Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-03-14

eddy place this city under certain han-
dicaps at critical stage in its de- |
yelopment.
Local option involves doing away |
with the poor mans club" or at least |
a. freQuented social meeting place of
a portion of the population without
any provision for IA substitute therefor.
There are arguments on either side OF
this phase of the question to be de-
veloped.
Local option will not prevent the
sale and consumption of liquor within
the city, although seeking to attain
that very end 1t will cause thoQ
sands of dollars TO be spent annually
in the saloons of neighboring cities,
and there will be extensive bootleg
| ging and home bar rooms. The evil
win largely remain and there will be
no revenue The saloon will be wiped
out, so will the license, but those who
want it will get their liquor
If local option carries here it will
be through the support of those who
merely wish to teach the liquor inter
ests a lesson or who wish to see ali
experiment tried. Lack of fixed con
viction, should it carry now, will be apt
to reverse the popular verdict at the
end of two years, when the question
may be voted upon again. and bring
about disastrous Ieaction.
| 1t cannot be gainsaid that the saloon has
grievously offended. 1t has not only
been an agent in the corruption of
morals, but it has intruded itself into
politics. more or less openly defied
| just and reasonable laws and
tween. otherwise the CRATER,
has encouraged crime by shielding its
perpetrators. When conceded a legiti-
mate standing it. has taken advantage
of public Indulgence, and when justly
criticised has made itself the more
Objectionable by the excuses it has
offered. The American people have
Iample reason to yearn for vantage
Iground from which TO teach the saloon
its place, and TO keep it there. But
the question for calm deliberation is
whether humiliation will not remove
lone evil by leaving a worse substitute.
1t should be borne in mind that
prohibition does not deal with the
saloon alone 1t aims to remove at
one stroke, the means of satisfying
an appetite that has been cultivated
for thousands of years. 1t makes nc
allowances for human weaknesses
that stand as a barrier to the accom-
lplishment of the end sought 1t must
be remembered that there was intoXi
cation, debauchery, crime, corruption
land defiance of law before the modern
institution known as the saloon eX
listed. and there will be all these thing:
even if the saloon should be wiped of
the earth The saloon in undisputed
sway, indulging in secretive devices
that afford the opportunity for The
CRATER and the blackmailer to ply
his art and exact tribute. is perhaps
the greatest curse of the age. There
: have been such Ubiquitous places il
Rock Island, the outgrowth of too lal
regulation and of debauched pc
| lice control. Such conditions were
: enough TO arouse the ire and indigna
tion of all righteously inclined people
regardless of how liberal their ten
! permanent or how tolerant their in
clinations toward the proposition o
merchandising in alcoholic beverages
But it is the saloon as a whole. AM
3 the purpose. not only to eradicate il
: but to prohibit. or at least curb, tn
sale of liquor to the individual within
; the city that is at issue. 1t is tn
means to an end that is in debate
!. The ideal remedy in the discussion
the liquor subjectfeposesi nthe purillca
ton of human impulses. The provisio
that it is aimed to apply to Rock Is