The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-01-26
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE
SALOONS AND POLICE EXPENSE.

There are in Allegheny county two
distilleries, IA breweries, 256 whole
sale liquor stores and 1916 retail sa-
looms. More than half of these are
within the limits of the city of Pitts
burgh proper. To be exact, within the
city limits are 143 wholesale and 725
retail licensed liquor saloons. In the
county outside of Pittsburgh bound
aries are 113 wholesale and 521 retail
stores and saloons.
The whole state of Pennsylvania has
1882 retail and 1869 wholesale
saloons. This means that one-eighth
of all the grogshops in this rumsoaked
state are in Allegheny county.
Are we interested in reducing public
expense? A big item is the policing
of the city. Pittsburgh now has
police force of 812 men. The salaries
paid amount to $99S,654 and the
operating expense is $52,1S0. The
seven police magistrates are paid
$17,500 in salaries. Which means that
the taxpayers of the city of Pittsburgh
fare this year paying $1,O6S,335 in colo
| cash for police protection. This is so
enormous sum that we have right
to inquire what it is that menaces
public safety most.
During the first eight months of
1916 there were 34,066 people arrested
in Pittsburgh. Of this number, 1885
were arrested for drunkenness; that
is, 81 per cent, or more than half the
total number of arrests in Pittsburgh,
were for this one cause But this by
OF means represents the total bill
presented to the public for allowing
people to make brutes of themselves
for large percentage of crimes and
offenses are directly traceable to
drink. Take, for example, those who
are charged with "vagrancy" or as
suspicious persons"-the great mass
of them are such because of drink.
During the eight months named above
there were 1,4S5 persons arrested in
| Pittsburgh as Migrants and 1924 as
suspicious persons. Though the DO
lice records show that arrests have
| been made for SO different reasons.
yet those three causes alone account
for 22,154 out of a total of 34,066.
Last year it took 1921, 1898 to run the
Allegheny county workhouse. During
the year there were received ALA
criminals or offenders. Drunkenness
was the offense in the case of 424 of
| these and disorderly conduct was the
charge with 748. Is not the liquor
L fro e.,
orderly conduct? Among the inmates,
$40 were listed as suspicious persons
and 802 as Migrants. Is the saloon not
| to be charged with these also? This
means that these three causes fur
nished 2,0S2, or one-half, of all that
were sent to the workhouse last year.
But these figures have been given
only for the sake of illustration.
Imagination is all that is necessary to
see how immense this would become
If we pursued it to the end I have
said nothing here about the enormous
cost of jailers, penitentiaries, judges,
juries, detectives and other costs in
Volved. We believe in reduction of
taxation in all of it's ramifications, but
about the best place to begin is in
abolishing the liquor traffic.
| Some one will tell you that the
money we receive from licenses helps
to keep down taxes, but that is a
false and misleading statement. One
of our County Commissioners stated
that the same year that Allegheny
county received $89,09S as it's share of
license money the amount spent by
the county that could be directly
charged to the liquor business was
$625.70t. 1t cost us seven times as
much as we got from it.
-DGHfeIL. Marsh.