Morris tribune., 1908-07-11
THE FORWARD MOVEMENT

Now i knew town In farming
community likes this, a town of this
size, where there were no saloons and
they didn't need much city govern
ment. One policeman did police duty
and looked after the street work dur
ing the day and at night we all slept.
/ We paid this man $50 per month,
| which added to his pension made him
Ia very fair living. They had better
streets than we have and the town
was no. older than ours is now. Each
parent was expected to ring his own
| curfew.
For nearly thirty years that town
has had no saloons nor joints. Re
Gently, factories have come, and
with mixed population of work
men conditions are not so good.
More liquor is brought in by private
consumers and now and then boot
logger is corralled and jailed but the
business is precarious and not re-
spected. No man suspicioned of want
ing to license saloons could be elected
to that city council. The business
men, not temperance cranks either,
but men who drank in the saloons the
town had 80 years ago, do not now
want any of that kind of help in sup
porting schools or town, nor do they
need it.
No, the saloon is not necessary. 1t
creates no wealth but dissipates
wealth, just as when home or fac
tory goes up in smoke. Alcohol is
not food and gives no strength-it
expends the strength already stored
up. The saloon abstracts and burns
up zoe of every dollar that goes thru
it on it's way to the support of the
schools Or town-and even that soc is
merely getting back to where it be-
longs and from whence it came. The
saloon did not create it nor give it to
the town; now may be wrong any
where along here-I am willing to be
| corrected. Much of it comes from
men who cannot pay their grocery
bills, who owe the doctor. and who
cannot afford decent or comfortable
clothing for themselves or families.
The night policeman takes their
shivering horses to the livery barn in
winter while the money the grocery
man needs, the sustenance the family
needs, goes up in the stencil of 0he
of the saloon which the town does
not need.
They say that farmers will go to
some other town to trade if saloons
are kept out of ours. Candidly do
not know but I do not believe it. Sa-
looms use the farmers money and they
get no revenue; costs of criminal
prosecutions fall on the county and
city gets the revenue.
The cost of the average boy to the
father is said to be $1,000. The sa-
looms now pay $3.50 per year license.
It's mighty poor saloon that can't
ruin one boy a year, so somebody is
$3.50 behind. If the boy lives long
enough to marry he ruins another
life. Saloons must have emissaries
teaching boys to drink in order to
perpetuate their business.
It is further agreed that the saloon
man must live and must support his
family. I heard this argument made
before our city council by man re-
spected by us all, presenting petit
ton signed by some members of this
congregation, praying an additional
saloon license be granted in this town.
The fact is that if we grant the Ii
cense we support that man and his
family, and if it becomes our duty,
we would better do it by direct as
sessment, using all the money where
it will do some good. There is plenty
of work that needs to be done, pro-
ductive work, that makes the worker
stronger and better citizen. No man
runs saloon because he is compelled
to. They say prohibition does not
prohibit. Makes good men dishonest
brewers and distillers against pro-
hibition now advocate decency.
So, believe the saloon does not
pay the man who conducts it, the
man who patronizes it, nor the COM
munity that permits it. Moreover I
believe that just at this time the
church that wants to eliminate the
saloon must work on this basis. We
have in mind the moral degeneracy
following the drink habit but we can
not now, if we ever could. brighten
men away from the saloon. It's of
little use to tell the drunkard he is
going to He'll, for in fact he isn't, he
is already there, he and his family.
They say to abolish the saloon will
hurt business. They said it of the