Have considered the same and directed me to report the same back by substitute and recommend the passage of the substitute.

Messrs. Ware. McKinzie and Pratt dissenting.

No. 56, A.,

A bill to prescribe the punishment for murder in the first degree and the manner of executing the sentence.

No. 2. A..

A bill to establish the original boundary lines between the counties of Langlade and Shawano.

No. 31%, A.,

A bill relating to the change of boundaries between the counties of Shawano, Oconto and Langlade,

Have have have the same under consideration, and have instructed me to report the same back without recommendation.

THOS. LYNCH,

Chairman.

The committee on Lumber and Manufactures, to whom was referred substitute for

No. 202, A.,

A bill relating to damages caused by the breaking away of dams and artificial flooding,

Have had the same under consideration, and have instructed me to report the same back with amendment, and recommend that it do pass when so amended.

THOS. CARMICHAEL,

Chairman.

The committee on Town and County Organization, to whom was referred

No. 189, S.,

A bill to amend section 679 of the revised statutes entitled of county government,

Have had the same under consideration and have instructed me to report the same back with the recommendation that it be concurred in.

GEO. W. WEEDEN,

Chairman.

REPORTS OF SELECT COMMITTEES.

The Walworth County Delegation to whom was referred A bill to incorporate the city of Lake Geneva,

Have had the same under consideration and have instructed me to report the same back with amendments, and recommend that the same do pass when so amended.

ORRIS PRATT,
DONALD STEWART,

Your special committee to whom was referred

Jt. Res. No. 18, A.,

Together with various memorials and petitions on the subject of prohibitory legislation, respectfully report the same back to the assembly with the recommendation that the same be indefinitely postponed.

Your committee are not unmindful that the agitation of the subject of the amendment of the state constitution to prohibit the manufacture and sale in this state of intoxicating liquors has for some time been extensive, and has engaged much of the energy and talent of those who think they are devoted to the work of advancing temperance. Fully appreciating the gravity and magnitude of the evils of intemperance, and entertaining profound respect for the sincerity and benevolent intentions of many of those who strenously advocate this kind of repressive legislation, your committee have given the subject careful consideration, and the conclusions at which a majority of your committee arrive is, that no benefit to the morals of the people, and no benefit to the good order or welfare of the state would under the present conditions of society result from the proposed change in the organic law. The amendment proposed is a sweeping prohibition of the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors in this state for uses as a beverage.

Your committee believe that such a provision, if adopted and ratified by a majority vote, would be unavailing to prevent the use and occasional abuse of intoxicating liquor. It would certainly have no effect unless followed up by careful and thorough statutes, enforced with the utmost rigor and vigilance. The experience of many years in this and other states, attests that prohibitory legislation has been ineffectual to restrain the traffic in, much less the use of intoxicating liquors. For many years it has been within the power of our municipalities to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors, or rather to render it unlawful within their limits. Numberless efforts have been made in local elections to affect this by election of local officers pledged not to grant license. What has been the result? Much controversy; much bitter strife; much litigation and social turmoil in which both sides have displayed little christian charity. These periods of no license have been almost invariably followed by a radical rebound to the other extreme.

The moral forces apposed to intemperance have been misdirected and spasmodically exercised, and the effect has been almost without exception the same-no gain to the cause of temperance, no benefit to good order or the spirit of good neighborhood, aud no diminution of the traffic or use of intoxicating liquors, and generally the tendency has been to its more immoderate use. While local repression is impossible, it is idle to attempt a general repression. If prohibition cannot be enforced in localities where the prohibitory sentiment is strongest, it is a useless exertion of the powers of

government to attempt its prohibition, where the sentiment in favor of prohibition does not obtain. If laws cannot be enforced, neither can a constitutional amendment be enforced. For, if this resolution is adopted and ratified the work will be valueless, unless followed up by legislation to enforce it, and the most rigorous enforcement of such laws. The enactment of such supplementary laws will still remain a source of dissension. Without such laws the amendment will be a dead letter. With them, if not enforced, it will be inoperative, and the sale and use of liquors will go on without regulation or restriction, and will flourish outside of and beyond the law. Legislation upon the subject will be fickle and fluctuating, oscillating from one extreme to the other, from impotent severity to permissive laxity. The constant disregard of laws passed to prevent the sale and use of liquors will tend to weaken respect for all laws. Devices to evade their operation will be so frequent as to be deemed legitimate, and the tendency of such practice of evasion is to impair the effiency of all statutes, and to make their breach or evasion common and praiseworthy in the view of many, rather than reprehensible. Such, your committee believe, would be the practical effect of the proposed amendment. Its result, in preventing the sale and use of liquors, would be more than counterbalanced by its detrimental effects upon good order, and by its encouragement to evasion and violation of law.

It is a greater evil to have a large portion of the community constantly violating a law which they believe to be unjust and oppressive than any evils which constitutional prohibition can eradicate. The so called "anti-treating law" passed two years ago is a striking example of the futility of legislation to effect changes in long established customs or trench upon the limits of personal liberty. Such laws are more demoralizing, do more to shake respect for law and order, which is the true support of organized government, than is accomplished by the liquor traffic and all its concomitant evils. The evils of such a state of the laws unsupported by public sentiment, habitually disregarded by whole communities, is well set forth in an address lately delivered by a distinguished statesman in another state. He says:

"I lived in a farming town of 1,500 people. During twenty years of prohibition rule there were a half dozen saloons, the lowest groggeries, constantly dispensing free rum; and in all those years but once was there an attempt to enforce the law. The voters at the town meetings would vote that the law should be enforced, but the selectmen would claim that, like some recent resolutions of conventions instructing nominees to vote for certain candidates, it was done after a large portion of the voters had left and nothing would be done. At last, my father, a somewhat radical temperance man, was elected chairman of the board; and in order that there might be no mistake as to the sentiment

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[ MARCH 22. of the town, a special town meeting was called to ascertain the real sentiments of the people, which voted overwhelmingly to instruct the selectmen to enforce the law. The attempt was made. Most of the dealers escaped, because of the strange inability of the witnessess to remember the nature of the beverage which they bought. One, however, was convicted, and fined and appealed. At the next town meeting the town turned out every man of those selectmen. and elected men not in favor of enforcing the law; and so began and ended the only attempt in twenty years in a rural town in Massachusetts to enforce the prohibitory law. In the larger towns the principal hotels sold liquors at open bars, with the connivance of the governor and state constabulary. It was recognized that it would be impracticable to close the bars of these hotels, frequented by men from all parts of the country, and in the case of the Berkshire hotels summer resorts for pleasure seekers from New York and Boston."

These remarks, referring to an eastern state, are but a recital of the experience of many and almost every town in this state, where local prohibition has been attempted.

But for other reasons than its mere inefficiency or impracticability, the majority of your committee are opposed to this amendment. The arguments urged in support of it are fundamentally wrong. They are plausible and delusive, but they rest upon a theory of social rights and relations, which have in all ages and social conditions proved intolerable. They are the arguments which bigotry and tyranny have always used in justification of the overthrow of personal liberty and the right of opinion. They proceed upon the idea that because certain drinks are injurious and tend to reduce a man to a condition in which he may disregard the social rights of others, therefore society has the right to dictate what a man may or may not drink. The logic of the position is: strong drink is harmful, therefore we may forbid our neighbor to use it. Our right to interfere is not that thereby he injures himself, but because by using it he may injure others.

The theory has been well stated in these words: "If anything invades my social rights, certainly the trafic in strong drink does. It destroys my primary right in society by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I am taxed to support. It impedes the right to free moral and intellectual development by surrounding my path with dangers and by weakening and demoralizing society from which I have a right to claim mutual aid and inter course."

It is recorded that the eminent John Stuart Mill said of the above: "A theory of social rights, the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language

being nothing short of this-that it is the absolute social

right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty: there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them; for the moment an opinion which I consider noxious. passes any one's lips, it invades all the social rights' attributed to me by the Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral, intellectual and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his own standard."

It seems to be conceded by the advocates of prohibition that to prohibit the drinking of intoxicants is beyond the province of legislation. They have not claimed the full exercise of the powers to which by their logic they are entitled. For they have manifestly the same warrant to forbid the use that they have to forbid the manufacture or sale. But their claim is disingenuous. They seek to invade natural personal rights by indirection; to do indirectly what they cannot do directly. They say to the citizen "we claim no right to prohibit you from drinking alcohol, but we will make it a crime for you to manufacture it or for any one to furnish it to you, and make you an accessory to crime in obtaining it. We cannot interfere with your liberty, but we will make it a crime to exercise it, and we will deprive you of the means." Your committee are warranted by the experience of every known locality in declaring that prohibitory legislation is futile, because it infringes upon deep seated convictions in respect to personal rights. It wars against a natural instinct. an inclination of human nature to resent the pragmatic interference by government with private and personal rights. habits, tastes and customs. It wars against a taste and appetite for some form of stimulant as widespread as humanity. It opens the way to most arbitrary interference with personal rights. If three-fifths of a community decide that tobacco is injurious and its use disagreeable, because an annoyance to others, they may by the same reasoning forbid tobacco culture or sale. If they become convinced that tea or coffee in their ultimate effects are harmful to the human system, they may prohibit their importation or sale. If they become satisfied that a certain fashion of dress is injurious to health they may prohibit tailors or dressmakers from selling such styles. If they find that too close application to business or study is injurious to health or increases the danger of one becoming insane, and consequently a burden to society, they may regulate his hours of business or recreation by statutory law.

These instances, and many more which might be cited