The weekly true Democrat. (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1905-1912, 1906-08-10
". CT. .. DKPARTMENT.
Prohibition Question.

Sometimes a man Is found who win
argue that whiskey Is q good thing,
that saloons help town, that more liq-
uOr is sold by blind tigers than by Il
eensed saloons, etc. Below are a few
simple questions for our readers to pro-
pound to the next man who springs
these so-called.
II more liquor is sold where there are
no saloons than where there are, would
brewers, distillers and wholesale deal
ers, who own about IS per cent of all
saloons, pay license, rent, taxes, insur-
ance, attorneys fees, and contribute
large sums of money to influence the
press, to publish and distribute litera-
ture, and in other ways to obtain Ii
cense, all to lessen the amount of their
sales? Would the liquor men now be
maintaining five national organizations,
at heavy expense, to oppose all prohib-
tory measures, If such measures do not
interfere with the traffic? Would they
keep an expensive lobby at the national
capital to urge the restoration of the
canteen or army saloon, and to prevent
a prohibitory clause in the Statehood
bill for Oklahoma and Indian Territory
if they were not financially interested?
Are speak easies" and "blind pigs"
alone worse than all these evils plus the
open saloon? Do not the records of
hundreds of towns show that saloons do
not lessen these nuisances, but afford
additional temptation to drink, and are
the spawning. places Of the most de-
grading vices?
How do saloons help a town? Do
they make better fathers, husbands,
sons or brothers? Do they make moth
ers, wives and children comfortable and
happy? Do they help to build up
churches and make it easy for parents
to keep children in school.
Do not saloons mean drunkenness,
and does not drunkenness mean less
steady and less skillful labor? Do not
sober men work more and retain their
earning capacity longer than drinking
men? Do not the life insurance COM
panies say that an abstainer is from 80
to 40 per cent better risk than drinker?
Will not the business of a town be de-
termined by the amount of goods which
its citizens can buy and pay for? Is
not the purchasing capacity of man
limited to his earning capacity? Do not
sober men, as a rule, earn more than
drinking men, and do not their families
consume, and therefore help business?
Is the credit of q drinking man as good
Do not all political economists agree
that the morals Of bread winner are
fully as important a factor in his value
to the community as his physical and
intellectual qualities? Can a man buy
beer and beef with the same money?
What would 60 with that money if it
did not go for liquor?
Ii it is such a disgraceful thing to
sell liquor that you do not want to as
sociate with the man who does it, is it
a good thing for you to vote for him to
do a bad thing? If it is a bad thing to
be a drunkard, is it a good thing to Ii
cense men to make drunkards of the
fathers, husbands, sons and brothers,
who go to a premature grave, leaving
broken-hearted widows and orphans?
If a saloon is a good thing, why do
those who patronize it desire to be
shielded from view by screens while
they do so?
Is there anything in logic, morals,
reason, religion or common sense which
says that the church should throw down
her arms and strike her colors when
sin forms a political alliance? II Christ
said he came not to regulate the works
of the devil, but to destroy them, is II
not enough for Christians that they be
as their Lord?
Is it right to vote against a thing
which no decent man ought to defend?
Is it right to vote against license when
it is the only issue, and vote for license
when it is combined with other issues?
If thing is so demoralizing that it