TESTIMONY OF A GREAT NEWSPAPER.
It is really gratifying to find influential daily papers, that have always favored the liquor interests, compelled to give testimony as to the benefits of prohibition. So we give a recent utterance of the San Francisco Chronicle on “The Salutary Effect of Closing Saloons”: San Francisco for the past fortnight has been absolutely free from disorder and virtually free from crimes of violence. There have been no street brawls. No drunken brute has beaten his wife. No gamblers have murdered each other in low resorts. Except for some dealings with sneak thieves the occupation of police courts is gone. It is a most impressive object-lesson of the value to society of the restriction of the liquor traffic. We are promised a continuance of this peaceful condition for a considerable time to come, save only as drunken men may drift over from Oakland, where the authorities have been so reckless as to allow saloons to open. We may be compelled to renew the quarantine against Oakland. This absolute demonstration that the saloons are responsible for all crimes of violence makes it imperative that, whenever they shall be allowed to reopen in this city, their license fees be fixed at a rate which will support the police department. There must be increased taxation. The public generally will protest against being taxed for the control or suppression of those forms of crime for which the saloons are now proved to be solely responsible. The public will look to the Board of Supervisors to place the cost of dealing with crimes of violence on the corporation which is responsible for all of it. Still another comment of the Chronicle in this connection is worthy of being often repeated. San Francisco is a very orderly city, and that fact is by no means owing to a superabundant supply of guardians of the peace. It is due almost wholly to the closing of the saloons. As long as they can be kept from creating depredations on the public peace and purse, San Franciscans will be comparatively happy. Their troubles will begin when the red light flashes again, and the tinkle of the bar glass is heard on every street corner, and often in a half-dozen places on a block. The question is, Will the great dailies maintain their prohibition positions a little later on, when the clamor of the liquor dealers for re-opening shall become a little louder, and their political influence and business patronage is thrown into the balance? We shall see before long.