El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-03-01
Little Editorials By Herald Readers

water for the adjoining precinct or
county. and. on the other, a key of
beer for hor,0 consumption.
You desc,.ld one step lower and
recommend license and regulation in
lieu of any kind of prohibition. This
Is what the liquor interests want
Again, you are on a tack which you
dare not follow to its logical con-
elusion. You advocate legaIizing
crime and regulating it because the
laws against it are violated. How
about the law against murder? It is
violated daily everywhere; but the
number of those who die by the hand
OF sober human murderer is small
compared to them who are killed by
the inhuman demon. whisky Shall
we. then. repeal the law and license
and regulate the business Of murder
ing men2 If personal liberty to kill
by whisky must not be taken away,
why discriminate against the other
means-the knife and the pistol?
The license per head for killing
should be ample TO enlarge the Gene
teries and keep the graves green as
required. In addition. the murderers
ought not object to a tax that would
provide necessary regulation to insure
that the business of killing shall be
done according to license. Indeed, the
latter could be placed so high that
only few wealthy and respectable %
men in each community could afford
to engage in the lucrative industry
Of course. it would be for the law to
say when the victim should be robbed
before or after the killing Hereto
fore. the robbing has preceded the kill
ing.
The liquor traffic is sindefensible
It has one bulwarkN only, viz: the
money there is in it, and the influence
that power exerts over other human
interests Men do not realize how in
volved they are until they are brought
face to face with some great issue.
If you doubt it. canvass your church
your club, or your business association
on the prohibition issue. You will find
men whose native independence, cour-
age and honesty of character cannot
be doubted, financially. politically or
socially embarrassed
State and national prohibition is not
an accomplished fact because the bal
ance OF power lies with that element
Of good citizenship. In heart and in
tellect they assent to prohibition
Some good day they will stand forth
in their manhood. That will be the
day of reckoning for the liquor traffic
which has no moral right to exist
There is a smaller class of men OF
the highest integrity who appear to
believe that the evil must be legal
lied and retained Their logic Is be-
yond me. I give it up. I know some
of them too we'll to doubt their sin
certify or lose faith in their honor.
To say that the American people
cannot exterminate this evil is tosbe-
lie the splendid historical achieve
ments of the Anglo-Saxon race It's
civilization is going upward The
American business man will eventually
make all necessary sacrifices TO attain
his moral and spiritual ideals In the
meantime. if the fact is realized that
the abolition of the liquor traffic will
not remove dollars from our pockets.
tatewide-nation wide-prohibition
will come quickly; and it will prohibit
Time was when every argument now
used for the retention of the saloon in
FL Paso was urged with equal vigor
against the proposal to close the gam
bling houses in that village These
arguments prevailed during the pion-
eer years. The reformers were called
white caps" The writer has reason
to know. He was one of them
Finally gambling was crushed. not
by the church member, although he did
his part, but by the business man who
at last discovered that gambling was
a losing game for him. and he proved
it by it's abolition. Not one of the
dire disasters predicted followed the
removal of the gaming places and dens
to Juarez and elsewhere. FL Paso
prospered amazingly afterward- She
was frontier town of unsavory repu-
tation. She is now a splendid city.