Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1915 — THE SALOON. [ARTICLE]

THE SALOON.

In the course of Ins remarks, yesterday, Judge Anderson saJd: “My notion is that the saloon will have to go. I believe that the time will come when, the people will rise up and smash the saloon, at leasf as we have it now. The evidence in this case showed that the saloons were the centers of nearly all the corruption in Terre Haute. I don’t approve of this saloon business, at least as it is conducted in Terre Haute.” This indictment presented front the bench of the federal court is abundantly supported by the evidence. We would not condemn unreservedly all the men engaged in the saloon business, but there can be no doubt that the business taken As a whole, is rotten. The first place that the police and detectives go to in their search for a criminal

is the saloon. It is everywhere rec cgnlzed as the "hang-out” for criminals and thugs. Itself utterly lawless, it naturally draws to itself the lawless classes. It is associated with “sports” and gamblers-—and often with vile women and their paramours. It is the headquarters qf vile politicians, and the supporter and subsidizer of their methods. The men who run saloons are, almost invariably, willing and eager to buy immunity for iaw violation, and in return tor tliis license they support, without regard to party, the public officers' who favor them. This is the basis' for the notorious alliance between law-breaking liquor dealers and' crooked politicians. There are few saloon keepers in this town who would support lor any office a republican or democrat as such. Always the question is as to the bargain they can make with the candidates. And what is true here is true every where. Judge Anderson’s remarks were based wholly on the evidence adduced in the cases heard byhim. ! i lie whole of the rottenness of Terije :,aute centers in the saloon. That is one of the outstanding facts of the recent trial. There is never a ■ampaign for decent municipal government in which the saloons are not in opposition. For that reputation—and it is abundantly deserved -the men who run them are wholly, and solely responsible. Opportunity after opportunity has been offered to thfem to clean up. But they have preferred to make deals through which they would be allowed to continue their lawless practices. And now they stand in the dock alongside of Donn Roberts.— Indianapolis News.