The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1904-04-15
KIMBALLG p
cLATE r1NAN
Official Paper Of the City and County
TIL LICENSE QUESTION

treasury and $500 more passed over to
the county and close the saloons or
whether to continue the present order
of things.
On sSme very good peoples account
most of them as steadfast friends as
any newspaper could ask for--we re-
greet that the GRAPHIC cannot look
ulon this question from the moral
side OF it. Tnit, it is a cold, business
proposition, nothing else.
The manufacture, sale and con-
sumption of intoxicating liquors un-
der proper restrictions and conditions
is not considered a sin or immoral by
any soundminded person in any part
of the world. The manufacture and
sale is legalized and treated as a leg
itimate occupation in every civilized
country on the globe, and to brand as
sinful or immoral the use of liquors as
a beverage would be a direct lmplica
ton against the very highest type Of
American manhood, from the presi-
dent of the United States to the most
exhalted positions conferred by the
citizens Of the republic upon their
fellows. All reasonable people are
compelled to admit this much, how
ever much more desirable it may be
that all men abstain from intoxicants
"a doctrine that the GRAPHIC has
always preached from the housetops
and we hope always will.
Withal, a saloon may be a nuisance.
1t may be u nuisance in one or many
ways. AS such all may with one ac-
cord conclude to abolish 1T. The nui-
sance may be in the man who conducts
tor the harm it does to the commun-
itY. There are saloons and saloons
and communities and communities.
The saloons in Kimball of late years
have been noted for their strict OBJ
servance of the law. and the quiet and
orderly manner in which the business
is conducted. The amount OF drunk
enness exhibited upon the streets is
no greater than when no saloons ex-
listed. The costs to the city and coun-
ty growing out of saloon disturbances
have been practically nothing. There
have been no arrests, and so far as we
know no causes for them. In the re-
spects mentioned it cannot therefore
be said that the saloon in Kimball is a
nuisance.
If you make a careful canvass of
the business and professional interests
of the town how few you'll find who
patronize the saloon-scarcely none at
all. 1t cannot be said then, that men
are %neglecting their business for the
saloon. II you make another care
full canvass Of the town how few of
its young men, not chronic %]oafers,
patronize the saloon and to their ever
lasting credit be it said. 1t cannot be
said, then. that our boys are going to
the DEVILS highway on account of the
saloon.
What will you accomplish by closing
the s%aloons?, Simply shut off the fire.
quent nips Of the confirmed topers
about town, every mothers son of
whom would get it otherwise, and de-
priye our foreign population living in
the c%ountry-and We'll admit some
| who are not so very foreign-from
potations when they come to town
which they have been accustomed
to all their lives. You might as we'll
%impregnate a polecat with altar of
roses and expect it to s'take" as to
graft a cold water diet onto such
people by legislation. We dare say
that four-tfths Of the patronage of
the Kimball saloons m from the
people living out of the city limits. If
the money was not spent here it would
go somewhere else-and according to
| this papers notion it's no crime to
take it-for reasons stated at the be-
ginning.
Were Kimball a manufacturing
community, with men spending their
money in the saloon THAT had better
go into other channels of trade. We're
it a city of educational institution
with youth falling to the "gilded
palace of sin''-a different view might
be taken of the matter. AS it is. it
wouldseem a foolish proposition for
Kimball to deliberately throw up $1,000
annual revenue and accomplish SO
little of direct benefit.
The way 10 kill a saloon is to keep
out of it-and the writer of this prac-
tlses what he breaches in this respect
as everybody knows. The GRAPHIC
is under no obligations to the saloons
nor they to US. The first man to
start a boycott against this paper
when the old creamery trouble arose
was a saloon man, thinking he would
curry favor with a eoterie of unprin-
cipled whelps-but it has made no diff
ference with the GRAPHIC.
| r. 20 ~ ooi1 h,,c;~ooo r,.-,o.