Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-11-26
MONDAY, NOVEMBER ae, 1855
The Mayoralty challenge


The Mayoralty challenge.
The HERALD recognizes the fact that
from the standpoint of large faction OF
the Republican party Mr.. D. f. Miles is
a strong candidate. He will receive the
support of that sect in the Republican
ranks which is determined to place its
iron heel upon all personal liberty ex-
cepting that which comports with its
own narrow prejudices. But there
is liberal element in the
Republican party which believes in the
generous California principle, that men
are not to be placed in straight jackets at
the behest of visionaries who assume
that harsh legislations is the panacea for
all the ills they copjure up in their
heated imaginations. These men will
not follow the ultras in all their extreme
views. They will not help to
revise the Connecticut Blue Laws
and place Los Angeles under the
rigid rule OF the Puritans. They be-
lieve that the limit of encroachment
upon personal rights extends only to in
reference with those rights when they
are exercised so as to invade the rights
of others. They believe that the liquor
traffic should be placed under proper re-
straint; but they do not be-
lieve that it should be wiped
out because there are abuses in
it. They hold that wherever abuses
exist in that or in any other traf-
fc, they ought not only to be restrained
but corrected. The municipal laws grant
authority to the proper power to close
disorderly houses, and to revoke
their licenses. Ii that authority is firmly
exercised, disorderly saloons cannot ex-
ist. High license cannot suppress them,
for experience has shown that the
worst dives are the very places
that can keep open and flour
ish under the high license. High
license is we'll enough as means
of raising municipal revenue; but high
license has never yet and never will close
the worst and the most dangerous sa-
looms in any community. Absolute re-
fusal of license to improper persons and
prompt revocation when any saloon be-
comes obnoxious to good order, is the true
method of reform in this regard. Why
should any portion of the community
be debarred from the creature comforts
they have been used to and which they
do not abuse because there are those who
have no self-government? Why should
the orderly Frenchman and the law
abiding German who use stimulants as
we use tea or coffee be punished and re-
tained because some people are consti.
tuted like Michael Cassie? Let
the police powers reach and sup
press the dens where vice prevails,
but do not suppose that this can be &C
complished by high license, for it is
those very dens, as we have before said,
that can exist aud flourish no matter
how high the license is. If the straight
laced faction of the Republican party is
laboring under the delusion that it has
found the way to reform the liquor
traffic by either high license or
prohibition, the history of all such
attempts has been lost upon those
mistaken individuals. But the liberal
portion OF the Republican party are not
80 deluded. They know that high
license is good for revenue but not for
moral reform, and they are willing to
aid in the election OF any fair man tor
Mayor who will treat this question on
sound and approved principles. Let the
Democratic party accept the challenge
thrown out by the Republican
extremists, and enter the cam
paign on the principle that vice, and the
dens where it is engendered aud -four
ishes, shall be suppressed by the police
powers of tho municipality, which are
ample, if sternly and firmly carried out,
to accomplish the purpose. A resolute
and respected citizen nominated upon
such platform, will call forth a vote
that will astonish the narrow-minded
beings who have deluded themselves
into the notion that they possess all the
intelligence and all the virtue extant in
this communitv