The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1909-10-22
Citizens Who Represent Two Thirds of the Assessed
Valuation of Property in that City, Sign Petition
Favoring Strict Regulation of Saloons.
ARE OPPOSED TO LOCAL OPTION.
Frank Haynes Is Selected President of Organization,
Which Was Addressed Wednesday Night by j.
Earle Brown, Judge MITCHELL j. G. ONeilI
Representative Haviland and Others.

Nearly 400 business men of Port HUI.
ron gathered in the circuit court room
Wednesday evening and organized The
Business Mems Law and Order League
of st. Clair county. The object of the
League is to secure a strict enforce
ment of the Warner-Crampton law and
to fight against the claimed interefer-
ence and business depression caused by
local option and prohibitionists.
Frank J. Haynes was unanimously
elected president of the League; ii. p.
McCabe, banker, of Emmett, was Sc
lected vice-president, II. c. Knill, jr.
was made treasurer and Il. j. School
craft was chosen secretary. 1t was de-
cided by these interested in the move
ment that the assemblage represented
$S,000,000 of the $10,000,00 assessed
valuation of Port Huron city.
The speakers who spoke in favor OF
a strict enforcement of the liquor law
were j. Earle Brown, of st. Johns or
ganizer of the first Business Mems Lea
que in Michigan; Judge William T.
Mitchell; John c. O'Neill and Repre-
sentative James NJ Haviland.
Immediately after the meeting had
been called to order Mr.. Schoolcraft
read the proposed constitution and by
laws of the League. He then read the
list of nearly 400 business men who
had signed the petition for such an
organization and had signified that
they were strongly in favor of strict
law enforcement.
Committees Later.
Following the election of offers II
was decided that an executive commit
tee to be composd of one member from
each ward in the city and each town
ship in the county should be appointed
President Haynes will announce the
members of the committee in the near
future.
President Haynes stated that the
meeting was called for the purpose OF
transacting business. after taking the
chair, and he introduced Mr.. Brown,
whom he said would explain the work.
ing of the Business Mems League in
his town.
I'm glad to have an opportunity to
be with you said the speaker at the
beginning of his argument. six years
ago, when l took part in my first local
option fight in Clinton county, L came
to the conclusion that the principle of
on the other side.
Taking Right Move.
You are taking the right move here
tonight. You will get the principles OF
the question later. Business men in
ST Johns were told that 1t was not safe
to be against local option. AS an il.
lustration of this | will cite an in
cident that took place at my home. One
hundred and twenty of the business
men of ST. Johns signed a petition
asking that the Ormsby bill, which al
lowed cities and townships to vote
separately on the local option question
be passed. Soon afterwards a circular
came back from Lansing terming 80
of the signers as the "whiskey ele-
ment" of St Johns. This caused a
change i'm the sentiment among the
\ voters. Now a business man is not
criticized when he signs petition
so that his county may have any cause
to change over to the wet" side.
Clinton county is dry now. On Au-
gust 81 last we started out and by Sep
tember 10 we had 2340 signers in the
county and 266 in the city of ST Johns
The number of voters in Clinton county
is $3.50, so you can see that we got As
per cent OF the voters to sign the pc
titions. Our petitions will be placed be
fore the board of supervisors, which
is now in session in Clinton county.
Two Sides to Question.
THE character of the men who cir
culated our petitions was of the best
Five of our petitioners voted dry last
year and two circulated dry petitions
during the last campaign. Gentlemen,
there are two sides to this great ques.
ton. We could have gotten even more
signers IL we had tried as only three
OF our precints were thoroughly work