Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-31
AN OUTRAGEOUS AND DANGEROUS
RIII


with recommendation that it do pass.
This is the bill, the animus of which the
REooRD-UNIoN laid bare last week. 1t is
almost incomprehensible that any Legislators
who are supposed to be impressed with a
due sense of their obligations to the people,
can be brought to favcr such an infamous
measure-no milder term will adequately
characterize the bill.
The proposition is to fix the rate for all
licenses for the sale of liquors at S2l per
quarter, that sum to be in full for all State,
county, town, township and city liquor IL
censes. The result of the passage of such
bill will be to rob the people of the right
of local self-government. If the Legislators
who are pushing this ill-fayored measure
do not know, it is time that they should,
that in the science of government there is
settled one principle beyond all contro-
versy-that the aim of legislation should
be to bring government as closely as pos
sible to the people this bill is at swords
points with that principle. 1t proposes to
deprive towns, cities and counties of the
privilege granted by Section IL of Article
XI. Of the Constitution.
The simple truth is that the bill is the
offspring of the whisky traffic, and pro-
poses to deliver over the communities of the
State, bound hand and foot, captives to
the saloon interest. The San Francisco
standard of license is adopted, and all
other cities and counties are to be forced
to mold their policy to conform to it. But
San Francisco is a consolidated city and
county government, and the only one in
the State. The licenses there collected 90
into one treasury, and are not subject to
any division. Applied to Sacramento,
however, the operation of the bill reduces
the license-tax upon saloons and bars by
50 on each bar per quarter. Thus, the
city collects as the minimum SIS per
quarter from saloons and 81 so from gro
Gerry bars. The county collects SIS all
around. The bill proposes, as we have
said, that the sd rate shall cover both
city and county licenses, and the county
shall make the collections and put the
money into its treasury
The city of Sacramento, therefore, which
receives $4,000 annually from liquor IL
censes from her 800 bars, and ought to,
and will presently receive great deal
more from less number, if this saloon
garrote is not applied, is to be despoiled of
that much of her revenue, and the whole
sum, as shown, turned over to the county.
The result will be to increase city taxa
ton by just as much as is necessary to
meet the deficit the bill will create.
Is it not enough that this city is strug-
CLING under heavy debt and heavy taxa
ton, that it should now be delivered up to
the mercy of the saloon interest? Is it
not enough that this people must be taxed
exorbitantly to punish crime, three-fourths
OF which is traceable directly to the saloon
and liquor drinking, that they shall now
be prevented from taxing the liquor traffic,
TO make it bear some small part of the ex-
pense of maintaining police force, Police
Courts and prisons? Is it not enough that
Sacramento now has one drinking bar to
every twenty voters, drinkers and abstain
ers combined, that she must be stripped of
the mean privilege of assessing something
of the burden of city government upon
the thriving bar Interest? Is there any
demand upon the Legislature by the people
for the action now proposed? Is there any
public cutlery that licenses shall remain
at the present figures for merchants but be
discriminatory reduced upon liquor bars?
Are the people of San Diego with their
high license; the people of Suffer with
one saloon in the county; the people of
Tehama with regulative license tax; the
voters of Los Angeles with an imposed
tax more than twice as high as that of As
sembly bill 303, asking for any change, or
beseeehing the Legislature to destroy, so
far as liquor licenses are concerned, the
value Of the constitutional grant referred
to?
The men who are pushing this after
birth of infamy are going too far; they do
not properly estimate the strength of the
sentiment of the people, rapidly attaining
great proportions, that demands not the
lessening of the tax-paying duty of the
whisky bar, but its great increase. They
will find that this last turn of the screw
has aroused the giant, popular will, and
that it will presently arise and crush its
enemies.
In the State of California, we repeat,
seventy-tiye per cent of the crime misery,
poverty and human suffering and seventy
five per cent of the taxation due to those
evils, is directly chare cable to the liquor
traffic. As an economic proposition there
for-and we disclaim entertaining any
other view of the matter in this discus
sion--it is simply impossible with reason,
justice or any sense of common decency, 10
refuse to leave to the communities Of Cali
fornia the privilege OF taxing that traffic
to make it respond in some degree for the
results of its business.
There is political death and social dis
grace for the Legislators who vote to rob
the people of the right of local self-govern-
ment, as this bill aims to do. How such
men will meet the people of Los Angeles,
Sutter, San Diego, Alameda, .rehama
Colusa and other counties where fair
license is imposed, we do not even
pause to speculate upon. What the
viii of the people of those localities
will be when il is lifted up ON this ques-
ton we have no sort of doubt There will
roll from the valleys and mountains pres
emily wave of popular indignation that
viii sweep the men who are now endeavor-
ing TO strip the cities and towns Of Cali
fernia of their license income, into an
obscurity from which il will be best for
themselves and their names that they