Sober by Act of Parliament

by Fred A. McKenzie

If the applicant is not known to the chemist, the following form has to be filled in by some other person:—

“I hereby certify that I am acquainted with ... the applicant for the purchase of the foregoing described liquors, and that said ... is not a minor, and is not in the habit of using intoxicating liquors as beverage, and is worthy of credit as to the truthfulness of statements in the foregoing request, and my residence is ...”

At the end of each two months the chemist has to send in to the county auditor all application forms received by him, with a sworn statement attached, “that no liquors have been sold or dispensed under colour of my permit during said months, except as shown by the requests herewith returned, and that I have faithfully complied with the conditions of my oath”.

The penalties for selling liquor without a permit, or for keeping for the purpose of unlawful sale, are, for the first offence, 50 dollars to 100 dollars fine; for subsequent convictions, 300 dollars to 500 dollars fine, and imprisonment for not more than six months. But there is a more severe method of proceeding against offenders. An injunction may be obtained for the closing of any premises where liquors are unlawfully sold, on the plea of their being a nuisance. If they are again opened after this, the offender is liable to a fine of up to 1000 dollars, and imprisonment for six months or a year. Courts and juries are required to so construe the law as to prevent any evasion, and even the general repute of a house may be brought as evidence against it. When the injunction method is used, there is no trial by jury, and thus a conviction can be secured in localities where public opinion is most opposed to the law.

Police officers are bound to inform on offenders, under pain of loss of office and heavy fines. Drunken persons are liable to a month’s imprisonment, unless they give information as to who supplied them with liquor; any one who buys liquor unlawfully can compel the seller to return him the money paid for it; and when a person gets drunk the seller can not only be compelled to pay all costs incurred by any one in attending to his customer, but is also liable to an action for civil damages from any relative or connection of the drunken man who is injured in person, property or means of support by such intoxication. It will be noticed that the law directs its penalties against the seller rather than the purchaser.

The Act was carried by a Republican majority, and has been fiercely opposed by the Democrats. At first the new provisions were observed in about eighty-five out of ninety-nine counties in the State, the parts refusing obedience being mostly those along the banks of the Mississippi and most thickly populated. In these latter it was found impossible, in spite of the strictest provisions, to secure even an outward show of observance. Rum-sellers, police, justices, and the newspapers all combined to ignore the law. Temperance men sought to secure convictions, but in vain. When there seemed any likelihood of a specially active reformer making trouble, the saloon element did not hesitate to use force to put him down. The most notable case of this was that of Dr. G. C. Haddock, a warm prohibitionist, who lived at Sioux City, where the law was ignored. He spoke and wrote, started prosecutions, and used every means in his power against the drink interest. One night, as he was returning home, he was surrounded in the open street by a crowd of roughs, and one man deliberately shot him in the face, killing him immediately. A prominent liquor man was arrested for the offence, and it is said that the evidence against him was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the local authorities delayed bringing him to trial for as long as possible, and then he was acquitted. It was openly alleged that the jury had been specially selected to secure this result, and had been heavily bribed.

Yet, in spite of these serious drawbacks, the law at first had some measure of success. Governor Larrabee, in retiring from office in 1890, referred at some length to the results obtained from it, in his message to the Legislature. Though his words cannot be said to be free from prejudice, they yet must carry weight as being the official verdict of the leading officer of the State. “The benefits which have resulted,” he declared, “from the enforcement of this law are far-reaching indeed. It is a well-recognised fact that crime is on the increase in the United States, but Iowa does not contribute to that increase. While the number of convicts in the country at large rose from 1 in every 3442 of population in 1850 to 1 in every 860 in 1880, the ratio in Iowa at present is only 1 in every 3130. The gaols of many counties are now empty during a good portion of the year, and the number of convicts in our penitentiaries has been reduced from 750 in March, 1886, to 604 on 1st July, 1889. It is the testimony of the judges of our courts that criminal business has been reduced from 30 to 75 per cent., and that criminal expenses have diminished in like proportion.

“There is a remarkable decrease in the business and fees of sheriffs and criminal lawyers, as well as in the number of requisitions and extradition warrants issued. We have less paupers and less tramps in the State in proportion to our population than ever before. Breweries have been converted into oatmeal mills and canning factories, and are operated as such by their owners.... The poorer classes have better fare, better clothing, better schooling, and better houses.... It is safe to say that not one-tenth, and probably not one-twentieth, as much liquor is consumed in the State now as was five years ago.”

But even while Governor Larrabee wrote these words the knell of the new movement had been already sounded, and from 1890 the cause he advocated has been steadily losing ground in the State. His successor, Governor Boies, was notoriously opposed to prohibition, and threw the whole weight of his authority against efficient enforcement. He declared the suppression of the drink traffic to be an impossibility, and that to attempt it is “a cruel violation of one of the most valued of human rights”. As though to make his own assertions come true, he pardoned by the wholesale persons convicted of unlawful selling. The result was what might be expected. In all communities where the authorities had been not over-warm about enforcement they now became slack, and everywhere the police said that it was useless to secure convictions merely for the Governor to make out pardons. In more than one town and county where the trade had long been kept under, it now again made its appearance, and soon the last state of Iowa was worse than the first. Most of the teetotalers seemed to lose heart and do nothing; while for the few who were active the dynamiter’s bomb, the incendiary’s torch and the murderer’s revolver were ready to silence them into submission.

But all the blame must not be laid on Governor Boies. He could not have assumed the attitude he did had he not been supported by a large proportion of the people. His conduct was approved by the State in general, as may be seen by the fact that in 1891 he was re-elected for the Governorship by a majority twice as large as that he had previously secured. Iowa had tired of its anti-liquor crusade.