Norwich bulletin., 1917-05-15
APPROVE CLOSING OF SALOONS IN STATE
Brotherhood Meeting at Park Church Desire Representatives to Favor the Measure


 Nearly two hundred men, represent ing the leading business interests in the city, attended the meeting of the Church Brotherhoods at the Hugh H. Osgood Memorial Monday evening and adopted resolutions endorsing the effort being made to give the govern
 war time and also the policy of start ing an educational campaign to secure a vote on the license
 The meeting opened with prayer 1 by Rev. s. II. Howe, D. D., following 1 by a selection, Hymn of the Night, by | a double quartet from the Bass Clef. Kobe Johnson was chairman of the meeting and introduced Charles H. Congregational church, as the first l speaker of the evening. Rev. MT. | Ricketts spoke on the National League for Defense, saying that the hand of | the Prussian scourge was upon us and unless we all get out and do out bit we would lose the liberties which we
 now enjoy. The English navy has the Prussian navy bottled up but unless
 out. It is up to the United States to
 turn to and feed the fighting Forces
 on the other side. We have been tsending much food to the countries at
 war but in so doing we have not been | ( conomical, with our own food sup ply at home. The average cropage of
 the country in grain alone has fallen
 20 millions below the average for pre-
 ceeding years. One great leakage is ! in the production of liquor. Millions
 of bushels go for the making of that
 stuff which does no good to man but
 destroys all who fall victims of the ' rum habit Every idler must be put l to work and we must do our bit even 1 as other countries are doing theirs.
 Rev MT Ricketts' remarks were greeted with applause.
 1 Following Rev. Mir. Ricketts, talk the chairman introduced George s. Pal
 mer of New London.
 MT. Palmer spoke as follows: The liquor traffic is the curse of the nation. Scientists are against it,
 medical organizations are against it, charitable organizations have to fight IS the cause of the greatest part of the misery in the country today. We
 must make up our minds to rid the
 nation of the saloon. The question arises, when and how? There was
 a time when a man expected his help I to drink but that day is past and ev- | cry employer realizes that the drink
 ing man is inefficient. The time has come when we must make our stand | to abolish rum from the nation. In 1 the city of New London there are 75 licensed saloons where, according to
 law, there should be only about 4e: Something is decidedly wrong. ks a hearing in Hartford one Polish boy made a plea for no license by saying | that his people should be given a ! chance to be sober American citizens. | When a boy of foreign birth who can 1 hardly speak English, makes a plea like that it is time something was done.
 Gustav T. Bochman field secretary of the Connecticut Temperance Union, was the next speaker. He spoke in place of H. H Spooner of New Brit ain wsa was unable to be present ow ing to illness. MT. Bochman told of efo fn 1T-ic ioiI Ic- oh out the state, saying that 80 or 90 ? cent of the inhabitants of these in stitutions are there because of rum either directly or indirectly. The li- quor dealers put up the plea that li- cense reduces taxes but 1t does n-r. For every dollar that was taken in last year for license $3 was put out either for jails or to relieve the suf- fering Of those that have been af- i fiicted by the results of drink. Tho saloon gives nothing to the nation, it | takes away from it. England has just
 as many buns now as it did before ther fight nor work at home so they are a drag on the nation. The same condition is true of the United States. Now is the time to stop it. Let us start now.
 Walter E. Lanphear of Hartford ad- dressed few remarks, summing up the liquor question in 8 few words. Let us make a stand now and put H- | I-anphear proposed that the meeting adopt resolutions to further the cause Of prohibition in Norwich.
 Rev. J. H. Newlands addressed the chairman of the meeting and proposed
 the following resolutions which were adopted.
 Resolved, That we. the members of the Brotherhoods of the Norwich churches, desire to express our inter est in and our approval of the eff Tt now being made to give power to the
 governor to close the saloons in the state of Connecticut during the period of the war; and that we desire OUT representatives at Hartford to favor this measure.
 Resolved, Second. that we hear with delight of the efforts being made a:
 Washington to conserve the food sup plies for a hungry world by proh bit ing the use of foodstuffs for the man ufacturing of drink. We believe it will both conserve the ood and pre-
 serve the morals of our people. Resolved, That we think it desir- able to have an educational campaign in our city in which there shall be set forth the molT1, economic and social evils of the drink traffic, and in which we shall seek to secure a vote on the question of license no-license in
 the city and town of Norwich. Resolved, That we appoint a com
 mittee of six, in addition to the chair
 man of this meeting, whose duty it
 shall be to organize and plan for this campaign. The committee shall have
 power to add to it's number as it shall
 see fit
 It was voted to appoint a committee
 to go ahead and formulate plans for
 the carrying out of the resolutions.
 The committee appointed was as fol-
 lows: Herbert Johnson, chairman,
 Frank A. Arnold, Amos A. Brown ne,
 Rev. J. II. Newlands, Myron B. Prem
 tice and Dr. Robert R. Agnew.
 Following the meeting refreshments
 were served by the committee in
 ch