Sound Reasons for Prohibiting the Liquor Traffic
By W. W. P.
SOME defenders of the liquor traffic give a false interpretation to the whole idea of personal rights (as if it involved the right to injure others), and declare that prohibition is an infringement of such rights. Others misrepresent the attitude of the advocates of prohibition, and loudly berate them for seeking laws which forbid the use of spirituous liquors. Both of these positions are dealt with effectively in the following extracts:— The prohibitionist is by no means satisfied with defending his position with Scriptural or moral weapons. He claims that the community has a complete right to outlaw the liquor traffic, especially the saloon, because the traffic in no way enhances the well-being of the community. It brings no contribution to either life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. The prohibitionist does not aim to forbid the use of alcohol in the arts or as a medicine. Yet we can not ignore the fact that it is rapidly falling into disuse in the sick-room. A physician said to me that he had ceased to prescribe it, except in the crisis of a fever, when he used it as he would a whip to drive a horse through a miry place. One day he noticed that his patient grew bluer and bluer, instead of showing the glow of increased circulation. He watched cases with care, and learned that, though the4pulse became faster under the influence of alcohol, it lost volume and vigor. He prescribed it no more even for a fever. He is one of a growing number in the medical fraternity. The old belief that alcoholic beverages increase for a time mental activity, and add to muscle strength and endurance, is demonstrated to be a gross fallacy. The most careful scientific experiments, especially in Germany, show that even a little weakens the arm, and retards the mind. Employers have learned that the man who takes simply his beer with his meal is less efficient than without it. His eye is less clear, his hand responds more slowly; accidents are more numerous, and his work is less satisfactory in quantity and quality. Corporations are discouraging the use of alcoholic liquors, or forbidding it altogether. It does no good. There is a certain hilarity, resulting from drink, or a temporary stupidity that forgets trouble; but it is safe to say that human happiness is not improved by intoxicants. No one proposes a law forbidding the use of intoxicants. The enemies of prohibition claim that more liquors are consumed under prohibition than under license. If so, personal liberty is not violated by prohibitory laws. Holy Writ assures us that no man liveth unto himself. It is most certain that no man drinketh unto himself. The drink business affects the whole nation. It is the great impoverisher. It receives voraciously, but never gives. Without the least compensation, it absorbs from one billion five hundred million to three hundred billion of the national wealth each year. It is true that money paid over saloon counters for drinks is not burned or buried. But the money is lost to individuals, most of whom can least afford it. The capital invested in the traffic, the time of the men employed, the time lost by drinkers, the lessened energy of brain or muscle of workmen in all walks of life, the loss through drink-caused sickness, the depreciated future value of the state of children whom drink-impoverishment robs of an education, at least one half the cost of criminals, insane, and poor, and other charges beyond enumeration, make a financial indictment against the traffic equal at least to the vast sums just mentioned. Every one would be richer but for this heavy drain on our national resources, and every one has a right to demand the prohibition of the pauperizer.—Rev. Henry Colman, D. D., in the North American Review for March, 1909. By the general concurrence of opinion of every civilized and Christian community, there are few sources of crime and misery to society equal to the dram-shop, where intoxicating liquors, in small quantities, to be drunk at the time, are sold indiscriminately to all parties applying. The statistics of every State show a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor-saloons than to any other source. The sale of such liquors in this way has, therefore, been, at all times, by the courts of every State, considered as the proper subject of legislative regulation. Not only may a license be exacted from the keeper of the saloon before a glass of his liquor can be thus disposed of, but restrictions may be imposed as to the class of persons to whom they may be sold, and the hours of the day and the days of the week on which the saloons may be opened. Their sale in that form may be absolutely prohibited. It is a question of public expediency and public morality, and not of federal law. The police power of the State is fully competent to regulate the business, to mitigate its evils or to suppress it entirely. There is no inherent right in a citizen to sell intoxicating liquors by retail. It is not a privilege of the citizen of the State or of a citizen of the United States. As it is a business attended with danger to the community, it may, as already said, be entirely prohibited, or continued to be permitted under such conditions as will limit to the utmost its evils.—Justice Field of the United States Supreme Court, Crowley Versus Christiansen (137 U. S., 86; 11 Sup. Ct., 13). Those who contend for the existence of the liquor traffic and its protection by law seem to overlook the terrible results which have attended this business. In spite of the statistics of crime, in spite of the ruin of homes and families, and in spite of the wasting of mental and physical vigor, there are some who demand that the manufacturer and the seller of this liquid curse shall be protected in the exercise of their so-called “rights.” We protest against such a perversion of the true idea of personal liberty, and urge the use of all legitimate means for the suppression of the liquor traffic. W. W. P.