Sober by Act of Parliament Part 1

Sober by Act of Parliament.

by Fred A. McKenzie.

PREFACE.

It is a truism that men of all shades of opinion are desirous to promote sobriety. It is the _raison d'etre_ of the teetotaler and the declared aim of the publican. The advocate of prohibition and the man who would make the trade in drink as free as the sale of bread both profess to be actuated by a desire to extirpate inebriety. Can legislation aid us in accomplis.h.i.+ng this end, and if so in what way and to what extent? This volume is an attempt to partly answer the question, not by means of elaborate theories or finely drawn inferences, but by a statement of the actual results obtained from liquor laws in various parts of the world.

Whatever shortcomings may be found in the following pages, I have done my best to ensure their honesty and fairness. I have written with a brief for no particular policy, but with a sincere desire to learn, free from the blinding mists of partisan prejudice, the truth about all. My conclusions may appear to some mistaken, and my treatment inadequate, but I have never suppressed facts that told against my own opinions, arranged statistics to suit myself, or consciously placed incidents in a disproportionate light. The subject is altogether too serious, and involves issues too grave, to allow one to indulge in one-sided statements, garbled facts, or lying statistics.

As far as possible, the facts and figures given are taken from official sources. I must acknowledge my indebtedness to many correspondents in America, in Australia, and on the Continent of Europe, as well as at home, who have helped me by collecting statistics and supplying information.

Without their aid my investigations would have been far more difficult than they have proved. I am also greatly obliged to the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ for permission to reproduce portions of several articles of mine on "Liquor Laws," which appeared in his journal and in a _Pall Mall Gazette_ "Extra" during 1893.

FRED A. McKENZIE.

46 OXBERRY AVENUE, FULHAM.

PART I.

AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

THE STATE AS SALOON KEEPER.

During the last few months South Carolina has been the scene of a remarkable experiment in liquor legislation, which has attracted considerable attention from social reformers everywhere. Though professedly based on the Gothenburg system, the Dispensaries Act differs from its prototype in many important respects. As in Sweden, the element of individual profit is eliminated, and the control of the trade is taken out of the hands of private persons; but in place of the drink shops being conducted by the munic.i.p.alities, they are placed under the direct supervision of the State Government. The saloon has been abolished, and its place taken by dispensaries, where liquor can only be obtained in bottles for consumption off the premises. All public inducements to tippling have been removed at a sweep; and while it is possible for any sober adult to obtain what liquor he wishes, no one is pecuniarily interested in forcing intoxicants on him. The Act was in operation for too short a time to allow anything definite to be said as to its success or failure. It received the fiercest opposition from an influential body of politicians, and from the more lawless section of the community; and the dispossessed saloon keepers, with all the following they could command, naturally did their best to cause it to fail.

In the election of 1892 the prohibition party showed great activity, and succeeded in obtaining a majority at the polls. The question of the control of the liquor traffic occupied a foremost place at the meeting of the new Legislature. Many members were in favour of out-and-out prohibition, and a Bill was introduced to make the manufacture or sale of drink illegal. But, after considerable debate on the subject, a new measure was hastily brought before the Senate, at the instigation of the Governor, the Hon. Benjamin R. Tillman, as a compromise between the views of the extreme prohibitionists and those who held that, in the present condition of public opinion, prohibition would be largely inoperative, and consequently injurious to the temperance cause. The measure was rushed through the Legislature with little or no debate, and at once received the sanction of the Governor.

Governor Tillman is undoubtedly a remarkable man, of bold initiative and great force of character; and it is impossible to understand the situation in South Carolina without knowing something about him. Within the last decade he has risen from obscurity to the supreme power in the State, and to-day he is "boss" of South Carolina. He first came to the front in 1885, by his bitter denunciations of the local Democratic rulers. He is himself a Democrat, but this did not prevent him from bringing the most serious charges against the members of the aristocratic ring that held the reins of Government. He charged them with being the enemies of the poor and oppressors of the people, whose one aim was to conduct public affairs so as to benefit themselves. At first the high-cla.s.s politicians treated him with a half-amused, half-contemptuous scorn, sneered at what they were pleased to call his ignorant talk, and held his language up to ridicule.

And in truth, if reports may be believed, his vigour of speech gave his enemies abundant cause to blaspheme. He was not particular in his choice of phrases, and he did not hesitate to pile up the most picturesque and sanguinary expressions in describing his opponents.

But the people rallied around him. "I am rough and uncouth, but before Almighty G.o.d I am honest," he said to them; and they believed him. The poorer country folks were his first followers, then the Farmers' Alliance came to his support, and before the old politicians had ceased to wonder at the audacity of the young man, they began to learn that their days of power were over. In 1890 he stood for the Governors.h.i.+p in opposition to the regular Democratic candidate. He stumped the State, and met with a most enthusiastic reception. He was elected by a large majority, and the power of the old ring was, for a time at least, broken. Two years later he was once more elected to the same post, and until he tried to carry out the Dispensaries Act his authority was supreme in the State. One thing is certain: if Governor Tillman cannot secure obedience to the law, it will be difficult to find any one else who can.

The chief provisions of the original dispensary law are as follows. No persons or a.s.sociations of persons were allowed to make, bring into the State, buy or sell any intoxicating liquors, except as provided for by the Act. Districts that were previously under prohibition continued so, but in other parts the traffic was conducted by State-appointed officials. The Governor appointed a Commissioner, whom he must believe to be an abstainer from intoxicants; and this official, under the supervision of the State Board of Control, purchased all strong drink to be sold in the State, and generally acted as head of the dispensaries. The State Board appointed in each county a local Board of Control, composed of three persons believed not to be addicted to the use of intoxicants. These County Boards made the rules for the sale of drink in their own districts, subject to the approval of the State Board; and they also appointed dispensers who had the sole power of selling liquors in the districts where they were placed.

There are many minute restrictions which had to be observed by the dispensers in vending their wares. A would-be buyer must make a request in writing, stating the date, his age and residence, and the quant.i.ty and kind of liquor required. If the applicant was intoxicated, or if the dispenser knew him to be a minor or in the habit of using strong drink to excess, then he must refuse to supply him. If the dispenser did not know the applicant personally, then a guarantee must be given by some person known to both buyer and seller that the former was neither under age nor a habitual drunkard. Sales were only to be made during daytime, and the liquor was not to be drunk on the premises.

The penalties for breaches of the law were very severe, ranging as high as imprisonment for not under one year or over two years for repeated illegal sales. All profits obtained by the work of the dispensary were divided in three parts,--one half for the State, one quarter for the munic.i.p.ality, and one quarter for the county. The hope of obtaining a considerable revenue was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for pa.s.sing the Act, and Governor Tillman antic.i.p.ated a profit of half a million dollars a year for the State.

The dispensers were paid, not according to the quant.i.ty of their sales, but at a fixed salary named by the Board, and not allowed to exceed a certain amount. It was provided in the original Act that dispensaries could only be opened in cities and towns, and then not unless the majority of the citizens of a place signed a pet.i.tion requesting to have them.

The new measure came into force on 1st July, 1893. For many weeks previously there had been great excitement in the State, and as June drew to an end the saloon keepers put forth strenuous efforts to do the utmost possible business in the short time that was left to them. "The situation all over South Carolina to-night," said a despatch from Charleston on 30th June, "is peculiar. In Charleston there has been in progress all day a huge whisky fair. The air is filled with the tintinnabulation of the auction bells and with the cries of the auctioneer; in dozens of liquor stores are crowds of free-born American citizens buying whisky, wine and beer to lay in a stock against the dry spell, which sets in to-night. In the fas.h.i.+onable groceries extra forces of clerks have been at work day and night for a week, putting up demi-johns and kegs of whisky, brandy, rum, gin, and wine; and battalions of drays and delivery waggons have been employed carting the goods to the railroad depots and to the various residences. It is no exaggeration to say that there are not 1000 out of the 10,000 houses of white people in the city that are not provided with a supply of liquors to last six months at least."

Six counties in the State are under statutory prohibition, and consequently no dispensaries could be opened in them. In many other parts the people refused to come under the Act, and in towns especially there was a spirit of undisguised opposition to the measure. It is in the towns that the old-line Democrats, whom Tillman drove from office, have always been the strongest. With the pa.s.sing of the Act they saw their opportunity to have vengeance on him, and possibly to regain their old majority; and they resolved to do their best to wreck his Bill. In Charleston the word went forth that the law was to be ignored, and, as far as the city authorities could accomplish that end, it has been set at defiance. When the State constables have arrested liquor sellers, the constables have been mobbed and ill-treated; the sheriff has packed the juries; the justices who have tried liquor cases have been notoriously opposed to the law; and, as an inevitable consequence, the clearest evidence of illegal liquor selling has been insufficient to convict any offender there. What is true of Charleston is almost equally true of several other places.

This, it must be understood, is not because of any fault of the Act; but because eager partisans are willing to perjure themselves, to break through the most sacred obligations of office, and to descend to any tricks in order to ruin the Tillmanites.

The prohibitionists have been divided in their att.i.tude. Some of them warmly support the law, but others have united with the old-line Democrats in opposing it. They are mostly willing to admit that the Tillmanite dispensaries are a vast improvement over the former reign of the saloon; but they are fearful lest the fact that the State conducts the traffic may give it a semblance of respectability, encourage people to drink, and so do more harm than good. "The absolute boss of the State, Governor Tillman," sneered one, "expects to turn the great commonwealth into one great drinking saloon, such as might carry a signboard, reaching from sea to the mountains, announcing 'Benjamin Ryan Tillman, monopolist of grog'."

In his annual message to the Legislature, in November, 1893, the Governor gave a long and detailed account of the working of the law. According to this statement, there were then fifty dispensaries open, and the total sales in the four months had amounted to 166,043 dollars, 56 c., yielding a profit to the State of 32,198 dollars, 16 c. This was considerably less than had been antic.i.p.ated; and the smallness of the profit is no doubt due to the facts that so many people had got in their supplies of drink before the Act came in force, and that in many parts the law was very imperfectly enforced. Since the Governor issued his report there was a very considerable proportionate increase in the gains.

In order to ascertain the results of the law on intemperance a circular was sent out to seventy-five cities and towns, asking them to state the number of arrests for drunkenness and disorder arising from liquor drinking for a like period before and since the pa.s.sing of the Act. Only thirty-three places replied; and in the whole of these the arrests from 1st July to 30th Sept., 1892, under the old licence laws, were 577; during the same period in 1893, under the Dispensaries Act, the arrests were only 287. In September, 1892, 231 arrests were made; in September, 1893, the arrests were 131.

The Governor admitted that the amount of illegal liquor-selling going on in the State was considerable, and for this he blamed the local authorities and the railway companies. "There is hardly a train entering the State," he declared, "day or night, pa.s.senger or freight, which does not haul contraband liquor. Some of the railroads are yielding a measure of obedience to the law; but most of them openly defy it, or lend their line to smuggling liquor into the State.... The police in the cities, as a rule, stand by and see the ordinances broken every day, are _particeps criminis_ in the offence, or active aiders and abettors of the men who break it." In order to stop these things, and to more efficiently enforce the law, the Governor demanded fresh legislation.

In answer to this demand, the State Legislature pa.s.sed a new measure in December, giving considerably increased powers to the executive. The State Board of Control was authorised to deprive any city or town refusing to actively co-operate in the enforcement of the law, of its share of the dispensary profits. In place of the Board being unable to open a dispensary anywhere except when a majority of the people pet.i.tioned for it, the law was made that the Board could establish its shops wherever it pleased, unless a majority of the people pet.i.tioned against them. It was also found advisable to modify several minor points, such as giving hotel keepers permission to serve their guests with liquor.

Governor Tillman at once made full use of the new powers. He announced that several new dispensaries would be opened in different parts, and he sent a circular to all the mayors, asking if they intended to a.s.sist the State officials or not. To those who answered in the negative, he at once sent notice that the share of the profits for their towns would be withheld from them, and used for the purpose of employing special constables to see that the law was carried out there.

In March, 1894, the troubles created by the opponents of the Dispensaries Act came to a head. Some State constables were searching for contraband liquors at Darlington when the people rose in arms against them. Two constables and two townsmen were killed, and the police hastily retired to a swamp. Here they were pursued by an infuriated body of citizens; and, had they been found, they would unquestionably have been killed. For a day or two, matters wore a serious look. In one place a dispensary was gutted, and several bodies of the State militia, when ordered by the Governor to proceed against the rioters, refused to obey.

Governor Tillman is not a man to be easily intimidated. He promptly seized the telegraphs and the railways, prevented as far as possible the rioters communicating with sympathisers in other parts, and called together the troops he could rely upon. "As Governor I have sworn that the laws shall be respected until they are repealed," he said, addressing the militia.

"So help me G.o.d, I will exert all my power to enforce them. Although some of the militia have refused to obey orders, there are still enough to obey. The opponents of the law must submit to the rule of the majority.

My life has been threatened; but I have no fear, and I will convoke the Legislature if further power is necessary." The soldiers received his message with enthusiasm. At the same time the Federal authorities offered to send a large body of national troops, should they be required, to quell the rioting, and in a few hours the powers of the law and order were once more supreme. But had Tillman been a ruler of another stamp, had he shown the least sign of yielding to the disaffected, or of eagerness to compromise, then the outbreak at Darlington would probably have been only the beginning of serious trouble in the Palmetto State.

Hardly, however, had the riot been suppressed before the State Supreme Court declared the Act unconst.i.tutional. The court, which consists of two conservative judges and one Tillmanite, based its decision on the grounds that the measure was not a prohibitory law and was not a police regulation, but was solely a plan for giving the profits of a trade to the State, and therefore it conflicted with the lawful rights of the old saloon keepers. Justice Pope, the Tillmanite, dissented from this view, and p.r.o.nounced in favour of its being legal, but he was out-voted by his brother judges.

The result of this decision is, that all the State dispensaries have been closed, and the saloons are now again openly conducting their business. It is hard to say what the final outcome will be; for the people in the country parts declare themselves resolutely determined not to have the saloon system revived. It is said that as soon as possible one of the old judges will be removed, and his place taken by a Tillmanite. The measure will again be carried through the Legislature, and once more come before the Supreme Court. The court will then uphold it, and the State will give the Act another trial. But, even if this is so, the prospects of the scheme cannot be said to be bright. There are now enlisted against it a powerful political faction and the authorities of several munic.i.p.alities.

It can count on the unceasing opposition of many whose support is almost absolutely necessary to its success; and hence it will be more than a wonder if, while thus handicapped, it can be anything but a failure.

CHAPTER II.

RUM AND POLITICS.

America is pre-eminently the land of legislative experiments; and it has unequalled facilities for giving trial, with comparatively little risk, to many of the professed solutions of those problems which the artificial life of civilised society has produced. On nothing has it made more numerous or varied experiments than on efforts to promote sobriety by law.

Each State in the Union is free, within certain limits, to regulate or suppress the liquor traffic within its own borders, without interference from the Federal Government. The latter body, however, maintains freedom of inter-State traffic, and has the power to tax liquor, and to impose internal revenue fees on brewers and saloon keepers. These fees are most strictly enforced; and the first thing a man does who contemplates entering the drink trade, whether legally or illegally, is to take out his internal revenue licence. Even the individual who surrept.i.tiously sells half a dozen bottles of whisky a month in the lowest "speak-easy" rarely thinks of attempting to evade the Federal revenue law; for conviction is so sure, and the penalties are so heavy, that it does not pay.

In seeking to learn what lessons can be taught to old-world politicians from the new-world experiments, it must be borne in mind that, although the Americans are mostly of one blood with ourselves, the conditions of their social and political life are yet very different. The liquor problem occupies a far more prominent place there than at home, and the saloon keeper is an influential force in State, Union, and City politics. The temperance element is strong and active, and exercises a social influence not easy to estimate. A solid public sentiment has been created against even the moderate use of intoxicants; personal abstinence is advocated as part of the routine in nearly all the public elementary schools; it is regarded as disreputable for a man to frequent saloons; and, except under very extraordinary circ.u.mstances, no respectable woman would think of crossing their doorsteps. Many employers of labour, especially railway companies, go so far as to insist that their hands shall be abstainers.

But while the work of the teetotalers has been productive of much socially, their political work has been far more spasmodic, and less effective. They are split into cliques; and whatever proposal may be brought forward, there is almost certain to be a body of irreconcilables who fight against it. In America, as in other countries, the greatest opponents of temperance legislation are always temperance reformers: if a law is moderate, then it incurs the enmity of those who believe that any other plan than the utter and immediate destruction of the saloon is sin; if it satisfies the extremists, it is opposed by those who declare that such uncompromising legislation will produce a reaction, and so in the end do more harm than good. A still greater cause of weakness than even their internal divisions is the temporary character of much of their work.

The respectable people of a city or State will rouse themselves to a fever-heat of emotion over some social reform, and will carry it into law with a rush. Then the excitement will gradually die away, and in a shorter or a longer time the new law will be left to enforce itself; affairs will soon drop back into their old groove, until, possibly, some time after, a specially flagrant case of law-breaking again arouses the public conscience, and the same thing is gone through once more.

The brewers and saloon keepers work differently. They are efficiently organised, and have behind them an almost unlimited supply of money and a considerable voting power. Their work is not the unselfish advancement of some general benefit, but the protection of their own pecuniary interests.

They have shown themselves willing to sink all partisan preferences in order to prevent their trade being extinguished, and they have attempted to save themselves by securing control of the political machinery. They have too largely succeeded. America, in spite of its unceasing boasts of liberty, is especially the land where the few dominate over the many. In industry, the rings and monopolies rule; in politics, the "bosses" are supreme. The people are allowed to retain in their hands all the paraphernalia of political authority; but in many parts they are ruled by autocratic political organisations, with saloon keepers and plunderers of the public at their head.

It would not be just to p.r.o.nounce the same sweeping condemnation on politicians in all parts of the Union alike. In most country parts and in some cities the government is all that could be desired; and, usually, the more native-born Americans and English and Scottish settlers there are, the more free are the officials from corruption. But in many cities the administration is absolutely rotten: the courts dole out injustice, the munic.i.p.al officers solely study their own interests, and obtain office for the one purpose of dishonestly acquiring public money; laws are enforced or set at defiance as may be most profitable; and perjury and plunder are the every-day business of mayors, aldermen, policemen, and justices alike.

The plunderers are elected to office mainly by the saloon vote, a large proportion are or have been drink sellers themselves, and for these things the saloons are largely responsible. It is the realisation of this that has induced many men, by no means ardent abstainers, to advocate prohibition, not so much because it prevents intemperance, but because it breaks the power of the saloon in politics.