Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — Giving the Drunkard His Choice. [ARTICLE]

Giving the Drunkard His Choice.

The Michigan Senate passed a bill, says the Chicago Tribune, which ought to have become a law. It provides that the man who gets drunk and is arrested for that offense may either pay the ordinary fine and be locked up if he cannot pay it, or give a satisfactory bond that he will go to some good place where men are treated for the liquor habit and be cured of his disease. I{ a man says he wants to be cured, Cut Is'too poor to foot the bill, then the expense may be paid by the county. In such cases Justices of the Peace and Police Magistrates are empowered to sentence drunkards to some institution. It will be impossible to tell how this plan will work until it has been tested thoroughly. It may be a great success or may amount to very little, owing to unforeseen causes. Therefore it is better that the experiment should be tried thoroughly in one State. If it succeeds there the example of Michigan will be followed speedily by other States.

There is not a county in Michigan but has its common drunkards, who generally gravitate with their families to the poorhouse and become a county charge. Looking at the matter from a business point of view it would be economy often for the county to pay the expenses of freeing these men of the drink habit and converting them from paupers and breede sos paupers into self-supporting members of the community, assisting others in bearing the burden of taxation. There is no more economi; and profitable expenditure of money than for the sobering of drunkards and for keeping the young from acquiring criminal habits. If a man needs a doctor or medicine and is too poor to employ the one or buy the other, the community attends to his needs. There is no reason why a man who has the drink disease and wants to tie cured of it, but has not the money, should not be helped to emancipate himself. It may be that when a drunkard makes his appearance in the polled court sick all over, disgusted with and ashamed of himself, he will be more likely to think favorably of going to a gold cure institution than at any other time. After his headache is over and he is at work again he feels more confidence in his ability to resist temptation. He makes those promises -which drunkards are in the habit of making, and keeps them for a week or a month. If he is caught when in his most abject and dejected state he may be glad to avail himself of the alternative of getting some one to go his bond that he will get cured. The experiment , is worth trying.