The record-union., 1895-03-26

govern themselves that has ever been
placed on any statute book. In addition
to the powers we have enumerated, it
gives the governing board of the district
authority to pass ordinances and fix
penalties of fine and Imprisonment for
violation of the regulations of the district.
In 1898 Section Is of the Act WAS amended
in some minor particulars, and at the
late Legislature the cap-sheaf amend
ment was made that has paralyzed those
engaged in the liquor business.
This amendment is an addition to Sec
tion 5, and is in these words: "To make
and enforce all necessary and proper
regulations for suppressing disorderly
and disreputable resorts and houses of i'll
fame within the district, and to determine
the qualifications of persons authorized
to sell liquors at retail; and from and
after the passage of this Act, no license to
keep saloon or sell liquors at retail
shall take effect or be operative within
any sanitary district unless the same be
approved by the Sanitary Board of the
district"
This bill has gone to the Governor.
The agents of the liquor dealers asso-
Citations have appealed to him to veto it,
thus setting up the claim of special
privilege for the liquor business; claim,
as we have said, that no other business
has made or had the boldness to prefer.
Whether the Governor signs the bill or
not its passage will remain the coldest
shock the liquor interest ever received.
There is really nothing like it on record.
But the Legislature did not stop here; as
if to resent to the last degree the charge
| that the liquor interest had it in its power
to pass uniform license bill, the two
houses agreed on a resolution submitting
to the people constitutional amendment,
that if it prevails. will forever dash the
hopes of the saloon to be ''left alone"
| This amendment simply provides that
where cities chartered under the Consti-
tuition and whose charters have been ap-
proved by the Legislature, pass ordi-
nances relative to municipal affairs"
they need not conform to the general
laws of the State so long as they do not
| invade any Of the guarantees of the Con-
stitutIon. AS the organic law now stands
city may pass ordinances of this char
acter, but they must not conflict with gen.
eral laws, and hence the anxiety to have
a general statute fixing uniform license
to fix licenses for liquor selling. AS the
number of saloons to the square acre, the
character of them, the qualifications of
the men TO whom licenses issue, the
! hours at which saloons shall close, and
the places of their location, ETC., are
''munici pal affairs" it will be seen that
if the people adopt the amendment
liquor selling will be placed where it be-
longs. wholly within the centrol of the
communities in which it is prosecuted
To sum mp, if there is in the history of
legislation anywhere any record at all
comparable with this we have never
heard of it and are unable to find it in
the libraries. Whatever sins of commits
sion and omission may be laid at the
door of the late Legislature, however it
may have siuned, blundered and STUN
bled, it will go down in history as the
Legislature OF all others in California an
nails that turned about and dealt blow
and followed it up with sound drub-
bing of an interest that came to it de-
manding that it be recognized as enti-
tied to special privileges.
In all this recital we have simply stated
the cold facts that stand of record, and
they have not been colored in the slight
est degree. We warned those who came
up with the uniform" demand that they
were treading on dangerous ground, and
that the persistent attempts made year
after year to deprive the people of the
right to regulate the liquor traffic in their
respective communities would result dis
astrously. It has been far more disas-
trous than we anticipated, and the re-
markable thing about it is that it was all
accomplished without any temperance
agitation or any effort on the part cf those
impracticables, the Prohibitionists.