Excerpt from The South Carolina Dispensary: A Brief History of the Famous Experiment in State Control of the Liquor Traffic

Considered from the point of view of the political economist, the South Carolina State Dispensary must be classed and judged as a State monopoly of that fiscal category to which in past ages belonged all the various subjects embraced under the general title of jura regia; and of which modern history Offers many similar, though not strictly analogous illustrations, such, for example, as the different alcohol monopolies, and the tobacco monopoly which Obtains in France and seven other European countries.

In considering the South Carolina scheme the European alcohol monopolies, namely those now in force in Switzerland, Russia and the Scandinavian countries, must necessarily be taken into account, not only because an unbiased comparison between these institutions and the American experiment will throw a flood of light upon the whole subject, but also and more particularly because in our country some of these foreign institutions have frequently been cited as precedents justifying the introduction of the dispensary. On several occasions, when American legislative bodies were called upon to consider the advisability of introducing the Scandinavian company scheme, the advocates of the proposition invariably claimed that, in principle, a close resemblance existed between the South Carolina dispensary and the Gothenburg system or the Swiss monopoly. This astounding misstatement, made in the face of the fact that these foreign institutions differ from the dispensary in regard to fundamental principles and essential details of execution, seems to have gained quite as much popular currency and credence as the equally glaring error of some of the opponents of the prop osition who condemn all these European methods of State control on account of their alleged socialistic origin and the indisputable socialistic character of the conditions resulting from them.

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