Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-09-29


the present system that is not so. How |
ever much the town agency sells, the ele- |
ment of private gain is not in the buSin SIS |
And what comes of that? Liquor S still |
sold in the agency and some out of it. But |
bow much? Before came to live in Bur-
lington, my home was in license town. |
The town of Norwalk, Conn.,, has a popu
alton hut little larger than Burlington
Conditions in the towns are very much
alike There were about 60 licensed sa,
ons 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 ST. 500
day. Our liquor agency sells perhaps
So worth a day; s35 against $780, IN
year the agency sales would amount TO
s105O0, part of which is drug store business
| under the license system. In a town that
has 60 saloons selling SIS worth a day, in
| one year the saloons alone sell s450OO0
orth of liquor s1O.5OO against $3.50, OGO
Docs anyone for one moment imagine that
| the present Illegal sales in Burlington by
| the bottle and in low dives, amount to the
difference between these two-fnore than
! 100000 worth? or one-half of it? or
fourth of it? And the license town has
lis illegal sales too; we should never for
| set that.
Then, the public revenue curse Men try
| 10 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 intemperance, that is one of the
| strongest arguments in favor of the pres
ent system. Here there is no power of
| greed added to the power of annette
! Next to appetite, the worst bondage of the
| liquor towns is the license money they
| nave got used to and fancy lessons their
| axes. And what does such a system
| lave 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; chiefly the
| young men and the workin gmen of the
lace and their families,-the very people
| who can least afford to pay more taxes
:-esides that: Some Is times the amount
IT the tax taken out of the sales OF the
| lradeSmen, the men who sell the boots
and shoes, the groceries and meat, the
| clothing and furniture and fuel When
he saloons fatten these go lean. Besides
| hat: 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
wardly respectable or every business
| block in BurlingtOn; co. 10-even five boys
| from such homes are represented here
| ooh, yes, have seen them in the saloons
| from homes that would compare with even
the best of yours)-boys playing billiards
| in those saloons and drinking, just be-
| cause they are good fellows; ruined in 10
| 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 q paying Investments
Then, it is a lesser point, yet not un-
worthy as you will admit that the
| licensed saloon everywhere becomes a pub
Tic nuisance. There is drunkenness in Bur-
.ington. Some of us have seen it. Yet
| have lived now year and half in Bur
| lington, and have been down town once or
twice nearly every day; and I have vet 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 | spoke, any day this
week. You would see two blocks in the
town which nearly every store is a
| liquor saloon Will 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 thing.
| Fights occur every few weeks. A drunk
en- man on the street is comon sight
| sometimes 1t 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
Americas In fact, in America, all crime
tends toward the saloon. Trace hack the
| origin of nearly all public disorder and
of the peace. You will find it III the sa-
| loon. Note the location of gambling re-
sorts and immoral houses. They are gen
orally in or near a saloon Start detec-
| tive fn search n Ha will
so 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
figures of criminal arrests in five Mas
sachusetts towns which in one year 1899
voted no saloons and the next year voted
| saloons Fitchhurg. without saloons, Oct
arrests, with saloons, $50; Lowell without
! saloons, 10S with saloons, 2093; Salem,
without 211. with, 729: Waltham, 129, GAS;
Plymouth, II, los. So it goes: crime and
| the licensed saloon hand in hand.
Again: One of the gravest dangers in
| our country is wlessness-anarchy. 1t is
| sometimes said of our Vermont control of
| the liquor business, that it encourages
! lawleSsneSS. 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 legalized
| liquor saloon. Let the liquor men speak
| FOR themselves to this.
Last year the National Advocate-one of
the chief organs of the liquor trade in
Dhio-used these words:
I'm our meetings the saloon men merely
demand rights to defy any man who shall
| impose upon them a law which is against
| them. Such laws should be defied. They
should be trampled in the dust, and if
they cannot be revised then we say it IS
time to become anarchists
Whatever the State law is-it does not
| rpottnr-th1t ia ALWAYS thQ att
| tude of the liquor trade toward the laws;
| change them if you can; If not, break
| them. You were all indignant last year
| and grieved beyond words at the murder
| of President Mckinley. But alike the muir
| derer himself and the anarchist senti-
| ments that led him to commit that awful
| deed were products of the license liquor
| saloon.
Again: The licensed saloon, where it ex-
lists, is one of the worst forces in American