Temperance Law and the Ballot by Wisconsin Temperance Journal

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1882

Temperance Law and the Ballot

By Wisconsin Temperance Journal

"You can't make temperance by law," cries the rum-seller.

Well, you can't set broken legs by law; but you pass laws requiring streets and sidewalks to be passable without danger, in order that no legs may be broken, and by throwing this protection around her citizens the State does a better service than she could by erecting a hospital in which to mend broken bones. The prohibitory law makes the streets safe. Whether the State will license or prohibit temptation is the question which has been carried into politics. That question can only be settled at the ballot box, because laws are made by men elected by votes.—Wisconsin Temperance Journal.