Excerpts from Prohibitionist Rockefeller’s Foreword to the book Toward Liquor Control by Fosdick and Scott that proposed state liquor sales:
I was born a teetotaler and I have been a teetotaler on principle all my life. It is my earnest conviction that total abstinence is the wisest, best, and safest position for both the individual and society. In the attempt to bring about total abstinence through prohibition an evil even greater than intemperance resulted – namely, a nation-wide disregard for law.
Only as the profit motive is eliminated is there any hope of controlling the liquor traffic in the interest of a decent society.
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In 2013, living in a liquor monopoly state and having lived elsewhere half my life before age 40, I can’t find a more appealing and unifying issue than liquor control. Washington State abandoned it after a huge push by Costco, so I’m figuring some economic extremists will take a run at it here in North Carolina. With all the disharmony here, I’m looking for an issue where I can agree with Brother Rockefeller’s fellow Baptist believers, and liquor control looks like a start.
