St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-07-06
The SALOON GAINING,
High License Signally Fails
To Check the Liquor
Traffic.
Canvass Of the Situation in
Seventy-Six Minnesota
Towns.
Within Seventy as Many Sa-
looms in Them at Pres
ent
a 4
AS There Were When Low Lii
cenSe Had Full
Sway.

The number of saloons in Minnesota
and the liquor business in connection
with them is on steady increase.
While diminishing the number of
saloons in the state at the time the law
first went into effect, since then there
has been reaction from high license
which the GLOBE predicted would come,
and the saloon business IS more in num-
bers and prospecting better than it was
one year ago. The high license law
went into effect July 1, 1887, except in
st. Paul, it not going into operation
here until 1888.
AT the time the law became operative
the high license organs (who declaim
only for political effect treated the peo-
pie to these statements:
SIT is found that in those cities and
towns in which the new law is now en-
forced there has been a falling off of
one-third in the aggregate number of
saloons"
''Of 1,650 saloons which thrived and
flourished under the old license some
$50 have been unable to meet the ad-
vance,"
This year these organs and advocates
of the great moral law have said this:
''The most important issue before the
people of Minnesota this year is the
maintenance and perpetuation of the
high license law
'The high license laws Republican
measure and the party has right to be
proud of its success in raising the
standard of public morality"
In the legislature of 1887 the high Ii
cense advocate, notably, Rev. Sam
Smith, said of the law:
ut will reduce the number of saloons,
make less drinking, enhance morality,
and restrict the liquor traffic."
In the face of these broad and unsup-
ported assertions the GLOBE submits
cold statistics this morning that demon
strate officially,
That the number of saloons is on the
rapid increase; that there are more sa-
looms in the state to-day than there
were July 1, 1887, and by this that since
there are more saloons, there is more
liquor drank, less morality, no liquor
traffic restriction, and that high license,
except in increased revenues, is now
and will ever be failure as moral or
restrictive agency.
~
The best authority in any state on
the liquor business that there is is Uncle
Sam. His internal revenue records are
complete. His deputies range the state
to detect violations. Saloonkeepers
and other liquor dealers who year after
year laugh at municipal regulations
walk up the first day of May every year
and pay their dues. to the government
ONO more authoritative statement of
the status of the liquor traffic in Mime
sofa can be obtained than from the re-
cords of the department of internal
revenue.
There the GLOBE went, and there the
GLOBE secured what is herewith pre-
scented.
After the high license law went into
effect last July, the high license people
secured and published table which
showed the number of saloons in exist
ence in all of the prominent cities and
towns of the state prior to July 1, 1887,
and the number of saloons operating
after July 1, 1887, when high license was
in force. This table showed 1899 sa-
looms before July /, SOS after, reduction
of 421.
The GLOBE now presents all the sa-
lient points of this table, with the addi-
ton of the number of saloons in force
July l, 1888, one year after the enforce
ment of high license: