Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1916 — SEATTLE “WET” LEADER NOW LIKES PROHITION [ARTICLE]

SEATTLE “WET” LEADER NOW LIKES PROHITION

< liangtHi" Mind After City J" “Dry” Six Weeks —Help" Morals and Business. Kansas City, Feb. 21. —The world i." watching Seattle to see how prohibition works out iii a large city, Seattle is the largest city that has ever had prohibition. It aud the whole state of Washington became “dry” January 1 of this year. The strongest single force that worked against prohibition in the state of Washington was the Times, the leading newspaper of Seattle. In its campaign against the passage of tlie prohibitory law it used all the familiar old arguments such as 'Prohibition doesn't prohibit,” that it would force down rents, that so much property used for saloons all a: once made empty and nonproductive in one day would have a bad economic effect, and so on. The editor of the Seattle Times, .Major B. Blethen, the man who made the fight against prohibition, was in Kansas City and was asked how prohibition was working .and it all Ills prophecies had come true. He said: “XTy paper* fought it? hardest hgainst prohibition. We fought it on economic grounds alone. We believed that in a great seaport city with <i population of upward of miit prohibition would be destructive; it would bring on economic disaster. We believed that under our system of licensing saloons we had the liquor traffic about as veil cot trollpd as it could be. and we wanted to let it alone, and so we A tight as hard as we could fight. But, in spite of all we could do against it, prohibition carried and it went into effect in Washington, January 1. We have had six weeks of it now.” ..■

"And how has it w ofked but?" "We already know that it is a great benefit, morally and from an economic standpoint. Its moral benefit has been tremendous, Seattle had 260 saloons, and we had an average of 2,600 arrests a month for criffies and misdemeanors growing out of liquor drinking. i n January we had only 400 arrests and sixty of those were made January 1, and were the results of hangovers from the old year. That in itself is enough to convince any man with a conscience that prohibition is necessary. There can be no true economy in anything that’ is immoral. . "And on top of that great moral result, we have these economic facts: In the first three weeks of January the savings deposits in the banks of Seattle increased 15 per cent. There was not a grocery store in Seattle that did not show an increase of business in January greater than ever known in any month before in all the history of the city, except in holiday times. In all the large grocery stores the increase was immense. In addition to this, every dry goods store in Seattle except one, and that one I have no figures from, had a wonderful increase in business. Each store reported the largest business ever done in one month, except in holiday time. “I wished to know in what class

of goods the sales increased so .greatly, and so I sent to all the groeery and dry goods stores to find that out. And to me it is a pitiful thing, and it makes me sorry that we did not have prohibition long ago—that the increase in sales in all the dry goods stores was in wearing apparel of women and children, and in the grocery stores the in- ■ crease was made up chiefly of fruits and fancy groceries. This proves that it is the women and children , who suffer most from the liquor bus- , iness, and it is the women and children who benefit greatest from pro,hi bition. Money that went formerly over the bar for whisky is now being spent for clothing for the women and children, and in better food for the household. “It is just like this: When you close the saloons the money that formerly was spent there remains in the family of the wage earner, and his wife and children buy shoes and clothing and better food with It. Yes, sir, we have found in Seattle is better to buy shoes than booze. The families of wage earners in Seattle are going to have more food and clothes and everything else than they had before.” “And is the prohibition law enforced?’’ ' ‘ Absolutely. Prohibition does prohibit.” \ “And how about the empty saloons and the landlords who own them?” “Maiftr of them have already been made over and are occupied by other businesses. I will venture the prophecy that in one year from today you won’t be able to find a place in Seattle where there was a saloon. They will all be occupied by other businesses. And prohibition has not lowered rents. I know of one big dry goods store that hag already had its rent raised since prohibition went into effect. “Oregon also went ’dry' Januarj’ 1 California is the only 'wet’ state left on the Pacific coast, and it will go ‘dry’ January 1, 1918. And those three states will remain ‘dry’ to the end of time. None of them would ever have saloons again. Those who' were honestly opposed, as I wag, to prohibition in Washington and Oregon. have been converted to it, as I have been, by the actual evidence that prohibition is a fine thing from a business standpoint. No city and no community, too. can afford to have saloons. They are too expensive, morally and economically. In a very few years there will not be a licensed saloon in the whole nation, and that will be a fine thing.” '