Personal Liberty | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 3, 1882

"Personal Liberty."

The German Saloon Keepers' Association, a "personal liberty" affair, introduced into the City Council of Chicago the following measures. Of course, as the saloon element governs that city, it was adopted:—

"Any person being a minor and in the habit of getting intoxicated, or who shall purchase or in any manner obtain for his or her personal use any intoxicating liquors in any licensed saloon or grocery, shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum not exceeding $25 for the first offense, and in a sum not less than $25 nor more than $100 for every following offense.

"Any person being a minor who shall play with dice, dominos, cards, balls, or other articles used in games in any saloon, or grocery, room, or place where intoxicating liquors are sold, shall, upon conviction, be subjected to a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $100 for each offense.

"Any person who, being a minor, shall obtain from the proprietor of any saloon or grocery, or from his or her agents or servants, any intoxicating liquors, under the false pretense of being of age, shall, upon conviction, be fined for each offense in a sum not less than $50."

There is a very large-sized colored gentleman in "dis yere wood-pile." The first object is to prevent drunkards and minors from testifying against saloon-keepers, knowing as they do that it means for them arrest and fines at the hands of the saloon-keepers, in retaliation. It is a law inducing perjury, and protection to saloon-keepers from their victims. The second object is to retaliate upon that very efficient organization, the Citizens' League, whose province is the protection of minors, as under such a law parents could not prosecute saloon-keepers without subjecting their own children to a fine of from $10 to $100.

The Daily News calls it an "infamous" ordinance, and declares as follows:—

"The Saloon-Keepers' Association is an institution for the promotion of whisky-drinking and gambling. It plays a prominent part in the politics of the city. Its principal aim is to elect a sufficient number of aldermen to control the city council, and consequently municipal legislation, in its interest. In fact, a majority of the council are generally its paid agents. They propose a Draconian municipal code, not directed at the real offenders against morals, but against the victims of such offenders. They design to punish, not those who prey upon youth, innocence, and virtue, but the youthful, the innocent, and the virtuous themselves. It is one of the most perfect exhibitions of a law for the benefit of the wolf as against the lamb that can possibly be conceived."—Morning and Day of Reform*.