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1653 tost Main Street
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^■^^^
in <^x:>\€
ERRORS
OF
Prohibitionists
BY
JOHN MUDIE
Shorn Ubfwy or
"OOD COF'MANDS U3 TEMPERANCE. YET POUJIS OUT BEFORE
USi EVEN TO PR0F08BNBSS, ALL DESIRABLE THINGS, AND OIVSS
US MINDS THAT CAN WANDER BEYOND ALL UMIT AND SAT,
lETY. WHY, THEN, SHOULD WE AFFECT A RIGOR CONTRARY TO'
THE MANNER OF GOD AND OF NATURE BY ABRIDGING OR SCANT-
ING THOSE MEANS WHICH ARE FOR THE TRIAL OF VIRTUE AN6
THE EXERCISE OF TRUTH."— JA/fam.
KINGSTON
PHMTSD AT TBB DAILY MB'
1902.
I )
CONTENTS.
WvdologlaU Effort *^\
Jttridieal Krrort ' '
ThMlogkal Enron • • . . .
mHoo'tViwrt . . '*
Commeots ' . '«
The WiM of Scripture g
^riefHi»toryol?rohiWtioo *
TiMLevmliaiMchuiettt - . . - - ao
PwWWtion * Failure In Maine «
Licensed Dram Shops in Maine
UnUceosed Groggeries in Maine . . . ,
Ffel^nism in Maine Ji
IHrorcee in Maine . ....
CoEmption in Maine «
,,£riii>e Caused by Prohibition . • - - . to
^Dishonest Legislation ' ' ,'
Self.Righteousness .\.
L^alized Tyranny
Misrepresentrtions .* ^
Exiwgerationa
Extent of the Traffic ''
The Canadian Commissioner's Report - ... . -g
Licenses to Sell ' ^
Coat of Prohibition * * 39
Resume ol Above
Questions for Prohibitionists *
Proper Rule of Conduct - . . . ,
Summary <rf Errors ...
4a
1
ERRORS
OF
Prohibitionists
BY
JOHN MUDE
"GOD COMMANDS US TEMPERANCE, YET POURS OUT BEFORE
US, EVEN TO PROFUSENESS, ALL DESIRABLE THINGS. AND GIVES
US MINDS THAT CAN WANDER BEYOND ALL LIMIT AND SAT-
IETY. WHY, THEN. SHOULD WE AFFECT A RIGOR CONTRARY TO
THE MANNER OF GOD AND OF NATURE BY ABRIDGING OR SCANT-
ING THOSE MEANS WHICH ARE FOR THE TRIAL OF VIRTUE AND
THE EXERCISE OF TRVTH."—Mih,.t.
w
KINGSTON :
PRINTED AT THK DAILY NBWS OPFICB,
1902.
!/
\
I
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Knowledge of truth should do more good than barm. Error
leads towards destruction ; truth leads us to the enjoyment of the
highest good. The Supreme Being is the God of truth ; Christ's
mission on earth, as he told Pilate, was to bear witness unto truth, a
profound teacher says that the enquiry after truth, the knowledge of
truth and belief in ':he efficacy of truth constitute the sovereign good
of human nature and o e of the best of poets says '*Let truth and
falsehood grapple, who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and
open encounter ?" ir. other words, let truth have fair play and it will
assert itself.
By these precepts one is encouraged to withstand prejudice and
to give reasons for believing that attempts to suppress the use of in-
toxicating liquors by means of legislative enactments are based upon
mistakes and not only fail to accomplish their object but give rise to
greater evils than those they are intended to suppress.
While prohibitionists profess to act upon their motto, "Sow the
state knee deep with temperance literature," they draw attention to
the comparative scarcity of either spoken or written replies by claim-
ing that those whom they assail have but little to say for themselves.
There is, therefore, the less need of an apology for the following at-
tempt to show that truth exists on the side which is opposed to their
views.
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
The firit edition o^ this pamphlet was published in the City of
New York in the year 18^9. Although it was exteniively circulated
throughout the United State j, I believe that the accuracy of the
statistics therein contained has nsver be^'* denied As those statis-
tics, then, have received the sanction of acquiescence, I have retained
some of them in this edition, but have added others of more recent
date.
John Mudii.
October, 190a.
ERRORS OF PROHIBITIONISTS.
PHYSIOLOGICAL ERRORS.
The underlying error of Prohibitionists, that error upon which
they build their most plausible reasons for looking to legal means for
the suppression of the liquor traffic, is the view they take of the nature
of intoxicating liquors, and of the effects of those liquors upon the
system of the moderate drinker.
As barley and rye are food, and as the valuable qualities of these
and other grains are extracted by the processes of brewing a^ dis-
tilling, it is reasonable to believe that the liquids into which they are
converted by those processes are likewise food, and that the danger
arising from the drinking of them Hes, not in any pernicious quality
of the liquor, but in the ease with which it may be taken to excess.
It is known that poison destroys the system, that food sustains
it and, therefore, that poison is not food; yet Prohibitionists claim,
without supplying any chemical evidence in favor of their contention,
that in the course of the manufacture of alcoholic, and even of fer-
mented, liquors, such radical changes take place as to deprive those
products of every food property and turn them into poisons. They
try to prove this claim by referring to such instances as that a dog
was killed by the injection of a large quantity of alcohol into its
stomach, and that a man who drank a quart of brandy died on the
spot ; but such instances prove only that alcohol in excess may kill,
not that it is intrinsically a poison.
Life-sustaining oxygen might as easily be proved to be a poison,
for oxygen in excess is as fatal as strychnine. No one doubts that a
violent disturbance of the organic functions may cause death, and it
must be admitted that overdoses of alcohol may cause such disturb-
ances, but such disturbances may be caused by over-doses of solid
food and over-doses of other things, in themselves beneficial.
The argument from excess, then, is valid as to cases of excess
only ; it is worthless as against moderate nse. Prohibitionists over-
look the fact that quantitative difierences produce qualitative differ-
ences* ; that differences in the quantity used produce differences m
•Differences in degree produce differences in kind : ice and steam are the re-
sults of differences in degrees of the temperature of water.
— 7-
the kinds of effect ; and when they say that because an excessive use
of intoxicating liquor may cause death, they are justified in claiming
further that the habitual use of those liquors in smaller quantities, if
sufficiently prolonged, will ultimately be attended by consequences
prejudicial to the human system, we may ask, on what grounds are
they justified? .
It must be on grounds which would justify them in saying that
the poisonous character of oxygen in excessive doses is a fact esta-
blished by science, and the habitual use of smaller quantities will
produce the same result ; therefore refrain from breathing, for oxygen
is a constituent of the air we breathe ; avoid heat, for excess of heat
destroys the organism ; shrink from eating meat, for an excessive use
of meat is fatal : in fact, you must not eat anything, physicians hav-
ing declared that more diseases arise from overeating than from any
other single cause, and what is true of excess is true in a proportion-
ate degree of . moderation. Such reasoning is absurd ; nor can they
name any physician of national reputation who has ever inculcated
their views on this question.* They have made, and still make,
great use of a prize essay which the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter wrote
many years ago on the physiology of temperance ; but the author of
that work was a moderate drinker, and in the same essay there is the
following statement :
" A small quantity of alcoholic liquor, diluted by the fluids al-
ready in the stomach, appears to produce only a quickening of the
circulation and a temporary exaltation of the functional activity of
the organ, as shown by the increase of appetite and digestive power.'*
And in another essay he stated, in effect, that for people who
suffer from defective nutrition a glass of bitter ale taken with the
principal meal of the day does more good and less harm than any
medicine the physician can prescribe, t
Prohibitionists claim the celebrated chemist Liebig, also, as an
ally. They quote with triumph his statement that
"As much flour or meal as can lie on the point of a table-knife is
more nutritious than seven quarts of the best Bavarian beer ;"
but m this instance Liebig used the word "nutritious" in reference
to the nutrition of tissue and not the nutrition of nervous force.
•Sir James Paget, M.D., has pointed out that the opinions of the medical pro-
fession are, by a vast majority, in favor of moderation, as opposed to abstinence ;
and Prof. Berney says that for every raedicat mar. of distinction in favor of total
abstinence he can point to twenty against it.
tSee Scottish RtvUw, No. i, page 24.
— 8—
Let a man be hungry or weary, with but little food and a large
amount of work to do, and then let him try how much assistance he
would get from a pinch of meal, what assistance he would get from
even one glass of beer is well known. Liebig was opposed to total
abstinence, and in one of his works wrote as follows :
" As a restorative, a means of refreshment where the powers of
life are exhausted, of giving animation and energy where man has
to struggle with days of sorrow, as a means of correction and com-
pensation where misproportion occurs in nutrition and the organism
\a deranged in its operations, and as a means of protection against
transient organic disturbances, wine is surpassed by no product of
nature or of art. The quantity of wine consumed on the Rhine by
persons of all ages, without perceptible injury to their mental and
bodily health, is hardly credible. Gout and calculous diseases are
nowhere more rare than in the district of the Rhinegau. In no part
of Germany are apothecaries' establishments less prosperous than in
the rich cities on the Rhine, for there wine is the universal medicine
of the healthy as well as the sick ; it is considered as milk for the
aged."*
It is not contended that spirituous and fermented liquors con-
tain all the necessary food constituents. The body requires nitrogen,
but those liquors do not contain nitrogen,! and hence they alone can-
not support life ; but neither can starch nor oil, and yet each of these
substances is a valuable food ingredient. Some physiologists have
stated that all the alcohol imbibed passes from the system un-
changed ; but further and more skillful experiments have shown that
only a very small quantity of alcohol imbibed remains unchanged,
the greater part being burnt up in the body ; and observations on
people in old age or afflicted with disease, conditions which should
render them peculiarly susceptible to the pernicious effects of poison,
show that life can be supported for a long time on a diet which con-
tains httle but pure spirits and water, the alcohol being food.
Food may be considered under three aspects ; first, it repairs
the waste of tissue consequent on the wear and tear of life ; secondly,
it furnishes fuel for respiration, the main source of animal heat ; and
thirdly, under both of those heads it is the generator of force. Food,
of whatever kind, is iJtimately translated into force. Force, then, is
the end and aim of food. Is more required to prove that alcohol is
food ? Are not all physiologists united in the opinion that alcohol
*L«cturea on Chemistry, page 454.
tCheese being highly nitrogeneous, the English laborer wisely complements bis
bread and beer therewith.
— 9—
gives force ? One of the most eminent of consulting physicians'" pub-
lished a letter to the effect that
"Alcohol, as an element of diet, and when used in moderate quantity,
is a highly economical force generator, a fuel that is fit to burn for
the support of the system without any previous preparation by the
digestive organs, and for the majority of mankind, especially for all
who are engaged either in brain work or in physical work of an ar-
duous character, particularly in such as requires quickness and con-
q/entration, its moderate and reasonable use is highly conducive to
excellence and vigor."
He stated, also,
•• that a teetotaler would probably be capable of more work, or of
work of better quality, it he were to consume less solid food and to
make up for the deficiency by a proper quantity of alcohol, and that
clergymen and others, who abstain for the sake of example, are set-
ting an example which in reality is not a good one."
Upon such strung testimony as we have cited in favor of the
medicinal and the food qualities of beer, of wine and of alcohol it is
clear : first, that those liquois are food and not poison ; secondly,
that use is not the same at abuse.
The ill effects of liquor drinking are caused, then, not by
moderate, but by excessive indulgence. But, say Prohibitionists,
the effect of alcohol is only temporary, and moderate indulgence must
lead to excess.
While replying to this, it must be admitted that the effect is tem-
porary, that moderation oils the hinges of the gate leading to excess,
and that the only absolute safeguard against taking too much liquor
is to take non ; but, at the same time, truth requires the further ad-
mission that every kind of food is only temporary in its effects, and
that to say there is any necessary connectiou between moderation and
excess is to ignore physiology and to deny the accuracy of the ex-
perience of every moderate drinker. Men take their pint of beer or
pint of wine daily for a series of years ; this dose daily produces its
effect ; and if at any time it be increased — if thirst or society induces
them to drink a quart instead of a pint, — they are at once made
aware of the excess. Men drink one or twr cups of tea or coffee at
breakfast with unvirying regularity for a whole life-time; but who
has ever felt the necessity of gradually increasing the amount to
three, four or five cups ? Yet we know what a stimulant tea is : we
know that treble the amount of our daily consumption might induce
'The late Dr. Sir William Jenner, in London Timts of August 14th, 1884.
—10—
paralysis. Why are we not irresistibly led to this fatai excess?
The reason is physiological : the tissue consumed to-day is not the
tissue consumed yesterday ; the nerve particles st' lulated into ac-
tivity to-day will not be living to-morrow when fresh stimulus is ap-
plied. Change, incessant change, is the law of our being, fresh food
renewing fresh tissue for fresh stimulus. Here, agarin, the distinction
between moderation and excess is to be noticed. In the one case the
new tissue will be si'*^ilar to the old, and being similar, will exhibit
similar susceptibility. In the other case there will be imperfect
tissue ; the original conditions of nutrition are so impaired that the
organism does not manifest its former susceptibility, and to get the
old amount of force one must apply an intenser stimulus. What
may be truly claimed is that, although moderation does sometimes
lead to excess, there is no necessity for that sequence, and that a
moderate and proper use of fermented and of spirituous liquors,
especially in our trying American climate, is not injurious, but, on
the contrary, is beneficial.
LEGISLATIVE ERRORS.
Prohibitionists deny that good effects can attend the moderate
use of intoxicating liquors, and they constantly dwell on the bad
effects of excess. In every lecture they deliver, and in every pam-
phlet they issue, it is either declared or assumed that the liquor
traffic is an unqualified evil, one which it is impossible to exaggerate,
and then they claim that it is the duty of the legislature to suppress
the traffic. But to tell us that an evil exists, and to show us the
proper remedy for that evil, are very different things. Admitting,
for the sake of argument, that liquor drinking is the evil Proliibition-
ists say it is, it still remains for them to show us that law can give an
effectual remedy, and a remedy that would be advisable, even if it
could be made eflectual.* Their opinion evidently is that it is the
duty of the Legislature to prohibit everything that is wrong ;t but
just '■' their views as to the effects of moderate drinking are opposed
a • —
ihibitionists make the mistake which logicians call the fallacy of the ig-
noraiio jUnchi, the fallacy which Demosthenes exposed in his reply to iEschines,
when he said of an argument of that orator, diafiaprdvse 7ou Tzpdrfiato^
{"he misses the point ; admitting what he says it does not apply to the question,
f'Probably the jurisprudence of no civilized nation ever attempted so wide a
range of dnties for any of its judicial tribunal* as to try to enforce natural justice.
^Story. Equity, Juris., chap. i.
—11—
' by every good physiologist, so their opinion about legislative inter-
ference on this question is crude and opposed even to the elementary
principles which should guide legislatures in the passing of laws.
An able jurist has said :
•' It is amazing that there should be no other state of life, no
' other occupation, art or science in which some method of instruction
is not looked upon as requisite, except only the science of legislation,
the noblest and most difficult of any. In every system of law, both
of ancient and modern times, in all parts of the world and in all
stages of national development, the primary division of law defines
the nature, functions and /imitations of the governing authority.'"'^
Pi Dhibitionists seem to have yet to learn that a man has a legal
right to do many things that are morally wrong. He has a legal
right to doubt the existence of God ; to indulge in hatred, envy,
avarice and hypocrisy ; to believe in free love, piracy and anarchy,
and to be and do m .ny other things that are morally wrong, so long
as he does no wrong to his fellow-men of which legal cognizance
should be taken ; and the difficulty, frequently, is to determine at
what point and to what extent law should interfere with individual
liberty in order to protect the rights of the public. One guiding prin-
ciple m the solution of this difficulty has been said to Le the distinc-
tion between vices and crimes. A vice may be defined to be a harm
done by a man to himself in the pursuit of a sensual pleasure.
Gluttony and drunkenness are ^ j. A crime may ue defined to be
a wrong or an injury done intentionally by one man to the person or
property of another, without just cause or excuse. Murder and theft
are crimes. Vices do far more harm to the human race than crimes
do. Vices are the parent ot crimes, but men should not punish him
who indulges in vice until he unjustifiably involves another in his
wrong. When hatred shows itself in a personal assault, a punishable
offence has been committed ; but mere hatred, though it incites to
crime, cannot be punished. Every civilized nation legislates against
crimes. No nation has ever successfully legislated agains vice;
that task mnst be left to the conscience, under the teachings of the
Church, and of social influences.!
•Blackstone's Conmentaries.
tSumptuary laws have been enacted in a number of countries without effect.
Augustus attempted by enactments to restore the sanctity of domestic life. Usury
laws have been tried to prevent the high rates of interest which are sometimes re-
quired by the state of the money markets. In the reign of Edward III- there was
I i !•
!J:
— T> —
Prohibitionisti say : You legislate against theft, slavery, forgery,
nuisance^, /rothcls, betting-houses, lotteries, etc., and why should
not the sale of intoxicating liquors be forbidden by law ? Now, with*
out inquiring whether some of these laws do not also infringe im*
properly upon the liberty of the citizen, it may be said that some of
those things legislated against are crimes, and that others partake of
a criminal nature through involving other people in the wrong, and
further, that the question of moderation or excess is not considered
respecting any af them ; that they do not become wrong after a cer-
tain point only, for good conscience indicates that they are wrong in
any degree of indulgence ; but what man, with a properly consti-
tuted mind, can say that it should be made a punishable offence to
drink liquor to a moderate extent or to sell a glass of ale to a person
of known sabriety ? Let us assume that a man is acting under the
advice of his physician, or that he is hungry, weary and thirsty ; he
goes into a saloon and asks for a glass of beer ; it is given to him ;
he drinks it, pays for it, and departs. In this transaction did the
man who supplied the liquor do an intentianal injury to him who
asked for it ? Did the drinker of that glass of liquor do a wrongful
act to him who supplied it j Was he even guilty of a vice towards '
himself? If not, then, in the name of justice, what right has any
legislature to declare that act to be a crime which was a positive
benefit to the person affected ? In calling for legislative aid to carry
out their Draconic ideas, Prohibitionists sanction the despotic
maxim that the sovereign power can do no wrong. They forget that
legislators occupy a position of trust, and that there are reciprocal
duties between governors and tha governed.
As it is the duty of the citizen to obey the law, so it is the duty
of the governing authority to leave the purely moral duties and the
vices of the individual to his own care, so long as he does not ob-
* ide them offensively upon others, and to enact those laws only
iiich tend to promote •' the quiet, the ease and the comfort of the
citizen."*
enacted a statute, which ran as follows: -'Whereas, through the excessive and
over many meats which the people of this realm have used more than elsewhere
many mischiefs have happened by which many evils have occurred to body and
soul : therefore, be it provided that in no house shall more than two meats be
served at dinner or sup()er or more than two kinds of meat in such courae-" All
such laws, however, have always been quietly evaded.
*William Von Hnmboldt.
—13—
"The liberty of the citizen is to be meaiured not hj the form of
the government under whinh he lives, but by the paucity of the re-
straints it imposes upon him." — Herbert Spencer.
"The art of the best government consists in doing a little as m ay
be. Apart from punishment for crime it is better for the people to
be lit alone." — Lao-Tse
•'C reat reforms have consisted in repealing wrong laws and
placing things on the same footing as if legislators had never inter-
fered at M."— Buckle.
"Please govern me as little as possible." — Lord Bramwell.
"With tax moneys extorted from us the governmhnt imposes
upon us a state religion or a system of morals to which we object." —
M. Taine.
John Stuart Mill says :
"There are questions relating to interference with trade which
are essentially questions of liberty, such as the Maine law. The in-
dividual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as
these concern the interest of no person but himself. Advice, in-
struction and persuasion are the only means by which society can
justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct.
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of colleptive
opinion with individual independence, and to find thut limit and
maintain it against encroachment are as indispensable to a good
condition of human affairs as protection against political depotism."
When the Maine law was first enacted, its supporters predicted
for it such glowing success that other nations would speedily be con-
vinced of its merits, and would adopt a like course ; but so far from
any people other than Anglo-Saxon Americans having yet adopted
it, not one man, either in Europe or America, worthy of the name of
statesman, has ever advocated that law. On the contrary, all jurists
and able theologians are united in the opinion that attempts to sup.
press the liquor traffic are not within th'. proper sphere of legislation,
and hence every true statesman, when the proper time arrives, must
take a firm stand against such legislation, but every Prohibitionist,
forsooth, knows more about the science of jurisprudence than the
world's greatest statesmen do, and therefore he is bound to subordi-
nate everything to his one object.
THEOLOGICAL ERRORS.
The strength of prohibition lies in its assumed morality, and
from no other source does it derive such aid as from a host of '.veil.
meaning but ill-advised protestant clergymen, who, on this question,
proclaim the doctrine, picked from the wormholes of by-gone times,
3B
g«*«**^
111!
I Mil
Mil
I ; i!
1 !M
— 14—
that on the questions of faith and morals men should be made good by
secular laws backed by physical force, and those clergymen induce
multitudes to believe that legislation against the liquor traffic is a
necessary adjunct to Christianity ; and that "Prohibition is the Cause
of God." It is pardonable for clerical Prohibitionists not to know
what evils are, and what evils ars not, within the proper sphere of
legislation, for legislation is a science, and but few clergymen have""
any knowledge of that science. It is less pardonable for them not to
know the function of evil and the duty of the Christian respecting it.
Instead of appealing to our sense of duty towards God and our-
selves, to avoid drinking to excess, they say, "Abstain, for the
Legislature has imposed a penalty of fifty dollars for the first
offence, and imprisonment for the second." They thus exhort us to
render unto Caesar the things that are God's, a course which violates
the Divine behest, and tends to destroy the springs of moral action :
yet a proper consideration of the subject leads us to the belief that so
far from lef slative prohibition of the liquor traffic being the cause of
God, that measure is in conflict with His desires on this question,
and therefore must ultimately fail of success. If He had intended
that temptation to do wrong should be annihilated, conld he not have
accomplished that object ? The same reasoning which would banish
intoxicating liquon- would apply to b&nish every kind of templalion
from the world if those moralists had the power to do so, and thereby
men would be reduced from their positien of being like gods, knowing
good and evil, to that of mt 3 automata. So far, then, from intend-
ing that human legislation should put an end to every kind of temp-
tation, God intended that temptation should continue to exist among
men for the trial of their virtue. Possibly, no man was ever better
qualified to instruct us on this theme than John Milton, the author of
the immortal poem "Paradise Lost." His qualifications were founded
on his earnest piety, his great abilities, and the mature consideration
he gave the subject in connection with the composing of his princi-
pal poems. When the Puritans obtained power, in Cromwell's time,
they tried a legislative short-cut to morality by passing a law that no
book should issue from the press until i*^'i teachings were approved of
by a committee appointed for that purpose. That statute seemed to
•It is ihis want of knowledge which hr^s always made hierarchies so oppressive
throueh their attempts to enforce meie moral duties, and those attempts suggest,
fha prayer : May God protect our liberties when the clergy become our legislators
:j it;
ill
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—15—
be needed then more than the prohibition of liquor is with us, for we
are all sufficiently warned of the evils of intemperance ; but in those
times published criticisms, reviews and notices of books were almost
unknown, and therefore the purchaser of a new book might have
been inoculated with its heresy or immorality before he could dis-
cover its objectionable nature ; yet Milton opposed that law in an
eloqusnt pamphlet which he wrote for that purpose. As some of the
arguments he then used arc of equal applicability as against Prohi-
bitionist legislation on the question of the liquor traffic, we give the
following selections from his pamphlet : —
MILTONS VIEWS.
•'How great a virtue is temperance ! how much of moment
throughout one's entire life ; yet God commits the mana' jment of so
great a trust wholly to the care of every grown man. There were
b\it little work left for preaching if law and compulsion should en-
croach upon those things which heretofore were governed only by
exhortation' It was from within the rind of one apple tasted that
the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together,
leaped forth into the world, and perhaps this is the doom that Adam
fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say, of knowing good by
evil. He that can apprehend and consider vice, with all its baits and
seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet pre-
fer that which is truly better— he is the true warfaring Christian. I
cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised, that never
seeks her adversary, but slinks away from the contest. Many there
are who complain of Divine Providence for suffering Adam to trans-
gress. Foolish tongues ! When God gave him reason He gave him
freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing. We ourselv" ; esteem
not that obedience, or love, or gift which is of force ; God, therefore,
left him free ; set before him a provoking object, ever nlmost in his
eyes. It was for him to act aright ; herein consisted his merit,
herein the right ol his reward, the praise of his abstinence. They
are not skillful considerers of human things who think to remove sin
by removing the matter of sin ; for, though some part of it may for
a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all. And
supposing we could expel sin by these means ; look, how much we
thus expel of sin so much we expel of virtue, for the matter of both of
them is the same ; remove that and ye remove both alike. This jus-
tifies the high Providence of God, who, though He commands us
temperance, yet pours out before us, ev^n to profuseness, all desir-
able things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and
satiety. Why, then, should we affect a rigor contrary to the manner
of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means which
are for the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth ? And were I the
chooser, a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times
■iH
iflbiltty, or
ondu'Ct by
supei r to
— 16—
as much the forcible hindrance of evil-doing, for God surely e^eemi
the growth and completing of one virtuous person more th.. a the
restraint of ten vicious."*
COMMENTS.
From these principles it will be seen that morals were in nded
by the Supreme Being to have a domain of their own, where: i the
Light that lighted every man should be his guide ; that thost *ho
invade this domain with harsh legislative interference are guiltv of
unwarrantable usurpation ; that in laboring to enforce such laws hey
are warring against the Divine economy ; that in praying to the All-
wise to make those laws successful they commit the impiety of ask-
ing Him to waive His infinite wisdom in favor of the finite wisdom of
His own mortals ; and that Prohibitionists should either cease I'rom
urging us to pursue the irrational course ol looking t< Ugislatun-
for our reformation from the misuse of liquor, instc
course of relying on our own sense of individual i
they should answer Milton's question and justify
demonstrating that their method of dealing with
the method of God.
THE WINE OF SCRIPTURE
It may be stated in general terms that no one eves doub ted that
the wine mentioned in the Suintures were of an into> .eating k «d mnl
the origin of prohibition, and nothing} lias given the advot-ir (rf tfeat
measure more trouble than the devising of means ^r the rci vti jf
that lion from their path.
It is not likely that the Ancients ever knew how to pre eat (rape
juice from fermenting, or if they did know, wou! ' '^ve car«i iiok
such insipid stuff.
Again, it :s well known that the Greek word o/voc wa* * ^oeric
word denoting fermented lio lor, that this is the word i . ,ugh-
out the Greek version of the New Testament, in every le e m
which the translators have used the word wine in our v«b.w and
consequently it is the word used in the Greek version ol n. John's
narrative of the first miracle ; that the Greek word fieatjto t ^ed in the
same narrative and rendered in our version by the words "well
drunk," implies intoxication ; that fermented wines were at that time
in common use ; that there is nothing in the New Testament pro-
hibiting the moderate use of wi ne, but the contrary, as in the case of
•See Milton's "Areopagitica."
Mr!
'I!'
— »7—
St. Paul's recotnmeudatioq of it to Timothy ; that Christ did not
consider the use of fermented wine to be wrong, otherwise *'He who
was without guiU" would not have lent himself to the semblance of
wrong-doing by making wine for festivity, by using wine as a bever-
age, and by consecrating wine as a sacrament to be celebrated by
Christians throughout all ages without giving it to be clearly under-
stood that such wines were not c' an intoxicating kind.
Now, when iu the face of all this some Prohibitionists can say
that '-there is not a shred of evidence to show that the wine made by
our Saviour contained alcohol, or that He sanctioned the use of that
kind of wine," we are driven to say of them that on this question, at
least, they are proof against reason.
Other Prohibitionists say :
"We admit that Christ sanctioned the nse of intoxicating wine
when on earth ; but il '.e were on earth now nd saw the evil effects
of drink be would approve of our efforts to p.. an end to the evil by
let^islation."
We submit that the effect of this contention is simply to deny
the divine prescience and to give color to the inBdels'*^' assertion
that "every man makes his own God. With them Christ is not the
same yesterday, to-day and forever; but changing with changed
times becomes a Prohibitioni.^t and would appeal to legal force on a
question of morals.
BRIEF HISTORY OF PROHIBITION.
If attempts to suppress the manufacture and sale of intoxicating
liquors could be made successful in any place, that place should be
found in the United States, where it is a fundamenta. democratic doc-
trine that the majority have a right to rule the min^ rity, and where
universal suffrage and the lack of any great, national grievance requir-
ing removal stimulate active minds to search for subjects on which to
legislate. Intemperance in the use of liquors seemed to be peculiarly
adapted for reform by legislative means. Ii was undeniable that
there were cases in which liquor drinking was an evil. It also seemed
clear that if men could not get liquor they could not get drunk, and
that if a law were passed prohibiting the manufacture and the sale of
liquor, and if such a law were vigilantly enforced, it would neces-
sarily succeed in working a reform.
•Voltaire,
/ ,
i' !
—li-
lt was believed to be a Chri. i>a duty to commence and support
such a niovement. At first only a few advocated Prohibition, but
these few became thoroughly versed in the subject, or, at ieaot.in,
their view of it. They were ready with all Ihe arguments, whether
real or fallacious, which told in their own favor. They devoted them-
selves to the work, and, after an agitation which lasted ten years
the State of Maine passed a Prohibitory law in June. 1851.
The example set by Maine arrested attention far and wide. To
millions of people it seemed both possible and desirable to make men
temperate by acts of the Legislature. Eloquent arguments were
multiplied in favor of the attempt, and few arguments were urged
against it. In the year 185a similar laws were passed by the Legis-
latures of the Province of New Brunswick and the States of Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Minnesota. In 1853 the Act
was passed by the State of Mictiigan, and in 1854 similar laws were
passed by the Legislatures of the States of New Hampshire, Mary-
land, Ohio, Connecticut and New York. The late Horatio Seymour,
who was then Governor of the State of New York, vetoed the mea-
sure, but in the same year he was defeated by another candidate who
was favorable to Prohibition, and the Legislatu.e otthat State having
again passed the Act, it became law in 1855. The States of Dela-
ware, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin shortly afterward adopted the
Act.
The following account, taken from Mr. Chubb's Maine Liquor
Law (New York, 1856,) shows the position of the States and Terri-
tories respecting the law in that year :
States where a Prohibitory law is in operation 14
Territories 4
States and Districts where majorities are in favor of the law, but
where it has not not been fully enacted 5
"3
Thirteen States and four Territories not yet known to be in favor
of Prohibition 17
Majority of States and Territories in favor 6
Population. Male Adults. Area Sq. Milei.
Prohibition States 13,522,297 3,641,571 808,000
States not declared on Ihe subject . . 9,577,281 i,499>365 656,105
Excess in favor of Prohibition 3.945,016 2,143,206 i5i>895
The earnestness with which the supporters of the law labored in
the various States to make it successful in suppressing the liquor
tragic has seldom, if ever, been surpassed in any movement.
i !
—19—
Citizens vied with each ether in devising meant for aiding
and tupplenjenting the executive officers who were app minted by law.
Throughout some States voluntary committees of three or more were
selected from among the residents of every school section whose duty
it was to see that thf law was properly enforced within their respec-
tive districts. In other States the assessment rolls were taken, and a
voluntary tax was self-imposed by and upon those who were favor-
able to the law, for the purpose of obtaining funds with which to se-
cure a thorough enforcement. In Vermont, and subsequently in
other States, what is called e di&closure clause was inserted in the
Act, which directed that ary person found intoxicated might be im-
prisoned and be kept in prison until he divulged the name of the man
who supplied him with the liquor. Detectives were employed to dis-
cover and secure the punishment of violators of the Act. The
powerful influence of the pulpit, the prayer-meeting, the house-to-
house visitation, societies, lolges, Maine- law orators and temperance
literature were combined throuphout the country to arouse the people
to the '.rthusiastic support of the law and to discourage its opponents.
Glowing accounts were given by Prohibitionists of the success cf
the Act wherever it was in force. They claimed that it caused an in-
creased attendance at church, a better observance of the Sabbath, a
lessening of crime, a greater activity in trade, an'' an improvement of
public health and prosperity. On the other liand, they declared,
truly enough, that the passage of the law was not a treaty of peace,
but a declaration of war. If any man in office ventured to differ from
th'sm, they flooded the State with invectives against him. Withiq a
few months after Governor Seymour had vetoed the .iCt, one Prohi-
bitionist establishment published no less than three tl jsand eight
hundred different "Strictures" upon him for what he had done, and
many of these strictures were of a violent kind. The various epithets
with which party warfare abounds wire intensified and showered upon
him from all parts of the State.
Under the wrought-up excitement, zeal became with many an
unreasoning fanaticism. Physical force was employed. Vigilance
committees entered houses at times to destroy the side-board bars, as
the domestic liquor supplies were called. The jaiL became filled as
they had never been filled before. Every means that human inge-
nuity could suggest were tried, but tried in vain. Violations con-
tinued with discouraging frequency; many Prohibitionists became re-
I ill
! I
luctant to aid in enforcing the Act, and it then became apparent that
the law was even outwardly observed only so long as the people ac-
tively supported it.
In many of those places where most strenuous efforts had been
made to enforce the law, it eventually became such a dead letter,
that, judging from the drinking habits of the people, one would
not have seen reason to believe it had any existence on the statute
books. Public sentiment respecting it gradually changed, until, as
the result, it was repealed in four-fifths of the States which had adopt-
ed it— namely. New York, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, Delaware*
Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and
Rhode Island,— leaving only the three comparatively small, unim-
portant and non-progressive States of Maine, Vermont and New
Hampshire as Prohibition States. An account of the decline of the
agitation would be instructive, but we must limit our references to the
position of the liquor traffic in a few States after many years' experi-
ence under the law.
THE LAW IN MASSACHUSETTS.
In the State of Massachusetts the Maine law was tried under pecu-
liarly favorable circumstances. That State being bounded on the
southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, was bounded in all other directions
by a cluster of other Prohibition States, so that she was almost iso-
lated against the introduction of liquors (except in quantities of not
less than five gallons or in unbroken packages, which quantities,
under Federal authority, were allowed to be imported into any State,
notwithstanding the Maine law was in force under the laws of that
State) ; the citizens of Massachusetts deserve credit for the general
diffusion of education, of public spirit and of temperance principles-
The State enacted the law in 1852. Fifteen years afterwards the evil
effects of Prohibitory legislation became so marked that a joint com-
mittee of the Senate and House of Representatives was appointed
to inquire into the subject and report. The committee sent invi-
tations to the leading citizens of Massachusetts to come before it
and testify to the working of the law in their respective localities.
In response to the invitations, 183 prominent citizens went before
the committee; of this number, 108 condemned the Prohibition
law in the strongest terms. Among those who gave evidence against
the law were thirty-four ministers of the Gospel, all of whom, with
rare unanimity, testified to the incrersed drunkenness it had caused
'!!i^
— 21 —
in their respective parishes. In the language of several of these
clergymen, the eflFect of the law had been
"greatly to increase home-drinking and to introduce the tippling habit
to the notice of wives and children."
The Rev. James A. Healy, pastor of a very large Catholic
church, who visited extensively among the poorer classes, said,
"In almost every house they have liquor, and in many places
they sell to others." ^ ^
Among the mpst prominent witnesses were gentlemen who, from
their daily experience during many years, were induced to come for-
ward and testify to the evil effects of Prohibitory legislation. Mayor
Norcross stated that "drunkenness increases;" ex-Mayor Lincoln
said that "the sale of ardent spirits had increased in a greater ratio
than the population had increased." From the cities of Boston,
Cambridge, Lowell, Charlestown, New Bedford, Fall River, Wor-
cester, Lynn, Springfield and Pittsfield came similar evidence given
by Mayors, ex- Mayors and other competent persons. The report
which this committee made gave statistics showing the tendency to
an increase of drunkenness under the Prohibitory law.
Referring to the liquor traffic of Boston, it said :
"It can be safely asserted that, while the number of open places
has undoubtedly been somewhat diminished, all the principal hotels
groceries, restaurants, apothecaries and wholesale liquor dealers sell
openly, and immense and continually increasing numbers of secret
places and clubs have been established ; drunkenness has increased
almost in direct ratio with the closing of public places, and there is
now more of it than at any previous time in the history of the city."
And dealing with general principles, the report states :
"The mere fact that the law tries to prevent men from drinking
arouses m many of them the determination to drink. The fact that
the place is secret takes away the restraint which in more public and
respectable places would keep them within temperate bounds ; the
fact that the business is contraband and liable to interruption,' and
that Its gains are hazardous, tends to drive honest men from it ,'nd to
leave it under the control of dishonest men, who will not scruple to
poison the community with vile adulteration. Let the law cease to
attempt to interfere arbitrarily with what a man shall drink, while
nevertheless placing such regulations as experience has shown to be
necessary over the persons who may make the sale and the time and
the place where the sale shall be made. Let it be regarded as a fact
that the demand on the part of those who desire, wisely or unwisely to
use liquor as a beverage has always been met and always will be met
by men who will sell either under the law or in defiance of the law
and that wise legislation should recognize and act upon this fact." *
m
— 22 —
The report closed with the following words:
"As good citizens, whose only interest is to promote the highest
good of the State, we should not be deterred by prejudice, or the
pride of opinion, or the mistaken judgments of good men, from re-
forming in season a law unsound in theory and bad in practice."*
Massachusetts did not act upon the report hastily. Seven more
years passed before the Act was repealed ; but when it was repealed
the value of the information contained in the report was more clearly
seen, for in the city of Boston alone the arrests for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct during the years of Prohitition had averaged
about 18,000 per annum, while under the subsequent license law,
although the popnlation of the city had largely increased, the average
did not rise above 14,000 per annum ; and from a report made to the
Governor of the State for the year ending with November, 1878, we
learn that the arrests for drunkenness in the entire State of Massa-
chusetts during the year 1874 (which was the last year under Prohi-
bition) numbered 28,044 ! and in 1878, with the license law in force,
the number was reduced to 20,659. Such are the facts taught by
Prohibition in the State of Massachusetts, where it existed for twenty
long years.
"Under the constant pressure of Prohibitionists the question
was again submitted to a popular vote in that State in the year 1889.
Six presidents of colleges situated in the State spoke against it,
eighty-eight clergymen and one hundred and twenty-seven physicians
of Boston published protests against it. Opposed by the intelligence
of the State the hydra was effectively crushed by the heavy adverse
majority of 46,000 votes that was cast against it."
PROHIBITION A FAILURE IN MAINE.
What success has Prohibition achieved in the State of Maine,
which Prohibitionists claim to be the successful test State ? A satis-
factory answer to this question requires a knowledge of the mischief
caused by the drinking habits which prevailed in that State before
the Prohibitory law came into force and of the extent of the mischief
caused by those habits as they prevail there at the present time.
No part of the Union was more temperate previous to the pas-
sage of the Prohibitory law than the State of Maine was, except
among her lumbermen. The fact that she was the pioneer State in
•In Switzerland the quantity of intoxicating liquors drunk, in proportion to
population, is enormous, yet a committee appointed by the federal legislature to
consider a remedy reported against the closing of the saloons for reasons similar
to the above.
i IM!
—as-
legislative Prohibition shows that her citizens were devoted to what
they believed to be temperance principles. Even seventy-five years
ago a great number of total abstinence societies existed in Sfaine.
The facihties for getting liquor, and the actual buying and drink-
ing of it, in Maine, are greater at the present time than they were
before the Act came into force. At one fell stroke the so-called Pro-
hibitory law blighted every temperance society, and planted instead a
local liquor agency in every town, willing or unwilling, throughout
the State. The extent to which some of these agencies dispense
liquor was shown at a convention of Prohibitionists held early in
1886 at the town of Saco, in Maine, when statistics were produced
showing that, v ith a population of 6,389, as many as 1 6,000 pre-
scriptions of liquor had been put up at the local liquor agency of that
town during a period of two hundred days.
Besides these local liquor agencies, which are established under
the authority of the law, and of which there are at present twenty,
five throughout the State, there exists in violation of the law a large
number of
LICENSED DRAM SHOPS.
The entire number of places throughout the State of Maine li-
censed to sell intoxicating liquors during the fiscal year which ended
on the 30th day of June, 1901, was 1,479; as this statement that
there were licensed places in a State where, theoretically, no intoxi-
cating liquors are allowed to be sold seems so extraordinary as to
call for an explanation, the following particulars are given:
"By the Revised Statutes of the United States provision is made
for taxing those who are engaged in the sale of liquor. Every person
engaged in selling liquor must register with the collector of his dis-
trict his name, place of residence, and the place where such business
IS carried on. He must pay the fee of $20 for the stamp allowing
him to sell malt liquors only, Or $25 for the stamp allowing him to
sell spirituous and malt liquors. Every collector must keep in a
proper place in his oifice for public inspection an alphabetical list of
the names of all persons who have paid him the tax, and stating the
time when and the place of business for which it was paid. Every
person who sells liquor without having paid the tax is liable to a
penalty of not less than |i,ooo and not more than $5,000, and to be
imprisoned for a period of not less than six months nor more than
two years. Druggists who use liquors in the compounding and
manufacture of medicine only, need not pay the tax. It is further
provided that "the payment of this tax shall not be held to exempt
any person from any penalty or punishment provided by the laws of
!
I ;
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—24—
any State for carrying on the business within such State, or author-
ize the commencement or continuance of such business contrary to
the laws of such State or ot any place where it is prohibited by
municipal law."
The list for the year ending 30th June, 1901, shows that there
were in Maine 1479- licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors, and
with twenty-five local liquor agencies the total number was 1,504,
making one such place for every 446 inhabitants of that State.
UNLICENSED GROGGERIES.
It is seen in the extract from the statute we have quoted that
the only object the vendor of liquor secures in paying the Govern-
ment tax is immunity from the heavy penalties provided against sell-
ing without having paid that tax ; but if a liquor seller pays the tax,
he publishes that fact, together with his name and place of business,
thereby exposing himself in a Prohibitory State to detection and
punishment under the State lav«'. To avoid Scylla he must risk the
danger of Charybdis. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that
many of those who sell liqnor in Prohibition States do so without
paying the tax, and trust to their own vigilance to avoid detection,
and thus escape the penalties imposed by both the Federal and State
laws. * '""-or t^eller knows that by paying the tax he exposes him-
self tocC'V.. 'U under the State laws; he knows also that if he is
detected by tht. Federal officers in selling without having paid the
tax he can then compromise the matter by paying the tax and a
small sum for costs, therefore many sell liquor without having paid
the tax.
Citizens of Portland and of Cumberland County, in which it is
situated, paid for only 258 stamps in the year 1884, although it has
been estimated that during the same year there were three hundred
places in Portland alone m which intoxicating liquors were sold*
Assuming that the number ot unlicensed places in Maine equals the
number that is licensed, we find that over and above the number of
local liquor agencies, there is an average of one such place for every
250 persons throughout the State.
The statistical number of licenses in Ontario for the year 1900
was 3,008, one to every 730 citizens, being a very much less ratio
than Maine has.
The late Dr. Dio Lewis said :
"It has frequently been claimed that the rum traffic is practically
Hi!;
tlili
—as-
dead in the State of Maine. I went to examine. I found many
proofs that the dnnk curse in that St«ite is enormous, i became satis-
fied that, as temptations, the private drinking clubs and other means
of obtammg liquor in Maine are more fascinating and mischievous
than the open saloons."
To show the difficulty of suppressing illicit sales we give the fol-
lowing extract from a letter which was written in Maine by a friend
of temperance, and was published in the New York Daily Herald of
March 21, 1885. The accuracy of the statements contained in this
extract has not been denied ; on the contrary, it was corroborated by
Gail Hamilton in an article published in the North American Re-
view of July, 1885:
"For the past six years the city of Bangor has practically en-
joyed free rum. There are over one hundred places there where
liquors are sold, and no attempt has been made during that time to
enforce the law. The law is a nullity in that city. In Lewiston,
Bath, Augusta and other cities no difficulty is experienced by those
who want to get liquor. In the city of Portland, under General Dow's
own eyes, the liquor traffic flourishes. To illustrate how hard it is
to break up the business, we may state that for five years the Prohi-
bitionists pursued a rum-seller in Portland. They made him pay
fines more than forty times, and then they got him in gaol ; but this
did not break up his business, for his brother took charge of it. Then
they went at him ; and when, after a protracted siege, he was forced
to retire, his brother-in-law took his place, and carries on the business
to-day. Last year there were nearly one thousand prosecutions of
liquor dealers in the State, and although there were nui ijrous con-
victions, the number of grog-shops was not diminished. The situation
does not show that Maine is the Prohibition State she is represented
to be."
The platform adopted by the Prohibition State Convention of
Maine in June, 1886, says :
"In Portland, Bangor, Biddeford, Lewiston, Bath, Hallowell,
and other cities and towns of the State, so far from the impartial en-
forcement of the law being adhered to from principle, the law is en-
forced or not as the personal will of the officer or party exigencies
demand."
In no part of the Union have more earnest and persistent efforts
been made io enforce the Act. General Dow resided in Portland, and
there superintended the working of the law ever since it was originally
enacted, yet in no city of the same size throughout the Union is
drunkenness more prevalent. In the year 1883 this city of 33,810
inhabitants had 1,428 arrests for drunkenness, making one arrest to
Ill
if!
Jiil
iiSl
ii
— a6—
every twenty-four of her 33,810, although the city of Chicago, with
her 600,000 inhabitants and her bad reputation for drunkenness, had
during the same year only about 18,000 arrests for that offence, mak-
ing one arrest to every thirty-three of her 600,000. For the year 1893
Portland had one arrest for drunkenness to every twenty-five of its
citizens. During the same year not one of Canada's nineteen cities
had more than one such arrest to every forty of its citizens.
Lest it be thought that it was on account of the extraordinary
vigilance of the Prohibitionists so many were arrested, we give the
following extract from an address delivered in Portland by the Rev.
Dr. McKeown of that city. He said :
"He thought the city was in a bad way, that it was under the
rule of rum, and that the marshal's order to the effect that the law
against liquor sailing should be executed against those who sold on
Sundays and after ten o'clock at night on other days was virtually
saying that the law might be violated with impunity at other times.
It seemed to him that arrests for the violation of the law had well-
nigh ceased to be made by the police. He asked whether, when
drunkards wire reeling through our streets and intemperance swept
the city, if the church should be silent."
During the summer of 1886 th clergymen of Portland petitioned
the council of that city to compel uie saloons to close their bars on
Sundays. Such is the condition of the temperance cause in the city
which was and always had been the home of the author and Com-
manding-General of Prohibition.
About the same time that this petition was presented, the Prohi-
bition candidate for the governorship of Maine said in his speech
accepting his nomination :
"It is high time that something should be done in this State to
put down the liquor traffic."
And in supporting this candidate, General Dow said :
J'The volume of the liquor traffic has not been at all reduced
within the last twenty years. In every city in Maine, except Port-
land, the law has been and is absolutely ignored."
A volume of similar evidence might be furnished ; but enough
has been given to show that, although Maine was a temperate State
before the prohibitory law was enacted, it has sinae that time become
a more intemperate State.
111!.
—37—
PAGANISM IN MAINE.
Prohibitionists claim that their law banishes drunkenness, crime
and poverty and promotes happiness both spiritual and temporal,
but the historical facts are against that claim on all of those points-
To know what influence that law has upon the welfare of a State
we must know what it has done for the individual families of that
State.
In the twenty-nine years, from 1851 to 1880, the iat endance at
the schools in Maine declined more than 21,000, although the popu-
lation somewhat increased during that time.
In an article in The Forum for June, 1892, on "Impendinf;
Paganism," written by President Hyde, of Bowdoin College, Maine,
it is stated that "Statistics recently gathered by the Maine Bible
Society" show that Waldo county, Maine, has 6,987 families ; of this
number 4,850 families report themselves as not attending any church.
Oxford county contains 7,288 families, of which 4,577 repeat that
they do not attend any church. There are sixteen counties i.i Maine.
The combined statistics of fifteen counties show that of 133,445 fami-
lies 67,842 (more than one-half) do not attend any church.
From these facts it is seen that the spiritual condition of the
families of Maine does not speak well for prohibition, nor does their
temporal condition.
DIVORCES IN MAINE.
"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey." when the parents of
the family become a house divided against itself, and in that respect
Maine has a very bad record. Between the years 1867 and 1886
there were 8,412 divorces granted in the State of Maine, and in 960
cases of that number "Habitual Drunkenness" was either the sole
ground or one of the grounds of the application.
According to the United States census for the ten years pre-
vious to 1880 the prohibitionist State of New Hampshire had the pro-
portion of one divorce to every ninth marriage, being the highest
ratio of any State in the Union, but according to the United States
census for the ten years previous to 1890 Maine outdid New Hamp-
shire and every other State of the Union by having the high propor-
tion of one decree of divorce to every eighth marriage. Catholics
number nearly twenty-five per cent, of the population, and whatever
provocations they may have very few applications for divorce are
made by them.
I
— i8-
divJl!*!*^ had applied a. (rcely as the Protestants did the ratio of
divorce, to marriages would have been still greater than it was and
when .t .3 considered that there was a large^umber of uLuccU^rul
CORRUPTION IN MAINE.
♦K ^^'^'V ^°^*«''««d before the Canadian Royal Commission that
the Repubhcan party (which has been dominant in ZneJor ma„v
years) made tins law a political football. That the demTcraVic par"v
thmg to expect from either party. Continuing he said :
witho"u?bdnV.fy,*'''fi T"-^'^ ^''" '°"^'^^*^ «'g^'* different times
wittiout bemg either fined or imprisoned once, (i)
Sen J^ "^"""'^-ble Charles F. Libby. ex-President of the State
n%"::;kSid?'"°^'^"'' ^-^^^^ '- ^-^ p— ^-^ --"
greatl J^'co?rZ!o^ ''^rZ"'''^ '" "''''"" ^°' ^"^^^ that it tends
Another witness said :
MaineT- ' (PJ^'^'^'^^-'y ^^^ ^as lowered the standard of truth in
An eminent clergyman said :
sherifflnH nffi!i •^''°'^" ^^"^ ^i'"^P*' °ffi<=''«^s ^ro^n high to low. Every
Shrl -Sf' ^^ connected with it whom I have known has afcen7
ed bribes. The men selling liquor were levied on f^.hX ^^^^P*!
so much a we ek or month.'* (4) " /°' ''"^" ^"'^ P^'^
agitate for the repeal of that law is a mySery '" '""'"" ^"'^ y«' "°'
(2) Pages 318 and 325 s.<ime volume.
(3) Page 325 same volume.
(4) Page 330 of same volume.
I :
—29—
CRIME CAUSED BY PROHIBITION.
It ii said that during the early ages music and poetry were in-
troduced among some of the fierce Grecian tribes for the purpose of
taming their savage breasts, and that those refining branches of edu-
cation had the desired effect. Is it not reasonable, then, to suppose
that the discord caused by an unjust and tyrannical law, which for
its enforcement necessitates and fosters espionage, deception, social
hypocrisy and unchristian bitterness throughout the State should
school the peopie in crime ? The records of the State of Maine
answer this question in the affirmative. Irrespective of the liquor
traffic, the number of crimes in that State should have gradually de-
creased during the past thirty-si.\ years, because the floating
and comparatively lawless population of lumbermen has decreased,
boundary lines have become settled, neighbors are better acquainted
with each other, and can better afford to waive their legal rights
without litigation. Yet in Maine, during the 24 years next before the
passing of the Prohibitory law— that ib 11 ^m 1827 to 1851, — there
were only 2,026 persons committed to the State Penitentiary, or an
average of 81 for each year. The record for the next 30 years— that
is, from 1852 to 1882— shows that under Prohibition the large num-
ber or 4,157 persons were committed to the sr.me penitentiary, or an
average of 134 for each year (5). During these 30 years the popula-
lation had increased only one-third of one pei cent, per year. During
the same 30 years criminn' acts of a heinous nature liad increased
over 200 per cent. This increase of crimes, especially crimes of the
most serious nature, arrested the attention of the State Legislature,
and the death penalty (which had previously been abolished) was re-
imposed in 1882 with the expectation that the crime of murder would
be checked ; but the re-imposition of the penalty failed in its object,
for the Attorney-General of that State, in his report for the year, 1894
stated :
"The convictions for murder in the first degree during the year
1884 are in excess of previous years."
During that year 14 men and women had been engaged in mur-
dering their fellow-citizens, and some of these murders were the most
inexcusable of any committed in any State in the Union. The re-
port of the Prison Inspectors of Maine for 1884 states :
(5) In the year 1893 the number of prisoners in jail in Maine was c.86 per
1,000; in the same year the number in the jails of Ontario was only 0.37, , not
one half as many. Page 341 same volume.
—30—
''According to the records of the prisons and Jails of our State, it
will be seen that a large amount of crime has been committed within
the State durinf^ the year. Many theories prevail as to the cause of
crime. We write from personal observation that the principal cause
of crime is lack of good home influence and education."
This lack of good home influence in Maine, I say, comes of the
reliance her citizens have long placed on the broken reed of external
enactments ; of looking to the Legislature to do for them what every
man ought to do for himself; of letting the fear of harsh legal meas-
ures supplant the pleasure-giving and refining source/of moral action,
and thereby destroying domestic and social happiness, blunting the
mental preception of right and wrong and brutalizing the people. If
Prohibitionists refuse to except this explanation as a solution of the
the difflcu y of accounting for the increase of paganism, of divorces
and of crimes in Maine, we submit that they are thrown into a dilem-
ma, for then they must admit either that liquor drinking does not in-
stigate from three-fourths to nine-tenths of all kinds of wickedness, as
they hav- hitherto asserted, or they must admit that the increase of
demoralization is caused by the increase of liquor drinking in that
Prohibition State.
DISHONEST LEGISLATION.
Every agitation for the supression of the liquor traffic is support-
ed by numbers of men who have the reputation of being honest, who
would scorn to lay a finger on the property of others for their own
purposes, and yet actively support the passing and enforcing of a law
which deprives many citizens of their occupations and destroys the
value of their property without providing any compensation for their
losses, With us the time is out of joint on this question. When a
local option or permissive bill was before the British Parliament,
that honest Quaker, John Bright, opposed it, and subsequently, at ^
temperance gathering, he gave the following as the reasons for his
opposition : —
"In the cities of Manchester and Birmingham, for instance, there
are about 4,000 houses connected with the sale of intoxicating
drmks. I may say, without being perfectly accurats, that thes.
4,000 houses are occupied by something like 4,000 persons and
families, but in the bill which was before ParUament there was
no consideration of tlie interests of those 4.000 families, th«fe
was no valuation provided for, there was no compensation
ofiered or suggested, tlie plan was too much of what you might call
root-and-branch reform. The publicans and licensed victualers, where-
ever you got a majority, were to be exterminated as if they were vermin.
Now, I don't think a poiicy of this kind in any country — I am sure
not in this country when it is fairly examined — will be thought to be
statesmanlike or just. I am against dealing with a question of this
nature, affecting the interest of so many people, by what may be
called a whirlwind on a calm dav, or by conduct that is fit only for a
revolution. 1 should like to deal with it in a more just and what I
call a more statesmanlike, manner, according to the legislation that
becomes an intelligent people in a tranquil time. Well, now, these
are grounds ^bich presented themselves to my mind so strongly that,
while wishing success to all reasonable efforts for promoting temper-
ance, I was unable to support that bill."
To what extent have we acted upon a like sense of justice ? Of
the many states that have enacted prohibitory laws, and of the many
provinces where local option has prevailed, not one has ever made the
sightest provision for giving compensation.
This flagrant conduct Prohibitionists try to justify by various
untenable arguments. They say they carry the law by a majority,
and the majority must rule. But it may be answered that there are
rights, such as rights of life and limb, the rights of conscience and of
liberty, which no majority, however great it may be, has a right to
invade without a just cause for so doing, nor, in the case of property,
without making good the loss.
They say the rights of the individual must give way to the rights
of society. But society is composed of individuals, and if one man's
property can be rendered valueless without compensation, through a
law enacted by his fellow- citizens on the pretext of the good of society,
another man's property could also be rendered valueless on a similar
pretext, and the question might ultimately arise as to what man's
property is safe from socialistic and anarchial principles.
They say :
"We have not enacted the law without giving fair warning ; those en-
gaged in the liquor trade have known for years what they might ex-
pect, and they should have gone out oi the business long ago."
But it may be asked : Are people to govern themselves by what
nay or may not occur on the supposition that there is no doubt that
it will occur, and could they, even if they knew that Prohibition would
take place, have taken to some other occupation, or adapted their
property to any other business without great loss ? What would be
thought of the defence of socialists and anarchists if they were to say :
"Land owners and capitalists sufTer no injustice, for we warned
them of what was coming."
—3a—
They My they are justified in luppreMing liquor ihopa becauM
they are nuiKances. Nuitancea may be defined to be things which
are injurious to health, or offensive to the sight, smell or hearing, of
the public. Nuisances are repellant, hut the complaint made against
saloonb by Prohibitionists themselves is that they are so attractive
as to render men only too willing to resort thither voluntarily. They
say there is no use trying to reform the drinking habits of some peo-
ple if there is a saloon at hand, for they can't resist the temptation to
to resort thither. To compare saloons to nuisances, then, is false an-
ology ; and even if it were not, justice requires that nuisunces such
as gliie factories, boiler shops and other kinds of business which have
become established in localities where they be.ome nuisances through
increase of population, should not bft abated by law without compen-
sation to the proprietors.
They refer to the emancipation of the slaves in the United States
without compensation to their owners as a precedent ; but the aboli-
tion of slavery was a war measure. Slavery was crimminal in depri-
ving human beings of their liberty, without any cause on their part ;
yet the British Government paid tioo.ooo.ooo as compensation to the
slave owners of her distant West Indian Colonies, and if emancipa-
tion had taken place in the United States during a time of peace
thousands of millions of dollars would have been justly paid to the
slave owners by way of compensation.
Let the excuse be what it may, the fact remains, that, although
it is one of the fundamental duties of the Government to protect
every citizen in the enjoyment of his property, and although the
Federal Constitution expressly provides that " no person shall be
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor
shall private property be taken for public use without just compen-
sation," yet hundreds of thousands of people have been deprived of
occupations which throughout all previous history had been recog-
nized and protected by law, and hundreds of millions of dollars
invested in property have been rendered valueless by Prohibitionist
legislation without one dollar of compensation to any one man of that
class whose ruin was fully expected as a direct result of the law. Leg-
islatures are undergoing a moral decadence on this question. Liquor
merchants are treated as if they were outlaws without legal ri(i;hts.
The State of Ohio, having exacted large sums from the liquor dealers
years ago, under authority ot her tirst Scott Act law, which the
—33—
Supremt Court declared to be unconttitutional. refuted to return the
money, or even to enable thoae who had paid to aet off* their claima
affainat the further aumi imposed by her tubeequent liquor Uwa.
Duty called upon her to perform an act of honeaty towards her own
citizens, but she disobeyed the call, although if the same question
had been litigated by one citizen againat another in her courta that
simple ct of Juat ice would have been compelled. Towarda the legis-
lature the eyes of of every intelligent citizen are turned, and, therefore,
if for no other reason, it should set an example of rectitude. If dis-
honesty prevails there what is to b6 looked for among the people ?
Can proper obedience to laws be expected from the governed when
the governing powers whence those laws emanate is itself not in ac-
cord with and even violates, the principles which good laws inculcate ? •
The extent to which such legislation is responsible for the loose ideas
of right and wrong, which are only too prevalent, the AUwise alone
Jcnows ; but that it has a disastrous effect no reasonable man can
doubt.
Hand in hand with the plain devil who causes such conduct goes
the embodiment of
SELFRIGHTEOUSNESS
with which Prohibitionists are imbued. This self righteousness was
' iby Judge Bramwell in his book on drink, as follows :
'here are some opinions entertained as honestly, as strongly,
.1' . : as much thought as the opinions to the contrary, but
v'i. .; I fcvertheless, are put forih in an apologetic way, as if^ those
w-' id them were doing wrong and knew it. This apologetic style
exiiitb in some cases where the opinion entertained is righteous, just,
moral, and in conformity with the practice of all mankind. It exists
where those who hold the contrary opinion say and are permitted by
their opponents to say, 'We are the righteous, the good, the vir-
tuous, and you are the wicked, the bad, the vicious.' This is what
the total abstainers say of themselves and of those who don't agree
with them. As I think my opinion is as good and virtuous as theirs,
with the additioaal merit of being right, I shall state, without asking
pardon for it or for myself, that drink is a good thing, and that the
world would act very foolishly to give it up, for by the pleasure and
utility of its use it does an immense d..al more good than harm."
Archdeacon Farrar took exception to the statement that tee-
totalers say of themselves, "We are the righteous, the good, the vir-
tuous, and you are the wicked, the bad, the vicious," saying :
"I would respectfully ask Lord Bramwell who has ever said
-» ••
this ? Can he out of reams of temperance literature adduce a sinirle
sentence to that effect ? I have never heard anything even distantly
approanhmg such a statement. There is not a single reasonable ad-
vocate of temperance who would not regard so pharisaic and un-
charitable a judgment as perfectly detestable."
But hold, Mr, Faraar ! You are evidently behind the times.
Come to America during a so-called "Temperance campaign," and
you may then listen to Sunday sermons in which Prohibitionists are
styled "the Christians and true moralists," and their opponents are
referred to as "ignorant, mercenary, apostles of Bacchus, sellers of
their birthright, sinners, sots, anti-Christians, devilish," etc. Many
Prohibitionists, relying on this self-righteousness, glory in the repu-
tation they have for powers of abuse towards their opponents. A
clergyman has been heard to begin an oration in favor of Prohi-
bition with the statement that he would give Gospel to the au3ience,
and then follow up that promise with such intemperance of language
and of manner, and by making such misstatements as to justify the
remark that if such principles are Gospel the God of that Gospel is
the devil, and the orator is his prophet.
LEGALIZED TYRANNY.
The object of criminal laws is to deter the evil-disposed, and it
is the care of the qualified legislator to adapt the punishment to the
nature of the oflence. The object of Prohibition is not only to deter
from the drinking of intoxicating liquors, but to put an end to it, and
therefore the penalties are out of all proportion to the nature of
the oflfence. Justice, tempered with mercy, is not a quality of Pro-
hibitory laws. Years ago General Dow stated that the traffic must
be declared to be felonious* before it could be stamped out, and in
every stronghold of Prohibition, from Maine to Kansas, they seem to
approximate to that position. In Maine, at almost every sitting of
the Legislature during the past 50 years, the stringency of the law
has been increased, until the severity of the penalties makes human
nature recoil from aiding in the infliction of them, and thus the
venom of the Act carries its own antidote.
•Like Jack Cade, though with a dififerent object in view, Mr. Dow "would
have made it felony to drink small beer." The ludicrous idea of the poet tends to-
ward becoming a grim reality. When that pass will have arrived, the crisis will
be upon us. Only let some man be executed for the heinous offence of selling a
glass of lager beer, and it will then be for the long-suffering many to agitate for the
suppression of the Prohibitionists.
—35—
In Kansas a physician is not allowed to prescribe wine for his
prostrated patient unless he knows, not that, according to his judg-
ment, it was advisable to do so, but that, as a matter of fact, such
presciption is necessary ; and unless he can prove this on his trial, he
is to be found guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by a fine of from
$ioo to $500, coupled with imprisonment in the county jail for a term
of not less than ten and not more than ninety days.
Kansas has been "educated up" to the point, not only of carry-
ing on a social war of one class of its citizens against another class,
but, by means of legislative brute force, of driving its own officers in-
to the advanced positions of the battle-field, for the same Act pro-
vides that all sheriffs and constables, marshals, police judges and po-
lice officers, having any notice or knowledge of any violations of the
Act, must notify the county attorney of the fact and furnish the names
of all witnesses, within their knowledge, by whom the violation can
be proven ; and in default of such notice to the crown attorney the
penalty is forfeiture of office, coupled with a fine of from $100 to
$10,000. And if any county attorney be notified, it shall be his duty
diligently to prosecute any and all persons so violating the Act, and if
he shall fail, neglect or refuse, faithfully to perform sutih duty, he shall
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall forfeit his
office, be fined |io and upwards, and be imprisoned in the county
jail from ten to ninety days.
The severity of the penalties imposed upon the liquor sellers by
this Kansas Act can be judged of by the sentence of an offending
druggist's clerk to a fine of |ao,8oo, coupled with imprisonment for
the term of seventeen years and four months in the common jail !
The otherwise excellent license law of Ontario violates our sense
of right by declaring the buying and selling of intoxicants after cer-
tain hours to be criminal,* and that if any municipal officer is the of-
fender he shall forfeit his office as if he were a felon of deepest dye, as
the mayor of the capital city of the Dominion did recently. It shows
the striwige mental warp produced by prohibition that no outcry
has caused the erasure from the statute-book of the foul blot which
authorizes such an atrocity to be called justice.
That law merely expresses the spirit which actuates Prohibition-
*The purchase and sale are perfectly legal to within one minute of a certain
hour, but when the clock strikes, presto ! that act has become a crime. Such re-
strictions as to hours of selling were injurious in Wales. See Fortnightly^Rtvitw
for August, 1884, p. 311.
-36-
ists. In low* they assailed the majesty of the law by trying to de-
grade its highest administrators. An attempt was made by a Tem»
perance Alliance, at the instigation of a clergyman, to remove a judge
by impeachment, without stating any more specific act of malfeasance
than that "he has shamefully refused to apply the law directing the
abatement of grog-shops as nuisances." The judge defended himself
from this attack on his judicial integrity, saying : '
"No case was ever presented to me, and probably never to a
court in this district at any time, by any grand jury or any other body,
power or person that sought to execute the abatement provision of
this statute, or upon which a judgment of abatement could, under
any circumstances, have been rendered."
Can justice poise impartial scales where the Legislature and a
portion of the people try to distort the mental vision of le judges and
executive officers by threats of impeachment, of fines, imprisonment
and forfeiture of office ?
MISREPRESENTATIONS.
Mr. Dow claimed that : —
"The people of Maine save at least $12,000,000 in direct cost and an
equal amount in indirect cost, making 124,000,000, saved annually
which but for Prohibition v/ould be spent and lost in strong drink.
This large saving is seen everywhere throughout the State in the vast-
ly improved condition of the people and in the healthy and vigorous
expansion of all our industries."
As this saving should have existed during the last 50 years it should
now amount to $1,200,000,000, and this sum being divided among
the 694,366 inhabitants of that State^every man, woman and child,
should possess money or its equivalent to the amount of $1,728, mak-
ing more by $8,640, for every family of five persons than such family
would have owned but for the Maine law.
As was shown in the first issue of this pamphlet, Maine had at
that time less wealth than any license State of New England had.
In Kansas the Prohibitionists "as the price of their votes" ob-
tained signatures from the Governor of that State and other elective
officers certifying to the correctness of a statement that Prohibition had
increased the population of the State, had done away with the saloons
lowered the taxes, abated drunkenness, crime, &c. That statement
so authenticated was then heralded throughout the United States and
Canada for the purpose of aiding the cause of Prohibition, but was
found by the Canadian Commissioners to have been made on the
principle of doing evil that good may come.*
'See last volnoe, pages 306 to 316.
—37—
EXAGGERATIONS.
Having met Prohibitionists on their own ground, by assuming
that the use of intoxicating liquors is the evil they represent it to be,
it has now been shown that the remedy they advocate is inefiectual,
even where it has been tried under the most favorable conditions.
But it may well be claimed that the evil they fight is greatly exagger- .
ated by them. ,_ . «■ r
Johnson said toBoiwell, that to frighten people about the eiiects of
drunkenness would make a deeper impression upon them than reasoning
with them would, and prohibitionists act in the belief of the same fact.
One of their themes is the adulteration of liquors, and they give it to be
understood that even the simplest and cheapest kinds contain poison-
ingredients. The National Temperance Society once published a
pamphlet called "The History and Mystery of a Glass of \le," in
which it was stated that brewers use strychnia, tobacco, copperas,
coculus, aloes, quassia, bicarbonate of soda, bicarbonate of lime, and
other poisons and drugs in making beer. It is an answer to this
charge to say that the State Board of Health of New York, under,
authority of law, caused 476 samples of malt liquors to be analyzed
during the year 1885, and found all of them to be pure and free from
any deleterious substances whatever.
Exaggerations constitute the greater part of the building materi-
als with which the Prohibitionists work. They say that in Canada
3,000 deaths per year are cause by alcoholism ; one twentieth part of
that number is nearer the actual fact.
What then is the
EXTENT OF THE TRAFFIC.
The following table taken from the London Times shows the
average yearly consumption of spirituous liquors per capita of popu-
lation in various countries in litres, the htre being a little more than
* *!""* • Spirits. Winks. Bbbr.
Litres. Litres. Litres.
P,„H. 8.08 0.29 8.50
£*""* . .. 3.90 1.00 1C.30
?,°-.'!S^;m« 4.79 2.64 31.30
gr-rBSandireund:::::::::.: 539 ^.59 mjo
Au«ri..H«ngary 5g ^22*0 ^.40
^'f°f* .■.■.*.".■;!.'.■.■; 8.08 Unknown 4.65
J""'* ,, 8.44 0.36 11.00
g:?S::;;zohv«;in:::::::::::::::::::::... 3.60 6.90 66.00
-38-
f wffliid ;;.v.v.: v.v.v.v. v.v. ,|» ^.to 199.20
Now, if we are in such a bad way through liquor drinking that
Prohibitionists think it is their duty to rescue us by force in spite of
ourselves, what is to become of the Swiss, who drink about five times
as much spirits per inhabitant as we drink, about two hundred times
as much wine, and four times as much beer also, and yet are free
from any attempt at coercive restraint ? Are we so much less quali-
fied to enjoy liberty of choice than they are ? Then look at the Danes
and Belgians. Those peoples, according to Prohibitionist theories,
should be the most criminal, the most afflicted with insanity and
pauperism, the most degenerate and demoralized, of any people on
ear^h, yet statistics do not verify those theories. We said most, but
we must except the Scotch,* for the Scotch enjoy the bad pre-emin-
ence of being the greatest of whiskey drinkers. The English drink
beer, but the Scotch drink fiery usquebaugh, a liquor which' their an-
cestors, for hundreds of years past, drank ; but that people have not
as yet shown any noticeable signs of physical or of mental degeneracy.
On the contrary, they continue to be noted for their industry, fruga"
lity, self-reliance, intelligence and freedom from crime, and for their
physical and mental powers. Compare with them the Italians, the
Spar: irds or the Portuguese, who are, and whose ancestors for many
centu.'es past continuously were, very temperate, and it will be found
that, besides their temperance, those Italians, Spaniards and Portu-
guese possess but few qualities to render them worthy of comparison
with the Scotch.
THE CANADIAN COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.
In the year 1892, the Dominion Government appointed five well
qualified Commissioners, two of whom were Prohibitionists, to inves-
tigate and report as to the results of Prohibition. These Commis-
sioners made exhaustive inquiries extending over a period of three
years and filled volumes of evidence. They personally visited Prohi-
bition States in order to know the facts, and they found that through-
•According to Piohibitionists. Scotland should be a den full of criminals of
insane people, of .ndolent paupers, and of wretchedness. Do the facVs bear ou
their theory ? If not are we so much less worthy of self-control than the Scotch
that law should regulate us in what we are to drink ? acoicn,
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out the United States Prohibition is a dying cause, elections on the
question of Prohibition having been held in 13 States during the
years 1887 and 1888, out of which number eleven States gave large
majorities adverse to the Act."
The Commission-srs say : —
" The first great reason for the reaction is non-inforcement. 'Where
is Prohibition enforced' has been asked by us repeatedly and the
answer is, 'not in any place efficiently.' The whole trend of the evi-
dence proves only this, that Prohibition prohibits where no one wants
intoxicating liquors, but nowhere else."t
Not one city has ever yet been found in which prohibition ever
became and continued to be successful. The proposed referendum
law aims only at destroying the saloons, but does not attempt to
prevent the bringing of liquors to our homes from beyond the pro-
vince, and as strong liquors are more easily kept good and more rea.
dily handled than malt liquors ate the principal effect of that law
would be "to rob the poor man of his beer" and let him drink whiskey
instead.
LICENSES TO SELL.
To show the facilities for getting intoxicating liquors in all the
Prohibition States as compared with those in the Province of On-
tario the following figures are given. The population of the several
States is taken from the federal census for 1900, but with the excep-
tion of Maine the local liquor agencies, of which there is one in every
town, are not taken into account ; the licenses are for 1901. For
Ontario the population and the number of licenses are for the year
iQOO : , ,
Stat* Licenses. Population. Proportion to Popr^Iatlon,
Maine '. x.504 694.366 ^^f'^T^'
Kansas 5.328 1.469.496 1 o 276 ^
North Dakota 661 .V9.040 J " |"? ..
Iowa 5,528 2,351.829 ^/°409 ..
Vermont 622 343.641 J ° 5'° ..
NewHampshire 1,650 4".588 ' ° "fo
Ontario. ,...3.008 2,167,978 i to 7"
These figures show that in the proportion of licenses to population
Ontario has more restriction than any one of the Prohibition States
•The r^suUs of those elections so paralyzed the Prohibitionists that they hav«
never since entured to try a popular vote in any State ; J»«' " '"j* «»y '^« ^^°^l
Act was swept out of Ontario has so paralyzed its advocates that this law is now »
dead letter among our statutes.
tSee Commissioner's Report last volume, pages 485 and 486,
— 40-
has, and beyond doubt the contrast is still greater in respect of the
number of unlicensed groggeries.
In Kansas the number of licenses issued for the year 1881, being
theyeai; before Prohibition came into force, was 1,894; ^r ^he year
i88a, being the first year of Prohibition, the number fell to 1,787 ; for
the year 1883 the number arose to 2,150, and has increased from year
to year until the number is as above stated 5,338.
In 1894 Iowa, without repealing the prohibitory law, passed
another law, which is virtually a high license and local option law.
Is it not a brazen fraud to claim that prohibition is successful ?
COST OF PROHIBITION.
If we were to adopt the Referendum law the loss to the Dominion,
to the Provinces and to the Municipalities would be as follows :
I. The municipalities would lose about $1,600,000 per year, now
received by them as their share of the license fees.
a. The Provincial Govetnment would lose $304,676* annually,
being its share of license fees.
3. The amount derived annually by the Dominion Government
from the excise and customs on liquors is nearly $io,ooo,ooo.f Of
this sum our province contributes at least $3,500,000, and under pro-
hibition this sum would shrink by the sum of $1,000,000 per year.
4. To act honestly our government must compensate those
whose property and occupations would suflFer thereby, and possibly
$30,000,000 should be expended in that way.
5. Prohibitionists admit that their law is of no use unless en-
forced, but to enforce it against smuggling along our very extended
frontierl and against illicit sales and illicit manufacture would require
10,000 detectives, and these at $1 per day for each would cost
$31650,000 annually.
RESUME OF ABOVE.
1. Loss to municipalities f 1,000,000
2. Loss to province i'h^T^
3. Ontario's share of the Dominion loss 300*000
4. Interest on #30,000,000 at 3§ per cent., Ontario 1,000,000
3. Detectives' salaries 3,500,000
. $6,104,676
•This amount was received by the provinces for the year ending 30th June, 1901,
tTbe amount was $9,809,934 for the year 1901.
{Year before last it cost the Dominion Government 137,531.55 in trying to pre-
vent the smuggling of liquors from the tw« small French islands, St. Pierre and
Miquelon, near NewfounUind.
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Making an additional load of $.4 annually upon every family of five
oersons in Ontario. How would Prohibitionists meet this load?
Tuatice would require that they should do so out of their own pockets.
But for past expenditure by our province we have assets to show
in the shape of indispensable public works. Now what assets would
Prohibition have to show ? The answer to ii..s question is that the
assets of Prohibition would be increased drunkenness, corruption
and crime. It may be asserted then that our prohibitionists, both
clerical and lay, are the most dangerous anarchists that ever threat-
ened to destroy the welfare of a people.
QUESTIONS FOR PROHIBITIONISTS.
Do they know : —
1. That the Sciences of Physiology, Jurisprudence and Ethics
are against their law.
2. That Prohibition has uniformly not only failed to prohibit but
has fostered the principles of Anarchy. •
3. That the people of Ontario being verv temperate, liquor drink-
ing among us is not an evil but a benefit.
4 That in our Plebiscite of 1898, every city, that is every centre
of intelligence, gave large majorities against Prohibition.
s That Ihe proposed law would merely prohibit saloons, but
would allow every person to bring all kinds of intoxicants to his
home from beyond the province. •• »u «
6. That this law would be less efficient and more pernicious than
the Scott Act and would speedily be repealed. . „ ^ ,,
7 That the carrying of the Act would illustrate Edmund Burke s
strong objection to democracies that they allow the ignorant to govern
the intelligent.
PROPER RULE OF CONDUCT.
Est modus in rebus sunt certi denique fines quos ultra citraque nequit
consistere rectum. (" There is a rule for conduct ; there are, in fact
certain boundaries, on this side and on that, of which we go astray. )
Such was the golden mean of the ancients. And if the same rule
had always been practiced by us respecting the use of fermented and
spirituous liquors it would have been much bett^ for the welfare of our
citizens. Comparatively few among us use liqu r to excess. The men
com^singthat'few are sufficiently punished by and for that exce^
Theremploy no ooercivemeans to compel others to do as they do. On
—4a—
the contrary their example deters others ; yet the error of this few is
made the pretext by Prohibitionists forgoing to the other extreme, and
applying coercive legislation, not only to remedy that error, but to
commit the greater error of trying to restrain the moderate drinker
also from all use of intoxicating liquors, so that we see this strange
anomaly that no nation is subjected to such impertinent tyranny as we
are on a question of diet wherein every man ought to be his own best
judge, and yet we claim to be the most liberty-loving people on earth.
The Czar of Russia, with all his despotism, would not dare to issue a
ukase embodying such provisions as our Prohibitory liquor laws do,
nor would he attempt to do io on a subject which is so well known by
statesmen to be beyond the proper sphere of legislation.
Legislative attempts to suppress the drinking of intoxicating
liquors are wrong, because such attempts withdraw attention from
the duty of home education, which is the best source of temperance
reform. As the Spartans taught the youth of their country the virtue
of moderation by pointing out the degrading consequences of the ex-
cessive indulgence in liquor, so should children in our time be taught
•elf-control, self-reliance and self-respect, and thus by facing and over-
coming the difficulties they n-set, instead of taking refuge in flight,
they would become qualified to go out into the world and fight the
battle of life without needing grandmotherly legislation for their pro-
tection.
SUMMARY OF ERRORS.
We conclude with the following brief statements :
1. Prohibitionists claim that their law must be successful where
ever the moral sentiment of a large majority of the people is in its
favor ; but even there the self-imposed duty of seeing to its enforce-
ment eventually becomes repulsive, spasmodic, evanescent and fruit-
less as against the natural inclination of men for such stimulants as
intoxicating liquors are.
2. They are not aware of the good effect a proper use of intoxi-
cating liquors has upon the system. They fail to discern the distinc-
tion between use and abuse, and therefore they suffer, and by moral
and physical thuggism cause thousands to suffer, through non-in-
dulgence in such use.
3. In so far as liquor drinking is an evil, they apply a remedy
which the Allwise does not intend should be the proper remedy for
that evil.
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4. By transforming moral duties into legal duties they disobey
the Divine behest that we should no. render unto Caesar the thingi
***** r They destroy the springs of moral action by ruling men from
without, instead «: encouraging them to rule themselves anght from
^"'Txhey declare certain acts to be crimes which natural justice'
and common sense say are not crimes.
7 The tyranny of their laws and violence of their methods pre-
iudice people against Christianity and temperance, and tend to de-
■troy that resnect for all law, without which government itself
becomes impossible.
8 For the sword of the spirit they substitute the baton of the
constable, and like all fanatics when in a minority they are ceaseless
suppliants, when on an equality they are turbulent agitators, and
when in a majority they are relentless tyrants. ^ . ., , ,.
Q They try to suppress the saloons, and thereby incite to the
intr(3uction of liquor into private houses, au- .o the setting up of
club houses for the rich, and low groggeries foj the poor.
10. They cause a decrease in the use of mild liquors, but an
increase in the use of strong liquors.
11. They are at war against the natural rights of man, and try
to deprive us of one of the means of enjoying life.
12. They interfere with the right* of the worthy many in a vam
attempt to benefit a worthless few. , • «
13. They encourage spies and informers and clothe certain offic-
€rs with the powers of depotism. ^. , i ■ u* ^r
14. They favor class legislation, by affecting the legal rights of
the poor more than those of the rich. ,...,„
I s They are dishonest in depriving many of their fellow-citizens
of their occupations, and in depreciating the value of their property
without compensation. . . . , , ^ j • j r *u-
16 They destroy the revenues which had been derived from the
license'fees. and they increase the expenses of administering justice.
17. They cause an increase in taxes and dimmish the means of
DavinK them. ... , „ • ^
18 Instead of that harmonious application of all our energies to
useful industries, which is essential to material progress, they cause
and they indulge in a vast expenditure of time, labor and money to
the sowing of bitter social discord.
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19- They foster political corruption by opposing their outspoken
opponents, however worthy they may be, and by supporting unprin-
cipled politicians, who, for the mere purpose of such support, profess
to be in accord with their views.
ao. They say to candidates for election. If you want to be sue-
ccssful fall down and worship Prohibition, and then they try to defeat
those who despise the fetich god of their idolatry, and hence by sub-
ordinating every political question to their one object, they form a
pernicious excrescence upon the body politic.
ax. Their aim, if successful, would involve 1<ms to that impor-
tant class which is composed of our farmers by destroying to a large
extent the home market for barley, rye, hops, corn, and other cereals,
and also thereby interfering with the rotation of crops, and by lower-
ing the price of certain fruits which are used in the manufacture of
stimulants.
32. They aim at ruining all the manufactures of fermented and
spirituous liquors by closing their breweries and distillerie:, and de-
INciving them and their workmen of their occupations.
33. They aim at injuring our liquor merchants by depriving them
of an extensive trade, depreciating the value of their property, de-
stroying the occupation of thousand? who are jjow engaged in the
traflSc, killing our growing export trade in liquors, and calling into ex-
istence a smuggling import trade, thereby making foreigners rejoice at
our folly in spending enormou^ sums to enforce a law which would
benefit ther^ while it would injure us.
14. Pro 'jition is a foul weed which is grounded in ignorance
and fostered by falsehoods.
25. Under banners with the pretentious legend, "For God and
Home and Native Land," and supported by religion (so-called) we
see hosts of fanatics laboring to subvert the moral economy of God,
to destroy the functions of home education, to iflict upon us im-
mense financial losses, and foster espionage, social hypocrisy, dis-
honesty, corruption, unchristian bitterness, crime and anarchy.
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Ubrary of Canadlattt