magnitude the evil of drunkenness, provided for and fostered by license,
had grown, appears from an entry in the diary of John Adams, under date
of February 29th, 1760, in which he says that few things were "so
fruitful of destructive evils" as "licensed houses." They had become, he
declares, "the eternal haunts of loose, disorderly people of the town,
which renders them offensive and unfit for the entertainment of any
traveler of the least delicacy." * * * "Young people are tempted to
waste their time and money, and to acquire habits of intemperance and
idleness, that we often see reduce many to beggary and vice, and lead
some of them, at least, to prison and the gallows."

In entering upon her career as a State, Massachusetts continued the
license system, laying upon it many prudent restrictions, all of which
were of no avail, for the testimony is complete as to the steady
increase of drunkenness, crime and debauchery.


TESTIMONY OF JOHN ADAMS.

Writing to Mr. Rush, in 1811, John Adams says: "Fifty-three years ago I
was fired with a zeal, amounting to enthusiasm, against ardent spirits,
the multiplication of taverns, retailers, dram-shops and
tippling-houses. Grieved to the heart to see the number of idlers,
thieves, sots and consumptive patients made for the physicians in these
infamous seminaries, I applied to the Court of Sessions, procured a
Committee of Inspection and Inquiry, reduced the number of licensed
houses, etc., _but I only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an
ambitious demagogue by it_. The number of licensed houses was soon
reinstated; drams, grog and sotting were not diminished, _and remain to
this day as deplorable as ever_."