CHAPTER XXI.

PASSING OF THE SALOON TRAFFIC.

	With the beginning of the century there was inaugurated in Clay
county, under the provisions and operations of the Nicholson law, an
anti-saloon movement with the view of dispensing wholly with the liquor
traffic by means of the remonstrance. The progress at first made was
seemingly very slow. Public sentiment had to be created by diverting
popular thought from its wonted and conventional trend. But the move-
ment prevailed, even within less time than was anticipated by its most
ardent and sanguine supporters. Township after township fell into line
in the work of circulating remonstrances and procuring the signatures of
the majority of the qualified voters until every square mile of territory
in the county had “gone dry.” The last township in the column to dis-
pense with the traffic was Brazil, where the last saloon, that kept by
William Vesper, in the Sourwine Opera House block, went out of business
on the night of February 24, 1909, at 11 o’clock p. m. The sequel to
this movement was the county option election of Tuesday, May 4, 1909,
which resulted in a majority of 2,203 against any further tolerance of the
traffic, for at least two years. The majority in the several townships, all
of which voted “dry,” was as follows: Brazil, 348; Cass, 49; Dick John-
son, 77; Harrison, 457; Jackson, 216; Lewis, 158; Perry, 131; Posey,
201; Sugar Ridge, 161; Van Buren, 311; Washington, 94; total, 2,203.
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