Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1914-10-30
SALEM SUFFERS
BUSINESS LOSSES
FROM DRY RULE
Store Property Rentals Drop SIS a
Month In City.
BANK DEPOSITS OFF $4,000
Fourteen Business Houses Quit In
Less Than Year School
Attendance Less.

Many Oregon papers have been
loaded down within the past three
weeks with repeated assurances that
Business is Fine in Dry Towns"
The three most important Oregon
cities to become "dry" nine months
ago were Salem, Oregon City and
Springfield.
If business is fine in those cities
the taxpayers and most of the bust
ness men would like to have the
"drys" explain just what they mean
by fine" If they had said "busi-
ness is thin," then they might have
been more easily understood.
Let them answer first about con-
ditions in Salem. EX-Councilman
John d. Turner, of Salem, an attor-
ney, is sponsor for the following
facts about that city:
Salem went dry" December l last
closing Is saloons, three restaurants
and. two wholesale houses and with
drew liquor permits from eight drug
stores and cut off an annual license
revenue of $15,4OO. Ninety men and
a monthly payroll of $500 were put
out of commission. Most of the men
have left the city All buildings va
Gated by these concerns are still
empty, except six, which have been
occupied by tenants, who have va
Gated other buildings, several of the
best buildings being boarded over
and used as billboards. More than
500 modern dwellings are "for rent"
Store property rentals on State
street have dropped from $1S5 to
$110 a month, but business is fine"
Fourteen other business places
have closed since December / last,
aside from the saloons and restau-
rants. Included are three shoe
etores-two by the Sheriff and one
voluntarily; one Of the largest dry
goods stores has been sued for the
first time in 20 years. Scores of
clerks have left the city, causing the
loss Of more payrolls to the city. but
business is fine"
A leading prohibitionist promised
to build 16 new dwellings If the city
went dry" Nine houses were begun,
two have the windows and doors in,
but have never been finished; no
work has been done on the others
besides their bare frames.
Building permits from January to
August, the last nine wet months of
1918, were $3S8,925; from Novem-
Der, 1913, to September, 1914, the
next eleven dry" months, they
were $4,000 less, or $26S,160.
The grammar school opening day
enrolment in 1913 was 1910; on the
same day 1914, 1869, but business
is fine"
Bank deposits show a decrease of
$309,942 since the town went dry"
even after allowing for the $4S5,000
deposited this year from sale of bonds
in Boston. The decrease, therefore,
really should be $794,942, but "busi-
ness is fine"
The attendance at the CHERRY
Fair" this year was about one-half
what it was the last wet" year.
The Ministerial Association before
the election which made Salem
dry, told the Cherry Fair pro-
moters that they would make up for
the donations usually made by the
saloons, but utterly failed to do SO
this year and the promoters refused
to hold that carnival. The "Cher-
rians," consisting of 100 real boost
ers, but of no prohibitionists, then
pledged their personal membership
for the necessary funds, requiring
the payment on their part of $500.
To rub it in, the Methodists then
turned their church into a restau-
rant, put the kitchen in the pulpit
and competed with the legitimate
restaurants for the little business
that their proprietors had hungrily
looked for as a possible annual god
send.
Business must be fine" in any
city when building permits, payrolls,
bank deposits bankruptcies, closed
stores, depopulated dwellings, de-
pressed realty values, school enroll
ments and carnival statistics all tell
so dreary story of literal fact
Maybe the prohibitionists mean that
the "agitating business" is fine.