Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1915 — KANKAKEE WOMEN SUPPORT SALOONS [ARTICLE]

KANKAKEE WOMEN SUPPORT SALOONS

N/ G. Halsey, Who Votes There, Surprised at Poor Showing Made by Temperance People. N. G. Halsey, whose home is in Kankakee, 111., but who spends most of his time here as clerk for the B. J. Gifford estate, voted in Kankakee Tuesday and brought to The Republican some statistics showing the women’s vote on the wet and dry issue in that city. He was surprised beyond expression almost because the women .returned a wet majority. The vote stood as follows: wet dry Men ....3,185 1,215 Women 2,255 1,736 Total ~5,440 2,951 It will thus be seen that the majority of the women as well as the majority of the men voted in favor of the saloons, the women returning a majority of 519 and the men of 1,970. A remarkable feature pointed out by Mr. Halsey was the comparison of the vote in two wards. One was in the locality where the breweries are located and where the men are about all employed in that class of occupation, making their livings from the manufacture of beer. , The other was in the ward where many of the victims of the liquor habit have their homes, where children and women are ill clad and underfed and where the women have to work to help earn the livings. It was expected that the brewery ward would go wet and that the women of the other ward would vote dry as a means of fringing themselves from the quagmire in which they exist. In the brewery ward only 70 women voted dry, while over 400 voted wet. In the other ward the result was even greater for the retention of the saloons. Kankakee has a large foreign population and this to some extent accounts for the wet success, but it was a great surprise, neVerthless.