Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-03-08
THE HIGH-LlCENsE DEBATE.
The Liquor-Dealers' Association Speaks
Answers to Questions.

the independent and fair stand yeu have taken
IN the agitation now occupying the peoples
minds III regard 10 the high license in this city.
The business community in general appreciates
your kindness. and, feels grateful therefor. If
the inciosed article is not too lengthy and you
can md space for 1T, please insert it in your
Mondays issue. Accept the thanks of our Asso-
citation IN advance as / shall bring the matter
before them this evening. Very truly yours,
GEORGE w. CHEsLEY, President.
We all remember reading in our boy
hood days of the Revolutionary tea party,
and recollect how our youthful blood
would boil and bubble when we thought
of how the English Government imposed
and forced the collection of an unjust and
unwarranted tax upon the Colonists. 1t
was unjust, and in consequence met with
the proper resentment. which cost Eng
land the loss of what since has become
the fairest land upon the earth. Our Gov
eminent owes its origin to the fact that her
people rebelled against unjust and dis
eliminating taxation. That same feeling
has grown with her growth, and increased
with her strength, until to-day the United
States stands forth among the nations of
the earth like mighty meteor, beacon
light for the downtrodden and oppressed of
every country.
The imposition of a high license at this
time upon Sacramento means TO her finan-
cial ruin. This, it is true, is broad
statement, and must fall, if it can
not be upheld by strong, undeniable
and convincing argument. If you will adj
NIT the space you have so generously ex-
tended, will briefly, and as tersely as pos
sible, endeavor to defend my assertion. In
the first place, a large number of good, re-
spectacle, loyal, honest, law-abiding citi-
zens are engaged in the business sought to
be destroyed. The imposition of this tax
TO them is an insurmountable barrier /;
means embarrassment, financial loss and
inevitable ruin; it will, as the advocates of
high license love to boast, close up many
places of business. Admitting this to be
true, as it most certainly is, you will readily
concede the fact that it means the vacating
OF many of the business houses on ] and X
streets. The yacating of any number of
such buildings means a lowering of rents
lowering of rents means depreciation of
the valution of the real estate. The depre-
citation in the value of real estate means a
lesseniDg III the amount of taxable prop
erty, and a lowering in the amount of tax
able property means an increased rate of
taxation. Then the direct result of high
license is an increased tax rate Can our
carrying now? Would it not be the last
straw that would break the camel's back.
send com abroad for investment, check all
classes of improvements, and precipitate
our fair city into a business stagnation,
from which it would take us decade to
extricate or resurrect her?
In the second place, it would bring pow
erty, want and restitution upon many a
now happy home Children-bright boys
and girls neatly dressed. well fed, some OF
the brightest pupils in our public schools
would be driven to want and beggary be-
come charges upon the county, inmates OF
charitable institutions and waits upon the
cold. cherries and unfriendly world
Mothers, now the center of happy and
charmed family circle, would become
seamstresses in competition with Chinese
labor and those incapacitated by poor
health, or the many maladies incidental to
their sex, will be compelled to give their
| children to other people to raise care for
and educate. This is no. overdrawn, for in
Sacramento there are no less than twenty
| six such families. where the father is
physically incapacitated to perform any
other kind of labor, and to him the bust
ness he follows, legitimate and honest as il
IS, is the only thing that stands between
him and want. Pass the high license, and
=
alluded to; pass it. and you send his
children from the public school to the
poor house, 10 degradation, perhaps to de-
stTuctiOn. Nine-tenths of those people
, whom it is sought to impoverish, are heads
OF families.
Third-It is claimed that it is done in the
interest of morality and to increase the
revenue. High license means to give a
monopoly to a few who will run gilded
palaces, with all the improved methods OF
gambling and all the allurements calculated
to cultivate a taste for vice; it means to
crowd out of the business the honest man
and make a Cr9sus of the individual
whose only thought is that of making
money by the shortest route and the en-
ployment of the quickest means, no mat
| ter how disreputable.
Did young January lose his money, con-
tract his bad habits, disgrace his parents in
the common saloon kept by a poor man,
struggling to maintain a family, properly
raise and educate his children ? Would
the passage of high license close up such
places as those young January frequented?
Would 1t not, on the contrary, close up
respectable houses, kept by honorable men,
and build up the trade of places ever noted
as being crooked?
Fourth-By what right, legal, moral or
OehOi Nioci hdS OiiC iilttia III llDpOSc all I'LL
just tax upon his neighbor? WHY should
the man with 5000 worth of property be
made to pay S 600 worth of tax year, or
more than three times the value of all he
has? Why should his property be con-
fiscated every four months and placed in
the public Golfers, while you are only pay
| ing or q per cent per annum on yours
why should you want to make his wife 20
barefoot, beggars of his children. and be
himself mendicant? Is it right? Is it
just? Is it proper? Is it in keeping with
the doctrines laid down by our forefathers
in the revolutionary times? Is it in keep
ing with the sentiments enunciated in the
Declaration of Independence Is it in &C
cordance with the teachings of Jefferson ?
Is it American? Can you gainsay the
truth of my argument? Can you con-
sistently, conscieniously, as an honorable
citizen or Christian gentleman, go to the
polls Tomorrow and vote in favor of high
license? GEO. w. CHEsLEY,
JAMES /. FELTER
Sacramento, March 6, 1886.
The above open, frank and proper COM
munication from two prominent citizens
addresses questions to this journal. tap
parentIy solicits responses from the RE
ORD UNION to the four propositions put
forth. So interpreting it, we concisely ex-
press the belief conscientiously entertained
by the advocates of the affirmative.
To the first proposition we understand
the friends of high license to reply that
the experience of other communities mega
tives the position, and that experience must
be accepted as against conjecture
That high license gives increased row
enue, which lessons taxation and conse-
quently increases realty values and invites
capital investment and population. That
the closed stores on and X streets are due
solely to the elimination of large payroll
by the reduction of the labor force at the
railroad shops. That the occupancy of any
number of places by retail liquor business
produces nothing, as they must subsist
wholly upon the earnings of labor in other