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were meeting places for young girls and young men. That girls in their ’teens visited these places there can be no doubt. A friend of ours told us that he saw two girls about sixteen years of age taken from two of these wine-rooms and loaded into the patrol wagon. The husband of the woman who started the crusade against the wine rooms, was an officer in one of the business institutions of the city, an institution de pendent in a large part upon the business of the dis tillers and the brewers for its operations. This woman had not proceeded very far in her laudable course when her husband was waited upon by a representa tive of the liquor interests and told that they would withdraw from his institution their financial support if he did not shut his wife’s mouth on the wine-room business. It is needless to say her mouth was closed. We are told that another woman of the same organization declared that they could not shut her mouth ; she took up the work where the other woman had left it off. Her husband was engaged in the insurance business. Presently an emissary of the liquor interests came to him and threatened the can cellation of a large batch of insurance policies if he did not silence his wife on the wine-room investiga tion. Again the investigation was stopped, and it has never been resumed. Liquor Has Its Own Way in Peoria. Not so very long ago, we are informed again, a representative of an anti-vice organization in the state of Illinois wrote to the chamber of commerce of Peoria suggesting that this organization would like to hold its convention in that city. The matter was turned over to the chairman of the committee that looks after such matters and was promptly shelved by the chairman of that committee, who, it appears, is one of the leading liquor business men of the city of Peoria. In view of all these circumstances we might call Peoria the liquor hell of the United States. A representative of the Anti-Saloon League re cently spoke in that city on Sunday and found two doors to a certain saloon, one of them labeled the “Sunday door.” It appears, therefore, that in Peoria it is unlawful to go in bv one door and buy liquor but within the law to enter by the “Sunday door.” Thus in the whisky capital of Illinois and the nation, the saloonkeeper prints in letters bold over the entrance to his bar his contempt for the state Sunday closing law. When the law becomes an obstacle to the liquor traffic it rides over the law. When the good women of the land seek to improve conditions by eliminating the wine-room the traffic rides rough-shod over them. When a pastor of a church, conscientiously seeking to do his duty, makes war upon the liquor evil, the liquor traffic opposes him and drives him from his post of duty. The Church Must Close the Saloon or the Saloon Will Close the Church. There can be no compromise in this matter. Either the liquor traffic is right or it is wrong. If it is right it is the business of the church to defend it; if it is wrong it is the business of the church to fight it. The church that does not fight the liquor traffic is not doing its duty. The pastor that does not fight the liquor traffic and through fear or favor or for any other reason permits himself to be silenced on this question —is not doing his duty as a minister of the gospel. All honor to the minister who, in the face of such tre mendous opposition and insidious plotting stands fear less and upright, and follows the dictates of his con science. We are glad to say there are mighty few churches in this state, or in this country, and likewise very few pastors of whom it can be said that they re ceive orders from the liquor interests. The great body of the church is at war with the liquor traffic. We believe that the driving of Dr. Cadmus from the city of Peoria should be a stimulus to every pastor and every church in the state of Illinois at this time to strive to the utmost in the present legislative cam paign to see to it that the right kind of men are elected to the next legislature on the fifth of November that the liquor domination of politics, and of any element in the church and the community, may be broken. Peoria's Shame The Peoria Plerald - Transcript some time ago made the following comment on vice conditions in that city: The city swarms with bad characters, driven out of Puritanical towns. Strangers entering Peoria are accosted by women in saloons, and get into trouble by taking the wrong street from Union depot. Young men lose large amounts in gambling houses and learn vice in visiting music halls, and now thieves have entered a business house in broad daylight and, after beating up the proprietor, have robbed the store and departed. We will curse the administration and the police department for all this, but why should we? They are not to blame. They are giving us what we have demanded—a wide-open town. And because we demand a thousand breeding places for crime and scores of refugees for criminals, why should we ex pect our police to keep the city as safe as other cities? We are unreasonable in criticising the police force. It is occupied in an earnest efford to rid the town of criminals, but so long as two criminals rush in to every one driven out how can we expect it to succeed? It is lucky for the Peoria Plerald-Transcript that it does not wear a frock coat and a white cravat. Ed Hull might recall it. - I Sues Liquor Men Over Illness Prosecutions under that section of the Dram Shop Act which provides redress for those who are made to suffer through the death or injury of the wage earner of the family while intoxicated, are becoming more nujnerous. Wives and children should not hesitate to take advantage of this just measure. We note by a press despatch from Sterling under date of May 23, that Mrs. Gustav Heart has sued the Rock Island Brewing Company, a saloonkeeper and the owners of the building where the saloon is located, for $5,000 damages, alleging her husband is ill follow ing intoxication.