Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-07-10
RATIONAL View OF !.
LIQUOR PROBLEM | L

printed an aQurSSS TO inc business
men of America put out by the Model
License league. Commenting on the
address the Journal says: M Its Ian
guage is plain. Its statements are
unquestionably exaggerated for the
purpose of getting attention. But it
states the question for the liquor in
terests. ~ iFF
The tremendous burst of indigna.
ton against the liquor traffic which
has swept and is sweeping the coun
try is, as the Journal has frequently
pointed out, on the authority of both
anti-saloon and saloon men them.
selves, neither partisan, political nor
wholly sentimental, 1t is business.
It is legitimate business against ILL
gitinlate business, The man who
who runs factory, a farm or shoe
shop has an interest in liquor. If he
is large employer of labor he can
trace thousands of dollars of loss ev-
cry year to liquor drinking among hts
men. Their efficiency is part Of, his
capital, and that capital is being
spent over the bar instead of overahis
machines The maker of things use.
full, from watches to automobiles, has
no occasion to lose sleep over the
anxieties of the liquor trade. It is
the enemy of his profits, and if E. it
could be entirely obliterated from
the industrial map he would be better
off. t.ez
Nevertheless, this same business
man Or manufacturer can afford to
take time off to study and determine
for himself whether it is possible to
prohibit the manufacture and sale of
alcoholic drinks. This is the real
question. The saloon man says it
cannot be done, SO long as the people
want to drink. Assuming that he is
right, he declares that it is much bet
ter to regulate the traffic than to
make prohibition raids upon it which
will do nothing but destroy property
and drive the business form the open
to the concealed form. This lis a
phase of the question which deserves
consideration. The Journal has been
of the opinion that in the community
which is a compact enough unit, pro
hibition can be made effective, and
that where it is effective it is a bless
ing. The members of a political unit,
like town or county, have as much
right to vote whether they will have
saloons as they have no Fsyote
whether they will issue bonds to
build court houses And jails. IT is
their problem, and they have the right
to solve it. Whether the same kind
of a solution applies to common
wealths is another question. Thus far
statewide prohibition has not been
enough of success to recommend it.
The enforcement Of a prohibition
act is matter of sentiment. For this
reason the more compact the unit
which is to deal with the question,
the better. ,s.@.s:sI =; s5sss3
Assuming for moment that tprohi-
bition is still generation or two dis.
tant, what are the proper steps to
lead up to it? It would seem as
though the proper thing is to tighten
the coils about the traffic; to curtail
everywhere the political and social in
fluence Of the saloon; to serve no
tice on investors that the liquor bust
| ness is dying one. There need be
| no ruin, panic or starvation following
the annihiiation of the liquor traffic
It's extinction is bound to be gradual
1t cannot be accomplished in a gen
Grafton, or, possibly, not in two o.
three. But nothing is more certain
| than that the liquor traffic, as lit |.
now conducted, will be done ava.
with by an Intelligent and right mind
ed public. 1t is as certain as the re
moval as big sawmills from Mime
apolis. From the tine the first a
was sunk in a Minnesota pine 1t wa
a certainty that the business of cut
ting lumber would have an end. An.
man of common sense could havl
predicted its expansion, then grad
ual contraction and final extinction
1t was only matter Of time. Car
ital understood and labor becam
aware of the facts. The worked on
the problem. Capital took care o
| itself in other directions and labo
| took care of itself in other directions
and there was not even a pause Il
the industrial development nor in th
/ growth in population in MinneaI
/. oils.
!, People who talk about q panic n
L sulting from the abolition of the So
loon either want to cause a scare 10
their own benefit or they have ovel
looked the fact that the prohibitio
i of the traffic would, in the opinion q
many economists, be such savin
Ifo