Temperance by Herrick Johnson

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 3, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 26.

Temperance.

By Herrick Johnson

High License Wrong in Principle.

THIS objection to the system is radical and fundamental. It goes to the root of the whole matter. If once persuaded that it is well taken, it ends all advocacy or connivance on the part of him of a good conscience.

The ground upon which the objection is based, is this: The actual saloon is an iniquity. The evils directly traceable to it, and that inevitably in greater or less degree flow out of it, whenever and wherever opened, are absolutely appalling. These evils affect public order, public health, public decency; they increase taxes, imperil property, endanger life. They are by confession the prolific source of crime, poverty, orphanage, disease, death. They are open, public, notorious, civic, and social. There is no such assault on health, on life, on property, on liberty, on society, on the home, as that which comes from the liquor traffic. There is not one solitary privilege that can be afforded the dram-seller consistent with the public good. The saloon exists as a moral abomination.

Now the Government, in issuing its license, virtually says, and without any possibility of question as to its meaning: "Pay me $500, and for one year you may proceed with that moral abomination. You may open a saloon and deal out strong drink, notwithstanding the fact that the saloon in any community is the invariable precursor and cause of social and moral blight and curse." The Government thus lends its high sanction to the traffic, gives it a legal status, throws about it its sacred shield, and stamps it with a legitimacy as real as if it were the most innocent and beneficent business of life.

For the Government to do that thing, whether for $5, $500, or $5,000, is a moral wrong. Governments, like individuals, must forever do right. Permits to pursue the liquor traffic are permits to make inroads on almost every interest of life. License to sell intoxicating drink carries with it not only liquor-selling, but the known and inevitable consequences of liquor-selling. This law of responsibility is true of the individual. It is just as true of the State.

But it is denied by some good men that license carries this fearful implication. It is held by them that license is simply in the nature of a tax, and is, so far as it goes, restrictive and prohibitory, giving no sanction and implying no approval.

Consult any legal authority, and see how this befogs definition and challenges common sense. Bouvier defines license: "A right given by some competent authority to do an act, which without such authority would be illegal." He defines tax: "A contribution imposed by Government on individuals for the service of the State." Now mark the unmistakable distinctions here made. License is "a right given;" tax is "a contribution imposed." License implies a privilege. Tax implies an obligation. License is a permission. Tax is a command. License gives legal status. Tax gives nothing, but requires. License is for regulation. Tax is for revenue. The very essence of license is a permit to do. The license fee is simply an incident of regulation, and does not affect the nature of license at all. Whether the fee be $500 or $5, or not a dollar, or not a cent, the act is the same, viz., Governmental permission and sanction to do a certain thing. No quibble of words can change this simple axiomatic truth. Tying Esau's hair to Jacob's hands and neck, does not change Jacob's voice. The fundamental feature of license abides, whether with high fee, or low fee, or no fee.

If license carries no sanction, but is only prohibitive, then why not license prostitution? "No," say the good men who are confounding things that differ. "No; that is a sin per se." But what difference does it make whether prostitution is a sin per se, or a sin per circumstance, if the licensing it is simply in the nature of a tax, and merely restrictive? If the position of these men is correct, then the licensing of prostitution carries no sanction, and their running to shelter under "sin per se" is blank cowardice and logical suicide. If their position is not correct, then licensing the drink-shop is formal official investment of the drink-shop, with full right to open its doors and proceed with its work of ruin. One horn of the dilemma—or the other, gentlemen. There is no alternative save to wash hands clean and forever of the whole business of license.

I know the fallacies with which honest and conscientious men strangely delude themselves here. They get their chief expression in this concentrated piece of wisdom, viz., that half a loaf is better than none at all. But is a half-loaf better than none at all? If in getting the half-loaf I must compromise with iniquity, then let the bread go. It is better to perish with hunger than to do a wrong. If in getting a few saloons closed I must sanction the saloon business by advocating license, high or low, then let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth before it speaks approval. I must not do evil that good may come.

Listen now to some of the misleading analogies by which good men seek to prop their judgment in this case: "If I have five children sick with some malignant fever, I will save three if I can't save all." Yes, but that father will do his utmost to the very last to save all. He won't go into the license business with death. He will attempt to save each child with the same fidelity and persistence with which he tries to save every other child. Anything short of that would be criminal. Now let him strive to shut all the saloons just as persistently as he would strive to save all his children, and he is a prohibitionist. Prohibition seeks to do just that, and only that.—Rev. Herrick Johnson.