Part 20 (1/2)
How the question of prohibition is regarded by the highest legal authority in the United States will appear from the following opinions officially given by four of the Justices of our Supreme Court. They are expressed in no doubtful or hesitating form of speech:
Chief Justice Taney said: ”If any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, vice or debauchery, I see nothing in the Const.i.tution of the United States to prevent it from regulating or restraining the traffic, or from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper.”--[5 Howard, 577.]
Hon. Justice McLean said: ”A license to sell is a matter of police and revenue within the power of the State.”--[5 Ibid., 589.] ”If the foreign article be injurious to the health and morals of the community, a State may prohibit the sale of it.”
Hon. Justice Catron said: ”If the State has the power of restraint by license to any extent, she may go to the length of prohibiting sales altogether.”--[5 Ibid., 611.]
Hon. Justice Grier said: ”It is not necessary to array the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism and crime which have their origin in the use and abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in the State, is competent to the correction of these great evils, and all measures of restraint or prohibition necessary to effect that purpose are within the scope of that authority.”--[Ibid., 532.]
That the State has a clear right to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks, because this sale not only hurts all other interests, but destroys the health and degrades the morals of the people, has been fully shown.
The question next to be considered is, Can prohibitory laws be enforced?
and if so, will they remove from the people the curse of drunkenness?
CAN PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ENFORCED?
As to the complete enforcement of any salutory law, that depends mainly on the public sentiment regarding it, and on the organized strength of its opposers. If the common sentiment of the people were in favor of every man's liberty to steal whatever he could lay his hands on, it would be found very difficult to convict a rogue, no matter how clearly expressed the law against stealing. A single thief in the jury-box could defeat the ends of justice. A hundred loop-holes for escape can always be found in the provisions of a law with which the majority of the people are not in sympathy. Indeed, it often happens that such loop-holes are provided by the law-makers themselves; and this is especially true in too many of the laws made for the suppression of the liquor trade.
Is this an argument against the enactment of laws to protect the people from great wrongs--especially the weaker and more helpless ones? To the half-hearted, the indifferent and the pusillanimous--yes! But with brave, true men, who have at heart the best interests of humanity, this can only intensify opposition to wrong, and give strength for new efforts to destroy its power. These have an undying faith in the ultimate victory of good over evil, and mean, so far as they are concerned, that the battle shall continue until that victory is won.
Judge Pitman has eloquently expressed this sentiment in the closing pages of his recent work, to which we have more than once referred.
Speaking of those who distrust the practicability of securing such legislation as will effectually destroy the liquor trade, he says: ”They are appalled at the power of the traffic. They see that it has uncounted wealth at its command; that it is organized and unscrupulous; that it has the support of fierce appet.i.te behind it and the alliance of every evil l.u.s.t; that it is able to bribe or intimidate the great political parties. All this is true; but still it is not to be the final victor.
It has all the elemental moral forces of the human race against it, and though their working be slow, and their rate of progress dependent on human energy and fidelity, the ultimate result is as certain as the action of the law of gravity in the material universe. Wealth may be against us; rank may affect to despise us; but the light whose dawn makes a new morning in the world, rarely s.h.i.+nes from palace or crown, but from the manger and the cross. Before the aroused consciences of the people, wielding the indomitable will of a State, the destroyers of soul and body shall go down forever.”
THE VALUE OF PROHIBITORY LAWS WHEN ENFORCED.
It remains now to show how far prohibitory laws, when enforced, have secured the end for which they were created. On this point, the evidence is clear and satisfactory. In Vermont, a prohibitory law has existed for over twenty-three years. In some parts of the State it is rigidly enforced; in others with less severity. Judge Peck, of the Supreme Court says: ”The law has had an effect upon our customs, and has done away with that of treating and promiscuous drinking. * * * _In attending court for ten years, I do not remember to have seen a drunken man.”_ In St. Johnsbury, where there is a population of five thousand, the law has been strictly enforced; and the testimony in regard to the town is this: ”There is no bar, no dram-shop, no poor, and no policeman walks the streets. It is the workingman's paradise.”
Connecticut enacted a prohibitory law in 1854. In 1855, Governor Dutton said, in his annual message to the General a.s.sembly: ”There is scarcely an open grog-shop in the State, the jails are fast becoming tenantless, and a delightful air of security is everywhere enjoyed.”
In Meriden, the chaplain of the reform school testified that ”crime had diminished seventy-five per cent.” In New London, the jail was tenantless. In Norwich, the jails and almshouses were reported ”as almost empty.” But in 1873, the liquor influence was strong enough in the legislature to subst.i.tute license for prohibition. The consequence was an immediate increase of drunkenness and crime. Two years afterwards, the Secretary of State declared that ”there was a greater increase of crime in one year under license than in seven years under prohibition.”
Vineland, New Jersey, has a population of ten thousand. Absolute prohibition is the law of that community. One constable, who is also overseer of the poor, is sufficient to maintain public order. In 1875, his annual report says: ”We have practically no debt. * * * The police expenses of Vineland amount to seventy-five dollars a year, the sum paid to me, and our poor expenses are a mere trifle.”
In Potter County, Pennsylvania, there has been a prohibitory law for many years. Hon. John S. Mann says: ”Its effect, as regards crime, is marked and conspicuous. _Our jail is without inmates, except the sheriff_, for more than half the time.”
Other instances of local prohibition in this country could be given, but these are sufficient.
Bessbrook, a town in Ireland of four thousand inhabitants, has no liquor-shop, and whisky and strong drink are strictly prohibited. _There is no poor-house, p.a.w.n-shop or police-station._ The town is entirely free from strife, discord or disturbance.
In the county of Tyrone, Ireland, no drinking house is allowed. In 1870, Right Hon. Claude Hamilton said: ”At present there is not a single policeman in that district. The poor-rates are half what they were before, and the magistrates testify to the great absence of crime.”
In many parts of England and Scotland there is local prohibition, and the uniform testimony as to the absence of pauperism and crime is as unequivocal as that given above.
THE MAINE LAW--ITS COMPLETE VINDICATION.
But it is to the State of Maine, where a prohibitory law has existed for over a quarter of a century, and where prohibition has been put to the severest tests, that we must look for the more decisive proofs of success or failure.
On the evidence which Maine furnishes, the advocates of legal suppression are content to rest their case. In order to get a brief, but thoroughly accurate and reliable history of the Maine law, we addressed a letter to Hon. Neal Dow, of Portland, Maine, asking him to furnish us, for this volume, with the facts and evidence by which our readers could for themselves judge whether the law were a dead letter, as some a.s.serted, or effective and salutory. In reply, Mr. Dow has kindly furnished us with the following deeply interesting and important communication: