Obey The Laws

The following interview with Mayor Thompson, which appeared in last iiaturday's Times,vill be of interest to our readers: 1 "The statute requires all saloons to be closed at nine o'clock, but gives the common council of a city power to extend the time of closing until eleven. The common council of Ann Arbor some years ago passed an ordinance intending, presumably, to extend the time of closing until 10 o'clock, but the ordinance did nothing of the kind. Assuming that it was the intent of the council in the passage of that ordinance to permit saloons to remain open until 10 o'clock, I have sulïered the saloons to remain open until that hour, but I took the precaution, in order that there might be no misunderstanding, to cali theattention of the council to the exact situation. ISTow, Ibelieve that the lavv should be impartially enforced, and no favor shown any particular individual. I allowed all saloons to be kept open, the good, bad and indifferent, but after nine o'clock, they are all doing business on their good behavior. To deliberately and wilfully viólate the law by keeping open Sunday is not good behavior. When I was satisfled that Mr. Golz kept open Sunday; I directed the marshal to notify him to close at !) o'clock. I know, of coursp, that the order put Mr. Golz between the devil and the deep blue sea; that to obey the order would hurt his business and that a daily arrest would be a considerable burden to carry. I had no desire to in jure Mr. Golz and since he did not know when he violated the law just what would happen, I revoked the order for that reason solely. But there will be no such revocations hereafter, because the reason for this revocation will not exist. "The fact is, keeping a saloon is not a work of charity. It is a business, pure and simple. When a saloon is kept open after hours or on Sunday, purposely, it is kept open to make money. It was not the intention of the legislature to make a violation of this law a source oí profit, and I do not believe that, in the end, any money can be made by violating this statute. Be that as it may, however, if I have to resort to the courts to enforce the law in the case of any particular individual, such person will not be permitted to disregard any single provisión of the statute afterwards, but the law will be strictly and rigidly enforced so far as he is concerned. That is the reason why Mr. (olz was arrested f or keeping open after 9 o'clock and other saloonkeepers were not. And I might say that I had determined to pursue this course from the first, as some of our citizens know. There is a certain class of saloon men who, if they think there is a dollar in sight, will viólate any law and disregard all authority. What that class needs is to have imparted to them the knowledge that a violation of the law will result in financial disaster."