Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-04-25 | Page 6 | Beer and Loyalty

BEER AND LOYALTY. A police commissioner of Kansas City, Mo., has announced that unless convinced con-vinced that the brewers who manufacture manufac-ture the beverage are loyal American citizens, he will iu 'future vote to deny licenses .to all Kansas City saloons which sell Milwaukee-made beer. The announcement is all right so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. The St. Louis brewers and, indeed, all the other brewers in the United States, should be included. There is just as much, if not more, reason to suspect the loyalty of some of the leading beer manufacturers man-ufacturers of St. Lo'uis as there is to question the patriotism of the Milwaukee Milwau-kee boer makers. The brewing industry indus-try of the United States is largely in the hands of the so-called German-Americans, German-Americans, and we dare say many of them secretly sympathize with the kaiser kai-ser in his ambition to make Germany the leading power of the world with himself as lord over all. We do not believe the Milwaukee brewers are one whit worse in this respect re-spect than their St. Louis rivals, and we are surprised that the Kansas City police commissioner has made any distinction. dis-tinction. That he did make it, only goes to show that' even in such a vital matter as the loyalty of citizens there is a disposition to shield the fellows in the home state and loudly declaim against those who live elsewhere, when all should be treated alike. But, living in a prohibition state, we have no earthly earth-ly interest in any dispute that may arise over the loyalty of the German-American brewers. The question will not come np in Utah, for we understand that the near beer is not "near" enough to be worth a controversy over the loyalty of its makers, and, of course, no one will get excited over soda pop and the other "soft" drinks.