The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1911-03-10
DECLARE THEMSELVES AGAINST
THE SALOON.
p. J. Youngdahl, Superintendent Of
the League, Takes the Ground
That Thirst Parlor" Is Not a
Necessary Adjunct to Business
Success of Community; Re-
fers to Mankato Situation.

Necessary Adjunct to Business
Success of a Community; Re.
fers to Mankato Situation.
From Mondays Daily.
The mass meeting last evening in
the interest of the Anti-SaloOn league
attracted an audience that filled
every. seat down stairs and a good
part of the balcony. Secretary Deer.
bake of the Y. NJ. c. A presided,
and Revs. Heermance, Paden and Os-
good of the local churches occupied
seats on the stage with the speakers
of the evening.
Charles WILDER Stark of Minneapo-
lis, superintendent of the legislative
department of the league, gave the
lOpening address, his topic being
Progress" He said that the Ma
tiOnal Brewers association maintains
a publicity headquarters in Chicago,
TO keep timid good people afraid.
This headquarters carries on a cam
I paign of transformation 1t sends
rate of Maine has been reduced as
a result of the state being dry; that
in Kansas, another dry state, the
proportion of idiots is greater than
, elsewhere; that grasshOppers come
around often in North Dakota be-
! cause of it's being prohibition; that
there is more drunkenness in dry
states than in wet ones, because
! there is no place where they can
! get liquor except in blind pigs. 1t
does not make so much difference
what this publicity bureau says, so
long as it sticks to it with sufficient
/ strenuosity, as it is natural for peo-
pie to believe Oft repeated sayings.
I The way to eliminate the blind pigs
! is to destroy the mothers Of the
| brood, which are the breweries. But
/ in spite of all that has been said
and done, great deal of progress
! has been made in fighting the drink
| ing evil. The speaker told of the
| spread of local and county option
/ through the south and west, and
|
{ ually sweep the entire country.
| Address BY YoungdahI.
p. j. YOungdahl, state superintend-
ent OF the Anti-Saloon league, spoke
upon Does 1t Pay to License the
SaloOn? He said that in the last
campaign his text had been Let
| the People Rule" No doubt some
people feel that county option would
! bankrupt Mankato, provided the
county went dry. Saloons get per-
mission to sell all of the booze that
they can from a. m. until II p. m.
every day except Sundays and legal
holidays in return for three things,
viz, license fee, the promise of
| bringing business to the city, and
the promise to run clean, respect
able, decent. civilized, law abiding
American saloon. The speaker put
up two propositions First, were
/ they able to deliver the goods; sec
ond, if so, do they give enough in
| return for what they get?
Taking up the first proposition,
J the speaker said that he noticed that
! MankatO was a church town, a
school town, and a Y M. c. A.
town. These institutions are sup
ported here because the residents
want their boys and girls to become
: the best men and women possible.
! The more successful these institu-
| tons are, the higher the tone of the
| town, the less misery and want there
will be, the more happiness, JOY and
patriotism. The more booze is con-
sumed, the more DRINKS, and the
more DRINKS, the more heartaches,
the more poverty, and the less the
moral tone of the town. One kind
of institution in Mankato builds up,
and the other destroys as much as
possible the work done by the schools
and churches.
The success of any community de-
ponds upon it's productive labor.
! With no saloons, the money earned
| is spent in other stores, and goes
from one to another, creating hap
piness. wealth and prosperity for all.
This is the kind of business that
| it is worth while to have. The
speaker compared the benefits of the
money spent at the stores and de-
posted in the banks with what is
spent in the saloons, and said that
the saloon makes it's money by di-
verting money that would otherwise
go into other business.
| Speaks of Mankato.
Mr.. YOungdahl asked how many
saloons there are in Mankato, and
/ when told that there are twenty
seven, he said that this means S27,-
600 received in liquor licenses. He
asked where the saloons were going
to get this money to pay to the
city, and answered it by saying that
all of it would come from Mankato.
He asked from whom, and said il
was from the men who live and do
business in Mankato. The saloon
keepers send out of town much of
the money that they take in. The
breweries own ninety per cent of
the saloons, and must have all they
can get out of them. So, the saloon
| keeper must not be blamed for
! breaking every law, to get more bus