Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1915 — What Should Be Done With the Chronic Drunks? [ARTICLE]

What Should Be Done With the Chronic Drunks?

There are a few chronic drunks in Rensselaer. Apparently all sense of regard for themselves hah passed and they have been so long addicted to the drink habit that they can not resist the desire for intoxicants. We feel sorry for them. So do all persons, but our sympathy does them no good and other means of correction or at least of restriction should be employed. Of a dozen habitual drunkards in this city it is probable that none receive express shipments of liquor and yet they are able to get whiskey and get drunk at least once a -week. This means that they are able to procure the whiskey right here at home. Just how it is done we do not know. Efforts to convict persons apparently guilty of selling it unlaw fully have failed, thesdrugstores have been furnished lists of drinkers and it is believed they art not selling to those who were on the “black list.” But they get whiskey and they get drunk and they mar the scenery along Washington street and something should be done to them or with them. But there is a certain class that seems almost immune from arrest. Down near Greencastle is a farm’ for derelicts. Other communities have been sending their habitual drunks down there and it gives them an opportunity to sober up for sixty to ninety days and some times in their sober thought they decided that life is worth something more than to make a barrel out of one’s stomach. If the bootleggers and blind tiger keepers can not be convicted because their patrons refuse to “peach” then the other angle should be tried, that of sending a few of the regulars to the penal farm. As a measure of reform we believe this will a real good thing for Rensselaer and for the victims of the drink habit.