The High-License Delusion.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
THE following we find credited to the San Francisco Alta:— "The only bulwark so far thrown up against the encroachment of prohibition is the high license. Prohibition has outlawed beer and wine in Maine, Vermont, Iowa, and Kansas. Wisconsin, with her great brewing interest, has only saved herself by adopting high license. Nebraska, with her enormous distilleries and breweries, has taken the same shelter. Southern States, like Georgia and Texas, have their feet upon the very threshold of prohibition. Will the dealers in California hear and heed in time?" This wail does not sound much as though high license were the grand, desirable thing which many misguided temperance people imagine it to be. There is a large number of influential men in California who are earnestly striving for what they call "high license." Will they hear and heed in time? or will they persist in throwing up this "bulwark against the encroachment of prohibition"? The first thing to do in dealing with the liquor traffic is to determine its character. Is it wholly good and beneficial? or are there some evils connected with it? or is it an unmixed evil? The first question will be universally answered in the negative. No one will claim that there are no dark features to the liquor traffic. Well, then, is it partly good? This must be answered in the affirmative, if it can be shown that the use of liquor has any tendency to make men better, or wiser, or more kind to their families, or wealthier, or that it in any way conduces to their real happiness. Not one of these things can be claimed for it. On the contrary, it is brutalizing and degrading in its tendency; ignorance and poverty everywhere accompany it; and misery of every description is caused by it. The use of liquor is a promoter of vice in every form; and it is safe to say that more murders and suicides result from it than from all other causes combined. It cannot be denied that the use of alcoholic liquors is evil, and only evil, continually. Now what about licensing a traffic that is so unmitigated an evil? What does the word "license" mean? It means liberty. To license the sale of liquor, is to give men full liberty to dispense that which will entail all the evils above enumerated, and thousands more. Why not with just as good reason license murder outright? It will be claimed, of course, that those who sell liquor do not murder anybody. No, they do not directly; but it is well known that what they sell cannot possibly produce any good results, and tends directly to all manner of evil. An apologist will doubtless say that we do not prohibit the sale of fire-arms, and men often buy them with the sole design of committing murder. The case is not a parallel one; for weapons may be, and most commonly are, used for inoffensive purposes. If it were impossible to use them for any other purpose than that of murder, we think there would be a quite general demand for the prohibition of their sale. As it is, we are not championing the sale of fire-arms. Even if fire-arms were also an unmitigated evil, the question of their sale would have no bearing on the liquor traffic; for the existence of one evil is no just reason for the existence of another. But the friends of license say we must not consider it as a permission, but as a tax. That is a distinction with no difference. We must consider it just as it is. A liquor license is simply a permission to certain men to sell that which will ruin their fellows, but with the provision that the profits of the unholy traffic are to be divided with the Government. And so, in spite of all casuistry, it is a fact that the Government becomes a partner in crime. Whether any kind of license will serve as a step toward temperance, may be easily determined by a moment's thought. People who are addicted to the use of liquor will get it if it is to be had. Then, if the license tax be placed so high that the small dealers cannot afford to continue the business, the result will be that instead of having a given quantity of liquor sold by one hundred dealers, we shall have the same quantity sold by seventy-five or less. But since these have to pay a heavier tax than before, they will make greater efforts to increase the profits, either by increased sales, or by adulterating the liquor still more, so that nothing is gained in the way of temperance. The great argument which misguided temperance men urge in support of high license, is that public sentiment is not ready for prohibition, but that high license can be carried, and therefore we must take what we can get. True, and if they would lower the price of the license, they could carry their measure by a still greater majority. The question to be considered is not, What measure will secure the largest support? but, What measure is best? Let the latter question be settled, and then work for the support of what is right. "But it is impossible to stop the sale of liquor entirely, even by the most stringent prohibitory laws; therefore the best thing to do is to secure as much revenue from it as we can." This is another argument often used, but it is very fallacious. There are places where the sale of liquor is absolutely prohibited, and what has been done may be done. It is true that in large cities it is next to impossible762to utterly eradicate the evil; but the same thing may be said of all crime. We have a prohibitory law against murder, with severe penalties attached; but it has never been effectual in causing murders to cease. In our large cities the law is violated daily; yet no one thinks of licensing the evil. It is very certain that there are far fewer murders than there would be if there were no prohibitory law against murder; and no one can doubt that if the law were abolished, and any form of license substituted, murder would be rampant. When the question of the resumption of specie payments was under discussion, a prominent statesman solved the problem by saying, "The way to resume is to resume." So the way to prohibit is to prohibit. It is true that it would take more time and a greater effort to secure prohibition than it would to secure even a very high license; but when secured something would be accomplished. Nothing is ever gained by parleying and compromising with evil. Vigorous measures alone are of any value, whatever the evil against which we are striving. We are firm in the belief that absolute prohibition is what all temperance people should labor for, no matter how impossible it may seem to secure such a result. The extract quoted at the beginning of this article, followed as it was by the statement, "We are opposed to prohibition," should open the eyes of temperance people who are counting "high" license. We do not doubt that license is a practical measure, but we have no faith in the results of such practice. It would not be so difficult a matter to secure prohibition as it seems, if men were in earnest. But whether difficult or not, makes no difference. We are not to abandon a good measure for a bad one simply because the bad one may be more easily executed. What we consider the proper method to adopt to secure prohibition may be discussed at another time. E. J. W.