The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1909-03-27
Present Mayor of Milwaukee
Defends "Sane" Regulation
Of Saloons, College Head
Opposes Them.
TWO ORATORS MEET
THROUGH CHALLENGE
Dickie States That Liquor
Breeds Criminals, Rose
States the Prohibition Gives
Boost to Crime.

Milwaukee, Wis, March 27.-One OF
the most remarkable debates ever held
was that last night on the question,
Resolved. That prohibition as ap-
piled to the manufacture and sale of
Intoxicating beverages is right" with
Mayor David S. Rose of Milwaukee de-
Tending the negative, and DR.. Samuel
Dickie. president Of Albion College. AL
bion, Mich. as the speaker for the pro-
hibitiOnists. The great Hippidrome.
with a seating capacity of 1900. was
damned to the doors, and although ad-
mission was by card, great throngs of
people were turned away. There were
five applications for every ticket, and
although the admission was free, tick
cts being issued to the various civic
associations, offers of substantial
sums for tickets were frequently made.
People from all parts of. the United
States clamored for seats. This was
the first of three debates. the second
to be given at Chicago and the third
at some city in the South.
Challenge Of Rose.
Mayor Rose, at a recent Louisville
convention challenged the national
prohibition party to produce its best Or
ator to meet him on the question de-
bated tonight, so DR.. Dickie was the
accredited representative OF the ma
tional prohibition party against May
or Rose. who is generally known as
the advocate of sane regulation of
the saloon.
There was no decision. Mr.. Dickie
was the first speaker. He said in part !:
'The prohibition OF the liquor traffic
is right. if considered only from the
economic standpoint. The saloon is
the foe of capital, but pre-eminently
the enemy of labor. 1t paralyzes the
arm of the workingman, shortens his
life. excludes him from many lucrative
callings. decreases his power as a pro-
Queer and throws into the labor mar
ket a vast mass of debased and unin-
telligent laborers who compete disas-
trously with the sober and industrious
workmen. No line of manufacture
gives employment to so few men in
proportion to the capital invested as
does the liquor traffic.
Says Liquor Breeds Criminals.
1.-THE liquor business breeds crimi-
nails. The testimony of prison chap
lains. of wardens, sheriffs and judges
of the criminal courts warrants the as
sertion that from 50 to 80 per cent of
crime is directly or indirectly traceable
to the use of intoxicating liquors.
mot only is the liquor traffic a
breeder of criminals, but it is itself
largely composed of men who do not
hesitate to violate the law. The great
majority of retail liquor sellers are
open and notorious lawbreakers. The
restrictive features of the Wisconsin
statutes as to selling on Sunday and on
legal holidays are openly, shamefully
and flagrantly trampled under foot.
Prohibition is right because it has
been found to be the most efficient
method of restraint.
"The friends of the liquor traffic are
such as to condemn it by their own
character and conduct. Conceding that
a few men of fair responsibility are its
apolOgists, 1t nevertheless remains true
that the lawless classes, the thieves,
the gamblers, the thugs, the blacklegs,
the outcasts. the harlots, the low and
vile and degraded Of both sexes can be
depended upon to the last man and the
last woman to stand with Milwaukee's
mayor in opposing prohibition and ad-
vocating the saloon"
From Three Viewpoints.
In arguing that prohibition is wrong.
Mayor Rose treated the subject from
three viewpoints, the biblical. ethical
and material. He asserted that while
in ancient times the evil existed, when
the ten commandments were written
no attempt was made to inject prohibit
ton and he challenged any one to find
one word in the bible advocating the
theories of prohibitionits.
Treating the subject from the ethical
side, he took the census figures of the
government and records of cities and
states to prove that prohibition in
creased crime. insanity, deaths. domes-
tic infelicity. pauperism and stagnated
business. He took the criminal rec
ords Of Milwaukee. wide open" town
and showed that the arrests here per
capita were less than in the prohibi.
ton states of Maine. Kansas and Geor-
gia. He showed that more drunken
ness existed In Maine than in Wiscon-
sin. He quoted census figures show
ing that more insanity existed in pro-
hibition states than in neighboring wet
states and that the death rates In
Maine and Kansas were higher than in