Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1909 — Porter County and Valparaiso Join the List of “Wets.” [ARTICLE]

Porter County and Valparaiso Join the List of “Wets.”

Porter county, in which the city of Valparaiso is located, decided to retain saloons, and in its election Thursday gave a “wet” majority of about 375. There are only six saloons in the county, Valparaiso being "dry” by remonstrance, but it is said the laws have been enforced very laxly, and that several quart shops and blind tigers have thrived. Notwithstanding this fact, the county would probably have gone for temperance except for the fact that Laporte county voted to retain the saloons, and so many of the Valparaiso business men feared that the saloons in Laporte would draw all the business over there. This is assigned as the reason given by the business men. It is another illustration of the sacrifice of morals and self-respect for the almighty dollar, and shows the sordid god that these men worship. Porter was the eleventh county in the state to sacrifice morality for commercialism.