by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The Oregon Statesman reported that the “Saloon Is Not For The Women,” providing an interesting twist on equal rights:

SALOON IS NOT FOR THE WOMEN
Law Pronging Females Frequenting such Places Declared Not Unconstitutional By Supreme Court Decision Rendered Yesterday.

“The vicious tendency of the mingling of men and women in saloons is regarded as harmful to good morals and therefore a law which prohibits the licensing of a female to engage in the business of retailing intoxicating liquors in a saloon, or to permit a female to enter a saloon and there be served with liquors, is not unconstitutional.”

Quoting the preceding paragraph from an opinion by Justice Bean, Justice Eakin of the supreme court yesterday held that ordinances which bar women from frequenting places where intoxicating liquors are sold cannot be designated as unconstitutional on the ground that they “interfere unnecessarily with the individual liberties of our women citizens.: The decision was in the case of E. F. Laughlin against Tillamook county and reverses the circuit court of Tillamook county.

In a letter to the editor, I. D. Ratliff takes to task the editorial position of the Capital Journal in its March 29th edition:

Colonel Hofer says our country, or the newspaper part of it, is not neutral. Well, it is not easy to hold a neutral attitude. A traveler relates that one time he witnessed a fight between a rattlesnake and a skunk. Though sought mohave feelings and sentiments on the square between the belligerents, he nevertheless now and then felt his heart touched for the “under dog” as the war progressed. Somehow we feel that Serbia, dear little soul, was imposed on. Then, too, Germany forgot that Belgium was not merely a public highway, and naturally the little country resented the mistake, and we in our weakness and sympathy, shed a tear for Belgium. How could we help it and be the awfully good and tender people that we are? No, we are not strictly neutral.

The great and illustrious author of France is now touring Italy in behalf of the allies. He charges that the pope, in his effort to be neutral, is sacrificing his religion, and playing the hypocrite. The situation, he says, demands the pope’s defense of Belgium; that the Roman church cannot be neutral in such a case.

But though we are not neutral in feelings and sentiment, we can at least keep tied up our dogs of war.