OCR Text |
Show PROHIBITION IN LOGAN. Prior to the beginning of the year 1879, the city of Logan was forced to devote considerable attention and discussion to that universal subject of municipal legislation, the liquor traffic. Licenses were issued, but the masses of the people were opposed to legalizing the liquor traffic, and a qualified form of prohibition was adopted, which permitted liquor to be sold only for medicinal uses and under restriction that were intended to prevent the disposal of intoxicants for any other purpose. Experience proved, however, that the legalized sale of intoxicants under any restrictions within the power of the city government to enforce, would inevitably be abused and productive of more evil than good, and after much discussion of the subject in the city council, and a long public agitation of the liquor question, a strict prohibitory ordinance was passed January 13th, 1879, forbidding the sale or disposal, by any person, of intoxicants within the incorporate limits of Logan city. This ordinance was not a hasty measure. It was the result of thought, deliberation and actual experiment, for after various attempts at controling [controlling] the liquor traffic, the conclusion was reached that the alternative lay between unrestricted license and absolute prohibition. The council that passed that ordinance included men possessed of judgment, experience, wisdom and a familiarity with the sentiments of the people in a degree that could not have been surpassed by any similiar [similar] body that could have been chosen from the community. The great mass of their constituents heartily approved their action, and its wisdom was soon proven by the statistics of the police court. During some months succeeding the adoption of the prohibitory ordinance, the number of arrests for drunkenness and kindred offenses was less by several hundred per cent. than for a similar length of time during the continuance of the license system. This result strengthened the prohibitory sentiment, and went as far as any circumstance or argument could go to silence the advocates of the license system. If, under this ordinance, prohibition in Logan has not been absolute, the liquor traffic has been greatly restricted by it and largely confined to a class who were already addicted, more or less to drink. The ordinance has prevented the existence of open saloons, thereby removing from the path of unwary young men a temptation that would have led scores of them into paths that, to-day, they are fortunately strangers to. Of late however, parties have come to Logan determined to engage in the liquor traffic in defiance of the city. Others, long resident here, have taken a similiar [similar] course, and the result is that an illicit traffic in intoxicants has grown rapidly in our city during the last two or three months. By no means oblivious to the growth of the evil, the city government adopted, as soon as they conveniently could, measures for checking it, and a raid was made on the liquor dealers early in July. This was followed by another, on Aug. 1st, when a number of them were arrested. During the week convictions were had in ten cases, the fine in each being $99. Three defendants paid their fines and seven cases were appealed to the district court. Between the city government and the violators of the prohibitory ordinance, an issue is fairly joined. The city government has manifested a determination to carry the war in the courts to the end, without concession and without compromise. There is no hope that they will recede from this position, in which they are sustained by a vast majority of our citizens, and even if the city treasury should become exhausted in the fight, the sinews of war will not be lacking to continue it until Logan City ascertains whether she can or cannot legally, under her charter, enforce prohibition. So strong is the popular feeling among our citizens in favor of prohibition that money would freely be contributed, if called for, for the purpose of carrying test cases through the courts. These illicit dealers in liquor are opposing not only the government and treasury of the city, but a stern deep-seated determination on the part of a great majority of citizens, not to permit the introduction of the detestable traffic in our community. The parties who are trying to do it may make up their minds that they have on hand a long, severe and expensive fight with a city government backed by a strong public opinion, both of which are sternly opposed to the liquor traffic with its attendant evils of poverty, degradation, suffering and crime. |