The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1909-08-05
He done his damdest
Angels could do no more.

When / was in Deadwood several
years ago there were still several large
gambling-houses in which the games
were running as openly as the dry
goods stores or groceries. Almost
every other door led into a saloon
which was always open, and there
Y were generally a dance hall and other
d~isreputable connections. But gamb-
ling was stopped entirely in 1906 and
every one of these disreputable places
closed. Public sentiment would not
endure them any longer, and while
there are doubtless many games of
chance played at the clubs, in private
Don at the hotels and in other Sc
cluded places, the professional gamb-
gone. They went to G%oldfeld, Tono-
pah, and other new camps in the far
west, and understand they have been
driven from there also by a law pass
ed last winter by the Nevada legisla-
ture.
And these reforms are not confined
the Black Hills. A very different class
of population is here now from that
which occupied the country fifteen or
even ten years ago, and in no part of
the United States can be found COM
munities of a higher degree of morali-
ty, of a better education or of greater
sympathy with law and order. The
gamblers and d~isreputable characters
we're driven out of one town after an
other until the Hills were entirely rid
of them. The last place to 'close
down the lid" was Edgemont, a rail
road and cattle town, in 1907.
AS one gentleman expressed it, the
people of the Black Hills stood it" as
long as they could and were finally
provoked into a law-andOrder move
ment by a fragrant disregard of public
sentiment by the city officials of Dead
wood In granting licenses to certain
disreputable resorts under conditions
that were notorious and against the
formal and emphatic remonstrances of
the taxpayers and the business ele-
ment of the community. Then the
outraged citizens organized, the church
people, the w. C. T. U. and other asso-
Citations appealed to Governor Vessey
and Attorney General Clark, who
promptly notified the county attorney
to see that the law was enforced, and
it has been enforced. New laws have
been passed by the city council in ODE
dience to the same sentiment which is
now recognized as supreme by the city
towns in the state instead of the sa-
loon and gambling-house keepers, who
controlled the municipal policy before.
There are now siXty-one saloons in
Lawrence county, with a population of
1900, and sixteen saloons in Dead
wood city, with a population of 1000,
and each pays a license fee Of 5000.
Since May l every saloon has been
closed all day Sunday and at II
o'clock p. m. on week days. Until then
they were open aall night. Some of
them had never been closed for an
hour for twenty years or more, and
when the order came from Mayor
Adams to lock up at II o'clock at night
the barkeepers could not find any keys.
In some cases there had never been
a lock- on the door.
All screens and tables and chairs
are out and are forbidden, so that the
saloons are not so comfortable as
loaing places as formerly. In Hot
Springs the license fee is $500, and
as a consequence every saloon but
three has been closed.
Everybody agrees that the results
have been wholesome. There is no
disorder; there are no crimes; the
jails are empty; the police are idle and
the absolute and vicious cases have
gone elsewhere.
The brewers, wholesale liquor deal
ers and several or the saloon Keepers
are very urgent in using their influ-
ence 10 secure a strict compliance with
the new regulations for fear of the. en-
actment of a prohibition law.
The legislature also passed an anti
treating act, which requires that a
Siens with letters at least four inches
1Qn8, shall be displayed over the bar
ins3rery saloon where it may be plain
~ eeen by everyone who enters, warn
1n0E people that each customer must
( pay for his own drink, and that any
Z barkeeper who accepts money from
one man in payment for liquor con-
sumed by another Is liable to fine and
ASSIGNMENT. This act has provoked