Milford chronicle., 1908-01-24
THE REAL POINT.

that fear of the prohibition wave"
which is now a shiver in the bones
of those who deal in alcoholic bev-
erages, are making an apparent effort
to be good. They announce that
they also are enemies of the dive
their chief agent is at present noting
and designating with his eyes the
places which are so unworthy in
their character that they must be
slaughtered. The awakening is
tardy. Never before has any liquor
interest" needed public clamor.
There has been much talk at con-
ventions about IAN improved busi-
ness" but no action. Had the re-
tail or the wholesale dealers, the dis
tillers or the brewers, taken a more
conciliatory attitude, the prohibition
wave would have been at least longer
in arriving. Their attitude has been
defiant, unreasoning. Did a CONF
munity start to combat dives along
its waterfront ? Immediately it had
to fight not only the owners of those
dives, not only all the saloon-keepers
Of the region, but brewers, whole
salers, distillers. What matter that
such places were for running girls
The process of ruin was good for
trade to one girl, eight glasses of
beer or a pint of whiskey. A COM
munity which did not want prohi-
bition in the beginning would try |
every means of regulation. Beaten |
at every turn by the liquor interests |
and their followers in politics, it |
would slowly be convinced that |
there was no way to fight the cOmbi-
nation; outraged, it would rise and |
destroy the traffic. The liquor men |
have brought the trouble on them
selves and although the Ohio plan
is little like locking stable door too
late, it seems to be the best play |
which the brewers have left.
The American saloon is a relic of
frontier days, an institution the like
of which exists in no other country !
on the earth. Why does it exist? |
To furnish at retail a commodity |
dangerous at best to extend, and to
keep on extending, the sales of brew
ers and distillers. 1t prospers best
when it can make two drunkards
grow where but one grew before.
How has it protected itself in this
policy? By gathering together all
that is venal in politics by acting
as connecting link in our singular
American alliance between the pow
ers that prey and the powers that
rule. The liquor habit is common
in one form or another, to all the
Occidental peoples, but special to us
is that effective school for deplorable
morals and politics, the saloon. And
back of that is our most mistaken
everything is justified
by business. Is the individual
in a brewery or a distill-
cry morally any worse than the
piOus, pew-owning shareholder in
the Standard Oil Company or the
American Tobacco Company? He,
like the railroad shareholder, permits
his corporation to act in the sacred
name Of business. The great cor
poration, dealing in necessities of
life, may take bread from hungry
mouths. The fruit of mad extern
sion of the liquor traffic is ruined
private health, ruined public soul,
and weakened generations to come
after.
The Ohio brewers recognize that it
must be prohibition or reform.
Perhaps if the issue in this form
we're put before the people even Of
he prohibition States, there might
be a change. To stop the liquor
.rafiic by law may bring, in many
has brought, train Of
unexpected evils which do not show
IN police court records nor yet in
statistics of population and wealth.
We're the habit of drinking a new
hing, sprung up within the century,
among the European peoples, there
could hardly be any question how