Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1908 — COUNIY OPTION IS ASSAILED BY BREWERS [ARTICLE]

COUNIY OPTION IS ASSAILED BY BREWERS

Post Flaming Bills Which Claim That Temperance Advance Will Ruin - The Nation.

The brewers are facing tbe advance bt temperance with a determination to crush it out and they have caused to be posted flaming bills that proeteim the destruction to the business interests of the country that are ce - . tain to result from the restrictions that are being placed on the sale of intoxicating liquors. The bills are actually TedtculohS” iff" thMr claims, and while they may be truthful m their statistics of the amount of grain that are consumed in the manufactu e of various brands of liquor and of the vast amounts disbursed by the brewers and distillers of the country to labor, the bills do not show the e xpense in the state and nation of maintaining penitentiaries, poor houses, orphan asylums and various other charitable institutions that sre m de necessary largely by tue effect of the saloons. The bills are headed in large red oapitals: “THE EFFECT OF COUNTY LOCAL OPTION.” Across the bottom and in letters almost as large $Sm us red, is the following: “COUNTY LOCAL-OPTION MEANS PROHIBITION WITH ALL ITS EVIL HFFBCTB.” Imagine a brewer, wh se whole life has been spent in manufacturing a product that has caused wee

and distress, murder, suicide, burglasy, rape, and every sin known to the anuals of crime, trying to point out to the people of Indiana that prohibition is an evil entailing cjunile s woes to the people. As one man who read one of the bills said: “If we have arrived at a point where we have to go to rack and ruin if we don’t return to the saloons we h. d better go and the sooner the bstter. ’ Two paragraphs of the bill leads: “The continued growth of prohibition and the destruction of tbe brewing and distilling industries will result in the farmer and the allied trades in all lines of manufacture being made to suffer greai losses through the destroyed markets for their preducts. ■ “Every farmer, every woikingm n and every manufacturer in ihe Uni ed States should now assert bis lights and use every effort to suppress this growing evii of prohibition, w-i.h is Jeapordizing the livelihood of upward of six millions of people and threatens to precipitate the greatest finnancial crisis this country has ever known." These bills must be seen to be appreciated, and every voter should read them from beginning to end*