Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1909 — The United States Brewers’ Association. [ARTICLE]

The United States Brewers’ Association.

This association has its headquarters in New York, .and its purpose is to create favor for the saloons and it has placed about all the newspapers in the United States oh its free mailing list. Three booklets Just received make a statement of conditions in Norway and Sweden, claiming that drunkenness is prevented there by regulation of the liquor traffic. The booklets state that these articles which are clearly written in the brewers’ interests have been published in several religious papers in the south and west, but does not give * ' the names of the papers nor send copies of them. If any religious paper published the articles the papers must have degenerated from the purpose of their founding. Another of the booklets is part of the message of Governor Patterson,

of Tennessee, to the state legislature on Jan. 11, this year. The booklet takes sections of this message and garbles it to best subserve the interests of the brewers. Governor Patterson expresses his views in favor of the retention of the saloons and breweries in His state as a business matter, but he did not advance a single sound argument in favor of the policy he advised. The brewers occasionally find some consolation in; the remarks of some well known men, but there ,are some very prominent personages that are entirely wrong on the liquor question. There is but one remedy and that is to vote to rid ourselves of the evil at every opportunity. To dispose of the saloon is a matter of degree. In Indiana it 'was first the filing of a remonstrance against each applicant, then the blanket remonstrance, then the strengthening of the law by the power of attorney, and now the county local option- All these things are leading to the certain result of prohibition and the person that can not see it is blind to tjie object he claims he most wants to attain. A few Pattersons may exist but they will do but little injury td the temperance movement, for behind their argument in favor of the saloon is observed a personal interest. The man that will argue for the debauchery and crime that accompanies the licensed saloon on the grounds of business results is hardened to a degree that makes him a party to all the crime that grows out of the business.