Intoxication Should Be Crime.
We believe that it should be made a crime for a man to become intoxicated. We hold that no man has a right to deliberately overthrow his reason and render himself a dangerous factor in society, and, therefore, we would gladly welcome the passage of laws providing severe penalties for such offenses and a firm, rigid enforcement without regard to wealth or influence of the offender.
For the evils to which we have referred prohibitory laws have proved no remedy, and, even if they should be enforced, we believe they are dangerous to liberty, but the suggestions that we have offered are practicable, and have proven to be remedies in most of the countries of Continental Europe, where drunkenness is seldom in evidence, and furthermore, we can apply such laws without giving offense save to those who by common consent are deserving of condemnation as having done that which mankind recognizes to be wrong, and having thereby placed themselves without the pale.
That the liquor dealers should take this position is not so surprising as at first thought it seems. Economically, the best condition for the liquor business is temperance.