Prohibition in Danger

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

Prohibition in Danger

The liquor traffic is one of the adjuncts of King Capital in this country, and, withal, is one of the king’s most powerful ministers. Notwithstanding the efforts at temperance reform, the sale of intoxicants continually increases, and the profits are liberally applied to political purposes. The one purpose of the liquor interest that is most persistently pursued is to undermine prohibition laws. That is the only form of temperance legislation that the traffic really fears. So it is not surprising to find the following item in the Springfield, Mass., Republican: “The new governor of New Hampshire announces the failure of prohibition in that State—such having been the conclusion of the republican convention which nominated him; and the Legislature is expected to take steps looking to the substitution of a high-license, local-option system of regulating the liquor traffic. It might as well, New Hampshire has been even more negligent than Maine and much more than Vermont in enforcing the prohibitory law. In the Maine Legislature the attack on prohibition has been renewed with a noteworthy accession of strength, while the Vermont voters are soon to pass upon the question of accepting a license substitute for the present policy. Here, in these three States, are the last strongholds of prohibition, as they were the earliest, in the whole country, and that policy is at the moment in great danger of being driven from all of them.” It is a great pity.