Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1893 — Increase the License. [ARTICLE]

Increase the License.

It is said that the increase in the saloon license in this city from $25 to S2OO only caused one saloon to go out of business.—LaPorte Herald. ' When the license was increased to $250 in Goshen it was predicted that the number of saloons would decrease, but they did not and since thein four new ones have started. It is time the license law was changed and increased to SSOO in towns the size of Goshen and upto 25,000 inhabitants and to SI,OOO in cities with a population greater than that, and the state tax doubled. Let it be so.high that it will result in a decrease of the number of saloons, and allow the money which now goes to landlords, proprietors and bar-l tenders which would be saved by a decrease, go into the treasury in the form of high license, to assist in defraying the extra expenses which the traffic causes. In this manner a decrease of four or five saloons in -Goshen would increase

the city license fund about ten thousand dollars.—Goshen News. While there is ample room for an honest difference of opinion as to the merits and morality of the license system as applied to the liquor traffic, there are comparatively few intelligent persons who do not prefer the license system to free saloons, and having the license system at all, there is no room at all for a diversity of opinions as between high license and low license, from a temperance point of view. The license should be high, if we have any license at all. It ought not to be less than SSOO any place, and in towns like Rensselaer we doubt if SI,OOO would be too high. This would reduce the number of saloons to two at the most, and probably to one, and. the fewer the saloons the weaker is the “liquor power.” And the fewer the saloons the easier to compel them to keep within the bounds of the law, in regard to such particulars as selling after lawful hours, or on unlawful days, or selling to minors, to habitual drunkards &c.