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by the results of the evil traffic thus legalized, in the public costs of pauperism and crime; that it is righteousness only which exalteth a nation and ensures real prosperity.

With education there must needs also be organization. The representatives and supporters of the liquor traffic, themselves thoroughly organized for its perpetuation and defense, must be met and overcome by kindred effective organization. The constitutional amendment presents a simple, definite issue. Shall there be license, or no license, for the liquor traffic? A Constitutional Prohibition League should be organized in every locality and enroll in its membership, irrespective of all political or other associations, all opponents of the drink traffic, pledged to labor and to vote only for an explicit constitutional proviso, State and National, against the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages. Thus may ultimate victory be won and the liquor traffic, “the gigantic crime of crimes of this age and country," be abolished.

THE LAW AND ORDER LEAGUES.

"We ask only obedience to law."

By L. EDWIN DUDLEY

(Secretary International Law and Order League).

THE Colony of Massachusetts, so early as 1637, enacted a statute placing restrictions upon the traffic in intoxicating liquors. From that early day to the present time, the liquor traffic has been regarded by all the legislative bodies of the country as exceptional, and most of them have legislated against it upon the theory that it is hazardous—a business fraught with danger to the people and the country.

While the people were pressing each legislature for more stringent laws, and often securing them, two and one-half centuries passed away before the people of the United States commenced a general, united, and systematic effort to compel the dealers in liquor to obey the laws enacted for the regulation of their traffic.

During all these long years, the great body of dealers habitually disobeyed and disregarded the law, with the exception that a considerable body of them paid the taxes levied upon them in the form of license fees and in other ways. But almost every community always had few or many who not only disobeyed all other provisions of the law, but also evaded the payment of their taxes.

The saloon-keeper, as a rule, was, and is, not only a law-breaker himself, but his place has been, and is, a resort and centre for law-breakers of every sort and kind. An official investigation made fifteen years since, by that careful statistician, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, disclosed the fact that eighty-four per cent. of all the crime in Massachusetts was attributable directly or indirectly to intoxicating liquor.

Previous to the formation of the law and order leagues, many attempts were made in localities to secure a better enforcement of the liquor laws. These attempts were generally spasmodic, and were usually brief. They took a variety of forms. In Rockport, Mass., some twenty-five years since, the women of the town turned out en masse, and destroyed the liquor in every saloon in town, while the entire male population looked on, including Justices of the Peace, Constables, and other officers of the law. These outraged and angry women made the mistake of endeavoring to compel obedience to the liquor law by taking it into their own hands and becoming law-breakers themselves.

Just here lies one of the strongest reasons why all good citizens should unite and proceed, by lawful means, to secure obedience to the laws. For lawlessness begets lawlessness, and those who suffer from law-breaking will, sooner or later, come to feel the inefficiency of the executive power to such

an extent as will lead them to take steps to secure their rights, and when people are thus aroused, the government is in danger.

Another and more widespread attempt to enforce the liquor laws and to promote the temperance reform was the Woman's Crusade. For a brief season much good was accomplished, and out of it grew the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which has now become one of the most powerful agencies for the promotion of the temperance cause.

There is some uncertainty about the time when and the place where the first law and order league was formed. The writer has learned that a law and order league was organized in Peoria, Ill, in 1872. The late Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., was accustomed to claim that the first of these leagues was formed in his parlor, in March, 1877. But the society took the name, "The Society for the Prevention of Crime"; although Dr. Crosby said that a portion of those assembled preferred the name, "Law and Order League."

In July of the same year "The Citizens' League for the Suppression of the Sale of Intoxicating Liquor to Minors" was formed in the city of Chicago. In 1880 The Law and Order Society of Philadelphia" was organized, and in 1882 "The Citizens' Law and Order League of Massachusetts" came into being. About 1879 or 1880 the "Law and Order League of New York” was formed at Albany by delegates from a few organizations then existing in that State. This league never became an active force.

On the 22d day of February, 1883, delegates from eight States, representing more than one hundred law and order leagues, met in Tremont Temple, Boston, and formed "The Citizens' Law and Order League of the United States." This association has met annually since that time, inviting all law and order leagues and other societies having kindred objects to send delegates. The National League met at Lake Bluff, near Chicago, in 1884; in New York City in 1885; in Cincinnati in 1886; in Albany, N. Y., in 1887; in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1888; in Boston, Mass., in 1889; and at Toronto, Canada, on February 22, 1890, when the name was changed, and the association became in name, as it had long been in fact, "The International Law and Order League." Another general meeting was held at Pittsburgh, Pa., on the 20th and 21st of November, 1890. The next general meeting will be held at Chautauqua, N. Y., on the 14th and 15th of August, 1891.

The International Law and Order League does not undertake to be more than a "Bond of union and a means of communication between the numerous State and local Leagues." The general meetings bring together earnest friends who are laboring in the same good cause in widely separate fields. The two days' sessions of these meetings are largely given up to accounts of the work by the workers, and the local audiences that gather to listen are generally more interested in the plain narrative of work done than in the discussion of the general principles upon which the organization rests, even when participated in by some of the ablest speakers in the land. The very able address of Hon. Wm. M. Evarts at the Philadelphia meeting was no more appreciated than was the plain story of the great work done in Chicago, as told by its agent, the late Andrew Paxton.

The local leagues adapt the form of their organization, and the object to be attained, to the need of the locality in which they labor. In Chicago the league has thus far attempted to do little more than secure the enforcement of

the law which forbids the sale of intoxicating liquor to minors and drunkards. The Massachusetts league, with its one hundred and seven branches, states its object to be: "To secure, by all proper means, the enforcement of the restrictive features of existing laws for the regulation of the liquor traffic." The leagues of Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto, Pittsburgh, and other places take substantially the same ground as the Massachusetts, and do not feel that they ask too much when they ask the liquor-dealers to yield obedience to all provisions of law intended to restrict their business in the interest of the general welfare.

Many of the local leagues unite to oppose the trinity of evils which cause most of the misery of the world-illegal liquor-selling, gambling, and social evil.

The members of law and order leagues combine to uphold and to secure obedience to the existing law. Upon this broad platform men and womenfor women are active members of most of the leagues-holding all kinds of opinions about what law is best, unite and work together to enforce the law because it is the law. Persons of all creeds and members of all political parties are united in these leagues, working harmoniously together. The good Bishop Ireland has long been President of the local league at St. Paul, and one of the Vice-Presidents of the International League; by his side we find bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of the Methodist Church, and such eminent divines of other churches as Rev. Elmer H. Capen, President of Tufts College, who has been for seven years President of the Massachusetts league, Rev. Edward E. Hale, and many others.

The man who believes that a strict license law is the most practical way of controlling the liquor traffic in the present state of public opinion and thought, goes with us to enforce prohibition in Maine, Kansas, and in the nolicense towns in our local-option States. The prohibitionists join in our efforts to enforce the prohibitions which are contained in the licenses. They aid us to compel observance of those provisions of law which forbid sales of liquor on Sunday or to minors or drunkards, which require saloons to close during certain hours of the night, on election days and holidays.

In this organization a great body of workers and helpers are found who are absent from an ordinary temperance society. The line is drawn between the law-abiding citizens and the law-breakers, and the strongest force is on the right side.

Whenever the subject is properly presented, the great body of good citizens in any community readily come forward to uphold and insist upon the enforcement of law. We have seen more than three hundred places where intoxicating liquors were sold driven out of Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University; and Somerville, with its thirty-five thousand people, has not tolerated a saloon for seven years.

The law and order leagues do not organize to usurp the functions of execu tive officers, nor to perform their duties. Every properly conducted league uses its best endeavors to persuade, and even to compel, when necessary, officers to perform their duty.

The persons who make gain by conducting business in violation of law, conspire and combine to elect officers favorable to their interests, and to control them after they are inducted into office.

The liquor-dealers of the country have more than one national association, many State and local organizations, and I have yet to learn that any of them discriminate against dealers who conduct their business in violation of the law of the State where they live.

It is all-important to the law-abiding people that the friends of law and of order shall also combine and offer to the officers an organized support in the performance of their duty. Elective officers are generally sensitive to changes in public sentiment, but they gauge such changes by the activity and earnestness by which their constituents manifest their desires.

In communities where the good people are indifferent and inactive, there need be no surprise if the public officers yield to the persuasion of the lawbreakers, and fail to perform their full duty. The well-being of the Republic must ever depend upon the enforcement of the laws. When one class is permitted to violate a law which does not please it, another class may well claim the same privilege.

It is only by enforcing law that the people really learn what the law is, and what it means. When the law is well enforced, the people have an opportunity to ascertain whether or not it fulfils their desires. If the law is less stringent than the majority desire, it will soon elect a body of law-makers who will add more stringent features. The law and order leagues have been a great power, far greater than any man knows. It is not only the direct effort and the public achievement which is important. The silent influence which deters persons from committing crime is far better than prosecution and punishment for offences committed. Such an influence goes out at all times from an active, aggressive law and order league.

More than twelve hundred of these leagues have been formed in the United States and Canada, and most of them have accomplished marvellous results. Many of these are inactive just now; some, like those in Cambridge and Somerville, because they have no work to do, the public officers having been brought up to the point where they enforce the law in letter and in spirit. Some have found greater obstacles than they expected, and have failed to go forward with their work. Others have started upon a wrong basis, and lost public confidence, and have failed to gain that active sympathy, co-operation, and financial support of the great body of good citizens, without which such work cannot be done.

There are but few communities which do not need the services of an active law and order league. They should be formed at once wherever the liquor laws are being violated, and the public officers fail to perform their duty.

The plan of organization is very simple, and will be sent to all who will apply to the writer.

Wherever a league is organized, one man should be found who believes in the work, whose soul is fired with indignation at the trampling of the law underfoot; he should have faith, courage, tact, good judgment, and, above all, he should be a patient, energetic soul, who will keep up the fight "without haste and without cessation."

In the beginning of such work success is a duty. Whenever a league begins work, it should be well advised by good lawyers, and should attempt the possible, and attack where there is certainty that the law has been

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