Connecticut western news., 1913-07-31
Letters From the People
The Safety of the Public.
Editor of The News 1:


 We of the many or few thank you for calling a spade a spade. We are refer ring to that plain understandable editor ial regarding the plain drunk accident in East Canaan last week, in which horse was frightfully mangled, an inno- cent girl probably crippled for life, property destroyed, and the other inno- cent parties more or less maimed or hurt.
 A few days ago property and life were menaced on our Main street when another plain drunk meandered and cork screwed his way along the road, driving women who were sitting on their porches, into the house, and pro- voking to righteous indignation both men and women who wished to go about their business but were prevented from doing so, as the tangle-footed auto and it's tangle-headed driver threaded both sides of the street at once, hitting impartially the curb on either side. Men draped themselves about the side- walks waiting evidently for somebody to get killed before they stirred themselves to clear the highway.
 We are told that newspapers and people must never dare say a man is drunk unless they can prove 1t. We, the general public, are to be bulldozed and bullyragged into silence, it seems, by the saloons, and the drunkards they make. The law let's us prove 8 man is crazy when he isn't that black is white when it isn't; that men are innocent when they are guilty, but never, never can we prove & man is drunk when he is Funny, when you stop to think about it When the (of course, per- fectly sober) drunken man was hauled by an indignant business man-whose own auto was in danger-from the auto of tangle-foot make, it's how-ieSged wheels were again, for the fourth tune, caressing the curb. We came away thankful that our way home lay along the railroad track-the only safe place for pedestrians nowadays, since drunken sober men, or sober drunken men, are allowed both sides of the public high ways at one and the same time.
 What are we going to do about it Should not public safety be assured as far as possible to the men, women and children of this or any other town? Are the saloons and their keepers of more economic importance to the business interests of a town than the business patronage of it's decent women and reli- able, sober tax paying men? Perhaps if these decent women banded together this fall and declared that either the saloon must go or the business interests must go without their patronage, and that of their families, it might set people to thinking, Women do not use the power that they really possess. It is an indispatable fact that when women are sufficiently aroused, public opinion sits up and takes notice. They cannot vote yet in all the states-saloon interests and other so called necessary evils" close contingents of many saloons do not wish women to vote, for very obvious reasons but without the vote. women are not wholly powerless, unless they choose to te. Supine indifference was never yet an obstacle in the way of evil conditions. No man is suplnely indifferent to the saloon evil. He is very much interested in it from various motives, one way or another, good or bad, according to the man.
 who own motor cars and wish to travel, not for speed or to murder somebody, but for pleasure and convenience or pro- fit, are never safe from the drunken terror that flies by day and night over our highway. recklessly scattering death and bodily torture to humans and ami malls along his way. If only these drunk, half drunk and near drunk, wretches might be the only ones hurt or maimed for life or killed, but sober men and the1r families or friends must help to pay the bartender's price and the saloon keepers profit. In plain English, the saloon is j menace, a disgrace, and outrage to. and on public decency in any place wheresoever you find it.
 The comfort, the safety, the peace. morality and happiness of the inhabi- tants of any town where this abomnation exists, are in jeopardy every hour.
 G. M. H.
 Canaan, July 26.