The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-11-09

URNAL, THURSDAY. NOVEMI
Bakersfield will not have an open saloon
in three years from this date.
out of the saloon men, no female gentle
man of the Ministerial union or male
ladies Of tenderer organizations need
offer assistance.
Watch INV smoke; also notice the
capital Il which runs through this ad-
vertisement.
CHARLES P. FOX"
LAUGH SOON GOES
At first Bakersfield laughed. 1t
seemed ridiculous that one man should
try to overthrow regime with record
OF forty years supremacy behind it:
Undismayed by the laughter, Fox fired
second broadside in the shape of half
page advertisement. The laughter of
the saloon element CONCEALED into
forced grimace. Even that vanished
when in his third pronunciamento Fox
declared that he would have the casual
and incidental assistance" of majority
of the business men. "The old scare 1t
"ouiu AuIC DuSlIleSS, uC Soiu, 10 uot
working any more Bakersfield in its
own behalf must take positive, drastic
and intense action respecting its saloons.
So much for mere. business
He maintained that he would likewise
have the support of the unfrequenters of
saloons, now aroused from neutrality; of
While;" of the dipsomaniacs who had
oil nd ho al fi,or n
dry town would be their City of Refuge;
OF the ''steadfast bunch of enthusiasts
who have been fighting the saloon for a
generation
FIRST CONCESSION MADE
1t was the queerest, most extraordi-
nary prohibition campaign ever under
taken, but was effective. The saloon
men were the first to appreciate the fact
that Fox was in deadly earnest and
meant business; that the tide of public
sentiment was turning strongly against
them and would sweep them out of the
county unless the hold of their barnacle-
covered anchor was strengthened. When
Fox, in his fourth fusillade, called upon
them to put their house in order and
gave them two years in which to wind
up their affairs and move on, they re-
sponded by unanimously agreeing to
close their saloons between l and 5 every
morning.
That was an unprecedented step. For
forty years the saloons had been and
still were unhampered by any regulation
whatsoever except in the payment of
licenses. Now, with no ordinance or
statute forcing them except aroused
public opinion, they meekly agreed to
forego their timehonored privilege and
close at l a. m. Two weeks after the
innovation the trustees formally enacted
the voluntary action of the saloon-keep-
ers into law!
SELF-REFORM TOO LATE
The vendors of whiskey went even
further in their anxiety to appease pub
lie opinion. They removed the stalls,
abolished private rooms and agreed no
longer to allow women to enter the r
places, but these concessions, grudging-
ly made under fire, came too late.
power of the saloon combine, with its
broken permanently only by digging out
the roots.
Bakersfield has an old and long score
time of reckoning has come. For the
taking stock of the damage inflicted by
whiskey upon the community, and the
size of the account that requires settle
ment is welding the power of public
opinion into a fighting force that promis-
es to wipe out the saloon.
DEsPOILED OF PARK
Though the old-time prohibitionists
have been raising their voices against
the liquor traffic for 10, these many
years, the force of the present move
ment lies largely in the support it is re-
celvlng from men who, like Fox, had
hitherto been blind. Indifferent neutral.
They are now realizing that the lack of
parks, the frequency of crimes, the COM
paratlvely small amount of street work
and public improvements, may all be
rightly charged to the influence of the
whiskey ring. Several years ago w. S.
lewis offered the city thirty-fve acres
for park on condition that the city
spend $4,000 year for five years in the
improvement of the tract. The Offer
was allowed to lapse, because the saloon
ring opposed the creation of counter
attractions, it is charged, and Bakers
field is without an adequate park to
this day.
There is power in the saloon ring, sc
much power that t. e little retailers
and even many of the workers dare not
openly express their sentiments. A
few weeks ago eight men, retailers anc
mechanics, were discussing the allah.
sorbing topic. Half of them had ex
pressed the opinion that the movement
would fail, when some one suggested g
straw vote. With the greatest secrecy
the eight voters marked their ballots.
concealing the operation behind their
coats or leaving the store for the pur.
pose. When the ballots were counted
every one of the eight had voted in
favor of dry town.
DRY TOWN" FAVORED
To a casual observer it might appear
that the oil men, the brawny fighters W. 4
developed the greatest oil fields in the
world within a decade, would oppose the
movement. On the contrary, majority
of the oil operators, like the real estate
dealers, favor a dry town and a dry
county. There is scarcely one operator
who does not Danish whiskey from his
land, and with good reason. Not so
very long ago the driller of nearly
completed we'll sent the tool dresser for
quart of cheer to the nearest road
house. The bottle was finished. So
was the we'll. 1t cost the owner 500. 900
hafora tho Hauauo 6opa NV tho hottlo of