Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1910-07-16

State. We believe that with licensed
saloons, about one to the thousand,
we have ten or twelve saloons for
city of from fifteen to twenty
thousand, and we have open glass
fronts; you can look right in off the
street and see whoever is there; and
there are no boys in our saloons,
there are no ladies in our saloons.
(Applause.) There are no attrac-
tions of any kind very much !;
daughter and applause), except
the stuff, except the liquid for which
there appears to be a kind of a de-
mand And I want to say that the
last time that 1 looked upon the
wine when it was red was in a dry
city, in a dry county in this state.
l went there to attend a banquet of
a commercial club. They dedicated
new commercial club headquarters,
and the business men of that town
gave a splendid banquet and they
knew / was coming, and so l suppose
they sent for a lot of additional at
fractions for their banquet. At any
rate, in that dry town, in that dry
county last Wednesday night two
hundred and fifty of the finest peo-
PIE idulb5 anu bGubiSAlGnB VI bheiJ
town sat down to a banquet where
they served four kinds of wine.
(Cries of "ShameD. Now then, of
course it was offered to me. l
turned around in surprise. I said,
Ladies and gentlemen, isn't this a
dry city in a dry county?" They
said, "Oh. yes; but We have shipped
this in for a special occasion" l
said to them, Ladies and gentlemen,
1 might take a drink with you in my
own city or in my own county, where
the people haven't voted dry, but /
will not drink with you in dry city
in a dry county, because it is viola
ton of the law. (Applause). 1 be-
lieve in obeying and respecting and
upholding the laws of the people Of
this state under the local option law,
if you please. (Applause.) And
turned my four tumblers down; and
did you ever hear of Teddy doing
that? (Laughter.)
A voice: No.
Mr.. Hofer: Teddy is one of those
broad politicians that hot-airs the
ministers and drinks every time there
is anything shows up. daughter and
applause, mixed with hisses.)
Now, would like to conclude this
debate, ladies and gentlemen, by
bringing your minds back to the
proposition. Whether a prohibition
amendment to tho constitution is
desirable or not, and I will confine
my remarks to that question. AS
stated to you in the opening, / was
born and raised in the State of Iowa,
and about 1881 the State of Iowa
enacted a prohibition amendment to
the constitution of that State.
supported the proposition. / be-
lieved at that time it was a good
thing; and it was carried by quite a
good majority. It was in the plat
form of the political party to which
I belonged, and that political party
had about a hundred thousand ma
jority in that state, and of course
they could do almost anything with
that kind of majority back OF
them and in that state the repub-
lican party with a hundred thousand
majority, and it was either a ques-
tion of support that proposition OF
get out of your party, and like lots
of other good republicans we all sup
ported our party, and the people en-
acted the amendment to the consti-
tuition, and on top of that they
enacted what they called state con-
stabulary law so that the governor
of that state could appoint constables
to go into any county or any city OF
that state where the local sentiment
would not uphold the enforcement
of the law, and those constables had
the power to search and sieze in
private houses or in business places
and to arrest without warrant-just
what is being proposed under the
law which you are supplementing
your prohibition amendment with,
and for ten years that was carried on
and houses were searched and prop
erty was siezed and destroyed and
confiscated and at the end of the
ten years struggle, with all the
power that the state could bring to
bear, the great intelligent state OF
Iowa slipped back into what is
known as a compromise on the
liquor question, and about half the
counties in that State today are
licensing saloons in their cities and
that is the condition of things in the
State of Iowa.
received today a letter from the
Governor of Iowa upon this ques-
tion; and he is a newspaper man,
Mr.. Carroll. l asked him particular
ly whether that system of COM
promise was still in force, and
whether the State of Iowa was still
in the humiliating position of having
to compromise and to allow that
which the citizenship of that state
has condemned, and the Governor OF
that State writes me under date of
June 18th.
The Governor writes me: 1--WE
have the mulct law" The mulct law
is a law under which a man opens a
saloon and then goes up and pleads
guilty at the county seat before the
Circuit Court, and the assessor of
the county proceeds to assess him
with a fine, and every so often he
pays that fine for violation of the
law of that state. Governor Carroll
writes: 1--WE have the mulct law in
this state, as you understand, and
most of our cities have saloons, but
some of the smaller ones have not "
About half the counties in Iowa that
have no cities to amount TO any
thing are under prohibition.
(Here the speaker was interrupted