by law. Laws which interfere with private and domestic habits, evea when they are wrong, are enforced with difficulty ; and there must be tome limit to them. He who sells, and he who buys and drinks, both do Wrong. If Dr. Bacon wants a law that will punish both, the way to get tt is open. But because one is not punished, that is no reason why the )ther should not be. The reason why the penal line has been drawn between the seller and the purchaser, including the one and not the other, has already been Suggested. It may, in some future time, be extended to both. But the same rule has been applied not only in all the license laws, but in others. There have long been laws in regard to dealers in obscene books, not only resembling the Maine Law in this respect, but in their provisions for search, seizure, and forfeiture. Is it not a little strange that men who find fault with the Maine Law have never complained of similar provisions m other laws f THE MAINE LAW A “ FAILURE.” So its Ofiponents have often alleged. “ The wish is father of th« thought.” So its friends sometimes have almost conceded. They have ioen too easily discouraged. They have hoped for results too large, and too soon ; and they have been disappointed. Tire law has not been a failure. It has already accomplished great results, though it has but just passed the ordeal of political agitation and judicial construction, in its struggle for permanent life. Every new system, though it may ride prosperously in its first success, is subject to the law of reaction. It most enter the lists, and conquer ^e place it would hold. The UaiiM 4 MAINE LAW VINDICATED. law has been no exception. Even in Maine, as we shall see, Its fiiendk have been, and still are, compelled to spend ir.ach of their strength in wringing from its enemies amendment needed for its success, instead of giving their time for its enforcement. Much has been done in this re- spect since the law was originally enacted ; but some things remain yet to be done. The period of growth is not the time for fruit, eapechilly when the whole counti-y has been swept by the storm of civil strife. That as much has been accomplished as ought to have been expected, an ex- asoination of the circumstances will show. EFFECT OF THE WAS. One eflPect of a war in any civilized community is to relax the s jreagrth of penal law. Inter arma leges sdeni is an old maxim. The truth ot thk ap|>ears in the general prevalence of crime. This is peculiarly the case with that class of offenses which are prevented only by constant vigi- lance. The friends of the Maine Law, without whose aid it is never enforced, have been among the most active in sustaining the Government during the war. Thousands of them have been in the army ; and thoj« at home, in their anxiety for their country, have avoided everj-thing th** would create division among loyal men. They have, for this reason, assented to the election of municipal officers who would not enforce thr law. Pernaps rhey could not have prevented it if they had tried. A< any rate, ihe result has been, not that the law has not been executed a* all, but mat. m the cities and large towns, it has been extensively dis regarded. That the return of peace will make a change in this respect, the enemies of the law have more fears than they confess. Their cry against it because It is not enloreed is altogether hypocritical. If fhey did not fear that it would be executed, they would not cry at all Wlien it shall be enforced, as It will again be, they wlU cry out against Vt all the more, for that reason. DJADBurATB PENAXTIE3. If the law had been the failru-e its enemies pretend, the result would not prove that prohibition is a mistake ; for prohibition can not have a fair trial by the law as it is ne. Its enemies have dictated terms in this respect. And not until the friends of prohibition have been allowed to try it, in their own ^ay, ®8n they be held responsible for the result. The law in this State is probably better than in any other. Besides the provisions usually inserted in such laws, a delivery of liquors is evidence of a sale ; both distilled and brewed liquors and wines are now conclusively presumed to be “intoxicating;” and, in the trial of liquor cases, jurors may be examined, and if engaged in the traffic, they may be summarily excluded from the panel. It sometimes happens that juries will not oenvict when the evidence is sufficient ; but this is rarely the case. A MAINE LAW VINDICATED. s greater difficulty is that of procuring testimony ; but persistent effing will overcome this. So that convictions nave been freqsent and numer- ous in all parts of the State. But the prohibitory system can never be successful, to the extent of ita actual fwwer until every violation of the law is liable to be punished by Imprisonment, varying the time according to the magnitude of the offense. Many able jurists have doubted the policy of punishing by fines alone tn any class of crimes. It gives the rich an advantage over the poor, and cpens the door for men to violate the law, with a penalty that is no actual punishment. This is a general result in aU cases of punishing by finea only. But when the offense is a lucrative business to him who commits it, a fine is no punishment at all. Like other risks or losses, the probable fines will augment the prices, and the consumer will have to pay them. When we remember that, under the most vigorous enforcement of the law, talcing into consideration ordinary difficulties and delays, two fines of a hundred dollars each, and a half dozen of twenty dollars each, would be as many as would be likely to be imposed upon any single dealer in liquors in a year, we can see that many could pay them, as they pay their rents, and have a large margin of profits left. And if there is a second conviction of the highest offense — the penalty for which is imprisonment — the dealer will then give up the business, and some one else will take it to go the same round. The chances of escai)e are many ; and if they fail, l*rge profits will pay the fines. So the liquor-sellers view it ; and they act accordingly. It is clear, therefore, that the penalty in every case, besides the costs of prosecution, should be one of imprisonment. Such a punishment it generally dreaded. There axe thousands who would not run the risk of it who care nothing for fines. Without it, the prohibition in such cases is but an empty name. OTHER LAWS NOT ENFORCED. Those who denounce the Maine Law because it is not enforced, little know how plainly it can be seen what spirit they are of. The whole secret of their opposition is generally a fear that it will be enforced, or a desire for indulgence, without feeling that they are causing it to b« violated. For they are still more dissatisfied when it is enforced. In this Etate the law was executed vigorously from 1851 to 1856 — a rather long time. Dr. Bacon might presume, for the broom to “ sweep clean’’ becaus? it was “ new.” And it has never been so thoroughly executed as it wa* in 1855, when the same men were fiercest in their opposition who now l^jpose it on the ground that it is not enforced. And they show the same inconsistency in another way. For there ar« other laws, of which they never complain, to which this objection might be made with equal force. Penal laws are divided into two clagseskin this respect Those of one 6 MAINE LAW VINDICATED. cla68 are enforced without any general effort in the oommnnlty ; w htU those of the other class are not. The reason is easily stated. 1. When the offense injures some one, in person, or property, like larceny, arson, or murder, the friends of the injured party, and the v?hole community, are interested in bringing the offender to punishment, 2. But in the other class of crimes, like gambling, licentiousness, an4 selling intoxicating liquors, there is no injured party anxious to have the guilty punished. These offenses can be committed secretly ; and all the parties are interested in concealing them. They are, therefore, detected with difficulty, and are punished only by special effort. And, especially in cities and large towns, the laws against them are but partially enforced. The Maine Larw is not peculiar in this respect. There is not a large city to the country in which there are not scores of gambling-houses and Douses of ill-fame, the existence of which is well known to the inhabitants, •nd to the authorities ; and yet the laws against them are not enforced. Are the laws, therefore, wrong f And ought they to be changed into license laws ? The truth is (and Temperance men must not forget it), this class of laws will always be extensively violated. The Maine Law, even DOW, is enforced far more thoroughly than the license laws ever were. In proportion to the number of people participating in the evil to be sup pressed, it is enforced as well in this State as are the laws to prevent licentiousness. MORAL INFLUENCE OP THE LAW. Such laws are not useless, even in communities where they are but (tarely enforced. As teachers of the public conscience, the standard of which is seldom higher than human law, their value is above all price. Many a man refrains from buying intoxicating liquors when he wants them, simply because he must buy of a violator of the law ; and this is often the secret of his opposition to the law. He does not like to give his conscience a chance to appeal to such a law. It tends to make both baying and selling disreputable. It holds up the standard of right, and puts the brand of infamy upon the wrong. He is a blind observer of ths forces that govern in human life who does not see the moral power of penal law, even when extensively violated^ in teaching virtue and restraining vice. What Dr. Bacon says of the number opposed to the Maine loxf may be true. There is many a community in which the really virtuous arc in the minority ; and yet, by the tuoral power of their principles, they so mold the laws and customs, even of the majority, that vice is, to a great extent, shamed and powerless. When the Maine Law was adopted in this State, by the popular vote, there were thousands who would have voted against it if they could have done it secretly, who did not. It is only because of this inherent weakness of vice, and this intriusic power of virtue, which makes the wicked cowards and the righteous bold, that good laws can be secured and enforced anywnere. And by this tho liaine Law can be executed as ^ell as others. MAINE LAW VINDICATBD. 7 THE LAW IS ENFORGED. Maine Law, in its prohibitory form, bnt without the search end ■ehnire clauses, was first enacted in this State in 1846. This first law was extensively enforced ; and it prepared the way for that of 1851. Before that time, the old Temperance reform, and the Washingtonian movement, had each successively reached its climax. And, notwithstanding all the good that was done in reforming the habits of the people, there were etill targe numbers accustomed to use intoxicating liqaors ; and there wui really no legal restraint upon the sale. It was permitted i*" almost every town; nearly every tavern, in country and in city, had its “bar;” at almost every village and “ corner” was a grog-shop ; and, in most places of that kind, more than one, where old men and young spent their earn- ings in dis.sipation ; men helplessly drunk in the streets, and by the way- side, were a common sight ; and at elections, at military trainings and musters, and at other public gatherings, there were scenes of debauchery and riot enough to make one ashamed of his race. What has become of this mass of corruption and disgusting vice ? It seems so much like some horrid dream of the past that we can hardly realize that it was real and visible until twenty years ago. The Maine Law has swept it away forever. In some of our cities something of the kind may still be seen. But in three fourths of the towns in this State such scenes would now no more be tolerated than would the revolting orgies of savages. A stranger may pass through, stop at a hotel in each city, walk the streets in some of them, and go away with the belief that our law is a failure. But no observing man who has lived in the State for twenty years, and ]jas had an opportunity to know the facts, can doubt that the Maine Law has produced a hundred times more visible improve- ment in the character, condition, and prosperity of our people than anj other law that was ever enacted. I have always resided in this State. At the bar I assisted in conducting to a successful result scores, if not hundreds, of prosecutions against liquor' sellers, under the statutes of 1846 and 1851. Having since 1856 served for nearly ten years as one of the associate-justices of our Supreme Court, I have tried many cases, against common sellers, in different counties, from one extreme of the State to the other. And notwithstanding ths unfaithfulness or timidity of Temperance men, the difficulties of enforcing the law, the inadequacy of its penalties, and the effect of the war in retarding its execution, I am convinced, by what I have seen, that it hai accomplished an incalculable amount of good. Of our four hundred towns and cities, making the estimate below what I believe the facta would justify, I am satisfied that in more than one hundred the law prevents any sale of liquors whatever for a beverage. In at least two hundred of them it is -sold only in the way that Doctor Bacon calls “ on the sly,” just as, in the same towns, there are persons guilty of lewdnest and other crimes. bi most of the other one hundred towns liquors are sold probably witl^ 8 MAINE LAW VINDICATED. eot mnch restraint. But in these the trafl&c generally shrinks from tfc« public gaze, conscious of its guilt and shame. And, though the law ii but partially enforced, prosecutions under it are numerous and constant, even in places where large quantities are sold. The condition of things, therefore, even in such places, is far better than ever it was under the license laws. Such I believe to be a fair statement of the existing facts and circuni etances connected with the Maine Law in this State. It is not claim^i liiat they prove our law to be executed as faithfully as it ought to be ; nor ^at imder it, or any other law, the improper sale and use of intoxicating fiqnors can ever be entirely suppressed. But it is claimed that they prove the Maine Law, even with its inadequate penalties to be far superior to any iicense laws ; and that there is no such failure to enforce it as will justify either the friends or the enemies of the Temperance reform in opposing it. And if such men as Dr. Bacon, and many others that might be named, instead of carping at it, or at best refusing to advocate it, would come out publicly, and give it a cordial and hearty support, itj provisions would soon be made more stringent, the tone of public senti- ment in regard to it would become higher and stronger* and its more vigorous execution would soon make it a terror to multitudesof evil-doer* who now trample it under foot. Is not the question of duty with such men oue of vast moment? If they oppose the Maine Law, for whatever reason, every rum-seller in the land will have reason to rejoice. If they are silent in regard to it, wlrile thousands are every year swept away in the great flood of intemperance, they are each practically saying — “ Whai Is that to me ?” “ Am I my brother's keeper?” The day is coming that will give the answer. Pi niT.TsnF.n bt THE National Tempebance Societt ajto PcBLicAnow StocflE, No 58 Seale Btbeet, two doobs west or Bboalwae, Kbv lonx, AX $3 rn TxoomA?ii>. No. 3U. REVIEW OF EX-GOT. ANDREW ON LICENSE. BY EEV. WM, ir. raATER. S TRIPPED of ita verbiage and sophisms, the late speecn of ba- Governor Andrew in favor of License is without a parallel to* teckJera statements and pernicious teachings. HE TEACHES 1. That “ alcohol is food.” He puts it in “ the category of foods” (p. 14); says that it “ acts as a food” (p. 15) ; speaks of it as an articla “ of diet” (p. 125), and as having “ dietetic uses and censures prohibi- tionists for maintaining their views “in spite of the fact that those drinks are foods” (p. 41). The last report of our “ State Board of Charities” furnishes a sufficient answer to such an absurd teaching, when it says of the criminals Vi the State (p. 202), “ About'iticu thirds are set down as intemperate, but *ia number is known to- be too small. Probably more than eighty per cen, come within this class — intemperance being the chief occasion of crime, as it is of pauperism, and (in a less degree) of insanity.” Thus criminals who drink the most whisky get the most of this sort of “ food,” and it appears to nourish them only in sin! These facta we bring against Mr. A.’s theory. He teaches that alcohol is food, in order to show that the Legislature can not prohibit its sale. He says (p. 40), “ If that classification [class- ing alcohol with foods] is correct, then there is an end to the contiTi- versy. For then it can not be held that the Government ought to prohibit the citizen from making up his own bill of fare for himself." Mark, here is also a claim that alcohol is “ diet” in the sense that beef ia diet, 80 that each citizen should control it as “ his own bill of fare." His retisoning rests upon the false assumption, that prohibitionists base their legislation upon “ the essentially poisoncnis character of alcoholic 2 RETIEW OP EX-GOV. AXUP.E'W ON LiCENSB, be'oerages" (p. 11). We deny that the Prohibitory Law was enacte«i because alcohol is a “poisoii." Our courts, pnsons, poor-houses, asylums, broken hearts, and miserable homes declared that a greater part o»‘ crime and pauperism was created by strong drink, and therefore thi law was enacted. If even milk caused so much evil, we woul 1 pro bihit its sale for the public good. On page 58, Mr. Andrew inquiiem, ifter speaking of the fact that saltpeter, though poisonous, is used Lb * curing of hams,” “ Shall we say that a sandwich is poisonous, and SUouid be prohibited by law?” We answer. Yes, when sandwiches oecomc the “ chief occasion of crime, pauperism, and insanity” in the fltate, as our Board of Charities say is true of strong drink. There is no more reason why sandwiches or milk should be permitted to be sold than rum, if they were the occasion of as much social and moral mischief. The public good would require the suppression of their sale. One of Mr. Andrew’s favorite authorities. Professor Liebig, whom he claims as being on his side of the question, amusingly explodes the idea of “ diet” in beer, of which Mr. A. speaks on page IG. Professor L. says of Bavarian beer, which is considered the most “nutritious” and “ best “We can prove with mathematical certainty that as much Jlour as can lie on the point of a table-knife is more nutritious than eight quarts of the best Bavarian beer; that a person who is able to consume daily that amount (two gallons) of beer obtains from it in a uhole year, in the most favorable case, exactly the amount of nutritive constituents which is contained in a five-pound loaf of bread or in three pounds of flesh." (The italics are the Professor’s.) That is, in 730 gallons (two gallons per day for a year) there is no more nutriment than there is “ in three pounds of flesh.” Think of a man driukiug 730 gallons for this morsel of “ food !” As he would use with (Jther food as many as 150 pounds of meat annually, then he must drink fifty times 730 gal- .jis in order to obtain in one }'ear as much nutrition as he does from his meat, which is 36,500 — equal to about three barrels per day ! 1 2. That the human constitution demands intoxicating liquors even In health. Of coiu'se this would follow from his assumption that “ alcohol is food.” He sa3^s (p. 20), “ Stimulants are only energetic stimuli. Now all living acts require stimuli — the eye light, the stomach food,” etc. His argument is actuallj' this: The stomack requires stimulants; alcohol is a stimulant; therefore the' stomacli requires alcohol. In the same way he might prove the claim of gun* powder as an “ article of diet,” for that is a stimulant. Soldiers put it Into their whisky to stimulate them to deeds of daring. His argument would be: The stomach requires stimulants ; gunpowder is a stimulant • therefore tlie stomach requires gunpowder ! He puts in a plea for alcohol as a “ diet” for the healthy laboring man. “The laboring man,” he says (p. 17), “who can hardly finrf REVIEW OP EX-GOV. ANDREW ON LICENSE. 3 bread and meat enough to preserve the balance between the formation and decay of his tissues, finds in alcohol an agent which, if taken in moderation, enables him to dispense with a certain quantity of food.” The only reply we desire to make to this statement is this : An Engli.sh paper recently reported that a benevolent lady inquired of a wretched mother in the purlieus of London as to the cause of the emaciated con- dition, of her children, and the degraded mother answered: “They don’t eat much— not enough to noicrish them without gin-and-water.^ That is the ex-Govemor’s theory reduced to practice I 3. That ignorance and poverty are the chief causes of crime instead cf intemperance. He says (p. 48), “ It is not true that it [drunken ucsbI is the parent or essential cause without which they would not have been.” On pages 83-92 will be found his argument that ignorance and poverty are the chief causes of crime. He thus boldly denies the statistics of our courts, prisons, alms-houses, and Boards of Charities — the first important denial of these facts since the beginning of the Temperance Reform ! On pages 88, 89 is an attempt to explain away the statistics of our “ State Board of Charities” that is unworthy the character of any man who lays claim to learning or candor. But this is necessary to carry his point. And if he presumed upon his “ popu- larity” to establish this position against the settled convictions of lead- ing men for two generations, the fact rather damages his avowal that “ learning is modest" (p. 43). 4. That teetotalers are physically more feeble than moderate drinkers (pp. 29, 30), and “ break down almost invariably, after a certain num- ber of years ;” and that their “ offspring become in a generation or two enervated in mind and body” (p. 146). Such a declaration in New England, in the middle of the nineteenth century, shows the utter recklessness with which ability will sometimes uphold wrong. He quotes one Dr. Bnnton on this point, who nevertheless says, “ Those medicines which really do benefit our patients, act in one way or another as foods, and that some of the most decidedly poisonous sub- stances are those which offer, in the form of small doses, the strongest example of a true food -action.” The reader will observe that Dr. B. does not consider alcohol “ food” any more than he does rhubarb, arsenic, or saltpeter. Quite a different “food” from that which Mr. Andrew would have us think alcohol is, though equally absurd, since it converts our apothecaries into “ common victuallers !" 5. That intoxicating liquors have been important agents in the icivilization )f mankind. He says, “ No nation known to us has evei passed into the inventive condition of even rudimentary civilization without largely indulging in the stimulant of alcohol” (p. 21). Then a grog-shop is a sign of civilization ! ! It is just as true, however, that “ no nation has passed into the inventive condition of even rudimentary dvilization” without lying ; but this fact furnishes no indorsement ^ 4 EEVIEW OF EX-GOV. AJJDEEW ON LICENSE. the Bin. That such a statement has no foundation ^ hatever in truth, must appear to any one who will ask, what alcohol had to do with the invention of the cotton-gin, railroads, steamboats, the telegraph, Atlantic cable, etc., etc. Had such a statement been made by an im- moderate drinker, the public would have credited it to alcohol as a “ stimulant” rather than “ food !” 6. More revolting still, he ascribes the evil effects of alcohol “ to Ifit fascination, of its virtue, the potency of its effects” (p. 21), which is equally true of gambling and licentiousness. “ Were it less alluring” he adds, “ it would not lure to excess ; were it less potent, it would not lecep into such flames of fiery exultation.” Then the attraction of sin is ita recommendation, and the most reckless plunge of its votaries into hell the proof of “ the potency of its effects!” 7. That the Temperance Reform has done no good, but has proved a failure ; and he ascribes the change in drinking habits and customs “ to the same cause which has purified literature,” etc. (p. 76). Of course, his remarks apply with equal force to slavery, so that all his anti-slavery efforts have proved futile, •* the same universal spirit, and the same unerring law which renders it ‘ more blessed to give than to receive’ ” (p. 77), being the real cause of its overthrow. He affirms directl}^ on page 74, that “ drunkenness will disappear as the light shinxs in on the darkened intellect, as opportunity develops manhood, as hope visits and encourages the heart.” Why, then, have a license law, or any other law? 8. That even Tejiperance creates poverty. He shows (pp. 49-52) that Spain is a remarkably temperate nation, and yet is “ nfiserably and frightfully poor,” as if her temperance were the cause of her poverty. Briefly his argument is — Spain is “ frightfully poor yet Spain is very temperate; therefore temperance creates poverty. In the same way we might prove that intemperance has made England rich 1 England is rich ; yet England is very intemperate ; therefore intemperance made England rich. He utterlj' ignores the agency of Christianity in elevating nations, when a child can see that Protestant Europe is far in advance of Papal Europe. As reasonably hold tliat the eating of vegetables creates a blood-thirst}' spirit by the argument, — the Malays live on vegetables; but the Malays are a blood-thirsty people ; therefore vegetables make men blood-tliirsty. 9. That the evils of intemperance are a trifling matter. In addition to the foregoing, he says (p. 116), “ The proof is clear, that neither mor- litlity, nor insanity, nor any of the fatal exhibitions of intemperance, bad as they are, aflbrd any ground for panic.” He says that alcohol baa been “ selected for special reprobation without cause” (p. 21). In speak- ing of the traffic in strong drink, he uses such phrases as “ in matters innocent in themselves” (p. 96), and he declares that our liquor laws ure “ earwtinal” only “ because they are made so, or coded so” (p. 128). H« EBVIEW OF EX-GOV. ANDREW ON LICENSE. i says that “Ninon de I’Enclos was made tipsy on soup, and couvalea cents have been said to get drunk on a beefsteak” (p. 20). The trifling and even dishonest nature of this remark oecomes more conspicuous when we consider that he appeals to “ common experience" (i). 16) to prove that ale, beer, and cider are not poisonous. Does “ common ex fmrknce" prove that beefsteak intoxicates? When the reader sees a “ tipsy” man, does he infer that he has been eating “soup?” 10. That Temperance legislation is an attempt "to make men good and ^Tiuoue by Act of Parliament" (p. 132), a fallacy as old as the doctrine that “ alcohol is food.” Legislation does not attempt to make rum- scllcrs “ good and virtuous but it prevents their doing mischief, and protects sulfering tvomen and children. The legislation that punishes gamblers and thieves does not make them “ good and virtuous ;” but it protects society, and affords better opportunity for moral agencies to work a reformation. 11. That a little alcohol is nourishing, while much of it is poisonous (p. 37). As if a small dose of any article were not the saaue in nature as a large dose ! As if a grain of arsenic were not a poison as really as a pound ! We hold that a little alcohol is a poison as really as much, though it may do less harm. Then his illustration to establish this position furnislies no parallel. From the fact that the atmosphere, com- posed of one foui'th oxygen and three fourths nitrogen, is life-support- ing, while it would bo “ a poison" if it contained only oxygen, he con- cludes that the same is true of alcohol. His argument is : Oxygen is required to support life ; a little oxygen supports it while a good deal destroys it; therefore a little alcohol is nutritious, while much is poisonous. The unfairness and want of candor in such an argument is apparent when we consider that alcohol is not found in nature, as Professor Liebig says. God made oxygen to support life, and it is found in nature. Alcohol is the product of decay or rottenness, and is nothing that God created to bless the world, as he did oxygen, so that the two things can not justly be compared in their effects. 12. That Mahometanism is inferior to Christianity because Mahmnei prohibited wine-drinking, and not because the former has no claim to a divine origin, while the latter has (pp. 142-’61. An able writer very properly inferred from this position of Mr. Andrew, “ He believes that a people are endowed with a capacity to become great and good pre- cisely in proportion to their capacity to drink what is commonly known as ‘ liquor !’ ” 13. That drunkenness was a providential blessing to Englishmen ene hundred years ago. When “ disease, filth, ignorance, licentioua manners, neglect of human want and woe, judicial cr lelty and pauper- ism” needed “ ouly'^ drunicenness to complete the picture” (p. 59), Divine Providence mercifully “ permitted so many to yield to this merely selfish indulgence of brutish menf in order to “ sore them from 0 KEVIEW OF EX-GOV. ANDKEW ON LICENSE. btcoming human devils" (p. 60). This theory proposes to sdve men Iron one vice by plunging them into another ! ! ! 14. That the liquor traffic is both respectable and useful. (See pp. 47, 134.) If one half of the foregoing teachings are true, then the liquol traffic must be honorable and necessary; hence his object in pre.ssing the points enumerated. Concisely stated his argument is — It is respect- able and useful to furnish a necessary article “ of diet;” ‘‘ liquors” are ft necessary article “ of diet ;” therefore it is a' respectable and useful business to traffic in “ liquors.” He bcldly denies the “ dogmas of the prohibitionists,” and censures them fcr “stigmatizing” rumselleis as “ criminals,” “ challenging the philosophy of their movement, the fit- ness of -their methods, their consistency with libertj', with progress, and with the ultimate good” (p. 117). And he claims that a large number of people, “ intellectual, revered, and noble,” are with him in thus combating Prohibition and defending the traffic. CONTRADICTIONS. The number of contradictions in the ex-Govemor’s speech will surprise even his admirei-s. The more prominent are as follows : He opposes our Prohibitory Law because it invades the private rights of men who want to sell liquors (pp. 94, 128), and then advocates ft License Law that permits not more than one in a thousand of the citizens to engage in the traffic, with severe penalties for the 999 who may dare to sell without license (pp. 124, 125). He overlooks the fact that, if the State has a right to license the traffic, it must have the right to prohibit it. He denounces the present Temperance legislation, as “ a monopoly’' (pp. 123, 127), and yet he permits only about one in a thousand of the people to sell intoxicating driulcs; and these few shall be the rich rum-sellers who can pay largely for a license. On the 48th page he denies that drunkenness is the “ essential cause” of crime ; and yet, on page 74 he says, “ crime and tippling are so linked together, tliat if we could banish tippling, the judges have a thousand times declared that criane, unable to live alone, would follow, too.” Then why license the “tippling?” we ask. While he introduced many witnesses to show that our liquor lawa have demoralized the community by increasing the sale, he proves, on page 92, that there was less crime in 1866 (when the laws began to be thoroughly enforced), than there was “ before the war.” Then, too, it must follow, if there was less crime in 1866, and a greater “ flow of bad whisky” (p. 92), that the more drinking there is, the less crime e.xists. The e.x-Governor must share the fame of making this modern discovery. He tried to prove by testimony that the community is more cor- rapted by drink now than it was before the enactment of our Pro EEVIBW OF BX-GOV. ANDREW ON LICEN8B. 7 hibitory Law ; and still he argues that “ ignorance,” etc., instead M drink, produce pauperism and crime. He denies that law can produce any effect upon the drinking usages, and still he opposes the Prohibitory Law because its effect is very bad. Then he adds another contradiction to this, by urging that his license law will have a very good effect (pp. 124, 125). While he stoutly holds that our Prohibitoiy Law has worked mis- chief, he declares that “ it has existed only in name" (p. 107), and “ never xeiU, be made to work" (p. 124). It has proved “ a failure," and yet hag driven the traffic into “ secret places!" How a law can work mischief that can not “ be made to work” at all, needs explanation ! While he thus condemns the Prohibitory Law as wro.'ig in principle and evil in practice, he nevertheless proposes at last to retain it in con- nection wdth his license law. And while he affirms that it can not be enforced, he retains it for licensed liquor dealers to use in punishing their unlicensed neighbors, thus admitting that even the few licensed dealers can accomplish what he believes the whole State can not do now. At the same time, by retaining the Prohibitory Law, and making his license law an adjunct to it, he admits that his law can not work with- out it. Nor is this all. By retaining the present law, after his masterly efforts to break it down, he pays it the greatest tribute possible. That is, he bestows upon it both the greatest blame and the greatest praise. He proves that “ liquors” are “ food,” and so necessary to men in health even, that the “ laboring man who can hardly find bread and meat enough,” can supply the deficiency with rum, and “ dispense with a certain quantity of food nevertheless he proposes the passage of a license law that prohibits the sale to minors, students, drunkards, etc., thus withholding them from one half of the people of the State! Why should not the poor “ laboring man” twenty years old have this need- ful “ diet” as well as he who is twenty-one years old ? Why should it be sold to a clerk in Boston and not to a student of Harvard College, especially when the medical professors of that institution indorse ita ase ? He holds that intoxicating drinks are legitimate articles of commerce, as we have seen ; and then proposes a law that prevents 990 persons of eveiy thousand from engaging in that commerce. He denounces the Prohibitory Law for two directly opposite effects. 1. I’roving by his witnesses that it increases the sale and use of liquors, thus doing a public wrong. 2. By declaring that its restriction of the sale invades private rights (pp. 95, 96, 128-132). He contends tliat it increases the provocations to drunkenness, to drive the traffic into secret'; that is, temptations are increased by removing temptations. And then he teaches that it is good to bs tempted (p. 147). 8 REVIEW OF EI-GOV. AITDEEW ON LICENSE. This argument is much like his general one, that “ alcohol is food ;* and the Prohibitory Law is bad because it supplies it. If his premisa v?erc “alcohol is a poison'' then his argument that the law increases Ihe sale, and therefore must be repealed, would have been consistent But now that “ alcohol is food," in his view, it is not a mischievous that supplies it. That must be a verj' benevolent law that can provide the poor “laboring man” with this substitute for “bread and meat” so that he can “ dispense with a certain quantity of the latter.” Besides, he has completely upset this part of his argument in anothei place by defending the sale of liquor as respectable, on the ground that it furnishes a necessary “ diet.” Finally, after all his attacks upon the Prohibitory Law, pronouncing it a ^‘■failure;" declaring that it neter was and never can he enforced ; that it invades private rights ; that the people are opposed to it; that it increases drunkenness ; that its penalties are unjust ; that it dhninishcs respect for law, etc., etc. ; to propose to retain it, with its seizure clause and penalties, in order to make his license law work, is the greatest CONTRADICTION of all ! We challenge the most extensive reader to produce another such literary medley as ex-Govemor Andrew’s speech. It is not to be found in the English language. And who can show that it is great in any sense, except in sopmsiis, unfounded statements, and bold coH- TRADICTIONS ? His own words (p. 103) furnish us with a fitting close to this tract. “ When we depart from the simplicity of truth as it is found in nature, in the lives of the great exemplars of our race, and in revealed religion, and go to hewing out for ourselves the broken cisterns of merely human ingenuity, we are not unlikely to run the experiment into palpable extremes.” Published by the National Tempebance Society and Publioabm S otraY, No. 68 Beads Street, two doobs west of Bboadvax, New Yobs, $6 peb Thousand. No. 34 . INDICTMENT OF THE RUM TRAFFIC. Bt Eev. W. W. IIicks. RIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: Dear our appeal. We speak •I-' in behalf of every dear interest. The questions that disturb ns and that demand our immediate attention are home and heart questions, and propound themselves to all. Shall rum rule and ruin ? What shall be done — shall anything be done — to regulate and uproot an evil which all acknowledge, which is fearfully on the increase, and whose terrible havoc and contributions all dread? The rum traffic is an unmitigated evil. Not one honest word can be said in its favor. All other trades have just and honorable foimdations ; but this is the trade of deatli. It has no regard for honor. It knows no truce. It hears no cry of remonstrance — no appeal for quarter. It is savage and relentless. It is insidious to the last degree — stealing upon its victims with the subtlety of a serpent; finding its refuge in a licensed bar-room; and under that certificate sallies forth on its dreadful mission, prowling through our land with locks and hands and garments red and dripping with innocent blood. It dogs the step of the husband and father until he falls into ita hungry jaws. It patiently tracks the unthinking youth until, by deceit and intrigue, he yields to its charms. It hides in the gorgeous halls of the rich, and crouches low in the hovels of the poor, to blind and destroy. It has devastated a larger area than war, or famine, or pestilence. It has blasted more homes and broken more hearts than all these combined. It has claimed freedom from regulation and intrenched itself behind decisions of law. It has increased its force, multiplied its attractions, and widened ita avenues of infamy, until they are the unsightly gildings of every street and the blazing attractions of every corner. It has employed all means to entrap and hold fast the youth of our (and — by nightly entertainments of music, whose sounds, in themselves innocent and inspiring, decoy to death ; by arraying temptation, in th« AU APPEAL. fair form of woman, whose charms and attractions, robbed of virtne, an prostituted to vice. It has hurled defiance at the God of heaven, and witn impunity in suited a Christian people, by disregarding the sanctity and claims ol the holy Sabbath, making greater exertions on that day in its destruc- tive work, and filling our streets with drunkards and brawlers, and im- posing heavy burdens upon the charities and loyalty of the sober and Christian public. It has raised large sums of money to buy protection from youi reckoning and vengeance : to buy shelter from the wrath and curse of mothers whose sons have fallen by its keen blade ; from wives whoso husbands come to them no more in peace, love and fidelty ; from chil- dren whose parents have been sent to untimely and dishonored graves, and whose patrimony has been stolen to gild and enrich the palaces of rumsellers, which are indeed the vestibules of hell. To buy decisions of law in its favor, hoping to pander successfully to he corruption of the courts by large offers of gold. To buy long and learned legal sophistries on the constitutional rights of men to demonize themselves and scatter “ firebrands, arrows, and death ” abroad through all the land. To buy up ignorant and unscrupulous legislators, aud secure their electon, who will barter away the dearest rights of the people for the gold of the rumseller, which has cost the blood of innocent families. Yea, to buy up public sentiment, by’ generous distribution of gifts, ac- companied by whining sj'cophancy and mock humility. It has formed leagues, large and numerous, sworn to- uphold the usurped and unnatural right, to disregard entreaty or threat, and go on in its thirst for blood and ruin. These leagues are pledged, assisted by diabolical agencies, not only to subvert society and maintain the right to enter every family circle and tear away the dearest and best, but to overturn and subvert the very Con- stitution of our State, and render nuU and void all laws that have been enacted, or shall be enacted under it, for the regulation and suppressiid of their monopoly of mischief. They would rule in our courts as well as in our prisons and alms, houses. They would fill the judiciary as well as the graveyard with their abet- tors and victims, offering them spoils. They would thus secure themselves against further let or hindrsnse BTising from excise regulations or the enforced restraints of moral society. They can stand the melting pleas of blasted homes and broken hearts, because they are but ’pleas— they can not coerce ; they only beg. AN APPEAL. 8 They can quell ’ these cries, or so harden iheir hearts as that they ehall be as the sighing of the wind through leafless trees mournful but natural. But law thei/ fear. Law they would conciliate. They would gain so much legal place and political power, that should they not be able to buy with gold, they might awe into silence, and thereby connivance, by terrible threats. ■Where justice cannot be bought, they hope to intimidate. "When, by these plots and deep-laid schemes, these leagues fail (as fail they must), it is their hope to divide our ranks — the ranks ot honest men, men of temperance and virtue — by sowing discords and cre- ating contentions among us. This they will do by wresting our watchwords against us ; by slan- dering our motives ; by attributing to us political aims in the interest of certain parties, or a party. We shall be called the decoys or the stool-pigeons of one party or the other ; and by all means will they endeavor to provoke us to forgetful- ness of their true intent and our true aim. They know that, politically, we sympathize with different parties as regarus civil and governmental questions. L'ul let us teach them that, while thus differing as to civil and political affairs, we are one in the arena of domestic peace and moral virtue. We are one for the triumph of Temperance and against the traf- fic of Eum. We can know no party here. Here we are, brothers, with strong arms to defend and resolute wills to persist in defending our homes and firesides against the efforts of this gigantic embodiment of wrong. Let not our ranks be broken by such devices ; the rather, let ns close up and rally every scattering force to meet whatever issue our enemies may madly thrust upon us. Fellow-citizens, wo entreat you, bo not deceived. It is known unto you that the rum interest has sought to identify itself, in turn, with all parties political in order to defeat wise meas- nres- It has endeavored to enlist in its service the all-potent press, in order to defeat justice and morality. It has made overtures to the judge on the bench, in order to defeat the right. It will now raise the ringing cry, “Wolf! Wo'fl Politics! Poli- nos ! ” and brand the united Temperance societies a "political machine,” whose movements shall bo controlled by certain leaders, and whose 4 AN APPEAL. Bole object is to make party capital for the approaching electiona. Ba not deceived. "We know the rum traffic. Fellow-citizens, you also know this traffic. It stands reaJy to-day to buy its place in any party, for the sake of a new lease of life. We must work to keep it out of aU parties ! Let it be an issue by itself 1 We must separate it to itself. We must compel it to raise its black flag unaided by any considerable political power. Let us warn aU parties of our denunciation and unyielding opposi- tion, that shall for a moment grasp the bloody hand of the rum traffic in fraternity. Let it stand alone (or run for office alone), a monument of evil, a monument of murder, of suicide, of pauperism, of increased taxation, of prostitution, of treason to domestic peace and public weal, of all crimes. Let it stand alone in the midst of its gilded thoroughfares, to be despised in its own glare by all political and social complexions ; to bf hooted and despised until, out off from all sympathy, it shall go down in eternal night Let us withhold our suffrage, without regard to party politics, from any man who solicits our confidence and vote, if he is the friend or abet- tor of the rum traffic. Let him be the murderer’s candidate, the suicide’s candidate, th* rumseller’s candidate ; but let him receive our execration in the name of the hundreds of thousands of rum-blasted homes and rum-bUghted hearts in our broad land. Fellow-citizens, we appeal to you. We entreat you to weigh well the issues raised, and' sustain, by your voices and your ballots, measures and men that look toward the maintenance of our Constitution and the execution cf the laws, espe- cially of those laws which are intended to regulate and suppress intem- perance. We appeal to you with confidence. We plead humanity’s cause and yours, pi We plead for your children — their lives, their property, their charao* ter, their eternal future. We plead for the honest son of toil — whose path is beset and whocc •amings are filched by the conscienceless rumseller. And we plead in the sacred names of God and Government. POBiaSHTID BY THE NATIONAL TeMPEBANCE SoCIETT AND PUBLICATION HoUa% No. 58 Beade Street, two doors west of Bboadwax, New . York, at $3 pee Thousand. i No. 52. THE FRUITS OF LICENSE. BY KEY. WM. THAYER. A S a tree is known by its fruits, we commend to the advocates of 14 . cense the following facts, which show the working of a License law in Massachusetts. Previous to the November election of 1867, the State constables ea- forced the Prohibitory Law so thoroughly in Boston, that the tax oa liquors at the internal revenue district No. 3, including most of the rum-selling portion of the city, was reduced from $22,000 per month to $6,000. The month immediately succeeding the election, the receipts at the same office on liquors advanced again to nearly $22,000, showing tliat a great incubus was lifted from the traffic by the License triumph. The positive testimony of over 250 towns in the State visited since last November by myself or some of the agents of the Alliance, is to the very marked increase of intemperance. Even the smaller and more retired rural districts have not escaped the direful consequences o! “ free rum.” In one small town, situated five miles from the nearest railroad station, on a Saturday night just previous to our visit, eleven intoxicated men were counted upon the principal street. The oldest inhabitant remembers no such scene of intoxication as that. In the county of Suffolk, on the 1st of Sei)tember, 1867, there were less than 900 places w'here liquor w'as sold, and most of these clandes- tinely. On the first day of September, 1868, nearly 2,500 liquor shops were opened on the same territory, a fact which proves how utterly false was the plea of the License advocates, that their object was M diminish the traffic. INFLUENCE ON TRADE. Everywhere, employers complain of idleness, insubordination, and Inefficiency, occasioned by excessive drinking. We doubt if there be one employer in the State, whose workmen number twenty-five or apward, who ■nill not testify to increased troubles with his men through strong drink. Take, for example, the testimony of Oliver Ames & Son, one of the largest business firms in New England. The Messrs. Ames write — “ We have over 400 men in our worlis here. We find that the present License Law has a very bad effect among our employees. We fnd on comparing our production in May and June of this yea* (1868) with that of the corresponding months of last 3'ear (1867), that In 1867, with 375, we produced eight (8) per cent, more goods than we ttd in the same months in 186S with 400 men. We attribute this large 2 THE FRUITS OF LICENSE. felling off entirely to the repeal of the Prohibitory Law and the large oicrease iu the use of intoxicating diinks among our men in conee* ^[uence.” rUFLUESCE ON REFORMED rNEBRIATES. llany ol .his class have returned to their cups within a few montlia remperanc ) organizations have been obliged to discipline and expel s amt h largv' per cent, of them for the violation of the pledge than the5 did under •.■'rohibition. Some very affecting cases have come to ocT Rotice. In one town, the son of an intemperate father lost his life in the late wm After his death, the father reformed, and continued faithful to n-s pledge until the increased temptations under the License movement '’.arried him back to inebriety. Three or four months since, a Boston t rtist, whose business is to produce large photographs of deceased soldiers and sell them to relatives, appeared at his door with a beautiiu' likeness of the slain patriot son. Holding it up to the gaze of the sir cken mother, she sprang forward, and clasping it to her bosom, e/ vaim* d, “ Mr son ! my son !” But the fall of her wretched husbano »vid ro need her to such poverty that she could not purchase the piciiv a. and vith a bleeding heart she parted with it. TESTIMONY OF THE PRESS. The p- ess, am >st without exception, testifies to the marked increase of intei/ oerance under the License. Even License sheets, that lent their In mence 'o this disastrous change, admit it. The Springfield Repiibi^ in says • “ Intemperance has increased, is increasing, and ouglu ( • be dim nished.” The name pai^-u- declares that the jail of Hampden County it otermn teith pf toners in consequence of the large increase of intemperance. Tue Dress ot me country towns, where the opportunit}’ to judge of the or loge is netter than in the city, speaks still more emphatically upon t lis subii'Ct. For example, — Beverly was one of the best Tem- pera ce town.s in the State under the Prohibitory Law; scarcely a pliM>! could be found where liquor was sold illegally, and the streets we» a as quiet at night as by day, and brawls and fights very infre- qu»ot What it is under license, the following extract from the Bo 'erly Citian shows : “ Since the new law went into operation, as wr »TC lafor»»cd by the police, drunkenness has increased alarmingij. Thoy report Uiat a tveek ago last Sunday night, in one room of r butiding, in 'he lower part of the town, which they entered, not leee Ihan fmrteer persons were found in an intoxicated condition, and Ihs* H is no unc^umon thing, at night, for men to be found lying about on ttie ground drunk.” PRISON STATISTICS. The ’U’n'her of commitments to the State Prison during the yeai ttojptember let, 1866, before the Prohibitory Law was strictly THE PBTjrrS OP LICENSE. 8 enforced, was 247 ; during the year ending September 1st, 1867, where- in the Law was entorced, 128 ; during the year ending September Ist, 1868, under License Law, 180. During the nine (9) months of 1868 the Commitm«.'’*s were 148, while in the corresponding nine months oi 1867 they were only 80. The public institutions of Suffolk County tell the same storj'. We called for the statistics of the Jail, House of Correction, and Almshouse on September 24th, and found that all of them had a large increase ol Inmates. The Almshouse had 243 against 200 on the same day of the month in 1867 ; the House of Correction had 429 against 369 last year; end the Jail was averaging nearly one hundred weekly beyond tha average of a year ago. We need not furnish statistics from the public institutions of othex counties, but only add that nearljr all of them bear similar testimony ta the increase of paupers and criminals. The daily arrests for drunkenness in Boston, at this time, are largely in excess of the an-ests last year. And yet, last year, the inducement to the city authorities was to swell the number of arrests under Prohi- bition, which the city did, by arresting persons who were but partially disguised with liquor ; while this year, the inducement is to lessen the number under License. Add to this the fact, that, since the repeal of the Prohibitory Law, drunken men can not be arrested without a warrant, while wnder Prohibition a police officer could make summary arrests even for slight intoxication, and the following figures will appear remarkable. In the months of July, August, and September of 1867, the arrest* for “ drunkenness,” “ disturbing the peace,” “ disorderly” and “ com- mon drunkards” — all of which must be credited to rum — amounted to 2,369. In the corresponding months of this year (1868) they amount to 3,107. Seven hundked and TninTV-EiGnT more in three months of this year than there were in the corresponding time of last year ! Another item deserves mention here. In making appropriations for the public institutions, at the beginning of the present year, the city government of Boston appropriated, as “ Estimated for Subsist- ence,” $5,000 more than last year, for the “ House of Correction,” and (14 ,500 more for the “ House of Industry,” — a fact which indicates that the authorities anticipated an increase of rice and crime under thcil pet License Law. TESTIMONY OF CITY mSSIONARIES. We have not space to .quote one tithe the amount of testimony froii this source. The witness borne by the following is similar to wha has been testified to other missionaries in this and other cities of the Commonwealth, and is the testimony of men whose opportunities fo* observation are greater than those of the common citizen. Rev. Philip Davis, of this city, says : “ When I commenced my labors, six yean •go, there were 132 opeu rum-ehops in Korth Btreet; but when the 4 THE EBTJITS op LIGENS®. ProhiWtory Law was enforced, all these were closed except tw«j which were hotels. Since the repeal of the Prohihitoiy L:iw I counted 116 in North Street, with all their usual accompaniments, gambling and houses of ill-fame.” Another writes : “ From the observations 1 iSaily make, the sale and use of intoxicating drinks among us at tha present time is greatly in excess of anything I have observed under tbs administration of the Pi-ohibitory Laio. For years past I have sees aothing that compares with the present evils of intemperance.” » TESTIMONY OF PUELIC REPORTS. In the last annual, report of the Inspectors of our State Prison, tha Warden says: “ The nuniber of convicts at the prison September 30, was 534, their average age being about 26 ; the oldest is 63 years, and the youngest 16 years. About four fifths of the number committed the trimes for which they were sentenced either directly or indirectly by the use of intoxicating dnnks." The Chaplain sa3's: “ Of the 534 men now here, the greater propor- tion would be glad to vote for the Prohibitory Law ; for manj' of them feel that their safety from the perils of drunkenness depends, in a great degree, on such a law. They realize their u'eakness and are fearful of themselves, and desire such a law to strengthen them in their resist- ance to the seduction of the cup, which has been their bane and curse. When about to be discharged, to go out again into the world to combat its varied trials and temptations, in answer to the hope expressed that they will do well, they often say, ‘ I shall do well enough if I let liquor ilone. If I can resist when urged to take a drink, or can go to some place vhere I can’t get it, I shall do well enough. If I come back here, H will be rum tliat brings me.’ ” Om' State Board of Charities say, in their last annual report; “ Of all the pFOximate causes or occasion of crime, none is so fiaiitlul as intem- perance. The returns show that from 60 to 80 per cent, of our crim- mals are intemperate, and the proportion of those whose crimes were occasioned by intemperance is probably even greater.” The last report of the Suffolk Grand Jury shows that 75 of 80 case* are traced to intoxicating drink ; that is, fifteen sixteenths of the whole aumber result from drinking habits 1 In view of the foregoing facts, it must be conceded that license>\ llqucr is just as disastrous now as it was when King Ahasuerus and iis s val guests had a disgraceful, drunken time at a banquet, though, -a we are told, “ the drinking was according to the law." ifiTT T'n by the National Xempekance Society and F ctbIjIcatxos House, No. 58 Ke.ade Street, two doors west of Beoadwat, New Yobk, at $3 pee Thousand. Ifo. 53. TME BALLOT FOR TEMPERA.\CE. BY EEV. JAMES B, DUNN. * lARUNKENlSTESS,” says tlie Westminster Review, “ is the curse ai ” England — a curse so great that it far eclipses every other calami^ under which we suffer. It is impossible to exaggerate the evils of drunkenness.” That the same may he truly said of America, no sane person can foJ t moment doubt. The evil affects every family, invades eveiy do- mestic hearth, pervades eveiy social circle, looms up in every com- munity ; everywhere it stalks abroad, peopling the graveyards with its victims, and recruiting the armies of eternity with lost souls. By night and by day it pursues its cruel work of breaking the hearts of parents, blasting the hopes of children, consigning brothers to destruction and Bisters to shame. It is the great source of pauperism, the great fount- ain of crime ; fills the almshouses and peoples the jails, and is fast Mapping the foundations of civil and social government Against this evil, for nearly half a century, earnest men have waged an incessant warfare — their weapons being chiefly those of moral and legal suasion. By the former an incalculable amount of good has been done, and it ought to be wielded vigorously and perseveringly Apart from the many it has reclaimed and saved, even from the midst of deepest ruin, and the multitudes it has prevented, who might other- wise have become drunkards, from sharing that fate, it has collected and promulgated facts, inculcated doctrines which have, to a great ex- tent, weakened or changed the public delusions about the nature and use of intoxicating drinks, and wrought a perfect revolution in tho customs and habits of society. But the tru' h must be told ; moral •uasion has its limits. It will neither preserve the child from danger oor the vicious from crime. It is too feeble to combat the drunkard’a appetite when excited by temptation, and it is too feeble to combat the selfishness by which unprincipled men are actuated. With temptation tracking the steps of reformed inebriates on every hand, facilities pres*- ing them on all sides, and drinking companions ready to drag them into the numerous bar-rooms, it is not to be wondered at that .so many have fallen and gone back to their cups. If these weak brethren art to be delivered, the temptation must be removed, and this by the inters position of law. s THE BAIXOT FOR TEMPEEANCK. But it must not be thought that any act of legislation looking to thtt end is a substitute for, or in opposition to, total-abstinence reform, but its true and necessarj' concomitant and support. So long as man ii weak and prone to temptation, it is in vain to preach total alrstincnoe witliout we at the same time practicallj- enforce by law the precept of fjie Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, i)ut deliver us fiom S?il.’’ For how can tlie temptation be removed sliort of the .aw i How was slavery, or the corn-laws proliibiled in England ? W as ii by moral suasion alone, or by sitting idle and sa3'ing, “ We seek th« entire removal of the traffic in human flesli and the tax upon human fcod, by laboring to induce the people totally to abstain from buying ana selling tlieir fellow-creatures and eating class-taxed bread ?” or was it by invoking Pailiament to restrict or regulate bj' law the.se ini- quities ? No ! It was only when Elizalteth Ileriick, in England, and the Rev. Andrew Thomson, in Scotland, against .slaverj', and Cobden and Bright against the corn-laws, aroused the people to demand of Parliament, as tlieir right, that these iniquities be abolished, that Par- liament abolislied them. Does any one believe, for one moment, that, with the exception of the slave-owners and tlie land-ocvners, if all the people of the British empire had been morally persuaded of the iniquity of slaverj" and the corn-laws, these crying wrongs would have been abolished without an act of Parliament — witliout the law’, in short? Never! no, never! II was only the iron liand and inexorable grip of the law’ that either could or w’ould have forced these men to give up their unhol}’ gains And does any one think, for a moment, that intemperance and iu> concomitant evils can be banished from the land by moral suasiveefforw only, w’hile an iniquitous fraternit}’ of men are permitted to engage in the still more unholy traffic of liquor-selling, the fruitful and only source of all drunkenness ? Never ! To talk of persuading such men as are eveiy’where to be found engaged in liciuor-selliug to abandon the traffic, is w’orse than foil}’. As long as money can be made by the traffic, there are men who would build their groggery in tlie crater of a volcano ; they would sell rum, did the law permit them, amid the heaving of an earthquake; and as the drunkard steps dow’ii the bank and hangs suspended by a single twig over the bottomless pit, they would put betw’een his chattering teeth the draught that w’ould un- nerve his arai and plunge him into an eternal abyss. And shall wt IsUt of moral suasion to such men ? Only the pains and penalties of inw will make them feel what righteousness and trutli can not makt them see. Llow’, then, are righteous law’s on this subject to be secured, an^ when secured, enh reed? Simply by the election of men ‘o tlie I-egin- lature who w’ill sec to the passage of such laws, and of officers who will see that, w hen passed, these laws are enforced ; and that such men THE BALLOT FOB TEMPEBAHCB. S Biay be elected, those friends whc look for and labor for the removal of the great curse must use the ballot. Too long have the friends of Temperance, by their inconsistency ^n this matter, given the world cause to doubt the sincerity of tlieir pro- fessions. “ Where is your consistency,” it is asked, “ when, after aD you say about the evils of intetnperance and your desire for thfeir ro- sio'.al, you yet vote men into the Legislatnre, Congress, and othsg- BlUces, whom you knew to be in the liabit of using every day, aa a beverage, drinks that intoxicate, and who have no sympathy with the Temperance reform ?” Can we expect success when so inconsistent with our professions? The power of the ballot to the accomplishment of any object in politics is understood and appreciated by the liquor-dealers. In all questions affecting their interests, they act in concert and as one man — pledged to support no candidute for office who can not give satisfactory assurance that he is wuth them, and in all things will act for them. Their motto is, “ He that is not for us is against us.” To this, their un- flinching devotion to the interests of their own craft, must be attributed much of their success and present power. Never, for one moment, do they hesitate to put to the candidate seeking their suffrage the question. Are you in favor of legislation in our interest and in opposition to all Temperance movements ? Why should the friends of Temperance neglect the use of the ballot in seeking the removal of the greatest evil that afflicts the country ? We speak not now of the formation of a new party ; we simply ask, Is it consistent for us to pledge with the one hand our lives to labor foi the suppression of intemperance, while with the other we deposit oui ballot for a man who is in favor of its continuance ? Let every friend of Temperance take the ground, and let nominating conventions of both parties understand that no candidate for any office can receive his vote who is not in favor of the speedy and complete overthrow of the liquor traffic, the grand feeder of intemperance, and half the work is done. And why should it be otherwise ? How can I, as a friend of Tem- perance, consistently vote for any man to any office who is not with me in seeking the removal of the great curse? If a man comes to me for my vote, is it that he should represent Jiiinself or me ? If he does not agree witJ, what I believe to be my interest and my duty how casf iie repi'f'scnt me ? If, then, I would consistently carry out my 'l em- perance principles, I must use the ballot in its behalf. While, then, we would, as friends of Temperance, seek, and that most energetically, by the use of the pledge, the press, the pulpit, the forum, and the school-house, the advancement of Temperance in the reclamation of the inebriate, the preservation of the youth, and the creation of a healthy public sentiment on that subject, let us use also 4 THK BALLOT FOB TEMPKEASCK. Ike (Mllot. Our petitions to legislators for the enactment of just lawi »n this subject will be treated with contemptuous silence so long u the signei-s neglect to this end that share in the sovereignty of the State which is the privilege and duty of every citizen — the right of suffrage. True, indeed, when Temperance men talk of using the ballot in ac- cordance with their principles, to elect men favorable to Temperance s*d opposed to the liquor traffic, politicians raise the cry, “ Oh 1 that will endanger our party;” for they well know that, as long as party leaders care more for what is expedient than what is right, the con- riatent use of the ballot by Temperance men to advance that reform will certainly upheave political organizations, swamp partisans, and thwart the designs of cemagogues. But what, then, if organizations are so weak that they can not stand up for the right, for the interests of humanity, and the promotion of the greatest good ever tendered to man ? Then let them go down. If such candidates only can be elected who are in sympathy with a traffic that has proved itself to be an un- mitigated evil, in favor of which not one honest word can be said, then let them be elected by the votes of those of like mind. But it is not so. Let candidates for office understand that the suf- ilages of all Temperance men, without regard to party politics, will be withheld from every man who solicits their confidence and votes, if he is the friend or abettor of the rum traffic, and that only such who are in B 3 'mpathy with, and will use their official influence toward, the sup- pression of that traffic, can receive the ballots of Temperance men, and very soon the course of things will be changed. And office-holders as well as office-seekers, learning wdsdom, will see that laws tending to tlie eradication of the evil are placed on the statute-book, and, whan placed there, are enforced with a vigor and persistenc}' that shall be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well. Friends of Temperance, as j'e love consistency, the welfare of hu- manity, your country and j’our God, let the cry go forth : The Ballo* rf>H Texeperance. Polished by the National Temeebance Socxety axd Publica; Bones, No 68 Heade Street, two doobs west op Bboadwax, New Yobb, at $3 feb Thousand. No. 65. NATURAL AND RESERVED RIGHTS. BY KEY. JOSEPH CUMMINGS, D.D, Those opposed to the prohibition by law of the sale of intoxicatiag irinks as a bevsrage have often urged with great confidence and fwsitiveness that such legislation is a violation of the natural and re- served rights of men as members of society. Their theory of government — which is by far too prevalent — is based on what is called the Social Compact, and recognizes no higher origin of civil government than thecon- nent of the governed. It supposes the natural state of man to be that of Independent individuals. Becoming weary of their savage warfare, they met for consultation, and agreed to give up certain rights to government, the agent of society, in order better to secure others. All rights not conceded remain with the individual. Many seem to beiieve that among the most important of their reserved rights was the right tc use and traffic in intoxicating drinks We can not here stop fully to dis- cuss this theory, which we regard as essentially wrong, and contrary to the dictates of reason and conscience. Historically, its account of the origin of government, and the implied absolute and general consent to it, are without foundation. Man is born into society, and made subject to its restraints irrespective of his will. Moreover, individuals can not confer a right they do not possess. He who has committed murder de- serves death ; but he has no right to take his own fife, and of course can not confer such a right on others. No moralist will admit that a thousand men may remove to an unin- habited, unclaimed island, and rightfully establish a government that shall recognize as proper falsehood, theft, sensuality, and murder. There Is a higher authority than human law, that forbids it to vary from the immutable distinctions of right and wrong. The office of law, as a rule ef government, is to enjoin, under the fear of penalties, the perform- ance of what is right and the abstaining from what is wrong. The true theory of government, as we regard it, removes all difficul- ties alleged to be in the way of legislation relative to intemperance. !i represents the natural state of man, the state for which he was create4! ind designed, as in society, not as that of independent individuals. God designed man to be a member of society, and from it he has n® fight to separate himself. Man surrenders no rights On becoming a fnembei of society, for he has none to surrender. He never had a right to do any thing against its welfare. Asa created, accountable be- ing, all his rights, from the necessity of the case, are derived. Society, and its agent, government, are divine institutions, essential to the per* t NATURAL AND RESERVED RIGHTS. fection of the race. Hence, God, who gives all rights, never conferred any right to destroy or injure them. There is a common and pernicious error relating to natural ri^hti that has the sanction of eminent friends of temperance. It is said % man has a right to do as he pleases, if he does not interfere with tha welfare of society. As an illustration, it is by them admitted that, in the privacy of his chamber, a man may, if he pleases, drink and b« drunken; a man has a right to waste and destroy his property oi health. By the doctrine we advocate, which is founded on the simplest principles that recognize the dependence and responsibility of man, it is evident that no man, at any time or in any place, public or private, or under any circumstances, actual or possible, has, in any real, true sense of the word, a right to sin or do any thing God prohibits. It is ft sentiment infidel in its origin and tendencies that claims the source of right is in the general consent of men. Is it not absurd to suppose this consent can make that right which God forbids ? It is a great mis- take to concede to the individual the right to do what society, as such, has no right to prohibit. Man has power to sin, but no right; he has power to steal, but no' right ; he has power to commit murder, but no right; he has power to mislead others by evil example, but no right; he has power to debase his physical, intellectual, and moral faculties by intemperance, but no right. It may be difficult, in many cases, to determine the province of civil law, which evidently is not coextensive with individual obligation. It is every man’s duty to pray in secret ; but law may not determine the frequency, the place, or the hour. It is a duty to love God, to believe in Christ, to repent of sin ; but civil law, that can not control the affec- tions or determine whether the duties are performed or not, may not by its penalties enforce these or other duties of spiritual religion. But no one can reasonably deny that law may, in many cases, prohibit a vio- lation of many of God’s commandments. The great principle of legis- lation is to prohibit all that is against the general welfare. Civil govern- ment is a distinct feature of God’s moral administration ; and all its pow- er, as well as right, is ultimately derived from him. Magistrates are hia messengers for good, and the province of law, which should be the ex- pression of his will, extends to all things injurious to society, corrupt- ing to its morals, or increasing its burdens without bringing correspond- ing benefits. The only question to be considered, when it is proposed to prehibit by law the sale of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, is, whether such Bale is an evil. On this point we deem no argument is here needed. No man in sincerity can ask God’s blessing on this traffic, and call him U NATCrBAL AND BBSEBVBD BIGHTS. 9 witness that he follows it because he believes that, directly or indirectly. It promotes the health, wealth, happiness, and spiritual welfare and god- iiness of the community. There is no peculiarity in temperance legisla- tion, and there is no principle involved in a righteous government that does not demand the prohibition of the trafiBc. The objections against this legislation have the same force against all law. It is vain to say it jdoes not reform men, that it is in advance of public opinion, that it is not and can not be enforced. Law as directly reforms intemperate men and the dealers in intoxicating drink as it does thieves and murderers. Its great office, in all its applications, is not so much to reform criminals as to prevent crime. It is the fear of penalties threatened, rather than punishment endured, that deters from transgression. Good laws have been in advance of the opinions and wishes of the majority of men ever since God, amid thunderings and flame, gave hia law on trembling Mount Sinai. Did he make a mistake ? His laws, as well as many of the best laws of society, have not been obeyed ; should they, therefore, be repealed ? Shall there be no regulating human conduct offensive to those whose appetites and evil desires lead to its violation ? Law is a teacher, and one of the best helps in forming a right public opinion. The assertion that a temperance law can not be enforced is a mistake. Such laws have been enforced. And if but half the determination that was manifested in behalf of the Fugitive Slave Law should be shown, there would not be a village in all New-England in which a stringent temperance law would not be obeyed. Government is energetic in com- pelling obedience to other laws, protecting property and life. It will crush opposition, even if the fields shall be covered with the slain and the streets should run with blood. If it would do all this to prevent the destruction of property, shall it not enforce laws that will prevent not only the loss of property, but the destruction of the lives and souls of men ? As already stated, legislation on temperance has nothing in it peculiar. Other laws limit the control of property and the modes of human actions. Law forbids the sale of bad books and of lottery tickets, even when the parties immediately interested are willing. In many places, where public safety requires, it limits the kind of materials for buildings, end their height. A man may not dam up a stream of water on his own land, when the health of the neighborhood will in consequence suffer When land is needed for highways and railroad'^, it is taken, even with out the consent of the owner. To him it may have special value bt cause of peculiar associations. In it may be the graves of his ancei - tors and of his children ; but the plot he has jealously guarded froio 4 NATUBAJL AND EE8KBVED EIGHTS. the public gaze is thrown open to the noise, bustle, and crowds of com- merce. He is not allowed to determine the value of his property, but even this is decided by others. Admitting intemperance is an evil, a curse to society, every principle tsnderlying all righteous legislation demands that it shall be suppressed by law. It was a wise law enacted by the Plymouth colony; “All uiis- iemeanors of any person or persons, as tend to the hurt and detriment »f society, civility, peace, and heighborhood.s, shall be inquired into by the grand inquest, and the persons presented to the court, that so the disturbers thereof may be punished, and the peace and welfare of the subject comfortably preserved.” Can there be any doubt that the sale of intoxicating drinks as a beverage tends to the hurt and detriment of society ? In order to secure right legislation, the temperance question should be introduced into politics, and should be regarded as of primary impor- tance. Temperance men have too often been wanting in vigor and de- cision. Hitherto they have been timid and vacillating, and too often have yielded to compromises that have shown their weakness. They have not insisted that their principles should be introduced into a party platform, lest some other great cause, like the preservation of the nations’ life, should be injured. Every good cause is safe with temperance men, who have ever been loyal and devoted to the best interests of the coun- try. If they had shown the decision and consecration to their work that characterized the anti-slavery men, long since they would have glo- riously triumphed. Temperance legislation is necessary to redeem the country from the reproach of having proved, what its enemies allege, that a republican government is a failure. Manifestly it is thus, as it is seen in our large cities, such as New-York, Boston, and others. The multitude and their corrupt leaders that support fraud, corruption, bribery, peijury, and all manner of crimes, are opposed to temperance. Corrupt, unprincipled leaders would lose all their power if the sale of intoxicating liquors should be prohibited. This reproach and disgrace to our government are found only where intemperance prevails. The large and influential body of temperance men has suflficient wealth, intelligence, and power to sustain their cause. All that is need ed is union in a firm determination that they will sustain each other and give their support to no party or measure that is opposed to th good of man and the will of God. Published bv the National 'L’eatpeeance Soctett and Pcblicatio* House, No. 58 Keade Steeet, two dooks west of Beoadwat, New Yoek, at 33 pee Thousand. No. 69 Ems OF LICENSE. BY REV. WM. M. THAYER. Tbtb License Law of Msissacliusetts has worked great misckief i,lirotigh< aat trie State. All official reports and documents relating to the subjeci ieaounoa it as the cause of the large increase of vice and crime in the Commonwealth in 1868. Extracts from official documents are fm'uished to this tract to confirm our statement. In his inaugural address (Jan- uary, 1869) Governor Claflin said : “ A moral and Christian people cannot remain inactive when they sea auch results as are following, and are sure to follow, the sale of intoxicat- ing drinks to the extent that now prevails in our hitherto quiet and or derly State. The increase of drunkenness and crime during the last six months, as compared with the same period in 1867, is very marked and decisive as to the operation of the law. The State prison, jails, and houses of correction are being rapidly filled, and mil soon require enlarged ac- commodations if the commitments continue to increase as they have since the present law went into force. The increase of commitments for the eight months previous to the 1st of October, 1868, over the same time in 1867, is remarkable, and demands the careful attention of the community. In the eight months alluded to, in 1867, 65 persons were committed to the State prison ; in the same period in 1868, there were 136 commit- ments — more than double the number of the previous year. It may he, perhaps, that all this increase is not due to the ease and freedom with which intoxicating liquors can he obtained, but few will deny that much the largest part is chargeable to this cause.” The Chief Constable of the Commonwealth reported to the Legislature (January, 1869) : “ This law has opened and legalized, in the various cities and towns, about two thousand five hundred open bars, and over cue thousand other places where liquors are presumed not to be sold by tne glass. Of these three thousand five hundred liquor establishments, Boston has about two thousand, or about five hundred more than all the other cities and towna of the Commonwealth. Drunkenness is on the increase to a melancholy extent. The official report ot the Chief of the Boston Police shows the following results for a period only three months, ending October 1, viz. For the Quarter ending OcTOsaa 1, 1867. Cases of drunkenness arrested by the police . . . . 1,728 Common drunkards ... .... . 148 Disorderly conduct . . 300 Dirturbing the peace ... 257 Aiftaults ... 433 Intoxicated persons helped home , , . 479 . 3,34f Total 2 EVILS OF LICENSE. Foe the Quakter ending October 1 , 1868 . Cases of druukenness arrested by the police . l,Dl& Common drunkards 1^4 Disorderly conduct . . . , 653 Disturbing the peace . , 397 Assaults . « ■ 547 Intoxicated persons helped home 484 Total . - . 4,l;S 3,344 Increase in 1868, for one quarter ... . . 794 "The above described offences are always recognized by police courts and the records of police stations as cases of drunkenness. Surely if this Increase of drunkenness and its immediate and well-known results are admitted, can the proposition that a License Law would promote tempe- rance and tlie moderate use of intoxicating liquors be longer maintained or safely suggested? The rapid increase of crime and violence during the past year over former years is without precedent in the history of criminal experience. The State prison and houses of correction neve; held within their limits such numbers as at the present time, while tlie wheels of justice are almost clogged with the trial of constantly accumc lating criminal business, and the district attorneys of Suffolk find it almost impossible to clear their criminal dockets from month to month, notwithstanding the courts in this county are in almost perpetual session. Is 't unfair to suggest that the open bar and inviting sale of intoxicating liquors, licensed and unlicensed, in every street, is to a considi^i-wiibi extent chargeable and responsible for tliis state of things?” The Board of State Charities say (Fifth Report, pp. 36-40) : “ While in our cities there is an undeniable increase in intoxication and consequent crime, the change is more noticeable in the smaller towns, and the effect in general is so palpable that public opinion seems already frowning upon the unseemly order of things, and demanding a return to the safer regime of prohibition, with reasonable penalties and a faithful attempt to execute the law. Poverty’ and vice are what the poor man buys with his poisoned liquor ; sickness, beastliness, laziness, and pollution are what the State gives in exchange for the license-money which the dram-seller filches from the lean purse of the day -laborer and the half-grown lad, and hands over, sullied with shame, to the high-sala- ried official who receives it. But the treasury reaps little from this re- volting tribute ; for along with the licensed shops and bars twice as many that are unlicensed ply their trade, and debauch the poor without enrich- ing any'body but the dram -seller. These are the practical results of a license system in Massachusetts. The increase of intemperance, which the reaction of last year against the strictness of prohibition has greatly promoted, interferes at once with our industrial interests, fosters pauper- iem and disease, and swelis the list of criminals. That intemperance has increased will appear from the prison statistics, soon to be submitted ; that Clime and vice h-ave also increased will be shown by' the same impar- tial test, as well as confirmed by the observation of a.l who have attended to that subject, and noticed wl at has been going on in the past year. If It is desired to secure in the best manner the repre8.sion of crime and pau^ierism, the increase of production, the decrease of taxation and a g^'-Q EVILS OP LICENSE. 3 •nJ prosperity of the community, so far as this question of inteniperanca is concerned, it is clearly niy judgment that Massaclmsei ts should return to the policy which prohibits the sale of intoxicating- drinks except foi mechanical or medical purposes. “ It will be remembered that the election of November, 1867, virtually abolished the prohibitory law, though it remained nominally in force until April 23, 1868. Bearing these facts in mind, and noticing the cor- responding decrease in prosecutions for violating the liqufu- laws, you will also notice the increase of public drunkenness, such as is punished by imprisonment when the fine imposed cannot at once be ]iaid. For tha eix months ending April 1, 1867, the number committed to jail for drunk- euness was 884 : for violating the liquor law, 107. In the corresponding aix months beginning October 1, 1867, and ending April 1, 1868, the num- ber of commitments for drunkenness was 1,03d ; for violation of the liquor law, 47. In houses of correction during the first-named period, 480 commitments for drunkenness, and 58 for violating the law ; in the second period, 688 and 24 ; in the Boston House of Industry, 752 commit- ments for drunkenness in the first period, and 853 in the second. In the whole State during the first period there were 2,116 commitments for drunkenness, and 165 for violating the liquor laws ; in the second period, there were 2,576 commitments for drunkenness, and only 70 for violation of the liquor laws. The whole number of commitments for all oifences was 5,977 in the first period, and 6,428 in the second. If we now compare the last six months of the prison year 1867 (from April 1 to October 1) with the last six months of 1868, the figures are equally suggestive. In the jails during this period, in 1867, there were 988 commitments for drunkenness ; in the houses of correction, 609 ; in the House of Industry. 904; total, 2,501. During the corresponding period in 1868 the number of commitments was — to the jails, 1,090; to the houses of correction, 1,020; to the House of Industry, 1,060 — total, 3,170 : the whole number of commitments for all offences being 0,303 in this period of 1867, and 7,098 in 1868. During the year past, therefore, it appears that while crime in general has only increased about 10 per cent., drunkenness has increased more than twice as much, or 24 per cent. This fact offers the best possible comment on the condition of the public mind and of the legal repression of intemperance since the State election of 1867.” On page 175 the Board of Charities add : “ The prison registers indicate that more than two-thirds of the crimi- nals in the State are the victims of intemperance ; but the proportion o? crime traceable to this great vice must be set down, as heretofore, at not less than four-fifths. Its effects are unusually apparent in almost every grade of crime. A noticeable illustration appears in the number of com- mitments to the State Prison, which, during eiglit months of the preaenl year, in which the sale of intoxicating liquors has been almost wholly nnrestrained, was 136, against 65 during the corresponding months of the preceding year. Similar results appear in nearly all the prisons of the Chmmonwealth.” The words of the Board of Charities are rendered more emphatig Jrem the fact that only one member of the Board is identified -with the temperance cause. The Inspectors of the State Prison reported to the Legislature (Juaq 1869 aa follows [the. report has been referred to] ; i EVILS OF LICSNSB. “The general fact is undeniable that a very large projxjrtioa ol offences against law which bring men to prison for punishment are com- nutted thrjugh the agency of intoxicating liquors, and that their in- ci eased public sale adds to the number of crimes committed and the num ber of persons convicted. We are not called upon to discuss this matter eeparate from our observation as supervisors of the prison, and therefor* simply call attention to the fact of the increased number of commitments SCade during eight mouths of the present year, when the sale of spiri- tuous liquors has been almost wholly unrestrained, over those of the *mo time in the preceding year, when the public sale was prohilited and, to a great extent, stopped. CojniiTMENTS m 1867. February . .15 March .... 13 April ... 4 May June July '.6 August 3 September .6 Total 66 Commitments in 1868. February 80 March .... 19 April 16 May 17 J une ............. 15 July ............. 17 August 11 September ... . . 11 Total . . 18« Add to ^be foregoing the fact that the press of Massachusetts almost ananimously admits the alarming increase of intemperance, vice, and crime under the License Law. Papers that advocated license, alike with those that opposed it, admit this. Then, what good citizen can support “the license system,” which, the Massachusetts State Board of Charitie* ®y (Fifth Report, p. 38), “ has been tried with little success in Europe and Am erica since the sixteenth century ” ? frauaBiD by the Natioxu. Temperance Society and Pcrucation Hooaa No. 58 Keadb Street New Tobk. AT S3 FEB TbOUSAXD. No. 70. Rum and Taiation under Licensr - BY EKV. WM. M. THAYEK, Tee trial of a License Law in Massachusetts, for one year, aftei the trial of Prohibition for more than ten years, furnishes man} instructire statisbics for taxpayers throughout the land to study. All the restraints of prohibition were swept away by the Novembof election of 1867, in which the License movement prevailed. At once the sale of intoxicating liquors was renewed with vigor, and intern- perance rapidly increased, filling, as Governor Claflin says, in hii message to the Legislature of 1869, State Prison, Jails, ani Houses of Correction," thereby confirming the prophetic language of Governor Bullock, in his message to the Legislature of 1868, respect- ing the License Law enacted : “ It leads into temptation the young men and the weak ; it spreads a snare for the stranger and the unwary ; it is destructive of the Influence of the family and the fireside; adverse to good morals, and repugnant to the religious sentiment of the community.” The Report of the Board of State Charities to the late Legislature supplies the facts, which we commend to the attention of taxpayers everywhere. 'Phe Report is made up from September 30, 1867, to September 30, 1868, so that it embraces less than eleven months tinder the License movement. The Board of Charities say: “The increase of intemperance, which the reaction of last year against the strictness of prohibition has greatly promoted, interferes at once with our industrial interests, fosters pauperism and disease and swells the list of criminals. That intemperance has increased will appear from the prison statistics, soon to be submitted ; that crime and vice n.ave also increased will be shown by the same impartial text, as well as confirmed by the observation of all who have attended to that subject, and noticed what has been going cn the past year.” They say of “ vagrants or traveljing paupers,” p. 172 : “ The number reported under this cJassificatiou for the year eudms; September 30, 1868, x^Jifty-six tliousarai three hundred and eighty-tuxf, Bgainst 25,621 the previous year.-'- This includes the “ lodgers ” of Boston, nearly all of whom weM the victims of the liquor traffic. There were more bhan 25.000 of this class, showing that Boston was doubly cursed by me sale of rum. The Board adds : “Excluding these Boston lodgers, a very large proportion of wbooB 2 BUM AND taxation 0NDEE LICENSE. Bre duplicates, we shall find the excess of vagrants, or travelliiig paupers, about five thousand over the number reported for 1867, when the Proliibitory Law was well enforced.” ITiey say, on page 171 : “The total expenditure incurred by cities and towns for full and partial support [of paupers] has been upwards of |332,000- -ac Increase of nearly .^75,000 over the preceding year.” Of the State Prison they say, p. 88 . “ The hope expressed in the last Report, that the average nuiaber here would continue to decrease, as during the year previous, has been disappointed, and the coininitnients during the past year have been one hundred and eighty to one hundred and twenty-eight the year before. But this was written before the breaking doivn of the harriers against the sale of intoxicating drinks ; and it is to this cause that the prison authorities ascribe the increase of their convicts — a conclusion which the registers of this Bureau would seem to confirm.'" Speaking of commitments to all the prisons of the Stale, they say, on page 78 ; “The whole number of persons committed to the jails and Houses of Correction is larger by about one-third tlmn last year, as is also the aggregate number of prisoners, while the number committed for the non-payment of fines and costs is also considerably increased, being 4,275 against 3,663 tlie year before.” And yet the earnings of the prisoners, though so largely increased in numbers, they say, were than those of 1867.” On page 433, Table XL., General Statistics of the Town Paupers, we learn that the “whole number, including vagrants of the town's poor supported,” was, in 1867, 57,261, while in 1868 the number was 91,157 — thirty-three thousand eight hundred and ninety-six more under License than under Prohibition ! The foregoing remarks of the Board, together witli the facts pre sented, make it unnecessary to quote tlieir tables, but simply theii statement of the per cent, of the increase of crimes, after their sum- ming up, on page 350 : “ As compared with 1867, it will be seen that crimes against the person have increased about 13.7 per cent., crimes against property about 8.7 per cent., crimes against public order and decency have in- creased about 10.2, and crimes of all kinds have increased about lea per centP Of drunkenness, they say, (p. 39) : “While crime in general hap ta- creased only about ten per cent., drunkenness has incremmended or commanded in Scri23ture3 to be used as a beverage. 7. That it is the sujjply of alcoholic liquors furnished by the manufacturers and venders of the poison that creates the unnaturaX demand, and not the demand the supply. 8. That as the traffic in alcoholic liquors is injurious to trade and commerce, and is the principal cause of poverty and crime as well as physical and mental disease, it is the duty of the Government to put it dorni by legislation. 9. That total and universal abstinence from making, selling, and drinking intoxicating liquors is God’s remedy for the intemperanco »f which we comjjlain. 10. That teetotalism is not a mere matter of expediency, but ia scientific fact, based on chemistry, physiology, and Christian cm ta.ity. PVBUBIQX BY THE NaTIONAI TeMPEBANCE SOCIETY AND rillll || || W— ) House, No. 68 Eeade Stkeet, two doobs west or Bboadwae, New Yobs, at $3 feb Thousand. No. 9a THE RUM-SELLEE A ROBBER. & NEW APPLICATION OP THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN. BY REV. LUTHER KEENE. “And Jeans answering said, A certain man went down from Jemsalem to Jert Eho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of’his raiment, and wounded hwt, and departed, leaving him half-dead." — Luke x. 30. is a noticeable fact that persons who read this parabla uniformly take sides with the good Samaritan and condemn the thieves. I am not aware of a single exception on record. Of the many sermons that have been preached on the subject, all are of this character. And it must be confessed that the narrative as given by our Saviour seems to justify this view of the case. But I propose to call your attention in this discourse to the other side of the question, and see what may be said in favor ot the robbers ; premising this only, that the robbers of the parable be allowed to represent rum-sellers of the present day. By rum-sellers I mean persons who sell as a beverage liquors of any kind, weak or strong, which are intoxicating. 1. In the first place, it may be said on the side of the robbers that they were established in the husiness. It was generally under- stood that they had in a certain sense taken possession of the way leading from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road lay through a wild and rocky district, well adapted for their purposes. The rugged steeps and dark caverns gave them protection. Here they made their strongholds. Public sentiment might have been against their practice, but they cared little for public sentiment so long as they prospered in business. Familiar with danger and hardships, they were not men to be frightened from their gains by the wishes of their opponents. They had risked too much in the enterprise te be easily intimidated. Their entire capital was invested in it. They bad provided themselves with the necessary implementi. 2 THE ET7M-SEELEB A EOBBEE. The energetic and thorough manner in which they lid their worts shows that they were well established and well furnished for busi- ness. Possession is usually regarded as presumptive evidence of a rightful claim. It may be objected that in the case of the rot bent the character of the business vitiated this claim. Perhaps so. A&3 yet if this argument is urged to day in favor of anottrr class of robbers who infest most of our towns, and especially our laig« cities, as it surely is, I see no good reason why those of more pri- mitive times should not have the benefit of it. If comparativa innocence and harmlessness have any weight, the advantage is *er- tainly in favor of those who had their headquarters on the road to Jericho. 2. It was a lucrative business. The income was large in pro- portion to the outlay. Men like to invest where the returns will be liberal. This is an acknowledged principle in all legitimate business. Robbers, ancient and modem, have yielded to this pro- pensity. They aim to secure the largest profits possible from the least expenditure, whether of labor or capital. Probably no species of robbery has ever been more successful in this direction than modem rum-selling. It costs so little to make four gallons out of one where water is plenty, or, better still, to imitate choicest liquors from the cheapest drugs, that the receipts are nearly all profit. (There is a work before me entitled “ The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer : A Practical Guide and Receipt Book for the Liquor Merchant.” From the introduction I copy the fol- lowing; “ We call the special attention of the reader to our article headed ‘ A new Process by which to make cheap Wines by Fer- mentation.’ This, we think, is one of the most valuable chapters in our book, as it contains the important secret by the use of which several large manufacturers in this and in other cities are annually making fortunes.” In one of the recipes referred to, which produces G3^ gallons of wine, “ 60 gallons of water” is its first item. This is sold as “ the pure juice of the grapa”) It is easy to see how “ large fortunes are made annually ” so long u water can be sold for wine. It may be objected to this reasoning that those rough and ill-mannered robbers of the East were noi pursuing a legitimate business, and therefore had no right to their gains. There is certainly ground for such an objection. And yet if it is a valid objection against robbers on the highway I see no ivason why it is not equally weighty against the more adroit and ratifitk ooerators of the dram-shops. The former make their profit! THE EUM- SELLER A BOBBER. 3 !»} yii lence, the latter by seduction and cheating. The formei fell their victim at a single blow and strip him of his clothes and treasures, and leave him “ half-dead ” perhaps, and yet able to re- (fovtJi under the ministry of the good Samaritan, with charactet and manhood left, and business ability left to make another for- tune, it may be. The latter also bring their victims to the groimd, only they take a longer time for doing it. But when it is done it ia done thoroughly. There is no rising again for those thus slain. They strip the man not only of his clothes and treasures, but of cnaracter and manhood, and all noble virtues. When the robbers of the dram-shop have had a fair chance and have finished their work, their victims are beyond recovery. They leave them not “half-dead” merely, but tvrice dead — dead in body and ia spirit. Shall we say, then, that the work of the former is wrelawful, and the work of the latter lawful ? Wherein does the lawfulness of robbery through rum consist ? In its larger profits ? Unques- tionably it is more profitable than robbery by violence. In its gradual method ? It does take longer time to accomplish its object. In its greater effectiveness ? Beyond question the ruin it works is more complete and irreparable than that fi'om the assna- •in’s blow. Looking at it from our stand-point, there are, it is true, grave ob- jections against robbery in any form ; but we must remember that the robber looks at it from the opposite side. With him the good of society, the rights of citizens, and the safety of life are min.ii considerations. The income from business is what he is bent oa and what he is bound to have, whatever may be the incidental dL<* comfort to others. 3. In the thfrd place, the robbers of the parable might have acted upon the principle that the end justifies the means. We should give them the advantage of this argument, as nothing is said to tha contrary. To be STire they had a rough way of procuring money, but they might have used it for worthy objects. Doubtless they had families dependent upon their exertions. Possibly they might have been liberal in the use of their gains ; thieves and robbers ara often said to be. Possibly they might have given much in charity. It is even conceivable they might have contributed for the relief o/t the wife and children of their victim, if the fact of their destitutioa had come to their knowledge. Such things have been known. Ay, they might have given largely toward the erection and support at 4 THE ETTM-SELLEB A EOEBER. •sylnms for the maintenaixe of widows and orphans — thote vrhtn they, by their bloody deeds, had made 'widows and orphans. Whether this was the reasoning and the practice of the robber* or not, it is the reasoning and practice of the rum-sellers. There are Bcruples as to the means by which money is taken from the 'victims of the dram-shop. Sellers themselves are not easy about it. Con- science troubles them. But they find great relief, if not full justifi- cation, in the good use they make of the money. Rum-sellers ara generous, it is said. When the poor man has paid for drink his last cent, and turned from the shop on a 'wintry night, stagsrering to his home, where ■wife and children are shivering for fire, and cry- ing for food, the rum-seller may send after him coal for another fire- and bread for another meal. Rum-sellers are generous men. When the subscription paper comes around for means to keep the family from starvation, he who has taken their property in exchange for rum, subscribes liberally. Unquestionably rum-sellers are generous men. When, at length, charity is exhausted and the -wTetched suf- ferers take shelter in the poor-house, and the tax bill for supporting them there is presented, he who has occasioned their poverty pays the bill cheerfully. Sm’ely rum-se’.Iers are generous men. Or when the ■victim of rum, driven to desperation, resorts to crime, and is thrust into prison, he who has robbed him of -virtue, and driven him to crime, may pay his proportion of the costs of arrest, trial, and imprisonment without a murmur. Most assuredly rum-sellers must be generous men. And more than this. They help build alms-houses for the poor and asylums for inebriates, and houses of refuge for the licentious, and jails and prisons for criminals, and, in addition to their contri- butions in money, furnish more inmates for them all than all other classes in the community combined. Are they not generous men indeed ? Higher motives than these, even, sometimes engage their efibrta, if, indeed, there are any higher motives than building asylums and prisons, and filling them with wretched sulferers. From the profits ef rum-selling they help build churches, support the Gosjel at hrine, and sustain missions abroad. A part of the very money procured ia the work of ruining men they consecrate to the work of redeem- ing men. Does the end justify the means ? The friends of the trafiic sometimes take this view of it. If the argument is goorl ia his case, what I insist upon is, that we give those robbers of old the benefit of it, and all like them, who conduct their business -with th« THE RHM-SELLEB A BOBBER. s bowie-knife and revolver — a more summary way, indeed, but one fkr less injurious in its consequences to society than that conducted through the dram-shop Thus far this discussion has assumed that rum-sellers are robbers. They are. The evidence is only too abundant. Does the robber disturb the peace of society by lawless violence ? The rum-sellei does the same, only on a thousand-fold greater scale. Does the rob- ber take that which belongs to another without giving an equiva- lent ? The rum-seller does worse than that. He takes th(! money and gives in return that which destroys the man. Does the robber Bumetimes take life in his struggle to secure his victim’s treasure ? Where one man has been slain by violence, a thousand have been slain by rum. If, then, the rum-seller is guilty of all the crimes which constitute robbery, is there any conceivable reason why wa should not call him a robber ? Shall his excess of guilt over othe r criminals secure for him the indulgence of mankind ? Shall the magnitude of his crimes win for him the respect of society ? Facts touching the loss of money, and the loss of labor, and the lo'ss of time, all declare the rum-seller is a robber. There is another kind of evidence which shows how painfully true this is — evidence that comes home to all our hearts. I need only refer each one to his own experience. If rum had robbed us only of money, our hearts would have been spared much of the anguish they have suf- fered. We have been robbed of kindred and friends. Take the family register and run back over the list. You will not go far before you come to a name the very sight of which fills your heart with anguish. What memories are wrapped up in that name 1 What struggles with temptation it recalls ! What scenes of alter- nate joy and sorrow, what pledges made and broken, what tears of repentance and bitter regrets, and solemn vows I Perhaps he was the most brilliant in promise of the whole circle, the most afi'ection- ate, the most noble, the best beloved. And yet that name tells you of the sad, the unutterably sad story of your loss. Alas 1 what volumes of evidence do these family records contain, if we trace them back a generation or two, that rum. not content with taking the coarse and common treasures, has robbed almost ©very household of some precious life ! IT the representations made are true, inferences of the most impor- tant and practical character follow : 1. If the rum-seller is a robber, then he ought to be called a rob bw and treated as a robber. The law should treat him as sucb 6 THE RTTM-SELLEE A EOBBEE. Public opiuion should so regard him, and make him feel that at u BO regarded. The rum seller should be made to feel that so sooc u he enters the business, he cuts himself off from the rights, the re- s|)cct, the privileges of a citizen — that he has as truly forfeited all claims to the friendship and favor of society, and to the protectioa of law, as the robber has when he enters upon his course of crime. Rum-selling should be made so infamous in public opinion that no man could afford to practise it, no matter how great the mercenary profit. So long as a man can maintain his standing in social life, so long as he can be recognized as a good nciglibor, and a kind friend, and an honorable citizen, and especially so long as he can retain hia standing in the church and be acknowledged as a Chiistian bro- ther, there will be enough men eager for the business. But let all this be reversed. Let people show the rum-seller by their conduct that they regard him a foe to every interest of society — let them treat him, in short, as they treat the robber, and no man who lays any claim to respectability will care to be a rum-seller. It will cost too much. The profits, large as they may be, 'uill not compensate the loss of the confidence, and reputation, and respect he must for- feit, and will afford no inducement for him to incur the scorn and contempt of mankind. Do you say this would be unjust and un- merciful, and the man ought to have a fair chance ? No ; it is the business which is unjust and unmerciful, and so long as he continues in this, he deserves no chance save that of a criminal. If he desires the sympathy and regard of his fellow-men, let him abandon the traffic in rum. Would you expect to see the good Samaritan, whc ministered to the wounded man, and those ruffians who robbed him, and left him half-dead, meeting the next day as friends, cordially exchanging the courtesies and compliments of social life, walking arm in arm to church, sitting together at the communion-table, the Samarit.an excusing the robbers for wounding the poor man. thanking them ihat they left liim only half-dead when they might have killed him, and the robbers in turn thanking the Samaritan for binding up th« wounds which their weapons had made? No; you would exi)ect no such thing. You would say, the law first, the Gospel afterwards. You would give the Gospel of mercy to the wounded man, and ap- ply the law of justice to the robbers. While you bound up the wounds of the one, you would take away the weapons from the others. But while the robber retained his w eapons, and insisted on orwetising his reckless basiness, you would shut him out from Hu THB RLM-SELLER A BOBBBi:. T family, shut him ^ut from the social circle, shut him out from busi- ness confidence, sh it him out from the church, shut him out from eyery place except the prison. That will be the only place wher« he has a right to go. Be consistent. If the rum-seller is a robber, treat him in the same way so long as he pursues the business, and thus wars upon every interest of humanity. Let public sentiment be as intense against the rum-seller as his offence is injurious to so- ciety, and there would be no difficulty in executing the law — there would be no longer need of prosecutions and penalties. As the manslayer of old fled from the avenger of blood to the cities of re- fuge, rum-sellers would flee to the very prisons and knock foi entrance, in order to escape the scorn and contempt of an outraged, indignant public. 2. If this representation of the rura traffic, and those engaged in it, is correct, it ought to settle our convictions, and determine our con- duct in all the legal aspects of the question. We have no objections to passing laws against robbery. Society cannot be too well guarded against that crime. There is little danger that the laws shall be too stringent or too well executed. If rum-selling is robbery, differing from the crime that passes by that name only in its methods, and exceeding that a thousand-fold in its disastrous consequences, then why shall we hesitate to legislate against rum-selling ? Is there danger that society shall be too well E rotected from drunkenness, from pauperism, from licentiousness, 'om cruelty, dishonesty, thei'ts, suicides, murders — froui the w'hole infamous brood of vices and crimes, of which intemperance is the immediate cause ? If society is safe and prosperous just in propor- tion as it is delivered from these things, then is it not safe to legis late against the cause of these ? 3. This view of the subject shows what the duty of the church must be in this struggle against intemperance. In the parable we are told that the priest and Levite, scein" the wounded man, “ passed by on tlie other side.” It must be Cvuitessed that some of the pastors and officers of Christ’s Cliurch do the same still. They pass so far from the fallen brother “ on the othei side” as to come nearer the robbers than their victim — are so cautious and BO reluctant to protect the sufferers from intemperance by law, that they actually throw tlieir influence on the side of rum-selling. It is an occasion of thankfulness that these are rare exceptions It is an occasion of shame that the exceptions should exist. Clearly, the question with every member and minister of the church is, or ought to be. What does the Word of God teach on the subject? Where does the Bible class the sin of drunkenness? In the Epistle to the Galatians the apostle gives its fixmily connections. He mentions the prominent members of the family to which the drunkard belongs: “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviour- Bess, klolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelling?, and such like.” Do you say the rum-sc/Zer is not included among them f No, These are liis children the legitunste offsprings of rum-selling. THE BUM-SELLER A BOBBER. • If the respectahle dealer is ashamed of his connections, and refiisM to take his place among them, he can have the bad pre-eminence of standing at the head of the household. Unquestionably, the 'wboU tendency and effect of his business is to produce just this brood of Tices and crimes. There could be no more truthful advertisement over every bar and liquor-shop in the land, descriptive of the busi- ness, than this text. It tells you exactly what every rum-seller is doing — w'hat characters he is manufacturing and sending out to CUTS-; society That liquor is the immediate cause of most all the crimes and im- moralities mentioned above, is proved by facts known to all. War- den Haynes, in his “ Pictures from Prison Life,” says : “ Since I have been connected with the prison, we have had twenty-one here for killing their waves, two for killing their fathers, and one for killing his mother. Of these twenty-four, all but one were not only habi- tual drunkards, but actually drunk v\'hen they committed the crime. . . . . These were not bad men, except when thev were under the influence of liquor.” Then the crime must be attributed to the liquor. Without that, these men were kind in their families. With it, they murdered their best friends. Is there any doubt as to the cause of the crime ? Kum-sellers are familiar wdth these facts. They Bell to the inebriate with a full knowledge of tlie consequences likely to follow'. Is the drunkard, who murders after reason has gone, guilty, and he who has been instrumental in taking away reason guiltless ? Human law' may condemn the former, and acquit the lat- ter, but will He so judge who looks at the heart ? Let the rum-seller remember that the case will be review'ed at a higher than human court. He must meet his fallen brother at another bar — and how different w'ill it be from the one at which they parted, from behind which he dealt out the deadly poison ! Then he must answer the question to the Omniscient Judge, “ Guilty or not guilty ?” What will be his answer ? What is the answ'er of conscience now f Read again that list of crimes enumerated by the apostle, and mark W'hat follows : “ They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” That is God's prohibitory law. Shall we dare to license w'hat God has forbidden ? Temperance and its family relations - thropists aud politiciaus of the day, and it is alSrined that the Duke of Wellington said the passage of this biU was a greater achievement than any of his military victories ! The consequences were soon felt. The strongest supporters of the measure were surprised by the sudden aud general domorafisatiou pro- 2 THE EVILS OF BEER LEGISLATION. daoed. For example, the Rev. Sidney Smith had looked to the passing of this bill as one of great importance. Only two weeks after the act came into force, he writes : “ The new Beer Bill has begun its operations. Everybody is drmik. Those who are not singing are"^ sprawling. The sovereign people are in a beastly state.” In Liverpool, within nineteen days from October 10, as many as 800 licenses were taken out under the act ; and at the end of the year the licenses appUed for and granted in England and "Wales rose to 24,342. Testimonies of all kinds from magistrates, clergymen, and others, began to be poured in as to the demoralizing effects ol the bill, so that next year it came under discussion, and many members of both Bouses ex^ pressed their disappointment at the working of the measure. Even Lora Brougham and the Duke of Wellington expressed a change of opinions so soon as one year had elapsed. Lord Stanley, M. P. for Lancashire, said “ that all the evils were not confined to the agricultural districts, as seemed to be supposed. He be- lieved that from every part of the county of Laucashu'e statements had been transmitted to the Home Secretary, all concurring in one unani- mous opinion as to the evils which had 11 )wed from this measure.” MiT. Sadler said that “ from his own knowledge he could declare that these beer shops had made many, who were previously sober and indus- trious, now drunkards ; and many mothers had also become tipjjlers.” Lord Francis Edgartou “considered the biil as promotive of enormous evils. Ho bill had ever been more productive of drunkenness and immor ality than this.” The English press, which called for the passage of the bill as an act ol justice to the common people, testified after it had been tried to the same effect as did the chaplains ol' prisons. Thus speaks the Globe : “ The injury done by the Beer Act to the p -ace and order ol the rural neighbor- hoods, not to mention domestic happiness, industry, and i cononiy, has been wed by witnesses from every class of society to have exceeded the evils of any single act of internal administration passed within the m mory of man.” The Liverpool Mail is but an echo of this : “ A more pernicious concession to popular opinion in one single place— refer- ring to the cry in London against the monop dy of a fe v of the brew rs there — un- called for anywhere else, and so prejudicial to public morals in the rural districts, in the villages, liumlets, and roadsides of Etieland. never was made by the blind senators of a bad g ivernmeut in the worst of times.” In 1834, a select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to enquire into the “ extent, causes, and consequences of the prevailing vice of intoxication.” The result of this committee's iuvestigatious went to show that the act, without destroying one single public-house, added some 50,000 still more baneful houses to the list of temptations already so fatal to the best interests of the people. In 1849-50, a committee was appointed by the House of Lords to en- quire into the operation of the Beer Act. Before this committee the evi- dence adduced was most conclusive as to its demoralizing effects. That committee addressed certain queries to the several chap’iains of the English county -jails. The answers, though of necessity made independ- ently, were ALL in one and the same strain ! Forty-six chaplains re- tmmed answers testifying to the flood of vice and immorality let loose by beer-houses. Mr. Barker, the chap’aiu of the Hereford County Jail, declares: “ However lucrative they may be to the revenue in the way of excise duties, it is - lation are traceable to beer-houses.” Rev. W. C. Bishop, of Northamp- ton Jail, testified from experience that beer-houses, by increasing the temptation to drunkenness, had greatly contributed to the increase of crime. The Rev. Lewis Page, of Newcastle Jail, had interrogated each pri- soner as to the cause of incarceration, and, with one exception, each stated that it was the facility afforded in beer-shops for the indulgence of their drinking propeiisities. Rev. W. B. Hallins, of Devon JaU, said they cannot be regarded other- wise than as positive nurseries of vice and crime. Rev. Richard Burnett, of Sussex Jail, says: “I am at a loss lor wbrds to express the amount of evil everywhere produeed by the multiplica- tion of these dens of iniquity and curses of the poor ’’ Rev. J. Kingswill, of Peutonville Prison, expressed from experience a very confident opinion that beer-houses are so many nurseries of crime in the land . Rev. S. Joseph, of Chester Jail, says : “Jails must continue to be filled with prisoners unless something be done to put down jerry (beer) shops.” “WIio is so likely to know the truth in this matter, after beer-house vic- tims themselves, as a good chaplain, who every hour ol’ his ministerial life comes in contact with a fresh example of beer-house ruin ? The Rev. John Clay again says : “ In my report to the magistrates of Lanca- slure, presented twenty-six years ago, I was constrained to declare that the great and dreadful cause of crime in this country, the overwhelming curse which debases and ruins the lower class, resides in the ale-house. Since then we have provided for the industrious poor the greater curse of the beer-shop. For the drunkard then is in the' lowest deeps of a lower deep still, threatening to devour him.” G. F. Drury, Esq., magistrate, Shotover Park, Oxon, says : “ The Beer Bill has done more to brutalize the English laborer, and take him from his family and fireside into the worst associations, than almost any mea- sure that could have been devised. It has furnished victims for the jails, the hulks, and the gallows, and has frightfully extended the evils of pauperism and moral debasement.” The Reverend Chancellor Raikes said at a public meeting : “He had seen its (the Beer-shop Act) effects spreading like a blight all through the country ; villages which formerly were like the creations of romance — so beautiful were they — had become the scene of every evil.” Archdeacon Garbitt says: “A large experience tells me that, where a neighborhood is visited by this scourge (beer-shops), no organization, no zeal, no piety, however devoted, no personal labors, however aposto- lic, will avail to effect any solid amelioration.” In 1853, the House of Commons appointed another select committee, with a view of ascertaining facts respecting this growing evil, etc. That committee, of which the Hon. C. ViLliers was chairman, sat for forty-one day examining witnesses and considering evidence. In their report to the House, that committee said, “ The beer-shop system has proved a failure,” and concm'red in the statement ol' the Lords' report on the Beer Act of 1830, that “ it was aheady sufficiently notorious that drunken- ness is the main cause of crime, disorder, and distress in England, and it appears that the multiplication of houses for the consumption of intoxi- cating liquors, which, under this act, has risen from 8,830 to 123,306, haa been thus in itself an evil of the ffist magnitude.” That this committee 4 THE EVTL8 OP BEKE LEOISLATIOjr. should hriag in such a report was to be expected from the nature of th« evidence adduced, ■which, on the part of magistrates, ministor?, prison chaplains, etc., all ■went to sho^w that beer- houses ■were “nests of vice and pests of society.” Kveii Mr. Buck, M. P. for Devon, though repre- senting a constituency largely influenced by liquor dealers, admitted that the Beer Bill of 1830 “ was one of the greatest evils that was ever inflicted upon the country ; it had tended greatly to demoralize the peo- ple, and in his o-svn neighborhood there was scarcely an act ol' degradation committed that did not originate in some one or other of the beer-houses.” And Mr. H. Dawson, beer merchant, when before the committee, said, “ K the trade were thrown open, we do not know what amount of police ■we should reqiure, in fact the borough fund would scarcely pay them.” The testimony of Mr. Clay, chaplain of Preston Prison, was most damag- ing. “Four-fifths,” he says, “ of the beer- houses in Illackburn are also brothels.” “Nor,” he adds in his 24th Report to the House of Correction at Preston, while commenting on this I'act, “is this the lull amount of evil. The neighborhood of those houses is corrupted. Women, married women, occupied to all appearance with their own proper avocations at home, hold themselves at the call of the beer-house for the immorai pur- poses to which I have referred." The result of this enquiry was the passing of what is kno^wn as the “■Wilson Patten Act” in 1854, which required that public-houses and beer-shops be closed on Sunday from half-past two o’clock p.ii. until nix P.U., and from ten o’clock on Sunday evening until four A.ii. on Monday. During the few months this act was in force, there was a sensible abatement of drunkenness and disorder, showing what would be the result were they kept closed all the time. Take the follo^wing as specimen evidence : Mr. S. A. Beckett, Magis- trate of the Police, Southwurk Police Court, London, in a letter to the Times, January 8, 1855, says that, on the Monday mornings before the act, the business ol’ the court was greater than any other days, but that since, it had only averaged two cases of drunkenness for each Sunday. The following statistics speak for themselves. The Rev. J. Clay, of Preston Jail, having exanflned the cases of committals of males to the prison for drunkenness during four months before and four months after the pass- ing of the act, gives the result : COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Four months before the passing of the bill, S5 Four months after the passing'of the bill, SS COMMITTED SUMMARILY. Four months before the passing of the bill, 106 Four months after the passing of the bill 07 COMMITTED SUMMARILY OX MONDAYS. Four months before the passing of the bill, . 3$ Four months after the passing of the bill 17 — a decrease of more than 31 per cent, on the whole, and of more thar* 50 per cent, on the Monday committals. The returns of the Dorset Sessions of the number of prisoners tried were as follows : The quarter before the passing of the act : For Sunday drunkenness Ki For other crimes, 71 After the passing of the act : For Sunday drunkenness, B For other crimes, ..M In Somerset, quarter before the passing of the act : 115 prisoners at the Session*. 70 prisoners at tire Assizes. In Somerset, quarter after the passing of the act : 90 prisoners at the Sessions. 66 prisoners at the Aasixes. THE EVILS OP BEER LEGISLATIOIT. 5 In DeToushire, qnartei before the passing of the act* At Sessions and Assizes, lit In Devonshii-e, quarter after the passing of the act : At Sessions and Assizes, S8 JTo wonder that with such statistics the Morning Herald, of Jannaiy 11, 1855, should say : “ Since last August, when the act came into force, every fact which has heen made public on the subject tells in its favor.” Magistrates, chaplains to prisons, police officers, and all othfs persons whose duty leads them to observe the increase or decrease of crime eoncm- in the unanimous verdict that the measure has proved most conducive to the public morals. All the evidence which deals with facta runs one way ; not a syllable is uttered against the bill, except empty declamation.” Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, was informed^ by some of the trade (liquor dealers) that the obnoxious act had diminished their business by at least two-thirds ; others had suffered to the extent of one-third; some had been seriously injured. “ And this,” remarks the Secretary most significantly, “ is probably the general rule.” These statistics as to the modified law, relieving some of the hours of the Sabbath from the accursed traffic, are but an echo of the statistics of crime before and after the passing of the Boer Act in 1830. Before the passing of that act, for a few years the increase of crime was at the rate of twelve per cent. In the two years after the passing of the act, crime had increased at the rate of thirty-one per cent. And to-day, after a forty years’ experiment, the English press almost universally proclaim the beer-shops of Great Britain to be the greatest pest in the laud. Recorder Hill, of Birmingham, one of the highest English authorities that can be quoted on the subject, says : “The es- tablishment of the beer-shop, which was to check these evils (arising from the sale of distilled liquors) is inoperative to that end, and has in- troduced mischief of its own, and indeed is universally denounced as a curse upon the land.” Two years ago, the Convocation of Canterbury, embracing a territory' comprising nearly half the population of England, appointed a committee consisting of leading dignitaries of the church of England to enquire into the evils of intemperance. That committee addressed enquiries to large numbers of the clergy, magistrates, governors, aud chaplains of prisons, etc., and in response to the enquhy, “ IVhat remedial measures against intemperance can you kindly suggest ?” the suppression of beer-shops Sras named as one of the first things to be done. A few of the replies I here give : FROM THE CLERGY. “ The increase of intemnerance is entirely owing to the setting np of first one, and afterwards a rival beer-house. I do not see how any thoughtful person, who cares for the well-being of the poor, can feel otherwise than that the state, by its encouragement of the multiplication of beer-shops, commits a great national sin which rhust one day be punished by a nitional retribution.” “ The beer-houses are an unmitigated nuisance.” “ The Duke of Wellington’s Beer-house Act was the origin of much of the exiat big evil.” ” Beer-shops, in my humble opinion, are the curse of the country.” “ If lam asked to point out the great cause and encouragement of intemper ence, I have no hesitation in ascribing it in a great measure to that most disastront Act of Parliament which set beer-shops on foot. It has inflicted a terrible curse OB this country.” FROM CHIEF CONSTABLES AND CHIEFS OF POLICE. “ The low beer-shops are the great curse of the country.” “ I say that the beer houses should be closed altogether. They are graat iucements to drunkenness.” “ Abslish the present Beer-house Act.” “ Close every beer-house.” “I would abolish the beer-house system altogether.” “ The heer-housea are a frightful source of Intemperance.” THB BVTLS OF BEER LEGISLATION, FEOM GOVEKNOES OF WORKHOUSES. “ Beer-houBes are the nest of vice and intemperance.” “I would most certainly abolish beer-houses. You will, I am positive, s»v« l/.any young persons if you will use your powerful influence by striking out theM post-houses, the root of all evil.” The abolition of beer-houses would be a boon to the country.” “Beer-shops should be totally aboiished.” FEOM JUDGES. Judge Bovile says : “ The beer-shops are the greatest curse to the workingmen.” Judge Selle replies: ‘The total suppression of beer houses throughout country would be an unmitigated good.” THINGS IN AMERICA. '‘'Come back to America/' and well might Rev. Dr. John Todd, though summoned by the license pa rty to testify for them before the Le- gislative Conrauttee of 1867, say of the beer-drinkers of Pittsfield : “ I wish to say In regard to beer, that, while 1 think it is not as intoxicating ai other drinks, it demoralizes awfully. We have a large population of fo-reigners with us. and beer is their chief drink. It makes them beso ted. It makes them cross. It makes their homes unpleasant. It prevents them from rising in civil- ization. It shuts them out from the influence of everything that is ennobling.” Oliver Dyer, with remarkable opportunities for observation in the city of Hew York, says, in the January number of Packard's Monthly, 1870: “Before closing this article, I wish to mention what seems to me to be a gen- eral fallacy, to wit, that laser-beer is an utterly harmless beverage, and that the substitution of it lor whiskey is a great gain. So far as my observation, goes I am satisfied that a German, with his brain soaked to stolidity in lager-beer, is as bad a brute as an Irishman with his brain set on lire with whiskey. The par- oxysm of the whiskey-fired brain is more violent while it lasts, but tne bruta ity of the beer-soaked brain is more stolid and enduring. I speak from personal knowledge, obtained by visiting hundreds of families of both c. asses, and >et. so confirmed is public opinion as to the harmlessness oflag-r-beer I do not suppose that any one will accept my statements as being even an approximation to the truth ; still I know that 1 am right. It takes longer, it is true, and costs more money fora German to stupefy himself with lager-beer ,han it does for an Irishman to madden himself with whiskey; but whether that greater outlay of time and money on the part of the Teuton gives him any advantages t)ver the Celt is a ques- tion which it might be well for political and social economists to consider, remem- bering, also, as they do consider it. that the transition from beer guzzling to whis- key drinking is short and etisy, and constantly made.” As to the result of beer legislation in our own State, you are so fami- liar that I need scarcely say aught on this point. The telling statistics, presented by the records of city and county prison.5, houses of correc- tion, etc., are unanswerable. A glance at the last annual report of the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance is enough : “ Wq compare the year ending September 30, 1870, with the year ending Sep- tember 30, 1887, when cider and malt liquors came under the ban of prohibition, and the law was quite well executed: Committed to the City I’rison of Boston in 1867, 10,429 Committed to tie City Prison of Boston in 1870, . . ... . 12,863 Under the modified law, 2,4.33 more than under strict prohibition. Committed to Siiff Ik County .Jail in 1867 3.7SS Commirted to Suffolk County Jail in 1810, . . . . • • 5.269 Under the modified law. 1..526 more than under strict prohibition, October 1, 1867. the number in Suffolk Jail was, 17-3 October 1, 1870, the number in Suffolk .Jail was 239 Commitraeiiis to all the jails in the State in 1867, 5. nO Commitments to all the jailo in the State in ISTOi 7,850 Under the modified law, 2,030 more than under strict prohibition. Committed to all the houses of correction in the State in 1867, . . . 3.829 Committed to all the houses of correction in the State in 1870. . . . 5.477 Under the modified lavr, 1.618 more than under strict prohibition. Number committed to State Prison in 1867, Number committed to State Prison in 1870, . . . Under the modified law, 49 more than under strict prohibition. Average number of convicts in State Prison in 1867, Average number of convicts in State Prison in 1870. 128 1~7 537 591 An average of 5T more under the modified law than under strict prohibition. THE EVILS 0V BBEE LEGTSLATJOIT. T Nnaiber of rfijTisrism/ persons in State Prison mI8('7, 64< Number of d^erent persons in State Prison in 1870, 774 Under the modified law, 128 more than under strict prohibition. That the sale of malt liquors covers the sale of all sorts of liquors, no one in this audience doubts. The Chief of the Boston Police says, in Ms last report, that of 2,584 liquor-shops in the city, only 17 of them con- fine tlieir sales to lager-beer ; the sale of the latter cloaks the sale of dis- tilled liquors. When these facts cannot be denied, the abominable adulteration ol the brewer is made the scape-goat. The evils of drunkenness are allow- ed, but they are attributed to the base practices of adulterating the bieer. Beer brewed from nothing but malt and hops, they are sm-o, wiil never make people drunk. With some people there is no theme so popular as bad. beer,” and the denunciation of the brewers and dealers who supply it. A word as to this prevaihng fallacy, and I am done : In the manu- facture of good beer, as it is called (I speak not now of the abominable adulterations, though they are common enough), three things are neces- sary — malt, hops, and water. The water, though useful, is not food. The hop gives flavor, and helps to preserve the liquor, but it contains no feeding properties. To name its chemical constituents will suffice. These are volatile oil, resin — a bitter principle — tannin, malic acid, ace- tate, hydfochlorate, and sulphate of ammonia. The malt, then, is the only substance that can make the lif[uor feeding, either as it remains in the liquor or as it may be converted into some other substance. Malt, we all know, is vegetated barley. Barley is food next in nutrition to wheat, and all we have to do is to ascertain how much of this feeding- Bubstance is Ibund in the beer when men drink it. The brewing process will give us that, in tracing which we shall find that at every step the object is not to secure a feeding but au intoxicating liquor, and that to obtain this the feeding properties of the barley are sacrificed at every stage. lu making a gallon of beer, six pounds of barley are used, which, to commence with, is six pounds of nutritious food. In manufacturing this into beer, it has to undergo four processes, in every one of which it loses part of its nutriment. The first is malting, or sprouting. By this process the maltsters spoil the barley of oiie-l'ourth of its nutriment, just m the same way as wheat is spoiled if it gets wet and sprouts iu the field. Every housekeeper knows that when potatoes or onions sprout they lose much oi' their nutritive properties. The next process is that of mashing, by which a saccharine solution i? extracted from the grain, and here one-thh'd of the barley is lost. Then follows the process, by which another fourth of it is converted into alcohol. The fourth process is that oi fining. People don’t like thick or muddy beer ; and as some thick matter cannot be prevented coming over in mashing, the liqnor is put to settle, and these settlings are disposed of as "barrel-bottoms.” These bottoms are really parts of the barley, and here is another loss. iSTow, in this gallon of beer, bow much of the barley is there le^t '] At the outset you had soma six pounds, or ninety-six oitnces. What is there now? Loss than ten ounces. The truth of this you can easily ascertain. Get a pint of ale or beer, and place it in a saucepan, then gently boil it over the fire. The fluid part will go — the solid part will remain. Thus every grain of solid matter can be obtain- ed, and its properties and amount iully ascertained. Scientific men have frequently made the experiment, and, by careful tests, demonstrated that the average quantity of solid matter found in a gallon ol'malt litiuor is less than ten ounces. So that in mannfaeturing ale or beer, you actually lose very nearly eiglity mvts out of eighty-eight, and all that you obtain in place of it is upward of three ounces of aioo- hoUc poison, which constitutes the strength of the liquor. What would you think of the man who should buy ninety-six ounces of wUeat. maaing it sjarout, drying it, pouring hot wator upon it, giving a part to the pigs. 8 THB EVILS OP BEER LEGISLATION. and tlirowing a part domi the gutter, should waste upward of eighty ounces, and should leave for himself and family ;nly ten ounces ? "WTiat if he did this for the purpose of getting about four ounces of poison which will injure Ms health, destroy his reason, and corrupt Ms heart I Would you say that God sent the grain to be thus wasted, or would you caU the poison which the ingenuity of this prodigal had extracted “a good creature of God” '? Much has been said of waste and extravagance, but we know of no instance or example that wiU bear any parallel with the prodigality that is practised in converting barley into malt, and malt into beer. Cleopatra is said to have dissolved a precious gem in her glass, and to have drunk at a banquet as a proof of the little value she could afford to set upon what was costly; but gems are less valuable than the food wMch God has created for the sustenance of hie, and, there- fore, he who destroys the precious grain of the earth, destroys what is more valuable than pearis, and Ms crimmality is not a little enhanced that ho does this for the purpose of producmg a poison. What, then, we ask, is there to support or strengthen a man in a pmt of ale or beer ? Its contents are fourteen ounces of neater, part of an ounce of the extract of barley, and nearly an ounce of alcohol. The water and alcohol go iuunediately into the veins, and while the alcohol poisons, the water, if not needed, unnecessarily dilutes the blood, overcharges the vessels, and loads the kidneys and bladder, wMle there remains less than an ounce of indigest- ible extract of malt, wMch has been grown, roasted, scalded, boiled, em- bittered, fermented, and drenched with water and alcohol, till it seems unfit for the brute, far less the human stomach. Yet this is all that is left in the stomach to be digested. Xo wonder that all beer-drinkera feel a constant pain and sinking in their stomach, and that they are always craving for more drink. “CallMmSir John Badeycom. It is a Ubel. In the farmer’s hands he is “ barleycorn ” ; in the bi-ewer’s hands, a goodly portion of Ms vital parts is abstracted, and, after the malt-crusher has broken every bone in Ms body, the brewer, by scalding water, fimshes his career, and turns the poor KMght’s best blood into atpia vita;, easting away his lost re- mains as “ barrel-bottoms ” ! Poor Sir J ohn ! ” With the testimony of England’s greatest brewer you are all familiar. He said, “ The struggle of the school, the library, and the church, all nmted against the beer-houses and gin-palaces, is but one development of the war between heaven and hell.” Listen now to the testimony of America’s greatest brewer : “ At a recent meetin" of a hundred or more gentlemen, late residents of tha North Side, where wide tracts of the beautiful lake shore have for years been ruined for homes or investment by the great breweries of that quarter, William kill, a citizen of large wealth, whose thirty years' experience as a brewer have pla-ed him confessedly at the head of his guild in the Northwest, was among the speakers. The question being upon the rebuilding of the breweries, Mr. Llll said that he should never build nor own another bretvery. It was a business that demoralized both master and man. He had found it impossible to keep sober men on his prem- ises. It was a manufactory' of drunkards in constant operation: and the curse began in the brewery itself, where every man was a beer-barrel in 'he morning and a barrel of beer at night. He w'ould have no more of it. He would be content to make less money in some other way. “ At this point an old acquaintance in the audience called out, ‘ kill, what ar« yre to do for that excellent ale of yours ’ ? Mr. Lill answered, ' Do without, and bo the better for it.’ * ' ' What wilt the advocates of beer say to this revelation ? It is no new discov- ery that the beer saloon is one of the priucipit st.ations r.d ticket-otlici s on the Black Valley foiilroad : but there is great value iii this coufirmatio : ot the lact from one whose experience covers twenty years in a great brewery establishment.” If the manufacture demoralizes both master and man, what will be th* result to the consumer i Published bv the Xational Temperance Society and Pro- LiCATioN House, Xo. 58 Keade Street, Xew York, at $6 per Thousand. 103 WHAT IT ALL COSTS. BY OVID MINER, It Ib the purpose of this tract to present the yearly cost, loeaos, and wastes caused by intoxicating liquors to the mate- rial interests of tne country. The figures and facts following Me copied from official documents issued by the United States Treasmy Department, for the fiscal year ending June 30. 1871, and from Documents published by the New York Legislature, for the year ending September .30, 1871. That these quotations are quite v^^ithin the truth there can be no reasonable doubt • and as to the substantial correctness of our inferences and esti- mates, we mean there shall be no ground for distrust : The Treasmy books sliow that there was imported, dur- ing the L'scal year 1871, of liquors, wines, and cor- dials, GaUs., 13,581,303 Of this there was exported and consumed abroad, - “ 288,734 Leaving for yeaiiy home consumption, - - Galls., 13,292,563 The retail cost of this, at 10 cents a glass, or $6 per gal- lon, would amount to $79,755,408 Domestic liquors were distilled, during same period, to the amount of Galls., 62,300,000 Exported and consumed abroad, - - - - “ 780,153 Leaving for home consumption, .... Galls., 61,519,847 Retail cost of this, at $6 per gallon, .... $369,119,083 Of fermented liquors (one-third of which was brewed in New York), there were, Bbls., 7,000,000 Retail cost, at 10 cents a pint, or $24 a barrel, would amount to $168,000,000 Revenue officers believe that 10 per cent, of all liquors, im- ported and home-made (in some sections of the country a larger percentage), are smuggled or concealed so as to escape taxa- tion. To give the whole amount of national dram-drinking, this should be added to the enormous aggregates above ; but we set off unknown quantity against what may, perhaps, be used in arts and as medicines. The direct yearly cost, therefore, to the people of this country, for intoxicating beverages, may be stated thus . ITor Imported Liquors, - - . ... $79,695,408 " Domestic Distilled, 369,119,082 “ Renaented. ........ 168,000,000 |6l6>8i4.49a 8 "WHAT IT AI>L COSTS. The State of New York, with one-ninth the population of the Republic, probably consumes a seventh part of tliis ocean of fiery drink ; thus bearing an annual hquor tax oi eighty millions of dollars. And this is not all. There are in the States 140.000 licensed retailers (21,300 behig in New York), 21 ,.500 wholesale dealers, and no doubt many more beer saloons (fc2,5C0) than sufficient to swell the whole number of national dram-shops to 250,000. Sup- posing each of these establishments to require one assistant or eierk only, we have an army of 500,000 able-bodied persona withdrawn fi-om productive or useful industries, and becoming at once the tempters and tempted to idleness, dissipation, pro- fanity and gaming. If the annual subsistence of this great army were assumed to cost $500 each, or if their probable earnings were estimated at so small a sum, then the country loses of ita industrial forces and products, through liquor traffic, at least $250,000,000. Destruction of grain, fruit, molasses, etc., made into alcohol, with costs of manufacture, mav be set down, at the least, as $50,000,000. Careful statisticians have shown ample reasons for the belief that there are nearly a million of drankards — the habitually in- temperate — in this country. Estimating, now, the number at 750,000, their wages at i?2 per day, that they waste but half their time by hai d drinking, and the country hereby sustains an additional loss of 6225,000,000. In the Cfty-sLx County I^oor-Ilouses of New York, the six City Almshouses, the hundred and three Orjrhan Asylums, and the seven Institutions for Juvenile Delinquents, there were last yea» 80,204 paiqiers, helpless children, and vagrants; and in additioa (01,700 were temporarily relieved by the public. The large numbers of needy and outcasts relieved by private and Christian rbnritics in the State are not here taken into account ; but no doubt three-fourths of the whole became burdens through their own or parenhs' intemperance. The Criminal Statistics of New York srive the wlio'.e nnm1>er of convictions by Comts of Records, in the several counties, for the year, as 2.151 ; convictions by (jourts of Special Sessions in the counties. 21.35 1 , and convictions by Courts of Special Sessions in tbo twenty large cities, 5d,5S3 ; making 74,030 criminals of all grades. Tnree-fourths of these we assume to have been led hito crime by strong drink.* • Such IS the unhorm ti'stimony of judges, sheriffs, and overseers of •poor. About the year 1840, thorough examination of State prisons. Jails, and pauper institutions in the State was made by the late Samnei Chipman. Of 8,434 public paupers whose individual history was learned, 1,1.5S professed to have been tempera^ ; 1,402 were of doubtful charaetei a.s to sobriety, or nnloiown : and 5,874 had been intemperate. Of 5, 033 conimitmeuts to jaiJ.s, 041 were temperate, 1,003 unknown, 3,3S8 intern perate. ■WHAT IT ALL COSTS. s In respect to the above two items, it is fair to observe that New York suffers by comparison with sister States on account of the multitudes of vagabonds and felons continually cast upon her territory from the Old World. Estimating the paujjierism and crime in New York as one-sixth (16 per cent.) of aU in the Union, though the State contains but one-ninth (11 per cent.) of the whole population, we must conclude that intemperance bur- dens the Eepublic with at least 800,000 public paupers, costing yearly $100,000,000. And that an army of 300,000 rioters, thieves, burglars, and murderers, are recruited in dram-shops, and sent forth to prey upon the people at an annual cost of unknown millions. As near as can be ascertained from inquiries made and mak- ing by the State Board of Charities, there are 10,000 insane persons in New York, and not less than 6,000 idiots. High me- dical authority instructs us that one-third of all this misery comes from strong drink.* How great an army of drunken ma- niacs and imbeciles are to be found in the whole Union, can only be conjectui-ed ; but they must be numbered by tens of thou- sands. Let the details of our argument be now summed up thus : 1 The yearly retail cost of liquors, .... $616,814,490 2 . Labor wages, or value of time, of dealers and their clerks, 250,000,000 3 . Waste of grain, fruits, etc., with cost of manufactur- ing alcohol, ....... 50.000,000 - 4 . Losses of productive industry to the country of drunkards and tipplers, - . . . . 225,000,000 5. Support of 800,000 drunken paupers and children, - 100,000,000 6 . Expenses for intemperate sick, nursing, physicians’ bills, and funeral charges of 60,000 drunkards dying annually, Unknown millions. 7 . Whole expense caused by 300,000 intemperate criminals, - UnKnown. 8. Costs of some 30,000 maniacs and idiots, - • Unknown, 9. Value of aU the domestic suffering, pains, shame, and agony caused by liquor, - - Beyond estimate. 10 . Value of 100,000 American youth (12,000 of them from New York) corrupted, brutalized, made fiends by drink every year, - - Elnowu only in Eternity. The material wastes and all-consuming mischief to the entire * Scientific men agree that alcohol is a cerebral poison that ; when taken into the stomach it is driven through the blood-vessels, chiefly upon the brain and nervous centres, causing inflammatory action, im- poverished nutrition, and abnormal state of mind. It so weakens and deranges, that incipient and prolonged mania can but often result. Be- sides, “ it is remarkable that all diseases arising from intoxicating drinks •re liable to become hereditary to the third generation, increasing, if the be continued, till the family becomes extinct.” A recent Massa- chusetts Legislative Report states that the habits of parents of 300 idiot* In their public institutions were learned, and 145, almost half of them, Were ascertained to have been drunkards. 4 WHAT rr AIL COSTS. Bountiy of the liquor traffic and dram-drinking — whei: expresaei In a single aggregate — are absolutely appalling. And aU this ia without compensating benefits to any permanent interest. Tffie whol^cost of State Civil G-overnment in New York is seventeen millions of dollars annually ; direct liquor tax upon the same Mople, for the same time, greatly more than eighty millions. United States revenues, including the heavy burdens for war debt, are four hundred millions a year j while costs and result- ing desolations from intoxicating liquors are immensely mor* than TWELVE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AN- NUALLY ! It is plain enough that this tremendous drain upon the nation's increase and substance, and the deepening degradation, year by year, of our industrial strength, cannot long continue without fatally undermining prosperity, the public credit, and political freedom. Measurably, the Government is already passing under the control of two hundred thousand liquor dealers and their besotted customers. Numbers of chief cities have been, and still are, held in what is little better than a state of siege by the rum power. State and city elections — not a few — are conspiracies against the Republic, made possible by strong drink. Different departments of national and municipal authority have become foul with dishonor through intemperate and debauched officials. Not unhke the ancient fabled Laocoon, our country is in the constricting coils of the mighty serpent of the still, and we must bruise its head, or it will loll us and our children. Surely, it is time for all men to see that licensing a traffic so disastrous and deadly as dram-selling is monstrous absurdity in legislation. This whole business is sin before God and high crime against the State. As well might Excise Boards inti'oduce among their neighbors the Asiatic cholera or license open dens of rattlesnakes among children. Does the reader say, Nothing effective can he done to re- move this great evil ” f That is a mistake, it is in the power of the Christian church, or of a moiety even of the sober and moral outside of it, to shield our youth from intemperance, and to dry up a great share of the overshadowing curse. F or this has been done. Two-thirds of the liquor-drinking has been banished from large sections of Maine, Massachusetts, and Ver- mont ; from single counties and towns in New York, Ohio, Michi- gan, Iowa, etc. Besides, organized reform has gained much practical wisdom through the alternations of triumph and defeat fa the recent past. What has been locally or temporarily won to sobriety can now, by the divine blessing upon self-denying, elioady efforts, be more widely and permanently achieved. May God help us before it shah be too late ; Published bt the National Teuperanue Society and Pit*.' LIGATION House, No. 58 Reade Street, New York, at $3 per 'I'kousand. No. 108. PEACTICAl TTORnNGS OF PROniBITION. BY ROBERT C. PITMAN, Judge of Superior Court, Mast. consideriDg the problem of the legal prohibition ol the common traffic in liquors, various questions arise; some of these are ethical and political, and such ques- tions are rarely susceptible of answers absolutely demonstrative. We may think the weight of argument hea- vily upon our side; but still, able and ingenious men may con- tinue to offer plausible suggestions on the other. But there are certain practical questions to which experience can give positive and indisputable answers. Happily, these are, to the mass of mankind, the most important. The theoretical objections to pro- hibition, however subtly and even eloquently put by such writers as John Stuart Mill, are satisfactorily laid aside by the common sense of “ the pi&ri people,” as Mr. Lincoln used to call them. And, indeed, the legislation of England and America on the liquor traffic for centuries has tacitly assumed both the right and the duty of government io prohibit that traffic so far as the public good required. Every license rests upon the logical basis of anta- cedent general prohibition, and derives its only pecuniary value therefrom. 9 PRACTICAL WORKINGS OP PKOniBITION. The open question before the mind of the conscientious Ameri* can citizen is, then, Will prohibition diminish the conceded evil of intemperance ? To the record the prohibitionist fearlessly appeals. Yet, because the experiment of enforced prohibition has been tried in compara- tively few localities and for comparatively short periods, much remains to be done to bring the demonstrated results to the general attention of the public. It is the sole object of this paper to call attention to the experi- ence of a single city and the lessons suggested thereby. It is of my own city ; and I know well the sources from which the facts are drawn, and can commend them to the full confidence of all. I do not suppose our case exceptional. But sometimes a single experiment, carefully performed and critically watched, does more to effectively impress a scientific truth than wider but less exact observations. It is possible, therefore, that valuable impressions may be gained from a consideration of the different phases of the problem of prohibition as wrought out in New Bedford. THE CASE STATED. The city of New Bedford is a maritime city on the southeastern coast of Massachusetts, whose population has averaged about 21,000 for the last seven years, and is now probably some 23,000, Its business since the decline of whaling has been gradually diver aifying itself, and is now largely manufactui jng, though not pre dominatingly so. The law of Massachusetts was made nominally that of prohibition in 1852, with gratifying resu’ts in the country towns, but in the cities with diverse degrees of enforcement. Thus it came to pass that a committee of the Legislature, in 1865, reported (Senate Doc., No. 200) ; “ Liquor is sold openly in New Bedford, but not in front shops — the bars are generally in the back PRACTICAL WORKINGS OP PROHIBITION. 8 rooms. From an actual count, there appear to be 138 places.* That year the State constabulary was established to remedy the remissness of municipal authorities. In 1867, the city marshal testified before a legislative committee that there “were no places there where liquor is sold in public, but a great many places where it is sold privately.” The friends of prohibition in our city struggled for several yearr persistently and vigorously to elect a city government which should place the police in active sympathy with the State consta- bulary in the work of suppressing the traffic. At length, in Decem- ber, 1869, their efforts were crowned with success, and the Hon. George B. Eichmond was chosen Mayor upon this issue, and in his inaugural, January, 1870, announced his purpose to execute the law thoroughly and impartially. During the years of our muni- cipal struggle, the policy of the State itself had fluctuated. The election in the fall of 1867 had gone for the party of license, and, ttntil the enactment of a new law the following spring, there was little activity in the enforcement of any. By the next fall a reac- tion against license set in, and a Legislature was elected which restored the old law of prohibition (with some modification of the cider clause). This took effect July 1, 1869. In July of 1870, a fatal modification took effect which opened beer-shops throughout the State wherever the people of the muni- cipality so voted on the September following, and thereafter pro- vided for an annual vote. New Bedford, however, continued to forbid the sale of malt liquors until her vote of May, 1872 ; and Mr. Eichmond was re-elected Mayor on a stringent prohibitory platform for the years 1871 and 1872, making in all a term of three years service. With these data kept in view, we are prepared to appreciate ttw tmariug of the statistics now to be given. 4 PRACTICAL WORKINGS OP PROHIBrnON. EKSiniTS. The whole number of criminal prosecutions before the police court for all offences, and the number for drunkenness during the two years before Mayor Richmond’s administration, was as fol- lows, viz. : 1868. Wholo number * 493 Drunkenness 298 1869. Whole number 603 Drunkenness 292 And the two years following : 1870. Whole number 485 Drunkenness 181 1871. Whole number 462 Drunkenness 183 •—exhibiting a decrease of about 37 per cent, in the cases of drunken- ness. It may be added that, while the cases of drunkenness fell from 292 in 1869 to 181 in 1870, the prosecutions for violation of the liquor law rose from 71. to 140. The number of “ lodgers ” at the station-house also fell from 565 In 1869 to 348 in 1871. Now mark the contrast after eight months of free beer: 1872. Whole number of cases 779 Drunkenness 415 --and the number of lodgers rose to 434, thus exhibiting an increase of over 68 per cent, in the aggregate number of ' crimes, and over 120 per cent, in cases of drunkenness. The records of commitments to penal institutions exhibit simi- lar results. House of Correction. Humber of commitments from New Bedford in 1869 was 189 • « “ “ 1870 was 101 M o « « 1871 was 93 « « “ M 1872 was 130 PRACTICAL WORKINGS OP PROHIBITION. 5 WorTc-House. ffumber of commitments from New Bedford in 1869 was 81 “ “ “ “ 1870 was 40 “ “ “ “ 1871 was 37 ' « “ “ “ 1872 was 69 In order to give full weight to the statistics of cases brought before the police court, it is necessary to enquire whether there has been a substantially uniform course of procedure in regard to offendsrs on the part of the police. A sinister change of policy here may be made to distort returns iuto any shape desired. Thus it is well known to those familiar with police matters that there is a large class of vagrants, mendicants, and semi-intoxicated persons who receive temporary shelter and food at the station-houses, and are termed “ lodgers.” It is not difficult to make drunkards out of a portion of the lodgers, or lodgers out of drunkards ; and from sudden and wholly unexplained changes in the police reports of one of our largest cities, in the relative number of these from one year to the next it was obviously due to a change of policy. I have therefore taken pains, by private conversation and from written testimony, to satisfy myself that there has been no manufacturing of statistics. Those who know our city marshal for the last three years, a man who brought to the place a lifelong reputation for probity and straightforward manliness of character, and will carry it away unsullied, will need nothing beyond his assurance that there has been no change of orders in regard to arrests. I have also before me the statement of the justice of the police court that the large diminution of cases in 1870 and 1871 “ was not, in my judgment, owing to any increased laxity on the part of the officers in arresting offenders and bringing them befoi’e the court for pun- ishment, but was wholly attributable to the suppression of the sources of crime consequent upon the rigorous enforcement of the 6 PEACTICAX WORKINGS OP PROHIBITION. prohibitory law.” And in alluding to the sad change consequent upon the beer vote, he says : “And this, so far as my observation extended, was not in consequence of any efforts on the part of the prosecuting officers to exaggerate the effects of the change, as at the same time the number of those detained as ‘lodgers’ was increased, most of whom might have been prosecuted and brought before the court if it had been designed to make as large an exhi- hibition of prosecutions as possible.” We may, I believe, confi- dently rely on the figures I have given above as true indices of the fall and rise of crime and intemperance in our community. MORAL CONTRASTS. Of the figures of hops given in the above tables. Mayor Rich- mond, in his inaugural of 1873, well said : “ These figures, signifi- cant and gratifying as they are, do not reveal all that has been aceomplished. No arithmetic can compute the value of the hap- piness which the enforcement of the law has effected in households; it cannot measure the woe of a disconsolate wife or her bliss at the reform of her husband. Encouraged by such results, and with full faith in the wisdom and beneficence of the prohibitory statute, I shall spare no effort for its impartial and rigid enforcement.” But in his valedictory of the same year, he has to say: “ It will be remembered that on the first Tuesday of May last our city voted to allow the sale of ale and beer. The result has proved that the legalizing the ale and beer shop has been a curse to our city, and carried misery to hundreds of homes in our midst. They are nothing but shields to cover the stealthy sales of all intoxicating drinks, and are .almost a thorough protection of the rumseller against the enforcement of the prohibitory law.” The judge of the police court says : “ The increase of crime and disorder consequent upon the beer vote was so marked as to attract PRACTICAL WORKINGS OP PROHIBITION. 7 the attention of all whose business or associations brought them in contact with the people.” The city missionary, in the summer of 1870, wrote : “ The half cannot be told of the good resulting from the execution of the prohibitory law in New Bedford, not only in the vast amount of destitution it removes (for I stated in my last report that I had not known for the past seventeen years so little destitution in the winter season arising from intemperance as during the past winter), but also in the peace and happiness it has brought to the families [ have frequently visited, affording me an opportunity of noticing the blessed change.” In the summer after the beer vote, the same missionary writes : “ The passage of the beer vote has proved very disastrous to many members of the temperance societies, some of whom, after remain- ing true to their pledges for several years, have been overpowered by the odors from the numerous drinking-places they have daily to pass. I deeply lament so many of our youth are being educated to fill the ranks of the drunkard.” CONCLUSIONS. “ History is philosophy teaching by example.” We have been reviewing a very brief portion ; but its lessons are very clear and impressive. The first two conclusions to be drawn cannot be bet- ter stated than in the words of the judge of our police court : First. “ It has been fully demonstrated that the prohibitory law can be enforced to the same extent as other criminal laws.” Recond. “ That such enforcement would be productive of the diminution of crime in general, and the promotion of peace and good order in our communities.” Third. That this can be effected by electing men to do it, and in no other way. 8 PBACnCAL WORKINGS OP PROHIBITION. Fourth. That to allow the sale of malt liquors is a complete surrender of the battle, and opens the door to all the evils of a free liquor traffic. PROHIBITION CONSTITUTIONAL. The following extracts are from the records of the Supreme Court ; Chief Justice Taney said: “If any State deems the retail and internal traf- fic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, Tice, or debauchery, I see nothing in tne Constitution of the TTnitei States to prevent it from regulating or restraining the trafBc, or from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper.” — [5 Howard, 577.] Hon. Justice McLean said : “ A license to seU is a matter of police and revenue, within the power of the State.” — [5 Ibid., 589.] “ If the foreign article be injurious to the health and morals of the community, a State may prohibit the sale of it.” — [Ibid., 595.] A gain he says : “ No one can claim a license to retail spirits as amatter of right.” — [Ibid., 596.] Hon. Justice Carton said: “If the State has the power of restraint by li- cense to any extent, she may go to the length of prohibiting sales altogether.’ —[5 Ibid., 611.] Hon. Justice Daniels said of imports, when cleared of all duty and subject to the owner: “They are like all other property of the citizens, and should be equally the subjects of domestic regulation and taxation, whether owned by an importer or his vendor.” — [5 Ibid., 614.] In reply to the argument that the importer purchases the right to sell when he pays duties to the Government, the Judge says: “No such right as the one supposed is purchased by the importer. He has not purchased, and cannot purchase from the Government, that which could not ensure him a sale inde- pendent of the law and policy of the States.” — [Ibid., 617.] Hon. Justice Grier said : " It is not necessary to array the appalling statis- tics of misery, pauperism, and crime which have their origin in the use and abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in the State, is competent to the correction of these great evils, and all measures of re- straint or prohibition necessary to effect that purpose are within the scope ol that authority, and if a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be a gainer a thou- sand-fold in the health, wealth, and happiness of the people.” — [Ibid., 539.] Published by the Nation.vl Temper.ance Society .and Pub- lication Hocee No. 58 Reade Street, New York, at $6 per Thousand. No. 117, NATIONAL LEGISLATION. BY A. M. POWELL. The suppression of tho traffic in intoxicating liquors as a beverago is an issue second to none other in importance as involving thcwiational welfare. Hitherto, in connection with legislation, it has been considered mainly as a State or local interest. The time has arrived when it should also bo treated as a national question. THE NATIONAL GOVEENMENT — ITS JUEISDICTION. The National Government has always assumed jurisdiction over the liquor traffic. It has tolerated, if not encouraged, the manufacture, importation, and sale of alcoholic liquors, and exacted a revenue therefrom. Tho precise limits of this jurisdiction in tho several States, as a matter of constitutional relationship, need not hero bo argued. In tho District of Columbia, ^n the nine Territories on our Western frontier, and also over the foreign importa- tion of alcoholic liquors, no one will deny that it is absolute and entire. THE DISTEICT OF COLUMBIA. In the District of Columbia, in 187:1, there were 1,150 places where intoxi- cating liquors were sold, which paid tribute to the Government for the privi- lege of carrying on tho crime-generating traffic. Added to these are unli- censed places where liquors are vended, which, it is estimated, make an ag- gregate of somewhat over 2,000. The population of tho District of Columbia, is 131,700, and of licensed liquor dealers there is one for 114 of the inhabi- tants. In 1872, during the fiscal year, there were in the District of Columbia 15 licensed manufacturers of fermented liquors, who paid to the treasury of tho National Government for tho year an aggregate of $16,006 CO ; while, dur- ing the same time, the dealers, wholesale and retail, in distilled spirits paid a tribute to tho National Treasury, in tho aggregate, of $38,416 42. Tho total amount of revenue to the National Government from tho District liquor traf- fic, under its immediate jurisdiction, and carried on with its sanction and protection, for tho year was $54,423 11. Murder and other crimes, pauper- ism, and social vice, which invariably attend the sale of alcoholic liquor as a beverage elsewhere, are also its unhappy fruition in tho nation’s capital. It is pertinent to enquire. Whose grog-shops are those ? Whose tho respou- sibility for their continuance or suppression 1 The answer, in the last analy- sis, will bo found to bo: every citizen of the United States. Citizenship in this country is of a twofold character. State and National. Bach confers its benefits; each has attendant responsibilities. Through the medium of his citizenship under tho Government of the United States, every citizen is as directly responsible for the licensing or the suppression of the grog-shops of the District of Columbia as for those of tho State to which ho belongs. 2 I^ATIONAL LEGISLATION". TILE TEEEITOEIES. Tho Territories, as well as the District of Columbia, are under tbe immedi- ate jurisdiction of the National Government, and, therefore, sustain the same relation to its citizens in all parts of the country. They are nine in number — Wyoming, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Dakota, Colo- rado, and Arizona — and cover an area of country larger in extent than the origi- nal thirteen States. In the absence of the requisite number of inhabitants, they are not yet in the condition of self-government. They may and should be preserved intact from the grog-shop system. As Congress would guard these Territories against the introduction of the cattle-plague or anythiug of a kindred character prejudicial to their material interests, so it should interdict the manufacture, importation, and sale therein of intoxicating liquors for drinking purposes As an excellent precedent, I quote "with pleasure the ofBcial announcement of the conditions of sale and purchase recently applied to a portion of the Omaha Indian Eeservation, authorized by act of Congress, as follows: "‘And in all patents of land sold under the act above referred to, THEBE "WILL BE INSEETED A CLAUSE FOE EVEE PBOHIBITUrG THE SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUOES ON SAID LANDS, UNDEE PENALTT OF FOBFEITUEE OF TITLE THEEETO.” In Colorado alone, in 1872, there were thirty-six manufacturers of fermented liquors; and the liquor dealers of that one Territory paid into the National Treasury a revenue tax of $25,546 96. In the other Territories there were in 1872, of manufacturers of fermented liquors, in Arizona, 10 ; Dakota, 6 ; Idaho, 12; Montana, 36; New Mexico, 8; Utah, 16; and Washington Terri- tory, 14. The last fiscal year, the licensed liquor dealers of Arizona paid a revenue tax on their trafldc to the National Treasury of $11, .339 01 ; of Dakota, $4,738 21 ; of Idaho, $19,146 24; of Montana, $27,065 07 ; of New Mexico. $15,- 090 50; of Utah, $12,026 74 ; of Washington Territory, $14.661 60; of Wyom- ing, $4,692 64. The aggregate revenue paid to the National Treasury by the licensed Uquor dealers of all vhe Territories for the last fiscal year was $134,- 306 97. These Territories are now in the formative period. They are rapidly fiE- ing up with a population by-and-by to bo admitted to the Union as States. Whether they shall bo henceforth consecrated to temperance and its attend- ant blessings, or to inebriety and its evils, will depend upon the action of the National Government now. Who can- doubt that it would be the policy of a wise and an enlightened statesmanship to at once exclude, by national edict, the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a beverage from their borders ? lu the present law relating to the liquor tratdo with the Indians, which has been for nearly forty years upon the National statute-book, we have an impor- tant precedent for stringent nation al prohibitory legislation. It requires only to bo made universal instead of partial in its application. Congress should also require henceforth of every new Territorial applicant for admission into the Union (as ia the Omaha Indian Eeservation Land Fatents) a fundamental constitutional proviso for ever prohibiting the Uquoi traffic. H-ATIONAL LEGISLATIOIf. 3 FOEEIGN IMPOKTATION-. "With the Congress of the United States rests also the entire control over the importation of alcoholic liquors from foreign countries. In 1872, the import trade in distilled liquors represented a retail value of $27,000,003; fermented liquors, $2,800,009 ; vines, $135,000,000 — an aggregate of $101,- 800,000. It vill ho seen that the business assumes immense proportions as a commercial interest. It is recognized and treated by the National Govern- ment as having a legitimate, and therefore a respectable, status. That thoim- portation of foreign vines and other alcoholic liquors has much to do vith the perpetuation of the harmful social drinking usages is only too apparent. So much alcohol as may be necessary for scientific and mechamical purposes can easily bo provided hero. Importation from abroad is thcreforo vholly unnecessary. Our ports are visely guarded against the approach from foreign shores of cholera, small-pox, yellow fever, and other infectious diseases which would imperil the public health. Passengers, cargo, and vessel are rigorously quarantined, however great the inconvenience or loss. But all the infectious diseases combined give rise to only a small fractional part of the suffering and death which imported alcoholic poison occasions. Why should not it also bo quarantined and prohibited an entrance into our ports henceforth ? To secure early legislation by Congress to this end should be an aim of the friends of temperance in all parts of the country. CIVIL SEKVICE. In the administration of the civil service, temperance should have consid- eration and recognition. A republic should require of its servants, from chief executive to the offieial of lowest rank, as an indispensable qua.lification for the public trust, total abstinence from all alcoholic liquors as beverages. After an extended experience and observation in official life, Thomas Jef- ferson, a short time before his death, said: “Were I to commence my ad- ministration again, with the knowledge which, from experience, I have ac- quired, the first question 1 would ask with regard to every public candidate for public ofiBce should be. Is ho addicted to the use of ardent spirits 1” The later experience of our Government confirms the wisdom and importance of this opinion so early expressed by President Jefferson concerning the civil service. COMMISSION OF ENQUTET. An urgent need of the temperance reform at the present time is of compre- hensive and authentic statistical information. This need is within the scope of the National Government to supply. Commissions of one kind and another are authorized by Congress to enquire into and report various mea- sures and propositions involving local and national interests. No one will deny that the interests, pecuniary and otherwise, involved in the liquor traf- fic are sufficient In magnitude and importance to warrant official enquiry. In 1872, the amount of revenue paid to the National Treasury on distilled spirits was $49,475,516 36, representing about 100,000,009 gallons at a retail value of about $317,000,000. Dealers in fermented liquors paid in taxes on 4 NATIONAL LEGISLATION. their traffic $3,573,489 33, representing an aggregate money interest of aborm 1300,000,000. The home irine trade represento a value of about $75,000,000. All this in addition to the foreign import trade, representing a total value of about $165,000,000. Including the capital invested in buildings, machinerv, and other expenses involved in the liriuor trade, an aggregate of its total pc- cuniary interest in 1872 vas at least $1,500,000,000. The -srhole number of places of sale paying taxes to the National Treasury for the year ■was 168,420. This leaves out of view entirely the largo number ■who sell alcohol and de- fraud the Government of all revenue therefrom. The opponents of prohibi- tion habitually assert that prohibitory legislation for the suppression of the Hqnor traffic and intemperance has been, wherever tried, a failure. The gen- eral results of the liquor traffic are well known. There are, however, no well- tabulated, authentic, national statistics as to its fruition in crime, disease, and pauperism. It is due to all classes that there should be an impartial national commis- sion authorized by Congress, 1st, to enquire into and report upon the liquor traffic and its relations to the public welfare ; and, 2d, the results of restric- tive and prohibitory legislation in the several States of the Union for the sup- pression of intemperance. HO^W ATTAINED. How shall this legislation be attained ? "We do not, of course, expect it to be realized at once. IVo do expect it, and more, to be gained ultimately. There can be no complete triumph of the temperance reform without it. A temperance constituency, largo in numbers, and, if united in policy and purpose, weighty in influence, already exists -within and outside of the various temperance organizations in every State and Territory of the Union. Alli- ances or leagues, embracing the membership of the different temperance societies and all good citizens friendly to national prohibitory legislation, should be at once formed in every Congressional district. The existing Congress should bo earnestly memorialized for the reasonable legislatioa desired. Candidates hereafter should be selected and voted for with refer- tace to their trustworthiness in respect to temperance as a national issue, fhe press, the pulpit, and the platform should be urged to unite in direct- ing the public thought to this national agency of Congressional action, and to the importance of efficient organization with especial reference there- to. Clergymen and members of churches should work with a will and as a unit in this direction. Moral suasion should generate the motive power — a right public opinion. Intelligent, vigorous political organization should apply this aggregate power of citizenship, through legislation and the ma- chinery of administrative government, to the end to be attained — the abso- lute prohibition of the traffic in alcoholic poison for drinking purposes throughout our national domain. Published by The National Temperance Society and Publica- tion House, No. 5S Eeade Street, Xe-w Tore, AT §3 PER Thousand. No. 118: The Sabbath and the Beer Question. BY EEV. GEOEGE LANSING TAYLOR. M.A. U B American Sabbath is now assaulted from opposite direetiona at once by two of the mightiest foes that have yet lifted hands against it. English deism has assaulted it in the past, and Bhench infidelity, and atheism in more recent times, but neither of them produced much permanent impression upon it. Its keeping was then in the hands of an American-born population reared under its influence ; and the foreign vote in favor of those who, for votes, would legislate for its destruction was too small to find Judases for sale. Politics had not then, as now, liecome merely another kind of commerce, in which votes and offices are the merchandise bought and sold from wholesale to retail. NTow all this is changed. The situation is entirely different, and Jesuitism on the one ri«md, and German irreligion on the other, find a iotally different state C'f things in America. With a vast voting constituency of their own fort on the one hand, and the ominous corraptibility of all classes of riffice-seekers and holders on the other, the chances for victory for the Christian Sabbath and all other moral institutions are not to human eyes the clearest. One ol' the most powerful elements in the grand complex of influences which the irreligion of continental Europe, and particularly that of Ger- many, is arraying against the American Sabbath, is heer and its sur- roundings. The Sabbath beer question is one whose importance we have hardly yet begun to understand ; and, yet there is no other such foe to our Sabbath at work in America to-day as the German beer influence. Let us consider the two aspects of this inevitable conflict between the Sabbath and oeer, namely : 1. The powers which beer arrays against the Sabbath ; and 2. Some reasons why these powers ought not to prevail. I. The powers which beer arrays against the Sabbath. These are many and mighty. We can only notice them comprehen- sively under a few heads ; 1. The Financial Power of the beer interest is verily formidable. The Annual Congress of the Brewers of the United States held its ses- sion for 1872 in New York. Its President, in his opening address, gav* some of the statistics of the beer business as foUows : Number of breweries in the United States, . Gapital invested, . . . .. Revenue paid to United States Government in 1871, Barley annually consumed, bushels, Hops “ *• pounds, Land “ cultivated for both, acres, over . Persons “ employed in various ways, . . 3,000 . $100,000,000 $7,800,000 23.000. 000 18.000. 000 1,000,000 many thousands. Now, no intelligent person can consider these figures without com- prehending how vast is their significance. And then, the relations of such a great financial power to all other branches of business must also be taken into consideration. The farmer, the shipper, the cooper, the engineer, the teamster, the landlord, the advertiser, and the dealer, aa well as the brewer and malstcr, must be counted in, since they are all involved in the finaucial interests of the business. They are all under Its pay, directly or indirectly. Such an enemy stands on a basis fai different from that of a volunteer reform movement. It is a mine of money — money gotten by robbery and murder, to be sure, but money nevertheless, and money easily and rapidly made, and to protect the making of which emn-mous sums can be spent and stiB leave a greater 2 THE SABBATH AND THE BEER QUESTIOIT. margin of profit than any legitimate business mil bear. The beer brew- ers of the State of blew York pay a talented and experienced lawyer a princely annual salary for his services in looking after their interests in State legislation in Albany. In the same manner, the brewers all over the nation pay immense sums every year to sustain their common cau6r cent, of what I re- member it to have been, and the trade in distilled liquors is not more than ten per cent, of what it formerly was. Where liquor is sold at all, it is done secretly, through fear of the law.” Fifteen clergymen, pastors of Free Baptist churclies m different parts of the State of Maine, unite in the statement, 1872, that “the liquor traffic i.s very greatly diminished under the repressive power of the Maine Law.” The Rev. A. Dalton, Rector of St. Stephen’s Protestant Episcopal Church of Portland, writing of the results of the Maine Law, June, 1873, says : “ Many, iu the humble classes of society particularly, have correct views, and form good resolutions, which they carry out suc- cessfully when not solicited to drink by the open bar. Many wives have assured me of the improved condition of their families through the greater restraints put u]>on their husbands. Families, whose homes are in drinking neighborhoods, or in streets where formerly were many drunken brawls, have gratefully acknowledged the happy change wrought by the due administration of the law suppressing tippling-shops.” The Hon. G. G. Stacy, Secretary of State, Hon. B. B. Murray, Ad- jutant-General, Hon. J. J. Eveleth, Mayor of Augusta, and Joshua THE RESULTS OP PROHIBITION. s Nye, Esq., late State Constable, unite, 1872, in the following: “II we were to say that the quantiiy of liquors sold here [AugustaJ is not one-tenth so large as formerly, we think it would be within the truth ; and the favorable effects of the change upon all the interests of the State are plainly seen everywhere.” The Overseers of the Poor of Portland, Hon. John Bradford, Chair- man, unite, 1872, in saying : “ If liquor-shops exist at all in this city, (t is with secrecy and great caution, and the same thing is true gene- tally throughout the iState. The favorable effect of this policy is rery evident, particularly in the department of pauperism and crime ; while the population of the city increases, pauperism and crime diminish ; and in the department of the police, the number of arrests and commitments is very much less than formei-ly.” These important testimonies, addressed to Hon. Neal Dow, and others of like import, which we have not space to quote, are conclu- sive that Prohibition is not a failure in Maine. General Dow, w'ho is known as “ the father of the Maine law,” himself corroborates these testimonies. In 1853, he wrote : “At the time of the enactment of the law, rumselling was carried on openly in all parts of the State. In Portland, there were between three and four hundred rum-shops, and immediately after the enactment of the law, not one. The wholesale trade in liquors was at once annihilated. In Portland, large numbers of men were reformed. Temptations to intemperance were in a great measure removed out of the path of the and inexperienced.” ‘‘Tire last report of the Attorney-General of Maine,” says the Lewiston Journal, “ gives us some interesting statistics of the de- grease of crime in this State growing out of prohibition and its en- forcement. During the year 1866, the prison, jail, and reform-school received 204 criminals. The number sentenced in 1867 was 157 ; in 1868, 114 ; in 1869, 189 ; in 1870, 150 ; in 1871, 152 ; and in 1872, only 100. Estimating the average of commitments for the seven years under review, we find it 152. This result indicates the remarkable fact that the crime during the last year (1872, in which the reform movement has gone hand-in-hand with prohibition) is thirty-three per cent, less than the average of the last seven years. It should be noticed, moreover, that the number convicted and sentenced last year is fifty per cent, less than in 1866, and thirty-three per cent, less than In 1871.” What license, liquor-selling State, of equal population, can present as good an exhibit ? VINEIiA-NDj NEW JERSEY, One of the best illustrations of the practical workings of prohibi- tion is the Vineland tract, in New Jersey. The settlement of this tract began in 1861. It numbers now, 1873, something ove:' 10,500 inhabitants. In 1864, by a special act of the Legislature, the citizens were empowered to vote upon license or no license. From the begin- ning of the settlement, in 1861, no traffic in alcoholic beverages had been allowed. A very large preponderance of the votes have uni- formly been given for ‘ ‘ no license.” Vineland has, therefore, never had an open grog-shop. The population consists of manufacturers and business people upon the town-plot, and of farmers and fruit-growers outside the village limits, gathered from different parts of the United S^tes, from Germany, Prance, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Italy. At the invitation of the New Jersey Temperance Alliance, Hoa. Charles K. Landis, the founder of Vineland, delivered an address before the Judiciary Committee of the ‘House of Assembly, 1873, from which we quote coucerniug the statistics of police and poor ex peases of Vineland for a period of six years THE REStrLTS OP PBOHIBITIOJr. FOLICE EHPKNSES. 1687 |60 00 1S68 50 00 1869 75 00 1870 75 00 1871* 150 00 1872 25 00 POOR EXPEIWM. 1867 tMO 0« 1868 425 00 1869 426 00 1870 350 00 1871* 400 00 1872 350 00 • This was the year when the Vineland Railway was ballding through tL« ffiace. Mr. Landia aaya : “ These figures speak for themselves, but they are not all. There is a material and industrial prosperity existing Lb Vineland which, though I say it myself, is unexampled in the his- tory of colonization, and must be due to more than ordinary causes. The influence of temperance upon the health and industry of her people is no doubt the principal of these causes. Started when the country was plunged in civil war, its progress was continually on- ward. Young us the settlement was, it sent its quota of men to the field, and has paid over s^GO.OOO of war debts. The settlement has built twenty fine school-houses, ten churches, and kept up one of the finest systems of road improvements, covering 178 miles, in this country. There are now some fifteen manufacturing establishments on the Vineland tract, and they are constantly increasing in number. Her stores in extent and building will rival any other place in South dersey. There are seventeen miles of railroad upon the tract, em- bracing six railway stations. The amount of products sent away to market is enormous. The poorest of her people seek to make their homes beautiful.” In the light of the foregoing, it is quite apparent that in Vineland, where it has been fairly tried, prohibition is not a failuek. GREELEY, COLORADO. A more recent colony, not yet four years old, founded upon tempe- rance principles, with a perpetual proviso against the liquor traffic, is Greeley, Colorado. Like Vineland, it has a miscellaneous popula- tion,.about 3,000, and Ls rapidly i-ncreasing in numbers. Efforts have from time to time been made to introduce the sale of alcoholic beve- rages, but with little success. Not long after the colony was founded, a fair was held, and the proceeds ($01) put into a fund for the poor. Two years and a half afterwards there still remained of this fund nnappropriated and with no calls therefor, .$84. Meanwhile, several churches, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal, three schools, two banks, several extensive stores, two weekly journals and one monthly, and two literary societies, have been established, and Bre in a flourishing 'ondition. N. C. Meeker. Esq., of the Greeley Ti'ib’ine, projector t the colony, writes. Sept., 1873 : “ No liquor is Bold in the town nor on the colony domain. A rum-shop was started the first year, and it was burned down in broad daylight. A few months ago one %vas opened five miles from town, and one night all the liquor was destroyed.” Prohibition in Greeley also, as in Vineland, is, so far, a decided eecoosa, PROHIBITION THE TRUE POLICY. The facts we have— cited demonstrate that the prohibition of th« liquor traffic is as practicable as the legal repression of any other form of crime. May it speedily become the legislative policy of both th# State and National Governments ! S^OBLISHED BY ThE N-YTIDNAL TeJIPERANCE SOCIETY AND P?!®- No. 58 Keade Street, New AT $3 PER Thousand. No. 122 . UW AS AN EDUCATOR. BY KEY. WM. M. THAYER. T is a false opinion that moral suasion only can educate pub- lic sentiment on the temperance question, and Hft it to the desired standard. It is impossible to nurture public senti- ment, and make it strong and reliable, without law. Law ia an educator as truly as the Gospel. Indeed, government, which is a system of indispensable laivs, is a part of the New Testament plan to create and nurture public sentiment on every vital subject. Civil government is divinely appointed as really as the church. The minister of state acts for God and humanity as really aa the minister of the church. Government demands obedience, and so does the Gospel. The church and civil government are mutually depen- dent God meant that they should be used together ; and the man or minister who undertakes to divorce them, and to use moral suasion alone, is docmed to disappointment. He attempts to accomplish with one what God designed should be accomplished with hoth, so that failura is inevitable. “ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. . . . "WIioso ever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. . . . For rulers are not a teiTor to good works, but to the evil. . . . For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which ia evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in vain ; for he is the min- ister of God ; a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”— Kom. xiii. 1-4. The history of the temperance reform proves that every attempt to educate public sentiment by moral suasion alone has failed. 1. The fathers failed previous to 1832. They did not evoke the aid of law. They accomplished much for a time; but soon found that rumsellers would destroy faster than they could build up. They were compelled to legislate. 2. Tne “Washingtonians attempted to triumph by moral suasion only ; and they came out of the contest prohibitionists. Moral appeals would yield better fruit by closing the grog-shops. 3. The Father Mathew movement reached a certain point, and stopped ; and the author of it wrote to the Secretary of the United Kingdom Alliance: “ I rejoice at the formation of your society in the suppression of this monster gorged with human gore.” 4. The recent Reform Club move- ment of Majne, under which more than twenty thousand hard drinken have signed the pledge, started on the basis of moral suasion ; bat, al f LAW AS AN KDCrCATOB. the expiration of one and a half-years, the members entered the contest for a prohibitory governor and legislature as absolately necessary to the success of their cause. Ex-Congressman Frye, State Attorney oY Maine for ten years, said of the prohibitory law : “ It has gradually created a public sentiment against both selling and drinldng, so that the large majority of moderate, respectable drinkers have become abstainers,” He adds: “ Ho law will enforce itself, but, if enforced, its tendency is create pvhlic sentiment.” 5. The Reform Clubs of Massachusetts aud Connecticut, commenced on the rnoral suasion plan, now heartily sup- nort prohibition. Thus every mere moral suasion effort has demonstrated its weakness without the aid of law. The reason is obvious. With the necessaries of life, the demand creates the supply. The lumber-dealer’s business enlarges as the population increases. So of the business of the boot manufacturer or clothier. But with the luxtiries of life, the rule is reversed —the supply creates the demand. A load of melons carried into a village creates a demand for them. A load of rum creates a demand for it. The rum-shop that docs a small business this year does a larger one next year, because old customers drink more liquor the second year than they did the first, and new customers are added. Hence, prohibitory legislation is necessary to cut off the supply, the traffic. All the moral suasion possible cannot remove the demand so long as the supply continues ; aud law only can stop the supply. How, as men accept this fact, and seek to educate public sentiment accord- ingly, will public sentiment be improved. The prescribed course of edu- cation is inevitable, growing out of the nature of man and the absolute requirements of the moral and civil government under which we live. Some one says: “ Say nothing about prohibition or law until by moral evasion you have educated public sentiment so that law will be en- forced.” Absurd! Educate the public mind to enforce law by saying nothing about law ! Educate men to adopt and enforce prohibition by saying nothing to them about prohibition ! As well educate pubho sentiment to defend liberty by saying nothing about liberty ! As well educate the church on the Trinity or any other doctrine by saying nothing about it ! Law educates downwards as well as upwards. Public temperance sen- timent is much weaker in the license than it is in the prohibitory States. More intoxicating liquors are sold per capita in license than in prohibi- tory States, proving that public sentiment is more demoralized. The report of Commissioner Wells for the year ending June 30, 1567, shows that the three prohibitorv States of Massachusetts, Maine, and T ermont, with a population of 2,250,000, sold less than one-third as much intoxi- cating liquors as the four license States of Hew Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Wisconsin, though the population of these latter States was 25,000 less. California sol i thirteen times more than Maine, aud sis times more than Massachusetts, per capita. Even in isolated places the suppression of the traffic ensures an elevated public sentiment, as in Vineland, Hew Jersey. Though the State lias a license law, by special legislative act. the voters of Vineland are allowed to prohibit the traffic- It is ten years since the town was incorporated, and under this wise provision it has grown to a city of more than 11,000 inhabitants, witlv LAW AS AN EDlrCATOR. 9 out police or police court, jail, house of correction, almshouse, or lock- up. Moral and IcfcaJ suasion combined L“ave nurtured a public senti mont that is irrepressible afrainst the curse. The result is similar in Besaorook. Ireland. Thoufrli 3.000 Irish workmen are employed in the mills, there is no poor-house, jail, or constable needed, because the pro- prietor prohibits the sale of intoxicating driuks. In Great Britain, there are fourteen hundi'ed parishes iu wliieh the landlords take advantage ol the act of Parliament to prevent the sale of liquors, as the landlord of Bessbrook does, and the result is no crime or pauperism ; and public Fcntiment among the Irish laborers (who in this country are distin- guished as lovers of whiskey) is so strong and vigorous that they heartily support the present order of things. Just here it is that the church has failed. The great body of church members preach and practise total abstinence, and try to have others do BO. At the same time, popular opi ion has directed that the church should have little or nothing to do with law; as if legal measures could have neither a moral nor religious use. “ Let m.en of the world execute the laws ; let the chui-ch attend to the Gospel.” This has been the too common sentiment, and the church has acted upon it. The result is that, even in prohibitory States, many large towns and cities show ten or twenty grog-shops, houses of* ill-fame, and gambling-hells to ono church. All the moral sicasion of the pulpits and churches avails noth- ing against the inroads of vice and crime. A sceptic said to us, iu a town where there were five churches: “ The church is a sham. Look at this place ; right under the eaves of these five chiu'ches are four billiard- halls, twenty rum-shops, and other evls-to correspond; and things growing worse and worse each month. IVIiat is the church forf” What could we answer? Sure enough, what is the church for, when it allows the devil to open shops around its bouses of worship, that lure more persons to ruin than good men save ? But we said to that sceptic, ‘'The church is not a sham. The trouble is that the members of these churches do not use the legal measures that Providence has provided, erroneously believing that Christian men should confine their- labors to the ‘moral,’ and failing to see that the suppression of all such sources of vice and crime is eminentlv a moral work. All these places of vicious resort exist in defiance ot indispensable laws; and let the members of these five churches discharge their whole duty as Christian citizens, sup- porting government as well as the church, which is their bouuden duty, and all of these dons of shame could be closed in a single week, and such a public sentiment created against them as to render the reopening of them wholly improbable.” That community is an illustration of what is seen all over onr land. Christian men refuse to use one /livinely appointed agency for the re- moval of intemperance — viz., civil government — because they do not regard it “ moral.” Let them see that good laws have amoral and Chris- tian use, whether they are laws to suppress gaming, theft, the sa e ot licentious books or intoxicating beverages, and tiiat government — which, as we have said, is a system of indispensable laws, being heaven ordained — must be supported by Christian men as really as the church , and let them act accordingly, and intemperance might be swept fr'oii our land. Christian men, who believe that gi vernment is the '' ordi 4 LAW AS AN EDUCATOR. nance of God,” are just the ones to enforce vrholesome laws. They an the last persons to say, “ I will confine my efforts to the ‘ moral ’ only,” especially when the so-called legal agencies have a moral use. Suppose other people should refuse to employ the legal. Shall they be auan doned f .Shall wo have no law ? Shall government be ignored! Xot ss long as we have a church that believes government is a divine insti- tution. Let unbelievers do as they may, Christians are bound, both by belief and covenant, to support the ruler who “is a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evni,” whatever the evU is that curses society. It is their duty to vote as really as it is to pray; to go to the political meeting and ballot-box as really as to church ; to render “ unto Cfesar the things that are Caesar’s” as really as “ unto God the things that are God’s ” ; and one is “moral ” as truly as the other. Our Christian obligations embrace our political duties. We have no duties to discharge"chat are not covered by our Christian responsibilities. Hence, it becomes as really a Christian duty to make and enforce laws for the suppression of liquor-shops as to persuade men to sign a pledge of total abstinence. Indeed, all experience shows that the latter cannot remove intemperance or greatly circumscribe its deadly influence with- out the former. It is said that a good temperance law partially enforced demoralizes public sentiment. It is not so. A good law partially enforced nurtures a better public sentiment than a bad law enforced. It is better to have laws to suppress lotteries, gaming, the sale of vicious literature, and kin- dred evils, though they are not well enforced, than to have no laws, or laws that license such ofl'ences. A law that prohibits the sale of intoxi- eating liquors nurtures a healthier public sentiment, though it be not thoroughly enforced, than a license law does. The latter demoralizes f ublic sentiment by legalizing the trafflc and making it respectable. 'he former is the embodiment of the moral and Chri.stian sentiment of the community, which, in itself, becomes a moral breakwater against which the tide of opposition spends its force. The laws that once sus- tained slavery in our land demoralized public sentiment, so that pro- slavery men and women were found in large numbers even at the North ; but since those laws were abolished, and laws supporting liberty have taken their place, it is difficult to find pro-slavery men and won>«o north »f Mason and Dixon’s line, so improved is public sentimen'’ The foregoing exposes the folly of attempting to run tt.._^<-ance so- cieties on the basis of moral suasion alone. It creates the impression that a class of temperance men repudiate law as an ally, and tliis secures the approbation of the rumsellers and their friends, whose appro- val is evidence that the method is wrong; it affords a refuge for a class of persons who want the reputation of being temperance men without the practice ; and it drags out of the dead past to the notice of the un- initiated an exploded method of dealing with intemperance, thus embar- rassing instead of advancing our cause. PUHUISnED BY THE NATIONAL TeMPEHANCE SOCIETY AND Pu» LIGATION House, No. 58 Re.^de Street, Nsy? York, at |3 per Thousand. No. 125 THE RELATIONS ow DRUNKENNESS TO CRIME. K? WVIL HABRIS, U:.D., COR. SECRETARY PRISON ASSOCIATIOa OF NEW YORK. N the following statements we shall employ the terms crime and drunkenness precisely as they would be em- ployed in ordinary conversation. Not any one class of felonies or other offences, not a nicely-defined degree of alcoholism or intoxication, and not the mania of an insane abandonment to the appetite anu passion called dipsomania, will limit the familiar use of these well-accepted terms — drunkenness and crime. The enactments of legislatures do not create crimes, though statutes define some crimes. The statutes of one State or nation define cer- tain offences, and publicly declare them to be crimes ; while other States do not so declare or even in any manner mention them in the laws. The wilful or avoidable offence against the laws of right and duty or against the commands of God, or against the public and acknow- ledged laws of the land, may separately and equally, alone or alto- gether. constitute the quality of criminality of an act or a course of action ; and this common-sense definition of criminality is the accepted definition. It is in this sense of an intrinsic and positive quality of an action, as well as in any particular application of the term ciiniinality that we here propose to employ the word criminality. The difficulty in giving expression hj public laws relating to drunk s THE BELATIONS OF DRUNKENNESS TO CErME. enness as we would mention such acts crime as murder, arso a burglary, or robbery, must not prevent men from recognizing- tns inherent quality of such voluntary and self-indulgent acts as induce these eery crimes. Drunkenness being a direct result of the misusa of appetites, with a dangerous and destructive submission to sensuoui excitement, it cannot be defined by any such simple phraseology as that by which one single act of overt violence, malice, or of continued injury, may be expressed ; but the moral and physical quality of the act of hecoming drunk, and the quality of the injuries and offences which result directly from the drunkenness of any one who inflicts violence or other injurious acts, are readily understood and defined. Already, in all enlightened minds, the question is settled that th«< Intoxication which alcohol produces is marked by consequences to the mind, the body, the moral feelings, and the injurious and dangerous acts that follow upon the use of no other drug. This peculiar dis tinction from all other poisons, and particularly from the various others that may produce drunkenness, -warrants the separate consi- deration which we have given to it, and which the Word of God also gives. More than half of all the convicts in the State prisons and penitea- tiaries. voluntarily confess the fact that they were intemperate and frequently drunk previous to the crimes for which_ they are impri- soned, and that such intemperance had an essential influence in pre- paring them for the acts of crime. About 83 per cent, of the convicts In the United States privately confess their frequent indulgence in Intoxicating drinks. The Super-mtendc nt of the Detroit House of Correction found that only 18 per cent, of the convicts in fifteen State pr'sons and a large number of county jails even claimed to be -Isem- perate. This may be taken as a fair statement of percentages of the temperate and intemperate in the prisons and jails of the United States and Great Britain. After two years of careful enquiry into the history ana condition of the criminal population of the State, we find that the ccnclusion is Inevitable that, taken in all its relations, alcohodc drinks may justly be charged with far more than half of the crimes that are brought to conviction in the State of New York, and that fully 85 per cent, of all convicts give evidence of having in some larger degree been pie- pared or enticed to do criminal acts because of the physical and di»- tracting effects produced upon the human organism by alcohol, and sa ^ey indulged in the use of alcoholic drinks. THE RELATIONS OF DRUNKEITWESS TO C31HE. 9 The remark of Lord Bacon, “that rrine ia the most powerful of aL 'things for exciting and inflaming the passions of all kinds, being, indeed, a common fuel to them all,” is verified in the history of the worst crimes and the experience of criminals. The conditions under which crime depends so directly upon drunkenness that the crime would not be or would not have been committed, were not alcoholic intoxication an antecedent, and in most cases actually the essential preparation, are obvious enough. Yet the apologists lor crime are continually disputing about this relationship. Every prison in the land bears true testimony on this subject. Let us look at a senes of recent illustrations of the nature and dependence of the relation of crime perpetrated under alcoho^c demonism. During the present month, in the Supreme Court in a rural county in this State, I witnessed the sentencing of three youths under twen- ty-one years of age for the crime of arson — a sentence that was just and timely. Before the removal of those young criminals to prison, each of them gave to me separately and alone the following account of his preparation, incentive, and share in the crime ; the details and variations of the three statements all concentrated upon the following facts : Each lad had during the last winter formed the habit of frequent drinking for gaiety and the pleasures of the early stages of drunken- ness. They had frequent sprees together at a country dram-shop ; and a few weeks ago, they became unusually gay while drinking, and when they left the tippling-room, with the general purpose to go Lome, they reeled onward, discussing the safety of a theft or other mischief they might perpetrate. They started for a thieving exploit in a valuable barn and stable ; and before they had matured their plan and ensured any success in plunder, they set fire to the premises, and were soon detected and brought to punishment. During a period of eighteen months of inspection of penitentiaries, jails, and prisons, ending January 1, 1873, the writer conversed pri- vately and alone with seventeen persons, each of whom had wilfully and intentionally killed a fellow-being, and two of whom had killed two each ; three of these seventeen murderers are now in the lunatic asylum for the criminal insane, and of them no further mention if required in this place. The fourteen whom we will now mention by number had a record as follows : No. 1. — A fair and inoffensiva- Bpp«aring man, common education, a religious and indulgent mother, 4 THB EELATIONS OF DRTXNKENN ESS TO CRrSIE. and, until lie began to indulge in drink, had an actire conscience Becretly quarrelled with hia wife and her legal adviser to obtain funds from her estate to gratify his love of pleasure, though not yet an habitual drunkard. Being delayed and teniporarilj- obstructed in his purpose, he prepared to bring on an issue that should secure the (sum he asked, or be revenged. ILe prepared his rifle for the latter, and in a methodical kind of frenzy killed the two friends to whom he was already indebted for ceaseless kindness. Sitting with this mur- derer alone before his execution, I asked him how lie prepared his nerves and deadened his manly instincts so as to attempt the murder. “ Tell me,” said 1 ; “ for I know you had to pre'pare to do it.” He replied : “ I laid in two quarts of raw gin ; and during the ten hours before I began the deed, I drank at five different times as much as 1 dare.” No. 2. — A powerful but mild-looking man in middle life ; wayward, eelf-indulgent, and without education ; a farmer with family and some estate. Returned from a neighboring village full of whiskey, went to work in the woodland, and watched the opportunity to execute his fitting design and wish to slay the owner of the land, to whom he owed rents. The owner came to him. as he expected, and he clove him with the axe. The murderer declared he could not have had the thought, formed the purpose, or performed the fatal act without whiskey, and that, sinful as his life had been, he could not have had such thoughts and wishes, nor have struck the blow, except by the inspiration of whiskey. Yet he was not obviously drunk, but hard at work. He says there never was the least provocation for his act. No. 3. — An educated and pleasant young man, who had done hon- orable service in the war. yet for five years had frequently and exces- sively indulged in alcoliolic drinks, but had not lost social nor busi- ness standing, though his Itusiness enterprises had resulted in disaster. After a protracted “ spree,” he ])assionately and unpro- vokedly assaulted an associate, and killed.him; and, until his frenzy had subsided, he had no C"m])u notions or fear. Such a murder was in his case morally impossible, except as a direct inspiration of alco holic intoxication.* • In these brief outlines of the circumstances attendiiig a se.-ies of ti«Tible Crimea, are do not bring into view the habit of inciiriety in which ilie parents of certain of Lhase criminals are Itnown to have indulged out the. fact should be mentioned, tbat the writer ascertained in several of these' cases that the father or motha, a THB RELATIONS OP DRUNKENNESS TO CRIME A No. 4. — An impulsive and well-educated man in the common walks ef life had conceived a bitter animosity against another, and, after a few days of mental irritation, he prepared himself to slay his secret enemy. That preparation by alcoholic stimulus rendered him so unsteady that, upon meeting an intimate friend of his intended vic- tim, he suddenly and impulsively fired at the former when silently moving in pursuit of the latter. The assailant was incapable of such a purpose, preparation, and fatal impulse without the stimulus and disordered mental effects of strong drink. No. 5. — A jealous husband, after pleading with his neighbor to abandon his friendly relations, undertook to prepare himself to assail the enemy of his peace ; but to that preparation he gave an entire day in two villages, and drank thirty-one glasses of raw whiskey, which he knew he could bear until he raved ; and thus prepared he shot toward his enemy, but so widely away from the mark that be killed a man whom he regarded with friendly feelings. No. 6. — A beardless lad who, before twenty years of age, became a desperado. Whiskey and low associates rendered him utterly desperate at various times. In a drunken brawl, he deliberately and with bravado killed a man without provocation. When sober, this youth was inoffensive, affectionate, and kindly esteemed. The drun- ken sheriff keenly sympathized with the lad, and at the farewell visit of his released companions and instigators of the murder, that official permitted them to bring whiskey, and take farewell drinks, that the gallows might not startle the culprit. both parents, were intemperate drinkers at the earliest recollection of the prisoner, or that a proclivity to passionate and sensuous acts seemed to have been inherited. While this fearful realization of the fact that “ the sins of the parent are visited npoB the children, even to the third and fourth generation,” and by such an inflic- tion become remote causes of vice and crime — and are therefore criminal — neither the prisoners nor the laws excuse these terrible crimes by charging them wholly upon the parental inheritance. The still, small voice of conscience utters its accur sation in the mind of almost every criminal. In the words of one of the ablest physiologists, who has asserted and explained the natural law of hereditary entail- nient of the drunkarit’s curse to the family, “Every sane man is responsible for bii voluntary acts, whatever may he bis moving impulse. Sin and crime are always sin and crime, whatever the constitutional tendency. . . . The vicious act may seem to be due to irresistible iinpulse, but the perpetrator is not the less culpacl* for that. He who wilfully intoxicates himself, that he may commit a murder, ia Btill a murderer, and one of the deepest dye of crime. . . . None are born with a constitution incapable of virtue, though many have such a one as may weU make life one long struggle against the power of temptations so severe that itia well for man that he is not left alone in the mortal conflict.” t THE RELATIONS OF DRUNKENNESS TO CBIHB. No. 7. — A woman, after laboring in a jovial company all day, occ 3 k •ionally sipping some crude wbi.¥key, returned to her drunken hue- band, and in a weird frenzy marched back and forth near the window of their dwelling until she saw the man was asleep ; then she entered the apartment, and clove his head with an axe. She recounted to me the strange fancies and reasons that filled her mind during the hour she waited for that sleep that should permit her to execute her pur- pose. At the time of that conversation, and even before, she waa fearfully sane. She said she never tasted spirits except to keep her ccrurage and hopes alive. She was an uneducated American of decent manners. No. 8. — A young man, of respectable family, deliberately killed his wife, with whom he was living unhappily ; but for days previ- ously to the murder, he drank freely, and was under the influence of whiskey when he struck her down without warning as. she passed him while he was preparing fire for their breakfast. He told ma that the idea of taking her life had not been definitely formed in his mind, but, being terribly confused and astray in his thoughts he acted destructively and ■without plan or conception of the, conse- quences. Collateral evidence has proved that this was true. Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13. — Five men, in a single remote county in this State, have separately given me at different visits the following account of the relation of intoxicating drinks to tiieir crimes. From the courts and other sources I have adequately confirmed the correct ness of their statements : No. 9. — A man of middle age, with habits of command as a master- ■workman and contractor, had passed to the ninth day in one of hia monthly “ sprees ” While walking in a busy street, in which even the houses and pavements seemed moving, he assailed and instantly killed a shopkeeper at his own door. A stranger to his victim, and an enemy to no living being, he murdered without provocation. He told me, after his sentence, he would be glad if execution could expi- ate the crime and that the wonder tvas he had not done some dread- ful deed before ; for these terrible impulses had made him afiaid •f himself when recovering from his " sprees." No. 10. — A stolid man, with conscience and compassion as silent aa the grave, killed his own cousin, merely for more money to buy beer. Wife, children, and home affections had died out in his heart, though his wife and childreiA tried to save him. He was neither imbecile Bar insane, yet could murder any person to obtain further means of THE KBLATIOSTS OF DRUNKENNESS TO CBIIfE. 9 Indulgence. He once carried on a large mechanical husinese, and had manly instincts and character until he succumbed to the stupoi of drink. No. ll. — A young man, with wife and children, deliberately shot and killed a comrade, firing three times with excited bravado. Ha gloried in “ sprees,” and was proud of his powers in gay drinking, revelry, and profanitj'. But when I parted with him after his sen- tence, he begged me to see his beautiful cu'ld, and he evinced the gentlest sentiments and emotions concerning the wife and children. No. 12. — Killed his mother. He was a young man who could be fired by a small quantity of alcoholic stimuli to do, upon impulse, any desperate act, but, when sober, would not harm a dog. Yet when not so drunk as to be unsteady-handed, he thrust a huge knife through his mother’s body immediately upon her refusal to give him more money for drink. No. 13. — A drunken farm laborer transacted business for his em- ployer in town, drank freely, and, when returning home at evening, assaulted an inoffensive woman, whipped and finally killed the poor creature, dragged the corpse into a school-house, and there cut and mangled it, as though infuriated with diabolical frenzy. He told me he was so infuriated, and that for years he had been losing his self- control after drinking. But in this instance, “ the terrible effects came on before he got home — the roads were so bad.” He expected to have reached his lodgings before he was so far gone. No. 14. — S , aged 30, a farmer of some fortune, and who in the past few years was in the habit of dram-drinking once or twice a week when visiting the country town near by. A few glasses of whiskey or mixed liquors usually rendered him wild. On one of these occasions, he imagined himself insulted by numerous bystand- ers at the door of the dram-shop, and in his fury he dashed at one, and instantly killed him with a knife, and seriously injured others. He is a pleasant and sensible man when sober, and, in reply to my enquiry concerning the actual nature of his offence, he said : “ Sir, it is the gravest crime I am accused of — nothing less than killing & fellow-man who had not wronged me.” Deep anguish and the full consciousness of his criminality for being guilty of such an act, and for having been drunk at the time, were unmistakable in this man's SuiiVersaiion and manners. Let these instances of terrible crimes with which society is coa- ^nually alilicted sutBce to show precisely what part the demon alco 6 THE RELATIONS OR DRUNKENNESS TO CBIltX. hol plays in the murders, arsons, and nameless outrages that sho^ (he public ear and send thrills of horror throughout the stale. En- raged tigers and hideous vipers could roam our streets more safely than kuman beings so poisoned and crazed by strong drink. In France, it is an ascertained fact that about 31) per cent, of all Biurders are perpetrated amidst drunken brawls in or about dram- shops. In Great Britain and the United States, the percentage ii still greater, exceeding 50 per cent. ; while among the convicts in prisons and penitentiaries in both these countries, over 75 per cent of the prisoners were addicted to inebriation, before imprisonment, and nearly or quite half of the total number committed their crimes when in some degree under the poisonous influence of alcoholic drinks. The history of crimes that are committed against the person, such as those here narrated, sufficiently illustrate the conditions under which the conscience and reason become silent, and the rule of diabolism* is established. Even the educated and socially favored man is in great danger of falling into any kind of vice — irregularity in duty, departure from business, integrity, and even the commission of crimes — if he indulges freely in intoxicating drinks. The pri- sons and the courts, as well as the history of banking and mercan- tile pursuits, and the great enterpri.-ses of commerce and industry, prove this. The fact is here to be declared boldli/ that the intoxicat- ing effect of alcohol prepares the way for the commission of crimes of every kind, and that even for those which require a steady hand and a clear head there is need of the paralyzing effect of the alcohol upon the conscience and moral sense ; and that such an effect is desired and sought by the professional criminal is a fact well known. It is also an important fact that the unpremeditated or gradual sliding into fraudulent and criminal practices by persons who surprise soci- ety by their fall is largely due to the demoralizing effects of alcohol upon the conscience, and the normal liold of moral principles upoE the mind and the daily affairs of men. rVEUSHED BY The Nation.al Temperance Society and ucATioN House, No. 58 Reade Street, Net*' York, at $6 PEm Thous^vnd. No. 135. Constitutionality and Duty of Prohibition. BY REV. H. M. SCUDDER, D.D. HE prevalence of intemperance can be made V6T palpable by a few facts. The bill that intemperance presents every year to tha Amej’ican people, and which is paid down in hard cash, is raora than twelve hundred millions of dollars. Two such receipted bills w(juld abolish our national debt and leave us a surplus. If you could build a bank big enough to hold it all, and should begin to pay out this money at th© rate of twenty-five thousand dollar* a day, it would take you one hundred and thirty years to do it. So that, if you were a cashier, and you should count thirty years to a genera- tion, you might bequeath the business to your son, and he to your grandson, and he to your great-grandson, and the great-great-grandson would have ten years before the payment would bo completed. From careful statistics, it is calculated that half a mUlion of men are engaged in the liquor-traffic in the Cnited States. That is a standing army of intemperance five hundred thou- sand strong. The prevalence of intemperance can be still further demonstrated by the wretchedness of seven hundred and fifty thousand drunkards, by the destitu- tion of eight hundred thousand paupers, and by the ravings and the imbecili- ties of thirty thousand madmen and idiots. Now, I say that is a woful arith- metic. These figures affect us as astronomical distances affect us ; they failto originate in us any adequate conception of their magnitude. We are paralyzed at the very contemplation. The brain is conscious of its inability to realize such numbers as a shock to its whole substance, and the heart responds to the conviction of the brain, and is paralyzed in every fibre. But one impression is burned into our very souls, and that is this — that these figures and the facts which they do represent set before us in a most appaJling manner the preva- lence of intemperance. Now, if it is so prevalent, and if it is an evU, then how reat an evil it must be 1 Let me run over for a moment a few points very riefly. Intemperance creates in man an ungovernable appetite. You and 1, thank God, not having been drunkards, cannot tell what it is. Men who have fallen have told us it is not a desire, not an appetite, not a passion ; these ordinary words fail to express the thing. It is more like a raging storm that pervades the entire being ; it is a madiness that paralyzes the brain ; it ’s a corrosion that gnaws the stomach ; it is a storm-fire that courses through the veins ; it transgresses every boundary, it fiercely casts aside every barrier, it regards no motive, it silences reason, it stifles conscience, it tramples upon prudence, it overleaps everything that you choose to put in its way, and eternal life and the claims of God are as feathers which it blows out of its path. Really, a drunk- ard would sell bis body and soul, would barter away heaven, and covenant with you to jump into hell, if you would give him what he asks — more drink. What does it do to a man’s body ? It diseases it ; it crazes his brain, it nlasts his nerves, it consumes his liver, it destroys his stomach, it inflames his heart, it sends a fiery flood of conflagration through all the tissues ; it so saps the recuperative energies of man’s body that oftentimes a little scratch upon a drunkard’s skin is a greater injury than a bayonet-thrust through and through the body of a temperate man. It not only does this, but the ruin that it brings into the nervous system often culminates in delirium tremens. Now, I am a physician as well as a clergyman. I have seen the delirium tremens. Have you seen it ? Have you ever seen a man under its influence ? Have you heard him mutter, and jabber, and leer, and rave like an idiot ? Have you heard Mm moan, cry, shriek, curse, and rave, as he tried to skulk under the bedclothes f Have you looked into hts eyes, and seen the horrors of the damned there f Have you witnessed -.h— e things ? Have you seen the scowl on his face, so that the whole atmespnere was, filled with tempest ? Have you seen him heave on his bod, as though his body was undulating upon the rolling waves like a fire f If you have, then you know what it does to the body. Look at the will. It enthralls the will. A man’s wUl ought to be king. The will of the drunkard is an abject slave. The noblest and the mlghtie.‘=t m^B have been unable to break off the chain when it is once rive.,ed. I verily be- li.i ve there have been no such wails of despair out of hell itself as have gone up from the Ups and heart of the drunkard who knew he never could be reeo Tered. What does it do to the heart f If a man is made in the image of God’s In- teUect, a woman is made in the image of God’s heart. A tender woman is ten- derest to her child. Is there anything that can unmother a woman, that ooa plnok tfee ui^temal heart out, of her, and put in its place somethlug that is pov- 2 C0N8TITUTI0KALITT AND DUTY OF PKOHIBITIOK erfal and fiendish ? There was a woman tried in England for this. She wa* drunk ; she was drinking up all she had ; she wanted more ; she had pawned everything, and she did not know what to do. Finally, her eyes feU upon her boy — a fine boy that she had. He had on a pair of hoots. She seized him, threw him down, and, in her effort to puU them off, the boy resisted, and she. In her drunken fury, forgetting that that was the boy she had brought into the world and had suckled and had watched over, threw him out of the third-story window on the pavement. I ask if there is any other agent on earth, or even in the world of the damned, that can so transform a mother's heart into some- thing for vrhioh thought itself cannot find similitude ? I say Satan himself can- not Clo it ; but rum can do it, and did it in this case. Look ai character. It wrecks character. It is a double shipwreck ; the drunkard not only loses his ovm respect, but he loses the respect of everybody else. His own character, with its real worthiness and with its reputation, la gone, and his worthiness in the estimation of other people is gone too — both ol them, slain, are buried in one grave ; and the grave-digger and the murderer, who are they ? Rum. It wipes out the likeness of (jod from the soul, and makes a man a mixture of the brute and the demon, evolving the stupidity cl the one and the piiilosophy of the other ; .and the Bible tells us that no drunk- ard shall ever inherit the kingdom of God. It brings a peculiar curse upon woman. I say intemperance brings a pecu- liar curse upon woman. It reverses the very order of life. Man is'hot natu- rally cruel to woman : that is not his disposition. TVhen man came out of Paradise, he came out with a woman, hand in hand with her. That nature was to her a true nature ; it was significant of the fact that courtesy to woman had outlived the fall. There is a second serpent that tempts man. It is intempe- rance. It betrays him into a lower fall. 1 ask, who is it that vilifies the woman whom he has married and sworn to protect ? Who is it that defiles her pure presence with the obscenity of the slum and the saloon ? Who strikes her fair face ? Who starves her, body and soul ? Who sells her marriage vosiure and her wedding jewels ? Who plunges into her breast the murderou'' icnife ? How is it that man is brought iuto condition to do these things ? It is only one agency that can do it— rum. What shall we say of the social iniquity that has grown so great, even in New York City ? There are streets through which your childreu cannot safely go to school— through which they cannot go without hearing obscenities .•’nd witnessing sights suited to contaminate their innocent souls. What is th« stimulus and inducement to that iniquity ? It is rum. Lastly, it breeds crime, fills our prisons, penitentiaries, houses of correc- tion, and'houses of tll-famo. It feasts the thought of robbery, makes it appeal feasible, promises it immunity ; it nourishes the conception of murder, and gives courage to the shrinking murderer ; it is the thief 's cunning ; it is the forger’s emboldener ; it is the assassin’s inspiration ; it is the strength of the seducer ; it is the wea’iness of the seduced ^ it nerves the suicide ; it impels every year myriads of men and women across the boundaries of virtue into the territories of brutal vice and hopeless guilt. If there is any atrocious evil to be perpetrated, the man who expects to perpetrate it brings himself up to the work by strong drink. It is stronger than the devil liimseif — stronger to lead men into all prolligacy, into all pollution and all crime. Now, what shall we do about it ? Shall we 1 ’t it alone ? Shall we give up the work of controlling it ? Shall wo say, “ '^e thing is so tremendous an evil, is so far-reaching and so deeply pervading, that we" cannot do anj-thing with it ’’ f Suppose, when the ocean threatened to submerge Holland, th*at the Hol- landers had said, “ We are little men, and this is a grelit ocean ; one surge may carry a thousand of us away like so many egg-sheUs ; we cannot do anvihing.” But they did not say that ; they said something different : “ The ocean shall not overflow our ficlds,'shall not destroy our harvests, shall not drown our citi'^s ; and they hacked up their sturdy words with sturdier deeds. They built dyke^ which were the admiration of the world. They kept out the ocean, saved theii fields, harvests, cities, and populations, and the surf which would have de- vastated them is now walled out for ever, and. asitstiykes ceaselessly their bul- warks on the outside, can only utter in a hoarse voice its perpetual amen to the grand triumph of those resolute Hollanders. I say, if intemperanoa threatens our country as the oeeau threatened Holland, let us act as t'ne Hol- landers did. God helps courageous souls. If we are bold, brave, and faithful, we shall yet build dykes that ^all yet save our country and oar r.ace. Now, th^re are two things that we can do, and t’ae'first is to check this evil at its beginning. You may cut down twigs and branches, you may lap off and trim as much as you Mire, but the tree will grow faster than you' can’ cut. It will continue its "tremendous persistency of growth ; its horrible vitaUty rising with it, it win grow so fast you cannot check it : for .ts long, stoat roots run down and spread far and wide in a very fertile sofi, and that soil is the con- vivial, social usages of the community. It is that which has been al- luded to here this evening. Moderate drinldng is the soO in which those roots of intemperance run, and from which it derives its moisture and its lif«, C01ISTITaTI0NA.IiITY AND DUTY OP PROHIBITION. 8 There Is the 'wine-cup on the hible of the master’s house pressed upon hla guest ; the mistress of the house, with a tempting smUe, passes it. It is at the public dinner ; it is on the sideboard on New Year’s day ; it is in the baU-room ; wherever there is relaxation, this custom of society asserts itself ; poetry, song, Tniicir* ot>H rmrYiHarlocc focpinnf.iri’nci Am-na «c if fl.nrl if tiitiq its rnA+ft intA thrt you have got to stop those lakes before you can stop the cataract. The lakes out of which the Niagara of intemperance flows in its destructive course, car- S thousands of precious men and women every year, are the moderate- ing habits of society. We have got to stop it there ; and therefore we should make it our aim especially to educate the young men and women of the country to total abstinence. That is moral eSort. Secondly, we should put forth legal efforts to suppress the trafSc. Look at the saloons in this city. I have often crossed streets in this city, and encoun- tered three tippling-saloons on the four comers, and I dare say there are places where all four corners are saloons. I have often encountered several in a block, all through, every kind, from the lowest slum where the meanest drunkard crawls, to the flaunting rum-palace where weU-dressed gentlemen go with jaunty air. These saloons promote drinking, and the more they increase, the more they gain ; and when the gaily-dressed emissaries of the brothel lure their victims, they make use of social, free facilities for drinking. Men get away from their homes, and sustain each other in their carousals in these dens of iniquity. It is in the saloon where the pistol is often heard, where the dag- ger is often struck home ; it is the place where vagabonds frequent, where tramps grow ; it is the place where burglars are educated, and murderers are bred. They are fountains of defilement, death, and damnation. If the scenes that are enacted in the rum-shops of the United States could be set before us just as they transpire — all the scenes that take place in a single year — and we were told to look upon the horrible.speetacle, it would be fairly like gazing into the abyss of hell itself. Now, over all this iniquity and ruin the state spreads its broad shield ; it licenses it aU ; it legalizes it. The rumseller brings his license, and says, “ Look there, I am an honest man ; I act under the sanction of the state ; my calling is a respectable one, because it is legal ; I am just as good as you are; I act under the patronage and protection of the Government.” Now, let, us who are citizens : we who are the sovereign people, we who have a right to make our own laws through our representatives, we who have the inalienable right of self-government : let aU who love their country and their feUow-men, and all who wish to arrest vice, aU who wish to advance virtue — let aU of us unite in demanding that there shall be no more licensing of tippling-houses, and that there shall be universal suppression. Let this in future be our battle-cry : “No more license, but suppression.” Now, then, the question that is immedi- ately asked when men broach this subject is this: “Is prohibition constitu- tional f Is it not an invasion of personal rights and liberties ?” Robert C. Pit- man, judge of the Superior Court in Massachusetts, has settled that point in a single sentence. It is a marvellous sentence. Y ou will ha re to look sharply into it, for it is compacted together with amazing terseness : “ Every license rests upon the logical basis of antecedent general prohibition, and derives its only pecu- niary value therefrom.” That sentence deserves unfolding. The idea is this : that the granting of license implies the previous universal prohibition ; for if there were not antecedent prohibition, then no license would be necessary to sen ; then any man might sell and any man might not sell. A license is needed. Why ? Because prohibition antecedent is in fnil force before any license is granted, and is in force without the enactment of any specific law. So that it appears that prohibition is originally natural and univers.al ; prohibition is nor- mal, and Ucense is abnormal ; license is the exception. The dam prohibition is naturally built in the heart of the community, and license is making the breaches in it, saying to one man : “ If you will pay me so many dollars, I will let you make a hole to let the flood of d'amnatiou through it.” So Government makes holes alter holes in the dam of prohibition. Hence, when we ask for a prohibitory law, we ask for that which is right, which cannot by any possibility be wrong. It is only a le,gal affirmation of that which naturally and justly ex- ists, and therefore proliibition is the very e.ssence of rectitude. A prohibitory law is just as right as it possibly can be. It would appear from this that the people are competent, through the legislature, which is only their organ and in- struments to enact a prohibitory law. _ There is just one other question I will speak about. That is this ; Is it con- stitutional to do it ? The people say, after all, ought Government to do it f Let us revert to the charter of our liberties, the very ideal we have of the duties and the functions of government — the Constitution of the United States : “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, estab- lish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, pro- mote the general welfare, and secure the islessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution tor the United States of Arnica.” Here are half a dozen points that furnish good ground for a pro- 4 OONSTITUTIONALITT AND DUTY OF YEOHIBITIOK. hlbltory law. I only allude to one : “We, the people of the United States, ta order to , , , establish jwtice^^o Qtoy 1 aver that granting licenaei Is not establishing justice, but directly the contrary. It is not just to allow a set of men like liquor-sellers to tempt other men as they do. It is not just to authorize those men to ply their catalogue of arts upon the drunkard, who is a man incapable of defence. It is net just for these men to exercise an unfair advantage over the property which they do possess, inasmuch as they take the toil and earning of the laborer who is their victim, and get what he has laid up in the savmgs-bank. It is not just to allow tnese men to inflict the ineffable sufferings which they bring down upon the heads of innocent wo- men. It is not just to let these men prosecute a trade to contaminate our children, who are to be the support of the state. The government of Sparta went as far as to take the children out of the households, and bring them under strict, rigorous government, and educated them to be abstemious, patriotic, and brave. The reason why Sparta had in- creased for flve hundred years was because she had such laws and thoroughly enforced them. But the government that makes license lawful succeeds in ftfllictiug our children with hereditary diseases and weakening them ; succeeds in depraving homes, out of which they shall not emerge good citizens, but vaga- bonds. The greater part of juvenile crime among us is the product of our license laws. It is not just to inaugurate a license system which necessarily Imposes great taxation upon the virtuous part of the community — which ‘is ob- liged to pay a great deal of the expense incurred solely by the sme of intoxicat- ing liquors — thui upholding bad men, and making good men pay for it ; and it is not just to the criminals that are made such by rumseUing to condemn them, and at the same moment set the rumseller where he can say, “ I have done it, and will do it again.” I say Licenses are not just. The prohibitory law has been tried in Maine. It has been eluded ? Willyon teU me where any law, in any State and any kingdom under the sky of God, that has been enacted has not been eluded ? There are laws against gambling and houses of ill-fame, against the printing and circulation of obscene litera- ture. Are there no obscene papers and books printed ? There is a tariff under the Government. Is there no smuggling done in the land ? If the argument is correct that the prohibitorv law against selling intoxicating drinks is useless because it will be eluded, there ought to be no laws against gambling, obscene literature, and there ought to be no law at all, because somebody will break it. Following out’ this argument would kill all law, government, and society, and introduce universal anarchj’ and ruin. When good laws are enacted, and when the purpose of their enactment is to tell people what right and wrong is, govern- ment, in enacting such laws, fultUs the part of that education which it is under obligation to infuse into its citizens. If the law against gambling cannot be enforced, what then ? It stigmatizes the crime of gambling, and that is a high moral end gained ; and if a prohibitory law is passed in this State of New York, ond men do elude it, if it is not thoroughly enforced, notwithstanding it pro- nounces the criminality of the act, and men when they are driven to sell drink do it secretly and clandestinely, and feel they are stigmatized, a high moral end is obtained. But the Hon. Woodbury Davis of Maine has uttered this sen- tence : “ The Maine law has produced one hundred times more visible improve- ment in the character, condition, and prosperity of our people than any other law that was ever enacted,” That is good testimony. I say, therefore, in closing, that it is the duty of all good citizens to agitata from pulpit and platform and press until we get a prohibitory law in the State ■ of New York, and in all the States of the Union. That is the duty of all good citizens. See what they have acquired already. In fact, the greatest antagon- ism to the temperance cause in this country to-day is the political power that rum has acquired. Where are our primaries held ? Over rum-shops. ^Yhat is the influence most potent in political caucuses ? Bum. On what do wiiy poli- ticians and manipulators of elections most confidently rely ? On rum. Y> hat influence sways most votes ? Rum. Who rule New York i Rumsellers. ho are the chief lords of many of the cities of our Union } Rumsellers. They are subtle, they are united, they understand themselves, they have a definite aim, they move together, and their object is to control the pubiic^treasury. They consider rum the magic key that will enter all its locks \ and if t hin gs go as they have gone for the few years past in this country, we shrfll, before long, be governed, through our State legislatures and our Federal Congress, by rum- sellers. They are fast advancing to national supremacy. I say good men weakly withdraw from politics, and leave the thing in the hands of these bad men ; and if our temperate, virtuous, incorrupt citizens do not arise in their might, and make a clean sweep of these men, this Republic will cease to exist, ftnn we shall be ruled by an oligarchy of ru ms ellers. PuHGISHED BY THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY AND PUB* liiCATioN House, No. 58 Reade Street, New York, at $3 per Thousand. No 136. Governor of Massachusetts against License. OVEEIfOR TALBOT of Massacliusetts sent the following message to the Legislature vetoing the liquor license bill : COMMONWEALXn OF MASSACHUSETTS, ) Executive Department, > Boston, Jaue 27, 1S74. j To the House of Representatives : Gentlemen : IVo more important question can be presented to us Ie the discharge of our otEcial duties than that concerning the traffic in intoxicating liquors. The results involved in any decision that may be made are so momentous, and the consequences so grave and wide-reach- ing, that in discussing the issue we ought to lay aside personal and party considerations of every kind, and be influenced solely by the obligations we owe to our fellow-men, and the solemn trusts we have taken upon ourselves in behalf of the commonwealth. Called upon to consider the bill “ regulating the sale of spirituous liquor,” I must act on my oath and my conscience, appealing for my justification, not alone to the en- lightened judgment of the people of Massachusetts, but to that Power which is superior to all common authority, and infallibly tries the heart of men. If we admit that there maybe a use of intoxicating liquors so guarded and temperate that no appreciable evil arises therefrom, it is still the unanimous verdict of the civilized would, supported by a weight of evi- dence not to be overthrown, that the use ol' alcoholic fluids is the causf of much the largest proportion of the crime and degradation and misery foiling to tie lot of man. Among good citizens there is no essentisd disagreement on the point that the traffic in such fluids must be re Strained and limited as far as possible. Difference of opinion arises only when we consider whether it is best to try to regulate the sale of these 8 GOVERNOR OP MASSACHUSETTS AGAINST LICENSE. fluids or prohibit it altogether. If we adopt the latter course, we are at least in harmony with the metheds adopted by general consent toward other offences against public morals— offences which we must confess exist to a great extent among ns in spite of our efforts to prevent then and yet upon which the law, so far as its precept goes, stamps the seal of prohibition. The history of the struggle with the evils of intemperance is most in- structive. The earliest attempts to check the use of intoxicating liqucrg were in the direction of license and regulation. These attempts con- tinued in the commonwealth for more than two hundred years, with a constantly-increasing stringency which can only be explained on the ground that mild measures were found to be insufficient, until in 1355 the experiment was detennined upon of adopting prohibition as the only logical anl effective method of dealing with the matter. 'Without asserting that this has proved so successful in overcoming the evils it was meant to remedy as was hoped by those who initiated and those who sustain the prohibitory policy, I am fully of the opinion that more progress has been made toward the desired end than was ever before made in the same period under any other system. In considering what has been accomplished, we must recognize the great changes that have taken place since this system was inaugurated. Our rural districts have undergone a gradual depopulation, and large' numbers of our young men have become massed in cities, away from the restraints of home ; we have been subjected to the demoralizing in- fluences inseparable from civil war long continued, and the necessity or pressure of business has forced us into a feverishness or restlessness ol life that rapidly wears and wastes. Exactly what the effect upon public morals would have been had the sale of intoxicating liquors, especially in our cities, been free and open under color of law during the past sixteen or eighteen years, no one can assume with positiveness to declare ; but I am quite confident that no commonwealth in which the license ®ystem has prevailed can point to nobler records of achievements in material interests, intellectual pursuits, or moral reforms, and equally certain that we could not have made greater progress in any good uirecnon under a law promotive of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. So far as attempts have been made to compromise the two systems cf prohibition and license by legalizing sales through draggists and town agents, or by permitting the unrestricted sale of malt liquors and light intoxicants, the results have been unsatisfactory. Abuses of the grossest character were found to creep in at once where any privileges were granted, and subsequent legislatures have been obliged to repeal what seemed to be on the passage most carefully guarded enactments of a re- Btrictive character. Compromise in this regard that shall not be abused in the most flagrant manner, all experiences with which I am familial GOVBBNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS AGAINST LICENSE. If prove to be an impossibility. If intemperance is not oar inexohjole doom, if the poverty and wretchedness and crime brought on by the use of intoxicating liquors are not our inevitable heritage, what can we do better than to set oui'selves in unyielding opposition to the traffic which promotes it? I am aware that it is said intemperance increases under our prohibitory law — that the sale of intoxicants is as great as it would be under a license law. But 1 call your attention to the absence here of the flaunt- ing and attractive bar-rooms that spread their snares to capture the thoughtless and easily tempted in cities where licenses prevail ; to the constantly growing sense of disfavor with which the liquor-traffic is regarded by the country generally ; and to the powerful, systematic, and unrelenting activity of those interested in it to break down the law and the officers who try to enforce it. Here is an evidence that the statute does impose an active and crippling restraint, from which relief is sought m the elastic and easily evaded principle of license. Even if some sincere friends of temperance prefer a stringent license law to a prohibitory system, there can bo no denial that the men who have money and business at stake in this contest are the most ardent and urgent advocates of license, and I cannot doubt that they understand them- selves and calculate shrewdly the advantage they will gain. It is easy to mistake the clamor of interested parties for the voice of the people. "When I seek to ascertain what the latter really is, I recall that the license law, elaborated with so much care in 1833, was permitted to remain on the statute-books only till the people could next be heard at the ballot-box. 'With the single exception that public bars are prohibited, the measure now under consideration is in no essential point bettor, and in some respects I think it is less stringent than that was. The notori- ous evasions of that law, and the open way in which all intoxicants were then sold under the protection of innholders’ and victuallers’ licenses, demonstrated the powerlossness of such enactments to protect the community against the evils of intemperance. And the pending bill seems to mo simply a prohibitory measure with exceptions that totally destroy its moral Ibrco as an instrument for the promotion of temperance and the well-being of our people. It is objected to our present liquor law that the enforcement of it is trregular and unequal. Admitting this to be true for the sake of argu* Blent, what assurances have we that a license law would bo more thoroughly enforced? Are the penalties imposed any more severe T Are the penalties any greater incentives to officers or citizens to do their duty? The prohibitory legislation of 1855 had its origin in the deep- settled conviction that the license law of that period was viitually a dead letter. The law of 1868 was violated with such open and reckless i GOTKRSOB OF MASSACHUSETTS AGATJTST LICEKBH. iraponity that it became a mockery in the eyes of the people. In oaf sister States where the license system now prevails, there is a daily bur- den of complaint that its penalties are defied and its provisions evaded on every hand. "Where is the proof that the local police and magis- trates who refrain from efforts to enforce the prohibitory law would faithfully and energetically and persistently enforce a license law ? II is not furnished by our experience or by the experience of any other commonwealth. hTor is the argument at all conclusive to my mind that we should not retain upon our statute-books a law that is in advance of public opinion on this subject. Law is in one sense a guide-board pointing out the course of conduct which, if followed, will secure the greatest degree of good and happiness and safety for all. Therefore it must often be largely ideal in its character, and frequently in advance <>f the general conduct of those subject to it, that it may be an instructor and elevator, as well as a source of restriction and punishment. To a law commit ting the commonwealth of Massachusetts to a public acknowledgment that the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is necessary and de- sirable, 1 cannot on my conscience give assent. It seems to me that the only safe and sound position for a Christian community to take in regard to this matter is that of absolute and unqualified opposition to the traffic. "When I think of the victims to the use of intoxicating liquors in every village of the commonwealth; when I study the great field over which our Board of State Charities has supervision ; when I consider our alms- houses, and hospitals, and homes for the fallen and fnendle.ss ; when I look into our jails, and workhouses, and houses of correction, and tho State prison ; and when I try to compute the losses and charges upon all our industries by reason of imperfect labor, and the taxes for the support of these institutions for reformation and punishment, my judg- ment unqualifiedly condemns, and my heail; and my manhood rebel agamst, any system that would permit the great source of all wrong and misery and crime to exist by authority of the commonwealth. My con- victions against the policy of such a system are too solemn and resist- less for me to hesitate in doing the duty laid upon me. I therefore return the bill entitled “ An Act regulating the Sale of Spirituous or Intoxicating Liquor” to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, without executive sanction. THOMAS TALBOT. Published by the National Temperance Soceett and Publica* TioN House, No. 58 Reajoe Street, New York, AT $3 PER Thousand. Nck 15L ^ ' M. BY REV. R. T. CROSS. 1 N 1870 there were in the United States one hnn- dred and forty thousand licensed liquor-saloons. U formed into a street with saloons on each side, allow- ing twenty feet to each saloon, they would make a street two hundred and sixty-llve miles long. Let ns imagine them brought together into such a street, and let ns sup- pose that the moderate drinkers and their families are marching into it at the upper end. Go with me, if you Ijave the nerve and patience, and stand at the lower end, and let us see what that street turns out in one year. Whatarmy is this that comes marching down the street in solid column, five abreast, extending five hundred ana seventy miles ? It is the army of five million men and wo- men who daily and constantly go to the saloons for intoxi- cating drinks as a beverage, klarching twenty miles a day, it will take tliem more than twenty-eight days to go by. How they are gone, and close in their rear comes an- other army, marchiirg five abreast and sixty miles in length. In it there are 530,000 CONFIRMED DEUNKAEDS They are men and women who have lost control of their ap- petites, who are in the regular habit of getting drunk and making beasts of themselves. Marching two abreast, the army is 150 miles long. Sean them closely. There are gi’ay-haired men and fair-haired boys. There are, alas ! many women in that army sunk to deeper depths than the men, because of the greater heights from which they felL It will take them seven days to go by. It is a sad and sickening sight, but do not tum awaj yet ; for hero comes another army — one hundred thousand criminals. From jails and prisons and penitentiaries they come. At the head of the army comes a long line of per* 2 THE STREET OE HELL T sons whose hands are smeared with hnman blood. Wifh ropes around their necks, tlicv are on the way to the gal- lows. Others are going to prison for life. Every crime known to our laws Las been committed by these persons while they were under the influence of drink. Eut hark ! 'Whence come those yells, and who are those, bound with strong chains and guarded by strong men, that go raging by ? They are raving maniacs, made such by drink. Their eyes are tonnentcd with awful sights, and their ears ring with liorrid sounds. Slimy reptiles crawl over their bodies, and fiends from hell tonnent them before their time. They arc gone now, and we breathe more freely. But what gloom is this that pervades the air, and what is that long line of black coming slowly down the street ? It is the line of funeral processions. One hundred thousand who have died the drunkard’s death are beinsr carried to their graves. Drunkards do not have many friends to mourn their loss, and we can put thirty of their funeral processions into a mile. We thus have A PROCESSION 3,333 3IILE3 LONG, ft will take a good share of the year for them to go by ; for funeral processions move slowely. Yes, most of them do ; but every now and then an uncofiined corpse in a rough cart is driven rapidly by, and we Imar the brutal driver eiug : ’'Quick, rattle liis bones, rattle bis bones Over the stones : i^s’s only a pauper wlioni nobody owns.’’ Look into the coffins as they goby. See the dead drunk aids. Some died of delirium tremens, and the lines of terroi 5ie still plainlymarked on their faces. Some frozen to death by the roadside, too drunk to reach their homes. Some stumbled from the wharf and were drowned. Some wan- dered into the woods and died, and rotted on the surface of the earth. Some blew their own brains out. Some were fearfully stabbed in drunken brawls. Some were roasted in burning buildings. Some were cnished to shapeless massea THE STREET OP HELL I t oader the cai3. They died in various ways, but strong drink killed thim all, and on their tombstones, if they have any, may be fitly inscribed : “ He died a drunkard’s death.” Close behind them comes another long line of funeral processions ; we know not how many, but they are more numerously attended by mourning friends. They contain tlie remains of those who have met death through the care- lessness and the cruelty of drunken men. Some died of broken hearts. Some were foully murdered. Some were burned to death in buildings set on fire by drunken men. Some were horribly mangled on the railroad because of drunken engineers or flagmen. Some were blown upon a steamboat because a drunken captain ran a race with a rival boat. But here comes another army — the children, innocent ones, upon whom has been visited the iniquities of their fathers. How many are there ? Two hundred thousand, Marching two abreast, they extend up the street thirty miles. Each one must boar through life the stigma of being the drunkard’s child. They are reduced to poverty, want, and beggary. They live in ignorance and vice. Some of the children are moaning with hungm", and some all shivering with the cold ; for they have not enough rags to keep them warm. A large number of them aro idiots, made sucli before they were born, by brutal, drunken fathers. And, ivorse than all the rest, many of them have inherited a love for liquor, and are growing up to take the places and do the deeds of their fathers. They will fill up the ranks of the awful army of drunkards that moves in unbroken columns down to death. It has taken nearly a year for the street to empty itself of its year’s work. And close in the rear comes the van- guard of next year’s supply. And if this is what liquor does in our land in one year, what must be its result in all the world through the long centuries ! Thus far we have listened to the stories that the figures tell. But they cannot tell all. They give only the outline of the terrible tragedy that is going on around us. They cannot picture to us the wretched squalor of a drank ard’i 4 THE STREET OF HELL I home. They cannot tell ns how many unkind and cruel words strong di’ink has caused otherwise kind and tender- hearted husbands and fathers to utter to their dear ones. They cannot tell us how many heavy blows have fallen from the drunkard’s haml upon those whom it is his duty to love and cherish and protect. They cannot tell us how many fond expectations and bright hopes which the fair young bride had of the future have been blasted and turned to bitterest gall. They cannot number the long, weary hours of night during which she has anxiously awaited, and yet fearfully dreaded, the heavy footfall at the door. FIGURES CANNOT TELL US how many scalding tears the wives of drunkards have shed, or boW many prayers of bitter anguish and cries of agony God lias heard them utter. They cannot tell us how many mothers have worn out body and soul in providing the necessities of life for children whom a drunken father has left destitute. They cannot tell us how many mothens’ hearts have broken with grief as tliey saw a darling son be- coming a drunkard. They cannot tell us how many white hairs have gone done in sorrow to the grave, mourning over drunken children. They cannot tell us how many hard- fought battles the drunkard, in his sober moments, has fought with the terrible appetite ; how many times he has walked his room m despair, tempted to commit suicide, be- cause he could not conquer the demon. And, finally, we cannot search the records of the other world, and tell how many souls have been shut out from that holy place, where no drunkard enters, and banished to the regions of etern-al despair by the demon of drink. What man, what woman, what child, would not vote to have that whole street, with its awful traflBc in the infernal stuff, sunk to the lowest depths of perdition, and covered ten thousand fathoms deep under the curses of the universe ? Published by the National Tewper-ance Society and Pub- lication House, No. 58 Reade Street, New York, at $3 per Thousand. No. 153, Second Declaration of Independence. By Rev. A. W. Corey. Adopted hy The National Temperance Society. B HEN a long train of usurpations and abuses, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to re- duce mankind under an absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw otf such govern- ment, and to provide new guards for their future security. There is an enemy among us, fellow-citizens, the history of whose reign is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over mankind. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused to submit to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has kept among us in times of peace staggering armies, with the consent of our legislatures. He has subjected many of us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by the law of nature or of God. He has deprived our citizens, in many cases, of trial by sober juries. He has transported many of our citizens beyond the bounds of reason into the seas of dissioation and ruin. He has imposed taxes on us for the support of pauperism and crimes of his own engendering. He has established and sustained depots for the manufacture and sale of the most destructive instruments, to complete the works of death, desolation, and perfidy, unparalleled in the most barbarous ages, and utterly insufferable among a civilized people. He has, in some instances, stimulated our citizens to fight against their dearest friends and brethren, and become the exe- cutioners of their own wives and children. He has occasioned more than three-fourths of the pauperism, three-fourths of the crime, and more than one-half of the in- sanity in the community, and thereby filled our prisons, our almshouses, and lunatic asylums, and erected the gibbet befoja our eyes. He has influenced our elections by bribery and corruption. SECOND DECLAKATION OF INDEPENDENCE. He has occasioned insubordinatjon and desertion in our army. He has deceived and plundered the defenceless Indians on our western borders, and destroyed them by thousands and tens of thousands, and at times stimulated them to acts of the most barbarous cruelty against the inhabitants of our frontier settle- ments. He has destroyed multitudes of our seafaring men, and occa- sioned many shipwrecks every year. He has occasioned the blowing-up of many steamboats on our rivers, and the consequent destruction of much property and many valuable lives. He has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of our citizens annually in the most merciless manner. He has turned aside hundreds of thousands more of our free and independent citizens to idleness and vice, infused into tliem the spirit of demons, and degraded them below the level of brutes. He has made thousands of widows and orphans, and destroyed she fondest hopes and blasted the brightest prospeem. He has wasted and destroyed the properties of our citizens to the amount of more than $600,0011,000 annually. Ho has imported plague and pestUence and diffused and per- petuated its influence among us. He has introduced among us hereditary diseases, both phy.si- cal and mental, thereby tending to deteriorate the human race. He has converteil many of our pubhc houses, where quietness, neatness, and good order should be found, into the must bois- terous and filthy dens of dissipation. He encourages men to spend their time and money at public- houses while their families are starving at home. He converts annually many millions of bushels of grain, the staff of life, into mortal pois n, while thousa ds of om- citizecs and their children are s'ofieriug for want of bread. He has misrepresented the character of our people and the institutions of our country in foreign nations and in the isles of the sea. He has entered our courts of justice and our legislative halls and disturbed their counsels, and even the sancmarios of our religion and the ministers at the altar have not alt.igether es- caped his prevailing and blighti 'g influence. Ho has encouraged t^abbath- breaking, profanity, impurity, thieving, house-burning, robbery, gamb’.mg, slander, and fight- ing. and has ruined the m orals of every community over which be has obtained an influence. He vitiates the taste and demoralizes tlie habits of our unsus- pecting children, thus preparing them for an easy prey here- after. He has brought all our free institutions, the perpetuity of oui Government, and our civil and rehgious liberty itself into immi- nent danger. He has suborned many of our unsuspecting citizens, who are opposed to his infiutnee, to unite with and sustaia SECOND DECLARATION OP INDEPENDENCE. t irim, and spread his curses far and wide throughout the com- munity. While in the very act of ministering to his victims his potions of deadly poison, he has hypocritically i)rofessed to offer the most grateful beverage. He has promised health, and life, and joy, while there was death in the pot. He has seared the consciences and blunted the moral percep- tions of men, so as to destroy the efficacy of the Gospel and th« means which God has appointed for thoir spiritual and eternal good. He has dishonored God, in whose image and for whose gloiy man was created, by sinking his image beneath the level of the irrational brutes. He has arrayed himself against all patriotic, humane, and benevolent efforts. He expelleth reason, drowncth memory, defaceth beauty, diminisheth strength, inflameth the blood, causeth internal, external, and incurable wounds ; is a witch to tlie senses, a devil to the soul, a thief to the purse, a beggar’s companion, the wife’s woe, the children’s sorrow, the picture of a beast, the madman’s prompter, and the Pandora to tlie human family. We wilt now call the world to witness if we have been wanting in attention and forbearance to the traitor, while ho has been extending his unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. Has not our Government afforded him the most liberal pro- tection ? Has he not sailed under our fag every ocean and in every sea ? Have not our magistrates given him the freedom of our cities, and even licensed him to do whatsoever he listed 1 Has he not been ope ly received and lauded in our public assemblies H Have not our lawyers and orators and statesmen, the most pi omiuent men of our free Republic, been obsequious to his call and subservient to his interests f Have not our physicians administered their potions under his ijfluence'? and recommended him to their prilicnts as a gioom-dispeller and health- restorer 1 Have not the ministers of our religion and the deacons and elders of our churches exercised all due moderation towards him “i Have not our farmers cheerfully divided with him their substance ? Have not our merchants paifi dear for his commodities, which have proved worse than useless i Have notour mechanics given him a scat on their work-benches? Have not our old men bowed dowm before him, and our young men done him reverence t Have not our maidens smiled upeu him and our cluidren been taught to love him? Has he not been received into our domestic circles, and to a seat at our tables even, while wives arid ch.ldreu have been excluded to giva him place? Have not all c'asses, higii and low, rich and poor, boud-and free, been carried away by bis incantations, and stood up for bim as a good creature of God ? Aud have not our citi- aens most generously sacriliced for him their fortunes, their families, their innocence, their honor, and their lives ? - But for all this hospitality and kjndness, what have they 4 BHCONTJ DECLAEATION OF INDEPENDKNCE. receivea from the ingrate but the scorpion’s sting and the ser- pent's bite ! but tvoes, and sorroivs, and contentions, and bab- blings, ai d wounds icithout cause, and redness of eyes! Evil, and only evil, has been returned for good. And we now declare it as onr belief that the Liistory of the human race affords no parallel examp. 3 of slavery and degradation inflicted on a will- ing and unsuspecting people ; that no tyrant ever subjected so many bu!nan beings to such unmitigated grievances —to such MIGHTY woes. Millions of victims have fallen by bis oppressiois — millions more are enthralled. Tear after year and age after age have passed away, but the cry of remonstrance, though often raised, has seldom been beard or heeded. The malignant tyrant, steady to bis purpose, has rioted in the carnage, and, with infernal exultation, mocked at the groans of the dying and sported with widows’ sighs and orphans’ tears. Every domestic and soc’M bond has been disregarded. The peace and respectability of families have been destroyed. Promising and beloved sous hare been torn from their i^arents, husbands from their wives and families, and the tender mother even from the helpless and dependent offspring ; no tie in nature too tender to be sundered, no chord too strong to be broken, by this unfeeling tyrant. And we now ask the suffrages of the whole world if a domina- tion of such unrningled oppression and tyranny should be sub- mitted to any longer by an enlightened, a generous, and other- wise free people ? We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which declares our separation from Alcohol, and hold him hereafter an implacable enemy in war, awd— no friend in peace. We, therefore, the representatives of the views of all true tem- perance mCii and women in the United States of America and throughout the world, appeuling to the Supreme Judge of the earth for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of all true temperance men and women, solemnly publish and declare that the whole human race ought of right to bo free and independent of, and absolved from all allegiance to, Alcohol, and that all connection, of whatever kind, between them and him, ought to be totally dissolved ; and that while tliey have no right, as rational and accountable beings, to contract alli- ances, establish commerce, or conclude a peace with him, they have full power tc wage against him a war of ex- termination, and to do all ( ther acts and things which may lawfully be do..©, to annihilate his dominion from under the whole heaven. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection and guidance of Divine Provi- dence. wo, temperance men. umtuaTy pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our Sacred Hoxoe, Fcblished by the National Temperance Society and Pcb* ucATiON House, No. 58 Reade Street, New York, at |3 per thousand, Constitutional Amendment. Manufacture and Sale of I 'Jtoxicating Liquors, Forty-Fourth Congress. Speech of Hon. Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, in the House of Representatives, Washington, Wednesday Dec. 27, 1876, On the joint resolution introduced by him proposing an amendment to the Constitutioa of the United States in regard to the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. Mr. BLAIR. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the public good requires the protection of the American people from the evils of alcohol by an amendment of the Constitution. I will read the joint resolution which I have prepared, and have had the honor to present for that purpose by the unanimous consent af the House : Resolved by the Senate and House 0/ Representatives of the United States of A merica in Congress assembled {two-thirds of each House concurring therein)^ That the fal- lowing amendment to the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, as provided in che Constitution : Article — . S:£CnoN I. From and after the year of our Lord 1900 the manufacture and sale of dis tilled alcoholic intoxicatir^ liquors, or alcoholic liquors any part of which is obtained by distillation or process equivalent thereto, or any intoxicating liquors mixed or adulterated with ardent spirits or with any poison whatever, except for medicinal, mechanical, chemi- cal, and scientific purposes, and for use in the arts, anywhere within the United States and the Territories thereof, shall cease ; and the importation of such liquors from foreign States and countries to the United States and Territories, and the exportation of such liquors from and the transportation thereof within and through any part of this country, except for the use and purposes aforesaid, shall be, and hereby is, forever thereafter prohibited. Sec, 2. Nothing in this article shall be construed to waive or abridge any existing power of Congress, nor the right, which is hereby recognized, of the people of any State or Territory to enact laws to prevent the increase and for the suppression or regulation of the manufacture, sale, and use of liquors, and the ingredients thereof, any part of which is alcoholic, intoxicating, or poisonons, within its own limits, and for the exclusion of such liquors and ingredients therefrom at any time, as well before as after the close of the year of our Lord 1900; but until then, and until ten years after the ratification hereof, as provided in the next section, no State or Territory shall interfere with the transpoitatiou rf said liquors or ingredients, in packages safely secured, over the usual lines of traffic to other States and Territories wherein the manufacture, sale, and use thereof for other purposes and use than those excepted in the first section, shall be lawful : Provided.^ That the true destination of such packages be plainly marked thereon. Sec. 3. Should this article not be ratified by three-fourths of the States on or before the last day of December, 1890, then the first section hereof shall take effect and be ia force at the expiration of ten years from such ratification ; and the assent ofa ay State te •.his vticle shall not be rescinded nor reversed. SflC. 4. Congress shall enforce this article by all needful legislation. 4 Manufacture and Sale of In order to justify legislation of any kind restricting the manufactur* and use of alcoholic liquors, I believe it to be necessary to maintain these propositions : First. That it is the duty of society, through the ageilfcy of govern- ment, which is the creature of society, to enact and enforce all laws which, while protecting the individual in the full possession and enjoy- ment of his inalienable rights, tend to promote the general welfare and especially whenever that welfare is impaired or threatened by any existing or impending evil, it is the duty of society to enact and enforce laws to restrict or destroy that evil. It may be proper to observe that no law can promote the general welfare which deprives an individual of an inalienable right, when that right is properly defined, or which impairs the enjoyment thereof, whether of life, liberty, property, or the pursuit of happiness. But society has inalienable rights as well as individuals, and the right to such legislation as will promote the gen- eral welfare, in its true sense, is one of them ; and the inalienable rights of individuals and the inalienable rights of society at large are limited by, and must be construed and enjoyed with reference to, each other. Second. While society has no right to prevent or restrict the use of an article by individuals for purposes which are beneficial only, yet if that use, beneficial to some, is found by experience to be naturally and inevitably greatly injurious in its effects upon others and upon society in general, then it becomes the duty of society, in the exercise of its inalienable right to promote the general welfare and in self- defense to social life, just as the individual may defend his natural life, to prohibit, regulate, or restrict the use of that article, as the case may require. This principle is daily applied in laws which control the manufacture and use of gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, dymamite, and other things of great and dangerous potency, the unrestrained use of which, even for useful purposes, has been shown by experience to be destructive to the inalienable rights of others. This results from the common principle of law that every man must so enjoy his own rights as neither to destroy or impair those of another, and it is the great end for which government is instituted among men to compel him so to do. Third. No person has a right to do that to himself which, impairs or perverts his own powers ; and when he does so by means of that which society can reach and remove by law, to such extent as to be- come a burden or a source of danger to others, either by his example or by his liability to commit acts of crime, or to be essentially incapac- itated to discharge his duties to himself, his family, and society, the law, that is, society, should protect both him and itself. A man has no more right to destroy his inalienable rights than tjhose of another, oi than another has to deprive him of his own. The' laws restraining the spendthrift in the destruction of his inalienable right in property and punishing suicide ^as the common law did, by forfeiture of estate, etc.), or aiieinpted self-murder (as the law does now), are familiar exam.plea of the application of this principle. These are elementary’ principles of law and of common sense. They are corner-stones of all just government. To these principles every member of society is held to have given his assent. They are unquo Intoxicating Liquors. 5 Honed, so far as I know, by any one who bv,ilie\ es in any law. They ase axiomatic and indestructible as the social organization itself. Fourth. The use (unless medicinally) of alcoholic liquors to the ex- tent of intoxication or poisoning — which, as will hereafter be seen, is the same thing as intoxication — is an injury to the individual ; it in- flicts great evils upon society at large ; it is destructive to the general welfare ; it is of a nature which may be greatly restricted, if not de- stroyed, by the enforcement of appropriate laws ; consequently such laws should be enacted and enforced ; and this should be done in our country, either by the States, or by the General Governmsnt, or by both, if such laws can be made more efficient thereby. I believe this proposition to be true, and respectfully ask candid attention to the facts and observations which follow. DEFINITION OF TERMS, ETC. The substance known as alcohol is thus defined by Webster; Pure or highly rectified spirit, extracted by simple distillation from various vegetahlft nices and infusion of a saccharine nature, which have undergone vinous fermentation* the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented liquors. Fermentation, the process by which alcohol is first obtained from organic substances, but combined with much larger quantity of other matter, is thus defined by the same authority: That change of organic substances by which their starch, sugar, gluten, etc., under the Influence of water, air, and warmth, are decomposed, usually with evolution of gas and heat, and their elements are recombined in new compounds. Vinous fermentation con- verts sugar into alcohol. Brewing is the preparation of alcoholic liquor from malt and hops, and from other materials, by steeping, boiling, and fermentation. Distillation, or rcctijicatioti (to make straight or pure), is a process subsequent to fermentation, by which alcohol in a highly refined and most powerful form is obtained from fermented or brewed liquors. It is thus defined by the eminent lexicographer before cited : The act of falling in drops, or the act of pouring or throwing down in drops. The volatilization of a liquid in a closed vessel by heat, and its subsequent condensation in a separate vessel by cold, as by means of an alembic, or still and refrigeratory, or of a retort and receiver ; the operation of extracting spirit from a substance by evaporation and con- densation ; rectification. pisiiller: One whose occupation is to extract spirit by distillation. Alcohol for commercial purposes is obtained by distilling wine and other liquors that nave undergone vinous fermentation ; carbonate of soda is sometimes added to keep back acetic acid, and fusel-oil is removed by charcoal. The alcohol of the London pharmaco- poeia contains about 82 per cent, of alcohol and 18 of water. Its specific gravity is required to be 838, water being 1,000. It has great affinity for water, absorbing it from the atmos- phere. Professor Brande found from 1 to 2 per cent, of alcohol in small-beer ; 4 in porter; 6 to 9 in ales ; about 12 in the light wines of France and Germany ; from 19 to 25 m port and sherr}’, and other strong wines ; from 40 to 50 and occasionally more in brandy, gin, and whisky. The strength of these liquors is ascertained by various expedients • but the pro- cess is sometimes complicated by reason of the different ingredients intermixed to color, sweeten, or flavor the liquor, or fraudulently added to alter the specific gravity, or to sub stitute a cheaper material. See the New American Cyclopjedia, AlcohoL The discovery of distillation of wine has been attributed to Albucasis, or Casa, an Arabian chemist and physician of the eleventh century, but many centuries elapsed before the process of distillation was applied to produce those stronger drinks which, under the name of “spirits,” are now in such common use in daily life. Brandy is a late term in European literature. Gin was unknown two hundred years ago. Rum is an American term applied to an American invention ; and whisky, a Celtic word — nisge — water — has n M been anglicized more than a century and a half. Neither rum, brandy, gin, or whisky have been in common use as spirituous drink* , nor any alcoholic drinks of anything likf similar destructive power, until comparatively recent modern times. 6 Manufacture and Sale of See fitst lecture in “Course of six Cantor lectures delivered before the Society of Arts, on alcohol, by Benjamin W. Richardson, M.A.. M.D., F.R.S.” Dr. Richardson is known as one of the ablest scien- tific men of the age, and these lectures are the most recent and valu- able contributions to the subject of “ alcohol ” that I have been able to obtain. Distilled alcoholic liquors, the forms now in common use embraced by the first section of the proposed amendment, comprise brandy, rum, gin, and whisky. Fermented liquors in common use are wine, cider, ale, and beer. The latter are alcoholic, but a 7 -e 7 iot mixed with alcohol obtamed by distil- lation, and are far less powerful and destructive to mankind. These are not included in the first section, but are left to the action of locai laws, as is now the case, by section 2 of the amendment proposed. In treating the subject, 1 wish first to invite attention to the nature of alcohol and its effects upon the human system, as established by chemical and medical science. I shall then cite facts and statistics from other sources, tending to show the necessity of legislation upon the subject. Tlaen I shall explain the adaptation of the proposed amendment to the removal of the alleged evil, and endeavor to show that the powers of government are inherent and ample, and should be exercised in the premises. THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE AND OF THE MEDIC.YL PROFESSION. An English writer, who is declared by Governor Andrew in his re- markable argument in favor of a license law, before a committee ol the Massachusetts Legislature, April 4, 1867, probably the ablest and most eloquent presentation of the views of those opposed to prohib- itory laws ever made in the world, to be “ one of the most able En- glish scientific critics,” etc., and who is opposed to teetotalism, says in the Cornhill Magazine of September, 1862: And first as to the effect of long continued habits of alcoholic excess upon the general health of the body, these may be summed up in brief by one word — degeneration. De- generation of structure and chemical composition is the inevitable fate of the tissues of the drunkard. Apart from moral influences^ all that we see of physical misery’, of weak- ened intellect of shortened life in the habitual drunkard, is due to this degeneration ol tissue, which is gradually, but infallibly brought about by alcoholic excess. Even the very blood, the beginning of all tissues, is affected in a similar way, as we might expect. There is no doubt that in excessive doses, alcohol, if it be a food at all, is a very bad one, and we must remember that the drunkard does in ‘act test its capacity to act as food ; foi by his habits he so impairs his appetite that he can take verj’ little, if anj', ordinarj’ food. This writer represents that class of medical gentlemen whose scien- tific views are most friendly to alcohol, and he states his conclusions thus : On the part of alcohol, then, I venture to claim that, though we all acknowledge it to be ^poiso7iy i/ taken during health in any but quite restricted doses, it is also a most valuable medicine food. It will be observed that I make no attack upon it as a meduine. This is the most favorable statement of the nature of alcohol in its effects upon the human organism which can be found, based upon re- spectable medical authority. It is that adduced by Governor Andrew in his great argument against prohibition, and I venture to s.'v that there is not a particle of dispute in the medical world that it is true BO far as it goes. I am not aware of the existence of any mediciU tathority which admits that the use of distilled alcoholic liquors, as Intoxicating Liquors. 7 a coinmcn daily drink, does not inevitably end to destroy the h.mau system. True, there are a few exceptiona instances recorded where men, after having destroyed the normal functions of their organism, so that all healthy and natural foods are rejected by it, have lived for a time almost wholly upon alcohol itself. But in all cases where its action is favorable, it finds a diseased or unnatural condition to which it adapts itself, like the surgeon’s knife to the tumor or to the shattered limb, there are exceptional organisms which prove the rule. But from this circumstance to argue that it is beneficial to the healthy normal state of child or man, is like feeding a man upon the drugs of the apothe- cary, because, as medicines, they have been instrumental in restoring healthy digestion to the dyspeptic. I cheerfully grant that there is a large though lessening array of eminent medical authorities, which, while vigorously condemning the use of distiiled liquor, as a beverage, declares its belief that the fermented wines and other mild forms of alco- holic liquor are, on the whole, beneficial when used in moderate quantities; but I am not dealing with these at all, and reiterate the statement that the medical world is a unit in declaring that the com- mon use of distilled liquors operates as a poison, and not as a food, and destroys the mind and body of man. While conceding that many chemists and p^iysicians are advocates of the moderate use of light wines and fermented drinks, it is only fair, however, to say that I think that the weight of medical opinion, based upon the lates. scientific investigation and observation, is against the position that alcohol, even in fermented forms, ever oper- ates otherwise than as a poison. But this is not important to the argument, for that rests upon tlve undisputed verdict of the medical world, that “ alcohol, except wheri taken in quite restricted doses, is poisonous to a person in health.” Dr. Willard Parker, a very eminent name among the physicians of America, writes the present year : Alcohol has no place in the healthy system, but is an irritant poison,*’ producing a diseased condition of body and mind. The International Medical Congress, the highest medical body in ijhe world, held its last session at Philadelphia, in September, 1876, and I find the following in the official report of its proceedings on the l6th of that month : The following is the report from the section on medicine, on the paper of Dr. £. M Hunt, on “ Alcohol in its therapeutic relations as a food and a medicine.” First. Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food value by any of the usual methods of chemical analysis or physiological investigation. Second. Its use as a medicine is chiefly as a cardiac (relating to the heart) stimulant, and eften admits of substitution. Third. As a medicine it is not well fitted for self-prescription by the laity, and the med« ical profession is not accountable for such administration or for the enormous evili resulting therefrom. Fourth. The purity of alcoholic liquors is in general not as well assured as that of arti<* clcs used for medicine should be. The various mixtures when used as medicine should have definite and known composition, and should not be interchanged promiscuously. .. Please note that this supreme authority says that alcohol is not known to have food value, and that its principal use as a medicine is to stimulate the heart, not to create power by nutrition, but to use up the capital of the body with unnatural rapidity, and even for this pur- pose SOI nething else might generally be substituted. I have already cited the Cantor lectures by Dr. Richardsom pub* 8 Manufacture and Sale of lished this year, by far the most profound publication upon this subject which I have seen. Upon page 86 he gives the details of careful observation and experiment, and says : Adopting the lowest estimate which has been given of the daily work of the heart, tamely, as equal to one hundred and twenty-two tons lifted one foot, the heart during the alcoholic period did daily work in excess equal to lifting fifteen anc eight-tenths tons one foot, and in the last two days did extra work to the amount of tv.'enty-loui tons lifted as far. * * * It will seem at first sight almost incredible that such an excess of work could be put upon the heart, but it is perfectly credible when all the facts are known. The heart of an adult man makes, as we see above, seventy-three and fifty- seven-tenths strokes per minute. This number multiplied by sixt}” for the hour, and again by twenty-four for the day, would give nearly 106,000 as the number of strokes per day. * * * And speaking generally, we may put the average at 100,000 in the entire day. With each of these strokes the two ventricles of the heart, as they contract, lift up into their respective vessels three ounces of blood each, that is to say. six ounces w’ith the combined stroke, or 600,000 in the twenty-four hours. The equivalent of work rendered by this simple calculation would be one hundred and sixteen foot-tons, and if w'e estimate the increase of work induced by alcohol we shall find that four ounces of spirit (daily) increase it one-eighth part, six ounces one-sixth part, and eight ounces one-fourth part. Upon the “food” question he says, page too : Alcohol contains no nitrogen ; it has none of the qualities of these structure-building foods ; it is incapable of being transformed into an)’ of them ; it is therefore not a food in the sense of its being a constructive agent in the building up of the body. In this respect I believe there is now no difference of opinion among those who have most care^Uy observed the action of alcohol. Further on he disproves the common notion that alcohol develops an mcrease of ani 7 }ial heat. In the first stage of its operation it drives the blood to the surface by temporary stimulation of the heart, creating a flush, while the internal heat is being actually diminished, and demonstrates that though in the “ first and third stages of alco- holic disturbance there is often muscular excitement which passes for increased muscular power, the muscles being rapidly stimulated into motion by the nerv'ous tumult, yet the muscular power is actually enfeebled.” Discussing the adulteration of alcoholic liquors, he says, page 124: A hona fide wine, derived from the fermentation of grapes purely, can not contain more than 17 per cent, of alcohol ; yet our staple wines by an artificial process of fortifying and brandying, which means the adding of spirit, are brought up in sherries to 20 ana in ports to even 25 per cent. But the most startling fact of all, given in this connection, is this : The admitted addition of some actively poisonous substances to alcohol, in order to produce a new luxury, is the evil most disastrous. The drink sold under the name of absinthe is peculiarly formidable. In this liquor five drachms of the essence of absinthe, or wormwood, are added to one hundred parts of alcohol, * ♦ * which has been discovered to exert the most powerful and dangerous action upon the ne^^'Ous functions. Indeed such are the terrible consequences incident to this agent, that I a^ee with Dr. Decoisne in maintaining that it ought by legal provisions to be forbidden as an article of human consumption in all civilized communities. Until recently absinthe has not been publicly offered for sale in this country on a large scale. But now, unhappily, the poison is openly announced even here, and the consumption is on the increase (Pages 125, 126.) After demonstrating the effects of alcohol in producing structural disorganization of the body, inflicting fatal disease of every' important organ of the body and the overthrow of the mental powers, Professor Richardson proceeds thus ; and I call attention to it as bearing upon this proposed amendment, which has special care for generations to come : The most solemn fact of all bearing upon these mental aberrations produced D) alcohol, and upon the physical not less than the mental, is that the mischief inflicted oa man by his own act and deed can not fail to be transferred to those who descend from hia and who are thus irresponsibly afflicted. Among the many inscrutable designs of natu* none is more manifest than this : that physical vice, like physical feature and physia * hitoxicating Liquors 9 r»ftae, descends in line. It is, I say, a solemn reflection for every man and every woman* that whatever we do to ourselves so as to modify our own physical conformation ana mental type, for good or for evil, is transmitted to generations that have yet to be. Not one of the transmitted wrongs, physical or mental, is more certainly passed on to those yet unborn than the wrongs which are inflicted by alcohol. We, therefore, who live to reform the present age, in this respect are stretching forth our powers to the r ext, to purify it, to beautify it, and to lead it toward that millennial happiness and blessedness which in the fullness of time shall visit even the earth, making it, under an increasing ight of knowledge, a garden of human delight, a paradise regained. I trust such an object will not be deemed unworthy of the profound attention of the Congress and people of the United States. He closes thus : ^ — This chemical substance, alcohol, an artificial product, devised by man for his purposes and in many things that lie outside his organism a useful substance, is neither a food nor a drink suitaole for his natural demands. Its application as an agent that shall enter the living organization is properly limited by the learning and skill possessed by the physi- cian — a learning that itself admits of being recast and revised in many important details, and perhaps in principles. If this agent do really for the moment cheer the weary and impart a flush of transient pleasure to the unwearied who crave for mirth, its influence (doubtful even in these modest and moderate degrees) is an infinitesimal advantage by the side of an infinity of evil for which there is no compensation and no human cure. It is easy to multiply the highest medical authorities and well at- tested facts in support of the views of these eminent gentlemen. Perhaps it is unnecessary, but I will further trespass upon the indul- gence of the Housfe to a limited extent in this direction. I shall do this without much attention to classification, as the bearing of each fact upon the various points of discussion will be sufficiently apparent, and the same fact often bears upon the truth of several propositions. The celebrated Dr. Carpenter, in his work on the use and abuse of alcoholic liquor, says : The following statement of the result of a whole year’s experiment at brickmaking, made by two sets of men — the one working on the abstinent, the other on the moderate system — is given by a gentleman of Uxbridge, England. Out of upwards of 23,000,000 of bricks made in 1841, by the largest maker in the neighborhood, the average per man, made by the beer-drinkers in the season, was 760,269, while the average of the teetotalers was 795,400 ; which is 35,131 in favor of the latter per man. The highest number made by a beer-drinker was 880,000 ; by a teetotaler, 890,000. The lowest number made by a beer* drinker was 659,500 ; the lowest number by a teetotaler was 746,000, leaving 87,000 in favor of the latter. Satisfactory as this account appears, I believe it would have been much more so if the teetotalers could have obtained the whole gang of abstainers, as they were fre- quently hindered by the drinking of some of the gang ; and when the order is thus broken, the work can not go on. I am informed that the experience of the armies and navies of En- gland and America demonstrate that the soldier or sailor who abstains from the use of alcohol is, as a rule, more vigorous and healthy than the user, braver and more reliable in action, and far more capable of enduring the hardships of war. Dr. Storer, of Boston, says, alluding to the statements of Dr. Day. superintendent of the Washingtonian Home of Boston : Reference has been made by the doctor to the dire effects so often seen by medical men in^ the persons of the children of those addicted to habits of intoxication — epilepsy, idiocy, and insanity, congumital or subsequently developing themselves, with or without any apparent exciting cause. He has not, however, I think, sufficiently held up to tfee victims of this baleful thirst the terrible curse they thus deliberately entail upon then descendants. It is hardly necessary to remark that Dr. Storer, the distinguished professor of obstetrics and diseases of women in Berkshire Medical College, is inferior to no other authority upon whatever relates to his own specialty in the practice of the healing art. The report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities for iS6<5 was prepared bv seven gentlemen, three of them physicians, all of lO Manufacture and Sale of them appointed by Governor Andrew, and therefore not likely to be a board of crazy teetotalers. Speaking of “ one proliric cause of the vitiation of the human stock,” they say; That prolific cause is the common habit of taking alcohol into the system, usually as the basis of spirits, wine, or beer. * * The basis being the same in all, the constiiu- tional effects are about the same. The use of alcohol materially modifies a man’s bodily condition ; and, so far as it affects him individually, it is his own affair; but if it affects also the number and condition of his offspring, that affects society. If its general use does materially influence the number and condition of the dependent and ctiminal classes, it is the duty of all who have thought and care about social improvement to con- sider the matter carefully, and it is the special duty of those having official relations with those classes to furnish facts and materials for public consideration. It is well known that alcohol acts unequally upon man's nature ; that it stimulates the lower propensities and weakens the higher faculties, ♦ * * and represses the functions v/hich manifest them- selves in the higher or human sentiments which result in vjill. If the blood, highly alco- holized, goes to the brain, its functions become subverted ; the man does not know and does not care what he says or does. If this process is often repeated * * * the man is no longer under control of his voluntary power, hut has come under the dominion of auto- matic functions, which are almost as much beyond his control as the beating of his heart. Any morbid condition of body frequently repeated becomes established by habit ♦ ♦ * and makes him more liable to certain diseases, as gout, scrofula, insanity, and the like. This liability or tendency he transmits to his children just as surely as he transmits like- ness in form or feature. * * * Now the use of alcohol certainly does induce a morbid condition of body. It is morally certain that the frequent or the habitual overthrow of the conscience and will, or the habitttai 'weakening of them, soon establishes a morbid condition, with morbid appetites and tendencies, and that those appetites and tendencies are surely transmitted to the offspring. • Again, it is admitted that an intemperate mother nurses her babe with alcoholized milk; but it is not enough considered that a father to his offspring certain ten- dencies which lead surely to craving for stimulants. These cravings once indulged grow to a passion, the vehemence of which passes the comprehension of common men. Among the Greeks, the prohibition, of intoxicating wines (distilled liquors were unknown) was enforced by the severest penalties. “ Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others have noticed the hereditar\’ transmis- sion of intemperate propensities, and the legislation that imposed abstinence upon women had unquestionably in view the greater vigor of the offspring — ‘ healthy minds in a healthy body.’ That indul- gence in the use of strong drink by expectant mothers would be in- jurious to them and their offspring was known to the learned and wise among the ancients.” “ The Romans had a prohibitory law which forbade intoxicating wine, while it allowed the pure juice.” (See the very learned treatise of Rev. Dr. William Patton, of New York City, upon Bible wines, published in 1874, fora great mass of valuable information upon this subject). Willard Parker, M.D., of New York, in an address to the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, says : i -a What is Alcohol? The answer is, a poison. It is so regarded by the best writers and W teachers on toxicologjr. I refer to Orfila, Christison, and the like, who class it with ar- I scnic, corosive sublimate, and prussic acid. Like these poisons when introduced into the i ; system, it is capable of destroying life without acting mechanically. Introduced into the system it induces a general disease, as well marked as intermittent fever, small-pox, or . lead poison. ^ And in a public address the same distinguished gentleman declares “that one-third of all the deaths in the city of New York are the re- sult, dire/, tly or indirectly, of the use of alcohol ; and that within the last thirty-eight years 100,000 persons in that city have died of its use. either by themselves or their parents.” And in a letter to Rev. Dr. Patton, which the latter cites in his “ Bible Y’ines ” above referred to. Dr. Parker sa\-s : Alcohol is the one evil genius, whether in wine, or ale, or whisky, and is killing the of men. Stay the ravages of this one poison, alcohol, that king of poisons, the mightiest hreapoD of the devil, and the millennium will soon dawn. Intoxicating Liquors, tl the fact largely to intoxicating liquors primarily and in- di cctiy, the Board of State Charities of Pennsylvania state that “in ca/cful hreed-ng of cattle at least 96 per cent, come to maturity, and of horses 95 per cent, in our northern climate, \s’hile of the infinite'y more precious race of men at least 33 per cent, perish in the bud oi infancy or blossom of early youth.’’ Great God ! I stagger in the effort to grasp these statistics of death. Are these the dreams of scientific madmen.? Truth is not oniy stran- ger than fiction, but infinitely more horrible. And the tide of testi- mony rolls on. In 1874, Dr. James Edmunds, a very distinguished English physi- cian, delivered a course of lectures upon the medical use of alcohol and stimulants for women, in New York City, which were published. He says, page 9 ; It is admitted by every one that alcohol is the cause of more than half the insanity we have, i am not so familiar with the facts on this subject here as I should natural!}' be at the other side of the Atlantic. * * * I know this: that Lord Shaftesbury, the chair- man of our commission on lunacy in England, has said in a parliamentary report on the Subject, that six out of ten lunatics in our asylums are made lunatic by the use of alcohol. It is a fact which can not be disputed that diseases of the liver, diseases of the lungs, diseases of the tissues of the body, are induced directly by the use of alcohol, and that as a general rule you may say that where you have alcohol used jnost largely and most frequently, there these diseases and degenerations in the tissues of the body become most marked. I could give you very authoritative facts bearing upon this matter from sources which are not open to the imputation of any kind of moral bias, as the utterances of some of our temperance friends may be open to. Now recollect that food is that which puts strength into a man, and stimulant is that which gets strength out of a man ; so that when you want to use stimulant, recollect that you are using that which will exhaust the last panicles of strength, with a facility with which your body would not otherwise part with them. If a man takes a pint of brandy what do we see? It intoxicate.^, it poisons him. Of course you know intoxicant is a modification of the Greek word toxicon. The man who is intoxicated is poisoned ; we Rimply use a Greek instead, of a Saxon word for it. We see a man intoxicated. What are the phenomena we see then ? A man lies on his back snoring, helpless, senseless. If you set him up, he falls down again like a sack of potatoes. If you try to rouse him. you get nothing out of him but a grunt. Is that the effect of a stimulant, do you think ? I should think it is the effect of a paralyzer that you have — mind, and body, and nerve, and muscle all equally and uniformly paralyzed right through. * * Alcohol in a large dose is a narcotic poison, which paralyzes the body and stupefies the mind. If a man takes a some- what larger dose, what do you see then ? You see that snoring and breathing come to ai* end — you see that the soft, flabby pulsation of the heart ceases ; that the spark of life goes out, and the man can not hi resuscitated. In fact, there are more men killed, so faj as I know English statistics, more men poisoned in that way by alcohol than are poisoned by all other poison* put together. We have a great horror of arsenic and fifty other things ; the fact is, that all these other things are a mere bagt.telle in relation to the most direct, absolute, immediate, and certain poisonings which are caused by alcohol. Colonel J. G. Dudley, of New York City, has published a valuable pamphlet reviewing this subject and carefully collating the opinions of the leading medical writers of the last fifty or seventy-five years, such as Orfila. Christison, Dr. Taylor, Pereira, Professor Binz, Dr. Lalle- mand, Perrin, Dr. Willard Parker, Professor Edmund A. Parkes, Pro- fessor Durov Dumorel, Magnus, Dunglison, Dr. James Edmunds, Poweii, Proiessor N. S Davis, Dermarquay, Wetherbee, Burns, Dick- inson, and others, all of whom agree in deciding that alcohol is a narcot ico-acrid poison. Take now the following table from Nelson’s Vital Statistics, which Professor Parkes adopts and indorses in his gieat work on hygiene, f )age 270. These deductions were drawn from observations upon the ives of three hundred and fifty-seven persons. Whatever else the American Congress and people may disagree upon I think it will generally be conceded that life-insurance companies know what they are about. 12 Manufacture and Sale of A temperate pew ,n’s chance of living i At 20 44.2 years I 30 .36.5 years 40 ... ,28.8 years 50 21.25 years 60 14.285 years An intemperate person’s chance cf living is — At 20. . . . 15.6 years 30 13.* yean 40 I ; .6 years 50 .10.8 years 60 8.9 yean Take now the following' tables upon the basis of which they do busi- ness, and which are unquestionably as reliable as the keenest observa- tion continued for many years can construct. This first table is pre- pared by Dr. Edward Jarvis, a distinguished American statist. Ages of persons. Deaths in 100,000. Comparative rate of mortaliij. Intempe- rate. Tempe- rate. Intempe- rate. Others. 15 to 20 years 1.342 730 18 xo 20 to 30 years 4»953 974 51 10 40 to 50 years 5>992 1,452 41 10 50 to 60 years 6,418 2,254 29 10 60 to 90 years 46,174 33,260 13 xo Comparative rate of deaths in equal numbers of intemperate and temperate persons of all ages, the same year 32 10 The following is from Carpenter on Physiology. It compares fou' general insurance companies with one temperance provident institu tion. And it should be noted that this is a comparison of teetotaler' on the one hand with teetotalers and nisderate or temperate drinkers combined on the other : Policies issued. 944 1,901 833 2,470 1,596 Company D Number of ’ -c \ ^ deaths. ! 14 15 per thousand. 27 ! 14 per thousand. 11 ! 13 per thousand. 65 j 26 per thousand. 12 7i pei thousand. The first table shows an average mortality more than three times as large among the intemperate as among the temperate, and the other more than two and one-half times larger in the general companies than in the temperance institution. Dr. Carpenter also indorses a certificate, of which the following is one paragraph, which he says was signed by more than two thousand physicians of all grades and degrees, from the court physicians and leading metropolitan surgeons to the humble country practitioner: We the undersigned are of opinion — First. That a very large proportion of human misery, including pov'crty, disease, and crime, is induced by the use of alcohol or fermented liquors as beverages. The evidence of this character is entirely inexhaustible, and I close it with the following “declaration” by the uncontradicted voice of the medical orofession of New York City and vicinity; Intoxicating Liquors. 13 THE VOICE OF SCIENCE AGAINST ALCOHOL. MEDICAL DECLARATION. 1. In view of the alarming prevalence and ill effects of intemperance, with which none are so familiar as members of the medical pro- fession, and which have called forth from eminent English physicians the voice of warning to the people of Great Britain concerning the use of alcoholic beverages, we, the undersigned, members of the medical profession of New York and vicinity, unite in the declaration that we believe alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs ; that, when prescribed medicinally, it should be with conscientious caution, and a sense of grave responsibility. 2. “We are of opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease; that it entails diseased appetites upon offspring ; and that it is the cause of a large percentage of the crime and pauperism of our cities and country. 3. "We would welcome any judicious and effective legislation — State and National — which should seek to confine the traffic in alcohol to the legitimate purposes of medical and other sciences, art, and mechanism. Edward Delavield, M.D., . President College of Physicians and Surgeons, and of Roosevelt Hospi- tal. Willard Parker, M.D., Ex-President Academy of Medicine. A. Clark, M.D., Professor College of Physicians and Suvgeons, and Senior Physician Bellevue Hospital. James Anderson, M.D., No. 30 University Place, Ex-President Academy of Medicine, and President Physicians’ Mutual Aid Association. E. R. Peaslee, M.D., Ex-President Academy of Medicine (N. Y.) C. R. Agnew, M.D., Ex- President Medical Society of the state of New York. Stephen Smith, M.D., Surgeon Bellevue Hospital, Com- missioner ol Health, and President American Health Association. Alfred C. Post, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Surgery in University Medical College, and Ex-President N. Y. Academy of Medicine. E. D. Hudson, Jr., M.D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine, Woman’s Medical Col- lege of N. Y. Infirmary. Erasmus D. Hudson, M.D., Physician and Surgeon. Elisha Harris, M.D., Secretary American Public Health Association, late Sanitary Super- intendent Metropolitan Board of Health, and Cor responding Secre tary Prison Association of New York. Ellsworth Eliot, M.D., President of the New York County Medical Society. Stephen Rogers, M.D., President of the Medico-Legal Society of New York. Andrew H. Smith, M.D., Visiting Physician to St. Luke’s Hospital, etc. J. E. Janvrin, M.D. Verranus Morse, M.D., Brook- lyn. E. T. Richardson, M.D., Brook- lyn. William H. Hall, M.D. Walter R. Gillette, M.D., Physician to Charity Hospital, Lec- turer University Medical College. J. R. Beaming, M.D., Physician to St. Luke’s Hospital, President University Alumni Asso- ciation, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, etc. 14 Manufacture and Sale of James O. Pond, M.D., Treasurer N. Y. Academy of Medi- cine. Theodore L. Mason, M.D., Lonsultin:< Surgeon Kings Co. In- ebnates’ lioiiie. Coii.-ulting Sur- geon Long island College tlospi- tal, etc., and LTesident collegiate Depaitmeiit. G. J. Fisher, M.D., Late Vice-I’resident New York State Medical Society, late President Westchester County Medical So- ciety, etc. George W. Hall, M.D., Brook- lyn. John A. Jenkins, M.D., Brook- lyn. J. L. Little, M.D., Lecturer College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York ; Surgeon to St. Luke's Hospital. W. F. Sanford, M.D., Brooklyn. S. Fleet Spier, M.D., Surgeon Brooklyn City Hospital, Surgeon Brooklyn Eye and Ear Infirmary, etc. John M. Cdyler, M.D., Surgeon United States Army, Medi- cal Di.'-ector Department of the East, New York. Martyn Paine, M.D., LL.D., Emeri'us Professor University Medi- cal College. Augustus G. Elliot, M.D., Ex-Phy-ician Be levue Hospital, and New York Institute for Deaf and Dumb Eobert W.atts, M.D., Visiting Physician Charity Hospital, aud to the Roosevelt Hospital. Henry A. Stiles, M.D., Sanitary Inspector Board of Health. A. D. Rockwell, M.D., Electro-TherapeutistNew York State Woman’s Hospital. A. B. He Luna, M.D., Visiting Physician Northwestern Dispetisary, New York. Robert Taylor, M.D., Attending Physician for Diseases of the Throat and l.ungs. Northwest- ern Dispensary, 42d Street and Ninth Avenue. New York. M. A. Wilson, M.D , Attending Physician New York Dis- pensaty, Northwestern Dispensa- ry, Member of the County Medical Society, and Medical Libra ■■y ai;d , Journal Association, 103 WestSOth I Street. Paluel de Marmon, M D., Physician to the Academy of Mount St. Vincent. William B. Eager, M.D., Physician to Charity Hospital. Frank H. Hamilton, M.D., LL.D., Surgeon Bellevue Hospital, and St. Francis’s Hospital; Professor of Practice of Surgery in Bellevue Hospital Medical college. F. L. Harris, JM.D., No. 43 East 30tli Street, Late Deputy Health Ofificer of the Port of New York. Eben Storer, M.D., No. 47 East 30th Street. E. S. Dunster, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics in the Long Island College Hospital, and the Medical Department of Dartmouth College; Resident Physician In- fants’ Hospital, Randall's Island. Mrs. Mary C. Brown, M.D., Brooklyn. Walter Pardee, M.D., No. 248 West 34th Street. Edward Bayard, M.D., No. 8 West 40th Street. Lewis Hallock, M.D. A. N. Bell, M.D., Editor of The Sanitarian. R. C. Moffat, M.D., Brooklyn. Sar.ah M. Ellis, M.D., Late Professor of Anatomy New York Medical College for Women. Edwin West, M.D., No. 42 West Washing-ton Place. WiLLiAJi J. Bauer, M.D., No. 13 East 33d Street. D. cniel H. Hastings, M.D., No. 214 W est 28th Street. S. T. Birds.all, M.D. A. Houghton Birdsall, M.D. Ernst T. Hoffm.an, M.D. John Ellis, M.D., Author of the “ Avoidable Causes of Di-^ease.” H.A.NS Powell, M.D., Surgeon-General Grand Army of the Republic. H. S. Giebert, M.D., Brooklyn. Eliz.abetii S. Ad.cms, M.D., No. 156 West 23d Street, Physician New York iledical Coilege lor Women. George Newby, M.D., No. 160 West 16th Street. S. Sw.cn, M.D., No. 13 West 3Sth Street. E. B. Belden, M.D., Alenander Hutchins, M.D., No. 796 De Kalb Avenue, Brooklyn. Edwin T. Ward, M.D. J. W. G. Clements, M.IX Intoxicating Liquors, 15 Warren Freeman, M.D., No. 89 West 36tli Street. William Detmold, M.D. Nathan Bozeman, M.D. Edmund Fowler, M.D. John Purcell, M.D., No. 51 Henry Street. E. D. Morgan, Jr., M.D., Attending Fhysician Brick Church Chapel Oispensaiy, Physician New York Post-Office. J. A. Williams, No. 256 West 84th Street. J. B. Elliott, M.D., No. 493 Clin- ton Ave., Brooklyn. B. F. Underwood, M.D., Treasurer Kings County Homoeo- pathic Medical Society. Samuel S. Gur, M.D., Ex-President New York State Ho- mcenpathio Medical Society, Ex- President American Institute 01 Homoeopathy, etc. J. W. Dowling, M.D., No. 568 Fifth Avenue, Registrar and Professor of Practice New York Homoeopathic Medical College. Homer J. Ostrom, M.D., No. 568 Fifth Avenue. Henry Minton, M.D., Ex-Presidet-r, Homosopathic Medical {Society Counny. C. B. McQuesten, M.D. Charles E. Blumenthal, M.D., LL.D., Chairman Medical Board of Hahne- mann Hospital. M. Freligh, Author of “ Practice of Medicine and Materia Medica.” Edwin G. Freligh, M.D.,- Toxicological and Analytical Chem- ist. S. P. Burdick, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics, Homoeopa- thic Medical College, New York. D. A. Gorhu, M.D., Brooklyn. H. P. Patridge. M.D. Fred. Elliot, M.D. Jared G. Baldwin, M.D., No. 8 East 41st Street. W. H. Scott, M.D., No. 8 East 41st Street. F. F. Allen, M.D. Frank Bond, A.B., M.D., No. 27 Schernierhoru Street, Brooklyn. Albert E. Sumner, M.D., Medical Director Brooklyn Homoeo- pathic Hospital. W. M. Pratt, M.D. D. Simmons, M.D. May H. Everett, M.D. Jennie Ensign, M.D. B. F. JosLiN, M.D. B. F. Bowers, M.D., Ex-President New York County Homoeopathic Medical Society. Wilson Peterson, M.D., Physician. Charles F. Rodgers, M.D. Edward C. Frays, M.D. Alice Boole Campbell, M.D., No. 114 South 3’chnine, prussic acid, or any other powerful, but poisonous agency. I do not propose to enter this field of discus- sion so far as the light domestic wines and drinks of the people are con- cerned. It is not essential to the grounds of my argument in support of the proposed amendment. It is only just, however, that the po.si- tion of the medical profession upon the influence of alcohol in any form of administration upon the human system should be fairly stated, and, if in so doing it shall have appeared that the preponderance of opinion is against the use of fermetited as well as distilled liquors, it is no fault of mine. It will strengthen the argument against the stronger and more concentrated poison, if it shall be found or believed that fermented liquors contain enough of the pernicious spirit of wine, which one of Shakespeare’s immortal characters stigmatizes as “ devil," to endanger the physical, mental, and moral organism of those who indulge in their habitual use. FACTS AND STATISTICS FROM THE CENSUS AND OTHER SOURCES, MOSTLY OFFICIAL. I now desire to present in the best manner I can a statement of facts bearing upon the effect of the manufacture and use of into.xi- cating liquors on the wealth, industries, and productive powers of the nation ; also upon its ignorance, pauperism, and crime. 1 have en- deavored to authenticate every statement by careful inquiry'. The information is drawn from the census returns, from records of the Departments of Government, reports of State authorities, declarations from prominent statisticians and responsible gentlemen in different parts of the country. Much of it is to be found, with a great deal more of similar matter, in a very valuable book published the present year. The author is William Hargreaves, M.D., of Philadelphia. No one who has not fought with figures, like old Paul with the beasts at Ephesus, knows how it taxes the utmost powers of man to classify, condense, and present intelligibly to the mind the mathematical or statistical demonstration of these tremendous social and economic facts. The truths they teach involve the fate of modem civilization. In 1870 the tax collected by the Internal Revenue Department was upon 72,425,353 gallons of proof spirits and 6,081,520 barrels of fer- mented liquors. Commissioner Delano estimates the consumption of distilled spirits in 1869 at 8o,ooo,coo gallons. By the census returns June I, i860, there were prodicced in the United States 90,412.581 gallons of domestic spirits — and of couise this was consumed, with large amounts imported besides — but there are verv' large items which escape the official enumeration. These have been carefully cstLnatcd as follow s : Intoxicating Liquors. 17 Gallont, Domestic liquors tvad ng tax and imported smuggled, at least 5.000,000 Domestic wines .... 10,000, coa Domestic wines made on farms 3,092, -330 Domestic wines made and used in private families i,ooo,vX)a Dilutions of liquors paying tax by dealers 7,500,000 26,592,330 This amount added to the total produced in i860 would be 107,004,- 91 1 ; added to amount on which was collected tax in 1870 would be 99,017,683. It is well known that the great mass of alcoholic liquor is consumed as a beverage, and it will fall below the fact to place the amount paid for it at retail by the American drinker at 75,000,000 gallons yearly. But take the very modest estimate of Dr. Young, Chief of the Bureau of Statistic^, who makes the following estimate of the sales of liquors in the fiscal year ending June i, 1871 : Whisky, (alone) 60,000,000 gallons at $6, at retail $360,000,000 Imported spirits 2,500,000 gallons at $10, at retail 25,000,000 Imported wine 10,700,000 gallons at $5, at retail 53,500,000 Ale, beer, and porter 6,500,000 gallons at $20 a bbl. at retail 130,000,000 Native wines, brandies, cordials, estimated 31,500,000 Total 600,000,000 I am satisfied that this is much below the real amount, but it is enough. This is one-seventh the value of all our manufactures for that year, more than one-fourth that of farm productions, betterments, and stock, as shown by the census. Dr. Hargreaves estimates the retail liquor bill of 1 87 1 at $680,036,042. In 1872, as shown by the internal revenue returns, there was a total of domestic and foreign liquors shown into the hands of the American people of 337,288,066 gallons, the retail cost of which at the estimated prices of Dr. Young is $735,720,048. The total of liquors paying tax from i860 to 1872 — thirteen years — was 2,762,926,066 gallons, costing the consumer $6,780,161,805. During several of these years the Gov- ernment was largely swindled out of the tax, so that no mortal knows how far the truth lies beyond these startling aggregates. Dr. Young estimates the cost of liquors in 1867 at the same as in 1871 — $600,000,000 — and exclaims: “It would pay for 100,000,000 barrels of flour, averaging two and or.e-half barrels to every man, wom- an, and child in the country. Sucf facts might well transform .the mathematician into an excla- mation point. Dr. Hargreaves, who goes into all the ininutia of the demonstration, dealing, however, only with bureau returns, declares thit the annual consumption of distilled spirits in the United States is not less than 100,000,000 gallons annually, and this makes a very small allowance for “ crooked whisky.” Take now Dr. Young’s mod- erate estimate of $600,000,000 annually, and relying upon the official records of the country, and in sixteen years we have destroyed in drink $9,600,000,000 — more than four times the amount of the national debt, and once and a half times the whole cost of the war of the rebellion to all sections of the country, while the loss of life, health, spiritual force, and moral power to the people was beyond comparison greater. The lowest estimate I have seen of the annual loss of life directly from i8 Manufacture and Sale of the use of intoxicating liquor is 60,000, or 960,000 during the prenod above mentioned ; more than three times the whole loss of the North by battle and disease in the war, as shown by the official returns. The assessed value of all the real estate in the United States is $9,914,780,825 ; of personal, $4,264,205,907. In twenty-five years we drink ourselves out of the value of our country, personal property and all. The census shows that in 1870 the State of New York spent for liquors, $106,590,000; more than two-fifths of the value of products of agriculture and nearly one-seventh the value of all the manufactures, and nearly two-thirds of the wages paid for both agriculture and man- ufactures, the liquor bill being little less than twice the receipts of her railroads. The liquor bill of Pennsylvania in 1870 was $65,075,000; of Illinois, $42,825,000; Ohio, $58,845,000 -Massachusetts, $25,195,000; New Hampshire, $5,800,000 ; Maine, whCTe the prohibitory law is bet- ter enforced than anywhere else, $4,215,000, although Maine has twice the population of New Hampshire. Dr. Hargreaves says that there was expended for intoxicating drinks in — 1869, 1870. 1871 , 1872. $693,999,509 6x9,425,1x0 . 680,036,04a 735,726,048 Total 2,729,186,709 Annual average 682,296,677 And he says the average is larger since 1872, exceeding $700,000,000. Each family by the census averages 5.09 persons, and we spend for liquor at the rate of $81.74 yearly for each. The loss to the nation in perverted labor is very great. In 1872 there were 7,276 licensed whole- sale liquor establishments and 161,144 persons licensed to sell at re- tail. It is said that there are as many more unlicensed retail liquor shops. All these places of traffic must employ at least half a million of men. There were then 3,132 distilleries, which would employ cer- tainly five men each — say, 1 5,660. The brewer’s congress in 1874 said that there were employed in their business 11,698. There would be miscellaneously employed about breweries and distilleries 10,000; in selling, say, 500,000. In all, say, 550,000 able-bodied men, who, so far as distilled liquors are concerned at least, constitute a standing army constantly destroying the American people. They create more havoc than an opposing nation which should maintain a hostile force of half a million armed men constantly making war against us upon our own soil. The temple of this Janus is always open. Why should we thus persevere in self-destruction } There are 600,000 habitual drunkards in the United States. If they lose half their time it would be a loss of $150,000,000 to the nation in productive power and in wages and wealth to both the nation and themselves every year. Dr. Hargreaves has constructed the following table ; The yearly loss of time and industry of 545,624 men employed in liquor- making and selling Loss of time and industry of 600,000 drunkards Loss of time of 1,404,323 male tipplers $272,8x2,000 150,000,000 146,849,592 Total • $5^186] «590 Intoxicating Liquors. 19 And he adds that investigation will show this large aggregate is far below the true loss. By this same process 40,000,000 busnels of nutritious grain are an- nually destroyed, equal to 600,000,000 four-pound loaves ; about 80 loaves for each family in the country. Dr. Hitchcock, president of Michigan State Board of Health, esti- mates the annual loss of productive life by reason of premature deaths produced by alcohol at 1,127,000 years, and th.at there are constantly sick or disabled from its use 98,000 persons in this country. Assuming the annual producing power of an able-bodied person to be $500 value, and this annual loss of life would otherwise be producing, the national loss is the immense sum of . . . . $612,510,000 00 Add to this the losses by the misdirected industiy of those engaged in the manufacture and sale ; loss of one-half the time of the 600,000 drunk- ards and of the tipplers, as their number is estimated by Dr. Har- greaves 568,861,592 00 And we have $1,181,371,592 00 The grain, etc., destroyed 36,000,000 00 $1,217,371,592 oc Dr. Hitchcock estimates the number of insane, made so annually, at 9,338, or less in effective life of 98,259 years, at $500 per year . . 49,129,500 00 Number of idiots from same cause, an annual loss of 319,908 years 159,954,000 00 $1,426,455,095. oa Deduct receipts of internal-revenue tax (year 1875) $61,225,995 53 Receipts from about 500,000 State licenses, at $100 50,000,000 00 ”1,225,995 53 Annual loss to the nation of production $1,315,229,096 47 Annual value of all labor in the United States, as per census of 1870 1,263.984,003 00 Losses from alcohol in excess of wages of labor yearly $ 51,245,093 47 This calculation includes nothing fcu' interest upon capital invested, for care of the sick, insane, idiotic — it allows alcohol credit for rev- enue paid on all which is used for legitimate purposes. In England the capital invested in liquor business is $585,000,000, or _;^i 17,000,000. It was*provedby the liquor dealers before the committee of the Massa- chusetts Legislature in 1867 that the capital invested in the business in Boston was at least $100,000,000, and in the whole country it can not be less than $1,000,000,000, or ten times the amount invested in Boston. The annual value of imported liquors is about $80,000,000. It may be that the above estimate of losses yearly to the nation is too high. Perhaps $520 is more than the average gross earnings of an able-bodied man, and there may be other errors of less consequence. But any gentleman is at liberty to divide and subdivide the dreadful aggregate as often and as long as he pleases, and then I would ask him what good reason has he to give why the nation should lose a}iything from these causes. PAUPERISM. I can not detain the House with full statistics from the various States in regard to the pauperism occasioned by alcohol, but not less than 130,000 widows and orphans are left such in our country annually by liquor-drinkers, and from two-thirds to four-fifths of the inmates of our poor-hoi'ses are sent there by drink. CRIME. The statistics of crime are even more astounding. In the report of 20 Manufacture and Sale of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1871, page 541, I find this statement : “ The fourth fact is, that from 80 to 90 per cent, of our criminals connect their courses of crim.e with intemperance. Of the 14,315 inmates of the Massachusetts prisons, 12,396 are re - ported to have been intemperate, or 84 per cent.” Ninety-three per cent, of those confined in Deer Island house of industry- are confined for crimes connected with liquo “ In the New Hampshire prison sixty-five out of ninety-one admit themselves to have been intemperate. Reports from every State, county, and municipal prison in Connecticut made in 1871 show that more than 90 per cent, had been in habits of drink by their own admission.” The warden of the Rhode Island State prison estimates 90 per cent, of his prisoners as drinkers. These relate to those who have been guilty of the more serious offenses, not mere every-day arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. The report of the Board of State Charities of Pennsydvania for 1871 says, page 89 : The most prolific source of disease, poverty, and crime observing men will acknowledge IS intemperance. Mr. William J. Mullen, the well-known and highly esteemed prison agent, in his report for 1870 says : An evidence of the bad effects of this unholy business may be seen in the fact that there have been thirty-four murders within this city (Philadelphia'^ during the last year alone, each one of which was traceable to intemferancey and one hundred and twenty-one assaults for murder proceeding from the same cause. Of over 38,000 arrests in our city within the year, 75 per cent, were caused by intemperance. Of 18,305 persons committed to our prison within the year, more than two-thirds were the consequence of intemperance. Judge Allison, in a speech delivered in Philadelphia in 1872, says: In our criminal courts we can trace four-fifths of the crimes that are committed to the influence of rum. There is not one case in twenty where a man is tried for bis life in which rum is not the direct or indirect cause of the murder. And Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love. She is excelled by no large city in the world in all the elements and evidences of enlightened Christian civilization. She has immortalized herself in our centennial year by a queenly majesty of municipal deportment and a magnificence of patriotic hospitality which are a source of love and pride to her countrymen and have won for her the cordial and unstinted admiration of mankind. And it is a delightful relief for my aching head, as I copy and compile these statistics of damnation, to record the illuminating and illustrative fact that on those centennial grounds, from which in- toxicating liquors were rigidly excluded, and where the esthetic and diviner cravings of humanity were fed as from the gardens of God, among all the millions who wandered through that world of the last and highest results of civilization on earth, not one arrest was made for intoxication during the whole term of the exhibition. The in- finite significance of that philosophy which not only demands prohib- itory laws to restrain evil, but also the provision of food for the mind and stimulants to all the innocent, enlarging, and ennobling tenden- f;ies of the soul, could not be more strikingly illustrated and enforced. Mr. Speaker, the records of New York, with her more than ten thousand liquor shops, one-half of which are v/ilicensed, and which Mr. Oliver Dyer says would line both sides of a street running from the Intoxicating Liquors. 21 Battery out eight mijes into Westchester county, having by the refort of Superintendent Kennedy, made some years since, an average of one hundred and thirty-four visits each daily, with 50,844 arrests for intoxication and disorderly conduct in the single year 1868, and with 98,861 arrests for crimes of every description, nine-tenths of which were the result of drink ; all these I have examined, but I have no heart to dwell upon them. 1 can not endure their longer contemplation. The mathensatics of this infinite evil are only paralleled by the tre- mendous calculations of astronomy, and as I quit the appalling theme I feel as though 1 had been calculating eclipses on the firmament of the pit. If we can do no more for this agonized land, groaning and travail- ing in despair, than to institute the commission of inquiry into the statistical evidences which are waiting everywhere for proper authen- tication, and a bill for which, having passed the Senate, reposes in the embrace of a committee of this House, we shall have accomplished something for which the ages to come will rise up to bless our memory ; for I sincerely believe that nothing is required to work out our salva- tion from the great evil which we are considering but authentic knowledge, generally diffused among the people. In the pressure of the momentous affairs by which we are surrounded, I have not been able to summarize and classiiy as I would otherwise have done this statement of such facts as appear to me to be derived from reliable sources ; but I have done the best I could, hoping that abler minds will turn their attention to the subject, and that Congress will no longer neglect to institute official inquiries, with a view to such ultimate legal action as may arrest an evil which, if not arrested, will go far to destroy the American people. BEARING OF THE SUBJECT UPON THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. Some paper has sneeringly alluded to this proposed amendment as a measure of temperance reform for posterity. Chiefly so it is ; and! all the voices of humanity cry out for its adoption. All thinking men admit that the condition of posterity depends upon inteliigence and virtue, and these are transmitted and developed by the educational institutions and processes of the country, of which by far the most important is the common school ; and over that alone has the Government any control. Contrast for a moment tl'.e means of edu- cation in virtue and intelligence with those which exist for the promo- tion of vice and crime and misery in this country, and then let those sneer who will at a measure which aims to save posterity from the fate which, if there is no reform, will overtake us in national life, just as surely as the time finally comes when the individual inebriate, whether in the horrors of delirium or the stupidity of the consumed sot, drops into the tomb of despair. The census of 1870 shows that there are in the United States 141,629 schools, with 221,042 teachers, and 7,209,938 pupils who attend in the aggregate — the average is less — costing $95,402,826. Of these, 125,059 are public schools, with 183,198 teachers, 6,228,060 pupils, costing $64,030,673 yearly. There are 12,955,443 between the ages of five and eighteen years 22 Manufacture and Sale of who should be at school, leaving 4,845,505 who do not atlenil at all Ajout 740,000 of these are engaged in labor of some kind ; Ixit there must be more than 3,000,000, who do not go to school at all. Dr Hargreaves says that ninety-n'ine hundreths of them are: children of the intemperate, and he makes the following tabular statement, show- ing the relative efficiency of the “two educational systems ” as they are operated in Pennsylvania, whose condition is not discreditable in comparison with the country at large : EDUCATION IN KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE. EDUCATION IN IMMORALITY AND VICE. Schools, colleges, etc., in Penn- sylvania Professors and teachers Pupils and students, etc. in reg- ular attendance Cost for educational purpo*>es in Pennsylvania 16,090 18,7^3 542,076 $8, 399-723 Drinking-places in Pennsylvania 23,606 Persons employed in liquor shops 45^490 Tipplers and drunkards 8<^,6o4 Direct cost of liquors in Penn- sylvania $80,000,000 More than nine times as much money spent to destroy as there is to save “ posterity ” by these two systems. And again he says : Though within the last twenty years our teachers have increased from 25 to 30 per cent, and pupils attending school more than 50 per cent., yet crime has increased more than 60 per cent. Rather a hard look for “ posterity ; ” and if there is no change, “posterity ” better not be there. RIGHT AND NECESSITY OF LEGISLATION. The right of Government to legislate upon the subject of intem- perance has been strongly denied, but the absolute necessity of pro- hibition or regulation of the traffic in intoxicating drinks has been demonstrated in every civilized country where their use has unfortu- nately become prevalent, and the statute-books of England and America, for two centuries at least, bear constant witness to the exer- cise of that power. The question has been raised and settled in the Supreme Court of the United States and by the highest tribunals in almost every State of the Union, if not in all. It is too late to deny the power, the right, and the necessity of such legislation. It is only a question of the jurisdiction by which it shall be enacted and the ex- tent to which it shall be carried. In this connection I wish to call attention to a fallacy which exists in the minds of many. It is assumed by the advocates in the traffic of intoxicating liquors that there is a distinction between the right of Government to enact legislation totally and parlially prohibitory. Government, it is said, may license and regulate, but xx\2y wot prohibit. But there is no such distinction in reason at all. The power to par~ tiatty prohibit by license — which is prohibition so far as it restricts at all — is the same power and stands upon the same ground ; that is, the obligation to promote the general welfare — as that to prohibit abso- lutely. A license to one man to make or sell ardent spirits is an abso- lute prohibition to all the rest of the community to do so ai all. The advocates of the license and regulation of the traffic have no logical grounds upon which to object to absolute prohibition, if necessity re- quires. It is only a question of degree. The universal sense of man- kind has passed that point where it is necessaiy to demonstrate the right to prohibit absolutely and totally. There is in fact no lifference between license and prohibition as a principle. ProhibitiGL is neve* intoxicating Liquors. 23 helJ to extern? beyond those uses which are demonstrably injurious to society. For all necessary and beneficial purposes prohibitory laws permit or license the traffic. I think this view of the subject important and a complete reply to those who claim that the evil should be licensed and regfulated, at the same time that they hold the total pro- hibition to be a violation of inalienable right and the enactment of a sumptuaiy law. The one is as much a sumptuary law and a violatioi of inalienable right as the other, and no more so. If this is true, and I am not able to see wherein it is false, there is an end of the argument between the advocates of license and prohibition as to the right of such legislation, for they stand upon common ground, and there is 31c logical position for those who controvert the justice of prohibitory laws, so called, but that of those who advocate the unrestricted right to manufacture and sell intoxicating liquors to evert'body for ail purposes ; and that ground has not been held by any court for generations to my knowledge. Alcohol has its uses. It is a necessity in the arts. It is invaluable for many medicinal purposes, and as such is entitled to protection as property. But on the other hand it is armed with fatal capacity to destroy. It is a Pandora’s box of evils. In its peculiarly fata! form, that of distillation, which is a concentrated death, it was unknown for fifty-five hundred years of the world’s history, and mankind were the better for their ignorance. The fruit of this tree of knowledge has been death. During the last three centuries what is known as ardent spirits with us, and the immense and dreadful curses which grow out of their use, have gradually arisen. They have the power of perverting the natural instincts and tastes of both body and mind, and to recreate man into the slave of perverted appetites, having in- satiable, consuming, uncontrollable, devilish power. The image of God becomes dangerous to society as well as to himself, whether as a ma- niac or as a criminal, and it is this consequettce of the use of intoxi- cating liquors which the laws have constantly, but imperfectly, under- taken to control for many years ; nothing more. This amendment proposes to extend over the national domain the protection of a constitutional inhibition of the destructive tendencies of liquors when made and used for purposes which have been proved to be detrimental to society, and which many of the States of the Union have endeavored vainly to restrict and destroy. Nothing but a general law can be efficient. That has been demon- strated by experience. While one State prohibits, another manufac- tures and encourages. The appetite already exists. It increases and even becomes hereditary. More than one hundred and sixty thou- sand saloons and tippling-places educate the children of America in habits of intoxication, and the appetite will crush the imaginary lines which State legislation erects against the introduction of this evil mer- chandise, even as the billows of the lake which bumeth with fire and brimstone might be supposed to bury and consume the paper on which that legislation is written. The manufacture and the apj>etite act and react upon each other. The demand creates the supply, and con- stantly cries out, “Give ! Give 1 ” The supply or manufacture is thus stimulated and perpetuated. It will always continue unless stopped oy the union of persuasion and compulsion, because of its lucrative 24 Manufacture and Sale of nature, and because the appetite for strong- drink when once cstab* lished lives with an infernal immortality through successive genera* tions of men. Thus it is that the necessity of legal enactment is apparent. True, that behind legal enactments, as in all other cases where public evils and crimes are prohibited by law. must be public opinion, which is the basis of all law in a free country where the people rule, and public opinion is the creature of experience, argu- ment, discussion, and personal appeal — in short, of “moral suasion,” as these agencies are called in their application to the subject of in- temperate vice in the use of spirituous liquors. “ Moral suasion ” must precede the law, and accompany and assist in its enforcement They are allies. The one grows out of the other just as the law against theft grows out of the universal sentiment of mankind that theft is wrong and a public evil which must be prevented by the forces oi society. Laws to protect society against intoxication inevitably grow out of moral suasion, if there is enough of it to arouse the general conscience and the intelligent apprehension of the people to the enormous losses and wrongs inflicted by alcohol upon society at large. Thus it is that the call for more of moral suasion and less of law is a contradiction of terms. These forces are in harmony like a father and son in a part- nership ; the law steps in and enlarges and perpetuates the business which moral suasion has established after years of indefatigable in- dustry upon the platform, through the press, and by private solicita- tion and appeal. And for any person to cry out against a law agains . the use of intoxicating liquors in society which can never have beer enacted at all but in consequence of moral suasion, and say that it injures the cause because you can not compel men to do right against their will, is to say that all crime and every public evil shall go free of the law; not only that, but that society shall abandon all con- servative and preventive means for the protection of those who come after us ; that not only shall the law abandon the present, but the rising generation, and, in fact, consistency will require that in the end moral suasion itself must be abandoned, since its inevitable result is a formal embodiment of its teachings in general law, as soon as it has produced a strong public sentiment upon which law can rest— and which will enforce the law. I have already asked attention to the facts which as I think dem- onstrate that the unrestricted use and -effect of distilled spirits con- stitute public evils of such a nature as to not only justify, but compel tfie interposition of the law; just now I wish to confine attention ta the necessity of NATIONAL LEGISL.4TION if we would reach the evil effectively. It is evident, in the first place, that the intense thirst or appetit': of the country will lead to the manufacture and transportation of alco- hol for the purpose of its gratification. If the production is sup- pre.ssed everywhere else in the whole country, still in a single one of the smallest States where the manufacture might be allowed (and the temptation to permit the manufacture in small and isolated localities would be greatly increased in the proportion that the concentration erf Intoxicating Liquors. 25 he business made its existence profitable to the State for purposes of taxation and otherwise), the materials being transported, as they would be, from other States, the entire supply of all kinds of distilled spirits for the whole countr)' could easily be furnished. The manufacture might be localized, but it would still exist, and all the efforts of State legislation elsewhere w’ould thus be substantially thwarted. Again, supposing that every State and Territory in the country should suppress the manufacture, and importation from abroad should continue, the evil would remain the same ; and we should only have transferred the manufacture, with the immense capital engaged in it, to a foreign country to which we should first export our corn, and rye, and wheat to be returned in the form of imported liquors to the dry throats of American consumers. Thus we should retain the evil after depriving ourselves of the revenues derived from it. Now, since State legislation can not interfere with the manufacture outside its own limits, nor perhaps within its own limits for exportation to other States, and as commerce, alike domestic and foreign, is controlled by the General Government, it is apparent that any legal enactment which goes to the root of the matter must be national in its scope and character. So far as the exportation to other countries is con- cerned, while I do not say that it could not be still carried on with- out great evil to our own pTople, aside from the waste of material and the perversion of capital and labor from useful purposes, yet to continue to poison mankind at large with what we had prohibited to ourselves would be like peddling off to our neighbors the contam- inated and fatal garments which we might have had left after the small-pox or yellow fever had run through our own family. As a means of suppression, the power to arrest the article i)i transitu is hardly less important than that to prevent the manufacture and sale ; but this nower can never be effectively exercised so long as the United States protects the transportation of ardent spirits to the same extent as other forms of property from one part of the country to an- other. Experience has demonstrated the impossibility of prevention when there is a chance to procure and while all the innumerable avenues of transportation are open. Again, the power to control the manufacture and sale and u.se of distilled alcoholic liquors is to be found under the head of the f>alice power of government, as it is called, which is vested primarily in the several States ; and in order that this power be exercised by the na- tion at large, except in the District of Columbia and the Terri) ones, the Constitution must first be amended so as to give the na ional Government the right to co-operate with the States in the enforcement of that power for the restriction of this traffic. There is no valid ob- jection to the enlargement or change of national jurisdiction in this respect, as will appear Dom an inspection of the Constitution as it now stands. The power already exists over the internal police of the .States so Jar as to protect alcohol as property for all purposes for wh'ch it can be manufactured and transported. The Constitution now inter- feres with the internal police of every State which may desire te ban- ish liquor from its borders for the public good, by protecting every other State which sees fit to encourage the traffic in the production and transportation of this substance as a commodity of legitimate 26 Manufacture and Sale of commerce, and compels each State to allow its importation in )ullj from foreign countries and other States, and when once within the ter- ritorial limits of a State, you can no more prevent its distribution throug'h the dram-shop than you can arrest the progress of the storm by a geographical line. So it is that the Constitution already does interfere in the most potent and specific manner with the internal police of the States upon this all-important subject. Thus it appears, yfrj-A that the evil can only be effectually reached by national legislation, and, second, that such legislation must be of 1 ccnstitutio7ial character. It further appears that this is the assertion of no new power over the internal police of the States. It is only a modification for the general welfare of a power already possessed bj the national Government, which is now being exercised to the de- struction of the efforts of the States to extirpate a prolific source ot pauperism, crime, and death. The Constitution of the United States, as it now is and has been from the beginning, is a law for the unre- stricted manufacture, sale, importation, exportation, and internal trans- portation of intoxicating liquors. It is the great legal fortress of intem- perance in this country to-day. It is not a blank upon this subject. It is not even a mere license law. But by its recognition of alcohol as prop- erty, which may be made and used and carried and protected for all purposes in the national domain ; by its protection of alcohol as an Im- ported article in the ports and in the Territories of the nation, and by its practical nullification of State laws, enabling the citizens of one State to erect a public bar protected by the supreme law of the land along every inch of the boundaries of a sister State which may be struggling to suppress the evil, by smuggling strong liquors with im- punity across the boundaries of States, and even carrying them everywhere under the Stars and Stripes, protected if need be by the Army of the Union, in these ways the Constitution of the United States is now the great almighty obstacle in the way' of the temper- ance reform in this country. THAT CONSTITUTION OUGHT IN THIS RESPECT TO BE CHANGED. Can it be changed ? That is the question, and there is but one an- swer. It viust be done. No such word as fail should be allowed in the vocabulary of patriotism. But how? It can only be done by pub- lic opinion. Intelligence, conscience, and common sense are the founda- tions of sound public opinion ; and they' are the agencies which must be relied upon to effect the proposed change in the Constitution of the nation. It must be based upon the intelligent demand of three- fourths of the States in this Union. How can that public sentiment be created ? First, there must be an intelligent apprehension of the extent of the evil to be remedied, and that the nation as such is con cemed in it. Second, there must be a practical measure proposed, wise and just and efficient, upon which the efforts of the people can be concentrated. That measure must be radical in its nature, but it must not ignore existing rights nor violate the public faith, nor assail the personal character of those who are engaged in what the nation recognizes, and has recognized from the beginning, as a legitimate business and source of revenue to the coffers of the country. If the nation has traded in its own destruction it must itself wear the hood Intoxicating Liquors. 2; of shame. That measure can not destroy property rights vested in the public faith without compensation or without giving ample tim« for the diversion of capital to other and less pernicious industries. THE SLAVE TRADE tvas abolislied by a constitutional provision, which, in form, gave it protection for nearly twenty years. If it had been proposed to make that provision operative at once, the Constitution itself never would have been adopted by the American people. That measure must in- terfere as little as possible with the internal affairs ol the States, leaving to them the enforcement of special laws within their own bor- ders subject to the general constitutional restriction. And, finally, in order to have practical value, it piust be one which, appealing to the intelligence and patriotism of all classes in the whole country, will have some rational chance of adoption by the widely diversified interests, prejudices, and sentiments of this vast nation, and of in- corporation into the supreme law of the land. Such a measure I have endeavored to devise, and, although it may be full of imperfections, I have felt some hope that it wouid turn the attention of greater powers to the subject, and that the eminent gentlemen who have charge of it would mature some plan for the suppression of this national crime and shame, through a constitutional inhibition. I desire to call specific attention to tiiose features of this proposed amendment to the Con- stitution which have commended themselves to my own judgment, and which I have thought would strike the public mind with some force. LEADING FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT. First, it is a proposed constitutional amendment, and not a measure of proposed legislation by Congress under the Constitution as it now is, I think I have already said enough to show that whatever the nation does to facilitate the suppression of the evils perpetrated by alcohol must be accomplished by a change in the Constitution itself. TIME. Second, the time when the first clause shall take effect is so far in the future that vested rights will not suffer at all ; certainly not es- sentially. Notice of a quarter of a century is sufficient to every man- ufacturer to turn his attention to other and less harmful pursuits. It is longer than our fathers gave to the merchant marine of the country to remove its capital from the slave trade, even if ratified at once, and ten years are given whenever ratification may take place. This will enable every man to wear out his still or convert his ma- chinery to some beneficial purpose. It will cover the average period of business life for this entire generation, and I doubt whether there is a distiller in the world who desires that his son should follow the pursuit in which he himself feels compelled to remain, and the imme- diate destruction of which would reduce his family to beggary. Capi- tal invested in the wholesale and import trade could be very easily diverted in other directions at much shorter notice, while the retailer only requires time to sell out his stock on hand. I am persuaded that great injustice is often done in public discus- iions of this subject by the wholesale denunciations and uncharitable, 28 Manufacture and Sale of not to say unchristian and even brutal, epithets which aie hurled a1 the large number of American citizens who are engaged in one branch or another of the liquor business. They are men like ourselves, often- times better than those who assail them, and nothing is gained by the effort to reform individuals by lectures which would disgrace a "fish- •.voman, or to carry great public measures by scurrilous attacks upon men who follow an avocation which, however hostile to the interests of mankind, is yet intrenched in the Constitution of our country— a Constitution sanctioned by the names of Washington, Franklin, and Madison, and by virtue of the broad provisions of which we derive the power to attack our fellow-men with a license of the tongue al- most as pernicious to the public welfare as th€ license of the traffic in rum. I am satisfied that very large numbers of men whose inter- ests are bound up in the liquor tratfic would themselves gladly co- operate, if they were not repelled as criminals, with the most ultra advocates of the temperance cause in some broad measure which, while it will enable them to avoid pecuniary ruin, will, at the same time, protect the coming generations from the storm of fire and brim- stone which is pelting ours like that which fell upon Sodom and Go- morrah and left them at the bottom of the Dead Sea. THE CONSUMER. Again, the consumer, he who complains that you assault his man- hood, his personal liberty: that you lock up his mouth with a sump- tuaiy law ; that you trample upon his God-given freedom, when you deprive him of his rum, whisky, brandy, and gin ; when you interfere with his right to get drunk, to be drunk, and to help others to be drunk like himself, even this man can not complain, for before the year 1900 he will be in his grave. And I have never yet seen the soi even who wanted to transmit his right to be destroyed by strong drink to his son. There is hardly a victim of intemperance on this conti- nent to-day who will not vote to save his son from the dreadful ap)- petite which chains him to his fate. The parental sentiment of the country will cry out for this amendment, and the instincts of human nature will crowd to the ballot-bo:ies of the land to save the children of the ages to come. I firmly believe that if Congress will only give the American people the opportunity to act on this proposed amend- ment, it would win, upon a popular vote, after two years’ discussion. But there is no form in w'hich the appeal can be made but by the submission of an amenelment from the National Legislature to the States at large, and why should not the opportunity be given and the lestilt left with the people themselv'es ? The importation of liquors is now the subject of treaty stipulation with France and other countries, but w'e have the unquestionable right to abrogate these treaties after reasonable notice. Eveiy nation has this right, and I allude to it only because I have heard the exist- ence of these treaties suggested as an obstacle to the adoption of the amendment. Again, this resolution proposes to prevent the M.\NUFACTURE. I think it is apparer.c that there can be no permanent tempe*ance form in this country so long as the manufacture is free. Intoxicating Liquors. 29 I am not aware of the existence of any law in any State which in- terferes with the unrestricted manufacture of distilled spirits for every purpose. Whatever is made will be sold ; and if it is right to regulate or prohibit the sale for any use, it must be right to regulate or prohibit the manufacuure for the same use ; and if it is possible to regulate or prevent the sale after the article has been distributed into a million localities all over the country, it is comparatively easy to control the manufacture, which necessarily must be carried on where large masses of capital are concentrated. Granted that individuals will manufac- ture their own poison, yet they must do it in secret and under such dif- ficulties and public reprobation that comparatively small injury could result. And if it is possible to regulate the sale, and successfully or even with approximate success to restrict the sale to legitimate and necessary uses in detached States, as has been so largdy done even under all the embarrassments of existing laws and a public sentiment none too sensitive, and never hei'eafter to be less so than now, how much easier will it be to regulate and control the ma7t2if actiire by licenses from the States or from the General Government, as should be found best in practice. Especially would this be so when by the control of transportation every particle made could be traced to the proper and authorized dealers or custodians throughout the country. It would be impossible to conceal the manufacture if carried on to any injurious extent. Nothing can reach the manufacturer but a consti- tutional amendment, for two reasons ; first, as before observed, the Constitution now recognizes ardent spirits, for all uses, to be property; and, second, no matter how strictly any State law might provide for its suppression, capital could locate in some other jurisdiction, in some other State or Territory, or in some foreign State, and create the sup- ply which the drinking appetite of the consumer demands. Again it will be observed that the proposed prohibition by the nation EXTENDS ONLY TO DISTILLED alcoholic liquors. The advocates of temperance are themselves yet somewhat divided upon the question whether the use of fermented and brewed liquors as a beverage is or is not beneficial to the country. I have before alluded to the fact that there is high medical authority for the position that domestic wines, cider, ale, and beer are not hurt- ful in themselves, when not used in po itive excess, and rendered so in the same way that the system is injured by gormandizing and gluttony. There is also a strong impression, however groundless it may be, that a mild stimulant is essential to the civilization of the nineteenth century, and that its use in the milder forms named pre- vents more general indulgence in distilled liquors, with their terribly destructive powers. Such a belief is a fact, although the ground for it may be false. But all men who believe in restrictive legislation of any kind concur in the assertion that the use of distilled alcoholic drinks is the source of the great mass of the evil which intemperance inflicts upon the country, and all classes of men who advocate legislation of any kind will, it is believed, support this proposition ; some because they be- lieve it goes just far enough, others because they believe it is better Manufacture and Sale of 30 than nothing, and will lead ultimately to the desired end. The lattei class may well ask themselves the question : “ If we prevent the country from tak ng the first step, how can we expect it ever to take two ” No doubt the extinction of distilled liquors as a beverage will in- crease, at least for the time being, the consumption of brewed and fermented drinks , but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that the general improvement of public sentiment, which must attend the long and earnest agitation of the subject before even this proposi- tion will become a part of the law of the land, will strengthen the hands of those who oppose the intemperate use of the milder intox- icating beverages. The third section relates to the first, and is designed to keep this proposition FOREVER BEFORE THE COUNTRY, BO long as there is a foe to alcohol in it, and to save every advantage ever gained until ratification is an accomplished fact. It can not be expected that this great work will be accomplished in one year, or five; but if, in 1890, the amendment is not ratified, then it is to ga into effect ten years after its ratification, whenever that devoutly-to-be- wished consummation is realized. Ever}^ position gained will be held. Whatever question might arise from lapse of time as to the continued pendency of the proposition before the American people, or as to the powei which has been claimed of a State to withdraw its assent to an amendment at any time before ratification by the constitutional three- fourths of the States, is entirely obviated by the distinct profusion of the pending proposition itself. If this Congress, or if any subsequent Congress, will submit this proposed amendment to the people of the country for action, there will never be necessity for another plan of battle. Whenever this one is carried out, the victor}' will be complete. There can be no such thing as repulse, as the loss of strategic points, or of defeat, just as victory begins to dawn. The language employed in stating the EXCEPTED PURPOSES AND USES for which the manufacture and traffic would still legally exist is, 1 think, as broad and comprehensive as any which can be de\ised, and at the same time secure the object of the amendment. The term arts includes cooking and all the common, useful, industrial, and presen- ative purposes which are known and practiced by the people, as well as the fine arts and the more intricate and recondite processes of the laboratory. The term fjiedicinal must cover every occasion for the use of alcchol as a remedy for physical infirmity, whether of man or beast, and I think the statement of specific excepted uses and purposes for which production and traffic may be continued better ihan the mere prohibition thereof for use as a “ bez’erage.” The medicinal use is necessarily sometimes as a beverage, although the proper use as a beverage is always iiicdicinal. Possibly it would follow that the pro- hibition of the use as a beverage might interfere with its medicinal application in some cases. In all the statutes which I have seen, the Intoxicating Liquors. 31 choice of terms is between the word “ beverag-e,” on the one hand, leaving the article to unrestricted use for all other purposes, and a general prohibition for all purposes, with execution only of those recognized cases of necessity which, being definitely known, could be provided for, and thus the abuses which might arise in the other method of the statement be avoided. THE SECOND SECTION EXPRESSLY GUARDS, and in some respects increases, the jurisdiction of the States as it now exists over the subject-matter, and negatives any license of the traffic by implication until the ratification of the proposed amendment. True, there could be no real license implied by the proposal of this amend- ment to the States, but it might be construed as a denial by Congress of the right of the States to regulate or suppress the traffic to the ex- tent which they are now conceded to possess that power. It further contains a concession by Congress of power to the States and Ter- ritories to suppress the manufacture, transportation, and sale of all liquors, and to exclude them from State and territorial limits, which they have never yet exercised to my knowledge. Whether this would nave the force of law as against existing constitutional rights may not be a serious question, but it would probably prevent any interference by legislation on the part of Congress with any action on the part of the States or Territories, unless it should clearly be required by the Constitution as it now exists. Whatever powers the National Govern- ment now possesses, such as the right to abrogate or regulate the traffic in the District of Columbia and in the Territories, and to make its exclusion forever from the Territories a part of their fundamental law, and to impose such a condition as inseparable to their admission as States, are expressly reserved. At the same time all the rights which any one engaged in the traffic now has under State laws are carefully preserved to him so long as his State shall not see fit to inter- fere with him ; at least until the first section takes effect, and that does not interfere with fermented liquors at all. The amendment carefully preseiwes the police power of the State over the whole subject by providing that Congress shall enforce it only in case of needful legislation. It is designed to leave the whole matter, concurrently with the General Government, still in the power of the States respectively, contemplating no interference with local machinery and methods unless it should become imperatively necessary ; and it is not probable that much active interference by the National Govern- ment would ever be required. As, in the vindication of the great rights of the American citizen, legislation, the courts, their processes, and the ministerial officers of the States are generally sufficient to pro- tect, so in this matter the fact that the broad aegis of the Constitution protected the American people from the curse of this traffic would secure the ample enforcement of its beneficent provisions by local au- thorities throughout- the land. Nor can there be any valid objection to this legislation based upon the doctrine of STATE RIGHTS, for the Constitution now asserts and exercises the power to substan- •ially control or thwart the police power of the States by rendering 32 Manufacture and Sale of nugatory- their efforts to regulate and suppress the e\ .1. The police powers of the States are thus really nullified or abridged in a most im- portant, nay, a matter of vital concern. The deadliest foe of social happiness and public order is placed under the protection of the na- tional Constitution, and the State must subordinate its process to the rights of rum, protected by the national power. This amendment proposes to repeal those restrictions upon the rights of States to gov- ern themselves, and substitute provisions in harmony with the tenden- cies of enlightened State legislation and the interests of society, and thus it proposes to re-inforce the police power of the States acting for the public good. This certainly at the worst is no greater restriction of the powers of the States than now exists in the Constitution by vir- tue of the protection given to the liquor interests against which the States, so many of them, wage war. And it is difficult to see why an advocate of State’s rights should be satisfied with the Constitution as it is, and then complain when it is proposed to c’nange the Constitution so as to give the States still greater power to restrict and control an evil over which but for this Constitution the States would have abso- lute power. It seems to me that this is a sufficient reply to those who, claiming that they desire to suppress the evil, object to an increase of State power for that purpose. If the real difficulty is that the objector would relieve the liquor traffic of all legal disabilities, whether State or na- tional, then this view of States’ rights will not be satisfactory. He will then be satisfied wit’n no constitutional amendment which does not destroy all “police power,” State or national, to interfere with the evils of alcoholic intemperance. “ States’ rights” is a teiTn too much abused in these latter days, and honest men should examine well the motives and pretenses of those who appeal to prejudices engendered by controversies which, with their causes, are vanished away. We certainly are a nation to such extent that a vast evil which contami- nates the atmosphere of the continent can be assailed with nadonal power, especially when it can be reached successfully in no other wa^^ and the method proposed leaves to the States the execution of the great work if they will perform it in their own self-chosen way. I deem it important to offer some observations upon the policy and efficiency of the PRINCIPLE OF PROHIBITION, as applied to the suopression of the alcoholic evil. It is not seldom claimed that the policy of prohibition by law does not diminish the consumption of intoxicating drinks ; that human nature resents inter- ference with personal freedom ; that legal restriction becomes a nullity and in the end drunkenness and its attendant evils are increased ; that the public conscience becomes hardened, and the sense of obligation to obey the laws of the land is blunted, so that the “ last state of that man (and nation) is worse than the first.” It will be observed, how- ever, as a rule, that this argument is seldom advanced by those whose interests or principles incline them even so far as to the use of “ moral suasion,” as it is termed, to extirpate the evils of intemperance, .^.s a rule, restrictive laws are opposed by the class of people who never resort to moral suasion themselves, and who stand in need ot both Intoxicating Liquors, 33 'egal and moral suasion to counteract the tendency of either their own interests or appetites or both. How sincerely these people believe in their position that restrictive laws which they oppose increase the evil upon which they thrive, every one is to judge for himself. But there are a few who honestly entertain that opinion. True that no law is operative except as it is made so by public opinion, but the en- actment of an evidently wise and necessary law should often precede in order that it may assist in forming public opinion. Eveiy stej) for- ward necessarily precedes and draws along the car of progress. Leg- islators are supposed to be selected because they are wiser than the mass of those for whom they make laws ; but of what use are they if, naving mofe wisdom, they are never to exercise it until moral suasion has raised the virtue of the people so high that the evil has disappeared and consequently the laws are unnecessary. Laws presuppose something wrong to be prohibited, and it does not follow that they are to be repealed (or even not enacted) simply be- cause the sentiment of a particular or even of the general community, for the time being, may not properly execute them. Agitation and the effort to enforce a good law, by demonstrating its wisdom and the blessings which flow from its enforcement, will create a public opinion which ultimately will m.ake the law generally operative. Probably there is no criminal law whatever which is enforced in one-half the instances of its infraction. Should the law against theft, arson, bur- glary, forgery, and other crimes therefore be repealed ? There was a condition of society, as man has progressed from the savage to the enlightened state, when there was no public conscience which took cognizance of any of these crimes. Wise legislators prescribed laws in advance of public opinion, and by their enforcement educated their peoples to a higher life and more complete acquiescence in the law. But it is said that the enforcement of laws with us depends upon the juries of the country ; so it does ; they are the judges of the fact. Therefore they should be impartial. And does any one believe that when a jury is selected with as complete freedom from bias as if se- lected for the trial of the charge of murder there would be any more difficulty in punishing that crime against society which occasions the perpetration of more than three-fourths of the murders? You inquire of every juryman upon his oath whether he is in favor of capital pun- ishment before he is selected to pass upon a question which involves the life of his fellow-man. That man is disqualified to be a juror who does not believe in the law. In the same way ascertain his opinion as to the enforcement of restraining laws against intemperance, and thus secure an impartial jury by putting each member of the panel upon his conscience, and there is no trouble in enforcing the law. But I do not design to follow out this train of thought. I wish to recall attention to the fact that there is no difference in principle, but only in the degree of its application, between laws which restrain and those which totally prohibit the use of intoxicating liquors, so that the question lies open only between those who would have some law i--nd those who would have 710 latu whatever upon the subject. Now, there is no civilized people, and I venture the assertion that there never was one, where seriously intoxicating liquors have existed which have not found it absolutely impossible to preserve the structure of society 34 Manufacture and Sale of without legal restriction. Certainly there has been none in m idem times, and there is none to-day so far as 1 know. I wish to cite one or two instances in the recent history of the Anglo- Saxon race. IN THE SENATE DEBATE of last session, page 584 of the Record, Senator Morrill, now the distinguished Secretary of the Treasur)', said: V/e had almost this identical question as early as 1795, when the countr}' was in the di- lemm i of a large national debt. When the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Hamilton, was casting about for the means of sustaining the public credit, one of the methods resorted to was the identical thing we are doing now ; that is, to raise a revenue upon the importa- tion and distilkition of alcoholic drinks, accompanied also by a system of licenses for the retail sale of alcoholic drinks so manufactured in this country or imported from abroad. Therefore it becomes of the utmost importance to inquire what was the effect of that pol- icy upon the morals of the people. How did it come about that about that period we came to be denominated a nation of drunkards? How was it that it was generally as- serted, and it is a matter of historj^ to-day. that the American Colonies at the close of the war, and for the two decades afterward, drank more liquor, capita^ than any other people upon the Mce of the globe ? It has usually been accounted for from the pernicious effects of the war, * * * but it was not the prime cause. Whoever will take the pains to look into our history will find that more than all things together it sprang from the policy of raising a revenue out of the distillation of alcoholic drinks, and the Government taking into its own hands the retail trade of the country in alcoholic and intoxicating drinks. In 1795 the number of wine licenses was 3.253, of spirit licenses 7,461. The amount of duties 854,731* In 1800 the Secretary’s report says : Of the proceeds of those dutie* more than §500,000 arise from tax on distillation, -1=372.000 of which are paid on 22,000 country stills, scattered over the immense territory of the United States. Sixty-five thou- sand dollars are the product of 13,000 retailers’ licenses, all grown up in a single decade.” Senator Morrill then cites the experience of England, which was the same as ours, and after depicting the terrible results in powerful language, he says : That is the history of it, and it is as natural as for water to run down hill. It must be so. Whenever the Government lends its moral countenance to, and cncourag^es the importation and the production, of course you can not, Senators will see that it is impos- * sible to, control the sale. It becomes popular, it is taken out of the ban at once, and it increases everywhere. That, I think, is the historical account in this country and elsewhere. It is the natural, it is the irresistible effect. I do not know the amount of crooked whisky, but I should suppose the distillation was not le.ss than 100,000,000 at least — Yearly in this countr}’ — for a people of 40,000,000, besides all that is imported from abroad. What becomes of if. * Xhe statistics show beyond all controversy, if anything has ever been made clear by statistics, that three-fourths of the pauperism is attributable, directly and indirectly, to intoxicating drinks, and three-fourths of the crime to the same cause. Just contemplate that statement, and then see whether the government of a count.-y that raises iis revenues by the encouragement of the distillation of such an agency as tha has no connection with it. Why, sir, more than all other agencies combined is the terrible effect of alcoholic drinks upon the health and morals and prosperity of this people, Jt is the gigantic crime of crimes in this age^ and particularly in this country. I would earnestly call attention to the abl“ debate in the Senate •from which this is taken, and in which several of the most distinguished men of the nation participated. The result was the passing of the resolution for a committee of inquiry, elsewhere referred to. THE experience OF ENGLAND in the adoption of the beer law, and in other instances, is exactly similar to that of the United States. The removal of restrictions and countenance of the business by the Government expands the eUl just as naturally and inevitably as the removal of the dam lets out th« Water behind it. Intoxicating Liquors. 35 Prchibifion has been more honestly and thoroughly tried in the State of Maine than anywhere else in America or Europe, except per- haps in MohafiitTii,dan countries, where both religion and law enforce total abstinence. Hon. William P. Fi7e, when Attorney-General of that State, writes to Hon. Neal Dow as follows : I can and do, from my o\Vn personal observation, unhesitatingly affirm that the con- sumption of intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day one-fourth as great as it was twenty years ago ; that in the country portions of the State the sale and use have almost entirely ceased ; that the law under a vigorous enforcement of its provisions.^ has created a tetnperance sentitnent which is tnarvelous., and to which oppositio 7 i is powerless. In tny opi ni 9 n.,our remarkable temperance refor^n of to-day is the legit-^ imate child of the law. To this high and emphatic testimony to the fact that prohibition does prohibit, I wish to add this evidence from the inexorable figures of the CENSUS OF 1870, which contrasts the systems of prohibition and stringent license ; and it such are the comparative results between these, what would be the consequence of the removal of all restrictions, save only as moral suasion might oppose the whirlwinds and tornadoes of universal ruin with the gentle putterin.gs of the mellow-voiced philanthropist ? Maine. New Jersey. 72 280 36 25 8 338 1,380 665 573 43 In Maine the keepers of restaurants do not sell liquors, while in New Jersey they almost universally do. “Liquors and wines” in Maine refers to State liquor agents. The population ot Maine was 626,915 ; that of New Jersey was 906,096. In November, 1867, Massachusetts repealed her prohibitory liquor law. In his message to the Legislature, January, 1869, the Governor said 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 accommodations if the commitments continue to increase as they have since the present law (a license law) w'ent into force. Although this amendment does not propose to interfere with the fermented liquors any more than to remit their managemeni more fully to the several States, it not being believed by me to be suffi- ciently clear that the prohibition of the manufacture and use of such liquors should be attempted by national enactment, so long as public sentiment is so considerable in favor of their beneficent effect when properly used, and in considenation of the comparatively small injury and dartger which arise from their abuse, yet upon the question of the actual effect of prohibitory laws upon the traffic the statistics of the trade in fermented drinks are as logically illustrative as in case of dis 36 MamifacUire and Sale of tilled liquors. Take then the testimony of the brewers themselves. I? the fifteenth annual report of the United States Brewers’ Association, held at Cincinnati, June, 1875, they passed these resolutions : Resolved. That where restrictive prohibitory enactments exist, every possible measure be taken to oppose, resist, and repeal them. And it is further resolved^ I'hat politicians favoring prohibitory enactments, who offer themselves as candidates for olhce, be everywhere strenuously opposed, and the more so if it be found that their personal habits do not conform to their public profession. In an address before the convention it was stated : Very severe is the injr.ry which the brewers have received in the so-called tempciacse States. Then follow data from various States proving the assertion. This testimony shows the hollow insincerity of the absurd pretense that prohibitory laws do not tend to eradicate the evils of intemper- a.'ice. Legal prohibition and moral suasion operate like the law of Moses and the Gospel of Christ. They act and react upon and fulhll each other. And to assert that law does not destroy this evil and therefore there should be no law, is to assert that there should be law against no evil whatever, since not one based upon the abuse of any appetite or passion of man has ever yet been absolutely extirpated. Doubtless the appetite for stimulants will always seek gratification by excess ; but society can protect itself against the evils of that excess only by the most strenuous measures to remove alcohol, that terrific agency which the last two hundred years has brought into such com- mon use that its blasting power over the fairest regions and highest civilizations of earth has become the bane of both, and threatens with destruction the future of the race. So far as the United States are concerned (the people of each State dealing with it as they please), even then there will remain alcohol in its fermented forms which were the most powerful used for five thousand five hundred years, and in this form alcohol was the curse and calamity of mankind. Evasions of this law as of all other laws will take place, and there need be no sentimental refinement upon the practical loss of asy right which a confirmed toper may desire to cherish for his own personal comfort. Sources of gratification though limited will still be found. But it is to be hoped that something would be accomplished for the mass of our fellow-men, and particularly for those innocent ones to whom the great future belongs, and toward whom he that would bequeath to them the awful inheritance of drunken woe which is amassed and in- creasing daily on American soil, must be a brute indeed. THEORIES OF PERSONAL LIBERTY. ETC. There is a theory of personal liberty which, sanctioned by the great names of JOHN STUART MILL, and of V on Humboldt and others of less distinction, has been advanced as the insuperable objection to all legisladon which strikes at the use of alcohol as a beverage. Mill, in his work on Civil Liberty, pages 170 to 173, thus states that theory in his vigorous way ; There are in out own day gioso usurpations Ufon the liberty of private life actually practiced and still greater ones threatened with seme expectations of success ; and opin- MDS proposed which assert an unlimited right in the public, not only to prohibit by law Intoxicating Liquors. 37 ever^'thing which it thinks ^vTong, but in order to get at what it thinks wrong to prohibit any nuniljcrof tilings which it admits to be innocent. Under the name of preventing intemperance the people of one English colony, and of nearly one-half the United States, have been interdicted by law from making any ase whatever of fermented drinks except for medicinal purposes ; yhr prohibition o/ their saic is in fact., as it is intended to be^ prohibition o/ their use. The infringement com- plained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the buyer and consumer; since the State might just as well forbid him to drink wine as purposely make it impossi- ble J'or him to obtain it. Goverp.or Andrew cites this passage, and so do defenders of the traffic generilly, as decisive authority upon the subject, and it is doubt- less the highest that he can cite. The common sense of the Ameri- can people would, however, hardly accept without question all the so- cial, economic, religious, or irreligious theories of Mr. Mill, and I re- spectfully demur to any theory which results in the ruin of my fellow- men. By their frtiits shall ye know them. That is the only rule by which a practical legislator has any right to test the theories of great or of little men. But what does even Mill himself say ? He asserts, in the first place, what is a positiv'e error, so far as the grounds of this amendment are concerned. I do 7iot assert the right in order to get at what I think wrong, “ to prohibit any number of things which I admit to be right.” By no means whatever. I admit the manufacture, importation, and use of alcohol in the form of distillation for certain necessary pitrposes, and for them only, to be legitimate, and convenient, if not necessaiy, en- titled to protection and subject to regulation by law only for purposes of taxation like other property and to prevent its application to other dangerous and destructiv-e uses which injure and often ruin mankind. The right to regulate the legitimate use and to prevent the abuse is just exactly the same right which government has to protect every man in the use of fire for his happiness, and to prohibit both himself and others from using it as the agent of wanton destruction to the lives and property of society at large. No more, no less. Alcohol is a poison, which may be put to good uses. When an individual puts this poison to a bad use the law has the right to interfere, and those who make it have the right to enact the law so that it may interfere ; to prohibit not “any number of things which it admits to be inno- cent,” but the use of an active means of self and social destruction. Thus it is clear that Mr. Mill, if he means us, has misconceived his form of action and must either bring a new suit or abandon his case. But he goes on to illustrate and apply what he means by his gener- al proposition above stated. He says, “ The use of ferinented liquors has been interdicted except for medicinal use,” etc. But this amend- ment does not intermeddle with their use at all. It is not designed to. It is not designed to raise that difficult question upon which man- kind is divided. True, it increases the police power of the States over the. m indirectly, but -not in a way to restrict their use unless public sentiment of the-State requires it. This is done by an increase of the power of internal State police. It is a surrender of national power. It is a concession to the States of a power of interstate and foreign commerce. It only strikes at what all, or nearly all, men concede to be a most terrible national evil which ought to be suppressed and which can not be effectually regulated except by a national prohibition, which must take the form of an amendment to the Constitution. I am 38 Manufacture and Sale of Sure tlat .,t will be conceded that the citation from Mr Mill is irrele- vant. BARON VON HUMBOLDT is also quoted by Governor Andrew and others. See his Sphere and Duties of Government, page 171, where he says ; The State may content itself with exercising the most watchful vigilance of every unlawful project and defeating it before it has been put into execution ; or, advancing further, it may prohibit actions which are harmless in themselves, but which tempt to the commission of crimes or afford opportunity for resolving upon criminal actions. This latter policy again tends to encroach ;.ii ihe liberty of the citizens ; manifests a distrust on the part of the State which not only operates h artfully on the character of the citizens but goes to defeat the very end. in vicvv. All that the State may do without frustrating it.s own end, and without encroaching on the freedom of its citizens, is therefore restricted to the former course ; that is, the strictest surveillance of every transgression of the law either already committed or only resolved on ; and as this can not properly be called preventing the causes of crime, 1 think I may safely assert that this prevention of criminal actions is wholly foreign to the State’s proper sphere of activity. The essence of all this seems to be in the concluding idea. viz. : that the State can not legislate by imposing burdens or restrictions upon the individual, the object of which is to prevent the causes of criinc. Well, supposing this to be so, does it reach the foundations of legis- lation restricting the evils resulting from the use of intoxicating liquors? Obviously not, unless those evils are simply causes of crime. But those evils embrace not merely crime against the individual and society at large, but physical degeneration of the individual and of the species, insanity, idiocy, pauperism — every form and degree of misery, taxation, public burdens of every' kind, poverty, starvation, accident and frightful casualties, ignorance, and death. Now many of these effects of the wrongful use of distilled spirits exist independently as distinct and most deplorable public evils, and would do so even though they did not so often culminate in every sort of crime. But this proposition of Humboldt’s covers the case of causes of crime alone, and if legislation for the prevention of these evils is not within the power of the State, then 1 am at loss to see what forms of preventive legislation are pxDssible. The doctrine is universal license and anarchy, if it is to be understood to cover the ground which is claimed for it. It not only abolishes the old truth, which, however homeiy in its expression, is the basis of the great mass of the laws to which society owes it happiness and all hope of future improvement — that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Can not legislate to prevent the causes of crime without violating personal liberty ! Then personal liberty, which does not include the right to commit crime, does include the right to cause it to be com- muted. But the great Humboldt is misquoted, for obsert'e the con- fusion of thought and the utter nonsense of his language if it is to be construed as covering this case. I revere his intellectual power, but there is only one God, and the man who undertakes to construct a universe or a Kosmos will not always manifest the attributes of the Almighty. He says “ that the State is restricted to the strictest sur- veillance of every transgression of the law, either already ri?w;/7z/'/z'(/ or only resolved upon." But this is a question of the original enactment — • the creation of a law, not of its violation or of its enforcement. Shall there be any law at all upon the subject ? What is a crime in the only sense with which we have anything to do ? Why, it is the violi- Intoxicating Liquors. 39 tion of an existing law ; doing what is already forbidden or failing to do that whicli is enjoined ; or, in Mr. Webster’s own words • “ An omission of a duty which is commanded, or the commission of an act which is forbidden by law.” So far as government is concerned there can be no crime, and therefore no causes of crime until there is a law the violation of which is all that constitutes crime. Now the question between alcohol and its opponent is, whether there shall be any law at all, and the answer to that question depends alto- gether upon the consequences which the unrestricted use of alcohol exerts upon mankind. Does it or does it not produce such evils in society as to require or justify its restriction by law — the creation of a law — the violation of which will be a crime ? The mere fact that a drunken man is more likely to commit murder than a sober man is of course no reason vvhy he should be punished for being drunk, unles there is a law against it. Until there is a law against it, drunk- enness is no crime. So, if being drunk, he commits murder, then he is to be punished because he has violated the law against taking life, not because he was drunk. Drunk or sober, then, he is to be punished for his violation of law. But now in this debate comes this question : Is the fact that drunk- enness is a state of mind and body which is so bad and dangerous a thing of itself for members of society to be in, that voluntarily getting into that state should be prohibited, and is the making and selling that stuff which tempts and makes men to get drunk for that very purpose so bad a thing that the manufacture and sale of it should be prohibited by law I And upon that point the facts I have spread out are pertinent. To do that which causes three-fourths of all the crimes known to the law should itself be made a crime. It is bad itself, and should therefore be prohibited by law.' It is a question of making a new law, not of enforcing an old one. It is therefore not at all within the reasoning of Von Humboldt, and the citation as an authority falls. New laws must be made according to the times. The duty of govern- ment is ever the same : to protect society and promote the general welfare. The special laws of different nations an d ages vary according to the forms in which vice presents itself, and the various agencies and forms of destruction with which society is assailed. Alcohol is the parent of nearly all the forms of misery in this age and of three- fourths of the grand aggregate of all the crimes that are known, and surely that which produces all these is a legitimate subject for regu- lation by law. To say that society shall not control the dram-shops which line our streets is to say that any man has the right to plant Pennsylvania avenue with torpedoes and drape Broadway with old clothes from the pest-houses, because the toi-pedo and old clothes are property and a legitimate subject of barter and sale ; and that because the torpedo and garments have their uses when they preseia'^e a people and promote the general welfare, for that reason they may be used to destroy the nation and people which they were designed to preserve. THE FALLACY IS HERE. It is assumed that because alcohol may be manufactured and sold for som; purposes, it follows that it therefore must be permitted for 40 Manufacture and Sale of all. This is not so. Some things are beneficial in every form and way in which they are appropriated to the service of mankind. Other things have uses for which they are necessary and beneficial, and again their appropriation may be disastrous to society; and Mhen they become so, society, through the law, must protect itself. All laws restrict personal liberty when that much-abused term is used in the sense of license. I do not think it important to call further attention to the ipse dixit of theorists whose conclusions have been contradicted by experience and rejected by good sense wherever mankind have existed under the dominion of law. But the constitutionality of pro- hibitory or restrictive laws in the States has been settled by all the courts of the country ; and I have previously endeavored to show that the right to license one man is the right to restrict all others, and im- plies the right to totally restrict when the public good requires. The general proposition is that the States have tnis power ; that it should be extended and exercised over the whole country in the only way in which it effectually can be, by an amendment of the Constitution of the country giving concurrent power to the nation to make the pro- hibition general and efficient whenever isolated States shall fail. I desire to cite a few sentences from the opinions of THE SUPREME COURT of this country in the celebrated license cases. These cases were argued by Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, B. F. Hallett, John P. Hale, and others, in favor of the licensees ; and by very able counsel on the other side. I believe that the opinions are considered by the profession as very able and well considered. The court was unanimous, and most of the judges delivered separate, though according opinions. The cases are reported in 5 Howard, 504-633. Judge Taney says, page 576 : The laws of Congress regulating foreign commerce authorize the importation of spirits, distilled liquors, and brandy, in casks or vessels not containing less than a certain quantity specined in the laws upon this subject. Now if the State laws in ques- tion come in collision with those acts of Congress, and prevented or obstructed the importation or sale of these articles by the importer in the original cask or vessel in which they were imported, it would be the duty of this court to declare them void. On page 577 : If any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens and calculated to produce idleness, vice, and debauchery, 1 see nothing in the C(^sti- tution of the United States to prevent it from regulating and restraining the trainc or from prohibiting it altogether if it thinks proper. On page 579 : It appears to me to be very cUar that the mere g^rant o/ boiver to the General ernment can not upon any just principles of construction be construed to he an absolute prohibition to the exercise o/ any power over the same subject by the States, I call attention to the language in italics as also bearing upcjn the nature of the concurrent and co-operative jurisdiction which this amendment proposes to give, both to the States and the nation, over the subject-matter of distilled liquors. Judge McLean, on pages 588 and following, says : The license laws of Massachusetts are essentially police /aws ; enactments similar in principle are comm.on to all the States. A great moral refo-Tn which enlisted the judg- ments and excited the sympathies of the public has given notoriety to this course of egislation and extended it lately beyond its former limit The acknowledged polici Intoxicating Liquors. 41 power of a State extends often to the destruction of property. A nuisance may abolished. Everything prejudicial to the health or morals of a city may be removed; merchandise from a port where a contagious disease prevails being liable to communicate the disease, may be excluded, and in extreme cases may be thrown into the sea. It is a power essential to self-preservation, and exists necessarily in every organized community. It is indeed a law of nature, and is possessed by man in his individual capacity. Me may resist that which does him harm, whether he be assailed by an assassin or approached by poison; audit is tlie settled construction of every regulation of commerce that under the sanction of its general laws no person can introduce into a community malignant diseases or any thing which contaminates its morals or endangers its safety. Individuals in the enjoyment of their Own rights must be careful not to injure the rights of others. From the explosive nature of gunpowder, a cit}^ may exclude it. * * * These are acts of self-preservation. * ^ the progress of population, of wealth, and civilization, new and vicious indulgences sj>ring which requh'e restraints which can only be imposed by legislative />ower. Judge Woodbury says, page 630 : After articles have come within the territorial limits of States, whether on land or wa- ter, the destruction itself of what constitutes disease and death, and the longer continu- ance of such articles, or the terms and conditions of their continuance, when conflicting with their legitimate police, or with their power over internal commerce, or with their right of taxation over all persons and property within their jurisdiction, seems one of the first principles of State sovereignty and indispensable to public safety. It would be easy, sir, to multiply authority from all the courts of the country, which assert, I think, with unvarying uniformity, the power of the State to control absolutely the use of alcohol, subject only to the protection given it by the Constitution of the United States, the extent to which it shall be exerted being purely a matter of expediency, while against this power and its exercise can be found nothing but the speculations of writers whose theories are either untenable or inappli- cable to this or perhaps any other state of society which can arise un- til the millennium shall abolish all law by the absolute extirpation of evil from among men. IN RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION, SIR, I only wish further to say that by the indulgence of the House I have thus at great, but I hope not at unnecessary length endeavored to call the attention of Congress and of the country to the vast and increas- ing public evils which exist in the land, whose origin lies in the excess- ive use of that most powerful poison known as alcohol. I have not dealt in specific instances, but in masses of fact as they have been gath- ered and accumulated here and there by the statistician, the census- taker, the official investigator, and mest of all by that, noble profession which comprises so many of the ablest and best of men — a profession whose theory is the gospel of man’s physical and mental nature, and whose practice is philanthropy applied to the details of all human woe — the medical profession, which by its researches in the chemical world and its incessant and protracted pursuit of the recondite origin of dis- ease and of the philosophy of suffering and despair, as well as of ths sources of vigor and hope and happiness to mankind, has placed civil- ization under the largest debt that is due to any of the learned orders of society ; that profession, sir, has not failed to stamp upon alcohol the mark of Cain among poisons. It is the murderer of men. That noble profession has brought it to the doors of the Capitol, and charged it with the wholesale death ot our people. They assail it as the pes- tilence which walketh in ihe darkness and which wasteth in the noon- day — as the parent of every crime, as the cup of misery ever full ; the orolific source of ignorance, poverty, squalor, idiocy, insanity in all its 4 ? l^civMfacture and bale ot dreadful forms, personal ruin, social destruction, national ruin — the prune agency of hell on the earth. And with them com.e all classes and conditions of men. These are not witnesses whose testimony can be denied or gainsaid. I will not speak of woman in rags and dishev- eled hair, with her wan cheek and hollow voice, nor of her children shivering on the comers of the street, starving within the shadow of churches built to the Most High with the price of their blood. It is not fitting here to be sentimental, nor would I attempt it if permitted. The gravity of the occasion has passed beyond all necessity of resort to touching tales and strokes of pathetic imagery. The evil is before us. Its infinite extent must be admitted. There is nothing to be con- sidered but the remedy and its application. I have endeavored to pre- sent one that seems to me to have been born of hope. This measure is not proposed by any party that now exists. I trust that it will encounter opposition from no party whatever. It has been prepared with the knowledge of scarcely any one. I am alone respon- sible for it. It is not the project of “ temperance men,” as they are sometimes called, whether derisively or otherwise. On the contrary, mistaking its true character and misconceiving its far-reaching conse- fiuences, and its avoidance of conflict with the interests and passions of the present time, “ temperance men ” have complained that it is an evasion of the conflict. I fear that fifteen years of agitation will con- vince such of us as may then be alive that this objection does not rec- ognize the great power of existing forces which must be overcome. It should be remembered that no battle is won until the enemy is driv- en from his position. He is now ixtrenched in the Constitution of this country. The battle may go on as it has gone on for fifty years, '.\’ith- out one single blow being struck at the manufacture of alcohol. And as hitherto “ men may come and men may go ” and thousands may continue to fall on either side, yet the battle remain forever undecided, because the struggle, however violent, is renewed forever by the recruits of successive generations. There is no concentration of forces upon the main position. Effort is lost because misdirected. Muck of it, to be sure, is not wholly lost. Moral suasion — that is, argument and pre- cept and exhortation, from the pulpit, the rostrum, the press, and pri- vate admonition — fnolds public opinion and accomplislres wonders for individual men, but it lacks the powerful re-inforcement of national law. That it can never get until it asks for and demands it. This rev- olution in national law can be wrought only by years of agitation and effort. Local sentiment must be awakened almost everywhere ; in at least two-thirds of the country existing opinion must be reversed be- fore the Constitution of the country in this respect can be changed. Meanwhile each State retains all the power it now has over both fer- mented and distilled liquors, and as soon as this measure has been rat- ified there would be conferred upon the States largely increised con- trol over both. Discussion and effort would demand fhe attention of the iiation as such, and a concentration of the whole army upon a com- prehensive plan of battle to carry the cifadel would be substituted for isolated and sporadic warfare. And when the battle is once gained it is won for all time. This form of effort is infinitely the best way in which to accomplish local reform. The facts and arguments upon tvhu h the temperance reform is based are the same, whether urgea to Intoxicating Liquors. 41 Influence the action of the individual, the local opinion, or Legislature of a single State, or the nation at large; and the modification of tlie national Constitution involves that universal local effort and the crea- tion of that public sentiment everywhere which will result in the enact- ment and enforcement of prohibitory State and territorial laws. Temperance men object because the first clause of this amendment if adopted does not become operative until 1900. They fear that they will die without the sight. So they may, but how can they object antil they have tried to sec whether they can obtain even this? Con- sider the past. Be admonished by history. Do not lose everything by attempting the impracticable. Remember that this is an effort to procure the enactment of a law, which must carry the heads and hearts of conservative jurists, of dignified and unconvinced legislators, and poptelar vote. This is a different thing from enthusing a popular assembly under the magnetism of Mr. Gough. Do not forget either that it is to be the act of the natio 7 i; that, however it may be as between God and alcohol, however it may be between the maker of alcohol and the higher law, yet we as a iiation have assured the maker and dealer in liquor that he might vest his capital in permanent forms, that he might manufacture this article for all purposes whatever, and that we would protect him in the enjoyment of his capital and the production of his still. We take from his industry yearly vast sums ij. the way of taxation for the support of the Government. True, this legalized destruction of national wealth infinitely transcends the advantage of the tax, but nevertheless we have legalized the traffic for a century. Now have we as a nation any right at once to destroy his industry and turn the distiller and his family upon the street to starve ? Is he not entitled to reasonable notice of the change in the national policy, that he may gradually divert his capital and turn his business capacity in some other direction and train his sons in some other employment ? And if this view does not strike you with force, then consider the further fact that there are more than $500,000,000, probably $1,000,000,000, vested in this traffic to-day in the United States, and that such an interest will for many years to come have sufficient power to defeat any measure which destroys it at once. But liquor makers and sellers are me’d. Great numbers o' them are respectable and honest men. I have no sympathy with the whole- sale denunciation of them as a criminal class. Many of them recog- nize the dreadful consequences which flow from the business in which they are '•-g-igod ■ yet it is a lawful business; circumstances over which often they have no control have identified them with it just as ethers have found their way into the pulpit, into Congress, or into other avocations of life. It is no more just to denounce them as cold- hearted villains, intent upon nothing but the destruction of mankind, than it is to assail the personal integrity of every man who ever owned a slave. If approached in a proper spirit with a proposed reform in which they should be recognized as men and invited and urged upon considerations which must influence any humane being, and which would give them a chance to save themselves and their families, I be- lieve that the actual co-operation of many liquor makers and sellers could be secured. 44 Manufacture and Sale of Since the introduction of this resolution it has been attacked as % palpable effort to curry favor with the prohibitory sentiment of the country, and at the same time avoid offense to the “ beer element.” It is no such thing. This measure is not of that radical nature to com- mand the vehement approbation of what are known as prohibitory men, though it must and I trust will command increasingly their ap- proval. _ But the question of the manufacture and use of "fermented liquors is left where it now is, with the /States, because it is medlcall.y still an open question whether the restricted use of such liquors is not beneficial to the people, although their use is fast becoming excessive and an abuse. But there is - very slight difference of opinion as to the destructive tendency of distilled liquors as administered by the “ laity,” and all s.gree that the great mass of the evils of intemperance arise from their manufacture and use as a beverage. And if the ban of the law can be placed upon the manufacture and use of distilled alcoholic liquors as a beverage, the minor abuses resulting from fermented liquors can well be left wholly to the restraining powers of the States, as en- larged by the second clause of the proposed amendment. \Vliile by no means of a callous organization, I certainly do not complain of criticism which attacks my loersonal motives, some of which has been brought to my attention. Those motives are not revelant to the measure itself. And whatever may be said by others, I am consoled by the consciousness that this step is taken after long refiection, that my motives are satisfactory to m^ self, and that they will be judged by the only tribunal to whom they can be sorely known and whose approvjd is of much consequence. The opposition of the consumer to any national measure which should at once deprive him of his beverage, would be found to be very serious and I fear decisive. But there is no class of men who have a stronger desire to see their children saved from the chains which hold them to their own dreadful doom, than the drunkards of this country. This measure has been sneered at as a proposed reform — for posterity. So it is; and as such it ought and I think will enlist the Overwhelming force of parental feeling in its favor whenever the public mind has studied its peculiar features and elements of strength. I think that existing parties may well hesitate to oppose this measure. The cause it represents is one of moral reform, and it must be re-inforced by legislation. In due time it wiU be. If neither of the great parties now dividing the country see fit to antagonize it, this measure will force its way without being made the source and object of political strife. Becoming operative so long in the future, it ought not to provoke the opposition of any political organization, and nil men should be able to consider this subject calmly and to decide it upon its merits. If it is a measure eidisting the moral convictions and humane sentiments of the people, and especially of that nucleus of able, conscientious, and aggressive men who are ultimately the ruling power in every progressive nation, although for years thcj- way struggle on fighting and dying under the banner of defeat, it will be well for all parties that would live to beware how tb ey oppose this proposition. At least let it have fair consideration by the House and the country, for it is a subject which will have eon- Intoxicating Liquors. 45 eidoration. It is not a ghost, nor mil it '^down.” _ I ask for the considerate attention of all men no-w, for the time is comina when it will be forced upon them. The political exigency which absorbs and distracts the country will pass away, but this evil will not pass away. Its extirpation will be imperiously demanded long after the q^uestion of the succession to the Presidency shall have been settled whether by peace or by war. Public men will be destroyed who touch it, but the cause will survive. Stronger arms will up- hold and advance the banner until victory floats its ample folds; and the Constitution of the country shall yet become the pledge of sobriety and temperance among the people the ally of virtue, and not the charter of this great source of ignorance, misery and srime. COMMISSION OF ENQUIEY. The following is the BUI r^erred to on the 21st page of this pamplM, which, having passed the Senate of the United States, is bfore the Mouse of Bepresen- tativesfor consideration : •a bill to provide for the appointment of commissioners on the subject op th* ALCOHOLIC AND FERMENTED-LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND MANUFACTURE. ** it euacied, etc. : Th?it for the purpose of obtaining information which may servo as a guide to the system ot legislation best fitted for the District of Columbia, the several Territories of the United States, and other places subject to the legislation of Congress in reference to the question of revenue from the manufacture and sale of alcoholic and fermented liquo’-s, and the effect of the use of such liquors upon the morals and weUaro of the people of such District, Territories, and places, there shall be appointed by th« President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a commission of five per- sons neither of whom shall be the holder of any office of profit or trust in the General or a State Government, and all of whom shall not be advocates of prohibitory legislation or total abstinence in relation to alcoholic or fermented liquors. The said commissioners shall be selected solely witih reference to peisonal fitness and capacity for an honest, im- partial, and thorough investigation, and shall hold office until their duties shall be accom- plished, but not to exceed one year. It shall be their duty to investigate the alcoholic and fermented liquor traffic and manufacture, having special reference to revenue and tax- ation, distinguishing as far as possible, in the conclusions they arrive at between the fects produced by the use of distilled or spirituous liquors and the use of fermented or malt liquors, in their economic, criminal, moral, and scientific aspects, in connection with pauperism, crime, social vice, the public health, and general welfare of the people ; and also enquire and take testimony as to the practical results of license and restrictive legis- lation for the prevention of intemperance in the several States, and the effect produced by such legislation upon the consumption of distilled or spirituous liquors and fermented ormalt liquors ; also to ascertain whether the evils of drunkenness have been increased or decreased and whether public morals have been improved thereby. It shall also be the duty of said commissioners to gather information and take ^ testimony as to whether the evil of drunkenness exists to the same extent, or more so in other civilized countries, and whether those foreign nations that are considered the most temperate in the use ol stimulants are do through prohibitory laws ; and also to what degree prohibitory legisla- tion has affected the consumption and manufacture of malt and spirituous liquors in thii country. “ Sec. 2. That the said commissioners shall serve without salary, shall be authorized to employ a secretary at a reasonable compensation, not to exceed $2,000 per annum, which, with the necessary expenses incidental to said investigation, in all not exceeding $10000, of both the secretary and commissioners, shall be paid out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated, upon vouchers to be approved by the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury It shall be the further duty of said commissioners to report the result of their ioTOstigation and the expenses attending the same, to the President, to be by him transmitted Congress." 4 , 4 . ■ ' .-i .Jte7 ii*; 2v No. 187. PROHIBITION IN MAINE. BY HON. NELSON DINGLEY, JR. The recent amendments of the Maine law prohibiting dram- shops, so as to increase the efficiency of its enforcement, are calling forth a shower of assaults on prohibition. So interested in our prohibition policy has become the whole country, that not only many of the Boston papers, but even the New York Times Tribune, have joined in the cry that “prohibition is a failure in Maine.” In response to inquiries from all parts of the country, as to the truth of these allegations, we put on rec- ord ' he folaowing significant facts : I The fact that our prohibitory system has stood in our statutes since 1851 — with the exception of two years (1856 and 1857) when license was tried in its place — and has steadily in- creased in popularity until no party dares to go before the people on the issue of its repeal, is conclusive evidence that the great body of the people of Maine, who have had the best opportunity to judge of its practical workings, believe that it is the most effi- cient legal policy ever devised as a supplement of moral agencies in dealing with the evils arising from the use and sale of intox- icating liquors. No one expects that it can take the place of moral agencies, but that it is simply an adjunct of them — just as laws prohibiting houses of ill-fame and gambling resorts, are adjuncts to moral means in promoting virtue. No one claims that it can entirely extirpate the dram-shop evil, any more than the laws prohibiting and punishing theft or murder can uproot these crimes. All these laws aid in removing temptation and in creating a healthier public sentiment, and make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong. 2. Our prohibitory laws have unquestionably aided materially t fn creating a better public sentiment in the matter of the use of intoxicating liquors than exists in any State which has a license law. Whatever is prohibited by law, either directly or indirectly, is thereby deprived of a certain appearance of respectability which attaches to everything that is under legal protection. Mr. Raper, the distinguished Englishman, who spent some time in Maine and other parts of this country a few years ago, stated in a public speech that he did not believe there was in the whole civilized world a State of like population 2 PROHIBmON IN MAINE. SO free as ours from the evils of intemperance, or one possessed of so healthy a public sentiment in the matter of the use of liquors as a beverage. f 3. Prohibition has stopped effectually the manufacture of dis- *>illed and fermented liquors in Maine. In 1830, when our popu- lation was less than two-thirds of what it is to-day, there were thirteen distilleries in this State, which manufactured over two gallons of rum to each inhabitant, nearly all of which was con- sumed in the State. To-day there is not a single distillery or brewery in Maine. t- 4. Prohibition has well-nigh stopped the traffic in intoxicating liquors in the rural districts of Maine. Forty-five years ago all the country taverns had open bars, and all the country stores sold intoxicating liquors as freely as molasses or calico. For example, the town of Durham, with less than 1,500 inhabitants, had in 1832 seven licensed grog-shops. To-day there is not a drop of liquor sold in town. Readfield had in 1832 seven open bars, at which were sold 2,300 gallons of spirits annually. Now none is sold to be used as a beverage. Minot (then including Auburn), with a population of 2,903 in 1833, had thirteen grog- shops. Now these towns, with a population of 10,000, have not a single place where liquor is known to be sold as a beverage. a 5. Fifty years ago, even in our rural districts, nearly every male drank liquor. Liquors were kept in most of the houses to treat callers. Nobody thought of having company, or a raising, without a supply of ardent spirits. At musters and other public gatherings, drunkenness and drunken affrays were common. Now, three-fourths of the males in the rural dis- tricts are total abstinents, and the practice of keeping liquors in houses to treat callers has practically ceased. It would be considered an unpardonable offense to furnish spirits at a pub- lic meeting. At large public gatherings, cases of intoxication are surprisingly few, and drunken altercations rare. This im- provement is strikingly shown by statistics. In 1833, Secretary Pond, of the Maine Temperance Association, reported that in the town of Alfred there were fifty-five men and three women accustomed to get beastly drunk ; in Kennebunk, ninety-five notorious drunkards; in Topsham (population 1,564), forty drunkards; in New Gloucester, forty; Fannington, eighty; Wayne, thirty. Recent reports from th*se towns show that the present number of notorious drunkai ds in these and other towns is not one-eighth, and many towns say notone-tenth, of what it was forty years ago. The reports also show a marked improvement in the condition of the people. PROHIBITION IN MAINE. s » 6 . In the cities and larger villages, repre.jenting less than one-fourth of the population of Maine, the improvement is less marked than in the rural districts, although undeniably real, even there. There are three reasons for this less marked im- provement : the greater facilities that vice has to hide itself in crowded populations ; the concentration there of a large foreign population which has come into this State within thirty years ; and the resort to the city of the drinking men, still left in the rural regions, for supplies of liquor. If the cities had simply held their own under these circumstances it would be a great gain. But they have done more than this. As a rule, there are no open dram-shops even here. Occasionally, through the failure to elect both city officials and county sheriffs friendly to prohibition, the law is neglected and open dram-shops appear. That has been the case during the past year in two or three cities whose condition is being quoted to the exclusion of the large part of the State where the law is well enforced. But generally speaking, even in the cities intoxicating liquors are sold only surreptitiously, and are to be found only by those who know the signs and pass-words of the liquor fraternity — and then, mainly in places kept by foreigners. There are few open dram-shops to tempt. In the cities of Lewiston and Auburn, with a population of nearly 30,000, there is not a single open dram-shop, and no hotel has even a secret bar. In the larger cities there are many cases of drunkenness, but a majority of them are of foreigners, who resort to the most desperate expe- dients to obtain a supply of liquor. As confirmed inebriates in the rural districts are ’obliged to resort to the cities to obtain their potations, it frequently happens that the police reports of a city like Portland show nearly all the cases of drunkenness for a populous county. 7. The charge is frequently made that, so far as the cities are concerned, the traffic has been simply driven out of sight. Even if nothing more had been gained, it is something to banish the temptations of the dram-shop where only those seeking them will find them. It is also occasionally alleged that club-rooms, naore dangerous than dram-shops, have taken the place of the latter. After careful inquiry, we can not learn that club-rooms exist outside of a few cities in Maine, and even there, not so extensively as in many cities of similar size in license States. The new amendments to the prohibitory law will reach this attempt to evade its provisions, and soon serve to make drinking clubs scarce. Setting aside the large foreign population in our cities, it is conceded that the improvement in ’he drinking habits PKoniBiTioN nsr maiste. of the remainder is marked. This is especially so nn’th the bone and muscle of the native population. 8. It is difficult to obtain reliable statistics of the extent to which the surreptitious sale of liquors is still carried on in Maine. Some of the enemies of prohibition claim that a million and a quarter dollars’ worth are sold here annually. But allow- ing even this, and we have ^2 per inhabitant now, against .$25 per inhabitant forty years ago, and $16 per inhabitant as the average for the Union to-day. This shows that not more than one-tenth as much liquor, proportionally, is consumed in Maine as there was forty years ago, and not more than one-eighth as much as in the country at large to-day. On this point the revenue collected by the United States from the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in Maine, in comparison with that collected in license States, sheds some light. Prohibitory Maine has about the same population as license New Jersey; yet the liquor tax in the former State is only three cents per inhabitant, while in the latter State it is $2.40, and in the country at large ;^i-83. In reply to the asser- tion that tobacco and opium-eating are taking the place of liq- uor-drinking in Maine, we may mention that the tobacco lax paid by Maine is only seventeen cents per inhabitant, while the average for the country is i$i per inhabitant; and that opium- eating is far less prevalent here than in other Eastern States. 9. While it is undeniable that great temperance progress has been made in Maine with the help of our prohibitory policy, yet no one claims that either the sale or use of intoxicating liquors has been banished from our borders. They have been greatly limited, and the great body of the people recognize our prohibitory laws as essential aids in this good work. But much remains to be done. Experience is showing weak spots in our laws, and from time to time these are being strengthened. The recent amendments will increase the efficiency of the laws, and secure better results. In spite of jeers, in spite of opposition, in spite of declarations that the temperance cause is retrograding instead of advancing, the good work will go on in Maine, and year by year will show new triumphs in the great battle against King Alcohol. Published by the National Temperance Society and Publication House. $1 Reads Street, New Yoric, Price per Thousand. I Date Due T. ■ i? j IM 7 'B?; ! ? Form 335. 45il 8-37.