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Explanation of "Locker Tax.”
One of the most unpromising states prohibition
ally speaking has for a long time been Illinois, but
things are more hopeful in that country. The Leg
islature has enacted a local option law which, if
wisely used, will inevitably lead to prohibition in
Illinois as it has done in Georgia. In the meantime
the Supreme Court of that state is helping. A re
cent decision is summarized thus by the Standard:
“The decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, re
ferred to, in effect, declares that social clubs which
dispense liquor to members are dramshops and must
have a dramshop license. If they attempt to sell
liquor in prohibition territory they are liable as
lawbreakers. As a matter of fact the court did
not discuss the question of the club’s location in
prohibition territory. It said that the only ques
tion to be determined is whether or not the furnish
ing and delivery of intoxicating liquors to its mem
bers to be drunk by them on the premises and paid
for by the members to whom they are furnished and
delivered constitute a “sale.” The decision de
clares that the sale of liquor is no longer a common
right and “it can be exercised only in the manner
and upon the terms which the statutes prescribe.”
Directly pertinent to the statement we make, and
the reference to the Supreme Court of Illinois, is
the action of the Georgia Legislature in respect to
social clubs. The movements from day to day have
been reported in the daily papers. The exact sit
uation at present will not be stated anywhere un
less it is done in this column. This writer was a
part of a caucus that drew the original bill and ap
pointed Messrs. Covington, Hardman and Neel to
prepare it and present it. The bill as then drawn
was in very general terms, giving the mere outline
of the proposed legislation. Good men, well in
formed and conscientious men, careful lawyers and
experienced legislators went to work with single
ness of heart and astonishing unanimity to fix the
details of the bill. It was on the minds of some of
them, that some legislation to cut out social clubs
was needed, but it was not clear that this bill should
be encumbered with that feature. If the clubs were
ever referred to in the caucusses, attention to them
was not pressed, for Mr. Covington is said to have
stated on the floor of the House that the failure
to put prohibition of the club liquor business in the
• bill was a mere oversight. After it was too late to
amend it, attention was called to the club busi
ness by an “anti” paper which pointed out that the
bill left that gap down. As soon as that reminder
reached the prohibition leaders in the House, they
determined to cure the defect in the bill by putting
a prohibitory tax on the keeping of liquor in the
club houses. A clause was offered as an amend
ment to the general Tax Act requiring clubs that
permitted private lockers containing liquor to pay
ten thousand dollars for the privilege. That amend
ment was voted down. Mr. Wright determined to
take another chance at it, and moved to amend by
making the club tax three hundred dollars. That
amendment was adopted with the hope that the
Senate would raise it to ten thousand and that the
House would concur in it. Everybody has paid at
tention to it since and now everybody knows that
the House did not concur in the ten thousand dol
lar tax, but that finally the House and Senate
agreed to put the tax at five hundred dollars, and
so it stands. The failure to put the ten thousand
dollar tax on the clubs is regretted by many of our
friends. But it is not regarded seriously by those
who are well informed. If the tax had been there,
the clubs would have been shut out to a certainty;
as it is, it is the opinion of perhaps a majority of
the leaders that the bill makes it impossible for any
club to become a drinking saloon without violating
the law, tax or no tax.
The first section of the act provides: “It shall
not be lawful for any person within the limits of
the State to sell or barter for valuable considera
tion, either directly or indirectly, or give away to
induce trade at any place of business or keep or
furnish at any public places or manufacture or keep
on hand at their place of business any alcoholic,
spirituous, malt, or etc., liquors.” (I quote from
the newspaper copy of the bill.) Under the pro
visions of this act, if a club concludes to pay five
The Golden Age for August 29, 1907.
hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping lock
ers for its members to store their drinks in, it pays
a high price for the privilege that cannot possibly
bring any profit. If the club has liquor, it cannot
sell it. It is doubtful if they can even give it
away, becuase when a club opens its doors so wide
that anybody passing by may become a member by
paying a fee and getting a drink in return, that
club house becomes a place of business and a pub
lic place at the same time from which liquors are
excluded, and in which they could not be furnished
to anybody but the rightful owner thereof, pay or
no pay. If the club does not keep the locker, but
allows its individual members to do so, the case
would be the same. They cannot sell it “directly
or indirectly,” and if they devise away by which
the terms of membership were made so elastic as
to admit the public, if it has the money to pay for
its drinks, it violates the law by selling indirectly,
by keeping it “in a business place” and furnishing
it “in a public place.” Something like this line
of argument satisfied a large number of prohibi
tionists who did not believe it to be a good policy
to make the Tax Act a prohibition measure. They
contend further that the act goes into effect in
January; the Legislature will meet again in June;
if the clubs misbehave about this business, if they
show any disposition to turn themselves into dram
shops or “one-eyed tigers,” if you please, the leg
islature will amend the act in such away as to cure
whatever defect may come to light during the six
months’ trial of the law. lam very sure that this
law will be found to contain as few blunders as
any pioneer legislation ever did. Os course mis
takes will be found in it, but when the mistakes are
uncovered, they can be corrected. J. L. D. H.
* *
Why Should a Young Man Go to
College ?
Because:
1. It will increase his earning capacity. Dr. W. T.
Harris, Commissioner of Education, says: “I would
estimate the average salary or income of the illit
erate at $l5O to S2OO. Os one having taken a par
tial elementary course at $300; the eight year ele
mentary course at $500; the high school graduate
at $1,000; the college graduate at $1,500.”
2. It will increase his chances for success. Dr.
Harris shows from a record of 7,852 notable Amer
icans in “Who Is Who,” “That a college education
increases the chances of the high school boy nine
times, giving him- 219 times the chance of the com
mon school boy and more than 900 times the chance
of the untrained. 4,810 of the 7,852 mentioned were
full college graduates.” “It is a general opinion
that the self-made rich man, in the sense of the man
lacking direct, systematic education, will have dis
appeared by the next generation.” Any one can
exist but he who would win success must be able
to compete with others.
3. He wants to be a man among men, and not
a manikin. He wants to put himself into relation
ship with other men, with history, with the develop
ment of his state and country, with the world. He
wants the perspective that the college gives, the abil
ity to think, to weigh evidence, to discover truth,
to solve hard problems. It will give him a clearer
vision and wider horizon.
4. “'lt will help him to clearer thinking, to purer
feeling, to stronger willing; but the thinking will
also be richer as well as clearer, the feeling will
be deeper as well as purer and the will, indeed will
be more gracious as well as stronger. The alabas
ter box of life will become more precious. Litera
ture, architecture, friendship, music, nature will
speak to him in more varied and finer tones. The
college will help him to a more satisfying life.”
5. It will enable him to form enduring friend
ships. “College friendships! What a world of
love of associations and associates they open! They
are wrought into literature as well as into life.
There are no friends, so natural, so genuine, so
warm, so true, so satisfying, as those formed at
college. In life’s failures college friends are the
ones who still love us. In life’s triumps, their
congratulations give the most contentment.”
6. He wants to be fitted for companionship with
tbe wisest and best, to join that democracy of learn-
ing that knows neither state lines nor ocean boun
daries, but everywhere seeks the good of man and
the glory of God. The college man is the man of
the century. All paths open to him and all look to
him for leadership and guidance.
7. The college will better prepare him for ser
vice to the people. It will open his eyes to opportu
nities for service. “It will give hi mbreadth and
depth of sympathy with the community as well as
increase his power of meeting the demands which
it justly makes. It not only gives him a richer
manhood, it creates in him a finer citizenship.”
8. The South needs the best service the young
man can give. Her mines are to be developed, her
water powers are to be utilized, her farms are to
be improved, her manufactories are to be increased,
her schools are to be taught, her laws are to be ad
ministered, her place must be filled in national af
fairs, her churches are to be supported, and her
homes are to be gladdened. But two-tenths of one
per cent of her population is taking a college course.
The South calls upon her sons to prepare for lead
ership. Her universities were built for them and
stands ready to help them.
9: If he will go to college to get what he can
of its scholarship, its culture, its training, its
friendships to use in loving service, he cannot make
a better use of three or four years of his life nor a
better investment of a few hundred dollars.
From the Founder of <Baraca.
Syracuse, N. Y., August 3, 1907.
Editor “The Golden Age,” Atlanta, Ga.
My dear Brother: Mr. W. H. Fitzpatrick sends
me your apt prohibition postal, “Caught the
Devil” (at last). Now that you have cast him out,
watch that he does nut get back again. He is so
firmly set on “local option” that in New York state
we are almost in despair, but God is on our side,
and we shall yet win.
We are adding 200,000 men to our Baraca Bible
Class this year, and will soon have a million men.
“all standing by the Bible and the Bible school.’’
I have traveled over 15,000 miles this year for Ba
raca.
May God bless you. Yours truly,
Marshall A. Hudson, Pres.
M *
New York school children have the young be
spectacled Apostles of Emerson in Boston distanced
in the educational race judging from some of the
subjects assigned girls and boys of twelve and
fourteen years to discourse on. Among them are
the following:
“The Influence of the United States Upon the
World’s Diplomacy,” “Daniel Webster’s Speeches,”
“The Constitution of the United States,” “Re
solved, That any infringement upon the dual in
terpretation of the Constitution of the United States
should be regarded as a menace to the stability of
democratic institutions,” “State Rights,” “Some
thing Against National and State Sovereignty,”
“American Coinage,” “Trade in the East During
the Fifteenth Century,” “Liquid Air,” “Educa
tional Progress in the United States from the Civil
War up to the Present Time,” “Economic Devel
opment of the United States from the Civil War
up to the Present Time,” “Early Roman Law, ’ ’
and “Was Brutus Justified in Killing Caesar?”—
The Macon Telegraph.
n *
The possibilities of advertising are not yet fully
realized in this country. Our English cousins can
still give us pointers. This is not a jest; in fact,
it is a very grave matter, as the reader will shortly
see. What American druggist ever thought of ad
vertising himself in a church yard—on his wife’s
tombstone? A tombstone in the church yard at
Greenwich bears the following inscription:
CLARINDA,
Wife of Joseph Grant,
Who Keeps a Chemist Shop at
No. 21 Berkeley Road,
And Deals Only in the
Purest Drugs.
—From Brains.
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