Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1911 — Nut Cracked at Request of Paper That Misrepresents Senator. [ARTICLE]

Nut Cracked at Request of Paper That Misrepresents Senator.

In a recent issue of the Jasper County Democrat, the following paragraph appeared: Jl Nat for The Republican to Crack. f the present majority in the Indiana legislature is owned and controlled by the brewers, as Abe Halleck is quoted as asserting, why did Abe vote last week with Brewer Steve Fleming, of Fort Wayne, against the S7OO license fee and the limitation of saloons to one for each one thousand population ? Is Abe trying to get over on the majority side—accepting his former statement to be cqrrect? In an earlier issue of the Democrat the following article appeared: Abe Votes With the Brewer—The Proctor liquor regulation bill passed the state senate Thursday by a vote of 27 to 21. The license fees provided tor cities are S7OO and in towns SSOO, including the state fee of S2OO. This bill also limits the number of saloons to one for each 1,000 population, and one for the first 500. On the passage of the bill Abe Halleck is recorded as having voted with Steve Fleming, the Ft. Wayne millionaire brewer, who opposed the measure on accqunt of the high license fee provided and the strict regulation of the liquor traffic. Here we have the effort of the Jasper County Democrat to misrepresent Senator Halleck, who has maintained a string stand for every measure for establishing or maintaining temperance legislation and whom the Democrat knows is a temperance man in practice and a sincere advocate of temperance laws. Considering the long hatred that the editor of the Democrat has harbored for Senator Halleck, that paper would not be expected to be fair with him nor honest in its presentation to the public of any thing he has. done, and the Democrat did not tell its readers that both Steve Fleming, the millionaire brewer, and Proctor, the author of the bill for high license, are democrats, /each of whom is in the senate for the express purpose of advancing the cause of the liquor business, and that no matter how Senator Halleck voted he would be voting with a friend of the saloon business. The Democrat did not say that this is the sgme Proctor who drafted the measure that became a law and which re-estab-lishes saloons in every “dry” county in the state as soon as the two years for which the “dry” vote was cast, expires. .He did not tell the readers of that, paper that this measure, with its high license feature and its limiting saloon clause provided that where saloons already exist the number cannot be reduced under the law, and the readers were not informed that the bill provided that the license could not be transferred from one person to another and the saloon moved from one building to another. The Democrat was so anxious to say that Senator Halleck had vdted with Steve Fleming, the big democratic brewer, that it saw nothing, but virtue in the measure of Senator Proctor and spoke of it as creating a “strict regulation of the liquor traffic.” The features of transfer would certainly be strict regulation, now, would they nqt? And it would be probable that Senator Proctor, the author of the saloon re-estab-lishing bill that occupied all the forepart of the session* and the new bill that is to substitute It, and that will keep the legislature going the rest of the session, would offer anything that would be any good for the cause of temperance, wouldn’t it? Senator Halleck can see a “nigger in a Woodpile” about as far away as any person in this senatorial district and he is representing the sentiment of four “dry” counties he opposes a bill that smacks of any Proctor regulation. The Republican has not yet touched upon the chief reason of Senator Halleck’s objection to the bill. It provided that there Bhould be one saloon in a town of 500 people and oneTfor each 1,000 population thereafter. Thi3 would let one saloon in Remington, one in Wheatfleld and probably three in Rensselaer. As soon as the licenses were granted a monopoly of the business would exist and these men would have been granted by the law a license that would be worth from $5,000 to $10,00(1, and could be transferred from one person to another and no other person could get into toe business in that community. Senator Halleck rightly figured that there should be no monopoly granted in the business and that if a community was entitled to any saloons it was entitled to as many as the people in that locality wanted. He also thought that the people in a locality should have a right to place the license at any figure it chose. Hfe remembered that the democrats have howled a lot about local self-government and he thought

that the law which’ would please the democrats who have talked about local power so much should not be framed In Indianapolis to take these privileges away from the localities. Senator Halleck was right in his opposition to the Proctor so-called regulation bill and had he consulted the temperance people of his. district we have no doubt he would have found them all ready to support his action. It is not surprising that the Jasper County Democrat, which not only hates Senator Halleck, but also favors the re-establishing of the saloon business, should seek to abuse him and misrepresent him. When two such pronounced saloon sympathizers as Senator Fleming and Senator Proctor are on opposite sides in a matter, it is a toss up which one to vote with, unless, as Senator Halleck did, one gives the measure some consideration himself and then votes with no one, but on the merit or demerit of the proposition itself. v It was disappointing, however, to see Brother Sinfons, of the Monticello Democrat, who is himself a sincere temperance advocate and who has had the courage to criticize his party in its shameful disregard of all appeals from temperance sources this year, fall in line with Babcock and offer criticism of Senator Halleck. Brother Simons, however, will probably be fail* enough to say that Senator Halleck has been consistently on the side of temperance during his two years hy the senate, and all readers in the district will remember that A. J. Law, the man whom Senator Halleck defeated for a seat in the senate, voted against the establishing of the-coun-ty option law. The nut should be cracked so well that Brother Babcock will have no difficulty in getting at the kernel and he will have trouble in making his temperance constituency believe that Senator Halleck was not right in his vote.

The supreme court of the United States has held that railroads can not issue transportation over their railroad system in exchange for advertising, so that the transportation can be used in 'interstate travel. The ruling affects the Monon railroad, which has permitted newspaper publishers aloug its route to use the transportation in going to Chicago. The transportation will probably be accepted in the future only as far as Hammond. We admit our inability to understand the justice of a law that will deny the corporation the right to exchange transportation for a certain amount of advertising at the regular rates in a similar amount, and we can see no reason why a corporation should not have the right to enter into a contract of that sort the same as an individual. Some of the restrictions that pinheaded legislators seek to throw about the railroads are as foolish as they are unjust and we are surprised that the supreme court would sustain a law so unfair.