The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 08 (of 12): Dresden Edition—InterviewsIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 08 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Interviews
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
now, they seem to have perfect confidence in men whom they never
saw, who have been dead for two thousand years. Of course it is
known that Mr. Gladstone has published a few remarks concerning my
religious views and that I have answered him the best I could. I
have no opinion to give as to that controversy; neither would it
be proper for me to say what I think of the arguments advanced by
Mr. Gladstone in addition to what I have already published. I am
willing to leave the controversy where it is, or I am ready to
answer any further objections that Mr. Gladstone may be pleased to
urge.
In my judgment, the "Age of Faith" is passing away. We are living
in a time of demonstration.
[NOTE: From an unfinished interview found among Colonel Ingersoll's
papers.]
PROHIBITION.
It has been decided in many courts in various States that the
traffic in liquor can be regulated--that it is a police question.
It has been decided by the courts in Iowa that its manufacture and
sale can be prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or
a brewery may be declared a nuisance and may legally be abated,
and these decisions have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the
United States. Consequently, it has been settled by the highest
tribunal that States have the power either to regulate or to prohibit
the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only so, but that States
have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries without making
any compensation to owners.
So it has always been considered within the power of the State to
license the selling of intoxicating liquors. In other words, this
question is one that the States can decide for themselves. It is
not, and it should not be, in my judgment, a Federal question. It
is something with which the United States has nothing to do. It
belongs to the States; and where a majority of the people are in
favor of prohibition and pass laws to that effect, there is nothing
in the Constitution of the United States that interferes with such
action.
The remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a
question of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another:
Can prohibitory laws be enforced? There are to-day in Kansas,--a
prohibition State--more saloons, that is to say, more places in
which liquor is sold, than there are in Georgia, a State without
prohibition legislation. There are more in Nebraska, according to
the population, more in Iowa, according to the population, than in
many of the States in which there is the old license system. You
will find that the United States has granted more licenses to
wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition States,--according
to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has
not been adopted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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