Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-01-30
establishments now occupy, that under the
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establishments now occupy, that under the
new ordinance will cease to exist.
A leading Eastern journal has put itself
to the expense and trouble of addressing
some hundreds of letters to entirely reli-
able people-officials, Judges, lawyers,
merchants, ministers, general business
men, capitalists, police agents, etc-in Hi
nois and Iowa, to ascertain the exact facts
regarding the working of the prohibition
law in the latter State and the
high-license law in the former
commonwealth. Obviously we cannot
reprint the great volume of replies
received, though we shall endeavor
hereafter to present some of the more
thoughtful. But as the editor OF the paper
in question has made fair and impartial
estimate of all the replies, and formulated
the result in a concise statement that may
be termed the finding of the facts, we
adopt his synopsis, and without further
comment submit it to the consideration of
people who can look at this question dis
passionately and without radicalism of the
prohibitionist on the one hand or the self
interest of the dealer in liquors on the
other. For we treat this question from
neither standpoint; not as a temperance
plan, nor as scheme to benefit the better
class of saloons, but as a simple business
consideration affecting the pocket nerve
OF city that has too many drinking places,
too low license fees, and too large a figure
representing its rate of taxation, and
which figure is a bar set up to the invest
ment of capital and the incoming of
greater desirable population.
The conclusions reached from a careful
weighing of all the testimonies referred to
are as follows:
II. In large number of the smaller vii
lagos the public saloons have been closed
neither by high license nor by State pro-
hibition, but by local sentiment under local
option law. The number of correspondents
who have reported no saloons has been a
most gratifying surprise to us. This is the
most encouraging fact elected by our in
quiries. Twenty-Five years ago there was
scarcely a cross-road anywhere in the
West which had not at least one saloon.
90. In the rural districts prohibition
and high license operate about equally eff
fectively. The number of small villages
from which the saloon has been driven out
by high license and the local option COM
bined is apparently about as great in
Illinois as the number from which it has
been driven out by prohibition in Iowa.
"3. On the other hand, high license has
operated to reduce the number of saloons
and the amount of drunkenness and dis
order whether the amount of drinking or
not it is not so certain in the larger cities
of Illinois, while the number of saloons
and the amount of drunkenness and dis
order have sensibly increased in the larger
cities under prohibition in Iowa. Thus
the substantially unanimous testimony is
to the effect that in Chicago the saloons
have been reduced in number by several
hundreds; that the lowest saloons are the
ones which have been closed, and that
drunkenness and disorder have been
greatly decreased while from Burlington,
Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport,
Des Moines, Dubuque, Keokuk, Sioux City,
in Iowa, the testimony is substantially
unanimous that there has been marked
increase in the number of saloons, and in
the drunkenness and disorder which they
have produced"