These statistics plaiuly show an immense moral power misapplied, or unapplied, in America. Counting out the Catholic vote, we have over 4,000,000 voters representing Protestant Christianity; if this large minority were organized and moved along the line of duty in the light of accepted truth the days of the liquor traffic would be ended.

Let Christian men attend the caucuses; as the hidden machinery in a watch controls the movement of the hands, the caucuses control the parties. Let Christians attend the conventions and assert themselves in naming candidates; subordinate party to principle, meet organized diabolism with organized Christianity, and the liquor traffic will follow the demons of Gadara over the ledge of destruction into the deep sea of oblivion.

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AND THE NATIONAL GOVERN

MENT.

BY WALTER B. HILL (MACON, Ga.).

I.

THERE are four theories of government now extant. They range between the two extremes of Anarchy and Socialism. They differ in degree according to the extent to which the agency of the State is admitted to be for the general welfare. For lack of better names these four theories may be described as follows:

I.-Anarchy.

II. The Laissez Faire Theory.
III.-The State Help Theory.

IV. Socialism, or Nationalism.

Let us consider the definition of these in their order.

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1. Anarchy means the absence of rule. It does not propose positive disorder for the sake of disorder, but its cry is for the widest "personal liberty." LIBERTY is the favorite name chosen by its newspaper organs. Proudhon is their philosopher. He says in his book, La Revolution Sociale" (p. 255): "No authority, no government. What society needs is anarchy. The object to be obtained is the abolition of authority, the clearing away of all government organism." The Anarchists claim that "the world will go by itself," and hence all interference in the name of law with this automatic action of society is tyranny. Their ideal of the social state is that described in Scripture as the reverse of good: "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges xvii. 6).

With reference to property, their fundamental maxim is that of Proudhon: "Property is theft." Whatever any one assumes to own is simply what he has stolen from the rest.

The theory of Anarchy, that government is unnecessary, is one which might legitimately be urged upon any community for its voluntary acceptance. We must give even to this very devil of devils his due by this admission. In a free country the advocates of Anarchy, as a consistent philosophy of government, would be entitled to toleration so long as they confined themselves to lawful means of agitation.

2. The Laissez Faire Theory regards some government as necessary, but a sort of necessary evil. It therefore reduces the State's functions to the simplest number possible, and leaves the sphere of individual initiative and control as wide as possible. This school of thought concedes to the government no functions except police and the public defense. In England it has been known as the Manchester School. In this country its foremost champion among scholars is Professor William G. Sumner. In politics it is supposed to be best represented by "Jeffersonian Democracy."

3. The State Help Theory is that the positive assistance of the State is an indispensable condition to progressive civilization. It holds that there are many things which the "all of us" can do better than the "each of us"; and that each of us" must surrender whatever of individual right or privilege contravenes the welfare of "all of us." It holds that the question whether any particular function can best be discharged by the mutual agency of the State or the private initiative of individuals raises a question, not of right, but of expediency; and that if the former be more efficient, then the case is made out for government supervision or control. It holds that in social organization, all individual rights are qualified by and are subject to considerations of the common weal or general social good.

4. Socialism, or Nationalism. Its doctrine is that the State should own, control, and operate, exclusively of individual title and enterprise, all the means of the production and the distribution of wealth. In this system the State is the owner, proprietor, and only employer. All the citizens become its employees. Some token representing so much labor becomes the only currency. This theory, which makes the State everything, is at the opposite extreme from Anarchy, which reduces the State to nothing.

II.

After this analysis of the four different theories of the function of the State, I remark that the progress of civilization for the past hundred years has been a progress from the second theory above mentioned toward the third: from the State non-interference to State assistance.

The Laissez Faire School has stubbornly contested this progress at every step; and as soon as it has been routed from one entrenchment it has taken its stand on the next.

Thus, it antagonized Education by the State; but as soon as that became generally accepted by public opinion as a legitimate State function, it ceased war on the common schools, and is now compelled to include among legitimate State functions that of public education.

Originally, it opposed government postal service. Consistency required the antagonism to State control of that which was once managed and might still be managed by private enterprise. The postal system is undoubtedly a government monopoly. If private individuals or corporations were allowed to do this business, it is probable that letters would be delivered in New York City for one mill each. Of course, the postage in remote and small places would be far in excess of two cents, but for the sake of uniformity the people of large cities must pay the government postage greatly in excess of what it would cost them under private competition.

Now, the postal service is such a familiar form of government agency that the laissez faire school no longer questions it; but it is a marked instance of the progress toward State intervention already referred to.

So, the Manchester school antagonized all the beneficent factory legis lation in England—restrictions on child labor, etc.

Many other illustrations could be given, but I trust these are sufficient to demonstrate the uniform trend of modern government in the direction of an enlarged sphere of State supervision, regulation, and control.

III.

This analysis has been prefatory (I trust not unprofitably so) to a discussion of the relation of government to the traffic in intoxicating beverages.

The prohibition of this traffic may be justified by that theory of government which restricts the functions of the State to the most elementary. For, as has been seen, the laissez faire school recognizes the fact that "it is the business of the government to act as policeman and keep people from knocking each other in the head." As the drink traffic causes the larger part of all assault and battery, its suppression is clearly warranted as a police measure.

The advocates of prohibition have been accustomed to rest the argument for the interposition of law upon this ground. While this is strictly logical, I venture to say that it is not fully adequate and satisfactory as a basis of legal action. The superstructure is larger than the foundation.

The argument has usually been made in this fashion: "Prohibition deals only with the selling of liquor; the sale is a public act; it is within the scope of law. The statute does not deal with the drinker nor with drinking. It cannot be said, therefore, to interfere with the private act of indulgence nor with the personal liberty of the drinker."

This, I have said, is logically correct. But it is easy to see that it does not fully represent the purposes which inspire the enactment of prohibitory law. One might infer from this mode of argument that prohibition had no concern with the drinking of intoxicating beverages, whereas it is well known that it does aim indirectly to diminish drinking—and, indeed, that this is the principal aim.

What is the definition of the prohibitory movement? I suggest the following: It is a movement to suppress the public evils of the license system, being at once (1) a business protest against its public burdens and financial waste; (2) a political revolt against its domination and corruption; and a (3) moral protest against its propagation of intemperance and the vices found in its constant partnership. The tax-payer says to the saloon, “I refuse to pay your bills"; the citizen says, "I decline to submit to your bossism"; the lover of humanity, morality, and religion says, "I protest against your vicious and destructive work." That work is not merely the supply of a normal and existing appetite for intoxicants; but, as the business is now carried on, with its excessive expansion, its persecuting opportunity, its tempting allurements, the social usage of treating which it has created, it unceasingly fosters and propagates and intensifies propensities to intemperance; it lives only by creating a patronage of drunkards; it thrives only by multiplying the sins and sorrows and sufferings of our fellow-men.

It is the union of these three distinct motives for suppressing the saloon— the business protest, the political revolt, and the moral indictment-that gives to the prohibitory movement its present potency and power. But who can doubt that the real steam that impels the agitation is to be found in the moral element? The two former elements are excellent allies, but not leaders. If the opposition to the saloon were limited to them, they would not sustain organizations, nor publish literature, nor hold conventions. The real life of the prohibition movement is in the conviction that the drink traffic is a crime against the bodies and souls of men; that society has a deep concern in the

physical well-being, the mental soundness, and moral elevation of the individuals who compose it; that the saloon is the greatest foe of these interests, and that prohibition is therefore a legitimate function of government.

For one I am perfectly willing to avow that prohibitory legislation has its true, or, at least, its broadest, basis on the enlarged and enlarging conception of government as a mutual agency for common weal. This conception is sneered at as paternal; but while it may disclaim "paternalism" in the sense imputed by the sneer, it may afford to claim as a proud distinction that it is FRATERNALISM in government. In many of the States, the Masons, Odd Fellows, and other benevolent organizations have refused to admit liquordealers to membership. This action is founded, as I understand it, simply on humanitarian grounds. The exclusion of the saloon-keeper from that larger society, the State, by prohibitory law, rests on the same idea of human brotherhood. The liquor-seller is the Ishmael whose hand is against every fellow-man. Prohibition outlaws him because he is a common enemy.

IV.

What is the relation of the drink traffic to the National Government? It has been a favorite method of the opponents of prohibition to localize it. They wish to reduce its size as a national question. This is often a mere subterfuge of the opposition.

The first time within my own experience when the question of prohibition was presented to the voters of my own community was about ten years ago, when an election was held for the office of County Commissioner of Bibb County, of which Macon is the county seat. Macon being an incorporated city, licenses to sell liquor within municipal limits are within the control of a Council; but the County Commissioners have jurisdiction over licenses within the county. I approached a friend and begged him to cast a vote for the prohibition candidate. He replied: "I don't see any use in restricting the sale of liquor in the county while it still goes on in the city. Just give me a chance to sweep it out of the whole county and I will be with you." A few years later Georgia, having passed a local-option law, we were agitating an election in the county in which the result would have applied to the city as well as the rural districts. I appealed to my friend for his support. He replied: "Well, I don't see any use in getting whiskey out of one county when it may be kept in other counties. But give me a chance to vote it out of the whole State and I will be with you." A few years later, when the Georgia State Temperance Association had demanded of the General Assembly a State prohibitory law, I again went to my friend and reminded him of his promise and his present opportunity. He replied: "Well, you must excuse me, but I don't see the use of driving whiskey out of Georgia while the sale goes on in the four States that border on ours. You see I am a more thoroughgoing prohibitionist than you are, and whenever I have an oppor· tunity to express at the ballot-box my conviction that the drink traffic should be abolished in the whole nation, then I will be with you." A few years later I became elector for the State of Georgia on the Fisk and Brooks ticket. I again went to my friend and told him that now his coveted opportunity for a radical expression of opinion had at last come. "You must excuse me," he