Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-03-31
NOTED DEBATE ON
LIQUOR QUESTION
Milwaukee Hears Both Sides
From Same Platform.
President DicIkie of Albion College,
Took Prohibition Side-Other
Taken by Mayor Rose.

Taken by Mayor Rose.
Milwaukee, Wis. March 26.-One
of the most remarkable debates ever
held was that tonight on the question,
Resolved. that prohibition as ap-
piled to the manufacture and sale of
Intoxicating beverages is right. F"
with Mayor Rose, of Milwaukee, de-
Tending the negative and DR.. Samuel
Dickie, president of Albion college,
Albion, Michigan, for the prohibit
tionists. More than 4, 600 were present
and other thousands could not gain
admission. This was the first of
three debates, the second to be
given at Chicago, and the third at
some city in the south. There was
no decision tonight.
ARGUMENT OF DICKIE.
Dickie was the first speaker. He
argued thar the Prohibition of the
LIQUOR traffic is right, if considered
only from an economic stanpoinr, and
declared, THE saloon is the foe of
capital. but pre- eminently the enemy
of labor: that it paralyzes the arm of
the working man, shortens his life,
excludes him from many lucrative
caIlings, decreases his power as a
producer and throws into the labor
market d vast mass of debased and
unitelligent laborers who compete
disastrously with sober and industrious
workmen. No line of manufacture
gives employment to so few men in
proportion to the capital invested as
does the liquor trafi:..'' He assert
ed that the ''Liquor business breeds
criminals and that it is Itself.
largely composed of men who do not
hesitate to violate the law and that
they "Openly, shamefully and
fagrantly trample under foot the
laws intended TO restrict the evil in
fiuences of the liquor traffic. While
Dickie concluded there are IA few
men of fair responsibility in the
saloon business. 1T nevertheless re-
mains true the lawless classes,
thieves, gamblers, thugs, blacklegs,
outcasts, harIots. the low and vile
and degraded of both sexes can be
depended upon to the last man and
last woman to stand with Milwau
KEGS mayor in opposing prohibition
and advocating the saloon
ROcE'S THREE VIEWPOINTS.
Arguing that prohibition is wrong,
Rose treated the subject from three
viewpoints, biblical, ethical and
material. He showed that while in
ancient times the evil existed, when
the ten commandments were written
no attempt was made to inject prohibit
tion and he challenged anyone to find
one word in the bible advocating the
theories of the prohibitionist. Treat
ing the subject from an ethical side.
he took the census figures of the
government and the records of cities
and states to prove that prohibition
increased crime, insanity, deaths,
domestic infelicity, pauperism and
stagnated business. He took the
criminal records of Milwaukee, a
wild open town, and showed the ar
rests here per capita was less than
in the prohibition states of Maine,
Kansas and Georgia He sh owed that
more drunkness existed in Maine than
in Wisconsin. He quoted census
figures to show that more insanity
existed in prohi states than In
neighboring wet states and that the
death rates of Maine and Kansas were
higher than thu wet states adjoining.
Rose quoted census figures to show
that more people died from whooping
cough and measles than alcoholism.
He quoted figures to show there were
more divorces in Kansas and Maine
than in Wisconsin, wet state: and
that prohibition states also had more
paupers
HAD BEEN FAILURE.
He showed bank deposits in the
dry states were smaller than in the
wet states. ana said prohibition had
been failure wherever tried because
it was impossible to correct the ills
and weaknesses of man by laws. Ma
ton wide prohibition. he said, would
mean loss of S215, SOB. 900 revenue a
year to the government, and would
seriously affect the farmer and the
laborer of the country, because brewers
and malsters AMI distillers consume
$1O9, 600, 900 of grain year. 1t wonld
par4Iyze business, cripple the rail-
roads, and he said it would also be
felt in every walk of life. 1t would