The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1913-09-05
Speakers Discuss Local Option
and Urge It's Continuance.

Under the auspices of the Galilean
class of the First nj. E, church ban.
quet attended by 13O ladies and gentle
men was given at the church parlors
Wednes day evening. After the banquet,
with Rev. J. s. Steininger presiding.
pleasant and forceful program was
carried out the principal address being
made by Judge Kelly S. Searle of
Gratiot county.
E. F. Wilson explained that the pur-
pose of the meeting was to aid in
enforcement of the local option law
and prepare to assist in perpetuating
the law in this county by forming a
permanent organization.
w. O. Phillips explained the tax
question, claiming the higher taxes
were not due to local option but to
lower valuations, public improvements.
increased salaries, road building. sewers
pavements and many other causes. He
said tie decrease in the majority for
local option at the last election was due
to the failure of many who favored the
law to get out and vote as the wet vote
increased but 90.
Miss Myrtle Gardner and Paul
Eckerle rendered piano selections and
Grin Jennings sang.
Judge EKellY's address in part was as
follows:
81 was born in Shiawassee county
cast my first vote in this county,
taught school, held court and tried
lawsuits in this and adjoining coun-
ties. want to say / am acquainted
with conditions in tlis county as /
pass through more than 25 times a
year, and i do not not remember any
time in the past 25 years when the
city of Owosso has been in as good
condition, morally, as at the present
time, under the dry regime. l
can remember when it was
not an uncommon thing here in tle
city of. Owosso, 40 or As years ago,
for the farmers of Shiawassee coun-
~ to bring their boys down lere AMI
take them into the saloons to drink
with them. But this condition does
not exist today-there has been a
wonderful clange of sentiment, not
only in this county but throughout
the world. You have gained very
much in this county under the dry
conditions. When you undertook to
make this county dry, there was tle
proposition put up to you that it
business away from you. Do you
hear anyone saying that argument
now? You will not hear that either
now nor next spring. That question
is settled for all time. We have
shown them that there is nothing in
it, You will, however, hear some
new arguments for the wet people
are ingenious. You will remember
When the question of local option
came up several years ago, great
posters were put up on the bill
boards reading something like this:
"If this county goes dry it will throw
so many men out of employment,
or account of shrinkage in the manu-
facture of bottles, barrels, etc, which
are used to put liquor int will
throw the farmers out of market
| for their grain on account of so much
of it being sold to breweries which
will be closed if the county goes dry
| Now If that kind of an argument
should ever be presented to you,
| just speak right up in meeting, and
ask this question--"If it will throw
so many men out of employment,
making barrels, bottles, ETC., and
keep the farmers from selling their
| grain, who is going to make all the
! barrels and bottles for holding the
! liquor, when, Gas the vets claim)
there is so much more Of it sold in
dry counties than there is in the
wet? Ether one or tle other of
! these statements is not true. The two
| statements could not be true.
We ought to take this thing to
heart and every one of us be able to
answer these questions. This is not
a complicated thing, but 1t is just a
little simple home affair, and every
man, woman and child in Shiawas-
see county ought to be able to an
Continued on page eighty