Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1889-09-07

dealers il a burden OH them. Thou
ands of poor men either know or
can do no other business. Why tax
them more than other people? Do
you tax blacksmith, a baker, a
stone cutter? If you must tax, Put
it on all alike.r
Yes, that is just how they talk
and think. They actually believe
they are in a business like other
people, doing good, aiding the world
to create or exchange wealth, and
building up society. And 50 they
are, to a certain extent, but their
business is accompanied with an
awful amount of evil. The only
good they do is i'm helping to ex-
change and consume large amount
of product which would be far better
limited in its amount to a third of
the present quantity and then dis
posed of under certain restrictions
and limitations as to its retail. But
you must convince people of this
first, and you begin it by license.
Can any man in his sober sehses
favor the unrestricted selling or Civ
ing away of liquors? Take up any
daily paper that gives Il full, true
report of the doings for any day in
the cities. take the first at hand
"a "Times." 1t does not pretend
to report the effects of the liquor
traffic, the number of idrunks, the
quarrels and fights around saloons,
the sickness, the misery. 1t would
be impossible. But here is an item:
"a colored man who acts as porter
for a saloon tried to carve with a
dangerous carving knife those who
happened to pass along the side
walk. While attempting to cut and
stab an old man who was passing
by, he fell down insensible and was
carried away to sleep off his over
load of grog."
The foregoing is a fair sample of
the work turned out by the saloon.
Are your wives or daughters walk
ing the streets of the great church
going town? They are liable at any
time to be assaulted, or insulted, or
are in real danger of bodily harm
form men who have put the enemy
in their mouths to steal away their
brains. The world is bad enough,
God Almighty knows, in its best
estate. Famine and pestilence, earth
quake and storm, poison in air and
water, accident-these destroy mill
lions. But their results are a mere
trlfle compared with the evils man
brings on himself by his accursed
greed which is the father of slavery,
tyrrany, monopoly, war, intemper-
ance. Pandering to the greed of a
few society endures the most horri-
bic evils. But to-day we can in truth
indict alcohol among the head
devils lingering upon earth. And
the man who retails liquor is not
doing an act that can properly he
called business. He is doing not
only no good but a vast deal of
harm. Even if the use of wines
aud beers is needed at the table
in many cases, and is indispensable
in disease-all of which l believe,
still it is no excuse for the everlast-
ing tippling that is fostered and
encouraged by having grog shops
ut every corner. The men who sell
tobacco do no great harm; those
who retail cakes aud candies do lit
lie good, but those who are eternally |
their grog shops everywhere
% tempt the feeble and ignorant,
70 that poor hard working men
gong home with their earnings are
empted at every ten steps, are
plying their trade till it is a
Nuisance. Tax them out of
xistence. The occupation has
10 excuse. 1t is an evil and must
Ne regulated. 1t cannot be abolish
d nor prohibited, but it can be reg
lated and the lines around it can
e drawn tighter. | would discrim.
nate between victualers who furnish
Ight wines or beers at tables of
uests and those who merely sell
rog TO drink. Fanaticism can never
laster the evil. Why there Were
eople actually all through the
outh during the days of slavery
dvertising temperance and prohi-
ition. Yes, living under and up
olding an institution which was in
self the "Sum of all the villainies
t earth" which was legalized rob
cry, murder, theft, adultery, prosti-
ltion, tyranny, the very fiends and
Iock of God and man, they made a
rrible ado about the small pimple
intempeance. So to-day there
u many terrible general evils in
le world, evils of mans own Great
x. Many of these evils do doubt