An Argument on High License.
By Editor
A PETITION in favor of high license having been presented to the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, the "Licensed Tax Payers' Union" presented a protest, in which they speak as follows:— "Because, as a temperance measure, it would not meet, or even aid, the end in view, liquor being still on sale at the same or a lesser cost, and in unlimited quantities. "Because it would be a false and misleading subterfuge, framed in the interest of the wealthy dealer, and resulting only in the increase of his business. "Your petitioners aver that the 'liquor traffic' is 'bad' and 'pernicious;' if so, why license it at all? and if licensed, why centralize a profitable 'evil' in the hands of a few? Why create a liquor-selling monopoly? A mobilized evil is certainly more impregnable than one disintegrated. "Your petitioners express a desire to raise the 'moral' tone of the 'liquor traffic' and to place it in the hands of a 'better order of men,' and they propose to raise the 'moral' tone of a 'bad' and 'pernicious evil' by raising the cost of license. "Is the financial ability to pay a gauge of character? If so, the wealthy scoundrel has clear sailing. Poverty should not thus be made to soil the character of men, nor should a patent of purity, be thus open to purchase. "On these grounds, and aside from all questions of personal and business interests, we place our opposition to the demand of your petitioners." This statement is unanswerable. It shows the folly of "high license," and, in fact, the error of any license at all. The truth is, that the more respectable you make the liquor traffic by professedly raising its "moral tone," the more you increase its power to do mischief. It is only an evil to license an evil.