Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-05

men, as measure of protection, to take counsel periodically with each other. And it is only fanatics who would seek to deny them the privilege.
 Men who are antagonistic to the | liquor business have been busy during | recent years devising and pushing schemes for hampering, restricting and regulating the trade, and endeavoring to make the traffic intricate, difficult and unproftable to those who engage ill 1t. They have used their influence in legis- lative and executive circles, not always fairly or above board, and have suc- ceeded in many states in making the liquor business a most undesirable one for any man of spirit and independence to enter. An example of what these anti-saloon individuals have succeeded in doing may be witnessed right here in Connecticut where hardships have been imposed on saloon keepers and re- strictions placed on the business which have no warrant either in justice or ex- pediency. Is it any wonder, then, that men who have their money invested in the liquor business should deem it in- cumbent on them to organize for their own protection against the advancing depredations on their business? Would it not be very much stranger if they should sit down quietly and allow the enemies of the trade to legislate it out of existence or at least to make it so uu- profitable and undesirable as to prac tically drive all but Q favored few out of business The dealers in New York state are prudent in looking to their own pro- lection, as they have done in these an- nual conventions of the Wine, Beer and Liquor Dealers association. They have the same right to organize for mutual protection and the interests of their busi- ness that any body of tradesmen or cap italists have to associate themselves to- gether. And no amount of carping crit icism or distilled denunciation on the part of those who oppose the traffic can curtail them in this right. It is their privilege and their right as American citizens to stand up together and seek by the same methods that are used to iniure them to defend and protect their | business.
 The liquor men of New York state have set their brothers in other common wealths an example which it would seem to be to their interest to follow everywhere. So long as the opponents of the trade are permitted to impose their theories on legislators without the shadow of opposition from the men engaged in it, just so long will the dealers in liquor be treated to the spec tacle they have been witnessing in recent years of legislation shaping itself to the immediate restriction and ultimate ex- tinction of the trade itself. The spas modic attempts at organization made ill the state can have, as they have had in the past, only the effect of crystallizing the forces of the opposition and making it easier to throw additional hampering
 restrictions about the traffic. "Who
 would be free themselves must strike
 the blow,'' and if the liquor men in Connecticut and elsewhere would have the rights that belong to them as citizens of the commonwealth they must see to it that others than those who are eternally smelling out methods to ham
 per them are intrusted with the powers
 of legislation.