People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1895 — The Other Side. [ARTICLE]

The Other Side.

To the Editor of The People's Pilot: Allow me space for a few thoughts upon a subject in which all the people of Rensselaer and Marion township are interested. A petition is being circulated asking the board of commissioners to refuse license to George Strickfaden to retail intoxicating liquors in the town of Rensselaer. This is to be followed by petitions against all other liquor dealers when they shall apply. The agitation of this question must lead to one of two results: If those who have the matter in charge fail to secure a majority of the voters to each petition, license will be granted, and the liquor dealers will do business under the privileges granted them by the laws of the state, paying for such privileges the amount of excise taxes fixed by the laws of the state and the ordinances of the town. If, on the other hand, a majority of the voters sign a petition against granting such license, then the board must refuse such application and the saloons as now con ducted must be closed. Will refusing such license operate to prevent the sale of liquors in the town? Certainly not. In the place of well-regulated saloons as we now have them, we will have saloons or "quart shops” conducted under government license. The liquor dealers of our town are responsible men, property-owners and tax-payers, having homes and families and the interests of the community at heart. They are public-spirited citizens, always aiding in all enterprises beneficial to the town. If a church is to be built or charity asked for they respond as liberally as any other class of our citizens. They endeavor to fulfill the i-equirements of the law in conducting their business. The business, and that alone, is all that is urged against them. If their applications are defeated they may go out of the business and irresponsible parties, thugs from Chicago or some other city, will take their places, running the business under government license. These quart shops will pay no revenue to the town, county nor state, and all the money they will be out is $25 for the government license. One day spent along the drainage canal in Cook county, Illinois, or in some sections of our own fair state where the only saloons are government quart shops, would quickly settle the matter in the mind of any sensible man that a saloon conducted under the privileges granted by the laws of the state of Indiana is always preferable to a quart shop under any and all circumstances.

Some of those who are leading in the fight against licensed saloons immagine that they are making a fight against the liquor traffic, while in reality they are not. They are simply making a choice between the regular licensed saloon and the government quart shop. If, when the petition is presented to a voter, he signs it. he declares himself in favor of a quart shop, which pays no revenue to town, county or state. If he refuses to sign it he declares by such refusal that the saloons of the town, which pay more than SI,OOO taxes, are preferable to those with more evils and less revenue. Fair Play.