The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1908-05-17
REGULATE, OR QUITE.

The Morning Astorian has refrain
ed from comment upon the curren
issues of local option as they have
developed here, and as they pend
because it has always held that II
such contests "the less said, the soon.
er mended''; and that it expresses it
self now, is not to broach the ele-
ments of things hereabout in detail
so much as to discuss the wider range
and bearing of the real principle and
the larger consequences, inseparable
from the broadening agitation notable
all over the country.
Primarily, there is a wide revolt
against the domination of the liquor
interests, nationally speaking; nor is
this growing sentiment confined to
the non drinking classes, it is per-
meating the consciousness of the
drinkers and patrons of the business,
through the disadvantages they are
sharing with the people who hold
aloof from it; the color and tone OF
the processes employed by the liquor
federations everywhere, is OF a daring,
insolent type and turpitude 10 arouse
the utmost phase of resistance even
in the ordinarily passive mind of the
uninterested citizen, who cannot, at
the behest of common decency, stand
for the rough-shod tactics of dis
credited, and, oftener than not, dis
creditable, business. This antipathy
and resistance are aroused and invited
by the liquor men, the majority OF
whom refuse to accept the protection
the law awards them, seeking the
broader license of law-breaking as a |
means of accumulating the longer |
profit; and pandering to the vicious
elements, to whom the breaking of
the law, in any guise, is the chief rule
in life, and yet, whose numbers and
votes in any contest involving the ac-
tual expression of real communal
honor or safety, would prove to be
nil, against the supreme mandate OF a
State wide, or a Nationwide, move
ment for relief.
1t is time the better element of the
saloon men were rallying to their own
safety (for there is better standard
in the business than most people are
aware of. They are squarely up to
the crisis that reads for regulation or
annihilation, and the choice is the
last that will be given them; they can
not plead oppression because they /,
have, in the main, refused to be op-
pressed and they cannot plead a
single moral or ethical reason for the
further patience of the people, since
the business does not furnish them
with even hypothetical shadow of
strictly virtuous argument; the trade
exists by, and through the law, and
that law specifically ordained; the de- |
liberate, constant fracture of which is
The primal base of what trouble the /
saloon man goes UP against. The
solitary alternative possessed by the
liquor dealer is the steadfast observ-
ance of the law; if that is beyond him,
he is without recourse; society will
furnish him no other that will pre-
vail, and he will face annihilation and Il
for what the law does not
tolerate in a common way, society
dare not.
There is progress in the saloon
business as in all things of recognized S
status. They must improve in meth a
DDS, customs, standards, conditions,
as all other businesses improve; they S
will not be permitted to sink, forever,
to lower, and still lower, levels, and
retain the countenance of human So
ciety which is, itself, taking on hour
Iy, and the higher and better and
phases of progress. So
,iety is wearying Of the domination Of
he saloon and it is simply question
Of whether the saloon will bring it
self to criterion of decency and ac-
that will satisfy society,"
md the laws it makes, or work out
is utter damnation through the in
'tinctive courses Of evil and raw re-