CHAPTER XVIII

OBJECTIONS TO SALOON PROHIBITION

A very great many objections have been urged against the absolute prohibition of the saloon, some of them so flimsy and frivolous that they merely serve as an excuse for the person advancing them, and, yet, there are, at least, two excuses that are pretty generally adopted by saloon advocates, or rather by the opponents of saloon prohibition.

DO SALOONS Help Legitimate BusinESS? There is a large element of people, whose pocketbooks are more sensitive than their consciences, who have been inveigled into the belief that saloons are necessary to business prosperity, and it is but fair to say that this notion is not confined exclusively to the saloon element.

There are men, who do not drink and who do not even visit saloons, who lend the saloon their moral support, or, perhaps, it would be more nearly correct, to say that they withhold from the antisaloon forces their support and influence upon the ground that the elimination of the saloon will be injurious to the business interests of their communities. To these people money is their god, and its acquisition is their sole ambition in life. If the contention were conceded to be well founded, it would not be a sufficient argument, because health, happiness, character and domestic peace can not be consistently bartered away for business success. But, even from a purely financial point of view, the argument is unsound and wholly without any foun

dation in fact. The presence of saloons does not advance legitimate business, but endangers it, and the absence of saloons, instead of injuring business, accelerates it.

DENS OF VICE ARE NOT ESSENTIAL TO BUSINESS PROSPERITY

Nothing can be more fallacious than the theory that dens of vice and crime are essential to business thrift and progress. Dens of vice and crime mean the waste of time, the waste of energy, the waste of industry, the waste of earnings, the waste of mental capacity, the waste of moral character and the waste of health, and how can such drains upon natural conditions be conducive to the industrial welfare of the people? Concrete examples of the effects of banishing saloons from communities ought to be the best arguments either for or against the saloon as an industrial benefit.

OBSERVATIONS OF A GROCER

A few weeks ago, the writer met a grocery man living in an Indiana town of about four thousand population, from which the saloons had been driven, by a remonstrance, seven months previously, and thereafter the law had been strictly enforced. A large per cent. of the population was made up of laborers in the factories. The grocer described the situation by saying: "When the remonstrance contest was on, I took no active part against the saloon. In fact, I did not sign the remonstrance. I was fearful that, if we put out the saloons, we should injure business. I was in debt, and I felt

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that I ought not to jeopardize my business. The remonstrance was successful. The saloons were closed. During the last seven months the law has been strictly enforced in the town against liquor selling, and I am glad to say that I was mistaken in the effect the closing of the saloons would have upon my business. In seven months, my grocery trade has increased more than 50 per cent. I have had no increase in the number of customers. increase of sales is merely an increase in the amount of purchases by my former customers. I am now getting the money that the saloon keepers formerly received, and the families of these customers are now well fed, instead of going hungry, as they frequently did when we had saloons. I have learned. that my real competitors in the grocery business were the saloon keepers, and not the rival grocers."

OTHER OBJECT LESSONS

In September, 1907, there was a remonstrance contest to close the saloons in the city of Lebanon, Indiana. One day, when the battle was at fever heat, a farmer came walking into the office of the writer, and expressed himself thus: "They say it will ruin business, if we close the saloons. You know that I drink, and I am often fined for intoxication. If the saloons were closed, I would not drink and I would have no fines to pay. If I could save for my family the money that I now spend for liquor and the payment of fines, I would like to know how that would hurt my business."

With the saloons, this man and his family received disgrace, misery and unhappiness for his

money, and, without the saloons, they receive the necessities and comforts of life. How could the saloon, under such conditions, benefit the business of this family? And this is not an unfair example. It is an actual reality.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, had licensed saloons for the ten years, from 1875 to 1885, and has had no licensed saloons since 1885. In the ten license years there was a decrease of three million dollars in the valuation of the property of Cambridge, while, since 1885, there has been an increase of forty-six millions or more than two millions annually.

The licensed saloon necessitates a police force and makes criminals, paupers and lunatics, and the expenses occasioned thereby must be met by taxation upon the general public.

A special investigation in Massachusetts, made under authority of the legislature, by Commissioner Wadlin, of the Labor Bureau, shows that, of the adult insane, 51 per cent. were victims of the liquor habit; of adult paupers, 71 per cent. were saloon victims, and of the adult criminals, 96 per cent. were victims of the saloon. What do the people of Massachusetts, who pay the taxes to support these lunatics, paupers, and criminals, receive in return as a business investment? Nothing but a debased and debauched citizenship.

Bishop Spaulding, in an essay on "Labor and Capital" says: "The foe of labor is not capital, but ignorance and vice. In the whole English speaking world, its worst enemy is drink. More than a combination of all employers, the saloon has the power

to impoverish and degrade the workingman." If this be a correct statement of facts, is the saloon good for the business of the laboring man?

Of its effects upon the laboring man the Boston Post said: "The great curse of the laboring man is intemperance. It has brought more desolation to the wage-earner than strikes, or war, or sickness, or death. It is a more unrelenting tyrant than the grasping monopolist. It has caused little children to be hungry and cold, to grow up among evil associations, to be reared without the knowledge of God. It has broken up more homes and wrecked more lives than any other cause on the face of the earth." The authority of this statement has been attributed to Cardinal Gibbons.

In a speech delivered in Indianapolis on December 3, 1907, Assistant Attorney General Trickett, of Kansas, discussing the business aspects of the prohibition of the saloon, said: "Let us take your neighbor state of Illinois, a state with a rich soil, a state with abundant rain, a state with all the natural advantages to make it one of great wealth. Go out along the prairies and take the state of Kansas, a state one-half of whose territory, was formerly known as the Great American Desert, a state that is the home of the cyclone, the grasshopper, the drought and the green bug, and yet with only onehalf the age of Illinois the people have three times as much money on deposit per capita as the people of Illinois.

Go away up to the northeast corner of our Nation, and you will find the Pine Tree State, with one