p. 12 | The Necessary Saloon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1908

The Necessary Saloon

THE Emporia (Kan.), Gazette of November 7, in a leading editorial entitled, “The Necessary Saloon,” takes substantially the position—as Mr. Dooley put it some time ago—that if the saloon is necessary, it is not an evil; and if it is an evil, it is not necessary. The Gazette goes on to point out that there have been seven saloon murders in Kansas City, Mo., in the last three months, to say nothing of the fifty saloon fights in which men were badly, and in some cases permanently, injured. It points out, further, that this Kansas City record can be duplicated in almost any town, and that any truthful policeman will testify that the majority of crimes find their inspiration in bar-rooms.

It says they talk of regulating saloons, but to regulate them would require the constant presence of a policeman on duty in every one. The owners of the saloons will not regulate them because they are not men of high enough character. Saloons will never be regulated until men of high moral character take charge of them, which is a self-contradictory proposition. The Gazette points out that wherever saloons have existed in Kansas City, Mo., they are murder mills. It closes by saying, “The moral must be sufficiently plain to any person who uses his head to carry his brains in.”—Home Herald.