The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1913-08-29

Duluth is a large city, and the vot-
ing out of liquor there will mean
relatively much more than here,
for the reason that Duluth, besides
having $50 saloons, has a number of
breweries and wholesale liquor hous-
es.
Notwithstanding which, the Herald
the leading newspaper of that city, is
fiat-footed in favor of closing the sa-
looms and voting out liquor entirely.
because a moral sentiment is prevail
ing throughout the world, which says
that the saloons have run their
course, have lived their limit of time,
and must go.
Anyone who imagines, says the
Duluth Herald, that the ordinance
will have an easy victory, and that
the referendum will be slaughtered,
knows little of the influence of the Ii
quor interests. It will not be an cleo
ton to be easily won by the law en-
forcement element"
Then the Herald goes on to say:
Few realize to what extent the sa-
loon business is interlocked with 9th
er lines. The nearly $50 saloons of
Duluth are not merely buyers and
sellers of liquor but are large buyers
of other kinds of goods. The brew
ers do not merely sell beer, and the
wholesale liquor houses, liquors, they
are also heavy buyers of many lines.
Saloon fixtures are elaborate, bar
furnishings include many lines. Ex-
Guiding free lunches, music, gambling
devices and other accessories, the
traffic hits many pocketbooks. The
cigar stores, breweries and wholesale
liquor houses add materially to this
list.
Besides this direct interlocking of
interests is the class of bushes men
who believe that a wide open policy,
or one fairly wide open,' being at
least seamy with cracks, adds to bus
mess. Liquor money is easy money.
Liquor men, the demi-mondaine and
its male chorus, gamblers and the fol-
lowers of wlde-openness are liberal
spenders.
"They do not get money to keep it.
They dress we'll and live well. They
are mighty poor credit, and seldom
ask it; they pay cash, and seldom
haggle over prices or wait for mark
ed-down sales. AS customers they
are profitable.
"The man who IL selling is human
He is in business to make money. He
prefers the trad, OF which he is sure,
to the trade that may be greater. but
o. which he k7ow5 little, or, that is
merely a hope1-for result.
of course he Knows that this mon
ee he gets from this class of custom
ers comes from somewhere. He will
not deny that it comes largely to sa-
looms from the working class that
cannot afford to spend it that way.
He will not deny that what is not
spent in saloons by working men, or
any below the rich. will be spent in
other lines OF trade.
''Pus he will tel you OF the hun
dreds of visitors who come to the
city for "a time and who will not
come to a closed town. This is money
from the outside. 1t pours into the
free and easy city from those who
leave their responsibility and good
habits at home when they travel.
"These are factors that will infiu-
ence many votes. 1t is exactly the
same influence that controls some
newspapers. It must be reckoned
with, and if this ordinance is to be
sustained on the referendum it will
be only by the hardest kind of work
that will get to the polls the full law
enforcement vote-the other vote will
he there.
"If the ordinance is adopted as we
have faith it will be, it will be be-
cause Duluth has a conscience that
can and does resist the lure of the
immediate dollar. Every business
man who comes out in the open and
works for the ordinance should be
given full credit; he is wiser than
today's trade. He knows that in re-
ality the closed policy has not hurt
his business, while he has had a great
personal satisfaction in the city's in
creased decency.
1T is moral force, and this only
will win against the interlocked oppo-
sition. 1t will be a moral force which
realizes that easy money is demoraliz-
ing money. That it comes from evil
and produces greater evil.
There is not a city from New York
TO San Francisco where wide open