USA > Illinois > Illinois, historical and statistical, comprising the essential facts of its planting and growth as a province, county, territory, and state, Vol. II > Part 32
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"When we reflect, however, that the laws of our State, as they now stand, and are interpreted by those whose province it is to carry them into effect, not only permit, but rather to invite the retail of intoxicating liquors, it is surely time for the legis- lature of our State to consider whether there should not be a remedy applied to eradicate this evil.
"At this day, when the public mind has become so well aware of the paternal connection which exists between intemperance and crime, we will not stop to argue that question anew. Con- stituted, however, as the great majority of your committee is, of practising lawyers from various quarters of our State, we feel bound to add our testimony to the mass of evidence already given on the subject. In the large majority of the violations of criminal law, which have come under our observation in the courts of this State, the original cause of the commission of the crime was the use of intoxicating liquors; and in that large class of cases of violation of personal rights of individuals, as affrays, assault and battery, riots, assaults with deadly weapons, manslaughter and murder, we are fully convinced, from our observation, that from three-fourths to nine-tenths have their origin in the same unfortunate source.
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COL. HARDIN'S REPORT, 1840.
"Some of your committee have paid attention to this subject; and they are fully convinced, from the result of their inquiries, that not less than three-fourths of the paupers in Illinois have become so from the use of intoxicating liquors obtained at groceries. * *
"The reports of lunatic asylums exhibit the fact that a large majority of the cases of lunacy and insanity, are produced by this same fruitful source of misery. * * * In all countries, and especially in our own, insane persons are considered as deserving the especial protection and support of the goverment. How very important it is, then, to prevent the spread of this dreadful malady, and thus relieve an incalculable amount of wretchedness and misery.
"The amount of injury which is thus shown to be produced on the inhabitants of this State, by the combined causes of crime, pauperism, and insanity, which not only effect the moral and social happiness of individuals, but also furnish a severe drain on the revenues of the State, afford conclusive proof that there is an evil in our system of permitting the retailing of spirituous liquors, which requires prompt and efficient legisla- tion. * *
"They further recommend that entire discretion be granted to the officers authorized to issue licenses, to grant or refuse them at pleasure. By giving this discretion, the people of a county or town may elect officers to carry out their wishes, either by wholly refusing to grant licenses or otherwise, as to them may seem proper. They would also suggest that whilst it is right that the power of granting licenses for counties be continued in the county commissioner's court, yet it does seem to them to be more proper to give the power of granting licenses in incorporated towns to the president and board of trustees of such towns. * *
"Every man has the natural right to carry arms-to sell poisons-to loan his money as he please-to erect a mill and charge any price for the use of it-to carry travelers across rivers and charge any price for the same he can get; yet we find in nearly all countries there are laws preventing the carry- ing of concealed weapons -- preventing the sale of arsenic and other poisons-regulating the interest of money, the tolls of millers, and the rates of ferriage; and we hear but little com- plaint, in these cases, of depriving man of his natural rights. The present is precisely a case of similar character; it is for the legislature to determine whether the good of the many requires the surrender of the natural rights of the few who may wish to exercise this right of retailing a slow but certain poison. And it is not only the right of the legislature, but it is the duty,
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
whenever it becomes satified that the opinions and feelings of the people of the State will sanction and demand it, to utterly abolish this practice from the land.
"It will be seen that your committee have not gone, in their recommendation, to the extent prayed for by the petitioners; so as to repeal all laws authorizing the sale of intoxicating drinks. The reason of this is, that they have not sufficient evidence to induce them to believe that such is the desire of a majority of the citizens of the State; and whilst it is their dis- position to go as far as public opinion will certainly warrant, they can not doubt but that it is better to fall somewhat short of the wishes of the ardent friends of temperance, than, by going too far, risk the reaction of public sentiment and the consequent repeal of whatever law might be adopted.
"In all moral and political movement, nothing is more to be dreaded than a reaction. It is better that the moralist and politician should rather be behind public opinion in the binding measures he may propose, than, by an eager zeal, rush forward and hazard the whole object in view, when there was no occa- sion for the risk. The practice of permitting the retail of ardent spirits has been handed down for years, and the custom of seeing it retailed is so habitual with many excellent citizens, who are not in the habit of using it to excess, that the proposi- tion to abolish all license laws, connected with the unkind manner in which it is sometimes urged, seems to them an innovation proposed by a rash and improper spirit. It must be recollected, however, that the great increase of groceries is a practice of modern times; and in consequence of the abuses of these licensed groceries, the great spirit of temperance reform has sprung into existence. Already are its beneficial effects seen pervading the length and breadth of the land, bearing with it peace and prosperity wherever it prevails; and whilst it uses arguments based on facts and depends on the influences of moral suasion, there is no friend of this country, and no philan- thropist, but what must wish it success."
As the outgrowth of the above report, a new license-law was passed at this session with the following provisions: county commissioners were authorized to grant licenses upon the pay- ment of not less than $25 nor more than $300 per year; the court being authorized to reject any application for cause, and to revoke any license whenever it was satisfied the privilege was abused. Groceries were defined to be places where spirit- uous or vinous liquors were retailed in less quantities than one quart. In incorporated towns, the exclusive privilege of grant- ing licenses was given to the trustees.
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KILLPATRICK'S REPORT, 1847.
The peculiar feature of the law, establishing at this early date the principle of "local option," was brought out in section eight, which provided that "If a majority of the legal voters in any county, justice's district, incorporated town, or ward in any city, shall petition the county commissioner's court or other authority, authorized to grant licenses, desiring that spirituous liquors shall not be retailed within the bounds of said county district, town or city, then and in that case it shall not be law- ful to grant any grocery license in said county, town or ward, until a majority of the legal voters of said county, district, town, or ward, shall in like manner petition for the granting of said licenses."
The above-cited section eight was repealed in 1841, and the law otherwise amended by enlarging the definition of the word "grocery," and providing for the indictment of all violators of the law and for the imposition of a fine of ten dollars upon such conviction.
No further changes in the law were made for several years, although the question was frequently under discussion. In 1847, the friends of no license succeeded in procuring a favor- able report from a select senate committee, of which Senator Thomas M. Killpatrick was chairman. The following extract from his report shows that the committee entertained some advanced views on the subject:
"The object in granting license in the first place, no doubt, was, to secure a revenue from the sale of liquors, upon the same principle that men paid for the privilege of selling dry-goods, or engaging in any other branch of trade. But when the evils accruing from the use of intoxicating drinks became manifest and alarming, the price to be paid for the privilege of selling was increased, not to operate as a tax, but as a check on the widespread evil growing out of the sale and use. With this object in view, our present license was enacted; and many of the most devoted friends of temperance are of opinion that if the consideration paid for license was increased, it would have a tendency to diminish the sale and use of the article. Experi- ence has taught us that although but few, comparatively, have obtained license to sell liquor in less quantity than a quart, yet the places where liquor is sold have been multiplied rather than diminished. * * *
"The committee would take another view of this question, and ask, are there any evils growing out of the sale and use of
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
intoxicating liquors? If so, is it right to grant by law license and special or exclusive privileges to any individual to engage in a business the tendency of which is evil and only evil. To answer this question, it is not necessary in this enlightened day, to dwell on the effects of intoxicating liquor on the intel- lectual, moral, or physical man. This subject is so manifest that all are convinced of the deadly, withering effect it has on the whole man. To remove this evil and restore human nature to the elevated position assigned it by its Maker has enlisted the prayer of the christian and the individual effort of the philanthropist.
"As statesmen, your committee would consider it as a state or national evil. And first, as to revenue, the use of intoxicat- ing liquors has a tendency to diminish the amount of revenue and to increase the demand for it. The unfortunate drunkard is usually poor and pays no taxes; not that there is any natural impediment in the way of his accumulating or holding property, but that his habits of intemperance are such that what he accumulates is squandered to gratify an unnatural and ruinous appetite. His time and property thus wasted, he accumulates nothing as the basis of taxation-hence the reason why so many of our fellow-citizens pay nothing to defray the ordinary expenses of our state government.
"That the use of intoxicating liquors increases the demand for revenue, the statistics of our poor - houses, alms - houses, insane- and mad-houses, and our jails and penitentiaries, but too clearly prove- a careful and impartial investigation has demonstrated that a large majority of the inmates of these retreats for the wretched and the criminal have been brought there by the use of intoxicating liquor.
"The testimony of our oldest and most experienced jurists, together with every day's experience and observation, demon- strates that more than two-thirds of all the crime committed in the country has its origin in the same prolific source, and indeed it is not to be wondered at, when the use of the article has a tendency to stupefy and benumb the senses, to arouse all the angry passions of our nature, and turn the man into a demon. The expenses of our jails and poor-houses, as well as criminal prosecutions, have to be paid by the people; the property, as well as the benevolence and charity of the sober community, has to be taxed to support and maintain drunkenness among us. * *
"Such being the effects of the use of intoxicating liquors, whether taken in large or small quantities, the committee are of opinion that, to legalize the sale of ardent spirits, to grant license to any one to sell liquor, is, in effect, to license crime;
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TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.
or, in other words, it is granting a permit, sanctioned and sus- tained by law, to deal out indiscriminately an article that pro- duces all the evils above enumerated. The committee are not of opinion that the license law operates as a check to the evils complained of. If the law was repealed there would be more persons selling by the small quantity but not so many by the large; there would perhaps be more money made by the traffic but not so much liquor sold or so many drunkards made. * * Your committee can not but concede to the people, in their associated capacity, the right to manage this matter, to rid themselves, if they wish it, of a traffic that has and is pro- ducing so much evil without any accompanying good. The people are the source of all power-laws should be enacted for their special benefit; but in a population like ours, a general law, obligatory alike on all, would not be safe. Some communi- ties may wish to continue the traffic while others may not. A law to prohibit the sale of the article would be in advance of public sentiment in many places; consequently would be disre- garded and rendered useless, and worse than no law. So a law allowing liquor to be sold where the popular voice has decided against it would be oppressive and wrong; hence the necessity of leaving it to the voice of the people in those small localities. If they decide in favor of selling it, let it be sold; if they decide against it, let the law sustain them in that decision. Nor can it be argued that the rights of any individual are invaded by this arrangement. In a government of laws, many of our natural rights have to be mutually surrendered for the public good. This principle is recognized throughout our statutes; hence ferries are regulated to prevent extortion; the sale of poison and tainted meats is prohibited to guard life and health; murder, robbery, theft, and counterfeiting, together with the whole catalogue of crime, are prohibited and the offenders punished to secure the public good. So let it be with the sale of intoxicating liquors, the great source of these evils, when the public sentiment has decided against it. To say that the people are not qualified to consider this matter is to doubt their ability for self-government and to distrust the essential principle upon which our government is founded. In the great state of New York, where the experiment has been tried, it works well and promises ultimate success. The committee, however, in accordance with the prayer of several petitions referred to them, report a bill."
What would have been the opinions of these distinguished legislators in the light of the fifty years of experience on this subject, which have followed these reports, with the failures to execute prohibitory laws in localities opposed to them, and the
57
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
demoralization of the public mind living in the daily violation of a statutory provision, can be only conjectured.
No immediate result followed this report but it bore fruit at the session of 1851, when an act was passed "to prohibit the retailing of intoxicating drinks" in a less quantity than one quart. The fine for violating the law was fixed at not less than thirty, nor more than one hundred dollars. The war between the temperance men and the liquor dealers, with its never- ceasing litigation, was violently waged for the next two years, when the prohibitory law was repealed and the old -license system restored .*
In 1855, such had been the progress made by the opponents of the sale of intoxicating liquors, that they succeeded in pass- ing the celebrated bill entitled "an act for the suppression of intemperance," which in its main features was the prohibitory law of the state of Maine. This law was submitted to the people at an election held on the first Monday in June, 1855, and rejected by a large majority.
The license law thenceforth remained without material change until 1872, when "an act to provide against the evils resulting from the sale of intoxicating liquors in the State of Illinois" was enacted, requiring that the licensee should give a bond in the penal sum of $3000, with two good sureties, conditioned that he would "pay all damages to any person or persons which may be inflicted upon them, either in person or property, or means of support, by reason of the person so obtaining a license." Section five provided that the husband, wife, child, parent or guardian, who should be injured in person or property, or meáns of support, by any intoxicated person, or in con- sequence of the intoxication, habitual or otherwise, of any person, should have a right of action in his or her own name, severally or jointly, against any person or persons who should, by selling or giving intoxicating liquors, have caused the intoxi- cation, in whole or in part, of such person or persons; and any person or persons owning, renting, leasing, or permitting the occupation of any building or premises, and having knowledge that intoxicating liquors were to be sold therein, or who having leased the same for other purposes, should knowingly permit
* Laws of 1853, page 91.
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TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.
therein the sale of any intoxicating liquors that caused, in whole or in part, the intoxication of any person, should be liable, severally or jointly, with the person or persons selling or giving intoxicating liquors aforesaid, for all damages sustained and for exemplary damages. Other stringent provisions relat- ing to indictments and penalties were also contained in this law.
All the acts on the subject were revised under the title of "dram-shops," in "an act to provide for the licensing of and against the evils arising from the sale of intoxicating liquors," in 1874. The provisions of the act of 1872 were reenacted, the sum to be paid for licenses advanced to not less than $50 nor more than $300, and the number of dram-shops in any county limited to so many as the "public good may require, the license therefor to be issued upon the filing of a petition signed by a majority of the legal voters in the town or precinct where the same is proposed to be located"-thus reviving the principle of local option.
At the session of 1879, a petition, containing 175,000 names, 80,000 of whom, it was stated, were voters, was presented praying for the requisite legislation-so that the question of licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors in any locality in this State should be submitted to, and determined by, the ballot of the electors thereof, in which women of lawful age should be allowed to vote. Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Mrs. Foster of Iowa, and Mrs. St. John of Eureka, Illinois, on motion were invited to and addressed both houses in favor of the prayer of the petition; the senate taking a recess for tha purpose, the house hearing the addresses while in session.
A bill was introduced by Representative Hinds in accordance with the request of the petitioners which failed to pass, receiv- ing 53 to 55 votes against it. A bill, containing similar pro- visions, failed of passage also at the session of 1881.
Petitions, praying for a constitutional amendment, prohibit- ing the manufacture and sale of intoxicants in the State have been presented to the legislature at nearly every session since 1875. Greater progress was reached in the nature of legislative action at the session of 1883, than any other, at which time, a resolution, introduced by Representative Manahan, providing
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
for the amendment was reported back from the judiciary com- mittee without recommendation. A motion made to suspend the rules to consider the same was voted down by yeas 55, nays 61. Subsequently, the consideration of the question was postponed "until July 4th next" by a vote of 47 to 46, which disposed of it for that session.
No further changes were made in the law until the session of 1883, when the bill entitled "an act to restrict the powers of counties, cities, towns, and villages in licensing dram-shops," was introduced by William H. Harper, February 7. The change proposed by this measure, as outlined in the first sec- tion, is to prohibit the granting of licenses for the keeping of dram-shops except upon the payment of not less than at the rate of $500 per annum; and where malt liquors alone are sold $150 per annum. The bill was generally supported by the republicans and ably advocated, in the house where the fight was made, by Messrs. Harper, Morrison, W. F. Calhoun, W. J. Calhoun, Fuller, Littler, Parker, Adams, Mc Cartney, Worth- ington, and others; while it was generally opposed by the democrats, the following members of that party gave it their cordial and influential support: Messrs. Willoughby, Gregg, Kimbrough, Day, Felker, Welch, Greathouse, Moore, and Grear. It was not finally passed until June 15. The same principle of high license has since been adopted in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Missouri, Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio, Minnesota, and some other states.
That the effect of the law has been greatly to reduce the number of saloons, in all the larger cities, and at the same time largely to augment the municipal revenues, there can be no question-the increased receipts from this source in Chicago being over a million of dollars. Objectional "dives" and places of low resort have undoubtedly been driven out of existence, and it has been more difficult for their vicious patrons to gratify their deprived appetites than before. The character of the saloon has also doubtless been improved; but that any great number who drank before have ceased to indulge in consequence of the operations of this law is at least questionable.
An incident of more than ordinary interest, connected as it was with the passage of the Harper high-license law, was the
HORACE H.THOMAS
JACOB GROSS
Wm. J.CAMPBELL
RICHARD EDWARDS.
JOS. W. VANCE
CHICAGO.
FERGUS PTG. CO
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LAWS-LABOR TROUBLES.
contested-election case of James B. Bradwell, republican, versus Thos. J. McNally, democrat, who had received the certificate as a member from the third senatorial district which is made up of the first, second, and third wards of Chicago. Judge Bradwell was well known to be in favor of the high-license law, while Mc Nally was opposed to it. On April 19, the committee on elections brought in two reports, the majority being in favor of Bradwell and the minority supporting the sitting member. It required every republican vote to adopt the majority report. This the opponents of high-license determined, if possible, to prevent. By the most corrupt influences, including the use of money, Jesse J. Rook, elected as a republican from a Chicago district, permitted himself to be debauched for this purpose. He was generally kept out of the way, or if present, as he was persuaded to be on one or two occasions, although he was aware that his bribery had been exposed, he stubbornly refused to cast his vote in favor of the republican member. As a result, Judge Bradwell lost his seat, but the end, which it was supposed would be prevented by retaining the contestee, was accom- plished nevertheless .*
A few other laws of general interest were enacted at this ses- sion, among them a revision of the statutes relating to "roads, highways, and bridges;" the first compulsory-education law; and "an act to provide for and aid training-schools for boys."
A joint-resolution was adopted submitting an amendment to the constitution providing for the exercise by the executive of a partial veto in case of appropriation bills-which was ratified by the people at the election of Nov. 4, 1884, by an overwhelm- ing majority.
In May, 1883, there was another outbreak among the miners at and near Collinsville, Madison County. The working miners, it was alleged by the owners of the mines, were being abused and maltreated by the strikers, and there was danger of a serious disturbance which would be disastrous to life and property. Upon the request of the sheriff of the county,
* Rook, on his return home, was shunned by his former friends and late confrères alike. He soon after left Chicago and became a wanderer for a time without friends or any regular avocation. He finally became a resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, where in July, 1890, he fell from a third-story window and received injuries from which he died in a few hours.
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
based upon the statement that he was unable to control the rioters through the civil authorities, the Fifth Regiment of the Illinois National Guards, commanded by Col. J. H. Barkley, was despatched to the threatened locality, May 25. Brig .- Gen. Reece, commanding the second brigade, arrived on the ground the following day. Upon the arrival of the militia the rioters at Collinsville dispersed and congregated at Marissa in St. Clair County. At the Reinecke mine about 300 men and 50 women had gathered, took possession, and defied the civil authorities. Col. Barkley proceeded thither with his entire command. His troops were fired on by the rioters as they were leaving the cars, and the fire was returned, several volleys were exchanged, and one of the mob killed. Twenty-six rioters were arrested and the remainder dispersed. This ended the outbreak and peace being restored, the troops were ordered home.
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