The Alaska citizen., 1916-07-17
AGAINST IRE GROGSNOP.
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CThe following article was pub lished in The Fra" for December 1915. from the pen of Doctor L. w. Dunham),
 want to have little fling at "Perils of Reform" August Fra) by Doctor John Emerson Roberts, who, I take it. has no love in his heart for Prohibition or Prohibitionists, and says a number of very unpleas- ant things in a very "intemperate" manner which may appeal to tn" unthinking-but I do not believe yol have any such on your subscription lists
 His allusion to Kansas and Blind Tigers and the number of arrests TOT drunkenness makes one smile who thinks Cincinnati, Ohio, has more Blind Tigers than any other section of Ohio except Cleveland, and they are the "wettest' spots in the middle west His number of ar rests In Topeka means nothing un- less he takes another city of equal size in a license community and compares arrests for the same cause. Prohibition did not make bootlcS- glng. Federal tax and high license are what make it. There are more bootleggers in the forty three wet counties of Ohio than in the forty five dry counties-this is a tect acknowledged by both sides.
 I have lived in wet" territory all my life with the exception of the past three years, when l moved from Cincinnati to Jamestown, (Ohio), a dry" town and l assure you that the difference is decided on the liquor point and very much in favor ot the dry town.
 From what l have seen (and wish to state that l have always been wet" until the past three years), the Blind Tiger is less dangerous to the youth than the Open Saloon.
 Let us start with the proposition that It Pays to Advertise" We will take two stores: One with at tractive window displays, open doors showing beautiful fixtures, an cleo tric sign of appropriate nature, and a live advertiser on deck. And then let's imagine another one without sign, windows boarded up, no displays, no sign Of life about the premises Which do you think would do the most business? Now, hon. e5tly, which?
 The Open Saloon is an advertiser of its business. and the young boy as he grows up passes it many times, and, while warned of it's dangers soon becomes familiar with it's presence, and that familiarity soon breeds contempt-not for the saloon itself, but for it's dangers.
 Decent men are not customers of bootleggers, but hundreds of decent Ultu So llIlO Sdloollo Nio "odid scorn to drink if they had to make sneaks and hypocrites of themselves, and eventually We would have u generation come up who had not tasted liquor and would not need it bad enough to break laws to get it., The confirmed drinker wants it bad enough to conniYe at the breaking of a law to get the stuff, and l think anything that will do that might better be suppressed.
 But my good Doctor Roberts does not want to be good 'by law'-he wants his Personal Liberty" o Liberty, what bunk has been written in thy name, Prohibition would not interfere in the slightest degree with the present deyotee of booze. but it would make it little more inconvenient, and he'd have to buy 1t by the pint or quart (and thereby save considerably on the cost and probably drink less, as he would not be expected to treat quite so often). But Prohibition would close the Open Saloon with it's con- stant advertising appeal to the youth, and 1t would take away your right to sell stuff to my boy, and start him on his way little know ing, and caring less, whether he became a drunkard or just a steady thinker" or if he would be fortunate enough to meet an influence soon enough to save him from the taste and enable him to assert his inde- pendence while the asserting" was good.
 don't want my boy and girl to go up against what I did, even If they get through as well. It's too big a gamble! If there is smallpox in the neighborhood we don't want to expose our friends, because they might not get over it. Yet if they did recover they would never get 1t again, which you cannot say about the Booze Habit" If our Per sonal Liberty man wants to expose