WHO WANTS THE LIQUOR SALOON?
Under this heading the Portland (Maine) Press comments as follows: “Who wants the saloon legalized in our communities? Who wants the liquor traffic to become a factor in all our state, county, and municipal affairs? Who wants the rumsellers to set themselves up as bosses in ward, town, city, and state management? Who wants the degrading influence of the saloon to offset the influence of our churches and schools? It is easier to tell who does not want it. No good citizen wants it. No man with a family of growing boys wants it. No one with the good of the community at heart wants it. No man with a business which the profits of the saloon would interfere with wants it. No man who loves his fellow men wants it. No one who hopes for the welfare and happiness of the rising generation wants it. Even the man who has an appetite for strong drink and who realizes the harm it is doing him and his family would be pleased to have no temptation put in his way. It is simply a question of greed rather than of appetite. The rumseller is the real party who wants the saloon, and he wants it solely for the money it will bring him. Shall he have it?” Admitting that this is all true, it remains a fact that the rumseller is not a majority. If this is a republic he ought not to be able to carry his point against all the other classes mentioned above. But he does, and there must be a reason why his greed can wield such a strong political power; for it is political power that gives him his prestige. It must be that the real influence of the rumseller lies in the imagination of many people. Business men who do not want the saloon fear to oppose it, because of its imaginary powers of retaliation on their business. Politicians especially dread to antagonize the saloon element because of its imaginary power to control votes. It does control votes, but many of the votes it controls are the votes of the men who do not want it, but are afraid to oppose it. If all the voters who profess that they do not want the saloon would throw away the idea that there is an innate power in the rumseller to ruin their business prospects or political ambitions; if they would fearlessly back their convictions by judicious action; they would soon learn that the power of the saloon’s influence is just what they give to it through their fear of it. But there are two classes not explicitly mentioned by the Press in its enumeration of those who want the saloon: (1) the class who make the saloon their headquarters for concocting evil schemes, and (2) the political agents who are paid to carry out the devices of the liquor traffic for perpetuating its influence and its business. If all the professed temperance people who are content to allow the saloon to exist six days in the week, if only it may be closed on Sundays, would throw away their timidity and demand prohibition, the saloon power would be broken.