The High License Debate

The question of high liquor license has been undergoing rigorous agitation in many of the leading cities of the Union, and the feeling is general throughout the country that the license fee must come up. Chicago has adopted high license, and New York is preparing to follow suit. In Omaha the annual fee has been fixed at $1,000. In Portland there has been a raise from $200 to $500, and in Walla Walla from $300 to $500. Goldendale carries off the palm for high license, the fee there being placed at $800. Of course, there has been bitter opposition, but under the pressure of public feeling, the opposition has in every case been made to give way. The increment is with a double purpose: to create a revenue and to restrain crime. It operates principally, if not wholly, against the keepers of the worst places—the low dens where men are drugged and robbed, where the neat compounds are dealt to minors, and women of the lowest characters are kept for most depraved purposes. There is already talk of increasing liquor license fees in our own city. The present rate is $300 per annum. We would not like to see a fight over the matter, and we should certainly be opposed to a violent and prohibitory raise; yet an increase to $400 per annum would not be out of the way.