The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-15

or that Standard Oil should obey it.
 .sBut do not believe you should continue the victim of the system sof prosecuting liquor agentss and Of a program which encourages law. break ing among a few of your members, that there may be arrests and fees, and prosecutions, and ia constant seeking of the goose, which lays the golden egg.
 in existence in Bridgeport and in this state is not fair to you, it is not fair to the state. It is desired that the law shall be broken, not that it may be enforced, but that it may be broken again with more fees and more fines and more fines and more your trade the serfs of tricksters in political power.
 ..I want every honest bill to regu- Hate the liquor business. to become a law, if it will regulate. if it will pro- mote temperance. But want the men in your business to be freed from the strike legislation that comics into every. general Assembly. which is never intended to pass, but which is intended to be profitable to it's pro- moters,
 .tI want you to be free, now and hereafter, from the fear that if your contributions or the contributions of fthe brewing interests are not as large as they ght be, the price of your i- censes will be raised,
 t.I nave no objection to a high li- cense, provided it carries to it's own l CT a vested interest in his property The mores you pay for the privilege 1 of selling your wares, the more you are left at the mercy of petty poltti- Icians, of unscrupu1ous bosses, of per- sons entrusted with the license grant ling power,5I who, in the past, fear, l =. ,.Ir, requests for political action on your part. Such requests being often equivalent to a command.
 | sConnecticut would be better off, if licenses were granted during good behavior, so that they could not be taken away by private spite, or through political trickery,. or by the whim of some office holder.
 ''I am quite sure also that it is not good for your business, for the busi- ness of most of you, that the concert hall should come back to Bridgeport. Wine, women and song in front of the same bar, make dangerous com mbIna- ton Such competition is unfaip to most of you, and unfair to the city.
 s'UNe liquor dealers should not be submitted to the competition of pre- tended clubs, which are not clubs at | all ts
 q do not object to the sale of liquor I by real clubs. It is, regulated sale.
 There is no profit in it for any parti-
 cular individual. Any profit goes to
 everybody. to all the members. Or perhaps there is no profit. Drinking done under such auspices is the safest kind of drinking.
 But there is another kind of club, which is not a club at all. Bridgeport
 is full of them. They are called clubs, but they are actually run in the in i terests of private persons, who get the profits from the sales, and have an interest in promoting sales.
 You men who pay for the privilege
 of selling are required to keep the law. The local police see that you
 do keep it. Police come in from the
 outside to see that you keep it. If you do not keep the law; you are ha1ed
 into court and punished, and your license is forfeited, and you cannot have another, license.
 But these tpretended clubs, that are | not clubs st all, pay only a small h-