The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1881-03-10
temperance.
LOCAL OPTION.
4 License Law Falls to Remedy a Great
Evil.
From the Memphis AraIsnehcl

from the HTInphl5 Avalanche.
1 was glad to see your paper lately
take the just ground that the privilege
of retailing ardent spirits within GER
tain limits should be left to the vote of
those whose families are more or less
affected by such a traffic. This is
nothing more nor less than the right
of local selfgovernment; and surely
that right is vitality involved when
the suppression of vice and the pro-
motion of virtue are the issues. No
one has ever yet been able to name
one single benefit to society from
drinking saloons, while countless evils
flowing from them are ever in sight.
The only plea ever yet urged in their
behalfis, that as they cannot be sup
pressed, they should be made to pay
the State n bonus for the privilege of
selling liquor. But how does TINS
bonus-this-whisky saloon tax-show
up when contrasted with the cost on
the other side? Suppose a man- pays
the State 800 or 5000 or $500 year
for the purpose of selling whisky drinks
to his fellow citizens. He may never
drink; may be quiet and orderly him
self, and may keep a quiet and order
ly house. But is that all of the story?
Is there no balance sheet7 Are not
these saloons the places where drunk
ards are made? Are they not the
resorts where young men first learn to
love the taste of whisky? Are they
not the training temples for the COM
ing whisky-bloat? Are they not the
nurseries for drunkar,hs and criminals?
Are they not the hot beds which breed
dissolute morals and lives, crime, dis
grace, poverty and the drunkard's
death? Can the bonus paid to the
State by these saloons begin to pay for
the jails, penitentiaries and asylums
they constantly fill with the victims to
whisky? Can this bonus. however
great, compensate for the sorrow, the
anguish, the desolation these saloons.
annually bring TO society? Then tell
me why the people to be thus endan-
gered should not have The right to say
whether or not they will have whisky
shop opened. at a place where they
have just opened good school, estab-
lished church, and hope to build up
a decent, orderly, respectable and in
telligent community? Merchants,
lawyers, doctors and mechanics pro-
mote the decency, the order, the so
briefly, the reputation and the intelli-
gencc of town or city; but where is
the man who will sayihe ever heard of
a whisky saloon promoting any one OF
these desirable elements Of society?
Not only do 1 think the local option
law should be a general law, upon the
broad ground that the people have the
inalienable right to say what evil
they do not wish to encourage; but /
think we should have that law as a
ward law in this city of Memphis.
think the citizens of each ward in the
city should have the right TO say
whether or not whisky shops shall be
licensed within that ward. = Let this
once be done, and in FIVE years prop
erty in the.wards denying that license
would rapidly enhance in value, be-
cause the society in those wards would
not encourage crime, while the wards
tolerating whisky shops would soon
have population too poor to earn a
living or pay for a drink. The saloons
would soon ruin their own patrons,
and would not make enough tn pay
the license.