prohibition on the ground that it interferes with individual rights
would apply also to child-labor legislation, to legislation against
street soliciting by prostitutes or the sale of indecent pictures,
and, more obviously still, against anti-opium and anti-cocaine
legislation. As a matter of fact, the older individualistic point of
view has been generally abandoned now, and we are free to discuss what
is desirable for the general welfare. We may at once say that whatever
method will most quickly and thoroughly root out the evil should be
adopted. Different methods may be more or less efficacious in different
places; it is a matter for legitimate opportunism. But the goal to
be kept in sight can only be absolute prohibition of the manufacture,
sale, and importation of all alcoholic liquors for beverages. Education
on the matter, and exhortation to personal abstinence, must be continued.
But education and exhortation are not alone sufficient; self-restraint
cannot be counted on, constraint must be employed.

"High License" and "Regulation" have been thoroughly tried and have
not checked the evil; moreover, it has been a serious blunder to make
the State or municipality dependent upon the liquor trade for revenue,
and therefore eager to retain it. The "State Monopoly" system has not
proved a success in this country in lessening the evil; it made the
liquor power a more sinister influence than ever in politics. If liquor
must be sold, the "Company," or Scandinavian system, which eliminates
the factor of private profits, without fostering political corruption,
is probably the least harmful method of selling. But no method of
selling liquor can be more than a temporary expedient. We must work
inch by inch to extend the boundaries of absolutely "dry" territory.
"Local Option" has been of very great value in this movement, and may
still in some States be the best attainable status. Option by counties,
with a prohibition of the shipment of liquor from "wet" to "dry"