The Churchill county standard. (Fallon, Nev.) 1908-1920, 1912-10-23
A.R.MERRITT ANSWERS CRITICS
And Makes Plain Statements
Relative To Aspersion That
Have Been Flung At Him.

Because of the many lies that have
been circulated throughout the val
ley about my withdrawal of the To-
cal option bill at the last session
OF the legislature, and in defence of
my character and that of the Hon
4. l.. Douglass, desire to make the
following statement:
At the earnest request of the peo-
pie in charge of the Nevada anti-sa-
loon league, | introduced a local on
tion bill This bill was referred to
the committee on public morals.
After 1t had been in the hands of the
committee for several days, | reaues.
ted Mr.. Williams, the chairman. to
refer the bill back to the legislature
for its action. He then notified me
that the committee had turned the
bill down, giving as a reason for do
ing SO that during the 1909 legis-
lature, when the anti-gambling act
was up for passage, it was found nee
essary in order to pass the same to
withdraw any attempt towards pass
ing temperance legislation. The
people then in charge of the tenn
peranee forces of the state and those
in charge of the anti-gambling law
decided that it would be impossi-
ole to pass both measures during
that term OF the legislature. Those
in charge of the temperance cause
agreed to have no temperance meas
ure come before the 1909 or 1911
legislatures. Only by doing this
was it made possible to pass an anti
mittee on public morals knew per-
sonally of this promise. and consid-
ering IL bad faith on the part of
temperance people to break a prom
ise turned the bill down. inn
mediately made inquiries and found
that this promise had been made.
The 1911 legislature never passed
bill thath ad been turned down in the
committee and never so far as | can
remember did the legislature allow
such a bill to come to a vote.
For these reasons l decided to
withdraw the bill. The following
morning | arose on q question of
personal privilege and told the leg
islature what had learned about the
promises made and stated that had
known before that these promises
had been made before | introduced
the local option bill, | never would
have introduced It; that | believed
that the promises made by the prede-
cessors of any individual, associa-
ton or corporation should be kept
and considered sacred by those who
followed after and for that reason |
would withdraw the local option bill.
Because of the withdrawal of this
bill many lies have been circulated
about me. One was that Mr.. Doug
lass sent me threatening letters and
telegrams demanding that | with
draw the bill Another was that
he gave me $1,000 for the withdraw
al of the bill, and many other lies
too numerous to mention. There
we're several very important bills be-
fore the legislature at this time, in
which this county was vitally inter-
ested.
There was a telegram sent to
me from Fallon, or rather TO
Williams and l, signed by h. l..
Douglas, Rosenburg Bros, and sew
eral other business men whose names
do not remember, which requested
that our delegation would not push
the passage of the Local Option Bill
for fear of making enemies until
these important bills in the interest
of our county were passed and l
want to state here that Mr.. Douglas
nor no one else either directly or in
directly or in any other manner at
TAINTED or asked me TO withdraw