Palisadian. [volume] (Cliffside Park, N.J.) 1906-current, 1920-04-10
Hudson County
Rep. Leader Talks
Continued From Page 1.


citizen, totally unknown, any criminal
without respect to his personal repu
tatiOn or character, so long as he haC
couple of hundred dollars, cOulG
make application to the brewer tc
start him in business and the fixtures
would be supplied him and delivered
to any place he selected, even If il
was in a tenement house or within
the 100 feet distance from church
as prescribed by law. If the collector
knew of any one popular in certain
district, honest or dishonest, crook,
pickpocket, gunman or murderer, it
did not matter so long as he gave
promise of being able to dispose of a
large supply of beer, overtures were
made to him to induce him to start in
the saloon business. In such cases the
fixtures, of course, were sent to him,
and in addition he was supplied with
beer for the first week on credit. Con-
sequently the brewers would hold a
mortgage on the fixtures and lease
and would arrange it so that when
they paid the license money they had
power of attorney on the license, in
surfing them from all possibility of
loss. If this man paid his beer bill
and his rent the brewer cared not
an iota whether this man robbed the
whisky dealer, the cigar merchant or
his patrons. Their interests were al
ways purely selfish. 1t was of no con-
Germ to the brewer whether the saloon
was operated legitimately or as a dis
orderly house. The collector called
every week or two, and If at any time
the proprietor of disorderly house
or dive of any kind got into trouble
the collector would Immediately get
in touch with politicians to square
matters for his customer.
ut was in these so called dives also
that originated the Scent whisky
more commonly known as scat
These dives were known as scat
JOINTS blue fronts dead houses and
by other such names-which appro-
priately described Them This Scent
scat was offered as an inducement 10
secure the trade of the man going or
already down hill. When an unfor-
tunate one made himself a customer
of such dive he was Immediately in
sured by the proprietor, realizing that
one drinking this scat continuously
could not survive for more than a year
or two.
During the administration of Gov
~ Ctolr len@o
Charles J. Kelly of Hoboken jnvesti-
gated these conditions which were
permitted to exist by the politicians
here and determined that they were
detrimental to society, perverter of
the morals of our young men and
young women and in many instances
the cause of early deaths. He inaugu-
rated campaign to ameliorate condi-
lions and Interested his bishops and
the Protestant bishops, all of whom
went to Trenton, where they succeed
ed in passing the Bishops BILL which
they believed would accomplish their
purpose and bring about improve
ments.
"They made no mention of the fact
that this bill that was signed by Gov
ernor Stokes was championed by Mon
signor Kelly, nor did they inform the
different than the old excise law that
preceded it.
'"The bill was aimed at the low
dives-Or scat joints Most of these
places were maintained as auxiliary
Democratic club houses, the owner
paigns and agreeing to deliver GER
tain number of votes. 1t can, there
fore, be easily seen why the Demo-
Gratis interested themselves as they did.
To illustrate the caliber of these
places and the quality of the spirits
they sold, the scat they sold for 5
cents glass cost them from IS to 80
cents gallon. The whisky that sold
in respectable saloons for 10 cents a
glass cost at least 1925 per gallon,
when purchased in barrel lots. This
included $1.10 per gallon government
tax. From this you can judge the
quality of this so called scat with
the dive keeper paying 90 cents per
gallon for his product while the gov
eminent tax alone was $1.10. You
will also conclude that their product
being minus quality that they would
not have to wait very long to collect
the insurance on the unfortunate they
insured. Although the brewers knew
of these conditions, they never made
any attempt to remedy them, being
satisfied so long as they received pay
ment of their beer bills.
Governor Edwards is now making
his issue on an absolutely wet plat
form and is endeavoring also to make
it the issue of the Democratic party of
the state Neither Governor Edwards
nor any of his cohorts have made any
statements pledging themselves to
fight for the passage of laws to pro-
teet men and women or your son or
daughter and RELOCATING the dive
keeper from the community in the
event that the Supreme Court should