The Illinois issue., February 23, 1906, Page 2, Image 2

About The Illinois issue. (Chicago, Ill. ;) 1906-1912

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Important
Last week there was mailed from this office a postal card, with return
card attached, to every one who is receiving the Illinois Issue. The card
was self explanatory. We have received thousands of the return cards,
but there are still those which are to be returned. It is hoped that on the
receipt of this number of the Illinois Issue that each one who may have
overlooked the matter and failed to return the card, will sign it and
return it at once to this office, as it is very important in connection with
the carrying on of our work. If you are with us in this fight for temper
ance help us in this way all you can.
Yours respectfully,
JAMES K. SHIELDS, State Supt.
Shall We Reduce the Taxes ?
In the Champion of Fair Play of March 18, 1905, I find this sweet
morsel: “If the tax payers and property owners of a city desire to reduce
their taxes by the issuing of saloon licenses, they cannot do so if the voters
of the entire county vote no.” This statement was made under the
caption “Who Rules Illinois?” Yes this will be true. If the tax payers
of a city desire to take the tax off their property and place it on the
weakness and appetites of men, taking money from suffering women and
children they ought to be prohibited. In fairness to suffering women and
destitute children, the tax payers of a county ought to have the right to
say that the people of the towns shall not impose a tax upon the weakness
and appetites of men and make the unfortunate victim of drink pay the
taxation that rightfully belongs to property.
Again, cities ought not to have the right to reduce their taxes by placing
saloons within their borders, which cause 82 per cent of the men in our
state penitentiaries to be there to be supported by the people outside of
as well as in the incorporated towns, at an expense of $225,000 a year
for one institution alone, that of Chester. These victims of the saloon
being tried and sentenced to a term in the penitentiary cause the farmers
of this country enormous expense. In fact, in fifteen counties in Southern
Illinois, for every dollar paid by the people of the incorporated towns,
$7.75 is paid by the people outside. Yes, this County Local Option Law
would stop this unjust taxation that the Champion of Fair Play so com
plains about.
In 1776, this country went to war because there was taxation with
out representation and now the Champion of Fair Play, the whisky organ of
the state, is advocating the same law and then calls it Americanism and
broad, liberal idea of things. Bah!
The following stoiy will illustrate another reason why the people ought
to have this right. It is not made up, but is actual:
A widow with two noble sons just blooming into manhood traded
a country home for a cottage in town. The cottage was near a little shoe
shop where an honest workman plied his honest trade to the hurt of
nobody. These two boys went and came in their daily toil and were
innocent and happy about the cottage door of their widowed mother.
But in a short time a saloon took the place of the shoe shop and the
music in the saloon attracted the boys. For a while they stood on the
outside and listened and then they stood on the inside and then the
saloon got on the inside of them, and you know the old story. The
mother wept over her drunken boys. The older, intoxicated on the
public square, picked a quarrel with a man and started toward him with
a knife and was shot down on the streets. They carried his bleeding
body to his broken-hearted mother.
It was but a short time until the other boy came to his death through
the same saloon and this widow joined the great many of suffering
Home Folks Surprised
Legislator Among Brethren at Home
and With Gang at Springfield
J. F. Burke, the Chicago attorney
who represents the Anti-Saloon League
of Illinois, went out to Sandwich Tues
day night, to hold a meeting in Repre
sentative Castle’s home town. He in
vited the latter to meet him in joint
debate to discuss certain things relat
ing to Mr. Castle’s record in the last
legislature, but that gentleman thought
he had nothing to say about the ques
tions proposed and declined the issue.
Mr. Burke held his meeting just the
same, and told a good-sized audience
some things about what happened in
the last session, that appeared to in
terest them very much. Mr. Castle’s
attitude toward the local option bill,
the age of consent bill, and the loan
shark bill, was discussed with perfect
frankness and with strict regard to
the official record. It is said the home
folks were very much surprised to
learn there was such a difference be
tween a legislator around home among
the neighbors and brethren, and a leg
islator at Springfield with the gang.—
The DeKalb Advertiser.
A Town’s Burden and Shame
Editor Voices Will of People to Oust
Saloons
Eight years of the saloon in Ross
ville meant eight years of woeful ex
travagance of the people’s money.
Rossville has been robbed and left
as though she had never had them,
and is still suffering from the in
fluences which those eight years left
in the village. Taxes were higher every
year that tlr3 saloon was here than they
were before they came, and yet the
eight years of the saloon were marked
by only mediocre improvements when
compared with anti-saloon Hoopeston,
whose tax rate for that period was very
little higher, and which has a reputa
tion all over the country for the extent
of its improvements and the unity of
its business interests.
The saloon has been the shame of
Rossville, in that it is today respon
sible for the lack of business unity in
this village, just as it is everywhere
that it gets a hold. It is the same in
hundreds of other towns over Illinois
today. What did Rossville do with
$60,000 in eight years?—Rossville
Press.
The last annual returns to the British
Local Government Board show that_
drunken paupers cost the rate-payers
of London over $5,000,000 a year, and
that the drunken insane cost the city
$100,000. The sober people “pay the
freight.”