Alcohol and the state; a discussion of the problem of law as applied to the liquor traffic

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Alcohol and the State.

A DISCUSSION

THE PROBLEM OF LAW

y

AS APPLIED TO THB

LIQUOR TRAFFI C.

BY

ROBERT C. PITMAN, LL.D.,

AMoeiate Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts.

'* We are convinced that if a Statesman, who heartily wished to do the utmost
good to his country, were thoughtfully to inquire which of the topics of the day
deserved the most intense force of his attention, the sure reply — the reply which
would be exacted by full deliberation — would be, that he should study the means
by which this worst o£ plagues can be stayed." — C. Buxton, M.P.

NEW YORK:
National Temperance Society and Publication Honse,

58 READE STREET.
. 1877.

ROBERT C. PITMAN.

1877.

BDWARDO JENKINS,
PRINTER AND STEREOTYPSR,
20 KOBTH WILLIAM ST., H. Y.

PREFACE.

Thomas Carlyle, in a letter written in 1872, after
expressing his wish for the "success, complete and
speedy," of the English " Permissive Bill," and ac-
knowledging the receipt of certain pamphlets relating
to Intemperance, curtly added : " The pamphlets
shall be turned to account, though I myself require
no argument or evidence further on that disgraceful
subject y

I can sympathize with the bluff Scotchman's impa-
tience. There are times when this subject is exceed-
ingly wearisome to me, and nothing but a positive
sense of duty can hold me to its contemplation. I
can easily excuse those who are conscious of having
well-grounded opinions, formed upon evidence, from
reading what I have to say in this volume.

But if there are any who have been heretofore
prone to dismiss the whole subject as a vulgar one, I
beg them to ponder the rebuke given by Dr. Chan-
ning, more than a generation ago, to a similar moral
indifference, substituting intemperance for slavery,
and inebriate for slave :

"There are not a few persons who, from vulgar modes of
thinking, can not be interested in this subject. Because the slave
is a degraded being, they think slavery a low topic, and wonder
how it can excite the attention and sympathy of those who can
discuss or feel for anything else. Now the truth is that slavery,

(5)

6 Preface.

regarded only in a philosophical light, is a theme worthy of the
highest minds. It involves the gravest questions about human
nature and society. It carries us into the problems which have

exercised for ages the highest understandings I venture

to say there is no subject now agitated by the community which
can compare in philosophical dignity with slavery ; and yet to
multitudes the question falls under the same contempt with the
slave himself. To many, a writer seems to lower himself who
touches it. The falsely refined, who want intellectual force to
grasp it, pronounce it unworthy of their notice."

I offer this volume as my contribution to the dis-
cussion of an interesting problem connected with the
Temperance reform. I venture to hope that some
chapters may have value for the student of social
science who may not accept my conclusions. I at-
tach special importance to X\\q, facts herein set forth,
and have taken much care to verify them. No one
can have a stronger objection than I have to unrelia-
ble statistics, and to loose and exaggerated state-
ments. It has been my constant aim, from taste,
policy, and principle, to exclude all such.

Throughout this essay my purpose has been to
keep close to the subject indicated by the title, to
treat it in a calm and argumentative rather than in
a rhetorical style, and to present the policy of Pro-
hibition as not a mere corollary from personal absti-
n nee, but as based upon the broadest grounds of
statesmanship.

Newton, Mass., Sept, ist., 1877.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.
ALCOHOL vs. THE STATE.

CHAPTER I.
Preliminary, - - - - - - - -n

CHAPTER n.
Waste, ........ ..i6

CHAPTER HI.
Destruction of Home, ------ 34

CHM'TER IV.
The Parent of Pauperis\i, - - - - - 29

CHAPTER V.

Injury to Public Health, ----- 34

(7)

\

8 Contents.

CHAPTER VI.
The Chief Occasion of Crime, - - - - 44

CHAPTER Vn.
Vitiates Human Stock, ------ 55

CHAPTER Vni.

The Universal Ally of Evil — The Universal
Antagonist of Good, ------ 63

CHAPTER IX.
Is THERE A Set-off of Benefits? - - - - 70

CHAPTER X.
A Case for Intervention, ----- 78

PART SECOND.
THE STATE vs, ALCOHOL.

CHAPTER XI.
The Province of Law, ------ 8$

CHAPTER XII.
Extent of Legislative Power, - - - - 100

Contents. 9

CHAPTER XIII.
Liberty and Government, - - - - - no

CHAPTER XIV.
Law a Necessity, -*- - - - - -130

CHAPTER XV.
License Laws, --------149

CHAPTER XVI.
The Necessary Failure of License, - - - 183

CHAPTER XVII.
Half-way Measures, - - - - - - 193

CHAPTER XVIII.
The Gothenburg System, ----- 214

CHAPTER XIX.
The Milder Alcoholics, ----- 250

CHAPTER XX.
The History of Prohibition, - - - - 287

CHAPTER XXI.
Prohibition a Success, ------ 306

CHAPTER XXII.
Maine a Crucial Test, ------ 350

jQ Contents.

CHAPTER XXIII.

-• - - - 377
Secret Drinking, - - -

CHAPTER XXIV.
Law as a Teacher, - - - " " " ' '^ ^

CHAPTER XXV.

----- 395
Enforcement, - - -

CHAPTER XXVI.

_ - - - 4.01;
The Outlook, - - - - -^ ^

BOOK I.

ALCOHOL z's. THE STATE

CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY.

In entering upon the discussion of the Prob-
lem of the Liquor Traffic, we naturally consider
what the traffic does to us before inquiring
what we shall do with it. The investigation of
a disease precedes and then determines the
nature and strength of the remedies. This is
the logical, and we believe it will be found to
have been the chronological, order of thought
with those who have been most earnest practi-
cal students of the relation of legislation to this
traffic.

By the liquor traffic, of course we mean the
common sale of alcoholic liquors as a beverage.
It is self-evident that the intemperance of the
country is mainly due to this traffic. We are,
then, to inquire what are the burdens intemper-
ance lays upon us, and then whether the traffic
has any benefits to show by way of offeet.

To many it will seem an entirely needless
task to set forth the evils which we suffer from
this cause. Conceded by so many eminent
persons of every school of thought, and empha-
sized by observers from every point of view,

(II)

12 Alcohol vs, the State,

they might with propriety be assumed at the
outset as the basis of any argument. We meet
such statements as follow everywhere.

Charles Buxton, M.P., the English brewer,
declares that if we "add together all the miser-
ies generated in our times by war, famine, and
pestilence, the three great scourges of man-
kind, they do not exceed those that spring from
this one calamity."

Richard Cobden, years ago, put on record
his testimony that ** Every day's experience
tends more and more to confirm me in my
opinion that the temperance cause lies at the
foundation of all social and political ' reform ; "
while John Bright, his compeer, calls the
** love of strong drink the greatest obstacle to
the diffusion of education amongst the masses
of the people."

Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary under the
Gladstone ministry, confessed that intemper-
ance was " not only a great evil, but the great-
est of all evils with which social reformers had
to contend."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent
visitation charge, gives this solemn warning:
" There is one dreadful evil overspreading the
whole land, which makes havoc of our working-
men — the evil of intemperance ; . . . un-
less you make distinct and positive efforts

Prelim tnary, 1 3

against it, you will be neglecting an evil which
is eating out the very heart of so ic ty, destroy-
ing domestic life among our working classes,
and perhaps doing greater injury than any
other cause that could be named in this age."

Dr. Temple, the Bishop of Exeter, lately
said: *' Of all the preventable evils in the world,
intemperance is, perhaps, the greatest." .

The London Times, as the organ of the
general sentiment of observing men, tersely
sums up the matter thus : '* The use of strong
drink produces more idleness, crime, want, and
misery than all other causes put together."

Nor have such utterances been . less pro-
nounced in our own country.

The common sentiment as to the vice of in-
temperance was well expressed in the report
made to the Legislature of Massachusetts by
the friends of a license law in 1866, when they
styled it ''that ulcer of the civilization of the
Teutonic races." And recently, in vetoing the
Local Option Bill, Governor Dix, of New York,
used this emphatic language : " Intemperance
is the undoubted cause of four-fifths of all the
crime, pauperism, and domestic misery of the
State." So Governor Gaston, in his message
to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1875,
recommending the repeal of the " prohibitory
law," says ''that intemperance has been the

14 Alcohol vs. the State.

most prolific source of poverty, wretchedness,
and crime ; that it has filled the State and
the country with its destructive influences ; and
that its progress everywhere heralds only mis-
fortune, misery, and degradation."

But to admit a truth is one thing, and to
realize it is another. I have for years had a
growing conviction that these general and
sweeping statements fail to impress not only
the public, but some of the most thoughtful
minds. I have often been reminded of the
aphorism of Coleridge : " Truths, of all others
the most awful and interesting, are too often
considered as so true that they lose all the
power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormi-
tory of the soul, side by side with the most de-
spised and exploded errors." A careful, though
somewhat brief, survey of some of the deadlier
fruits of the liquor traffic can not fail to make
upon some minds a salutary impression. But
it is the reason and not the imagination or the
emotions that we desire to impress ; and we
shall therefore rely only on sober testimony and
facts ; the figures we shall use will be those of
statistics, and not of speech.

Nor shall we cover any more ground than
clearly pertains to the discussion we have under-
taken. For, although as a progressive civiliza-
tion brings us all together more closely in various

\ Preliminary, 15

ways, and a deeper insight into sociology shows
us the numberless ways in which the interest
of each depends on all, and that of all on each,
so that we realize as never before that '' we are
one body and members one of another" — still it
remains true that we may draw a rough, prac-
tical line between the individual and the social
suffering that flows from this vice. And so we
shall say nothing here of the burdens of the
heart; nothing here of sorrows or losses that
seem to touch the individual and not the com-
munity. The field of misery is so large that
we are abundantly content with this limitation.

Let us, then, see what burdens the drinking
habit (for this more exactly than intemperance
describes the evil) imposes upon society.

CHAPTER II.

WASTE.

A PART of the waste of material wealth which
the drinking of intoxicants causes us, is not dif-
ficult of approximate estimation.

DIRECT COST.

Dr. Edward Young, the Chief of the Bureau
of Statistics in the Treasury Department, esti-
mates the sales of liquors in the United States
during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1871, at
six hundred millions of dollars, distributed as
follows :

Whisky, . . . 60,000,000 gallons at $6, retail, $360,000,000
Imported Spirits, 2,500,000 " " 10, " 25,000,000

" Wines, 10,700,000 " " 5, " 53,500,000

Ale, Beer & Porter, 6,500,000 bbls., " 20, " 130,000,000

Native Brandies, Wines, and Cordials, estimated at 31,500,000

* $600,000,000

* As this is partly estimate, it may increase confidence in its
reliableness to add what Mr. Young says in the letter containing
the above calculation. After alluding to the "gross exaggera-
tions" of estimates made by others, based "on the receipts of
internal revenue from the sales of merchandise, including liquors,
by retail liquor dealers, and not of liquors alone," he writes :
" Temperance, in common with almost every good work, has suf-
fered from the intemperate zeal of its advocates, and from no cause
to a greater extent, perhaps, than from the exaggerated statement
of alleged facts."
(16)

Waste. 1 7

A small percentage of this vast sum may-
have been profitably used in the arts and in
medicine, but I fear, however liberal an allow-
ance is made for such use, the increase in sales
since 1871 greatly overbalances it; ^ so that the
total sum given above must be esteemed an un-
der-estimate of the present annual wasteful con-
sumption. Well may Dr. Young say: "These

figures are sufficiently startling The

minds of few persons can comprehend this vast
sum." Some assistance in gaining an impres-
sion of it may be derived from a comparison
with the value of some useful products of uni-
versal need.

The United States census for 1870 gives
these annual values of manufacturing industries :

Flour and Grist-mill Products, $444,985,143

Molasses and Sugars (raw and refined), . . 119,325,279

Cotton Goods, 177.489,739

Woolen " 155405.358

Boots and Shoes, 146,704,655

Or, to vary the comparison, it appears by the
same census that the aggregate of wages paid

* Dr. Hargreaves, basing his estimate on the amount of liquors
paying tax, as shown by the Reports of Internal Revenue, and of
Commerce and Navigation, makes the cost to the consumer, in
1872, to be $735,720,048. ("Our Wasted Resources," p. 51).
I may remark that this book has been published since this chap-
ter was written, and the reader who desires to pursue this topic
farther, will find abundant information in the voluminous tables
which Dr. H. has industriously compiled.

1 8 Alcohol vs, the State,

by all the manufacturing establishments of the
country for the year preceding, was only
$775,584,343, not thirty per cent, in excess
of our drink bill.

Let us look a moment at what we spend for
enlightening our intellects in comparison with
what we spend for muddling them. The total
income of all the schools of learning, public and
private, from every source, for the year, is given
as $95,402,726, not one-sixth of what we waste
on liquors.

Our whole printing and publishing bill is but
$66,862,447.

All the libraries in the country, both public
and private, are said to contain 45,528,938 vol-
umes ; if we reckon the average value at $2 a
volume, it will give as the worth, $91,057,876 ;
so that we drink up our books in less than two
months.

The total value of church prop>erty in the
United States is put down as $354,483,581.
If it were all to burn up, about six months of
abstinence would replace it.

Once more let us attempt to realize our fig-
ures. The census gives the total aggregate of
State taxation in 1870 (including therein all
Territorial, State, County, and Municipal taxes),
as $280,591,521 ; not one-half the direct tax
the liquor consumers lay upon themselves ;

Waste. 19

while the whole '* Public Indebtedness " (exclu-
sive of the Nadonal debt, of course) is set down
at $868,676,758; which could be swept off by
the direct saving from less than a year and a
half of abstinence.

It may be interesting to compare our expend-
iture with that estimated from data given in the
Government blue-book for the same year by
Mr. William Hoyle, of Manchester, as the con-
sumption in the United Kingdom. Mr. Hoyle
(who has devoted great attention to the econom-
ical aspects of the traffic) makes a detailed state-
ment, aggregating for the year 1870, ;^i 19,082, -
285. This is a somewhat less sum than ours,
but it represents a considerably larger consump-
tion at a much less price per gallon. The cost
for 1873 he reckons at ;^ 140,014, 7 12.* (The
population of the United Kingdom was 31,817,-
108 in 1 87 1, and that of the United States,
38,558,371 in 1870). Who can hesitate to say
with Mr. Hoyle :

" It would be acting a wise and Christian part if we
paid the money to avert the evils ; but to buy them,
and at such a price, is madness that is inexplicable, ex-
cept by taking into account the moral blindness that
inevitably results from a continued course of evil."

In 1872 there were 161,144 persons paying

* His estimate for 1875, from the excise returns, is £^^2,^^1,66^.

20 Alcohol vs. the State.

to the U. S. Government a retailer's license to
sell liquors. If, now, we consider the number
who evaded, the bartenders who served em-
ployers, and the yearly increase, we shall con-
clude that 200,000 is a moderate estimate of
the number who are now solely or mainly em-
ployed in this business. We, then, are adding
to the folly of a waste of six hundred millions
of dollars in poisoning ourselves, another folly
of withdrawing from all useful industry an army
of two hundred thousand persons to incite and
to furnish us facilities so to do.

INDIRECT COST.

Some statisticians estimate the indirect cost
of intoxicating liquors to a people as equal
to the direct. But this is a mere guess.
We have to leave our figures when we pon-
der the pecuniary losses and burdens which
the accidents, the impaired power of production,
the pauperism, the disease and death, and the
crime which result from alcoholic drinks impose
upon us. They are not the less grave because
they elude computation.

We shall have occasion hereafter to introduce,
in connection with certain vital statistics, an
impressive view of the loss of productive capac-
ity which society suffers from the shortened life
of drinkers.

Waste. 21

Let us turn for a moment now to the loss of
production by the Hving. In 1868, OHver
Ames & Sons, who carried on at North Easton,
in Massachusetts, one of the largest shovel
manufactories in the world, wrote as follows :

" We find that the present license law has a very-
bad effect among our employees. We find, on com-
paring 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
eight per cent, more goods than we did in the same
months in 1868, with 400 men. We attribute this
large falling off entirely to the repeal of the prohibit-
ory law and the great increase in the use of intoxicat-
ing liquors among our men in consequence."

Now we do not make use of this statement
in this connection for any purpose of argument
as to the prohibitory law. That is to be
considered hereafter. But mark this : There
is exhibited (taking into account the increase
of men) a falling off of production of fourteen
per cent., stating it roughly. And this differ-
ence does not show the whole difference of
production between an abstinent and a drink-
ing population, but only the difference resulting
from a certain greater prevalence of drinking
consequent upon a change of law. Yet even
if we take this per cent, as the full average
measure of losses to the industries of the coun-

2 2 Alcohol vs. the St^fe.

try, the waste appears immense."^ I am aware
of no reason for considering this an exceptional
instance. Indeed, the Secretary of the Massa-
chusetts Board of State Charities, whose duties
caused him to become famihar with such mat-
ters, says in his Fifth Annual Report (p. 36),
after alluding to the experience of the Messrs.
Ames : " I mention this conspicuous instance,
because I feel authorized to do so ; but were I
to use the names of other employers of labor,
who have testified to the same state of things
in their establishments, it would appear that
the evil is general."

The value of- the labor of the country in
dollars and cents it is not easy to estimate, be-
cause returns are of the value of products, and
the proportion of value in the raw material is
very variable. But if we take the return of
wages paid by manufacturers alone in the
single State of Massachusetts, as given in the
U. S. census of 1870, it reaches the enormous
sum of $118,051,886 a year. If we assume as
a rough approximation that the loss of produc-
tion heretofore stated measures the loss of
wages, we should have a loss of sixteen and a

* The Massachusetts census of 1875 gives the yearly total
products of industry as the enormous sum of $639,877,465 in
that State, alone. This, of course, includes the value of rav;
material used.

Waste. 22,

half millions of wages in this single department
of industry, though the leading one in the
State of Massachusetts, in a year — a sum
nearly four times as large as the whole public
expenditure for educational purposes in that
year.

The workman's drinking not only squanders
the wages of the day, but creates an incapacity
to earn wages for the morrow, and ultimately
deteriorates and depreciates the value of his
working power.

But sad as is this double and self-repeating
waste of resources, it has relations still graver
than those which pertain to Political Economy,
of which we shall speak in the next chapter.

CHAPTER III.

DESTRUCTION OF HOME.

"Whoever handles the subject of Massachusetts industry, is
dealing not only with potentialities of wealth, but of civiliza-
tion, of popular happiness and virtue, beyond the dreams of
philosophers." — F. B. Sanborn.

Political Economy grieves over a loss of
fourteen per cent, in production, and the Messrs.
Ames have a private grief and a personal loss
from the annoyance and injury they suffer from
the disorganization of labor following an increase
of drinking. Bv.t this typical fact has far sadder
significance when we trace its relation to the
home of the laborer. Such an average percent-
age of diminished production means to the in-
dividual laborer whose intemperance causes it,
a variable diminution of earnings, running from
a small percentage to nearly or quite a hundred
of loss.

But how disastrous the loss of even a small
portion of customary wages to the laborer is,
will be impressively shown by the conclusions
drawn by the ** Massachusetts Bureau of Sta-
tistics of Labor," from very carefully collected
and tabulated returns. In their Sixth Annual
(24)

Destrtiction of Home. 25

Report ( 1875 )' they state as among their
estabhshed conclusions (p. 384) :

^^ First. That in the majority of cases, workingmen
in this Commonwealth do not support their families
by their individual earnings alone."

" Third. That fathers rely, or are forced to depend,
upon their children for from one-quarter to one-third
of the entire family earnings.

*' Fourth. That children under fifteen years of age
supply, by their labor, from one-eighth to one-sixth
of the total family earnings.

" Fifth. That more than one-half of the families
save money ; less than one-tenth are in debt, and the
remainder make both ends meet.

'^ Sixth. That without children's assistance, other
things remaining equal, the majority of families would
be in poverty or debt.**

" Ninth. That the average saving is about three per
cent, of the earnings."

The report of the same bureau for 1876 con-
tains tabulated returns from about 50,000 work-
ingmen, obtained in connection with the de-
cennial State census of 1875. From these it
appears "that the average annual income de-
rived from usual daily wages, other earnings,
earnings of wife and children, and garden-crops,
was $534.99. The average annual cost of liv-
ing was $488.96. This leaves a possible sav-
ing of $46.03 yearly, or 8 per cent." The
Report goes on to say: ** The returns from

26 Alcohol vs, the State,

1875 were entirely from tnarried men having
families dependent upon them, while the re-
turns of 1876 are, in a great many instances,
from single men. This fact may account, in
part, for the increase in percentage of possible
surplus or saving " (p. 342).

The average saving possible, then, to the
home which avails itself of the labor of wife and
child, is somewhere between three and eight
per cent., perhaps we ought to say nearer the
latter than the former. I suppose no one will
doubt that Massachusetts will compare favor-
ably in this respect with her sister States.*
Accepting, then, these results as approximative-
ly correct as to the condition of the mere '' wage
laborer," we are the better prepared to see how
the loss of an appreciable per cent, of wages or
the gain, becomes a matter of life or death, fig-
uratively, and sometimes literally, in the homes
of these people. It is well to look more closely
than many of us are accustomed to do at the
connection of the industrial prosperity with the
higher life of a community. Wendell Phillips
has said that the civilization of a people often

* Gov. Tilden did hardly more than call public attention to
an accepted truism, when he said in his letter of acceptance of
the Presidential nomination: "Even in prosperous times, the
daily wants of industrious communities press closely upon their
daily earnings. The margin of possible national saving is, at
best, a small per cent, of national earnings."

Destriutio7t of Home. 27

depends on the use made of the surplus dollar.
A related truth is that the home of the laborer
rises or falls as you add a dollar of surplus or a
dollar of debt. And it is to be borne in mind
that the drinker is losing doubly : by a wasteful
expenditure and by diminished earnings.

Let us look into contrasted homes, where the
only variable element is the drinking habit of
the head. The full wages of the temperate
man brings from year to year better food, bet-
ter clothing, and better shelter. Improved san-
itary arrangements tell on the health of father,
wife, and children. The house becomes more
and more a home. The passer-by notices the
vines that cluster about the doorway, and the
little flowers that peep through the windows.
Upon the inside walls the picture speaks of a
dawning taste, and the piano or some simpler
musical instrument, shows that the daughter is
adding a charm and refinement to the family
circle. Books and periodicals show the surplus
dollar. Every influence is elevating. Intro-
duce the element of drinking, and you reverse
the picture. Year by year the physical com-
forts of the house lessen. The tenement must
narrow to the means,* and locate itself in noi-

* A decent home is needed for a decent life. Says Mr. Brace,
in the Report on Juvenile Crime : " The source of juvenile crime
and misery in New York, which is the most formidable, and at

28 Alcohol vs. the State.

some neighborhoods. The wife first pinches
herself in food and clothing, but the time soon
comes when the children, too, must suffer. The
scanty clothing becomes ragged. The church
and the school know the children no longer.*
No flowers of beauty adorn, no sound of music
cheers such a dwelling. The fire goes out
upon the hearth, and the light of hope fades
from the heart. Soon the very form of a family
is broken up, and public charity cares for the
scattered fragments. An American home has
been blotted out. Now, it is not with the private
misery that we are here concerned, but with
the effect upon the State. If the chief interest
of the State is in the character of its citizens,
then no agency is more destructive to its inter-
ests than the dram-shop, because the dram-shop
is the great enemy of the home, and it is the
character of the home which is not only the
test, but the efficient factor in an advancing or
a falling civilization.

the same time the most difficult to remove, is the overcrowding

of our population Overcrowding is the one great

misfortune of New York. Without it we should be the healthiest
large city in the world, and a great proportion of the crimes which
disgrace our civilization be nipped in the bud." — Proceedings of
International Congress at London, 1872, p. 232.

* It is very curious and suggestive to observe in the detailed
report upon the individual homes of hundreds of laborers in the
Statistics of Labor in Massachusetts, to which I have heretofore
alluded, how frequently occurs this sentence : " Family dresses
well, and attends church."

CHAPTER IV.

THE PARENT OF PAUPERISM.

We are now to look a little further into the
hell of intemperance. A very poor man may-
still be a very wise man, a very happy man, and
a very useful man ; but a pauper is, in general,
an object of deserved pity and contempt. He
has lost, or is fast losing, all the characteristic
qualities of industry, independence, and self-
respect essential to manliness. The familiar
line of Homer tells us that

" Whatever day
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away."

But the slave is still a worker. He is self-sup-
porting, at least, and has that title to manhood
left. If the slave has lost half his worth, the
pauper may be said to have lost it all ; nay,
more, so far as the State is concerned, he is
worse than a cipher. Not only does the Com-
monwealth rightly disfranchise him and strike
him from the enrolled militia, but he is a burden
and an element of disgrace and degradation to
the community.

But intemperance is manifestly the chief pro-

(29)

30 Alcohol vs. the State.

ducer of pauperism. I might fill a volume with
the proof. It suffices to look at the official
records and reports of Massachusetts.

The Pauper returns, made annually for a
long time to the Secretary of State, show an
average of about 80 per cent, as due to this
cause in the County of Suffolk (mainly the city
of Boston). Thus, in 1863, the whole number
relieved is stated at 12,248. Of these the num-
ber made dependent by their own intemperance
is given as 6,048 ; and the number so made by
the intemperance of parents and guardians at
3,837 ; making an aggregate of 9,885.

The Third Report of the Board of State
Charities, page 202 (Jan., 1867), declares in-
temperance to be " the chief occasion of pauper-
ism ; " and the Fifth Report says : *' Overseers
of the poor variously estimate the proportion
of crime and pauperism attributable to the vice
of intemperance from one-third in some local-
ities up to nine-tenths in others. This seems
large, but is, doubtless, correct in regard to
some localities, and particularly among the
class of persons receiving temporary relief, the
greater proportion of whom are of foreign birth
or descent."

In the Sixth Annual Report of the Board of
Health (Jan., 1875)^ P^g^ 45' under the head
" Intemperance as a Cause of Pauperism," the

The Parent of Pauperism. 3 1

chairman, Dr. Bowditch, gives the result of
answers received from 282 of the towns and
cities to the two following questions :

** I. What proportion of the inmates of your
almshouses are there in consequence of the
deleterious use of intoxicating^ liquors ? "

'' 2. What proportion of the children in the
house are there in consequence of the drunken-
ness of parents ? "

While it appears that in the country towns
the proportion is quite variable and less than
the general current of statistics would lead one
to expect, which is fairly attributable in part, at
least, to the extent to which both law and pub-
lic opinion has restricted the use and traffic in
liquors, yet we have from the city of Boston,
the headquarters of the traffic, this emphatic
testimony from the Superintendent of the Deer
Island Almshouse and Hospital :

" I would answer the above by saying, to the best
of my knowledge and belief, 90 per cent, to both
questions. Our register shows that full one-third
of the inmates received for the last two years are
here through the direct cause of drunkenness.
Very few inmates (there are exceptions) in this
house but what rum brought them there. Setting
aside the sentenced boys (sent here for truancy, petty
theft, etc.), nine-tenths of the remainder are here
through the influence of the use of intoxicating
liquors by the parents. The great and almost the

32 Alcohol vs. the State.

only cause for so much poverty and distress in the
city can be traced to the use of intoxicating drink
either by the husband or wife, or both."

A startling testimony as to the effect of this
cause in producing the alHed evil and even
nuisance of vagrancy, is given in the answer
from the city of Springfield :

" In addition to circular, I would say that we have
lodged and fed eight thousand and fifty-two persons
that we call ' tramps ; ' and I can seldom find a man
among them who was not reduced to that condition
by intemperance. It is safe to say nine-tenths are
drunkards, though we have not the exact records."

It were easy to accumulate statistics from
other States and countries to the same effect ;
but what is needed is rather a realization of the
facts for which figures stand. Think of what
pauperism is ; count its cost of annual millions
to public and private charity ; and consider how
much of higher culture for the masses, of re-
finement and social elevation this wasted treas-
ure might secure ; see how this evil drags its
victims down to the abysses of disease and
crime, and reflect upon that solemn law of
human solidarity expressly stated by the great
Apostle, by which '' if one member suffer, all
the members suffer with it ; " and that other
law of human descent by which after-genera-

The Parent of Pauperism. '^2>

tlons suffer for the guilty parents,* and say if
you can see the great cause of all this accumu-
lated evil standing revealed before you without
an irresistible impulse to seize the deadliest
weapon for its destruction ?

* The tendency of pauperism to perpetuate itself is so marked
as to have attracted the attention of all observers. Every lawyer
knows the carefulness and pertinacity with which " pauper cases "
are contested, because the municipal authorities know that a
pauper settlement once fixed upon their town is likely to be a
burden for generations. An extraordinaiy instance of this tend-
ency is given by Dr. E. Harris, Registrar of the Board of Health
of New York. A pauper named Margaret lived in Ulster Co.,
some eighty-five years ago. She and two sisters have begotten
generations of paupers and criminals to such an extent that the
total number now known, mainly from Margaret — convicts,
paupers, criminals, beggars, and vagrants, including the living
and dead — is six hundred and twenty-three ! This mother of
criminals cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[Cited in N. A. Review, April, 1875. Art. " Pauperism."]

CHAPTER V.

INJURY TO PUBLIC HEALTH.

" Health is the capital of the laboring man." — Latham.

" In as far as human life is more important than all financial
interests, and even in the financial view, the creative power of
human force is more valuable than all created capital, this
cardinal interest of the people, individually and collectively,
should take precedence of all other provisions in all legisla-
tion. Every law, grant, or privilege from the Legislature
should have this invariable condition : That human health,
strength, or comfort should, in no manner or degree, be im-
paired or vitiated thereby." — Dr. Edward Jarvis.

That the use of intoxicating liquors to such
an extent as to produce drunkenness is a cause
of disease and death, is too obvious and univer-
sally admitted to allow of argument. Of
course, if it shortens life it renders health less
perfect while life lasts. But perhaps few who
assent to these general propositions have an
adequate idea of the aggregate loss of vitality
from this cause. We have now at hand in-
structive observations in this matter, taken by
competent persons not in the interest of any
theory, but of business and to regulate the
operations of Life Insurance Companies.

In the Twenty-third Registration Report of

(34)

Injury to Ptcblic Health. 35

Massachusetts (pages 61, et seq.) will be found
instructive tables, selected and digested by Dr.
Edward Jarvis, from the result of the investiga-
tions of Mr. Nelson, Actuary of the Medical,
Invalid, and General Life Insurance Company
of London. It is necessary to premise, in order
to appreciate the full force of the tables, that
under the designation ''General Population"
are of course included both the temperate and
the intemperate ; and that the latter designation
includes '' only such as were decidedly addicted
to drinking habits, and not merely occasional
drinkers or free livers."

The same general result is displayed in
several ways, thus :

RATE PER CENT. OF ANNUAL MORTALITY.

Among Beer Drinkers, 4»597

Spirit Drinkers, 5.995

Mixed Drinkers, 6,194

General Population :

Males, 2,316

Females, 2,143

COMPARATIVE DEATH RATE AT DIFFERENT AGES.

If the death rate of the general population be
constantly represented by ro, for purposes of
comparison, then the death rate among the in-
temperate between the ages of 15 and 20 would
be represented by 18; between 20 and 30, by

2,6 Alcohol vs. the State.

51 ; between 30 and 40, by 42 ; between 40 and
50, by 41 ; between 50 and 60, by 29, and
so on.

SURVIVAL AT SUCCESSIVE AGES.

If we take 100,000 intemperate persons and
100,000 of the general population, starting at
the age of twenty years, we shall find there will
be living at successive periods as follows :

lGE.

INTEMPERATE.

GENERAL POPULATION. =♦

25

81,975

95,712

30

64,114

91,577

35

50,746

86,830

40

39*671

82,082

50

21,938 ,

70,666

60

11,568

56,355

70

5,076

35.220

80

807

13,169

These tables preach their own sermon.

AS TO " CAREFUL DRINKERS."

Beyond these, which deal with the results of
acknowledged intemperance, the limited and
yet valuable experience 'of a few English Life
Insurance Companies who have a separate
section for total abstainers, while they refuse all
who are more than ''careful drinkers," shows
that any use of such liquors as a beverage tends

* I have given only the males. Dr. Jarvis adds the females,
but the general result is substantially the same.

Injury to Public Health. 37

to shorten life. I give a single illustration. In
a paper read by E. Vivian, M.A., on " Vital
Statistics," before the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, at its annual meet-
ing in 1875, he exhibited the following as the
result of statistics kept by the '' United King-
dom and General Provident Institution " of two
classes of persons insured — one total abstainers
and the other not :

RATE OF MORTALITY DURING THE LAST NINE YEARS, ENDING
30TH DECEMBER, 1 874.

In the Total Abstinence Section :

Expected deaths, .... 549
Actual deaths, . . . . 411

Difference, . . . . 138

Or 25 per cent, below the average.

In the General Section ;

Expected deaths, .... 2,002
Actual deaths, .... 1,977

Difference, . . , . 25

Or one per cent, below the average.

It gives the impressive emphasis of statistical
demonstration to the late weighty utterance of
Sir H. Thompson, a practitioner of European
reputation, in his letter to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in which he says :

" I have long had the conviction that there is no
greater cause of evil, moral and physical, in this coun-
try than the use of alcoholic beverages. I do not

^S Alcohol vs. the State.

mean by this that extreme indulgence which produces
drunkenness. The habitual use of fermented liquors
to an extent far short of what is necessary to produce
that condition, and such as is quite common in all
ranks of society, injures the body and diminishes the
mental power to an extent wl\ich, I think, few people
are aware of. Such, at all events, is the result of
observation during more than twenty years of pro-
fessional life, devoted to hospital practice, and to
private practice in every rank above it. Thus I have
no hesitation in attributing a very large proportion
of some of the most painful and dangerous maladies
which come under my notice, as well as those which
every medical man has to treat, to the ordinary and
daily use of fermented drink taken in the quantity
which is conventionally deemed moderate."

THE NIDUS OF DISEASE.

When the census gives us the deaths by
drunkenness, it not only frames its reports from
the indulgent verdicts of surviving friends, but
what is more necessary to observe, it leaves
out of view the indirect, but vastly more im-
portant, influence of intemperance as the prep-
aration for, and ally of almost every disease
that flesh is heir to.

In considering the relation of alcohol to the
public health, we are not to confine ourselves
to its effect upon its immediate victims, but to
look at its effect upon the sanitary condition of
community and its tendency to produce a prop-

hijury to Public Health, 39

agating nidus of disease. And here, first, we
notice that the poverty of which drink is the
principal cause, especially in our large cities,
is one of the prime factors of all disease. It is
this poverty, hopeless and degrading, which
compels its victims to huddle together in tene-
ment-houses, where the decencies of life are not
possible, and where the malignant influences
of the external situation are reinforced by the
pestiferous influences within. When to all
these is added the lack of clothing for the
changes of our climate, the insufficient and
unhealthy food, the overwork of mothers, and
the premature work of children, we can see at
once that in such homes as these is the origin
and nutriment of malaria and fever ; and then
it finds for its ready victims the inmates with
systems enfeebled and corrupted by debauch
and vitiated by hereditary alcoholism.

An epidemic does not create these deadly
influences, but only intensifies and so magnifies
them as to render them visible to the popular
eye. At such times alcohol is seen to be the
forerunner of the pestilence. The following
impressive facts are taken from Dr. Lees'
*' Condensed Argument: " *' In the great fever
which raged in London in 1739 — the era of
the gin mania — the drinkers were the first
and greatest victims. Dr. Short observe-s :

40 Alcohol vs. the State.

' The like was the fate of all tipplers, dram-
drinkers, and punch-merchants — scarcely any-
other died of this severe fever.' The Asiatic
cholera, too, singles out the drinker with fatal
precision, where it leaves the sober generally-
unscathed. So well known was this fact, that
the authorities at Philadelphia closed the grog-
shops as a nuisance to the public health. In
Albany, the same year, while only one in 2,500
of the teetotalers were seized, one in sixty of
the general population perished. The Volks-
vriend for August, 1854, states that 'out of
900 persons who died in Rotterdam the pre-
ceding year from cholera, only three were
abstainers.' It is the same at home. In New-
castle, within a period of two months of the
ravages of the cholera, it struck down one
drinker out of fifty-six, of course a far greater
proportion of drunkards ; only one in 625 of
the teetotalers. Throughout the country it
always broke out afresh after a festival occa-
sion, and increased after the Sunday, when the
people consumed a little more drink than usual.
Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans, writes, in
1853, to the Boston Medical Journal :

" ' The yellow fever came down like a storm upon
this devoted city with 1,127 dram-shops, in one of the
four parts into which it has been divided. It is not
the citizen proper, but the foreigners, with mistaken

Injury to Public Health. 41

notions about the climate and country, who are the
chief supporters of these haunts of intemperance.
About five thousand of t he jn died before the epidemic
touched a single citizen or sober mail, so far as I can
get at the fact sy

It is upon the last clause we would pause
a moment. Five thousand drunkards first —
and then ? Why, then, the disease acquiring-
virulence by feeding upon such material, spreads
like a conflagration far and wide, and spares
not the noblest and best. Another impressive
lesson of the law of Human Solidarity. The
same e^eat Lawgiver who has bound us in
ties of duty, has also bound us in ties of in-
terest to the lowest of His children.

THE INTEREST OF THE STATE.

A Government that professed no interest in
the health of its people would deserve neither
the endurance of its subjects nor the respect
of the civilized world. Whatever refinements
speculative philosophers may have taught as
to the sphere of the State in regard to public,
morals, but few have been audacious enough'
to question its duty to care for the public health.
But as sometimes a most impressive view of
the magnitude of an object is obtained from a
survey of its confessedly least and lowest, and
yet most measurable side, it may not be amiss

42 Alcohol vs. the State,

to show the economic interest which the nation
has in the vital force of its citizens.

Dr. William E. Boardman, of Boston, in a
paper on *' The Value of Health to the
State," published in the Sixth Annual Re-
port of the State Board of Health, computes
" the total average loss of working time
by sickness during one year" in Massa-
chusetts as 20.914 years. Dr. Jarvis, the
eminent statistician, in a paper in the Report
of the previous year, by another calculation,
gives the loss per year among the people of the
State between the '' working ages " (20 to 70)
as 24.553 years. Dr. Boardman, upon his
basis, states the '' total annual loss to the State
by sickness alone (of the working classes), at
the lowest calculation, is $15,267,322." He
considers two dollars per day *' as the minimum
average cost of sickness," which he divides
equally between loss of wages on the one hand,
and medical attendance, medicine, care, and
incidentals on the other. So far as relates to
loss of wages merely, we have alluded to this
in our chapter on '' Waste."

But we are now to call attention to a public
loss, of no part of which have we taken pre-
vious account. In the paper of Dr. Jarvis
above referred to, he presents a calculation
which shows that Massachusetts averages an

Injury to Public Health. 43

annual loss of children under 20 years of age
whose aggregate years amount to 41,823.
Now, he maintains that, '' simply as a vital
productive machine, a child at any age is worth
the cost that has been expended on him for his
support and development ; " and that such cost
averages not less than fifty dollars a year. He
adds that both English and German political
economists arrive at similar conclusions. Upon
this basis he reckons that Massachusetts loses
over two millions 0/ dollars yearly from the
premature death of children. But a still more
impressive view is given of the loss by prema-
ture death in the *' working period." He
calculates that there is here an average annual
loss of 276,461 years of prospective service.
We shall not attempt to compute the enormous
value of this in money to the State ; nor shall
we attempt to estimate what percentage of this
loss is attributable directly and indirectly to in-
temperance ; suffice it to have directed the at-
tention of the thoughtful reader to a new and
most important chapter in political economy.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHIEF OCCASION OF CRIME.

The malignant action of alcohol upon the
brain, and through this organ upon the mind
itself, is sometimes spoken of as that of an
excitant of the lower faculties or the animal
passions ; and sometimes ^s that of a depress-
ant of the higher and rational nature. Perhaps
it is both ; but we have no occasion to enter into
the discussion. Whether the animal nature is
excited unduly or the spiritual deadened, the
same result follows. The '* moral equilibrium
of character " is destroyed. It matters little
whether we lire up the locomotive beyond
control or pitch off the engineer. It is more to
our purpose to notice, as observers, the proxi-
mate methods in which the use of intoxicants
leads to crime. The subject compels brevity,
and we do little more than suororest Hnes of
thought.

First. Drunkenness itself is, by statute and
by reason, a crime — a social nuisance.

Second. Drink excites the evil passions — how
much or how litde it takes to do it is a question
of temperament and circumstance.

(44)

The Chief Occasion of Crime. 45

Third. It fortifies for crime.*

Fvttrth. It throws off the reins of prudence.
Recklessness is one of the first fruits of drink.
Reason teaches that crime is folly ; alcohol
clouds the reason.

Fifth. It tempts to crimes, especially of lust
and robbery, by putting the victim in the power
of the criminal.

Sixth. And emboldens to crime by render-
ing its detection difficult where the necessary
witness is wholly or partially insensible.

Seventh. Idleness and poverty are prolific
agencies in the production of crime ; but in-
temperance is the main cause of these.

Eighth. Truancy is regarded as one of the
most common proximate causes of crime. But

* In Governor Andrew's " Errors of Prohibition," I find a
curious passage. After describing a horrible murder in the
County of Bristol, Mass., he says : " I suppose this murder is
reckoned among the crimes chargeable to drinking. And, per-
haps, the mixture of whisky and gunpowder which he drank blunt-
ed his nerves and calmed his agitation, and thus fortified his
audacity to the extent of enabling him to do what would other-
wise have been too much for him But the picrpose of

violence and robbery was formed before he drank. The crime
was sufficiently complete, as a purpose of the mind, without the
draught." Suppose this to be so; has society any less interest
in protecting itself against the proximate cause of the crime ?
If, without the whisky, there would have been no murder, then
is not the murder "chargeable to drinking," even though it be
also chargeable, as the old indictments had it, to the " instigation
of the devil ? "

46 Alcohol vs. the State.

Mr. Philbrick, for so many years the Superin-
tendent of Schools in Boston, in one of his re-
ports, tells us that '' among the causes of tru-
ancy, that which so far transcends all others as
to be properly considered the cause of causes,
is the immoderate use of intoxicating drinks.
This is the unanimous testimony of the truant
officers."

Ninth. Intemperance is the efficient ally of
other vices. Wine has been well styled, ''The
Devil's Water- Power." Without it much of the
machinery of evil would stand still. It is the
life of the gaming-house and the brothel, and
surely these are hot-beds of crime.

From this rapid glance at the rationale of the
relation between crime and intemperance, we
are prepared to pass to a view of results. And
here we are embarrassed only by the uniformity
and abundance of the testimony.

As long ago as 1670, Sir Matthew Hale,
Chief-Justice of England, said :

" The places of judicature I have long held in this
kingdom have given me an opportunity to observe
the original cause of most of the enormities that have
been committed for the space of nearly twenty years ;
and, by due observation, I have found that if the
murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and rob-
beries, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornica-
tions, rapes, and other enormities that have happened

The Chief Occasion of Crime, 47

in that time, were divided into five parts, four of
them have been the issues and product of excessive
drinking — of tavern or ale-house drinking."

And through the centuries since, the same
testimony has been borne by judges of the
highest and lowest courts exercising criminal
jurisdiction. I need only cite from a recent
letter of Lord Chief Baron Kelley to the Arch-
deacon of Coventry, in which he says *' two-
thirds of the crimes which come before the
courts of law of this country, are occasioned
chiefly by intemperance " (Report to Convoca-
tion of Canterbury, p. 52).

Still more impressive is the evidence of those
whose official duties have brought them into
close personal contact with criminals. Says
Mr. Clay, the chaplain of the Preston House
of Correction (England), in 1855 :

" I have heard more than 15,000 prisoners declare
that the enticements of the ale and beer houses had
been their ruin. . . . If eveiy prisoner's habits and his-
tory were fully inquired into, it would be placed beyond
doubt that nine-tenths of the English crime requiring
to be dealt with by the law arises from the English sin,
which the same law scarcely discourages."

Frederick Hill, late Inspector of Prisons in
England, and a high authority in all matters of
penal science, writes :

48 Alcohol vs. the State.

" I am within the truth when I state, as the result
of extensive and minute inquiry, that in four cases out
of five, when an offence has been committed, intoxi-
cating drink has been one of the causes. Nothing serves
more to explain the good conduct of prisoners than
their complete withdrawal from the excitement and
temptation of intoxicating liquors. Removed from
these, they become different men, and are no more
deserving the epithets which are often applied to
them, than a person who has ceased to be in a pas-
sion merits the name of a madman."

Similar testimony is borne by Dr. Elisha Har-
ris, of New York, after an inspection of prisons,
in a paper on " The Relations of Drunkenness
to Crime" (1873). He says:

"As a physician, familiar with the morbid conse-
quences of alcoholic indulgence in thousands of suffer-
ers from it ; as a student of physiology, interested in
the remarkable phenomena and results of inebriation ;
and as a close observer of social and moral wants, it
was easy for the writer to believe that not less than
one-half of all crime and pauperism in the State de-
pends upon alcoholic inebriety. But after two years
of careful inquiry into the history and condition of
the criminal population of the State, he finds that the
conclusion is inevitable, that, taken in all its relations,
alcoholic 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 full eighty-five
per cent, of all convicts give evidence of having in
some larger degree been prepared or enticed to do

I

The Chief Occasion of Crime, 49

criminal acts because of the physical and distracting
effects produced upon the human organism by alco-
hol, and as they indulged in the use of alcoholic
drinks."

So, too, the Board of Police Justices of the
city of New York, whose testimony is specially
valuable because of their daily observation of
crime and criminals at the start, in their An-
nual Report for 1874, say:

" We are fully satisfied that it (intoxication) is the
one great leading cause which renders the existence
of our police courts ivecessary" (p. 17).

If figures are to any one more impressive,
they could easily be accumulated to express the
same result. Suffice it to give here what we
happen to have at hand — an extract from the
report of a committee made to the *' Dominion
House of Commons," at Ottawa, Canada, in
May, 1875: '

"Your committee further find, on examining the
reports of the prison inspectors for the provinces of
Ontario and Quebec, that out of 28,289 commitments
to the gaols for the three previous years, 21,236 were
committed either for drunkenness or for crimes perpe-
trated under the influence of drink, thus corroborating
the statements of the magistrates and others above
alluded to."

But why roam abroad when the proof is at
3

50 Alcohol vs. the State,

our doors ? Three district attorneys of the
County of Suffolk, embracing the city of Bos-
ton, speak to us with equal emphasis. The
first in order of time, Hon. John C. Park, says :

" While district attorney, I formed the opinion (and
it is not a mere matter of opinion, but is confirmed by
every hour of experience since) that ninety-nine one-
hundredths of the crime in the commonwealth is pro-
duced by intoxicating liquors."

Hon. Geo. P. Sanger (ex-judge of the Court
of Common Pleas, and at present the United
States Attorney for the District of Massachu-
setts), speaking from his experience as the pros-
ecuting officer of the same District, says :

"There are very few cases into which the use of
intoxicating liquor does not more or less enter.**

The last attorney for the same district, J.
Wilder May, writes :

" According to. my official observation, drinking in
some form is directly responsible for about three-
fourths of the crime that is brought to the cognizance
of the county, and indirectly for about three-quarters
of the other crimes."

Successive Reports of the Board of State
Charities of Massachusetts proclaim the same
result. Thus the Secretary says in the Report

The Chief Occasion of Crime, 51

for 1867 (p. 202), speaking of the aggregate
returns of convicts :

"About two-thirds are set down as intemperate,
but this number is known to be too small. Probably
more than 80 per cent, come within this class, intem-
perance being the chief occasion of crime, as it is of
pauperism, and (in a less degree) of insanity."

The Report of 1868 (p. 137) says:

" Of all the proximate causes or occasions of crime,
none is so fruitful as intemperance. The returns show
that from 60 to 80 per cent, of our criminals are in-
temperate, and the proportion of those whose crimes
were occasioned by intemperance is probably even
greater."

The Report of 1869 (p. 175) repeats the
same statement :

"The proportion of crime traceable to this great
vice must be set down, as heretofore, at not less than
four-fifths."

The Inspectors of the Massachusetts State
Prison arrive at the same conclusion in regard
to the graver crimes punishable there. Thus,
in their Report, Pub. Doc, 1868, (No. 13, p.
4,) they say of the convicts :

"About four-fifths of the number committed the
crimes for which they were sentenced, either directly
or indirectly by the use of intoxicating drinks."

52 Alcohol vs. the State.

And so we end with the same estimate that
Sir Matthew Hale gave two hundred years
ago.

The only attempt to break the force of these
statistics, of which I am aware, is in the argu-
ment of Governor Andrew on the *' Errors of
Prohibition."

He seeks to invert the real relation between
poverty, intemperance, and crime by making
the former the efficient cause of both the latter.

But, in the first place, it is very doubtful
whether mere poverty has any important ten-
dency to produce crime.

Recorder Hill, of Birmingham, England, a
high authority, both from his long experience
as a criminal magistrate, and from the philo-
sophic and philanthropic interest exhibited in
these matters in his volume of papers on the
'* Repression of Crime," says :

" I could almost count upon my fingers all the
cases which have fallen under my observation, either
at the bar or on the bench, of crimes originating in
the pressure of want."

There is more reason for regarding a sudden
influx of prosperity among those not accustom-
ed to moral control as a favorable condition for
the generation of crime. Thus, the Rev. John
Clay, styled by our Board of State Charities,

The Chief Occasion of Crime. 53

" A prison chaplain of great experience," in an
elaborate paper before the *' British Association
for the Advancement of Science," maintains
that the laboring classes are most criminal, be-
cause most intemperate, in what are called good
times ; and he declares that ** want and distress,
uncombined with dissolute habits^ are rarely op-
erative in producing crime."

In the course of pretty extensive reading of
the discussions of the problem of drunkenness,
by English statesmen and social reformers of all
shades of opinion, I have myself been struck
with their agreement, that increased wages has
been one of the causes of increased drunkenness.

That vicious poverty engenders crime we
have before maintained. And so far as the fac-
tor of poverty is concerned, we have already
demonstrated that it is itself mainly created,
especially i^i America, by the intemperance of
its victims or their natural supporters. What
else, I ask, in this country of ours, where, under
equal laws and with equal rights, labor finds it
just reward, and the hum of industry never
ceases from early morn to eventide, and where
the demand for simple, honest labor still out-
runs the supply, should reduce a man to the
ranks of poverty but vice ? The providences
of life, sickness, and casualty I do not forget.
But for these the hand of Christian beneficence

54 Alcohol vs. the State.

is always open, and neighborly kindness rarely
suffers temporary misfortune to degrade any
one to the ranks of pauperism. '*I have been
young, and now I am old ; yet have I never
seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed beg-
ging bread." The testimony of the Psalmist
remaineth sure.

CHAPTER VII.

ALCOHOL VITIATES HUMAN STOCK.

We have so far dwelt upon the effects of in-
toxication upon society through its effects upon
the individual victim. We are now to consider
it in wider relations. By the operation of the
laws of solidarity and of hereditary descent, we
are all interested in the physical, intellectual, and
moral qualities of the human stock. '' If (say the
Massachusetts Board of State Charities) it
could be proved that the use of any imported
or manufactured article vitiates the breed of
horses and cattle, farmers, at least, would look
for some power to interdict it, and would not
hesitate much about using that power. But the
race of man is of vastly greater importance, and
the purity of the human stock should be far
more carefully guarded."

Sagacious observers in early times have been
aware of the tendency of vicious habits or states
to transmit themselves. Thus it was a saying
of Aristotle that '* Drunken women bring forth
children like unto themselves ; " and Plutarch
writes that " One drunkard begets another."
But it has been reserved for men of this genera-

(55)

56 Alcohol vs. the State.

tion, patient in research and philosophic in
thought, to unfold the exactness, the univer-
sality, and the far-reaching extent of nature's
laws in this n\atter.

Dr. Ray, one of the first authorities in this
country upon the subject of insanity, says in his
"Mental Hygiene" (p. 44) :

" Another potent agency in vitiating the quality of
the brain is habitual intemperance, and the effect is
far oftener witnessed in the offspring than in the
drunkard himself. His habits may induce an attack
of insanity where the predisposition exists ; but he
generally escapes with nothing worse than the loss
of some of his natural vigor and hardihood of mind.
In the offspring, however, on whom the consequences
of the parental vice may be visited, to the third if
not the fourth generation, the cerebral disorder may
take the form of intemperance, or idiocy, or insanity,
or vicious habits, or impulses to crime, or some minor
mental obliquities."

Dr. S. G. Hov^e, in a report to the Massa-
chusetts Legislature on Idiocy, made in 1848
(Senate Doc. No. 51), states that ''out of 359
idiots, the condition of whose progenitors was
ascertained, 99 were the children of drunkards.
But this does not tell the whole story, by any
means. By drunkard is meant a person who is

a notorious and habitual sot By pretty

careful inquiry as to the number of idiots of the

Alcohol Vitiates Huinan Stock, 57

lowest class whose parents were known to be
teinpei'ate persons, it is found that not one-qtcar-
ter can be so considered." But this terrible
fact is more fearfully significant in what it points
to. If in so many cases idiocy was produced,
in vastly how many more is there reason
to believe that degrees of degeneracy, fall-
ing short of this recognized status, resulted.
When idiocy is reached, then comes extinction ;
but through how many generations, and with
what wide-spread collaterals, may imbecility of
the physical, mental, and moral nature, or of all
combined, propagate itself

Morel, a French author of the highest au-
thority, and as a superintendent of large hospi-
tals, of the widest experience, in his great work
entitled, *' Des Degmerescences de I' Espece Hu-
maine " (which Dr. Jarvis well paraphrases
as *' the w^aste of constitutional force in the
human family"), speaks thus , of ''the abuse of
alcoholic liquors and of certain narcotics, such
as opium. Under the influence of these poison-
ous agents, there have been produced perver-
sions so great in the functions of the nervous
system, that in the result, as we have demon-
strated, are the true degeneracies of the pres-
ent time, w^hether in influence direct from the
poisonous agent, or by the transmission of
hereditary power in the child."
3*

58 Alcohol vs, the State,

Magnus Huss, the eminent Swede, In his
treatise on ** Alcoholisms," and Carpenter, the
English Physiologist, bear emphatic testimony
to the same point.

In an article in the Contemporary Review
for January, 1873, Dr. Carpenter says :

" We have a far larger experience of the results of
habitual alcoholic excess than we have in regard to
any other * nervine stimulant ; ' and all such experi-
ence is decidedly in favor of the hereditary transmis-
sion of that acquired perversion of the normal nutri-
tion of the nervous system which it has induced.
That this manifests itself sometimes in a congenital
idiocy, sometimes in a predisposition to insanity,
which requires but a very slight exciting cause to
develop it, and sometimes in a strong craving for
alcoholic drinks which the unhappy subject of it
strives in vain to resist, is the concurrent testimony of
all who have directed their attention to the inquiry."

Sir Henry Thompson, in his letter to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, from which we have
already quoted in another connection, says :

" There is no single habit in this country which so
much tends to deteriorate the qualities of the race,
and so much disqualifies it for endurance in that com-
petition which, in the nature of things, must exist,
and in which struggle the prize of superiority must
fall to the best and to the strongest."

We will add the testimony of Mr. Darwin :

Alcohol Vitiates Human Stock. 59

" It is remarkable that all the diseases arising from
drinking spirituous or fermented liquors, are liable to
become hereditary even to the third generation, in-
creasing, if the cause be continued, till the family be-
comes extinct."

The Second Report of the Board of State
Chanties of Massachusetts, signed by Dr. S. G.
Howe as chairman, and among others by Dr.
Nathan Allen as one of its members, contains a
paper upon '* Alcohol as a cause of Vitiation of
Human Stock," which treats the subject scien-
tifically and yet most impressively. What we
have further to say upon this topic can not be
better said than by condensed selections from
this able paper.

" A prolific cause (of this vitiation) is the common
habit of taking alcohol into the system, usually as
the basis of spirits, wine, or beer. The effects of
alcohol upon the senses, and even upon the bodily
functions, vary according to the medium in which it
is conveyed ; but the basis being the same in all, the
constitutional effects are about the same.

*' If its general use does materially influence the
number and condition of the dependent and criminal
classes, it is the special duty of those holding official
relations with those classes to furnish facts and ma-
terials for public consideration.

" It is well known that alcohol acts unequally upon
man's nature ; that it stimulates the lower propensi-
ties and weakens the higher faculties

6o Alcohol vs. the State.

'* If this process is often repeated, the lower pro-
pensities are strengthened by exercise until, by and
by, they come to act automatically, while the restrain-
ing powers, or the will, weakened by disuse, are prac-
tically nullified. The man is no longer under control
of his voluntary powers, but has come under the*
dominion of automatic functions, which are almost
as much beyond his control as the beating of his
heart. But the habitual stimulus of the brain by
alcoholized blood, in ever so small doses, must pro-
duce the same kijid of results, only in a lesser de-
gree." ....

The paper then proceeds to show that ''per-
sistent fu7ictio7ial disturbance at last brings
about organic change'' It also suggests, in
view of the rapidity of its elimination from the
system compared with other poisons, " Whether
this peculiarity of alcohol does not make its
constant use in small doses worse for posterity
than its occasional use in large quantities ; that
is, whether tippling is not worse than drunken-
ness, as far as it affects the number and the
condition of the offspring."

And, in conclusion, they say :

"The facts and considerations just named make
clear the sad truth that the children of parents whose
systems were tainted by alcoholic poison do start in
life under great disadvantage. While they inherit
strong animal propensities, and morbid appetites and
tendencies, constantly craving indulgence, they have

Alcohol Vitiates Human Stock. 6i

weak restraining faculties. Their temptation is
greater, and their power of resistance is less than in
children of purer stock. They are, therefore, more
likely to fall into the pauper or criminal class."*

That this transmission of misery which alco-
hol effects is attracting- more and more the
attention of the medical fraternity, may be seen
from one of the resolutions passed by the Na-
tional Medical Association of the United States,
at their meeting in Detroit in 1874, in these
words :

" That we are of the opinion that the use of alco-
holic liquors as a beverage is productive of a large
amount of physical and mental disease ; that it
entails diseased appetites and enfeebled constitutions
upon offspring ; and that it is the cause of a large per-
centage of the crime and pauperism in our large cities
and country."

We may then assume that alcohol, after its
work of ruin in one generation, leaves as a
heritage of evil to the next weakened and de-
moralized stock, which —

First. Lessens the physical and mental force,
and so reduces the power of industrial produc-
tion, and makes the man in every way of less
worth to the State.

* The same subject is ably treated again in the Ninth Annual
Report of the Board, pp. xxix.-xxxni.

62 Alcohol vs. the State,

Second. Entails disease and lowers the tone
of the public health.

Third. By impairment of vital force, increases
pauperism.

Fourth. And by animalizing the moral nature,
fosters crime.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE UNIVERSAL ALLY OF EVIL— THE UNI-
VERSAL ANTAGONIST OF GOOD.

•* Not only does this vice (intemperance) produce all kinds of
wanton mischief, but it has also a negative effect of great im-
portance. It is the mightiest of the forces that clog the progress
of good. It is in vain that every engine is set to work that
philanthropy can devise, when those whom we seek to bene-
fit are habitually tampering with their faculties of reason and
will, soaking their brains with beer or inflaming them with
ardent spirits. The struggle of the school, the library, and the
church, all united, against the beer-house and gin-palace, is
but one development of the war between heaven and hell." —
Charles Buxton, M.P.

The vices are at least as sociable as the
virtues. But beyond this general affinity the
drinking habit sustains peculiar relations to
other social evils and crimes. We have already
considered its direct influence as a stimulant of
crime and its indirect as the great cause of
poverty and pauperism. We have also seen
how it animalizes human nature and debases
human stock. But we have now to notice that
it intensifies all the perils of our civilization ; and
perils which affect the integrity of our national
life and the stability of our government.

(63)

64 Alcohol vs. the State,

It is characteristic of the courage of the
American mind that but few of our people seem
apprehensive as to the result of our experiment
^of universal suffrage. And yet the v^orld has
seen nothing like it, or even approximating it,
before. By it all men are made sovereigns, and
every man has an interest in the character of
his co-ruler. Every drunken ballot imperils
every sober man's interest. Every whisky-
shop is a recruiting station for any party having
evil designs. The dram-shop is the ally of
every corrupt political ring. It is ready to
capture the caucus or to stuff the ballot-box.
In some of our laree cities it is able to dictate
nominations. In more it is able to defeat any
one who incurs its ill-will. * Great cities are
becoming more and more the great powers in

* I do not know whether it will afford any consolation to read
what John Adams wrote of his own county in the " good old
times" of 1761. "In most country towns in this county you
will find almost every other house with a sign of entertainment
before it. If you call, you will find dirt enough, very miserable
accommodations of provision and lodging for yourself and your
horses. Yet, if you sit the evening you will find the house full of
people, drinking drams, flip, toddy, carousing, swearing; but
especially plotting with the landlord to get him, at the next town
meeting, an election either for selectman or representative. Thus
the multiplicity of these houses, by dividing the profits, renders
the landlords careless of travelers, and allures the poor country
people, who are tired with labor and hanker after company, to
waste their time and money, contract habits of intemperance and

Ally of Evil-— Antagonist of Good, 65

politics, and the actual or threatened supremacy
of the danoferous classes there can not but ex-
cite the anxiety of the most determined optimist.
The State of New York, by the joint action of
the Legislature and the Governor, has
recently appointed an able commission, at the
head of which is the Hon. William M. Evarts,
to ''devise a plan for the government of cities."
It is well for the State to stir ere it linds the
cities, and the worst element of her cities, gov-
erning it. But no schemes or plans will work
without the public virtue of citizens. f The
dram-shop mocks the name and destroys the
very substance of that virtue. Within its sphere
it makes bad citizens faster than schools and
churches can make good citizens.

That terrible vice of large cities — prostitution
— which appalls the senses with its physical re-

idleness, and, by degrees, to lose the natural dignity and freedom
of English minds, and confer those offices which belong by
nature and the spirit of all government to probity and honesty.
on the meanest and weakest and worst of human characters."

t Since this was written the Commission have made their |
Report. It deals only with machmery. I can not characterize
it better then by using the words of H. D. Gushing: "If ship-
wrights, striving to make a seaworthy vessel, should look only at
the shape and model, and do nothing to disturb the worms that
were making honeycomb of every timber, it would scarce seem
to us more absurd or ludicrous than the New York effort to make
good city governments without disturbing the dram-shop or its
aUies."

66 Alcohol vs. the State.

suits, vitiates human stock more horribly than
alcohol itself, shocks the morahst with the ex-
tent and depth of the ruin of the higher nature
which it causes, and .baffles the best efforts of
the philanthropist for its eradication — derives
essential support from intoxicants. The brothel
requires the dram-shop to stimulate the passions
and to narcotize the conscience.

So, too, the gambler's den maintains its bar,
and the gamester draws his boastful courage
from his cups, or drowns therein his disappoint-
ment and remorse.

Without entering upon any questions of re-
ligious controversy, he must be a shallow ob-
server who does not see how vital to our
national weal is the substantial preservation of
the American Sabbath. It is emphatically what
Ebenezer Eliot, the " corn-law rhymer/' called
it — ''the poor man's day; " it is the best con-
servator of Home, the guardian of the public
morals, and the only guaranty in this busy day
and world of some due attention to the cultiva-
tion of that spiritual nature in man which gives
life and force even to his work amono- material

o

things. But the liquor traffic and the Sabbath
are in natural enmity. It is no chance associa-
tion which leads to the cry, '* Down with the
Sunday Laws and the Liquor Laws," in so
many parts of our country. The traffic wants

Ally of Evil — Antagonist of Good. 6y

the day. It wants the Saturday night wages ;
it wants the opportunity and the temptation to
drink of the day of rest ; it has the day in
Europe, it covets it in America. It will have
it unless the political power of the traffic is
broken.

With the Sabbath go our schools and churches,
as three great educational agencies. We shall
hereafter examine how far religious and intel-
lectual culture can be relied on as the sole cure
of intemperance ; but we only desire here to
note that it paralyzes the very agencies which
Governor Andrew and others have proclaimed
as adequate for its own extirpation. Neither
the drunkard nor his children are often brought
within the influence of the Church, nor are
those who are habitually muddling their brains
and hardening their hearts with liquor respon-
sive to the gentle touch of more private minis-
trations. Even where the drinking is within a
conventional standard of moderation, it quickly
narcotizes the religious faculties of the soul.
An alcoholized brain has but little susceptibility
to the higher spiritual influences. The most
impressive testimonies upon this point might
be introduced, were it not too obviously true to
need them. Let a single one suffice. The
Convocation of Canterbury expresses it as the
sentiment of the English clergy, that '* no evil

6S AlcoJiol vs. the State.

more nearly affects our national life and char-
acter ; nofie more injicriously counte7'acts the
spiritual work of the Church.'' A body of
testimony from parish ministers, published in
the appendix, fully supports this deliverance.
Let no one think I am here departing from my
subject — the relation of Alcohol to the State;
for as the third article of the original Bill of
Riehts of the Constitution of Massachusetts
well puts it :

" The happiness of a people, and the good order
and preservation of civil government, essentially de-
pend upon piety, religion, and morality; and these
can not be generally diffused through a community
but by the institution of the public worship of God
and of public instructions in piety, religion, and mor-
ality."

Nor is the influence of this traffic less mark-
edly adverse to education. Intemperance blinds
the intellect as well as deadens the heart ; and
it makes truants from school as well as ab-
sentees from church. Mr. Philbrick, for many
years the Superintendent of Schools in the
city of Boston, and thoroughly competent to
judge in the matter, summed it up thus tersely
in one of his reports : *' The liquor-shops and
the schools are, in all respects, ajitagonistic to
each other.''

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts alone

Ally of Evil — Antagonist of Good, 69

expended during the year 1875 five million eight
hundred and ninety-one thousand six hundred
and sixty-six dollars ($5,891,666) for h&r public
schools only,* and gave to the work of teaching
in them nine thousand two hundred and sixteen
(9,216) of the best of her sons and daughters.
Must she permit the liquor-shops, declared by
her official authorities to be the natural and
perpetual antagonists of her schools, to flourish
by their side ? It is a sad thought to add that
the education of the school is soon over ; the
training of the liquor-shop is for life.

* This includes $1,533,142.54 for school-houses.

CHAPTER IX.

IS THERE A SET-OFF OF BENEFITS?

" If this agent do really for the moment cheer the weary and im-
part 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." — Dr. Richardson in " Cantor Lectures."

Having thus rapidly portrayed the evils of
the liquor traffic, so far as they concern the
various interests of political society, it may be
well, before we proceed to discuss the problem
of legislative interference, to consider whether
there is a useful side to the traffic which we are
bound to respect and to keep in view.

And here let me say at the outset, that I
disclaim any desire to found any part of this
argument upon what may be considered *' ex-
treme " views. It was a skillful movement on
the part of Governor Andrew, in commencing
his attack upon prohibition, in his famous plea
before the Committee of the Massachusetts
Legislature, to announce that its advocates
'* base their argument in part upon the assump-
tion that alcohol is a poison in the sense in which
strychnine or arsenic is poison, to be administer-
(70)

Is there a Set-off of Benefits ? 71

ed to the human system only under the restric-
tions applicable to the administration of fatal
drugs."* It is a great advantage in a desperate
contest to select the ground upon which your
opponent must fight the battle. If the horrors
of the traffic and the efficiency or inefficiency
of the modes resorted to for its restraint can be
kept out of sight, while a vigorous contest is
kept up over the definition of a ** poison," the
test of a " food," or the elimination or trans-
formation of alcohol in the human system, a
defeat may be prevented if a victory can not be
won.

No part of the field of natural science is more
obscure than that which deals with the chemis-
try of animal life. In human physiology, theories
chase each other with perplexing swiftness, and
leave behind but unsatisfactory results. But
so far as relates to the use of alcohol in disease,
we have here nothing to say. It relates itself to
a still larger question, as to the use of all drugs,
and the nature, conditions, and limitations of

* According to Governor Andrew, the argument for prohibi-
tion rests wholly upon two " assumptions ; " the one being as
stated above, and the " further assumption that the use and the
sale of alcoholic beverages are essentially immoral." But this is
not so. Prohibitionists do not rest their argument on " assump-
tions," but on carefully-observed facts ; not on scientific or ethical
theories, but on the ascertained injury which the liquor traffic
inflicts upon every interest of the State.

72 Alcohol vs. the State.

their power. When alcohol is relegated to the
shelf of the apothecary, it is to be judged like
other narcotics or irritant stimulants, as you
may choose to classify it. Every actual or pro-
posed system of legislation makes provision for
its medicinal use. To determine the mode and
amount of such use is exclusively the physi-
cian's problem ; only it may be well to remem-
ber that we are individually safer in the hands
of one who has no personal appetite to bias
him in the advocacy of this fascinating draught,
and who never forgets that one of the masters
of his profession has said that it is *' a shroud
which covers more than it cures ; '' even here
too often playing its old part as "■ a mocker."

The scientific controversy also as to the
action of alcohol in the living organism I dis-
miss, not because I am not interested in it ; not
because I fear it ; I am tolerably familiar with
its literature. The present phase of the discus-
sion is not unfavorable to the rigid total ab-
stainer. The last utterance of science is in the
six *' Cantor Lectures," delivered before the
Society of Arts in England, by Dr. Benjamin
W. Richardson, one of the leading medical
writers of the day, professing to '* stand forth
simply as an interpreter of natural fact and law,"
and whose utterances are publicly commended
and indorsed by the Nestor of our American

/f there a Set-off of Benefits ? 73

physicians, Dr. Willard Parker, of New York.*
Dr. Richardson finds alcohol, in all its forms and
combinations, essentially a paralyzer ; and closes
his discussion with the affirmation that it " is
neither a food nor a drink suitable for his (man's)
natural demands. Its application, as an agent
that shall enter the living- organization, is prop-
erly limited by the learning and skill possessed
by the physician — a learning that itself admits
of being recast and revised in many important
details, and, perhaps, in principles." t But I

* It may be added that The Lancet, one of the very first
medical journals of England, in its issue of February 13, 1875,
speaks of the lecturer as " a member of our body, who, belonging
to no particular community of reformers, and pledged to the sup-
port of no sectarian advocacy, should be able to speak with
authority ; " and after a summary of his lectures, and a refer-
ence to certain obser\'ations detailed by him, says : *' The prac-
tical deductions from these observations accord with the modern
experience that is now binng gained under the new light by
which this subject is surveyed. To the professional mind the
facts have for some time past been gradually developing, and
have afforded striking evidence of the value of properly-con-
ducted experimental research."

t Or, as he expresses it in a still more recent work on " The
Diseases of Modem Life : " " The physician .... can find no
place for alcohol as a necessity of life. ... In whatever direc-
tion he turns his attention to determine the value of alcohol to
man beyond the sphere of its value as a drug, which he may at
times prescribe, he sees nothing but a void ; in whatever way he
turns his attention to determine the persistent effects of alcohol,
he sees nothing but disease and death ; mental disease, mental
death ; physical disease, physical death '' (pp. 209, 210).

4

74 Alcohol vs. the State,

desire to confine myself more narrowly to my
precise subject.

The problem of legislation, as I have before
said, concerns itself only with the sale of intoxi-
cants as ordinary beverages. That (to put it
mildly, and yet for our purpose effectively,)
there is no occasion for the State to make any
provision for this on sanitary grounds is the
general judgment of the medical profession.
Indeed, I suppose that but few thoughtful per-
sons would dissent from the negative part of
this statement in the Quarterly Review, of
England (Oct., 1875):

''The common-sense and experience of educated
minds bear witness that only a comparatively small
number — the feeble and the sick — actually require
stimulating drinks."

Whether the feeble and the sick do require
these, and if at all, what and when, are ques-
tions to be settled by physicians and not by
legislators ; and if prescribed, they are to be
procured as medicines and not as drams.

As to the general inutility of these beverages,
we are not left without an impressive mass of
medical testimony, and we propose to introduce
it simply in masses.

Dr. Carpenter, of England, the distinguished
physiologist and scientist, appends to his essay

Is there a Set-off of Benefits f 75

*' On the Use of Alcoholic Liquors," the follow-
ing certificate, which he says had been signed
by '* upwards of two thousand physicians in all
giradcs and degrees, from the court physicians
and leading metropolitan surgeons to the hum-
ble country practitioner : "

" We, the undersigned, are of opinion —

*' I. That a very large proportion of human misery,
including poverty, disease, and crime, is induced by
the use of alcoholic or fermented liquors as bever-
ages.

" 2. That the most perfect health is compatible
with total abstinence from all such intoxicating
beverages, whether in the form of ardent spirits or as
wine, beer, ale, porter, cider, etc.

" 3. That persons accustomed to such drinks may,
with the most perfect safety, discontinue them en-
tirely, either at once or gradually after a short time.

" 4. That total and universal abstinence from alco-
holic beverages of all sorts would greatly contribute to
the healthy the prosperity ^ and happiness of the human
race.''

In Feb., 1873, ninety -six physicians of
Montreal, Canada, twenty-four of whom were
professors or demonstrators in the medical
schools there situate, united in a similar declara-
tion ; averring ''that total abstinence from in-
toxicating liquors, whether fermented or dis-
tilled, is consistent with, and conducive to, the
highest degree of physical and mental health

"J 6 Alcohol vs. the State,

and vigor; " and ''that abstinence from intoxi-
cating liquors would greatly promote the health,
morality, and happiness of the people."

The National Medical Association of the
United States, at their convention at Detroit in
June, 1874, which was attended by over four
hundred physicians, resolved :

" That in view of the alarming prevalence and ill
effects of intemperance, with which none are so
familiar as members of the medical profession, and
which have called forth from English physicians the
voice of warning to the people of Great Britain con-
cerning the use of alcoholic beverages, we, as mem-
bers of the medical profession of the United States,
junite in the declaration that we believe that alcohol
should be classed with other powerful drugs ; that when
prescribed medicinally, it should be done with con-
scientious caution and a sense of great responsibility.'*

" That we would welcome any change in public
sentiment that would confine the use of intoxicating
liquors to the uses of science, art, and medicine^

And lately, under the lead of Dr. Willard
Parker, one hundred and twenty-four physicians
of New York city and vicinity, including
among them such men as Alonzo Clark, Prof.
E. R. Peaslee, Prof Alfred C. Post, Dr. Edward
Delafield ; John M. Cuyler, Medical Director in
the United States Army ; Stephen Smith, Presi-
dent, and Elisha Harris, Secretary, of the Amer-

Is there a Set-off of Benefits ? yj

ican Health Association, declared their views
in almost the same language as above cited,
closing thus :

"We would welcome any judicious and effective
legislation, State and national, which should seek to
confine the trafBc in alcohol to the legitimate purposes
of medical and other sciences, art, and mechanism."

And as the last voice of the medical profes-
sion, I give the report of the Section on Medi-
cine in the International Medical Congress, held
at Philadelphia in September last (1876), on the
paper of Dr. Hunt on " Alcohol in its thera-
peutic 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.

" Seco7id. Its use as a medicine is chiefly as a cardiac
stimulant, and often admits of substitution.

" Third. As a medicine it is not well fitted for self-
prescription by the laity, and the medical profession
is not accountable for such administration or for the
enormous evils resulting therefrom.

^^FourtJi. The purity of alcoholic liquors is, in g n-
eral, not as well-assured as that of articles used for
medicine should be. The various mixtures when used
as medicine should have definite and known compo-
sition, and should not be interchanged promiscuously."

CHAPTER X.

A CASE FOR INTERVENTION.

*• There are some cases in which the power of injuring may be
taken away by excluding- what Tacitus calls irritavienta malo-
rum, as the prohibition of the sale and fabrication of dies for
coining, of poisonous drugs, of concealed arms, of dice, and
other instruments of prohibited games." — Benth am.

Here let us pause a moment for retrospec-
tion. We have seen that intemperance ante-
dates the very birth of its innocent victim with
curses ; that it is the enemy of the human race
itself by giving us humanity under enfeebled,
diseased, and depraved conditions ; that it fol-
lows as the most prolific source of disease and
vice, culminating so frequently in insanity, and
still more frequently in premature death, infect-
ing the whole social atmosphere with physical
and moral malaria ; that it wastes our resources,
increases our taxes, and diminishes our pro-
ductive capacity ; that it degrades labor and
destroys home ; that it fills our almshouses
with paupers and our prisons with criminals ;
an 1 that it is the strongest antagonist of every
educating agency which tends to make good
citizens, and tlie unfailing ally of every vice that
(78) •

A Case for Intervention, 79

makes bad. And intemperance not only re-
quires for its production the two factors of
'* appetite and opportunity," but opportunity, or,
more accurately speaking, temptation, begets
appetite itself. So that the liquor traffic is the
prime factor in the production of intemperance
and all its horrible train of sequences. Can we
fail, then, to see that in this traffic the State has
its deadliest enemy, and that the strongest pos-
sible case is made for its arrest ?

The relation between intemperance and the
enticements of the dram-shop, in all its forms
and disguises, is one too constant, too obvious,
too well-recognized as the basis of legislation
for centuries, and will hereafter receive too fre-
quent statistical confirmation to allow further
urging here. Its rationale is, however, so
forcibly stated by Dr. Wayland in his '' Moral
Philosophy," under the head of "Justice to
Character," that I can not forbear to quote it;
more especially as it suggests another ground
upon which legislation against the liquor traffic
may properly rest in addition to the protection
of society, namely, the protection of the indi-
vidual victim :

" Such is the relation of the power of appetite to
that of conscience that, where no positive allurements
to vice are set before men, conscience will frequently
retain its ascendency. While, on the other hand, if

8o Alcohol vs. the State,

allurements be added to the power of appetite, reason
and conscience prove a barrier too feeble to resist
their combined and vicious tendency. Hence he who
presents the allurements of vice before others, who
procures and sets before them the means of vicious
gratification, is, in a great degree, responsible for the
mischief he produces. Violations of this law occur in
most cases of immoral traffic, as in the sale and manu-
facture of opium to the Chinese, etc. Under the
same class is also comprehended the case of female
prostitution."

And here let me add the pertinent testimony
of one of the most competent of experts, Dr.
Day, the Superintendent for many years of the
** Washingtonian Home," in Boston :

" A mistaken idea seems to prevail that the inebri-
ate becomes and continues a drunkard because he has
no desire and makes no effort to reform. No error
can be more complete. To shake off the shackles of
his slavery is the dream by day and night of its un-
fortunate victim ; and how to accomplish it is the
question he most eagerly asks, and for whose answer-
ing he waits with most intense desire."

So the same cry for deliverance from the
body of this death comes from our prisons.
Listen to the voice which articulates itself
through the chaplain of the Massachusetts State
Prison :

"Of the 534 men now here, the greater portion

A Case for Intervention. 8 1

would be glad to vote for the prohibitory law : for
many of them feel that their safety from the perils of
drunkenness depends, in a great degree, on such a law.
They realize their weakness and are fearful of them-
selves^ and desire such a law to strengthen them in
their resistance to the seductions of the cup which
has been their bane and curse. When about being
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 alone. If I can
resist when urged to take a drink, or can go to some
place where I can't get it, I shall do well enough/ "
(Mass. Pub. Doc, 1868, No. 13, p. 43).

Beyond the aid which is afforded, by legisla-
tion against the liquor traffic, to these special
classes who are struggling to establish their
moral freedom, there can be no doubt that all
laws which check the sale, diminish the con-
sumption, and that this is desirable, to a
certain extent, at least, almost every one
admits. When we come to consider the extent
and mode of interference, we shall find objec-
tions made to certain laws which apply logically
to all laws, and which, if they are sound, would
require that the traffic be left entirely free.
With these we shall deal hereafter. For the
present we close the discussion with a summary
of the argument we have heretofore used, in the
words of one whose utterance may carry weight

82 Alcohol vs. the State,

as the voice not only of an earnest Christian
philanthropist, but of one of the calmest thinkers,
who was constitutionally averse to extending
needlessly the sphere of governmental action —
William Ellery Channing:

" Now if it be true that a vast proportion of the
crimes which government is instituted to prevent and
repress have their origin in the use of ardent spirits ; if
our poor-houses, work-houses, jails, and penitentiaries
are tenanted in a great degree by those whose first
and chief impulse to crime came from the distillery
and the dram-shop ; if murder and theft, the most
fearful outrages on property and life, are most
frequently the issues and consummation of intemper-
ance, is not government bound to restrain by legisla-
tion the vending of the stimulus to these terrible
social wrongs ? Is government never to . act as a
parent, never to remove the causes or occasions of
wrong-doing ? Has it but one instrument for repress-
ing crime, namely : public, infamous punishment, an
evil only inferior to crime ? Is government a usurper,
does it wander beyond its sphere by imposing re-
straints on an article which does no imaginable good,
which can plead no benefit conferred on body or
mind, which unfits the citizen for the discharge of his
duty to his country, and which, above all, stirs up
men to the perpetration of most of the crimes from
which it is the highest and most solemn office of
government to protect society?" (Works, Vol. II.,
p. 377).

BOOK II.

THE STATE ^s. ALCOHOL

(83)

CHAPTER XL

THE PROVINCE OF LAW.

" Virtue must come from within ; to this problem religion and
morality must direct themselves. But vice may come from
■without ; to hinder this is the care of the statesman." — Prof.
F. W. Newman.

As we have thus far restricted our view of
the evils of alcohol to what it does to the
State, so we now desire in turn to limit this
inquiry to what the State should do to alcohol.
What the individual should do, in what way
the good Samaritan can best act, what should
be the attitude of the Christian Church, and
what should be the utterance of the Christian
pulpit, are all questions of momentous, yes, of
primary importance. We put them aside here
simply because they do not belong to the pres-
ent discussion.

But so far from there being any antagonism
between what is called ''moral suasion" and
political action, or the coercive action of the
law, the latter is the outgrowth and the inev-
itable consequent of the former.

All this seems so obvious, and the relation
between moral and legal effort so simple, that

(85)

86 The State vs. Alcohol,

it is discouraging to find such paragraphs in
the press as the following in the columns of an
intelligent, but conservativ^e religious weekly.
After allusion to there having -been found in
a certain assembly " two opinions as to the
policy of prohibition," it adds immediately:
" The success of reform clubs has shown
clearly that it is possible to resume the moral
and educational methods which were so use-
ful in the earlier days of the temperance
movement." Possible to resume them ! When
and by w^hom have they been abandoned ?
While these Rip Van Winkle *' moral suasion-
ists " have been asleep, the friends of legal and
moral suasion have been ever at work. I sup-
pose, of all the 'permanent temperance organ-
izations in this country, the Massachusetts
Temperance Alliance stands before the public
the most prominently committed to the advo-
cacy of law as an indispensable ally to the suc-
cess of this reform. And yet it has always in-
sisted upon the importance of religious teach-
ing and of all ''educational methods" as the
very foundation of all other work. It was the
first society to employ a special agent to visit
the public schools, and in other ways to interest
the young. It has filled the Christian pulpits
with the labors of clergymen ; it has organized
reform clubs ; it has employed for years a lee-

The Province of Law. Z^j

turer upon the physiological aspects of the
question, and circulated publications covering
every phase of the temperance movement. Its
annual report for 1875 gives as the

SUMMARY OF WORK FOR ELEVEN YEARS.

Sabbath Congregations addressed, . . . 1,337
Sabbath-schools addressed, . . . .1,012

Sabbath Evening Union Temperance Meetings, 1,033
Public Schools addressed, .... 3,411

Addresses on Secular Days, .... 4,622

Total Addresses, . . . .11,415

Over Sixteen Million Pages of Tracts distributed.

More thj.n One Htmdred Thousand Children and Youth have
adopted the pledge.

Thirty-four Reform Clubs organized, and many Local Teifh-
perance Societies and Bands of Hope.

Over Seven Hundred District Temperance Conventions held.

The quality of this work may be criticised.
Undoubtedly its value is various. Let the
critic furnish better. But it does not lie in his
mouth to object that the support of prohibition
has diminished the amount of moral effort.

Consider also the work of the National Tem-
perance Society and Publication House. Its
officers and members believe in the value and
efficacy of the law — its resolutions affirm it,
its publications maintain it. But " the first great
work of the Society, after its organization, was
to create a temperance literature." A recent
circular says :

SS The State vs. Alcohol,

" During the last nine years over forty thousand
dollars have been spent for stereotyping and literary
labor and publishing to the world a sound, reliable
literature upon every phase of the question. The
moral, social, political, financial, scientific, and relig-
ious aspects are presented The work among

the young is carried on through the medium of the
Youth! s Temperance Bajifier, 1 50,000 copies of which
are issued every month, and by means of attractive
books for Sabbath-school libraries, pictorial tracts,
badges, singing-books, pledges, etc."

Will the advocates of moral suasion, pure
and simple, show us their work by the side of
this ? Until they can, will they have the mod-
esty to be silent ?

The ludicrous confusion of ideas which leads
men to talk of legal and moral suasion as an-
tagonistic forces will at once be seen if applied
to other social vices. Imagine a sane man
proposing to abolish all laws against prostitu-
tion, or to license it on the Continental plan,
and in this way expect to make the moral and
religious protest against it stronger ; or to have
the ban of the law removed against lotteries
and gaming-houses, or its execution relaxed, so
as to awaken a revival of moral influences.

There are some men who talk moral suasion
antagonistically, who deserve the rebuke ad-
ministered years ago by Judge Sprague :

The Provifice of Law. 89

" If they are real friends of temperance, why don't
they use moral suasion ? And when they shall have
persuaded themselves, they will have made an aus-
picious beginning." *

But it v^'ill be found that the great mass of
the sincere and earnest workers in this field of
moral effort are the last men to depreciate the
aid of law. Let a man set himself to work to
reclaim the fallen and I v^ill risk the result of
his ultimate opinion.

The historical development of a temperance
movement is this : Individuals are deeply moved
by a consideration of the evils of intemperance,
and they become abstainers ; then they are led
by philanthropy to seek out and save the lost ;
in this work they soon encounter the tempta-
tion of the dram-shop and the tempter in the
bar-tender. Indignantly they turn to their
fellow-men and ask the protection of the Com-
monwealth against this conspiracy to ruin the
saved. Turn where you will, you shall find
the result of every reform movement a new de-
mand for protective legislation. Such, notably,
was the experience in our country at first, and
after the *' Washingtonian " movement ; and
the reform movement of the present hour is
unmistakably developing the same history.

* Argument before Committee of Massachusetts Legislature
against the repeal of " The Fifteen-Gallon Law " (1839).

go The State vs. Alcohol,

And the hardest workers in this field of phi-
lanthropy come to the clearest vision and the
deepest conviction as to the province of the law.
No weak sophistry can induce them to antago-
nize the Law and the Gospel. If the law is
impotent to lift their brother from the gutter, it
can, at least, prevent the liquor -seller from
pushing him back. Such a use of the law they
believe to be in the spirit of the Gospel, and a
sure outgrowth of wise Christian love.

The chief apostle of moral suasion (Father
Mathew) left on record this testimony :

" The principle of prohibition seems to me to be
the only safe and certain remedy for the evils of in-
temperance. This opinion has been strengthened and
confirmed by the hard labor of more than twenty
years in the temperance cause."

I do not quote this here except as bearing
upon the general value of law^ nor do I wish
to press the language used to its full force. I
disclaim all intention to advocate dny law as a
panacea for intemperance. It is only as 07ie
of the remedies. It is only as a supplement
and bulwark to educational, moral, and religious
effort, but as such, indispensable and necessary,
that I invoke the aid' of law. And my call is
reinforced by the more powerful one of all
engaged practically in the reformation of the

The Province of Law, 91

fallen. As Cardinal Manning recently put it in
a speech at Bolton, England :

" It is mere mockery to ask us to put down drunk-
enness by moral and religious means, when the Legis-
lature facilitates the multiplication of the incitements
to intemperance on every side. You might as well
call upon me as a captain of a ship and say : ' Why
don't you pump the water out v/hen it is sinking,
when you are scuttling the ship in every direction.'
If you will cut off the supply of temptation, I will be
bound by the help of God to convert drunkards ;
but until you have taken off this perpetual supply
of intoxicating drink, we never can cultivate the
fields. You have submerged them, and if ever we
reclaim one portion, you immediately begin to build
upon it a gin-palace or some temptation to drink.
The other day, where a benevolent man had estab-
lished a sailor's home, I was told there were two
hundred places of drink round about it. How, then,
can we contend against these legalized and multiplied
facilities and temptations to intoxication? This is
my answer to the bland objurgation of those who
tell us the ministers of religion are not doing their
part. Let the Legislature do its part and we will
answer for the rest." '

^ The law does not propose to deal directly
with the personal habits of men. It lays its
hand on a traffic. Sales are public acts, and
always within the domain of law. The law^
for sufficient reasons of policy, prescribes the

92 The State vs. AlcoJiol.

manner and mode of sales of real and personal
property, makes void what it chooses, regulates
what it deems dangerous, forbids, under pen-
alties, what it thinks mischievous. If it lays
either a regulating, a restraining, or a prohibit-
ing hand upon the traffic in intoxicants, it does
no differendy from what it does in regard to
adulterated milk, unwholesome meat, danger-
ous explosives, fireworks, obscene publications,
lottery tickets, and numerous other subjects of
sale. The only questions society asks, are :
Is the trade injurious ? Is it sufficiently so to
call for the interference ? If these questions are
answered affirmatively, then, if the evils are
incidental and remediable, the trade is regulat-
ed ; if essential and inherent, it is prohibited.
But this topic we shall treat more at large in
another connection.

It can not be necessary to resort to any elab-
orate proof of the general utility of law in this
sphere. It would stem well-nigh self-evident
that (as expressed by that eminent magistrate,
Recorder Hill, in his volume on *' The Repres-
sion of Crime," p. 379,) '* the traffic in alcoholic
drinks obeys that great law of political economy,
which regulates all other commerce, viz. : that
any i7iterfere7tce with the free action of manu-
facttcrer, importer, vender^ or purchaser^ di-
minishes consumption^

The Province of Law. 93

This proposition does not, however, rest
alone upon its reasonableness, but is abundantly
fortified by history and experience. Such
proof will hereafter appear in the discussion of
special phases of our general problem ; and we
pause here for only a few items.

The same high authority from whom I last
quoted, after alluding to restrictive legislation
in England, says :

" We need no statistics to prove to us that the
state of the country in 1830 was much better in
regard to temperance than it was a century before
that period — an improvement which none will attrib-
ute to education who are acquainted with the slow
progress which it made during that interval, however
it may have aided us since. At the latter date, a
great change was effected."

He then alludes to the *' Beer Bill," the re-
sults of which, and of subsequent legislation, we
give in the words of the executive of the United
Kingdom Alliance :

" In 1830 our Legislature passed the Beer-house
Act. The result was that the consumption of malt
in England and Wales rose from 26,900,902 bushels
in 1830 to 36,078,856 bushels in 1835, whilst the con-
sumption of spirits increased in about the same pro-
portion.

" From 1840 to i860 there was not much change in
the laws affecting the sale of intoxicating liquors ;

94 The State vs. Alcohol,

what changes took place were in the direction of re-
striction ; hence, there was not much increase in the
value of intoxicating liquor consumed, the amount
for the year 1841 being ;^78, 797,000, while in i860 it
was ^^86,897,683 — an increase about on a par with
the increase of population.

" In i860 the Legislature again stepped in, and in-
creased the facilities of the liquor traffic by passing
the Wine Licensing Bill ; and in 1862 the sale of
single bottles, by the wholesale trade to private
houses, was licensed ; provision was also made for
special licenses for fairs, races, exhibitions, balls, etc.

" In 1870 there were 186,096 persons who were
engaged in selling intoxicating liquors, or one to about
every thirty-five houses. These liquor-shops, if put
end to end, would form a street upwards of 700 miles
long.

"As a consequence of this vast machinery of temp-
tation, the apprehensions for drunkenness, which in
1863 were 94,745, in 1872 had reached 151,084 — an
increase of 59 per cent.

"In i860 the money spent upon intoxicating
liquors was ;^86,897,683 ; in 1872 it amounted to
;^ 1 3 1,601,490, being an increase of 51 per cent."

Scotland has not an enviable reputation for
sobriety, but there, as elsewhere, drinking is
proportioned to the facilities allowed. Thus
in the year 1849, the Church of Scotland ap-
pointed a committee to make investigations as
to the causes of intemperance, and report.
They sent out circulars, and received reports

The Province of Law. 95

from 478 parishes ; from these returns they
drafted a report, in which they say :

*' The returns made to your committee's inquiries
clearly prove that the intemperance of any neigh-
borhood is U7iif or inly proportioned to the number of its
spirit licenses. So that, wherever there are no public-
houses, nor any shops for selling spirits, there ceases
to be any intoxication."

The working of what is known as the
** Forbes-Mackenzie Act " in this country sup-
plies an interesting- illustration of the general
law we are considering.

In a recent debate in the British Parliament
upon the Sunday Closing Bill for Ireland, Mr.
Gladstone said :

" A law substantially in conformity with this bill
has been in operation in Scotland for twenty years ;
and, I would observe, that the only question with
respect to this law is not whether it has done evil,
but whether the amount of good it has done is great
or small. That, I think, is a fair statement of the
case with regard to the Forbes-Mackenzie Act in
Scotland."

An elaborate paper upon the working of this
Act, read in 1874, before the Social Science
Congress of Great Britain, seems conclusively
to demonstrate that the operation of the Act
was one of very marked beneficence for some

g6 The State vs. Alcohol,

years. The leading features of the law were,
the inhibition to grocers to sell to be drank on
the' premises, the shortening of the hours of
sale, and the abolition of all Sunday sales,
except by inn-holders to '' bona fide guests."
These features were not entirely new ; but now
made a matter of imperial legislation, they seem
to have been for the first time well enforced.
The Act took effect in 1854. It should be add-
ed that, contemporaneously with this Act, and
co-operating with it, there was an increase of
the tax upon spirits. The author of the paper
I have alluded to shows that while for the five-
years preceding (1849- 1853) ^^^ aggregate
consumption of spirits, as shown from the Gov-
ernment returns, was 30,039,712 gallons; the
total in the five years succeeding fell to
29,079,188 gallons, and during the next period
of five years (1859-1863) to only 25,089,168,
and this, it is to be remembered, with a very
considerable increase of population. From the
Reports of the Prisons of Scotland, it appears
that in the five years previous to the Act, the
average daily number of criminals therein was
14,676, and for the succeeding five years 1 1,507,
showing a daily decrease of 3,169. So also a
marked decrease is shown in the arrests for
drunkenness in the Kingdom, and especially in
the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. But the

The Province of Law. 97

paper well says : '' The crucial test of the Act
is the effect it has had in diminishing the cases
of drunkenness on the Lord's day." I quote
the statistics as to Edinburgh :

" The number of persons apprehended in Edin-
burgh for drunkenness, between eight o'clock on the
Sunday mornings and eight o'clock on the Monday
mornings, is as. follows: In 1852 there were 401, in
1853, 333 cases, while in 1855 and 1856 there were 82
and 1 19 respectively — a decrease in the latter years of
533, and during the last seven years there have been
fewer cases than in any of the previous years. There
is an important point brought out in the annual re-
port of the Superintendent of Police for Edinburgh,
which clearly shows that while there is an increase
within the last few years in the number of persons
apprehended for crimes, who were drunk when they
committed them, the number of persons apprehended
for drunkenness on Sundays within these years has
not increased. In 1852 there were 3,400 cases in
which drunkenness and crime were combined. In
1873 there were 3,741, an increase of 341. The ap-
prehensions of persons for drunkenness on the Lord's
day, were, in 1852, 729, while in 1873 there were
only 153. An equally gratifying result is seen in the
number of apprehensions for drunkenness between
eight o'clock on the Sunday mornings and eight
o'clock on the Monday mornings. In 1852 there
were 401, in 1873 only 52."

I also cite the closing paragraph, as it sug-
gests an explanation of the somewhat varying
5

98 The State vs. Alcohol,

estimates of the amount of good proceeding
from this Act to which Mr. Gladstone alkides :

" In conclusion, if all the results which were ob-
tained by the earher closing of public-houses on week
days by the Forbes-Mackenzie Act are not now main-
tained, it is simply because the hours at the disposal
of the working classes do not now bear the same propor-
tion to the hours at which the public-houses are open.
To secure the same benefits under the altered circum-
stances, the public-houses would require to be closed
as much earlier as the workshops are now generally
closed, and experience has shown, in the few cases
where this has been done, that the result was what
might have been expected — namely, diminished
drunkenness and crime."

To multiply illustrations would be needless
and wearisome. But it may be well to refer to
the fact that the instinct of ** the trade '' always
scents danger and loss in restrictive legislation.
And at the Brewers* Congress held in Cincin-
nati in 1875, Mr. Louis Schade, their special
agent, in an address before the convention bore
this emphatic testimony :

" Very severe is the injury which the brewers have
received in the so-called temperance States. The
local option law of Pennsylvania reduced the num-
ber of breweries in that State from 500 in 1873, to
346 in 1874; thus destroying 154 breweries in one
year. In Michigan it is even worse ; for of 202 brew-

The Province of Law, 99

erles in 1873, only 68 remained in 1874. In Ohio the
Crusaders destroyed 68 out of 296. In Indiana the
Baxter law stopped (^ out of 158. In Maryland the
breweries were reduced from 74 to 15, some few of
those stopped lying in those counties where they have
a local option law."

After referring to the increase of the trade in
certain States, but to the general reduction,
notwithstanding, in the country at large, he
says : ** There is no doubt that the temperance
agitation and prohibitory laws are the chief
causes of the decrease compared to the preced-
ing year."

CHAPTER XII.

EXTENT OF LEGISLATIVE POWER.

In England no question has ever arisen as to
the extent of legislative pozver over the liquor
traffic, for it is a fundamental maxim there, that
Parliament is politically omnipotent, or as Black-
stone puts it, " it can, in short, do everything that
is not naturally impossible" (Com. Book I., p.
i6i). But in governments like those of the
United States, deriving all their powers from,
and expressly limited by, the provisions of writ-
ten constitutions, it was inevitable that all legis-
lation affecting the interests of so powerful a
traffic should receive jealous examination to de-
termine whether it could be set aside as uncon-
stitutional. " There is no law," says Tarbell, J.,*
** which is as resolutely resisted by the utmost
ingenuity of the human mind and by the ablest
talent, as the statutes regulating the traffic in
intoxicating liquor."

'* The question of the constitutionality of such
statutes," says Mr. Bishop (Statutory Crimes,
sec. 989), " has been more frequently agitated

* Riley vs. The State, 43 Missis., 420.

Extent of Legislative Power. loi

than any other constitutional question presented
to our tribunals." And yet it will be found that
both the principles and essential features of the
varying laws upon this subject have been uni-
formly upheld by the highest courts in every
part of the land.

To give even a bare array of the names of
the multitudinous cases would here savor of
pedantry, and I prefer to present a summary of
the well-settled doctrines as given in a work
of standard authority by Judge Cooley, of
Michigan, on '* Constitutional Limitations " :

" That legislation of this character was void, so far
as it affected imported liquors, or such as might be in-
troduced from one State into another, because in con-
flict with the power of Congress over commerce, was
strongly urged in the License Cases before the Su-
preme Court of the United States ; but that view did
not obtain the assent of the Court. The majority of
the Court expressed the opinion — which, however, was
obiter in those cases — that the introduction of im-
ported liquors into a State and their sale in the
original packages as imported could not be forbidden,
because to do so would be to forbid what Congress, in
its regulation of commerce and in the levy of im-
ports, had permitted. But it was conceded by all that
when the original package was broken up for use or
for retail by the importer, and also when the com-
modity had passed from his hands into the hands of
a purchaser, it ceased to be an import or a part of
foreign commerce." ....

102 The State vs. Alcohol.

" It would seem from the views expressed by the
several members of the Court in these cases, that the
State laws known as Prohibitory Liquor Laws, the
purpose of which is to prevent altogether the manu-
facture and sale of intoxicating drinks as a beverage,
so far as legislation can accomplish that object, can
not be held void as in conflict with the power of Con-
gress to regulate commerce and to levy imports and
duties."

(The reader who cares to see the array of cases
which sustain these propositions may find them well
collected in the United States digest (First series),
Vol. VIL, p. 806, et seq.)

" The same laws have also been sustained when the
question of conflict with State Constitutions or with
general fundamental principles has been raised. They
are looked upon as police regulations, established by
the Legislature for the prevention of intemperance,
pauperism, and crime, and for the abatement of
nuisances." ....

" And it is only where, in framing such legislation,
care has not been taken to observe those principles
of protection which surround the persons and dwell-
ings of individuals, securing them against unreason-
able searchers and seizures, and giving them a right
to trial before condemnation that the courts have felt
at liberty to declare that it exceeded the proper
province of police regulation" (p. 581, et seq)

And it has been since decided by the same
Court, that neither the provisions of the In-
ternal Revenue Act which required payment of
a license fee by dealers in liquors, nor the tax

Extent of Legislative Power. 103

affixed to sales, interfered with the operation of
the State laws. (McGuire vs. Commonwealth,
3 Wallace, z'^^ '^ Purvear vs. Commonwealth,
5 Wallace, 475).

Mr. Bishop, the well-known writer on Criminal
Law, sums up the matter thus :

" The State, in the enactment of its laws, must ex-
ercise its judgment concerning what acts tend to
corrupt the public morals, impoverish the commu-
nity, disturb the public repose, injure the other
public interests, or even impair the comfort of in-
dividual members over whom its protecting watch
and care are required. And the power to judge of
this question is necessarily reposed alone in the
Legislature, from whose decision no appeal can be
taken, directly or indirectly, to any other department
of the Government. When, therefore, the Legisla-
ture, with this exclusive authority, has exercised its
right of judging concerning this legislative question,
by the enactment of prohibitions like those discussed
in this chapter, all other departments of the Gov-
ernment are bound by the decision which no court
has a jurisdiction to review ** (Statutory Crimes, sec.
995)-

Any attempt to distinguish between the
power to regulate and the power to prohibit
finds no judicial support.

In the celebrated '' License Cases " (5 How-
ard, 504) above referred to, Mr. Webster had
argued that as the County Commissioners in

I04 The State vs. Alcohol.

Massachusetts had authority from the Legisla-
ture to refuse licenses, and had in fact refused
to license, that the law was substantially one of
prohibition. Several of the judges do not hesi-
tate to meet this suggestion.

Thus Chief Justice Taney says:

" And if any State deems the retail and internal
traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and
calculated to produce idleness, vice, or debauchery, I
see nothing in the Constitution of the United States
to prevent it from regulating or restraining the traffic,
or {voTCi prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper."

Justice McLean :

" The necessity of a license presupposes a prohibi-
tion of the right to sell as to those who have no

license If the foreign article be injurious to

the health or morals of the community, a State may,
in the exercise of that great and conservative police
power which lies at the foundation of its prosperity,
prohibit the sale of it. No one doubts this in rela-
tion to infected goods or licentious publications.
.... Any diminution of the revenue arising from
this exercise of local power would be more than
repaid by the beneficial results. By preserving, as far
as possible, the health, the safety, and the moral
energies of society, its prosperity is advanced.'*

Justice Catron :

" I admit as inevitable that, if the State has the
power of restraint by licenses to any extent, she has

Extent of Legislative Power, 105

the discretionary power to judge of its limit, and may-
go to the length oi prohibiting sales altogether."

Woodbury, J. :

" It is the undoubted and reserved power of every
State here, as a political body, to decide, independent
of any provisions made by Congress, though subject
not to conflict with any of them when rightful, who
shall compose its population, who become its resi-
dents, who its citizens, who enjoy the privileges of its
laws, and be entitled to their protection and favor,
and what kind of property and business it will tolerate

and protect The power to forbid the sale of

things is surely as extensive and rests on as broad
principles of public security and sound morals as that
to exclude persons."

Justice Grier :

" 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
competent to the correction of these great evils, and
all measures of restraint or prohibition necessary to
effect that purpose are within the scope of that
authority ; . . . . and if a loss of revenue should ac-
crue to the United States from a diminished con-
sumption of ardent spirits, she will be a gainer a
thousand-fold in the health, wealth, and happiness of
the people."

It may seem to some superfluous to cite these

5*

io6 The State vs. Alcohol.

opinions of eminent judges upon a matter so
well settled; but they are valuable not merely
as authorities, but because they are based upon
principles, a familiar recurrence to which is use-
ful to protect the popular mind from the loose
sophistries of the hour.

The reader who cares to examine the adjudi-
cated cases further (to which I have referred
him), will find them to justify and fortify the
language of Chief Justice Harrington, of Dela-
ware:

" We have seen no adjudged case which denies the
power of a State in the exercise of its sovereignty, to
regulate the traffic in Hquor for restraint as well as
for revenue ; and, as a police measure, to restrict or
prohibit the sale of Hquor as injurious to public morals
or dangerous to public peace. The subjection of
private property, in the mode of its enjoyment, to the
public good and its subordination to general rights
liable to be injured by its unrestricted use, is a princi-
ple lying at the foundations of government. It is a
condition of the social state ; the price of its enjoy-
ment ; entering into the very structure of organized
society ; existing by necessity for its preservation, and
recognized by the Constitution in the terms of its
reservation as the ' right of acquiring and protecting
reputation and property, and of attaining objects suit-
able to their condition without injury one to another.' "
(The State vs. Allmond, 2 Houst. R., 612).

The only new legal principle involved in

Extcfit of Legislative Power, 107

what is called the prohibitory law, is the pro-
cedure ifi re7n, against liquor unlawfully kept
to obtain its judicial confiscation.

But, as Mr. Bishop shows, ''the earliest of
the old Eno-lish enactments on this exact sub-
ject (12 Edw. 2, c. 6, a.d. 13 18,) provides for
this forfeiture." So that, as he adds, it '* is one
of the modes of fine known in that fountain of
laws from which our jurisprudence is drawn."
(Statutory Crimes, sec. 993).

And some of the analogies of the law and the
reason thereof are clearly stated by Chief
Justice Shaw, in the leading case of Fisher vs,
McGirr, i Gray, p. i (Mass.) :

" We have no doubt that it is competent for the
Legislature to declare the possession of certain articles
of property, either absolutely or when held in par-
ticular places, and under particular circumstances, to
be unlawful, because they would be injurious, danger-
ous, or noxious ; and by due process of law, by pro-
ceedings in rem., to provide both for the abatement
of the nuisance and the punishment of the offender
by the seizure and confiscation of the property, by
the removal, sale, or destruction of the noxious
articles. Putrefying merchandise may be stored in a
warehouse, where, if it remain, it would spread con-
tagious disease and death through a community.
Gunpowder, an article quite harmless in a magazine,
may be kept in a warehouse always exposed to fire,
especially in the night ; however secreted, a fire in

io8 The State vs. Alcohol.

the building would be sure to find it, and the lives
and limbs of courageous and public-spirited firemen
and citizens, engaged in subduing the flames, would
be endangered by a sudden and terrible explosion.
It is of the highest importance that such persons
should receive the amplest encouragement to their
duty, by giving them the strongest assurance that the
law can give them that they shall not be exposed to
such danger. This can be done only by a rigorous
law against so keeping gunpowder, to be rigorously
enforced by seizure, removal, and forfeiture. The
cases of goods smuggled, in violation of the revenue
laws, and the confiscation of vessels, boats, and other
vehicles subservient to such unlawful acts, are in-
stances of the application of law to proceeding-s in
rem,

" The theory of this branch of the law seems to be
this: That the property of which injurious or dan-
gerous use is made, shall be seized and confiscated,
because either it is so unlawfully used by the owner
or person having the power of disposal, or by some
person with whom he has placed and entrusted it, or
at least, that he has so carelessly and negligently used
his power and control over it, that by his default it
has fallen into the hands of those who have made,
and intend to make, the injurious or dangerous use
of it, of which the public have a right to complain,
and from which they have a right to be relieved.
Therefore, as well to abate the nuisance as to punish
the offending or careless owner, the property may be
justly declared forfeited, and either sold for the pub-
lic benefit or destroyed, as the circumstances of the
case may require and the wisdom of the Legislature

Extent of Legislative Power. 109

direct. Besides, the actual seizure of the property
intended to be offensively used may be effected, when
it would not be practicable to detect and punish the
offender personally."

The common liquor traffic and its instruments
is thus remanded to the sole jurisdiction of the
Legislature for license, regulation, restriction
or prohibition, and destruction.

Assuming, then, the right of the State to con-
trol the traffic so as most effectively to suppress
intemperance, we come to consider how this
can best be done.

CHAPTER XIII.

LIBERTY AND GOVERNMENT.

** It is a common fault of enthusiasts for Liberty that they do
not clearly define what it is they would make free. . . . There
are some things which can not be liberated too much ; and
there are some things which devour all rational and enriching
liberty, if they are not effectually tied up ; and partisans of
liberty who are so blindly its partisans that they will not
discriminate, will not organize a means to liberate what is
really liberal, and bind what makes a vicious and destructive
bondage, are its partisans without being its promoters." — D.
A. Wascon.

Certain notions as to individual liberty and
the functions of government which obtain
among a recent school of writers, are frequently-
made to play an important part in the argument
against certain forms of restrictive legislation
against the liquor traffic. It is obvious, how-
ever, that if valid at all, they are equally valid
against all forms of such legislation.

At the head of this school stands Herbert
Spencer, who, in the reckless audacity of his
intellect, and with his omniscient style, an-
nounces in his " Social Statics " that '* as civ-
ilization advances, does government decay ; "
" We call government a necessary evil " (p. 25).

(no)

Liberty and Government, 1 1 1

*' Government is essentially immoral " (p. 230),
and defines the State to be a body of men
"voluntarily associated" *'for mutual protec-
tion " (p. 303).

The doctrine that the only true function of
government (if an essentially immoral institu-
tion can have any true function) is " mutual
protection," is one that is opposed to the prac-
tical judgment of all statesmen, as well as the
general theoretical judgment of past philoso-
phers, and is so subversive (as we shall see) of
what appear, at least, to be among the fairest
results of our political institutions, that it ought
to be supported by a great weight of reason to
win our acceptance. And to what does it make
its appeal? Why, it is said, to our sense of jus-
tice. Society being formed only upon the '* vol-
untary association " of individuals, and for pur-
poses of ** mutual protection," the presumed
assent of each member is limited to that object,
and it is a species of tyranny to compel him,
either by taxation or coerced obedience, to con-
tribute to any other end. But if it be granted
that each member of society desires ''protec-
tion," and so may justly, as an abstract principle,
be compelled to contribute money and obedience
therefor, yet, when you come to apply this
principle, you at once meet with difficulty.
Protection against what ? One man is satisfied

112 The State vs. Alcohol.

with protection to his Hfe and property ; another
man thinks protection against injuries to repu-
tation should be included, and still another, that
injury to the character of his children by the
evil excitement of passions and appetites, calls
loudly for protection ; and that the man who
seduces the affections of his wife is not only a
villain, but a criminal, against whom society, if
it calls itself civilized, is bound to protect him.
Or, if you reduce protection to its lowest terms
and include therein only defense from bodily
injury, still you do not escape the difficulty that
you must coerce some one against his convic-
tions. The non-resistant believes that love is
better than bars ; perhaps some student of
Spencer believes that if government is an '* es-
sentially immoral " institution, we had better
hold to the absolute right and let it go.* What,
then, shall we do with such men ? If we are to
have anarchy, we must let them alone ; if we
value government more than the Spencerian
philosophy, we must make them submit to the
will of the majority. The result is inevitable ;

* It is, perhaps, just to Spencer to say that in the preface
to his " Social Statics," from which our quotations are made, he
expresses regret that he has no time to re-write some chapters,
and remarks : " In re-stating them, he would bring into greater
prominence the transitional nature of all political institutions,
and the consequent relative goodness of some arrangements
which have no claims to absolute goodness."

Liberty and Goveriiment. 113

if men live in a civil society and enjoy its ad-
vantages, they must pay therefor, by a surrender
in some matters to the will of the majority.
We are, in fact, all under a sort of betterment
law ; and whenever society determines that any
policy improves the value of property and the
comfort of life, the individual, even though he
dissents, must contribute his share. It is one
of the necessary conditions of government, and
one on which, in the long run, the happiness of
every one depends.

Mr. Spencer follows out with stern consistency
to the end, his theory of mutual protection, and
that interpreted in the baldest sense, as the sole
function of government. Thus, in his " Social
Statics," he not only opposes all State provision
for the poor, but he says, " the State has no
right to educate" (p. 361); and he even op-
poses all sanitary inspection by the State as " a
violation of rights " (p. 406). To state such
propositions is to refute them, so far as the
common-sense and the common judgment of
mankind is the arbiter. But if we try them by
the test of reason, what is the strength of the
argument for thus reducing the functions ofj
government to what Huxley calls " Adminis-^
trative Nihilism ? "

To the believer in human government, as in
its essence, though not in its special forms, a

114 ^'^^ State vs. Alcohol.

divine Institution, ordained, like the family, as a
means, not merely of protection, but of culture
and development of the individual, this theory
is as baseless as the supposition of a mutual
compact, as the origin of government on which
it rests. But even those who are not prepared
to recognize any divine authority in govern-
ment, must see that it is illusory to rest it upon
the voluntary assent of its subjects. The bad,
who on the Spencerian theory have the only
need of government, can not certainly be pre-
sumed to assent to the laws which antagonize
them; while, as a matter -of fact, we know that
no one has come under the domain of law by
any process of voluntary assent. The simple
fact is, that men are born under government as
they are born into society. They have the
power of withdrawal from either ; but if they
remain and accept the advantages, they must
pay the price. The vast majority of the people
of New England, for instance, believe that the
material prosperity and the highest good of the
whole community are promoted by universal
education ; they also believe that this can be
secured in no other way than by a system of
State schools. Must they abandon the system
and forego all its blessings, because a few
crotchety individuals dissent from this view ?
If so, where shall we stop ? The very high-

^Liberty and Governme7tt. 115

ways are not built for '' protection," but for con-
venience. Is it not reasonable to say to the
dissentient members of society, To govern-
ment you owe not only the security of life and
property, but its enhanced value ? You can not
have at once all the added wealth of civilization,
with the wild freedom of the forest.

Various attempts have been made to define
the sphere of government. The definitions do
not stand the test of criticism. As practical
limits, no one will ever accept them.* The
truth is, no definition which deals in much limit-
ation is practicable. We may safely say with
the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of Massa-
chusetts (Art. VII.), that " Government is in-
stituted for the common good ; for the protec-
tion, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the
people ; and not for the profit, honor, or private
interest of any one man, family, or class of men."
But what government may properly do for '' the
prosperity and happiness of the people " varies

* Arthur Helps, in his " Thoughts on Government," well says :
" There are persons who theoretically declare that they desire the
least possible of governmental interference in all their affairs ;
but when any calamity occurs, or when any great evil, socially
speaking, comes to the surface, and is much talked about, these
same persons will be found joining in the cry that government
ought to have foreseen this — ought to look to that, and, in short,
all of a sudden (often when it is too late) they are willing greatly
to extend their views with regard to the proper functions of gov-
ernment."

Ii6 The State vs. Alcohol. '

greatly with time and place. In one country it
may even be inexpedient to establish a system
of common schools ; in another, it may be well
to supplement the best schools (common only
in the sense of universal) with free public li-
braries, with national galleries of art, with
civic parks and gardens. At times it may be
well for the State to assume the control of postal
and telegraphic service ; at other times, to leave
it to private enterprise. I know it is said that
it is dangerous to allow this broad scope to
government. To this I can not give a better
answer than in the common-sense words of
Huxley :

" It was urged, that if the right of the State to
step beyond assigned limits were admitted, there was
no stop, and the principle which allowed the State to
enforce vaccination or education would allow it to
prescribe his religious belief, or the number of courses
he had for dinner, or the pattern of his waistcoat.
The answer to that was surely obvious, for on similar
grounds the right of a man to eat when he was hungry
went, for if they allowed a man to eat at all there was
nothing to stop him from gorging. In practice, a man
left off when he had sufficient. So the co-operative
reason of the community would soon find out when
State interference had been carried far enough."

Liberty and Government. 117

JOHN STUART MILL.*

The speculative views of Spencer upon gov-
ernment have been less familiar to the public
than the essay of Mill upon ** Liberty." Certain
high-sounding sentences from this book have
served to garnish attacks upon restrictive legis-
lation upon the liquor traffic, and the very name
of Mill has lent a sort of respectability to the
advocacy of free trade in intoxicants.

It can not be denied that John Stuart Mill
has exercised a considerable deo^ree of fascina-
tion over a class of generous-minded young
people. Some degree of that personal magnet-
ism which availed in his lifetime, as sturdy John
Bright recently confesses, to make him for the
time against his judgment a supporter of female
suffrage, seems transfused into the written page.
And as our steadfast friend, during the dark

* If I seem, to the general reader, to devote too much atten-
tion to the speculations of Mill, I beg to quote an incident re-
lated by Rev. Mr. Vibbert in a paper read before the National
Temperance Convention at Chicago in 1875: "Several years
ago I wrote to a judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts,
to the United States District Attorney, to a candidate for Secre-
tary of State, now a member of Congress, all men of high worth
and ability, asking them for the strongest objections to prohibi-
tion. Each gentleman in his reply referred me to ex-Governor
Andrews' argiament, and to the fourth chapter of John Stuart
Mill's ' Essay on Liberty.' " I may add that Andrew himself
placed great stress upon the opinion of Mill.

ii8 The State vs. Alcohol,

days of the Rebellion, when English friends
seemed few, he seemed to have an additional
claim to a favorable reception on this side of
the Atlantic. And if we add to these consider-
ations a recognition of his pellucid, clear-cut
style, it will not be difficult to understand his
popularity. I should be ashamed to invoke
against Mr. Mill the theologzcum odium, but it
seems fair to say that since the publication of
his Autobiography, the reader will find his ad-
miration so mingled with commiseration, that
he will be indisposed to lean upon Mill as an
authority, or to trust him as an intellectual
guide any further than the light of his reason
shows the path. Fitz James Stephen, in
his able critique on Mill (entitled "Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity"), points out the fact,
which no careful reader of Mill's Essay could
fail to notice, that he uses a great deal of asser-
tion and very little argument. And this is the
more remarkable as he is a decided opponent
of the intuitional school. We are, therefore,
rather to examine statements than to discuss
proofs.

HIS DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY.

We desire to give Mr. Mill's idea of personal
liberty and the sphere of government in his
own words.

Liberty and Government. 119

In the introduction to his Essay he says :

'' The object of this Essay is to assert one very
simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the
dealings of society with the individual in the way of
compulsion and control, whether the means used be
physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the
moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is,
that the sole end for which mankind are warranted,
individually or collectively, in interfering with the
liberty of action of any of their number, is self-pro-
tection. That the only purpose for which power can
be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community against his will, is to prevent harm to
others " (p. 23).

Here we come again upon the Spencerian
theory of government, which we have already
examined. But in protesting against a limita-
tion of the powers of government, which would
deprive it of all right to promote the common
welfare by public improvement ; to satisfy the
common-sense of humanity by public provision
for the poor, the sick, and the class of *' defect-
ives; "to educate beyond such elementary in-
struction as may tend to prevent such gross
ignorance as threatens the safety of the State ;
to care in any way for the higher development
of society — yet it is to be observed, that the
prhiciple which Mr. Mill lays down, instead of
overturning, directly recognizes the central ba-

120 The State vs. Alcohol.

sis upon which the advocate of the suppression
of the Hquor traffic rests his case. If we have
proved anything in the course of this discussion,
we have proved exacdy this : that the Hquor
dealer is doing ''harm to others'' That is the
exact and foreknown result of his business.
Nor does it constitute any shield to him that in
order to effect this harm, he has to entice or to
enslave the will of the drinker. The State suf-
fers no less, and is no less clearly bound to in-
terfere *'to prevent harm to others," which is
the inevitable sequence to the traffic and disap-
pears with its suppression. This would be so
if the drinker himself were the only victim ; the
case is still stronger because of the fact that the
innocent wife and children, and society itself in
its every interest, feel the ''harm."

APPLICATIONS.

But the " applications " which Mill makes are
far more shocking than the principle he lays
down. '' Fornication, for example, must be
tolerated, and so must gambling" (p. 191).

As to the marriage relation, after quoting the
opinion of Wilhelm von Humboldt, to the effect
that it ** should require nothing more than the
declared will of either party to dissolve it," he
calls attention to the fact that in many cases
" the relation between two contracting parties

Liberty and Government. 121

has been followed by consequences to others,"
giving rise to obligations, and he adds, ** even if
as von Humboldt maintains, they ought to make
no difference in the Z*?^^/ freedom of the parties
to release themselves from the engagement
(and I also hold that they ought not to make
much difference) ; they necessarily make a great
difference in the moral iv^^Aova'' (p. 201).

Of course he regards '' Sabbatarian legisla-
tion " as an *' important example of illegitimate
interference with the rightful liberty of the indi-
vidual, not simply threatened, but long since
carried into triumphant effect" (p. 174).

Of these evil things he is sure. Of some
others even his great mind is left in doubt.
Thus, after stating that fornication and gambling
must be tolerated, he puts the question : '' But
should a person be free to be a pimp or to keep
a gambling-house ? The case is one of those
which lie on the exact boundary-line between
two principles, and it is not at once apparent to
which of the two it properly belongs. There
are arguments on both sides " (p. 191). And
after stating them, he naively says : ** I will not
venture to decide" (p. 193).

In such a state of mind, it is, perhaps, not

strange that he deprecates all interference with

the liquor traffic. He is too clear-sighted not

to see that restriction must rest upon the same

6

122 The State vs. Alcohol.

ground as prohibition ; and he declares for free
trade in the commodity. He says :

" To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making
them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure dif-
fering only in degree from their entire prohibition ;
and would be justifiable only if that were justifiable."

And after approving certain police regulations
of the traffic, he adds :

" Any further restriction I do not conceive to be,
in principle, justifiable. The limitation in number,
for instance, of beer and spirit houses for the express
purpose of rendering them more difficult of access,
and diminishing the occasions of temptation, not only
exposes all to an inconvenience because there are
some by whom the facility would be abused, but is
suited only to a state of society in which the laboring
classes are avowedly treated as children or savages,
and placed under an education of restraint, to fit
them for future admission to the privileges of free-
dom" (p. 196).

Mr. Mill thus explicitly holds that society has
no right to protect itself or its members against
the conceded evils which flow from the liquor
traffic, either by diminishing facilities or temp-
tation. And he thus stands opposed, not
merely to the prohibitionist, but to the well-
nigh unanimous considerate, practical judgment
of those who in all aees and in all countries
have been called upon to face and to deal with

Liberty and Government. 123

this liquor problem. And yet it may be that he
is more logically consistent than the advocates
of " half-way measures."

Mr. Mill's cardinal objection is to all laws
** where the object of the interference is to make
it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular
commodity. These interferences are objection-
able, not as infringements on the liberty of the
producer or seller, but on that of the buyer "
(p. 185). But if the sale is admitted or proved
to be, not in every individual case, but in the
aggregate, the cause of vast injury to the pub-
lic welfare, upon what ground is the liberty of
the buyer to be preferred to the safety of the
State ? When the Government has the undis-
puted right to deprive the subject temporarily
of all liberty, and even to impair the security of
his life by compulsory military service in time
of danger, has it no right to curtail his freedom
to buy liquor, if thereby it can render its streets
more safe, depopulate its almshouses, and thin
out its prisons ? The moment any business or
pursuit becomes dangerous to the State, that
moment the State acquires jurisdiction over it,
and it has only to consider in determining either
its regulation or suppression the degree of in-
convenience to the individual caused by such
interference as compared with the degree of
danger to the State.

124 The State vs. AlcohoL

CONCESSIONS.

If duly weighed, the concessions in this Essay
itself destroy the application which Mr. Mill
makes of his doctrines to the liquor traffic.

Thus, on page 94, he says :

" The interest, however, of these dealers in pro-
moting intemperance is a real evil, and justifies the
State in imposing restrictions and requiring guaran-
tees, which but for that justification would be infringe-
ments of legitimate liberty."

But why should people who have an interest
in promoting intemperance be allowed to ply
their vocation at all ? And what if it so hap-
pens that long experience of many years and
places has proved these '' restrictions " and
*' guarantees " to be futile ? Common-sense
would seem to say that in such case, unless the
drink-shops do some good equivalent to the
evil of promoting intemperance, it were the part
of wisdom to suppress them. And the cursory
reader would suppose that Mr. Mill would as-
sent to this when he reads on page 183 :

" Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to
sell any description of goods to the public does what
affects the interest of other persons, and of society in
general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes
within the jurisdiction of society.**

Liberty and Government, 125

The leading principle of his chapter on the
" Limits to the Authority of Society over the
Individual " is stated thus :

" Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage,
or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual
or to the public, the case is taken out of the province
of liberty and placed in that of morality or law/'

If the term " definite " is used here as synon-
ymous with clear or positive, the rule is broad
enough to support legislation against the liquor
traffic. I do not see how the word "definite"
can have any other reasonable meaning in this
connection. For surely, it is the evident quantum,
and not the exactness with which the estimate
of damage can be made, that gives society occa-
sion to interfere. ''De minimis non curat lex'*
is no doubt a wholesome maxim to be applied
to the making as to the administration of laws ;
but when it is de maximisy if the evil is so vast
and varied as to be incapable of computation,
and is in that sense indefinite, it surely furnishes
no reason for forbearance. It is a truism to say
that no business or pursuit known to civilized
life inflicts greater damage or exposes society
to greater risks than the traffic in question. It
is not ** definite" simply because it is too great
to be calculable ; it is fearfully indefinite, but it
is a fixed fact in the past and morally certain in
the future.

126 The State vs. Alcohol.

We might well rest the argument here. We
'have shown that even upon the necessary con-
cessions of Mill, society has a right in a case of
such actual damage and such constant peril to
itself as the liquor traffic causes, to interfere
with the ''liberty" of the seller; and if this be
so, it is immaterial that the liberty of the buyer
is incidentally affected. But if there were oc-
casion, the argument might be pushed much
further. Such interference seems maintainable
upon principle ; leaving its extent to be de-
termined by considerations of practicability and
expediency. Let us not be misled by favorite
words. ** Liberty," says Dr. Arnold, " is a
means, and not an end ; " and that true liberty
which secures the free development of man's
higher nature frequently depends upon the re-
straint of the lower appetites. So

" — Wholesome laws preserve us free
By stinting of our liberty." *

Every one recognizes the authority of society
to interfere by outward restraint in case of indi-
viduals of unsound or immature mind, and

* Or, as Thomas Carlyle, in his rough prose, sets forth the con-
verse : " No man oppresses thee, O free and independent fran-
chiser ! but does not this stupid pewter pot oppress tli£e ? No
son of Adam can bid thee come or go, but this absurd pot of
heavy-wet can and does ! Thou art the thrall not of Cedric the
Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites, and this accursed dish of
liquor. And thou pratest of thy ' liberty,' thou entire blockhead ! ".

Liberty and Government, 127

recognizes the further fact that such interference,
though nominally as one of restraint, is really in
the interest of normal development. Now,
where society sees that individuals, even where
they fall short of that actual state of drunken-
ness which the Greeks expressively designated
as '' brief madness," are yet exposed to that
overpowering temptation which the liquor
dealer presents, by which their inner will is
mastered, may not society take off the external
force, and so leave the man to be his own
master? To this extent, at least, it seems to
us that Government not only may, but ought to
go. And no prohibitory laws yet enacted have
attempted to go further. They have not pro-
hibited buying ; they have not made it imprac-
ticable for any man whose sober judgment ap-
proves the drinking habit to procure by fore-
thought such a supply of " pure " imported
liquors as will allow him the inestimable privi-
lege of such a diet or such a stimulant. As
this treatise has a practical object, it is unneces-
sary here to consider how much farther the
right of society may extend.*

* The reader who wishes to follow a suggestive discussion of
the rationale of Government interference with outward freedom
in the interest of a higher, as applied to English " Factory Legis-
lation," will read with interest the chapter on "Law in Politics,"
page 324, of a book entitled " The Reign of Law," by the Duke
of Argyll.

i:>8 The State vs. Alcohol.

THE OPPOSITE DRIFTS.

It is a striking fact that while Spencer and
his school have largely led the speculative mind
of the present generation in the direction of
''nihilism" in government, the practical and
legislative mind has been going exactly in the
contrary.

Spencer says, as we have before quoted:
*' Thus as civilization advances does govern-
ment decay."

Arthur Helps, in his " Thoughts on Govern-
ment," directly antagonizes him thus :

" It is the opinion of some people, but, as I con-
tend, a wrong and delusive opinion, that, as civiliza-
tion advances there will be less and less need for
government. I maintain that, on the contrary, there
will be more and more need."

So far, the practical victory remains most
markedly with Mr. Helps. And the causes for
this are not difficult to understand. In the first
place, as one of the results of modern civiliza-
tion, men are brought closer together in every
way, and their relations multiplied in number
and complexity ; so that, as Prof. Huxley ob-
serves, the action of one man has more influ-
ence over another, and it becomes " less possi-
ble for one to do a wrong thing without interfer-
ing more or less with the freedom of his fellows."

Liberty and Government, 129

Then, again, a closer study of the laws of
human solidarity has shown how the well-being
of all depends on the well-being and well-doing
of each ; while a better acquaintance with the
moral and physical laws of the universe has
revealed kinds of injury and damage unnoticed
by former generations. At the same time, the
intense pursuit of wealth, and the creation of
vast moneyed corporations, as a necessary
means for carrying on the great enterprises of
the day, has made labor, while nominally free,
quite at the mercy of capital at vital points,
without legislative protection. Simultaneously
with this, there has grown up under the educat-
ing influence of Christianity, a tenderer sympa-
thy for the weak, a stronger sense of human
brotherhood. And when to these causes we
add the historic fact, that in all civilized countries
the people have been steadily, if slowly, ** com-
ing to power," it is not strange that legislation
has been growing more philanthropic, and gov-
ernment more paternal.
6*

CHAPTER XIV.

LAW A NECESSITY.

** Drunkenness," says Gov. Andrew, in his
famous plea for license, *' will disappear as the
li^ht shines in on the darkened intellect, as
opportunity develops manhood, as hope visits
and encourages the heart." This is an eloquent
way of saying what he attempts to maintain in
detail, that prosperity, education, and religion
will take care of intemperance without the aid
of law.

Facts, stubborn facts, teach the contrary.
Let us see, first, how drunkenness has been
affected by

PROSPERITY.

A recent Parliamentary return shows that the
consumption of foreign spirits has increased as
follows, from 1871 to 1875 :

England, 2,163,430 gals., or 30 per cent.
Scotland, 641,250 " "100 "
Ireland, 122,075 " " 29 "

The consumption of British spirits has increased
in the same time thus :

England, 3,868,036 gals., or 30 per cent.

Scotland, 1,200,993 " " 21 "

Ireland, 873,434 " "16 "
('30)

\

Law a Necessity,

131

This is exclusive of a moderate increase in wines.
*' Is this," remarks the English journal from
which I take these figures, "■ any indication of
the progressive sobriety which was to follow
commercial prosperity and educational advan-
tages ? Had all this arisen with a permissive
bill on the statute-book, what a cry would have
been raised ! But it has arisen under license
administered by magistrates and guarded by
the police (with the publicans to help), and
what a commentary it is on the predictions of
the journalists and legislators who could see no
need of ' extreme measures,' but trusted to
* moral influences ' for a diminished use of intox-
icating liquors." But there is still more direct
proof that drunkenness is still on the increase
in England.

The *' judicial statistics" of England and
Wales show the following aggregate of cases
proceeded against for drunkenness and " drunk-
enness with disorder," for several years past,
with the percentage these form of the whole
number of *'* summary cases " of different of-
fenses :

1867 .

. 100,357 .

21

per cent.

1868 .

111,405

. 23

1869 .

122,310 .

24

1870

131,870

25

I87I

. 142,343 .

26

1872

. i53»o84 .

27

132 The State vs. Alcohol,

1873 .

182,941

31 per cent.

1874 .

185,730 .

. 40 "

1875 .

203,980

.

Lord Aberdare has been shown to have taken
too rose-colored a view of the diminution of
English crime ; but even he bears emphatic
testimony upon this point in an address deliver-
ed before the Social Science Congress of 1875.
Alluding to the experience of Glamorganshire
during the period of the strikes, he says :

" There was a large decrease in the number of com-
mittals to the county gaols. But although during
this period there was ample leisure, no money could
be earned, and strict economy was imperatively neces-
sary. Hence the public-houses were deserted, and the
police courts almost as empty as the public-houses.
I most heartily rejoice in that general and gradual in-
crease of wages, which of late years has brought com-
fort into so rnany homes, and given occasional respite
from their labor to so m^ny industrious workmen. But
this satisfaction, which I am convinced is shared in
by all those now present, is sadly marred by the re-
flection forced upon me of the misuse of these ad-
vantages by so many of our countrymen, and by the
fact that, whereas periods of adversity empty our
gaols and almost make police magistrates superfluous,
a return to prosperity restores those instruments of
order and justice to their full use and activity."

So the Archbishop of York, in a special
service at Westminster Abbey, on a Sunday

Law a Necessity. 133

evening of the past year, felt compelled to make
what he felt to be "a miserable and shameful
confession " of national weakness. Alluding to
the great increase of the expenditure for drink,
as shown by official returns, he said :

" If the question were asked, what was the cause
of this fearful increase, he could conceive of no answer
but this : that the nation had lately been growing
richer, and that it drank in proportion as it could pay
for drink."

After the memorable report of the Convoca-
tion of the Province of Canterbury on intem-
perance was made, a committee was appointed
by the Convocation in the Province of York
for a similar purpose, whose report was pub-
lished in 1874. The committee say that ** every
assertion made" in the report, is "founded
upon the direct testimony of numerous witnesses
moving in various ranks of life, filling various
offices, and all of them, for some reason or
other, peculiarly fitted to pronounce an opin-
ion." Among the conclusions which they em-
phasize are that intemperance " is always in
proportion to the rate of wages and the a7nount
of facilities provided for obtaining strong
drink ; " and that the large increase of intem-
perance during the last decade "exists princi-
pally in the great centers of manufacturing and

134 ^^^ State vs. AlcohoL

commercial industry, and invariably where a high
rate of wages prevails." The reader who cares
to turn to the appendix of testimony will be sur-
prised at the unanimity on this point. As the
Northern Echo (February 22, 1874) sums it up :
*' When wages are lowest, drunkenness is at a
minimum ; when wages are highest, drunken-
ness is at a maximum." Well may the editor
call this "- a. most saddening, disheartening docu-
ment."

To this observed relation, judges as well as
clergymen and statesmen have borne frequent
testimony. Thus in his charge to the grand
jury at Cavan (Ireland), August 10, 1872, Mr.
Justice Lawson said :

" He had only to regret, in conclusion, that drunk-
enness appeared, from the returns of the county in-
spector, to be on the increase in the county. He
feared it was within all their experience, that partic-
ularly in this part of the country drunkenness seemed
to increase in direct ratio to the prosperity of the
people. When wages were high and employment
abundant, tfae surplus earnings were too often ex-
pended in the gratification of a propensity which, it
was his experience, led to almost all the crime appear-
ing at the assizes in this country."

EDUCATION.

To make education a panacea for intemper-
ance, is to fly in the face of both philosophy and

Law a Necessity, 135

experience. Education is the cure of ignorance ;
but ignorance is not the cause of intemperance.
Men who drink, generally know better than
others that the practice is foolish and hurtful.
They drink because appetite, when stimulated
by temptation, is stronger than reason. The
double cure needed for intemperance is to
strengthen the power of resistance by arousing
the moral nature, and to diminish the force of
temptation by the removal of the outward so-
licitation. It is not mere clearness of mental
vision ; alas 1 that is needed for moral victory.
It does not need that a man should know the
language, to utter the sentiment of the Latin
poet:

*' Video meliora proboque ;
Deteriora sequor."

Ah, Governor Andrew ! It is not ''the darkened
intellect " alone that this monster has chained.
The catalogue of his victims in this and the
old world alike is starred with names brilliant
in the ranks of literature and statesmanship,
and happy is he who has reached middle life
(if such a one there be) who can not recall
among those he has counted his friends many
who have sunk forever out of sight in the dark
waters of intemperance, carrying with them the
richest argosies of culture and of hope.

It is not the most earnest and intelligent

136 The State vs. Alcohol,

workers in the sphere of public education that
make this overestimate of it as a specific for
intemperance. While they are fully sensible of
that measure of indirect aid which intellectual
culture brings to all moral reforms, by strength-
ening the mind and purifying the tastes, they
feel how weak is this agency alone to measure
its strength against the powerful appetite for
drink when stimulated by the dram-shop. Edu-
cation looks with horror at the foe she can not
conquer, and implores philanthropy and states-
manship to remove the greatest obstacle to her
progress into those dark regions where she is
needed most.

No statesman of England has thought more
of public education than Lord Brougham. Yet,
in 1839, he spoke in the House of Lords these
disheartened words :

" To what good is it that the Legislature should
pass laws to punish crime, or that their lordships
should occupy themselves in trying to improve the
morals of the people by giving them education ?
What could be the use of sowing a little seed here, and
plucking up a weed there, if these beer-shops are to
be continued to sow the seeds of immorality broad-
cast over the land, germinating the most frightful
produce that ever has been allowed to grow up in a
civilized country, and, he was ashamed to add, under
the fostering care of Parliament."

Law a Necessity, 137

And Horace Mann, the very apostle of com-
mon school education in our country, exclaimed
at the outset of his career : '* If temperance pre-
vails, then education can prevail ; if temperance
fails, then education must fail."

But here again, as in every stage of our dis-
cussion, our main reliance is upon massive
facts ; and as in our every-day observation we
have seen that individual culture is no security
against the seductions of drink, so upon a
larger scale we shall see that intemperance does
not rise or fall with national education. But,
as expressed in the Canterbury Convocation
Report : *' Even in highly civilized communities
intemperance has been found commensurate
with temptations to drink."

And, first, we note the general fact already
substantiated, that while in England there has
been no special cause in immigration or war to
deteriorate the national life, and while the school-
master has been abroad as never before, yet the
publican and the brewer have been more than
a match for him.

We note again that Scotland, ** the most
educated and religiously-instructed portion of the
British Empire, and her people naturally the
thriftiest," presents an appalling picture of the
results of the liquor traffic. Unfortunately, Scot-
land is as notorious for whisky-drinking as for

138 The State vs. Alcohol,

religious and educational institutions, and from
the Parliamentary returns we have given above,
it will be seen that the drinking more than
keeps pace with the population. The reader
will notice the increase in the consumption of
all kinds of liquors is very much larger in Scot-
land than in Ireland. In the correspondence
of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts
(Report 1 87 1, p. 297), I find in a letter from
the Consul at Manchester extracts from' a table
of Professor Levi, giving the consumption per
head of proof spirit* in 1866 in the different
countries of the United Kingdom. Scotland and
Ireland stands thus :

Scotland. Ireland.
Gin and Whisky, . . . 1.659 g^^s., 0.800

Brandy, Rum, etc., . , 0.188 " 0.057

Beer and Ale, .... 1.050 ** 0.710

Wine, 0.087 " 0.064

Total, . . . 2.984 1. 63 1

Or nearly three gallons in one, and a little more
than a gallon and a half in the other. The
superior prosperity and education of Scotland,
it will be seen, is unable to keep down the
drinking to the Irish standard.

In regard to Ireland itself, some curious and
instructive statistics may be found in a paper

* " English proof spirit is about one-half alcohol and one-half
water, or exactly (by volume), alcohol .57, water .43."

Law a Necessity, 139

read before the British Association at DubHn,
in 1857, by James Moncrieff Wilson, the Actu-
ary. Dr. Lees, in his ** Condensed Argument,"
summarizes and classes together the statistical
elements for several provinces, of (i) education,
(2) occupation, (3) house accommodation, (4)
drunkeries, (5) drunkenness, and (6) crime.
The *' clear deductions," from the table exhibit-
ed, I give in his own words :

" I. That education combined with occupation
tends powerfully towards the diminution of crime,
more especially tow^ards the decrease of offences
against property without violence.

" II. That low -class dwelling-house accommoda-
tion tends towards the increase of crime.

" III. That the sale of intoxicating liquor has, per-
haps, as powerful an effect upon crime in increasing
it, as education and occupation combined have in
lessening it. * Thus Connaught is by far the worst edu-
cated Province in Ireland, with the largest unoccupied
population, yet the tendency to crime is less than in
any other Province except Ulster. This can only be
accounted for by the considerations, that in Con-
naught there are forty-two drink-houses fewer to
every 100,000 of the population than in any other
Province ; and that the percentage of committals for
drunkenness does not amount in Connaught to one-
half the like percentage for the average of Ireland.'

^' IV. That were intoxicating drinks less freely
used, education, as a means of reducing crime, would
become most powerful."

140 The State vs. Alcohol,

But In no country has the experiment of uni-
versal education, conjoined with free trade in
liquors, been more amply tried than in Sweden.
The results are striking. Without taking- time
to go into details of their public educational
system, it is sufficient to notice the actual con-
dition, in this respect, of her people. And the
testimony as to this is concurrent and emphatic.
Thus Mr. Laing, who wrote in 1838 his '*Tour
in Sweden," and with a special eye to "the
moral, political, and economical state of the in-
habitants," tells us that "in the province of
Wexio-lan, in 40,000 people, only one person
was found unable to read" (p. 187), and that
" of the whole population, including even Lap-
landers, it is reckoned that the proportion of
grown persons in Sweden unable to read is less
than one in a thousand " (p. 186). " Elementary
education is universal in Sweden," says Apple-
ton's American Cyclopedia; and a curious il-
lustration of it is given in the letter from Mr.
Andrews, the resident Minister of the United
States at Stockholm, on crime in Sweden,
which may be found in the " Foreign Relations
of the United States — 1875 "(No. 272). Of
those convicted of the more serious offenses in
1872, all but three per cent, could read. Yet
such a country in 1854, through the report of a
special committee of its Diet, had to confess

Law a Necessity, 141

that " seldom, if ever, has a conviction so gen-
erally and unequivocally been pronounced as in
later years in Sweden, with regard to the ne-
cessity of rigorous measures against the physi-
cal, economical, and moral ruin with which the
immoderate use of strong liquors threatens the
nation The comfort of the Swedish peo-
ple— even their existence as an enlightened,
industrious, and royal people — is at stake unless
means can be found to check the evil." And
Appleton's American Cyclopedia summed up
the common judgment when it said : *' Drunk-
enness from immoderate potations of their
fiery corn brandy has been more common than
in any other country in Europe." There is
now an improved state of things in this king-
dom, but which it is only here important to
note, is not due to education.

It may be added, that there is reason to fear
that in our own country we have placed too
much reliance upon mere education as a pre-
ventive of crime. The Report of the Bureau
of Statistics of Labor in Mass. for 1877 (p. 220),
states that only eleve^z per cent, of all convicts
in that State are illiterates — i. e., not able to
read and write; and that of the 220 sent to
the State Prison in 1876, only 21 were such
illiterates.

142 The State vs. Alcohol,

RELIGION.

When religion is spoken of as a cure for in-
temperance, a fallacy lurks in the ambiguity in
the phrase. True religion is a normal cure for
intemperance as for every other sin ; for, unlike
education, its dominion is over the heart, out
of which '* are the issues of life," and not over
the head alone. In this sense we assent to the
proposition. But the problem is, how are those
prone to intemperance to be got and kept under
the influence of this power? As Horace Mann
asks, " What can Bible or Christianizing socie-
ties do with the intemperate ? At best they
can only address moral and religious senti
ments whose animation is suspended." The
ear of the spirit must be opened before the
heart can be touched ; and we have already
seen how intemperance not only closes the
spiritual senses, but keeps the victim and
the whole family of which he is the center,
away from the very presence of the sanc-
tuary.

If, therefore, it is meant that religious institu-
tions and the ordinary methods of religious
education can be relied on as the sole and suf-
ficient preventive or cure of this evil, I deny the
proposition. All experience is against it. This
very country of Sweden supplies the refutation.

Law a Necessity, 143

Mr. Laing, in the work from which we have
quoted, says :

'' In no country are the exterior forms and decen-
cies of public worship better attended to. The
churches are substantial, and not merely well kept
up, but even decorated inside and outside ; the clergy
fairly endowed, well lodged, and, in general, on good
terms with their flocks ; they are also well-educated
men, and form a body of great power in the State.
Yet, with all these exterior signs of a religious state
of the public mind, and with all the means of a
powerful Church establishment, unopposed by sect or
schism to make it religious, it is evident, from the
official returns of crime, that in no Christian com-
munity has religion less influence on the public
morals" (p. 125).

A curious fact is stated in the letter of Mr.
Andrews, the American Minister before alluded
to. He does not give the whole number of
convicts in all the prisons during the year 1873,
but only the average number, which he states
as 4,906. He says :

"During the year, seventy-one convicts partook of
the sacrament for the first time, all of the others, as
it would seem, having previously done so, that re-
ligious rite being in this country a matter of course."

The experience of Sweden is well summed
up by Mr. Balfour in his recent letter to Mr.
Gladstone, where he says :

144 1^^^ State vs. Alcohol,

" Neither the spread of education nor the influence
of rehgious observances, which are so much relied
upon in England as the cure for intemperance, were
found to have that effect in Sweden, and that, while
these were, doubtless, important and indispensable,
yet other means were absolutely essential for bring-
ing about the reformation that has occurred in Sweden
since Mr. Laing visited it " (p. 27).

A phrase in Mr. Balfour's letter suggests the
query. But who is it that relies upon education
and religion to extirpate drunkenness ? We
fear it will be found that they are mainly the
friends of the traffic, who want it extirpated very
mildly and slowly, if at all, or doctrinaires
who have a dislike to all laws in aid of public
morals. Certainly it is not the men who are
most awake to the need of public education ; it
is not the clergy ; it is not the evangelists ; it is
not the missionary who threads the lanes of
poverty and disease in our large cities. All
these cry aloud to us for the help of law. Thus
the very able Committee of the Convocation of
Canterbury, in their report which was adopted
by the conservative clergy of the Establishment
after careful consideration and suitable recom-
mendation of " non-legislative remedies," place
on record their emphatic testimony in these
words :

" Meanwhile, your committee are convinced that

Law a Necessity, 145

without an improved and stringent system of legisla-
tion, and its strict enforcement, no effectual and per-
manent remedy for intemperance can be looked for."

The same conclusion had long ago been
reached by individuals whose position and life-
work gave them the best opportunity to meas-
ure and watch the antagonistic forces of society.
In his testimony before the Committee of the
House of Lords in 1850, Rev. John Clay, the
experienced chaplain of the Preston House of
Correction, speaking of the passage of the
'' Beer Bill," exclaimed :

" Instantly 40,000 dens were opened, each of which
breeds more immorality and sin in a week than can
be counteracted by the minister of religion in a
year."

Archdeacon Garbitt said :

" A large experience tells me that when a neigh-
borhood is visited by this scourge (beer-shops), no
organization, no zeal, no piety, however devoted, no
personal labors, however apostolic, will avail to effect
any solid amelioration."

Only a few months since, a memorial was
presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury and
the other Bishops, members of the House of
Lords, asking their attention to legislative aids
for the suppression of intemperance, which was
7

146 The State vs. Alcohol,

signed by over thirteen thousand clerg-ymen of
the Church of England, of all orders, in which
occurs this emphatic utterance :

" We are convinced, most of us from an intimate
acquaintance with the people, extending over many
years, that their condition can never be greatly im-
proved, whether intellectually, physically, or relig-
iously, so long as intemperance extensively prevails
amongst them, and that intemperance will prevail so
long as temptations to it abound on every side."

Whose judgment can we imagine as entitled
to more weight upon this precise point ?

And if we turn from such impressive declara-
tions to look at actual experiments, ex-Bailie
Lewis gives us a most instructive chapter from
the annals of Edinburgh. He first shows us
that, in 1871, in that city the number of drunken
commitments was 5,400; in 1875, 65824, an
increase of twenty-six per cent, during an in-
crease of only seven per cent, of population ;
and in 1876 the number had risen to 7,114.
For '' the accuracy and impartiality of these
returns," he gives his personal voucher, and
then adds :

" It would appear as if, in the Providence of God,
Edinburgh had been selected as the field for a great
social experiment as to whether drunkenness can be
eradicated while the drink traffic remains. It would
appear as if during the last few years human ingenuity

Law a Necessity. 147

had exhausted itself in Edinburgh towards that end.
Let us look at what has been done. By the adminis-
trators of the poor-law during the last five years
;^265,ooohave been expended in support of pauperism,
four-fifths of which \vere the direct result of the public-
house. Sanitary reformers expended half a million
sterling in erecting improved dwellings and promot-
ing sanitary reform. Educationists also occupied the
field. During the last five years one institution alone
has expended ;^40,ooo in free education among the
children of the citizens, and there was the Education
Act, with its compulsory clause and expensive ma-
chinery. The Christians, too, had been active in the
divine work of seeking the reclamation of the lost,
and a tide of revival had flowed upon the city with-
out a parallel in modern times. Most churches have
been galvanized into spiritual activity, and much good
had been accomplished ; but I am free to say that
the revival movement never penetrated the heart of
drink — the cursed slums. Temperance reformers had
also been specially active. Templar lodges had been
formed by the score, and temperance societies in the
Church and out of the Church had been established
throughout the city. In promoting bands of hope,
one gentleman had, during the last five years, . ex-
pended ;^i 1,000. The magistrates had been aiming
at the reduction of licenses, and during the reign of
the present Lord Provost the licensed houses had
been considerably reduced, notwithstanding an in-
crease in population of nearly 9,000 during that
period. We have thus seen somewhat of the com-
bined efforts of moral, social, religious, and temper-
ance reformers, and the question arises, What has

148 The State vs. Alcohol.

been the effect of all these in suppressing drinking
and drunkenness ? Mark, I do not eay those move-
ments have not accomplished much. God only knows
what would have been the state of the city had not
those agencies been at work. What I affirm is, that
they have not been able to check or keep abreast of
the tide of drink demoralization The conclu-
sion of the whole matter is this — until there is suffi-
cient Christian patriotism among the leaders of the
people to demand the statutory prohibition of this
licensed enormity, society must make up its mind to
bear all the accumulated horrors of the drink curse."

We close this chapter with a word of repeti-
tion, rather than to leave any chance of being
misunderstood. We, too, believe in the ame-
liorating influence of popular education, — in the
all-conquering power of practical religion. But,
on the way to their triumph, they must abolish
the dram-shop. The traffic blocks their way.
It is an enemy they can not safely leave be-
hind.

CHAPTER XV.

LICENSE LAWS.

The first attempt of Government to deal with
the traffic was as a matter of excise and of regu-
lation. It was perceived that liquor afforded
an easy object of taxation, and no one felt any
scruple in subjecting it to such as would yield
large revenue, while at the same time the most
heedless saw that it was an exceptional traffic,
liable to frightful results, and inviting the strict-
est surveillance.

The reader who desires to see an instructive
sketch of the legislation of England on this
subject from the earliest times, will find it in
Dr. Lees' "Condensed Argument" (pp. 59 to
yS). The resume justifies his conclusion :
" Britain has tried, other nations have tried,
restriction and regulation. The experiment
has failed — miserably failed." And he quotes
from the Lo7tdon Times (of May 13, 1857). as
the organ of public sentiment, this confession :
*' The licensing system has the double vice of
not answering a public end, but a private one.
// has been tried, and has beejt found want
ing." The old country is still experimenting.

(H9)

150 The State vs. Alcohol.

If such is the result across the water, we
might anticipate that such laws would avail still
less in a country like ours, where the machinery
for the enforcement of all laws is generally less
complete and less energetically put in motion.

It is impracticable, of course, to attempt a
history of License, or an outline of the various
statutes in the several States of the Union.
But as they all have a family likeness, and their
results are not widely variant, I shall do the
system no injustice by confining my attention
to its workine in a single State. And I select
Massachusetts, because no State commenced
the experiment of license earlier, has tried it un-
der more variety of conditions, or has brought
more ability and earnestness to the solution of
the problem. And yet, throughout the course
of legislation, there is the constant struggle
after stringency, and the confession of prior in-
efficiency.

THE HISTORY OF LICENSE IN MASSACHUSETTS.

The first law I find in the Old Colony pro-
vides :

" That none be suffered to retail wine, strong water,
or beer,* either within doors or without, except

* It is quite evident that our forefathers early learned what
were intoxicating liquors, if they did not find out how to manage
them.

License Laws, 151

in inns or victualling houses allowed " (1636 ; Plymouth
Colony Records, Vol. I., p. 13).

In 1646, the Massachusetts Colony declared :

" Forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred
of all nations, especially of those who hold out and
profess the Gospel of Christ Jesus, and seeing any
strict law will not prevail unless the cause be taken
away, it is therefore ordered by this Court, — ist. That
no merchant, cooper, or any other person whatever,
shall, after the first day of the first month, sell any
wine under one-quarter cask, neither by quart, gallon,
or any other measure, but only such tavemers as are
licensed to sell by the gallon ; and whosoever shall
transgress this order shall pay ten pounds."

" Any taverners or other persons that shall inform
against any transgressor shall have one-half of the
fines for his encouragement T

Section 4 forbids drinking or tippling after 9

P.M.

S^tion 7 forbids

" Any person licensed to sell strong waters, or any
private housekeeper, to permit any person to sit drink-
ing or tippling strong waters, wine, or strong beer, in
their houses " (Mass. Colony Records, Vol. II., p. 171).

The law of 1661 prefaces its enactment thus :

" Upon complaint of the great abuses that are daily
committed by the retailers of strong waters this Court
doth order, etc."

152 The State vs. Alcohol,

In 1665, cider takes its place among the In-
hibited liquors ; as it appears to have done in
Plymouth Colony in 1667 (Records, Vol. XL,
p. 218).

In 1670, keepers of public-houses are warned
not to allow ** noted "drunkards on their premises.
In 1680, it is provided that licenses shall first be
approved by the Selectmen of the town before
they are granted by the Court, and that they
shall not be granted "till after the Grand Jury
present their indictments,"

The statute of 1692 prefaces certain stringent
provisions as to public-houses with this pream-
ble:

"And, forasmuch as the ancient, true, and princi-
pal use of inns, taverns, ale-houses, victualling-houses,
and other houses for common entertainment is for
receipt, relief, and lodging of travelers and strangers,
and the refreshment of persons upon lawful business,
or for the necessary supply of the wants of such poor
persons as are not able by greater quantities to make
their provision of victuals, and are not intended for
entertainment and harboring of lewd or idle people
to spend or consume their time or money there ;
therefore, to prevent the mischiefs and great disorders
happening daily by the abuse of such houses, It is
further enacted,** etc. (Province Laws, Vol. L, p.
57)-

The following year witnessed another ad-
vance, the law requiring —

License Laws, 153

" That every master or head of a family shall be
accountable for the transgression of the law relating
to retailing without license, whether it be by his wife,
children, servants, or any other employed by him "
(M,p. 119).

Two years later we find another statute for-
biddinor retailers to sell other drinks than those

o

which they are licensed to sell, or to suffer
drinking on their premises when not so licensed,
with provisions for inspection by officers, and
penalties for the receipt of bribes, and threats
of forfeiture of license for violation of terms,
prefaced with the complaining preamble :

" Whereas, divers persons that obtain license for
the retailing of wine and strong liquors out of doors
only, and not to be spent or drunk in their houses, do
notwithstanding take upon them to give entertain-
ment to persons to sit drinking and tippling there,
and others who have no license at all are yet so hardy
as to run upon the law, in adventuring to sell without
tending to the great increase of drunkenness and
other debaucheries " {Id., p. 190).

The statute of 1695, after reciting that ''di-
vers ill-disposed and indigent persons, the pains
and penalties in the laws already made not re-
garding, are so hardy as to presume to sell and
retail strong beer, ale, cider, sherry wine, rum,
or other strong liquors or mixed drinks, and to
keep common tippling-houses, thereby harbor-
7*

154 The State vs. Alcohol,

ing and entertaining apprentices, Indians, ne-
groes, and other idle and dissolute persons,
tending to the ruin and impoverishment of
families, and to all impiety and debaucheries,
and if detected, are unable to pay their fine,"
goes on to sentence such to the whipping-post.

The second section of the same statute pro-
vides for the seizure by officers of the law of
liquors in the house of any person " suspected
of selling strong drink without license, having
once been convicted thereof," and for the taking
of the same before the Court ; " and if the
quantity of drink so seized shall be judged by
said court or justices to be more than for the
necessary use of the family, and what their con-
dition may reasonably allow them to expend, or
otherwise to have in their custody, it shall and
may be lawful to and for such court or justices
to declare all such drink to be forfeited "
(Province Laws, Vol. I., p. 224).

In 1698, we find an elaborate "Act for the
Inspecting and Suppressing of Disorders in
Licensed Houses." There are provisions
against selling to servants or negroes ; against
suffering tipplers ; against harboring any but
travelers on the Lord's day ; against allowing
drinking on any day after 9 p.m. ; for bonds
with sureties to observe the law ; " for tything-
men" to inspect and inform; and, finally, ''the

License Laws, 155

better to prevent nurseries of vice and debauch*
ery" it is further declared :

" That the justices of the General Sessions of the
peace in each county respectively be and hereby are
directed, not to license more persons in any town or
precinct to keep houses for common entertainment,
or to retail ale, beer, cider, wine, or strong liquors,
within or out of doors, than the said justices shall
judge necessary for the receiving and refreshment of
travelers and strangers, and to serve the public occa-
sions of such town or precinct ; having regard to the
law for the*qualification and approbation of the per-
sons so to be licensed. And all public-houses shall
be on or near the high streets, roads, and places of
great resort " {Id,, pp. 327-330).

In the statute of 17 10 appears a provision
that no person shall be licensed without a *' cer-
tificate from the Selectmen of the town where
they dwell, of their recommendation of them to
be persons of sober conversation, suitably quali-
fied and provided for such an employment."
And it was further provided that " no town, ex-
cept the maritime towns, shall have more than
one inn-holder and one- retailer at one and the
same time, unless the Selectmen of the town
shall judge there is need of more for the better
accommodations of travelers'' {Id,, p. 66?^,

And the next year there appears in "An Act

156 The State vs. Alcohol.

against Intemperance, Immorality, and Profane-
ness, and for Reformation of Manners," with a
collection of directions, provisions, prohibitions,
and penalties, the same dreary preamble :

" For reclaiming the over great number of licensed
houses, many of which are chiefly used for reveUing
and tippHng, and become nurseries of intemperance
and debauchery, indulged by the masters or keepers
of the same for the sake of gain " {Id.^ p. 679).

But even this partial enumeration of acts is
becoming tedious, and perhaps can serve no
useful purpose. The frequent renewal of old
provisions is partly due, it is proper to state, to
the fact that some of them were incorporated
into excise acts. The general features of the
license policy remained unchanged during the
provincial government.

In the Diary of John Adams, under date
February 29, 1760 (Works, Vol. II., p. 84),
there may be found this graphic picture :

" Few things, I believe, have deviated so far from
the first design of their institution, are so fruitful of
destructive evils, or so needful of a speedy regula-
tion, as licensed houses At the present day,

such houses are become the eternal haunt of loose,
disorderly people of the same town, which renders
them offensive, and unfit for the entertainment of a
traveler of the least delicacy ; and it seems that

License Laws, 157

poverty and distressed circumstances are become
the strongest arguments to procure an approbation ;
and for these assigned reasons, such multitudes have
been lately licensed that none can afford to make
provisions for any but the tippling, nasty, vicious
crew that most frequent them. The consequences
of these abuses are obvious. Young people are
tempted to waste their time and money, and to ac-
quire habits of intemperance and idleness, that we
often see reduce many to beggary and vice, and lead
some of them, at last, to prison and the gallows.
The reputation of our county is ruined among
strangers, who are apt to infer the character of a
place from that of the taverns and the people they
see there. But the worst effect of all, and which
ought to make every man who has the least sense of
his privileges tremble, these hguses are become, in
many places, the nurseries of our legislators. An
artful man, who has neither sense nor sentiment, may,
by gaining a little sway among the rabble of a town,
multiply taverns and dram-shops, and thereby secure
the votes of taverner, and retailer, and of all ; and
the multiplication of taverns will make many, who
may be induced by flip and rum, to vote for any man
whatever. I dare not presume to point out any
method to suppress or restrain these increasing evils,
but I think, for these reasons, it would be well worth
the attention of our Legislature to confine the num-
ber of, and retrieve the character of, licensed houses,
lest thaf: impiety and profaneness, that abandoned
intemperance and prodigality, that impudence and
brawling temper, which these abominable nurseries
daily propagate, should arise at length to a degree

158 The State vs. Alcohol,

of strength that even the Legislature will not be
able to control." *

In 1787, after the adoption of the State Con-
stitution, a codification of all provisions of ex-
isting laws which were deemed useful, with
some additional provisions, were embraced in
the Act of February 28 (Laws of Mass., Vol. L,
p. 374). As this remained in substance the law
for fifty years, it may be well to note its pro-
visions somewhat in detail.

First, There is a general prohibition of sales
of *' wine, beer, ale, cider, brandy, rum, or any
strong liquors, in a less quantity than twenty-
eight gallons, except under a license." Half
of the fines were given to the informer.

Second, Licenses are to be given for only

♦Under date August 28, 181 1, Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Rush :
" Fifty-three years ago I was fired with a zeal, amounting to
enthusiasm, against ardent spirits, the multiplication of taverns,
retailers, dram-shops, and tippling-houses. Grieved to the heart
to see the number of idlers, thieves, sots, and consumptive
patients made for the physicians in these infamous seminaries,
I applied to the Court of Sessions, procured a Committee of
Inspection and Inquiry, reduced the number of licensed houses,
etc. ; but I only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an
ambitious demagogue by it. The number of licensed houses was
soon reinstated ; drams, grog, and sotting were not diminished,

and remain to this day as deplorable as ever Sermons,

moral discourses, philanthropic dissertations, are all lost upon
this subject. Nothing but making the commodity scarce and
dear wi 1 have any effect." And he speaks afterward of " pro-
hibitory taxes " as " the only remedy." (Works, Vol. IX., p. 657)

License Laws. 159

one year at a time ; to be granted by the
County Court of General Sessions, but only
upon the recommendation of the Selectmen of
the applicant's town. If the license is a new
one, the Selectmen are to certify that they ap-
prove and recommend the applicant ''as a per-
son of sober life and conversation, suitably
qualified and provided for the exercise of such
an employment, and firmly attached to the Con-
stitution and laws of this Commonwealth."
If it is a renewal, the certificate must be that
the party had, during the last year, '* to the
best of our knowledge, maintained good rule
and order in the house or shop, and conformed
to the laws and regulations respecting licensed
persons."

The Selectmen are, in addition, ''to certify to
the Court, at the beginning of their term for
granting licenses, what number of inn-holders
and retailers in their respective towns they
judge to be necessary for the public good''
And thereupon the Court are enjoined "not to
license more persons in any town or district "
than they shall ''judge necessary for the receiv-
ing and refreshment of travelers and strangers,
and to serve the public occasions of such town
or district, as are necessary for the public good :
and all public-houses shall be on or near the
high streets, roads, and places of great resort."

i6o The State vs. Alcohol,

Third, Licensees are forbidden to supply
minors or servants with drink without permis-
sion of parents or masters.

Fourth. The Selectmen of each town are to
post in licensed houses and shops, " the names
of all persons reputed to be common drunk-
ards," and also to give notice of any person
who by excessive drinking should expose him-
self or family to want, or ''greatly injure his
health ; " and until such persons *' have re-
formed," it is made penal to sell to them.

Fifth. No credit above lo shillings to be
given.

Sixth. Various provisions are made as to re-
cognizances with sureties to be entered into by
licensees to observe the laws.

Seventh. Tything-men are specially charged
wath the duties of inspection and complaint.

The ingenuity or the hopefulness of the friends
of sobriety seems at this time to have exhausted
itself, for no attempt at greater stringency, or
more effective execution of license laws, was
attempted for more than forty years. During
this long period drunkenness fearfully multi-
plied, and the presumed "moral character" of
the venders of liquors was seen to have no
effect in checking the poisonous influences of
their beverages upon body or soul.

But in 1816, an important step downwards

License Laws, i6i

was taken. By the Act of Dec. 14th, at first
limited in its operation to the city of Boston,
but afterward extended throughout the State,
hcenses were authorized to be issued to com-
mon victuallers "who shall not be required to
furnish accommodations " for travelers, and to
** confectioners," on the same terms as to inn-
holders, that is, to sell to be drunk on the
premises. Of this law, Judge Aldrich, in 1867
(House Doc. No. 415, p. 47), spoke in these
strong terms :

*' Contemporary history will satisfy any honest
student that it was one of the most fruitful sources
of crime and vice that ever existed in this Common-
wealth."

Perhaps this is attaching too much importance
to a single act.

In the Report of the Board of Counsel of
the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression
of Intemperance, written by Nathan Dane * in
1820, it is said: ''There can be no doubt but
that the evils of intemperance are far greater
now in our country than they were in the times
of the Colony and Province." From returns
from four large counties of the number of li-

* Who will be remembered as the framer of the famous
" Northwest Ordinance," and the founder of the professorship
in Harvard Law School so long filled by Judge Story.

1 62 The State vs. Alcohol.

censed persons, the estimate is made that
*' there constantly must be near 6,000 in the
State." Upon the basis of population, this
would be equivalent to about 19,000 in 1875. As
one of the evils resulting '* from the very great
number of persons in the State licensed to sell
ardent spirits," attention is called to the ''very
great facility in buying them in any quantities ;
also in obtaining them often in exchange for the
bread and scanty necessaries of a poor family.
And the more numerous these licensed places
are, the more easily are they resorted to in all
hours and in all kinds of weather, and the more
probable it is that such a wretched barter trade
will be carried on."

The County Commissioners in after years
took the place of the Court of Sessions ; but
what has been styled '' the double imposition
of hands, to set apart a person for the business
of liquor selling," continued to be required.
And as it was found that the hands oi the
Selectmen, at least, were often laid on sud-
denly and irregularly, it was required by the
Act of March 19, 1831, that they should first be
sworn ''faithfully and impartially, without fear,
favor, or hope of reward, to discharge the du-
ties of their office respecting all licenses, and
respecting all recommendations ; " and that the
certificate, when granted, should, in addition, set

License Laws. 163

forth that, " After mature consideration, we are
of opinion that the public good requires that the
petition be granted."

The next year (1832, Ch. 166, sec. 9), it was
further provided that the certificate should state
that it was granted by the Selectmen, " at a
meeting held for that purpose, at which we were
each of us present." The law of 1832, which
was a revision of the precedent statutes, was
substantially that which was inserted in the Re-
vised Statutes of 1836, as Ch. 47. The next
year (1837, Ch. 242), it was enacted that not
even licensed inn-holders should sell any intoxi-
cating liquor on Sunday. This was the last at-
tempt to patch up the law.

FAILURE CONFESSED.

Another generation was to grow up in Mas-
sachusetts before we should hear again of the
merits of a stringent license law. It was all
failure — sad, disheartening, confessed failure.

Miserable in principle, license laws wjre
found no less inefficient in practice. The con-
clusions of intelligent observers were well
summed up by Linus Child on behalf of a
Committee of the Legislature, in 1838 :

" Laws professing to regulate the sale of spirituous
liquors have, it is believed, existed in every State of
the Union. But has their effect been to check the

164 The State vs, AlcohoL

progress of intemperance? Have they so far re-
strained the manufacture and sale of intoxicating
liquors as to prevent the formation of those intem-
perate habits and appetites which have been the
cause of ruin to millions of our race? // may well
be doubted whether intemperance would have increased
with more rapid strides^ if no legislative regulation of
the sale of intoxicating liquors had ever been made.''

LOCAL PROHIBITION.

Meantime the battle against the liquor traffic
had been fighting in detail. In 1835, the office
of County Commissioner (the licensing au-
thority), theretofore an appointive, was made an
elective office, and the people of the counties
began to make their v^ishes felt at the ballot-
box. That very year the Old Colony counties
of Plymouth and Bristol elected boards com-
mitted to the policy of no license. The battle
v^ent on in other counties. To save all ques-
tion of the right to refuse every license, the
power was expressly conferred by law of 1837.

Of the results of this action the Judiciary
Committee of the House in 1837, after a
thorough investigation, reported that, —

" The evidence was perfectly incontrovertible that
the good order, the physical and moral welfare of the
community had been promoted by refusing to license
the sale of ardent spirits, and that the consumption
of spirits has been very greatly diminished in all in-

License Laws, 165

stances by the refusal to grant licenses ; and that, al-
though the laws have been and are violated to some
extent in different places, the practice soon becomes
disreputable, and hides itself from the public eye, by
shrinking away into obscure and dark places ; that
noisy and tumultuous assemblies in the street, and
public quarrels cease, where licenses are refused ; and
that pauperism has very rapidly diminished from the
same cause."

THE " FIFTEEN-GALLON " LAW.

In 1838 (Ch. 157), appears what was so well
known as *'the Fifteen-Gallon Law." It was
the first attempt at entire prohibition of the re-
tail liquor traffic, and forbade all sales of spirit-
uous liquors *' in less quantity than fifteen gal-
lons, and that delivered and carried away all at
one time," except that apothecaries and practic-
ing" physicians might be licensed to sell for
'* use in the arts or for medicinal purposes
only."

This law took effect in July of that year. At
the next Legislature, a strenuous effort was
made for its repeal. Harrison Gray Otis and
a long array of the *' solid men" of Boston
petitioned therefor ; but the conscience of the
State spoke through such men as William Ellery
Channing, Dr. John C. Warren, Jonathan Phil-
lips, and Joseph Tuckerman in remonstrance,
and for the time the attempt failed. But in the

1 66 The State vs. Alcohol.

fall of the same year there was a political revolu-
tion, which placed a Democrat by one majority
in the Governor's chair, and it was thought to
be due to the clamor against this law. Then,
as now, the friends of temperance were ready
with arguments, but the friends of the traffic
were ready with votes ; and the latter command
the respect and obedience of the politician. The
new Legislature hastened to repeal the statute
after it had been in operation only a year and
a half No reasons were given ; none were
needed; voluntas pro ratzo7te.

NO LICENSE.

But the State, while the memory of license
was fresh, was not to fall again under its sway.
The struggle for local prohibition was at once
renewed, and, in a few years, licenses had
ceased throughout the Commonwealth. The
statement may surprise many, but I have the
authority of the City Clerk of Boston for say-
ing, that *' no licenses for the sale of intoxicat-
ing liquors were granted in Boston between
1841 and 1852."* The causes of this disuse
of the license law in Boston, where, of late, it
has been maintained that such laws were espe-

* Licenses issued in 1852 were just before the prohibitory law
took effect, and for the purpose of evading it ; but this action
was subsequently decided to be inoperative.

License Laws. 167

daily needed, were various. The friends of
temperance, when there were 700 licenses issued
in 1833 to a population less than a quarter of
the present, saw litde encouragement in prose-
cuting the unlicensed, and the whole system
fell under that moral contempt expressed by
Dr. Tuckerman in his ''Tenth Semi -Annual
Report," as Minister at Large in that city :

" Is it (legislative power) limited to acts which do
not, and which it is known can not, and will not, im-
pose the smallest possible restraint upon the sale of
these spirits ? Why, then, waste time and money in
laboriously framing and modifying legislative enact-
ments, which not only go for nothing in the cause,
either of private virtue or of public security, but
which themselves virtually sanction debasement and
crime, and indirectly call up any sentiments in the
public mind respecting other legal restraints than
that of respect, and a sense of the importance of re-
garding them ? '*

And, on the other hand, why should the
licensee take the trouble to seek renewal of a
license which he held in common with so many
others, and which gave him no practical advan-
tage over his unlicensed neighbor ? And surely
there was some gain in saving the strain of
conscience it must cost intelligent men at that
day to declare that *' the public good" re-

1 68 The State vs. Alcohol.

quired the establishment of '' respectable " dram-
shops.

THE VERDICT.

And so the chapter of license was apparently
closed. It had not only its *' day," but its cen-
turies in court ; and the well-nigh unanimous
verdict was : " disgrace — -failure.''

Down to 1 86 1, at least, that judgment stood
as the general judgment of the people of Mas-
sachusetts. So moderate a man as Governor
Bullock, then acting as the Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee on the part of the House,
in that capacity bore this emphatic testimony :

" It may be taken to be the solemnly-declared
judgment of the people of the Commonwealth, that
the principle of licensing the traffic in intoxicating
drinks as a beverage, and thus giving legal sanction
to that which is regarded in itself an evil, is no longer
admissible in morals or in legislation. The license
system, formerly in operation, was the source of
insoluble embarrassments among casuists, legislators,
courts, and juries. A return to it would re-open an
agitation long since happily put to rest ; it would in-
vade the moral convictions of great numbers of our
people ; it would revive the opprobrium which public
sentiment always adjudges to a monopoly established
by law, rendered all the more intense by the offensive
nature of the business thus supported by the sanction
and protection of the Legislature."

License Laws. 169

THE EXPERIMENT OF 1 868.

The history of prohibition, both in Massa-
chusetts and other States, is the subject of
another chapter. Suffice it here to say that the
prohibition of the traffic began in 1852 and
continued until 1875, with the exception of the
period from the session of 1868, when a license
law was enacted, to that of 1869, when it was
repealed — in fact, less than a single year. I
am not aware that any one considered that ex-
periment a success ; and the " Report of the
Secretary of the Board of State Charities"
('' Fifth Annual Report," p. 35) says :

" The law (the License of 1868) was enacted through
the influence of those who (without regard to the con-
sequences of their action on the poor and weak) wished
to drink more and those who hoped to sell more. And
it is undoubtedly the case, that more is actually drunk
and sold. The result at once began to exhibit itself
in our jails and houses of correction ; and, as usual,
now begins to make its record directly and indirectly
on the registers of our various State pauper establish-
ments, lunatic hospitals, and reformatories If

it is desired to secure, in the best manner, the repres-
sion of crime and pauperism, the increase of produc-
tion, the decrease of taxation, and a general pros-
perity of the community, so far as this question of
intemperance is concerned, it is clearly my judgment
that Massachusetts should return to the policy which
8

170 The State vs. Alcohol.

prohibits the sale of intoxicating drinks except for
mechanical or medical purposes. When most carefully
enforced, such a policy amounts, in practice, only to
a restriction on such sales, for every law on this sub-
ject will be more or less evaded. But to the poor,
and the wives and children of the poor, it makes a
wide difference whether we take our departure from
the point of prohibition or from that of license. In
the latter case, as has been seen the past year, the
current sets in favor of more selling and more drink-
ing; and this means, to the poor laboring man or
woman, and to the children growing up amid bad
influences, more poison of the blood, more delirium
of the brain, more idleness, more waste, more theft,
more debauchery, more disease, more insanity, more
assault, more rape, more murder, more of everything
that is low and devilish, less of everything that is
pure and heavenly. Poverty and vice are what the
poor man buys with his poisoned liquor — sickness,
beastliness, laziness, and pollution are what the State
gives in return for the license -money which the
dram-seller filches from the lean purse of the day-la-
borer and the half-grown lad, and hands over, sullied
with shame, to the high-salaried official v/ho receives
it. But the treasury reaps little from this revolting
tribute ; for, along with the licensed shops and bars,
twice as many that are unlicensed ply their trade and
debauch the poor, without enriching anybody but the
dram -seller. These are the practical results of a
license system in Massachusetts now."

Such was the indignant indictment of the
legalized liquor traffic of 1868 — not by a tern-

License Laws, 171

perance reformer, but by a State official ap-
pointed by Governor Andrew, and well and
widely known as a close observer and student
of social science.

THE LAST EXPERIMENT.

But again, in 1874, the forces of evil triumph-
ed, and the result was the enactment of another
license law on the 5th of April, 1875. The two
laws of 1868 and 1875 are alike in their gen-
eral features. There is an appearance of strin-
gency, to be sure, in the provision in the latter
law requiring licensees to furnish a bond to
abide by the provisions of the law in the penal
sum of one thousand dollars with sufficient
sureties ; but until we have information that
the treasury of some city or town has been
enriched to the extent of a dollar therefrom, or
that any bond has even been put in suit, we
need not trouble ourselves to consider the value
of this section of the law. The clerk of the
Superior Court for the transaction of criminal
business for the County of Suffolk, reports that
up to September i, 1876, not one of such bonds
had, to his knowledge, even been put in suit ;
and I have not heard of one so prosecuted
since, either in that or any other part of the
State. There is also a provision that persons
licensed to sell, to be drunk on the premises,

172 The State vs. Alcohol.

shall not keep a public bar ; but we are not
aware that this provision is anywhere enforced ;
and, indeed, in the city of Boston, the License
Commissioners have publicly stated that the in-
hibition is an impracticable one, which they can
neither define nor enforce.

The law also contains a provision that
licenses to sell liquor, " to be drunk on the
premises," shall only be issued to '* inn-
holders and common victuallers." A detailed
statement before me shows that, in a single
year, the number of these, in the cities alone,
rose from 660 to 2,914! Of many of such places,
James Henderson, the English Factory In-
spector, who recently visited Boston, truthfully
says (^Contemporary Review, May, 1877) :

" The Act wais complied with so far that a cook-
ing-stove was provided, and on the shop-counter and
in the windows there was a display of stale biscuits,
buns, and tinned meats, which were evidently placed
there to be looked at, not consumed. In many of
the licensed houses at Boston it would have been as
difficult to get anything eatable as in a London gin-
palace."

The methods of enforcement seem to have
been as loose as the construction of its pro-
visions.

From returns collected from ten of the prin-

License Laws, 173

cipal cities (Boston excluded), it appeared that
during the first six months only 264 cases were
brought in their municipal courts, and the most
of these ultimately disappeared. By the re-
port of a committee of the Legislature, made
March 22, 1877, it appears that the Boston
police were active enough to bring 2,200
cases before their municipal courts prior to
September 1, 1876 ; but only in twenty-two
were fines paid there ; the vast majority being
appealed to the Superior Court. And the
Clerk of that Court, in a statement appended
to the report, shows that from May i, 1875, to
March i, 1877, there were 1,605 cases laid on
file, or nol prosd, and only 427 reached sen-
tence, which was generally a moderate fine.
(See " House Doc," 1877, No. 227).

The visible results of the new law soon ap-
peared throughout the State. Thus, in Sep-
tember, 1875, the City Marshal of Lynn wrote:
" We have neither more nor less than free
rum." The City Missionary of Lowell said in
the same year : '* In its ostensible aim, it (the
License Law) is a sad failure ; in its real aim,
a perfect success." So of Worcester, the Mayor
writes : " More selling goes unpunished, and
thereby a greater injury is done to the com-
munity." And the Springfield Republican
notes that '' employers of labor find that their

174 "The State vs. Alcohol,

hands are more demoralized by drink on
Mondays than they were under the prohibi-
tory law."

I might multiply opinions of magistrates,
police officers, city missionaries, and other ex-
perts as to the operation of this law upon
drunkenness and crime, but, in the absence of
reliable and digested returns, I select only a
single city, that of New Bedford, of which I
know most. In 1874, under enforced prohibi-
tion, there was a total of 748 arrests, 707 of
whom were brought before the Court. In 1875,
under license, there were 1,085 arrests, 847 of
whom were brought before the Court (the 238
" let off" were probably first offenses of drunk-
enness).

In 1874 there were 242 cases of drunkenness.
In 1875, the number was 445 (besides those
" let off"), a.n increase of over Z^ per cent, in a
single year of license.

" Lodgers" likewise increased, from 1,124 ^^i
1874 to 1,691 in 1875. Well might the City
Marshal, though the appointee of a license ad-
ministration, say in his report :

" During the year, the day-police have been kept
generally busy, in consequence of the repeal of the
prohibitory law, and the lack of employment through
the country, making their duties more arduous than
any previous year.**

License Laws, 175

Bad as has been the operation of the License
Law throughout the State, its immediate and
visible effects have been somewhat checked by-
several causes. In the first place, under the
power reserved in the law, all licenses have
been refused in nearly three-quarters of the
towns of the Commonwealth ; in the second
place, the long-continued and severe depression
of business, and the lessening of wages, has
diminished the number of dram-shops and the
consumption of liquors ; and, in the last place,
the tidal wave of the great " Reform " move-
ment has reached the State during this period.
The full operation of a license law can not be
seen at once ; bitter as are its fruits to-day, the
bitterest remains for the morrow, when the
enthusiasm of the new movement shall have
spent its force, and when a new generation of
drinkers, '' according to law," shall have taken
their place in the army of drunkards.

A bold attempt has been made to show an
exceptional success in the city of Boston. The
Chief of Police reports that the arrests for
drunkenness in 1874 were 11,880, and in 1876
were only 8,564, showing, in two years, an ag-
gregate decrease of 3,316. He also reports,
that on the ist of January, 1876, there were
2,411 places where liquor was sold, and on the
31st of December, only 1,971 (divided thus —

176 The State vs. Alcohol.

licensed, 1,103; unlicensed, 868), showing a
reduction of 440 for that year.

On the strength of these statements, a claim
has been put forth that the law in Boston is a
measurable success.* Let us examine this
claim.

And first, as to the validity of the statistics.
No criminal statistics are so flexible. In the
year 1864 the Police Report showed the arrests
for drunkenness for the preceding year to num-
ber 17,967. Much pubHc comment was made,
and the very next year, with no change of law
or police, the reported arrests for the same
offense dropped to 2,561, while the *' lodgers"
rose from 9,897 the previous year, to the enor-
mous number of 23,638. It appeared plain that
the change was of names and not of things.
The cases of drunkenness were reported at
more than double for 1865 ; and thenceforward
there was a steady increase, until the arrests
for the year ending December 31, 1874, were
reported as 11,892, In 1875 ^^ city author-
ities undertook the enforcement of the new
License Law, and the number of arrests for

* Governor Rice, in his Message of May 15, 1877, quotes from
the Chief's Report, that the " number of places abandoned " dur-
ing the year was 619 ; but he omits to add that the same Report
shows 179 new places opened, and explicitly states the whole
" number of places reduced during the year " to be 440, as given
above.

License Laws. lyj

drunkenness during that year was reported as
10,325, a decrease of 1,567 ; and for the year
1876, a further decrease of 1,761. During all
these years the increase in that class of tramps
called " lodgers " continued to be enormous.
In 1874 the number reported was 58,449; in
1875, 62,740; and in 1876, 63,720. I have
no disposition to assail the fairness of the
present excellent Chief of Police, but, of course,
his report merely shows the doings of his sub-
ordinates ; nor is it necessary to say of any of
them more than this, that with the conscious-
ness that the City Hall desired to make out a
case for the License Law, it would show an
impartiality beyond the average lot of human-
ity, if, in a matter so vague as that of arrest-
able drunkenness, where the officer is accustom-
ed to exercise so wide a discretion, many should
not be aided home, classed among lodgers, or
winked at, who might, with at least equal pro-
priety, have appeared in the column of arrests,
and who, under other circumstances, would
have so appeared.*

* The present Chief of Police (then Deputy) testified thus be-
fore the Legislative Committee in 1867 : " In 1864, you will re-
member that the Chief testified it was ordered that those parties
who were arrested, and were but partially drunk, and whom it
was thought proper and humane to discharge, should be classed
amongst ' lodgers.' These are therefore here put down as
lodgers, although under the influence of liquor. From an ex-
8*

178 The State vs. Alcohol.

I suppose few persons who have not given
the matter attention, are aware of the small
ratio which the arrests for drunkenness bear to
the whole number of persons who, in common
parlance, might be called drunk. I call the
reader's attention to an interesting investiga-
tion recently made, the result of which appears
in a note below.*

As to the number of liquor-shops reported,
I believe that these also were underrated.
While the number of licensed places is given

amination of the books, and from my own knowledge, I believe
that at least one-half of those designated as lodgers in the
reports of the captains and lieutenants, were more or less under
the influence of intoxicating drinks." (" License Law Report,"
House Doc. No. 415, p. 237).

* Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., in a speech in the House of Com-
mons, March 13, 1877, made the startling statement, that
" while on a certain Saturday the whole number of persons
arrested and brought before the magistrates of Birmingham was
only 29, that by actual count 838 persons came out drunk in the
course of three hours of the same day from only 35 of the liquot
establishments." A correspondent of the Alliance News more
than confirms this by a minute tabular statement of the products
of each of 51 of these places, " representing a fair average of the
whole," which " were watched on an average three hours and
five minutes each on a Saturday night. The number of drunken
persons seen coming out of these houses during the three hours
was 1,067 males, 369 females ; total, 1,436." " Strict instructions*
were given that no person seen coming out was to be considered
drunk unless unmistakably so." This would give a fearful aggre-
gate for the 675 public-houses, exclusive of beer-shops, in Bir-
mingham.

I

License Laws. 179

as 1,103, the number ''supposed to be selling
without license " is estimated at only 868. If
the reader will recur to what is shown above,
as to the inefficient punishment of unlawful liquor
dealers, can he readily believe that sufficient co-
ercion had been applied to effect a reduction to
that extent, especially in view of what the Li-
cense Commissioners say in their last Report :

" Nothing is more common among the dealers than
the saying that they are better off without than with
a license ; and, as a matter of fact, lew of the whole
number of persons holding licenses are in good faith
keeping the conditions of them ; and the enforce-
ment of the law against those who sell liquor without
licenses seems to have but little effect, either on the
parties prosecuted or their neighbors in the trade."

With such a report of the estimate liquor
dealers have of the value of a license, and of
the effect of prosecutions, from those who are
fully competent witnesses, can we easily believe
that the result was so different from the univer-
sal experience heretofore and elsewhere, and
that the unlicensed dealers were only 44 per
cent, of the whole number ? *

If it should seem to the candid reader that,

* A striking illustration of the importance of the animus nu'
merandt is given in the count in Boston of liquor-shops in Janu-
ary, 1867, by the State Police as 690, and by the City Police as
1,951.

i8o The State vs. Alcohol.

after all, it is possible that there was some
temporary reduction, he may still think with
the License Commissioners themselves (Re-
port, Feb. I, 1877), that "it may be question-
able how much of the result is due to the law,
and how much to the general depression in
trade, and the so-called hard times, from which
all are more or less suffering." Beyond this
he may deem it doubtful how much is gained
by a slight reduction in the number of dram-
shops, if the supply remains so abundant that
there is no substantial diminution either of in-
citement or of facility for drinking. And when
he finds in the same report the Commissioners
say:

" It must be admitted that the business of liquor-
selling in the city is, to a very large extent, in the
hands of irresponsible men and women, whose idea
of a license law ends with the simple matter of pay-
ing a certain sum, the amount making but little dif-
ference to them, provided they are left to do as they
please after the payment. Besides the saloons and
bar-rooms, which are open publicly, the traffic in
small grocery stores, in cellars, and in dwelling-
houses, in some parts of the city, is almost astound-
ing. The Sunday trade is enormous, and it seems as
if there were not hours enough in the whole round
of twenty-four, or days enough in the entire week, to
satisfy the dealers. The Commissioners consider the
three greatest abuses of the traffic to be sales of

License Laws. i8i

impure liquors, sales on Sunday, and sales at late
hours."

If such are the facts, it is not strange to find
the Commissioners in this report saying in so
many words, " The law can 7iot be called a suc-
cess-, " although it is a little difficult to discover
upon what ground they add that ** it is a step
in the rieht direction ! "

But this temporary show of triumph, which
was but a skozv, has already passed away. If
the estimate of December last be taken as cor-
rect, a rapid increase has taken place. From
an official report recently made by the same
Police Department, the number of places where
liquor is sold is given, from a count made by the
captains of the districts on the 31st of May,
1877, as 2,341 — an increase of 370 in five
months.

But more than this. The whole number of
licenses issued for the present year since the
1st of May up to this date (August 8, 1877) is
2,349 ; making a deduction for double licenses
(which were 128 the first year, and only ^6 the
second), it will be within the mark to say that
there are 2,200 liceitsed places of sale to-day in
Boston. If we estimate the unlicensed at only
800, we have an aggregate of 3,000. Probably
a low estimate ; and with the subsidence of the

i82 The State vs. Alcohol.

reform movement, and the return of '* good
times," threatening an indefinite ir crease.

As a final consideration, it is to be borne in
mind that the city of Boston, as a municipaHty,
had from the start contemned and thwarted the
prohibitory law, and that this state of things
ultimately led to the establishment of the State
Police ; that, on the other hand, they had
pledged themselves in the strongest way be-
forehand to enforce a license law, and that
during this last experiment the Mayoralty had
been filled by a man of ability and determined
will, who was elected in spite of the lower
liquor class, and who set out with courage and
faith to do all that could be done^ to vindicate
the policy of license."^ The State Police, to
w' om (not by statute, but in fact) the sole exe-
cution of the prohibitory law was entrusted, had
in Boston, when the force was at its maximum,
not over 40, while the force of the City Police
is now 700. The candid reader will observe
that we have seen here license working with
every advantage, while in the chapter on Pro-
hibition he will see the latter, so far as Boston
is concerned, working at disadvantage. Never-
theless, we invite attention to the two pictures.

* The present year has witnessed the advent of a more " liberal '
administration, and a new Board of Commissioners. The least
offensive chapter of Ucense, we think, is closed.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NECESSARY FAILURE OF LICENSE.

License laws have not only failed in the past,
but it is certain that they can not succeed in the
future, because of inherent weaknesses.

If the history of license in the old world has
been one of such long continued failure in any
large results as to justify the London Times ^
in a recent leader, in saying, "What is to be
done ? is the wild, despairing cry heard on
every side," still more clearly is the failure of
license inevitable in the United States. It must
fail in its immediate results ; and even if it could
succeed in these, it would fail in its ultimate ob-
ject, if that object be assumed to be the protec-
tion of the State against the evils of the traffic.
It will fail of enforcement, and when partially
enforced it will fail in effectiveness. Its failure
in enforcement is the kind of failure that we
refer to as most inevitable in our own country.
In the first place, the administrative part of our
Government is the weakest, and the enforce-
ment of our criminal laws generally is less uni-
form and thorough than in England ; and it is
notorious that liquor laws do not belong to the

(183)

184 The State vs. Alcohol,

self-executing class. There is no individual
personal interest behind them. If a man's
house is entered or his horse stolen, he is the
person who is eager to apprehend and convict
the burglar or the thief, and he stimulates the
policeman and every other servant of the law.
Not so with offenses against the public. Their
punishment must, in the first instance, depend
solely on the activity and fidelity of the police-
man, and in America it is the voting power that
controls his action, because it makes or unmakes
him. Now, any enforcement of a license law,
such as its *' respectable " friends sometimes
talk of and rarely attempt, which would crush
out the bar-rooms and the '' small dealers,"
would turn many a recruiting-station of **the
party " into a hostile camp, and the dram-shop
interest united to that of the wholesale dealer,
whose sales would be diminished, would work
a political revolution. A successfully enforced
prohibitory law has to meet with the opposition
of the liquor interest, it is true ; but a success-
fully enforced license law would not only en-
counter the opposition of the bulk of the same
interest, but for obvious reasons fully developed
hereafter, would fail to secure the counteracting
support of the active temperance sentiment.
Such laws are, therefore, in this dilemma. To
be retained in any community where the

The Necessary Failure of License. 185

temperance reform has made any considerable
progress, against the moral sentiment of those
sympathizing with this reform, they must have
the united support of the liquor interest. If the
law is enforced, the latter is lost ; if the law is
unenforced, it sinks into contempt.

In addition to the peculiar embarrassments to
the execution of the law from political consider-
ations, the license law encounters in America a
wide-spread odium as sustaining a monopoly.
So long as it is a dead-letter this is not strongly
felt ; but when any resolute enforcement is at-
tempted, this feeling is at once aroused. No
principle is more firmly implanted in the Ameri-
can mind than that which John Adams placed
in the Bill of Rights prefixed to the frame of
Government established by the Constitution of
Massachusetts :

" No man, nor corporation or association of men,
have any other title to obtain advantages or particular
and exclusive privileges, distinct from those of the
community, than what arises from the consideration
of services rendered to the public.'*

Be it observed that I am not attacking the
constitutionality of license laws which have been
established by uniform judicial decisions, and
no doubt correctly, for the court must accept
such laws as a legislative determination (to bor-

1 86 The State vs. Alcohol,

row the language of earlier statutes) that " the
public good requires " that a sufficient number
of "suitable persons" should be selected by-
certain public authority to sell intoxicants as
beverages. But even those who accept the
theory smile at the application ; and the general
public hardly appreciate the '' services rendered
to the public " by the concrete dram-seller A,
which entitles him to the exclusive privilege
over B, who is refused, or to any privileges
" distinct from those of the community." On
what principle shall we grant or withhold
licenses ? Shall we give to every one for a
nominal fee 1 Then it is equivalent to no law.
Shall we fix a high rate ? Then it is simply a
revenue measure, and, besides, awakens both
the prejudice against monopolies and against
distinctions in favor of the rich against the poor.
Or shall we fix a moderate fee and limit the
number according to some supposed public con-
venience ? But how, then, are we to select the
favored ones ? How justify to the rejected de-
barring them from participancy in a profitable
monopoly ? Shall we attempt to discriminate
on the ground of qualifications ? Alas ! what
moralist has limned the features of the Good
Rum-seller ? What writer of fiction even has
portrayed him ? Where shall the licensing
board turn for the record of his needed virtues ?

The Necessary Failure of License. 187

Such a task as the moral classification of the
trade may well be given up in despair, as sooner
or later it has been by every licensing board.

But to return to the peculiar difference
between the American and the En owlish mind in
the view it takes of special privileges. Abhor-
rent to the former, it seems to the latter, who
accepts his sovereign by birth, who calls his
*' lords " those made so by inheritance or special
gift, as in the normal order of society. Not
only does it not offend his sense of justice that
one man should receive from the State a '* privi-
lege " denied to another, but a privilege con-
ferred ripens in his view into a right owned,
and with all other complexities of the liquor
problem on hand, the British press and public
are discussing the question of compensation to
the unlucky publican or beer-houseman whose
annual license may fall in from some change of
legal policy. In such a country it is compara-
tively easy to enforce a license law to such an
extent as to become some protection of the
** sacred right of property," while it excludes
others from the gains of the traffic.

We have so far dealt with the problem as if
there were an intention to enforce license laws
when made. Such was the intention in the
past, when our ancestors used them as the best
means of restraint of the traffic which they

1 88 The State vs. Alcohol,

knew — with what kind of success we have seen.
Undoubtedly, among the makers and support-
ers of the license laws of to-day, there are those
who have a similar, desire. But the license
laws enacted over prohibitory laws have had in
the main another a7iimus. What the Secretary
of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities
(5th Report, p. 35) said of a single law will ap-
ply to others :

" The law was enacted through the influence of
those who (without regard to the consequences of
their action on the poor and the weak) wished to
drink more, and those who hoped to sell more." *

I am not aware that the friends of license, as
a party y have ever troubled themselves about
the machinery of enforcement. They have al-
ways deprecated, even as against unlicensed
dealers, the '' harsh measures " of the prohibit-
ory regime. They declined to allow, in the
Massachusetts Licence Laws of 1868 and of
1875, the use of that most effective weapon
against an unlawful traffic, the search and
seizure provisions. They have just b.een in-

* It was of this law that Dr. Miner, at the hearing for its re-
peal before the Committee of the Legislature the next year, said :
" Some people say the License Law is a failure. I think that is
a mistake. It is a complete success. It has accomplished ex-
actly what its framers expected. It has made selling easy and
drinking plentiful."

The Necessary Failure of License, 189

serted in the Massachusetts Law, to be sure
(1876, chap. 162), but as crafted and urged by
prohibitionists, backed by only a comparatively
small minority of the license men, and against
the votes of the mass. I do not doubt the good
faith of individuals ; but the trouble is, that the
strongest and most active section of the license
party is in the liquor interest, and I do not see
that it can be otherwise in the future.

For whatever view any one may himself take
of the matter, it is an undeniable fact, and en-
titled to weight as such, that a vast majority,
approaching to unanimity of the active friends
of Temperance, in every organization and in
every sphere of effort, are opposed by senti-
ment, by education, and by conviction, to any
law sanctioning the sale of intoxicants as a
common beverage. And I see no indications
that the views of this class of men are under-
going, or are likely to undergo, any modifica-
tion. We have, then, the problem presented
to us of a proposal to deal, in the way of limit-
ation and restraint, with a vast moneyed in-
terest, and with a measure of monopoly odious
to the popular mind, and yet without the sup-
port of that active moral sentiment which is the
only force ultimately stronger than apparent
self-interest. Is there reason to expect success ?

But let us suppose all superficial obstacles

190 The State vs. Alcohol,

surmounted. Let us start with a law made and
meant to work, and with a sufficiently powerful
force of opinion behind it. Imagine that we
have reached the first stage of apparent suc-
cess. The unlicensed dealers are suppressed ;
the low groggeries are out of sight ; the liquors
dispensed are pure alcoholic poisons, without
even the adulteration of water ; the bartenders
are all '' respectable " men or comely maidens.
What then ? Here is the *' moderate drinker s "
paradise. What fruits shall it bear? In the
first place, an inevitable percentage of drunk-
ards ; and this class will in time create a demand
which will insure a supply of the old groggeries.
For these latter are as necessary a complement
of the dram-shop system as the dens of vice
are of that system of prostitution which takes
its first steps in the elegant mansion. No sys-
tem of legislation can do much for the suppres-
sion of a sensual vice which does not aim to
eradicate the appetite for it by removal of the
temptation and the facilities for its constant in-
dulgence. These remaining substantially the
same, whatever other changes in accessories
may be made, about the same percentage of
physical and moral wrecks will be found.

But this is not the worst. When the State
sets up its primary schools for drinking, it not
only prepares the way, by a necessary law of

The Necessary Failure of License. 191

succession, for its most loathsome underground
universities of intemperance, from which grad-
uate the most disgusting of the human species,
but the terrible truth is, that it makes this
primary school attractive to the innocent and
young with all the glamour and fashion which
w^ealth and reputation can throw about it. It is
not the low bar-rooms that make drunkards ;
they only finish them. And the drinking in
reputable places is the sadder when it is in-
dulged in by the rich and the educated, who
add to their own personal danger the evil of
influential example. Thus, to the thoughtful
observer, it is the high and not the low drink-
ing-places of our great cities which chiefly at-
tract his attention as pests and perils. I re-
member to have heard one who has adorned
the highest judicial station, and who was not
friendly to prohibitory legislation, yet pronounce
the most fashionable establishment in Boston,
especially attractive as is reputed to Harvard
students, a veritable nuisance. What wise
parent would not fear such a seductive place for
his children, more than the dens of North
Street ?

And when to the fascinating influences of an
enticing traffic, carefully pruned of repulsive sur-
roundings, we add the educational influence of
a bad law, we have rather interposed a formid-

192 The State vs. Alcohol,

able barrier to the progress of the temperance
reform than aided it by all our measures of re-
striction and regulation.

License laws rest upon the implied assump-
tion that there is such a legitimate demand for
the sale of intoxicating liquors as a common
beverage as, notwithstanding the admitted
perils of the traffic, to call upon the State to
make convenient provision therefor. And the
State assumes to hold out the licensee as a
suitable person to supply this public want. The
State thus endorses the traffic and selects the
trafficker.

With the State as the tempter to the indul-
gence, the patron and the educator of an evil
appetite, how can that appetite be eradicated ?
Our fathers essayed the problem ; shall not
their sad experience suffice their children ?

CHAPTER XVII.

HALF-WAY MEASURES.

" Never believe, then, that we oppose restrictive measures. We
hail them, and will do our best to make them efficient ; but,
convinced as we are that no amount of regulation can ever be
satisfactory, we are bound in conscience, even though, Cassan-
dra-like, we prophecy to unbelieving ears, still to insist that
nothing but the suppression of the traffic can deliver our country
from the grievous woes and burdens under which she groans." —
Edward Pearson.

" All past legislation has been ineffectual to restrain the habit of
excess. Acts of Parliament intended to lessen have notori-
ously augmented the evil; and we must seek a remedy in
some new direction, if we are not prepared to abandon the
contest or contentedly to watch with folded arms the gradual
deterioration of the people.

"Restriction, in the forms which it has hitherto assumed, of
shorter hours, more stringent regulations of licensed houses,
and magisterial control of licenses, has been a conspicuous
failure. For a short time after the passing of Lord Aberdare's
Act, hopes were entertained of great results from the provisions
for early closing, and many chief constables testified to the im-
proved order of the streets under their charge ; but it soon
appeared that the limitation, while it lessened the labors of
the police and advanced their duties an hour or so in the night,
was not sufficient to reduce materially the quantity of liquor
consumed or the consequent amount of drunkenness." — ForU
nightly Review, May, 1876.

All restrictive laws in relation to the liquor
traffic have our support, except in so far as they
9 (i'>3;

194 T^^ State vs. AtcohoL

may stand in the way of more efficient measures,
or may be so framed as to carry with them the
moral sanction of the Legislature for a regulated
traffic. The worst of license laws have prob-
ably, as compared with free trade, done some-
thing to diminish the immediate sale and con-
sumption of alcoholic liquors, but indirectly they
have in some communities done vastly more
harm, as we have elsewhere indicated, in the
downward education of public sentiment as to
selling and drinking. But it is a sad and dis-
couraging experience to find the value of the
purely restrictive clauses in license laws, as con-
fessed in the extract from the Fortnightly , so
much less than was anticipated in their enact-
ment.

But let us now proceed to consider the value
and measure of success of certain special meas-
ures.

SUNDAY CLOSING.

It is not strange that special attention should
be aroused to the horrors of the Sunday liquor
traffic. The special evils are both dramatically
and intrinsically great. The general quiet of
the day forms an effective background for such
scenes of noise and disorder as the tavern and
the ale-house, the grog-shop and the lager-bier
saloon naturally generate. The real antagonism

Half -way Measures. 195

between the dram-shop and the church, always
existing, is here made conspicuous and emphatic.
And the climax in the indictment of the traffic
seems to be reached, when it is charged not
only with imbruting its victim for the six days
of the week, but with the withdrawal of him on
the day of rest from all holy influences, and the
shutting of his ear to all suggestions of that
higher life which was his birthright as a child
of God.

It is very noticeable that where the open shop
invites to drink, there is unusual temptation to
the poorer of the laboring classes to indulge,
and especially in social drinking, both because
of the fact that the Saturday night wages gives
them a feeling of abundance, and the leisure of
the day invites them to carousal.

In some places the extra Sunday drinking is
enormous. Thus in the Convocation Report,
one clergyman (No. 1685) says: "The public-
house does more business on Sundays tJiait all
the week put together ^

Yet, notwithstanding the obvious and intru-
sive nuisance of the Sunday dram-shop, it has
not only been found difficult to eradicate it practi-
cally, but it has been found hitherto impossible
to procure the withdrawal of the legislative
sanction for it in a nominally Christian Govern-
ment like that of the United Kingdom of Great

196 The State vs. Alcohol,

Britain. It is only in Scotland that the law re-
quires an entire closing on Sunday. Ireland
has sought for years this privilege of a quiet
Sunday at the hands of the Imperial Govern-
ment, and sought in vain. Although a very
large majority of the Irish members of Parlia-
ment have supported bills for Sunday closing,
the liquor interest among the English members
has been too strong for them, and it was only in
June, 1876, that the Government have so far
abandoned their opposition to it, as to allow a
bill for this object to go to its second reading ;
and since that they have allowed a resolute
minority in the House of Commons to stave it
off by parliamentary devices, so that it is still
doubtful when a measure for entire closing will
be carried. The English and the Catholic
Church, with the dissenters thrown in, are
hardly yet a match for the publican and the
brewer in the halls of legislation.

I have alluded to the favorable results of
Sunday closing in Scotland, under the Forbes-
Mackenzie Act, in another connection. I will
not repeat the statistics there given, but will
content myself here simply with giving" the im-
pressive testimony of a thoroughly competent
witness, ex-Baillie Lewis, of Edinburgh :

" Prior to the passing of that law, the social con-
dition of many of our center; of population had.

Half-way M e astir es, 197

by the public-houses being open on Sunday, be-
come truly scandalous. Street brawls and crowds of
dissipated persons in the principal streets so shocked
the sense of propriety among church-going people,
that legislative interference was loudly called for. In
Edinburgh the grievance had assumed all the propor-
tions of a dreadful social nuisance. On a Sabbath in
December, 1853, I personally counted nearly 1,000
persons enter one public-house, and it was found that
on that same day no fewer than 41,796 persons had
entered the various public-houses open throughout
the city. The act came into operation in May, 1854,
and it was at once found to produce order and de-
corum in the streets in a marvellous degree, and
largely to lighten the labors of the police."

And yet, after all, obvious as are the advan-
tages of Sunday closing, the full benefit can not
be secured v^ithout week-day prohibition. In
the recent debate upon the Irish Closing Bill, a
member of Parliament v^ho supported it, de-
clared that he agreed v^ith another Irish mem-
ber, '' that the greatest amount of drinking
took place on Saturday evenings, and that he
should certainly prefer to see a bill brought in
to close at seven o'clock ort Saturday evenings,
than that the public-houses should be closed all
of Sunday afternoons. Others deprecated the
"illict sales," and the "home drinking" that
v^ould ensue. And these considerations, though
not of force enough to outweigh the many

198 The State vs. Alcohol,

reasons for abolishing the Sunday traffic by
law, have still some foundation in facts.

The experience of America, where the laws
prohibit all Sunday sales, shows that if you
keep alive by legalized temptations and facili-
ties for indulgence the appetite among the
lower classes for alcoholics during the whole
week, it is difficult to suddenly repress it on
Saturday night ; while it is also made more dif-
ficult to convict the seller, because of the clan-
destine way in which the traffic may be carried
on, and because the possession of the para-
phernalia and the material for the traffic avails
nothing in proof if the vender has a general
license to sell. It will be found, therefore, we
think, that only under a prohibitory regime has
there been a close approximation to the total
suppression of the Sunday traffic.

But let the friends of the total suppression of
the traffic be always among the foremost in
every earnest effort for Sunday closing, even
under the license regime^ for the rest of the
time. The benefits of such closing are great,
and the logic of the movement points to entire
prohibition. I have before me a recent circular
of the Howard Association of Great Britain,
issued under the special endorsement of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Lon-
don, and the Dean of Westminster. While

Half-way Measures, 199

praising" the marvelous energy of the '* United
Kingdom Alliance," it calls public attention to
what it deems more immediately practicable
modes of diminishing intemperance. Among
these it places —

" VI. To prevent intemperance on Sunday, the
sale of drink on that day should be prohibited."

The question at once arises, Is it not desir-
able to prevent intemperance on Monday also ?
If so, why should not the sale of drink on that
day be prohibited ?

CIVIL DAMAGE LAWS.

Great reliance has sometimes been expressed
by those whose acquaintance with the matter is
purely theoretical, upon what are called the
'* civil damage " provisions in legislation upon
the liquor traffic. I have not thought it worth
while to make the requisite examination to give
a list of the States in which the experiment has
been tried, or the varying details of the legis-
lation. I recall Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana as
prominent among these States. The Illinois
law, which I have before me, in the first section
requires that every person who sells intoxicat-
ing liquor, to be drunk on the premises, shall
first obtain a license therefor, and, as a condi-
tion precedent, shall give bond, with sureties,

2CX> The State vs. Alcohol.

in the sum of $3,000, conditioned " that they
will pay all damages to any person or persons
which may be inflicted upon them, either in
person or property, or means of support, by
reason of the person so obtaining a license,
selling or giving away intoxicating liquors ; and
such bond may be sued and recovered upon
for the use of any person or persons who may
be injured by reason of the selling intoxicating
liquors by the person or his agent so obtaining
the license."

Section 5 enacts that —

" Every husband, wife, child, parent, guardian,
employee, or other person who shall be injured in
person or property, or means of support, by any in-
toxicated person, or in consequence of the intoxica-
tion, habitual or otherwise, of any person, shall have
a right of action in his or her own name, severally or
jointly, against any person or persons who shall, by
selling or giving intoxicating liquors, have caused the
intoxication, in whole or in part, of such person or
persons."

Section 6 declares that all fines, costs, and
damages recovered shall be a lien on all the real
estate of the defendant noc exempt from levy
on execution ; and further, that in case any
owner of a building shall rent the same, or per-
mit the same to be used for the sale of intoxi-
cating liquors, the premises '' shall be held

Half' way Measures, 201

liable for, and may be sold to pay, all sums so
recovered."

These provisions seem stringent, but I
have doubts whether they will be continuously
and extensively effective in restraining the
abuses of the liquor traffic. There are difficul-
ties in the way which would be obvious, at
least to every legal practitioner, and if they
should prove in practice surmountable, the only
result under the Illinois law would be that
dealers would thenceforward carry on the
traffic without a license rather than under one,
as the licensees alone are obliged to furnish the
security of bonds.

I have no doubt of the right of the Legisla-
ture to affix any conditions it may see fit to per-
mission to carry on the liquor trade, and it may
therefore go to the extent of making the seller
responsible for consequences ; but it must be
admitted that this is an anomaly in legislation.
As a general principle of law, it is only a wrong-
doer— i, e., one who does an unlawful act or a
lawful act negligently — who is responsible for
the consequences of the act. If it is unlawful
to sell, then the seller may, with reason, be held
Hable for the results ; but if the State sanctions
the selling, it would seem, upon general prin-
ciples, that it should charge the seller with
some wrongful or negligent act under its own
9*

202 The State vs. Alcohol.

theory before affixing to him pecuniary liability
therefor. Accordingly, the ''Adair Liquor Law
of Ohio " has been so amended as to require
that before the liability arises notice shall have
been given by the persons liable to be injured
not to sell or give liquor to the person for
whose acts, when intoxicated, the seller is to be
charged.

While these civil damage laws are most con-
sistent with the theory of prohibitory legisla-
tion, it will, perhaps, surprise many readers
to know that they are not a late invention, but
were originally incorporated in prohibitory laws.
Thus, in the Mass. Law of 1855, it was pro-
vided that " the husband, wife, parent, child,
guardian, or employer of any person who has
the habit of drinking spirituous or intoxicating
liquor to excess, may give notice in writing,
signed by him or her, to any person not to
deliver spirituous or intoxicating liquor to the
person who has such habit. If the person so
notified, at any time within twelve months after
such notice, delivers any such liquor to the
person who has such habit, the person giving
the notice may, in an action of tort, recover of
the person notified any sum not less than ^21
nor more than $500, as may be assessed by the
jury as damages." And then follow provisions
as to coverture and death. And in 1861

Half-way Measures, 203

(chap. 136) the requiren ent of notice was
stricken out.

It would be too much to venture to affirm
that no case ever ripened to judgment under
this section in the courts of Massachusetts ;
but this I can affirm, that I never heard of any,
although I have been in stations where, if fre-
quent, the fact would have come under my eye ;
and the published reports of the State contain
no trace of any such case.

If this law of liability has anywhere brought
any solahum to a ruined home or a desolate
wife, or restrained in terrorem any reckless
rum-seller, let it steadily be upheld for what it
is worth ; but it is evident that it may be dis-
missed as a means for general control of the
traffic.

TAXATION.

We have already had occasion to notice that in
accordance with the general law, that whatever
imposes restraints upon the freedom of sale di-
minishes consumption, taxation for revenue has
some beneficial effect in checking the liquor
trade. This is, perhaps, more noticeable in the
old world than in the United States, where the
higher wages and more assured employment
affords the mere day-laborer too ample means
to gratify continuously his appetite for drink.

204 The State vs. Alcohol.

Taxation in various forms, imposed for pur-
poses of national revenue upon the manufac-
turer and the dealer, is familiar to the legisla-
tion of the United States ; but so far as I am
aware, the State of Michigan is the first to pro-
pose a tax upon the dealer as a measure of
State revenue and of regulation. The Consti-
tution of Michigan provides that " the Legisla-
ture shall not pass any act authorizing the grant
of licenses for the sale of ardent spirits or other
intoxicating liquors." The prohibitory law of
the State having been repealed, the Legislature
being inhibited by the Constitution from grant-
ing licenses, resorted to a system of taxation as
affording some slight extent of regulation and
some public revenue. The act imposes a uniform
tax of $40 upon retail dealers in malt liquors,
and $150 upon retail dealers in spirituous
liquors. If the liquor traffic is to be tolerated,
either expressly or impliedly, I am inclined to
think taxation is better than license.

In the administration of license laws, the
traffic is practically thrown open to almost
every dealer who would be able to pay a con-
siderable tax ; while this system avoids the
scandal of pretending to license such a busi-
ness for the '' public good," and the evil ex-
ample of a legislative sanction. It is, how-
ever, open to the fatal objection that it is a dis-

Half-way Measures, 205

heartening abandonment of even a hope for
the present suppression, or strict regulation, of
the dram-shop, while it shares, with the license
system, the infamy and the evil of deriving a
portion of the public revenue from such a
source. It recalls to mind the rebuke of Lord
Chesterfield in the House of Lords in 1743 :

" Luxury, my lords, is to be taxed, but vice pro-
hibited, let the difficulty in the law be what it will.
Would you lay a tax upon a breach of the Ten Com-
mandments ? Would not such a tax be wicked and
scandalous? Would it not imply an indulgence to
all those who could pay the tax ? .... It appears
to me that, since the spirit which the distillers pro-
duce is allowed to enfeeble the limbs, vitiate the
blood, pervert the heart, and obscure the intellect,
the number of distillers should be no argument in
their favor, for I never heard that a law against
theft was repealed or delayed because thieves were
numerous."

LOCAL OPTION.

This well-known American phrase is used to
describe laws essentially prohibitory of the
liquor traffic in their nature, but confined in
their authority to such local subdivisions of the
general sovereignty as may by some form of
popular vote adopt them.

Many of the States of our Union have, in
late years, tried the experiment of such a sys-

2o6 The State vs. Alcohol.

tern. Among them have been the States of
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, North Caro-
lina, and California. Mississippi enacted a
peculiar statute, which, in any community with
which we are acquainted, would ensure prohi-
bition, viz. : '' That no license shall be granted
or renewed unless signed by a majority of the
male citizens over twenty -one years of age,
a7id a majority of female citizens over eighteen
years of age resident in the supervisor's district,
incorporated city, or town." What progress
has been made in the enforcement of this law
we know not ; probably but little, in the dis-
turbed condition of affairs there existing ever
since the time it Vas passed. Some other
States have granted enabling acts to particular
counties or districts. Notably among these
are New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia, and Ala-
bama.

It has been claimed that local option laws are
unconstitutional as an attempted delegation of
the legislative power to local authority. And
some respectable decisions may be cited to sus-
tain this doctrine. But the weight of opinion
seems to be in favor of sustaining their validity.
The question came before the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts under the ** Beer Law," so
called (St. 1870, c. 389), which allow-ed the
sale of malt liquors unless the municipality

Half-way Meastires. 207

should vote otherwise, " in which case the sale
of such liquors in such city or town is prohibit-
ed." The Court say :

" It has been argued .... that these statutes are
unconstitutional, because they delegate to cities and
towns a part of the legislative power. But we can
see no ground for such a position. Many successive
statutes of the Commonwealth have made the law-
fulness of sales of intoxicating liquors to depend upon
licenses from the selectmen of towns or commissioners
of counties; and ruch statutes have been held to be
constitutional. (7 Dane Ab., 43, 44 ; Commonwealth
vs. Blakington, 24 Pick., 352). It is equally within
the power of the Legislature to authorize a town, by
vote of the inhabitants, or a city, by vote of the city
council, to determine whether the sale of particular
kinds of liquors, within its limits, shall be permitted
or prohibited. This subject, although not embraced
within the ordinary power to make by-laws and ordi-
nances, falls within the class of police regulations,
which may be intrusted by the Legislature by express
enactment to municipal authority. (Commonwealth
vs. Turner, i Cush., 493, 495 ; State vs. Noyes, 10
Foster, 279: Bancroft vs. Dumas, 21 Verm., 456;
Tanner vs. Trustees of Albion, 5 Hill, 121 ; State vs,
Simonds, 3 Missouri, zj 14.)"

Commonwealth vs. Bennett^ 108 Mass., 27.

I have not thought it worth while to examine
the details of these laws in the different States.
The general scheme is to engraft upon a license

2o8 The State vs. Alcohol.

system a provision that the people of a specified
locality, either of a county, or in some cases of
a town or city, may vote that no licenses shall
be granted, in which case the sale is prohibited.
The law is thus, when operating to prevent
licensing, only "prohibitory" in the general
meaning of that term, and lacks the peculiar
machinery which gives special efficiency to the
law popularly known as *• the Maine Law." *
Yet these local option acts, partial in operation
and incomplete in detail, have yet proved benefi-
cent in operation. As their success is the suc-
cess of prohibition, I have given some of the
facts in the chapter under that head. In some
of the States these laws have been too success-
ful, and have followed the fate of prohibitory
laws, in being repealed for that reason. This is
notably the case in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Confessed by "the trade" to be a check, and
more expressively shown to be so by their
clamorous activity for the repeal, thoughtful
men need no further demonstration of their
utility, and can only ponder the problem, how
long it must be that the powers of evil continue

* Massachusetts is now (1876) trying the experiment of a local
option, depending on the action of the municipal authorities
(1875, ch. 99, sec. 5), and with the search and seizure provisions
of the prohibitory law in case of all anlicensed keeping (1876,
ch. 162).

Half-way Measures. 209

practically stronger in the body politic than the
powers of good, by reason of their unity and
energy.

But notwithstanding the good obtainable by
these laws, in addition to the obvious consider-
ation that this is a matter in which the reverse
of the old maxim, that " the half is better than
the whole," applies, this legislation is open to
three serious objections :

First, The State is the normal unit of sover-
eignty, and it is opposed to sound theories of
government to transfer to local fractions the de-
cision of a question of such general and far-
reaching importance as the policy to be pursued
toward the liquor traffic. Names do not alter
things, and calling the power of licensing or
prohibiting a "police power," can blind no
thinking man to the tremendous issue in-
volved. And if the doctrine I have sought to
maintain in previous chapters is established,
and the drink traffic is indeed the c estroyer of
national wealth, the clog that drags down labor,
the poisoner of the public health, the enemy of
the home, the feeder of pauperism, the stimu-
lant of crime, the foe of Christian civilization,
and the degenerator of the race, then the State
clearly owes to each community of its citizens
its best wisdom and its most persistent energy
in the repression of such a traffic, and it may

2IO The State vs. Alcohol,

not rightfully or even prudently abandon the
virtuous, or, for that matter, the vicious, citizen
anywhere to the rule of a debased locality. It
is as if the famous Five Points of New York
city were allowed to establish their own code
of criminal laws.

Second, Legislation of this kind breaks the
educational force of law. What can be voted
up or down by the people of a village or a
county, what is right in one district and
wrong in another, loses all moral significance.

Third. Unless prohibition is the uniform law
of the State, its best results can not be ob-
tained even in the communities which elect it.
The force of this objection varies, of course,
somewhat according to localities. There are
isolated rural communities where local prohibi-
tion may be made quite effectual. But our rail-
road system has practically compacted the
greater part of our people, and our cities
where the liquor interest is strongest, are, if
uncontrolled by law, centers of demoralization,
with far-reaching circumferences. Even as long
ago as 1839, Jonathan Phillips and 2,222 other
memorialists addressed the Legislature of
Massachusetts in these words :

" While the capital continues to be the headquarters
of the trade, no effectual benefit can be realized in
those parts of the State where licenses are refused.

Half-way Measures, 211

Such is now the intercourse between Boston and the
interior, that no man's family is safe. The youth
who has been kept from the temptation to intemper-
ance in the country, no sooner enters the city than he
is beset by the enticements which a legalized body of
spirit dealers hold out before him."

This, however, points out but one of the
many relations in which the capital stands to
the country.

While thus pointing out the shortcomings and
weaknesses of. local option laws, we are prepared
to admit their utility under the conditions and
limitations heretofore suggested. And besides
their temporary utility, they may sometimes
serve the purpose of '* stepping-stones " to a
higher and safer plane of legislation.

THE ENGLISH PERMISSIVE BILL.

This, known also as Sir Wilfrid Lawson's bill,
from the baronet who introduced it and has so
persistently pressed it to a division, year by
year, in the English House of Commons, is es-
sentially a local option measure. But it exhibits
that peculiar caution so characteristic of the
English mind. Sir Wilfrid is brave and radical
enough, but he knows too well the conservative
instincts of even the ''popular" branch of the
English Government. When remitted to local
decision, it is only the '* rate-payers " who are

212 The State vs. Alcohol,

to have a voice ; and so privileged a class are
the publicans and beer-house keepers, that they
are not to be ruled by a mere majority of their
tax-paying fellow- citizens ; but the liquor traffic
is only to be suppressed where a vote of two-
thirds so decrees. And yet this looks to ** the
trade" as "tyrannical" and " outrageous," as
the Maine Law itself to an American dram-
seller. And although Sir Wilfrid does not

" bate a jot
Of heart or hope ; but still bears up and steers
Right onward ; "

he is not yet able to gain largely in Parlia-
mentary support for his moderate proposition.
The last division was on the 14th of June, 1876,
when (including pairs and tellers) loi mem-
bers of the House of Commons supported, and
319 opposed the bill. The gain, however, in
the accession of influential adherents outside of
ParHament has recently been more marked. It
is also noticeable that on the above division, Ire-
land, Scotland, and Wales each gave a majority
for the bill.

This measure is actively supported by the
** United Kingdom Alliance," one of the most
powerful and best organized societies for re-
formatory agitation which the world has seen.
Its officers and executive are men as remark-
able for ability and wisdom as for broad phi-
8

Half-way Measures, 213

lanthropy. A few years ago a subscription fund
of half a million dollars (;^ 100,000) was raised
to carry on its work for five years ; and its ex-
penditures for the year ending Sept. 30, 1875,
amounted to over one hundred and fifteen
thousand dollars.

Yet, although this organization earnestly and
unanimously supports and presses the Permis-
sive Bill as the best attainable measure, it still
has placed in the forefront, from the first hour
of its organization (1*853), ^^ its object, ''to
procure the total and immediate legislative sup-
pression of the traffic in intoxicating liquors as
beverages."

May I not rightly sum up the duty of those
who believe the liquor traffic to be a curse, as
this: Wherever lue?tse prevails, wrest every
inch of territory you can for prohibition ;
where prohibition prevails, never surrender an
inch to licefise, except front dire necessity.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GOTHENBURG SYSTEM.

In a paper contributed by Judge Aldrich to
the Fourth Annual Report of the Massachu-
setts State Board of Health, he alludes to
Sweden as a country " somewhat isolated in
position, and whose internal or domestic policy
is less liable to be a'"'ected by foreign influences
than that of most European countries ; and the
force and effect of whose legislation and do-
mestic policy can therefore be the more surely
determined." After alluding briefly to its his-
tory in previous centuries, he closes thus :

" But there is not space here further to trace this
very instructive branch of the history of one of the
most remarkable nations of Europe, illustrating as it
does nearly every phase of the * Liquor Question '
which has arisen in this country, or is likely to arise,
and the careful study of which could hardly fail to
furnish our legislators and statesmen with invaluable
information to guide them in dealing with a subject
second in importance to no other within the range of
American legislation."

But we must not permit ourselves to stray

(.214)

The Gothenburg System, 215

beyond such a brief survey of Swedish affairs
as may enable the reader to understand the
special topic of this chapter, and to determine
its relative success or failure.

The Gothenburg system has heretofore inci-
dentally received the favorable notice of Mr.
Gladstone, and of Mr. Bruce, the Home Secre-
tary under his ministry, and has excited con-
siderable interest in England and Scotland ;
and in our country has been set forth in that
pretentious treatise of Mr. Weeden, on " the
Morality of Prohibitory Laws " with this un-
qualified eulogy :

" We can offer a system of regulated traffic which
is based on justice, respects the individual, and is
worked in every detail for the benefit of the whole
corrtmunity, so far as this appetite can be controlled
by any mechanism. It has the further advantages
of success after more than eight years of trial " (p.
164).

As we in Massachusetts are doing what is
called, in sad irony, giving the license law *' a
fair and full trial," which is merely living over the
dreary experience of our forefathers, let us turn
and examine this novelty in a spirit of candor.

SWEDEN.

Sweden, although by its position and the oc-
cupation of its inhabitants, free from the pres-

2i6 The State vs. Alcohol,

ence of many debasing factors which enter into
European civilization, and unusually well sup-
plied with facilities for religious and educational
culture, has yet been for ages, as we have
heretofore had occasion to notice, wonderfully
cursed by intemperance.

For over a century, after a few brief efforts
at restriction, there had been pursued a national
policy of free trade in intoxicating liquors.
And so it had come to pass, as reported by Mr.
Laing in his ''Tour in Sweden" in 1838, that
"the best informed individuals impute the ex-
traordinary state of the criminal returns of the
country to the excessive drunkenness of the
lowest class. The evil, they say, goes beyond
the excess of all other nations, is the cause of
three-fourths of all the crimes committed, and
is destroying the very race, physically as well
as morally." At last the public sentiment of
the kingdom became aroused, and found ex-
pression in the report of a special committee
of the Diet of Sweden made in 1854, in which
it is said that "the researches of the philoso-
pher and the honest feelings of the illiterate man
have led them to the same conclusion ; and that
is, that the comfort of the Swedish people — >
even their existence as an enlightened, indus-
trious, and loyal people — is at stake, unless
means can be found to check the evil It

The Gothenburg System. 217

might be said a cry of agony has burst forth
from the hearts of the people, and an appeal
and prayer made to all having influence in the
fate of the country for deliverance from a scourge
which previous legislators have planted and
nourished." As the result there was passed
what is known as the '' Swedish Licensing Act
of 1855." The principal features of this are as
follows :

First. The Act abolishes domestic stills.

Second. It takes away the right theretofore
existing of all persons to sell spirits in quantities
of one kan (three-fifths of a gallon) and up-
wards. No sale can be made of less than eight
and three-fifths eallons without license.

Third. The parochial authorities or the town
councils fix, annually, the number of retail spirit-
shops and public-houses, subject to approval by
the Governor of the Province.

Fourth. There are only two classes of li-
censes : one for shops to sell in quantities not
less than half a kan (three-tenths of a gallon),
not to be drunk on the premises ; and the other
to .public-houses (including restaurants) for
quantities however small, and with liberty to be
drunk on the premises.

Fifth. The license tax to be paid by the
store retailers is equivalent to 6d., and that by
the publicans to Qd. a gallon.

2i8 The State vs. Alcohol.

Sixth. There being no minimtcm fixed for
the number of licenses, it is, in effect, a " local
option " act.

Seventh. The licenses granted are to be sold
by auction, for a term of three years, to those
who undertake to pay the prescribed tax on
the greatest number of kans of spirits, irre-
spective of their actual sales. There is also a
provision that, with certain guarantees, and
subject to the approval of the Governor of the
Province, in case a company is formed to take
the whole number of public-house licenses, the
town authorities may dispose of the same to
them without an auction.

" One result of the passing of this Act was the
reduction of the number of distilleries from 44,000
in 1850 to 4,500, and, with the aid of auxiliary legis-
lation, to 457 in 1869, and a reduction of the annual
product from 26,000,000 to 6,900,000 gallons. All
testimony concurs, also, that the effect on intemper-
ance in the country districts was immediate and most
remarkable." *

As already stated, the Act allowed of local
prohibition ; and under it the traffic in spirits
was not licensed at all in certain parishes, and
greatly restricted in others.

* Balfour's Letter to Gladstone, p. i a.

The Gothenburg System, 219

Mr. Balfour, in his recent letter to Mr. Glad-
stone, tells us that *' so vigorously have the
people outside of towns used their permission
to limit and prohibit, that among three and a
half millions of people (more than twice the
population of Massachusetts) there are only 450
places for the sale of spirits.

Bailie Lewis gives us this bright picture of a
parish in which he spent several days, the area
of which was twenty-four by twelve miles :

" In the clergyman of the Lutheran Church we
found a man of great intellect and large sympathies,
and who wielded immense influence among his par-
ishioners in the commune. In his parish — where we
found sobriety, morality, and social order prevail-
ing in a high degree — there was only one bran-via
(spirit) shop. The clergyman told us that there was
a population of 7,000 persons, and with the excep-
tion of one man (somewhat weak in intellect) every
adult, he said, could read and write. I took a walk
of several miles through this model parish in the twi-
light of a Sunday evening, and the quiet and order
that prevailed were most refreshing, while the voice
of praise which ascended from the family altar of the
peasant recalled to my recollection the early mem-
ories of a Scottish Sabbath. In the parish immedi-
ately adjoining, there resided one of the largest dis-
tillers in Sweden, who possessed an immense amount
of political influence in the district and in the com-
mune. Here the licensed grog-shops were at a
maximum, and here we found drunkenness, demoral-

220 The State vs. Alcohol.

ization and poverty obtruding themselves in a most
offensive form."

And he well adds :

" T/ie social condition of Sweden^ as in Scotland,
England, and Ireland, and indeed everywhere else,
proves that just in proportion as you limit the ?iumber
of houses for the sale of intoxicating liquors, you im-
prove the morality a7id social well-being of the district ;
and, in like manner, as you multiply the facilities for
drinking, you increase drunkenness, with its never-
faihng attendants of crime, beggary, and irreligion."

GOTHENBURG.

While the application of permissive prohi-
bition produced remarkable results in the
country districts where it was tried, and while
even the substitution of restricted license for
free trade in other districts and in the towns
produced a very sensible amelioration, the con-
dition of things remained deplorable in the city
of Gothenburg. The second city in Sweden,
with a population in 1864 of 42,433 (in 1874
of 58,307), a seaport, and largely a commercial
town, with many Scotch and English merchants,
it was largely under the blight and curse of the
drink traffic. Mr. Balfour, in the letter to
which we have referred, after alluding to some
details of its wretchedness, and to the '' dead

The Gothenburg System, 221

letter " of the license law as there administered,
sums it up in a single sentence :

" Competent persons testify that at that time, in
almost no community were brutish coarseness or
deep poverty more common than in Gothenburg."

In 1864, a committee of its Town Council
was appointed to inquire into the causes of its
increasing- pauperism and degradation. And
here let it be noted that if education were the
panacea for social misery which some philoso-
phers maintain, Gothenburg should have been
a Paradise. With a system of compulsory
education by the State, of children between the
ages of seven and fourteen, with supplemental
schools for the children of the poor under seven,
supported by private philanthropy, with excel-
lent private schools for the prosperous classes,
all taught with the thoroughness of European
drill, and with technical schools for the practical
training of lads in the various branches of
skilled industry ; so that the total attendance
upon her various schools is more than a sixth
of her whole population ; — the verdict of an
intelligent observer is justified, that '-' Gothen-
burof is one of the best educated towns in the
world."

Such, also, is the testimony of Mr. Balfour,
who, after alluding to " the universal education

222 The State vs. Alcohol.

of its people, and the excellent system of re-
ligious teaching," says :

" Neither the spread of education, nor the influence
of religious observances, which are so much relied
upon in England for the cure of our intemperance,
were found to have that effect in Sweden, and that,
while these were, doubtless, important and indispen-
sable, yet other means were absolutely essential for
bringing about this reformation."

But to return. The Town Council easily
found that intemperance was the chief factor in
the production of their debasing pauperism.
No town in Sweden had ever adopted prohibi-
tion ; and the Council of Gothenburg dreamed
not of attempting such heroic treatment of their
great evil. But their convictions culminated in
this proposition :

" That public-houses should no longer be conducted
by individuals for the sake of profit, but by an asso-
ciation, which should neither bring individual profit
to the persons so associated, nor to the persons who
should manage the different establishments."

This may be considered the germinal prin-
ciple of the Gothenburg system, and we are
now prepared to look at its methods, its ma-
chinery, and its results.

HISTORY OF THE SYSTEM.

Gothenburg, perhaps owing to the large ad-

The Gothenburg System. 223

mixture of English and Scotch blood in its
business life, has never wanted for public-spirit-
ed, enterprising, and intelligent philanthropists.
And when the conviction had entered the public
mind that the drink traffic was so abnormal in
its nature that it must be treated in a manner
exactly contrary to all other traffic, and the
stimulus of personal gain from its extension
carefully eliminated, there were not wanting
some of the most trusted men of influence and
of hicfh commercial standinof to undertake the
new management. A company (Swedish —
Bolag) of such men was accordingly soon
formed, with the following avowed as leading
objects :

First. To reduce the number of public-
houses.

Second. To improve their condition as to
light, ventilation, cleanliness, etc.

Third. To make public-houses eating-houses,
where warm, cooked food should be procurable
at moderate prices.

Fourth. To refuse sale of spirits on credit or
pledge.

Fifth. To employ as managers respectable
persons who should derive no profit from the
sale of spirits, but should be entitled to profits
from sale of food and other refreshments, in-
cluding malt liquors.

224 The State vs. Alcohol.

Sixth. To secure strict supervision of all
public-houses by inspectors of their own in ad-
dition to the police.

Seventh. To pay to the town treasury all the
net profits of sales of spirits.

The better to enable them to effect these ob-
jects, a charter w^as granted them by the Gov-
ernment, and they commenced operations in
1865. It is but fair to say here that the com-
pany seem, in the main, thus far to have steadily
pursued the objects marked out at their forma-
tion.

It will be recollected, that by the last provi-
sion stated above in the summary of the License
Act of 1855, th^ Town Council were empowered
to dispose of all the licenses they intended to
grant for the sale of spirits to be consumed on
the premises 10 su h a company. In 1865,
when this company began to operate, there
were in existence sixty-one of such licenses at the
ultimate disposal of the Town Council, besides
seven licenses held under certain vested rijh s,
over which the authorities had no control. But
of these sixty-one disposable licenses only forty-
three were in the immediate disposition of the
Council, the remainder not expiring until the
end of two years. The forty-three licenses
were immediately transferred to the Bolag,
as the company was called. Of these, seven-

The Gothenburg System. 225

teen were extinguished, so there was at once
a diminution of more than a third."^ Ulti-
mately the Bolag came into possession of
the whole sixty-one; and their report, ist
March, 1875, shows that of these, twenty-five
were used for public-houses ; nine were trans-
ferred to restaurants, for which the company
receive yearly payments ; seven were used for
retail shops for sale not to be drunk on the
premises ; and twenty were extinguished. It
is explained that the seven shops were opened
to " draw off customers from badly-conducted
retail shops of private individuals ; " but it is
admitted that the competition proved a failure.
As has been observed, the Grocer's Licenses
continued to be held by private individuals.
These were regarded as '* stumbling-blocks " in
the way of further progress ; and in October,

1874, such further legislation was had as per-
mitted the acquisition of these by the Bolag.
As the result thereof, on the ist of January,

1875, the Town Council transferred to them the
Grocer's Retail Licenses, 20 in number (gradually
reduced by the action of the Council from 58,
the number in 1865). They thus acquired a

*I here follow the authority of Mr. Balfour. Both Bailie
Lewis and McMillan's Magazine (February, 1872) give the
number of licenses then acquired as only forty, which gives a
larger per cent, of reduction.

226 The State vs. Alcohol.

pretty complete monopoly of the retail spirit
trade. Of these 20, they suppressed seven
altogether, anS transferred the remaining 13,
for annual payments, to private wine mer-
chants as is said, ''exclusively for the sale of
the higher class of spirits and liqueurs not in
ordinary use by the working classes."

It will not be overlooked that we have been
dealing entirely with the trade in distilled, spirits.
The common Swedish liquor is called " Bran-
vin," and is obtained by distillation from potatoes
and grains ; resembling whisky. The distinction
between the habits of the common people and
the wealthier class, of whom a considerable
portion are foreigners, seems more marked than
can easily be appreciated by an American ; and
it has been supposed that the consumption of
malt liquors was too insignificant in amount,
and too harmless in result, to require that such
liquors should be included amongst those
against which legislation has been invoked. It
is claimed that the beer actually sold is milder
than its English prototype. But it is clear that
with the increasing consumption of beer, and
with closer observation of its effects and of its
disguises, it must soon take its place under the
law and in the general judgment with other in-
toxicants. In 1873, Bailie Lewis tells us that
he ** found almost all the advocates of the

The Gothenburg System, 227

Gothenburg system of the opinion that ale,
beer, and porter were unintoxicating," ahhough
he found from personal observation incontesta-
ble proof to the contrary ; and he dismisses the
subject by saying :

'' Forty years ago, such assertions might have been
Hstened to with becoming gravity ; but in view of the
parliamentary evidence on the beer bill, and the daily
experience of every beer-shop in England, the discus-
sion of such a proposition, however needful in Gothen-
burg, is altogether superfluous and out of place in the
columns of our Scotch or English newspapers."

But let us on this point rather quote from
pronounced friends of the Gothenburg system.
Mr. David Carnegie, of Scotland, the author of
a paper on '' The Licensing Laws of Sweden,"
read before the Philosophical Society of Glas-
gow in 1872, seems to have been earliest and
most earnest in pressing this scheme upon the
attention of the British public. Mr. Carnegie
is one of the proprietors of the Gothenburg
brewery ; and the porter sold therefrom bears
his name as its brand. In the course of a reply
to Bailie Lewis, delivered in Queen Street Hall,
Edinburgh, July 14, 1873, he says:

" No traveler could land in Sweden without Gothen-
burg porter being brought under his notice ; but he
could safely assert that the Swedes did not get drunk
on that beverage. It was there the general belief

228 The State vs. Alcohol,

that porter rather promoted temperance by diminish-
ing the consumption of spirits."

This was received with derisive laughter by
his Scotch audience ; but notice the significant
statement which immediately follows :

** Bailie Lewis said there were 400 beer-shops in
Gothenburg ; but he omitted to mention that 300 of
these would probably be closed next year, in consequence
of a change in the law, placing malt liquors under the
same rezulations as wineT

So it seems that way of ** promoting temper-
ance " has been a little overdone in the opinion
of the Gothenburgers themselves ! I will do
Mr. Carnegie the justice to add the next para-
graph :

" Should the time ever come when the habits of
the Swedes are so changed that it could fairly be
maintained that the Gothenburg brewery promoted
drunkenness, he, for one, would have nothing more to
do with it."

The change in the law foretold by Mr. Car-
negie seems to have been effected ; for Mr.
Balfour, in the letter before alluded to, describ-
ing the state of things in the autumn of 1875,
says there are only ** 115 beer licenses held by
private persons " in Gothenburg; and friendly
as he is to the ''system," he confesses ''that it
may be an omission that the Swedish law does

The Gotkenbm-g System. 229

not deal with strong beer and porter in the
same manner that it does with spirits. It is
plain that beer and porter may be made to con-
tain a larger quantity of alcohol, and thus be
powerful intoxicants ; and if they were so manu-
factured, the Gothenburg system would fail to
embrace a/l alcoholic liquors, which it ought to
do." And he adds in a foot note :

" The beer commonly sold in public-houses in
Liverpool to workingmen, contains about 8 per cent,
of alcohol. That is to say, a tumblerful of this beer
contains nearly as much alcohol as an ordinary wine-
glassful of brandy."

Turning back again to the Bolag, we observe
that the active management of the company is
in the hands of a Board of ten Directors, half
of whom are elected by the shareholders at
their annual meeting, and these then proceed
to choose five persons to fill up their body.
Any inhabitant is eligible, whether a share-
holder or not ; and some time ago it was said
that there had been no instance of a person
elected refusing to serve. The Directors de-
termine the number of places to be kept open
and their localities, and select the superintend-
ents. These agree to furnish eatables and
cooked food when called for ; to sell spirits and
wines for cash only ; to keep and render an ex-

230 The State vs. Alcohol,

act account weekly of such sales ; to derive no
profit therefrom ; to procure such spirits from
the company alone ; to sell at their prices, and
to derive their own profit only from the sale of
malt liquors, refreshments, and food ; and they
furnish security for the performance of these
obligations. It is stated that the profits de-
rived by a majority of the employees of the
company are so insufficient that the^ aie in-
duced to remain by annual subsidies, varying- in
amount, paid by the company out of their re-
ceipts. These superintendents, to whom the
trade is farmed out, are men ; but women are
largely employed as the tenders of the estab-
lishments.

Some criticism has been expended upon cer-
tain details in the operations of the Bolag, such
as the large allowance of 3^ per cent, for
breakage and wastage made to the superin-
tendents ; but I pass over all such matters as
not pertaining to the essentials of the system,
and as mere errors of administration, which ex-
perience may correct ; and I do not doubt the
honest intention of the company to carry out its
system according to its own judgment and con-
victions.

We may perhaps get a more vivid idea of
this system by looking at it in actual opera-
tion.

The Gothenburg System, 231

PICTURES AT SIGHT.

We therefore give two pen - photographs.
The first from a friendly hand in Mac7nillan s
Magazine for February, 1872.

" It is a market-day ; so we may count upon finding
a brisk trade going on at Vardhus, No. 9, which
abuts upon the market-place, and is the favorite
rendezvous of the market folk. Pushing through a
swinging door a few steps above the level of the
street, we come at once into a large and tolerably
lofty L shaped room. The sanded floor is scrupu-
lously clean, and dotted here and there with small
wooden tables. Across one end runs the bar, be-
hind which stands the manager in snowy shirt-sleeves
and aprqn, backed by a row of glittering wine bottles,
labelled port, sherry, champagne, and punch, ranged
on shelves that climb almost to the ceiling. The
first glance at the bar is enough to remind us that
we are not in London. Instead of the familiar row
of upright handles, the center of the counter is occu-
pied by a small army of what may be called large-
sized liquor glasses, all brimming full of pure, colorless
bran-vin. The flanks of this fiery army are covered
by two plates, piled with broken pieces of hard rye
biscuit-bread, and a powerful reserve force of spirit
decanters is massed in the rear. Not without good
reason, too, these preparations ; for the army of
glasses is being constantly attacked. One moment
it is a young, smooth-cheeked wagoner, with a whip
in hand ; another, a sailor from the port ; now a
mechanic, with his tool-bag ; and now a probable

232 The State vs. Alcohol.

tradesman, in black cloth, marches up to the bar,
tosses off one of the glasses of whisky, puts a morsel
of bread into his mouth, and a very few small bronze
coins upon the counter, and is gone again in a twink-
ling without a word to anybody. How much is that
stuff in the glass? The tariff posted on the wall
there will tell us. Three farthings ! Well, at any rate
an occasional dram of the company's ordinary bran-
vin will not be ruinous to the purse ; and, to judge
from the taste, it is well-rectified, unflavored spirit,

containing about 50 per cent, of alcohol

" But it is high time to take a look at what is going
on in the other parts of the room, away from the

bar All the little tables are occupied by men

or women sitting in twos or threes at their morning
meal, .... served by brisk, quietly -dressed wai-
tresses, under the direction and eye of the manager's
wife, who superintends the serving out of the eat-
ables and the cups that cheer, while her husband,
watchfully dispenses the glasses that tend to inebri-
ate. There is a low hum of conversation in the
room, but no boisterous talking or swearing or horse-
play Still, just as it is a matter of common

experience that the quiet man at table often has the
knack of playing a highly effective knife and fork, so
the orderly customers of the Gothenburg Company
manage to consume a very respectable sum total of
alcoholic liquor in the course of the year."

Bailie Lewis looked with somewhat sadder
eyes ; and this is what he saw :

" In the market-place there were no fewer than
three of these grog-shops, one of them having a front-

The Gothenburg System. 233

age of upwards of 50 feet. The mode of conducting
tlie business appeared to me to be one of the most
deadly description. In the first house v/hich I visited,
there were four active young women in addition
to the wife of the man charged with the management
of the place, all as busily employed as possible, every
moment being re^juired to supply the wants of their
numerous customers. With the view of economizing
time, a long row of glasses was arranged along the
counter, filled with bran-vin, and which were every
minute being emptied and as summarily replenished.
In numerous instances, not a word was spoken. The
money was laid on the counter, the glass drained,
and, wiping his mouth, the customer departed in
silence. While a brisk counter trade was thus being
prosecuted with a promptitude and energy unsur-
passed in any liquor-shop in Edinburgh, numbers
were to be found in groups of two, three, and up-
wards, drinking at tables in different parts of the
establishment. The quantity of liquor being sold
and consumed in these public -houses was, indeed,
startling. In the course of the seventeen minutes
which I remained in the place referred to, no fewer
than eighty-three persons were supplied with bran-
vin ; and, when I left, nineteen others were being
supplied. When about to leave, I observed a par-
tially-sunk flat in the back part of the premises enter-
ing from a back street, and where an equal number,
^ which I could not accurately estimate, appeared to
be entering and getting supplied. This back entrance
seemed to be a convenient adjunct, as I subsequently
observed that those who entered from the back street
seemed to be in more reduced circumstances, and less

234 ^^^^ State vs. Alcohol.

presentable in their appearance. To show how suc-
cessfully bran-vin competes with more nutritious and
less objectionable beverages, there were, out of the
eighty-three persons referred to, only four who par-
took of coffee, and all of them had it accompanied
by glasses of bran-vin. So astonished was I at the
number who frequented this one bouse, and keeping
in view that it was market-day, I paid it another visit
on the following Sunday evening, and found that no
fewer than 102 persons entered one door in the space
of twenty-five minutes."

Again, he says :

"After personal and minute observation on the
spot, I confess that I found the grog-shops of Gothen-
burg conducted with as great energy and efficiency

as those of Edinburgh True, the law provides

that the premises shall be well lighted and ventilated,
and that no liquor shall be sold to persons who are
drunk. These provisions are not peculiar to Gothen-
burg. They are the statutory requirements of every
town in Scotland, and, generally speaking, so far as
Edinburgh is concerned, they are as well attended to.
.... Such persons are supplied by the company's
servants in Gothenburg. Of this I saw several
melancholy instances. One of them I may refer to.
On a Sabbath evening I saw one of the most wretched
victims I have ever witnessed He stood be-
fore one of the company's grog-shops imploring those
who came out for money. Two well-dressed young
lads appeared to commiserate the unhappy object,
and gave him a few ore. The poor drink-cursed vie-

The Gothenburg System, 235

tim took hold of the rail and dragged himself up the
few steps into one of those * model public-houses ' —
the one so beautifully described in Macniillan's Maga-
zine. I remarked to a friend, * There goes the poor
wretch for yet another glass ; surely he will not be
supplied,' I added, remarking that I did not believe
there were a score of publicans in Edinburgh who
would give him more liquor. The 'customer'
laid his six ore upon the counter, was supplied with
his debasing drug, and soon afterwards returned to
the street, and was again begging before the door,
when I turned away with a feeling of unutterable
disappointment and disgust."

Having included in Bailie Lewis' pictures
these Sabbath -sights, we give "the system"
the benefit of a statement we find in Mr. Bal-
four's letter :

" The company do not permit the sale of spirits in
their premises on Sundays, nor after 6 P.M. on Satur-
days ; but persons are allowed to take the customary
dram before eating."

There is reason to fear (if the practice con-
forms to the theory) that some persons in
Gothenburg must require '* meals at all hours "
on Sunday.

RESULTS.

We are now prepared to look at statistical
results.

2^6 The State vs. AlcohoL

And first, there can be no doubt, if we look at
the matter purely as a financial operation, the
system "pays well" to the town of Gothen-
burg. Before its inauguration, the town re-
ceived annually from the sale of licenses about
;^7,ooo; the sum paid by the Bolag in 1874,
was over ;^ 14,000 ; and the company having now
acquired the Grocers' Licenses, it is estimated
that the profits of last year (1875), which are
payable to the town, will reach the sum of
^35,000, or about one hundred and seventy-
five thousand dollars. This is equivalent to a
revenue of one million of dollars for the popu-
lation of the city of Boston. And when we
consider that this is derived from th^ pro/its on
the sale mainly of the cheapest whisky, we get
some idea of the immense consumption. There
are but few, we trust, who will hesitate to join
in the mild exhortation of Mr. Balfour to the
Bolag :

" It is to be hoped that this large increase to the
income of the town may be followed by a further
diminution of the hours for selling spirits, and by a
further curtailment of the inducements to managers
to dispose of them.''

I regret that I have no means of comparing
the actual total sales of spirits in Gothenburg
during the successive years of the Bolag ad-

The Gothenbu7'g System.

^Z7

ministration with that of prior years. One
thine is evident. It is admitted that the con-
sumption is still enormous. It seems to be ad-
mitted that the total consumption of spirits (ex-
clusive of malt liquors) in 1873, would average
over six gallons for every man, woman, and
child, if calculated upon the basis of the res -
dent population of Gothenburg. It is but fair
to say that Mr. Carnegie suggests that a con-
siderable allowance should be made for the in-
flux of rural visitors from a large area of practi-
cal prohibition.

As to the statistics of drunkenness, I append
the table of arrests for this cause, for several
years, together with the population, and the
calculated per cent, the former is of the latter :

Years.
1855
1856

1864
1865
1866
1867

1872*

1873

1874

Population.
30,804
33.424

42,433
^5750
47,332
47,898

55.986
56,909

58.307

Dru7ikards

3.431
2,658

2,161
2,070
1,424
1,375

1,581
1,827

2,234t

Per cent.

II. 14

7.95

5.09
4.52
3.01
2.87

2.82
3.21
3.83

* I am not able to ^ve the population of the intermediate

t Of this large number only five were females. All the au-
thorities speak of the sobriety of the women of Sweden.

238 The State vs. Alcohol,

The table is instructive.

It will first be noticed that consequent upon
the passage of the General Law of 1855, to
which we have alluded, and the improvement in
the tone of temperance sentiment which gave
birth to it, there began to be a considerable re-
duction in cases even in Gothenburg; so that,
in 1864, the absolute number had decreased
more than one-third, and the percentage more
than one-half.

It will be remembered that the operation of
the Bolag commenced in October, 1865. The
following year witnessed an immediate reduc-
tion of the cases of drunkenness of nearly one-
third, and of the per cent, a little over one-
third. A slight reduction continues to be shown
for the two succeeding years, and then a stand-
still, followed by an upward tendency, balanced,
however, by the increase of population, until, in
the years 1873 and 1874, there is witnessed a
large absolute and relative increase. This re-
action is so clearly shown, that the fact is ad-
mitted, \>\xX.vAi2XMacmillan (October, '']:^ calls

years. Some increase by enlarged area took place in 1868. The
arrests during the omitted years did not vary much ; they were
respectively 1,320, 1,445, i»4i6, and 1,531. I may add here
that the table stops at 1874, because, as the British Under-Secre-
tary of State remarked in the House of Commons as late as
March 13, 1877, it is " the last year for which figures were ob-
tainable."

The Gothenbtirg System. 239

**ugly and uncomfortable statistics," are ex-
plained away as due to the nau.^hty grocers,
and not to the Bolag, and to the " good times."
As to the last, whatever may be the case in
Sweden, the Yankee believes in good times as
the normal condition of things ; and no inven-
tion which will not work in such seasons can
suit his demands. Nor is it seen how a little
exhilaration in the labor market can greatly af-
fect the amount of drinking where the popular
beverage can be had for three farthings. As to
the suggestion that it is the grocers and not
the Bolag publicans who manufacture drunk-
ards, it is purely hypothetical, and we must wait
for time to test it. The law vesting the com-
plete monopoly in the hands of the Bolag, went
into operation October, 1874. Its friends say
(vide Macmillan s Magazine^ :

" Here, then, at last, the system is about to have for
the first time a complete and decisive trial ; .... it
must be prepared to accept the responsibility as well
as the advantages of the new position of affairs, and
finally stand or fall on its own merits."

Mr. Balfour's pamphlet letter addressed by
permission to Mr. Gladstone, to which I have
frequently alluded, bears date January, 1876,
and embodies the result of his inquiries and ob-
servations in the autumn of 1875. In connec-

240 The State vs. AlcoJiol.

tion with the admission of the gradual increase
of arrests for drunkenness in recent years, he
has merely to express the hope ** that when
this further control has had time to produce its
results, the arrests for drunkenness will again
show a great falling off"

These hopes do not seem likely to be realized.
In a very recent discussion in the House of Com-
mons, upon a resolution offered by Mr. Cham-
berlain, M. P. for Birmingham, empowering
Town Councils to become the proprietors and
regulators of the liquor traffic after the man-
ner of the Bolag, the Gothenburg experiment
naturally came under discussion. Sir H. Sel-
win Ibbetson, the Under-Secretary of the Home
Department, took occasion to say that he had
that day received a letter from the British Con-
sul at Gothenburg, '' in which he said that the
company had a good object in view when
they established their system ; but that it ap-
peared to have proved a failure, owing to the
way in which it had been carried out ; that it
was at present only a money-making concern,
realizing a considerable amount annually ; that
drunkenness was great even among the better
orders in Gothenburg, and that the lower orders
looked upon the retail-shops as their privileged
places of resort. That statement, accompanied
by some figftres which had been sent over by

The Gothenburg System. 241

the same gentleman, furnished, he thought,
very powerful arguments against the adoption
of the plan which the House was invited to
sanction." Instead of reproducing these figures
I give an extract from the Gothenburg Hcsnders
Tidning, March 20, 1877. After calling the
Consul's figures '* misleading," it goes on to
say :

" The figures for the year ist October, 1875, to ist
October, 1876, which we lately gave, show a total
sale of bran-vin 614,608 kans; of which on * selling
off' shops 357,445 ; therefore in public-houses 257,163
kans, or 11,000 more than the former year. The sale
of spirits of higher class was 52,788 kans, or 1,000
more than last year." *

Then follows the old story of better times
and rural visitors, as an explanation. But the
editor is compelled to confess that " doubtless it
has bee7i very difficult for Mr. Chamberlain to
prove the benefit of the system by statistical fig-
ures''

COMPARISONS.

The claims of the Gothenburg system having
been specially urged upon the attention of the
citizens of Edinburgh, Bailie Lewis has shown
that the average consumption of spirits in Scot-
land is only about two gallons for each person
per annum ; while in Gothenburg, the sale is

* This a^gr^o^atps a total sale of over ^00,000 :^anons.

242 The State vs. Alcohol,

now nearer seven than six gallons ^^r capita of
the resident population.

The arrests for drunkenness in Edinburgh —
including therein, for the sake of fairness, the
seaport of Leith, therewith closely connected,
and aggregating a population of 245,800 — were
in 1872 but 2,913, against 1,581 in Gothenburg,
with a population of 55,986; whereas in the
ratio of population Edinburgh should have had
6,944.

An intelligent correspondent of the Alliance
News from Birmingham shows that the annual
consumption of spirits there is only about two
and a half gallons per capita ; and that while
the arrests in 1875 for drunkenness in Gothen-
burg were one in about twenty-six of the popu-
lation, in Birmingham they were only about one
in one hundred and twenty.

And in the recent speech of Sir H. Selwin
Ibbetson, to which we have referred, he says,
in replying to Mr. Chamberlain :

''At least sixty-one towns out of seventy-one re-
ferred to in tables which the honorable member had
himself drawn up, showed a less number of convic-
tions as compared with the population than was the
case at Gothenburg. Out of the seventy-one towns
there were, perhaps, only three that compared very
unfavorably with Gothenburg — namely, Tynemouth,
South Shields, and Liverpool."

The Gothenburg System, 243

OBJECTIONS.

Having- considered the nature and results
of this scheme, let us now consider the weighty
objections to it. And I shall pause to consider
only those which are weighty and touch prin-
ciples.

First. Its financial success is a great danger.
How dangerous it is to connect revenue with
the vices of a people only those can feel who
have attentively watched the debates in the
English Parliament when the question of en-
couraging or checking the opium trade in China
or India was under discussion, or when some
scheme was broached which might affect the
twenty-six millions of pounds sterling which
Mr. Lowe, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer,
stated was derived by the Government from
the liquor traffic* And when this tribute is

* "Alcohol and the Exchequer." " That very revolution of fiscal
policy which has contributed so much to the prosperity of the
working classes has contributed, in fact, just as signally to the
importance of the licensed victuallers. Their power is derived
from their selling to the classes which have votes an article enor-
mously consumed by them, under circumstances which enable
the seller to influence the mind of the customer at moments of
peculiar impressionableness and 'susceptibility. It seems startling
that the modern republic established in 1867 proves to be guided
from the bar and the public-house parlor, just as was the Common-
wealth of Cromwell from the pulpit of Hugh Peters ; but one can
not reason away the facts. Is, then, this enormous and increas-
ing influence to be fortified by a conviction in the minds of slates-

244 T^^^ State vs. Alcohol.

brought, as it were, to the very doors of the
citizen by diminishing so apparently his mu-
nicipal taxes, it is a bribe for active support, or,
at least, passive endurance of evil, which is
likely to greatly influence the average man.
We are not surprised to learn that the intelli-
gent workingmen of Gothenburg already real-
ize this. Bailie Lewis tells us that upon putting
the question to a large meeting of them, whether
they would advise the introduction of " the
scheme " into Scotland, the reply of '* Nay,"
*' Nay," came from all parts of the house ; and
the reason afterward assigned was *' that since
the profits were paid over to the community
large numbers of the trading and better classes
did not care to have the public-houses put
down, because now they were largely relieved
from paying taxes."

The danger lies in the fact that, while the
reduction in the tax bill is immediate and pal-
pable, the loss to the whole community from
wasteful expenditure, and the steady drain
upon the physical, mental, and moral forces of

men that the most embarrassing financial difficulties may at any
moment be occasioned by a diminution in the sale of strong
liquor? One can not look without dismay at the prospect of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer being mixed up with that quar-
rel between the publicans and the teetotalers at which the Home
Secretary has burned his fingers." — Pall Mali Gazette, April
lo, 1875.

The Gothenburg System, 245

the people, impairing the power of production,
though fatally sure, is not so directly seen or
felt.

Seco7id. The drinking habits of men are not
to be repressed or curtailed by removing the
distasteful material or moral accessories of the
dram-shop. Let the business create its own
atmosphere — do not artificially purify it ; rather
let its natural loathsomeness repel the yet
young and pure. To make the grog-shop
" well-lighted, roomy, airy, and clean ; " to allure
with the security of pure liquors {i. e., una-
dulterated poison) ; to furnish " respectable "
bartenders and even *' comely young women ; "
to place the bar by the side of the family table,
and to throw around the whole the double
sanction of the State and a business corpora-
tion of the first citizens of the town — all this is
but to aid the devil in the recruiting of his army
of drunkards and to supply him with the choicest
of stock.* No ! If the grog-shop is to exist,
let it not become a reputable institution, nor
even a commercial adventure in which the State

* A " Master Mariner " who recently visited Gothenburg,
writes under date December 26, 1876: "A gentleman told me
that wherever a number of men are employed, the company open
a drink-shop. His own words were : ' I have more trouble with
my laborers than I ever had ; for now that the houses are cleaner,
and the rooms more cosy and comfortable than they were in the
old places, the men frequent them more.' "

246 The State vs. Alcohol,

(to use an expression of Cardinal Manning) is
a '' sleeping partner," but rather let it stand, like
the brothel, a horrible excrescence upon our
civilization, unconnected with any legitimate
business or honest trade, unsecured by any po-
lice certificates, visited even by its votaries with
a sense of degradation and conscious guilt.

Third. The eminent respectability of the
Gothenburg Bolag is abundantly vouched for ;
and I have credited them with honest inten-
tions to serve the public good. It is apparent
that without these essential conditions no toler-
ance could be given in any community to this,
even as a provisional scheme. In a town
where drinking was so general as to justify
the remark that ** in almost no community were
brutish coarseness or deep poverty more com-
mon," and where even now the consumption
of spirits is greater per capita than in most
other countries, it may be possible to find
public-spirited persons who will undertake the
task of running improved tippling-shops in
the interest of temperance. But imagine a
company incorporated to do this in Boston
or New York ! Let the reader select ten men
of '• property and standing," who are reputed
to have " conservative " views upon the liquor
question — ministers who believe in '' moderate
drinking," governors who veto stringent legis-

The Gothenburg System. 247

lation, magnates of the exchange who pride
themselves upon their '* public spirit" and their
freedom from " fanaticism " — and ask them if
they will organize as ''The Grand Monop-
oly for the Retail Sale of Liquors," and so
run the public-houses, the saloons, and the
dram-shops generally, decently and discreetly,
in the interest of public order, and of a ** wisely-
calculated temperance ! " Would it be taken as
a grim joke or a patent insult?

Fourth. And this leads us to a final and fatal
objection to this scheme. It is absolutely re-
pugnant to the moral sense and the enlightened
conscience of our community. Even the better
portion of the friends of license would revolt at
such active support of, and such close connec-
tion with, so disgusting a traffic ; while to men
who view it as a crime in itself, as well as the
prolific cause of crimes, such assumption of
responsibility would be morally impossible.
And those who do not feel this ethical difficulty
must, at least, see that so long as the great
mass of the temperance people do, a scheme
which at once arrays itself against the senti-
ment and conscience of so large a part of the
community, while it has to offer battle to one
of the largest and the most powerfully-organized
of the moneyed interests of the country, is one
of the most impracticable of all projects.

24S The State vs. Alcohol.

^ CONCLUSIONS.

The lessons taught us from this survey we
are now prepared to sum up as follows :

First. In the rural districts of Sweden, as
elsewhere, entire or virtual prohibition of the
liquor traffic has exhibited the happiest results.

Second. So far as the Gothenburg scheme
has practically reduced the number of licensed
places, it has reduced drunkenness and its se-
quences.

Third. When the reduction of licenses ceased,
not only did all progressive amelioration cease,
but, according to our latest statistics, the scheme
is not able to prevent a slight progressive de-
terioration.

Fourth. Whether the explanation of its
friends as to the cause of this is to be accepted,
and whether the scheme will show a better
record for the future, is a problem which is
purely tentative, with the latest indications de-
cidedly adverse.

Fifth. If any apparent improvement should
again be shown, it must be greatly overbalanced
by the permanent evils of the system, among
which are especially prominent the subsidizing
the public favor for the dram-shop by liberal
contributions to the public revenue, and the
deadening of the public conscience by its adop-

The Gothenburg System. 249

tion as an institution of the State, bulwarked
by the law, and sanctioned and recommended
by *' the respectability" which undertakes to
manage it.

Sixth. The scheme being wholly opposed
to the moral sentiment of our people, its ad-
ministration here would be impracticable and
its adoption impossible.
II*

CHAPTER XIX.

THE MILDER ALCOHOLICS.

More than a generation ago the question as
to the personal duty of the friends of the tem-
perance reform and the policy to be pursued
by their organizations in regard to wines and
fermented liquors, was a subject of earnest con-
sideration. The final result of the debate was
a settled and well-nigh unanimous conviction
that no distinction could be made in favor of
one class of alcoholic intoxicants over another.
As a question either of duty or of policy, that
conviction among the active workers in any
field of temperance effort has never been dis-
turbed.

But as I address this discussion of the liquor

problem to a wider range of readers than those

technically known as temperance men, I shall

not rest the question whether the laws should

make any distinction between distilled and

fermented liquors upon opinion. Legislation

should follow the inductive method, and be

based not on theory, but on carefully-observed

facts ; and in this chapter, as elsewhere, I shall

appeal to history, to statistics, and to the
(250;

The Milder Alcoholics. 251

generalizations of thoroughly competent ex-
perts.

Although we are not treating the subject
physiologically, but practically, it may be well
to bear in mind, before we proceed to our
practical inquiries, the elementary truth so well
stated by Professor Miller, of Edinburgh, in his
work on " Alcohol, its Place and Power " :

" All the varieties of spirits, wines, and malt liquors
are the same as to their intoxicating quality : that
invariably depends upon the presence of alcohol.
.... A man is apt to draw a broad distinction,
greatly in his own favor, between himself drinking
beer and another drinking brandy as a daily habit ;
but the truth is, that both are drinking the same
thing, only in different guise and dilution ; chemi-
cally and practically there is much the same differ-
ence as between one who drinks spirits * neat * and
another who drinks his allowance of the same thing
largely * watered.* The one drinks alcohol slightly
diluted ; the other drinks alcohol much diluted and
somewhat modified by flavor, but both are drinking
alcohol."

Or, as Dr. Richardson puts it in his '' Dis-
eases of Modern Life" (p. 210): ''In what-
ev^er form it enters, whether as spirits, wine, or
ale, matters little when its specific influence is
kept steadily in view."

It may also be well to recall the tables showing

252 The State vs. AlcohoL

the percentage of alcohol in different beverages.
I cite certain of those given by Dr. Bowditch^ in
the Third Annual Report of the State Board of
Health of Massachusetts, and credited to
** Brande's Chemistry," except the American
liquors, which were analyzed by Professor
Wood, of the Harvard Medical School. It is
well to notice the remarkable variations in some
of the foreign wines. I arrange in the order
of strength.

London small beer, . . . , , 1.28 per cent.

London porter 4.20 **

Boston lager, $}4 to 6. "

British cider, 5.21 to 9.87 "

London ale, 6.20 "

Brown stout, 6.80 **

Rhenish wine, 7.00 to 7.58 "

Burton's ale, 8.88

Vin ordinaire, 8.99 "

Champagne, 11.30 to 13.80 "

Burgundy, ....... 12.16 to 16.60 **

Sherry, 13-98 to 23.86 "

Madeira, 14-09 to 24.42 "

Port wine, . , 14.27 to 25.83 "

American whisky ("worst "), 44-5© "

Kentucky Bourbon whisky, , 51.00 "

Brandy, . ...... 53-40 "

Rum, . 53.68 '*

Gin, 57.60 "

WINES.

In regard to wines, the adulterations in the
factitious liquors sold under this name in the

The Milder Alcoholics. 253

United States are somewhat fearful, and i^he
reinforcements by distilled spirits still more so ;
but if it were possible to procure them in their
native purity, the evidence as to their evil, social
tendency is abundant. It is clearly established
that, in wine-producing countries the beverage
leads to criminal intoxication, and so far from
being a preventative, is a preparative to in-
dulgence in the stronger liquors.

The Count de Montalembert, member of the
Academy of Natural Sciences, said in the Na-
tional Assembly of France in 1850: *^ Where
there is a wine-shop, there are the elements of
disease, and the frightful source of all that is
at enmity with the interests of the workman."

Of Switzerland, Dr. Guillaume, on behalf of
the National Society for Penitentiary Reform,
reports to the International Congress at Lon-
don in 1872 :

** The number of criminals, small and great, aban-
doned to drunkenness, or who, at the moment of the
Criminal Act, were under the dominion of drink, is
by no means inconsiderable, forming, at least, fifty
per cent, of the total number of crimes committed
by men ; and this proportion is even higher among
the correctionals The number of misdemean-
ors occasioned by wine is considerable in some of the
cantons, and the liberty of the wine traffic^ pushed to
its utmost limits, causes, in a number of these can-
tons (Neufchatel, for example), the commission of one

254 The State vs. Alcohol,

crime as the effect of wine to every one hundred and
four persons of the population," (p. 95).

So of Italy. When Mr. Delavan was in
Rome some years ago, . Cardinal Acton, then
Supreme Judge, assured him that nearly all
the crime in Rome *' originated in the use of
wine.'* And he pointed out to Mr. Delavan a
part of the city which brought to his mind the
" Five Points " of New York ; and upon visit-
ing which Mr. Delavan made this record :

" I saw men, women, and children sitting in rows,
swilling away at wine, making up in quantity what
was wanting in strength ; and such was the character
of the inmates of those dens, that my guide urged
my immediate departure, as I valued my life."

And Mr. Hillard, of Boston, in his ** Six
Months in Italy," is compelled to say :

" In regard to temperance, I am inclined to think
that the inhabitants of Southern Italy and the wine-
making countries generally, enjoy a reputation some-
what beyond their deserts If the proportion

of cases of stabbing brought to the Roman hospitals,
which occur in or near wine-shops, could be known,
I have no question that it would furnish a strong fact
wherewith to point the exhortations of a temperance
lecturer."

And so Recorder Hill, in a paper furnished

The Milder Alcoholics. 255

for the Social Science Congress at Liverpool
in October, 1858, said:

" With regard to the cause of crime in Baden and
Bavaria, each of the governors (of State prisons)
assured me that it was wine in the one country and
beer in the other which filled their jails."

So a French writer on Criminal Statistics in
the ** Revue d'Economie Chretienne, Paris,
1862," says :

" The abundance of the harvest in 1858 diminished
the poverty, and, by consequence, the crimes and
offences to which misery impels ; but the abundance
of the vintage, on the contrary, multiplied blows and
wounds, the quarrels of cabarets, the rebellions, out-
rages, and violence towards the police. These facts
are found in all analogous circumstances." (Trans,
by Dr. Lees in his " Condensed Argument," p. 37).

Did Charles Dickens exaggerate when he
wrote :

" The wine-shops are the colleges and chapels of
the poor in France. History, morals, politics, juris-
prudence, and literature, in iniquitous forms, are all
taught in these colleges and chapels, where profes-
sors of evil continually deliver those lessons, and
where hymns are sung nightly to the demons of de-
moralization. In these haunts of the poor, theft is
taught as the morality of property, falsehood as
speech, and assassination as the justice of the people.

256 The State vs. Alcohol,

It is in the wine-shop the cabman is taught to think
it heroic to shoot the middle-class man who disputes
his fare. It is in the wine -shop the workman is
taught to admire the man who stabs his faithless
mistress. It is in the wine-shop the doom is pro-
nounced of the employer who lowers the pay on the
employed. The wine-shops breed, in a physical
atmosphere of malaria and a moral pestilence of envy
and vengeance, the men of crime and revolution.
Hunger is proverbially a bad counselor, but drink is
worse."

Can a civilized nation afford, under any theory
of liberty, to tolerate such a common school sys-
tem of crime f For such it is ; if it were only
a " college" or a " chapel " for crime, as Dick-
ens calls it, it were more tolerable.

Nor is even the poor comfort left that the
drunkenness is wine-drunkenness and the crime
wine-crime alone. The mild does not banish,
but invite the strong. I find it stated that Paris,
par excellence the wine city of the world, ex-
cels in the consumption of distilled spirits —
averaging, in 1863, seven gallons per capita.
And it is in France that the deadliest of all
alcoholics (absinthe) finds its chief consump-
tion. Of this a writer in the London Tele-
graph says :

" The drinking of absinthe threatens to rank with
the chief curses of France. Although she holds the

The Milder Alcoholics. 257

first place among wine-growing countries, it is not
wine, but absinthe, that, next to coffee, is becoming
the favorite drink in her numberless cafes. To unac-
customed palates, the taste of the liquid is absolutely
revolting — at once bitter, sickly, nauseous, like some
foul decoction of the sick-room. But with constant
use, the bitterness and the sickly odor become am-
brosial elements France, indeed, has more

reason to dread absinthe than she has to fear Count
Bismarck, and if the German statesman would but
annex the villainous liquid, the dictates of patriotism
would justify Trochu and Gambetta in thanking him
for the service. Since so happy a stroke of robbery
lies beyond the power even of the Chancellor, we
must hope that some French Father Matthew will
rise up to preach a crusade against the insidious de-
stroyer. A victory over * the devil in liquid form *
would be as glorious to France as the defeat of Prince
Frederick Charles."

The war with Germany had the effect not
only to attract the attention of foreigners,
through the correspondents of the press, to the
horrible drunkenness of the French armies, but
to reveal to the thoughtful statesmen of hi r
own nation the extent of this national vice.
In 1872 the Government appointed a " Com-
mittee of Inquiry " on the subject of drunken-
ness. The Secretary (M. Desjardines) in his
report says :

" There is one point on which all the members of

258 The State vs. Alcohol,

the French Assembly thought and felt alike. They
knew that, to restore France to her right position, their
moral and physical powers must be given back to her
people. Being ambitious to restore the fortunes of the
country, they ought also to make up their minds to its
regeneration. To combat a propensity which has
long been regarded as venial because it seemed to
debase and corrupt only the individual, but the pro-
digious extension of which has resulted in a menace
to society at large and in the temporary humiliation
of the country, is a duty incumbent on the men to
whom that country has entrusted the task of investi-
gating and remedying its ills."

We take from the Constitutionnely a Paris
paper, of the same year, this graphic picture :

" It is unanimously admitted that the habit of
drunkenness has increased in France year by year
since the beginning of the century. In all directions
its increase is remarked, and complaints are made of
the disastrous effects which it produces on public
health as well as on public morality. The habitues
of the taverns and the wine-sellers lose all inclination
for work ; they desert the workshop during several
days of the week, and the gains of the other days are
entirely devoted to the indulgence of their passion
for drink. Family life is entirely neglected, all idea
of saving is forever abandoned. Those drunkards
who are married and fathers of families take no
trouble to satisfy the most urgent wants of their
wives and children. The money that should supply
the household passes into the hands of the tavern-

The Milder Alcoholics, 259

keeper, and where there might be comfort there is
abject poverty and its demoralizing influence. If the
wife complains, if she begs for a change of conduct,
she is answered by blows, and the children see the
terrible sight of the destruction of family ties. Often,
indeed, the misconduct of the husband leads to the
misconduct of the wife. Despairing of finding any
comfort in her home, she seeks for some kind of
compensation out of doors. As for the drunkard him-
self, it is fortunate if he becomes merely idle and
neglectful of the most sacred obligations. His moral
corruption often goes further. The tavern is a school
of vice. It is from there that nearly all criminals
emerge, and it is there that the great army of thieves
and malefactors finds recruits. This is not all. The
increase of drunkenness produces other evils not less
fatal than the demoralization of numerous families.
It is well known that the habit of drinking ruins the
health, that it renders all diseases more dangerous,
and is the direct origin of many of them. Observa-
tions made in the hospitals on this subject give
startling results, and the germ of all these evils is
hereditary. The drunkard's children are feeble and
sickly, and the deterioration of the populations of
the towns and districts in which drunkenness is most
common is clearly perceptible. The French race is
deteriorating daily. It is especially the drunkenness
produced by alcohol which exercises a deplorable
effect on the public health. The drunkenness caused
by wine is less dangerous. Unhappily the passage
from one to the other is rapid. Men begin with wine,
soon the palate is palled and asks for stro?iger excite^
ment. Alcohol is taken. In forty years the con-

26o The State vs. Alcohol,

sumption of alcohol has tripled in France. From
35o,cxxD hectolitres in 1820 it increased to 620,000 in
1850, and to 976,000 in 1868. These are the amounts
on which duty was paid, and to these must be added
all that escaped the customs' officers. In 1869 the
quantity taxed in Paris was 130,000 hectolitres.
Divided among a population of 1,900,000 souls, this
gives something over 6 litres a head, but the division
per head is a fiction. The number of those who
participate more or less in the consumption of alco-
hol is estimated at about 300,000, which gives about
43 litres for each. In 1839 ^^^ average annual con-
sumption per adult was reckoned at 8 litres. These
figures show how rapid the increase has been. Must
we allow it to go on indefinitely ? "

Surely the France of to-day feels that she
has lessons to learn, and not to teach (except
by examples ot warning) to others.

Wherever we turn, the same truth as to wine
forces itself on our attention. Rev. I. S.
Cochran, for many years a missionary in Per-
sia, says of the people where he lives, that in
the wine-making season '* the whole village of
male adults will be habitually intoxicated for a
month or six weeks ; " and he calls *' wine-
drinking the greatest bane and curse of the
people in the wine-making districts." And the
Rev. Mr. Labaree, another missionary in that
country, says :

" If I had any sentiments favorable to the moderate

The Milder Alcoholics. 261

use of wine when I left America, my observations
during the seven years I have resided in this paradise
of vineyards have convinced me that the principle of
total abstinence is the only safeguard against the
great social and religious evils that flow from the

practice of wine-drinking Therd is scarcely a

community to be found where the blighting influ-
ences of intemperance are not seen in families dis-
tressed and ruined, property squandered, character
destroyed, and lives lost."

The fallacy of the v^ine-cure for intemperance
is everywhere exhibited. Whether the culture
of the grape makes wine abundant, or unwise
legislation facilitates its use, the result is the
same. Thus, under the mistaken policy of
Mr. Gladstone's *' Wine Act," not only were
the direct results of the temptation by an
enticing beverage deplorable, but it was fol-
lowed by a large increase in the consumption of
distilled spirits.

The same testimony comes from California in
our own country. The editor of The Pacificy
a San Francisco newspaper, who has traveled
extensively through the wine regions, writes,
under date April 15, 1872, as follows :

" Our impression is that the lowest, slowest, most
illiterate, most unimpressible, most unimprovable, if
not most vicious population, outside of the great
cities, is found in the oldest wine districts of this

262 The State vs. Alcohol.

State ; and that the use of the product of vineyards
has been the most active cause of this condition of
the population ; that the increased production and
consumption of wine on this coast, in the more recent
years, has diminished the use of neither distilled
liquors nor lager-bier, but rather increased the de-
mand for both. We never hear of people who for-
sake liquors and beer for the sake of wine ; but we
hear of many who never used an intoxicant till they
learned to love wine, and then have abandoned wine
for something more stimulating. In a word, we do
not believe that wines reform anybody, and we do
believe that they beguile many into drinking habits,
and finally into drunkenness, who would never have
drank a drop but for wine."

A State Convention of Congregational minis-
ters, and delegates from their churches, in San
Francisco, October, 1866, denounced the manu-
facture of wine as destructive to the highest po-
litical and religious interests of the Common-
wealth. Rev. Dr. Stone, late of Park Street
church, Boston, writes :

" The Convention struck a strong blow for the
temperance cause, declaring in unequivocal terms
against the manufacture and use of wine. This was
a point upon which I will confess I had not pre-
viously a clear conviction. I had entertained a sort
of hope that the manufacture of pure wines, and
their introduction into general use, would crowd out
the gross strong liquors and diminish intemperance.

The Milder Alcoholics. 263

/ am now fully convinced that this hope was groundless
and delusive. It is in evidence that full two-thirds of
all the wine manufactured is converted by the manu-
facturers into brandy. It also appears that in the
wdne- growing districts intemperance is on the in-
crease, extending even to the youth of both sexes.
There is no way but to take ground against the produc-
tion of grapes for all such manufacture. This touches
a very large and growing pecuniary interest, and will
provoke strenuous opposition, but we must save this
State ^ if it can be done, from such investment of capital
and labor ^ and from the unavoidable result of drunken^
nessj profligacy J and crime '^

I close this division with the impressive
testimony of a very competent and well-known
observer. Says Mr. Nordhoff, in his work on
** California " :

" I have now seen the grape grow in almost every
part of California where wine is made. The tempta-
tion to a new settler in this State is always strong to
plant a vineyard, and I am moved by much that I
have seen to repeat publicly the advice that I have
often given to persons newly coming into the State :
Do not make wine. I remember a wine-cellar, ....
and on a pleasant sunny afternoon, around these
casks, a group of tipsy men — hopeless, irredeemable
beasts, with nothing much to do except to encourage
each other to another glass, and to wonder at the
Eastern man who would not drink. There were two
or three Indians staggering about the door ; there
were swearing and filthy talk inside ; there was a pre-

264 The State vs. Alcohol,

tentious tasting of this, that, or the other cask by a
parcel of sots, who in their hearts would have pre-
ferred ' forty-rod ' whisky. And a little way off there
was a house with women and children in it, who had
only to look out of the door to see this miserable
sight of husband, father, friends, visitors, and the
hired men spending the afternoon in getting drunk."

And, again, he says :

"/ advise no settler in J:he State to make wine. He
runs too many risks with children and laborers^ even if
he himself escapes. "

BEER.

But it is the beer interest which, among us,
has been the most clamorous for relaxation of
restrictive legislation, so far as malt liquors are
concerned. And there have been symptoms in
many States of a disposition to make either the
legislation or the enforcement of the law^s relat-
ing thereto exceptional.

The influence of the large German element
in our population may here be easily traced.
No class of emigrants have been more v^elcomed
by our people. They are nearly allied to us
in race, and what has given them, perhaps, still
more influence, they have been, in the main,
the political allies of the party so generally
dominant since the breaking out of the rebellion.
A naive declaration, in a published letter of a

The Milder Alcoholics, 265

representative in the Massachusetts Legislature,
a few years ago, affords food for reflection : *' I
voted in the Legislature of 1870 for the Beer
Law, as I believed in the interests of temper-
ance and the Republican party y But, as in
most confessions, I fear the leading motive is
put last. It is plain that no duty of the hour is
more pressing than to so intensify the convic-
tions of the friends of temperance of the dan-
gers of the beer traffic, that politicians may be
taught that the encouragement of that traffic
does not promote the interest of their party.

ENGLISH EXPERIENCE.

'* Experience," says Carlyle, " is the best of
school - masters, but he takes dreadfully high
wages." It is a sad fact in human history that
we learn so little from what others have suf-
fered.

In 1830 England tried the experiment of dis-
couraging the " gin-palace " by the establish-
ment of the free beer-shop. " The idea enter-
tained at the time," says the London Times in
1 87 1, " was that free trade in beer would grad-
ually wean men from the temptations of the
regular tavern, would promote the consumption
of a wholsesome national beverajB^e in place of
ardciit .pirits, would break down the monopoly
oi the old lie. nse-houses, and impart, in short,

\2

266 The State vs. Alcohol.

a better character to the whole trade

The results of this experiment did not confirm
the expectations of its promoters. The sale of
beer was increased, but the sale of spirituous
liquors was not diminished."

Only a few weeks after its passage, Sidney-
Smith, in his graphic style, wrote : *' The new
Beer Bill has begun its operations. Everybody
is drunk. Thpse who are not singing are
sprawling. The sovereign people are in a
beastly state."

In later years, Recorder Hill, in one of his
charges from the bench, said that " the estab-
lishment of the beer-shop is universally de-
nounced as a curse upon the land.''

Parliament has twice instituted, through com-
mittees, elaborate inquiries concerning the ope-
ration of this Act. The Committee of the
House of Lords in 1850 reported of the beer-
houses '' that they are notorious for the sale of
an inferior article ; that the absolute consump-
tion of (ardent) spirits has, from whatever cause,
far from diminished ; and that the comforts and
morals of the poor have been seriously ii7i-
paired.'' Among the testimony before that
committee was that of Chaplain Clay, whom
we have before cited as a well-knownr au-
thority among all students of social science,
who said: **/ believe it impossible for hu-

The Milder Alcoholics, 267

man language to describe the misery and
wickedness added to the previous sum of our
moral and social ill by beer-houses^ In his
published life his son writes : " Drunkenness
is the main topic of his first and almost every
subsequent report. For some years it was
only the old-fashioned drunkenness of the public-
houses which he had to describe ; but after the
passage of the Beer Bill in 1830, and the con-
sequent springing up of an enormous crop of
beer-shops, his fear of the great national sin
turned almost to conster^iation^ In 1853, the
Committee of the House of Commons concurred
with the Lords' report, and declared that ** the
beer-shop system has proved a failure."

Some modifications have been made in the
Act since ; but the nuisance is unabated. As
late as 1869, ''the Lower House of Convoca-
tion of the Province of Canterbury," a body
having ecclesiastical supervision over a popula-
tion of over 14,000,000, adopted the report of a
committee, who declare, after an elaborate in-
vestigation, that of ** the direct causes of our
national intemperance, one of the foremost and
most prolific, as it appears to your Committee,
is the operation of the legislative Act which
called beer-houses into existence."

An appendix to this report contains a con-
densed summary of over 2,300 answers (each

268 The 'state vs. Alcohol.

being- numbered) to different questions pro-
pounded to the clergy, judges, magistrates,
coroners, governors and chaplains of prisons,
masters of work -houses, superintendents of
lunatic asylums, and heads of the constabulary.
We might give many pages of these bearing"
solely on the Beer Bill, but we can only select
a few at random :

" 87. Beer-shops the curse of the country.

" 88. Intemperance much increased since beer-
shops were introduced some years ago — especially
among young men."

'* 92. I gave ;^io a year out of my own pocket (a
clergyman) to a man for giving up a beer-house."

" 96. The beer-houses, as at present conducted, are
a social pest.

" 97. An unmitigated nuisance."

" 100. Intemperance decreased previous to, in-
creased since, enactment of the Beer-Shop Act."

" 103. 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 must one day be punished by a
national retribution."

"109. I would sooner see a dozen public-houses in
a parish than one beer-shop."

" 112. One of the most demoralizing acts of late
years."

" 119. The sale of beer, to be drunk on the prem-

The Milder Alcoholics. 269

ises, has made many a happy home wretched, and
been productive of the increase of crime."

" 128. The country beer-houses a j frequently the
meeting-places of gangs for robbery, house-breaking,
arson, sheep-stealing, etc., etc."

" 146. The low beer-shops a :e the great curse of
the country."

" 170. Abolish all beer-houses.**

" 179. The beer-houses are a frightful source of in-
temperance."

" 214. I would most certainly abolish beer-houses;
you will, by this, save many young people by strik-
ing at these pest-houses, the root of all evil ; there
you find congregated the poacher, the tramp, etc.**

" 220. The abolition of beer houses would be a
boon to the workingman."

"685. Three-fourths of the keepers of these beer-
houses are the greatest drunkards, thieves, and every-
thing that is bad. Such houses are the hot-bed or
rearing-house and harbor for every crime. Boys of
ten or twelve years of age begin to assemble there,
and are encouraged in sin and crime."

" 12 1 3. Among the 'General Remedies,* a special
mission to the brewers who encourage low beer-shops
to the destruction of all morality.'*

A similar, but less elaborate, report has been
made by a Committee of the York Province
Convocation. Among the legislative remedies
it suggests are these: "Reduce public-houses
to a minimum. Entirely suppress beer-houses."
It is but fair here to say that one reason why

270 The State vs. Alcohol,

the beer-house seems to the EngHsh mind a
more intolerable nuisance than the tavern, is
that the system of licensing the former is so
lax that the most disreputable characters
are among the proprietors. But I would sug-
gest a consideration not always borne in mind,
that the nature of the malt liquors invites the
drinker to remain in the den. guzzling and tip-
pling by the hour, where the stronger liquors
would paralyze the senses quickly.

As to the English act, it would be wearying
to multiply testimony from every source, or
opinions from the public press ; and I close with
the summing up of the Globe :

*'■ The injury done by the beer act to the peace and
order of rural neighborhoods, not to mention domes-
tic happiness, industry, and economy, has been proved
by witnesses from every class of society to have ex-
ceeded the evils of any single act of internal admiyiis-
tration passed within the memory of man!'

MASSACHUSETTS' EXPERIENCE.

In spite of these sad lessons, Massachusetts,
in the summer of 1870, at the behest of politi-
cians, and with the aid of weaker brethren, in
spite of the most earnest protests of the temper-
ance masses, so altered her law of prohibition
as to allow the sale of malt liquors in all places
unless there was a local vote to forbid. The

The Milder Alcoholics. 271

next year the law was so far changed as to require
a vote in order to allow such sale. In 1873 this
permissive law was swept from the statute-book
by decisive votes, in accordance with the recom-
mendation of the Governor of the Common-
wealth, who said in his inaugural :

" If we are to accept the evidence of those who
haVe had the most painful experience of the miseries
produced by these places (beer-shops), they are among
the greatest obstacles to the social and moral progress
of the community."

A mass of testimony from the most reliable
sources bearing upon every aspect of the ques-
tion is at hand ; some impressive selections
from which I proceed to give :

BEER A COVER.

The beer-shop is the rum-shop in disguise.

The Boston Chief of Police, in December,
1870, reported that out of 2,584 places in Boston
where liquor is sold, only seventeen sell lager-
beer alone.

The Chief Constable of the Commonwealth,
under date October 3d, writes :

" That not exceeding five per cent, of the retail deal-
ers who pretend to sell ale, porter, strong beer, and
lager-beer, confine or limit their trade to malt liquors
only. The service of the search-warrants almost in-

272 The State vs. Alcohol.

variably discloses the fact that * lager-beer saloons/
so called, keep and sell more or less distilled liquors."

In reply to letters of inquiry addressed to
District Attorneys, generally uniform answers
on this point were received.

The District Attorney of Essex writes :

"According to the evidence which I have, beer-
shops where nothing stronger is kept or sold are as
scarce as men entirely without sin."

The District Attorney of the Western Dis-
trict :

" I believe, wherever beer is sold, strong liquors are
also sold."

The District Attorney of the Northwestern
District : " • •

" The difficulty is that the beer traffic should be
used as a cover for rum-selling. That it is so used
can not be denied."

The Attorney of Worcester County :

" The exemption of feeer affords a cover under
which to sell spirituous liquors."

So a like testimony is borne by the justices
of police and similar courts. We select a few :

The Milder Alcoholics, 273

Chelsea : "About every beer-saloon is a rum-shop.**
Worcester : " In saloons where the sale of beer is
permitted by law, there spirituous Hquors can
usually be obtained." Springfield: "All sorts of
spirituous and intoxicating liquors are sold under
cover of such license."

To multiply evidence on this point is need-
less. It is clear that tht Governor vi^as amply
justified in declaring in his Message that '' a
beer-shop, so called, has come to mean gener-
ally a place v^here all kinds of intoxicating
liquors are furnished."

BEER A NULLIFIER.

This is a corollary from the last proposition ;
but it is capable of being made more impressive
from independent proof The Police Commis-
sioners of the State, in their First Annual Re-
port, say :

" The ale and beer law is a veil that covers much
that is vile, and it is one that is difficult for the offi-
cers to lift or see through ; and, under its protection,
every vile compound that ever poisoned the human
system may be sold almost with impunity."

In his last report, the present Chief Constable
said :

" While it is the sole duty of the force to execute
the laws, I may be permitted to say that the authority
12*

274 ^^^ State vs. Alcohol.

now given for the sale of ale embarrasses and hinders
the force in their attempts to prosecute for the sale
of liquors forbidden by law."

One of the most intelligent and active of the
deputy State Constables writes :

" I believe it is almost useless to attempt to enforce
the law against spirituous liquors while all persons
are allowed to sell malt liquors."

The District Attorney of Worcester County
says :

" I have no doubt that the beer traffic is adverse to
the enforcement of the liquor law. I do not well un-
derstand how the friends of that law can hope to en-
force it when the exemption of beer affords a cover."

The Justice of the Police Court of Springfield
says :

" I think licensing the sale of ale and beer much
increases the difficulty of enforcing the prohibitory
law ; " while the Mayor of the city of Worcester de-
clares that " to permit the sale of beer by law is only
a deceptive method whereby the sale of all kinds
and qualities of intoxicating liquors is legalized and
clothed with a kind of respectability which does not
belong to that nefarious business."

Mayor Richmond, who has earned a reputa-
tion far and wide for the vigorous and thorough

I

The Milder Alcoholics, 275

enforcement of the prohibitory law in New Bed-
ford, said in his valedictory in 1872 :

" 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 rum-seller against the e7if or ce-
ment of the prohibitory lawT

The causes which render the detection and
conviction of sellers of distilled liquors difficult
where the sale of fermented liquors is lawful,
lie upon the surface, and are not difficult to see.
There are, however, two other causes which
enfeeble the enforcement of the laws in such
cases, not less important, but less obvious.
They are the same which have fatally weakened
every form of license law. There is, first, the
ineradicable American sentiment of opposition
to all monopolies or unjust discriminations. If,
as Oliver Dyer puts it, ** a German with his
brain soaked in lager-beer is as bad a brute as
an Irishman with his brain set on fire with
whisky," it is difficult to see why the German
beverage is to be encouraged and the Irish
proscribed. And in the second place, the evils

276 The State vs. Alcohol.

of the beer traffic itself are so immeasurable
that the friends of temperance have but little
heart to labor for any reform which leaves these
untouched. For myself, so intense is my con-
viction of the miseries which spring from the
liquor traffic that I would use the most clumsy
and inefficient means for the curtailment of any
branch of it rather than to sit down in inaction ;
but these elements of discouragement can not
be overlooked in the discussion of this problem.

BEER A STIMULANT OF CRIME.

Let a single case show how the beer-house
is a recruiting-shop for the police court. In
New Bedford, the records of that court prove,
that in 1872, after eight months of free beer,
there was, as compared with 1871, a year of
strict prohibition, an increase of sixty-eight per
cent, in the aggregate crime, and of over one
hu7idred and twenty per cent, in cases of drunk-
enness.

Among many persons of some general in-
telligence, a notion prevails that fermented
liquors rarely excite to crime. Such is not the
judgment of those practically conversant with
our criminal courts ; such is far from the testi-
mony of criminals themselves. 1 am aware that
a considerable deduction is to be made from
the disposition of the latter class to give their

The Milder Alcoholics, 2yy

drinking habits as light a shade as possible ;
but in such cases, even where a false statement
is given, it is a clear testimony that in the
opinion of the criminal (and who should know
better ?) the '' few glasses of beer'' caused suffi-
cient mental disturbance to rationally and
plausibly account for his crime. But -with all
possible deductions, there remains a vast, and,
perhaps, preponderant number of cases where
it is evident that fermented and not distilled
liquors were the excitant.

The District Attorney of Suffolk County
(which includes Boston) writes :

" My observation has not been sufficiently accurate
to enable me to give an opinion as to how the respon-
sibility should be divided between distilled and fer-
mented liquors. Many, very many, perhaps most of
those who, within the last two or three years, whether
as witnesses or parties, have been obliged to confess
their bibulous infirmities — how truthfully I can not
venture to say — have designated beer as their usual
tipple."

The District Attorney of Worcester County
says :

*'The testimony in our criminal courts is to the
effect that a majority of the crimes there investigated
are committed.under the influence of beer or a stronger
liquor sold under cover of the beer traffic."

2/8 The State vs. Alcohol,

The Police Justice of Haverhill states :

"Very few are brought before me for any crime
who are not drinking men ; and but few of them,
even in cases of drunkenness, ever admit that they
have drunk anything stronger than ale or beer."

Weigh well the pregnant suggestion made
by the District Attorney of Essex :

" I am inclined to believe that beer not only cre-
ates an appetite for something stronger, but that
its immediate influence and effect upon crime is
more dangerous to the community than the stronger
liquors, in this way : the excessive use of the stronger
drinks is liable to make men drunk and helpless^ un-
able to do much har7n, while beer excites men to acts
of violence^ desperation^ and crimed

Science points to the same fact. In the
*' Cantor Lectures," Dr. Richardson, in describ-
ing the stage of alcoholic action prior to the
overpowering of '* the superior brain centers,"
and the consequent loss ot all muscular action
and mental sensibility, says at this period :

" The cerebral centers become influenced ; they are
reduced in power, and the controlling influences of
will and of judgment are lost. As these centers are
unbalanced and thrown into chaos, the rational part
of the man gives way before the emotional, passional,
or organic part. The reason is now off duty, or is
fooling with duty, and all the more animal instincts
and sentiments are laid atrociously bare."

The Milder Alcoholics. 279

And as Professor Youmans has so admirably
shown in his treatise on " The Scientific Basis
of Prohibition," the law concerns itself with
alcohol because its specific action is that of a brain
poison, exalting the animal and depressing the
spiritual nature of man :

" Long before the speech thickens and the motions
falter, there is a firing of irascible passions which lead
to the commission of numberless offenses — from two-
edged utterances that wound the spirit to homicidal
thrusts that destroy the body."

And it is while the dose of alcohol is only
sufficient to produce this apparently stimu-
lant effect, and before it cumulates into an
evident narcotic, that the tendency to crime
exists. In plainer words, a man excited by
liquor is under the influence of his lower nature,
and a peril to the community ; a man dead-
drunk is harmless to society, if at home ; and
if in public, merely an offensive nuisance to be
wheeled off by the police. If I were to add my
own testimony as a criminal magistrate to that
of others, I could fill this chapter with accounts
of grave offenses where there seemed no reason
to believe that the excitant was other than fer-
mented liquors.

The indirect influences of the beer-house in
generating crime, though less obvious, are

28o The State vs. Alcohol,

hardly less deplorable. It antagonizes the home ;
and whatever lowers the home life prepares
the way for crime. An impressive testimony
on this point was given by Dr. John Todd, of
Pittsfield, who, though summoned by the friends
of license at the hearing before the Legislature
in 1867, could not restrain himself from declar-
ing:

" I wish to say in regard to beer, that while I think
it is not so intoxicating as other drinks, it demoralizes
awfully. We have a large population of foriegners
with us, and beer is their chief drink. It makes them
besotted ; it makes them cross ; it makes t/iei? homes
unpleasant ; it prevents them from rising in civiliza-
tion ; it shuts them out from the influence of every-
thing that is ennobling."

It is surely in such an atmosphere that crime
has its natural growth.

BEER A SNARE.

Dr. Albert Day, who has had probably the
largest experience of any man in the world in
the treatment of cases of drunkenness, stated
some years since that —

" A large majority of the 4,000 cases of inebriety
which I have treated commenced their course of drunk-
enness by the use of what is termed light drinks, such
as wine, beer, etc. I am fully satisfied that the use

The Milder Alcoholics. 281

of these light beverages is the initiatory step to a life
of inebriety."

Mr. Lawrence, who followed Dr. Day as
Superintendent of the Washingtonian Home in
Boston, adds his testimony :

" At the present time the appetite for strong drink
is formed in early life by drinking the lighter drinks,
such as lager-bier, ale, cider, etc., in the fashionable
saloons."

While the Beer law was in operation in Mas-
sachusetts, the Rev. Mr. Coombs, one of the
agents of the State Temperance Alliance for
visiting the public schools, reported that —

" In one town, 75 pupils told me that they had
been more or less intoxicated. In 12 cases where boys
Came into school drunk, or were found to be so in the
school-room, I was told that six of them drank cider.
Careful examination will show that 19 out of 20 of
the pupils who have been intoxicated were under the
influence of cider or beer."

Can the State afford to give to places of
temptation the additional force of legal sanc-
tion, and by all the educating power of law
teach the young that they may safely enter ?

While the beer-shop is the primary school of
intemperance, the multitude rest not there. Not
only common observation, but the excise returns

282 The State vs. Alcohol.

in Great Britain and our own country, show that
the increased consumption of malt liquors, so
far from checking, creates a fresh demand for
distilled.

Nor is the " snare " less dangerous to those
who have just turned their feet back into the
ways of sobriety. Says the Superintendent of
the Washingtonian Home in a late report :

" I must here take occasion to protest against ale,
beer, and cider, as unqualifiedly hindering causes in
the thorough reform of inebriates. A large proportion
of backsliders stumble over these light drinks who
would hesitate long before they would dare to med-
dle with stronger liquors."

THE TESTIMONY OF ANCIENT LAWS.

Legislation against an evil is both confession
of it and testimony against it. And where the
course of legislation is uniform and long-contin-
ued, the testimony is weighty.

And such we find to be the case in regard to
the lesser intoxicants. In the resume of the
license laws of Massachusetts, in another chap-
ter, I have called attention to the fact that from
the earliest years wines, beer, and cider took
their place by the side of *' strong waters," or
distilled liquors, as inhibited without license.
And I am not aware that the laws of other States
differed in this respect. Long before the tern-

The Milder Alcoholics. 283

perance pledge embraced abstinence from them,
the practical legislator had determined that fer-
mented liquors needed the same measure of
restraint as distilled.

When our forefathers, more than two hun-
dred years ago (1667), enacted that none be
allowed to sell any ''cyder by retail without
license, and that none allow any persons to
spend their time by tippling of cyder liquors in
their houses" (Plymouth Records, Vol. XL,
p. 218), I take it that they knew more of the
nature and danger of the fermented beverages
than the theorists of to-day.

But it is to be noticed that practical legisla-
tion still keeps its ground. Not only the pro-
hibitory law, but the license laws of 1868 and
of 1875, in Massachusetts, provide in the same
words that the term intoxicating liquors shall
include **ale, porter, strong beer, lager-bier,
cider, and all wines, as well as distilled spirits."
J"he license laws of New York, and I suppose
of other States, have contained similar provis-
ions.

Dr. Bowditch thinks that ''we in New En-
gland have not only a great climatic law to con-
tend against, but we have also the influences of
race, and of a race educated to drunkenness by
bad laws and by war." The climatic law he

284 The State vs. Alcohol,

states to be that the tendency to intoxication is
greatest above the isothermal line of 50^ aver-
age temperature. Like most theorists, Dr.
Bowditch exaggerates the importance of the
tendencies which he calls '* laws," and which
even he has to admit are often ''overridden"
by other circumstances. But whatever may be
estimated as the degree to which the appetite
for alcoholics is " overloaded " under northern
climates and in the veins of the Anglo-Saxon
race, I should differ totally in the practical con-
clusions I should draw. For such a people, I
should say the path of total abstinence was pe-
culiarly the path of safety, and the only path.
To attempt to appease such an appetite by in-
dulgence, seems to me the height of folly. If
the allopathic doctor believes in the homeopa-
thic theory, '' similia similibus curanturj' I
must at least insist that he follow the other part
of Hanneman's doctrine, of infinitesimal doses.
And I think the lesson of abstinence is stil^
more strongly enforced by that peculiarity of
American climate, '' at least that found along
the Atlantic slope," which Dr. Bowditch recog-
nizes when he says :

" The peculiarly stimulating nature of our climate
excites the nervous system so much, that we should
endeavor to be more temperate in this country than

The Milder Alcoholics, 285

the nations living in Europe between the sanie iso-
thermal lines need to be."*

It is not light wines and lager-bier that can
operate as a prophylactic to save such a race
from drunkenness, but a law of strict prohibi-
tion, the outgrowth and bulwark of moral con-
victions. We can point Dr. Bowditch to the
northernmost State of New England, of almost
pure Anglo-Saxon race, under the regimen of
what he would call bad laws, and challenge him
among the lager-bier States of the Union, or
the lager or light wine countries of Europe, to
find a country so free from drunkenness and its
sequences as the State of Maine. He will there
see ''isothermal lines," climatic tendencies, race
appetences, and war demoralizations all over-
ridden by moral influences, supplemented and
sustained by what the " inexorable logic of
facts " demonstrates to be good laws.

The census of 1870 gives the population of
Maine as 626,915, and that of California as
560,247.

The Report of the Commissioner of Internal

* In this connection he tells us of two Englishmen who, while
traveling through New England, " continued the same amount
of stimulants they had always used. They were quite astonished
when, after a three months' trip, they were both about the same
time seized with an attack of delirium tremens, which had never
afflicted them in England."

286 The State vs. Alcohol,

Revenue for the year ending June 30, 1874,
shows these facts :

Maine operates 3 breweries and i distillery.*

California operates 195 breweries and 177
distilleries.

Maine contributes as gross receipts to the
United States Revenue from distilled spirits
alone, $34,901.83.

California, $i,373o74-76.

Maine furnishes only .1540 of one per cent,
of the national revenue from fermented liquors.

California, 2.8739 P^^ cent.

Maine contributes to the revenue from dis-
tilled spirits .0752 ; that is, seven and a half
one-hundredths of one per cent, of the whole
national revenue from this source.

California, from the same, 2.7844 per cent,
or thirty-eight times as much as Maine.

The people of Maine are not in a condition to
need Dr. Bowditch's prescriptions at present.

Now ^^^i) none.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HISTORY OF PROHIBITION.

In the chapter on License Laws we have
shown that the people of Massachusetts, after
the repeal of what was known as the ''Fifteen-
Gallon Law," by action in their several
counties, proceeded to refuse licenses. The
first effort in the Legislature for a general law
of prohibition was next made in 1848. Upon
the petition of the venerable Moses Stuart, of
Andover, and 5,000 others, a report was made
by a committee, who unanimously agreed
that '' the present license law, in our judg-
ment, has done, and is doing, incalculable mis-
chief." They add : " Public opinion, we are
happy to know, is in advance of this law, which
appears from the fact that during the last year
no licenses have been granted under it in
thirteen out of the fourteen counties in this
Commonwealth." (1848, House Doc. No. 52).
They reported a bill providing for the appoint-
ment of agents in the several municipalities to
sell liquors for " use in the arts and for medicinal

(287)

288 The State vs. Alcohol,

and sacramental purposes,'* and forbade, under
penalties, all other sales.

Machinery for the enforcement of the law was
also provided. It was made penal to keep with
intent to sell. Provisions were made for search
and seizure upon legal process, and for judicial
forfeiture of liquors kept contrary to law.
There was also a section making it penal to let
a building for illegal sales.* But the bill, though
meeting with large favor, failed to become a
law, and Maine was the first State to embody
these principles and measures in a statute
which has become so widely and justly known
by her name.

In his testimony before the Canadian Par-
liamentary Commission in 1874, Governor
Dingley gives this account of its enactment. (It
may here be noted that so far as the mere pro-
hibition of sales, as a beverage, Maine had taken
this step as to spirituous liquors in 1846, and
extended it to all intoxicating liquors in 1 848) :

" What is popularly known as the ' Maine Law,*
but which bears on the Statute Book of this State

*The bill was reported and ably advocated by Francis W.
Emmons, of Sturbridge. Mr. Bishop says : " Whatever credit
or disgrace attends the devising of this peculiar form of legisla-
tion, belongs, so far as it attaches to any person in modem
times, not to any inhabitant of Maine, but of Massachusetts."
(" Statutor)' Crime," § 988).

The History of Prohibition. 289

the title * An Act to prohibit Drinking- houses and
Tippling-shops,* was enacted in 185 1, and with the
exception of two years (1856 and 1857), has remained,
with sHght modifications, the law of the State to the
present time.

" For about two hundred years prior to the enact-
ment of this prohibitory law, first in the parent Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts, of which this State was
formerly a district, and then in the State of Maine,
the system of licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors
had been tried and had been proved to be practically
powerless in restraining the evils of intemperance.

" The temperance movement which commenced
in this State soon after 1830, and which received a
new impetus from the Washingtonian movement of
1840, soon after led to a discussion of the influence
which more stringent legislation against the liquor
traffic would have in supplementing moral suasion.

" This discussion, as early as 1846, carried the ques-
tion of substituting the policy of prohibiting dram-
shops by law instead of licensing them into munici-
pal and State elections; and resulted in 1850 in the
election of a Legislature favorable to prohibition."

The law enacted by Maine, though it was
much more complex in its details and machinery,
and contained some stringent and summary
provisions to aid in its enforcement, was sub-
stantially the same in its principles as that re-
ported in Massachusetts in 1848. It, however,
added destruction to forfeiture, in cases of
liquors illegally kept— a measure which, while it
13

290 The State vs. Alcohol.

did not increase the deterrent power of the law,
was useful as an impressive exhibition.

To Neal Dow is correctly attributed the
organization of a pubHc sentiment which made
its enactment feasible and the motive power
which made it actual.

The subsequent history of the law in the
State of Maine may as well be given here in
the words of Governor Dingley, in the continu-
ation of his testimony :

"Although public sentiment was reasonably pre-
pared for the ' Maine Law ' when first enacted in 185 1,
yet an act which suddenly prohibited a traffic that had
always been authorized, very naturally excited bitter
opposition at the outset. In spite of violent opposi-
tion in every town ; in spite of the failure of many
prosecuting officers, and even the jurors to discharge
their duties faithfully ; in spite of an organized polit-
ical opposition at the polls in 1852, 1853, and 1854,
to secure the election of a Legislature favorable to a
repeal, the law was well sustained and even grew in
favor, and was having a perceptible influence in break-
ing up the liquor traffic and restraining the evils of
intemperance. Unfortunately, in the early part of
1855, i^ dispersing a mob which had gathered in the
city of Portland on the occasion of some procedure
under the ' Maine Law,* one man was killed. The
enemies of the law seized upon this to influence the
public mind against the prohibitory system, and at
the State election in September, 1855, succeeded in
choosing a Legislature which in the v/inter of 1856

The History of Prohibition, 291

repealed the ' Maine Law,' and substituted the most
stringent license law ever placed upon the statute-
book. This license law, however, proved a failure ;
and at the State elections in 1856 and 1857 legislators
were chosen by a large majority, which in 1858 re-
enacted the Prohibitory Law. Before it went into
effect, however, the question of prohibition or license
was submitted to the people, and the vote stood for
prohibition, 28,864; for license, 5,912. The vote was
very light.

" The beneficial influence of the re-enactment of
the * Maine Law ' was at once apparent, especially
through the rural parts of the State. The opposition
to it obviously grew weaker from year to year, and
although there were frequent attempts to secure a
Legislature favorable to its repeal, yet they always
failed."

The present stability of the law and its re-
sults v^ill be abundantly shov^n in another
chapter.

To return to Massachusetts. What was now
called the " Maine Law" was enacted the next
year (1852) by her Legislature. In conse-
quence of a decision made by the Supreme
Judicial Court in 1854, which declared some of
the provisions of the law as to the search and
seizure of liquors to be unconstitutional, while
fully affirming the theory of the law and the
constitutionality of the object sought, the Legis-
lature of 1 855 chose to thoroughly revise the law ;

292 The State vs. Alcohol. •

and availing themselves of the aid of eminent
legal talent, the result was the production of a
law (Statute 1855, chap. 215) which has stood the
sharpest test of judicial criticism. In the hun-
dreds of cases that have been taken up on ques-
tions of law before the highest tribunal of the
State, there has been found only a single and
incidental defect, which was, however, sub-
stantially remedied by the general provisions
of law.* Nor has the statute been found
difficult to \york intelligently and efficiently.
Its enemies being judges, it is a well construct-
ed machine. One of the ablest lawyers in
Massachusetts, in a report made to the Senate
in favor of a license law, said :

" This prohibitory statute, known in its earliest form
as the Maine Law, is the fruit of much experience,
avoids the practical difficulties discovered by hostile
lawyers in the eadier statutes, is minute, thorough,
and comprehensive, and is believed to be the only
criminal law where the Legislature has provided forms

* The 32d section enacted that persons convicted before justices
of the peace or police courts, and appealing, upon failure to give
bonds to prosecute the appeal, etc., should be committed to abide
the sentence of the court appealed /r<?;w. It was held unconsti-
tutional to clog the right of appeal for jury trial with this con-
dition ; but that this section being void, the general provisions of
law applied, and that a party might rightly be committed to
abide the final sentence of the court appealed to. (Sullivan
vs. Adams, 3 Gray, 476).

The History of Prohibition. 293

of proceedings; in short, as those who administer it
have testified, it is as perfect as a criminal statute well
can be''' (1865, Senate Doc. No. 200).

I shall therefore proceed to give an abstract
of this Massachusetts statute v^ithout troubling-
myself to compare its provisions with similar
laws of other States which are identical in sub-
stance, and to a great extent, I believe, the
same in detail.

The statute is distinctive both as to its object
and in the modes of its accomplishment.

The object of the statute is the suppression
of the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a common
beverage. It therefore declares it to be unlaw-
ful for any person to manufacture or sell any
kind of intoxicating liquors (among which lager-
bier and cider are specially enumerated) except
as follows :

Manufacturers may be licensed by the County
Commissioners of the several counties and the
Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Boston, to
manufacture such liquors at appointed places, to
be sold " in quantities not less than 30 gallons,
to be exported out of the Commonwealth, and
to be used in the arts or for mechanical and
chemical purposes in this Commonwealth, or in
any quantity to duly authorized agents of towns
and cities."

294 The State vs. Alcohol,

Importers may sell foreign liquors in the
original packages, and in quantities not less
than the quantities in which the laws of the
United States require such liquors to be im-
ported, and as pure as when imported.

Druggists may sell pure alcohol to other drug-
gists, apothecaries, and physicians, known to be
such, for medicinal purposes only.

Cider may be manufactured or sold " for
other purposes than that of a beverage," and
** unadulterated wine for sacramental purposes."

Agents to be appointed annually by the au-
thorities of each city or town to sell intoxicating
liquors " to be used in the arts, or for medicinal,
chemical, and mechanical purposes, and no
other ;" to record all such sales, and to receive
a fixed salary not dependent on the amount of
their sales, and to give bonds with sureties to
conduct their business according to the provis-
ions of the law.

In order to prevent unlawful sales, two new
and leading provisions were made : one declar-
ing it unlawful to keep liquor for sale ; and the
other authorizing the search, seizure, and judi-
cial destruction of liquor so kept, without legal
authority.*

* " Differeices of opinion will for a long time exist whether
the general prohibition is wise or not ; but assuming it to be
wise, the forbidding of the keeping of the hquor with the intent

The History of Prohibition. 295

There were also provisions punishing the
transportation of liquors by carriers or other
persons, who had reasonable cause to believe
that the same had been or were to be sold con-
trary to law.

There were the ordinary provisions punishing-
single sales and the common seller, only in both
cases by this statute the punishment was to be
both fine ^;/^ imprisonment.

The statute was undoubtedly unnecessarily
multitudinous in its details, and some of the
weapons it furnishes against the traffic have
scarcely been taken at all from the armory.
We therefore content ourselves here with this
enumeration. The total prohibition of sales for
a beverage, the punishment of the keeping with-
out proof of actual sales, and the confiscation of
the liquors by a process in sem, were undoubt-
edly the three distinguishing and practically
most effective features of the law. None of
these provisions, it may be remarked, were
novel in themselves, but only novel in their ap-
plication to the liquor traffic.

At the same session of the Legislature a
short statute was enacted, known as ** The

to sell it, and the forteiture of the liquor thus illegally kept, are
legislative methods of reaching the end greatly in advance of
what in modern times had been attempted before." (Bishop on
Statutory Crime, § 988).

296 The State vs. Alcohol,

Nuisance Act/' which has been sometimes des-
ignated as an " attachment " to the Hquor law,
and which has proved of great practical utility,
and has since been adopted by other States.
It declared ''all buildings, places, or tenements
used as houses of ill-fame, resorted to for pros-
titution, lewdness, or for illegal gaming, or used
for the illegal sale or keeping of intoxicating
liquors," "to be common nuisances;" and "any
person keeping or maintaining any such com-
mon nuisance shall be punished by fine not ex-
ceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprison-
ment in the county jail not more than one year.
It further provided that use of premises for any
of the purposes enumerated by a tenant should
make void his lease ; also that any person let-
ting a building for any such use, or knowingly
permitting such use, should be deemed guilty
of aiding in the maintenance of such nuisance,
and be punished accordingly. This statute has
never been repealed. The courts decided that
it was unaffected by the passage of the License
laws, although, of course, the definition of what
should be an illegal S3[^ or keeping was changed
thereby. In 1866 (Laws, chap. 280, § 3) there
was a change of penalties, but no other altera-
tion has been made in it.

The procedure under this statute has been
a favorite one with public prosecutors. The

The History of Prohibition, 2<^y

courts early decided that the offense was a sin-
gle one — to wit, the maintenance of a common
nuisance ; but the same count in a complaint or
indictment might allege it to consist of all three
unlawful uses — to wit, !br gaming, prostitution,
or illegal selling or keeping of liquor, and the
prosecutor might obtain a conviction by proof
of either. In a certain class of cases these vices
were always found in friendly groups. Later
the courts relieved the embarrassment of prov-
ing proprietorship of the estabUshment by a
detision that, as by the common law all who
participate or aid in the commission of misde-
meanors are principals, it would be sufficient to
prove that the defendant had the charge ''even
for an hour" of the premises, '' as clerk or agent
of the proprietor, and that during such period
of control and charge intoxicating liquors were
illegally kept or sold " with his assent. (Com-
monwealth vs. Maroney, 105 Mass., 467, n.
Same vs. Kimball, id. 465).

To return to the statute particularly known
as the Prohibitory law. The statute of which
we have given an abstract made no provision
for the supply of liquors to city and town agents,
except to authorize licensed manufacturers to
sell to them. But by a subsequent statute of
the same year (1855, chap. 4.70) the system of
the State Agency was established, and after-
13*

298 The State vs. Alcohol

ward followed in some other States. It was
provided that the Governor should appoint a
commissioner, who should be authorized to pur-
chase and sell liquors of a pure quality to city
and town agents, such sales to be for cash, and
at a price not to exceed 5 per cent, advance on
the actual cost. The commissioner was required
to give bonds in the sum of $20,000 for the
faithful discharge of his duties, and was made
liable, in addition, to severe penalties for adul-
teration, for sales to unauthorized persons, or
at an authorized price. It may be conceded
that the practical working of this part of the law,
in relation to State and municipal agencies,, was
attended with more embarrassment and difficul-
ties than any other. The appointment of State
Commissioner was not always a fortunate one ;
in some of the towns it was difficult to get judi-
cious agents, or improper ones were appointed
through favor ; and some of the rural places
felt that no agent was needed. Some impor-
tant changes in this part of the system were
made from time to time. In 1858 the commis-
sioner was required to have all his liquors ana-
lyzed by one of the State assayers, and to sell
none unless upon written certificate of purity.
Upon the reenactment of the Prohibitory law in
1869 (chap. 415) this part received an entire
revision, the most important theoretical change

The History of Prohibition. 299

being a provision that, " after the expiration of
six months from the passage of this act, all
liquor of foreign production kept or sold by said
commissioner shall be imported by him, or
under his direction." It was also left discre-
tionary with towns containing less than 5,000
inhabitants, to dispense with the appointment
of an agent to sell for permitted purposes.

I suppose persons of every shade of opinion
will agree in this : that the liquor trade presents
peculiar temptations to all engaged in it, and
that all attempts at its regulation for any pur-
pose whatever have been attended with insol-
uble embarrassments. The honest merchant,
the revenue official, the police officer, the care-
ful consumer, as well as the legislator, have all
realized this. Without pretending, then, that
the system in Massachusetts for supplying
liquors for what are esteemed necessary uses
was perfect either in theory or administration. I
think it the rather remarkable that the scandal
and abuse was as little as it was ; and I have no
doubt that in the later years of its administration
a purer and better article was furnished for
medicinal purposes than was accessible to the
average buyer in other States.

The criminal provisions of the law underwent
no important change or addition until its repeal
in 1868, except that the operation of its penal-

300 The State vs. Alcohol,

ties was substantially affected by the passage of
a general law in 1866 (chap. 280, § i), which
enacted that when any law made an offense pun-
ishable by fine and imprisonment, the " offender
may, at the discretion of the court, be sentenced
to be punished by such imprisonment without
the fine, or by such fine without the imprison-
ment, in all cases where he shall prove or show
to the satisfaction of the court that he has not
before been convicted of a similar offense."

The non-enforcement of the law by the au-
thorities of Boston led to an agitation for the
establishment of a Metropolitan Police for that
and the adjacent cities, in lieu of the then City
Police, and to be appointed by State Commis-
sioners. When such a bill had passed the
Senate in 1865, and some of its readings in the
House, Governor Andrew proposed as a com-
promise the establishment of an independent
State Police. The substitute was accepted,
and became a law (1865, chap. 249). In the
second section it was enacted that the force
" shall especially use their utmost endeavors to
repress and prevent crime by the suppression of
liquor-shops, gambling-places, and houses of
ill-fame."

In another chapter some account of their
work in suppressing the liquor traffic will be
found. Three years after the prohibitory law

The History of Prohibition. 301

was repealed, and a license law enacted, and
the latter then repealed the following year, and
the prohibitory law reenacted in 1869 (ch. 415),
The only change of any importance, except in
the provisions of the State Agency, was in the
qualified exemption of cider, '* where the same
is not sold, or kept with intent to be sold, at a
public bao or to be drank on the premises "
(sec. 29). The body of the law was a reenact-
ment in totidem verbis of the 86th chapter of
the General Statutes, which was in itself sub-
stantially the law of 1855. Some further mod-
ifications were made in favor of malt liquors in
1870, which were repealed in 1873.

As stated in the chapter on License Laws,
this was again supplanted by a license law, with
a sort of local option, in 1875, under which the
State now is, and under the operation of which
licenses are granted in only about one-quarter
of the territory of the State. At the late session
of the Legislature (1877) the old prohibitory
law came very close to reenaction ; and it is the
general judgment of the friends of temperance
that its restoration is near at hand.

Vermont enacted the law of prohibition in
1852, and has steadily maintained and generally
enforced it ever since.

New Hampshire enacted it in 1855, and has
kept it unimpaired on the Statute-book, although

302 The State vs. Alcohol.

its enforcement has not been as effective as in
its sister State.

Rhode Island first enacted the law in 1852.
Certain provisions, in regard mainly to the
machinery for search and seizure, having been
declared unconstitutional, the Act was amended
in 1853, submitted to, and ratified by the peo-
ple. In 1863 this law was repealed, and a
license law substituted; upon which, in 1865,
''local option " was engrafted. In 1874 Prohi-
bition was established, and, as we shall see in
the next chapter, enforced. The contest was
carried into the elections. After a sharp and
close contest, the candidate of the license sec-
tion, a wealthy manufacturer, secured the nom-
ination of the Republican convention for Gov-
ernor ; and although the prohibitory men of the
party bolted the nomination, and gave their in-
dependent candidate a plurality at the polls, yet
the liquor interest and the Democrats coalesced
in the election of members of the Legislature,
and thus secured a license majority and the ulti-
mate election of their Governor. The repeal
followed in June, 1875.

Connecticut enacted the law in 1854, en-
forced it but spasmodically and partially, and
repealed it in 1872.

New York passed a prohibitory statute, with
some imperfections, in 1855. The highest court

The History of Prohibition. 303

of the State pronounced some of its provisions
unconstitutional in 1856; and the Legislature
in 1857, instead of amending, replaced it by a
license law.

Delaware embodied \\\^ principle of prohi-
bition in a law as early as 1847. It was, how-
ever, conditioned upon the popular vote, and
so was adjudged unconstitutional. A statute,
in its general features prohibitory, but lacking
many of the provisions of the '' Maine Law,"
was passed in 1855, but was replaced by the
law of license in 1857.

Michigan passed the law in 1853, and rati-
fied it by popular vote. This being declared an
unconstitutional mode of legislation, it was re-
enacted, without the clause of submission, in
1855. The law was repealed in 1875.

The Constitution of 1850 providing that *' the
Legislature shall not pass any act authorizing
the grant of license for the sale of ardent spirits
or other intoxicating liquor," there was nothing
left except to pass a "tax law," which is else-
where alluded to. The Constitution of Ohio
contains a similar inhibition.

Some of the other Western States have had
at times some form of prohibitory law ; but, we
believe, only that of Iowa remains. Her act
was passed in 1855, and ratified by the people

304 The State vs. AlcohoL

at the ensuing election in April. It has never
been repealed ; but was crippled in 1858 by the
exclusion of fermented liquors from its prohibi-
tion.

As the adoption of Prohibition by so many
States, whether by their Legislatures or by the
popular vote, did not establish its wisdom or its
beneficence, so neither has its repeal by several
of them any tendency to establish the contrary.
A detailed examination of the causes which led
to such repeal, and of the lessons to be thence
educed, is beyond the scope of the present work.
A bare allusion to some of them must suffice.
Some of them were enacted in the tide of ex-
citement following the original ''Maine Law,"
without a sufficient support behind them in a
settled and educated public opinion ; in some
instances adverse judicial decisions upon parts
of the machinery of the statute discouraged its
friends ; in other States the law finally fell, as
the result of the demoralization arising, first,
from the sudden influx of foreign immigration,
and this followed by the civil war, unsettling the
occupations, the habits, and the morals of so
many. But beyond all these temporary adverse
influences is the great fact, to be acknowledged
and to be kept ever in mind, of the imiiiense
power of the liquor interest and its sure allies.
Whether prohibition ruined, or only branded,

The History of Prohibition. 305

the trade, it was thoroughly aroused, and
watched its opportunity to strike. The deci-
sive fact has been, that its votes have been far
more sure to follow its interests than the votes
of temperance men their consciences. As a
natural consequence, political parties have
obeyed its behests.

CHAPTER XXI.

PROHIBITION A SUCCESS.
*' An ounce of Fact is worth a ton of Theory."

In considering the problem of the legal pro-
hibition of the common traffic in liquor, as we
have seen various questions arise, some of these
are ethical and political, and such questions are
rarely susceptible of answers absolutely demon-
strative. We may think the weight of argu-
ment heavily upon our side ; but still, able and
ingenious men may continue to offer plausible
suggestions on the other. But there are cer-
tain practical questions to which experience can
give positive and indisputable answers. Hap-
pily, these are, to the mass of mankind, the
most important. The theoretical objections to
prohibition, however subtly and even eloquently
put forth by such writers as John Stuart Mill,
are satisfactorily laid aside by the common-
sense of *'the plain people," as Mr. Lincoln
used to call them, who are, after all, the practi-
cal arbiters of legislation in the long run.

Befog the question as you may, the average
American knows that the dram-shop is a pub-
lic enemy ; and the only question really open
(306)

Prohibition a Success, 307

before the mind of the conscientious citizen is,
Will Prohibition most successfully suppress the
conceded evil ?

To the record the prohibitionist fearlessly
appeals. Yet because the experiment of e7i-
f arced 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.

I am free to confess that I deem this and the
following chapter the most important in my
book, and I desire that the testimony should be
so full and so reliable as to carry conviction to
the candid reader.

Before coming to the operation of *' the pro-
hibitory law," so called, I desire, first, to call
attention to the effect of temporary or partial
prohibition obtained in other ways.

And, first, I turn to a country remote in its
location, but instructive in its lessons.

SWEDEN.

In an elaborate paper prepared by the Chief
of the Statistical Office in the Department of
Justice in Sweden, and endorsed " as of the
highest authority " in the Report of the Massa-
chusetts Board of Health, a detailed account is
given of the varying phases of legislation upon

3o8 The State vs. Alcohol.

this subject, justifying the conclusion drawn by
Judge Aldrich :

"Thus the nation rose and fell, grew prosperous
and happy, or miserable and degraded, as its rulers
and law-makers restrained or permitted the manufac-
ture and sale of that which all along the track of its
history has seemed to be the nation's greatest curse."

From the paper itself I give a single sen-
tence :

"^ vigorously maintained prohibition against spirits
in 1753-1756, and again in iy'/2-iyy^j proved the enor^
mous benefits effected in moral, economical, and other
effects, by abstinence from spirits."

But happily the lesson has more modern
teaching.

In the Letter recently addressed by permis-
sion to Mr. Gladstone by Alexander Balfour,
which I have referred to in another connection,
he says :

" What is essentially a Permissive Prohibitory Act
has existed in Sweden for the last twenty years. So
vigorously have the people outside of towns used
their permission to limit and prohibit, that among
31^ millions of people there are only 450 places for

the sale of spirits This it is which has so

helped Sweden to emerge from moral and material
prostration, and which explains the existence of such
general indications in that country of comfort and
independence amongst all classes " (pp. 36-7).

Prohibition a Success, 309

All this we have explained in detail hereto-
fore.

* IRELAND.

In all ages and in all countries the same con-
stant ratio between drinking-houses and drunk-
enness, and between these and vice and crime,
has been observed.

John Wesley writes in his Journal under date
of July 9, 1760:

" I rode over to Killikeen, a German settlement
near twenty miles south of Limerick. In the evening
I preached to another colony at Ballygarane. The
third is at Court Mattress, a mile from Killikeen. I
suppose three such towns are scarcely to be found
again in England or Ireland. There is no cursing or
swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no drunkenness, no
ale-house in any of them. How will these poor for-
eigners rise up in the judgment against those that are
round about them ! "

But at the present day some of the large land
proprietors have power to exclude the drink
traffic from large areas — a power which they
have beneficially exercised.

Bessbrook is so marked and interesting a
testimony to the success of prohibition, even in
a manufacturing community, that I am induced
to give a detailed account of the settlement as
contained in a letter to the London Daily Tele-
graph of date August 17, 1874:

3IO The State vs. Alcohol,

" The Bessbrook Quarries were opened by the
great flax-spinning firm in the vicinity, with the ob-
ject, at once benevolent and enterprising, of giving
employment to the males of famiUes whose female
and juvenile members are engaged in the operations
of spinning and weaving. Bessbrook is, taken alto-
gether, a place of extraordinary interest, and I was
glad of the opportunity of seeing for myself an estab-
lishment concerning which I had heard so much, as
the successful realization of ideas we are generally
inclined, with too reasonable warrant of experience,
to pronounce Utopian, and therefore impracticable.
So I carried an inquiring mind into Bessbrook ; and
though I made no domiciliary visits worth mention-
ing, nor stopped any operative to search him or Tier
for the secret bottle, I can truly report that the evi-
dence was strongly in favor of universal and seldom
broken sobriety — that is to say, of rigid and total
abstinence from all stimulating liquor. The " patri-
archal relations " between employers and employed
are not maintained at any sacrifice of independence,
nor are they enforced at all. Mr. Richardson, the
eldest son of the proprietor of Bessbrook, and his
acting representative in the control of the mill and
all things relating thereto, frankly disclaimed all the
sentimental motives and intentions which I will con-
fess I was half prepared to hear of, ad nauseam.

" I went to Bessbrook for the sole purpose of
seeing that Irish Saltaire, the industrial village, in
order to gather the truth as to all the wonderful
things said about it ; and I was glad to find in Mr.
Richardson a man as free from the crotchets and
theories of what is called philanthropy as any mer-

Prohibition a Success, 311

chant prince I ever saw. I asked him how he met
the difficulty of strikes, and he said in" reply that he
had no panacea for the evil ; that there was no in-
trinsic virtue in the social organization of Bessbrook
to prevent or cure any disaffection of work-people,
but that there were advantages in the residential
arrangements, and that, as a fact, the Belfast strike
had not touched Bessbrook

"An isolated position is also in favor of Bessbrook;
for, not to speak of comfortable homes, the people
determined on quitting the place would leave it with_
out being able to go next door, as it were. And cer-
tainly when I came to look at the beautiful neatness
of the village, and saw the economic method of
trading, and the high order of management in the
co-operative stores, I could not avoid the conclusion
that a prudent man or woman would be loth to part
with benefits so real and, unhappily, so rare. Bess-
brook has 4,000 inhabitants, many of whom are too
young for labor in the mill. One penny for each
child is paid weekly by the parents for schooling.
There is a shop of every necessary kind in the place ;
there is a temperance hotel, but there is no house
licensed for the sale of beer or spirits. It is also a
boast of Bessbrook that the pawn-office is neither
known nor missed in those prudent precincts ; and,
more wonderful yet, there is no police station.

" The village square has an old-fashioned Flemish
look about it, quaintly mingled with freshness, for in-
deed all hereabout is as good as new. Flowers there
are in abundance ; and a farm supplies the village
with all kinds of food. The elder Mr. Richardson,
who founded Bessbrook, is a considerable land-owner

312 The State vs. Alcohol,

in the neighborhood ; and the very road leading to
his industrial establishment is private property, made
and maintained at his own expense. An old Quaker
family is this which has quietly and unostentatiously
made Bessbrook. About two-thirds of the people
employed in the mill are residents of the village ; and,
as I have already intimated, these are of different
creeds or sects, worshiping according to their con-
science, and bound only in one thing, which is to
educate their children."

Tyrone County. — Lord Claude Hamilton,
one of the large land proprietors of Ireland,
and a member of the English Parliament, re-
cently said as follows at a public meeting :

*^ I am here, as representing the county, to assure
you that the facts stated regarding the success of
prohibition there are perfectly accurate. There is a
district in that county of sixty-one square miles,
inhabited by nearly ten thousand people, having
three great roads communicating with market towns,
in which there are no public-houses, entirely owing
to the self-action of the inhabitants. The result has
been that whereas those high-roads were in former
times constant scenes of strife and drunkenness,
necessitating the presence of a very considerable
number of police to be located in the district, at
present there is not a single policeman in that district,
the poor-rates are half what they were before, and all
the police and magistrates testify to the great absence
of crime." ....

Prohibition a Success. 313

Belfast. — This large commercial city, un-
fortunately, can not be cited as showing the
effect of a regime of prohibition, except for a
very limited time. And yet the lesson read to
us from the experience of 1872 is very signifi-
cant. I quote from an English paper :

" During the recent distressing and disgraceful
riots in Belfast, the magistrates put the city under a
prohibitory liquor edict for ten days consecutively.
For days previously riot and carnage were the order
of the day and the night. * Public - houses drove
a trade fabulous in its extent ; for just in propor-
tion as the rioters were inflamed with the demon
drink, did their fears and better judgment leave
them, and the more drink they consumed the more
reckless they became.' The first week's experience
of prohibition had so convinced the magistrates that
drink had been the chief sustaining power of the
riots, that even when the town was quiet, and when
there was not the faintest indication of a renewal of
the disturbances, they dreaded the risk that would be
incurred if the people were exposed to the tempta-
tions offered by the sale of intoxicating drinks.
They therefore extended the prohibitory order for
three days more. The rioters gradually recovered
their senses, and order was restored. This was after
whole streets of houses had been laid waste, the hos-
pitals filled with killed and wounded, and the police
cells and prisons, extensive as they are, were peopled
to overflowing. Who will say that Prohibition can
not be enforced, when, even under such very unfavor-
14

314 The State vs. Alcohol,

able circumstances, a mere magisterial order can put
a sudden stop to liquor selling, and bring social order
out of riot and anarchy ? "

ENGLAND.

We have alluded to the power of land-pro-
prietors in Great Britain to suppress the liquor
traffic. Of the exercise of this power a writer
in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1873,
says :

" We have seen a list of eighty-nine estates in
England and Scotland where the drink traffic has
been altogether suppressed, with the very happiest
social results. The late Lord Palmerston 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 whisky is
allowed to be sold. The peasants and fishermen are
flourishing. They have all their money in the bank,
and they obtain higher wages than their neighbors
when they go to sea."

But the Report of the Committee of the
Lower House of Convocation of the Province
of Canterbury (embracing a population of over
14,000,000) made in 1869, gives a most notice-
able showing as to the number of parishes
where, *' owing to the influeace of the land-

Prohibition a Success, 315

owner, no sale of intoxicating liquor is licensed."
The report goes on to say :

" Few, it may be believed, are cognizant of the
fact — which has been elicited by the present inquiry
— that there are at this time, within the province of
Canterbury, upwards of one thousand parishes (a list
of which, as returned by the County Constabulary, is
given in the appendix) in which there is neither pub-
lic-house nor beer-shop ; and where, in consequence
of the absence of these inducements to crime and
pauperism, according to the evidence before the Com-
mittee, the intelligence, morality, and comfort of the
people are such as the friends of Temperance would
have anticipated."

In the appendix to the Report, under the
head of " Good effects of having no public-
house or beer-shop," are given extracts from
replies of 243 of the clergy, and 11 of Chief
Constables and Superintendents of Police. They
are all condensed arguments for Prohibition :
*' No public-house, no beer-shop — no crime."
** No public-house, no beer-shop — no intemper-
ance." ** In parishes v^^here there are neither
public-houses nor beer-shops, the absence of
crime is remarkable."

It will be said that these are mostly small
agricultural parishes. True ; but parishes in
every other respect similar, but where the drink-
factor is present, generate their harvest of crime

3i6 The State vs. Alcohol,

and pauperism, as this very Report abundantly
shows. But let us look for a moment at the
results of banishing the liquor traffic from com-
munities having different industries.

Shaftesbury Park Estate. — Mr. W. Ful-
cher, a resident on this estate for a year, writes
to an English paper under date September ii,
1875, as follows :

" Here, as you are probably aware, no public-house
or beer-shops exist. We have here some fourteen
hundred houses, with a population of from three to
four thousand, and yet it is a fact that the duties of
citizens, of fathers and mothers, of neighbors, and of
individuals are satisfactorily discharged, without its
being thought necessary to call in the aid of the pub-
lican. During the period of my own residence on that
estate I have seen only two drunken men, and they,
moreover, were passing through the streets, not citi-
zens. I have never heard a drunken brawl, never
known but one case of a domestic disturbance, and
that arose from a husband * mildly correcting ' a wife,
who, before coming on the estate, had learned to be too
fond of her beer. During the past summer, the streets
which are broad and well kept, have been made beau-
tiful by the splendid show of flowers in which the in-
habitants have indulged, almost without an exception.
I have never heard the song of a drunkard, but during
the summer evenings I have often listened to the
songs, etc., of the people from the open windows. We
have a large lecture hall, where various entertainments
are provided ; and when the estate is completed we

Prohibition a Siucess. 317

shall be in possession of cooperative stores, medical
institute, large club-house, library, and reading room,
but no public-house or hotel ; and, strange as it may
appear, the inhabitants, though by no means exclusively
teetotalers, are perfectly satisfied, and do not wish that
great institution, the beer-barrel, to be introduced.
Now, sir, this puts to silence forever the parrot-cry
as to the people's inability to do without a public-
house. I declare that by my own personal experience
I can prove to demonstration the folly of such a state-
ment, and if any of your readers should question the
accuracy of anything I have said, I invite him to pay
us a visit, when, I am sure, he will be able to confirm
anything I have said. We have had some very dis-
tinguished visitors since our estate has ' sprung into
being.' The Right Hon. B. Disraeli came, saw, and
was conquered. Earl Granville, Thomas Hughes,
Esq., M. P., Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M. P., and other dis-
tinguished gentlemen, have endorsed all the Premier
said"; and more, the happy faces of the children, the
contented looks of the wives, and satisfaction beam-
ing from the countenances of the husbands on that
estate, stamp the fact of its success on the experiment,
and transform an interesting theory into an incontro-
vertible fact — Prohibition is a success."

Villages in Northumberland. — Of these,
Edmund Procter, Hon. Sec. of the Newcastle-
on-Tyne Auxiliary of the United Kingdom Alli-
ance, writes thus :

" The people of Northumberland have practically
tried prohibition, and, as Lord Claude Hamilton de-

3i8 The State vs. Alcohol.

dared of Tyrone, * have tried it with complete suc-
cess.'

" I visited this week the colh'ery village of Throck-
ley, a few miles west of Newcastle, on the banks of
the Tyne. The owners of the colliery closed all
licensed houses in the village a few years ago, and I
have it on the authority of the proprietors, which was
confirmed to me by some of the inhabitants and
others, that from that day to this not only had the
results in the diminution of drunkenness and quarrel-
ling been very material, but that no complaints of any
kind had ever been made.

" In further confirmation of this, the canvassers for
the petition to Parliament in favor of the Permissive
Bill declared to me that almost the entire adult pop-
ulation had signed the petitHDn ; the fact being that,
as far as the canvassers were aware, only five persons
had declined to sign ! There are three or four agri-
cultural and mining villages within a mile or two of
Throckley where the feeling is nearly as strong, and
I am assured by those who know the district, that if
the inhabitants had the power to carry out the same
policy which the proprietors of Throckley Colliery
have exercised, they would do so with something very
nearly approaching unanimity.

" There are other villages in Northumberland where
the land-owners have closed all licensed houses for
several years. I have a report, written by the Super-
intendent of Police for the Morpeth district, in which
he says, under date of June 6, 1874 : * A case of drunk-
enness or disorder in a village without a public-house
is a very rare occurrence. For example, reports of
crime are very rare from Longhirst (near Morpeth),

Prohibition a Success. * 319

a large colliery, where there is no public-house. Sev-
eral other public-houses — at Belsay, Cambo, and else-
where— have been shut up in this district, and I may
say that very few of the country gentlemen in this
neighborhood will allow one to be on their estates.'*

Low Moor. — This is a settlement near Cli-
therve, founded by the Messrs. Garnett, one
of the oldest and most respected firms of cotton
manufacturers in Lancashire. Under date of
February 27, 1871, one of the partners says:

" We send some account of the community at Low
Moor, which we are happy to say still remains with-
out a beer-shop or a public-house. Indeed, we are
deficient of so many of the usual adjuncts of civiliza-
tion that we occasionally fancy it is like no other
place — certainly it is like none with which we are ac-
quainted. It has neither doctor, lawyer, nor until
lately parson nor magistrate, neither has it a consta-
ble or policeman. It has neither public-house nor
beer-shop, dram-shop, pawn-shop, nor tommy-shop. It
has neither stocks nor gaol nor lockup. We have a
population of about 1,100. Our people can sleep
with their doors open, and we have the finest fruit in
the district, in season, in our mill windows (which are
never fastened) without any ever being stolen. Our
death-rate is perhaps the lowest in the kingdom ;
taking the average of the last twelve years, it is under
sixteen in the thousand."

Saltaire. — This is a manufacturing settle-

320 * The State vs. Alcohol,

ment, near Bradford, Yorkshire, commenced by
Sir Titus Salt, and still under the management
of the Messrs. Salt. The population is now
about 5,000. For many years the sale of all
liquors has been forbidden except for the year
\Z6'j-^, when an experiment was tried of per-
mitting the sale of ''Table Beer," under very
stringent regulations. But even this mild in-
toxicant, introduced under the most favorable
auspices, proved such a disturbing and degrad-
ing element that the year's trial brought back
the regime of total prohibition, which has ever
since continued. Of its present condition, Mr.
James Hole, in his *' Homes of the Working-
classes," says :

" One thing there is which is not to be found in
Saltaire, and Mr. Salt deserves as much praise for its
absence as he does for anything he has provided.
Not a public-house or beer-house is there. And what
are the results? Briefly these. There are scarcely
ever any arrears of rent. Infant mortality is very
low as compared with that of Bradford, from which
place the majority of the hands have come. Illegiti-
mate births are rare. The tone and self-respect of
the work-people are much greater than that of factory
hands generally. Their wages are not high, but they
enable them to secure more of the comforts and de-
cencies of life than they could elsewhere, owing to
the facilities placed within their reach, and the ab-
sence of drinking-houses."

Prohibit. on a Success. 321

And if one would see how much of Paradise
may be brought down into the work- day world
of a manufacturing village where the intelligent
philanthropy of the capitalist is supplemented
by the sobriety and industry of the laborer, let
his eye rest on this picture of Saltaire, situate
in the midst of the "lovely scenery of the West
Riding, with thick woods around, near the river
Aire : "

" The immense factory, with its skyward chimney,
and long lines of mill windows ; the streaks that tell
where the canal and the Aire are ; the two mansions
— one near Shipley Glen and the other near Baildon
— of two of the juniors of the Salts ; Victoria-road
stretching straightly out through its ' Italian villas,*
and shops, and spanning rail and river with bridge
gigantic ; institute, schools, and chapels, pointing
their spires into the ether; neat cottages run there-
from at right angles through clean and wide streets ;
trees form green oases in a by-no-means desert ; the
great park is an added area of lawn and terrace ; and
northward the background is one of wood and water,
of road and river, of bank and bosky dell. Saltaire
is a hive in green lanes ; an immense home of order
in Arcadia; a great industrial exhibition in green
fields."

*' Bright Spots on the Mersey." — The full
significance of this expression can only be ap-
preciated by calling to mind the horrible pre-
eminence in drunkenness and its concomitants
14*

322 The State vs. Alcohol.

which the great city of Liverpool, near the
mouth of this river, has held for many years.
The eye, in turning- from the sad pictures of
this drunken city, is indeed gladdened by these
*' spots." I cut from The Alliance News of
February 13, 1875, a description of them with
the pertinent reflections they suggest:

" It may not be generally known that over large
districts in and around Liverpool, public-houses are
prohibited by owners of land and houses on their es-
tates. The following are the principal of these pro-
hibitory districts with the present and estimated fu-
ture populations upon them when the whole of the
land already laid out shall be built upon. — i. Prince's-
road : Number of houses built or in course of erection
about 3,500; estimated population about 18,000. 2.
Park-road : Number of houses about to be erected,
2,400; estimated population about 12,000. 3. Walton-
road : Number of houses built or in course of erection,
about 700; estimated population about 3,500. 4.
Hamilton-road, Everton : Number of houses built,
about 1,000; estimated population about 5,000. 5.
Sheil-road : Number of houses built, about 200 ; es-
timated population about 1,000. 6. The Brook:
Number of houses built or in course of erection,
about 600 ; estimated population about 3,000. The
Corporation leases prohibit public-houses in the neigh-
borhood of Abercromby and Falkner Squares, also
around the parks. It would be difficult to estimate
the population on those leasehold tracts. There is
good authority for stating that Upper Parliament

Prohibition a Success. 323

Fields will be restricted from public-houses, as well
as the land on the other side of Prince's Road. When
this land shall be built upon, the population upon it
will not be less than 20,000 persons. When the whole
of the land laid out, or contemplated, is built upon,
the total number of the population of Liverpool living
under prohibition of the liquor traffic in these locali-
ties will not be less than 80,000, including the resi-
dents around Prince's Park and Selton Park.

"By these experiments the following facts have
been clearly demonstrated :

** I. That, as a business speculation, builders find
it a more profitable investment of their capital to ex-
clude public-houses from the neighborhood of the
people's dwellings. It has been found that a public-
house depreciates the value of the surrounding prop-
erty more than the extra rent obtained for the house
itself ; it attracts and creates rowdyism ; rowdyism
drives away respectable tenants, causes loss of rent,
frequent removals, damage to property, and expen-
sive cleansing operations after infectious diseases, to
which the intemperate are specially liable.

" II. That residences in these prohibitory districts
&re much in demand, and people are willing to pay a
higher rent for dwellings here than elsewhere. There
has been no instance of a complaint from the residents
in these districts of the absence of a public-house.

" III. The most common objections against the
prohibition of public-houses are : — (i) That it would
encouvdigQ \h.G^ illicit sate of tiquor ; (2) That the num-
ber of public-houses around the prohibited district
would be increased ; (3) That the residents would
crowd to the outskirts of the prohibited district and

324 The State vs. Alcohol.

there indulge in drinking habits. Seeing is believing.
Any one interested may satisfy himself, by personal
inspection, whether such objections apply to these
districts ; if not, then one fact is worth a thousand
objections, and we need not travel to Maine or Mas-
sachusetts, to Saltaire or Bessbrook, to witness the
prohibition in actual and beneficial operation.

"IV. That all the residents in these districts are
not necessarily total abstainers^ for many non-abstain-
ers prefer^ for various reasons^ residing in localities
where there are 710 public-houses near.''

UNITED STATES.

Let US now read the lessons nearer home.
And, first, we will glance at the operation of
what are known as Local Option laws, producing
local prohibition in a few of the States. We
do not pretend to give a complete exhibit, but
,merely present the results in cases where we
have at hand full and authoritative accounts.

Maryland.— This State has recently enacted
a local option law^ Under it several counties
liave been enabled to prohibit the traffic. The
Report of the President of the Maryland Pris-
oners' Aid Society for the year ending March
31, 1876, gives these facts in relation to its
operation in different counties :

Harford. — It is a source of gratification to know
^h^t Harford Coui^ty has been redeemed from the

Prohibition a Success. 325

liquor traffic, and drunkenness curtailed throughout
its districts.

Talbot. — At Easton the jail contains only one pris-
oner. The sheriff remarked that the Local Option
law in their county had produced a very happy effect
in the diminution of crime ; that during the court
term, April, 1874, they had seventeen prisoners; in
April, 1875, only nine, and these were committed be-
fore the law went into operation. Since then one or
two arrests were made for petty offenses, but not
retained.

Somerset. — I understand that seven districts of this
county experience the benefit of the prohibitory law.

Worcester. — At Snow Hill I found one prisoner.
The Local Option law has greatly diminished crime
in this county.

And finally he states, under the head of
*' Conclusion : "

" The Local Option law has produced the most
favorable results. Of this I have the strongest evi-
dence in the decrease of prisoners, which I noticed in
my visitations to certain counties, and in such dis-
tricts where the law has been enforced. I have made
diligent efforts to procure information from reliable
parties. I have examined the prisons and held
special interviews with the sheriffs and other officers
who were expected to know its effects, and am in-
formed that it has produced the most decided and
happy changes in promoting peace, safety, and quiet
where formerly riot, noise, and disorder prevailed ;
especially on public days and on Saturday nights
after the workingmen were paid off."

326 The State vs. Alcohol.

Pennsylvania. — For many years Potter
County has had a special prohibitory law.
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 benign influence the number of
tipplers is steadily decreasing, and fewer young men
begin to drink than when licensed houses gave re-
spectability 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 traffic was prohibited. The law
is as readily enforced as are the laws against gam-
bling, licentiousness, and others of similar character.

" Its effect as regards crime is marked and con-
spicuous. Our jail is without inmates, except the
sheriff, 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 for the State was passed
in 1873. Forty-one counties, embracing an
area of 27,708 square miles, and a population
of 1,404,603, voted against license.

The law was in full operation but a Httle over
a year when the friends of the liquor traffic and
the politicians repealed it. It is not necessary
to multiply testimonials to its beneficent effects.
The Commissioners of Public Charities of thQ

Prohibition a Success. 327

State in their report bore this emphatic and de-
cisive testimony :

" 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."

New Jersey. — The city of Vineland stands
here a solitary bright spot upon the dark back-
ground of a drinking State. Its singular his-
tory has given it universal notoriety ; but a
closer examination of it will repay the student
of sociology. An article in Eraser s Magaziiie
for January, 1875 (from which, mainly, the ac-
count we give is condensed), written by Mr.
Landis, its founder, will be found both interest-
ing and profitable. Mr. Landis emphasizes the
fact that he began his colony as a business ope-
ration, and not as a scheme of philanthropy :

" In the first place, I decided to theorize and
reason with nobody. .... I would make the fixed
principles of my plans of improvement the subject
of contract, to be signed and sealed."

He says that he is not a temperance man, in
the total abstinence sense, but that he consid-
ered the question of the sale of liquor " solely
as it would affect the industrial success of his
settlement." His observation had led him to
see that the tavern was the consumer of the

328 The State vs. Alcohol.

industry of its patrons, and the enemy of their
homes. His success, he felt, " depended di-
rectly upon the success of each individual who
should buy a farm " from him ; and so sobriety,
and the *' happy, cheerful homes " which it in-
duced, were necessary to the success of Vine-
land. He

" Had long perceived that there was no such thing
as reaching the result by moral influence brought to
bear on single individuals ; that to benefit an entire
community the law or regulation would have to ex-
tend to the entire community."

What follows I prefer to give exactly in his
own terse and frank words :

" After this conclusion was reached, the way ap-
peared clear. It was not necessary to make temper-
ance men of each individual ; it was not necessary to
abridge the right or privilege that people might de-
sire of keeping liquor in their own houses, but to get
their consent to prevent the public sale of it ; so that
people, in bartering, might not be subject to the cus-
tom of drinking, and might not have the opportunity
of drinking in bar-rooms, away from all home restraint
or influence. In short, I believed that if the public
sale of liquor was stopped, both in taverns and beer-
saloons, the knife would reach the root of the evil.
The next thing to do was to deal with settlers per-
sonally, as they bought land, and to counsel with
them as to the best thins: to be done. In conversa-

Prohibition a Siiccess. 329

tion with them I never treated it as a moral question.
I explained to them that I was not a total abstinence
man myself, but saw clearly the liability to abuse,
when liquor was placed in seductive forms at every
street corner; that it incited crime, and made men
unfortunate who would otherwise succeed ; that most
of the* settlers had a little money to begin with, sums
varying from two hundred to a thousand dollars,
which, if added to a man's labor, would be enough, in
many cases, to obtain him a home, but which, taken
to the tavern, would melt away like snow before a
spring sun ; that new places were liable to have this
abuse to a more terrible extent than old places, as
men were removed from the restraints of old associa-
tions, and brought into the excitement of forming
new acquaintances ; that it was a notorious fact that
liquor-drinking did not add to the inclination for
physical labor. I then asked them, for the sake of
their sons, brothers, friends, to help to establish the
new system, as I believed it to be the foundation-
stone of future prosperity. To these self-evident
facts they would almost all accede."

The settlement, from its commencement in
1 86 1, was under the voluntary regime of pro-
hibition, although the law empowering- the peo-
ple to vote upon the question of license was
not passed till 1863. The vote has always
been against license by such overwhelming
majorities as to amount to practical unanimity.*

* March 21, 1876, the vote was: for License, 57 ; against,

330 The State vs. Alcohol.

This city of 10,500 inhabitants, manufactu-
rers, traders, fruit-growers, and farmers, spent
in 1873 for police $50, and for the support of
the poor only $400. It would seem from the
report of Mr. Curtis, ** the constable and Over-
seer of the Poor" for 1874, that there is a slight
increase in police expenses, for he says: ''The
police expenses of Vineland amount to $75 a
year, the sum paid to me." But a community
which has "practically no debt, and taxes only
one per cent, on valuation," can stand this in-
crease well, especially when the constable also
reports :

" Though we have a population of ten thousand
people, for the period of six months no settler or citi-
zen 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 population."

This is what Prohibition does, be it observed,
not for a picked band of religious emigrants, or
a community of scholars, but for a miscellane-
ous company of laborers from all parts of our
own country, and '* from Germany, France,
England, Ireland, and Scotland."

We have not space to devote to a notice of

Prohibition a Success, 331

other settlements, like Greeley in Colorado,
and Bavaria in Illinois, where results of the
same kind have been attained in the same way ;
but we must pass to the consideration of the
working of the Prohibitory Law itself in States
where it has been adopted. We do not make
our selection arbitrarily, to make out the best
case, but give the results in all the States of
which we happen to have at hand reliable testi-
mony.

New York. — Here the law had but a tran-
sient operation. It was enacted in 1855. ^^
soon as the cases arising under it could reach
the courts, some of the provisions of the law
were declared unconstitutional, its friends lost
courage, the liquor interest was too powerful,
and before it could be put in fair working order,
it was repealed. Yet of its brief existence
Governor Clark, in his Message to the Legis-
lature, said :

" Notwithstanding it has been subjected to an op-
position more persistent, unscrupulous, and defiant
than is often incurred by an act of legislation, and
though legal and magisterial influence, often acting
unofficially and extra-judicially, have combined to
render it inoperative, to forestall the decision of the
courts, wrest the statute from its obvious meaning,
and create a general distrust, if not hostility, to all
legislative restrictions of the traffic, it has still, out-
side of our large cities, been generally obeyed. The

332 The State vs. Alcohol.

influence is visible in a marked diminution of the evils
it sought to remedy.''

But although the result of nominal prohibi-
tion in this State is to a great extent unsatisfac-
tory, yet it so happens that the metropolis itself
affords a most striking example of the results
of enforced prohibition upon the Sunday traffic.
The Metropolitan Excise Law for New York
and Brooklyn, passed in 1866, and suffered to
live for 31 months, was one of absolute prohi-
bition of Sunday sales, and the Board attempted
its thorough execution. It "h d the grip of
prohibition," and for this day it did the work of
prohibition. The Annual Report of the Metro-
politan Police Commissioners, in 1867, shows
that the number of arrests for offenses ** directly
attributable to the u- e of intoxicating liquors,"
on eight Tuesdays in 1865, under the old sys-
tem, was 1,018; under the new, 1,203 (being
about the natural increase from population) ;
while eight Sundays similarly compared showed
that 1,078 arrests were reduced to only 523 by
the new law (p. 21). Similar results are shown
in the Second Annual Report of the Board of
Excise ; while even of the Sunday arrests they
say:

** A very large proportion are those of persons who,
having left those cities (New York and Brooklyn) to

Prohibition a Success. 2iZZ

indulge in the suburbs their passions for strong drinks,
return tipsy and disorderly at a late hour, and com-
pel the police to take them in charge."

Connecticut. — This State enacted a Prohib-
itory Law in 1854, which remained on the
Statute-book till 1873. At first it was fairly
enforced, but in later years it was openly vio-
lated in a large part of the State. The testi-
mony as to the result of its eiiforcement is unan-
imous and emphatic.

In 1855, in his Annual Message to the Gen-
eral Assembly, Governor Dutton said :

" There is scarcely an open grog-shop in the State,
the jails are fast becoming tenantless, and a delight-
ful air of security is everywhere enjoyed."

Governor Minor, 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 testimony of clergymen, chaplains of
prisons, and city missionaries might be cumu-
lated. Let one suffice. Rev. David Harvley,
City Missionary of Hartford, said —

" That since the prohibitory law went into effect
his mission school had increased more than one-third
in number. The little children that used to run and

334 T^^ State vs. Alcohol.

hide from their fathers when they came home drunk,
are now well-dressed and run out to meet them.'*

I will only add the testimony of Rev. Dr.
Bacon, of New Haven, who has since arrayed
himself in conspicuous opposition to the law,
but who can not efface his testimony as to
facts :

" The operation of the prohibitory law for one year
is a matter of observation to all 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 as under its action^

Lax as the administration of this law had be-
come in later years, the change of legislation in
1873 immediately brought forth the fruits of
license in an increase of drunkenness and crime.

Rhode Island. — At a public meeting in Prov-
idence, in October, 1874, I had the pleasure of
hearing Governor Howard, who is no theorist,
but a wealthy manufacturer, of unusual intelli-
gence and candor, bear this most emphatic tes-
timony to the success of the prohibitory law
enacted in the spring of that year. The report
is from the Providence Journal of the next
morning :

" It was agreed on all hands that if it was possible %

to stay the ravages of intemperance it ought to be
done. Where, then, is the remedy to be found ? that

Prohibition a Success. 335

was the question. To one conclusion I arrived, name-
ly, that the strong arm of the law must be invoked.
In what direction, I was not prepared to say. Those
of you who remember my message to the Legislature
last winter will remember that while I advocated
stringent and energetic legislation, 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 select-
ing 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 stand-point 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 com-
plete success, are a success beyond the fondest antici-
pation of any friend of temperance, in my opinion.

" Prohibitory legislation in Rhode Island is a suc-
cess to a marvelous 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 as-
sertion."

And it was precisely because of this success
that the liquor interest rallied so energetically
to defeat the law.

Massachusetts. — The history and effects of
the changing phases of legislation here we have
had occasion to revert to in other connections,
and we must confine ourselves here to brief gen-

^;^6 The State vs. Alcohol.

eral views of the results of prohibition, with a
few special illustrations.

The law was first enacted in 1852. The
graphic description given by the Rev. Horatio
Wood, for nearly a quarter of a century the
Unitarian City Missionary in Lowell, of its op-
eration in that place, will apply more or less to
all the cities outside of Boston. In the rural
districts the open traffic had mostly disappeared
before :

" It was my good fortune then to see a picture
which has delighted my memory ever since. The sale
of liquor was stopped in Lowell, so that the City Mar-
shal had occasion to say, in a letter which he wrote to
me at that time, that there was not a single place in

Lowell where liquor was openly sold A great

many persons, who had been accustomed to drink,
gave up drinking entirely. There were some who
would have liquor in their houses. They would go
beyond the line of the State and get their Hquor in

New Hampshire But then it required more

money to buy the liquor in any quantity than poor
people generally had, and they soon got sick of that.
One after another they would say, ' Well, we know it
is best for us.* The wife would say, * Husband, you
know it is best for you. You know we have been a
great deal happier and a great deal more respected
since this law was passed.' And I will say here —
what I wish distinctly understood in regard to the
poor of Lowell — that there is 7iot so much a desire on
their part for liqtiorf but by the temptations around

Prohibitio7i a Success. 2>2>7-

them they are led into it ; and not only led into it, but
they are cajoled and pressed in every way into the
purchase of liquor." (Testimony — Mass. House Doc.
No. 415, 1867, pp. 538^).

As far as regarded our cities, however, the
scene soon changed. The law became meas-
urably inoperative. As Mr. Wood says :

" At first there was an idea that the law was going
to be carried out, and it must be succumbed to; but
after a while it began to be asked, ' What is Boston
going to do in the matter? ' And when that question
was asked, it began to be said that Boston was going
to sell ; then some began to make themselves bold to
sell, and one city after another of our principal cities
fell into the sale."

There were other causes, concurring with the
influence of the metropolis, to paralyze for some
years the effectual execution of the law. To
enter into a consideration of these would lead
us from our special topic.

But in 1865, coincident with the establish-
ment of the State Police, there was a revival of
zeal in the enforcement of the law, which contin-
ued up to the election in the fall of 1867. Dur-
ing that year alone the work of the State Police
resulted in 5,331 liquor prosecutions, 1,979
seizures, aggregating 92,658 gallons of into.xi-
cants, and the payment in fines and costs of
«5

S3^ The State vs. Alcohol.

$226,427.19. (See Second Annual Report of
the Constable of the Commonwealth).

That the result was a great diminution of the
traffic hardly requires proof. The same report
gives 819 as the number of dealers who had
discontinued the traffic during that year alone.

At a hearing before the Legislative Commit-
tee of that year, Judge Sanger, then District
Attorney of Suffolk County, testified that the
prosecutions had "a tendency to diminish, and
had in fact diminished," the sale even in Bos-
ton — '' that is clearly seen since the decision
in Mrs. Sinnot's case, for quite a number have
come to me since then, and said they would
throw up the business ;" and he added : *' Men
will not be likely to engage in a business when
they are likely to have every-day seizures made
of their stock in trade." (Testimony, pp. 74-76).

Finally the Constable of the Commonwealth,
in his Report above cited, was enabled to say:

" Up to the 6th of November (1867) there was not
an open bar known in the entire State, and the open
retail Hquor traffic had almost entirely ceased. The
traffic, as such, had generally secluded itself to such
an extent that it was no longer a public, open offense,
and no longer an inviting temptation to the passer-
by" (p. 14).

Let the extent of the claim be carefully no-

Prohibition a Success. 339

ticed — not that all sales were suppressed — a
large clandestine traffic is admitted, but only
that the bar-room traffic was suspended. On
this point I also cite the testimony of the well-
known pastor of the Beach Street Presbyterian
church in Boston, the Rev. Dr. James B. Dunn,
then a resident of New York city :

" During the year 1867 we made several thorough
examinations of Boston to see how the law worked.
In North Street we counted 56 closed stores, with the
significant words * To Let ' on the shutters, while in
the other places where liquor had formerly been sold,
honest and lawful businesses were carried on. In
those dark and narrow streets of the ' North End,*
once crowded with throngs of thieves, harlots, and
the most degraded wretches — where the dram-shops,
dancing saloons, and houses of prostitution pushed
their nefarious trade — now quietness and sobriety
reigned. In one night during the month of May we
visited, between the hours of nine and twelve, many
of the liquor, dancing, and gambling saloons on Brat-
tle, North, Commercial, Hanover, Union, Portland,
Sudbur)', Court, Howard, Fleet, Clark, and Friend
Streets, and in no place was there seen, nor could there
be openly bought, one glass of intoxicating drink.

" On another occasion we visited in the evening the
principal hotels, such as Parker's, Tremont's, Ameri-
can, and Young's, and there found the same state of
thiflgs to exist — bar-rooms empty, some of them
closed; and where they were open this significant no-
tice was hung up, * No liquors sold over this bar.* '*

340 The State vs. Alcohol.

In Circular No. 46, issued in October of the
same year, the Constable of the Commonwealth
used this significant language :

" To us who are daily observers of the effects of
these prosecutions, the fact is not to be winked at or
argued out of sight, that very many of the liquor
dealers are utterly discouraged, and were it not for
the hope that the approaching elections may afford
them some relief, they would at once abandon the
traffic." ^:

The election came in a few weeks. The
liquor interest and their political ajlics carried
the State. The law was at once, for all practi-
cal purposes, repealed, and nominally repealed
by the next Legislature. Between the day of
the election and the ist of April ensuing, 2,779
new liquor-shops were opened (1868, Senate
Doc. No. 1 70). I repeat what I said at the time :

" License laws have been repealed for their ineffi-
ciency ; and therein lies their permanent weakness.
The prohibitory law is to be repealed for its efficien-
cy ; and therein lies its strength for the future."

The experience under license I have noticed
in another chapter. The next year the prohib-
itory law was re-enacted. A fatal concession
was made to the beer interest in 1870, the re-
sult of which is noticed elsewhere. It was not
until 1873 that we returned to the policy of en^

Pxohibitioii a Success, 341

tire prohibition. But even of the year 1872 the
then Chief Constable, Capt. George W. Boyn-
ton, in his report, January, 1873, was able to
say:

" In small towns, especially where the public opin-
ion of the place has been right, this traffic has been
entirely suppressed, and in most of the small towns
of the Commonwealth a very great improvement has
been made. In the large towns and cities the work
is more difficult. The dealers constitute a large class ;
they represent wealth and exert a great influence on
public opinion, so that it is not easy, even with suffi-
cient evidence, to procure convictions. Besides, un-
der a system of vigorous prosecutions, the dockets of
the courts become so encumbered with the cases, that
with the utmost diligence on the part of the courts
and the district attorneys, but a small proportional
number can be tried. In such cases the most that
can be done, at present, is to compel the dealers from
open traffic ; by seizures and prosecutions to make t/te
business disreputable ; and to prosecute to the extent
of the law where convictions can be obtained and
public opinion will sustain the efforts."

I submit that this modest statement shows
yet a degree of success such as no license sys-
tem ever approached; and even in localities
where the success is least marked, I have in-
dicated, by italicizing, results which I deem of
far-reaching importance, and in and of them-

342 The State vs. Alcohol,

selves an adequate vindication of the policy
of the law.

An increasingly vigorous prosecution of the
law took place up to the fall election of 1874,
when the law was again overthrown. The
prosecutions for that year were 7,126 ; seizures,
5,912, aggregating 117,683 gallons; fines and
costs paid, $152,189.62; number sentenced to
the House of Correction, 820. Of the results
of this action on a single branch of the trade
during 1874, Mr. Louis Shade, the special agent
of the Brewers' Congress, says :

" Had our friends in Massachusetts been free to
carry on their business, and had not the State author-
ities constantly interfered, there is no doubt that in-
stead of showing a decrease of 116,585 barrels in one
year, they would have increased at the same rate as
they did the preceding year."

Again, we note that the law was repealed,
not because it was weak, but because it was
strong,

I close this rapid general survey of the State
with two marked instances of the special suc-
cess of prohibition, secured in very different
ways.

The city of Boston has always opposed pro-
hibition. Yet, at the time of the '' Great Fire,"
in November, 1872, the order was given by

Prohibition a Success. 343

the city to close all the dram-shops. " The
good effects of this course," say the State Police
Commissioners, " were manifest in the quiet
streets of the city by day and night, even when
in the absence of gas they were shrouded in
darkness." The Chief of the City Police re-
ported that the number of arrests for 10 days
before the order was 1,169; ^^r the 10 days
after, only 675. Even Boston was compelled
to s^e the blessing of ten days' prohibition.

Sometimes, a single experiment carefully per-
formed and critically watched does more to im-
press a scientific truth than wider, but less exact,
observations. It is possible, therefore, that a
valuable impression may be made from a con-
sideration of some phases of the problem of
prohibition as wrought out in New Bedford.
This is a maritime city of Massachusetts, with
a population, in 1870, of 21,320. Its business
since the partial decline of whaling has been
gradually diversifying itself, and is now largely
manufacturing, though not predominatingly so.
Under the nominal enforcement of the prohibit-
ory law which had then become the rule in
the cities, 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 arc generally in the back-rooms.
From an actual count, there appear to be 138 places."

344 ^^^^ State vs. Alcohol.

The same year the State Constabulary was
established to remedy the remissness of the
municipal authorities. In 1867 the City Mar-
shal testified that there ''were no places where
liquor is sold in public, but a great many places
where it is sold privately." In December, 1869,
a City Government was elected upon the issue
of a strict enforcement of the law. During the
years 1870 and 1871 the City and State Police
worked together for this object with such suc-
cess that the liquor traffic was driven to ped-
dle from the person its contraband fluids. Mark
the results. In 1869 there were 298 arrests
for drunkenness, and 565 ** lodgers" at the sta-
tion-house. In 1870 there were 181 arrests
for same, and in 1871 there were 188, and 348
lodgers, showing a decrease, comparing 1869
with 1 87 1 of -^6 per cent, in arrests for drunk-
enness, and of over 2i^ per cent, in number of
" lodgers." The aggregate commitments to the
House of Correction and the Work-house, for
all offenses, fell from 270 in 1869 to 130 in
1 87 1 — less than one-half. So much for enforced
prohibition. In the chapter on the Beer Law
we see the lesson of relapse.

Vermont. — Governor Peck, who has been a
Justice of the Supreme Court, says :

" In some parts of the State there has been a laxity

Prohibition a Success. 345

in enforcing it ; but in other parts of the State it has
been thoroughly enfoiced, and there it has driven
the traffic out. I think the influence of the law has
been salutary in diminishing drunkenness and dis-
orders arising therefrom, and also crimes generally.
.... The law has had an effect upon our customs^ and
has done away with treating and promiscuous drink-
ing. The law has been aided by moral means, but
moral means have also been wonderfully strengthened
by the law.**

The testimony of Governor Converse is :

" The prohibitory law has been in force about

twenty-two years I consider it a very desirable

law. I think the law itself educates and advances public
sentiment in favor of temperance. There is no ques-
tion about the decrease in the consumption of liquor.
I speak from personal knowledge, having always
lived in the State."

But actual pictures affect most minds more
than statistics or general statements of officials,
and I shall enliven these pages by a lively
sketch of the village of St. Johnsbury, with its
5,000 inhabitants, from a letter by Hepworth
Dixon, the English tourist, who thus writes of
this " workman's paradise " to a journal of his
own country in 1874:

" No bar, no dram-shop, no saloon defiles the place,
nor is there a single gaming hell or house of ill-re-
pute. Once, in my walks, I fancied there might be

IS*

346 The State vs. Alcohol,

an opening in the armor of these Good Templars.
Turning from the foreign street, I read a notice calling
on the passer-by to enter the sporting and smoking
bazaar. Here, surely, there must lurk some spice of
dissipation. But I find myself in a big empty room ;
the floor clean, the walls bright, with a small kiosk in
one corner for the sale of cigars and cigarettes, at
which a nice-looking matron waits for customers, who
are slow to come. ' They suffer you to sell tobacco,
madam ? * * Yes, sir, for the present. Some are bent
on putting down the sale, like that of beer and gin ;
a lecturer was here some nights ago ; and in a year
or so they may obtain a clear majority of votes.'
* Your trade will then be gone ? ' * Well, some one
must be last in everything, I guess.* I leave her,
with a full conviction that there lurks no large amount
of wickedness in this sporting and smoking bazaar.

" Intoxicating drinks are classed with poisons, such
as laudanum and arsenic ; but as poisons may be
needed in a civilized country, under a scientific
system of medicine, laudanum and arsenic are per-
mitted to be sold in every civilized State. Such is
here the case with brandy, beer, and wine. A public
officer is appointed by public vote. The town lays
in a stock of brandy, beer, and wine, which is care-
fully registered in books and kept under lock and
key. These poisons are doled out, in small quantities,
very much as deadly nightshade and nux vomica are
doled out by a London druggist. * Can not you get
a bottle of Cognac for your private use ? * I ask Col.
Fairbanks. *■ I can send my order,' he replies, ' for a
pint of Cognac ; it will be sent to me, of course ; but
my order for it will be filed, and the delivery entered

Prohibition a Success. 347

on the public books for every one to see.* * You find
that system rather inquisitorial, do you not ? ' ' Well,
no ; it. is intended for the common good, and every
one submits to what is for the good of all. We
freely vote the law, and freely keep the law. But for
myself the rule is a dead letter, since no intoxicating
drink ever enters my house.*

** In going through the mills, I notice 500 men toil-
ing in the various rooms. The work is mostly hard ;
in some departments very hard. The heat is often
ver>' great. From seven o'clock till twelve, from one
till six — ten hours each day — the men are at their
posts. The range of heat and cold is trying, for the
summer sun is fierce, the winter frost is keen. Yet
the men engaged in these manufactories of scales are
said to drink no beer, no whisky, and no gin. Drink-
ing and smoking are not allowed on the premises.
Such orders might be only meant for discipline ; but
I am told that these 500 workmen really never taste a
drop of either beer or gin. Their drink is water ;
their delight is tea. Yet every one assures me that
they work well, enjoy good health, and live as long
as persons of their class employed on farms. * These
men,* I ask, * who rake the furnaces, who carry the
burning metals, and who stand about the crucibles —
can they go on all day without their beer ? ' * They
never ta.ste a drop, and never ask to have a drop.
There is a can of water near them ; they like the
taste of water better than the fumes of ale, and do
their work more steadily without such fumes.*

*' In fact, I find that these intelligent craftsmen arc
the warmest advocates of the prohibitive liquor law.
They voted for it in the outset ; they have voted for

34^ The State vs. Alcohol.

it ever since. Each year of trial makes them more
fanatical in its favor. Party questions often turn on
this liquor law, and these intelligent workmen always
vote for those who promise to extend its operations.

" ' You see,' says Col. Fairbanks, ' we are a nervous
and vehement race. Our air is dry and quick ; our
life an eager and unsleeping chase. When we work,
we work hard. When we drink, we drink deep. It
is natural that when we abstain, we should abstain
with rigor.*

" ' Are there no protests ? ' * None or next to
none ; as year and year goes by, more persons come
to see the benefits of our rule. The men who for-
merly drank most are now the staunchest friends of
our reform. These men who used to dress in rags
are growing rich. Many of them live in their own
houses. They attend their churches, and their
children go to school.'

" Should a tipsy stranger be taken in the street, he
is seized like a stray donkey, run into a pound, and
kept apart until he has slept away the fumes of his
abominable dram. An officer then inquires where he
got his drink. On telling, he is set free, and the per-
son who sold the liquor is arrested, tried, and pun-
ished for the man's offense. The vender, not the
buyer, is responsible for this breach of moral order."

The United States Internal Revenue Report
for 1874, shows that Vermont enjoys the honor
pf furnishing the smallest revenue from spirits
of any State in the Union except Delav^are,
which has less than thirty-eight per cent, of

Prohibition a Success, 349

her population, and more than makes up for
her slight difference in the spirit tax by a large
excess in fermented liquors.

Let us contrast two New England States.
Vermont, with a population (census 1870)
o^ 330» 55 1 » pays $14,969.75 on spirits and
$3,301.45 on fermented liquors ; Connecticut,
with a population of 537,454, pays $277,295.98
on spirits and $59,447.51 on fermented liquors.
A calculation will show that the license State
pays over ten times the tax/^r capita for liquors
that the prohibitory does.

CHAPTER XXII.

MAINE A CRUCIAL TEST,

We devote a separate chapter to the experi-
ence of the State of Maine, because it seems to
us that it is well entitled to be considered by
candid friends and foes as a crucial test of the
utility of enforced prohibition. It has been on
her statute-book for a quarter of a century ; it
has had the general support of the Administra-
tion; it is a State of large area, with many con-
siderable cities, and with very diversified indus-
tries. It has, therefore, the general conditions
requisite for a satisfactory experiment. And
although the friends of the law might speak of
some special hinderances and embarrassments
in the way of its perfect operation, yet if no de-
cided and manifest gain is to be found, we shall
have to confess that, however excellent the
theory of the machine may be, it must be thrown
aside as of no working value.

We accept the test. Why should not our
opponents do the same ?

The testimony as to the result is full and
authoritative. We shall seem to many to cu-
mulate unnecessarily. But the substantial
(350)

Maine a Crucial Test, 351

agreement of many men of different positions,
temperaments, and views adds greatly to the
impressiveness of the evidence.
And, first, let us look at

MAINE AS SHE WAS.

The enactment of a law prohibiting the sale
of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, always
supposes the existence of a pretty active tem-
perance sentiment ; and when the observer sees
the sobriety, good order, and prosperity of a
community under such a system, the query arises
whether the state of society is due to the law,
or the law to the state of society. And, indeed,
it is not possible to separate the two into an
invariable antecedent and an invariable conse-
quent. Each are both. The public sentiment
begets the law ; the law solidifies and increases
the public sentiment. But the net gain from
the law, both direct and indirect, may be seen
from comparing the state of things before and
after. And I have been surprised to learn the
extent to which Maine formerly suffered from
drink.

I call a few, but thoroughly competent, wit-
nesses to this point.

Neal Dow, in a letter to the Alliance News,
writes :

" In every city, town, village, and rural district in the

352 The State vs. Alcohol.

State, every tavern was a ' rum hole ' and every gro-
cery was a groggery. The immensely valuable pine
timber, with which the State abounded, was sent in
great quantities from all our ports to the West Indies,
and the returns were almost nothing else than West
India rum, and molasses to be distilled into New En-
gland rum, and these products of the lumber trade
were consumed by our people ; and so our grand for-
ests went down their throats in the form of rum !

" The distilling business here was very large. In
Portland alone were seven distilleries, often running
night and day, and at the same time cargoes of West
India rum were landed at our wharves. I think I
have seen nearly an acre of puncheons of West India
rum at one time on our wharves, just landed from
ships. All this time seven distilleries running night
and day ! Now I will venture to say that we have
not had a puncheon of West India rum imported here
in five years, yes, I will say ten years, and there is but
one distillery in the State — not that running, I think;
but, if it runs, it is laid under $3,000 bonds to sell no
spirit except for medicinal or mechanical purposes, or
for exportation. In those old times, every grocery
in Portland, whether a wholesale or retail shop, sold
liquors of all sorts ; now there is but one where liquors
are supposed to be kept. There are low, base, Irish
shanties there, keeping 'tabaccy* and other small
matters, where liquor is sold more or less, in violation
of law; but our groceries are strictly free from the
trade.

" Now these are mostly general declarations as to
the improved state of things in Maine. I have spo-
ken of a wonderfully diminished production and im-

Maine a Crucial Test 353

portation of alcoholic liquors, but rather in a general
way. Let me go a little into particulars as to the
diminished consumption of them, a sort of treatment
of the matter that may be more satisfactory to out-
siders. I know well the town and village of Gorham ;
it is nine miles from my house ; the village is a * cor-
ner/ a 'cross-roads,' as such places are sometimes
called. The town is a rural district of country — a
beautiful farming place. At the * Corner * were nu-
merous shops — * Variety Stores,* as they were called —
keeping all sorts of goods for the country trade, from
salt, bar-iron, ox-chains, mill saws, and grindstones, to
all kinds of common ironmongery, common crockery,
common drapery, common haberdashery, and grocer-
ies, including liquors of all sorts. Every shop in Gor-
ham had such a stock, larger or smaller in quantity and
assortment, according to the capital of the trader.
These shops bought their supplies in Portland, and
all the farmers for many miles about came there ' to
trade/ exchanging their farm products, for * store
goods/ including always a large supply of rum ; and
the balance of the trade against them, which was gen-
erally considerable, was charged to their account, and,
after a few years, was secured by a mortgage on the
farm.

" Now there is not a rum-shop in that whole town.
The habits of the people have been entirely changed ;
they spend no more money for rum, and their farms
arc freed from mortgage. At one time, a Gorham
man told me, three-fourths of the farms were mort-
gaged for * store debts,* which would not have been
contracted but for the rum. I am familiar with all
this, having often visited a cousin there, on a noble

354 '^^^ State vs. Alcohol,

farm which he had purchased of a trader, who had it
by foreclosure of a rum mortgage ! In the old time
the farmers were all poor, their farms and farm build-
ings were neglected and dilapidated, and everything
about the country as well as about the towns had
decided marks of the presence of the drink demon.
Now all that is changed, and we have no more thrifty
citizens than the farmers of Gorham. I have myself
a beautiful farm in that township, with a noble man-
sion upon it, now in perfect order, that I remember in
the old time as bearing marks of the general neglect.
This farm, like almost all others in Maine in the old
time, has a chequered and melancholy history, con-
nected with the decay and final running out of the
noted families who formerly owned it. All through
the State are towns almost innumerable, whose his-
tories, as affected by drink and the drink traffic, are
precisely like that of Gorham. I could fill up a column
of your paper with the names of country towns well
known to me personally, which could be substituted,
and the picture would be a faithful one all the same."

I next call Hon. William P. Frye, at present
one of the delegation in Congress, and ex-
Attorney-General of the State. In a letter to
the Chicago Advance (March 19, 1874) he says :

" Twenty-five years ago, the most of our grocery
stores, all druggists, all hotels, both in city and coun-
try, sold liquors, and, in my opinion, the majority of
grown men used them as a beverage. Poverty, crime,
suffering, and ignorance prevailed ; our jails were full,
our farmyards empty, the landlord rich, his neighbors

Maine a Crucial Test, 355

for miles around poor; his house well painted, glazed,
and blinded, and full of comfort ; theirs unpainted,
the windows stuffed with rags, the rooms full of noth-
ing but sorrow."

He adds : " When the law was enacted, I have no
doubt twO'thirds of the people were at heart opposed to
it ; now they could not be induced to repeal it'*

Ex-Governor Perham, in his testimony before
the Canadian Commission, on this point says :

" Forty years ago intoxicating liquors were sold as
freely in this State as the necessaries of life. It is
notorious at that time, and later, nearly every coun-
try store and tavern was a dram-shop. I happened
to have statistics gathered in 1834, in the then rural
town of Waterville, in a neighboring county, when it
appeared that nearly every store and tavern sold in-
toxicating liquor by the glass, the sales of liquor in
that year being four hundred hogsheads."

My only other witness upon this point shall
be the Hon. Woodbury Davis, ex-Judge of the
Supreme Court. Speaking of the time after
the old Temperance reform and the Washing-
tonian movement had each successively reached
its climax, he says :

*' Notwithstanding all the good that was done in
reforming the habits of the people, there were still
large numbers accustomed to use intoxicating liquors;
and there was really no legal restraint upon the sale.
It was permitted in almost every town ; nearly every

35^ The State vs. Alcohol.

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 earnings in dissipation ;
men helplessly drunk in the streets and by the way-
side were a common sight ; and at elections, at mili-
tary trainings and musters, and at other public gath-
erings, there were scenes of debauchery and riot
enough to make one ashamed of his race." (" Maine
Law Vindicated," p. 7).

Now for

MAINE AS SHE IS.

And as we desire to cover the whole ground,
let us commence with recalling the last witness,
and let him tell us of the results of the law up
to the time of his testimony. He resumes :

" 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 aw^ay with the belief that our
law is a failure. But no observing manwho has lived
in the State for twenty years, and has had an oppor-
tunity to know the facts, can doubt that the Maine

Maine a Crucial Test, 357

Law has produced a hundred times more visible im-
provement in the character, condition, and prosperity
of our people than any 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 185 1. Having since
1855 served for nearly ten years as one of the associ-
ate-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 the 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 has accomplished an incal-
culable amount of good. Of our four hundred towns
and cities, making the estimate below what I believe
the facts 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 lewdness and other crimes.

" In most of the other one hundred towns liquors
are sold probably without much restraint. But in
these the traffic generally shrinks from the public
gaze, conscious of its guilt and shame. And though
the law is 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 evcf
it was under the license laws " («^.)

35^ The State vs. Alcohol.

We now proceed with more recent testimony,
showing still greater improvement.

First, we will hear from the Governors of the
State for a succession of years :

GOVERNORS.

"Brunswick, Maine, June 3, 1872.

" The declaration made by many persons that the
Maine Law is inoperative, and that liquors are sold
freely and in large quantities in this State, is not true.
The liquor traffic has been greatly repressed and di-
minished here and throughout the State, and in many
places has been entirely swept away. The law is as
well executed generally in the State as other criminal
laws are.

" Many persons think that there is not one-tenth so
much liquor sold in the State as there was formerly.
While we prefer not to certify to any particular de-
gree of repression of the traffic, we say without .re-
serve that if liquors are sold at all, it is in very small
quantities compared with the old times, and in a se-
cret way, as other unlawful things are done.

"Joshua L. Chamberlain."

(General Chamberlain was Governor from
1867 to 1871, and is now President of Bowdoin
College).

" Executive Department, )
" Augusta, Maine, June z, 1872. \

" My Dear Sir : — In answer to your inquiry in re-
gard to the effect of the Maine Law upon the liquor

Maine a Crucial Test, 359

trade in this State, I think it safe to say that it is very
much less than before the enactment of the law —
probably not one-tenth as large. In some places
liquor is sold secretly in violation of law, as many
other offenses are committed against the statutes, and
the peace and good order of society ; but in large
districts of the State, the liquor traffic is nearly or
quite unknown, where formerly it was carried on like
any other trade.

" Very respectfully yours,

"Sidney Perham,
" To Gen. Neal Dow. Governor of Maine:'

Hon. Nelson Dingley, Jr., Governor from
1874 to 1876, writes to the editors of the Chi-
cago Advance (March 19, 1874) :

" We have had twenty-three years' experience of the
policy of prohibition, and the results have been, on
the whole, so far greater than those secured by any
other system of legal restraint that the prohibitory
policy is accepted as a settled fact in this State, and
no considerable body of men favor its repeal. In
more than three-fourths of the State, particularly in
the rural sections, open dram-shops are almost un-
known, and secret sales comparatively rare. In some
of the cities and larger villages, where public senti-
ment on the temperance question is not so well sus-
tained as in the rural districts, the law is not so effect-
ively enforced as to prevent open sales to some ex-
tent, although, even in such places, prohibition is not
without some influence for good. Statistics show
that under the influence of our prohibitory system

360 The State vs. Alcohol,

and the indispensable moral efforts which have been
put forth to increase its efficiency, the sale and use of
liquor in this State have very largely decreased ; that
drinking habits have ceased to be fashionable; and
that total abstinence has come to be a common virtue
instead of, as formerly, a rare exception."

The present Governor, General Connor,
thus alludes to the subject in his message,

(1876):

" I have no official information to present to you
with regard to the working of the laws prohibiting
the sale of intoxicating liquors. It is a matter of
common knowledge that they have been very gener-
ally enforced, especially in the cities and large towns,
where the traffic is most persistently attempted to be
carried on in defiance of them. The law as a whole
fairly represents the sentiment of the people. The
opposition to it presents in appearance a strength
which it does not in reality possess.

" Maine has a fixed conclusion upon this subject.
It is that the sale of intoxicating liquors is an evil of
such magnitude that the well-being of the State de-
mands, and the conditions of the social compact war-
rant, its suppression."

It so happens that the certificates of three
other Governors to the same effect, appear un-
der other heads in this chapter — Crosby (Gov-
ernor from 1853 to 1855), Hamlin (1857), L.
M. Morrill (1858 to i860).

Maine a Crucial Test. 361

In this connection it may be a significant fact
to notice that among the " planks " in the plat-
form of the Republican Convention of 1875,
was this :

"Temperance among the people may be wisely
promoted by prohibitory legislation, and it is a source
of congratulation that the policy of prohibition al-
ways upheld by the Republicans of Maine, is now
concurred in by a vast majority of the people of the
State."

A similar resolution was adopted at the late
Convention in August, 1877.

I believe the " Democrats " -have ceased to
"resolve" against it; and, indeed, such a reso-
lution introduced at their last Convention was
decisively rejected.

CONGRESSMEN.

The following certificates give the judgment
of the entire delegation in Congress from the
State — Messrs. Hamlin (formerly Vice-Presi-
dent) and Morrill being the Senators, and
Messrs. Blaine (then Speaker), Frye, Peters,
Hale, and Lynch, the Representatives.

" Washington, D. C, May 29, 1872.
"Mv Dear Sir:— Your favor of the 26th instant,
containing an inquiry as to the cflcct of the Maine
Liquor Law in restraining the sale of h'quors in our

I'.

362 The State vs. Alcohol.

State, etc., is before me; and in reply, while I am un-
able to state any exact percentage of decrease in the
business, I can and do, from my own personal obser-
vation, unhesitatingly affirm that the consumption of
intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day one-fourth
so great as it was twenty years ago ; that, in the coun-
try portions of the State, the sale and use have almost
entirely ceased ; that the law of itself, under a vigor-
ous enforcement of its provisions, has created a tem-
perance sentiment which is marvelous, and to which
opposition is powerless. In my opinion, our remark-
able temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate
child of the law.

" With profound gratitude for your earnest and per-
sistent efforts in the promotion of this cause, I am,
very respectfully, your obedient servant,

" Wm. p. Frye, M. C, of Maine,
" And ex-Attorney General of same State.

"Hon. Neal Dow."

" I have the honor unhesitatingly to concur in the
opinions expressed in the foregoing, by my colleague,
Hon. Mr. Frye. LOT M. MORRILL.

" United States Senate, May 29, 1872."

" I concur in the foregoing statements ; and on the
point of the relative amount of liquors sold at present
in Maine and in those States where a system of license
prevails, I am very sure, from personal knowledge and
observation, that the sales are immeasurably less in
Maine. J. G. Blaine."

"Senate Chamber, May 29, 1872.
" I concur in the statements made by Mr. Frye.

Maine a Crucial Test. 363

In the great good produced by the Prohibitory Liquor
Law of Maine, no man can doubt who has seen its
result. It has been of immense value.

"H. Hamlin."

"House OF Representatives.
" We are satisfied that there is much less intem-
perance in Maine than formerly, and that the result
is largely produced by what is termed prohibitory
legislation.

" John A. Peters, M. C, of Maine.
" Eugene Hale, M. C, of Main^."

** I fully concur in the statement of my colleague
Mr. Frye, in regard to the effect of the enforcement
of the Liquor law in the State of Maine.

*' John Lynch, M. C, of Maine."

I have before me a similar declaration, made
by most of the above in 1875, with the substi-
tution of J. H. Burleigh, who succeeds Mr.
Lynch. Mr. Burleigh " concurs in the opinion
that the Maine Law in operation in this State
has proved to be most expedient and wise."

I pass to the testimony of those whose offi-
cial duties have made them familiar with the
liquor traffic :

"The Supervisor op Internal Reveme, .\fay 31, 1872.

*' In answer to your inquiry, I have to say, that 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 M;iine, and 1 have

364 The State vs. AlcohoL

no hesitation in saying 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 10 per cent, of what it was formerly.

" WOLCOTT Hamlin, Super, of Int. Rev.,
" Dist. Maine, New Hamphire, and Vermont.
" To Gen. Neal Dow."

PROSECUTING OFFICERS.

The Report of the Attorney- General for 1874
contains reports from many of the county attor-
neys in relation to this subject. I make room
for a portion.

The attorney for Aroostook (on the north-east
frontier of the State) says :

" The Sheriff has been very diligent in looking after
the violators of the law. It is a noticeable fact that
the cause of temperance is prospering in this county,
and especially in the town of Houlton, to a degree
never before witnessed. The enforcement of the law
has diminished the number of dram-shops and driven
the traffic into secret places."

Cumberland (includes Portland). — " The amount col-
lected (fines and costs) in the Superior Court is larger
than that collected in any previous year, and, I think,
is more than sufficient to pay the expenses of prosecu-
tion. I have met with no difficulties in prosecuting
persons indicted for violations of the liquor law, which
do not attend the successful prosecution of other
criminal offenses."

Maine a Crucial Test. 365

Hancock. — ** Almost all of the liquor traffic in this
county is carried on in Ellsworth. There is hardly
any other town where public sentiment gives it any
countenance. In PUlsworth we have not suppressed
the traffic wholly, but in no place is liquor sold open-
ly. Every possible precaution is taken by the sellers
to protect themselves against the law."

Lincoln. — ** The liquor traffic in this county has
been confined chiefly to the towns of Waldoboro*,
Damariscotta, and Wiscasset. Several attempts have
been made to open and run rum-shops, but they have
in every instance been nipped in the bud and stopped.
In Waldoboro' and Damariscotta, and also in Bristol,
the work has been very successful, and the temper-
ance people seem well satisfied with the results; but
in Wiscasset the work has not been so successful in
closing up the business. At the last October Term
every rum-seller in that town was indicted and paid"
his fine of $100 and costs. I am satisfied that some
of them will stop, and some will doubtless persist."

Androscoggin (which includes the large manufac-
turing city of Lewiston). — " I think I am justified in
saying that at this time there is not an open bar for
the sale of intoxicating liquor in the county."

York. — " During the present year, signalized as it
has been by a prolonged effort to suppress the traffic
by force of law, crowned as this effort has been by
success much exceeding our most sanguine expecta-
tions, 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 in
the community, are most gratifying.

o

66 The State vs. Alcohol,

" In the city of Biddeford, a manufacturing place
of 1 1, OCX) inhabitants, for a month at a time not a sin-
gle arrest for drunkenness and disturbance has been
made or become necessary."

MAYORS AND OTHER OFFICIALS.

" Portland, Majy 28, 1872.
" In reply to your request to us to state our impres-
sion as to the diminution of the liquor traffic in the
State of Maine, and particularly in this city, as the
result of the adoption of the policy of prohibition, we
have to say that the traffic has fallen off very largely.
In relation to that there can not possibly be any
doubt.

" Many persons, with the best means of judging,
believe that the liquor trade now is not one-tenth as
large as it was formerly. We do not know but such
an opinion is correct, but we content ourselves with
saying that the diminution of the trade is very great,
and the favorable effects of the policy of prohibition
are manifest to the most casual observer.

" Benj. Kingsbury, Jr., Mayor.

" W. M. Thomas, ex-Mayor.

" Aug. E. Stevens, ex-Mayor.

" J. T. McCOBB, ex-Mayor.

" Jacob McLellan, ex-Mayor."

"We are sure that the liquor trade is greatly dimin-
ished.
" Joseph Howard, ex-Mayor.

"D. W. Fessinden, 3 Clerk of all the Judicial

( Courts for Cumberland Co.

Maine a Crucial Test, 367

" Eben. Perry, Sheriff of Cumberland Co.
"Wm. E. Morris, Judge of the Municipal Court.
"Wm. Senter, ex-Alderman."

"We are of the decided opinion that the liquor
trade is not one-tenth of what it was prior to the
adoption of the Maine Law.

" Eben. Leach, Register Cumberland Co.
" H. J. Robinson, City Clerk.
*' H. W. Hersey, City Treasurer.
" M. D. Lane, Judge Sup. Court.
"To Gen. Neal Dow."

Augusta js the capital. We append the tes-
timony of officials there :

" If we were to say that the quantity of liquors
sold here 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.

"J. J. EVELETH, Mayor of Augusta, Maine.
" Joshua Nye, Augusta, late State Constable.
" G. G. Stacy, Secretary of State.
"B. B. Murray, Adjutant-General."

Let us hear from a rural district :

" DixriELD, Oxford Co., Me., Jum ^ 1872.

" I am thoroughly acquainted with my own county
(Oxford), and do not hesitate to say that there is not
now a gallon of liquor sold where there was a barrel
before the Maine Liquor law of 1851.

"At our last term of the Supreme Judicial Court,

368 The State vs. Alcohol.

in March, not a single indictment for any crime was
found. Our [county] jail is empty, our work-house
greatly reduced, and the improvement wonderful.
"E. G. Harlow,
" Member Exec. Council in Maine."

To this additional letter of ex-Mayor Put-
nam, who was elected by- the Democrats of
Portland at a time when, as a party, they open-
ly opposed the law, I invite careful attention :

"Portland, Maine, May 29, 1872.

" My Dear Sir : — In reply to your inquiry, al-
though never yet able to approve the principles of
Prohibitory Liquor Laws, I must in candor state :

" I have had good opportunity to observe the con-
dition of this State in the matter of the use and sale
of intoxicating liquors for several years past, as com-
pared with some other States where there are no pro-
hibitory laws, and am certain that the rural portions
of Maine are, and have been, in an infinitely better
condition with reference to the sale and use of such
liquors than similar portions of other States referred
to ; and are, and have been, moreover, comparatively
free from both the sale and use ; and this must fairly
be considered the result of prohibitory legislation.

" In the large towns and cities I have not observed,
for the most part, any substantial difference in the
above respects between this State and other States.

" At the present time, however, the law is proba-
bly enforced even in large towns and cities as thor-
oughly, at least, as any other penal statute.

Maine a Crucial Test 369

" Any discussion as to whether as much could be
accomplished by some other system, to my fancy
more in accordance with that of a Republican peo-
ple, is not called for by your inquiry.

" Very truly, Wm. S. Putnam.

** Hon. Neal Dow."

We now give the testimony of Bangor offi-
cials:

" Mayor's Office, City or Bangor, May 30, 1872.

" Sir : — Your note is received, asking my opinion
of the effect of the Maine Law upon the liquor trade
in Bangor and in the State generally

" Last year the law was seldom enforced in our
city ; this year it has been.

"The records of our police courts show only about
one-fifth the number of cases before it as compared
with last year. For a portion of the year the weekly
number of commitments to the station is about the
same as the daily was last year.

** The law is being enforced throughout the State
as never before, and with wonderful success.

" No resident of our State can have any doubt
that the liquor traffic has been greatly repressed and
reduced.

"It is safe to say that in our city not one>tenth
part as much is sold now as in years past, when the
law was not enforced.

•* Your obedient servant,

"J. S. Wheelwright, Mayor."
i6«

370 The State vs. Alcohol.

" We fully concur in the foregoing statement.
" W. C. Crosby and j Aldermen for 1871 and
" Chas. Hayward, i 1872.
"John H. Hayes, City Clerk.

"Alpheus Lyon, ] ^^^°^^^^ ^^ "^^ ^^^^^^
, ( Court of Bangor.

" A. G. Wakefield, ex-Mayor.

" John E. Godfrey, Judge of Probate.

« Jere. Fenno, ■! ^°^^^^^°' ^^ \r^^^rv,2\ Reve-
( nues, 4th District, Maine."

CLERGYMEN.

Eleven clergymen of the city of Portland,
representing seven distinct denominations, ap-
pended their names in 1872 to a declaration, as
follows :

" We say without hesitation, that the trade in in-
toxicating liquors has been greatly reduced by it
(' the Maine Law ').

" In this city the quantity sold now is but 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 secrecy 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."

The venerable Enoch Pond, Professor in the
Bangor Theological Seminary, expresses his
concurrence with the certificate heretofore
given, from the officials of that city.

Maine a Crucial Test, 371

"The pastors of Free Baptist churches in various
parts of Maine, assembled at a Denominational Con-
vention in Portland in 1872, unanimously agreed to
a declaration 'That the liquor traffic is very greatly
diminished under the repressive power of the Maine
Law. It can not be one tithe of what it was.* *'

The census of 1870 gives us another glimpse
at what the progressive enforcement of this
law has done for Maine. Thus the number of
persons convicted of crime in i860, is given as
1,215, while in 1870 the number had fallen to
431. So the number of paupers in i860 was
8,946; in 1870, only 4.619.

And the Overseers of the Poor in Portland
in 1872 united in this declaration :

"The favorable effect of this policy is very evident,
particularly in the department of pauperism and
crime. While the population of the city increases,
pauperism and crime diminish, and in the depart-
ment of police the number of arrests and commit-
ments is very much less than formerly."

The editor of the Chicago Advance (the
leading Congregational paper of the West), in
1874 wrote to prominent citizens of Maine for
" their opinion of the efficacy of the Prohibitory
Law, formed from their personal observation of
its working." In publishing their replies in full
the Advance remarked :

372 The State vs. Alcohol.

" Their testimony is shaded according to individual'
acquaintance with the operations of the law, but will
be found to agree for the most part in the main points
of interest'^

Most of the letters were from public men^
whose testimony we have given. The most
discouraging one is from the Rev. John O.
Fiske, D.D., one of the most "conservative''
of men, residing in Bath. This is a sea-faring
community. According to his account, the law
at that time had lax enforcement. He says :

" In the leading hotels the free sale of intoxicating
liquors is notorious, at the same time that the pro-
prietor of one of them has given his bond not to sell
any. I often meet with drunken men in the streets,
and there is no doubt that drinking alcoholic liquors
in places of public sale, as well as private houses, is
very common. What is true of Bath is true of many
other places of equal importance in the State.*'

Yet, he goes on to say :

" The law is all that the best friends of temperance
can desire ; only there is wanting in many places the
needed public sentiment properly to enforce it. In
rnany small country places almost no liquor at all is
sold by the glass ; and this happy condition of things
is attributed, whether with justice or no, I can not
say, to the force of the Prohibitory Law.

" It seems to me to be very well and right to brand
by law, as illegal and criminal, a traffic which is act-

Alaine a Crucial Test. 2il2i

ually disgraceful and exceedingly dangerous. It is
well at any rate to have good laws, and to prohibit
what is so obviously and largely detrimental to the
public interests, even if we can not hope by such legal
prohibition actually and entirely to suppress it. I am
inclined to think that the influence of the law, on the
whole, is decidedly beneficial in helping to. maintain
a proper tone of public sentiment. The sale of
liquors is kept out of sight as an illegal business, and
probably less liquor is sold than would be if our sys-
tem of prohibitory legislation was repealed."

The testimony of clergymen has special sig-
nificance only so far as they are accustomed to
that kind of religious work, which brings them
to the homes of all their people. We close our
evidence, therefore, with a letter from the Rec-
tor of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Port-
land. It is evident that he knows whereof he
affirms :

"Portland, Maine, June \^ 1872.

"My Dear General:— I was surprised to learn
from you that the cause of temperance is damaged in
England by an impression that it has been retarded
here from the Maine Law and similar enactments.

"That the contrary is true I feel sure, and am cer-
tain that it is, within the sphere of my observation
for the past fifteen years.

" Many, in the humble classes of society particu-
larly, have correct views, and form good resolutions,
which they carry out successfully when not solicited
to drink by the open bar.

374

The State vs. Alcohol,

" Mary wives have assured me of the improved
condition of their famiHes through the greater re-
straints put upon their husbands.

'* Families whose homes are in drinking neighbor-
hoods, 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.

" To make this law a still greater blessing all that
is needed is to enforce it as faithfully in the future as
at the present time.

" Truly yours, A. Dalton.

" Hon. Neal Dow."

U. S. OFFICIAL STATISTICS.

The United States Census Report for 1870,
and the last Internal Revenue Report v^hich I
have at hand (1874), supply proof of a different
kind, tending to the same result. Let us com-
pare Maine with two other States under license
laws, one in New England, and the other in the
Middle States, and selected not as the worst of
their class, but as nearly related in population :

Maine

Connecticut .
Maryland . . .

Population.

Distill-
eries.

Brewe-
ries.

Retailers, (a)

626,915

537454
780,894

I

68
43

3

843
3.353
4,285

Liquor Reve-
nue. (3)

% 49.237.77

336,743.49

1,285,700.15

(a) The number in Maine, of course, includes the town agen-
cies.

(b) These sums are the aggregates of all revenue collections
on spirits and fermented liquors, as given in report for 1874, pp,
78, 79.

Maine a Crucial Text, 375

To all this weight of evidence of various
kinds I should have said, until recently, that Mr.
Murray, the British Consul, stands opposed. For
he has been annually writing to his Government
upon the strength of the police reports of Port-
land, which, as it is a seaport town where the
law has been variously and spasmodically en-
forced, show a considerable number of arrests
for drunkenness, that ** the Maine Law is a fail-
ure." But I learn from an English paper that
his report for 1875 contains this important ad-
mission :

" As regards the town and villages there can be no
manner of doubt that the law has been nearly suc-
cessful."

Well, if that were all, the towns and villages,
the homes of the major part of the people, and
the nurseries of all that is ultimately great and
powerful in the cities, were well worth the sav-
ing. But we have seen that the law is not
without beneficent action in the cities.

In view of what has been accomplished since
the testimony above given was obtained, and
of the recent action under the more stringent
penalties of the law of 1877, I shall seem to
our friends in Maine to have made an under-
statement of their present condition ; but the
case will bear it, and I leave it without addition.

^y6 The State vs. Alcohol,

From the testimony we have now adduced,
it would seem that the Committee on the Ju-
diciary of the House of Representatives of the
United States were justified in saying in their
Report upon the Commission of Inquiry, made
in January, 1874, through their chairman, Judge
Poland, as follows :

" For a considerable number of years the general
opinion of those most interested to break up and
suppress the use of intoxicating drinks has been that
the only sure and effectual mode was by prohibiting
their manufacture and sale, and thus cut off the
means of supply of those disposed to drink. In
many of the States such laws have been passed, and
more or less rigidly enforced. That they have ever
been, or ever will be, enforced so strictly that no in-
toxicating liquors will be used, probably no one be-
lieves or expects ; but that their effect has been greatly
to lessen the consumption iyt all the States having such
laws, the committee believe will be conceded by every
candid man living in such States. It is often asserted
that the use of liquor has increased in such States;
but the allegation is uniformly found to come from
persons who are hostile to a prohibitory law."

CHAPTER XXIII.

SECRET DRINKING.

The assertion is frequently made at random,
that the diminution of the open traffic in in-
toxicants under a regime of prohibition is
balanced by an increase of secret indulgence.
The assertion seems to me so reckless and un-
reasonable, that I should hardly think of devot-
ing a chapter to its refutation, had I not found,
by a recent letter from a clergyman of intelli-
gence and candor, that it was possible for him
to query whether, " While public drinking has
been reduced by prohibition, has not secret
drinking been the re-action ? "

I answer, first, that the alleged increase of
secret drinking is entirely supposititious, and
not supported by proof.

But more than this, it is negatived by the
evidence heretofore adduced, showing, by the
internal revenue returns, very greatly reduced
sales in Maine and other' prohibitory Statts.

So also all the evidence adduced to show
under prohibition a diminution of the sequences
of drinkinq^, intemperance, pauperism, and crime

(377)

378 The State vs. Alcohol.

is conclusive proof of the abatement of drinking
itself, whether it be open or secret.

And the result is entirely in accordance with
the reason of the thing. It is not, of course,
intended to deny that, in some individual cases,
the repression of open drinking will be followed
by secret indulgence. But all that is claimed
is that the amount of the latter is not nearly
sufficient to replace the former.

It is necessary, again, to call attention to a
proposition, the truth of which we have already
had occasion to consider.

This is not a case where a natural demand
calls for and creates a supply, but where a
tempting supply creates an unnatural demand.

Nor is drinking generally willful. In the
outset, it is rarely so ; and even among sots
there are a large class who " feel the body of
the death out of which they cry hourly, with
feebler and feebler outcry, to be delivered."

Prohibition, at the least, gains time for the
struggling soul — and time is sometimes victory
for sobriety ; it prevents the " look upon the
wine-cup when it is red," which inflames de-
sire ; it substitutes for the glare and glamour
of a fashionable traffic the ghastly surroundings
and the secrecy of a criminal occupation ; it
lifts up the warning finger of the law to the yet
unfallen, pointing out that this way danger lies.

Secret Drinking, 379

In the ** Editor's Easy Chair " of Harper 5
Monthly for August, 1869, George William
Curtis gives us this suggestive incident :

" A law, even when public sentiment is not exactly
ready for it, if its intention is supported by the public
conscience, if its operation naturally leads to better
order, to greater happiness and lower taxation — has
a certain victory. Unquestionably the Maine law
had it. It was said, indeed, derisively, that a man
could get as much liquor to drink as ever in Maine or
New Hampshire, or wherever this outrageous inquisi-
torial statute prevailed. And so he might, but not
agreeably. * The Easy Chair * proved it upon various
occasions. It proved it on the State of Maine itself.
A vague intimation, consisting of a wink, and a
smile, and a nod, conveyed the possibility of ' getting
a drink ' even in the capital city of the temperate
Commonwealth. Following the wink, like a convict,
the turnkey and the * Easy Chair' passed through the
corridors to a door, which was unlocked ; then down
a narrow staircase into a cellar — and hotel cellars do
not always stimulate the imagination ; then to another
door, which, being duly unlocked, and closed, and re-
locked upon the inside, revealed a dark, dim room — a
cell in a cellar — with half a dozen black bottles and
some cloudy glasses. This cheerful entertainment
was at the pleasure of the convict. The turnkey
pours out a glass of something, and offers it to his
companion. It was better than Father Mathew. * No,
thank you ; not upon these terms.* The turnkey
looked amused. * Wa'al, it isn*t exactly gay ! * and he
swallowed the potion ; and leading the way, furtively

380 The State vs. Alcohol,

opened the door again and locked it ; and the two
revellers, with the jollity of conscious malefactors,
stole back again into the light of day."

Can the force of prejudice go so far as to in-
duce any one to say that a traffic pursued and
hunted down into such quarters as these can
be as dangerous to public virtue or private
morals as the flaunting and fashionable saloons
of New York ?

Drinking follows the same law as that which
governs the prevalence of analogous social
vices. Public tolerance, facility of gratification,
open temptation,* tasteful and enticing acces-

* Upon analogous matters, the daily press of our cities talks
sensibly. Thus the Boston Globe of July 29, 1875, after con-
demning the laxity of the police, says : " It is perhaps not neces-
sary to dwell on the evils which spring from this disgraceful state
of things, and yet people seldom think how great a proportion of
these might be prevented by driving this iniquity into its hiding-
places, and preventing it from coming forth to lure its victims
from among the unwary and comparatively guileless. Few young
men who are worth saving, or are likely to be saved to decency and
virtue, would seek it out if it were kept from sight. But when
it comes forth in gay and alluring colors, it draws after it a pro-
cession of our youth on that path which hath an awful termina-
tion. Nor does the evil which springs from an easy toleration
of the open way in which this vice carries on its traffic of destruc-
tion fall only on men. A sad proportion of these * strange
women ' is made up from shop-girls and those who are not so
infatuated at the start that they would plunge into a life of pros-
titution if it were strictly under the ban and kept widely separated
from the world of decency. But it intrudes itself upon them.
Its temptations and opportunities are before their eyes, and the
way is made easy for their feet to go down to death."

Secret Drinking, 381

sories increase, while the opposite of these di-
minish indulgence.

And this law is generally recognized. The
good sense of our Anglo-Saxon race teaches us
that outlawed vice is much less dangerous to
the public weal than legalized vice. Because
secret prostitution is alarmingly prevalent in
New York, no moralist proposes to license it
as in Paris, or to allow it to advertise itself at
the windows of palatia;l residences, as in some
quarters of European cities. Because behind
barred doors in Boston the gambler shakes his
dice, we do not propose to assign him elegant
and well-lighted apartments on Washington
Street with the coat-of-arms of the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts on a license to be hung
over his doorway. Others have tried the costly
experiment for us of old and of late. I cut this
instructive paragraph from the Boston Evening
Transcript :

** How Licensed Gambling Worked in Louisiana. —
The evil effects of the license system, as applied to
gambling, form a subject for general discussion at pres-
ent, and various papers having alluded to the disas-
trous workings of it in New Orleans, the Louisiana
press hastens to confirm the testimony. The ' speckled *
Legislature, as the Southerners call it, tried the experi-
ment of a license law, but were obliged to repeal it at
the end of a year. Within a month after it was

382 The State vs. Alcohol,

put in force, New Orleans was transformed into a
vast gaming saloon. A local paper speaks of it as
follows :

" '■ Anywhere for half a mile along one of our great
streets a man could stand at a corner and pitch a
rock into half a dozen saloons. Outside were crowds
roping in strangers and the inexperienced ; within
was a dense mass of men and boys, thick clouds of
smoke, a din of balls, dice, and cards, much profanity
and loud talking, a great rattling of glasses, and a
formidable guzzling of villainous and nauseating com-
pounds. The beast of Bengal was fought with fierce
onslaught all night and all day, and the street was in
an everlasting uproar.' "

It may be noticed, finally, that the objection
that forbidding open sale of intoxicants in-
creases private indulgence, applies to laws of
restriction as well as of prohibition, in so far as
in any case they do practically prevent public
sale to any class, at any hour, or upon any day.
This fear of home drinking has been constantly
appealed to in the recent debates upon the
*' Sunday Closing Bill for Ireland." It was
deprecated years ago, as an expected conse-
quence of the Forbes Mackenzie Act in Scot-
land. But the Royal Commissioners' Report
on the Licensing System of Scotland showed
that it was groundless. (I cite an extract as
given in Dr. Lees' " Condensed Argument,"

Secret Drinking, 383

" Evidence was adduced to us from all classes of
persons of the benefits which have arisen. The im-
provement in large towns has been tpwst remarkable.
Whereas, formerly, on Sunday mornings, numbers of
persons in every stage of intoxication were seen issu-
ing from the public-houses, to the great annoyance
of the respectable portion of the population on their
way to church, the streets are now quiet and orderly,

and few cases of drunkenness are seen We did

not obtain any evidence to prove that the practice of
drinking to excess in private houses prevails to a
greater extent among the lower orders now than it
did formerly ; and with regard to * shebeens,* it may
be noticed at present, that to attribute to them any-
thing like the amount of intemperance which the
closing of public-houses has put down, is to ignore
the evidence as to the decrease of Sunday convic-
tions, and the increased regularity of attendance by
the laboring classes at their work on Monday."

And yet it is to be observed that a law which
permits every facility and every temptation for
drinking on six days, and shuts down the dram-
shop on the seventh, only thus aiming, not at
the gradual eradication, but the- arbitrary sup-
pression, of an abnormal appetite, would be the
more likely to induce home drinking.

CHAPTER XXIV.

LAW AS A TEACHER.

" Law and government are the sovereign influence in human so-
ciety ; in the last resort they shape and control it at their pleas-
ure ; institutions depend on them, and are by them formed and
modified ; what they sanction will ever be generally considered
innocent ; what they condemn is thereby made a crime, and if
persisted in, becomes rebellion." — Thomas Arnold, D.D.

I AM aware that the very idea of government
becoming in any sense a school-master is repul-
sive to those who attribute to it no higher func-
tion than that of a policeman to knock on the
head the rascal who is pilfering a purse. But
to most men government has nobler and wider
functions, and is among the beneficent insti-
tutions ordained by the Great Lawgiver for
the promotion of human welfare ; and if human
welfare depends primarily on moral conduct and
character, then government, in the discharge of
its proper duties, should not only frame its laws
so as (to quote Mr. Gladstone) '* to make it as
hard as possible for a man to go wrong, and as
easy as possible for a man to go right," but it is
bound to set before him a true ethical .standard.

Reverence for law is a sentiment of force
among both the lower and the higher classes
of society. Coarser natures are impressed by
(384)

Law as a Teacher, 385

the power it represents and the force which exe-
cutes it ; while the higher feel toward it some-
thing of that chivalric loyalty which found ex-
pression in the well-known sentence of Hooker,
in which he declares of Law as an idea that
"there can be no less acknowledged than that
her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the
harmony of the world ; all things in heaven and
earth do her homage, the very least as feeling
her care and the greatest as not exempted from
her power." The educational influence of the
laws of a country, though silent, is yet constant
and most powerful, because not merely of their
external authority, but because of this strong
instinct of reverence.

Every student of the philosophy of history
has noted how influential have been the laws of
a people in fixing their moral standard. An ex-
pression at first of the high or low state of the
average private conscience, they have re-acted
upon that conscience and served to intensify
and perpetuate the state of mind and heart
which gave them birth.

This idea was forcibly expressed and perti-
nently illustrated by Judge Sprague nearly thirty
years ago in his speech before the committee of
the Massachusetts Legislature :

" It is a profound observation that the morality of
no people can be maintained above the morality of
t7

386 The State vs. Alcohol.

their laws. Their institutions are an index of their
sentiments. Reason, observation, and history, all
teach this. While gambling-houses were licensed in
Paris and New Orleans, that vice could not there be
made disgraceful ; and where prostitution, even, has
been licensed, as in some parts of Europe, it has been
there viewed in a very different light from the abhor-
rence with which we regard it. Where polygamy is
lawful, a plurality of wives is reputable. If we recur
to the history of Rome, we learn that public brothels
were there tolerated with the inscription, ' Hie habitat
felicitas^ glaring upon their front, as may even now
be seen in the ruins of Pompeii ; and at the same time
public exhibitions of mortal combats by gladiators,
and of human victims thrown to wild beasts, were
common amusements of the people. And what was
the effect upon morals and manners ? A combination
of the extremes of luxurious licentiousness and fero-
cious barbarism. The laws of a country may reconcile
public sentiment to crimes, even the most abhorrent
to our nature, to murder itself; nay, to the murder
of one's own offspring. Where infanticide is allowed,
people look on and see parents destroy their own
children, not only without remonstrance, but with-
out emotion."

Our own country supplies a forcible illustra-
tion of the extent to which the influence of a
legal sanction to a moral crime may debase and
deaden the public conscience. Slavery as a
creature of the law was bulwarked by the law.
It rose to the dignity of an institution. Not

Law as a Teacher. 387

only those who were educated under it respect-
ed it, but the men of th» North did it reverence
because of its conformity to law and its protec-
tion by Constitutional guaranties. When Henry
Clay, in the Senate of the United States, at-
tempted to sneer the Abolitionists out of the
arena of debate as visionary fanatics, and im-
patiently exclaimed, " What the law declares to
be property is property ! " it did not shock the
conscience of the average American ; although
to Lord Brougham and his countrymen ** the
doctrine of property in man was a wild and
guilty phantasy." It may well be hard for the
young men of to-day (and it will be still harder
for the young men of to-morrow) to realize
that not a generation ago a system which al-
lowed one man to live upon the compulsory
and unpaid toil of another, and then to eke out
a support for his vices by selling the children
of the man whose life was spent in such toil, or
even his own by a slave-mother, was held to be
anything but infamous. And yet the law which
allowed it so debased public opinion, that the
brave men who attacked it bore the stigma of
infamy rather than those who merited it.
Strange as it may seem, the law was able to
make slavery respectable.

Judge Sprague well adds to what I have
quoted above a most suggestive thought :

388 The State vs. Alcohol.

" Extraordinary efforts or the impulses of a par-
ticular occasion may, for a time, carry up public
sentiment to an elevation above that of legal institu-
tions ; but the laws must either be changed to come
up to public sentiment, or public sentiment will be
brought down to a level with the laws."

The truth of the last remark was painfully
apparent to the earnest men who had awakened
the public conscience and touched the public
heart at the time of the great temperance refor-
mation in this country. Said Dr. Humphrey,
of Amherst College, in 1835:

" It is plain to me, as the sun in a clear summer
sky, that the license laws of our country constitute
one of the main pillars on which the stupendous
fabric of intemperance now rests.'*

In the same year, the honored Frelinghuysen,
of New Jersey, expressed himself thus :

" If men will engage in this destructive traffic, if
they will stoop to degrade their reason and reap the
wages of iniquity, let them no longer have the law-
book as a pillow, nor quiet conscience by the opiate
of a court license."

Dr. Justin Edwards, in his " Sixth Report of
the American Temperance Society," used this
language :

" The point to be decided by Legislatures of these
United States — to be decided for all coming pos-

Law as a Teacher, 389

terity, for the world, and for eternity — is, shall the
sale of ardent spirit as a drink, be treated in legisla-
tion as a virtue or a vice ? Shall it be licensed, sanc-
tioned by law, and perpetuated to roll its all-pervad-
ing curses onward, interminably, or shall it be treated
as it is, in truth, a sin ? "

Let us look a little closer at the educational
work of different laws in relation to the liquor
traffic. License laws carry to the popular
mind the implication that although the traffic in
intoxicants is an exceptional o.ie, requiring
some unusual safeguards, yet that thttre «s a
legitimate public demand for such liquors as an
ordinary beverage, which the State is bound to
allow adequate means to supply. The correla-
tive of regulation by the State is moderate
drinking (or what he imagines to be such) by
the individual.

On the other hand, prohibitory laws as plainly
declare that the sale of intoxicating liquors as a
beverage supplies no legitimate want, and is
fraught with such dire evils to the State as to
justify and require its suppression. What is
so dangerous to the State can hardly be deemed
safe to the citizen ; and the natural * sequence
of prohibition is total abstinence.

• Observe, I say. the natural, not the tncz'itadU ; for on this
point I quite a^ree with Prof. F. W. Newman, who recently wrote
thus to the AUianc* News of England : " 1 think it is full twenty

390 The State vs. Alcohol,

Suppose, instead of license or strict prohibi-
tion, the State adopts some " half-way measure."
If, for instance, under a system of '' local op-
tion," what is criminal in the country becomes
innocent in the city, does it not tend to the con-
fusion of moral distinctions ? Will it not inevit-
ably lead the thoughtless to practically feel, if not
to theoretically believe, that in other things, as
well as in drinking, a different standard of con-
duct is permissible in the one place from that in
the other ? Or suppose the law undertakes to
discriminate between the different kind of alco-
holic beverages, allowing, for instance, the sale
of malt liquors and prohibiting that of distilled
spirits, is there not, plainly, beyond the entice-
ment offered to the use of the beers by their
free public exposure and sale, a most impress-
ive, and, at the same time, as we believe, a
most dangerous advertisement of them by the

years since I heard Lord Harrington (the first nobleman who
joined us) say, ' I Uke a glass of wine, and think it does me good :
and as long as I think so, and can get it legally, I mean to drink
it. But I see that there are tens of thousands whom our drink
traffic, as now conducted, frightfully ruins ; and sooner than let
this go on, I will, when that proves necessary, give up my glass
of wine.' To me the man who so speaks seems not only to be
consistent and sincere, but to have a merit which none can
claim who hold that alcoholic drink is in itself bad for ail men.
The latter class (to whom I belong) make no sacrifice in re-
nouncing drink, and do not renounce it for the sake of others,
but for their own sake."

Law as a Teacher, 391

State itself as harmless beverages ? The force
of these considerations as to the weight which
law his in the popular mind, in matters of opin-
ion and conduct, will be more and more appar-
ent to the reader upon reflection.

It may be that the influence of law in the for-
mation of opinion, and the regulation of human
conduct in matters beyond its domain of positive
rule, is excessive. It is true that a right and
wise-minded man will find a more unerring ex-
ternal and internal standard for the regulation
of his moral belief and conduct than that of
statute law ; but it is a profound remark of
George Eliot that " to judge wisely, I suppose
we must know how things appear to the un-
wise ; that kind of appearance making the
larger part of the world's history."

Soon after the enactment of the present
license law in Massachusetts, I was holding a
term of court, when a deputy sheriff said to me
one morning: " I have just seen a sad sight — a
fellow persuading a reluctant comrade to enter a
grog-shop. * Come along,' said he, * this is
now as respectable a place as any ; the Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts says so.* "

But this immediate application of the statute
law to override moral tastes and convictions, is
the coarser and less dangerous kind of the
educational influence which bad laws exert

392 The State vs. Alcohol.

The greater danger is in the slower and more
insidious influence which such laws exert in
familiarizing us with public vice ; in accustom-
ing us to its public tolerance ; in repressing the
natural force of moral indignation,* and in in-
ducing a faithless acquiescence in the inevitable-
ness of moral evil.

And, on the other hand, it is in accordance
with both philosophy and experience, that the
effect of prohibitory laws should be surely, if
slowly, to discourage the formation of drinking
habits. It is a mistake to suppose that men
often rush into evil courses in a spirit of moral
defiance ; when the State writes ** criminal "
over the doorway of the most elegant drink-
ing-saloon as well as over the lowest grog-
shop ; when it places at the bar of justice the
tempter by the side of his victim, and when it
stamps every package of liquor as a dangerous
beverage, meriting destruction as a public nui-
sance, it has done much to warn the young
and unwary, and to turn their feet aside from
the downward path.

* Even so stem a moralist as Albert Barnes recognizes this.
He says : " An evil always becomes worse by being sustained by

the laws of the land This fact does much to deter others

from opposing the evil, and from endeavoring to turn 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 .^ de-
nounce that as wrong which they affirm to be right." (Sermon
on " The Throne of Iniquity," p. 4).

Law as a Teacher. 393

As a matter of fact, the influence of such laws
has been recognized, and recognized most
clearly where the law has been most continu-
ously enforced. Hon. William P. Frye, M.C.,
formerly Attorney-General of Maine, says of the
law in that State :

" It h.is gradually created a public sentiment against
both selling and drinking, so that the large majority
of moderate respectable drinkers have become ab-
stainers."

So Governor Dingley, in his testimony be-
fore the Commissioners of the Canadian Par-
liament, declared that ** the influence of the law
as a temperance educator, even when only
partially enforced, was marked."

The Hon. Woodbury Davis, ex-Judge of the
Supreme Court of Maine, testified in this em-
phatic manner before the legislative committee
of Massachusetts in 1867 :

" My opinion has been from the first, and has been
continually strengthened by my observation and per-
sonal connection with the enforcement of the law,
that one of the most valuable results of it is, it has
an effect on« the public sentiment in making it dis-
reputable to drink, and in restraining men from a
practice in which they could not indulge, except by
doing it secretly, which they do not like to do ; and^
17*

394 '^^^ State vs. Alcohol.

therefore, aside from its direct influence, perhaps its
most valuable work was on the point you sug-
gested, making the use of liquor disreputable, and
thereby restraining the young from the habit."
(House Doc. No. 415, p. 734).

CHAPTER XXV.

ENFORCEMENT.

•• Admiral Dupont was once explaining the reason why he failed
to enter Charleston harbor with his fleet of iron-clads. He
gave this reason, and that reason, and the other reason ; and
Farragut remained silent until he had got through, and then
said: 'Ah, Dupont, there was one more reason.' 'What is
that ? ' • Vou didn't beUrue you could do it,' "

The problem of the Enforcement of Prohibi-
tion troubles so many minds, that I ought not
to close this discussion without giving to it
some consideration*

But it is to be noticed at the outset, that iV t's
not a problem peculiar to the policy of prohibit
tion. Frame what laws you will ; as experience
has shown, if they are laws operating in any
way against the liquor traffic, they encounter
at the point of pressure about the same amount
of resistance.

And, beyond this, if we have proved anything
in this argument, it has been that, under equal-
ly favorable conditions, the law of prohibition
has been far better enforced than the law of
license.

Impatient reformers must learn to check

(305)

396 The State vs. Alcohol,

their tendency to think nothing has been ac-
complished till everything has been accom-
plished. There are natural limits to the perfect
execution of any human law ; especially is this
true of. laws which antagonize great pecuniary
interests, and deeply-rooted sensual appetites,
and which may be violated in secrecy. We
may indeed hope for a progressive success in
the execution of these ; but it must be by a
steady, persistent, and patient pressure which
shall not only repress outward acts, but gradr
ually deflect capital from a perilous and wan-
ing market, and eradicate, or at least weaken,
a diseased appetite. Let us take Goethe's
motto : '* Without haste — without rest."

Neither is it always best to be hunting up
new machinery. I remember to have been
very much impressed years ago with the re-
mark of a wise man, when some new ** attach-
ment " to the prohibitory law was under discus-
sion, that ''what was needed, rather, was more
head of water than new machinery." *' There is a
time for all things ; " but there is a pretty con-
stant call for more

WATER POWER.

The time ought to come, and for the safety
of American institutions it must come, when
trhere shall be only a contest over the enact-

Enforcement, 397

ment, and none afterward over the execution
of the laws. But it is not so now. There
may be force enough to keep the law on the
statute book, but not force enough to execute
it, or to execute it firmly. Any weakening of
public opinion, that great power in a republic,
is immediately followed by a relaxation in the
arm of the executive and the judiciary ; the po-
lice are enervated ; prosecuting officers become
timid and compromising ; juries are demoralized,
and courts are weakly lenient. If it requires
moral force to obtain the law, it requires more
to retain it and make it a terror to evil doers.
Every turn of the screw, up to the point of as-
sured conquest, develops new power of resist-
ance. If, therefore, as we have shown, moral
teaching culminates in law, so law in turn neces-
sitates, at least in its struggling stages, stronger
moral teaching for its sust'entation. But in ad-
dition to this, // demands self-sacrificing and
organized political action at the hands of its
friends. Of all expressions of public opinion
that at the ballot-box is the clearest and most
effective.

It is, in turn, an encouraging fact that the
successful enforcement of the law tends to
strengthen public opinion ; and while it awakens
the resistance of its enemies, it arouses the en-
thusiasm of its friends, and develops an interest

398 The State vs, AlcohoL

in those who at first opposed it from theoretical
objections, prejudice, or lack of faith in its prac-
ticability.

MACHINERY.

Wherever and whenever there is a public
opinion developed, which calls for still more
effective machinery to enforce the prohibition
of the liquor traffic, it can be supplied.

The attention of students of Penology, both
in England and America, has of late been
specially attracted to the relations of capital
and crime. Without here entering upon the
general subject, it is apparent at first thought,
how dependent the mass of liquor-sellers are
upon owners of real estate. A lawyer who had
in the course of his life a large experience in
the administration of criminal justice, appeared
some time since before a committee of the
Legislature of Massachusetts, and suggested
that if landlords were made liable for leasing
their premises for unlawful selling, that it would
root out the traffic. He was unaware that the
Legislature had already gone beyond this. By
the statute of 1855 (chap. 465),. not only is the
owner who knowingly lets a tenement for the
unlawful sale of intoxicating liquors, liable to a
fine or imprisonment, but any such use by a
tenant annuls his lease, and gives the landlord

Enforcement. 399

an immediate right of entry, and if after notice
of such use by his tenant he omits to take all
reasonable measures to eject him, he is made
liable as for an original letting. But this law
had slumbered so deeply upori the statute, that
an intelligent lawyer knew not of its life. But
imagine a prosecuting officer and a Grand Jury
having the courage in our large cities to '* due
presentment make " of the offenders against
this statute ! They will do it the very day that
public opinion calls for it. And when these
*• eminently respectable " owners of real estate
are arraigned by the side of the low criminals
whom they aid and abet, a great progress will
be made in the execution of the laws.

The general mode in which the criminal law
seeks to prevent offenses to the State, is by
punishment of the offender ; but in one kind of
misdemeanors, embraced under the extensive
head of nuisance, the law combines remedial
with punitive justice, and after punishing the
offender, removes the offense. The order for
abatement of a nuisance after conviction is fa-
miliar to English and American jurisprudence ;
and the order of abatement is flexible and
adapted to circumstances ; thus, if the evil is
not in the physical thing itself, but in the use of
it, and the latter is separable, that alone is to be
abated. When by the statutes of several States

400 The State vs. Alcohol.

all places kept for the illegal sale of intoxicating
liquors were declared to be common nuisances,
a long step forward was taken which drew after
it many remedies peculiar to the law of nuisance,
the application of which awaits a developed and
aroused public sentiment.

The State of Illinois, which treats unlicensed
dram-shops as common nuisances, has a recent
statute (1874), which provides that ''it shall be
a part of the judgment (in case of conviction)
that the place so kept, shall be shut up and
abated until the keeper shall give bond with
sufficient surety to be approved by the Court,
in the penal sum of one thousand dollars, pay-
able to the people of the State of Illinois, con-
ditional, that he will not sell intoxicating liquors
contrary to the laws of the State." The statute
is drawn crudely, and is capable of evasion, but
it points the way to effective legislation hereafter.

The remedy, by injunction, to stay a flagrant
nuisance until more formal proceedings ripen
into a judgment, is very familiar to the civil
side of our courts, and is not unknown in crim-
inal practice. In the latter case, however, it
must rest upon special statute law. Thus it is
provided in Massachusetts: that ''the Su-
perior Court or a justice thereof, in term time,
or vacation, may, either before or pending a
prosecution for a common nuisance affecting

Enforcement 401

the public health, issue an injunction to stay or
prevent the same until the matter shall be de-
cided by a jury or otherwise ; may enforce such
injunction, according to the course of proceed-
ings in chancery ; and may dissolve the same
when the Court or one of the justices shall think
proper." (General Statutes, chap. 26, sec. 13).
In 1864, a Committee of the Massachusetts
Legislature reported a bill extending these
provisions to liquor nuisances, and in their re-
port they say :

" Certainly few nuisances can be conceived more
prejudicial to the public health than the class under
consideration, and none as injurious to the whole
circle of interests, pecuniary, social, and moral, of the
State. The faithful application of this remedy (by
injunction), antecedent to verdict, and according to
the practice of the Court, to remain till acquittal by
the jury, or other cause shown for its dissolution, will
prove an important practical auxiliary to existing
laws."

The bill which contained this provision
passed both branches of the Legislature ; and
a bill containing the same provision was passed
in the following year; but neither became a
law, both bills being vetoed by Governor
Andrew on the ground of other provisions
which he deemed objectionable.

Such exercise of the preventive jurisdiction

402 The State vs. Alcohol,

of- the courts is not attended with the delays
and uncertainties which are often inseparable
from the punitive. The right to a technically
faultless complaint or indictment, to a trial by
jury, to the revision of the highest judicial
tribunal of every trivial question of law, are all
secured to a defendant before he can be pun-
ished; but when the question is presented of
protection against a continuing nuisance, the
State may step in with a prompt and vigorous
hand and arrest the evil pendente lite ; and
any violation of an injunction is a contempt of
court, to be speedily disposed of by the mag-
istrate.

ENGINEERS.

It is a truism to say that after you have secured
an adequate motive power, and obtained the most
approved machinery, you must have for success
not only a competent, but a well-disposed en-
gineer. And where the result is encouraging
in one quarter, and discouraging in others, is it
not well to look to the engineer? Wendell
Phillips put this felicitously some years since :

" Boston has five or six trains of railroads

All of them run locomotives where they wish to.
Suppose that, on the Fitchburg Railroad, one loco-
motive, for a year, never got further than Groton,
what do you think the directors of that road would

Enforctment. 403

do ? Would they take up the rails beyond GrotDn,
or would they turn out the engineer? There is a law
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts thoroughly
executed in every county but ours, and here the men
appointed to execute it not only do not want to, but
you can not expect them to. They were elected not
to execute it, and they say they caft't execute it.
Shall we take up the rails, or change the engineer?
Which ? '•

When will men learn to conduct philanthropic
politics with the same good sense with which
they conduct their business affairs ? What man
of sense would expect a difficult business to
prosper if its management were confided to a
superintendent who had no faith in its desig-
nated modes, or who was in the pay or interest
of parties who had a direct pecuniary interest in
its failure ? And yet, over and over again the
friends of temperance have struggled strenuous-
ly to obtain the law of prohibition, and have
then entrusted its execution to men who had no
faith in it, to men who would be glad to see it
fail, and to men who had an eye to the liquor
vote. And so here again we come upon the
necessity of organized political action. The
officers who are to enforce the law against
strong, antagonistic pressure, must feel no di-
vided allegiance ; they must be men elected io
do iL

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE OUTLOOK.

'* The ultimate issue of the struggle is certain. If any one doubts
the general preponderance of good over evil in human nature,
he has only to study the history of moral crusades. The en-
thusiastic energy and self-devotion with which a great moral
cause inspires its soldiers always have prevailed, and always
will prevail, over any amount of self-interest or material power
arrayed on the other side." — Prof. Goldwin Smith.

And here our discussion of the problem is
brought to its natural close. We have sought
to show that the Liquor Traffic is the enemy of
the State and a foe to all the objects for which
the State exists ; that it requires the interven-
tion of law, and that moral suasion, educational
and religious instrumentalities, are all inade-
quate without the aid of legislation ; that it is
within the legitimate province of law and the
rightful sphere of government to interfere with
it to whatever extent the public good demands ;
that attempts at its regulation have proved fail-
ures, and of necessity always will ; that distinc-
tions in the law as to different alcoholic beverages
have proved impracticable, unwise, and unsafe ;
and that society can be adequately protected
only by the suppression of all ; that prohibition
(404)

The Outlook.

405

has proved a success in proportion to the thor-
oughness and persistency of its enforcement;
and that the law itself has been a pervasive
and persuasive moral teacher.

It can not be denied that many, who will ad-
mit the force of the argument, are yet distrust-
ful as to the practicability of securing such legisla-
tion. They are appalled at the power of the traf-
fic. They see that it has uncounted wealth at its
command ; that it is organized and unscrupu-
lous ; that it has the support of a fierce appe-
tite behind it and the alliance of every evil lust ;
that it is able to bribe or intimidate the great
political parties. All this is true ; but still it is
not to be the final victor. It has all the ele-
mental moral forces of the human race against
it, and though their working be slow, and their
rate of progress dependent on human energy
and fidelity, the ultimate result is as certain as
the action of the law of gravity in the material
universe.

Wealth may be against us ; rank may affect
to despise us ; but the light whose dawn makes a
new morning in the world rarely shines from pal-
ace or crown, but from the manger and the cross.

Before the aroused conscience of the people,
wielding the indomitable will of a State, the min-
isters to vice, the tempters of innocence, the de-
stroyers of soul and body shall go down forever.

4o6 The State vs. Alcohol.

I speak of the future day of triumph ; I do
not underrate the severity of the struggle. I
would not ignore the years of hard toil and per-
severing effort that lie between us and it.

Meantime, what better can be done than to
fight the battle openly, courageously, persist-
ently, and upon a basis of principle ? Such a
contest is the most effective mode of educating
the people. Such a contest is a process of self-
education in some of the noblest traits of man-
hood— trust in Divine Providence, faith in hu-
manity, courage, fidelity, philanthropy. By one
of those grand and beautiful laws of** the Spirit-
ual Harvest" which God has established, he who
works for others, works most truly for himself.

We have sought to follow the discussion of
our subject in these pages calmly and dispas-
sionately, suppressing emotion, and appealing
rather to logical conviction than to the moral
sympathies ; but if we are right in the con-
clusions to which we have arrived, the heart
may well arise at the thought that in working
for the suppression of the- liquor traffic we are
in that grand line of effort for the development
of humanity which seeks to set forth the glory
of God by the moral elevation of His children.
Such a work is the noblest characteristic of our
Christian civilization.

BINDING SECT. JUL 9 - 1968