Arizona republican., 1914-09-13

that the bootlegger will be your best vote getter on election day. You are equally mistaken in desig- hating the circular of the Arizona Local Government League as setting forth the benefits arising from the legalized traffic" It does not defend the liquor traffic. The League stands for local option as against statewide prohibition because it's members believe in self-govern- ment. President Woodrow Wilson, whose standing as statesman, a student of government and a Chris tian gentleman, not even you, I think, will attempt to impeach, has ! declared that local option is right and statewide prohibition is a fail
 ure. So has former President Taft
 and former President Roosevelt and ! Cardinal Gibbons and Rev. Dr. Park hurst, the noted reforme., and hund- reds of other prominent men of our 1 day.
 Are these men the friends of boot 1 leggers, buns and thugs and allies of the liquor infamy?"
 I have been informed on good au- thority that in the city of Globe, Ariz., in 1910, you stated in the course of an address on constitutional
 matters, that the only solution of the liquor evil lay in a national prohi- bition and that statewide prohibition had proven a failure.
 Are you prepared to deny that you l l h; ,.,h; was heard and widely commented upon by about some 400 residents of that city?
 If you believed that statewide pro-
 hibition was a failure four years ago. what has happened to cause you to
 change your mind?
 You have denounced the circular issued by the Arizona Local Self Government League as tissue of lies? Wherein does it lieo Are the government census figures relating to crime, insanity and pauperism in Kansas, lies? If they are what are the correct figures?
 Does the United States comptroller of the currency lie when he says l that the per capita savings deposits of Kansas for 1913 were s4.15 and those of wet Nebraska $146.65? If so what are the correct figures? :? Is it a lie that Cochise county with 139 saloons in 1913 sent T convicts to the state penitentiary and Maricopa county with 36 saloons l Gall dry except the city of Phoenix) | sent 76 convlcts there?
 If it is lie then ask your MT. | Rinehart to revise his figures as we 1 took only his statistics.
 Is it lie that nearly dry Maricopa | county has 165 inmates in the state 1 insane asylum and Cochise county with four times as many saloons has | only 10s?
 1 These are also Mc. Rinehart's fig
 ures, which you will find in his Wet 1 Dry Statistical Tables in the states 1 publicity pamphlet in his attempt to | show that liquor is responsible for | the crime and insanity in Arizona.
 In conclusion I wish to state that
 neithe.7 I nor the other members of {, the Arizona Local Self Government
 League are defending the "liquor in- fanny" We merely are working for
 the best interests O, Arizona where | we, or the most of us have lived and | labored, far longer than you. We are l convinced that your amendment | could not be enforced. that it would
 only result in demoralization, disre- | gard for the law and promiscuous
 consumption of that decoction of the l tootlegger known as rotgut, or it's
 worse substitute, dope We believe
 that each community, in the words
 of President Wilson, should have the
 right to control the matter of the
 regulation or the withholding of li-
 censes." and with the late Francis
 Murphy. the great temperance advo
 cate. we are convinced that Gin states
 where statewide prohibition law;
 have been passed, the entire statt
 nearly had been legislated into crime
 for if it is a crime to sell liquor il
 is crime to buy it. and the majority
 has done one or the other"
 Yours truly,
 | JOHN B. WRIGHT