Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1902-09-12

| anu WHdI COiiltS VI ljldl8 llquOI is Slli
sold in the agency and some out Of it, But
bow much? Before l came to live in Bur-
| lington, my home was in a license town, |
the town of Norwalk, Conn, has a popu-
| lation but little larger than Burlington
Conditions in the towns are very much
alike There were about GO licensed sa-
| looms in Norwalk. According to the mod
| crate estimate of one of the saloon keep
ers themselves, the average daily sales In
| those saloons was $25 each. That is s1,5O0
| a day. Our liquor agency sells perhaps
s35 worth a day; $50 against 1880. in a
| year the agency sales would amount to
| SO 500, part of which is drug store business
under the license system. In a town that
has 60 saloons selling s25 worth a day, in
one year the saloons alone sell $3.50, 900
worth of liquor; s10,50O against $i5O,000
Docs anyone for one moment ina CINE that
the present illegal sales in Burlington by
the bottle and in low dives, amount to the
difference between these two,-more than
100000 worth? or one-half of it? or a
fourth of it? And the license town has
its illegal sales too; we should never for
| get that.
Then. the public revenue curse Men try
TO balance this enormous waste of money
spent in saloons money spent not for
| wealth but for the greatest destroyer of
| wealth known to our modern civilization.
by talking of the gain from license rev.
| enues to State and towns From the
standpoint of the man who cares to re-
| press incompetence, that is one of the
| strongest arguments in favor of the pres
| ent system. Here there is no power of
1 greed added to the power of appetite.
Next to appetite. the worst bondage of the
| liquor towns is the license money they
i have got used to and fancy lessons their
taxes. And what does such a system
i have to set over against the saloon rev.
enue? The fact that the revenue comes,
not from the liquor seller, but from his
/ customers, the consumers -chiefiy the
young men and the workingmen of the
place and their families,-the very people
Il who can least afford to pay more taxes.
/ Resides that: Some Is times the amount
of the tax taken out of the sales of the
tradesmen, the men who sell the boots
and shoes, the groceries and meat the
clothing and furniture and fuel. When
the saloons fatten these go lean. Besides
that: The pauper bill and the criminal
court bill, multiplying as the saloon bust
ness increases; that is the regular record
And, worst of all, the boys ruined whom
the revenue system would pay for in cash.
An open saloon. legalized and made out
vardly respectable on every business
block in Burlington; 90, 10-even five boys
i from such homes as are represented here
u (Oh, yes. l have seen them in the saloons
from homes that would compare with even
Il the best of yours)-bOys playing billiards
in those saloons and drinking, just be-
cause they are good fellows; ruined in 10
i years. and for twenty to thirty thousand
a year taxes, taken out of their own pock
cts and the pockets of the rest who drink
there. Would you, fathers and mothers
think that a paying investment?
Il Then, it is a lesser point, yet not un-
worthy, as you will admit. that the
licensed saloon everywhere becomes pub
lie nuisance. There is drunkenness in Bur-
lington Some of us have seen it. Yet ]
have lived now year and a half in Bur
twice nearly every day; and have yet to
see a drunken man on the streets. In a
town that licensed saloons that would be
almost impossible. Go to the Connecticut
town of which l spoke, any day this
week. You would see two blocks in the
town on which nearly every store is a
/, liquor saloon. VIII respectable women
and children walk on these blocks, If they
can help it? Loafers hang about the sa-
loon entrances; unclean sidewalks, oaths,
vile language, are the common thinS.
> Fights occur every few weeks. drunk
en- man on the street is a comon sight
sometimes it is a drunken woman. The
worst section of Burlington will not COM
pare with one of these blocks as public
nuisance.
Again: LOCALIZED saloons are commonly
/, centres of crime. This is not necessarily
SO. But what is the use of talking of Ger
many or France, when we are living in
America In fact, in America, all crime
. tends tow ard the saloon. Trace hack the
origin of nearly all public disorder and
of the peace You will find it ir the .ia-
loon. Note the location of gambling re-
sorts and immoral houses. They are gen
orally in or near a saloon. Star, detec-
tive out to search for a criminal. He will
80 first to the saloons. Do you say, but
there will be some hidden saloons any
: way' Yes, but how many? and so how
much crime comparatively? Here are the
| tt,affa c in ~ a
sachusetts towns which in one year, 1899
voted no saloons and the next year voted
saloons. Fitchhurg, without saloons, 227
arrests, with saloons, $50; Lowell, without
saloons, los, with saloons 2o93 Salem,
, without 2ll. with, 729 Waltham, 129, 3i5;
d, | Plymouth, II, 105. So it goes; crime and
the licensed saloon hand in hand
Again: One of the graVest dangers in
- our country is lawles sness-anarchy.l is
sometimes said of our Vermont control or
: the liquor business, that it encourage
llawlessnoss There is nearly always law
lessness where there is liquor selling. But
there is not a source of lawlessness in the
United States comparable to the legalzed
: liquor saloon. Let the liquor men speak
for themselves as to this.
). Last year the National Advocate-one of
= | the chief organs of the liquor trade In
= Ohio-used these words:
, In our meetings the saloon men merely
II demand rights to defy any IAN VINO shall
, impose upon them law which is against
- them Such laws should be dehed. They
! should be tramplel in the dust, and II
they cannot be revised, then We say IL IS
time to become anarchists
Whatever the State law is--it does not
matter-that is always the dominant atti-
tude of the liquor trade toward the laws
. | change them If you can; II not, break
= them You were all indignant last year
= and grieved beyond words at the murder
e of President Mckinley. But alike the muir
derer himself and the anarchist sentl-
: ments that led him to commit that awful
deed We're products of the license liquor
saloon.
Again: The licensed saloon. where it OK
lists, is one of the worst forces In American
= politics. This is not true of the liquor
traffic that is under the ban. License
y liquor traffic gives it organization and CT
: ganization brings with it political power
for venal purposes. One of the brightest
young men in a license town of New Eng
: land told me personally that, in order to