The daily Nome industrial worker., 1915-12-28

Washington cities will soon be as dry as far as saloons are concerned as the desert of Sahara. This does not mean that no intoxicating liquor cured from other points for the sa- tisfaction of such needs as those people who still want their glass can afford to satisfy. It means simply that the saloon as q public institution and as a private bus mess is a thing of the past.
 For this none can be held res ponsible but the saloons themselves. 1t is fact that the saloons in Se- attIe and in other larger cities have done more to advance the cause Of tse "Drys' than all the pamphlet eering that has been copious enough upon the part of tho prohibitionists.
 The methods of the dive, the dump and the joint were bad in themselves; but the general corrup- ting influence which these exercised upon the body polite were even worse. The saloon had no friends even among those who supported if, because those who opposed it's aboli. tion had no very kindly remember ance of it.
 Now there were decent saloon keepers in Washington as in other places. There were mon who con- ducted their places with some show of order and gave square deal t." all. But there were others wherein the social habits of the people of ali classes were made the excuse for knockout drops, for rotten politics, for robbery, barafaccd or stealthy of those who patronizcd them.
 Especially in Seattle one brewery firm used to mako 1t speciality to hunt up fcrclor pug lists ard place them in charge of dumps, trusting to the popularity of the manly art to attract the workers much as flies are attracted to the sugar barrel And these haunts were also the places where painted ladies whose sex was a decoy and whose charms wore a thief's cloak hung out to en- trap the unWary. Quite number of pimps were connected with either the bar or the bossing of the sa- looms, and they wore veritGbie sinks of dirty work where robbery and abuse and outrage found full sway.
 It is simply extraordinary that the people so long tolerated this condition. It is certainly a criti- cism of the police power in those cities that they so long existed; for they were unqucstionably existing only because they exercised Q cor rupt and corrupting inuhence mad none, from the highest to the low est, but came under the sway ot these rotten parasites.
 The disclosures that occurrec when the Wappenstein cleaning up began in Seattle, the defense given by one of the largest newspapers lE the west to the interruptions gang that had Seattle by the throat and whose long suit was robbing at the bar. at the gambling table or in the chamber of the prostitute, helpeG more than any one thing to destroy the saloon in the state of Washing ton.
 It will never be known how many unfortunates with large or small stakes were the victims of the pol son cup and the knockout drops. And the impossibility of bringing any of these crooks to justice serE- ed in itself to cause reaction against the saloonery.
 A good many states arc dry to- day. But any person that thinks that this is because the people in those states or a majority of then want prohibition are greatly mis- taken.
 Just as long as the agitation was prohibitionist purely it made simply no headway. It was supported only by some very sincere but very inn possible fanatics. But when the Anti-Saloon movement was substi- tuted for prohibition and the peo- ole were called upon to put the saloon out of business the dry movement travelled with the speed of prairie fire.
 The reason was simply the saloon. No one could be found to support hafod fn