The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
I have been asked why, if as much liquor is sold under
Prohibition as under high license, the saloonists insist
upon contributing to the public revenues. The answer's
dead easy. The men who engineer blind tigers vote the
Prohibition ticket. They contribute to the campaign
fund. They help pay the fees of the cold water spouters
and sputers. More liquor is sold under local option than
under high license, because of man's natural hankering for
forbidden fruits; but it is sold by a different class of men
and is a different kind of booze. It is sold by chronic law-
breakers, by men who have little to lose, by toughs for
whom the bat-cage hath no terrors. The man who is capable of
straddling an unlicensed keg of bug-juice in a back-room and
ladling out liquid hell to little boys, is quite naturally in
favor of Prohibition. A man of respectability, and who is
financially responsible for offenses, desires to keep within the
limits of the law. That's the reason that respectable saloon men
are the enemies of Prohibition.
Legalize the sale of liquor and you will have some
crime, no doubt. You will have paupers and criminals to
provide for, but you'll have a revenue to help bear the
burdens. Prohibit it and you'll have the burdens without
the revenue. Permit its sale and you will have law-abiding
citizens engaged in the traffic, men who will try to
make it decent, who will take a pride in the purity of their
wares and the orderliness of their places; prohibit it, and
you will have a lot of law-breakers on the one hand selling
slumgullion made of cheap chemicals and general cussedness,
and a gang of spies and informers on the other stirring
up strife and entailing costly litigation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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