X. Local option.
For No. I, pure and simple, we have but a single report, perhaps (as of a frontier State) not exemplary, or safe to guide the more interior States, but given exactly for what it may be worth. The Governor of Montana (a State which boasts the bad eminence of having proportionately more liquor-sellers paying license fees than any other State in the Union—having, in fact, one licensed liquor-seller to every fifty-five inhabitants) reports as follows:
"Saloons are run wide open night and day; while there is a great deal of drinking there is very little drunkenness, and one in an intoxicated condition is promptly arrested and fined." One other State, however (Louisiana), has the continental idea that liquor laws are for "revenue only." Louisiana, therefore, has an elaborate excise, guiltless of any suggestion of reformative objects. So far as her statistics go, she is the most temperate State in the Union.
II. Example.—This may be called the apostolic cure—the one laid down by the apostle St. Paul (I Corinthians, viii, 13)—though we find a prominent English ecclesiastic, Dean Hole, on being asked if he was not aware that people ought to abstain for the sake of their example to others, replied: "I have never seen any one converted by example. I have often challenged teetotalers to produce Mr. Jones converted by the example of Mr. Brown, but I am waiting for him. I don't see why I should make a fool of myself because others do." I should not deal with the matter quite so summarily myself. Doubtless the example of a thrifty, wholesome, prosperous laborer, if left (without exhortation or impertinence of third parties) to work upon his dram-drinking, wretched neighbor, might have its laudable effect: such example not being deprived in advance of its value by the fetters of a written pledge which a man's personal pride might force him to ostentatiously observe—or if the exemplary person does not get his living by denouncing liquor—or by the coercion of a Ladies' Temperance Union! But as the person converted by the example would be certain not to parade the fact, no statistics could even then be attainable. The case or cases, if genuine, would be hidden in the consciences of the converts and beyond any marshaling in figures. All we can do is to hope and trust that our good examples may prevail, and that, like the apostle St. Paul (whom our British ecclesiastic begs to differ with), there may be some among us strong enough physically as well as spiritually to say, "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth."
These considerations have not, however, deterred certain States from ingrafting example upon the statute-book, as nearly as it could be made a subject of legislation, by enacting that there shall be held before the eye of the possible drinker the spectacle of his neighbors drinking rum: trusting, doubtless, to the rum itself to work a condition in the drinker to afford the example required, and so add to the unestimated but hoped-for good example to bad example at hand. Three States—i. e., Indiana, Michigan, and Utah—and the city of Atlanta, Georgia, by municipal ordinance, provide that the premises on which liquor is retailed by drinks shall have no screen or other obstruction before its windows, so that passers-by may see the drinking which goes on therein and its horrible accompanying circumstances. The reports from these States, however, are not such as to commend this policy of example to universal acceptance.
III. Education.—Within the past four years several States—Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Nevada—have enacted statutes providing that pupils in the public schools should be particularly instructed in so much at least of the science of toxicology as relates to the uses and abuses of alcohol, and of its effect upon the human system. Such instruction, if honestly imparted by capable teachers and by honest text-books, can not fail to be of the highest value. Capable teachers and honest text-books could not possibly teach, for example, that alcoholic liquors were an unmixed evil, could not deny their medicinal value, or their stimulative aid in fortifying against disease or exposure, or in supplying the waste of age; could not teach (as I gave instances of of fanatical teachings) that it were better to die for the need of a glass of whisky than to have one's life saved by the use of it, or that the use of liquor "destroys both body and soul" (in the teeth of the facts that only the most flagrant and protracted abuse of liquor ever, and that after a long term of years, destroyed a human body, and that statistics as to the soul are not attainable). Much is to be hoped for under this benign instruction. It is not possible that our youth will not miss to acquire much important information, such as that "wine is a good servant if well used"; that total abstinence is a regimen only to be pursued by advice of a physician; that the vast majority of human beings can and do partake moderately of alcoholic liquors, not only without injurious consequences, but with positive benefit; and that, as it is a source of much enjoyment, and much discomfort often springs from its discontinuance, it is difficult to say why such use should be discontinued under ordinary circumstances. Our youth will learn, too, that there are many nations that thrive without alcoholic drinks—nations, for example, professing the Mohammedan faith, to whom alcohol is forbidden by their religion; but that among them the use of stronger narcotics, such as opium and Indian hemp, is extremely common, and the exchange from alcohol to these narcotics can hardly be looked upon as a gain. The result of this State instruction may be confidently looked for, and can not possibly do harm. It is too early as yet to procure data for discussion of the amount of good accomplished by this legislation. We must wait until the adolescent pupil has grown to man's estate, to middle age, until his mortal change, and search his record, and the record of the family he leaves behind him, for the benefits of the paternal legislation. In short, it is exceedingly doubtful if data upon this subject, in the nineteenth century at least, will ever be collected at all. It is noticeable, however, that in the States' scheme of education the peripatetic temperance lecturer, with his lurid colored charts of the human stomach in the horrors of suffering from what he calls "the flowin' bowl," have no place, and no salary is provided for such "university extension" processes. A suggestion lately made in these pages that temperance lecturers as well as liquor dealers being obliged to take out licenses (at least as caterers to the public amusement) is conspicuous by its absence from the educational plan.
IV. Government Control of Traffic.—The idea of a government monopoly in liquor is from continental Europe, and, like most ideas from that source, is paternal and monarchical pure and simple. The idea reached perfection in what is known as the Gothenburg system, which, attracting considerable attention from students of the liquor problem, was introduced into the statutes of Georgia, where after a brief trial it was discarded. The State of South Carolina, however, adopted its principal features, calling it the "dispensary system," and is still maintaining it.
The story of the Gothenburg system is as follows: Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus III there had existed in Sweden and Norway a policy making the distillation of a liquor called bränxin, or brandy, a right running with the ownership of land first, afterward with a tenancy of land, and ultimately a right secured to tavern-keepers. This brandy being distilled from grain or potatoes, and containing about fifty per cent of alcohol, was cheap, and in consequence of the poor food supply grew into universal use, until not only men and women but very young children drank it. Drunkenness became the rule, and pauperism and crime prevailed in startling proportions, outrunning the range of either charity or police to control them. In this state of affairs a Dr. Wisselgren, Dean of Gothenburg, a Swedish city, arose, and from his exertions grew the famous Gothenburg system.
Stripped of detail, this system provides that stock companies called brandy companies shall receive from the crown a monopoly of liquor sales, on condition of maintaining eating houses, reading rooms, lodgings, and other conveniences for the community, and out of surplus profits contribute to the police, the poor, and the educational, funds of the community. The companies shall be under inspection of the royal governor, with no appeal from his discretion, and also under inspection of officers of the three funds entitled to the surplus profits. The companies must close their places of sale on Sundays, can sell only to persons over eighteen years of age, and in the rooms devoted to drinking alone there must be no chairs or settees. After drinking, the purchaser must depart. Such rooms must not be in communication directly with the eating and lodging rooms. In these latter cleanliness and cheapness must prevail, but the company may raise the price and dilute the strength of the brandy sold.
With much amendment and revision, this system appears to be to-day substantially in effect, with what good results opinions differ. It was speedily rejected after brief trial in Georgia for a high-license system pure and simple. In South Carolina its introduction from Georgia provoked riot and even bloodshed on account of the right of search which it involved. The main feature is, of course, that the State becomes the real buyer, jobber, and retailer of all ardent spirits. Here it has been found difficult of complete administration, and, unless its success should be more distinguished than at present, it probably is but a short-lived expedient.