, 1881-09-18
INADEQUATE TAXATION OF THE LIQUOR
BUSINESS.

| The most crying want and most Imperative
necessity Of Chicago nt this time is Tor :'5o to
| 800 additional staIwart pntrol1ien to 1nake
the present force approximately equal to the
requirements of the city. The employment
! OF these additional policemen is now an I'LL
possibility, because the city has no money,
and the city has no power to borrow, nor any
power to levy taxes to raise the required rev.
enue.
To meet this deficiency the city has but
one legal means, and that is to impose an III
creased fec upon saloon licenses. The pres
ent rate of licenses is notorionsly anu con-
fessedly too low. It is ridicufOusIy small.
1t was fixed quarter of a century ago, when
the population Of the city was less than one
eighth Of what 1t is now. An increase in
the rates of saloon licenses is matter of
justice and propricty, but a stronger reason
than this is that it is matter of public neces-
sity.
There are in this city $500 saloons, which
now pay S52 each for license, making total
revenue Of only s1s200o Il year. 1t IS worth
while to examine what this business is worth
10 those engaged in it. The taxable prop
! crty i'll these saloons-that is to say, the per-
sona1 property returned by the Assessors for
taxation-is very, inconsiaerable, and the
lax paid thereon to the city is SO wholly i'll
significant that it may be dismissed from
consideration But all other visible property
pays taxes It may be safely assumed that
the tax paid on all other property is equal
to one-tenth of its income, and where mans
income from his rents is equal to $1,000 his
taxes, general and special, will average more
than 500. Tho saloonkeepers.s great and
small, pay only S52 4 year each for all the
privileges and protection-a1ld they are many
and costly-which they enjoy. -
These $500 saloons make annually Sales
ranging from $1,000 toes5o,ooo each, hun
dreds OF them over $4,000 each, and it is
low computation to assume that the general
average, including salts of cigars and other
forms of tobacco. is $500 each, making an
aggregate OF sales of S12, $50 600 in the year.
Their total license fees is Sis2,0oo!
The profit OH sales Of liquors and tobacco
is extraordinary, as compared with the
profits on other retail business. The liquor
at wholesale does not cost one-third Of
what is obtained from the drinkers at re-
tail. The clear profits are well known to
exceed two-thirds of the sales. Thus we
have the annual net profits of these $500
SALOONS at SS00o,000 year, for which they
pay the city the Insignificant license fee of
$4,000! \ half-dozen drinking. places can
he named whose profits amount to more than
that sum.
Treating the liquor traffic as a fact, and
discarding all impracticablo sentimentality.
VIC may assume that Mt least one-third Of the
cost of municipal government is due to the
traffic in Intoxicating drinks; this cost is due
to the direct and consequential results of the
sale Of liquor III the public saloons. These
consequences are the crime. poverty, and
wretchedness which atIlict society calling
for police, prisons, hospitals, asylums, aims
houses, and other institutions founded BY
public charity. ;.
We have seen that the saloons Of this city
deal out liquor annually at a cost to con-
sumers of more than twelve millions, on
which the dealers reap net profit of eight |
millions. Is it asking too much when the
public demands that these establishments |
contribute a portt ion of their immense in |
come towards paying the expenses Of gov
crnnlent, especially when those expenses are
largely made necessary by the character Of |
the business done in these saloons?