OCR Text |
Show What of Prohibition? The cry for prohibition has been raised of late in this region with unusual emphasis. Some good men and women are sincere in the movement, two or three newspapers second it for partisan purposes. We say this because the chief one of those, while claiming to have a horror for liquor, really supported the liquor business here for about forty years. Our Idea is that the people should control In this as in every other form of business. The trouble is the sentiment of the people of Utah can never be obtained. The majority ma-jority of tho people of the State are really composed com-posed of twenty-six men, and the masses of them would on demand support prohibition just as cheerfully as in the old days they supported the city government, which gave Brigham Young a monopoly of tho liquor trade in this city. There Is no reason why such a call should be made now that has not existed during the past fifty years. In the meantime a vast amount of capital has been invested in the business. The men making mak-ing the investments believed they would be protected. pro-tected. There is no reason why they should not be. If a man makes an investment with the approval ap-proval of the authorities and the public, the public pub-lic and the authorities have no right to confiscate the property so built up, except through adhering adher-ing to all the equities. Then there is no overwhelming over-whelming public sentiment behind this movement. Drunkenness is not a common vice in Utah. Could the records be obtained wo believe it could be shown that more men die annually in Utah from over eating than from excessive drinking. There i ifl are some dives but the way to fix them is to take V away their licenses. , We notice that the work in Georgia is cited i; flHf as an example of what can be done, if a people : IK are In earnest. There is nothing in that because flBB the situation is altogether different. The move- '?Uh ment in the south is to do away with the danger IfttB of having low-whites and low-blacks from preclpl- iB tating race-riots and possibly a race-war, but es- 'IB pecially to remove the danger of assaults upon HB women by the mighty, growing menace of a vaga- flfl bond class. But no matter. When the public :1H sentiment of Utah favors prohibition, it will come, iflH but with it should be a clause that the State should -make good the losses of men who without 'WtM opposition or protests, have invested vast I jPs amounts of money In the business. |