Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-03
THE KENTUCKY IDEA.

Colonel Maree Would Give Licenses 10 the
Meanest People in TOwn-Opposed 10
Burs in HoteIs-He Defends His Blue
Grass COuntrymen's Reputation.
The general plan on which saloon licenses
are granted in this county was severely crit
icised last evening by Colonel T. P Maree,
of Kentucky, in temperance speech which
he delivered in the lecture hall at Curry
University. The meeting was presided over
by A. M. Brown, and there were more peo-
pie present than the seats would accommo-
date. Colonel Maree looks like Kentuck-
ian. His mustache hangs straight down at
the ends, and his rather long hair hangs
over his forehead. He Is a ready and agree
able talker.
He began by extenuating the faults Of
Kentucky. He said the general notion was
that Kentuckians did nothing except drink
whisky and fight. He acknowledged that
Kentucky folks were rather hasty, and did
not like to be called liars, but he denied the
whisky drinking charge. He said that out
of the 100 counties of Kentucky, 72 had abb
solute prohibition. He believed that
On a popular vote the State could
In one thing he maintained that
people of PENNSYLVANIA. Except in q few
of the larger cities the principle was not toll
Grated of running hotel as an adjunct to q
bar. "You call it" he said, "a bar in con-
nection with hotel, but 1 call it a hotel in
connection with bar. The bar is the prin-
cipal feature, and your hotel proprietors say
they cannot make their hotels pay unless
they can sell liquor. They complain that
without bar the travelling public will be in
commoded. The travelling public will man
age to take care of itself The point is that
the hotels are places of general resort.
Young men go there, and are therefore sub
ject to temptation. Decent people must
stop at hotels, and the saloon is thrust under
their noses. To put bar into y good hotel
makes the bar respectable.
81 do not believe in making the saloon re-
spectacle. It is either proper business or
it is not. If it be proper, every person who
wishes should be permitted to engage in it;
if improper, it should be forbidden. Your
license system has closed your low dives, the
doggeries. The respectable element of
saloonkeepers are alone licensed. It is
made tolerably decent to go into saloon
now. In your court man, if he wishes q
saloon license, must show that he has some
thing of character. ana uust give bond
that he will keep an orderly house. If I
WcEc lSSuluS bue 1lceuScSi WOulu require q
man first to prove that he was the
meanest man in town. Then would
make him give a bond that he
would make no effort to keep an
orderly house. The result would be that the
saloons would be so low, so disorderly and
80 overcrowded by the disreputable element
that decent people, who had not yet become
drunkards, would not go there. Young men
would be ashamed to be seen near there.
We do not expect. by statutes, to reform
drunkards, to keep the tipDler from his
dram. No law, however stringent or search
ing, will keep the habItual drinker from the
indulgence of his artificial appetite. We
want to cut off the supply of recruits from
that great army. We desire to close the
school where men are educated to be drunk
ards. II we can do that, the army will soon
pass away, for 81, 900 of them annually go
down into the drunkard's grave"