Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 39, Number 112, 21 March 1914 — Page 8

PAGE EIGHT THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1014 mi Letter to tie Cfeeis d ISM Am Appeal to IReasomi amdl to Soteeip TIhi(C)niisjItiifl9 SHiiowfiinig Wlhiy Mcltiiinnicjedl StoeM V(0tte Pry Not a Single Claim of the Liquor Interests Has Been Signed by Anybody Except Their Writer. The Drys Have Won Their Campaign by Argument and by the Facts.

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Ex-Governor Seatworm WrigM ofl Georgia att ttlue Tabernacle Semday, 2:30 aed 7:30. Mayor Battclnelor and Toey George off Marnoe Tlneire Sniiraday MgM.Hoiniey weHH audi the Cllases Monday MgM.

TO THE CITIZENS OF RICHMOND: Tlie campaign for the elimination of the saloon from Richmond is now nearing its close. The liquor interests have sought to becloud the issue, and have brought in a mass of material which has no bearing whatever upon the campaign. The Brewery agent has not presented a single statement signed by anybody else. In the closing days before the votes are cast it is well for our citizens to stop long enough to consider what the real issues of the campaign are, and what evidence has been produced in support of the contention that a saloonless city is the best kind of a city. After all, this problem is one which the citizens of Richmond must settle for themselves, in the light of their best judgment, and in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience. We are the people who must live here after this campaign is over, and the sole question we must determine is whether or not the saloon is a good thing, whether or not it is an institution of which the city may be justly proud, whether or not it is an asset or a liability in the life of our people. If the saloon be a good thing, if it makes better, happier and more prosperous homes, if it adds to the commercial prosperity of the city in a way to elicit the commendation of all high minded people, if it be an economic benefit, then the saloons ought to stay in Richmond. If on the other hand the evidence produced shows that the saloon is a bad thing, that it is an economic waste, that it impoverishes hundreds of families throughout the city, that it is an unnecessary and unfair competitor of legitimate business, that it lessens public safety because of the drunkenness it produces, then it should be eliminated. Every man who takes out a license to sell liquor, does it with the sure knowledge that the same law which gives him the privilege to sell, gives the people the right to withdraw their permission whenever, in their judgment, the saloon becomes a public liability. Not fewer than one in every five of our Richmond homes have felt the blighting touch of the liquor traffic. At the North Fourteenth Street Mission one day this week there was a most remarkable meeting of ladies, gathered to consider the saloon question. One after another of the women stood up and with tears streaming down their cheeks, sobbed out their story of the blight of the saloon upon their homes and upon their children. If some plague should come to Richmond to devastate even half of the number of homes that have been ruined by drink, the entire city would be in mourning on their behalf. We have shown in this campaign by an over abundance of testimony, which can be multiplied many times over by the letters on file in our office, that the elimination of the saloon has brought business prosperity in practically every city that has voted out its saloons. This is a real situation which the liquor interests cannot ansvei and which they have not tried to answer. Were we to get the testimony of scores of leading men in the business life of Richmond as to conditions in this, city, their testimony would be received without any question. It is just this kind of testimony which we have been multiplying in these columns day after day, showing that almost universally business conditions have been improved in other cities throughout Indiana and elsewhere by the elimination of the saloon. If the $(500,000 and more, which is wasted in our saloons were diverted into other channels, it would bring a boom in trade to our merchants, to our banks, to our real estate dealers, not to speak of the happiness which it would bring to hundreds of our homes. We have referred to this money as being wasted. It wouM be better that it were wasted, for intoxicating liquors are not only not a benefit to anyone who consumes them, but they bring harm physiologically, economically, socially, commercially and spiritually. We have shown conclusively that the saloon rovunid are not needed to maintain the city government. We have shown that the tendency in dry towns is toward tax reduction. This is true for two reasons: first, because many families who formerly wasted their money in the saloons now become purchasers of property, and with the improvements which they add to it, they become substantial tax payers. The total assessment upon which taxes are based is increased quite materially. On the other hand the cost to the people for criminal expenses and for taking care of the insane and those who have to be cared for by charity, because of the saloon, is reduced.

TO THE TAX PAYERS OF RICHMOND A communication is going through the mail addressed to the tax payers of Richmond, signed "Committee of Business Men". Our advertisement writer for the wets has changed into a "Committee" over night, but that is unimportant. The sum and substance of this liquor communication has already been published in the liquor advertisements, and has been fully answered in these columns. The argument is to the effect that the saloons bring $224,942.36 of commercial assets to the city, and that in addition the cigar manufacturers are going to have to shut up shop, causing an additional decrease in our commercial assets of $45,927. In the first place this "Committee" presents no statements from other places to the effect that the cigar industry is injured in the least by the closing of saloons. On the other hand, everybody knows that it has nothing to do with it, except that with less money going over the bars for liquor, there is more money left with which to buy cigars, if the people want to spend it that way. Another argument is that if the city loses its $14,000 of revenues from liquor licenses the tax rate is going to have to be increased. In another place on this page we present a complete answer to that argument, showing that the tendency in a dry city is toward a reduction in the tax rate, more certainly than in cities which have the advantages of saloon revenues. We present there conclusively the reasons why the tendency is toward the reduction of the tax rate in saloonless cities. Another argument is that with fifty-six business rooms vacated, the city will be worse off. We have been presenting evidence in overwhelming quantities during the last two weeks from other cities, showing that when saloon money is diverted into other channels such an impetus is given to every other industry that not only are these vacant buildings soon occupied, but in a year or two the increased business causes new and better buildings to be erected. The closing argument is that 250 men will be thrown out of employment. The government statistics show, as we have repeatedly stated in these coulmns, that for the same amount of money invested, every other industry employs many more men than does the liquor industry. With more than $600,000, now worse than wasted in the saloons, going into every other industry, as shown by the facts in every other dry city, every business is given such an impetus that not only are opportunities offered for employing every man engaged in the liquor industry, but others are needed who were already out of employment. This is the condition as shown in multiplied hundreds of dry cities throughout the country. We repeat again that the saloon is always a liability and never an asset to any community. Go the polls on Tuesday, March 24th, and vote "YES" for the elimination of the saloon as the greatest liability upon our city which now exists.

A LESSON IN TAXES. The wets are raising a great bugaboo in their claim that if saloons are voted out the tax rate .will be increased. We have shown conclusively all through this campaign that this is not the case, but that the tendency is toward a reduction of the tax rate, especially after a municipality gets adjusted to the new situation. Here are some ligures that make an interesting study. In 1909 there were 70 dry counties in Indiana and 22 wet counties. As compared with the previous year, when saloons existed quite generally throughout the state, we find that forty-five and one-half per cent of the dry counties reduced the tax rate, while twenty-seven and one-half per cent of the wet counties reduced the rate; thirty-three per cent of the dry counties increased the tax rate while forty-five and one-half per cent of the wet counties increased the rate. Thirty-three and five-sixth per cent of the dry cities reduced the rate while only twenty-one and three-sevenths per cent of the wet cities reduced the rate; sixty-three and one-thirteenth per cent of the dry cities increased the rate while sixty-seven and six-sevenths per cent of the wet cities increased the rate, including Richmond, to the amount of eight cents. Thirty-two and two-thirds per cent of the incorporated dry townships reduced the tax rate, while only twenty-five per cent of the wet townships reduced the rate ; thirteen and two-thirds per cent of the dry townships increased the rate, while eighteen and two-elevenths per cent of the wet townships increased the rate. In dry counties twenty and one-fourth per cent of the townships reduced the rate ,while in the wet counties only twelve and forty-eight fifty-first per cent of the townships reduced the rate; seventy-five and three-sevenths per cent of the townships in the dry counties increased the rate, while eighty and four-fifths per cent of the wet townships increased the rate. This statement shows conclusively that saloon revenues are not needed to make a town prosperous, cent of the wet counties reduced the rate; thirty-seven

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It is the almost universal testimony that bank deposits, and especially savings deposits increase more rapidly under a dry regime. This is not surprising when it is known that scores and hunrdeds of families who waste their money become bank depositors with increased earnings, when the money is diverted from the saloon. Statistics show that with the saloon eliminated, more children are in the public schools regularly, they are better clothed and they get more direct benefit from the instruction given. The per cent of efficiency in school work is raised and the pupils are better fed and better cared for in every way. The saloon is such a universal source of graft and corruption, intimidation of voters and general demoralization of citizens that in dry cities the people have a better opportunity to establish a reign of good government than in cities where the saloon is allowed to have full sway. In this campaign every contention of the liquor interests, through their advertisements in the newspapers, has been met and answered conclusively. Most that has been presented by them has been absolutely spurious and misleading. The "Hell of a Parade," which has figured so prominently, is too serious a matter for jestftfg. While the wets have been defending their position the "parade" continues to go by in an unending procession. It is too realistic to be comfortable for the saloon. There are the derelicts of human society and we have them right here in Richmond, scores, hundreds and even thousands of them, whose never ending march proclaims the deadly character of our un-American saloon. The liquor interests have tried to picture the boy as being more in danger from the blind tiger than the open saloon. There is nothing that could be further from the facts. No decent boy starts to drink in a dive. The so called "best saloon" catches him first every time. Ask the fathers and mothers of Richmond, hundreds and hundreds of them, whose boys have already started on the downward path in the saloon, what kind of a saloon has proved most tempting to their sons. The sad, sad story coming from many a good home here in Richmond is to the effect that our so-called "best" saloon has caught their boys. Oh Lord how iong, how long! Finally Richmond is threatened in bold, black headlines that if we do not permit the saloon to exist the liquor interests will sell any way, in violation of the law. That is the sum and substance of this blind tiger scare. It simply means that the brewery and the distllery, with all their advocates, have become defiant to the public will. Every drop of red blood in the veins of Richmond's citizens should cry out against such insult. The people throughout the land have begun to understand the lawless nature of the liquor traffic; and they have learned in the past few years that the same elements which vote the saloon out must stay together to elect officers who will enforce the law, and they are enforcing it throughout the nation as never before. Here in Richmond, with an administration saying that it will enforce the law to the very last if Richmond goes dry, and with our good citizens subscribing a fund of several thousand dollars to back up this enforcement, the issue of the blind tigers vanishes from this campaign as does the mist before the morning sun. Every "fact" and every argument presented by the liquor interests in this campaign has been met and exploded. Over and over again we have shown the falsity of the "facts". We have won this campaign on the argument and evidence produced and we believe that on next Tuesday the citizens of Richmond will win the campaign for the drys if they apply their sober judgment to this problem which concerns the highest welfare of our entire citizenship. ' Already the opposition is resorting to its usual tactics. Rumors are in the air about attempts to purchase the colored votes, to corral the foreign votes and to colonize voters. The time has come for the better citizenship of Richmond to assert itself in no uncertain way and declare by its vote on Tuesday that the policy of this city cannot be determined by any such methods. Men who are not yet convinced as to the wisdom of the nolicense policy will not hesitate in the face of such practices to declare that good citizenship is still dominant in this old Quaker city. The issue is not one as to the kind of saloons we have but that we will not have any at all.

S. E. NICHOLSON, Chairman

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