"THE PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OF STATE LICENSE."
[From Governor Folk's Message.] I HAVE heretofore spoken to you of the pernicious effects of the state's licensing the liquor traffic in any form. The high-license law should be amended so as to eliminate the licensing of the liquor traffic by the state. If the liquor business is an evil thing it should not be permitted at all. Certainly the law should not sanction such a business, and by licensing it make the state a partner in the iniquity. Stripped of all useless verbiage, this act levies tribute on all debauchery and crime; in this respect it is indefensible from any moral standpoint. If it be insisted that men will drink and sell liquor anyway, and the state may as well profit by their appetite and lust for gain, it could with equal force be argued that men kill, and therefore the states should license murder in certain forms and in certain places so as to profit by this weakness of mankind. If it be said that the licensing of the liquor traffic be justifiable when the proceeds of the license go to help maintain our worthy institutions, the answer should be: The state of Missouri is wealthy enough to support adequately its institutions without making them owe their existence to the licensing of a business that degrades the youth and pollutes the morals of men. If it be right to maintain our institutions in part by the licensing of the wrong, the same principle would justify the support of our institutions wholly and even the state government from the fruits of legalized crime. The government of Monte Carlo draws its sustenance from the licensing of the gambling table, but such an idea is abhorrent to every Missourian. It would be wrong to support the state government by putting a price on evil. It is wrong to license the liquor traffic at all. This is not the demand of frenzied morality, but of a sound and healthy public sentiment that will not tolerate the sharing in the profits of vicious practises.