The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1910-10-14
TOTHE VOTERS OF GRANT COUNTY
A Few Cnanswerable Arguments in
Favor of County Option.
... FIRST

/
toxicating liquors shall be sold at
any place in the county?
This is the simple question to be de-
cided by you at the next regular elec-
ton to be held November Sth, 1910.
The vote at that time will not be on
| the question whether Grant County
shall be 'wet' or dry but whether
you shall have the power to thereafter,
in the manner provided by law, decide
whether it shall be wet or dry.
Do not confuse the issues.
The Legislature of 1909 on petition
signed by more than five per cent Of
the voters of the entire state enacted a
law submitting to vote OF the people
of the state the question of determin-
| ing whether intoxicating liquors
should be sold within such counties.
See Chap. 30. Session Laws 1909.
SECOND
Is it right that the voters Of the
county should have this power?
The great bulk of our population in
! this state consists of farmers, and in
most of the counties the number of
people living in the country far ex-
ceeds the number living in the towns
| and cities.
| THIRD
But the people of the country have
an abiding interest in the town and
city.
For they and their children neces-
sarily frequent the town for the pur-
| poses of business, trade or entertain
ment. They are interested in having
the town morally wholesome and health
| full and free from vicious or evil in
huence. They are interested in regu-
lating or suppresslng altogether any
! traffic or business in the town that in
wolves a waste of money on the part
of themselves and children. and the
tendency of which is to injure in
health or in morals.
The saloon does not depend alone
for its support upon the citizens of the
town. Many Of its most constant and
to it. most profitable patrons are
, from the country.
Every farmers home mayi be affect
ed by an open saloon anywhere in the
county.
Simple justice demands that he has
voice in controlling it or in deter
mining whether it shall exist at all.
SIXTH
| That home rule involves the right
| to protect the home
SEVENTH
Under present conditions it is tax
alton without representation, a princi-
pie foreign to our American ideas.
Tue use Of intoxicants is beyond dis
pute the source and cause of much
of the poverty and crime of the land:
but neither the saloon nor the citizens
of the town which tolerate it support
the pauper or pay the heavy costs of
criminal prosecution. These e
burdens that fall upon all taxpayers
of the county. There is manifest in
justice in requiring the farmer to pay
taxes arising out of an evil, utterly
beyond his control and in the existence
of which he can have no voice.
EIGHTH
Thus it is that under the present
system the action of the elections of
any city or town, however small, in
granting permit to sell intoxicating
liquors results
First in the maintenance of a traffic
which means SO much economic waste,
and which, in the opinion of many. is
a constant menace to the general good
and well being Of all the people.
Second: in the taxation of all the
people of the county for the support
of the pauper and inebriate and for
the prosecution of crime resulting
directly or indirectly from traffic
for which the voters of the town alone
are responsible.
This is violation of the principle
of home rule.
Home rule if it is worth anything,
means the right of all citizens whose
material or moral interests are to be
affected by any policy or method Of
regulating traffic or business, to
participate in any election which
shall determine that policy or method.
Is it not plain, therefore, that in
the matter of permitting the sale of
intoxicating liquor, the county and
not the municipality within the county
should decide? The county and not
the town or city should in this respect
be the unit of political power.
1t is not unfair to the saloons that
II the county goes wet the towns and
cities still have the right to prohibit
the sale of intoxicants within their
limits. The nature and consequences
OF the business are such that the
municipality should, though the
county goes wet. still have the right,
as a matter of local policy, to say
whether the business shall be tolerat-
ed or not. Well may the electors OF
the city say: Notwithstanding the
county has voted for the sale of intox-
icating liquors, yet the city exists for
the purposes of local self-government
and in the interest of law and order,
the protection and we'll being of our
citizens, we will prevent the traffic. 5"
ELEVENTH
We believe that County Option is
the best and most etfectual method
yet devised for dealing with the open
saloon, and we appeal to the intelli-
gence, fairmindedness and patriotism
Of our fellow-citizens of the country
To supnort it at the polls. and to con-