Why We Should Prohibit

Some men -will vote against prohibition, not because they like the saloon, but because prohibition, in their judgment, fails to restrict so well as taxation restricta. Supposing it restricta just as well as taxation, then isn't prohibition better than taxation ? The difficulty with these people is that they start at the wrong end in their reasoning. In a question of this kind, the way to reason is from a fixed principie, not from the other end, that of results. That every business which panders to vice, which purveys to the passions and appetites of man, should be prohibited by society, is a proposition so self-evident as to be indisputable. That is a safe principie to act upon. Of course, there are times when a ity of the people do not look upon such things as wrong. It has been so with the saloon, with the gambling shop, with prize-fighting, bull-baiting, gladiatorial shows, etc. The petty Germán princes used to license gambling shops. These things have attimes been considered right ; but they were always wrong just the same, and ought to have been prohibited just as soon as possible. At last a majority of the people, and a large majority, look upon saloons as a fearful evil, and to say now that society should not prohibit it just as other evils have been prohibited, is a conclusión that cannot be based upon any good reasoning. We will admit that it might not be good public policy, for many reasons, to prohibit any evil too far in ádvance of public sentiment. Measures of restriction, if judiciously used, naturally lead up to prohibition. But all of Michigan, certainly outside of two or three of the cities, is now far enough advanced for prohibition. Read Prof. Henry C. Adams' article in another column. The Detroit Evening Journal has the following to say about Atlanta: "The strong testimony in favor of the success of the Atlanta law offered during the recent campaign has not been refuted. Notwithstanding this testimony, the colored vote and the white rowdy vote of the city defeated the re-enactment of the measure. License was substituted. The effect was almoBt instantaneous. The station houses are already crowded at night with drunken men and women -the larger portion of whom are colored. There are more in one night than there used to be in a week. Many of them, too, are brought in with bloody noses and smashed heads, showing that the liquor they get is of the worst brand. Had the saloon-keepers and the liquor dealers of Atlanta been disfranchised and disqualified for office, it is doubtful if that city would have gone back, ' like a sow that is washed.to its wallowing in the mire.'" A LATE COMMUMICATION tO TlIE ReGISter, signed " A Working Man," claims that high taxation of the saloon is merely discrimination against the poor saloon-keeper in favor of the rich saloonkeeper. The thousands of dollars the rich man has invested in the business are protected ; the few hundreds the poor man has invested are wiped out. The writer also takes up the question of the brewer who has $25,000 invested and wants to know if it is any worse for him to lose that tlian it is for the gambler, who nvests in a magnificent gambling room, to lose bis plant. He thinks that of the two, gambling is the lesser evil ; yet both are evils to society and should be wiped out. "We kxow of men who, if it were not for the open saloon, woukl stand a much better chance of re&isting successfully their appetite for drink. Is the place that puts BUch a teuiptation in their way, a place that should be legal?