Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The State of Washington sends no report. There is a provision in the
South Carolina law providing that liquors shall be "pure"; but, as the
State is the dispenser of liquors, the operation of this clause has
not been considered exemplary for the purposes of this article. Mr.
Lyman, in New York, thinks that sufficient time has not elapsed to
fully pronounce as to the benefits of the law.
XI and XII. HIGH LICENSE AND LOCAL OPTION.--Certainly the examination
of these statutes and reports of their results in forty-nine States
and Territories leaves it beyond question that so far the very best
results have accompanied the combination of these two provisions.
Perhaps the best example is in the largest of the communities to be
affected--viz., in the State and city of New York. Here, by separating
the plebiscitum or referendum into four local options--viz., (1)
selling liquor to be drunk upon the premises where sold, (2) selling
liquor not to be drunk upon the premises where sold, (3) selling
liquor by apothecaries only on physician's prescription, (4) selling
liquor by license granted to "hotel keepers" only--the result obtained
has been, I think, precisely what I contended for in the paper of five
years age, namely, the value of liquor has been recognized, and its
sale provided for without denying its dangers as a temptation, or the
disastrous effects of drunkenness. To use the exact words of the
commissioner's report: "The tendency is to recognize the propriety of
the sale of liquors by hotels and pharmacists in many communities
where they will not, by their votes, approve the sale by saloons and
groceries; and while there are now twenty less absolutely 'no-license'
towns than when the law took effect, there are very many less saloons
and groceries where liquors are dispensed." And this while not in any
way compromising or dallying with the proposition which the
prohibitionists and temperance societies insist upon (and which is all
they have as a basis for their claims), viz., the consequences of
intoxication and the public policy of its prevention. To show that, as
a fact, an equivalent result has been reached in every State in the
Union where high license and local option are united, would unduly tax
these pages. But one or two prominent examples are of the paradoxical
results--as gratifying as they are paradoxical--that the fewer the
places where liquor is sold the larger the revenue to the State, and
the less the drunkenness, may be cited. In the State of New York in
two years of high license the reduction in selling places was 5,484;
the increase of revenue to the State was $9,094,646.01; the decrease
in the number of arrests was 22,689. In the city of New York alone the
reduction in places was 1,204; the increase of revenue was
$3,549,851.90; the decrease in the arrests for drunkenness was 3,044.
Similar results are reported invariably as the fruit of high license
elsewhere in the United States. In the city of Chicago, under an
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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