Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Dramshop, a warm contest.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 551

THE DRAMPSHOP.

A Warm Contest.

In the Spring of 1842 the Town of Smithfield, in which Peterboro is the principal village, shut up her dramshops. This result of a long-continued agitation her people have never lamented.

At a meeting held in Peterboro 26th last January, the following Resolutions were adopted:

"1st. Whereas, inasmuch as slavery is abolished and "repudiation" abandoned; and inasmuch as the Democratic and Republican parties are, still, each made up of high and low-tariff men; and are, still, each on the side of dramselling - Resolved, therefore, that there is, no longer, any issue or essential disagreement between these parties.

2d. Resolved, that the time having come for disbanding these worn-out parties, we gladly turn our backs upon them and connect ourselves with the New York State Anti-Dramshop Party - a Party, which meets the demand of the present, and wars upon an evil, still-existing, still-growing, and still the greatest evil in christendom.

3d. Resolved, that we will nominate a ticket for the approaching Town Meeting; and that, for the sake of the high honor and happy influence of our Town, we trust there will be no ticket against it - no dramshop array against our anti-dramshop array."

The anti-dramshop ticket was nominated a few days after; and, from that time until the closing of the ballot-box last evening, the efforts on the one hand to persuade the voters to vote this ticket, and on the other to persuade them not to vote it, were incessant. Numerous meetings on the subject were held in our churches and school-houses. Very, very hard was it to overcome the reluctance of the people to quit their long loved political parties; and in many cases it could not be overcome. In our temperance struggle thirty years ago, this tearing away from party was not required. The necessity of such a crucifixion was reserved for our present struggle. And yet, dear as are their parties to these slaves of party, they would have been able to break away from them bad they but seen and felt the deep criminality of dramselling. Should their parties come out for perjury or forgery or theft, quickly would they be forsaken by all their decent members. But by the side of the crime of dramselling, which is the great parent of crimes, and especially of murders, these specified crimes sink into mere peccadilloes. How is it, then, that worthy people can stick to these dramshop parties, which persist in dotting the whole land with dramshops ? The explanation is that they are the victims of habit. They are so familiarized to the dramshop, as not to be shocked by it. It pours out streams of death and damnation before their eyes; - but their eyes are so holden by habit, as to see, only dimly; this wickedness and ruin. A further explanation is that their habit of acting with these parties blinds them not only to the sins of these parties, but to their own sin in acting with them. They see not how true it is that every man in this State, who helps uphold these dramshop parties, shares thereby in responsibility for all the dramshops in the State authorized by these parties and for every crime, which comes from them. Scores of murders are committed every year in New York and Brooklyn by persons who are maddened in the dramshops of those cities. The men in the County of Madison, who vote with our State Dramshop Parties, are, of course, as well as similar voters in New York and Brooklyn, responsible for these murders.

The great principle on which our party is founded and the happily-chosen name of our party afforded us a great advantage in arguing for our ticket. This principle-viz. the duty of Government to protect person and property - none could gainsay. Nor could any deny that it grossly violates this duty, when it establishes or permits the dramshop. Our name, anti-dramshop party, saved us from the necessity of stopping to explain that ours is a party against dramselling and against nothing else; and it helped us fasten upon our opponents the deserved name of dramshop party - deserved, not from their personal habits - for many of them do not drink liquor - but deserved, because all of them cling to dramshop parties. We told the voters that we call on Government for no sumptuary laws; and that we leave it to

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the friends of temperance to combat only with moral influences the drinking usages, which degrade and peril so many families. As to the manufacture and importation of alcoholic drinks, we took the ground that there would be little encouragement for many to embark in them, if there were no dramsellers to sell such drinks. We held that the dramshop is the great manufactory of drunkards; and that what remains to be done for temperance after the dramshop is shut up is easily done. Just here, is one of the very greatest perils of our cause. Just here, is where the friends of temperance are divided - perhaps, fatally divided. Whilst many of them would wage political war upon dramselling only, many of them would wage it against alcohol, every where. Such universal war would, probably, result in nothing but a reaction against the cause of temperance. On the other hand, if the war is against dramselling only, it will be espoused by tens of thousands, who, though they may continue to drink liquor at their homes, are, nevertheless, too much the friends of peace and order and too studious of the safety of person and property, to be patient with the dramshop. Moreover, such of them, as have young sons or young grandsons, take no pleasure in the thought of their growing up under the influence of the dramshop.

There were two other tickets in the field besides our own - viz. a Republican dramshop ticket and a Democratic dramshop ticket. Our ticket ran ahead of the latter and got very nearly half as many votes as the former. Our candidate for Supervisor, whose name, by the way, was pre-eminently the test name on the question of dramshop or no dramshop, got more than half as many votes as the Republicans' candidate for Supervisor.

We would not be guilty of misrepresenting the character of the tickets of our opponents. We trust there is not upon I either of them the name of an advocate of dramselling. We justify ourselves in calling them dramshop tickets solely because they are composed of men, who cling to the great dramshop political parties, and have not the least expectation that these parties will ever make war upon the dramshop.

This is, indeed, a good beginning that our new political party has made in our little town. Nevertheless, it would be very foolish in us to argue from it that there is a great revival of Temperance in the land. The cause of Temperance, although somewhat revived of late, has not yet enough vitality to take it out of the category of dead causes. Indeed, it has never been much better than a dead cause. It had scarcely begun to live, ere its professed friends virtually killed it. Their talking, praying, preaching, printing for it could hardly keep it alive, so long as they voted against it - so long as they voted for candidates, who were in favor of that death. traffic, which murders bodies and souls. The people, however brave and burning might be their words against pet jury, forgery and theft, could, nevertheless, make little headway against these crimes, were they, at the same time, voting for perjurers, forgers and thieves.

After all, however, this inconsistency on the part of professed temperance men, gross and guilty as it is, is, by no means, a strange thing. The history of the world is a history of practice versus profession. The mass of our professed anti-slavery men persisted in voting pro-slavery tickets. It was thus that, instead of bringing slavery to a peaceful end, they left it to come to a bloody one. The mass of our professed temperance men will, unless they change greatly at this point, persist in voting dramshop tickets. Perhaps, they will persist to the mad inconsistency, until our nation shall have become an incurably drunken one.

All should see that the issue between our Anti-dramshop party on the one hand and the Republican and Democratic parties on the other is a very simple one. Dramselling is, confessedly, a crime, which works more wretchedness and ruin than do all other crimes put together. The Anti-drampshop party calls on these other parties to make and maintain laws to protect the people from this pre-eminent crime. Instead of obeying this call, they scornfully shut their ears against it, and make and maintain laws to uphold and spread it. Millions of cheeks wet with tears day and night and millions of broken hearts plead against the murderous policy of these dramshop parties - but all in vain. Every interest of humanity and every attribute of God plead against it - but, alas, the seductive and blinding influences of party are irresistible !

GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO, March 2, 1870.