The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1911-05-18
Whisky in Shreveport--Who Pays the Cost
IFrom the Mansfield Journal

TFrom the Mansfield Journal
Shreveport at present is in the grasp OF
one of the hottest prohibition fights that
has ever been pulled off in the State.
Shreveport is no doubt in a bad shape with
its many blind tigers and pocket peddlers.
At least the ants claim so anyhow. The
large sums of money that would come
through their excessive license would no
doubt prove benefit in way, but there
is another more important question, Who
pays the cost?
Who stands the cash? Who pays the
bills? Who feeds the drunkard's children?
Who provides for the drunkard's broken
hearted wife? Who supports the beggarly
tramps, who, having wasted their money
in drink, wander about the country? Who
repairs the losses caused by failure of in
temperate merchants and reckless and half
intoxicated business men? Who makes
good the damages caused by the blunders
of drunken workingmen and the hindrance
OF business caused by the sprees of in
temperate employees? Who pays for the
railroad wrecks caused by drunken con-
ductors and engineers? Who builds the
asylum where the crazy drunkards are
kept? Who supports the idiotic children of
drunken parents? Who pays theexpenses
of trials and commitments and executions
occasioned by the crimes Of drunken men?
Who pays the attorneys and juries and
judges to try drunken criminals? Who
pays for the property destroyed and burned
by drunken men? Who builds and sup
ports almshouses, which but for drink might
remain unoccupied? Who endures the
suffering and losses and brutality which are
due to the recklessness and insanity of
drunken husbands and fathers? Who pays
for the inquests held on drunkards found
dead on the wayside? Who pays for the
pauper's coffin and digging drunkard's
grave in the potter's field, when the last
glass has been drunk?
! The revenues received from liquor traffic
in Shreveport is entirely too small to offset
the damages financially not figuring the
pain and suffering it will cause. Who pays
the bills? The drunkard cannot for he has
wasted his substance in the cup. Will the
rumseller pay them? No. The sober, in
dustrious, toiling portions Of the community
must meet all these bills. The drunken
rowdy, wounded in the street fight is cared
for in the city hospital at the peoples ex-
pense; the drunken beggar is fed from the
peoples table; his hungry children will
come to the peoples door for bread, and
they cannot refuse assistance to his suf-
fering wife; and when at last, having
wasted his substance in riotous living, he
comes to the almshouse, the asylum, the
hospital or the prison. Honest, sober,
temperate men pay the bills for the sup
porting him there. There is no escaping
it. Shreveport is too close to the city of
Mansfield for the good of younger boys
who will once in while be compelled to
make trip to that city on business. 1t
makes no difference what the ants claim
about their license, high or low, it means
drinking just the same; it means drunk
emness, and drunkenness means poverty,
misery and crime and crime means to fill
| our State prisons and poor houses. Can
any consistent man who has the we'll being
of society only at heart vote for high or
low license. much less professed Christians,
and we are sure there are enough of that
class in Shreveport to vote the old port dry,
! if they would.