It will be seen in the final vote, that Foisy at first voted against this bill; but Hendricks and B. Lee changed their vote and Foisy changed his; thus the liquor law remained as it was, and was published February 5, 1846, and remained in force till Saturday, December 19, 1846. On December 4 of that year, the governor called the attention of the Legislature to this law, in the following language:—
“The act passed at the last session of the Legislature, entitled ‘An Act to prevent the introduction, sale, and distillation of ardent spirits in Oregon,’ is one I should recommend for revision; there are several points that are thought to be defective. The organic law provides that the Legislature shall have power to pass laws to regulate the introduction, manufacture, or sale of ardent spirits. It is held that the power to prohibit the introduction, manufacture, or sale is not granted by the organic law. Another objection is that the fines collected under the act shall go, one-half to the informant and witnesses, and the other half to the officers engaged in arresting and trying: in fact, making the witnesses and judges interested in the case. The fourth section makes it the duty of any officer, or any private citizen, to act whenever it shall come to their knowledge that any kind of spirituous liquors are being distilled or manufactured in Oregon. It would be much better if it were made the duty of the sheriff of each county to act, whenever he should be informed that any liquor was being made or sold in his county, and authorize him to raise a sufficient posse to aid and assist him in enforcing the law. We have, as a community, taken a high stand in the cause of temperance; among our earliest efforts may be found the abolishing of ardent spirits from our land, and to this, in a great measure, may be attributed our peace and prosperity. No new country can be pointed out where so much harmony prevailed in its first settlement as in this: laws, we had none, yet all things went on quietly and prosperously. I have no doubt if ardent spirits are kept within their proper bounds, we shall continue prosperous.
“It is said by some we have no right to say what a man shall make or what he shall not make; yet, we find, in all large cities, certain manufactories are forbidden to be carried on within the limits of the city, because they annoy the inhabitants, and hence are declared to be public nuisances, and by law are compelled to be removed; and, if the city increase and extend to the place where they are relocated, they are removed again. Intoxicating drink is an enormous public injury and private wrong; its effects, in every way, shape, and form, are evil, and therefore should be restrained within proper limits by law. It deprives the wife and children of the inebriate of the support and protection they have a right to expect from him; it deprives the community of the labor which constitutes a nation’s wealth, for it is a well-known fact that a nation’s wealth is made up of individual labor, and every day, therefore, lost by the laborer, caused by the effects of alcoholic drink, is a loss to the community at large. Persons who have become habitually addicted to ardent spirits, hearing that we had excluded the poison from our land, and, believing they never could be free if they remained near its influence, have left their homes and crossed the Rocky Mountains to escape the ruin that threatened them. Shall they be disappointed? During the last year, persons taking advantage of the defect in our law, have manufactured and sold ardent spirits. We have seen the effects (although the manufacture was on a small scale) in the midnight carousals among the Indians in our neighborhood, during their fishing season, and while they had property to dispose of; and, let me ask, what would be the consequences if the use of it should be general in the country and among the different tribes of Indians in the Territory? History may, hereafter, write the page in letters of blood! And what are the consequences, as presented to us in the history of older countries, of an indiscriminate use of ardent spirits? Almshouses, hospitals, prisons, and the gallows. I would, therefore, recommend that but one person, and that person a physician, be authorized to import or manufacture a sufficient quantity to supply the wants of the community for medicinal purposes; to dispose of no liquor except when he knows it to be necessary, or on an order from a regular physician, stating that the person applying stands in need of it for medicinal purposes; and to physicians to be used in their practice; the person so empowered to import, manufacture, and sell, to keep a record of the quantity manufactured or imported; also, a record of the quantity sold, or disposed of, and to whom, and name of physician on whose certificate given. This would be attended with but little trouble, and might be required to be given under oath. Many articles require alcohol to dissolve them; this could be done by taking the article to the person appointed and having the alcohol put into the ingredients in his presence. Section fifth I would recommend to be altered, so that the fines should go one-half to the informer, and the other half into the treasury. I would recommend that the penalties be increased. If the indiscriminate sale of liquor be admitted an evil, no good citizen can wish to be engaged in it. Why should the majority suffer to benefit a few individuals?
“I have said more on this subject than I should have done, did I not fear an attempt will be made to break down the barriers raised by the early settlers of this land. Much of our prosperity and happiness as a community depends upon your action in this matter.”
I am inclined to think that the governor was misinformed or mistaken in the statement that liquor had been manufactured in the settlement otherwise than by drugs and a composition called rot-gut, which there were men in the country base enough to produce. Had the governor been more energetic and taken the matter in hand, no manufacturing of liquors would have been allowed. He seems to have thrown himself back upon the faults of the law as an excuse for not seeing that it was executed as it should have been, and as it was executed in other places. Some of this drugged liquor was brought to Astoria by one George Geere, of Dr. White notoriety, and the citizens of Clatsop Plains being notified of the fact, came over prepared for a fight, and found Geere, with his liquors, his pistols, and a seven-shooter rifle. They took him and his pistols and rifle, also his two kegs, and several bottles of liquor. The liquor they turned out on the ground,—took Geere before Esquire Tibbetts, and gave him a jury trial before six men of his own choice, who found him guilty. He was fined one hundred dollars and costs of suit, which was all given, by unanimous consent, to the county. When such a man as Governor Abernethy could excuse himself from acting and enforcing a law, because he thought the distribution of the fines imposed made the officers and witnesses interested persons, it is not surprising that men of no principle should engage in destroying their fellow-men. The fact is, that the men whom the people had honored and trusted with their legal and executive duties were destitute of the firmness requisite to the position they occupied, with some few honorable exceptions. The people generally were in advance of their leaders in sustaining good and wholesome laws, hence but few cases of lawsuits or quarrels occurred.
We will now give what we conceive to be the cause of the failure of the law.
By a reference to the organization of the house in December, 1845, it will be seen that the Hudson’s Bay Company was represented by Messrs. Dr. W. F. Tolmie, Chamberlain, McDonald, Newell, and Peers. The liquor interest was represented by Messrs. Boon, Hall, Hembree, Looney, Meek, Summers, Straight, T. Vault, Williams, and the Speaker. Six of the last-named representatives should have been fined for violations of the law on a small scale, and all of the first on a large scale, as connected more or less with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and selling and giving to their men and Indians.
While the Hudson’s Bay Company yielded a quasi assent to the organization, and had their representatives in the Legislature, they were using their influence to curtail the privileges of American citizens. They were ready to vote against the manufacture and sale of liquors, while they were constantly bringing it to the country in their ships, and distributing it to suit their trade.
The composition of the house was peculiarly American and antagonistic to the Hudson’s Bay Company. Any measure that gave to the company any advantage, such as it was urged the prohibitory law did, could not stand. Hence the friends of prohibition had to yield the point, on the ground of self-defense for national rights, and not from a disposition to consider the law unjust or improper. In other words, they licensed and sustained a great evil, to combat a privilege of equal evil, claimed and used by a foreign monopoly in our midst.
When we take into account the facts as stated by the governor in his message, the actual condition of the country, the temporary nature of our government, and all the combinations that were forming at the time the license law was passed, I think all will join with me in condemning the course of the men who cursed the country with such a law. It is asserted that the organic law provided that the Legislature should regulate this traffic. Very true; which they did by placing it in the hands of the practicing physician, where it belongs, and nowhere else. But these wise Solons of 1846 came to the conclusion that three, two, or one hundred dollars was ample pay to the country for the loss of any man in it. That for three hundred dollars the whole country might be filled with poisonous rot-gut, and for two hundred the wholesale business might go on, while for one hundred the miserable victims of the business could be turned loose to degrade themselves and blight the hopes of kindred and friends. I can count a hundred victims who have lost one hundred dollars’ worth of property for every dollar received by the Territory, besides their own lives, in consequence of this traffic. I can count five hundred families that have suffered poverty and want, insult and abuse, purely chargeable to this regulating law of these men.
We read in histories of the church, that the pope of Rome sold indulgences to commit certain sins which by the common law would be considered crimes, such as adultery, theft, and even murder. The price of the indulgence was according to the crime to be committed. This law proceeds upon the principle of the amount of profits in the business, while its nature and effect upon the community is lost sight of. Or, in other words, the government sells the indulgence to commit the crime proposed by the manufacturer or wholesale and retail dealer. While the former law admitted that liquor as a medicine might be useful, and placed it in the hands of the practicing physician, the license law puts each seller under a one thousand dollar bond to keep a quiet house. They were ready to license hells all over the land, provided the keepers would bind themselves not to violate the sanctity of the Sabbath. The morality and political economy of the business is forced to be satisfied with the amount paid as per law provided.