Alcoholism - License a Failure and a Disgrace : Part 1

The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
by T. S. Arthur

(Page 17 of 20)

For over two hundred years in this country, and for a much longer period of time in Great Britain and some of the countries of Continental Europe, attempts have been made to protect the people against the evils of intemperance by restrictive liquor laws. But as these laws were permissive and not prohibitory, the evil was not restrained. no, its larger growth came as the natural consequence of such laws, for they not only gave to a few men in every community the right to live and grow rich by doing all in their power to increase the evil, but threw around them the protection of the State; so leaving the people powerless in their hands.

History of License in Massachusetts

The history of all restrictive laws which have stopped short of absolute prohibition, is a history of the saddest of failures, and shows that to license an evil is to increase its power.

Judge Robert C. Pitman, in his "Alcohol and the State," an exceedingly valuable discussion of the "Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor Traffic," gives an instructive history of the license laws of Massachusetts from early colonial times down to the year 1877. The experience of Massachusetts is that of every other community, State or nation, which has sought to repress drunkenness and its attendant evils by the enactment of license laws; and we ask the reader's earnest and candid consideration of the facts we should here present.

As early as 1636, an effort was made in the Old Colony to lessen intemperance by the passage of a restrictive law, declaring "That none be suffered to retail wine, strong water or beer, either within doors or without, except in inns or victualing-houses allowed." That this law did not lessen the evil of drunkenness is plain from the fact that, in 1646, in the preamble to a new liquor law it was declared by the Massachusetts colony that, "Forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, especially of those who hold out and profess the Gospel of Christ, and seeing any strict law will not prevail unless the cause be taken away, it is, therefore, ordered by this Court," - What? Entire prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks?

No. Only, "That no merchant, cooper or any other person whatever, should, after the first day of the first month, sell any wine under one-quarter of a cask, neither by quart, gallon or any other measure, but only such taverners as are licensed to sell by the gallon." And in order still further to protect and encourage the publican in his Tested and exclusive right, it was further enacted that, "Any taverners or other people who should inform against any transgressor, should have one-half of the fines for his encouragement." This law contained a section which forbids any person licensed "to sell strong waters, or any private housekeeper to permit any person to sit drinking or tippling strong waters, wine or strong beer in their houses."

The Evil Still Increasing

Still the evil of drunkenness went on increasing under the license system, until in 1692, we find in a preamble to certain more stringent laws for the regulation of the traffic, this sad confession: "And forasmuch as the ancient, true and principal use of inns, taverns, ale-houses, victualing-houses and other houses for common entertainment is for receipt, relief and lodging of travelers and strangers, and the refreshment of people on lawful business. And not for entertainment and harboring of lewd or idle people to spend or consume their time or money there; therefore, to prevent the mischief and great disorders happening daily by abuse of such houses, It is further enacted," etc. - not prohibition of the sale; but further restrictions and penalties. How far these restrictions and penalties were effective, appears from the statue of 1695, in the preamble of which is a complaint that divers people who had obtained license to sell liquor to be taken away and not drunk in their houses, did, notwithstanding, "give entertainment to people to sit drinking and tippling there," while others who "have no license at all are yet so hardy as to run upon the law," to the "great increase of drunkenness and other debaucheries."

These colonial fathers, in their efforts to lessen the evil of drinking by restrictive license, for which a fee to the State was required, opened a door for the unlicensed dram-shop, which was then, as it is now, one of the worst forms of the liquor traffic, because it is in the hands of more unscrupulous people, too many of whom are of the lowest and vilest class, and whose tippling-houses are dens of crime and infamy as well as drunkenness.

How this was in the colony of Massachusetts under license in 1695 is seen above, and further appears in this recital taken from the statute to further limit the spread of drunkenness, wherein it refers to "divers ill-disposed and indigent people, the pains and penalties in the laws already made not regarding, who are so hardy as to presume to sell and retail strong beer, ale, cider, sherry wine, rum or other strong liquors or mixed drinks, and to keep common tippling-houses, thereby harboring and entertaining apprentices, Indians, negroes and other idle and dissolute people, tending to the ruin and impoverishment of families, and all impieties and debaucheries, and if detected are unable to pay their fine." All such were sentenced to the whipping-post.

Three years later, the curse of the licensed traffic had so augmented that another effort was made for its regulation by the enactment of a new and more comprehensive law entitled, "An Act for the Inspecting and Suppressing of Disorders in Licensed Houses."

Worse and Worse

How successful the good people of Massachusetts were in holding in check and regulating the evil which they had clothed with power by license, appears in the preamble to a new Act passed in 1711, "For reclaiming the over great number of licensed houses, many of which are chiefly used for reveling and tippling, and become nurseries of intemperance and debauchery, indulged by the masters and keepers of the same for the sake of gain."

About the Author

Timothy Shay Arthur (1809 - 1885) was a popular nineteenth-century American author. He is most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public. Virtually forgotten now, Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable, decorous middle-class life in antebellum America.