o the State treasury to relieve the hayseeds
from taxes. Ah, who knows how many honest, hard-workin' saloonkeepers
have been driven to untimely graves by this law! I know personally of a
half-dozen who committed suicide--because they couldn't pay the enormous
license fee, and I have heard of many others. Every time there is an
increase of the fee, there is an increase in the suicide record of the
city. Now, some of these Republican hayseeds are talkin' about makin'
the liquor tax $1500, or even $2000 a year. That would mean the suicide
of half of the liquor dealers in the city.

Just see how these poor fellows are oppressed all around! First,
liquor is taxed in the hands of the manufacturer by the United States
Government; second, the wholesale dealer pays a special tax to the
government; third, the retail dealer is specially taxed by the United
States Government; fourth, the retail dealer has to pay a big tax to the
State government.

Now, liquor dealing is criminal or it ain't. If it's criminal, the men
engaged in it ought to be sent to prison. If it ain't criminal, they
ought to be protected and encouraged to make all the profit they
honestly can. If it's right to tax a saloonkeeper $1000, it's right
to put a heavy tax on dealers in other beverages--in milk, for
instance--and make the dairymen pay up. But what a howl would be raised
if a bill was introduced in Albany to compel the farmers to help support
the State government! What would be said of a law that put a tax of, say
$60 on a grocer, $150 on a dry-goods man, and $500 more if he includes
the other goods that are kept in a country store?

If the Raines law gave the money extorted from the saloonkeepers to the
city, there might be some excuse for the tax. We would get some benefit
from it, but it gives a big part of the tax to local option localities
where the people are always shoutin' that liquor dealin' is immoral.
Ought these good people be subjected to the immoral influence of money
taken from the saloon tainted money? Out of respect for the tender
consciences of these pious people, the Raines law ought to exempt them
from all contamination from the plunder that comes from the saloon
traffic. Say, mark that sarcastic. Some people who ain't used to fine
sarcasm might think I meant it.

The Raines people make a pretense that the high license fee promotes
temperance. It's just the other way around. It makes more intemperance
and, what is as bad, it makes