Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-04-14
Council Rejects Policies of Restric::
tions and Regulation.

tions and Regulation.
The city council last evening by a |
vote of nine to five rejected the ordi-
nances presented at the former meet
ing by Alderman Ostrom providing
for restriction of the number of sa-
looms in Rock Island on the basis of
one to every 500 of population and for
regulation by increasing the revenue
by means of $1,000 license.
Notwithstanding that The Argus
from the moment the ordinances
were presented gave the best that
was in it in support of the measures,
it could not fail to realize all along
that their adoption was practically
hopeless.
The attitude of The Argus in sup
port of the ordinances was based on
moral as well as practical grounds,
and was entirely consistent with the
arguments raised in opposition to the
prohibition idea as means of reg
ulating the saloon business. During
the time the local option proposition
was before the people members
of the AUTHORIZATION league, which
included in its membership represen-
tatives of the liquor interests COM
mended The Argus position, from the
standpoint of principle, maintaining
in numerous instances that the saloon
business in Rock Island had grown
into disrepute and deserved rebuke, and
that the quicker 1t was revolutionized
the better. In furtherance of this
same line of argument it was said
that even if the election decided thai
the saloon was to remain, no measure
looking to the elimination of evil adj
juncts and the cutting down of the
number of saloons in Rock Island
even though attended by measures
that might prove burdensome to the
whole would be opposed. Since
the election the AUTHORIZATION
league, consistent with these ante
election statements, has taken a posi-
tive stand on the prevailing condi-
tions and in support of remedial prop
ositions. Certain of the liquor inter
ests, however-and in this the brew
cry control has not hesitated to &C.
cupy conspicuous ground-have fought
the very first move toward lettering
the conditions that were acknowledged
to be intolerable In the extreme, Of
fering as the only argument in sup
port of other means of reaching the
same end, that if debauching prac-
tees had grown into the business it
was the city government alone that
was to blame.
The ordinances that went down 10
defeat last night, hand in hand as
they came before the council. aimed
to accomplish by reasonable legisla-
ton the Kidding of the community of
the dive and the joint and the cutting
down of the ratio of saloons by an
ordinance which at the same time
due the city from the traffic There
were liquor influences, though, that
preferred to lay the burden of the
entire situation on the city without
permitting it to have any legislation
to rectify the wrongs that have been
done.
| 1t was the hope of many of those
who while voting against prohibition
still maintained that the best and most
lasting results could be attained by
policies of restriction and regulation
THAT an extreme course of action with
reference to the saloons would not be
necessary; that through the enforce
ment of new measures the liquor traf
fic would be purged of glazing in
Equities that do not belong to it ant
have no right to exist in connection
with it, and that in a short period o
time, the legitimate saloon would agair
ldrop into its natural groove and the bust
ness would be SO conducted that agi
taNon would cease because the caus,
for agitation would have passed away
Many times in the interim after tn,
ordinances were presented The Argu
pointed out that the saloons wer
harming only themselves by persist
ing in their opposition to pending
measures, that the public temper mus
mot be neutrality-suspicious. the pre-
lponderance of sentiment while agains
prohibition was in favor both of re
striction and of high license.
The influential representatives O
1.-THE liquor business preferred to TAX
chances on the application of laws il
existence rather than submit to ney
forms Of regulation. and it would b
superfluous to say that no citizen coul
object to- a law-abiding course unde
Iany circumstances. Without dilatin
unnecessarily on the attitude of tn
council, The Argus hopes the. sam
moral ends will be attained by tn
preferred policy as the on
proposed promised, even though
: will not prove quite SO advantageou
to the city from the standpoint {