The Newport miner. [volume] (Newport, Wash.) 1899-current, 1909-08-26
ADVERTISEMENT
To the Editor of the Miner.


MINER an advertisement by the
caloon interests of this town an ar
ticle incorporating some of the
arguments put forth against pro-
hibition by the Rev. William A.
Wasson.
A reading of the original article
by any fair-minded intelligent per-
son will satisfy such a one that it
has the unmistakable ring of the
hired advocate, and the ecclesias-
tical sleeps clothing of the rever-
end does not conceal the claws of
the wolf.
The eclat with which the saloon
forces have received this WATSON
article is of itself sufficient to show
it wearing the badge of the hypo-
critic.
The article teens with falsehood
and misrepresentation, with argu-
ments most palpably fallacious.
For twenty years | have been
closely identified with the courts
and law offices, was admitted to
the bar in 1898 at Chicago. and
have been in my time identified
with some of the leading and most
able attorneys in the country, and
| must say that the suggestions
which WATSON makes for the legal
control of the saloon exhibit an ig-
norance on his part of fundamental
yet elementary law as to make him
the laughing stock of unbiased
learned lawyers and legislators.
Again, he emphasizes the dis
carding of prohibition by a number
of New England states nearly fifty
years ago. And would insist that
the recital of this ancient bit of
history forever settles the question
of prohibition for all generations,
Notwithstanding our superior en-
lightenment, and that the saloon
today has assumed the proportions
of curse far beyond what it was
fifty years ago. Fifty years ago
the per capita consumption of drink
in this country was only gallons.
while in 1907 it had reached the
appalling amount of % gallons per
capita, or, in other words, the
amount consumed for each man,
woman and child in the country
had increased in 1907 to nearly
five times what it was fifty years
ago. Is the world. with the changed
conditions which we have, the
greater information, with two dozen
institutions of learning now to
every one that existed fifty years
ago, and with this evil multiplied
by nearly five, in no better situa-
ton to decide present day problems
than were they of fifty years ago?
We know considerable more than
did the people of fifty years ago.
They were setting type by hand:
we set it with a linotype machine.
They laboriously wrote with a pen
and thought they were doing fine
if they wrote twenty words min
ute; we use typewriter and write
sixty. But why enumerate the
things which show our superior
enlightenment over the people of
fifty years ago? Everybody knows
it except Wasson-and the CHAR
keep"
But let us note the falsehood of
the Rev. WATSON in this connec-
ton, which is only one of many in
the article. The truth only half
told may constitute deliberate
Ialsehood.
The article in last weeks MINER
states: 1.-THE states that deserted
the prohibition ranks are the ones
that seem to be least affected by the
present dry wave The assump-
ton is that they are satisfied with
one experience" That was the
conclusion that WATSON by misrep-
resentation wanted the people to
draw. He says in his article:
prohibition is least popular where
it is best known" And he by his