GET ON THE WATER WAGON. 13 bank deposits had increased $1,700,000, and seventy-two per cent of the deposits were from men who had never saved a cent before, and forty-two per cent came from men who had never had a dollar in the bank, but because the saloons were driven out they had a chance to save, and the people who objected on the grounds that it would injure business, found an increase of 209 per cent in building operations; and, furthermore, there were three times as many people building homes as before, and there were more people seeking investment, and court expenses decreased $25,000 in one year. Who pays to feed and keep the gang you have in jail? Why, you go down in your sock and pay for what the saloon has dumped in there. They don’t do it. Mr. Whisky Man, why don’t you go down and take a picture of wrecked and blighted homes, and of insane asylums, with gibbering idiots that it costs $6,000,000,000 to support? Why don’t you take a picture of that? At Kansas City, Kansas, before the saloons were closed, they were getting ready to build an addition to the jail. Now the doors swing idly on the hinges and there is nobody tc lock in the jails. And the Commissioner of the poor farm says there is a wonderful falling off of old men and women coming to the poor house, because their sons and daughters are saving their money and have quit spending it for drink. And they had to employ eighteen new school teachers for 600 , boys and girls, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, that had never gone to school before because they had to help a drunken father support the family. And they have just set aside $200,000 to build a new school house, and the bonded indebtedness was reduced $245,000 last year without the saloon revenue. And don’t you know another thing: In 1906, when they had the saloon, the population, according to the directory, was 89,655. According to the last census the population was 100,835, or an increase of twelve per cent in one year, without the grog-shop. In two years the bank deposits Increased $3,930,000. You say drive out the saloon and you kill business—Ha! Ha! “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.”
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