The daily sentinel., 1913-10-28
SALOONS AND S0bR|ETY,
AND SOME LOCAL FIGURES
Editor Daily Sentinel:

We frequently hear 1t stated b!
those who are trying to bring tn,
saloon back to Grand Junction, thar
there is just as much or more Ii
/ quor sold now and that there ar,
Just as many or more drunken men
as when there were saloons here.
/ III this were true. then indeed nigh
4 1t be said that prohibition under 10
cal option laws is an utter failure.
/ II saloons are conducive to sobrie-
4 ty; that is, produce fewer drunkards
when licensed than when they are
shut out by law (Which would be the
logical conclusion from above quoted
assertion), why restrict by ordinance
or law the number to be allowed
Better, then, to throw the town
wide open" for all the saloons we
can find room for. If five or six sa-
looms (the number to be allowed by
the proposed ordinance) will tend to
make men more sober, as well as
more prosperous, ten-twenty-
forty saloons ought to make every
man in town a model of sobriety and
prosperity"
The truth is, that those who make
the statements above quoted know
the falsity of their assertions and
make them to deceive the unobserv-
ing and ignorant, hoping thereby to
win votes for the saloon.
What are the facts as to drunken
ness in this city, with and without
saloons? The only real proof avail
able is the record of the police court
What does it show: The writer has
taken the trouble to look 1t up, and
finds that in the year 1908, when
/ n C.ar NJ
looms, the number of arrests for
drunkenness, month after month,
was as follows:
In January, 81; February, IA;
March, 81; April, AZ; May, 23; June,
80; July, %; August, 90; September.
20; October 81; November 2: De-
cember, SO. Total for the year, 325.
An examination of the same record
(police court) for the dry" year of
1912, when there were no licensed
saloons, shows that the total number
of arrests for drunkenness for the
year was II.
Thus it is shown that when Grand
Junction was wet" there were near
ly five times as many arrests for
drunkenness as there have been since
the town was made dry" In this
connection another fact should not
be overlooked, namely: Since the sa-
looms were voted out EVERY drunk
en- man has been arrested whereas,
under the former regime, when the
saloons were dispensing booze and
prosperity" } large proportion
of the drunks were never arrested.
The police court record for 1908
shows that those who were put in
jail were mostly "old offenders; in
other words, common Crunkards and
saloon buns" The respectable"
CD man who might have been found
full of booze and prosperity" 90
was quietly put into a corner of the
saloon to ''sleep it off" or was taken
home by friends to his loving wife
and children.
If my memory serves me correctly,
many times during that same wet"
year of 1908 counted as many as
five and six drunks in one bunch ly
ing or staggering along in the alley
back of Colorado avenue. | venture
the assertion that if one had made
the rounds any night between the
18th and goth of any month in the
year 1908, one would have found
more drunken men in saloons, on the
streets and in the alleys, and in the
back yards of saloons, in one single
night, than it would have been pos
sible to find in ALL THE NIGHTS
of any six months of the present year
and that, too, with lone hundred
(more or less, according to the friend
of the saloon) bootlegging joints" do
ing business in the town.
Prohibition, under local option un-
fortunately does not prohibit ALL
men from making fools and beasts of
themselves; but it is step in the
right direction for sobriety, decency,
and real. healthy prosperity. The
writer has lived in dry" and in
wet" towns before coming to Grand
junction, and my vocation was such
that it was a part of my duty to see
and observe and take note of what
was taking place in town in order
that it might be given to the news
reading public. Therefore. am able
to speak from personal observation,
not from what somebody might have
told me. The saloon never did and
never will tend to sobriety; nor Will
the saloon ever bring clean business
or real prosperity to city.
Excepting only such as may have
selfish motive or greedy interest in
the liquor traffic, no right-minded
man or woman. who has sufficient
brain power for sound reasoning,
will ever vote to bring the saloon
/ back to Grand Junction, knowing full
we'll that the products of the saloon
are drunkards, paupers and criminals
The kind of ''sobfiety" that the sa-
loon fosters is the kind that makes
for habitual drunkards, worthless
tramps, hopeless idiots and confirm
ed criminals. The prosperity" that
the saloon brings is the kind that
fills city jails, poor houses, asy-
lums and state prisons; that emanci-
ates and destroys the health Of moth
ers and starves poor and innocent
children, sending the fathers to
serve sentences in prisons or down
to disgraceful drunkards' graves.
How can any truly patriotic citizen
vote for such an institution? | de-
clare it is beyond my understanding.
Yours for a sober, as well as a
prosperous, Grand Junction.
cIIARJES X HOI MRI1RG