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

odius AlOW many HEOBA0 uAN
from the effects of alcoholism and
from consumption in comparison?"
He said. "There is about one dies
from alcoholism where there are five
die from consumption, and where
there are ten die from diseases con-
nected with vice" am talking
hard cold facts to you. You are
pouring everything into the boots of
the unfortunate saloon-keeper, who
is here to administer to appetites
and to wants and l say the saloon
keeper is here to administer to de-
mand, and until you remove that de-
mand the saloon-keeper will be here
and transact business either in
licensed and regulated saloons or as
boot-leggers and blind pigs, If you
please. He will be here doing busi-
ness as long as the demand exists for
what he supplies. Brother Wilson
and I wouldn't furnish him any busi-
ness; he would go out of business
tomorrow probably, if he didn't get
anything but what we gave him; but
we are not the whole world. We
have probably reached a stage of
development and stage of evolution
which many of our fellow-citizens
have not reached, and until they
reach that stage a greaat many of
them are going to demand some of
these things and they are going to
get them in some way or another. I
am not pretending that the world is
perfect, or will be, right away, and
/ want to bring you back to the dis
cussion that we are here to debate
tonight, whether the present. sys-
tenn of so-called local option and
Il foh IN apH In
ties that do not vote dry, shall be
superseded by so-called state wide
prohibition, or an amendment to the
constitution for prohibition?" That
is the issue, and 1 am sorry that
Reverend Wilson did not adhere
more closely to the question under
discussion. l think it would have
been more edifying and instructive
if he had done so, because we have
all heard~the pulpit discourses. and
we all regret some of the conditions
that society has to contend with. Il
am sure that do.
l was a little jarred,--I was a lit
tie panied at what he said about
blood money. Now, that is a pretty
hard word, and I didn't exactly like
it. I think he hit us over the head
with that. daughter and applause.)
I think he hit us over the head with
that pretty hard, when even one of
the Twelve Disciples took some blood
money in his time and was under
the immediate teaching of the Saw
ior. We can't quite get rid of that
proposition by simply calling 1T a
name. I want to remind the gentle
man of the fact that when we car
ried on the war with Spain, when we
carried on the war for the liberation
of Cuba, Congress put tax, an ad-
ditional tax of one dollar barrel
upon all the beer produced in the
United States, and the brewers
-cheerfully raid it, and that the
liquor tax paid one-third of the ex-
pense of carrying on the war against
Spain for the liberation of Cuba.
That was blood money with a
vengeance but Cuba was liberated.
(Applause.) Cuba was liberated by
about equal parts of bullets and beer,
if you please. (Laughter.)
And 1 want to call the gentleman's
attention to the fact that the war
for the abolition of slavery and for
the salvation of the Union was car
ried on with enormous revenues de-
rived from the liquor traffic and
from tobacco, and / don't know but
that they even licensed lotteries in
those days. About one-half of the
money raised for carrying on that
war for the abolition of slavery and
for the preservation of the Union
was blood money wrung out of the
liquor traffic of this country. And
I say that a thing is not altogether
bad when you can get so much good
out of it for humanity. daughter
and applause.)
Now then, you can't get blood out
of a turnip, and you can't get any
good whatever out of a thing that is
altogether bad, and you can't prove
to the contrary. (Laughter.)
Now, was going to say some
thing about the present local option
law, but I think you are all very
similar with its operations. l think
Reverend Wilson would not quite be
borne out by the facts. l haven't
got them here exactly, but I think
the second election that was held un-
der the local option law several
counties that and had been dry, like
Coos county and Lincoln county, and
I don't know but one other, just
slipped over into the wet column,
and the state is not quite as dry as
II was, ana L .uOn KNOW DuI WudI
the next election will show that you
have bitten off more than you can
chew, and you will lose more terri
tory than you can gain by this at
tempt to get constitutional prohibi-
tion, which the people don't fully
understand.
want to point out the fact that
in recent elections in this state, for
instance, in the City of Roseburg,
there was a so-called dry ticket put
up, candidates for mayor and all city
Officers and aldermen, and I know
they must have been good men and
pure men, because they were nom
mated in a convention held in the
Methodist church. were all defeated,
and Roseburg deliberately, after be-
ing dry for two or three years, went
wet.
You all know that at the last city
election the City of Portland reject
ed the so-called McKenna prohibit
tion amendment to the city charter.
! don't understand it myself. I
would have probably voted against 1t
ont of nure ignorance il had lived