Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 39, Number 113, 23 March 1914 — Page 8

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THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1914 HWWD

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A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION. On tomorrow the voters of Richmond will go to the polls to decide a vital and momentous question. Their decision will affect for good or evil the destinies of nearly 30,000 people. The door of opportunity is wide open for the city to go forward and take her place along side the hundreds of other cities in this state and county, which are freeing themselves from the handicaps of an iniquitous and devasting institution. The power of the open saloon for evil in any community cannot be exaggerated. The saloon should be destroyed because of what it is as a center of evil infuence and as a drain upon the resources of the public. The testimony is overwhelming that the saloon is a liability and never an asset. Its only claim for an existence is that some people want to make money out of the business regardless of the trail of debauchery and devastation which the business produces. It has been a significant thing in this campaign, that not one argument has been produced in behalf of the liquor interests, except the personal arguments of their paid writer. Cases are established in court upon the evidence of living witnesses properly produced. The whole case for the wets has rested upon the statements and assertions of one man. When he has quoted statistics and "facts", we have shown in almost every case that they were false or garbled. He has simply come into court with the citizens of Rchmond in the jury box, and without presenting a single live witness, has presumed to argue the case out of the fancies of his own brain. The saloon interests of Richmond have remained silent during the campaign, and by their silence, they have confessed judgment. They have not even taken the witness stand in their own behalf. They have brought no one to plead their cause, except a man who is writing for pay. In order to save themselves frdm condemnation and sentence on March 24th, they have permitted their paid writer to slander the saloons in other places, while claiming that the saloons of Richmond are immune. The case must go to the jury tomorrow, so far as the liquor interests of Richmond are concerned, with only a rambling argument by their paid representative, who has grown frantic in his efforts to find a single issue which he can defend in behalf of his clients.

On the other hand, the Citizens Committee of One Hundred has not only presented its argument, but every argument has been backed up by facts, and living testimony from the most reputable men in dozens and even scores of municipalities throughout the country. We have not been able to print one-third the mass of evidence that has accumulated. Signed statements from the leading business men of such cities as Kokomo, Marion, Crawfordsville, Frankfort and Bluffton in our own state and a number of cities in other states have proved the validity of our contention, that the saloon is a liability and never an asset to any community. We have shown by the evidence, that the elimination of the saloon gives an impetus to every other line of industry, makes more trade for the merchants, increases bank deposits, finds new buyers for real estate, makes homes happier, puts carpets on the floor and brings cheer and prosperity in its wake. The testimony of such men as J. E. Fredrick, president of the Manufacturers Association at Kokomo, and J. A. Kautz, proprietor of the Tribune, outweighs all the argument which the paid advocate can make from the standpoint of theory. The testimony of Mayor Batchelor and Mr. Haswell, showing that Marion is a dry and prosperous city today nullifies all that the liquor men have said about conditions which have changed altogether. We have had the testimony from the Governors of Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas and Oklahoma, showing the good effect of the no-license policy in their respective states. Mayors of cities, business men of the highest standing, have taken , the stand and established the fact conclusively that a city is better off without saloons. The claim that a city cannot get along without saloon revenues has been exploded by the presentation of facts in various instances, which show that the tendency is toward a reduction of the tax rate when the saloons have been voted out. The bugaboo of the blind tiger has wasted away in face of the testimony that the people are now in the saddle, and all over the country are seeing to it that the law is enforced as never before. The claim that 250 men will be thrown out of employment is fully met and answered by the evidence that in other cities which are dry, a larger proportion of the men are employed than elsewhere. This could not be otherwise, when volumes of money that is worse than wasted is turned into profit making and profit showing industries that benefit the whole people.

YE0 MUNB THGEMS ARE A EUGAIB(0)(0)

Every Brewery and Distillery in the Land Knows That the If it Did Not, They Would Be Contributing to the Support of Which in Most Instances Are the Saloon Keepers, Would

The blind tiger issue is a bug-a-boo of the worst kind. At most, the blind tiger could only exist where the officers refused to enforce the law, and in such cases as that, the open saloon would be making conditions intolerable by their violations. In Richmond, with the Mayor proclaiming that HE WILL ENFORCE THE LIQUOR LAWS, even if it requires the aid of the State Militia; with the Chief of Police Saying He Will See That the City Is Made Dry and Kept Dry, if it is Voted Dry, and with the Citizens Having Subscribed a Fund of Several Thousand Dollars to

No-License Policy Destroys Their Nefarious Business. Every Local Option Campaign; For Then Their Agents, Not Have to Pay the State and City License Fees. Aid in the Enforcement of the Local Option Law, the Blind Tiger is a False Issue and Has No Application Here. The people are on to the tricks of the liquor crowd. For awhile they trusted them to do as other law-abiding citizens do, stay out when they were told to get out. They are now waking up to the lawlessness of the business all over the country, and, as in Marion and Rockford, IIMnois.in Kansas, in Maine and all over in Indiana are electing officers who are making the liquor interests obey the law, blind tigers and all.

What About Tfliatt Increase tin tttue ConsmmpMoini of Liquor? They want our people to believe that the consumption of liquor is on the the increase and give that as their Blind Tiger proof. Apparently they do not know that what little increase there was a year or two ago was Wholly in the Wet Cities of the land and that in dry territory the amount was reduced to a minimum. THE TIDE HAS TURNED AGAINST THE LIQUOR CAUSE In the Cincinnati Collection District alone, the January, 1914, report shows a falling off in the production of Beer of 27,000 barrels and of 100,000 gallons of Whiskey, as compared with January, 1913; while the February report of the Collector sh rs a falling off of 40,000 barrels of Beer and 76,000 gallons of Whiskey, as compared with February, 1913. The Liquor Traffic Is Un-American and Has to Go. Have Not Answered IRunsseHFs Facts About Mctimomd's Taxes The Liquor Mr Have Not Even Attempted to Answer the Showing of Professor Elbert Russell, That the People Have to Pay More in Taxes Now, Because of the Saloon, Than the Citv Gets in Revenue Frc; ie Saloon. THEY CAN'T ANSWER IT! They I Not Answered the Charge That the Liquor Traffic Hurts Labor as a Class, and the Workingman as an Individual. THEY CANNOT ANSWER IT. Nor Have They Answered Our Repeated Sho s That if a Like Amount Money Were Invested in Other Industries Here in Richmond, Not Only Would the 250 Liquor Employes He Needed in Other Lines, but Still Others Who Are Unemployed, Would He Given Employment, They Have Not Answered Our Claim That if the More Than $600,000 Now Wasted in Saloons, Were Turned Into Other Channels, Every Other Industry in Richmond Would Feel the Impetus of Its Effect. The People Are Ready to Bring in a Verdict ol Guilty for Richmond's Saloons TSue CMzemi's Comnmilllttec " Made Up of One Hundred Leading Men of Richmond's Churches and Other Organization. (Go to fflftie PoUIls Toinnioiriro w9 Voile Early, aedl Voile YE"