PART II: THE POLICY.

IS THE POLICY OF PROHIBITION ONE WHICH, IN ACTUAL OPERATION, ACCOMPLISHES THE DE SIRED ENDS?

"The man who writes, speaks, or meditates without being wellstocked with facts, as landmarks to the understanding, is like a mariner who sails along a treacherous coast without a pilot, or one who adventures in the wide ocean without a rudder or compass."-Lord Bacon."

"ARGUMENT however admirable, and logic how"ever conclusive," wrote George William Curtis recently in dealing with another subject, "do not "avail with the English-speaking race like actual "experiment." Concerning any proposed public policy, the question asked by the social philosopher is, Is the principle embodied in the policy a correct one ? The question asked by the politician is, Will the policy work? The statesman, with an eye both to ultimate tendencies and immediate results, is forced to ask both questions. Not until social science shall have become one of the exact sciences, can a nation afford to take more than a step at a time in untried paths, however many the attractions they present. Philosophy, after all, is but the deduction of general laws from the experiences of the past; and in social

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philosophy especially, the advent of a new fact or a new force, or a set of new experiences, may at times act upon the best of theories much as the advent of a new planet in our solar system might act upon the calculations of our astronomers.

Fortunately for the consideration of the subject of this volume, the experiments with prohibitory legislation have already lasted for more than a generation and have been tried under many different conditions.

There are at present five States of the Union— namely, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Kansas, and Iowa-under prohibitory law which applies, in each case, to the entire State. In New Hampshire there is Prohibition of the sale but not of the manufacture of liquor. In addition to these States, prohibitory law applying to the entire State has been on the statute books of three other States, namely, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Michigan. In addition still to these, portions more or less considerable of many other States are now under prohibitory law secured by county or municipal action, those States in which these portions are most considerable being: Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In nearly all the States, however, there is, as in New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Nebraska, local Prohibition to some extent.

In two of the five States now under the operation of State Prohibiton, the law has had an

almost continuous existence for more than thirty years-namely, Maine and Vermont. In Rhode Island the present law was adopted in May 1886, but prior to that time, namely, from 1853 to 1862, and again from 1874 to 1875, Rhode Island was under statutory Prohibition. In Kansas and Iowa the law has been in existence respectively eight and four years. In three of the five States, namely, Maine, Kansas and Rhode Island, the law has been imbedded in the State Constitution.

In addition, a number of other States, during the period from 1851-1855, adopted prohibitory laws, through the action of the Legislature, which were either declared unconstitutional by reason of certain clauses confiscating liquor in the market prior to the passage of the law, or which were repealed in a very short time before the machinery for their execution could be constructed or fairly tried. As interest centres chiefly in the five States now under the operation of the law, the examination into the results in those States formerly under prohibitory laws, which have since been repealed, will not be made in elaborate detail. These States number four, namely, Michigan, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

In three of these four States, namely, Michigan, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the law was adopted in the same year-1855. In the other State, Connecticut, the law was adopted the year previous. One highly important consideration pre

sents itself at once, from these dates of enactment, and that is, the political condition of the country at this time or immediately thereafter. The question of African slavery was rapidly becoming the all-absorbing question of the nation. The Republican party had just had its birth (1854), on the issue of the non-extension of slavery, polling in its first national campaign, two years later (so intense had the feeling already become) one and one-third millions of votes. The Whig party was being broken in pieces, in the South by the Know-Nothings, in the North by the Republicans. In Congress a struggle was going on that absorbed the attention of the Nation as never before or since. The very atmosphere grew electric with excitement and nowhere more so than in the three New England States we are considering. The existence of the Union was hanging in the balance. Civil war followed soon, in 1861, lasting until 1866.

In the second year of the war, the prohibitory law was repealed in Rhode Island, and superseded by a license law, the need for increased revenue being doubtless at that time an important factor in bringing about the change. The law was re-enacted in 1874, but its trial then was limited to a single year.

In Massachusetts the prohibitory provisions of the law were repealed the second year after the war closed (1867); two years later (early in 1870) these provisions were re-enacted, but in the same

year malt liquor was exempted from the prohibition. Three years later, this exemption was withdrawn, and two years later still (1875) the entire law was superseded by a license law.

In Michigan, the law remained on the statutebooks until 1875, but prior to that, a decision had been made by the State Supreme Court, giving to municipalities the right, under the law, of taxing the traffic, which effectually disposed of what force the law had possessed.

In Connecticut, the law continued in force until 1872, when it was superseded by license and local option.

It becomes evident, then, that in each of these four States, for at least ten years immediately succeeding the enactment of Prohibition, the excite-" ment leading up to and during the war rendered the conditions unfavorable to a concentration of either attention or energy upon its enforcement. Even in local elections the issue of slavery had become dominant and dividing, and, as a matter of fact, the enforcement of Prohibition seems during this period to have been a matter of very little political moment.

1. The Inquiry Instituted by the Canadian Parliament.

It is fortunate for the investigation at this point, that in 1874 the Governor-General of Canada, at the solicitation of the Canadian Parliament, appointed a Special Commission "to inquire into