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MY

LAST DRINK
THE GREATEST HUMAN STORY
EVER WRITTEN
A powerful personal history of a Chicago
Alderman and well-known business man
who dropped from power and wealth to
poverty and prison through drink.
By Alderman JOSEPH H. FRANCIS, Chicago
A Tragic History that Every Man and Woman
in America Should Read

Published by
THE EMPIRE BOOK CO.,
633 Plymouth Court
CHICAGO
THE MODERN PRESS, CHICAGO º
Qe
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%
Copyright 1915 by JOSEPH H. FRANCIS
H Y
5O (, 3
F 92.
* > * * 2° W) “...'
* : . . .” - *

§ Franciscºs .
Booze boycotts the brain.
A boozer has a dent in his brain.
A little drink makes a big man shrink.
All saloon keepers argue that a fly is a pest.
Take a pony of brandy and ride to destruction.
A boozer may fool himself, but he cannot fool nature.
Battling with booze is like trying to corner the wind.
A saloon keeper's friendship is tied with a rope of sand.
Drinking men are the architects of their own mis-
fortunes.
You don’t find comfort or prosperity in the home of a
booze fighter.
Some men's idea of pleasure is to do the things that
brings them misery.
When you see a prominent citizen trying to unlock his
front door with a lead pencil, look out.
The only man in the universe that can get full and
keep his head with him is the man in the moon.

Gº-
& FRANCISGRAMs
#
sº
Whiskey and war are twins.
Booze is the best stranger in the world.
Moderation in drinking is damnation in embryo.
A saloon keeper is simply a stoker for the devil.
Booze is the misery of many for the gain of a few.
A glass of booze is a ticket in the lottery of death.
Let us crush these booze artists in human slaughter.
A lazy man never kicks when carrying a heavy load
of booze.
A saloon keeper floats the American flag and hands you
a shroud.
If you want to pluck the flower of sorrow follow the
booze route.
A corkscrew is straight compared with the average
saloon keeper.
Field of honor for sober men, Potter's field for
drinking men.
A saloon keeper's friendship is like the tide; when you
are all in, he's out.

G= =RS
& FRANCISGRAMS #
Safety first is sobriety first.
Gin and genius make a faulty team.
A whiskey smile soon turns to a frown.
Alcohol is not included in the scheme of life.
What is a chaser? Ask the snake in the whiskey.
It is only a short life from the Blackstone to the Bride-
well.
Whiskey is the monkey wrench in the machinery of
efficiency.
The saloons do not need regulation, they need
strangulation.
A street car says:– “Pay as you enter.” A saloon,
“Die as you enter.”
A saloon thrives on widows' tears, mothers’ heart-
aches and starving children.
An old man with white hair is today more in demand
than a young man with a red nose.
Split a bottle of champagne with a saloon keeper and
he will usually reciprocate by splitting a bottle of beer.

G= —D
& FRANCISGRAMS #
Thinkers are not drinkers.
Booze has no place in business.
Good intentions never enter saloon doors.
Every “day of grace” for the saloon is a disgrace.
A boozer is the one-legged man in the race of life.
A whiskey blossom on your nose blooms the year
'round. -
An overdrawn nature account and bank account spell
failure.
The race today is not for the swiftest but for the
soberest.
Putting alcohol in your system is like throwing gaso-
line on a flame.
A saloon sign, “Workingmen’s Home,” should be
“Workingmen’s Morgue.”
The public school is the foundation of life; the public
saloon is the foundation of death.
A man can go through mercantile bankruptcy several
times—booze bankruptcy but once.

º
FRANCIS(GRAMIS
.
Think before you drink.
An eye opener closes the eyes.
The men who booze are the men who lose.
The best substitute for the saloon is the home.
Booze ruins one internally, externally and eternally.
Americans must kill King Alcohol, or he will kill them.
Watch your step—that it doesn’t lead you into the
saloons.
It’s a short road from good fellowship to good for
nothingness.
The monarchy of King Alcohol seems to be turning
into a dry republic.
Public opinion supressed firecrackers, and public
opinion will supress fire water.
If George Washington could come back to America to-
day, he would write another farewell letter—and die.
You can’t get a man to eat honey that contains a live
bee—but you can get a man to drink whiskey that contains
a live snake.
J U S T A W O R D P E R S O N A L
A CHICAGO business man, known the country
over as a humanitarian; a liberal and char-
itable gentleman; one of the most successful in
his chosen work in the United States, asked
permission to read the manuscript of “My Last
Drink.” Here is his written opinion:
LDERMAN, I have read your experi-
ience with the demon and how you
conquered him. Publish it so that every man
and woman in the country may read it.
Send your story out into the world as a
warning. If men will read your story, and
re-read it, until it is written on their mem-
ories you will have done a greater service for
humanity than any man of the present
generation; more for mankind than any
agency or any thousand men have done in
many, many years. Give it, Alderman, every
word of your history and experience. Every
employer in the country should place a copy
of “My Last Drink” in the hands of every man
in his employ.
AND SO IT IS PRINTED I
Only when facts and expositions about drink are
given to the public by a human living being—one who has
traveled the terrible alcoholic road to ruin—do they have
reality, color, warmth, or convincing power.
* --> ~£h
“If I ever get a chance to hit the damnable business I
will hit it good and hard.”—A. Lincoln.
C H A P T E R O N E
My First Drink and My Fall
ENRY WARD BEECHER Once Said:
“The man who is worth while is the one
who bares his life and experience for the benefit
of his fellow men.”
A man who played both ends of the game
of life certainly possesses qualifications as a judge.
For years I occupied a front seat on the infernal
brink of drink. t
I Spare myself nothing in this tragic recital.
It is not made in a boastful manner, but in a
heart full of humiliation and had it another object
but warning to my fellow men, would shame a
man to his grave.
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Degraded? Yes. This is a story of degrada-
tion. Hence, I am only outlining, hinting, whis-
pering, hoping that some poor human being
may be warned and saved from starting on a
campaign of drink that will end in wreck—wreck
of everything that is kind, sensitive, human and
honorable.
I had the honor of enumerating among my
friends, Governor Edward F. Dunne, and Charles
S. Deneen of Illinois, Mayors William Hale
Thompson, Carter H. Harrison, Fred A. Busse, and
nearly all of the leading judges in the Circuit,
Superior and Municipal Courts of Chicago; many
of the leading bankers and business men of
Chicago and in hundreds of cities throughout the
United States. With all these associations, and
connections and surroundings that any man
should be proud of, I tottered and fell—a hope-
less victim of drink.
I had more opportunities than the average
man. I was successful in business, had the dis-
A whiskey drinker never dies—he is dead before the start.
Thinkers are not drinkers.
10
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
tinction of being a Chicago Alderman, was hon-
ored with other public offices, was a delegate to
a political National Convention. I had wealth,
excellent health and most substantial prosperity.
I had a business that paid me annually a good
many thousands of dollars, had a beautiful home
in one of Chicago’s most aristocratic districts, had
automobiles, servants, and all the good things
of life that go with sobriety, wealth, refinement,
ambition, and respect; a member and officer in a
number of Chicago’s leading social and commer-
cial clubs, a Thirty-second Degree Mason, a
publisher and owner of one of America’s largest
magazines; the author of several standard works,
a happy family and devoted wife—all swallowed
up in the whirlpool of drink. I drank up my
prospects and fortune; I drank up my friendships,
and there were never more devoted and long
suffering friends. I drank up a home—the home
of my wife and family—and saw them turned
penniless into the street.
A saloon thrives on widows’ tears, mother’s heartaches
and starving children.
11
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
And with that sight in my mind I still drank
harder and harder, brooding over the troubles I
had created for myself, getting deeper in the
meshes of the snake day by day. No argument,
restraint, or treatment, could stay my insatiable
thirst and desire for drink—it seemed as though
only death could win the battle for me.
Drink held me in bondage. I was not my
own master. I was a helpless victim, being held
with a strangle hold. Try as I would, I could
not escape from the demon alcohol. He pursued
me everywhere. From coast to coast and across
the ocean, he was my constant companion. I
was bound, brain, hand and foot. How should I
break this terrible chain binding me to this chariot
of destruction?
Heart and head refused to receive the ter-
rible warning handed to me in tremors, sickness
and loss of health and all worldly possessions—
until at last whiskey won its fell victory, and I
was whipped, ruined and disgraced.
A boozer may fool himself, but he cannot fool nature.
A whiskey smile soon turns to a frown.
12
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Like thousands of drinkers, I banked on my
superior will power and resistance to prevent me
from falling to the bottom. But the snake-hole
was open and down, down to the bottom I
dropped, forced into poverty, crime and prison.
I partook freely of the juice proffered by the ser-
pent and was stung, stung nearly to death. I
sank to the level and class of a tramp. Booze
had done its work, and left me a mental wreck.
I used to reason that the other fellow was
drinking too mueh for his own good and should
let up. I was positive I was all right and could
quit drinking anytime I wanted to. But when I
tried to do so I made an inglorious failure.
I am not posing as a horrible example, but
as a living example of what can be accomplished
when a man just resolves to quit the habit.
Neither am I a reformer, but rather an informer
to those that are following the path I did, to
inform them that the same abyss of disaster is
awaiting to consume them unless they clamp
A corkscrew is straight compared with the average
saloon keeper.
13
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
the lid on drink quickly and permanently.
And I want to warn every drinking man—a
moderate, occasional or periodical drinker who
reads these lines—the chances are 100 to 1 that
if you don’t quit the game you will wake up some
day and find yourself at the tail end of the pro-
cession, the same as I did. You may be a man of
delicate sensibility, of lofty purpose, and of tower-
ing intellect; you may have qualities which, un-
tainted by alcohol, would adorn any character,
but if addicted to whiskey, your destruction is
certain. -
When did this work of ruin begin?
I acquired the drinking habit just the same
as thousands of others have and are acquiring it
today. I drank whiskey just as myriads of
men do; drank and thought I attended to busi-
ness, prospered for a time, kept my health and
head for a time, provided for my family, was a
“good fellow,” and easily maintained my position
in the community. I was forming an awful habit.
The best substitute for the saloon is the home.
Moderation in drinking is damnation in embryo.
14
M Y L A S T D R I N K
I was slipping every day. I didn’t realize it. My
friends did. -
My first step in drink was in the very best
drinking places, where I met and drank daily with
well-groomed, high-class, respectable gentlemen.
With these “good” companions I contracted un-
controllable habits which led me to the brink.
When a shabbily dressed man would enter a bar
room, one whom I had known in former years as a
successful man, one of my associates would say:
“There's Bill Smith. Five years ago he was a
successful broker in LaSalle Street. Old booze
has him by the neck.”
We passed it off with a laugh and another
drink, feeling cocksure we would never get in the
condition of Bill Smith. Oh, no! But nearly
every one of us got there.
I used to take a drink at the club, at social
gatherings, at political blowouts, weddings, etc.,
and afl places where the alleged spirit of good
fellowship presented itself. I would never turn
A lazy man never kicks when carrying a heavy load of booze.
An eye opener closes the eyes.
15
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
my glass down when the champagne, wine and
booze came along. Always had it right side up
for another helping. I thought I was having a
good time. Here is where I fooled myself as all
men do who are drinking—just for company’s
Sake. .
My descent was slow at first, but as the
appetite grew I dropped from the moderate class
to the rapid and confirmed ranks.
As it was noised among my friends that I
was drinking too much, getting to be a drunkard
in fact, at first my self respect was shocked and I
felt as though I could not again face my friends
and the world with the same high consciousness of
worth and manhood as before. I had been called
a drunkard. I began to believe it. One feels that
he is in imminent danger of becoming the worst
of outcasts, a confirmed drunkard, a burden and
disgrace to his friends and community. The
physical suffering which he endures is nothing
to his mental torture. It seems to him as though
Whiskey is the monkey wrench in the machinery of
efficiency.
16
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
every person whom he meets is aware of his
feelings and disgrace, and look upon him as a
ruined, drunken, degraded man. His resolutions
of reformation are usually like ropes of Sand.
Mine were; I was powerless to throw the dragon
off.
I had aspirations, ambitions, successes, and
wealth; my shambling figure once walked as
proudly as any man; a real man in a world of
men. I strangled those thoughts, in more drink,
that I might not be tortured any more. My pas-
sion for drink brought additional darkness, and
desolation. Home, family, business and friends,
swallowed in the maelstrom of drink. As I would
walk the street I could see old friends pointing
me out and discussing my condition.
Knowing all these things but too fully steeped
in drink to realize, I kept plunging forward. The
demon seemed to have put a death hold on me. Try
as I would there did not seem to be any avenue of
eScape.
Drinking men are the architects of their own misfortunes.
What is a chaser? Ask the snake in the whiskey.
17
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Often a friend would place his hand on my
shoulder and say, “Alderman, you are hitting
your brain against a bottle a little too often, your
face shows it, your actions and condition show it.
Better put the brakes on or you will meet with an
awful collision one of these days.”
I felt somewhat peeved at this advice,
feeling like all drinking men, that it was nobody’s
business but my own; that I was all right and
could quit anytime I wished. I didn’t quit, I
couldn’t quit. I was anchored soul, body and mind
to the monster.
I tried and struggled and resolved many times
to drink no more. But the beast was only Scotched,
not caged. My strength and will power to resist
was dead.
Every mental faculty was unhinged and every
physical power benumbed and my whole being
was rendered helpless and degraded, and in this
condition I committed crimes and acts that no
sane man would ever dream of.
The saloons do not need regulation, they need strangulation.
Booze boycotts the brain.
18
M Y L A S T D R IN K
Drink first destroys or injures what is most
sensitive, most important, the brain. No man who
has hls system polluted with whiskey can be
depended upon for anything, and you cannot
trust yourself, you are drunk at the top, for every
drop of alcohol goes there first. Your mind and
brain are clouded by alcoholic paralysis. From
the top down—that is the way whiskey works on
a man; it ruins first what is highest in him—
the moral qualities so carefully acquired in the
long years of evolution. It is the most fragile
part of the mental machinery that is first impaired
—that which has been recently and most care-
fully built up in the creation of character—the
moral part.
A man is a fool who requires to be taught by
bitter experience that alcohol is a monster that
will destroy. So don't experiment with it—take
a victim’s word that it is fatal to tempt or trifle
with.
At last whiskey had done its cruel work. I
Columbus discovered America, John Barleycorn, Personal.
Liberty. -
19
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
became a confirmed, drunken wretch, forsaken, it
seemed, by God and man, pitied by some, de-
spised by others, a burden and disgrace to my
family and friends and the community. I finally
became a wandering outcast in the world, exper-
iencing the awful happenings that are the life
of a helpless, hopeless drunkard.
20
C H A P T E R T W O
Dark Side of a Drinking Man’s Life
Y PASSION for drink continued to grow and
darkness and desolation met me at every
turn. -
Imagining myself a strong willed man I did
not think of the possibility of defeat from
drink. I was aware that whiskey had ruined my
home and prospects and blighted many a brilliant
brain. I was not as strong mentally as I figured.
This was the weakness of my equipment for the
fight. I didn’t know it then but as I kept drifting
down the valley of gloom and despair I then
realized the sadness of my condition.
An old man of 60 with white hair is today more in demand
than a young man of 30 with a red nose.
21
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
The hospitals and poor houses and jails are
full of men who imagined they had strong minds
and argued to themselves they could quit any time.
Booze is a sure loser for any man. I used to be
one of the wise ones who would say, “I can quit
it any time I want to.” That’s a joke. About
the time you think you want to quit you are about
three-quarters of the way to being a drunkard
or bum, and something seems to say, “What’s the
use of stopping, might as well finish the course,”
and your finish is always a bad one, too. Your
appetite is increasing, drink is gaining on you,
and gains with every man who tampers with it.
When a man allows his alcoholic appetite to
control him, he is turning his body into a charnel
house, and is slowly but surely approaching an
awful chasm of distress, and digging his own path-
way down to hell.
No man ever made the desperate struggle
that I did. The attitude of the world was cruel
at times. I figured it was a battle no man could
It is just a short crooked road from moderate drinking
to drunkenness.
22
M Y L A S T D R I N K
win and that thousands have lost. The liquid
devil seemed to be unconquerable. I would fight
and resolve and fall and go down to defeat. I
had learned at an awful cost the terrible power
of whiskey.
My friends used to say to me, “Why don’t
you cut it out, Alderman?” I was powerless, the
habit had enslaved me. If you saw a soldier with
a sword thrust through his body, pinioning him
to a tree would these same people say to him,
“Why don’t you pull it out? Why don’t you be
free?”
This battle to be free from the curse of drink
is a long, cruel and silent one and you must
do your fighting alone, too.
One bitter cold morning I stood in front of
the Auditorium Hotel, watching well-dressed,
properly nourished, prosperous men leaving for
their offices, many of whom were my associates
and friends in my sober, prosperous days. When
I saw these men, for a moment the fact came to my
Putting alcohol in your system is like throwing gasoline
on a flame.
23
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
mind that I once was like them and I had aspira-
tions and successes, and ambitions that soared
as high as the morning star, and I broke and
bruised and strangled their beautiful wings under
the blighting curse of drink.
Birth, wealth, power, education and genius
all fall before this horrible vice—drink. No one
is immune who drinks; age is no barrier.
I was maudlin and nervous from drink;
hungry, and my clothes spotted and frazzled.
The sight of these gentlemen filled me with bitter
memories and remorse. I was still drifting
towards the goal of destruction.
And there I stood, a homeless, friendless
tramp, a man in whom every good impulse was
dead. All, all swallowed in the whirlpool of
drink, a shambling, wobbly, drunken outcast. I
was a pitiable spectacle.
I had slept the night before on the cold,
cement floor of the Harrison Street police station.
I slept as a tired dog sleeps, a dog worn out with
A reputation for sobriety is today a letter of credit.
A little drink makes a big man shrink.
24
M Y L A S T D R I N K
a fruitless chase, and laid there drunk as one
dead on the icy, hard floor. My companions were
the same I met at all police stations throughout
the country, tramps, burglars, pickpockets and
the usual class picked up by the city police and
“thrown in” for the night. With the same moan
nearly all assigned drink as the contributing cause
of their downfall.
Where could I go? What could I do?
There was no friendly hand or cheering word for
me any more. I had betrayed and saddened all
my old friends and acquaintances. The first
thought always of a discouraged drinking man is
more drink. For a time whiskey fades your
trouble, temporarily your bitter thoughts are
hushed, and drowsy forgetfulness pervades your
brain and your terrible condition is forgotten in
stupefaction.
I shuffled into a saloon on State street,
grabbed a few mouthfuls of free lunch, staggered
to a chair and in a few minutes was dead in sleep.
If you want to pluck the flower of sorrow follow the booze
route.
25
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Horrible dreams troubled and harassed me.
After about thirty minutes of this torture, a strong
hand had me by the shoulder and out into the
street the “good” saloon keeper threw me, minus
my hat, which a “guest” had relieved me of
while I slept. -
I was in a state of awful, cruel depression.
I felt as though the weight of the world was upon
me and bearing me down, down. I wanted some-
thing to lift this weight. I didn’t know what it
was. I took a jolt of whiskey, but it had little or
no effect on me unless it was to make me feel more
miserable. Upon my head and heart and brow
was the remorseless iron cross of suffering. Like
a treacherous and underhanded foe alcohol sat
enthroned.
You can see what an awful battle for life
confronts a whiskey slave. Whiskey is a demon
put on earth by the devil to torture the souls of
II16I1.
There is something unnatural about the
It’s a short road from good-fellowship to good-for-
nothingness.
26
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
person who can look upon human sorrow, without
being himself affected. Even in my helpless con-
dition I did what little I could to assist many un-
fortunates, although I was as bad off as they were.
I drifted into a low groggery on North Clark
street, Chicago, when in walked a bleared eyed,
unshaven man about fifty years of age, clothed
in rags and dirt. With trembling hands and
voice he said:
“Pard, slip me a jitney for a brain duster. I
must have a drink or I will die.” I gave the un-
fortunate man a nickel. I was interested in him.
One could see he had been a man in his day, and
after his drink he was quite voluble. I pried into
his past.
He eyed me with a pathetic look and arising
from a beer keg on which he was seated he was
indeed a study.
And there he stood with a grace and dignity
that all his rags and dirt could not obscure, and
without any prelude he said:
Let us crush these booze artists in human slaughter.
Booze ruins one internally, externally and eternally.
27
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
“I am a graduate of Yale. Ever hear of
Yale 2 Splendid educational institution. You’d
never believe it if I told you,” he drawled. “Some
of the old men around Chicago remember me. I
was a criminal lawyer.” He whispered his name,
which was a truly honorable one until drink
gripped him. “Ten years ago seems a long time,
but it wasn’t so long in the going. Started boozing
accidentally. Took a sniff of it at the club or a
social function. I did it, though I knew it was
wrong, and have been doing it ever since. To-day
I am a human wreck, my end is near.”
He plucked nervously at his coat, straightened
his tie, brushed his hand across his face and
in a sorrowing voice slowly said: “Awful nervous.
Stuff makes you nervous. Leaps through your
brain. Sets it afire.” And he fell over in a
whiskey fit on the floor. A policeman was called;
the “wagon” came rumbling up and he was carted
to the East Chicago Avenue police station, and
upon arriving there was dead. It was a sad death.
Watch your step—that it doesn’t lead you into the saloons.
The men who booze are the men who lose.
28
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
There was no comfort on that dying pillow. No
sweet repose. The gentle hand of mother, wife,
or daughter was missing. No voice of consolation
or friendship. Dying alone and like a dog.
There is a sermon in this man’s life, Mr.
Drinkerſ
Notwithstanding this terrible lesson I con-
tinued to drink and drift. My companions were
that great army of whiskey soaked wretches,
thousands of whom had been respectable and
honored men until booze seduced them, always
circulating between the barrel houses, cheap
lodging houses, saloons, police stations, jails,
hospitals and poor house.
There was nothing too dangerous for me to
attempt to secure money to appease my burning
and horrible thirst for whiskey. I must have
drink. Wandering from city to city, state to state,
I was insane and aimless in my thoughts, stupid
and benumbed from drink and kept on wandering,
wandering, and drinking, drinking. A period in
A saloon keeper's friendship is tied with a rope of sand.
Think before you drink.
29
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
jail in Richmond, Va., Portland, Maine, or San
Diego, Cal., or of any other twenty-five cities I
could name, had no deterring effect. I would
make resolutions, however, but I was chained to
the brute and it seemed as though no human ef-
fort could break the fetters.
The mind of a strong man soon becomes
palsied from drink. His brain weakens, his char-
acter falls, his judgment is worthless and his life
useless, and any man that drinks is certainly
taking a long chance on being trapped.
It seems unbelievable, this hideous thing
which had happened to me. I slowly recalled the
steps by which I had arrived at this disaster. I
was not so far gone but what I could remember
some things, but past performances did not appeal
to me. Nothing appealed to me but drink.
I soon discovered that it was not the barrel
houses, cheap Saloons and groggeries and slums
and rookeries of alcoholism that do the worst
work. These places are only way stations on the
A glass of booze is a ticket in the lottery of death.
Good intentions never enter saloon doors.
30
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
road to death. Where did that bloated, ulcerous,
wheezing wretch that comes hobbling and stag-
gering out of a barrel house, get his habit started?
Certainly not in a barrel house, but at one of the
so-called respectable saloons, restaurants, clubs or
the bar of a leading hotel.
“Is a man insane when he is drinking?”
Yes, and it is a strange and weird insanity. When
I was drinking I knew I was myself, but had no
power to be myself. This appears paradoxical
but it is true. I was occasionally rational and
lucid in act and speech, but it was not the ration-
ality and lucidity of my real self, it was always
the conduct of a personality the opposite to my
OWI).
Whiskey is a murderer, and the law should
treat it as a deadly poison, and treat those who
make it and sell it, after the passage of suitable
laws, as they would treat any other dealer in a
poisonous, murderous agency. In every foot of
the United States territory whiskey should be
The only man in the universe that can get full and keep his
head with him is the man in the moon.
31
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
declared by federal law, by state law and by
declaration of the interstate commerce authorities
a poison, and its sale a crime.
My saddest experiences in grappling with
drink were yet to come.
32
C H A P T E R T H R E E
Why Men Drink
RINKING baffles us, confounds us, shames us
and mocks us at every point. It outwits the
man of business and the worker.
Why men drink? Any man that drinks can
assign many reasons, not one of which is logical
or tenable. I have known thousands of really
good men who, discouraged and badgered,
and pressed in their business have taken away
the keen vitality of their life by resorting to the
cup and this habit thus formed finally led to their
downfall. Is not this going on all the time? Are
there not hundreds and thousands of cases, almost
Which will you choose—the Field of Honor or the
Potter’s Field.
33
M Y L. A S T D R H N K
in our very midst, of persons who have in some
such way become victims of this terrible scourge?
No sane man should drink to drown trouble. It
cannot be done. You are simply chaining failure
to your life. I did. I discovered that a clear brain
and sober body will overcome trouble quicker
than booze. In some cases whiskey creates an
increased brilliancy at first, but it is a temporary
and suicidal flash only, burning out swiftly into
the ashes of an utter ruin. I need not repeat to
any reader the names of men, once renowned for
intellectual attainments, but afterward degraded
by strong drink to the stupidity and loathsomeness
of a Sot.
Never delude yourself that you need a bracer.
The use of a bracer is dead wrong. Bracers
destroy the warning signals of nature to tired,
exhausted men. Bracers abolish fatigue for the
moment, but fatigue warns the body that rest and
recreation are necessary. This bracing drink is
ofttimes the beginning of an awful end. I
A man can go through mercantile bankruptcy several times
—booze bankruptcy but once.
34
M Y L A S T D R I N K
know that whiskey poisons and shortens life.
Whiskey does not give strength. I was
deluded into that belief to my awful sorrow. I
felt stronger for the moment after taking a drink
but it was simply temporary delusion. I had
irritation, and aggravation, not strength, and I
was unwittingly consuming one day the capital
for the next. I was running in debt to nature.
It is a foolish sociability, the desire for show-
ing friendship and being agreeable that influences
many men to drink whiskey. It is not for any
good it is going to do them or any particular happi-
ness that it affords, but it is this sociability. Man
is a sociable being and he looks for some fellow
man in discussing questions of the day, his
troubles, and things of that sort, but he can culti-
vate a taste for something besides whiskey—
something that will not enslave and ruin.
As a rule a man drinks to excess with a defi-
nite end in view—principally that he may acquire
power to be something more than he naturally is.
A saloon keeper floats the American flag and hands
you a shroud.
35
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
He is depressed, and he wants to be cheerful; he
is timid and he desires to be brave; he is going
to “touch” someone and needs a little more steam
and nerve; he is cold and wishes to be warm; he
is feeble in mind and body and wants the world
to look brighter—and quickly, too.
One of the many reasons men cling to alco.
holic drinks is the belief in their value for nour-
ishment and strength. The moment these idols
fall to the ground the better for them. Public
Schools should universally teach upon this most
important subject.
How can whiskey drown trouble when it will
not drown a snake?
Mental depression and nervousness caused
by overwork drives many men to try whiskey.
The higher the nervous strain, once the habit is
formed, the more whiskey is needed and de-
manded. You are then in the drunkard class, but
don’t realize it. You don’t believe it; I didn’t
either. But when I made up my mind to quit I
Battling with booze is like trying to corner the wind.
A saloon keeper is simply a stoker for the devil.
36
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
didn’t have any mind, no will power, no power of
resistance. I was gone. A little rest, recrea-
tion, or sleep is better than all the stimulant in the
world for a man who feels run down. This
imaginary physical condition has started thou-
sands of men on the road to ruin. Once you fool
with drink you are liable to find the habit fixed
before you are aware of it.
Thousands of men drink for an imaginary
weakness of the stomach, and a faintness and
goneness, especially when they arise in the morn-
ing. Others imagine whiskey aids digestion, when
as a matter of fact it retards it. But the most
nonsensical habit of all is the poisonous “night
cap” before retiring. Never take this night drink
to aid tired nerves and produce sleep, which is a
cruel fallacy.
The solid mass of men who make up the aris-
tocratic clubs of all cities never drink to get
drunk but I have seen thousands of them
land in the “has-been” class. Such men work at
The race today is not for the swiftest but for the soberest.
Safety first means sober first.
37
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
high pressure, hard and fast in business hours;
and they continue to drink in order to work
harder, always feeling that they are too wise and
strong headed to become a victim of drink, but
some day they fall, and I found all cities full of
broken down club men and “brilliants,” and pro-
fessional men, acting as night cashiers in lunch
rooms, watchmen, doortenders, and other light
positions, and always bent on telling you who they
know and of their former greatness. The only
man they knew real well was John Barleycorn.
Any man who attempts to “drown his sorrows
in the flowing bowl” is doomed from the start.
When a man first starts out to be a “regular
fellow,” and has money and health and position,
a little stimulant gives him a fictitious value of his
greatness and importance. He is charmed and
delighted when he plunges into a grandly
equipped, gorgeous and well-lighted Saloon. He
is pleased with the pleasant Smile and welcome
of the proprietor. The handy third rail for your
The public school is the foundation of life; the public
saloon is the foundation of death.
38
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
foot, the mahogany bar for your service and the
alleged hearty good fellowship surroundings
drive away all care and thought of the morrow,
all of which is the first degree in the drama of
destruction.
A little whiskey with your friends at this
time and place, you reason, is not so bad. As time
goes on you require more drink, the habit is form-
ing and finally, taking too much of the poison,
you are not wanted in one of the fine drinking
places, the barrel house for yours.
Come back to the smiling bartender when
you are broke, unshaven and unkempt, and ask
for a drink, “just for old time’s sake.” That
smile has turned to a frown and a refusal. The
saloonkeeper is Smiling and breaking in a new
batch of victims. All drinking men finally go the
same route and land at the same station—Death.
I have been in splendid whiskey places, with
liveried bartenders, masterpieces of painting on
the wall, furnishings, rugs, and divans, and loung-
It is only a short life from the Blackstone to the Bridewell.
Whiskey is not included in the scheme of life.
39
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
ing chairs not equalled in a Turkish harem, where
you could loll and loaf and fill your hide with
poison. The grandeur of the surroundings
dignifies you while the whiskey stupefies you.
This life is a short and merry one and lack of
money pushes you down the scale. I have drunk
champagne in the Blackstone, Squirrel booze in a
barrel house and finally wound up on soup in the
Bridewell. Which do you suppose I enjoyed the
most?
Drunkenness is certainly the most peculiar
of all vices. A man can gamble and still make
money. He can live an unmoral life and do the
same; but if he is habitually intoxicated he loses
the power of self-support, and, of course, the
power of providing for his family. This is the
reason why society interferes, and has the right
to interfere, with the custom of drinking. The
drink evil is a handicap for any race to carry, just
as tuberculosis or yellow fever are handicaps. It
impairs vitality, reduces efficiency, energy,
There are sixty different kinds of religious creeds in the
United States, but only one kind of saloon.
40
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
initiative and working power. Any man who
tries to cheat himself in playing the game of life
will always find conditions stacked against him.
Whiskey disappoints and betrays all but those
who deliberately seek death for body and mind.
Alcohol is the drunkard's hangman, its aid
is treacherous, it betrays and depraves him. He
struts for a while and glorifies himself on whiskey’s
prowess which he arrogates as his own; but his
self deception is patent, and is presently exposed.
In short, excitement from drink imposes upon a
man a selfhood which is not his own, but a false
and monstrous exaggeration of it. At first it
seems to give him strength of faculty beyond his
normal, but rapidly it hurries him into folly and
danger and ends by sousing him ignobly and
helplessly in the gutter.
The similarity of drunkenness to insanity or
madness has always been noticed; it dilates a good
man into a monster—and then an alcoholic im-
becile. Men filled with liquor have been known
Booze is the misery of many for the gain of a few.
A whiskey blossom on your nose blooms the year 'round.
41
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
to commit all the crimes in the calendar without
being properly conscious of the fact. Insanity
could do no more.
Treating is another bad feature of the drink-
ing habit. If you met a friend in a grocery store
and he purchased a pound of sugar he would not
ask you to step up and have a pound. If you are
in a saloon and the same friend comes in to buy
a drink he will ask you to have something with
him. If treating were abolished in the United
States it would be a step in the right direction.
That is to say, when a person wishes to take a
drink of intoxicating liquor he may not invite a
friend to drink with him. Thousands of men
would be unable to secure a drink if it were not
for some acquaintance treating them. I have
been broke for weeks, in every section of the
United States, but drinks were always plenty,
through treating.
In the United States one or two common-
wealths that have not banished the saloon have
A street car says:—“Pay as you enter.” A saloon,
“Die as you enter.”
42
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
sought to destroy the treating habit by passing
laws against it. But it seems to be difficult to up-
hold enactments of that sort.
The bane of all drink holes is this miserable
custom—the saloon etiquette of treating. “I’m
just going to take a drink, won’t you join me?”
This game is fostered and systematically nursed
by all saloon keepers in the so-called respectable
saloon as well as the lowest groggery—and every
drinking man knows what I say is true. Saloon
treating is a wicked and pernicious habit and
should be blotted out of every community.
A strict and enforced anti-treating law would
cause thousands of saloons to cease business.
43
C H A P T E R F O U R
The Moderate Drinker
ODERATE drinking is the father of all drunk-
enness. All experience declares its truth.
The moderate consumers of intoxicating drinks
are the chief agents in promoting and perpetuating
drunkenness. Moderate drinking is the begin-
ning of that inclined plane which will slide you
easily to destruction. It seems pleasant and safe
at first, but the end will be demoralizing. Take
a former moderate drinking victim’s word for that.
The moderate drinker is the great stumbling
block to sobriety. It is not the drunkard in the
gutter that a young man has in his mind when he
Americans must kill King Alcohol, or he will kill them.
Booze is the best stranger in the world.
44
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
takes his first drink. It is his respectable mod-
erate drinking neighbor. He reasons what harm
can there be in drinking when such men drink
booze and beer at high class bars and clubs and
even under their own roof. The higher a man
stands in a community the greater is his influence
either for good or evil.
There are thousands upon thousands who
are weak, of excitable temperament, easily
tempted, strong passioned, and to whom modera-
tion in the use of alcoholic stimulant as a beverage
almost inevitably lead to dissipation and ruin.
Intenperance is supported and perpetuated
by the moderate drinker. The moderate drinker
of to-day is the outcast of the next decade. That
continued tippling will create an appetite and a
mastery that no man can easily shake off.
Ask any man who has been a slave to drink
where the evil first began. He will tell you, of
course, in his first glass. Always in the moderate
use of it. Didn’t take much at first, didn’t care
A saloon sign, “Workingmen’s Home,” should be
“Workingmen’s Morgue.”
45
M Y L A S T D R IN K
anything about it. Could stop it any time he
wished. Always boasting of his vain confidence
of being able to control his appetite and to stop
just at the proper time. But in the booze there
was an adder, unseen and shifty, that stung the
moderate drinker, that forced him into unwilling
excesses. Any man that trifles with booze is
liable to be stung to death as it has stung millions.
The victims from moderate drinkers are
selected from the most promising, generous, social,
and affectionate of our business men. Genius,
education, family, profession, friends, furnish no
abiding obstacle or sure defense. When the de-
grading appetite has been formed and whetted,
it bursts through all these bonds. The noblest and
most cherished sons of our best connections are
here cast to perish with the vilest and the basest
of mankind. -
I have met socalled high-class men at the
most pretentious drinking places in all parts of the
country licking up the poison “only in modera-
Public opinion suppressed firecrackers, and public opinion
will suppress fire water.
46
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
tion.” Hundreds of these men are models of
morality, respectability, and piety in the world of
business. They know the tendency of appetite.
Know how the love for strong drink usually in-
creases until the moderate sip becomes a regular
beverage and the small glass is exchanged for a
larger one until the taste becomes a fixed habit
and the moderate drinker is transformed into a
toper, and the toper into a drunken sot.
So-called respectable moderate drinkers who
drink at the onyx bars do not believe that any
considerable number of men who are drunk are
served with drinks in saloons. In the high-class,
expensively equipped cafes, and saloons, sober
bartenders, Sober cashiers, Sober managers, and
sober porters usually refuse to serve drinks to
drunks or to poorly dressed, down-and-out appear-
ing persons; they want the money just the same,
but some high browed, moderate drinker, who is
a good spender would object to their company.
If you are well groomed you can go to the best
If George Washington could come back to America today
he would write another farewell letter—and die.
47
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
bar in the world and if your looks, speech or
action indicate you have been drinking, that’s
no hindrance, if you’ve got the coin. But in
alleged respectable saloons, noisy souses, sleepers,
loungers, or pan-handlers are not allowed to hang
around unless they are known to the management.
The jails, bridewells, houses of correction, peni-
tentiaries, state prisons, pens, asylums, hospitals,
and reformatories have many guests to-day that a
few years back were hail fellows well met, just
moderate drinkers, at the leading bars, cafes,
clubs, and hotels — pitiful, dying, miserable
wretches.
I met in New Orleans, La., a man well-known
throughout the south, a former banker with un-
limited wealth, and powerful business connections,
broken in health and fortune and a social outcast.
He was a complete alcoholic wreck. Every one
who had known him in his successful days avoided
and shunned him. I met him in a cheap saloon,
begging and crying for “just one more drink.”
Champagne bottle to black bottle is within easy reach.
A saloon is the hell gate on the road to success.
48
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
I was interested in the man after learning of
his former standing in the community. He told
me he started in as a moderate drinker, just one
or two drinks a day. The habit almost uncon-
sciously grew on him. Slight business reverses
came. Instead of battling them with a clear head
he took more drink. In a trembling voice and a
staggering gait, bent and decrepit, he walked to
a chair and with effort seating himself, said:
“Ten years ago I was just a moderate drinker.
But that habit caused my downfall. When I had
my first run of hard luck,” he said, “I turned to
whiskey. I wanted to feel good again. Whiskey
does it for a while. It makes you feel that you’re
a fine fellow and that you’d be a millionaire if you
could only get what was coming to you. What a
warning my condition ought to be to my whiskey
drinking acquaintances. Whiskey made me
forget my troubles, but it also made me forget my
ambitions. It was my undoing. Whiskey has
robbed me of home, family, wealth, health, posi-
Some men’s idea of pleasure is to do things that bring
them misery.
49
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
tion, character, business, friends, self respect, and
everything but life itself. It makes the world look
brighter for a little while. When I started to climb
up again I found that I had lost my punch. That
made me feel bad, and I went back to whiskey
to feel good again.” º
“And there you are l’’ he said, “Down and
out.”
“Why don’t you quit?” I asked.
“Forget it; you can’t quit when you get where
I am,” and with a pitying look and as plaintive
voice as man ever heard, he slowly continued;
“I am waiting to reach one more bar, where I
will not plead for drink but mercy. I know my
end is near.”
And if Mr. Moderate Drinker doesn’t take a
quick inventory of the condition he is drifting to
it will not be many years before he will be unable
to stem the tide that is bound to overwhelm him.
When the testing time comes the moderate
drinker is always found wanting. The drink habit
The evil that saloon keepers do lives after them.
A boozer has a dent in his brain.
50
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
has grown unconsciously upon him. He hesitates
resolves, and then falls. He is now in the second
degree of a drunkard’s life. He is easily and
quickly initiated in the third and final degree,
a lost man.
There is no such other one source of woe
and crime in the world as the excessive indulgence
in alcoholic drink. And the excess of indulgence
comes in a vast majority of cases from drinking
in moderation. There is that in the very nature
of alcohol that tends to excite thirst for deeper
draughts of it. If we stop the moderation, we
are sure of arresting a large amount of the excess.
Now that business men of the country—cold-
blooded, unsentimental, mathematical, rigidly
scientific—have stepped in and told their employ-
ees that drinking men are not wanted, the mod-
erate, occasional, periodical and habitual drinker
is waking up and taking notice. The Illinois
Steel Company in South Chicago have erected an
immense electric sign over the entrance to their
Don’t go to the capitals of Europe to see old ruins. Just
take a walk through the streets of any American city.
51
M Y L A S T D R I N K
works reading: “Did Booze Ever Do You Any
GOOd?”
Of course those who have followed medical
and scientific progress during the past few years
and those who have interested themselves in the
new science of human efficiency, know why big
business, railroad and commercial organizations
are taking this stand. But does it not seem
strange that these marchers behind the booze
banner should so willfully close their eyes to the
changed attitude of nearly all employers of help,
the men who heretofore have commanded their
willing subservience
Can’t they see that nearly all business houses
already have broken with booze? The man who
drinks is putting a burdensome mortgage on his
future. Business don’t want him, society won’t
have him and his end is not difficult to predict.
The drinking man, moderate or otherwise,
nowadays, soon finds his credit gone, efficiency and
economy spoiled, ability and industry squandered,
The monarchy of King Alcohol seems to be turning into a
dry republic.
52
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
honesty impaired and confidence of friends for-
feited. They soon become fit only for the most
menial positions in life.
Whiskey cheats and marches under false
colors. It attacks the old and the young, and
knows no rules of warfare. I want to tell the
young man who thinks he can “take whiskey or
leave it alone” or drink in moderation, that what
he says is perfectly true. He can take it or leave
it alone. But if he takes it he will probably find
that the time will come he can’t leave it alone. I
found this to be true in my case.
A man that drinks is always behind in the
procession of life. He is carrying too heavy a
handicap.
Nature is the great law maker and it does
not require a detective to find the man who vio-
lates her laws. The world is what it is and he
who disdains to pursue the sober, honest paths
that lead to worldly success and honor, is dedi-
cated to poverty and disgrace.
Decoration Day for old soldiers, Desecration Day for
old soaks.
53
MY L. A S T D R IN K
Could the man who today is only a moderate
drinker, be induced to take an inventory of himself
and look carefully into my experience and be made
to understand what a dreary thing it is when a
man shall feel himself going down a precipice with
open eyes and a passive will—to see his destruc-
tion and have no will power to stop it, and yet to
know he is himself to blame, to know that all
goodness has left him, and yet not to be able to
forget a time when it was otherwise—just brood-
ing over the piteous spectacle of his own self ruin,
I believe he would stop his half formed habit at
OI!Cé.
The history of alcoholism presents a tragedy,
the first act begins with a moderate use of the
poison and the second and last act finds you a
complete victim, and if you escape living a life
of drunkenness, vagabondism and crime you are
indeed lucky,
54
C H A P T E R F I V E
Experience With Saloons and Saloon Keepers
ON'T forget, young man, that when you enter
a drinking place and the saloon keeper
Smiles and welcomes you and gives you a hearty
handshake, that the claw of the tiger can always
be felt in the grip.
In a wide and variegated experience in
saloons, reaching from ocean to ocean, and from
Canada to Mexico, a fact that stands out most
prominently with me is the sameness of men and
ideas of saloon keepers, a hard, listless, unfeeling
lot, that once in a while perform some little act
of generosity, like giving you a drink or car
You don’t find comfort or prosperity in the home of a
booze fighter.
55
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
fare, and then imagine they are generous and
good fellows. That’s all it is—imagination.
There is plenty of artificial good fellowship
in a saloon keeper when a man spends money or
a live one drops in. I recollect a Chicago physi-
cian spending a Hundred and Fifty Dollars at a
Dearborn street bar one night and heard the
Saloon keeper in a gruff and villainous manner
refuse him a drink next morning when he was
suffering for it.
The men that own gin mills are different
from grocers and other tradesmen around them.
They are a harder, tougher, low-browed type,
singularly impervious to human sympathy or in-
terest in any matter whatever except the coin
and the music of the ring of the cash register,
which seems to soothe their robbing breasts.
Even when pleasant young fellows go into this
business they lapse into the “gin-head” type in a
short time. Two well-known young men, semi-
professional athletes, popular, jolly, healthy
When you see a prominent citizen trying to unlock his front
door with a lead pencil, look out.
56
MY L. A S T D R IN K
home boys, went into the saloon business in the
loop district in Chicago, but today both are typical
Saloon keepers, hard, Sneering, and broken in
health.
There is a reason for all this. One sees a
lot of human nature in all lines of business. The
Saloon keeper sees more and more of it than
anybody else. Everybody is trying to stick the
Saloon keeper. If he passes you too much
change one never hands it back, for every
regular patron of a saloon knows he is bunked
on drinks and short changed at any and all
times it is convenient.
The saloon is referred to by many as the
“Poor Man’s Club.” Well, it is rightly named,
it is clubbing the brains out of many a poor devil.
Others are labeled “Workingmen’s Home.” This
is a misnomer. It should read:—“Workingmen's
Morgue.” -
A poor man’s club | Isn’t that rich? No dues,
no passwords, you are known by signs. A red
A saloon keeper's cash register bell is the devil’s chime.
Gin and genius make a faulty team.
57
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
nose and ragged clotheş and almost shoeless feet
proves you are a life member. You pay no more
dues, only to nature. And when you shuffle off,
who buries you and looks after your family? The
saloon keeper? Oh, no! It is your sober, law
abiding neighbors of course, and the general
public is taxed for their maintenance.
You will hear defenders of the liquor traffic
make the statement that saloon keepers are “good
fellows.” If you think a saloon keeper is a good
fellow, call on one you have spent all your
money with and ask him for a drink. When an
old timer comes in, a miserable, trembling
tramp, and begs for a drink, he will be refused
and ordered out of the saloon. That tramp may
be you a few years from now—you, man, that can
drink or let it alone. -
How many, many times have I heard men
remark, “Where can a poor down and out go for
a bite and rest but a saloon?”
When you are hungry, broke and almost
A home is a vested right; a saloon a vested wrong.
Whiskey is the devil in liquid form.
58
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
perishing for a drink, did you ever go into a
saloon for relief? I have, a thousand times, in
saloons in every city in the United States. And
such a hearty reception you receive.
Walk into a saloon for a free lunch, broke.
You step up to the slop-jar of soup and start to
eat. This is what you will get from that “good
fellow” behind the bar. He will take a Seltzer
bottle and squirt it in your face and yell:—“Hey,
there, you guy, we want drinkers, we don’t want
eaters. Now you beat it on or I’ll give you a bat
in the belfry.” And that saloon soup is made of
noodles, poodles and cayoodles, seasoned with
cockroaches, bugs and flies. If you want a taste
of this good fellowship drop in any saloon and
tackle the lunch, without buying.
Other defenders of a saloon say:—“The
great majority of those who patronize the saloon
are not attracted thither by its liquors, but by
its recreative features.” Yes, that’s true. If you
walk into a saloon, grab a hunk of free lunch and
How can whiskey drown trouble when it will not drown
a snake?
59
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
don’t buy, you will have more recreation than
Jess Willard. The bartender or bouncer will
have you by the back of the neck and seat of the
trousers and if you don’t go through a plate glass
door, it’s because the door is open. Oh, yes!
you are welcome in a saloon, if you are broke, just
as welcome as a barrel house bum in the White
House.
The most abominable and manhood destroy-
ing pests in the country to my mind are the
saloons and bars tucked away in “respectable”
office buildings known as “snake holes!”
A so-called respectable, moderate drinking
citizen can sneak in one of these buildings, osten-
sibly on business. He is not seen entering a saloon
by his associates. In high class office build-
ings in all leading American cities these
“snake holes” are starting thousands of men,
young and old, on the road to the barrel house,
slums and destruction. I will say, however, that
all office buildings do not contain these “snake
An overdrawn nature account and bank account
spell failure.
60
Mi Y L. A S T D R I N K
holes,” as I could name fifty in Chicago, New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities that
will not lease space for a “snake hole !” Possibly
those who read this can locate office buildings
in their respective localities that permit the
existence of these vile holes. Many who patronize
these places are considered model men in their
home community, often being closely allied with
churches, civic bodies, and charitable societies,
for uplifting and supporting those who are cursed
by the burden of drink; reformers and philan-
thropists in the eyes of the world, but hypocrites
and Sneaks and cowards in the eyes of their
Master. These “snake holes” are the fountain
head of drunkenness.
I have met hundreds of saloon keepers who
were mean and grasping, absolutely devoid of
all love of humanity, men who care nothing for
their fellow being so long as they get the “coin.”
The “death bell” on the cash register is music in
their ears.
Every “day of grace” for the saloon is a disgrace.
Take a pony of brandy and ride to destruction
61
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
I know thousands of men engaged in the
saloon and whiskey business, having spent a for-
tune in making their acquaintance. The most
of them are prosperous, have comfortable and
beautiful homes, live easily, have all the good
things of this life, and seem happy. They live in
luxury because of the weakness of the poor man
who cannot resist the temptation to use their
goods. They are living on the blood money
wrung from the hearts of wives and children.
Does the saloon keeper have any pangs of I'em OY"Se
as he rides through the streets in a richly equipped
auto, with his diamond bedecked wife and well
dressed and nourished children, and sees some of
his bedraggled and besotted victims hobbling
along the street? He lives a life of luxury
from the destruction of these very people.
Saloon keepers know the goods they sell will
produce these results. They are case hardened.
They reason it is a legitimate business or the
municipality would not legalize it.
A boozer is the one-legged man in the race of life.
Whiskey and war are twins.
62
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
When a saloon keeper orders a few barrels
of booze from the distiller, does he stop to think
of how much misery he is adding to the com-
munity? How many curses he is heaping upon
himself; of how many heartaches and tears he is
causing; of how many men and families each
barrel will ruin? Then let Mr. Saloon Keeper
think of his wife and little ones who are made
comfortable through the distress of his neighbors
and the heart blood of human beings.
The many elements of evil fascination that
are about a saloon hold many men and youths
in a vise-like grip.
Saloons must have fresh drinking boys every
day, or they must go out of business for lack of
patronage. The saloon keeper cares nothing for
the ultimate effect of drink on his customers or
their children or families. A fresh drinking boy
every day is necessary to make the saloon cash
register ring musically in the saloon proprietor's
ears. Wretched men and saddened women and
A saloon keeper's friendship is like the tide; when you
are all in, he's out.
63
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
orphaned children are living testimonials of the
devastating work of saloons. For the groans and
heartaches of wives he cares nothing. Fill up
the ranks with fresh drinkers and let the old
paralyzed and emaciated soaks fill the hospitals,
graves, jails, asylums and poor houses. The
perpetuation of the saloon business is based on
minors forming the habit of liquor drinking at
the earliest possible age.
It is not right for any man to derive a living
from that which is debasing the minds and ruin-
ing the souls of men. No man has a moral or
should be given a legal right to sell a poison
which produces misery and madness; which is
destroying the happiness of the domestic circle,
ruining homes and families and filling the land
with women and children in a far more deplor-
able condition than that of widows and orphans;
which causes nearly all the crime and pauperism
that exists and which the law abiding and sober
citizenshp must pay for.
The best way to conquer whiskey is to shun it.
Safety first is sobriety first.
64
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
The liquor traffic is the same unrighteous
trade everywhere. It multiplies want, aggravates
misery, and stimulates every evil passion into
crime. The sufferings of its victims, the poverty,
hunger, nakedness, and cold of families, and the
battered body—with mind beclouded and con-
science destroyed—of the victim, makes a horri-
ble picture.
It is impossible to exaggerate, impossible
truthfully to paint the effects of this evil, either
on those who are addicted to it, or those who
indirectly suffer from it.
Incredible as it may seem to the decent
citizen who is not informed in the matter, the
tough saloons, barrel houses, pool rooms, and
cheap cabarets have formed a working organiza-
tion and are enabled to exert considerable in-
fluence in local politics through swinging the
bums and lodging house vote to “favorite sons.”
If the saloon keeper gets in trouble he appeals to
the organization, and they in turn go to the law-
Whiskey causes your old friends to rush by you like a
pay car passing a tramp.
65
MY L. A S T D R IN K
yer and politician who are there to protect them
in any villainy they may be charged with. A
saloon keeper always appeals to his brewer for
protection whenever in trouble, and the more of
that particular brewery “slop” he sells the more
protection and influence he is able to exact from
that source.
You can readily see that the saloon and the
use of intoxicating drinks is a greater destroying
force to life and health and º all other
physical evils combined, and all attempts to regu-
late it will not only prove abortive but will
aggravate the evil. Saloons do not need regula-
tion, they need strangulation. They must be
eradicated, not a root or germ must be left behind,
for until this is done the door of temptation and
destruction is wide open to the youth and man-
hood of the country.
The way of the transgressor is hard, but the
path of the saloon keeper is going to be harder.
If it were possible in every instance to deter-

Samson was not strong enough to carry a booze
handicap.
66
M Y L A S T D R I N K
mine with precision the responsible causes for all
the crimes committed and all the misery suffered
by unfortunate men and women it would be found
that in an overwhelming majority of cases the
saloons and their output would be at fault. It
is inconceivable that society should much longer
tolerate the existence of an institution that is a
social crime. Viewed from the standpoint of
economics the saloon is a parasite. It absorbs
much and yields nothing. No person is benefited
by its existence. The so-called license or revenue
it pays is negligible in comparison with the cost
it exacts. It is the most destructive agency of
which man has knowledge. Even war is not to
be compared with it in the ruin it inflicts, for
huge as is the waste of war and frightful as is
the suffering it occasions, war is periodical,
whereas the liquor traffic of the country is con-
tinuous in its devastation.
The license system of raising money does not
put the burden on the saloon keeper, but places
Sobriety stands for law, order, peace, health and
happiness.
67
M Y L. A S T D R A N K
the load on the poor and unfortunate booze
fighter. The saloon keeper has no money; if you
don’t feed him jitneys and dimes he quits busi-
ness. He is simply a distress collector for the
municipality in which he conducts his business.
Some people don’t seem to care how much crime
and misery and suffering you cause, Mr. Saloon
Keeper. Get all you can, in any way you can,
put up screens so people in the street cannot see
what you do, sell beer in cans and in buckets to
children, short change your customers, don’t turn
down a patron because he is ragged and filthy and
you know his family is starving—get the coin.
The liquor traffic stands alone and has no
right to rank with the ordinary avocations of
men. There is no trade so damaging to the peo-
ple and so hardening to the man engaged in it as
the saloon business. Men naturally kind hearted,
who would help a fellow being in distress, seem
in this trade to lose all humanity and sympathy
in the race for a nickel, even though it is wrung
Whiskey stands for drunkenness, poverty, crime, vice and
scores of attendant evils.
68
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
from the lifeblood of a brother and at the expense
of starving children and heartbroken wives.
The liquor, brewery, and saloon interests of
the United States are always active. They seek
to control national and local legislation, the press
and any agency that can benefit and perpetuate
their trade. This combination is as cunning as a
fox, wise as a serpent, strong as an ox, bold as a
lion, merciless as a tiger, remorseless as a hyena,
fierce as a pestilence, deadly as a plague. TO
condemn and correct such a group is not the pas-
time of an hour, but the manly, hero-born martyr-
dom and continuous work of the law abiding and
decent citizenship of the country.
69
C H A P T E R S I X
Living With the Underworld
SPENT months with the real underworld, not
only in Chicago, but in cities throughout
the country. It is a fact that a whiskey-driven
wretch slinks more and more into the lowest
haunts and fainter and fainter becomes his vision
of decency in attempting to appease his appetite
for drink.
Down among the sodden masses of drink
bound men I learned for myself, being one of the
unfortunate, the awful malignity and curse of
whiskey. In a west side saloon one morning I
found myself helplessly drunk. After sobering
The Liberty Bell’s cracked and so is Personal Liberty.
A dry Sunday makes a sober Monday.
70
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
up a trifle I looked around. Surrounding me was
an army of men, babbling and gesticulating. Such
a medley of human wreckage stood about me,
brought together through drink. I know such
a pitiful herd of unfortunates could not be dupli-
cated in any other place in the world but a grog-
gery—the underworld in action.
Here I was at last, drunk, homeless, helpless,
One of and among the human machines that put
themselves out of order with whiskey. I noted
their bloated faces and half nourished bodies,
bleared eyes, and vicious countenances, unwashed,
ragged, and all clamoring for drink, but in my
drunken condition I did not fully realize the
depths to which I had reached.
Here in this vermin infected district I prac-
tically lived for months. I was as familiar as
though born and bred in the place. Every thief,
bum, hobo, drunkard, and dope fiend seemed to be
a friend, and in my crazed and drunken condition
I entered body and soul into their lives. Where
You can’t raise American Beauty roses in a beer garden.
A bartender is the advance agent of the devil.
71
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
the liquor came from I do not remember, but it
was the rankest and vilest stuff that ever passed a
man’s lips. I was morally dead—from booze. I
was going through an awful experience. -
The degrading associates, the immoral at-
mosphere, the sad sights I witnessed, made up a
composite picture of sadness and despair that
will never be forgotten.
Here were seen all the bitter suffering and
utter despair of the men who had played the
wrong side of life and were paying the penalty,
the finished product of the vile saloon.
Here I met and consorted with many sorts of
criminals. My life among them, questioning
them, hearing them plan with their confederates
for a robbery as carefully as a board of bank
directors would consider an application for a loan,
I came to understand thoroughly the motives
and methods of that criminal portion of the com-
munity put down as the underworld. The great
mass of people know nothing about this class
Some men boast of being well preserved after a drinking
life. They ought to be—they are well pickled.
72
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
except that they are law breakers. Nearly every
one I met drank whiskey or were dope fiends.
Their meetings and conferences and planning
were always in a saloon.
With all the desolation and woe about me,
I was powerless to break away. I found life
with the underworld a cruel and remorseless one.
For weeks not a meal passed my lips, nothing but
cheap and half cooked food, put out as free lunch
in foul and insanitary saloons. I slept in chairs
and on benches in saloons a few hours during the
day, and if I managed to get a few nickels would
get a ten cent bed in a cheap lodging house;
failing in this I would walk the streets until the
Saloons opened at 5 A. M. The only time I was
sure of being in out of the cold for a night would
be when arrested for some offense and thrown in
a police station or the county jail, which occurred
many times.
I was not long in learning that all barrel
houses and most of the saloons give their un-
*:
A rubber back and a weak mind is the devil's model of a
perfect man.
73
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
derworld patrons every morning what is known
as an “eye opener” or a “brain duster,” or “shot
of dynamite.”
This starts you in for the day. Every bum
and whiskey drinker must have a drink in the
morning. I would start in South State Street and
wind up in Madison Street or Halsted Street,
getting a “lifesaver” of poison in nearly every
dump. By the time one had worked the system
he would be reasonably drunk and ready to com-
mit any deed the mind presented. Thousands are
going over the same route in Chicago today, and
in other cities throughout the United States, as
all groggeries have a similar scheme. These sa-
loon keepers figure that a few drinks will give a
bum nerve and he will start out to beg, borrow
or steal, and the proceeds will come to his joint.
I was aware in my half sane moments that
there was only one end to this life I was living.
I would try to restrain myself. A drunkard
lives in continual fear of delirium tremens. He
It is about as easy to separate the light and heat of the
sun as it is to separate drink and poverty.
74
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
cares nothing for death. I was gradually going
down the scale.
I was living in a world which knew nothing
of decency, sobriety, honor, or self-respect.
Such things as the thought of a former beautiful
home a few blocks from this cesspool of degrada-
tion was a vague and unregarded recollection. I
wanted drink—and more drink. Can you con-
ceive of such a world on West Madison Street,
within a stone’s throw of the beautiful Northwest-
ern Railway Station? Of course not! There it
was, and there it is today. Yet I lived there and
associated with thousands of poor wretches, many
of whom, like myself had seen better days, but the
everlasting crave for drink had pinioned them to
destruction. I drank with these men, begged
with them, slept with them, in cheap lodging
houses, trucks and cellarways. Sober enough to
read sometimes, I would muddle over a news-
paper. Wars, great political changes, deaths,
catastrophes, these events were utterly dull and
A boozer's life is like a checker board with old John
Barleycorn always in the King Row.
75
M. Y. L. A S T D R I N K
insignificant to me. I was always wondering
where I could get another drink. Everything was
gone; I was about ready to strike bottom.
Among the men I met in those hideous holes
were many who had been prominent and pros-
perous in the business and professional life of
Chicago—now awful wrecks. Booze was their
master. *
There was apparently nothing left for me but
to push myself hurriedly to a drunkard’s grave.
Daily some of my new found cronies were being
lugged to the morgue, hospital or jail. These
things did not feaze me. I had already been
everywhere, but the morgue. There was no sub-
stance, spirit, brain or will power left. I was a
nervous, drunken, alcoholic wreck. Hope, cour-
age, loyalty, truth, I had parted with completely.
Everything was blank, it seemed. I had no ties,
I had no friends, I had no home whatsoever, all
brought about by myself. I was aware that
whiskey is a mind destroying, body sapping, repu-
If you choose the water wagon you dodge the patrol
wagon.
76
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
tation corroding beverage, but I was powerless to
face the other way.
One night I stood on the sawdust floor of a
barrel house, drunk, sick, nervous, a motionless
wreck, when I was seized with a whiskey fit, and
although it was a bitter winter’s night, the boss
of the joint had me carried out in the alley—
little caring whether I froze to death or not. A
friendly hobo put me in a lodging house, which
undoubtedly saved my life.
I was firmly intrenched in the haven of the
underworld, in the Desplaines Police District of
Chicago. Here were assembled thousands of
shells of men in the saloons, liquor stores and
barrel houses. Wickedness and drunkenness were
dealt out without stint in this district and with
these men there remained only a charred, stupid,
indecent thirst for liquor. Here they all con-
gregate—the alcoholic wrecks of the city. Dimly
lit, stifling lodging houses, with a “good” bed for
ten cents, foul cellar drinking places, thieves’
Getting drunk by mail is becoming quite fashionable.
A man full of malt isn’t worth his salt.
77
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
resorts, Second-hand dealers and groggeries and
barrel houses, were alive with an army of wicked
men and boys, and dirt, rags, vermin, blasphemy,
booze and darkness reigned without hindrance; a
fantastic and ghostly confusion of human dere-
licts. The condition was not unusual to the
police. They would saunter jauntily through this
round of drunks, bums, hobos and thieves, and
stop at a bright light occasionally, put a “few
under their belt” and move along. The conditions
on the street and in the saloons were of no moment
to them. Thousands of people passing on the
street and in street cars and automobiles; streets
crowded, and in fact a horrible sight for women,
girls and young men to see, the very lowest of
saloons and barrel houses soliciting trade, with
their front doors wide open.
Nobody seemed to care. It seemed to be
taken as an accepted fact that this condition had
always existed in the neighborhood and always
would. Here I was in the melting pot of this
A snake with every drink is the prize all boozers draw.
A red nose is not caused by eating red apples.
78
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
dissipating and disappearing humanity. Ragged
and shriveled human forms would shuffle out
of sight daily; faces would vanish for the last
time and police patrols and ambulances were busy
making hurried trips to jails, morgues and hos-
pitals. Nobody cared, nobody remembered any
unfortunate companion after the day was over,
and I was cognizant of all this hideousness and
misery and distress and death and still I was
alcoholically welded to these ratholes. But the
precision of familiarity made me acquainted
with the devious and devilish ways the business
of the district was managed, and I often saw a
stranger who had been lured to the neighborhood,
with money on his person, pushed into a saloon,
given a few “knockout” drops in his whiskey
become turned around and mystified and stupe-
fied from drink, and then gently “rolled” or
robbed and pushed into the alley and picked up
by a policeman and “thrown in” for being drunk
and asleep in a public place. Nobody cares!
The saloon bar brings many a good man to the bar of
justice
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
The wonder to the uninitiated is how the
great army of loafers and drunks manage to
eat, drink, have a place to sleep and garments to
clothe themselves in. Each bum has a System
he has marked out that gives him an existence.
Hundreds of the men who are still fairly nor-
mal, whose earlier lives led them in legitimate
business channels, are employed during the day
addressing envelopes in letter shops, addressing
firms, large printing offices, and others who send
out printed matter and circulars for local busi-
ness firms. These are known as “pen dumps.”
The daily average pay is about seventy-five cents.
Coffee and rolls in the morning five cents; two
“tubs of suds” and free lunch at noon, ten cents;
fifteen cents for a bed, and the balance for supper
and booze. The booze is five cents a drink and
is known as “five-year-olds,” “Kys,” or “Ponies.”
A rotten, doctored, diluted, poisoned decoction
that makes a man stupid, crazy and delirious.
This mode of living is closely followed by all
Drink keeps a man right between the hammer and anvil all
his life—the saloon keeper is the blacksmith.
80
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
the “gin-heads” in the underworld population.
“Out on the stem” and “mooching,” is the
easiest graft a bum can work. In the “one legged
saloon” on Halsted Street, about forty cripples
made their headquarters. The saloon keeper
gave each of them car fare, and about two
o'clock every afternoon they would ride out to a
residence neighborhood, panhandle from door
to door, “stemming” or “mooching” and often
they came back with as high as ten dollars in
Small coin, not one ever returning empty handed.
If a stew gets drunk and breaks or loses his
crutch this saloon has a supply on hand. They
will tie your arm up in bandages to give the ap-
pearance of a fracture, furnish you with green or
Smoked goggles and a cane to feel along with. In
fact make you a first-class blind beggar in five
minutes. -
Others peddle collar buttons, shoe strings,
combs, and although they sell an occasional article
the goods are carried for a blind. If the house-
A man who follows the bright lights is always in the dark,
Personal Liberty is organized hypocrisy.
81
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
wife is not on guard and the front door unlocked,
Mr. Peddler will pick up a clock, vase, piece of
statuary, rug or anything that can be sold. Old
bums and drunks are continually begging clothes.
If they can’t use them, to the secand-hand store
they go, or to some ragged pal.
I tried to quit drinking, but only for a day.
But I was helpless and hopeless, and finally I
found my way back to the barrel house district
where many a poor drunken wretch, with a
broken heart from repeated failures, had gone
before me, and for months I lived there a home-
less drunken vagabond, eking out a living by
begging, borrowing, and passing worthless checks.
There are hundreds of saloons in Chicago with a
flaming sign over the door, “Workingmen’s Ex-
change.” Yes, it is an exchange, where a poor
devil exchanges his brains and money for booze
and misery.
Just for drink! I didn't want food. What
does a drunken bum want with food? A crumb
The man in the moon would not be a very profitable saloon
customer. He gets full only once a month.

82
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
or two of free lunch; it's as much as a man’s
stomach will hold—what I wanted was another
drink, a little more alcohol on the fire. Then the
next drink. I pursued it for years—growing
weaker mentally, physically, always hoping for a
mirage of soul’s care. It is labor to pursue the
next drink forever. But exhaustion is stupid and
numb. I slept or rested but little—snatches here
or there in a barrel house, or cheap saloons or
cheap lodging houses until thrown out; nobody
wanted a drunk around; even the villainous sa-
loon keeper who fills you with poison will throw
you out if you are too noisy or broke.
I was successful at drinking, successful
enough to have the delirium tremens twice.
I was systematic in my hunt for drink. I
could not and would not work. I was too sick,
nervous and physically worthless. I carried a
little memorandum in my pocket and I would map
out my itinerary from day to day, beginning at
State and Randolph in the morning and winding
Any business that causes human misery and distress is a
Iºl Cºlò CCºe
83
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
up at Thirty-first and State about midnight, good
and drunk. Different streets on different days
was my program. I must not panhandle the
same saloon twice the same week or there would
be trouble; they might kick me out. I would
go to bed full and get up in the morning with only
a general idea of where I had ended my previous
day’s work, and if I called on the same saloon,
trouble would ensue and out I would go, very
kindly assisted by the bartender, who did not
request me to call again.
Hundreds of my companions were sent to the
Bridewell. Out for a while and in again. The
short confinement did no good. Society should
change its attitude toward those sentenced for
acts committed while under the influence of alco-
hol. If we simply shut up drunkards, and only
remove the alcohol for the time being, you do not
obtain an essential improvement of their nature.
The prison penalty should be supplanted by a
thorough and serious education on the evils of
A home is a vested right; a saloon a vested wrong.
Whiskey is the devil in liquid form.
84
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
drink. Men must be taught that alcohol is their
destroyer, but no penal or moralizing teaching is
going to reform any one. Instead, they must,
according to capacity, be given a thorough knowl-
edge of the effects of alcohol upon the mind and
body. -
85
C H A P T E R S E V E N
Suffering From Delirium Tremens
HE awful penalty of excessive drinking was
my lot at last. I was picked up in the
street and rushed to a hospital, with that ter-
rible scourge, delirium tremens, gripping my
whole system in a vise of writhing agony. It was
of my own making. I knew it was coming, but I
was weak, had an uncontrollable appetite for
whiskey and deliberately plunged myself into this
awful condition.
I am making my own terrible experiences and
sufferings public as an object lesson to drinkers
who are slowly reaching this sure toboggan of
If you make a business of drinking booze, booze will get
your business.
86
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
misery. Let it be known to all that the whole
story and history of alcohol is a tragedy. My
experience and observations are given as a beacon
light to those who are embarking upon this slip-
pery road.
In the slimy trail of the alcoholic serpent you
will find everything that is dark and dreadful. I
found it.
The sight of a man undergoing the terrible
tortures of delirium tremens is one I trust no
reader of these lines will ever witness. It would
live with you to the day of your death. God
grant that horrible sight may forever be spared
yOu.
What is there in whiskey that enters a man’s
soul and very life and drags him down to the level
of a beast? -
I give but a mere outline of the picture of
this terrible scourge, which condition, in the ful-
ness of awful detail, God only knows.
I was placed on a cot, stripped and manacled
and placed in a straitjacket. My body writhed
The nation is founded on manhood and womanhood; the
saloon is founded and thrives on the wrecks of both.
87
M Y L. A S T D R H N K
*
and trembled and my parched lips had their skin
torn as I tried to utter words of condemnation to
my attendants who were restraining me. I could
plainly see toads squatting in the corners and ser-
pents were coiled about the bed posts, and hissing
in my ears, while all manner of imps were dancing
about in the air, spouting a blue flame in my
face. Such a horrible, torturing condition no man
can truly portray or describe. It was as though
all the demons of hell had combined to harass
and torment me.
In my drunken frenzy I shrieked for alcohol
—alcohol in any form. There were days of
mental restlessness and nights of sleepless torture.
No chamber of horrors ever described could
convey an accurate description of the awful, cru-
cial and soul killing writhings that I experienced.
Jumping out of the way of pink elephants, feeling
carefully on my bed clothing for gila monsters
and lizards, moaning, howling and crying for
Some unseen force to relieve me from my awful
A saloon keeper is usually a diplomat, but his customers
are always doormats.
88
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
condition, I would finally lapse into a fit. Oc-
casionally a “shot of dope” would be injected
to allay my sufferings, but even with that I
would continue to writhe, and curse and spit and
glare, my eyeballs bloody and protruding and
ablaze with fury.
Hideous faces appeared on the walls and on
the ceiling and on the floors; foul things crept
along my bedclothes and glaring eyes peered into
mine. I was at one time surrounded by myriads
of monstrous spiders and rats which crawled
slowly, slowly, over every limb, while beaded
drops of perspiration would start to my brow,
and my limbs would shiver until the bed rattled.
Strange colored lights would dance be-
fore my eyes, and then suddenly the very black-
ness of darkness would appall me by its dense
gloom. All at once, while gazing at a frightful
creation of my distempered mind, I seemed to be
struck with a sudden blindness. I knew an elec-
tric light was burning in the room, but I could
Split a bottle of champagne with a saloon keeper and he
will usually reciprocate by splitting a bottle of beer.
89
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
not see it—all was so pitchy dark. Suddenly I
saw standing at the foot of my bed a red
devil with hands polluted with blood and arms
filled with serpents that were crawling and wrig-
gling, and stinging and hissing, for their unpity-
ing and unrelenting master. My very vitals were
pierced with agony as the red monster continued
to jeer and taunt and pursue his infernal work.
Is there no escape from this terrible torture, I
moaned. It would seem as though nothing but
death could give me relief, and oh! how welcome
it would have been.
To somewhat alleviate my pain the attendant
released my arms for a few minutes. All at
once I lost the sense of feeling. As I tried to
grasp my arm in one hand the sense of touch was
gone. I put my hand to my side, my head, but
felt nothing, and still I knew my limbs, my frame,
were there. And then the scene would change.
I was falling—falling, swiftly as an arrow—far
down into Some terrible abyss; and so realistic
A saloon cash register is the devil’s chime. Just place a
coin in the snake's mouth and hear it ring.
90
M Y L. A S T D R IN K.
was it, as I fell, I could see the rocky sides of the
horrible shaft, where mocking, gibing, fiend-like
forms were perched, and I could feel the air
rushing past me, making the sweat stream out by
the force of the unwholesome blast. Then the
paroxysm sometimes ceased for a few moments,
and I would sink back on my pallet drenched with
perspiration, utterly exhausted, and feeling a
dreadful certainty of the renewal of my torments.
There were times when it seemed absolutely
impossible to stand the strain for another minute.
At times the torture would return and slimy,
gliding, writhing, biting, stinging adders would
wind themselves about my body and thrust their
forked and poisonous tongues into my sides.
My eyes were bleared and glistening and
pain and fright enthralled me, and I prayed and
begged and entreated that death might relieve
Iſle.
Not one man in one hundred thousand could
go through my experience and emerge with life.
A shot of booze has wounded many a man to his death.
All saloon keepers argue that a fly is a pest.
91
MY L A S T D R IN K
I was not the only victim in my ward suffer-
ing with this awful curse.
I could hear the crackling flames of burning
victims and the shrieks of suffering men. Around
their dying beds could be seen serpents unfolding
coil after coil from out of the darkness, brand-
ishing their forked tongues to sting them and lick
their blood as a fierce flame licks up its fuel.
And some in their agony begged to be let
plunge into a lake of fire to escape still greater
torture; others would stand on their cot shrieking
with agony and begging their attendants to
plunge them to death to escape further awful
tortures. Demoniacal ravings, mutterings and
curses made a perfect bedlam of the ward; the
whole a human tragedy terrible to witness.
Others were moaning and crying, shrieking and
cursing and dying, while several were uttering the
most heart-piercing and piteous prayers for
death to relieve them that ever passed the lips
of man.
Don’t forget that advertised whiskey without “A headache
in it,” contains many heartaches.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Even now these terrible combats come at
me like a nightmare and are often re-enacted in
ghostly pantomime in my sleep.
One poor victim, formerly a well-known Chi-
cago business man, was on his knees with his
hands clasped in prayer, his eyes looking upward,
shrieking that death might come at once to relieve
him, which it did.
The most impressive and saddest sight of all
I witnessed was to see young men scarcely out of
their teens, chained to cots and beds, suffering
with delirium tremens; some good mother’s boy
who had been caught and pinioned in the horrible
grip of drink.
The deaths from delirium tremens through-
out the United States annually is said to be ap-
proximately fifty thousand. The total of those
who die from acute alcoholism and other forms
of alcoholic dissipation, added to the above, would
reveal an aggregate that would astound everyone.
All these horrors have sprung from a cause
Mr. Moderate Drinker, John Barleycorn is quietly
electrocuting you in the chair of booze.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
that is perfectly curable, that is easily remediable
and absolutely preventable.
Mr. Whiskey Drinker, just keep up your
present batting average of drink and that day is
not far distant when you will be a “jim jam” boy,
yourself.
The saloon is a malignant, disease-spreading
nuisance, causing death, misery and desolation
throughout the length and breadth of the country.
What do these saloon traffickers care if a few
thousand patrons die annually from delirium tre-
mens, alcoholism, and its attendant evils? What
do they care if thousands of children are annually
thrown on the charity of the public? What do
they care for the misery and distress caused by
drink?
Look in every direction in the United States.
You will see the frightful, intolerable evidences
of the devastation of drink. -
The drink traffic is the cause of most of the
crimes committed; causes an amazing waste of
Whiskey with a sting and a rattlesnake’s sting both have
the same effect.
94
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
national resources, both physical and human.
Pauperism is its offspring; it causes the great
majority of divorces and other domestic difficulties
which fill our police courts; it is the advance
agent of the social evil; causes thousands of pre-
mature deaths, chokes our prisons, penitentiaries,
jails, insane asylums, reformatories, and hos-
pitals; and sentences thousands of miserable men
and yet more miserable women and pitiable
children to lead most wretched lives. It blights
the body and soul of all who drink it, is the chief
bane and ruin of thousands of homes and is today
the one black spot and stain on the glory, pros-
perity and freedom of the greatest republic the
world has ever known. -
95
C H A P T E R E I G H T
Life in Barrel Houses and Cheap Lodging Houses
BARREL house and a cheap lodging house
are twins. Where one exists the other
lives. They are the twin devils of crime and
debauchery.
As I dropped lower in the scale of life I
naturally gravitated to the barrel house. My
physical condition was on a par with my mental
calibre. My step was slow and unsteady. My will
power was completely gone. You could readily
see that I was a bum. It was on a bitter cold day
I made my first visit to a barrel house. I had on
summer clothes, such as they were, a ragged coat
Saloon keepers are in favor of having women at the polls—
at the North and South poles.
96
Mi Y L. A S T D R I N K
and pants all frazzled. My nose was the size
and color of a big ripe plum, garnished with
whiskey blossoms.
And there I stood and such a pitiable object
of despair and misery, no artist could depict. I
was surrounded by a lifeless, insipid mob of un-
washed, hungry and thirsty men. I did not
know that such human beings existed—
but there they were in a barrel house saloon, right
in the heart of Chicago, and this was only one of
hundreds of similar rat holes in the city.
Sin, vice, crime, filth, drunkenness, miser-
able squalor and wretchedness, poverty and dis-
ease, degradation, and in fact, every kind of con-
ceivable wickedness met me on every hand.
There is a great cry raised about the barrel
house by the so-called better or respectable
saloon. There is no difference in any of them.
A drunkard does not form the drinking habit
in one of these holes. He forms the habit by
drinking in a “respectable” saloon, club or hotel
When sowing your wild oats don’t mix too much rye
with them.
97
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
bar. A barrel house is the last stop you make
on your way to the grave. It is the only drink
hole that will tolerate a down and out. Drunk-
ards are not made in barrel houses—just the
finished product wind up there.
You can get a “tub of suds” and a “plate,”
a bit of lunch, for a nickel. Whiskey is five
cents a drink. They are known as “Ky’s,”
“Ponies” and “Five-Year-Olds.” The beer is
the cheapest slop made, and how and from what
the booze is made, no one knows—that is, those
who drink it. This barrel house booze is stupe-
fying and will make a normal man crazy. As long
as you have a “jitney” you are not refused a drink.
If you get too drunk and are boisterous or ugly,
out you go, head first. Chairs are arranged
along the wall for guests and if a “live one”
drops in he is pounced upon to “buy.” The
proprietor encourages this procedure, as he fig-
ures every nickel helps him. The average barrel
house free lunch is made up of an undesirable
A distiller has for a trademark a bee hive. That means
his product stings his customers.
98
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
mixture of scraps and junk, highly seasoned and
“embalmed” meats and fish and alfalfa soup, that
a starving dog would turn his back on. But a
drunken man will grab it with the same enjoy-
ment a sober man would eat turkey at a wedding
feast.
When a man begins to treat his organs as
though they were the works of a dollar watch
evil is bound to result.
Drink led me to these low and filthy haunts,
the vilest quarters in the world, where mendi-
cancy and drunkenness and vice are entwined
together; where the most depraved and brutish
of men mete out the destructive drug to hag-
gard want and tattered wickedness for the poor
price of a nickel, which often has been snatched
by theft or begged on the street.
For a scene of horrid vice and filth and
distress and fury and faces of debauched and
wicked men, all drawn into the horrible vortex
and there fermenting and Seething in misery
The booze route is a short and crooked one and the bell
rings every time you start.
99
M Y L. A S T D R i ſj K.
and disease, a man might search the world all
over and not find a rival to the cheap saloons and
barrel houses on West Madison and North and
South State and Clark Street and the neighbor-
ing streets. Why the police and health depart-
ment allow them to exist no one knows. Maybe
the brewers and distillers who always manage to
get a strangle hold on the business could answer
the question. I found the same conditions
existing in all large American cities.
I lived among these conditions for a long
time. I drank the whiskey, partoook of the
lunch, and slept on a chair when permitted. I
would go out on the street occasionally, beg a few
nickels from old friends, then shuffle back to
some low groggery, beg or buy a drink, or run
into a live one (a bum who had a little change).
I would hang around a saloon until closing time,
one o’clock, and then be thrown out in the street;
nowhere to go, no home, no bed, nothing; walk
the streets until 5 o'clock in the morning. Then
As a saloon keeper rises in power and splendor his
patrons sink in squalor and want.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
the Saloons open again. All first comers are
given the regular “Eye Opener” or “Brain
Duster,” and a bowl of soup. I would then grab
a chair and go to sleep. In a couple of hours
along would come the bouncer, and, welting me
across the back with a rubber hose, order me
out for a new bunch of down and outs who
wanted to sleep; two hours for them and out they
go; and this goes on all day. This was my life
day after day, week after week. A great army
of men are going through the same routine in all
of the large cities of the United States today,
and particularly in Chicago they run way up
in the thousands.
The great majority of people know nothing
about how this army of floaters exists, and under
what conditions they flourish. A tramp, hobo, bum
and beggar are all alike. The only difference
is the smell. The general public pictures this
class as nothing more than drunken, shiftless,
ragged fugitives trying to dodge work, content
A saloon keeper who wears a diamond is not a gem.
The best way to conquer booze is to shun it.
101
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
to tramp aimlessly from town to town and sub-
sist upon cold victuals begged from door to door.
But as a fact the strongest instinct in a hobo's
life, as seen in Chicago, New York, and large
centers of population, is to eke out a living with-
out rendering compensation in labor. From
first to last the hobo is voluntarily and premedi-
tatedly a parasite, a sponging vagrant, the man
of all men who never works, and never will.
Once he goes to work he ceases to be a hobo.
In the saloons, barrel houses, and lodging
houses throughout the city I found a cosmic pop-
ulation representing nearly every country in the
world. The most were unskilled in a trade, or il-
literate, or both. They all drank whiskey. If they
had any education at all it was only in the most
rudimentary sense. When it was whispered
about that I was a former Alderman I was looked
upon as a man of influence and when in trouble
they would appeal to me for advice, and my ad-
vice would be along the lines that would net me
Many tombstones in cemeteries are monuments to the
saloon traffic.
102
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
a drink the quickest. These vagabonds all lived
a life of chance, the same as I did, and had no
occupation. I soon learned that all chronic
hangers-on in pool rooms, saloons, barrel houses
and cheap “flops” are an improvident, de-
bauched, whiskey soaked, meandering band of
worse than helpless men. They hang out in those
vile saloons called “Workingmen's Home” which
in reality is a “Workingmen’s Morgue.”
A saddening sight was to gaze upon the
hundreds of gloomy men in the evening of old
age, starving, storming and begging for whiskey
in saloons, and food at missions and in bread
lines; with mind and memory dead, physically
broken down and crippled, waiting for the wagon
or ambulance to back up and close their book of
life.
I wish every man and woman could see those
things as I have seen them, and as they exist to-
day. Then it would not take long to sweep from
the country the primary cause—whiskey.
The raw material used to perpetuate the whiskey business
is young men and boys.
103
MY L. As T D R IN K
There is a natural bond of sympathy that
draws all these tramps, bums, hobos, thieves and
ex-convicts together, a bond that is hard for the
rest of the world to understand or appreciate.
The underworld is loyal to its own.
Did you ever sleep in a cheap Chicago
lodging house? No! Well, you are lucky.
There is a lodging house capacity in Chicago
for 100,000 men, and these “Palaces” are mainly
patronized by the intemperate, criminal and
shiftless class, presenting in many ways the worst
elements of our population.
The cell type of room is used in most places
and the price of a bed is from 10 to 25 cents. A
cell room is about 6x10. The floor is cement.
The side walls are about 7 feet in height, are
usually corrugated iron, in some instances being
wood. The bed is an iron frame affair, a thin
mattress and something they call a sheet, pillow
and blanket is there, if you wish to use them.
These rooms are arranged in long rows from
When the liquor interests thrive, the people suffer.
All are equal before the awful scourge.
104
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
the front of the building to the rear, the only
ventilation coming from the top of the cell, which
is covered with a strong wire netting.
When one retires he places the bed against
the door for safety. It is good policy to hide
your clothes under your mattress so that some
“guest” will not raise the roof of wire net-
ting and fish up your wardrobe, which is easily
accomplished by placing a nail in a broom. Rob-
beries are frequent, but a wise man sleeps with
his clothes on. These rooms are usually dark,
damp, ill-ventilated and vermin infected. One
night a man infected with small pox or
tuberculosis may occupy a room and next
night a young man from the country is given
the same bed. The “linen” in a first-class lodg-
ing house is changed whenever the bedmaker,
usually some drunken bum, thinks it advisable.
On each floor are toilet and washing facilities
that in most cases even a tramp will not use. I
will not attempt to describe the bath tub.
The history of alcoholism is tragedy, murder, starvation
and death.
105
My LAs T D R in K
Every lodging house in Chicago gets filled
with vermin and dirt, and twice a year every
guest is routed out and the places fumigated and
all crawling guests “smoked out.” -
There is a police, fire, and sanitary regula-
tion of lodging houses, and in the months I was
a guest at nearly every one in the city, I never
saw or heard of an inspector in any one of them.
I was once pushed out of a West Side barrel
house, which was an all night haunt for drunk-
ards, and went to “Hogan's Flop,” which is close
to the Desplaines Street Police Station, where one
may sleep for five cents. There every night
are herded hundreds of men, packed in a large
barn-like room on the bare floor, with a news-
paper for a blanket, like pigs in a stock train. I
spent a few nights in “Hogan’s” and such a motley
mass of humanity was never marshalled before.
Singing, shouting, snoring, and blasphemy was the
regular program. No man dare take off his
clothes or shoes, for if you slept too soundly
Mercy for the liquor traffic means cruelty to mankind.
The only way to quit drinking—is to quit.
106
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
one of the guests would appropriate your ward-
robe and walk off.
It is conditions such as I have enumerated
that are giving the saloons a black eye. Thou-
sands of drinking men are growing to hate the
whole business, and the way it is conducted, and
despairing of ever seeing a better condition of
regulation have concluded that the only way to
get back at it is to put it entirely out of existence.
Another thing influencing such men is the awful
nature of the beer and whiskey sold over the
bar. It has changed for the worse in the last few
years. A New York bartender who has grown
grey and crippled in the business informed me
that beer would not keep through the day in a
barrel; that they had to be extremely care-
ful to order only the exact amount necessary for
if they had only one keg too much it would spoil.
Another said to me, “I sell beer all day, but I
never drink a glass of it. It isn’t fit for a white
man to drink.” This man was not in a barrel
The moderate drinker is the great stumbling block in the
path of prohibition.
107
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
house or slum dive, but in one of the best saloons
in the heart of Boston.
The barrel house and low saloon dive is the
spot that all men drop to and seek when in the
final beggary of hopeless drunkenness. They are
cast out from men, loathsome, despised and
perishing. It is a shocking, awful sight to see
those poor, unfortunate human beings, on the last
lap of their existence. I have seen scores of men
drop dead in different barrel houses and saloons
and hustled to the morgue in a most mechanical
manner. Nobody cared. They were used to
such scenes. It might be them next. They didn’t
care. All rushed to a drunkard’s grave, without
a prayer, uncoffined, unwept and unknown. The
same conditions exist today. Nobody cares.
108
C H A P T E R N I N E
Police, Police Courts, Police Stations and Jails
HE happiest, proudest, grandest moment in a
policeman’s life is when he can “pinch”
a fellow man, walk up to the patrol box, call up
the station and say: “This is McCasey. Send
the wagon to Harrison and State street at once.
Have a desperate divil in tow.”
McCasey has a poor, drunken bum by the
collar. The crowd grows. McCasey yells,
“G” wan, move 'long, there,” swinging his club
threateningly at the mob. The wagon arrives.
In goes the drunk. McCasey yells, “Book this
man for disorderly conduct.” Up the street he
Sunday closing is an “eye opener” for the saloon keepers.
A seasoned drinker makes poor business timber.
109
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
struts. At ten next morning the clerk of the
police court yells, “John Jones and Officer Mc-
Casey.”
The Judge—“What's this man charged
With ?”
The Clerk—“Disorderly conduct.”
Officer McCasey—“Sign a waiver.”
This waiver means you will be tried at once
by the presiding judge and you waive your rights
to a jury trial.
The Clerk—“Be Sworn.” Jones and officer
are SWOI’Il.
Officer McCasey—“I found this man yelling
in front of a saloon at Harrison and State Streets
and he was arguing with a dago about the price
of bananas, creating a great disturbance, and
attracting a crowd. I told him to move along. He
said he was an American citizen and called me
a furriner and stiff.”
The Judge—“Had you been drinking,
Jones?”
Everyone plugs a rat role. Why not a drink hole?
Drink lashes a man to the mast of destruction.
110
M Y L. A S T D R IN K.
John Jones—“Yes, sir; I had been in “Hinky
Dink’s’ joint and had two “tubs of suds,” but I
wasn’t drunk, your honor.”
Officer McCasey—“Your honor, he was
drunk, sor, and when I told him to move, he re-
sisted me.”
The Judge—“In what way did he re-
sist you?”
Officer McCasey—“He said he would not al-
low any ‘bull neck” to order him around when
he was minding his own business.”
John Jones—“I have worked steadily for
two years as a laborer for the Crane Company;
was never arrested in my life, and the officer
clubbed and struck me, and I have laid in this
rotten, louse-bound Clark Street Police station
since yesterday noon, a dry crust of bread to eat,
with muddy water they called coffee, to drink,
and the lockup keeper would not notify my family
or friends. Your honor, the officer was half-
stewed himself.”
Big Business is using a big club and is effectually batting
booze.
111
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Officer McCasey—“I have seen this man in
State Street before, and always drunk.”
John Jones—“I was never drunk in my—”
The Judge—“That’ll do, Jones, you are a
dangerous man, a menace to society, and the
sooner men like you are put away the better for
the community. I think about six months in the
Bridewell will make a good citizen of you.”
The Clerk—“Horace Johnson and Officer
Robinson.” And this is the way it goes from day
to day in all the police courts of Chicago. No
friends, no pull, with the police knocking
and pounding, on you go. A policeman’s repu-
tation for efficiency is based on the number of ar-
rests he makes, and if he is lucky enough to con-
vict some one he will get special commendation
from his superior officers. The Cossacks of
Russia have nothing on many men on the police
force of Chicago. The club and the concealed,
but too readily handy gun, are still the signs by
which a policeman conquers.
“Will you have a drink?” is not asked by employers today,
but, “Do you drink?” &
112
RM Y L. A S T D R I N K
A plain clothes man can stop any citizen on
the street, night or day, ask an array of in-
sulting questions, “frisk you,” (search your pock-
ets), give you a kick or a push and tell you to
beat it. A man thus accosted is naturally in-
censed, makes some pretty sharp replies and says,
“Who are you?” Then the plain clothes man
will throw open his coat, exhibit his star, and
Say : -
“I’m an officer. Don’t give me any of your
lip or I’ll run you in. Good notion to do it any-
way. Where do you live? What’s your name?
What are you doing in this neighborhood 2’’
The citizen is angry, confused and scared,
and if he is imprudent enough to ask the officer
his number or name he is liable to get a slam in
the mouth. Thousands of respectable Chicago
citizens have had this experience and are still
having it, every day in the year.
There ought to be some law or measure to
correct the present evils of the police force. A
Drink and graft are the twin evils of the century.
A boozer never fools anyone but himself.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
policeman does not regard his position as a post
of responsibility, but as a piece of property. No
matter how inefficient, undisciplined, barbarous
or corrupt he may be he feels he is under the pro-
tecting wing of the civil service, usually has some
unseen political pull, and always manages to keep
his grip on his position unless he is convicted be-
fore a court of law.
The police should be like an army, the re-
sponsive instrument of a leader, then if there
were corruption the people would know whom to
blame; if efficiency results the people would know
whom to trust and commend.
If we could by some means constitute all the
members of the police force agents for the social
betterment of the city, what an influence for good
they might exert—and this without any diminu-
tion of their authority as officers of the law. They
are today, almost without exception, men of med-
ium calibre, each man using his own judgment,
club or gun at any time or place he sees fit. He
The man behind the gun in war is not more deadly than the
man behind the bar in peace.
114
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
figures that he is clothed with power—why not
use it?
A policeman is the same whether in Chicago,
or New York, Kankakee, or Podunk. A star, a
gun, a club, has the same effect on the human
mind made up of police material the world over.
Of 130,000 arrests made in Chicago during twelve
months, one-half were discharged, which shows
how much common sense is used in “running in.”
citizens. If it were not for the good judgment of
the Municipal Court Judges the police would have
one-half of the population of Chicago continually
in jail.
I will say, however, that I was courteously
treated by all policemen and police offi-
cials. But what I saw and learned of police sys-
tem and authority was a revelation.
The most pernicious parody on humanitar-
ianism ever evolved by the mind of man are the
barbarous, foul-smelling, vermin-infected, ill-
ventilated garbage boxes, called cells, in the
Look out for the man who boasts that he only drinks with
his meals. In a few years he will have no meals.
115
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Chicago police stations, and they are to be
avoided like poison. Positive neglect and
insult is the order in all of them and it is not
hearsay with me, as I was a “guest” in most of
them. I was locked up at the Central Station, in
La Salle Street near Randolph. I was put in a
cell at three o’clock, P. M., having been arrested
for passing a worthless check, to procure money
for whiskey. I was put in a cell about 8 by 10,
with a plank bed on either side, no bedding of any
kind, no water, and disgraceful toilet facilities.
A cup of cold water was shoved in about eight
o'clock, nothing to eat, but fortunately I had a
little change. I gave an attendant fifty
cents to purchase me a sandwich. He re-
turned in about five minutes with an egg
sandwich that he must have had in stock.
The bread was like rubber and the egg
was certainly made of asbestos. I asked him for
my change, all the money I had in the world. He
replied, “I’m no errand boy, and if you wasn’t a
“Free drinks and free soup” are the mirages of hope for a
down and out.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
piker you wouldn’t ask for change.” If you ever
think you are going to be locked up have your
change in nickels and pennies and carry them in
your shoes.
At five o’clock a ragged, dirty, vermin-in-
fected old man was placed in the cell with me;
then two young boys about 15 and 17 came in for
“sassing” an officer; at nine o’clock in came two
more drunks and a holdup man. The adjoining
cell was filled with a howling, drunken mob of
men. By twelve o’clock eleven men were huddled
in my cell. At each new arrival the lockup keeper
would rattle his bunch of keys, ram the cell door
with a bang; officers, desk sergeants, and hangers
on in the office near the cells were talking, whis-
tling, laughing. There was no sleep for anyone.
Nobody cared. Nobody tried to maintain order.
If you wanted anything to eat, or a friend called
on the telephone, you paid for it. You don’t get
anything for nothing in a police station but an
ugly look, and curt reply and a “rap in the jaw”
The sober public has the number of every drinking man.
A tramp is the finished product on parade.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
if you talk back. The brave policeman has you
in his toils and if you are wise you will govern
yourself accordingly.
A well-dressed, middle aged man was thrown
in about one o’clock, picked up at Madison and
Dearborn Streets because he looked “suspicious”
to a policeman. After ten minutes resi-
dence he yelled: “My God, what a hell hole of a
place.” He was kept until morning, was never
booked, and turned out. This is a favorite pas-
time of policemen—locking a man up for a few
hours and letting him go without booking any
charge against him. It seems almost a crime that
a policeman is vested with such power, and there
ought to be some way to make the municipality
responsible for the damage, disgrace and humilia-
tion a citizen is often subjected to. -
There are forty-five precinct station jails,
the detective bureau jail, the county jail and the
Bridewell in the city of Chicago. Of these jails
only about a dozen are fit for habitation. Nine-
Thousands of bright and shining lights have been dimmed
by drink.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
teen are underground. Through eleven runs an
open sewer. This sewer is a trough flushed by
running water. It represents the toilet facilities.
When there are more than two persons in a cell
they must sleep on the floor beside the open sewer.
Frequently eight or ten men are herded together
in a cell ten feet square or smaller.
It ought not to require any argument to con-
vince any fair minded man that the municipality
has no right to impair or shatter the health of
those who are unfortunate enough to be thrown
into a police station. The cells should have sun-
light and pure, fresh air and prisoners should
be protected against disease breeding germs and
given modern sanitary conditions. The only
humane and sanitary police stations I was locked
in were in Pittsburg, Pa., and Los Angeles, Cal.
In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore
and other eastern cities the jail conditions were
fair. But who cares? Ninety per cent of all
inmates I met were victims directly and indirectly
An intoxicated man is not fit company for man or beast.
Booze and bamboozle are twins of trouble.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
of alcohol. Knock strong drink out of any
community and note how quickly police sta-
tions, jails, prisons, and penitentiaries will show
an amazing falling off in population.
A lockup keeper or policeman who has
even a drop of human kindness in his system is
more than rare. The average policeman thinks
everybody except himself is dishonest or a crook,
and he deals for so brief a time with individuals,
that the formation of the customary links of hu-
man kindliness is impossible. The worst charac-
ters frequently return, the best stay a short time,
are discharged and lost sight of, so a “copper”
figures that any act of kindness meets apparently
with no reward.
The police, and especially the “dicks,” (de-
tectives and plain clothes men), have stool pigeons
and squealers in every district in Chicago that they
can go to, and unearth nearly any crime they
wish. This is evidenced by the fact that when
National political conventions are held, or any im-
You will find the “no whiskey” end the better end of life.
Walk the straight line and avoid the bread line.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
portant personage visits Chicago that means a
general outpouring of the people, word goes out
to round up all pickpockets, thieves, burglars, con-
fidence men, hotel thieves, etc., for a few days.
The police gather them in in short order, know
their names, their hangouts and their special line
of work. While known to the police, for the re-
mainder of the year they are allowed to ply their
avocations unmolested, unless they get careless or
bold and some citizen grabs them. There is
nothing more remarkable in this drama of theft
than the perfect understanding which unites the
criminal lamb with the wolfish upholder of the
law. The thief looks to his supposed opponent
for protection, and looks not in vain as long as
he is a fairly good producer and he only gives
them up to justice when they fail to yield the
coin in abundance. Nobody cares!
No writer or dramatist that ever lived could
depict this situation in its entirety as it exists
today and it is a grand tribute to these omnipo-
Only a coward tapers off—a brave man quits abruptly.
A nightcap is a handicap.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
tent guardians of law and order and to their
human ingenuity, to say that few of them fall
below their opportunity, not only in Chicago, but
in every city in the United States.
Nature seems to have armed every police-
man’s hand against his fellows. He seems to be
to the manner born and built upon oppression.
Policemen are not made, they are born—it’s a
disease.
What is it in the life and atmosphere of
America which encourages and protects crime, or
rather elevates crime to a level of excellence un-
known elsewhere?
I met a pickpocket in the Warren Avenue
police station who had been arrested at Madison
and Kedzie avenues. He said a policeman had
doubled crossed him and let English Dan, a well-
known pickpocket and two confederates have that
neighborhood and the Madison and Kedzie cars.
“My,” he said to me, “a lot of “bulls’ in this
district wouldn’t be wearing diamonds if we didn’t
John Barleycorn is chasing thousands “Over the Hills to the
Poor House.”
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help pay for them. They’d sit down in some
saloon and actually cry. He won’t book me. I’ve
got the goods on him and he knows it.” He wasn’t
booked, either. He was released in a couple of
hours and went with a couple of officers who said
he was wanted in a saloon a few blocks
east of the station. I met him a few weeks later
and he was “working pockets” on State Street,
and said:
“I’m doing pretty well, thank you.” This
young man considers his business legitimate. He
intimated that he pays to operate. The man of
the underworld figures, and not without reason,
that a good many police officers are a far
greater menace to the community than the crim-
inal, and some recent police convictions give
weight to the opinion voiced by crooks. -
I spent a few weeks in the Cook county jail
and I found the same criminal atmosphere and
aspect here as in other restraining institutions.
Two and three men were crowded in small, foul
Many men who habitually fool themselves, are a joke to
their acquaintances.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
smelling cells, the sanitary condition of which
ought to receive a little attention from the health
department.
Daily from nine-thirty to eleven-thirty, A. M.,
and from one-thirty to three-thirty P. M., seven or
eight hundred inmates are ushered into the Bull
Pen for exercise. This is a barn-like room,
about 250 feet long and 40 feet wide and here for
four hours daily crooks of all kinds meet and talk
and plot, without hindrance. There you may
meet the murderer, the heat of passion in which
he committed his crime forgotten, tranquil,
penitent, and self-possessed; the thief, swindler,
pickpocket—with all their wits about them—the
burglar, holdup man, and forger. All these and
hundreds of young men just edging to manhood,
locked up upon some petty charge, listening to
the wonderful recitals of these hardened and hab-
itual crooks. This Cook county jail bull pen is
nothing more or less than a school of instruction
for criminals. One young man of twenty-three
Booze has crippled every human being that ever made his
acquaintance.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
years of age, looking like a boy of seventeen,
explained to a group of willing listeners how he
worked hotels and robbed guests while they slept;
told of how to work transoms without waking any
one ; told how to get duplicate pass keys from
chamber girls in hotels, and how to place your
hand under a sleeper's pillow without disturbing
him. A pickpocket gave exhibitions of his skill,
even picking my pocket while my coat was but-
toned tightly. It was so with each adept. Boast-
ful, garrulous, but at the same time imparting a
crime knowledge to a class of young men and
toughs ready to launch out and give matters a
trial. Nobody cares.
It would seem as though all the vice and
crime and sin and shame in the community had
been jammed into this army of human beings and
they were huddled together to instruct each
other in their particular line of crime and boast
of their awful misdeeds. The enthusiasm some
of these men evidenced in giving the details of
A whiskey drinker often wonders why he is at the tail end
of the procession. Your friends don’t.
125
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
their criminal cleverness plainly showed that
many possessed ability and talent that would
make for success in any legitimate calling.
Society can forgive crime; it will not forgive
imprisonment. Whole communities may know that
a man is guilty of criminal acts, and he may be
punished by heavy fines—yet men and women do
not shrink from him—he has been punished, not
put in prison. On the other hand the ex-convict
is instantly known as such, branded by unmistak-
able evidences. Sore at society, health shattered,
a shifty bearing, a bitter distrust of his fellow-
men, no friends or honest acquaintances, and with
the police continually picking him up and annoy-
ing him, he has no ambition to win back his place
in life. He is an outcast. If men learn he has
been in prison they refuse to work with him. All
mankind instinctively shuns him, not because he
has done wrong, but because he has paid the
penalty in confinement. When crimes are com-
mitted the police sweep through the city and pick
Wake up, Mr. Drinker, and take stock of yourself—a calm,
cold, critical inventory—then try to cash it.
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M Y L. A S T Đ R I N K
up every poor devil that has ever done time, hold
him for hours or days as the case may be, with-
out evidence, on the police principle, once a
criminal always a criminal. That is not always
true, but once a policeman always a policeman is
absolutely true.
Many a young man thrown in a pen-like cell
in the county jail, owing to inability to secure bail,
lays there for months, awaiting indictment and
trial. Even if he is released he passes with slow,
steady tread out of the jail into freedom feeling
that he was wrongfully incarcerated, and across
his souſ a deep black shadow is photographed
against Society. He feels that he has been
branded a criminal. He goes to the saloon for
companionship.
It is only natural, in these circumstances,
that he should succumb when a comrade on the
street whispers, “You and I are fools to work for
a beggarly pittance when we can make a little
easy money. Others are doing it everywhere.
Don’t gold brick yourself with the delusion that you can
quit whenever you want to—you can’t do it!
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Look around you, who are the big men in our
ward but the saloon keeper and the alderman,
and who but them wears diamonds and fancy
vests? And how did they make their money?
By working hard like you and I? Not in a
thousand years!”
Society had imposed on him the conditions
that made his fall inevitable. So the problems
of crime are world-wide and fundamentally one;
and if alcohol and drink is not the father of it all
why is it that in communities where drink disap-
pears, crime disappears with it?
128
C H A P T E R T E N
In the Bread Line
ERE you ever in a bread line? No? Well,
I was.
At nine-thirty a tramp yelled:—“The Java
Chariot is coming.” A ragged, half-drunken,
starving, shivering horde of old and young men
rushed to the bread line on Jefferson Street as if
by magic. The cry of “the Chariot is coming”
is relayed to saloons, barrel houses, and lodging
houses, throughout the entire Chicago district
from Canal and Halsted and Lake Street to Harri-
son. From dark doorways, alleys, and under-
the-sidewalk joints they rush and slink and shuf-
Alcohol affects the germ cells and fills the prison cells.
Walk the straight line and avoid the bread line.
129
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
fle with all the haste their sodden and stiffened
limbs will allow. There I stood in the midst of
this motley group of wrecked and drunken hu-
manity, hundreds of whom had seen better days,
awaiting my turn to get a cup of coffee and a
sandwich. Next in line behind me was a former
well-known Chicago merchant, a trembling alco-
holic wreck, with scarcely enough vitality to move,
and his mind and memory completely shattered
from the effects of drink. It was a bitter cold
night and before my companion reached the
“Chariot” for his hand-out, he fell numb and help-
less in the street. A couple of huskies dragged
him across the street to the curb and soon the
rattle of the “wagon” was heard coming. He
was dumped into the patrol wagon as you
would throw in a bag of feed, and before
the station was reached he was dead. Nobody
cared; everybody in the district was daily wit-
nessing similar events.
For nearly two hours several hundred men
In the slimy trail of the alcoholic serpent you will find
nothing but worry and misery.
130
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
and boys stood in the cold waiting for their “cof-
fee an’,” when suddenly the long, slow, shuffling
“Bread Line” began to move like a great Snake,
tattered in garb and spirit. A sight and study is
the bread line. Here a young man of twenty,
drunk and ragged, there an old man of sixty,
pinched and half frozen, stamping with alternate
feet upon the sidewalk, others flapping their arms
and dancing to keep warm; hundreds of able and
brilliant has-beens with bloated faces and bleared
eyes, and among them many Sober men, honest
mechanics, clerks, forced in the line through sick-
ness and industrial conditions, or temporarily em-
barrassed, and there was also the full quota of
out-of-works and never-works from every strata
of life.
The Bread Line managers do not preach to
the throng, but feed them and wish them good
luck and Godspeed.
For an hour the long serpentine line which
rolls and unfolds before you grows in length and
When a boozer comes home sober it is a surprise party.
Every day of grace for a saloon is a disgrace.
131
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
then you have a clearer impression of the types
it contains. It is an amazing aggregation of
humanity rather than isolated men. There is the
tall man, the short man, and always the old man,
the foreigner, professional bum, clerk and boy.
The whiskey faces, the unshaven faces, the
tightly buttoned coats, the lack of overcoats, the
sunken and pale face and slouching knee, with
the raven hunger plainly apparent, all these
form a composite and pitiful panorama of pov-
erty, with that everlasting stamp of drink, drink,
drink, plainly indicated in the features of ninety
per cent of them.
I recollect a bitter cold night in the winter
of 1914 that again found me in the bread line on
Jefferson Street. It was an awful night. There
I stood waiting my turn, no overcoat, cracked
shoes, with sleet in the air and slush on the
ground. I was faint from lack of food and nerv-
ous and shaking from over indulgence.
As I neared the “Chariot” I espied an old
No man can keep sound in body and mind and fill his system
with alcohol.
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M Y L. A S T D R I N K
friend, Mr. Malcolm McDowell, who furnished
and superintended the distribution of the coffee
and rolls. He was carefully eyeing the battered
and tattered crowd as they shuffled lazily along
for their little bite.
Suddenly Mr. McDowell spied me, a wreck of
my former self. With an astonished and pitying
look, he recognized me with a slight nod. When
I had finished my “meal” and got out of the
line Mr. McDowell came over, took me by the
hand, and gave me a few words of friendly ad-
vice, handed me five dollars, and said: “For God’s
sake, Alderman, get yourself together; get out of
this condition you are in, come to me when you
are sober and I will assist you in any way that
will rehabilitate you.”
His advice was unheeded—whiskey was my
master.
After leaving me Mr. McDowell walked up
and down the line giving here and there “banner”
(bed) money to some homeless man, speaking a
Booze is a coward when confronted by a brave man.
Alcohol, whiskey, beer, wine, all spell murder.
133
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
word to Jack or Mike, promising to secure work
for others, and for several winters kept this grand
humanitarian work going.
Several hungry hobos would get their bit and
drop to the foot of the line and would work their
way wearily back for more to eat. A repeater
in a bread line is certainly hungry, and while
repeaters were often discovered Mr. McDowell’s
orders were to turn no man away, arguing that if
a man would edge his way along in the line for
an hour, in the bitter cold, he certainly needed
food and would be supplied.
A strapping young fellow in the line behind
me, two-thirds drunk, said he had been down the
line nightly and during the day “worked” every-
thing else on “tap” for all they were worth and
slept at night in the Municipal Lodging House.
He said he got food during the day at the free
lunches in cheap saloons and barrel houses.
The most of those in line were old, broken
down men, and professional tramps and hobos of
For a sober man the battle of life is not a battle of strife. .
A “brain duster” puts cobwebs in your vision.
134
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
a most shiftless type. Here and there and every-
where I mixed in “with the bunch” and by their
own confessions to one another and made in boast-
ing talk to me, as the result of inquiry, they had
been “bumming” around the country during the
warm months, begging and stealing, but came to
Chicago for the winter because as one of them put
it to me: “Chicago is about the only city in thc
United States where things (food, etc.) come so
easy and no questions asked. You can pound de
sidewalks in ‘Chi,’ (walking the streets), night
or day and de ‘harness bull’ (policeman) never
raps.” This man said he’d be off with the robins
to his “country home,” and back with the snow-
birds to spend the cold snap in “Chi.”
The law against begging and mendicancy
seems to be a dead letter in Chicago. There are
thousands of professional alcoholic beggars, men
and boys, prowling through the city every day,
wringing the dimes from a Sober, sympathetic
public.
A snake and a corkscrew is the fraternal badge of liquor
dispensers.
135
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
The evils of drunkenness are known to all,
and cause all this misery. Alcohol rapidly under-
mines the constitution, breaks down the moral
character and makes complete wrecks of those
who are unable to escape from its clutches.
Ninety per cent of the men I encountered in the
Bread Line night after night were forced there
through drink. I talked and drank with hun-
dreds of them.
It is not right for any man to derive a living
from that which is debasing the minds and ruin-
ing the souls of men and forcing them into bread
lines and jails. No man has a moral, or should
be given a legal right to sell a poison which pro-
duces misery and madness, destroys the happiness
of the domestic circle, ruins homes and families
and fills the land with women and children in a
far more deplorable condition than that of widows
and orphans, causes nearly all the crime and pau-
perism that exists, and which the law abiding and
sober citizenship are obliged to pay for.
A “good fellow” in a saloon is usually a brute at home.
Whiskey is the most destructive agency known to man.
136
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
Saloon keepers know the goods they sell will
produce these results. They are case hardened.
They reason it is a legitimate business or the
municipality would not legalize it by giving them
a license to operate.
Every man who drinks is running the race of
life with a handicap—and it is hard to win and
keep a place in that race, even when one is fit
and efficient.
The world has blundered dreadfully in
handling the drink question. The commercializa-
tion of the alcoholic traffic and saloons, with allur-
ing temptations on every hand, has laid a fright-
fully heavy tax on human vitality, efficiency,
health and happiness.
Who has pity for the murderous liquor
traffic? As it pleads for mercy let it remember
the wrongs it has inflicted, let it remember the
graves and tears of wives and mothers upon whose
tender hearts its iron heel has fallen, the awful
wretchedness of mind and heart of alcohol vic-
That real article of Personal Liberty, the Declaration of
Independence, was not the work of the liquor interests.
137
M Y L. A S T D R I N. K.
tims. Let us remember how faith and love and
honor and ambition have died, how soddened will
has lost all power of resistance, and how the mur-
derous greed of this iniquity has turned from the
spectacle of its dead and ruined victims and
reached for others who might take their place
and fill its coffers. Mercy for the saloon means
cruelty to mankind. Every day of grace for the
saloon is a disgrace. The saloon must go utterly,
must go never to return. With the saloon out of
the way bread lines will automatically cease to
exist.
138
C H A P T E R E L E V E N
How Lawyers Rob and Swindle Prisoners in
Jails and Courts
N the fifty-five times I was arrested for drunk-
enness, disorderly conduct, passing bogus
checks, securing money by false pretenses, and a
dozen other crimes committed while insane from
drink, no matter in what part of the world I was
arrested, as soon as in the police station or jail, I
was interviewed by a lawyer. If I had money, a
watch or any other article of jewelry or an over-
coat, he would assure me of my release. I was
trapped several times into parting with what little
change I had and never saw the “lawyer” again,
Did you ever note how the “good fellow” who treats every
man in a saloon treats his family?
139
M Y L A S T D R I N K
and when released could not get any information
as to the identity of the shyster. No one around
any police station knew anything about him, or
who he was. But they knew him, just the same.
In Philadelphia I was arrested, charged
with “operating a confidence game and in-
toxication” and I gave a lawyer $10.00 to de-
fend me. Said he knew the judge and handed
me that old bunk, “It will be all right, my boy.”
He stalled around and I saw at once he had no
standing in the court. The judge asked me what
I had to say for myself. I said I was drunk and
insane. Quick as a flash the judge retorted, “I
know you are drunk by your appearance and I
know you are insane or you wouldn’t employ this
lawyer to defend you. Six months in the work-
house will sober you up and unscramble your
mind.”
I made an earnest plea to the judge, and so
impressed him with my determination “not to
take another drink” that he suspended sentence
The liquor traffic is the only black spot in the pathway of
the youth of the country.
140
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
and said if I would leave the Quaker City in one
hour he would discharge me. I left, went across
the Delaware River to Camden, N. J., and at 5
P. M. that day was again in a cell, drunk and help-
less, and the following morning I made a success-
ful “speech” to the judge and was released, only
to be picked up in Cincinnati two days later on
the same charge—“disorderly conduct,” drunk.
Of all the vampires, pirates and robbers the
world ever knew or history records are the so-
called lawyers and shysters and ambulance
chasers and personal injury sharks that hang
around the police stations, police courts, and
hospitals, county jails, criminal and civil courts,
looking for some poor devil to “defend.” This is
not libelling the legal profession as a whole, for
any lawyer of standing or decency does not have
to acquire clients in this manner. Many of these
hyenas are members of the local Bar Associations
in their respective cities. Nobody cares.
The courts of Chicago and all other cities
A free lunch is just a little “come along” junk, always well
salted by the devil.
141
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
swarm with an army of human legal vermin who
fatten upon the unfortunate, whether innocent
or guilty, who fall into the clutches of
the law. Every day in every police court in Chi-
cago these “lawyers” are awaiting their victims,
like so many spiders in their webs.
Every man admitted to practice at the bar in
any state has legal and professional rights that
permit him to visit police stations, jails and courts
and fish for clients. He can take a prisoner and
talk to him secretly—a “professional courtesy”
the law allows a lawyer and client. Nearly every
policeman in Chicago has a lawyer on his staff
who is advised at once when a promising arrest is
made. He is telephoned at once. These law-
yers will defend you, bail you out, or do anything
in the world for you if you have a little money—
maybe. If an accident occurs and the wagon or
ambulance is called, the first thing a policeman
does is to get your name and address. The next
thing is to telephone to an ambulance chasing or
Whiskey is a demon put on earth by the devil to try the
souls of men.
142
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
personal injury lawyer. You are immediately bam-
boozled into signing a contract and power of at-
torney, and even if you have a legitimate case
these hungry hyenas will settle for a small sum
for the purpose of securing quick money. All hos-
pitals have employes that give out the name, na-
ture of accident, and address of every case that
arrives. These are all well-known facts. Nobody
cares. All fees received and settlements made
are split three ways. The lawyer, and the in-
formant make two—who gets the third” Some-
body knows—and nobody cares!
I was locked up in the Central Police Station
in La Salle Street, Chicago, along with a well-
dressed Greek. He wanted his brother notified by
telephone. Instead a well-known criminal law-
yer came in. He gave the lawyer fifty dollars to
defend him and fifty more for going on his bond
for the measly sum of $300.00. He was in on
some trivial charge and the next day the judge
discharged him. He would have discharged him
Moderate drinking is the father of all drunkenness.
Whiskey is made in coils as a tribute to the serpent.
143
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
anyway. There was no evidence to hold him. I
talked with the man later on the street and he
said: “If I or my friends ever get in trouble again
I will employ the same lawyer, as he has a pull.”
There is not a judge on the bench in the United
States that pays the least attention to these petti-
fogging shysters.
The method of procedure in separating a
prisoner from his money, diamonds, watch or any
article of jewelry, or his overcoat—if it is a good
one—is like this: On the way to the station the
policeman who made the arrest, says: “You’re in
a bad jam, old top. Have you got a lawyer?” Of
course not. “Well, you need a guy that can han-
dle the judge. Just say nothing and I will send
a good lawyer down to the cell to have a talk
with you.”
In fifteen minutes the lawyer comes.
“You have a bad case, but I can “fix it.”
Have you got any money?”
“Nothing but this diamond ring and watch,”
No man should be allowed to sell a poison which produces
misery and madness.
144
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
says the party arrested, who has been picked up
for some simple infraction of the law.
The lawyer claims friendship with the judge.
Takes his diamond and watch; gets the case con-
tinued until his client can give him the names of
eight or ten of his friends, and the lawyer will
call on them with a hard luck story about the man
in jail and “touch” each of them for $5 or $10.
When the case is finally called the judge dis-
charges the prisoner with a reprimand.
In nearly all police stations is a conspicuous
sign, “Watch Your Step,” but it ought to be
changed to “Watch Your Watch.”
There is something grimly grotesque with
that old leaden-heeled “justice.” The lead has
been changed to rubber, so the lawyer crook
cannot slip.
There are thousands of Chicago people who
have been victims of these skinners, sharks, and
shysters and today there are hundreds of lawyers
practicing this robbing game and in full and hon-
The “Death Bell” on a saloon cash register is a
“Death Knell.”
145
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
orable professional standing. The bench and bar
are fully aware of these nefarious practices. No-
body seems to care. It is somebody’s business to
break up this shameful system.
Frequently a lawyer who has been paid a
good sum to secure bail for some one detained
in a cell, will allow him to go back to jail at the
request of a professional bondsman or a “bond
shark,” because the latter has reached the limit
of his property margin and wishes to surrender
the man who has already paid in order to qualify
and collect from a new customer. Nobody cares!
The minute a man is arrested and haled to
the police station the first thing done is to search
him. Money, jewelry and all things of value are
taken and you are given a receipt for same. If
you are too drunk to have a complete mental in-
ventory of your possessions you are liable to be
handed a receipt for any amount, although you
might have $200 in your possession. A “bond
shark” and lawyer are at once notified, and when
Whiskey with a “kick” is always working overtime. Millions
, have been “kicked” into eternity.
146
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
they get through, you will be thoroughly cleaned.
Another favorite pastime is to run a man in
for being “sassy” or failure to “move along.”
Search him, and if he is a live one, don’t book him,
but notify a “lawyer” who is on the job in a
minute. He will get you out for $5 or $25, or
$50, according to the amount found on your per-
son when searched. In a few minutes you are re-
leased having never been “booked.” You think
the lawyer has a “pull.” The police know that
no judge would convict the prisoner even if booked
and held. This is a favorite pastime and works
particularly well at night when the commanding
officer is usually at home.
A big burly copper said to me in one of the
police stations:
“Alderman, the ‘big fellows’ are all getting
theirs and we know it, and we are grabbing a
bone whenever we get a chance. They are get-
ting so bold that they will soon be tripped”—-
and some of them have been.
The claw of the tiger is always felt in the handshake of a
liquor dealer.
147
M Y L A S T D R IN K
Shortly after this conversation there were
some astounding police revelations, which were
only a scratch on the surface.
A poor devil gets injured and is rushed to a
hospital. Out comes an ambulance chasing
lawyer. Advises him to not sign any paper or
settle with any claim agent. Will promise to re-
cover $10,000 damages at once. Shows a book
containing names of hundreds of men who have
been injured and received award of damages.
The cases are cited from every part of the United
States and many are twenty years old. He claims
them as his own cases and settlements.
“Just sign this power of attorney and con-
tract and I will take your case on a contingent
basis.”
The poor man falls for this bunk and signs
the paper. The shyster settles for little or noth-
ing and gives his client whatever he pleases. The
shyster wants quick money. Court procedure
and delays do not appeal to him.
When you find a saloon keeper filled with the milk of
human kindness, look out! It is usually skimmed milk.
148
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
It is well that the public should know what
a “contingent fee” is. You give one of these vam-
pires your case and he agrees to advance all court
costs and fees and prosecute your case for one-
half the amount received. It sounds reasonable.
If the lawyer loses the suit he gets nothing; if he
wins the suit you get nothing. Simple, isn’t it?
Should you ever get injured or in trouble of
any kind look out for the Blackstone boy with a
contingent contract in his pocket.
149
C H A P T E R T W E L V E
My Coming Back
WAGED war with the demon and I am no
longer in bondage. Starting in at the scene
of my defeat I am rapidly working myself up the
highway of sobriety, respect, contentment and
health.
It was a long, hard, bitter battle, but at last
I conquered the enemy. I am now free from this
terrible incubus of drink, and the memory of those
ruinous years can never be wholly eradicated.
My thoughts are now free from remorse or fear,
for in my final rise from the cavernous depths
of drunkenness and despair to the beautiful light
A ride in a patrol wagon is not a joy ride, but many
joyous men take it.
150
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
of soberness and the possession of an unshackled
mind I have cheerfully conveyed to the world my
experience with that monster, whiskey, and to the
silent and secret sufferer who has been enmeshed
in the whirlpool, give encouragement, and warn
drinking men of the abyss yawning to swallow
and clutch and strangle them in deadly embrace
unless the habit is stopped at once.
No human being or pen can truthfully por-
tray the silent and terrible grip that gnaws at
the heart of a man who is coming back to a life
of sobriety after years of terrible dissipation. It
is a tortuous trip. Thousands embark for pass-
age but few arrive at an absolutely sober desti-
nation. Temptations and discouragements are
always in evidence.
There is no fixed time that a man cursed and
burdened with drink comes to himself, but I was
coming back, and in a manner and route that
proved providential. My time to be freed of the
demon had been marked out. My last drunken
No one but a saloon keeper needs whiskey in his business.
The drink habit is like a tornado—it grows in intensity
151
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
attempt to secure money, paradoxical as it may
Seem, resulted in my reformation. God certainly
moves men in mysterious ways, His wonders to
perform.
One cold February morning in 1914 I called
at the office of the Western Fuel Company, Adams
and Rockwell Streets, Chicago, and presented a
check with the request that I be accommodated
with the currency. While pretending to accom-
modate me a clerk stepped to the telephone and
called up the bank whose check I was using. They
told the clerk that the check was worthless, to
call an officer. I heard the word “officer” re-
peated by the clerk to the assistant manager.
I shot out of the door, north on Rockwell
Street, west on Monroe, and when I reached
Washtenaw Avenue I was confronted by about
twenty coal heavers from the Fuel Company's
yards with shovels and clubs. Of course I sur-
rendered. I capitulated to this vast “army.” To
the office I was taken. On my arrival a police
The man who wants “just one more drink” is usually an
irreclaimable victim.
152
M Y L. A S T D R IN K
officer was awaiting me. I was taken to the War-
ren Avenue Police Station. I was trembling and
nervous, shattered from drink, and the police
officer took pity on my awful condition and al-
lowed me to go into a saloon on the corner of
Madison street and Campbell Avenue and secure
a drink of whiskey. I was on the verge of de-
lirium tremens. God knows I needed a stimulant.
That was “My Last Drink” and from that minute
I forsook strong drink forever.
The following morning I was taken to the
Desplaines Street Police Station, arraigned be-
fore Judge H. P. Dolan, a jurist who had known
me in the days when I was a prosperous,
respected and sober citizen. As I was brought
to the bar, the judge viewed me with a pitying
eye and said:—“Alderman, you are charged
with operating a confidence game. What have
you to say?”
I admitted the charge against me was true.
Told the judge I was drunk at the time, had only
The pop of a champagne cork is a warning shot of an
impending battle ! Look out!
153
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
a vague recollection of the transaction, that I
was already on parole from Judge John P. Ma-
honey’s court, and had just been released from
the county jail. I begged the court to change
the charge in the complaint from “operating a
confidence game,” which would send me back to
the county jail to await action by the grand jury,
to “disorderly conduct,” which would place me
within jurisdiction of his court. After some
thought the judge changed the charge. I plead
guilty, and was sentenced to serve sixty days in
the House of Correction.
Judge Dolan was kind enough to recom-
mend that I be placed in the hospital and re-
quested me to write to him at the end of thirty
days and if convinced I wanted to stop drinking
he would assist me in securing a release. I
remained in the House of Correction only a few
days, however, my never failing friends coming
to the front and securing my release.
After I was sentenced by the judge I was
Saloon keepers thrive by having minors form the habit of
liquor drinking at the earliest possible age.
154
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
bundled into the House of Correction bus for my
journey. This bus will seat about twenty, but
this time it held forty human beings, packed and
crowded and squeezed in. The door was
locked and away we went—drunken men,
Chinamen, negroes, a ragged underworld mob,
and such a foul-smelling aggregation of Sup-
posedly human beings were never before huddled
together. On arriving at the prison our
names, ages and occupations were taken; a bath
and shave followed and with a suit of prison
clothes on our backs were marched to our home—
a cell.
From that hour I was plunged into a pro-
found, persistent melancholy. It was as if the
whole fabric of life had suddenly toppled over
and crashed down upon my brain. As I peered
through the bars an awful loneliness came over
me. I was sober at last. I felt such a horror at
being shut out from the world that I determined
that I would never touch another drop of strong
Alcohol is pushing thousands of human beings into the
vortex of death.
155
MY L.A's T DRI NK
drink. From that minute my coming back started.
I am as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar that I have
had “My Last Drink.”
There was no dawn of hopefulness that I
could map out. The shadows of life were
lengthening and growing thinner. Time and
age were relentlessly creeping and ill health, a
legacy from drink, were facts whirling through
my brain with lightning rapidity.
Everything was dark, dead. I realized that
Time had its hand on the door of my life. There
was nothing in the past to which I could turn. I
must begin life over again. I flung myself on
my cell cot and with closed eyes could see my past
go round and round like the hands of a clock. My
grief and trouble were borne in silence. The ter-
rible quietness prevailing was worse than death
itself. I was stunned. The path I had traveled
had come to its end. I could not rid myself of
the memory of the past. Here I was a convict.
For what? For attempting to secure money in
Keep up your batting average, Mr. Boozer—the bleachers
for yours.
156
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
an illegitimate way, to appease my insatiable
desire for drink.
This same place is yawning for every drink-
ing man. No man who flirts with alcohol is im-
mune from the path I followed and the end I
found. The clock of human life is set at a defi-
nite point. The pendulum will some day swing
the other way, either for better or worse, and
usually worse for the drinking man.
Coming back after you have dropped to the
bottom is a slow, wearisome journey. One
hardly knows which way to turn or what to do.
Friends and acquaintances have lost confidence
in you, employers are chary about giving employ-
ment, and I found myself at the bottom of the
ladder of life. With credit, reputation and
standing absolutely gone the outlook was in-
deed discouraging.
I soon discovered it was a pretty good world
after all, for I found many loyal friends, and
quickly, too.
Sober men stand, but drunken men fall in the battle of life.
A man with a shiny coat is usually a polished saloon bum.
157
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
To Mr. David E. Gibson, Chairman of the
Mutual Improvement Committee of Oriental
Consistory, and Mr. Nelson N. Lampert, Vice
President of the Fort Dearborn National Bank,
I owe a debt of gratitude that can never be
repaid while I live, for they guided, advised and
assisted me on the way to my regeneration.
- As soon as I convinced these gentlemen I
had taken “My Last Drink,” there was nothing
spared to encourage me in every way. They
secured employment and tendered substan-
tial financial assistance, exacting nothing from
me but a promise to be firm. Had it not been
for these two Samaritans my coming back would
indeed have been rocky and almost impossible to
achieve. What these good men did for me was
voluntary, and they were actuated solely by a
noble desire to do humanitarian work. Their
mission has not been fruitless. They are as much
gratified at the outcome of their kindness as my-
self and family.
Successful drinkers are always business failures.
A quiet drinker becomes loud with age,
158
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
*
There are scores of others in Chicago who
have been restored to a life of usefulness and so-
briety by these gentlemen, privately and without
ostentation or publicity, men who have told me
their pathetic story, and are today a credit to
themselves, the community, and a pleasure to
their benefactors.
If any moderate drinker who regards prohi-
bition as an enemy to his personal liberty could
only know of my happiness and contrast it with
the despair I had endured through drink, surely
he would not refuse to forego his moderate drink
and do his utmost to put this home wrecking in-
cubus out of reach of the poor wretches whose
appetites have grown beyond their control.
Sobriety stands for law, order, peace and
happiness. Whiskey stands for drunkenness,
poverty, distress, crime, vice and all its countless
attendant consequences.
It is not only the welfare of individuals and
of families but the future of the entire nation that
Whiskey kills honesty, ambition, loyalty and all that is
good in man.
159
M Y L. A S T D R I N K
is involved in this evil. It is a social, moral, relig-
ious, industrial and political question, and is vital
to the future of the race as well as the nation.
Business efficiency, industrial economy, the
fundamental principles of thrift, clean manhood,
pure womanhood, and good citizenship, demand
the abolition of the drink traffic.
The drink traffic is the paramount problem
in the United States today. It constrains all citi-
zens who believe in law and order and decency
and a proper enforcement of the law to arm for
the encounter, forget all party lines in the fight
with a foe that is the most malignant and dan-
gerous the world has ever known.
The rights of humanity and the good of the
community must at all times first be considered,
and it is my purpose to devote the remainder of
my days to assist in the uplifting of those en-
thralled in the quagmire of drink, who have lost
their moorings and are being plunged headlong
into an awful maelstrom of destruction.
The rights of humanity demand the absolute overthrow of
the liquor industry.
160
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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