sand
dollars; how are we to run the city without the six thousand dollars?"
When I informed him that the six saloons took from the people eighty
thousand dollars a year, he agreed it was a reasonable estimate. I
said: "Don't you know those who spend their money for drink, if they
did not spend it over the saloon bars, would spend it over the
counters of merchants who sell clothing, food, fuel and furniture?" If
you merchants could take in eighty thousand dollars, couldn't you pay
out six thousand and not get hurt? If you can't see that you are no
better business man than was Horace Greeley a farmer. He purchased a
pig for one dollar, kept it two years, fed it forty dollars worth of
corn and sold it for nine dollars. He said: "I lost money on the corn
but made money on the hog." So, many business men see the revenue from
the license fee but can't see the cost.

Suppose on one side of a street the business houses are all bad, in
that they consume money and give worse than nothing in return; and on
the other side they are all good, in that they give an honest
equivalent for the money they receive; can't you see if the bad side
is closed, the money that went to the bad side goes to the good, and
can you not see only good can come of such a change?

There are three things prohibition of the saloon does that are
illustrated by the story told of an Irishman who said: "I did three
good things today."

"What did you do, Pat?"

"I saw a woman crying in front of a cathedral. She had a baby in her
arms, and I said: 'Madam, what are you crying about?'

"She said: 'I had two dollars in me handkerchief and came to have me
baby christened but I lost the money.'

"I said: 'Don't cry, Madam, here is a ten dollar bill; go get the baby
christened and bring me the change.' She went, and soon after returned
and handed me eight silver dollars."

"Well," said the friend, "I don't see any three good things in that."

"Ye don't! Didn't I dry the woman's tears, didn't I save the baby's
soul, and didn't I get rid of a ten dollar counterfeit bill and get
eight good silver dollars in return?"

That is what prohibition of the saloon does for a community. It dries
woman's tears, saves human souls, gets rid of a counterfeit business
and puts good business instead.

Is it a counterfeit business? It has been well said, "Go into the
butcher stall and you get meat for money, into the shoe store and you
get shoes for money, but go into the salo