Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1912-10-25
LEGAL OPTION. BUSINESS AND
ryt,I-nTlyJ

There's reason LOT HlOSL every
thing. Two years ago not a few mer-
chants Of Everett and Beiiingham
through force Of circumstances, mis-
directed theory or belief in theories
and assertions that later proved false,
signed the dry petition asking for a
local option election.
These same cities are again in the
throes of local option contest One
particular fact. aside from the more or
loss important one of the universal
admission that both cities will vote
wet. is noteworthy: every merchant
who signed the dry petition two years
ago. with practically no exception, af-
fixed his name to the wet petition this
year.
! Why?
If business had increased in the last
two years, as the drys would have you
believe. if the merchants had prQspered
as the drys report they have, if more
people bought more goods and paid
Cor them more quickly, as the drys as
sert. do you suppose those merchants
would have signed the wet petition?
Is it not more reasonable and more
in line with the actual facts to assume
that the experience of the intervening
two years taught the dry goods mer-
chant. the grOceryman, the shoe dealer,
the hardware man, the furniture dealer
and the others, that dry town hurts
usiness? Were it otherwise. would
they lie working for a wet town now?
Is it not also logical to assume that
the business of a city as a municipal
civic corporation would be affected
,ust as propOrtiOnately, at least, as that
Of the general merchant, ii not more
so? Would it not in reality be con-
siderably more. because of the depre-
ciating effect upon the people from
whom the city draws its revenue?
These are questions to which there
can be but one answer in fac and they
, would appear to be questions that the
| taxpayers and voters of Olympia
| should bear in mind when they vote on
| this local option question week from
next Tuesday. 1t would seem the
most natural thing in the world for the
residents of one city contemplating the
adoption of a device new to them in
city government, to take the experience
of other cities who have previously ad-
opted it, the conclusions of their mer-
chants and business men and Of their
voters so far as expressed to date, as a
criterion of what may be expected to
happen in case that device were ap-
piled to their own city.
! Talk to the people in touch with the
real situation in either Everett and
BelIingham and they will confidently
ell you that both will go wet in the
coming election, and will then add a
few reasons why. That Everett will
return to the licensed saloon is absO-
lutely assured, for in the municipal
election last summer the wet forces, So
called, won by large majority.
Two years was enough for Everett,
enough for Bellingham. If these
cities have tested the focal option
theory. have found it failure, and in
tend to restore the licensed saloon in
preference to the illegal speakeasy,
would it seem advisable for Olympia to
Hazard something the experience of
two years has taught these cities they
should abandon?
There are just II more days until
the voters of Olympia will decide this
question for their city. In the mean
time they probably will be flooded with
statements by well meaning but mis-
guided "reformers" concerning what
they will accomplish for their city in
a moral and uplifting way If they vote
to GUST the saloon. They will be told
that by removing the open saloon they
will remove temptation. they will stop
the sale of liquor. they will reclaim
those now partaking of 1t, they will
purge their city of drunkenness and
vice. they will make real men and real
women, they will drive curse" from
their city. they will eliminate the city's
contributions to the different charita-
BILE institutions. and SO on.
But they will not.
The population of the state institu-
tons of Maine, the Dakotas or any of
the Southern states which are wholly
dry has not decreased during the pro-
hibition regime; the sale of liquor has
not stopped, the temptation has not
been removed, the cities have not been
purged of drunkenness, the curse
has not been driven from these states.
This Is particularly true in those other
states where local option has ben tried.
All the conditions are practically the
same-only the license has been re-
moved.
The experience of these states and
those. other states in which local option
has had its trial has revealed one
startling thing. Arthur Brisbane OF
the New York Journal, the dean of the
Hearst editors and one of the best-in-
formed and foremost editors of the day,
called attention to 1t in recent ed
itorial
"The United States. according to gov
arnment statistics, drunk. in 1911.
more whisky per capita than was ever
Grunk before in this country" he said,
and In the same year the drinking of
beer diminished by million barrels.
whisky causes drunkenness in its
worst form. Beer is, in comparison, a
temperance drink. Those that drink
beer and leave whisky and other spirits
alone do not become drunkards. The
we'll meaning but bigOted advocates of
prohibition are responsible for the in
crease of whisky drinking and the in
creased drunkenness in this country.
They have caused it.
They have succeeded in making
men hyprocrites and evaders of the
law.
Where prohibition has been intro
auced 1t has never been enforced. In
stead Of drinking beer and light wines
openly, the inhabitants have drunk
whisky secretly.
The abolition of the canteen In our
army, in our homes for old soldiers
and elsewhere. has, as every officer in
the army knows, increased drunken
ness and desertion.
In the canteen only the lightest,
most temperate alcoholic drinks were
served. The canteen was the soldiers