The Arizona sentinel., 1895-09-28
Saloons and SaIOOnkeepers.

NliiO3 uAtIu \ WOlDOh <b' hOA1y Ao "
 ! been devi5ing ways and means fo
 it's overthrow or amelioration
 pamphlets, sermons, essays, lect
 ures, and the army of the crusade
 have vied in their efforts to destroy
 or reform the use of intoxicants
 This may be right or wrong. I dc
 not presume. to say, and here le;
 me ask pertinent question, who
 is or has ever tried to reform Z
 saloonkeeper or add to the respect
 ability or moral tone of his busi-
 ness? Have we not and are we
 not asking, good fruit from the
 vine or its branches without ever
 watering, cultivating, or fertilizing 1t? If so we are disregarding a
 law of nature, acting unwisely, and
 demanding an impossibility
 Imprimis.-The merchant obtains
 license to sell dry goods and
 groceries, and pays a reasonable
 sum for that privilege. The saloon
 keeper goes to the same office,
 and pays three times the sum to
 sell goods, wines and liquors. He
 asks why this difference in price
 for his license, and receives
 no plausible answer, for this discrimination and injustice, if each character of business is legitimate as the law says it is. The saloonkeeper at the beginning of his career, recognizes this in justice, and is taught by the social law and social practice his first lesson in dishonesty and chicanery. He comes in very many cases from an honest home and pious parent age. Yet the moment he steps be- hind the bar he dons what is term ed the badge of disgrace and is fettered by the chains of social ostracism. The doors of your houses are closed should he have the effrontery to call. He goes to your church; he is given a back seat if any and he is tolerated in your social and public life as long his money and political pull are of use and no longer, and your m1n-
 sscr, will when he dies ask God to nave mercy on his soil if you will first pay him well for it, and this of charity is extended in ike manner to the family of the saloonkeeper. Where is his moral what IS his crime? What the disgrace? "Why do the clouds lower on his house7 His business Is legalized and is presumably egal, if legal then right, then if right why not respectable? No matter how orderly his saloon, no matter how lovely in character he his wife and little ones, how dear his home or upright and honest his life, the pious frauds, and Whited sepulchres are afraid to enter his door. Afraid of what? Afraid of whom? Not afraid evil 1ently of offending the son of man, whose teachings they are daily ab- in their narrow selfish | lives, but afraid of the world, or of what some one may say, who is as unworthy and weak as themselves How silly, how empty. l am told that the meek and lovely Nazarine went into saloons and even minis tered to the fallen. Yes, and de- into hell for the salvation of just such men as we are pleased | to stigmatize saloonkeepers and inmates of dives. Weon the other hand draw around us our rohes of Pharisaical righteousness and spend our time in thanking God | that we are not as others are. like the devil, he is square, you know where to find him, but from some of these pious frauds good Lord deliver us. I verify believe that the words and acts of some of these Pilgrims, are making more ;keptics and agnostics and sending more souls to perdition than all the saloons under the sun. Some of us good people are ashamed to be seen talking to a saloonkeeper' or a magdalen except when near election time. Did not the Master not stop to enter the house of the publican and even speak words cf cheer to the harlot. Yes, and some of us will say he ought to be