Who Pays License Money?
By California Voice
JOHN DOE wants a license to run a saloon. For the consideration of $1,200 a year, a license is granted him. Nobody supposes that the saloon-keeper will add a penny of value to anything in the world. He will not575add anything of value to a man. No man would be a better doctor, or a better preacher, or a better merchant, or a better husband, because of the saloon. He will not add anything of value to the family. No boy would be a better boy because his father was a drinker, no wife a better wife because her husband was a drunkard. He creates no values. He simply takes money enough from those who do create values, to pay his tax of $1,200 and make money besides. The liquor business creates no values, but always drains its own prosperity from values created by others. — California Voice.