Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-02-03
G&~
TAXPAYERS BENEFTTTING

ti@r+A ~ @DiNtS 49,
a moral issue for the sake of when
the taxpayers are sacrificing a large
revenue in the way of license fees,
the practical side of the question Is
beginning to be realized, although II
will take several years to demon
strate the advantages of prohibition
from a strictly economic sense.
One of the greatest arguments
against a%bolishing the sale of alco-
holic beverages has been the greatly
increased burden it will mean to the
government and especially the differ
ent municipalities in making up such
deficits as are caused by the elimina-
tion of the revenue tax and saloon
license.
In Perth Amboy, for instance, the
wiping out of the liquor business,
both wholesale and retail, means a
cutting off of from fifty to sixty
thousand dollars a year that has been
paid as a license by liquor dealers
and which amount went to help a
the cost of running the city govern
ment. Naturally, this money has got
to be mad up in other ways and as
1t is difficult for a great many people
TO see any financial benefits from
prohibition 1t Is pretty generally be
lieved hat prohibition, while a great
moral reform, perhaps, means added
loss due to the elimination of IL
censes.
At the outset there may be some
ground for this contention. 1t Is
hardly to be expected that the evil
effects of anything so long establish
ed as the liquor traffic could be over
come and the economic advantages
realized in a single year or even a
half dozen years. The "h~ang-overs,"
to use a term familiar to the booze
artists, will be with us for some time
yet. There are many of the present
generation who have become so ad-
dicted to alcohol that they are bound
to get 1t in one form or another.
And many of these old topers may
sooner or later become q burden on
the taxpayers. But as time goes on
Ii will be seen that the saving that
prohibition brings to society in gem
eral will more than offset the loss
that is now directly felt in the sud
den elimination of the license in
come.
The first indication of what pro
hibition means to the taxpayers OF
New Jersey in an economic sense
chief of the Bureau of Inspections of
the State Department of Institutions
and Agencies. He advised the Ocean
county Board of Freeholders that 1t
may use the old Jail at Toms River
If the structure is made escape-proof
and habitable. for its occasional in
mates. THOMPSON declares records
show thai prohibition has rapidly
emptied the county jails all through
the state. and that state officials have
decided to hold up various plans for
new structures.
The decision of the state board will
save Ocean county taxpayers approx
imately $780, 900. which was the esti-
mated cost of the new jail.
1t Is q well established fact that
one of the chief causes of insanity
Ia alcohol. A great majority OF the
inmates OF our state asylums, main
tanned at enormous expense to the
taxpayers. are there either directly
or indirectly because of alcoholic IL
0uors. The heavy burden h a our
county courts and prosecutors offices
are to the people is caused largely by
drink.
We do not mean to intimate that
once prohibition is operating well we
can abandon nour jails and asylums'
abolish criminal courts and do away
with the police force. Statistics from
states where prohibition has long
been in force, however, do show that
expense has been reduced to a mini
mum; that county jails and work.
houses are empty most of the time
and that the prosecutors, prosecutors
detectives and the courts have COM
p%aratively little to do. In some com
ties in old prohibition states the
grand juries do not meet for months
at a time. There are no cases for
them to consider.
Naturally, all this relieves the tax
PAYERS of much expense and more
thar -compensates for the loss in rev.
enue and licenses. The only diner
&nce is. the license is cut off at once
while the saving due to prohibition
Is several years making itself felt.
But that it is bound to make itself
kelt is apparent from the attitude