Health and Temperance by C. P. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 21.

Health and Temperance.

By C. P. B.

PROHIBITION IN IOWA.

Such is the title of an editorial in one of the Oakland dailies, which we quote in full for the sake of calling attention to some serious defects in the writer's logic. The article is as follows:—

“The letter written by Internal Revenue Collector Webster, of the Northern district of Iowa, to B. F. Wright, ‘the father of the prohibitory amendment’ in that State, is a sock-dologer, and no mistake, exclaims the Omaha Herald. He shows first that in his district (about half of Iowa) there are 1,500 licensed liquor sellers—a remarkable showing in a State where prohibition has been the law for a period of so many years. He shows that in Mr. Wright's own county the federal government has found it necessary to prosecute nine liquor dealers who had sold without a license, and in Fayette County (Governor Larrabee's home) the federal authorities had secured forty-nine convictions of unlicensed liquor sellers. And finally he makes this sweeping and incontrovertible statement in direct challenge of the utterances of Governor Larrabee, made with such bad taste before the Nebraska Legislature:—

“‘Governor Larrabee was not correct when he stated to a Nebraska audience that prohibition was enforced in 85 of the 99 counties of Iowa. On the contrary, there is not a county in this district nor a town of 300 inhabitants or over, for which retail liquor dealers' licenses have not been issued, and in every county the number of licenses issued, when taken together with the number of bootleggers convicted, indicates an increase in the number of dealers as compared with the number in existence before the prohibitory law took effect.’”

“Collector Webster is an official authority whose relations with the liquor traffic are direct. His statements are based upon the records of his office, and there is no going behind such returns. His statements furnish indubitable proof of the claim repeatedly made that Iowa is worse off under prohibition than it was before that fanaticism was engrafted upon its laws. Prohibition does not prohibit. It never has; it never will. You cannot reform men from their vices by legislative enactment. You cannot enforce a law which the sentiment of a community will not sustain. You cannot control the liquor traffic by prohibiting it, because the ban will be disregarded.”

It is true that you cannot reform men by legislative enactment, but it is also true that the prime object of prohibition is not the reformation of drunkards. It is probably true that there never will be a time when there will not be some men in every community who will drink intoxicating liquors. But that fact does not prove that prohibition is a failure. The object of prohibition is to outlaw the traffic in intoxicating beverages and prevent men from systematically tempting men to drink, thus dragging down to ruin thousands of their fellow-beings for gain.

It may be true, as Mr. Webster asserts, that the Government now issues more licenses in Iowa than formerly, but that is very far from proving that there is any more, or as much, liquor sold. Indeed, it is probably the case that the larger number of dealers sell less liquor. No one can for a moment suppose that two men selling in back rooms or in dark cellars and in a secret and hidden manner would sell nearly as much liquor as would one licensed dealer operating openly and above-board, and using all his ingenuity to make his place attractive to all comers.

Open saloons are a constant menace to the safety of boys and young men, who are in danger of being lured into them, and through them to their destruction. Granted for the sake of the argument that every man has the right to drink what and where he pleases, does it follow that they have a right to induce others to drink? If the liquor business is to continue to prosper the supply of topers must be kept up, and we all know that to keep up this supply large numbers of young men and boys who now have no taste for liquor must be educated to drink it. To give this education is part of the work of the open saloon, and it is a part of the work which is almost, if not entirely, stopped when the business is driven into cellars and other secret places.

Prohibition may not absolutely prohibit, but it does make liquor selling too unsafe to be profitable, and it strips it of the garb of respectability which license throws around it, and we would be pleased to see it become general.

C. P. B.