I he Saloon Problem d Social Reform THE SALOOK PROBLEM AND SOCIAL REFORM BY JOHN MARSHALL BARKER, PH.D. Professor of Sociology in the School of Theology, Boston University BOSTON, MASS. THE EVERETT PRESS 1905 Copyright, 1905 By The Everett Press Company Chapter Page THE PREFACE v THE PROBLEM STATED 1 I. THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS 4 II. THE POLITICAL ASPECTS 20 III. THE SOCIAL ASPECTS 36 IV. THE CRIMINAL ASPECTS . 54 The Essential Coordinating Social Forces Involved in the Solution of the Problem. V. FEDERATED MOVEMENT OF MORAL FORCES 73 VI. A MEDIUM FOR UNITED ACTION 86 VII. THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 102 VIII. ESSENTIAL FACTORS IN LEGISLATIVE ACTION 125 IX. LAW ENFORCEMENT MADE EFFECTIVE . 147 X. THE COORDINATING POWER IN LEADER- SHIP 165 XI. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 179 XII. SIGNS OF PROMISE . 196 270134 THE PREFACE OCIETY is confronted with many so- cial problems. None, however, chal- lenges the attention of the thoughtful and patriotic citizen more than the modern un-American saloon. N , A brief statement of the economic, political, social, and criminal aspects of the problem cannot fail to deepen and strengthen the conviction that we are face to face with one of the most formida- ble foes of social progress recorded in the history of civilization. In the preparation of this work there has been no disposition to unjustly arraign the saloon by the use of partizan statements and misleading argu- ments. The plain, unvarnished presen- tation of facts selected from the common experience of every-day life is damaging enough, without resorting to guesswork and unwarranted assumptions in order to chal- lenge attention or to make out a case. Spe- cial effort has been made to select from a large number of twentieth-century facts bearing on the saloon problem a few of the most typical and pertinent, in order that the vi THE PREFACE time-pressed citizen and student may have enough accurate and authoritative data to enable him to reach his own conclusions. The methods of solving the problem de- mand special attention. In attempting this task, no effort is made to exploit some Uto- pian scheme for social ills. Any extreme measures based on partisanship and emo- tionalism, or any academic theory that has not been tested and made effective in the field of action, will fail to meet the present social situation. If the methods advocated are to be permanent and satisfactory they must be buttressed in facts and imbedded in human nature and society as we find them. Each of the essential social forces involved, and more or less responsible for the continued existence of the saloon, is discussed in a separate chapter. The pe- culiar significance of each of the social forces does not spring from the fact that it is new or startling, but from its coordinate relation and fresh application to the sub- ject. If the feeling of futility is to give place to confidence in the solution of the problem, no one can afford to be ignorant THE PREFACE vii of the underlying thought and meaning of the anti-saloon movement now in progress, which is steadily gathering volume and in- tensity throughout the nation. It is to be hoped that the reader will be incited to fur- ther research of the subject and come to have a stronger impelling motive to make social action measure up to the social ideal in civic affairs. THE PROBLEM STATED THE saloon problem is one of sufficient magni- tude to demand the most thoughtful and can- did consideration. ( If we are to understand the character of the conflict waged against the sa- loon in behalf of the social welfare, it is important to differentiate between the saloon as an institution and the personal use of intoxicants as a beverage. The drink traffic is separate and distinct from the drink habit. The one concerns the individual, and the other pertains to society. The drink traffic is a social problem of a moral nature. The drink habit is largely a personal question, and comes within the scope of each individual conscience. The drink traf- fic helps to create and develop the drink habit. The one is cause, the other effect. The drink habit is an evil of a personal character which admits of an indi- vidualistic treatment by moral suasion, while the drink traffic occasions social disorders that demand treatment by legal action.^ The moral aspects of the drink habit may no longer be considered an open question. History and religion accord with the verdict of civilized society to-day, that the drink habit is an evil to be shunned by all who regard personal moral worth and social welfare. The leading Christian churches enjoin up- on their members total abstinence as a moral duty, and urge the legal prohibition of intoxicants as a beverage. Undoubtedly the beverage-drink traffic 1 2 T H E SALOON PROBLEM is a complex social problem with many ramifications. The paramount issue is whether or not the individ- ual shall project into the realm of society his personal privilege in the use of intoxicants by opening up a saloon to traffic in vice and make it institutional in character; and, further, whether or not this same sa- loon-keeper, with the view of extending and protect- ing the traffic, has the right to join with other saloon- keepers and form a strong, compact organization which shall seek to control legislation, intimidate ex- ecutive officers, and by its united political and finan- cial influence threaten the peace and sanctity of the home, and defeat the suffrage rights of the people. It is plain that the definite issue that confronts us is not whether the individual shall use intoxicating liquors as a beverage, but whether the saloon as a social menace shall be maintained or suppressed. No one should be diverted or side-tracked by fix- ing his attention upon the irrelevant questions of sumptuary legislation, personal liberty, or the prob- able value of the beverage use of alcoholic liquors. The all-important question centres about the saloon. All lovers of sobriety and social order may agree up- on this point of view. By standing upon this com- mon ground they may bring all the beneficent social forces into union for a strenuous and vehement cru- sade against the saloon as the enemy of social well- being and progress. There is a long distance ahead before men will stop the beverage use of intoxicants ; but it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that by the concerted AND SOCIAL REFORM 3 action of the moral forces the saloons may be effect- ually and speedily suppressed. A distinct point at least is gained when the issue is thus narrowed down to the measure of available and workable force to se- cure definite results for saloon suppression. The concentration of the attention upon the saloon, how- ever, should in no way weaken the effort to reform the drunkard and to stop the drink habit. Historic temperance movements in this country have cen- tred chiefly about the pledge-signing idea. Earnest, burning appeals to those addicted to the drink habit, and pledge-signing work, may still be carried on by local churches and temperance societies with great profit. These efforts may be made an effective means of creating and sustaining public sentiment, which in a large associate way will make itself felt for the suppression of the modern saloon. Legal action and moral suasion should go hand in hand. The one should supplement the other. The reclamation of the drunkard prepares the way for moral, religious, and social transformation. The spiritual activity in church circles should prompt all communicants to try to check the drink-habit tend- encies and thus cut off the demand for the artificial supply of intoxicants, and at the same time help to federate the various moral and social agencies for aggressive, concerted action against the saloon. Many lines of evidence converge to confirm the belief that there is enough of the altruistic spirit and intelligent interest among citizens to meet the social demand that the saloon must go. THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER I THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS The temperance cause is the foundation of all social and polit- ical reform. RICHARD COBDEN. If we could make England sober we could shut up nine-tenths of her prisons. CHIEF JUSTICE COLERIDGE. Every year I live increases my conviction that the use of in- toxicating drinks is a greater destroying force to life and virtue than all other physical evils combined. HENRY WARD BEECHER. The use of strong drink produces more idleness, crime, dis- ease, want, misery, than all other cases put together. LONDON TIMES. I am a surgeon. My success depends on having a clear brain, a steady nerve, and firm muscle. No one can take any form of alcohol without blunting these physical powers; therefore, as a surgeon, I must not use any form of spirits. DR. LORENZ. I used to think years ago that so long as I left the saloons alone they would leave me alone. But I was engaged in business for twenty years, during which I permitted several thousand dollars' worth of accounts to accumulate on my books. When I sold out and attempted to collect these I found they were worthless, and that nine-tenths of my debtors would not have been so had it not been that they had been spending their money for strong drink while I was keeping their families in provisions. It was therefore apparent that, as a matter of fact, I had been the greatest patron of the saloons in our community. I had really contributed more to the saloon-keeper than any other person in town. All of us, no matter how temperate we are, will some day find that we are di- rectly concerned in the saloon traffic. EX-GOVERNOR LARRABEE, of Iowa. If there is in the whole of this business any single encouraging feature, it is bound to be found in the gathering impatience of the people at the burden which they are bound to bear, and their grow- ing indignation and sense of shame and disgrace which this im- poses upon them. The fiery serpent of drink is destroying our people, and now they are awaiting with longing eyes the uplifting of the remedy. MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. AND SOCIAL REFORM Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity ! Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also. HAB. ii. 12, 15. THE liquor traffic is an economic as well as a moral problem. A careful and dispassion- ate consideration of its economic aspects is essential to the correct solution of its suppression. The moral and remedial agencies involved will be reinforced by a thoughtful attention to this phase of the problem. The extent and magnitude of the financial in- vestments of the liquor traffic are something that astonish and bewilder the close student of social and economic reforms. The statistical data in the government reports pertaining to the manufacture and consumption of alcoholic liquors show that there were, in 1900, 2,850 establishments engaged in the manufacture of whisky, beer, and wine, with a cap- ital of $457,674,087 invested in lands, buildings, machinery, tools, and implements. This sum does not include the capital stock of the various corpora- tions, which aggregate several hundred millions more. Apart from the manufacturing investments, the imagination is staggered at the sums invested in the wholesale and retail liquor traffic. According to the estimate based on the government census for 1903, the whole number of recorded places where liquor is sold numbered 254,498. It is difficult to estimate the vested interests of these separate estab- lishments engaged in the liquor traffic. The official THE SALOON PROBLEM government report for 1896 shows that 161,483 sep- arate establishments engaged exclusively in the liquor traffic had an aggregate investment of $957,162,907. Of this amount, $412,188,729 represent the capital and other property owned by those carrying on the liquor traffic, and $544,974,174 the value of the prop- erty rented by them. The same report goes on to show that there was an army of 434,274 proprietors and employees engaged in the traffic. This does not embrace many thousand more employed where liquor is sold in connection with other business, nor the employees engaged in the manufacture of the product. The Corn Belt (Chicago) estimated that in 1900 there were 661,554 persons engaged in the manufacture and sale of liquor in the United States, or about one to every one hundred and sixteen of the population. It is a noteworthy fact that men will invest such large sums of money with the full knowledge that the liquor traffic has no legal standing and is in no way connected with any inherent right. All the right it has is by the sufferance of the several State Leg- islatures. The constitution and laws discriminate between the traffic in intoxicating beverages which minister to an artificial and depraved appetite and the trades that supply the necessary and imperative needs of human nature. The latter renders service with profit; the former gets profit without service. The liquor traffic assumes the form of speculation, and the man engaged in it takes his own chances. That he may sustain losses when the saloon is sup- AND SOCIAL REFORM pressed is thoroughly understood by him before he enters the trade, and there is no moral or legal right for society to reimburse him. The traffic is not only under the ban of the law and society, but it consents annually to pay into the government treasury a direct tax, which in 1903 amounted to $230,746,925, besides a state, municipal, and county license which aggregates more than $100,000,000 additional. No legitimate business would submit to such a tax. The only way the traffic can maintain itself financially is to tax its patrons and prey upon their depraved and vicious appetites to meet the demands. The expansion of the liquor traffic grows all the more serious when we consider that the business is tending more and more to expand and to centralize. The manufacture of liquor has doubled during the last fifty years; in the same time the capital invested has grown from less than ten million to more than one-half billion of dollars. The number of estab- lishments for the manufacture of beer has quadru- pled in the last fifty years. The average amount of capital invested has increased one hundred-fold. One typical instance will show the general trend. Seven brewers doing business in Lucas County, Ohio, in 1901, controlled 505 of 766 saloons doing business in the county. Thus a few men have the monopoly of the trade that is doing so much to blight and destroy the virtue and honor of our country. The consumption of alcoholic drinks by the Amer- ican people is something remarkable. The total amount of liquor manufactured in 1900 aggregated 8 THE SALOON PROBLEM 1,300,358,094 gallons. This vast quantity included 103,330,423 gallons of distilled spirits, 23,425,567 gallons of wine, and 1,198,602,104 gallons of malt liquors. The consumption per capita of all kinds of alcoholic liquors in the United States for the year 1903 was 19.90 gallons, of which 18.04 gallons were beer, 1.40 gallons were spirits, and 0.49 gallons were wine. A very small per cent of these quantities, or about eleven million gallons, were consumed in the arts, manufactures, and for compounding medicine. For all liquors the consumption has increased from 4.17 gallons per capita in 1840 to 19.90 gallons in 1903. The consumption has nearly doubled in twenty years. This is mainly due to the increased consumption of beer, which intensifies the drink habit and increases rather than lessens the desire for stronger alcoholic drinks. These beverages are in no sense indispensable to man's health or happiness, and there is no legitimate demand for their produc- tion on such a large scale. The magnitude of the profits of the liquor traffic can only be estimated. It is generally conceded to be very large. The amount of money paid annually by the consumers for intoxicating liquors is almost incredible. According to the report of the Commis- sioner of Internal Revenue in 1900, the value of the products of those engaged in the manufacture of whisky, beer, and wine was $340,615,466, and the total retail monetary value of these liquors aggre- gated $1,172,493,445. The national drink bill of the American people is about equal to the total re- AND SOCIAL REFORM ceipts of all the railways in the United States. Com- paring it with the expenditures for different purposes, we find the yearly meat bill is $915,000,000; iron and steel, $600,000,000; sawed lumber, $530,000,- 000; flour, $370,000,000; public education, $175,- 000,000; all church expenses, $150,000,000; missions, $5,000,000. The vast amount of money spent for intoxicants is taken from the people without any re- turn of value, and leaves the consumer without the power to purchase the necessities and comforts of life. Besides, it robs legitimate trade from many merchants and tradesmen who never drink. It is also difficult to arrive at the indirect cost of the drink traffic. Professor Joseph B. Collins, Ph.D., with painstaking regard for accuracy and impartiality, made a study of the cost of the liquor traffic to the nation for the year ending June, 1903. He finds the direct net cost to be $1,023,441,790, and the indirect cost $684,070,000, making a total of direct and indi- rect cost of $1,707,511,790. Fernald estimates that the cost and care of paupers and criminals and the loss from non-productive labor because of the business amount to $800,000,000. In view of these startling facts, it is not strange that the suppression of the open saloon is becoming more and more an economic problem of vast consequences. It has been demonstrated beyond a doubt that the liquor traffic is the foe of the wage-earner. No well-informed person can defend for one moment the liquor traffic on the ground that it purchases large quantities of materials for its products and like- 10 THE SALOON PROBLEM wise promotes the employment of labor. The liquor industry, with its gigantic combinations, purchases less materials, employs fewer men, and pays a lower rate of wages than any industry with which it may be equitably compared. It ranks the lowest in the aggregate number of wage-earners in a list of fifty-five industries. It pays only 8% for labor, while the general line of manufactures pay 20% for labor. If the consumer pays one hundred dollars for use- ful articles he will give employment for more than eight times as many days; he will pay nearly five times as much wages; and he will demand from other in- dustries four and one-half times as much raw mate- rial as if the one hundred dollars were spent for liquor. If the same labor and money expended in carrying on the liquor traffic were employed in le- gitimate industries to increase the production of the necessaries and comforts of life, the benefits accruing to society would be infinitely greater than the mere money value of the wages and liquor consumed. Furthermore, the drink habit decreases the high- est industrial efficiency. The production of wealth demands the expenditure of certain physical, men- tal, and moral energies of the producer. The man who deadens his sensibilities and undermines his health through drink does not have the fullest exer- cise of all his inherent powers. In consequence he will turn out less work than the non-drinking man, and work of an inferior quality. The commercial supremacy of the United States depends upon the sobriety of American workmen. If they are to AND SOCIAL REFORM 11 do exact and precise work and win in the world's competition their brains must not be dulled with alcohol. Sir Hiram Maxim once said, "The Eng- lish workman spends a great part of his earnings in beer, tobacco, and betting; he has no ambition. . . . The American workman wishes to get on ; he accom- plishes a great deal more work in a day than any other workman in the world." That the liquor traffic is not beneficial to the gen- eral interests of the wage-earner is seen in the fact that the great corporations, railroads, banks, and employers of labor dare not trust their business to the men .who drink. The United States Depart- ment of Labor found that 90% of railways, 79% of manufactures, 88% of trades, and 72% of agricultur- ists discriminate against employees addicted to the beverage use of intoxicants. The greatest barrier to wage-earners in general and to the elevation of young men in business in particular is the drink habit, which is created, fostered, and encouraged by the saloons. The employer who wishes honest service does not select for important places of trust men who frequent saloons. The worth of abstinence finds abundant justifica- tion among managers of the railways. They regard even moderate drinking as harmful to the service, and are trying to eliminate the danger. The Amer- ican Railway Association covers 160,000 miles of the 202,492 main-track mileage in the United States, and employs 1,189,315 men. The Association has adopted a set of standard rules, one of which is : " The 12 THE SALOON PROBLEM use of intoxicants by employees when on duty is pro- hibited. Their habitual use or frequenting of places where they are sold is sufficient cause for their re- moval." Nearly all the great railroads of the coun- try have adopted even more explicit and drastic rules than the one mentioned. The majority of them for- bid the use of liquor under any circumstances, and make it a sufficient cause for discipline or discharge from service. Abundant evidence may be had to show that the saloon fosters poverty and thriftlessness. Poverty in a few cases is the result of unavoidable circum- stances, but by far the larger mass of poverty comes through idleness, want of forethought, and, worst of all, drink as one of the main predisposing causes. This master evil tends to impoverish men so that they are unable to buy the necessaries of life. The actual cases of poverty which have been investigated in a scientific way by experts in many leading cities in Germany, England, and the United States show that drink is not an exciting cause but a contributory in- fluence in 28.1% of the cases of poverty. Drink as a cause of poverty is summed up by Charles Booth in his masterly w r ork on "The Poor in London" in these words : " Of drink in all its combinations, add- ing to every trouble, undermining every effort for good, destroying the home, and cursing the young lives of children, the stories tell enough. It does not stand in apparent chief cause in as many cases as sickness and old age; but if it were not for drink, sickness and old age could be better met." In his AND SOCIAL REFORM 13 final volume on "London" he says, "The smear of drink is over everything." The superintendent of the Milwaukee poorhouse says, " The saloons are respon- sible for more than two thirds of Milwaukee's county paupers." The president of the Department of Pub- lic Charities of New York City, referring to the alms- house, says, " Out of the 2,936 inmates, 2,729 were admitted for destitution; they were just helpless in the main because they had yielded to the desire for drink until long-suffering friends could no longer bear the burden of their existence and had to turn them over to the State." The report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics says : " Examining the statistics of paupers where the inquiry covered all persons found in the State institutions during twelve consec- utive months, we find that, excluding minors, about seventy-five persons in every one hundred among the paupers of the State were addicted to the use of liquor, and three fourths of these used all kinds, or at least two kinds, of liquor. Nearly one half of the paupers had one or both parents intemperate. About thirty-nine in every hundred attributed pauperism to the intemperance of parents." Bear in mind that the army of paupers are not only withdrawn from the productive force of the community, but the sober citizens are taxed to maintain them. Look at the problem from another angle. The per capita cost of intoxicating liquors for 1903 was $17.85, or about $90 on the average for each family. Since there is a vast army of abstainers in the United States, it is evident that some people must consume 14 THE SALOON PROBLEM a large amount of liquor at great cost. A typical in- stance of the way the money of many wage-earners is spent in the saloon is given by a business manager who, in speaking before the State Board of Arbitra- tion in Denver regarding the employees of the Amer- ican Smelting and Refining Company, said, "Fifty per cent of the checks paid to our employees for years back have been cashed by saloon-men, and the can- celled checks will show it. Over $2,500,000 of the concern's money has been paid out over the saloon bars, amid the fumes of whisky and beer." The large sum of money taken by the saloon from the pockets of the poor is a process that has the economic feature of robbery. If the ten cents spent a day for intoxicants were saved and put on interest at the end of each year, at 5%, at the end of ten years it would amount to $405; twenty years, $1,120; twenty-five years, $1,630. The general testimony is that the economic condition of the tippler and the drunkard is too frequently the result of money wasted on drink. When the money is gone and the drink habit is fixed the man in his poverty and despair seeks the saloon to drown his misery in drunken unconsciousness. He is thus led to seek refuge in the very evil which caused it. If the wage-earners could be induced to save the money spent for strong drink, and pool their interests, they could in a comparatively short time buy the leading industries of the country and become themselves socialists, capitalists, and manufacturers. The cost of crime occasioned by the liquor traffic is an element pervading the whole budget of taxation. AND SOCIAL REFORM 15 The extent of taxation directly chargeable to crime for the whole country is more than $200,000,000. The cost of crime in the city of New York, paid from city and county taxation, is over $20,000,000 out of a total list of '$90,000,000. The New York State Prison Commission reports that the commit- ments to jail for intoxication for 1903 were 28,515, and 3,315 to the penitentiaries, making a total of 31,830 for the offence of drunkenness. Much of the time consumed in the criminal courts, and one-half of the expense, are occasioned by the maintenance of this class of offenders. The highest official au- thority shows that in 1903 there were twenty-three prohibition counties in Texas that had no convicts in the penitentiary, and nine with only one convict each. In thirty-nine prohibition counties there are only twenty-three convicts in all. The majority of the jails in Kansas are without a single inmate. Forty counties in Kansas do not have a pauper. In Massa- chusetts 55% of the population is under high license. That 55% furnishes 80% of the crime of the State. According to the state and county records, the direct cost of the liquor traffic is five times as much as all license fees. The sober people of the State must bear the cost of the detectives, police, and prosecuting officers. The least that ought to be expected is that the legis- lation that regulates the liquor traffic should make the same amenable to general business principles. Each business must bear its own losses and repair any damages it may inflict upon individuals or upon 16 THE SALOON PROBLEM the community. The owner of a dog that kills a sheep must pay for it. If a mill-dam destroys prop- erty the loss must be made good, and the one who alienates the affections of husband or wife is held re- sponsible before the courts. By the same parity of reason, citizens should demand that the liquor traffic bear all judicial, legislative, criminal, and other costs involved in the trade. The saloon performs no serv- ice to the community whereby it can claim that the citizens be taxed to pay the bills incident to the traf- fic. It should sustain the large proportion of inmates in the poorhouses, jails, state prisons, and asylums. It ought to make good the damage resulting from each sale of liquor. Official statistics of the several States should determine the basis of action. If this valid business principle were rigidly applied by those in authority the saloon would soon be taxed out of existence. The Illinois Dramshop Act holds the saloon- keeper liable for injuries in person or property sus- tained by any one through the sale of liquor by him. The Appellate Court of Illinois, in a decision recently handed down (1904), went so far as to hold that "a saloon-keeper is liable for the death of a patron while under the influence of liquor sold by him." The economic bearing of the saloon on the fi- nancial growth and development of a community must have a passing notice. Notwithstanding the refutation to the contrary, some people make them- selves believe that the revenue from the saloon is a good investment for towns and cities. On the sur- AND SOCIAL REFORM 17 face this statement may seem plausible, but on a deeper inquiry it will be found that owing to the crime, depredations, and social disorder growing out of the saloon, an additional police force is re- quired, more arrests are made, and jail and court expenses are multiplied. Almshouses, asylums, and public charities naturally follow in the wake. All these increase the taxes and deplete the resources of a community. Numerous concrete facts and reliable statements might be given to refute the specious argu- ment that saloons benefit a community. Take a typ- ical instance. Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a population numbering about 100,000, voted out the saloons in 1885. A large and increasing majority of the voters are convinced by experience that busi- ness has improved and that the municipality is bet- ter served by local prohibition. Under license from 1875 to 1885 the valuation of property decreased about $3,000,000. Since liquor-selling was forbid- den the increase has been more than $36,000,000. Not only has the population doubled, but the aver- age savings-bank deposit has trebled. The mayor of Fargo, North Dakota, recently said, "Since the forty saloons were driven out of the city it has pros- pered far better than it ever did before. Instead of being depopulized, it has more than doubled in pop- ulation since the saloon left us." The city of Hoopes- ton, Illinois, has been without a saloon since 1887. The city is very prosperous, and the rate of taxation is but .013 of the actual valuation. Note, again, that for self-protection against the demoralizing influ- 18 THE SALOON PROBLEM ences of the many saloons at Bremerton, Washing- ton, in 1902, the Navy Department decided to send no more warships for repairs to that port. This ac- tion aroused the people and city authorities to ban- ish the saloons and to pledge the government that the law would be faithfully enforced. The revenue arising from the beverage sale of spirituous liquors is small when compared with the increasing revenue derived from sober, industrious citizens. Indeed, in no sense is the revenue from the saloons an asset over against the social misery and drunkenness pro- duced. The unwarranted assumption that saloons pro- mote business has been disproved over and over again. Each community has a certain definite in- come, made up of the aggregate income of the several individuals comprising it. Consequently there is just so much money in a community to spend for legiti- mate trade and the comforts and necessaries of life. It stands to reason that the prosperity of the commu- nity does not hinge on a few saloons. The more money spent for liquor the more impoverished the drinkers become and the less there will be to spend for the more needful comforts of the home. The wage-earners that are encouraged in sobriety and habits of thrift and saving will earn more and have more money with which to erect homes, buy com- forts, and contribute to the permanent growth of the community. Most of the money spent in the saloon goes to pay the distant brewery or wholesaler for stock, and consequently never enters the legitimate AND SOCIAL REFORM 19 business of the town. The saloon-keeper's family does not spend anything like the amount of money for the necessaries of life that the families impover- ished by the saloon would spend. Another impor- tant fact is worthy of mention. Real-estate men re- gard the saloon as a nuisance. The inevitable effect is to depreciate property all about it. The restricted areas in the residential districts of our large cities are in demand. On the other hand, the rum-ridden wards of a city depreciate the value of real estate in the immediate vicinity. The license fees of the saloon cannot compensate for the loss in taxable values. The man who seriously advocates saloons on the ground of increasing the business of the community either has not attained intellectual maturity or else refuses to be governed by the logic of facts. His spirit of commercialism has smothered his moral sense. The old delusive statement of the evil one that " it is good for food" has blinded him to the larger social vision. A comparative study of the financial and moral condition of license and no-license towns and cities ought to make evident the fact that the way to prosperity and happiness is through the annihilation of the liquor traffic. The culminative evidence against the saloon reinforces the conviction that since the economic law and the moral law spring from the same source, both are factors of the widest import in dealing with the saloon problem. 20 THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER II THE POLITICAL ASPECTS It is impossible for men engaged in low and groveling pursuits to entertain noble and generous sentiments. DEMOSTHENES. It is an absolute necessity that we join hands and act as a solid, impenetrable body, for the chance of being legislated out of busi- ness that we escaped is too recent to have been forgotten, and the very apparent activity of our common adversary, the Anti-Saloon League, who are already preparing for the next campaign, which promises to be warmer than the last. This they can only accomplish because they are unanimous therefor; let us work until we have each and every one interested in our business in the ranks; let us work together. CHICAGO LIQUOR DEALERS' ASSOCIATION. Partizanship is a good thing sometimes, but patriotism is a better thing all the time. Partizanship is well enough when it does not conflict with patriotism, but patriotism is a higher virtue than partizanship. The legislator who sells his vote traffics in the honor of a sovereign people and prostitutes the trust reposed in him. There can be no offense which, if allowed to go on, is fraught with graver consequences. It is more fatal to civic life than any other crime, for it pollutes the stream of law at its source. It makes the passage of laws mere matters of bargain and sale, thwarts justice, enthrones iniquity, and renders lawful government impossible. If all official acts were for sale we would have a government not of, for, and by the people, but a government of, for, and by the few with wealth enough to purchase official favor. It is the highest duty of every legislator, of every official, and of every citizen to do all that he can to eradicate this evil, which is the greatest enemy to free government and the greatest danger that confronts this nation to-day. It is not always by taking money that an official may pros- titute" his trust. He does it whenever he uses the power given him to be exercised for the public good for any other purpose. An official can embezzle public power as well as public money. GOVERNOR FOLK, of Missouri. "No man is free who is not master of himself;" no voter is free who is not, in truth and not in mere semblance, master of his vote; no people, whatever the name or form of its government, is free unless its rulers are those, and those only, it would have as rulers. AND SOCIAL REFORM If its action be hampered, its wishes be overridden, in their choice, whether this constraint be the work of a foreign conqueror, a legal autocrat or oligarchy, or an extra-legal ruler or ruling body, a "boss," or a "ring," a "machine," or an "organization," then in all these cases alike the result is the same: the people is not free; a community thus governed has not self-government. CHARLES J. BONAPARTE. The most powerful saloon-keepers controlled the politicians and the police, while the latter in turn terrorized and blackmailed all other saloon-keepers. If the American people do not control it, it will control them. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, when Police Commissioner of New York City. The saloon ever has been and always will be a corrupt ele- ment in politics. JUSTICE GRANT, of the Michigan State Court. They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think. They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. THE saloon likewise has pronounced and def- inite political aims. Few people in this coun- try have any adequate comprehension of the hold the saloon has obtained upon our political sys- tem. Its influence is felt in local, state, and national politics. The legislative battles in Congress and in the several State assemblies for restriction or sup- pression of the saloon show that we are in the midst of an irrepressible political conflict with a dangerous enemy of civil government and free institutions. The political offensiveness of the saloon arises from the fact that its interests are placed above state and national affairs. Every fair-minded and patri- 22 THE SALOON PROBLEM otic man who enters upon a political career is " most critically scrutinized" by the saloon element, and is expected to pass the test of loyalty which they de- mand. The entire weight of the saloon interests is thrown into the scale to secure statutory measures for the saloon trade. Consequently the saloons en- dorse and fight for candidates pledged to pro-liquor legislation. The aggressive political action of the saloon forces to dictate nominations and defeat can- didates who are not committed to their interest vir- tually defies the whole community. Public officials pledged to the saloons cannot discharge their moral obligations and are thereby disqualified for work in the interests of their constituents. If such interfer- ence in politics were carried on by any legitimate industry or trade it would call forth very pronounced expressions of disapproval. We are officially advised by the saloon leaders as to their political program. We let them speak for themselves. The National Retail Liquor Dealers' Association recently met in Baltimore and declared their polit- ical attitude in the following omni-partisan language : "The brewers should imitate the example of the Re- tail Liquor Dealers' Association and support those in either party who support them, irrespective of po- litical differences." The New York Liquor Dealers' Association, at their meeting held in Utica, September, 1902, passed these significant resolutions: "Resolved, That, having attained a position of AND SOCIAL REFORM power and influence, as herein set forth, through a faithful adherence to our original declaration of principles, ' to lay aside our individual political pref- erences and to lend our aid, influence, and votes to defeat any and all candidates for offices of public trust who will not give positive and public assurance of their willingness to urge and vote for such just and equitable laws to which we, as good citizens and honest merchants, are entitled;' "Resolved, That it is now our manifest duty to make use of the strength which we unquestionably possess to make strenuous efforts for the election of legislators pledged to our interest, that we may be enabled in the near future to secure such favorable legislation as the condition of our trade so imper- atively demands." The liquor organ, The Knights of Fidelity News, exhorts its readers thus: "A State Legislature is to be elected, and it is up to the liquor-men themselves to see that individuals who would if they had power crush their business out of existence do not secure seats in that body. By working shoulder to shoulder they can demonstrate their strength to the two great political parties, and secure the defeat of men of this stripe at the primaries." The Grand Valiant Com- mander of the Knights of Fidelity, in a circular let- ter of advice to its members, of December, 1903, says: "In influencing legislation for our own benefit and protection, union is strength and numbers count for a great deal more than money. Attend all conven- tions, and see that you get a liberal and fair-minded class of men nominated on your legislative ticket." 24 THE SALOON PROBLEM The central object of these official utterances was to try to get control of the Legislature of Indiana. The Liquor Dealer says : " It is the duty of the liquor-men throughout the country to 'spot* every congressman and member of the Legislature who is suspected of strong temperance proclivities and ex- ert themselves to the utmost to defeat him." These statements are typical of scores of others, and they reveal the political despotism of the saloon. The worthy candidate for public office must en- counter the organized and determined opposition of the saloon-keeper. Not satisfied with packing the various positions of public trust, they resort to legislative juggling and administrative trickery to accomplish their purpose. The saloon in politics is the more formidable by reason of its solid and compact organization and association. The liquor-traffic interests have been organized as a ring in politics for years. In 1903 a bold step was taken to mass the saloon forces. An organization representing saloon interests was formed for political action throughout the United States. The three leading organizations are the Knights of Fidel- ity, the Knights of the Royal Arch, and the National Retail Dealers' Association, claiming a united mem- bership of 150,000. These organizations, without losing their identity, are amalgamated under the juris- diction of the National Liquor Dealers' Association of America. It is to be kept together intact "after the method of the big political parties" of the United States. "One of the principal objects of this new AND SOCIAL REFORM 25 organization is to fight unfair legislation and throw the mantle of protection about its members in every possible way." Attorneys and political henchmen are to be employed to look after the association's interests in Congress and the various State Legis- latures. A circular of the Wholesale Liquor Dealers' Asso- ciation, under date of Dec. 20, 1904, gives official expression to its political activity in these words: "Congress is now in session. Conditions require us to be watchful of trade interests, and our best efforts are being exerted in your behalf. This associ- ation has accomplished a great deal for the entire trade. It has prevented the passage of the Hepburn- Dolliver-Prohibition Bill, aiming at National Pro- hibition, and the McCumber substitute for the Hep- burn Pure-Food Bill, containing certain provisions discriminating against whisky." Under date of Oct. 25, 1904, a circular of the same association says: "With inimical state and na- tional legislation threatening the trade, and constant annoyances from other quarters, the necessity for organized effort is self-evident. The hostile measures we successfully prevented passing Congress at the last session will again be brought up this winter. We must continue our active opposition, and we need your support. Don't hold back. Your adhesion means more power to us and added protection to you." In order to provide funds for the use of the united liquor societies all wholesale dealers must place "a one-cent label on every case of wine, a two-cent THE SALOON PROBLEM stamp on every imported case of wine, and a five- cent stamp on every barrel of goods. The proceeds from the sale of these labels are to be placed in a fund that will be used to fight legislation inimical to the interests of the trade." It is estimated that $5,000,000 will thus be raised to corrupt the machin- ery of government. The growth of joint stock companies has strength- ened the liquor interests. The concentrated owner- ship and control of the entire traffic makes the sa- loon economically and politically stronger and more dangerous than before. Many of the saloon-keepers Jiave very little liberty of action. The complete sys- tem of the liquor ring enables it to control by influ- ence the grant and transfer of licenses, and not in- frequently to help place unworthy men in public positions, with the view of making as well as admin- istering the liquor laws. The United States Brew- ers' Association, the National Wholesale Liquor Dealers' Association, and the National Retail Liquor Dealers' Association have well-recognized bureaus at Washington working to protect the trade. Their paid attorneys and lobbyists are present at the vari- ous hearings in Congress with petitions and means to defeat threatened hostile national legislation, and to secure advanced measures favoring the liquor traf- fic. The Protective Bureau of the National Whole- sale Liquor Dealers' Association, reporting for the year ending June, 1904, declares that in one year there were published and sent broadcast 4,050,980 pieces of literature. The same report says: "Dur- AND SOCIAL REFORM 27 ing the year the Bureau took part in two hundred and thirty-seven elections held in twenty-five differ- ent States. The Bureau has been successful in 74% of the contests in which it has participated during the year." The bureau aided in seven fights affecting entire States. The more formidable and threatening the saloon oligarchy becomes, the more evident will be the necessity of mustering the anti-saloon battal- ions to aid in suppressing it. The saloon element cares nothing for any polit- ical party except in so far as it advances the sale and consumption of liquor. It is the embodiment of selfishness, and is freighted down with evil and evil consequences. The chief reason why saloon politics subsist to-day grows out of its organized system of political patronage and its cohesive power of public plunder. It caters to the party in ascendency, but does not help or benefit any genuine political life. Ex-Governor Chamberlain sums up the situation in this terse language: "The average saloon-keeper has no politics. He will be a rampant Republican to-day and a roaring Democrat to-morrow, just as he may promote his traffic. His politics may be said to be the unrestrained right to sell a cent's worth of beer for a nickel and two cents' worth of whisky for a dime. No other question in politics interests him beyond that." This arraignment is verified by the testimony of the official representatives of the saloon. The brewers' national organ says : " If we find that one political party is against us, we must support the other. Self -protection must be our only guide 28 THE SALOON PROBLEM first beer and then politicians." The National Ad- vocate, the official organ of the Knights of the Royal Arch, a liquor organization, says: "Politics in the liquor world must at this stage be thoroughly revised. We must dismiss all party lines and vote for the men who will give us justice. If the Democratic admin- istration is best for our rights, we say vote the Dem- ocratic ticket; if the Republican party is more in favor with us than the Democratic, we say vote that ticket; but before doing so we must think well, and we must act in a body and give our blow when the time comes." The majority of saloon-keepers are foreigners, and, considering the saloon atmosphere that sur- rounds them, it can hardly be expected that they will have deep-seated party convictions or under- stand the genius of a self-governing people. The saloon element imagines it can protect it- self from a long-suffering people by identification with certain political organizations. The Knights of Fidelity News, the chief liquor organ of Indiana, in its issue of March, 1903, urges the saloon forces to array themselves against the Republican party. It charges the Republican organization with passing laws unfavorable to their business, and urges the saloon forces openly to support the Democratic party. On the eve of election a leading editorial in The Southwest, a liquor organ, used these words: "We say again, as we have said a great many times be- fore, that all Ohio laws which interfere with our per- sonal liberty were passed by Republican Legislatures. AND SOCIAL REFORM There is no exception the Pond law, the Owens law, the Smith law, the Stubbs law, and id omne yenus, were Republican measures. A word to the wise is sufficient. People who are, either directly or indirectly, interested in the liquor trade will, by voting the Democratic ticket, vote for their own in- terests. " The Wine and Spirit News, the chief liquor organ of Ohio, in its issue of April 27, 1904, says: "It must be quite plain now that the Republican party as a party is not friendly to the liberal in- terests of the State, representing as they do many millions and tens of millions of dollars' worth of property. The huge majorities rolled up by the party have resulted disastrously to the liquor inter- ests, which in the main were largely responsible for such results. In the fight which has just closed, the Republican party proved false to its solemn agree- ment made prior to the election, and became a most radical and uncompromising foe of the very people who did so much for its success." The Wine and Spirit Gazette of New York recently said: "The liquor vote of this State, a good deal more than 120,- 000 strong, can, if it will, control all legislation at Albany. It has the balance of power between the two parties. It can make or unmake majorities. Properly led, it can elect any set of men it pleases." The New York Liquor Dealers' Association, in their meeting held September, 1903, became intensely partisan, and showed an open and determined oppo- sition against the ascendency of the Republican party, which they charged with imposing, in the last 30 THE SALOON PROBLEM Legislature, an additional liquor tax. One of the resolutions of this meeting reads as follows: "Resolved, That we appeal to every liquor mer- chant in the State, whether a member of our asso- ciation or not, to use his vote at the coming election and whatever influence he can command for the de- feat of any and all Republican candidates for the Legislature, and to secure by all legitimate means the election of the Democratic candidates whom ex- perience has taught us we can ever rely upon as friends commonly committed to those principles of popular liberty and equal rights so dear to us all." The New York Liquor Trades Review declares: " That the Republican party has annihilated itself in this State is unquestionable. Let the politicians of the parties attend to their business for awhile, and you do the voting. This above all, * to thine own self be true,' and remember, Mr. Saloon-keeper, that in politics, as in business, it is the quintessence of in- gratitude and the acme of imprudence to cast aside old friends." A long list of such statements from other States might be given to show the political animus of the saloon. Notwithstanding the saloon boasted of its heart's desire and attempted to cajole and threaten the party mentioned and make it sub- servient to its interests, yet its majority in the suc- ceeding elections in the three States given was rarely if ever exceeded. It is evident that the political lines are being drawn. The saloon, however, has no claim on any party, since good men and loyal citizens are found AND SOCIAL REFORM 31 in all parties. The anti-saloon Democrats as well as the anti-saloon Republicans would resent being massed with the saloon element. The antagonists of the saloon, irrespective of party affiliations, are lining up against the saloon on moral grounds. The recent votes in the several Legislatures where the saloon issue was involved show that the moral con- flict within party lines is reduced to a minimum. Consequently any political party that would attach itself to the saloon interests will suffer ultimate de- feat. The time was when no political party dared to withstand or offend the power of the liquor traffic. The conditions are rapidly changing for the better. Whenever the an ti -saloon forces are united and active the balance of the political power is rapidly slipping from the saloon element. If a fair and square sa- loon issue is injected into the campaign, the anti- saloon vote is likely to overbalance the distinctively saloon vote. As a result, politicians no longer close their ears, shut their eyes, and turn their backs on anti-saloon workers. They understand that they in- vite defeat whenever they attempt to do the bidding of the saloon. The anti-saloon forces aim to make it politically safe for any public official to obey his moral convictions and preserve his integrity. The saloon is likewise a generating agency of corrupt politicians. The corruption begins in the political caucus, many of which in cities are held in saloons. Out of a total of one thousand and two nominating conventions and primaries of the Re- publican and Democratic parties in New York City, 32 THE SALOON PROBLEM in a single year, six hundred and thirty-three were held in saloons and ninety-six in places next to a saloon. Especially in the cities, the candidate for office must not only be represented in the political caucus by frequenters of the saloon, but obey their mandates. He must descend to the saloon for in- struction in politics or he cannot succeed. Through them he must obtain the votes of the idle, vicious, and purchasable elements of society. Hence enlight- ened patriotism will never emanate from the saloon. It is not surprising that men of character and worth often feel that rather than submit to such ordeals and debasement to gain political control, they pre- fer retirement to private life. Again, the local governments in many of our cities are in the hands of the saloon. The curse of local municipal misgovernment is in proportion to their number. Theodore Roosevelt, speaking of the situation while serving as head of the Police Depart- ment in New York City, says : * * All of our cities have been shamefully misgoverned in times past, and in New York the misgovernment has been, perhaps, more flagrant than anywhere else. Naturally, the saloon-keeper has stood high among the professional politicians, who have been so prominent in New York politics for many decades. More than half of the political leaders of Tammany Hall have at one time or another themselves been in the liquor busi- ness. The saloon forms the natural club and meet- ing-place for the ward leaders and ' heelers ' so much so that the bar-room politician has become a AND SOCIAL REFORM 33 recognized factor in local political government. The saloon-keepers are always hand-in-glove with the professional politicians, and occupy towards them a position such as is not held by any other class of men. The influence they wield in local politics has always been very great; and until we took office no man ever dared seriously to threaten them for their flagrant violation of the laws. Their power was a terror to all parties." The odious "Boodle" Board of Aldermen of New York City was composed of twenty-four members, twelve of whom were saloon- keepers and four were saloon politicians. In 1902 thirteen out of forty-six of the city council in Mil- waukee were saloon-keepers. These instances are typical of conditions prevailing elsewhere. Wherever the saloon is most strongly intrenched, there knavery, plunder, graft, and bad government are most rampant. These evils result from the com- bination between the politician and the saloon. The venal politicians who act as party leaders are without any apparent moral convictions or principles. They exercise their mastery in politics in the realm of the saloon. They acknowledge allegiance to them, and pander to the worst vices of the worst class. This class of saloon politicians degrade public service to their own low level. The best way to get rid of the product is to get rid of the saloon. It is the methods of the saloon in politics that render it so formidable and mischievous. They reduce the contest for polit- ical control to the point of having an opportunity to misgovern. These conditions become all the more 34 THE SALOON PROBLEM significant when we take into account the possibil- ity that such a city as New York may have, in the near future, the deciding vote that will determine who shall be President of the United States. Furthermore, the saloon is the chief promoter of bribery and rascality in politics. Wherever the sa- loon is the most prosperous and exerts the greatest political influence, there the political conditions are the most odious. Instances are not wanting to show that the saloon does not hesitate to corrupt voters. In every important election venal votes are cast by the thousands. The purchased votes are almost in- variably bought and paid for in the saloon. Careful and moderate estimates show that out of every one thousand of sober voters over one hundred are venal. Out of one thousand moderate drinkers who vote over four hundred are venal ; while out of one thou- sand heavy drinkers who vote over seven hundred are venal. These figures are startling in their truth as well as in their significance. It is evident that whenever the un-American sa- loon plans with selfish calculation to corrupt and cheapen the boon of political rights for the individ- ual, the home, the church, and the nation are in peril. It perverts and spoils the democratic system. The law-abiding citizen is thereby disfranchised and the purposes of government thwarted. American citizenship and the right of suffrage become a re- proach. Our fathers fought to gain a representa- tive form of government. In many instances it has come to pass that the expression of personal judg- AND SOCIAL REFORM 35 ment at the ballot-box is offset by the lawlessness of the liquor traffic. This pernicious power in a gov- ernment of free people is established and perpet- uated by the bad element as well as by the indiffer- ent voter at the ballot-box. It is impossible to ac- quit of some measure of responsibility those voters who directly or indirectly help to maintain the traffic or to participate in its profits. Many voters would resent saloon control and disdain to share in its prof- its, and yet are led by the spirit of partisanship to elect candidates who will sustain the schemes of a political boss who is subservient to the saloon power. The supremacy of the saloon boss may be overcome by the independent voters who, irrespective of party ties, will vote only for men of good character. Every patriotic American should be aroused to the peril, and led to bring the destructive force of public sen- timent against this arch-criminal of political liberty. THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL ASPECTS Strength of mind depends upon sobriety. PYTHAGORAS. While the intemperate man inflicts evil upon his friends, he brings far more upon himself. Not only to ruin his family, but also to bring ruin on his body and soul, is the greatest wrong any man can commit. SOCRATES. The liquor traffic is a cancer in society, eating out the vitals and threatening destruction, and all attempts to regulate it will not only prove abortive, but will aggravate the evil. There must be no more attempts to regulate the cancer. It must be eradicated, not a root must be left behind; for until this is done all classes must continue in danger of becoming victims of strong drink. LINCOLN. I am not a temperance lecturer in disguise, but a man who knows and tells you what observation has proved to him; and I say to you that you are more likely to fail in your career from ac- quiring the habit of drinking liqucir than from any of the other temptations likely to assail you. You may yield to almost any other temptation and reform, but from the insane thirst for liquor es- cape is almost impossible. I have known of but few exceptions to this rule. ANDREW CARNEGIE. Twenty-five years ago I knew every man, woman, and child in Peekskill ; and it has been a study with me to mark boys who started in every grade of life with myself, to see what has become of them. I was up last fall, and began to count them over, and it was an instructive exhibit. Some of them became clerks, mer- chants, manufacturers, lawyers, and doctors. It is remarkable that every one of those that drank is dead; not one living of my age. Barring a few who were taken by sickness, every one who proved a wreck and wrecked his family did it from rum and no other cause. Of those who were church-going people, who were steady, who were frugal and thrifty, every single one of them, with- out an exception, owns the house in which he lives, and has some- thing laid by, the interest of which, with his house, would carry him through many a rainy day. When a man becomes debased with gambling, rum, or drink he does not care; all his finer feelings are crowded out. The poor women at home are the ones who AND SOCIAL REFORM 37 suffer suffer in their tenderest emotions, suffer in their affec- tions for those whom they love better than life. CHAUNCEY DEPEW. How many a young man whom I knew in my school days went down because of his fondness for intoxicating drinks! No man has ever had occasion to regret that he was not addicted to the use of liquor. No woman has ever had occasion to regret that she was not instrumental in influencing young men to use intoxicants. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER. THE influence of the saloon on the social life of the people far exceeds in importance the economic and political aspects. In the first place, the saloon is the enemy of society because of the evil results produced upon the individual. It meets no legitimate demand of human nature, but exists to excite an abnormal appetite for intoxicants. The supply of liquor creates the demand, and not, as in the case of necessities, the demand the supply. In a multitude of ways it fosters and overstimulates a thirst for drink. One of its avowed purposes is to encourage the habit of treating, and by means of free salted lunches and concocted drinks provoke a wholly unnatural craving for intoxicating liquor. It is this fact that makes the saloon a positive evil, and vicious in the highest degree. It becomes an instru- ment to make a man intoxicated, and thereby forms the chief contributing cause towards discounting his value in society. The saloon not only helps to deprave the appe- tite, but is the important factor from a hygienic point of view in dispensing intoxicants that undermine the health and efficiency of its patrons. (Much of the success of man as a productive force in society comes 38 THE SALOON PROBLEM from a sound body and a clear brain. It is an incon- trovertible fact that the physical and mental powers cannot be used to the best advantage when under the influence of intoxicating liquors.) The insidious and deceptive character of alcohol and beer on the vital functions of the human body is abundantly con- firmed by scientists, physiologists, and physicians eminent in their professions. Dr. J. H. Kellog says, " In administering alcohol in small doses to a healthy human being, the result is, first, to diminish nerve activity; second, to reduce cerebral activity; third, to impair the coordinate power of the brain ; fourth, to lessen muscular strength to a notable degree ; fifth, to diminish digestive activity." Dr. A. Forel, of the University of Zurich, testifies that even a moderate quantity of alcohol contained in a glass of wine or a pint of German beer "is sufficient to paralyze, re- tard, or disturb the central and centripetal brain functions. The number of mistakes in calculation, setting type, memorizing, is increased. Sensibility is blunted, the reaction is retarded. The subjective consequence of the effect is agreeable : one feels heat, cold, and pain less; one is less afraid, less accurate, less scrupulous. At the same time a very slight illu- sion spreads over reality, the beginning of the later intoxication by higher doses. Hence, whenever alco- hol promotes sociability and loosens the tongue it is the consequence of a cerebral intoxication. When- ever the dose is too weak to produce this result it also fails to have the desired effect. Hence it is evident that the social effect of alcohol is pathological. It AND SOCIAL REFORM 39 may, in Kraepelin's and Delb ruck's words, 'rouse stupid crowds to talk.'" Dr. S. H. Burgen,of Toledo, Ohio, adds the following testimony of a practising physician: "My attention was first called to the in- sidious effects of beer when I began examining for life insurance. I passed as unusually good risks five Germans young business men who seemed in the best of health, and to have superb constitutions. In a few years I was amazed to see the whole five drop off, one after another, with what ought to be mild and easily curable diseases. On comparing my ex- perience with that of other physicians, I found they were all having similar luck with confirmed beer- drinkers, and my practice since has heaped confir- mation upon confirmation." The whisky trade paper. Barrels and Bottles, adds its testimony to the dangerous use of beer: "Every one bears testimony that no man can drink beer safely, that it is an in- jury to any one who uses it in any quantity, and that its effect on the general health is far worse than that of whisky, clogging his liver, rotting his kid- neys, decaying his heart and arteries, stupefying and starving his brain, choking his lungs and bronchia, loading his body with dropsical fluids and unwhole- some fat, fastening upon him rheumatism, erysipelas, and all manner of painful and disgusting diseases, and finally dragging him to his grave when other men are in their prime of mental and bodily vigor." The deleterious effect of alcohol on the human system is accentuated by expert testimony as to the fearful adulterations. One of the Pure Food Com- 40 THE SALOON PROBLEM missioners of Illinois says, "More than 80% of the whisky of the United States is adulterated with harmful deleterious poisons, chemicals, and com- pounds, 85% of which is sold in barrels and 15% in bottles." Dr. B. H. Warren, the Pure Food Com- missioner, of Pennsylvania, found upon examining one thousand samples gathered from over the State, that 95% of them were adulterated. His reports show that more than 85% of all whisky is doctored by wood alcohol and red or India pepper and prus- sic acid and other drugs. Numerous observations have been made which show that the beverage use of alcohol predisposes a person to succumb to sickness, and likewise dimin- ishes resistance to all infectious and contagious dis- eases. Furthermore, facts go to corroborate the statement that intoxicants become a positive injury to athletes, explorers, and others in training for feats of strength and endurance. The history of armies demonstrates that the soldiers who endure the great- est fatigue and exposure are the men who refrain from drinking. Lord Roberts testifies that the 24,- 800 out of the 75,000 soldiers in India who are total abstainers furnish 2,000 more effective troops than the other two thirds who are not abstainers. Lord Kitchener led an army of teetotalers on a phenom- enal forced march, under a burning sun, through an African desert, to victory in the Soudan. Again, the saloon encourages the use of drinks that produce abnormal nerve conditions, and de- stroy one's dignity as a rational being. Among the AND SOCIAL REFORM 41 many cooperative causes of insanity is the immod- erate use of alcohol. It is a potent excitant of the nerves, and stimulates the brain to a feverish activ- ity. The alarming growth of insanity in both Europe and America is traceable to alcoholism. The Massa- chusetts Bureau of Statistics of 1894 shows that of 1,281 adult insane persons, 659, or 51.44, were ad- dicted to the use of liquors. Dr. Delbruck, of Bre- men, Germany, has recently pointed out that of one hundred and forty-nine persons who were treated in a North Germany asylum for drunkenness, forty-one had been alcoholized by drinking spirits, thirty-eight by wine-drinking, and seventy-eight, or more than half, by the excessive consumption of beer. The fifty- sixth annual report of the Pennsylvania Commis- sioner of Lunacy shows that the ratio of the increase of insanity from intemperance is five to one. The question has a more dramatic interest when we come to consider thatfthe saloon helps to destroy personal self-respect, and in so far becomes an ob- stacle to the growth of good society. The saloon lures its patrons to drink, and by means of screens and other devices shields them from public gaze. The harmless social glass with perhaps only a small amount of alcohol is the first step taken to create an uncontrollable desire for more and stronger drink. Gradually the victim reaches a moral plane where conscience is silenced and he is ready to participate in all the accompanying vices of the saloon. After- wards he wakens to the fact that he has destroyed self-respect and forfeited the good opinion of his fel- 42 THE SALOON PROBLEM lows. With self-respect gone and all barriers broken down, there is no limit to his moral and social deg- radation.! The passion for drink has caused the ex- pression of the eye to fade and the grace of the hu- man form to depart. He has reached the point where he can practise the art of dissimulation and excuse with the boldest effrontery. Finally, the victim seeks the lowest haunts of vice and becomes submerged in imbecility or a drunkard's grave. What a satire on the life of a human being made a little lower than the angels! Truly, this is no overdrawn picture, but one of the common products of the saloon and its social attractions. (The saloon is likewise a menace to the family. The vice and degradation generated in the saloon do not stop there, but attack the home, and invade the sanctuary of womanhood and childhood. The social and sexual instincts are normally developed in the family. Whatever influence hinders or ob- structs these natural relations works an injustice to both individual and social well-being. Many fre- quenters of the saloon are young men who spend such a large proportion of their money in drink and dissipation that they are thereby debarred from en- tering into marriage relations and maintaining a fam- ily. Those who do assume the responsibility are likely sooner or later to become improvident, squan- der and waste property, neglect business, and for- sake the family. The husband and father who makes the saloon a favorite resort is tempted to AND SOCIAL REFORM 43 waste his money and consume his energy. The economic result of this disablement is to render the man less serviceable to his family, as well as to so- ciety. > His usefulness is cut short. Instead of being a contributing factor to civilization, he becomes de- pendent and useless. When the head of a family be- comes non-productive because of drink, the wife and children are often compelled to support them- selves, and possibly to help pay public fines imposed upon the drunken husband and father. Conse- quently there is less promise of usefulness in the family when the saloon has occasioned such poverty, squalor, and degradation. The integrity of the whole social fabric is so in- terwoven with the integrity and purity of the family life that whatever weakens the latter impairs the for- mer. The home is the corner-stone of national safety. The downfall of nations in the past has been preceded by a reckless sundering of family ties. The tendency of the saloon evil is to destroy the home, and thereby disorganize society and undermine the State. The worst feature of the domestic phase is that the pas- sion for drink ruins affection, breaks family ties, and makes men callous to the anguish of wife, children, and friends. The frequency of divorces is one of the danger-signals. There were in 1903 more than 23,000 divorces granted in the United States alone. Accord- ing to the deliberate testimony of the judges who le- gally sever the matrimonial bonds in the courts, more than two thirds of the divorces are occasioned by the 44 THE SALOON PROBLEM use of intoxicants. The alarming laxity of family ob- ligations, unless checked, is certain to be followed by ruin and disaster to society. The saloon, by perpetuating the aggravated forms of the drink habit, unfits men to become fathers. The voice of science sounds a tremendous warning against the use of alcohol as a beverage because of its predisposing effect upon the offspring. It poisons the fountain of life, and is dangerous to the most tender of all organisms, the human seed-cells. Pro- fessor G. Von Bunge, M.D., says, " Alcohol is most dangerous for the full-grown persons who are to be fathers and mothers of the coming generations, and those first of all must be total abstainers. The great- est crime a human being can commit is to poison the seed-cells." Every child is entitled to a clean, whole- some birthright. The saloon that stimulates the de- mand for drink is more or less responsible for the condition that robs many a child of his right to be well born. The fatal law of heredity may be traced step by step to alcoholism. This disease, like any other, is transmitted from one generation to another, and has a culminative effect. Naturally there spring up from such degenerate soil the seeds of crime, vice, and in- sanity. Some men who have had the good fortune to have a temperate father and mother may be able to drink intoxicating liquors with impunity, but their offspring is likely to have a lessened vitality and im- paired powers with which to resist the subtle influ- ence. Dr. Legrain traced the course of four gen- AND SOCIAL REFORM 45 erations of drinkers, in two hundred and fifteen fam- ilies. Giving the result of his investigation, he says: " Summing up the eight hundred and fourteen cases I have tried, comprised in these two hundred and fifteen families, I have found that 42.2% have be- come alcoholics, 69.9% are degenerates, 13.9% are morally irresponsible, 22.7% have had convulsions, one third have become subject to hysteria or epilepsy, and 19% are incurably insane. In addition to these, one hundred and seventy -four have disappeared from this world before, or almost before, having drawn their first breath. To these I might add ninety-three cases of tuberculosis, or of other wasting and incur- able illness, which brings the total of those who died from hereditary alcoholism up to almost one third." Richard A. Dugdale, of New York State, in his re- port of the New York prison commission, investi- gated the descendants of a drunkard named Max through seven generations : " Of the five hundred and forty descendants, two hundred and eighty were adult paupers, one hundred and forty were criminals and offenders of the worst sort, guilty of seven murders, theft, highway robbery, and nearly every other crime known in the calendar of crime." The estimated cost to the public for supporting this family was $1,308,000. General Booth says, "Nine tenths of our poverty, squalor, vice, and crime spring from this poisonous taproot. Society, by its habits, cus- toms, and laws, has greased the slope down which these poor creatures slide to perdition." Professor Demme, of Stuttgart, Germany, made a study of 46 THE SALOON PROBLEM ten families of drunkards and ten temperate fam- ilies for a period of twelve years. The direct poster- ity of the ten families of drunkards included fifty- seven children. Only ten of all these fifty-seven, or 17.5%, showed during youth a normal constitution and development of body and mind. The ten tem- perate families produced sixty-one children. Of these, fifty, or 81%, were normal in every way, developing well in body and mind. The expert testimony of scientists and physicians regarding the hereditary in- fluence of alcoholism is reinforced by the records of the prisons, asylums, and reformatories. These show conclusively that the hereditary taints of the liquor habit are seen in their injurious effects in off- spring. For example, there were in 1902 four hun- dred and twenty boys committed to the Industrial School at Lancaster, Ohio. Of these, one hundred and twenty had intemperate fathers and five had in- temperate mothers. These facts go to show that criminality is accentuated in the families of drunk- ards. The significance of the social aspect of the liquor traffic is again seen in that the money expended by intemperate parents in the saloons results in the en- forced ignorance of the children, whose abilities often remain undeveloped for want of means and incen- tives that would otherwise be their natural inheri- tance. In this day and age children have just claim upon their parents according to ability to provide comfortable homes, good reading, and all that goes to broaden and enrich life, and to prepare them for AND SOCIAL REFORM 47 useful citizenship. (The saloons, with their attrac- tions, and the bartenders, with their effusive smiles, lure men to drink, and to spend their money that ought to go to the education of their children and the betterment of family comforts. The saloon, with its vulture-like greed, leads men to steal the bread from the wife and children of their patrons in order to fill their own coffers. The evil results of the traffic to the family do not stop here, but grow more seri- ous and horrifying when the husband and father goes home with his brain maddened with drink to abuse his wife and children. The enticements of the saloon are causing untold suffering and sorrow to many wives, mothers, and children. )* Mrs. Helen Gougar kept tab on the open saloon of this country for only one year, and found that more than three thousand helpless wives were murdered by drunken husbands within that brief period.? These are some of the victims that cry aloud to our legislators and public officials that they should protect not the saloon-keeper, but those who suffer from the saloon's direful consequences. (In view of the fact that the saloons help to provoke and perpetuate these outrages in society, no one can say that the saloon-keeper is following a legitimate occupation and gaining an honest livelihood, without display- ing a culpable ignorance or the lack of a fine sense of honor. The social situation demands that every lover of home and country should stand as an advocate for the army of suffering women and help- less children in our land. 1 48 THE SALOON PROBLEM (Another aspect of vast moment is the influence of the saloon on American institutions.! 1 The saloon is the enemy of the social agencies which stand for the best sentiment, as well as for the noblest con- serving forces, of our modern civilization. With scarcely an exception, the liquor papers throughout the country, in their editorials and contributed art- icles, manifest a hatred to religion and a bitter hos- tility to the Church. They do not hesitate to defame the ministers and workers in social reform move- ments. I One thing is clear: the saloon and the church cannot thrive together.) In comparing the attend- ance at church with that of the saloons of the Pad- dington district of London on a recent Sunday, it was found that 31,331 persons attended church serv- ices and 122,175 were found in liquor saloons, of whom 38,118 were women and children. The sa- loon defeats and cripples the Church's influence for social betterment by opening their doors on Sunday and holding out temptations to young men to grat- ify their lower nature. The result is that the saloon in many places has a stronger hold upon the young men than have the churches. This promising mate- rial of the community frequent the saloon and the beer-gardens in large numbers, especially on Sun- day, and absent themselves from religious service. It is a noteworthy fact that wherever the saloon is banished from the community for a period of years more young men are found to attend church. The liquor traffic is also a hindrance to mission effort in foreign lands. The work that the Church is AND SOCIAL REFORM 49 aiming to do is often nullified by this nefarious liq- uor traffic. The effect of intoxicating liquor and its attendant evil among native races in Africa, Asia, South America, and islands of the sea has aroused travelers, explorers, and missionaries, and led them to urge upon their respective governments the suppression of the traffic. Rev. C. S. Morris de- clares that the drink traffic causes the yearly whole- sale slaughter of no fewer than two millions of the native races. The treaty of sixteen nations in 1892 established the principle of suppression of the liq- uor traffic in a defined district in Africa which ought to be world-wide in its application. President Schur- man, speaking of the saloon in the Philippines, says, "I regret that the Americans let the saloon get a foothold in the islands. It has hurt the Americans more than anything else, and the spectacle of Amer- icans drunk awakens disgust in the Filipinos. We suppressed the cock-fights there, but left the saloon to flourish. One emphasized the Filipino frailty and the other the American vice. I have never seen a Filipino drunkard." The American people can- not afford to permit the demoralization by drink of the half-civilized people committed to their care. It follows that people working to suppress the saloon at home are battling for the best interests of the na- tions abroad. The saloon fosters an un-American spirit among the foreign-born population of our countiy. The in- flux of foreigners into our urban centres, many of whom have liquor habits, is a menace to good gov- 50 THE SALOON PROBLEM eminent. Whole classes of native-born Americans are being redeemed from the saloon, but the foreign- born population is largely under the social and po- litical control of the saloon. If the cities keep up their rapid growth they will soon have the balance of political power in the nation and become the storm centres of political life. The hope of perpetuating our liberties is to help the foreigner correct any demoralizing custom, and, through self-restraint, to assimilate American ideals. At least the children of the heterogeneous foreign population should have a wholesome environment and not be encouraged to cultivate the drink habit because their parents did. However much ethical standards may vary, no citizen has any right to demand that the community support a saloon to satisfy his appetite when it en- dangers the common welfare of society. Of late attention has been called to the fact that there is a growing danger of race suicide. The birth rate is falling off, and other influences are at work to lessen the physical energies of the race. A great Paris newspaper attributes to the enormous consumption of alcohol the fact that in one year in France the num- ber of deaths exceeded the number of births by twenty thousand. No student of the problem can doubt that one of the chief dangers of race suicide springs from the result of the saloon and its attendant evils of the drink habit. No less a renowned scholar than Mr. Darwin says, " It is remarkable that all the evils coming from alcoholism pass from father to son even to the third generation, becoming worse if the AND SOCIAL REFORM 51 use of alcoholism is continued, until the result is sterility." The devastation of human life that is going on silently but effectually all over our land because of drink is fraught with frightful consequences to the nation. Intemperance every year is destroying its victims by the thousands. The death rate from this cause cannot be ascertained with scientific accuracy, since mortality statistics record only the immediate causes of death and take no account of the medi- ate and contributing causes of disease and death. Frequently physicians spare the feelings of relatives and friends of a deceased patient by not reporting the whole truth in the case. The conclusions reached from the statistics gathered by the Registrar-General as to the average number of deaths among 61,215 persons were that there were two deaths among drinkers and three among liquor-sellers for every one among teetotalers. A number of leading scien- tists connected with the universities of Zurich, Mu- nich, Basle, Leipsic, and others, published among other things the following statement : " It is an ab- solutely scientific fact that alcoholic drinks more than any other factor injure our national life, diminish the physical and intellectual forces of our race, impreg- nate them with hereditary diseases, and lead to de- generacy. More than half of the inmates of our pen- itentiaries have been led into crime by alcohol ; nearly a fourth of the insane owe their sad fate to alcohol; misery, impoverishment, and grossness of manner are due in thousands of cases to this national poison. 52 THE SALOON PROBLEM Alcohol is the certain cause of 10% of deaths among adults. Every year in Germany thirteen hundred persons lose their lives through accidents happening as a result of alcoholic excess. Sixteen hundred are driven by alcohol to suicide, and about thirty thou- sand are annually stricken with delirium tremens or other brain troubles." Valuable investigation re- garding the mortality resulting from drink has been made by several eminent physicians and scientists. Dr. Norman Kerr, of England, instituted an inquiry with the avowed object of exposing what he sup- posed were exaggerated temperance statistics regard- ing mortality through the use of alcohol. The final results of his investigation led him to say, " I was com- pelled to admit that at least 120,000 of our popula- tion annually lost their lives through alcoholic ex- cess 40,500 dying from their own intemperance, and 79,500 from accident, violence, poverty, or disease arising from intemperance of others." Dr. Wakely, a former editor of the London Lancet, de- clares that of the 1,500 inquests held by him yearly, at least 900 were due to drink. Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, the distinguished British scientist and investigator, places "the mortality from alcohol at one tenth of the whole mortality in places where the article is consumed in the same proportion as in Eng- land and Wales, at the present time a proportion fairly representative of alcoholic populations gener- ally." Sir Andrew Clark, late physician to Queen Victoria, said, " I do not desire to make out a strong case; I desire to make out a true case. I am speak- AND SOCIAL REFORM 53 ing solemnly and carefully in the presence of truth, and I tell you that I am considerably within the mark when I say that, going the round of my hospital wards to-day, seven out of every ten owed their ill health to alcohol." The late Dr. Willard Parker, the eminent surgeon of New York, gave it as his opinion that 33^% of all the deaths in New York City were occa- sioned directly or indirectly by the use of alcoholic drinks. There is remarkable unanimity among those who have made a careful investigation of the prob- lem that "a minimum proportion of deaths caused by alcohol is 10%. As there were 1,039,094 deaths in the census year 1900, that would make about 100,- 000 as alcohol's share." These statements, based upon the highest med- ical authority, lead to the conclusion that the saloon is making war upon the manhood and womanhood of the nation, and depleting the ranks of its citizen- ship. The mischief done to society by the saloon and the tragical end of many of its victims are palpa- ble. The fact that the saloon is a social menace and has no valid defense will become more apparent as we proceed to consider its criminal aspects. 54 THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER IV THE CRIMINAL ASPECTS There is scarcely a crime beiore me that is not directly or in- directly caused by strong drink. JUDGE COLERIDGE. The great cause of social crime is drink. The great cause of poverty is drink. When I hear of a family broken up, I ask the cause drink. If I go to the gallows, and ask its victim the cause, the answer drink. Then I ask myself in perfect wonderment, Why do not men put a stop to this thing ? ARCHBISHOP IRELAND. Let there be an entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks throughout this country during the period of a single generation, and a mob would be as impossible as combustion without oxygen. HORACE MANN. It must be charged to their environment that these boys are guilty. The people have allowed the conditions which have brought these boys to such a pass. It is because the saloon-keepers of this city were allowed to place to the lips of the young that which fires the brain and sears the soul. By imposing the death sentence the court will be striking at the effect, not the cause, and if the cause remains undisturbed the result will be another such case as a righteous retribution upon those responsible. JUDGE BUCK- HAM, of Minnesota, who pronounced the death sentence on two boy murderers. The encouragement of drunkenness for the sake of the profit on the sale of drink is certainly one of the most criminal methods of assassination for money hitherto adopted by the bravos of any age or country. RUSKIN. By legalizing this traffic we agree to share with the liquor-seller the responsibilities and evils of his business. Every man who votes for license becomes of necessity a partner to the liquor traffic and all its consequences. WILLIAM McKiNLEY. All who sell liquors in the common way, to any that will buy, are poisoners-general. They murder His Majesty's subjects by wholesale; neither does their eye pity nor spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain ? Is it not the blood of these men ? Who, then, would envy their large estates and sump- AND SOCIAL REFORM 55 tuous palaces ? A curse is in the midst of them. The curse of God is in their gardens, their groves a fire that burns to the nether- most hell. Blood, blood, is there! The foundation, the floors, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood. JOHN WESLEY, 1760. THE saloon has the distinction of standing first in this country in the production of crimes and criminals. Though the topic is grue- some, and there is a general aversion to criminals as the enemies to society, yet the scientific study of crim- inology and penology as connected with the liquor traffic has a special value and importance for the un- derstanding of the problem under consideration. In tracing the relations of the saloon to crime it is well to keep in mind that we are dealing with it as an insti- tution, and not with the saloon-keeper. Many of the latter class are morally obtuse and act with criminal intent, but the majority of them are foreigners, who have the customs of the mother country -dinging to them, and hence are largely the products of their en- vironment. This fact, however, does not excuse them from being a party to the evil consequences growing out of the traffic. Crime is disobedience to the formulated spirit and laws of society. The causes of crime may arise from the character of the individual, or from adverse social and economic conditions, or from some predisposing tendency or habit. Many of these causes mingle and blend in their operation with others. It is not always easy to separate them. Those who are comfortably fed and housed have very little conception of the unfavorable conditions and surroundings that make for crime. 56 THE SALOON PROBLEM Through loss of money or friends many are forced into the atmosphere of poverty, vile companions, and places where there is a total lack of sanitation and proper food. Some of these conditions of inde- scribable and pitiable misery help to generate crime. In many cases it may be said that vice and crime are effects, rather than causes. One way to lessen crime is to ameliorate conditions. ^The chief cause of crime is chargeable to the sa- loon. 7 It deals out poisonous intoxicants that help to create and develop the criminal propensities. The pivotal point is that it produces, or tends to produce, conditions favorable to criminal action. If we are to draw moral distinctions with the clearness of a line of cleavage, it is important to distinguish between the tendencies of conduct that lead to overt acts of crime and the commission of crime itself. A study of the decisions of the Supreme Court shows that immoral books or pictures that tend to corrupt youth, open to such influences, as well as lotteries, gambling- dens, and saloons that tend to lead to crime, are implicated in wrong-doing, and hence are criminal. The whole moral question hinges on the criminal tendencies and the welfare of society. The saloon, if not the prime cause, is the predisposing and ex- citing cause of a large per cent of crime. It works up the nerves to an unnatural height of excitement. The victims become passionate, irritable, and un- reasonable. Dr. Felix L. Oswald, the eminent nat- uralist, says: "In summing up the prevalent causes of crime, we shall find that intemperance must in AND SOCIAL REFORM 57 every case be regarded either as a direct or indirect factor of the conditions favoring the development of a vicious disposition." The saloon becomes the pre- paratory and determining cause of crime in so far as it inflames passion, dethrones reason, and renders dormant the moral faculties, and thus prepares its patrons to participate in all classes of crimes. In view of these facts, it is not a mere accident that there should be an almost unfailing connection between the saloon and crime. The fact that saloons harbor the criminal classes, and that they abound near gambling-dens, bawdy- houses, and other disgraceful places, only aggra- vates the criminal conditions. (The criminals, the gamblers, the thieves, the prostitutes, and the vicious class generally support the saloon, and, in turn, the saloon furnishes recruits for those resorts, and thus crime flourishes. The saloon becomes a veritable school and hotbed of crime, because of its progres- sive demoralizing associations. Here it is that crime finds its genesis and an abiding-place.) Few can measure the deadly effects of saloon associations. Many unsuspecting and plastic youths who are en- snared and drawn into the saloon meet and come under the moulding influences of the professional criminal and accomplished villain, and become pre- pared for a life of crime. ( A few historical incidents will bear out the statement that anarchism of the revolutionary type is the faithful ally of the saloon. The " Wilkey Booth's gang" always met in a saloon, and Booth, the assassin, was a heavy drinker. "Of 58 THE SALOON PROBLEM those who were hanged when Lincoln was no more, George A. Atzerot, Lewis Payne, and David E. Her- ald were known to be common^ drunkards. Mrs. Surratt was herself a rum-seller.") On the morning that Guiteau assassinated President Garfield he en- tered a saloon, and he had been drinking more heavily than usual. The bartender said to him, " Guiteau, what is the matter to-day ? You are drink- ing heavier than usual." The assassin replied, "Yes, I have heavier work on hand than usual to-day." He went forth from the saloon, nerved by strong drink, to commit the heinous crime. ! The man who assassi- nated President McKinley was likewise a product of the saloon. He received his early education in his father's saloon, and had worked for some time in a brewery. He once kept a saloon, and for three days preceding his deed of violence made his home in a saloon in Buffalo. ) After the sad tragedy some an- archists met in saloons to congratulate one another, and to cheer the name of the red-handed assassin. No one can contemplate these crimes and many others of like nature without finding it difficult to speak of the saloon in temperate language. The saloon is not only the home of the assassin, but it develops a debasing and deceptive spirit that conspires to murder the men who seek to bring the law-breakers before the courts instituted for the pro- tection of society. We need only to cite the murder of Haddock, of Sioux City, and the blowing up of three houses in Muscatine, Iowa, when the families were asleep, and a multiplied number of similar in- AND SOCIAL REFORM 59 stances, to show the criminal aspect of the saloon. The cases cited are only samples of how some of these fiends, black-hearted with deceit and red- handed with cruelty, wait for the opportunity to do some deadly work against those who actively oppose their nefarious traffic. No sane man can truthfully say that the assertion that there is a connection between the saloon and these crimes is merely sen- timental The officials of prisons and penitentiaries and re- form schools all over the country unite in testifying that a large proportion of crime is due directly or in- directly to the liquor traffic. Not long since, a gen- eral average of testimony gathered from 1,017 keep- ers of county jails in various portions of the United States showed that the proportion of crime due to drink was 72%. That the saloon is destructive of so- cial order is abundantly confirmed by prison statistics. The whole number of cases brought before the Boston municipal criminal court for the year ending Oct. 1, 1903, was 23,525 ; of this number, 17,118 were cases of drunks. There were 8,525 cases of commitments for jail offences in Connecticut for 1902: 4,617 of these were for drunkenness, and 6,946 of the total, or about 82%, by their own confession pleaded guilty as drink- ers of intoxicants. In one year there were 82,000 ar- rests made in Chicago. The city prosecutor recently said, " It is true that three fourths of the crimes of Chicago are due to liquor." The Superintendent of Bridewell says, " Liquor is the cause of the incarcer- ation of 80% of those who are committed to the Bride- 60 THE SALOON PROBLEM well." The prison warden of Pittsburg reports: "Of 7,579 convicts sent to jail during 1902, nearly every one was treated for alcoholism, while of this number 709 suffered from acute delirium tremens, seven dy- ing." Mayor A. F. Knotts, of Hammond, Indiana, says, "Ninety-five per cent of all crime is caused directly or indirectly by drink. The police records of our city show that more than 90% of all the offences committed are the results of intemperance, and that our police force, maintained at an expense of $15,- 000 a year, is almost wholly and exclusively em- ployed in watching and caring for men, women, and children affected by drink." Hon. S. M. Nichols, for- mer mayor of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a population of 60,000, and one hundred and twenty- six saloons, testifies thus: "During my seven years' tenure of office I have had about seven thousand cases before me, and I am satisfied that about 90% of them were the result of drunkenness." Judge Severance says, " During my nineteen years as judge of the district court I have sentenced nearly four hundred people to the penitentiary, and I have traced 90% of this crime to liquor-drinking." The report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics on the influence of the liquor traffic in regard to crim- inals informs us that "82% were in liquor at the time of offence," and that "in 84% the intemper- ate habits of the offenders led to a condition which induced the crime." More than this, that, "exclud- ing minors, ninety-six to every one hundred were addicted to the use of liquors." The report of the AND SOCIAL REFORM 61 Chicago grand jury for December, 1900, has this significant statement: "The fact that at least 90% of all criminal cases coming directly before this body have some saloon connection, direct or indirect, con- vinces us that the interest of public morals will be subserved by a strict enforcement of existing ordi- nances governing the conduct of the saloon." Sim- ilar testimony might be multiplied indefinitely to show that the saloon is the mother of crime, and the greatest menace to social order. Another pertinent fact is that the saloon is law- less, and as such is the enemy of good government. As society is constituted, laws are essential to good order and social well-being. Those who put them- selves openly in the way of the people as expressed in their laws strike at the foundation of civil author- ity. The saloon-keepers as a class seemingly have no regard for any law that prevents them from being a law unto themselves. They appeal to law for the protection of their own rights and property, and at the same time set themselves deliberately to defy law whenever it runs counter to their interests. Abundant proof of this defiant spirit of lawlessness finds expression in the official utterances of papers devoted to saloon interests. Fair Play, a liquor or- gan of Illinois, says : " The laws of this State govern- ing the liquor trade are so severe that there is not a licensed saloon-keeper in Illinois that does not lay himself liable to prosecution under the law a dozen times each day." Those who violate the law on the ground that it is contrary to their desires, or on the 62 THE SALOON PROBLEM ground that public sentiment is against it, are anar- chists of the most revolutionary type. The National Advocate, a liquor organ, says: "In our meetings the saloon-men merely demand the right to defy any man who shall impose upon them any law that is against them. Such laws ought to be defied; they should be trampled in the dust ; and if they cannot be revised, then we say it is time to become anarchists." A class of citizens that seek a nullification of laws in this spirit forfeit all right to American citizenship. The saloons likewise defy authority and contra- vene the laws of the State by keeping open bar on the Sabbath. They do this in the most boastful spirit. The same liquor organ some time since said: "We agree with the narrow-minded people of the State of Ohio that the Sunday ordinance is a law, but, like the slave law, it should never have been made, for this glorious country is supposed to be one of free- dom." In defending this advice to law-breakers, The Wine and Spirit News makes the following com- ment : ' ' And then because one element of the voting population is able by a dozen votes, or even less, to say that the opposing element must not purchase or consume stimulants, is a piece of legislation contrary to the very spirit of legislation. It is a matter that law-makers should have nothing to do with." This spirit animates the whole trend of saloon thought. It shows that the words are spoken in defiance of the civil laws and of the highest courts of the land. When the saloon element disregards all ethical codes and moral standards and gives expression to such law- AND SOCIAL REFORM less utterances they are out of harmony with Amer- ican principles, and become anarchists and crim- inals of the worst type. Saloons not only openly violate law with impunity, but where a majority in a county or municipality or town choose to vote out the saloon, not infrequently the saloon-keepers start speak-easies and blind-tigers, and connive with others to break the law by selling liquor clandestinely. We have a well-warranted suspicion that they deliber- ately plan to get men drunk, and send them to pa- rade the streets when they are the most crowded with people, in order to show that the prohibitory law is a failure, hoping by this means to win the people back to the policy of high license. Many good people are thus hoodwinked and betrayed into the belief that there is more drunkenness when the saloons are voted out than when they are permitted to run wide open. The prevalence of mob violence is largely incited by the saloon that carries on its traffic in defiance of law. The mob spirit is growing to an alarming ex- tent in this country. It draws its inspiration largely from the saloons, as the chief breeders of lawlessness. They do not hold themselves amenable to any law that hinders their rapacious greed for money X The rela- tion of the saloon to mob violence is a well-attested fact. The history of the great Hay Market Riot in Chicago and the mob violence in Cincinnati, Pitts- burg, and other cities show conclusively that the sa- loons were the headquarters of the plots and schemes of the leaders.^ Even the city authorities are some- times in collusion with the saloons to disregard ex- 64 THE SALOON PROBLEM isting laws. This fact has often encouraged the sa- loon votaries and sympathizers to open violence and riot. We cite a recent incident of a long series of crimes with which the liquor traffic is justly charge- able. (These could be multiplied indefinitely.) A riot began in Evansville, Indiana, on July 4, and ended on July 11, 1903, resulting in ten deaths and thirty- five others injured, besides wrecking property and looting stores. The State troops were called out to quell the riot. The first step the city authorities took to subdue the mob was to close the saloons as the chief source of the lawlessness, but they had locked the door after the horse was stolen. The mob was inflamed by strong drink, which became the inci- ting cause of a reign of terror. The city, having a population of 70,000, and three hundred and ten saloons, enjoyed wide-open privileges, and was filled at the time with gamblers, roughs, beer-drink- ing and carousing individuals. The saloon was the source of the explosion of bad passions and public disorders which followed these carousals. The brew- eries which supported the wide-open saloon policies afterwards discharged three militiamen in their em- ploy who, in obedience to the orders of the State, assisted in putting down the very lawlessness which they and the saloon sympathizers promoted. Such men rank with the most vicious elements of society, and they themselves are criminals and enemies of social order. Furthermore, it would be an easy task to show that a large part of the social disorder attending AND SOCIAL REFORM 65 strikes is caused by the saloon. When the strike is on the leaders strongly urge the strikers to leave liquor alone and to keep out of saloons. When a man is smarting under a sense of injustice a drink of liquor is likely to aggravate his feeling of injury and to lead him into trouble. During a recent labor riot in one of our large cities the chief of police said: "The saloons are the refuge of the rioters every time. In the beginning of the trouble, when the po- lice were trying to cope with the disturbances, every time we would charge a crowd that was creating disturbance they would melt away into the saloons, and, if the police tried to follow, the front door would be held long enough to give the rioters a chance to escape out of the back door." Similar corroborative testimony might be given at great length but why multiply them when the facts are patent to every observing mind? It has already been shown that the political ma- chinery of this country is largely contaminated by bribery, carried on chiefly through the agency of the saloon. The purchase of votes by the political par- ties at our general elections is a matter of common knowledge. The awful nature of this crime strikes at the very roots of our liberty, and undermines the suffrage rights of every citizen. The fact that such practices exist is a striking indictment against our civilization. Again, the highest court of the land re- gards the saloon as an habitual criminal. It gives no uncertain sound in these pregnant words: "By the general concurrence of opinion of every civilized 66 THE SALOON PROBLEM and Christian community, there are few sources of crime and misery to society equal to the dramshop, where intoxicating liquors in small quantities to be drunk at the time are sold indiscriminately to all par- ties applying. The statistics of every State show a greater amount of crime attributable to this than to any other source." The abundant corroborative evidence is all the more significant when we face the appalling fact that there were in 1903 no less than 8,976 murders and homicides in this country. The saloon that inflames passion and makes possible gen- eral lawlessness and bad government in cities is largely responsible for this community murder. It is folly to presume on the intelligence of the reader and prolong the discussion by heaping up indict- ments, j It is impossible to mention the catalogue of saloon crimes and debauchery. The daily journals of the world record the awful list of these as a per- petual indictment against the liquor traffic. The criminologists, the reformers, the statesmen, the ju- rists, and men eminent in all lines of public service declare in the strongest language that the saloon is the incarnation of depravity and the greatest crim- inal agency on earth. ; The reader who has followed closely this short study of the economic, political, social, and criminal aspects of the saloon will justify the conclusion that the gravity and magnitude of the problem is appall- ing. There has been no desire to unjustly arraign the saloon or to overdraw the facts, but to render a calm, guarded, and truthful statement of the social AND SOCIAL REFORM 67 situation. We are not of those who think that all social woes are attributable to the saloon. How- ever, the irrefutable testimony of experts concern- ing the close connection between the saloon and much of the demoralized industrial and social con- dition goes to show that the saloon is the greatest scourge of the American people. It is entrenched in wealth, custom, trade, and organization. It thwarts the purposes of government, tampers with legislation, corrupts the courts of justice, undermines civic virtue, and debauches public sentiment. It not only shelters criminals, thieves, gamblers, and houses of infamy, but overflows the borders of decency and flaunts itself in the street. It pollutes the moral and social atmosphere of every community it touches. Every thoughtful citizen is startled at its progeny of crime, pauperism, and insanity. No one can log- ically defend or tolerate it. This autocratic and merciless enemy of the race is irretrievably con- demned by facts, by reason, by conscience, by the decisions of the Supreme Court, by the Church, and by God himself. It is not entitled to the protection of the law or the sanction of the State. It is unwor- thy a place in our Christian civilization. No one who has a care for suffering, sorrowing humanity can afford to hold his peace in the presence of this enemy of social welfare and not to work strenuously for the time when this foul blot will be wiped out from our otherwise fair land. It may be asked, Who is responsible for the in- iquitous saloon ? Some things are obvious. The 68 THE SALOON PROBLEM State that legalizes the beverage-liquor traffic prac- tically legalizes the process of making drunkards. The most damnable phase of the liquor problem is that the State makes the liquor-seller pay for the privilege of continuing in a traffic that by its very nature and consequences is criminal. If we read these facts to any purpose, it is that the State is in complicity and partnership with the saloon. But the State is a psychic organism composed of indi- viduals. It is nothing more nor less than we, all of us, the people of a Christian democracy, who carry the right of sovereignty underneath our hats. We, the people, make or unmake rulers, legislators, and public officers. Hence, we, the people, are respon- sible for the acts of our chosen and authorized agents. If they violate their sacred obligations as public offi- cials, our plain duty is to exercise the right of recall by vote at the succeeding election. If we trace through the political genealogy in order to fix responsibility for the State's complicity in the saloon evils, we find that back of the saloon is the State license, and back of the State license is the voter. Hence the man who votes for license practically authorizes the saloon- keeper to be his agent. Under the common law, a principal is responsible for the acts of his agent ; con- sequently, the man who votes for license, or acqui- esces in the same by failing through indifference to vote, shares in the responsibility for the saloon and all the evil consequences which spring from it. It is clear according to all legal sanction that the saloon- keepers, together with their patrons and sympathiz- AND SOCIAL REFORM 69 ers, are particeps criminis in all the crimes involved in the traffic. Jesus said, "Woe unto the world be- cause of offences, but woe unto the man by whom the offence cometh." His woe is upon the drunkard, and it is equally pronounced and emphatic upon the man by whom the offence cometh, through giving his neighbor to drink, or, by vote, or indifference to voting, authorizing the saloon-keeper as agent to give him intoxicants to make him drunk. The saloon depends for its existence upon two classes of people: first, upon its patrons and sympa- thizers; second, upon the indifferent and apathetic citizens who, for fear of giving offence or for business considerations, will uphold it. The latter are in the majority and can vote out the saloon whenever they come together and choose to do so. Hence we are forced to the inevitable conclusion that the man most culpable for the existence of the saloon is the one who through carelessness or indifference re- mains away from the political caucus and the polls, and has no serious concern or care for civic righteous- ness. This quality of citizenship is the chief barrier in the way of abolishing the saloons. The man most to be pitied in our Christian democracy is the one who lacks the altruistic spirit, and prefers to sit in a home of luxury, and toast himself before a fire, or to read and weep over Dickens 's story of the death of little Nell, rather than to help right the social wrongs about him by nominating and electing worthy men to positions of public influence and power. Such men never feel the force of strong moral convictions 70 THE SALOON PROBLEM tugging at their heart-strings. As far as being of any service to the community is concerned they might as well be in the heart of Africa. They selfishly appro- priate all the benefits of free institutions and of an advancing civilization without contributing anything to perpetuate them. They forfeit their political birth- right to the noblest privileges of self-government. Respected citizens and all who help by vote or in- fluence to continue the saloon system become silent partners in the general social disorder contingent upon it. Consequently, the attitude each citizen takes toward the liquor traffic becomes a matter of serious moment. It is a question whether he shall help to make the task easy or difficult to bring to this world a kingdom where all organized iniquity shall be ban- ished, and where peace and good will shall reign among men. THE ESSENTIAL, COORDINATING SOCIAL FORCES INVOLVED IN THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM CHAPTER V FEDERATED MOVEMENT OF MORAL FORCES The church that is not up in arms against the liquor traffic is not true to the interests of the Saviour of mankind. There can, be no compromise here. FATHER T. J. COFFEY. Not until the Church of Christ puts down the liquor traffic can it regain its hold on tempted men. FRANCES E. WILLARD. We must carry the principles of the prayer meeting into our Christian citizenship and vote as we pray, to enforce our prayers. We will never do much against the liquor traffic until we give vast sums of money to promote the anti-saloon crusade. BISHOP JOSEPH F. BERRY. O for the time when decent men everywhere, of whatever party, voters and officials together, shall unite to say, "The saloon is wrong. Sunday and week-day it is wrong. If it exists at all, it must exist against our protest, and in spite of our determined and unceasing assaults!" CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD. A BRIEF statement of some of the aspects of the saloon problem has been made in the previous chapters. The essential social fac- tors which enter into the solution of the problem, to- gether with the underlying social principles involved and the method of their application, now require our thoughtful consideration. It is well to bear in mind that in the pathway of social reform there is danger of confounding method with principle. Principle is essential and enduring, and admits of no liberty of choice. Method, on the contrary, is the mode of oper- ation through the conscious effort of man to apply principle. The one is changeless, the other circum- 73 74 THE SALOON PROBLEM stantial. Whenever method is exalted to the plane of principle, then it becomes so antagonistic in its re- sults as to subvert and oppose the very principle professedly accepted. Men who accomplish the most for social welfare do not sacrifice principle up- on the altar of expediency. While they stand firmly for principle, they are willing to make concessions and lay aside prejudice as to methods of action for the sake of unity and efficiency in advancing the cause espoused. The saloon problem has an intimate connection with other reforms. This particular reform is singled out because it stands at the forefront of many social ills. However, if the methods of treatment of this reform are true to human life and experience, they will be found serviceable in others. Then, again, the success of one social reform makes it easier for another to triumph. Let it be observed at the out- set that the solution of the saloon problem is not to be found apart from existing social institutions and agencies, nor in something foreign to the common life of the people. The essential social agencies and means involved are already recognized in our social economy. The imperative need is that they should be better understood, systematized, and coordinated, in order to secure definite results. Students of the saloon problem realize that it has many ramifications. There are so many sides to the question that no one social agency working singly and alone can settle it. In a Christian democracy there are legislative, judi- cial, and executive branches of government. Each AND SOCIAL REFORM 75 has its respective function, with coordinate powers, to deal with the saloon problem. The reform, to be effective, should have the cooperation of all these social agencies. Any appeal to the Legislature for laws to restrict or prohibit the giant evil of the open saloon is too frequently met by the rebuff that no more laws will be enacted against the saloon until the existing anti-saloon laws are enforced. If one turn to the executive officers, who have sworn to perform faithfully their duty, and demand the en- forcement of laws regarding the saloon evil, the reply comes back that should they rigidly enforce the same, public sentiment and the moral forces will not sustain them at the coming election. Likewise appeal to the courts of justice for redress is too often in vain. It frequently happens that when one of these branches of government does its duty another finds a way to nullify its action. The Church, like- wise, has signally failed to meet its responsibilities regarding this social wrong. Each social agency that has a part in grappling with the saloon problem is shifting the responsibility from one to another. The time has come for the anti-saloon forces to help fix responsibility by adopting rational methods to coor- dinate the various social agencies which have to deal with the saloon problem, and to make them work and co-work for the overthrow of the common foe. The most important of the coordinating agencies in the solution of the problem is that of the federated churches. A united Church has no equal as a gen- erator of public opinion and for active sympathy in 76 THE SALOON PROBLEM reform efforts. The social function of the Church is to help translate the divine social ideals into social actualities. Hence there is need of a clear and com- prehensive notion as to the content of the social ideal. The mental conception of what ought to be is the test of conduct and the measure of effort. The dream is the forerunner of reality. The Church is awakening to a fuller consciousness that the divine social ideal eventually to be realized in this world is expressed in the prayer that God's will shall be done on earth in the same cheerful, happy manner that the angelic host do his will in heaven. The gov- erning principles of Christianity are not only to be wrought into individual lives, but also interwoven into the whole social fabric. The evident aim of the divine social ideal is to have the spirit of the Master interpenetrate all human activities, and become in- corporated in all social institutions. Jesus calls this ideal condition of society a kingdom of righteous- ness. In other words, it implies that it is a kingdom of right relations among men, wherein each one shall love his neighbor as he loves himself. The thought of the kingdom is full of rich significance, and em- braces all that is highest, deepest, and best in human life. This glorious ideal outshines the brightest vis- ions of the old prophets and becomes the inspiration of every Christian heart. It is the goal of all human efforts in modern day. God does not mock his peo- ple when he teaches them to pray and work for these ideal social conditions. He expects his followers to maintain an optimistic attitude and to be co-work- AND SOCIAL REFORM 77 ers with himself in the realization of an ideal which so worthily accords with human facts and human possibilities. The root problem before us, then, is the realization of the kingdom, and to carry out the work begun by the Master. The Church is the chief agency instituted for the reconstruction of society upon the basis of divine Brotherhood. The open saloon is the greatest obstruction to the incoming of this high social ideal. It casts its shadows athwart the pathway of progress of the kingdom of truth, justice, and mercy. All the interests of the liquor traffic are in direct antagonism to it. Consequently the Church is committed to unalterable opposition to the saloon. This work is not something foreign to her responsibility. In fact, there is nothing more fundamental to the kingdom than the suppression of all forms of social evil. The Church is a divine organism whose scope of activity embraces the whole human race. In its uni- versal aspect it is divided into groups with varying forms of organized fellowship and multiform activ- ities. Each separate denomination is a part of the kingdom, and one of the instruments and means of its realization. The success of each particular de- nomination is measured by the law of service, and the mutual sacrifice of time and energy its members lay upon its altars for the larger life of the kingdom. The essential law of love should lead each individ- ual church to exalt the cross above any particular denomination, and to sink all narrow selfish aims in its passionate love for the greater interest of the 78 THE SALOON PROBLEM kingdom whose triumph is the first and highest con- sideration. The enlargement of the view of the king- dom, with its varied and comprehensive relations, gives meaning and inspiration to the efforts of those working for some specific reform. Every single re- form movement gains vitality and importance when thus associated with the larger moral movement looking toward the realization of the kingdom. It follows, then, that the best way to promote the divine social ideals among men is through the associated and concentrated efforts of the various churches working for some specific social reforms. One means of securing federated action among the churches is that the an ti -saloon movement should be on broad interdenominational lines. All the vari- ous denominations, Catholics as well as Protestants, should get together for the specific aim of repressing and ultimately suppressing the traffic in liquor as a beverage. The work of moral and social reform is so imperative that it perforce transcends all theo- logical lines. The Christian life is something apart from a correct intellectual and doctrinal conception of it. A common cause and a common experience are enough to awaken all to a united action for fur- thering human destiny. Incidentally, this federated effort will enable the churches to approach greater unity from the work side, rather than from the doc- trinal side. The working basis of the Church in ac- tion is, "If thy heart be as my heart, give me thy hand." Despite the hindrances, churches are com- ing closer together. Whether they be desirable or AND SOCIAL REFORM 79 not, the peculiar characteristics are disappearing. The churches tend to flow more and more into a com- mon current. The misdirected energy and the eco- nomic and moral waste of division among the churches are now recognized as short-sighted pol- icy, and are gradually giving place to better methods. There exist among the churches to-day a community of thought and a desire for closer active fellowship. Church unity in spirit, if not in form, is an accom- plished fact. Christianity is seen more and more in a unified life. The unity is not that of an ecclesias- tical organism, but one of the spirit of brotherhood, which bears no label and acknowledges no bounda- ries. The closer Christians are drawn to the cross, the closer are they linked together, and the more do they manifest to the world their oneness in Christ. There is no good reason why "the household of faith" should not manifest essential unity and enter " a league offensive and defensive with every soldier of Jesus Christ" in order to overthrow the greatest foe of the home, the church, and the state. Another basis of union demands interpartisan ac- tion on the one issue that "the saloon must go.'* This effort should be intensely political, but not in any sense united to a single party. The saloon prob- lem involves political action. However, it is a moral question that is not confined to any church or party. The safe cardinal principle to guide the Church in its federated action should be to avoid affiliation with any political party as such, and to maintain an attitude of neutrality on all public questions not 80 THE SALOON PROBLEM hearing directly on saloon suppression. A broad federated church movement is far more permanent and effective than political-partisan effort. The choice of one method precludes the other. The problem should be eliminated from partisan-polit- ical entanglements and denominational bias, and be brought within the scope of the thought, plan, and purpose of the Church. Such interpartisan action is not impracticable. We are not setting forth a fan- ciful idea nor an untried theory. In our legislative halls throughout the country it is being demon- strated that men of all creeds and political faiths will line up on the moral issue and enact laws fa- vorable to saloon suppression. Furthermore, it has been shown that a voting Church, when united, is an invincible power for civic righteousness. There is a widely prevalent conviction that the Christian churches and the anti-saloon forces generally should be federated, with the distinctive purpose of abol- ishing the saloon. The saloon problem has grown to be such a serious one that no one denomination or temperance organization can hope to settle it. It is too big for any section, North, South, East, or West. It is too complex for any one church to solve. Neither the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Con- gregational, nor Catholic churches, however active their own denominational temperance organizations may be, are able singly and alone to grapple effect- ively with the problem. All are inextricably in- volved. The responsibility does not belong espe- cially to any particular church or organization or AND SOCIAL REFORM 81 body of men. The problem appeals alike to all the churches and to every lover of sobriety. These churches are so many arms of power that should be concentrated into one, and that one wielded for ad- vancing civic righteousness. There is no solution for the saloon problem except in harmony of senti- ment, unity of purpose, and the joint action of all the churches and Christian forces concentrated at a given point to secure definite results. The situation demands interdenominational action. Without it the saloon will dominate both political and social life. It is to be feared that some churches are betrayed into the belief that they can escape responsibility for this great social evil by relegating the anti-saloon movement to their own denominational temperance organization, or to some outside agency. The tem- perance societies within denominational lines may do excellent work in developing local public senti- ment and activity against the saloon, but their range of operation is necessarily limited. They cannot in any sense discharge the work of a larger character committed to the churches in their united capacity. It requires State-wide efforts to secure good local- option laws whereby each community has a fighting chance against the saloon. The difficulty with many workers in reform movements is that they are narrow in their scope of thought and range of vision. When anti-saloon effort does not extend beyond a particular parish or denomination it becomes a men- ace to the larger movement for securing results. The 82 THE SALOON PROBLEM abolition of the saloon is either the work of the Church or it is not. Inasmuch as the Church is responsible for the results and these results cannot be secured except through interdenominational ac- tion, then it is high time that each church should define itself, and assume the burden of pushing the work by effective cooperation with other churches. This is legitimate church work. It is reasonable that the conscience of the Church regarding the saloon should express itself in terms of Christian energy. The sense of responsibility and sovereignty in this matter cannot be delegated to some one else. The only consistent reason for any church not cooper- ating is that it is doing a much better work for sa- loon suppression than the entire federated body. Presumption of this type is incapable of measuring its own responsibility. It is futile for good men to talk earnestly against the saloon unless they are will- ing to engage in an effective fight for civic righteous- ness. A mere paper opposition to the saloon is harm- less. The only consistent course is for each church to make good by active cooperation the resolutions so earnestly and pathetically endorsed in their vari- ous synods, conferences, and conventions. The exigencies of the situation force the churches to federate in order to carry their opposition to the saloon to the point of effectiveness. The strength of each church is bound up in the united action of them all. The saloon exists to-day largely because of the lack of a determined, federated action of the churches. No individual church or denomination can AND SOCIAL REFORM 83 maintain independent action without surrendering its associate power for accomplishing definite results against the saloon. The churches that enter into such a federation in no wise surrender their identity and individuality in the warfare. The status of each church remains the same. On the other hand, each church finds its own life enriched and broadened by the larger life of the affiliated churches of which it becomes a no insignificant part. One of the principal reasons why the churches have been unable to carry on a more successful war- fare against social evils in many towns and cities grows out of the fact that there has been little, if any, common basis for permanent federation of churches with a directing head to accomplish prac- tical results. Organized charity in many of our cities is demonstrating what can be done to improve the condition of the worthy poor. A similar federation of the churches to work against the powerful and rapacious liquor traffic is certain to produce satis- factory results. For example: Boston has nearly nine hundred saloons, which stand together as a unit financially and politically. They do everything they can by concerted action to promote their business. The two hundred and ninety-three churches in the city are all more or less interested in the suppression of the saloon; yet because they are not sufficiently federated to work together unitedly, their moral in- fluence against the saloon apparently does not count for much. What is true of Boston is equally true of the majority of our cities. Furthermore, many States 84 THE SALOON PROBLEM are covered with the federated forces of the saloon, while the various church bodies manifest no coher- ent activity to counteract their baleful influence. It is a hopeful sign that the churches are coming to recognize the possibility of their power for con- certed and cooperative action against the saloon. "Federation for social service" is the modern watch- word. Churches that heretofore have differentiated now discover and emphasize elements of unity. Father T. J. Coffey, of the Catholic church in St. Louis, in an anti-saloon rally of recent date, expressed a growing sentiment when he said, "Let us not find fault with one another, but let us give comfort and aid in the cause whenever possible. Let us come nearer to one another; for this union alone will give us the strength needed in the great battle for souls, and Christ, and our country." Anti-saloon activity has numerous inspiring instances where members of various denominations have come together to work and pray for civic righteousness in their own towns and cities and have accomplished excellent results. The combined effort promotes unity among the several churches of the community and of the nation. Through a common purpose and common activity, a common chord is struck and a healthy Christian fellowship is developed that presages the triumph of the kingdom. The confederation and co- operation of the several churches testifies to the com- munity their oneness in Christ. It arouses new ac- tivity and attracts men into Christian service. It not only helps to develop and increase personal effi- AND SOCIAL REFORM 85 ciency, but likewise gives the Church power for so- cial elevation. With this new alignment of Chris- tian forces, the churches should stand in closer range to the battle-line. The contest, to be triumphant, requires united and concentrated effort. Wilful sep- aration, and the withholding of influence to main- tain a sustained movement against the organized saloon, means refusal to carry out the redemptive purpose of Christ and leaves the Church without the essential power to overcome social evils. The fed- erated churches, leagued together to accomplish re- sults, are the accredited agents to strike the death- blow to the liquor traffic, 86 THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER VI A MEDIUM FOR UNITED ACTION The Church must fight this thing, and you must have an organ- ization to do it. These fellows want to be let alone, and as long as you confine yourselves to what you do inside the church they are content. Go out into the highways and the byways; carry your fight into the enemy's camp. And don't waste your time trying to reform old crooks. Look after the little boys and girls on the streets who are going to destruction. JUDGE GRANT. When the liquor men are allowed to do as they wish, they are sure to debauch not only the body social, but the body politic also. ROOSEVELT. For among my people are found wicked men; they set a trap, they catch men. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? A won- derful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means ; and my people love to have it so ; and what will ye do in the end thereof? JEREMIAH v. 26, 29, 30, 31. IT is apparent that the federation of the moral forces for saloon suppression implies that there must be some organized medium through which to express the convictions and activities of the united bodies. The value of associated effort in the field of reform is that it secures the largest measure of moral energy for specific results. This is an age of effect- ive organization. Men cooperate on a large scale for economic, political, and social aims. The power and efficiency of a strong organization in all reform movements can no longer be intelligently questioned. Some one has appropriately said, "An organized body is an army, but a disorganized one is a mob." AND SOCIAL REFORM 87 Nothing is more irresistible than an organized body of determined men working on moral lines. One man single-handed may accomplish comparatively little; but when united with men of like mind and purpose, the individual effort is multiplied many- fold. Men who have been conspicuously efficient in working for social betterment have attached them- selves to kindred spirits, and by so doing have wi- dened and extended their influence for the cause they serve. Christ had fellowship with his disciples ; Paul had his faithful companions in work; Luther was united in service to Melanchthon and others; Wes- ley's influence was widely extended through his com- radeship with Fletcher, Whitfield, and his brother Charles. The impression is widening and deepen- ing that there should be an organic effort of the churches to solve the saloon problem. The only hope of doing this important work is to concentrate and coordinate the efforts of the Christian forces and have them wield a power for definite results. This unity of action becomes a new moral force in its ap- plication to the problem of saloon suppression. In all ages the Church has had to contend against some form of social evil. The Church began its his- tory amidst the clash and conflict of human society, and ever since it has continued to be the aggressor against deeply intrenched social wrongs and mani- fold cruelties toward the weak and unfortunate. The true conception of the Church is not that of a citadel to defend the faith, nor a hospital to nurse a few sin- sick souls into heaven, but rather that of a vast army 88 THE SALOON PROBLEM with divisions marching forward under different de- nominational banners to fight sin not merely in the abstract but in a concrete form. The genius and spirit of the modern Church should be to carry ef- fectual warfare into the camp of organized iniquity. Heretofore one of the features of weakness of the Church to work effectively for saloon suppression is that the warfare against it has been carried on in a desultory manner. The anti-saloon armies have been divided, and they have lacked organization with a directing head to carry forward a persistent and ag- gressive campaign against the organized saloon. Harmonious action of some kind is essential to do effective work. The gospel of efficiency must go hand in hand with the gospel of good news. The activity of the Church for saloon suppression will be ineffective unless it is reduced to a system. The militancy of the Church demands the most effective method for distributing the Christian forces, as well as to have some definite plan of campaign and battle. It is evident to those who study the problem that there should be some visible bond of union of the several federated bodies and moral forces committed to the opposition of the saloon. By common con- sent each denomination should be brought into re- lation through some joint agency or organized me- dium of a state and nation wide character, so as to cooperate systematically and effectively for the spe- cific purpose of repressing and ultimately suppress- ing the beverage-liquor traffic. The policy and man- AND SOCIAL REFORM 89 agement of this joint agency may be under the direc- tion of a voluntary and self -perpetuating board, or controlled by representatives of the several denom- inational bodies and temperance societies within the State. The latter method is more democratic. The aim of this joint agency should be not to work for, but with, the churches. In fact, it should be a move- ment of the churches and controlled by them. It should have no existence apart from the churches. Its function should be not so much authoritative as executive and advisory. Among other things, it should be a clearing-house for trustworthy anti- saloon information and activity. The results de- rived from the careful study of the saloon problem should be described, correlated, and tabulated, and made the ground for true, sound induction as to the conditions, cause, and remedy of the saloon evil. This league of churches should undertake to secure some uniformity regarding methods of work. Evi- dently a systematized plan of cooperative effort to direct and utilize the anti-saloon sentiment and ac- tivity in each State is imperative. There is no doubt that the saloon must be reckoned as a strong polit- ical factor. It is hardly fitting for any one church to enter the political arena, but it ought to help se- lect, support, and control a joint agency to represent it in political action against the saloon, and to de- velop this agency to the highest standard of efficiency. By means of this medium of denominational effort to abolish the saloon there need be no firing at ran- dom, nor a duplication of effort. The federated ac- 90 THE SALOON PROBLEM tion of the churches can be concentrated and directed at a given point along the line of battle to accom- plish a definite object. This method would tend to conserve with the least expenditure of force every- thing essential to secure results. The distinctive aim of a concerted action of the churches should be to create and strengthen a great anti-saloon movement, rather than to build up a sep- arate organization. Federated action along this line should not induce any church to abandon its efforts to develop local an ti -saloon sentiment and activity. The important point is for each church to realize that it is vitally related to a state and nation wide cooperative movement as the only effective means of saloon suppression, and that the success of the move- ment will depend upon the degree of active sympa- thy and the support given by each church. Each independent church has a twofold power. Its indi- vidual power is exercised in the immediate sphere of its activity; while the associate power comes through its activity with several individual churches that have banded themselves together for concerted ac- tion along moral lines. The separate power of each church is multiplied many-fold by the organic power of all the churches. This joint effort becomes a new and essential factor in the solution of the saloon problem. The friends of sobriety and decency should bear in mind that they are not opposing a few saloons here or there in a community, but that they are con- fronted with a great saloon system deeply intrenched AND SOCIAL REFORM 91 in society, the conquest of which will require heroic valor. The saloon forces are organized, and they re- sort to questionable methods to promote their traffic and to gain their ends. The organizations of whole- sale liquor-dealers, the distillers, and the brewers have reached huge proportions, and they are ex- tended into every State of the Union. Besides, there are three chief national organizations of retail liquor- dealers; namely, The National Retail Liquor Deal- ers' Association, The Knights of Fidelity, and the Knights of the Royal Arch. These three organiza- tions have lately formed a defensive and offensive amalgamation of interests under the name of "The National Liquor League of the United States." The organized liquor-dealers in their combined ranks number about 150,000. This strong and aggressive organization declares its purpose to extend its influ- ence throughout the nation, and to have its paid agents go up and down the several States to form local organizations, with the view of watching the nomination of every candidate for office, and the appointment of every internal revenue collector, and of every judge upon the bench. It is to have its "picked men" in Washington and in every State capital as lobbyists to guard the "interests" of the trade. Negatively considered, the fact that the saloon is extending its organization reveals the inherent weakness of the trade. It is the outgrowth of a wide- spread feeling of alarm. The saloon-keepers and the liquor-dealers cry, " Organize for defence." Men 92 THE SALOON PROBLEM carrying on any legitimate business do not organ- ize to protect themselves against law-abiding citizens. Only those who are conscious of wrong-doing are led to fortify themselves and to be on the defensive. Furthermore, the organization of those engaged in the liquor trade calls the attention of good people to their nefarious traffic, and this fact arouses them to work for its annihilation. There is, however, a pos- itive side to this organized system of iniquity, and this must not be overlooked. The anti-saloon forces are confronted with the united and inveterate oppo- sition of 254,000 saloons. The saloon-keepers, to- gether with those engaged in the manufacture and sale of intoxicants, have a numerical strength of more than 600,000. Besides this great army, a host of patrons join the saloon-keepers to perpetuate the liquor traffic. Notwithstanding this array of strength, the anti- saloon forces greatly outnumber those of the opposi- tion. In 1904 there were in the United States 199,- 658 churches, 151,113 ministers, and 30,313,311 communicants. The various young people's socie- ties associated with the churches have a following of more than five millions. Besides, there are tens of thousands of young men connected with the Y. M. C. A., Good Templars, and other religious and phil- anthropic organizations. Add to these forces a very large constituency of lovers of sobriety and good order, and it is evident that if these hosts become once aroused and work unitedly for results, the un- American saloon will be like a pygmy in the hands AND SOCIAL REFORM 93 of a giant. Historic events show that if men are al- lowed liberty of thought and freedom of action the cause of right will muster more regiments than the cause of wrong. It is well to remember, however, that an organized minority will control a disorgan- ized majority, and consequently no effective work can be done against the saloon without organiza- tion. The greatest struggle in this warfare is to en- list the pastors and to federate the churches. It al- ways requires more time to marshal the forces and to mobilize an army than it does to fight the battle. The Church is not fully awakened to the power of the saloon. It has scarcely felt the slightest twitch of this monster foe. When the saloon forces are thoroughly united the fight will be prolonged and severe. The Church must come to realize that it is face to face with one of the most gigantic struggles of the centuries. Heretofore the Church has been conducting only a skirmish with the enemy. The great battle is coming, the enemy must be besieged, and wisdom demands that the anti-saloon forces be ready for the fray. If the Church does not fight now, matters will grow worse and worse, and then the Church must fight at a disadvantage, when the saloon will be more difficult to conquer. There ex- ists, then, a practical necessity to combine and to consolidate the forces of righteousness, and to move in concert to meet the solidarity of the saloon forces. In a sense the Church holds the forces of social redemption, and it is responsible to shape and direct them into a systematic and continuous campaign 94 THE SALOON PROBLEM against all organized evil that impedes the coming of the kingdom. It is encouraging to note that the churches are becoming more and more united for aggressive and constructive work. The machinery of the Church is constructed, geared, and engineered to run and do effective work in pushing forward the kingdom by overthrowing the iniquity of the saloon system. The avowed aims and purposes of the churches are akin, but there is a great need of a scientific and practical effort to act corporately with men and resources to meet the social conditions that confront them. If the church machinery and forces are sufficiently applied and devoted to the purpose for which they were called into existence, organized social evils will soon be banished from our streets. This glad day will not be ushered in until good peo- ple unite and help to cover this nation with a network of organizations so powerful as to vanquish every foe of good order, and to work along constructive lines for social betterment. A practical and scientific method of dealing with the saloon problem will secure mutual helpfulness, as well as greater economy and efficiency of the agen- cies employed. The factors entering into the social organizations are many. On the divine side, we have the social ideals, the principles underlying them, and a living Spirit to help actualize them. On the human side, social advancement is obtained by adopt- ing certain rational and feasible methods as the means to realize the ideal and to make dominant the forces actually supreme. AND SOCIAL REFORM 95 An organization that commands a high place in social progress does not have one uniform system of thought or one required standard of action, but it gives the widest scope for individual initiative, en- ergy, and enthusiasm. On the other hand, the most effective organization depends upon the harmonious working of its several parts. Some emphasize a strong central government, while others lay stress upon local self-government. The spirit of the old Federalist and the anti-Federalist crops out in the modern organized efforts for social welfare. The important principles of centralization and differen- tiation should be made to blend and to work harmo- niously in all associated efforts. The organization that wields the greatest power for good has some- where a strong central authority of an executive and advisory character, and at the same time encourages local autonomy and individual freedom of action. Jesus recognized the importance of associated effort. He became the central authority for organizing five thousand hungry people into groups of fifty. Through his divine touch and guidance willing disciples per- formed their several duties so loyally that the multi- tude was readily satisfied. In our day, faithful and willing followers of the same Jesus stand ready to cooperate in a general effort to help set right public wrongs, and to work earnestly for social redemption. The people simply ask for leaders of independent judgment, constructive ability, and possessing the Master's spirit to unite them on some common plat- form and to guide them in the performance of civic 96 THE SALOON PROBLEM duties. The highest efficiency of those who wish to work for social betterment is found when a sufficient number of individuals serve faithfully, according to ability, some directing head. Obviously, the variety of talent in any organized agency demands that each should work where each can do the most efficient service. The organization, however, must not swal- low up the individual. Men cannot discharge their obligation to God and their neighbor by employing some one else to perform it for them. Individual effort for social betterment cannot be supplanted or farmed out. All should be made to feel their per- sonal responsibility to work individually and jointly for a common social end. Among the distinctive purposes of an interdenom- inational and interpartizan organization is that which secures national, state, county, and municipal legis- lation to suppress the saloon and to support official authority in enforcing the same. One of the prerog- atives of organized Christianity is to defeat the ene- mies of good government, and to make it politically safe for a man occupying a public position to per- form his duties fearlessly. Society will never remove the soot and smut from the white ermine of civic affairs until worthy men stand in the high places of official responsibility. Public officials who without fear or favor do the right, and vote for right meas- ures, should be rewarded for faithful service by continuing them in office irrespective of party lines. The converse of this principle is likewise true. It should be made politically unsafe for any public AND SOCIAL REFORM 97 official to be false to his trust. When this principle is in practical operation through the action of the in- dependent voters, there will be comparatively little difficulty in suppressing the saloon. A social reform of such vast import can be accomplished only through a compact system of organized Christianity, backed with money, energy, and determination. To this end an anti-saloon organization or joint agency should be co-extensive in area with the leg- islative and executive authority in so far as they have to deal with the traffic in liquor as a beverage. Stat- utory laws bearing on the saloon question are best secured through an organization of county, borough, or senatorial district. Each representative to the Legislature should be made to feel his responsibility to an enlightened Christian constituency. Further- more, the power to enforce the laws enacted by the Legislature is usually lodged with the prosecuting attorney and sheriff of each county. The natural territorial sphere of operation of an organization would be within county limits. Consequently the best condition for giving effective support to the ex- ecutive officers for saloon suppression is for the moral forces in each county to maintain an anti-saloon league. These county leagues might be supple- mented advantageously by local committees in the smaller towns and wards of cities within its borders. Each league should be part of a system and aux- iliary to the State league, and it in turn auxiliary to the national organization. The several commit- tees and organizations will furnish a proper medium 98 THE SALOON PROBLEM through which the various churches and temperance bodies may express in a most practical manner their convictions against the saloon. The suppression of the saloon involves not only a local, but a State-wide fight, which requires a State- wide organization embracing every county, munic- ipality, and senatorial district within its territory. The State Legislature bears the responsibility of en- acting the laws against the saloon, and to provide for the enforcement of the same. Obviously, some instrumentality of a national character is likewise called for to take the initiative and bring together the scattered rays of influence against the saloon throughout the nation and focus them upon Con- gress until laws of nation-wide import and favorable to saloon suppression are enacted. Each subdivision of territory should be so organized and interrelated as to secure reciprocal action. The lowest political unit should find expression through an ascending scale until it touches the national organization; this in turn should give coherence, guidance, and inspi- ration to each of the ramified branches of the State Anti-Saloon League. Such an organization is not impracticable. The American Anti-Saloon League aims to carry out this specific purpose, and it is daily augmenting its power and influence throughout the nation. In order to insure flexibility and efficiency in this moral conflict, a truly democratic spirit should per- meate the whole organized movement. The several churches of each community should federate for spe- AND SOCIAL REFORM 99 cific agitation and active cooperation against social ills and to promote public morals. It is not neces- sary that each church should have an organic union with any local organization, but groups of interested and resolute men, or the temperance committees selected to represent their respective churches, should act in union with similar committees from all the local churches, with the view of carrying forward the desired reform. Such a body of men representing the different local churches would furnish a medium for work in harmony with the county and state anti- saloon leagues, and it would likewise enable the ad- vanced public conscience in the community to ex- press itself in favor of good anti-saloon measures, and to encourage public officers to enforce the laws. In some States where local-option contests are car- ried on annually or biennially, the local anti-saloon leagues will take on a more or less permanent form. Generally speaking, however, local committees are better than local organizations. A local organiza- tion awakens public expectation which its officers are not always able to meet. Whenever it becomes inoperative angl fails to secure results, the people are disappointed and come to regard it as a defunct in- stitution. A local committee with a definite issue, chosen to conduct a campaign lasting for only a brief period, does its work and the people are satisfied un- til another important issue presents itself. In organizing for local work, care should be ex- ercised not to select too large committees to carry out the general plans of the campaign. Other things be- 100 THE SALOON PROBLEM ing equal, the more limited the number on a com- mittee the more easily they are called together, and the more intelligent will be the cooperation enlisted. Generally speaking, a local organization made up of a president, vice-president, secretary, and sub-com- mittees consisting of three members each, to work along the lines of agitation, legislation, and law enforcement, is far more effective than committees of a larger number. The Municipal Voters' League of Chicago has demonstrated the power and effi- ciency of a small directing force in reform work. One of the difficulties in the way of success is to se- cure good local leaders to take charge of the work. Failure at this point means defeat. Occasionally men who have been chosen to take the local leader- ship against the saloon have been made the butt and jibe of the enemy. The safe course is for all the anti-saloon forces to stand together firmly, and to cooperate with the chosen leaders, even though the personnel and the particular method of the campaign may be justly open to criticism. The fight to banish the saloon is a righteous one. The army is divinely called, and equjpped with the sword of the Spirit. The Church Militant is the true champion of the cause. The abiding motive is to carry out the purpose of the Master. If social wrongs are ever righted, it will be because the light of Chris- tians is diffused. All associate efforts for social re- form should be inspired and vivified by the spirit of the Master. Many are not awake to the fact that God is real and present in these ordinary forms of social AND SOCIAL HEF.O>R-M progress. He avails himself of all these methods of effecting influence and accomplishing results. He works in the orderly administration of human affairs and becomes the all-embracing power in social ad- vancement. Men will have a mistaken notion of this organized reform movement unless they realize that He is imminent in it. Those possessed with fears, misgivings, and doubts as to the ability of the Church to conquer the giant foe should open their eyes to see the invisible hosts, with the chariots of fire and the horsemen thereof. Conflicts of this char- acter test the souls of men. The victors will be among those who endure as seeing Him who is in- visible, and who likewise receive divine help on their way towards the realization of a larger social vision. 10y T K E SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER VII THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can re- pair. The event is in the hand of God. WASHINGTON. Leadership is of avail only so far as there is wise and resolute public sentiment behind it. ROOSEVELT. I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think or speak or write with moder- ation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a mod- erate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen ; but urge me not to use mod- eration in a cause like the present. I am in earnest I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not retreat a single inch and I will be heard. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. THE organization of the moral forces to carry forward social reforms is preceded, accom- panied, and upheld by public sentiment. "Public opinion" is a general term denoting the cur- rent feelings and habitual convictions which are formed in the mind of individuals, but which can- not be analyzed or defined. It originates in the in- fluence of one mind on another. The expressions "the social mind," "social conscience," and "pub- lic opinion" convey the idea of the existence of a common consciousness in society. These are not vague expressions, but have a concrete reality. They describe the phenomena which result from the in- teraction of communicating individual minds, and are inclusive of all that pertains to the common ideas, AND SOCIAL REFORM 103 emotions, and activities of associated persons. Pub- lic opinion is the collective aspect of personal opin- ion. These are not two separate entities or forces, but have an essential unity. As many drops form the rain, as many leaves make the foliage, so many minds form public opinion. Each citizen may con- tribute his personal views as to the right or wrong involved in any reform measure, and in so far he becomes a sharer in the creation of public opinion. Social reforms are initiated and carried forward by a change in public opinion. Popular support and assistance are their indispensable foundation. Agita- tion is only incidental, but it becomes one of the most helpful factors in enlisting the sympathy and sup- port necessary to secure reform measures. The social mind is capable of being formed aright by systematic and persistent agitation of righteous principles. A common moral purpose proceeds from a common moral insight. Enlightened discussion makes this possible. Public opinion is not based upon the ill- considered demands of the many, but rather upon the healthy opinion of the majority which rise above selfish motives, interests, and aims, in order to con- serve the good of all. The motive force back of public opinion that makes for moral reform is found in the moral attributes of man. Therefore the majority cannot impose restrictive laws upon a reluctant mi- nority, and make them effective, unless they are based upon righteous principles that are in the in- terest of the community. Such a course of con- duct implies not only the ability of self-government, 104 THE SALOON PROBLEM but also a political and social conscience that lies back of all forms of government. The State becomes the instrument and organ to give effect to the exist- ing public opinion. In other words, a government 9f the people, for the people, and by the people is government by public conscience. The inertia, incredulity, and indifference of people otherwise good too frequently stand in the way of social progress and make social wrongs possible. The surest way of overcoming them is by sane social agi- tation. All men have the social instincts. They have the ability to communicate their thoughts, express their feelings, and share their purposes. The aim of agitation is to win the recluse and the indifferent, so that they will be induced to exercise their social function and to share in the promotion of certain social aims looking to the general welfare. The first step is to study the social situation, and then to turn on the light of investigation, history, and experience regarding the ethical question involved until the facts take a firm hold on the social mind, and men become aroused to act in harmony with the social discovery. Consequently those who would do away with social injustice, political crookedness, and offi- cial unrighteousness can do no better work than to create and shape the conscience of the community. Public opinion is a potent formative force in so- cial reform. It cannot be seen, weighed, or measured; but when once aroused it will send an army across the continent, or girdle the globe with missionaries. Its power has been exemplified in the history of all AND SOCIAL REFORM 105 social movements. It not only controls the conduct of the savage tribes, but becomes the arbiter of events in all civilized society. The wisest statesmen and reformers have never overlooked the importance of developing public sentiment to work social reform. "Promote, then," says Washington, in his farewell address, "institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of the government gives force to public opinion, it is essen- tial that the public opinion should be enlightened." It is as true now as when Phillips, the great Boston orator, urged it upon a Fanueil Hall audience in 1852, that, " There is nothing strong enough to stand against public opinion ; and if the tongues of the press are not parents of that, what is? The man who launches a sound argument, who sets on two feet a startling fact and bids it travel from Maine to Georgia, is just as certain that in the end he will change the government as if, to destroy the capital, he had placed gunpowder under the senate chamber." It is obvious that social reforms come through a process of education and persuasion. They escape a spasmodic character and move forward steadily just in proportion as they are embedded in the pub- lic conscience. They come by slow degrees. It often takes years to interweave any new moral idea into the social order and to make it a living part of society. Le Bon, a writer of social psychology, tells us that reforms pass through the several periods of affirma- tion, reiteration, and contagion. The majority of the people move forward slowly to any advanced ethical 106 THE SALOON PROBLEM position. Preceding the advent of Garrison, the apostle of antislavery, there were one hundred and fifty-seven years of antislavery seed-sowing, fifty- eight years of organized movements by societies and conventions, and sixty years of legislation against slavery by ecclesiastical bodies. It is evident that it takes time for the religious, social, and political con- sciousness of the people to come up to the standard of the new ethical ideas involved in social reforms. The potential moral elements in society, however, gradually assert themselves and moral triumphs are gained. The long, diligent preparation generally culminates in a sharp, decisive contest. Generally speaking, social reforms pass through several stages. The first stage may be regarded as one of interrogation and discovery. Wrong senti- ments and unrighteous customs embody themselves in society. Social wrongs are often tolerated for cen- turies before the people seriously question their eth- ical basis. The history of polygamy, slavery, duel- ing, gambling, the social vice, and the saloon abun- dantly confirms the statement. There comes, how- ever, the period of discovery. A few advanced think- ers come to see that existing social institutions, tra- ditions, sentiments, and laws do not express funda- mental ethical principles. They recognize a larger moral truth and standard for society than the exist- ing one. They aim to point out the social wrong and thus arouse the public conscience to correct the evil. The leavening process goes on until there gradually dawns upon the public consciousness a sense of the AND SOCIAL REFORM 107 gravity of the ethical situation that exists, together with a desire to take advanced steps in social morality. This period of toleration and discussion as to the right and wrong involved in social conduct natu- rally awakens differences of opinion, and sometimes bitter opposition. The consideration of the ethical question involved brings forward the radical and conservative elements in social movements. Social progress proceeds along the line of these two oppos- ing forces. The radicals, through the revelation of what they consider the larger truth, pass beyond the apparently fixed social customs and traditions. They move forward and become the vanguard of a new so- cial ideal. They become prophets and reformers of the times. They hold to the truth of the past, and at the same time see that it is not the whole truth. They start out by formulating a policy made red- hot by conviction. These bold and daring spirits lead the way and inspire great reform movements. They sow the seed that some day germinates in pub- lic action. There is likewise a conservative traditional power in every community and nation. The dominant ideas, customs, and institutions become so prevalent that they seem to be fixed and secure factors of so- ciety. People come to have a passive acquiescence in the existing state of things. Even if they do see a social wrong that should be righted, many are afraid to touch it from a dread of losing what is already gained. This element in society may have convic- tions as to the moral wrong existing in a community, 108 THE SALOON PROBLEM and yet believe that the breaking away from pres- ent conditions would mean the uprooting of the whole social order. Various motives lead men to tolerate unrighteousness rather than to face an up- heaval which may cost them some personal incon- venience, or some social or financial loss. They pre- fer rather to move along the line of least resistance. The conservatives, with their commingling of vari- ous motives and self-interests, fear a reform that would place things upon a new basis, break up old ties, disrupt old associations, and cause a readjust- ment of the whole social structure. Their minds naturally revolt at any attempt to destroy the tra- ditional habits and customs of the people. It seems to them like destroying the very foundation of things. The result is that the radicals are looked upon as narrow, impetuous, visionary, incapable of feeling the force of more than one idea, and blind to every- thing that does not come within the horizon of their belief. Their extravagant theories appear to the conservative mind as an unwarranted protest against the existing state of affairs. The opposition thus aroused leads the conserva- tives to hold up the radicals to ridicule. They see in the reform the accidental and grotesque, rather than the fundamental and essential. The followers of Je- sus were first called Christians at Antioch as a mat- ter of derision. Wesley and his followers were sub- ject to the worst ridicule. The Salvation Army has been shown up in the most grotesque form because the people failed to recognize its essential significance. AND SOCIAL REFORM 109 The power of the conservative class rests upon their intrenched position. Behind them are the past tra- dition, present customs, and existing institutions. Their chief danger lies in the fact that they do not keep in touch with the masses. Consequently, re- forms naturally come from the people. Reforms are not handed down from the classes to the masses, but pass from the masses to the intrenched classes. The Magna Charta, Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights by which England escaped the condition of servitude and oppression were wrested from the haughty kings. The radicals, on the contrary, re- gard the conservatives as slow, unprogressive, and stationary. They assert that stolid immobility is as dangerous and destructive as rashness, and that the conservatives cling to past customs and traditions, and, through dread of the future, check and chill the enthusiasm for all social betterment. The radicals are too prone to ignore all claims of tradition, re- ligion, or law, and to become so impatient and em- bittered at the tardy movements of the conservative class as to become side-tracked. They forget the principles for which they are struggling in order to censure and berate the very people that should be their allies. Their tendency is to scorn compromise and to become dogmatic, intolerant, and abusive. Notwithstanding this danger, the reformer's pro- phetic vision and advanced ideas are often the essen- tial forerunners of all efforts looking toward the bet- terment of mankind. Their dreams of yesterday be- come the realities of to-day. They should learn, 110 THE SALOON PROBLEM however, to bide their time until the leaven of truth which they have helped to infuse into the social mind shall gradually permeate the whole social life. The stage of interrogation and discovery merges into a period of compromise and restriction. The divergent theories of the radicals and conservatives are brought into strong contrasts. Agitation arouses deep public feeling. The storm of public indigna- tion begins to gradually beat upon the citadel of political power. Something must be done to cor- rect the social wrongs. Legislators seek to compro- mise the issue by passing appropriate laws to restrict, if not to prohibit, the evil. The way is now prepared for the more judicial minds in society to see and weigh both sides of the question. The average mind that enters into the discussion involved in every great reform movement is likely to become partisan. The intense party spirit gen- erated in the strife tends to obscure the light on both sides, and to prevent the exercise of a judicial tem- per of mind. Neither the radical nor the conserva- tive class may be said to have the whole full-orbed truth. The old and apparently established social ideals are so magnified on the one hand, and the visions of the new ideals stand out so prominently on the other, that the germ of truth involved on both sides is intercepted by party spirit. The more thoughtful class of the community, who see the two halves of social reform movements, attempt to bring about a union. The period of antithesis is followed by the period of synthesis. Judicial minds seek to AND SOCIAL REFORM 111 harmonize the antagonistic elements by recogniz- ing the germinal truth in both, and so to produce a reconciliation with a view to adoption. These oppo- sing social elements are finally brought into union through mutual concessions and compromises. The underlying principles in each are formulated and crystallized into laws and customs, so that the eth- ical position in the reform movement for the time being seems fixed. The effort to secure harmony between the con- servatives and the radicals is more than a vulgar compromise, which would mean the surrender of certain truths. Compromise is rather a willingness to hold in abeyance certain truths, or to concede something in order to secure agreement on some vital point. The agreement may be temporary and short-lived, but it will prepare the way eventually for a more pronounced sentiment regarding the so- cial wrong. This method of compromise is in har- mony with historical development and the princi- ple laid down by Aristotle, the father of " the golden mean." Some people who work earnestly for social betterment disregard this method. The radicals in France impetuously sought for liberty. They scorned compromise and refused to consider the claims of re- ligion or law, and brought on a revolution. A polit- ical philosopher has well said that the healthful de- velopment of the English Constitution was due to the fact that "no particular principle ever attained an exclusive influence. There was always a simul- taneous development of different forces, and a sort 112 THE SALOON PROBLEM of negotiation and compromise between their pre- tensions and interests." The great interests of man- kind have been furthered by men of wide vision, who considered the welfare of all parties and could unite the contending elements. Bismarck gave a life- time to the unification of Germany. Gladstone sought the symmetrical development of all English interests. Lincoln never forgot the multiplicity of interests of the nation, and he adopted a broad, con- ciliatory policy. His comprehensive rallying-cry for the support of every loyal citizen was, "My para- mount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps the Union, and what I forbear from I forbear be- cause I do not believe it will save the Union." The long, slow period of compromise is only incidental to the forward social movement. Prior to the Civil War there were more than forty years of compromis- ing effort on the part of Congress to settle the moral issue. The opposing forces were mustered in Con- gress and many legislative battles were fought with- out avail. Those who think they can draw a Mason and Dixon line on moral questions, and thereby settle them, once for all, are greatly mistaken. No moral question is settled until it is settled right. The history of social evolution teaches us that public indignation will at last reach a pitch where the people will demand decisive and successful action. When the public conscience attains this point of moral altitude it will insist on nothing less than the legal prohibition of the existing social wrong. AND SOCIAL REFORM 113 The sober moral judgment of the race finally as- serts itself. Men outgrow the barbarous and legal stage of a social reform and are prepared for the moral stage. Every great moral principle involved in social reforms goes through these successive stages and culminates in a moral sanction, and is obeyed from an inner impulse. The moral principle passes from the active to the passive stage when it settles down into habitual convictions and conventional sentiments of society. The legal and moral stages are not always distinctive epochs, because they fre- quently overlap each other. Historic facts show that the race advances into the moral stage by com- ing through the legal stage. The law comes first, and the gospel follows. The law becomes the school- master of men before it is written in their hearts. The law is the divine preparation for the gospel, which looks for men to be governed by interior strength rather than by outward force. There is no incon- gruity or essential conflict in this method. The com- pulsory laws and moral suasion blend in our appeals for men to respect the sacredness of life and prop- erty, and not to murder, steal, or lie. We seek to repress wrong by outward compulsion, and at the same time appeal to the moral sentiments in order to induce the criminal to advance to the spiritual plane of life. It seems to be necessary to whip some people, as well as nations, into lines of righteousness before they choose to be governed by the highest moral principles. Those who attempt to deal with the saloon and other evils by the golden-rule method 114 THE SALOON PROBLEM are reversing God's method of putting the law first. The principles of legal action and moral sua- sion should be combined in all efforts to improve the social situation. The strong arm of law should be upheld with a winsome manner. The growth of these reform movements through the several stages is an evidence of how closely the ideas and life of a people are interwoven with the common vices and passions, and also how slowly men come to recog- nize their own possibilities and nobility of spirit. The anti-saloon movement is passing through these various stages. Some sections of our country are still in the barbarous stage of the reform; and a still larger section is passing through the protracted pe- riod of compromise and restriction; while a compar- atively small section has reached that desirable social condition where the legal prohibition of the saloon evil receives the moral sanction of a large majority of the citizens. This small contingent is prophetic of the time when the inner convictions of the citizens in all sections of our fair land will take the place of authority in prohibiting this great social wrong. Agi- tation is one of the essential social factors to get the people to think alike and to move in the same direc- tion for saloon suppression. If the Church awakens to its responsibility, and keeps up an aggressive cam- paign of agitation, the steady, increasing pressure of advanced anti-saloon sentiment in the midst of seem- ing stagnation will soon reach a culmination, and the saloon as a social institution will be a thing of the past. AND SOCIAL REFORM 115 Throughout the conflict bear in mind that the process of education and persuasion will be followed by a gradual process of personal adjustment and so- cial adaptation to the new situation. The multitude is incredulous and slow to act even when convinced as to the facts and reasonableness of reform measures. Even when some people see the light and are per- suaded that the social principle involved in the pro- posed reform is right, they question the value and advisability of its present recognition. Although the saloon may be repugnant to the social sentiment of a community, and the majority of its citizens may be convinced of its pernicious effects, yet they are some- times loath to restrict and prevent it. Through the fear of losing its revenue, or for some other selfish or ill-considered reason, they tolerate the social wrong. The only correctives are an aroused public conscience and the cooperative effort of patriotic citizens. Public sentiment comes through public awaken- ing. This involves freedom and intelligence in the use of means to give publicity to any proposed social reform. It is a significant fact in our modern life that there is such a rapid and wide-spread system for gathering facts and elaborating opinions on any subject bearing on social welfare. It is to be hoped that the increased knowledge, maturing observation, and the progressive organizations of the present day will help more quickly to secure greater public at- tention and interest in matters pertaining to social welfare, and so hasten reform movements. The cen- tral task before the Church is to utilize all the means 116 THE SALOON PROBLEM and agencies to build up a healthy public sentiment on moral questions, and direct the same for more effective work in the realization of the true social idea. Among these agencies may be mentioned the fact that the Federal and State governments are gather- ing expert information and publishing valuable re- ports and statistics bearing on nearly all social and economic problems. For the furthering of human welfare these reports are freely placed at the dis- posal of investigators and leaders of reform. Again, the educational system may likewise be a means of developing public sentiment. The special work of the Church on this line should be to maintain Chris- tian colleges and universities where advanced ideas are initiated and which will soon influence all the lower grades of our school system. "As go the col- leges of to-day," says John R, Mott, "so goes the world to-morrow/' The uniform teaching of scien- tific facts regarding the use of alcohol as a beverage in our colleges and public schools throughout the country is a marvellous revelation of what can be done to further the cause of sobriety. The Lincoln Legion, The Gideons, and other temperance organ- izations, through moral suasion and pledge-signing efforts, are raising up an army of total abstainers, and in a quiet and effective manner are building a public sentiment and will contribute largely toward the solution of the saloon problem. Another effective means for public-sentiment building is the public press, with its remarkable facility of gathering and spreading news. The pub- AND SOCIAL REFORM 117 lie press is an educational agency of transcendent importance. Public affairs are governed largely by the public press. Wherever it is enlisted social re- form moves freely and rapidly. Its interests, how- ever, are not always identical with that of society. If its editorial policy is governed by revenue it be- comes a great corrupter of public conscience. The journalists that realize the power and opportunity of the press as an uplifting social agency are bend- ing their energies to meet their grave responsibil- ities as ethical teachers. If the newspapers of this country would refuse to be bribed by the paid ad- vertisements of the liquor interests, and would show reasonable agreement as to the importance of ban- ishing the saloon, their powerful and resistless in- fluence would soon carry the whole community with practical unanimity, and the cause of civic virtue and public morals would soon triumph. The wise leaders of reform appreciate the power of the press and seek to make it an indispensable ally and helper in the work of civic patriotism. Ministers and laymen in every community would do well to furnish to the local newspapers material for one or two columns a week bearing on the saloon problem. The weekly religious papers, now numbering about one thousand, are among the strongholds of the church in shaping public opinion. The ed- itors are likely to have an intelligent conception of their opportunities, as well as the time and dispo- sition to study and comment intelligibly on the grave and complex social problems. They have no finan- 118 THE SALOON PROBLEM cial motives to be unfair or to mislead their constit- uency. To them the requirements of truth and morals are of the first importance. These clean moral organs, whose function it is to educate the moral conscience, render an invaluable service to humanity. Likewise literature, pamphlets, and cir- culars may all be employed as a means to develop a healthy public sentiment. Wesley wrote and edited more than two hundred books and pamphlets, and exerted thereby a prodigious power in the world. Wilberforce used to the fullest extent the public press, and poured forth pamphlets, appeals, and letters upon the apathetic mass of the people. He gave ten years of unremitting labor to write a book upon the slave trade; the tremendous effect it pro- duced in the House of Lords and House of Com- mons led to the passage of the Abolition Bill. Neal Dow, the apostle of prohibition in Maine, once said, " The State was sowed knee-deep with literature be- fore prohibition became an actual power." The liquor interests have instituted a systematic " Cam- paign of Education." The report of the Protective Bureau of the National Wholesale Liquor Dealers' Association for 1904 shows that in one year there were published and sent broadcast over the country more than four million cleverly written pieces of lit- erature, with the view to "popularize" the trade. The personal equation is likewise an important factor in building up public sentiment. Those who practise abstinence from intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and who at opportune moments discuss AND SOCIAL REFORM 119 the saloon problem intelligently and dispassionately in the home, the church, the Sunday school, the office, the shop, and elsewhere, are contributing a silent but weighty influence in building public sen- timent that some day will be crystallized into laws, and will encourage the enforcement of the existing laws against the saloon. The man who assumes or implies in his speeches, writings, and conversations that the saloon is not a social evil strengthens the liquor traffic and thereby retards reform. The most effectual power to prevent the estab- lishment of the saloon and to abolish those already existing is for all churches to develop a pronounced public sentiment against it. Lincoln has well said, "With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes and pronounces decisions. He makes statutes or decisions possible or impossible to be ex- ecuted." The average public official is likely to abdicate his moral convictions regarding the saloon issue. Primarily, the fault is with the voters who are not enough in earnest to change conditions. Legislators and executive officers aim to carry out the policy of their constituents. They take into ac- count the character and amount of public opinion on the saloon question. They will not trifle with voters who have moral convictions sufficiently strong to express them at the polls. If the churches, as the chief agencies to control and inspire public opinion on moral issues, should show themselves worthy of 120 THE SALOON PROBLEM their high opportunities and lay stress of effort upon public-sentiment building, the saloon would be speedily suppressed. The pulpit is one of the greatest sources of power for public-sentiment building. Most of the converg- ing lines of moral and helpful influences enter the community through this channel. The ministers are the real and essential leaders of the people along moral lines. The pulpit is their throne of power. When the public mind is misinformed or the public conscience perverted it becomes the plain duty of the pulpit to enlighten the people, and to create and direct the public conscience. Let it be understood that it is as important to seek to arouse the major- ity of church-members to intelligent action as it would be to enlist the general public. The Chris- tian religion has its limitations. Spiritual regener- ation is a primary force, and yet it is only one of the various forces in social reconstruction. The divine energy works through the natural faculties of man. It affects the nature and motives of men, but does not carry with it a corresponding change in intellect, judgment, or conscience. It introduces into the human heart an impulse to do right, and gives strength to carry out the impulse, but it does not take a man out of his social environment, which may be wholly un-Christian. Consequently, regen- eration is efficient, but it is not sufficient to effect social reform. The Church has been true to her spiritual function of developing an army of reform- atory forces through regenerate men, but it has AND SOCIAL REFORM shown great weakness in directing these forces in such a united manner as to secure definite results for social betterment. The majority of church- members are neglecting an unparalleled opportunity to help guide public opinion and to initiate reform measure on the great moral and social problems. Some one has appropriately said, " The feeble trem- ble before public opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, and the skilful direct it." One of the functions of the pulpit is to educate the Christian conscience to see social wrongs and to so direct the activities of the Church as to inaugurate practical methods of reform. With this purpose in view the preacher should not deal in vague, indefinite generalities and rhetoric, but he should seek to make his message real, definite, and applicable to every-day affairs. He should aim to concentrate public thought upon one specific re- form issue at a time. When definite results are se- cured the people will be ready for an advance step in social betterment. There are times when his words should scorch and burn. There is no need of whole- sale dogmatism and denunciation, but a calm crit- icism of social vice is essential. The stern demand of civic righteousness may arouse antagonism, but it is the function of the true prophet to rebuke sin and to help right the social wrongs and injustices. The community may be made vibrant and electric with waves of enthusiasm for the overthrow of the organized iniquity of the open saloon whenever the pulpit courageously and persistently presents the 122 THE SALOON PROBLEM facts, points out the moral evils, and awakens and moves the public conscience to an energetic and effective activity. We cite a concrete typical instance of what is being done by many pastors all over our land. Rev. A. C. Turrell was a brave, fearless, and in- telligent man. In speaking of how the saloons were banished from Xenia, Ohio, he said : " We had thirty- three saloons to a population of about nine thousand. We saw the saloons could not exist and our sons and brothers and fathers keep sober. These saloons must live on the ruins of our homes. We first pre- sented these facts to the people not in glittering generalities, after the old style of illustration, but we gave the people recent local facts: we gave the names of minors made drunk, the quantity of money spent, and by whom, the names of guilty saloon- keepers. We knew what we were talking about. We were threatened. I received letters threaten- ing to destroy my home, to have my children's eyes put out with blue vitriol, etc. That is the spirit of the evil we are fighting. We kept on finding facts and publishing them, by speech and press, from pulpit and platform. Some of the people began to open their eyes and their mouths. They said, * Why does not some one put a stop to these things ? ' That was the first stage of awakening. We kept right on piling up facts. After a few weeks of agitation we began to organize. Our organization grew. It be- gan with a few. It was qualitative, not quantita- tive. The earnest ones told and found others. We AND SOCIAL REFORM 123 came to election-day. We organized for that day especially. We had judges and challengers; carriages to bring apathetic men to the polls. We had a com- mittee, who had the wards districted, to send for sluggards and men with short memories on election- day. We personally called on all. We had brass band and street oratory and all that, but relied at last on personal touch and personal work. We counted noses and votes. We had estimated our majority two hundred, and so wired headquarters. We had one hundred and ninety-nine, and have been looking for that rascal ever since." It is related of the Roman Cato that he would invariably conclude his speeches with the words, " Carthage must be destroyed!" and it was destroyed. When the leaders of civic life and thought realize the menace of the saloon to our civilization, and cry aloud, "The saloon must go," it will go. This serious saloon problem, if it means anything, appeals alike to all the churches. These should unite and have a continuity of policy and a tenacity of purpose to mould a vigorous opinion against the saloon. The local churches in each community should take the initiative and unite upon some sys- tematic plan of agitation. By this it is not to be un- derstood there is to be an occasional sermon, a cas- ual recommendation, or a fitful spasm of discourse just before some local election. On the contrary, phenomenal results will follow a systematic, united, and concentrated effort of the churches to have monthly meetings for the agitation against the sa- 124 THE SALOON PROBLEM loon in every town throughout the land. If the speeches are marked by a calm, clear judgment, and the people aroused to decisive action, these meetings may be very helpful and inspiring. No outside organization can relieve the pastors of the responsibility for developing local sentiment against the saloon. When this local sentiment is aroused the State-wide organization of the churches may direct and utilize the local sentiment so as to secure wholesome anti-saloon laws, and in so far as possible to cooperate with each community to help itself by inaugurating and pushing a local warfare against the saloon. AND SOCIAL REFORM 125 CHAPTER VIII ESSENTIAL FACTORS IN LEGISLATIVE ACTION God give us men! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking! Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above its fog In public duty and in private thinking. For, while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps! J. G. HOLLAND. PUBLIC sentiment and moral conviction on great questions of social welfare sooner or later find expression in legislative enact- ments. These serve as instruments to help shape individual and social activity. A clear conception of the moral idea and spirit that should underlie the task before legislative bodies is quite important. Government is an organization of beings with moral attributes. It rests upon the moral nature of its moral constituents. Its mission is to maintain and develop morals. Government as a psychic or- ganism manifests itself in laws and institutions. Laws, whether organic, statutory, or customary, to be valid and effective rules of human action, should conform to the divine principles of justice and equity. 126 THE SALOON PROBLEM They should be enacted with a view to guard rights, secure justice, and restrain lawlessness, in order that each citizen may have the opportunity to exer- cise the ethical prerogative of self-government, and by so doing to conserve the good of society. The aim should be to discourage vice and encourage vir- tue, and to lead each citizen to participate in the en- deavor to make a self-governing community based upon the principles of the moral law. Civil laws do not encroach upon personal liberty when they are enacted in behalf of the common weal. Personal liberty is neither license nor wilfulness; but it implies rational self-determination. It is noth- ing more nor less than the unhindered opportunity to fulfil the law of one's own being. Man is part of a social system greater than himself. His moral na- ture impels him to do right, and to be a true man. His individual preferences or whims are not the final law of conduct. His liberty is conditioned upon his moral attributes and circumscribed by the higher demands of the moral law and the welfare of society in which he lives. Right conduct, then, is not a con- ventional or legal morality, but a participation in a social and spiritual order, having a comprehensive moral purpose. The social ideal is to make possible for the many the full life of the individual. The end of social conduct is not to give the greatest amount of pleasure to the individual, but to aid all in self- realization. The common principle of personality is the same whether serving self or serving another. Since society is the collective aspect of the individ- AND SOCIAL REFORM 127 ual, there can be no individual reality apart from the social whole. Self-realization comes through the realization of social ends, hence personal and social ends are equally binding. Legislative action should aim to secure for the individual such favorable conditions and equality of opportunity that by the exercise of personal lib- erty he may develop character and share in all the benefits of an advancing civilization. The type of personal liberty rightfully due to the innocent and weak, as well as to the strong and courageous, is that no one shall be hampered and hindered in self- realization, but rather to be favored with social order and encouragement for acquiring health, virtue, and an undisturbed household where the noblest qual- ities of character may be developed. Society does not aim to make men moral by means of laws, but rather to surround all persons with wholesome influences, and to prevent one in- dividual or one community from doing what is inju- rious to another. Each one is at liberty to set up his own ethical standards and follow his own ethical ideal, as long as they do not work injury to the com- munity. The preferences of the individual pertain- ing to health and morals are subordinate to that of society. The equity is based on moral principles. Individual rights depend upon the rights of the com- munity. Each citizen shares alike in the advantages of public order and morals. Whatever society de- mands it secures to the individual. Obviously, per- sonal liberty involves not merely the power, but the 128 THE SALOON PROBLEM right, to do as one pleases. In no sense does the power to perform an act constitute the right to do it. Personal liberty, then, demands that men of wrong individual impulses and vicious tendencies be surrounded with the authority of the law, so that they may develop a sense of duty and self-restraint, and be dissuaded and educated away from vice and crime. Just laws tend to conserve conditions that virtue may flourish by choice. Both freedom and social order will be advanced as society makes it easy to do right and difficult to do wrong. Civil laws make human society possible. They condition the development of the individual as well as the national character. They are enacted, not as arbitrary impositions, but with the view of regulating the conduct of the individual so as to secure the good of all, and thereby secure the highest good to him- self. They aim to restrain and suppress the outward expression of wrong motives, and so to emancipate the man as to afford him the opportunity through obedience to law to live at the highest human level. These laws cannot be classed as sumptuary legis- lation, but they follow the fundamental principles of all government and demand that each person shall so conduct himself as not to interfere with another's rights. The Supreme Court has knocked the bottom from under the "personal liberty" argu- ment that what a man eats and drinks is not prop- erly, a matter of legislation, and furthermore that any injury following the use of intoxicating liquors " is voluntarily inflicted, and is confined to the party AND SOCIAL REFORM 129 offended." The court says: "There is in this posi- tion an assumption of fact which does not exist, that when the liquors are taken in excess the injuries are confined to the party offending. The injury, it is true, falls first upon him: in his health, which the habit undermines; in his morals, which it weakens; and in his self-abasement, which it creates. But as it leads to neglect of business and waste of property and general demoralization, it affects those who are immediately connected with and dependent upon him." The advocates of a false type of personal liberty should remember that the individual cannot be developed at the expense of society without dan- ger to both. The limitations of the individual's rights are justified either on the ground of his own good, or the self-preservation of society, or both. The ethical principles regarding personal liberty have equal force in the outer realm of civic affairs. Local self-government, as a fundamental part of our political system, has its limitations. The nation is bound together by a distinct community of interest. There are questions of right and morals which have such national importance that no local govern- ment can settle them for themselves. The Fed- eral government disregards all local interests and the local standards of public sentiment when legis- lating on questions of health and morals. It enacts laws regarding them which are applicable to every State and Territory in the Union. The Supreme Court of the United States declares: "No Legisla- ture can bargain away the public health or public 130 THE SALOON PROBLEM morals. The people themselves cannot do it; much less the servants." The national life and aims as formulated in constitutional laws are justified on moral grounds, and these are equally binding on all legislative bodies throughout the nation. The logic of the situation is seen by citing a con- crete illustration. A few years ago some of the States for the sake of revenue were led to sanction various lottery schemes. This method of raising revenue de- moralized public conscience and became a menace to the nation. In view of these conditions, Congress was morally bound to exercise its power to forbid the use of the United States mail and the interstate transportation facilities to promote lottery schemes. The cry of State rights and local self-government by those interested in lotteries was of no avail in the face of the plain moral responsibility of the national law-givers. Questions of health and morals are likewise of paramount importance to each commonwealth when applying the principles of local self-government to some subdivisions within its territory. The legal powers and charters granted to counties, municipal- ities, towns, and boroughs emanate from the Legis- lature. State powers are granted in trust to each of these subdivisions as agents of the commonwealth, and as such they are subordinate to its interests and authority. The Legislature, as a representative body, is constitutionally and morally bound to enact laws to protect society from harm. It exercises the right to legislate on all questions of health and morals, AND SOCIAL REFORM 131 because they concern the well-being of society as a whole. The local self-government is limited, not as an act of paternalism on the part of a narrow and bigoted class in the Legislature who wish to impose their ethical standards upon an unwilling minority, but because such action is solely in behalf of the common weal. Citizens of any commonwealth throughout the Union are vitally related and concerned in the health, morals, and well-being of the people within its bound- aries. Moral evils, like contagious diseases, soon af- fect the entire body politic. If the vicious element in any locality should outnumber the citizens of bet- ter moral sentiments, and, further, if they should by a majority vote attempt to establish an evil or to perpetrate a wrong which would be a menace to the common good, then it becomes the plain duty of the Legislature to prevent it. Such restraining meas- ures do not infringe upon personal liberty nor mil- itate against the principles of local self-government, but tend rather to conserve the rights and well- being of society, in which all citizens may share alike. Those who work for advanced legislation do not necessarily impose the standard of a class as the law of a community. They seek simply to embody into law the eternal principles of righteousness, by which society is governed, and which is antecedent to all statutory measures. Social progress has won its greatest triumphs by a few heroic souls working through legislative measures for social welfare, and leading the people to higher planes of self-realization. 132 THE SALOON PROBLEM The foregoing ethical principles and ideals ap- plied to the saloon system leave no doubt as to the course our legislators should pursue. The saloon is such a menace to society that it is incumbent upon the legislative bodies to abolish it. The moral char- acter of the saloon, as a social institution, has been established very clearly. Facts, reason, conscience, and the civil courts all unite in regarding it as essen- tially immoral, on the ground that it satisfies no legitimate want, but panders to a perverted sense and so becomes an offence against morality and the welfare of society. Hence the liquor traffic for beverage purposes cannot be licensed without sin, and every consideration demands its prohibition. The legal status of the saloon has been fixed by the highest court of the land. The fullest moral and constitutional warrant for the abolition of the sa- loon is found in the decisions of the Supreme Court. It declares, "There is no inherent right in a citizen to sell intoxicating liquors by retail; it is not a priv- ilege of a citizen of a State, nor of a citizen of the United States." And the same court goes on to say: "By the general concurrence of opinion of every civilized and Christian community, there are few sources of crime and misery equal to the dramshop, where intoxicating liquors, in small quantities to be drunk at the time, are sold indiscriminately to all parties applying." Again, in clear and forcible lan- guage it declares: "We cannot shut out of view the fact, established by statistics accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, pauperism, and crime AND SOCIAL REFORM 133 existing in this country, in some degree at least, are traceable to the evil. That legislation by a State prohibiting the manufacture within her limits of in- toxicating liquors, to be sold or bartered for gen- eral use as a beverage, does not necessarily infringe any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Con- stitution of the United States is made clear by the decisions of this court rendered before and after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment." In view of all these facts, the same court says: "The State has the right to regulate, restrain, or prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes." In pursuance of this constitu- tional and legal right, the citizens of any State may pass laws providing for prohibition by local option or otherwise. Legislative enactments against the sa- loon are not questions of practical judgment or ex- pediency left to individual caprice, but they involve moral principles of general application that cannot be evaded by legislators without being culpable of shirking moral responsibility. The function of government is not to legislate against an act because it is sinful in itself. The question of right or wrong per se involved in the act of gambling, the drink habit, liquor-seiling, or Sun- day desecration is no more considered in legislative enactments than the acts of keeping gunpowder, or a tannery, or a slaughter-house. The whole ques- tion turns upon the fundamental moral principle whether their existence is a social menace, and in violation of protective legislation. Neither does the 134 THE SALOON PROBLEM Legislature aim to prescribe the details of virtuous conduct, nor to make men good by law; but rather, by prohibitory acts, to prevent the destruction of good order in society. It aims to protect the public morals against the evil consequences of the liquor traffic. For example, the sale of obscene literature is condemned by the Supreme Court on the ground that it tends to deprave the minds of those open to such influences. The saloon likewise is condemned because it tends to invade the rights of the weak and innocent and to corrupt the morals of the community. Again, legislative bodies do not attempt to banish all intoxicating liquors, but rather to legislate their sale only for medicinal and scientific uses. Neither do they declare that it is legally wrong to drink in- toxicating liquors, but they say emphatically that it is wrong to traffic in them for beverage purposes. These civic demands do not encroach upon personal liberty. The saloon has no more legal right to live than the lottery, brothel, or gambling-den. All these evils infringe upon the rights of others ; consequently, it is incumbent upon Congress and the several Leg- islatures to prohibit them. The principle of prohibitory legislation having been considered, the question arises as to how to apply the same to the actual conditions of society. The more common legislative methods of dealing with the saloon have been by high license, the dis- pensary system, and local option. The advocates of tax or high license assert that the saloon is a necessary social evil, and that the AND SOCIAL REFORM 135 most effective way to deal with it is to tax the busi- ness and make it help to bear the burden it imposes upon the community. The futility of this method has abundant proofs. Wherever high license has been tried it has increased the cost of regulating crime, the care of paupers, prisons, and the police force, and has signally failed to lessen the taxes. Be- sides, the money paid for such license enables the traffic to become financially intrenched in society and it paralyzes public conscience, and even leads some good people to apologize for the liquor traffic, and thus retards the solution of the problem. Fur- thermore, any legal sanction of the saloon throws a semblance of respectability about a traffic that is "the prolific mother of crime, pauperism, ruined health, and blasted souls." Another reason often presented by the ultra-conservatives is that high license will close up all the low dives. The reason given is that those who pay the high license will obey the law and help make the saloon safe and re- spectable. Experience, however, has shown that the higher the license the greater the violation of the law likely to be permitted by the local officials. It is a well-known fact that in many of our cities the saloon, by means of graft and otherwise, is per- mitted to sell intoxicants to minors and drunkards, and is open all night as well as on Sunday in defi- ance of law. High license is strongly advocated by the saloon forces. Here is a sample of their attitude: J. M. Atherton, ex-president of the National Protective 136 THE SALOON PROBLEM Association, one of the foremost organizations of distillers and wholesale liquor-dealers, says: "The true policy of the liquor trade to pursue is to advo- cate as high license as they can, in justice to them- selves, afford to pay. This catches the ordinary tax-payer, who cares less for the sentimental oppo- sition to our business than he does for taxes upon his own property." The liquor organ, The Bar, says: "A good high license to help pay their taxes will pacify their conscience; nothing else will." It is evident that the saloon-keepers set their egoistic aims above the general good. Aside from anything that can be said in favor of high license, the Legis- lature has no more moral and constitutional right to barter away the public morals by licensing the saloon than it has to license the gambling-house, the brothel, or the opium-den. It is just as reason- able to permit some men to breed contagious dis- ease-germs as to run a saloon for revenue. If the principle of license is carried out to its logical se- quence all forms of social evil may be licensed, and thus inflict injury upon the community. Those who take time to investigate and get at the facts are not deluded by the sophistry of high-license advocates. The specious arguments, allegations, and falsehoods put forward to show the beneficial results of high license are a travesty upon political science and morality, as well as a clever device to deceive and de- coy conscientious people and lead them to tolerate this glaring evil. The State Dispensary System has likewise failed AND SOCIAL REFORM 137 as a remedy for the saloon. The State that traffics in intoxicants for beverage uses fosters the drink habit, which tends to degrade its citizens and to en- courage social disorders. The State should author- ize the sale of liquors for legitimate uses, but in no case for beverage purposes through the agency of a dispensary. The principle of State prohibition by legislative action is correct in theory, but the method of applying the same to existing conditions has met with varying degrees of success. The principle itself is the ulti- mate goal of all worthy efforts in anti-saloon move- ments. There is, however, a vast difference between the hypothetical and the actual. The former is help- ful in keeping our ideals clear and strong, but it is sometimes difficult to apply it to existing conditions. The academic logic and argument for immediate state and national prohibition is unanswerable; but in practice its friends are confronted with actual social conditions that for the time being are almost insuperable. The morality of the prohibitory prin- ciple does not necessarily imply that it would be a moral act to embody it into law. The morality of this action depends upon the moral support guar- anteed to sustain the law when enacted. Some men believe they are justified in refusing to vote for rad- ical measures against the saloon because the avail- able and workable force to secure these reforms is lacking. The ultra-radicals who advocate extreme methods of social betterment by legal enactments do not always take into account the nature of things. 138 THE SALOON PROBLEM The abstract principle may be clear and convincing, but its concrete application is no easy task. It is all the more difficult of practical application because men are- not all on the same plane of moral sentiment. This fact, together with our heterogeneous popula- tion and our complex and varying social condition, renders it almost impracticable in many States as a speedy remedy for the saloon. Local option is a legal provision for local prohibi- tion. Each commonwealth may allow some subdi- vision of its territory, such as the county, town, borough, municipality, ward, or election district, to decide for or against the saloon. The Legislature may authorize a part of the people to vote for local prohibition before the whole commonwealth has chosen to go so far. This method is an essentially democratic solution of the problem. It is a means to hasten the day of complete State prohibition, as well as to bring about better conditions at present. Each community, if it can secure a majority of votes, can apply the most rigorous form of local veto. Bear in mind that local-option laws do not plan to make the beverage-liquor traffic, which is morally wrong, legally right by popular choice. They simply provide that some people may prohibit the saloon whenever they choose to use their power. The Legislature, how- ever, when referring the question of saloon or no saloon to the people to decide, does not abrogate any of its moral or constitutional rights to prohibit the saloon at any time, even though the majority in certain communities is in favor of it. The whole AND SOCIAL REFORM 139 commonwealth is bound together in such a manner that the Legislature should not permit an innocent minority of any locality within its territory to suffer the consequences of wrong social action made possi- ble by a bare majority of citizens of doubtful moral sentiments. The Legislature is morally bound to prevent as far as possible organized iniquity, insti- tuted temporarily by majorities, from working an injustice to a minority of the law-abiding citizens. In view of the complex conditions of society, and the low moral sentiments sometimes prevailing in certain communities, local option has proven to be the best available method of dealing with the saloon. At present the majority of the States of the Union have local-option laws. One advantage is evident: it gives the people a fighting chance against the sa- loon. A tremendous power for good is gained when the evils of the saloon can be kept in the open, and at each election good citizens can battle strenuously against it. If the principle of local self-government on this question is adopted by the Legislatures, it should have the widest possible application. It is hardly fair to give home rule to the rural popula- tion and not to give each ward of our cities an equally effective opportunity for voting for or against grant- ing license to the saloon. The residential sections of the cities have no other means of protecting them- selves against the incursions of the saloon. The strenuous efforts of law-abiding citizens against the depreciation of property and the demoralization of society occasioned by the saloon ought to be re- 140 THE SALOON PROBLEM spected. Legislators should not hesitate to enact local-option laws, if for no other than prudential reasons. They may vote favorably for local-option methods without expressing the local merits of the saloon. If the people are denied the privilege of ex- pressing locally their preference regarding this vital question it stultifies their rights. Legislators who re- fuse to grant this right consent to the existing con- ditions, and become the champions and protectors of the saloon against the popular will. The successful application of any of the forego- ing principles and methods is largely in the hands of Christian people. The Church has a vital rela- tion with all social and civic affairs. Its regal pre- rogative is to be active in conserving for each one the rights and privileges that are in harmony with social order and civic patriotism. The Church dis- claims any desire to have an organic alliance with a political party as such, yet the several denomina- tions should unite and maintain a joint agency to represent them in all legislative matters relating to public morals. Politics when thus divorced from partizan entanglement and demagoguery is plainly within the appropriate sphere of the Church. It is necessary for any sustained movement against the saloon to have such a medium, through which the Church can express its convictions along legislative lines. The aim should be, first, to retain all good anti-saloon laws; and, second, to oppose and defeat all pending legislation that favors the liquor traffic; and, lastly, to secure whatever other laws are needed AND SOCIAL REFORM 141 for effective work against the saloon. The time has come for Christian people to apply the moral law in the political realm. Laws that conserve rights and protect the home are best secured by good cit- izens getting control of the political machinery of their respective parties and using it for social re- generation and progress. Social well-being will be promoted through the co-equal sovereignty of each citizen working for civic righteousness. Conse- quently, indifference to political obligations and to the exercise of the right of franchise is reprehensi- ble. It is becoming more and more apparent that Christian people must demonstrate their power in civic affairs before they will be an important con- trolling influence for civic righteousness. The representatives of the saloon system have not been slow to avail themselves of political power to further their interests. They make their plans months in advance, and have their candidates for office pledged to support their cause before they are nominated. These men should not be allowed to browbeat and outwit the timid endeavors of good citizens to curb their power. The secret of success in political affairs is to put up a fight at the nom- inating convention rather than at the polls. If the standard of political morality is to measure up to the gospel teachings, Christian men and all lovers of sobriety should become aroused to the necessity of attending political primaries and the nominating conventions of their respective political parties, and in these political gatherings preempt the ground by 142 THE SALOON PROBLEM their presence and influence so that worthy citizens may be put in nomination, who will not take orders on moral questions from State politicians that are more or less subservient to the liquor interests. A citizen's influence for civic virtue is multiplied many-fold when he concentrates his energy at the nominating convention. Those who help to defeat the unworthy candidate and to elevate the good one may pray a little more fervently "Thy kingdom come," and perhaps experience something of the truthfulness of President Roosevelt's statement that " aggressive fighting for the right is the greatest sport the world knows." Good citizens are entrusted with the responsibility of turning down bad men in pub- lic life, and by their support and encouragement make it easy for the worthy public official to succeed. This destructive and constructive power, exercised by Christian men throughout our land, would soon inaugurate a reign of civic rectitude among public officials. We cite a typical precedent as to how this method works. In Ohio, "out of sixty-seven mem- bers in both houses who voted against the Clark Bill in 1900, only fifteen were returned to the Leg- islature of 1902, which passed the Beal Bill by a vote of eighty-two to sixteen in the House, and unan- imously in the Senate, and in about sixteen months one hundred and thirty municipalities had voted out about three miles solid front of saloons." The people of Ohio secured this fighting chance against the saloon after a long struggle, in which more than seventy politicians were sent to their political graves. AND SOCIAL REFORM 143 Men of bad repute should be opposed, regardless of party. A Republican may be opposed in one dis- trict and a Democrat in another, but a State-wide movement of this kind would not materially affect party results. It should be made possible for each person to retain his party affiliation and at the same time line up with others on moral issues irrespective of party politics. The first demand is to be American citizens, and then partizans. The saloon-keepers should not be permitted to arrogate to themselves the right to say who should go to the Legislature and what the representatives shall do in the way of protecting their traffic. They have too long boasted of their heart's desire and spread themselves like a green bay-tree in our legislative halls. The time has come for Christian citizens by their number and influence to offset the saloon boycott and no longer submit to saloon-domination in political affairs. The moral forces hold the elective balance of power when- ever they choose to exercise it. The social conscience regarding the saloon should assume a binding form in legislative enactment. Experience justifies the statement that laws regard- ing morals will find support and create a morality of their own even when they pass beyond the sphere of common morality. However, advanced legisla- tion on moral questions should go no faster than public opinion will justify in order to make the laws effective. Judgment regarding public sentiment on this question is not to be limited to any locality, but should have a State-wide application. As a rule, 144 THE SALOON PROBLEM legislation in this country has not kept pace with anti -saloon sentiment. The non-enforcement of the liquor laws in certain cities and towns is merely in- cidental, and is no argument against progressive legislation looking to the ultimate suppression of the saloon within the confines of the State. Let it be borne in mind that our laws are not enacted by our legislators alone. The representatives are chosen to go to legislative halls to complete the laws which had their beginning back in each voting pre- cinct, where public sentiment is made. Reform measures generally begin with the lowest political unit, where the roots of society are touched, and gradually work upward and become party issues. A bill drafted for presentation to the Legislature should be drawn with great care. It should be fair in application, definite in language, lucid in expres- sion, and plainly within purview of the legislative authority. Otherwise the courts may construe it in a way unfavorable to the aim which it seeks to serve. A concensus of legal opinion and advice as to the wisdom and constitutionality of the proposed law is an important precautionary measure. Statutory laws to be effective should have continuity and a State- wide application. It is also well to observe that there must be some remedy to match the schemes of the illegal seller of intoxicants. The customary penal- ties for the violation of law should be supplemented by some form of search-warrant measure that gives officers increased opportunity in dealing with those who seek to evade the law. The secret of success in AND SOCIAL REFORM 145 putting up a fight in the Legislature is for the anti- saloon forces to be thoroughly prepared for it. It is important to plan and work for months prior to the convening of the Legislature. The best work is done back in the districts from which the several representatives are chosen. Effort should be con- centrated on strategic centres where candidates for the Legislature are known to be friendly to saloon interests, or where they are doubtful as to their atti- tude upon the anti-saloon issue. If such methods are wisely and prudently followed up, the good cit- izens can practically control the Legislature in be- half of wise legislative action against the saloon. The records, as well as experience, show that the oppo- sition is skilful in diplomacy, unscrupulous in the use of money, and sometimes is greatly strengthened by having some patronage at its command. These conditions must be taken into account in conducting a successful warfare against the workers of social iniquity. The saloon will not be dethroned in pol- itics until good citizens divorce partizanship from moral issues and unite to promote by means of po- litical preferment the friends of moral legislation, and to punish its enemies. It is encouraging to note that whenever it is politically safe the average pol- itician prefers to do right and to act in harmony with the best moral sentiment of his constituents. Reputable citizens have it in their power to make it politically safe for any legislator to stand for right principles and to vote for right measures. It is not enough that men deplore corruption in civil life, but 146 THE SALOON PROBLEM they should also fight honestly and intelligently for more wholesome political conditions. After a legislative battle for saloon suppression the forces of righteousness should not disintegrate and scatter, but double their energy to become more closely cemented and aggressive in order to become a powerful and permanent force with which politi- cians must reckon. This legislative campaign in behalf of morals, to be permanent and effective, demands experienced and skilful leadership. The only hope of success is for the federated churches to maintain a joint agency whereby its leaders can co- ordinate and concentrate the moral forces at a given point to secure favorable results. If Christ and his teachings are not embodied in political affairs it will be because Christian people do not carry him into the places of political power and influence. AND SOCIAL REFORM 147 CHAPTER IX ENFORCEMENT MADE EFFECTIVE There is even now something of ill omen among us; I mean the disregard for law. Here, then, is one point at which danger may be expected. The question seems: How shall we fortify against it? The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Rev- olution never to violate in the least particular the laws of his coun- try, and never to tolerate their violation by others. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. People can find a remedy for all the evils from which they suffer in the enforcement of the law. Enforcement of the law can cure every governmental wrong. The people reign through the laws which they make for themselves, and when these laws are faith- fully executed the reign of the people is absolute. When these laws are nullified by officials the people do not rule. JOSEPH W. FOLK. SOCIAL control by governmental authority emanates from the people possessing moral attributes. Law is an edict of authority which is based upon man's moral nature. It is born of personal convictions. This does not imply, how- ever, that laws and morals are coincident, but that society within its sphere may coerce the individual to obey law as a necessary condition of men living together in moral relations. It is no infraction of personal liberty to require obedience to law as essen- tial to social order and well-being. Law is the guard- ian of the personal and property rights of every indi- vidual. Consequently, laws should be observed and enforced, not in the interests of the violators of the law, but rather in behalf of the law-abiding citizens. 148 THE SALOON PROBLEM The growing disrespect for law is fraught with danger both to civil and property rights. Patriotic citizens look with alarm upon all lawlessness. His- tory is replete with conspicuous examples of how a disregard for law gradually permeated the minds of some nations until the spirit of lawlessness swept them into anarchy, bloodshed, and ruin. The en- forcement of laws regulating or prohibiting the liquor traffic is one of supreme importance. Legal enactments against the saloon are based upon the fact that they are inimical to the general welfare of society. Anti-saloon legislation, then, has a vital relation to the best interests of the citizens. In view of this fact, the Church as a living power for civic righteousness, as well as the law-abiding citizens, are interested in having these laws wisely enacted and faithfully enforced. One of the obstacles in the way of enforcing some of the existing laws regarding the liquor traffic arises from their defective construction. Many of the mem- bers of the Legislature who help to enact statutory laws have no comprehensive insight and familiarity with the deeper general principles of judicial law. As a result many of the laws are ill-considered and fault- ily constructed. This has been true, especially, of anti-saloon legislation. Laws drafted to repress or prohibit the saloon should be carefully prepared and put in an enforceable shape. Frequently when a practical and efficient anti-saloon bill has been brought before the Legislature, the opposition, with the aid of astute and wily attorneys, will introduce an AND SOCIAL REFORM 149 amendment which on the surface appears plausible, but should it be adopted it would take the teeth out of the proposed law, and render it ineffective or diffi- cult to enforce. The liquor-dealers aim to provide that there shall be some loophole in the construction of statutory liquor laws so that offenders may escape the just penalty of violation. In framing the law pro- vision should be made, whenever possible, so that it can be enforced by a magistrate for the first and second offence without a jury. When the penalty has been inflicted once or twice by a magistrate and it fails to stop the violation, a jury is more inclined to convict. The Constitution provides that no man shall be deprived of his liberty without being tried by a jury of his peers; consequently, when an imprison- ment penalty is attached to the law the defendant has a right to demand a trial by jury. In many cases, however, a heavy fine imposed by a magistrate will be as effectual as an imprisonment clause subject to a trial by jury. This procedure will obviate much difficulty and often prevent vexatious delays and costs. Another difficulty arises from failing to secure honest officials to enforce the laws. The enforcement of law rests primarily upon the executive officers. It is not uncommon, however, for public officials who are supposed to combine honesty, efficiency, and re- sponsibility to connive with the violators of law, or to be so threatened and cajoled by them that they will restrict their efforts to perform their duty. There is a growing public demand for officers who will en- 150 THE SALOON PROBLEM force the laws impartially. Some of the officials whose sole duty it is to enforce law assume the legis- lative, judicial, and executive functions of govern- ment and often nullify laws at their option. The ex- ecutive officers have no choice whether they shall en- force some laws and ignore others. Otherwise they will shield one class and punish another class of criminals. The paid officers who have sworn before God and their fellow citizens to perform faithfully their duties and to enforce all the laws and ordinances have no alternative but to obey in a most fearless manner the official requirements. The officer who finds that he cannot perform his duty in compliance with his oath of office, and yet wishes to take an honest course, should resign his public position and let some more efficient person occupy the place of authority. Unless the laws are strictly and impartially enforced they fail to command respect. Those who violate the law as well as those who wink at the violation of the law invite anarchy. The plea that the liquor laws are unenforceable in certain cities is often dictated by policy or indiffer- ence. In some instances it shows a moral obliquity that is reprehensible. Comparatively few officers are hampered by the laws they are expected to enforce. They certainly understand the conditions before ta- king the oath to enforce the laws. They could refuse to serve in a position where it is impossible to per- form duty. The prosecuting attorney for the city of New York recently expressed his opinion, as well as that of many well-meaning citizens, that the excise AND SOCIAL REFORM 151 law could not be enforced because there were more than 7,000 saloons open on Sunday in New York City alone in defiance of law. One of the chief rea- sons assigned for non-enforcement was that the mo- ment a reform administration tries to enforce the law, that " moment it will go out of power." The question naturally arises whether or not the sovereign will of the several million people of the State of New York shall be controlled by the small minority of 7,000 sa- loon-keepers and their patrons of New York City. An honest administration that performs its duty can well afford to get out of office and remain out until it helps change the conditions whereby the law may be enforced and self-respect maintained. The statement of the prosecuting attorney is more than offset by the expert testimony of one who for several years was State Commissioner of Excise of New York State. He gives it as his opinion that the law concerning the Sunday traffic in liquors is not enforced " because of corruption, indifference, and incompetency on the part of police and prosecuting officers." "Such con- ditions," he says, "cannot continue to exist any- where in the State under the present laws in an honest official atmosphere. Can law be enforced ? From per- sonal experience during six years as District Attorney under the former law, I unhesitatingly say, Yes. From the success of the Department of Excise in compel- ling the 28,000 liquor-dealers of the State to comply with the law by payment of the enormous tax of over $12,000,000 annually, and from our successful prose- cution of hundreds of civil actions and proceedings 152 THE SALOON PROBLEM under the law before courts and juries alike, I say most emphatically that the law can be enforced." It is admitted by many public officers that a large number of the police in our cities are in league with law-breakers and give them immunity from prosecu- tion. Judge Grant, for many years connected with the Supreme Court of Michigan, says, "Saloon- keepers cannot openly violate the law without the connivance of the police. When the police depart- ment of any city in earnest instructs its officers to enforce the law and prosecute every offender, there will be no difficulty. Saloon-keepers will not run counter to the courts and to the officers when they know that those officers and judges will fearlessly perform their duties. I speak in this regard from experience." The moral tone of public officers will be greatly improved when the governors of the sev- eral States exercise their prerogative to depose any unworthy officer for malfeasance in office. The executive officer who aims to enforce the laws faithfully and impartially appeals to the sense of justice common to all men. Even law-breakers will respect such an officer. The faithful perform- ance of duty may not always ensure a reelection of the officer, but it will awaken respect among the bet- ter classes of citizens. A weak, partial, and vacil- lating policy of enforcement of law is likely to arouse the opposition of both friend and foe. Such an administration merits overthrow at the succeed- ing election. Another obstacle in the way of securing convic- AND SOCIAL REFORM 153 tion grows out of the power of the courts to construe the liquor statutes. The court exists to correct mis- takes and to determine the constitutionality of leg- islative measures. Judicial law defines the rights and duties laid down and prescribed by the courts. The Supreme Court holds that the State has the right to prohibit the liquor traffic. The several States have not hesitated to use their power to re- press or prohibit the saloon. Sometimes, however, when an officer of the State makes an arrest and the offender is brought before the court, the judge may be favorably or unfavorably disposed to convict. If he is unfriendly to the law, he may find ways and means to circumvent both the letter and spirit of the law and to permit the violator to go unpunished. A few points may be mentioned as to the manner of nullifying the law. The court decides largely the method of pro- cedure and the rules of evidence in trying a case. The defendant in some instances may appeal from the lower to the highest court and by this means ward off judgment for two or three years. Where appeal is taken to the highest court the trial judge has it within his power to demand a just and satis- factory reason for filing a bill of exceptions, and if so disposed may often prevent unnecessary delay by refusing to grant the defendant's appeal. Again, in some jurisdictions the court may or may not proceed with a case without bonds for the cost of prosecution. Whenever the officers, as agents of the government, take the initiative in the case of pros- 154 THE SALOON PROBLEM ecution, then it is clear the court should make no demand for costs. The court also must weigh evidence and see both sides of the question involved. The witness on one side may be controlled by a strong moral purpose and conviction, and yet his testimony be of little value; while on the other side the testimony may be given in deceit, vindictiveness, and treachery. The court must weigh the evidence and render a decision according to the character of the testimony furnished. The judge who stands in court day after day and faces criminals needs public sympathy and support. It certainly requires a man of strong moral qualities to perform faithfully his duty under these trying conditions. Good citizens should sustain the judge by public opinion and indorsement. By this method public sentiment will become a strong factor in the administration of justice. Another difficulty in securing conviction may arise in defining intoxicating liquors. Some drinks may have no appreciable amount of alcohol and yet work injury. The same stimulant may affect one and not another. It is within the province of the Legislature to define what constitutes intoxica- ting liquors. Any beverage containing alcohol above one or two per cent is regarded as an intoxicant. The position taken by most authorities in defining them is that it is any distilled, malt, vinous, or any other drink that intoxicates in the slightest degree. The justifiable reason given is that even a small quantity has a bad effect and tends to create an ap- AND SOCIAL REFORM 155 petite for something stronger. The burden of proof, however, is on the venders of malt liquors to show that they are non-intoxicant. One of the chief difficulties in the way of enforc- ing the liquor laws arises from the illegal seller of intoxicants, who resorts to every known device to escape detection and to conceal his lawlessness. If the repressive or prohibitory laws are to be effective some statutory enactments should be made to meet these cases. The officers who are charged with law enforcement should have the power of search-war- rant in order to ferret out the evil-doers and bring them to trial. One of the most effective means of bringing these criminals to the bar of justice is to employ secret-service men of unquestionable integ- rity to secure proper evidence against offenders of the law. The Federal government and public officials in the States are obliged to resort to detective work in order to secure evidence against violators of law. There is no reasonable ground for prejudice against detectives who do honest service towards making the law effective. It is far better to detect crime than for derelict officers to protect it. Patrons of the saloon almost invariably when called into court as witnesses perjure themselves to clear the saloon-keeper. Evidence against these law-breakers must be obtained as a general thing from those who know the secret designs and oper- ations of the saloon and are implicated in the illegal sales of liquor. There is a certain kind of evidence that cannot be secured by any other method. Legal 156 THE SALOON PROBLEM authorities sanction and the courts admit the evi- dence of detectives who, without any felonious in- tent, feign complicity with criminals in order to dis- cover and expose their crime. " Spotter evidence," if honestly and conscientiously secured, is justifiable on ethical grounds. The saloon-keeper is not obliged to sell liquor on any condition, therefore he cannot jus- tify himself for selling illegally on the ground that he supposed the purchaser was acting in good faith. The essence of the crime lies in the intention. The saloon-keeper who sells illegally acts with criminal intent, while the detective is not an accomplice and does not actually violate the law, because he is act- ing without any such motive. The employment of detectives should be done by the regularly constituted authorities, or by private citizens who wish to assist them. An anti-saloon league should strenuously insist that it will not employ detectives except as a last re- sort, in order to expose derelict officials or to show up local conditions as a means of public agitation. The State Anti-Saloon League, however, may recom- mend to local authorities detectives of good moral character who will secure the specific points of evi- dence wanted to be used in the courts. It is peril- ous, however, for the league to assume any respon- sibility in the employment of the services of detec- tives. Inasmuch as the police power may be used to repress or prohibit the saloon, the State should pro- vide in a large way for the enforcement of its laws. Some States have passed a State Police Bill which AND SOCIAL REFORM 157 provides for a special Board of Commissioners and a set of officers charged with the investigation, de- tection, and prosecution of criminal offences. The State police act as special State agents who are sup- posed to stand behind the regular local officers and render their authority more efficient. The State could, with advantage, entrust the whole question of enforcement of the prohibitory laws to a State Board of Commissioners whose centralized power would enable them to use drastic measures to sus- tain the laws and to enforce the same where local au- thorities refuse or neglect to use the power lodged with them. The foregoing obstacles and difficulties that stand in the way of enforcing the liquor laws make more emphatic the necessity of supplementing the gov- ernmental machinery for law enforcement with an active State-wide organization of the churches and law-abiding citizens. The policy of this organized medium should be to use such measures and aux- iliary helps at command as will render the laws more effective. This does not imply that it shall do police duty for the State, but rather to use every means to induce public officials to work for the abo- lition of the saloon and its accessories of crime. To this end the organized medium of the feder- ated bodies should inculcate respect and obedience for law as well as to arouse public sentiment so that each citizen will discharge his share of civil power and responsibility to support and encourage the officers to enforce law rigorously. Public sentiment 158 THE SALOON PROBLEM is necessary to enact law, but it is not always neces- sary to enforce law. Many public officials are enforc- ing the laws without the approval of the majority of the citizens. Public opinion, however, is essential to elect men who will enforce the laws continuously and steadily. Law is strongest and most operative at points where the moral sense of the communities is most sensitive and alert. Public sentiment enthrones or dethrones all laws. It is such an omnipotent power because it voices men's perceptions of right and wrong. Convictions are the rules of action. Without public opinion laws can be neither wisely enacted nor effectively enforced. Hence the necessity of keeping alive the ethical conscience of the individ- ual and the community by agitation. The saloon that degrades the individual and menaces civiliza- tion is regarded by the Supreme Court as an out- law, and all good people are justified in arraying against it the forces of education, legislation, and religion. It is needless to say that it is the private citizen's duty to help elect to positions of authority men of energy, intelligence, and faithfulness, who will act wisely and promptly in bringing offenders of social order to justice. A dishonest official precludes the possibility of enforcing law. Before passing judg- ment, however, it is the unquestioned right of pub- lic officers to have the citizens understand and to help meet the difficulties in the way of enforcing the laws Any wholesale condemnation or abusive AND SOCIAL REFORM 159 language regarding their acts, based upon imper- fect knowledge of the conditions and facts in the case, will defeat rather than aid the cause of social betterment. If the majority of public officers thought it politically safe, they would prefer to do right rather than to do wrong. Many try to ease their conscience and please the public by moving along the line of least resistance. The best way to deal with an offi- cial with such a vacillating policy is to hedge him about with the power of public opinion until he makes a decision and burns the bridges behind him. An honest and competent official should be protected politically, and the unworthy one turned down. Whenever an officer stands in the way of the honest enforcement of law good citizens should work to change the conditions by creating a strong public sentiment that will demand the removal of the derelict officer for malfeasance in office, by means of political action or by the authority of the governor. Again, the private citizen should help and sus- tain the officers to perform their duties and enforce the law. Laws do not enforce themselves, but are upheld and enforced by the strong arm of author- ity. Those who vote to enact a law have the respon- sibility of giving the necessary moral support to en- force it. Men are culpable when they, through ti- midity or indifference, acquiesce in the non-enforce- ment of laws. As good citizens they should feel im- pelled to see justice meted out to wrongdoers. The delegation of power to the executive officers is not always sufficient. There are times, as ex-President 160 THE SALOON PROBLEM Harrison says, when the law-abiding citizen " should put himself and all his personal influence behind the faithful officer, and confront as an accuser and prosecutor the unfaithful. This is not an agreeable duty, but it is as much a part of the covenant of citizenship as that we will lend our aid in making others obey the law, or that we will keep the law our- selves. Our government is a law-and-order league in perpetuity, and the members have something more to do than to elect officers and appoint com- mittees." The prevalent idea that the citizen may shirk responsibility in the enforcement of law is to be deprecated. This cooperative effort does not involve any one in such a way as to require him to assume the responsibilities of the executive officers, but simply to help the officers in the discharge of their duties in preserving order and enforcing law. The public officer should likewise be made to feel the responsibility of taking the initiative in pros- ecution and to make complaint against the violators of law, as well as to enforce the same. In some States a severe penalty is imposed upon public offi- cials who wilfully refuse to proceed against offenders of law when trustworthy evidence is placed in their hands. Our government is not based upon the idea that the private citizen should enforce the laws. Therefore it is unwise to encourage or countenance private prosecution, except in rare instances where the purpose is to convict public officials of neglect of duty, or to furnish evidences of lawlessness. The prosecuting officials who are sworn to enforce the AND SOCIAL REFORM 161 laws, and are paid to do the same, should never be relieved from the responsibility by the private cit- izen assuming the duty of the regular public officer. Judge Grant, of the Supreme Court of Michigan, says: "I want to tell you right here that the next time an officer says it is not his business to make com- plaint, and tells you that if you will sign the com- plaint he will set the machinery of law in motion, you can assure him that it is not the duty of any private citizen to do this. It is not safe for any pri- vate citizen to attack three kinds of law-breakers, keepers of houses of prostitution, gamblers, and liquor-dealers who sell unlawfully. The suppres- sion of their illegal business is not the concern of the private citizen. If he is active in this direction he may have his house burned down, or be subject to assault. But the offenders of law dare not assault the officer, because he represents the majesty of the law. Every police officer has the power of the govern- ment behind him ; and law-breakers know that if they kill the officer they never can kill the office that as soon as one officer is out of the way there is another in his place. Law enforcement is what you pay the officers for, and it is their duty, and not a private citizen's." The radical fault with many of our Law-and- Order Leagues is that they assume to perform by private means police duties which properly belong to public officials. In this way public conscience is educated away from the official responsibility of 162 THE SALOON PROBLEM enforcing the law. The existence of these leagues can be justified only as an auxiliary moral force, but they should not assume any authority or respon- sibility that properly belongs to the local officers of the law. Again, a representative jury is an important fac- tor. A public officer dare not be influenced in the selection of a jury, but he may exercise the right of asking names from which to choose them. Citizens when selected should turn aside cheerfully from their business and serve on a jury. When a strategic move is made by the anti-saloon forces to try a case or define the duties of an official, private citizens should lend their influence by attending the hearing of such cases in court. The enemy is alert to use this means of influencing the jury. The able and experienced attorney Wayne B. Wheeler says: " I have often gone into the courtroom and found thugs, bums, and shoulder-hitters, and plug uglies there to show their sympathies for some lawless dive-keeper, and hardly a friend of good government, perhaps outside of the mayor or judge, to stand for law and its enforce- ment. Jeers and jibes of all kinds were given to make it easy for the court and jury to acquit. Ex- pressions of disapproval could be heard whenever a point was decided against the law-breaker, and on many such occasions, after the officer had done his duty, we see a score of liquor sympathizers crowd- ing around him with all kinds of threats and dis- approval, and very seldom a friend of law enforce- ment would push his way through that motley gang AND SOCIAL REFORM 163 and shake hands or say a word of encouragement to the officers of law." No one can conceal the sin- ister significance of these facts. An organized power of civic righteousness should make itself felt through the law-abiding citizens entering the courtroom and by their presence and demeanor make such condi- tions impossible. The organized medium of the anti-saloon forces heretofore outlined can well afford to employ an in- telligent, expert attorney with a State- wide vision and prerogative, whose duties should be to help draft municipal ordinances and bills for legislative actions, as well as to counsel and assist local author- ities in the enforcement of the liquor laws. A wide- awake attorney might be very helpful in preparing a small digest of anti-saloon legislation and court decisions within the State in which he operates. He needs to study carefully the situation and give all his time to the active and responsible position of a law-enforcing department as an auxiliary force. He should be subject to calls from local officials and organizations and assist them to draft ordinances, prepare briefs on points of law, and to cooperate with such local officers and prosecuting attorneys as may desire to perform their duty of enforcing law, but who are often puzzled how best to go about it. There are many such officials in every State who need guidance and encouragement in the perform- ance of their duties. The attorney who gains the respect and confidence of public officials will have an unlimited number of calls for his services. In 164 THE SALOON PROBLEM Ohio such an expert attorney has been employed by the an ti -saloon forces for a period of eight years. He is unable to respond to the numerous calls from local officials for his services. Within this brief pe- riod he has been able to help introduce into court more than 1,200 cases for illegal liquor-selling, and has won more than eighty-five per cent of them. A specialist in anti-saloon legislation and law enforce- ment for each State is an invaluable adjunct for effective work against the saloon. The people must choose between being ruled by wise and just laws or by the self-constituted author- ity of those who defy them. The plan of liberal en- forcement of anti-saloon laws is simply a plan of ne- gation and inaction. The only safeguard is to up- hold the majesty of the law by demanding the enforce- ment of the same with unwavering fidelity. AND SOCIAL REFORM 165 CHAPTER X THE COORDINATING POWER IN LEADERSHIP He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes; Many there were who made great haste and sold Unto the cunning enemy their swords. He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, And underneath their soft and flowery words Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went And joined him to the weaker part, Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content So he could be the nearer to God's heart, And feel its solemn pulses sending blood Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good. LOWELL. THE foregoing considerations lead to the con- clusion that social-reform movements are not necessarily isolated, arbitrary, and ca- pricious, but may be broadened and systematized through intelligent foresight and organic effort. The permanency and regularity of truth, by which the world is governed, as well as the inherent nature of man, make it possible to put reform methods upon a basis that will command the intelligent sympathy and support of level-headed men whose cooperation is essential to success. We have seen that the essential social factors in the solution of the saloon problem are the federa- 166 THE SALOON PROBLEM tion of churches, organization, public-sentiment building, legislation, and law enforcement. The relative importance of each depends upon time and circumstances. No single social force, but the sev- eral forces acting conjointly, are essential to work out the problem. All are involved in the equation. They must, however, be coordinated and made to work and co-work for the suppression of the saloon. If there is a break in the chain it must be supplied. If there is a gap through which the enemy may es- cape justice it must be guarded. Every agency must be carefully utilized if effective work is to be done. The paramount question that confronts us is, Who will coordinate these social forces and help make them work together for a common end? This del- icate but essential work requires the wisest and most skilful leadership. Its importance must not be over- looked. The method of a kind Providence in dealing with mankind is to choose one nation or individual to bless the many. Men endowed with great capaci- ties are selected to communicate some powerful new impulse to the race. God selects a particular man for a particular service. He selects a Moses to in- augurate one of the greatest industrial revolutions in the history of the world. He chooses a Paul to bear the divine message to the Gentile world. In modern times he summons leaders who, with ten- der pity and a throbbing passion for humanity, are entering every door of opportunity for service. AND SOCIAL REFORM 167 "God sends his teachers into every age, To every clime and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind. " The method of placing leaders of high and lofty mould in the forefront of reforms to help shape hu- man thought and destiny is a recognition of the prin- ciple that the most efficient service is rendered by specializing. To each one, however humble, is given a special endowment, which implies special fitness for a special service. Each one may enrich society by a personal contribution of ideas or influence to make the world's burdens lighter, faith surer, and joy fuller. The great variety of talents and duties involved in the work enables each one to become a specialist and a leader in his or her chosen field of labor. Correlated with this truth is the fact that most men have a strong desire and a natural instinct to follow worthy leadership. Many are in search of light and truth, and are ready to follow whenever there is a leader who leads. Comparatively few men see beyond their daily duties, or get such a broad, comprehensive view of life that it will be suf- ficiently inspiring to execute some great plan. Those who seek for the fullest expression of life desire to come under the influence and leadership of the best minds and noblest characters. Men wer.e never more alert than at present to find the best expert leadership, whether it comes from the press, the plat- 168 THE SALOON PROBLEM form, the pulpit, or from any source whatsoever. The highest interests of society are involved in the ques- tion of competent and trustworthy leadership. The people are ready to respond to the command of lead- ers who without a pessimistic wail are able to grap- ple successfully with vital social problems. The importance only emphasizes the high type of leadership demanded in reform movements. The successful leader should have a comprehensive vi- sion of social affairs. He should be familiar with the philosophy of history and the underlying principles of social problems. No reform movement will widen and deepen unless the leaders are big enough to have large conceptions and a broad vision to see the scope of the work, and the remedies to be applied. Some men often forestall the efforts of reform by limiting their vision to their small parish, or to some provin- cial sphere. They make their maps from the view- point of the foot-hills. The demand is for leaders who are capable of thinking not only in terms of parishes, towns, cities, states, and nations, but in terms of world-wide thought and interests. Such leaders are willing that some men shall occupy a two-by-four intellectual space, if they can but be given the rest of the universe of thought. The pessi- mist only sees things, while the optimist is a man with a vision. Joshua and Caleb brought in a favor- able minority report, but still were unable to induce the Israelites to take a short cut into Palestine. In the face of apparent defeat they were not discour- aged, but took a long look ahead. They began to AND SOCIAL REFORM 169 mobilize and drill an army of young men under twenty years who would some day execute the divine plans. This forty-year vision was rewarded by their leading the victorious army into the land of prom- ise. This type of leaders are statesmen of the king- dom. They make the advances towards the real- ization of a larger social vision. The true essence of successful leadership is a strong commanding conviction. The stronghold and safeguard of the leader is to understand and believe in his work. This implies that he does not advocate any false theories or set up any false standard. His social ideals must be attainable. His message must be simple, definite, and comprehensive. He must plant his two feet on solid principles and indubita- ble facts, and be prepared to deliver his message in an earnest, convincing, and pleasing manner. He must be a living illustration of the message of truth which he seeks to enforce and establish. He must not only possess the truth, but the truth must possess him. The irrepressible conviction of truth must be so powerful that it can no more be held back than Niagara's rush of waters. The truth, with its inner, burning, and seething contents, must lift the leader like a volcanic peak above the common level of hu- manity and make him a true beacon light of the race and of history. Such intensity of conviction sets the truth aflame and enables the leader to laugh at tem- poral contingencies, because his soul is anchored in the eternal foundations of truth. On January 1, 1831, Garrison declared, as he faced the almost 170 THE SALOON PROBLEM universal apathy of the times, "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not re- treat a single inch; I will be heard." Clear and pos- itive convictions of duty enable a man to feel the weight of responsibility so that he can throw his soul into the accomplishment of his task without fear or favor. The men who live in history are those who have been closely associated with great religious and moral movements. A shallow man is never swayed by strong, abid- ing convictions. Truth must first find lodgment in the depths of consciousness before its inward force prompts a man to perform heroic service. Such a leader is able to step in front of the throng and take the initiative, and he becomes the hope of the uncer- tain and brings courage to the weak. He stands firm and confident when the elements of war are about him, and copes with evil men, and faces alike the sneers and scoffs of friends and enemies. He enacts such valor in his own experience that he re- inforces the consciousness of right and immortal- ity in a thousand hearts. He inspires courage, self- reliance, and independence, and soon develops a sympathy that passes on to love. His heroic services lift the reform he advocates above any fitful and spasmodic effort, and exhibit him as a worthy leader of men. He speaks the truth out of his own heart, and so stirs men's inertia as to contribute to the progressive and aggressive element in life known as heroism, The people cheerfully espouse the cause AND SOCIAL REFORM 171 of such a leader with all the earnestness of personal regard and discovery. The leader must likewise be a specialist in coordi- nation. The various social agencies involved in the saloon problem exist in similar relations with coor- dinate authority and responsibility. These must be adjusted and coordinated for practical effectiveness. The essential point to be gained by the combination of these social agencies is the introduction of a pow- erful unifying force. The several social factors in the saloon conflict are not strange and uncommon. They are the natural channels through which the political and social life expresses itself. These social forces must be utilized and given fresh emphasis by combining them in the most effective manner for the suppression of the saloon. The defect in many reform efforts is that one specific social agency is emphasized and others equally important are over- looked. It is necessary to bring all the social forces to bear upon this given reform. The true leader surveys the whole field, and gathers the latest opin- ions and conclusions of specialists, and is prepared to combine them so as to contribute to the solution of the problem under consideration. He is the con- trolling mind to unite men with right "qualities and abilities so that they are willing to serve without jealousy, friction, or conflict in any sphere where their efforts will count for the most. Again, the leader should possess executive abil- ity of a high order. No systematic and continuous 172 THE SALOON PROBLEM campaign can be carried on against the saloon forces without the power of initiative and a rare organizing ability. The leader must study the social situation, and possess that indefinable quality of getting on with men so that he can unite them in a common effort against the saloon. He should be able to inves- tigate the fitness of candidates for public office, and keep a record of their official acts, and when possible secure their cooperation. He must be skilful enough to use diplomacy rather than to antagonize or try to coerce political leaders whom he wishes to enlist. This gift is so rare that the diplomat commands a higher salary than the general. No man is disqual- ified for leadership who is resourceful and who has the ability to become a specialist in coordinating the essential social agencies involved in the conflict. The spirit of service is another quality of leader- ship. It is essential in the exercise of forbearance in dealing with the folly and morbid conservatism of the majority of men. Many people are inherently weak and indifferent in regard to great moral issues and social reforms. Others who hide their convic- tions through fear of financial losses or social ostra- cism or political preferment are slow to accept and follow any one who has a care for civic righteous- ness. It requires a great amount of patience and tact to keep in close sympathy with this type of peo- ple and lead them out into a larger life. Most peo- ple are open to the genial influences of love and pa- tience. The spirit of forbearance characterized the life of Moses, who bore with the sins and follies of AND SOCIAL REFORM 173 the children of Israel for forty years. Wesley pos- sessed such catholicity of spirit that he could forbear with the conservative and torpid Church of Eng- land. His large sympathy and rare insight into character and the possibilities of divine power fitted him to work with all the tenderness of a loving father for the most needy, abandoned, and despised classes in English society. Those who would lead mankind out of the bondage of wrong into the land of prom- ise, where righteousness, justice, and truth reign, must go about it step by step and bear with the ignorant, indifferent, and cowardly until they them- selves come to realize their privileges and duties. This spirit of forbearance must be sustained by the self-sacrificing spirit of love. The manifestation of a spirit of impatience at the tardy movement of re- form will often defeat the very object sought. The temptation that comes to all leaders, from the hum- blest teacher to the greatest moral reformer, is to grow impatient, restless, and sometimes almost dis- couraged at the apparent indifference and tardiness of those who should follow cheerfully the highest reason and right conduct. The leader, however, who would command the permanent respect and honor of the people must not only stand firm in moral principles, and voice the best conscience of the na- tion, but exercise the patience of Moses and the wis- dom of the Master in dealing with those whom he would win to the cause of righteousness. Among the qualities of the successful leader are those of hopefulness and cheerfulness. That he may 174 THE SALOON PROBLEM escape becoming morose and servile under the bur- den of his mission the leader should aim to be cheer- ful and hopeful in the midst of discouragements and trials of every kind. If these qualities are not a nat- ural possession they should be acquired and culti- vated, the same as other Christian graces. The world needs men of high-minded cheerfulness and buoyant hopefulness. It is this spirit that gives elas- ticity to work. A cheerful and hopeful disposition is contagious, and will carry victory where others prophesy defeat. More people are failing to make a success of life through want of cheerfulness and hopefulness than for any other cause. Discourage- ment is the enemy of all reform, and a barrier to all progress. Men crave the vision of a larger hope, a broader plan, and a nobler purpose. They need positive teaching, and a revelation of their better nature. The multitude followed the greatest Leader of men gladly because he came to preach glad tidings of great joy, and to give a more abundant life. He promised a hundred-fold in this life, as well as the life to come. The whole gospel scheme of the world's redemption is optimistic. No one can utter the Lord's prayer understandingly without a broadened vision and an increased motive for larger service. Through the biographies of the world's greatest leaders there runs a vein of cheerfulness, and even of exultation, awakened by the vision of the good time that was to come. The apostle Paul exhorted his followers "to rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice." Luther was a man of jovial spirits. Wesley possessed wit and rep- AND SOCIAL REFORM 175 artee to a remarkable degree, and the stories of Abraham Lincoln show a profound sense of the hu- morous. Livingston, through all the years spent in the dark continent, kept before him the vision of the time when every valley and every hilltop should be dotted with schoolhouses and churches. These great leaders realized in their lives the scriptural state- ment that "the joy of the Lord is your strength." Again, the only adequate motive for sustained service in behalf of the general welfare is to be found in the Christian spirit. A thoughtless and irrever- ent person never makes a great reformer. The Mas- ter's work must be done with the Master's spirit. The strong, skilful leader is fortified with a devout Christian character. He nourishes in secret an ar- dent love of truth, justice, and mercy. In some day of great crisis this accumulated moral force comes forth in the form of an overbearing eloquence and power that hastens the coming of the kingdom of God on earth. These qualities flow together to form a leader of rare excellence. They are not embodied to an equal degree in any one person. Some excel as agitators and lawyers, while others are singularly fitted to work along legislative and executive lines. Each should serve where he can serve best. Leaders of this type may be found who are already doing ex- cellent service in various fields of religious and phil- anthropic work. One of the important functions of our colleges is to train young people to become leaders in social-welfare movements. Bright and 176 THE SALOON PROBLEM worthy young men with potential possibilities for leadership must be chosen for the work. Reform movements, especially at the beginning, are likely to have men enter the work with no special fitness or adaptability to do effective service. Hence it comes to pass that reforms must be reformed. The reform movement is greater than any personality. Inefficient men must be eliminated, and men of large capabilities must be induced to take up the impor- tant work. Meantime its friends should be mind- ful of the hindrances, and exercise patience until conspicuous leadership steps to the front and takes command. When successful methods are endorsed, and proper leaders are chosen to execute them, the re- sponsibility for success rests with the rank and file of the people to encourage and support the move- ment. The abolition of the saloon is an integral part of church work. This duty cannot be discharged without the regular presentation of the cause to the people, and without an opportunity being given them to contribute regularly to support the work. The movement has just claims upon the church benev- olence. It is not even on the same level with other benevolent causes. The irresistible conflict between the church and the saloon requires that this move- ment have paramount claim upon the churches for support. If the work is to be permanent, aggressive, and effective it should be placed upon a substantial financial basis. The support is not to be left to im- pulse or chance. If the income is to be reliable, AND SOCIAL REFORM 177 permanent, and adequate to secure the most efficient service, Christian people should give regularly and generously. The cause should not only be incor- porated in the schedule of church benevolences, but men of means should vie with each other in donating generous sums to further the work. Many of the appeals for money have reference to the deplorable social conditions which spring from the saloon evil; but in giving for the work of throttling the saloon the supporters are dealing with the chief cause of so- cial evil, rather than with social conditions. Hence money spent in the anti-saloon work does more for civilization, humanity, and the coming of the king- dom than expenditure for any other cause, however worthy. The leaders in this interunion of churches against the saloon are servants of the Church. Their effi- ciency depends upon the support and encourage- ment given. Whenever these leaders present the cause in the churches they should not be regarded as beggars, but rather as associate pastors. They are giving more to the cause than the man who writes his check. They are engaged in fighting an unprin- cipled foe. It requires heroic service and the utmost vigilance to do effective work. The wife and chil- dren of the leader must give up the joy of the pres- ence of a husband and father in order that he can give the major portion of his time to fight the saloon. The leader who stands in the forefront of the battle should not have the additional burden of looking after his support. This cause, like the missionary 178 THE SALOON PROBLEM cause, should have the hearty cooperation of all the churches. The important question that confronts each church is not whether it will support the work, but whether it will fight the saloon, and if so, when and how. The anti-saloon movement, backed by the churches, has demonstrated beyond a doubt its efficiency. It must have more than a passive endorsement and professed sympathy. The wisdom of its methods challenges attention and invites, yea, demands, the cordial and substantial support of every lover of humanity. AND SOCIAL REFORM 179 CHAPTER XI SUBSTITUTES FOR THE We sow an act and reap a habit; We sow a habit and reap a character; We sow a character and reap a destiny. WILLIAM BLACK. The first and best of victories is for a man to conquer himself. To be conquered by himself is all things most shameful and vile. PLATO. I know what these saloons are. I have visited them at all hours of the night, and on all nights of the week, and there is not an ex- tenuating word that deserves to be spoken in behalf of them. They are foul, beastly, and swinish, the prolific hotbeds of vile politics, profane ribaldry, and unspeakable sensuality. REV. CHARLES FARKHURST. The pledge written and circulated by Abraham Lincoln and now used by multiplied thousands of the Lincoln Legion: 'Whereas, the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is pro- ductive of pauperism, degradation, and crime, and believing it is our duty to discourage that which produces more evil than good, therefore we pledge ourselves to aostain from the use of intox- icating liquors as a beverage." THE negative and destructive methods em- ployed in social-reform movements should be accompanied or followed by positive and constructive ones. It is a well-attested fact that a full, well-rounded, normal life demands expression rather than repression. The best way to overcome evil is to supplant it with something good. This principle accords with the teachings of the Master, who came to displace the old nature with one re- newed in righteousness, and to dispel sorrow and 180 THE SALOON PROBLEM misery by bringing in glad tidings of great joy. He taught that self-renunciation is a doorway to a more abundant life, and that all apparent losses of worldly interests are more than compensated by the assur- ance of a hundred-fold in this life, as well as in the life to come. The method is to empty by filling, to displace ignorance by intelligence, to drive out organ- ized iniquity by substituting organized righteous- ness, to banish social wickedness and misery by bringing in a social paradise of justice and mercy. The application of this principle in all efforts to deal with the saloon problem is of the first impor- tance. The idea of a substitute for the saloon, how- ever, should not be narrowed down to the concep- tion of setting up a rival business in competition with it, but rather to find some broad, rational, and practical method of counterbalancing the various motives that lead men to patronize the saloon. In order to do this work it is essential to get back of the saloon and study the complex motives of its patrons, and then to direct all remedial efforts along lines in harmony with human nature and society as they are found. One of the motives commonly regarded as lead- ing men to frequent saloons is the lack of warm, bright, cheerful homes. Doubtless there is a close connection between small, cheerless, and unsanitary houses and the drink habit. Especially in cities, where people are herded together in tenement-houses with two or three dark and uninviting rooms, with- out the amenities of home life and the means of AND SOCIAL REFORM 181 recreation, they will naturally crowd into the street and find their way into the saloon. Consequently, the saloons are usually massed in thickly crowded tene- ment districts, a fact which greatly aggravates the situation. Dr. Gould, in his work upon "The Housing of the Working People," states : " In St. Giles ward the population is the most dense and the hous- ing the poorest in the whole city of Edinburgh. There were in 1889 in this division one hundred and twenty-seven licensed premises for the sale of liquor to two hundred and thirty-four where food could be obtained. Strangely enough, the rental of the latter was but 79.6% as much as for the former possi- bly a gauge of relative patronage. Out of 8,139 po- lice offences in Edinburgh in a single year, 2,690 were committed in St. Giles ward. These statistics are exceedingly suggestive. The district contains one eleventh of the population of the city, yet it furnishes one third of its total crime." The situation grows all the more serious when we take into con- sideration the vast number of men who, without homes, are crowded into hotels and boarding-houses, and who have few attractions outside of the theatre and the saloon. Many of these men squander their money, and thereby are hopelessly debarred from establishing homes of their own. A long step in ad- vance will be made to correct the saloon evils when men are encouraged to save their earnings and pro- vide themselves with clean, comfortable homes. Naturally, the home should be the chief centre of social attraction. However, man's social activity 182 THE SALOON PROBLEM reaches beyond the family, and he is none the less loyal to it when he seeks the larger society of men. Insufficient and unwholesome food is likewise a motive that leads many into the saloon. The wage- earner who leaves his home early in the morning with a light breakfast often has before the dinner- hour a faint and languid feeling. In this condition he is told by his fellow workman to "brace up with a drink." He yields and finds temporary relief. A cold lunch at the noon hour and the toil of the day further tend to deplete the physical energy. At the close of the day's work, on the way home, he sees the saloon signs, and the psychological power of suggestion again leads him to "brace up" with a drink and a free lunch, hoping thereby to satisfy his craving appetite for nourishment. The result is that the man soon acquires an appetite for drink and becomes a victim of the saloon and its evil con- sequences. Another strong motive that leads men into the saloon is the imperious drink habit. The appetite for intoxicating beverages is unnatural and must be acquired. Men under its power are driven into sa- loons to satisfy the abnormal and vicious drink habit. The large majority of men, as well as millions of women and youth in this country, have no drink habit fixed upon them, and consequently have no motive to enter the saloon or to demand a substi- tute for it. The drink habit binds and degrades men of all classes and conditions. Its victims seek out the sa- AND SOCIAL REFORM 183 loon, high or low, in order to quench their unnat- ural thirst. Moderate drinkers who boast of their self-control deceive themselves when they fail to heed the warning echoed by wise men of all ages, "Look not upon the wine when it is red." Most tipplers are not aware that they are under the power of the drink habit until they try to leave off the use of intoxicants. It is estimated that there are more than 2,000,000 drunkards in this country, and pos- sibly not one started out to become such. Some be- gan to acquire the drink habit through the free use of patent medicines, or by taking a social glass to satisfy the urgent request of their friends. Grad- ually, stealthily, but inevitably the habit becomes fixed and holds its victims with imperious and tyrannical power. By far the largest number of those addicted to the drink habit have acquired it at the bar. The saloon is largely responsible for the cre- ation of a craving appetite for intoxicants. This statement is borne out by the fact that the saloon- keeper cunningly devises means of awakening an unnatural thirst by the concoction of drinks and salted luncheons. The stress and emphasis of the whole problem must centre about this one cardinal fact: that the saloon helps to create and foster the abnormal drink habit. Here is the root of the saloon evil. One of the strong reasons for suppressing the saloon is to keep young men from acquiring the drink habit. The confirmed drinkers will seek out the blind-tigers, kitchen bar-rooms, and boot- leggers, and try to satisfy their unnatural thirst for 184 THE SALOON PROBLEM drink; but the majority of the youth who are not thrown into the way of the temptation of the open saloon will escape the snare of the saloonist and will direct their powers in saner channels. Those who plead for the open saloon in cities on the ground of their heterogeneous character and the widely different ethical standards appear to overlook the fact that the children of those who use intoxicants have a better right to be protected from acquiring the drink habit than their parents have to demand a sa- loon for indulging in a habit subversive of social well-being. Both experience and reason prove that any substi- tute for the saloon that encourages the slightest use of alcohol in its beverage drinks is fostering the drink habit and becoming the recruiting-station for the more vicious saloon. All efforts to reform the traf- fic by eliminating private profit are open to the same objection. It should be remembered that a substi- tute for the saloon does not solve the problem for those already under its power. To them the saloon is a social necessity. The only hope for this class is for friends to encourage them to shake off the de- moralizing habit through the dynamic power of divine grace, and whenever possible to suppress the saloon and give them no opportunity to make the beverage use of intoxicants a social necessity. The hope of the future is to protect the young men by suppressing the saloon, and thus avoid bringing in a new generation of those addicted to the drink habit. One of the alleged* motives that lead men into AND SOCIAL REFORM 185 the saloon is the desire to satisfy the social instincts. No one is prepared to deal with the saloon who does not reckon with its attractions as a social centre. A few of them are brilliantly lighted and furnished with warmth, free seats, and public conveniences, and seemingly are entitled to a measure of respect; but these conditions are exceedingly rare. One rea- son why the saloon survives is because it meets and satisfies the desire for social intercourse. It offers attractions to average human nature by creating good fellowship and stimulating the social nature. Music, papers, a free lunch, and amusements of various kinds combine to give a zestful variety to man's social life. The saloon is called a democratic institution, a social centre, and a workingman's club. Under the guise of these terms many are led to be- lieve that the saloon has redeeming features which justify its existence. It seems that the Evil One has the effrontery to appear in this twentieth-century garb and become as much an angel of light to-day as he did to our first parents when he spoke the per- suasive words, "It is good for food." The saloon as a place for retailing and drinking intoxicating liquor by the glass for beverage pur- poses offers some social advantages of a very ques- tionable character. The writer has read the pros and cons of the subject, and without prejudice has sought by personal observation in various towns and cities to discover the social advantages spoken of by certain writers and speakers, and he is satisfied that the saloon as a social centre is greatly exaggerated. 186 THE SALOON PROBLEM Some of the patrons of the saloon take their drinks during business hours and fail to see the baser side of saloon life. We speak guardedly, and with due regard for the opinion of those who differ, when we assert that with few exceptions it is impossible to find in a saloon a justifiable social attraction, or a place to satisfy any legitimate social instinct or neces- sity. The average type of saloon is gross and vulgar. It has no tables, chairs, or accommodations. The things most in evidence are barrels, bottles, glasses, and a bare counter where men line up to drink. In the evening, when people crowd together in the sa- loon, the air is often too fetid to breathe, and the conversation is profane and obscene. The sole pub- lic convenience is a dirty toilet-room. The saloons that attract most men are those that harbor gambling and shelter prostitutes. The sa- loons with concert halls, where so many men and women are allured to drink and dance, have their walls decorated with suggestive and indecent pic- tures, and one hears songs of the most revolting character. The whole atmosphere reveals a total lack of modesty and common decency. The moral effect on men, women, boys, and girls who frequent these resorts is anything but wholesome. Close stu- dents of the subject who get below the surface agree that the sociability generated in the saloon is un- natural and leads to degeneracy. Dr. A. Forel, of Germany, has recently pointed out that the social effect of the small quantity of alcohol contained in beer is in consequence of cerebral intoxication. He AND SOCIAL REFORM 187 says, " One only needs to study in Germany the beer jokes, beer conversation, and beer literature. They have stifled in young Germany the idealism, the taste for the classics, and the finer mental pleasures, throughout broad parts of the nation and in both sexes, to an extent that makes one cry for help. Among the academic youth of Germany the drink- ing of beer has truly killed the ideals and the ethics, and has produced an incredible vulgarity." The general concurrence of authoritative testimony leads to the conclusion that the saloon is the place of so- cial dissipation rather than one of social relaxation. It is here that vice and crime foster, putrefy, and destroy man's physical and moral nature. Better far would it be to leave the social necessities unmet than to build up an institution with such evil conse- quences to follow. This conviction is not held alone by the oppo- nents of the saloon. Inside testimony comes from the influential liquor organ, The Bonf arts' Wine and Spirits Circular, which voices a like opinion in these words : " The average saloon is out of line with pub- lic sentiment. The average saloon ought not to be defended by our trade, but it ought to be condemned. In small towns the average saloon is a nuisance. It is a resort for all tough characters, and in the South for all idle negroes. It is generally on a prominent street, and it is usually run by a sport who cares only for the almighty dollar. From this resort the drunken man starts reeling to his home; at this re- sort the local fights are indulged in. It is a stench 188 THE SALOON PROBLEM in the nostrils of society, and a disgrace to the wine and spirit trade. How, then, shall we defend the average saloon? We answer, Don't defend it; con- demn it." Face to face with these facts, no man who regards his fellows can permit for one moment any sentimentalism to soften his hatred to the sa- loon. All the facts go to show that it is a place of unmitigated evil. There are no anodynes or palli- atives for the forms of evil about the saloon and its adjuncts. It is morally impossible to talk of these places of iniquity and characterize them as good. No apology can be given for their existence. They cannot be made respectable by " elevating the trade," nor by any form of rival substitutes. The traffic in vice, whether it be in a gilded saloon or a low dive, is vicious in the extreme. The modern saloon is "a recrudescence of barbarism," and is no more a so- cial necessity than gambling-dens and resorts of the social evil. However, we recognize the necessity for some constructive policy and organic social effort to counterbalance the attractions of the saloon and overcome its plague. Especially in the cities and industrial centres the social need must be met. What- ever method adopted should give form and expres- sion to the altruistic endeavor. The underlying mo- tive should be that of service and mutual helpfulness. It has been demonstrated that there are success- ful ways of ministering to the social needs of those who are not already under the power of the saloon. Helpful social agencies are at work in many quar- ters to provide means for ministering to the social in- AND SOCIAL REFORM 189 stincts. Social clubs, association halls, coffee-houses, and other places have been provided with reading- rooms, games, amusements, and inexpensive re- freshments, as counter-attractions of the saloon. A few concrete illustrations show what can be done. The Hollywood Inn, in the city of Yonkers, New York, has a club building with good appointments, and cost nearly $250,000. The club life is whole- some and attractive. The idea of charity is elimi- nated, and that of order, equality, and democracy of interest is uppermost. Of the 1,100 members, 65% are from the artisan class. This rational and successful effort to establish a point of social con- tact in the community and to make the club of prac- tical service to all is worthy of encouragement and emulation. Coffee clubs established in San Jose, California, and elsewhere have proven eminently successful. The purpose is to provide social centres free from all evil environment, and to serve light re- freshments at a nominal price. In addition, free reading-rooms, with games and amusements, are maintained. Here multitudes of men come together in the most democratic fashion, and without any un- necessary restrictions find a social centre that greatly militates against that of the saloon. The member- ship-fee is one dollar per year, and the profits of the lunch-counter pay the running expenses. All the net profits are used to perpetuate and enlarge the work. This philanthropic endeavor meets with pop- ular favor, and has become a commercial success. Lecture courses and amusements in many cases 190 THE SALOON PROBLEM render an important service to help break the dull monotony of life, and likewise to develop a purer taste. New York City maintains, at a large annual expense, free lecture courses in one hundred and forty different places of the city. In 1903 more than six hundred different speakers delivered 5,000 lec- tures, which had an aggregate attendance of 1,134,- 000 people. The aim of these lectures is " to stimu- late study; to cooperate with the public library and museum; to encourage discussion; to bring the best methods of the best teachers to bear upon this great problem of the diffusion of culture among all the citizens of a great city." This comprehensive sys- tem of adult education stimulates interest in wider study and teaches the people how to use their leisure. Furthermore, as a preventive measure the city has opened up the schoolhouses as play-centres where children of all nationalities may find wholesome recreation and develop their social natures by shar- ing common pleasures and common interests. For example: in winter approximately 5,000 children meet for organized play under one roof every day. In the summer 30,000 children are taken out of the streets and turned loose to play on the roof -gardens of the schoolhouses. Thousands of children are 'taught how to use their time by being instructed in carpentry, basketry, chair-caning, domestic sci- ence, sewing, and millinery. In these play-centres free baths are operated, and the good effect upon the health of the children in the crowded districts is wholesome. Another use made of the school- AND SOCIAL REFORM 191 houses is to afford room for properly organized clubs, gathered from the gangs of street-boys, with the obvious effect of making them orderly. In fact, the aim is to make all these agencies contributory factors in developing useful citizens. Chicago is likewise providing large and well-equipped club- houses, each to contain an assembly-hall, gymna- sium, lunch, bath, and club rooms. These are to be located in small parks, where they can be the centre for social activity in districts inhabited by wage-earners. The aim is to make these club-houses available for the use of the people, as well as object- lessons in beauty and cleanliness. Furthermore, the employees of labor can increase the efficiency of their workmen by providing for their legitimate needs. In one of the cities of the Central West a manufacturing establishment decided on economic grounds to give its employees free cof- fee and a warm, attractive room in which to eat their lunch, as a substitute for the accommodations of the saloon located opposite each of the four gate- ways leading to the factory. The method was em- inently successful, and in a short time each of the four saloons went out of business. Take another instance: an employer of about a hundred men in a small town in Massachusetts found, to his annoy- ance and loss, that his men were frequenting a sa- loon opposite his factory at all hours of the day. In order to counterbalance the saloon influence, he erected a small but attractive building near his fac- tory. He put in an ice-chest and kept it supplied 192 THE SALOON PROBLEM with ginger ale and other non-intoxicating drinks. The workmen would go to the ice-chest and take therefrom a bottle of any desirable drink and drop three cents for it in a box provided for the purpose. This self-supporting substitute became so popular with the workmen that the saloon was obliged to close. Again, the Trades Unions have a greater oppor- tunity to meet the social needs of its members than the saloons. The allegation that the saloon is the poor man's club ought to be resented by wage-earn- ers. Men are likely to be kept poor so long as they share largely of their daily wage with the saloon. The fact is that the saloon-keeper is moved more by greed than by hospitality. The thinly clad and hungry men and haggard women without money find no shelter in the saloon, but are ejected as loaf- ers. It is sheer mockery to speak of it as the poor man's club. Many labor leaders are aware of the fact, and are encouraging the men to remain away from the saloon. In places where the public mind is not sufficiently awakened to establish places of rendezvous for the common people, private benefi- cence and encouragement on the part of citizens should lead the way to provide in the business cen- tres suitable rooms as social centres, on the first floor, with tables, chairs, inexpensive refreshments, and toilet-rooms. The central thought should be to meet the social requirements, and to have a place where men at all times may find companionship and meet to enjoy a social hour on the basis of a common hu- AND SOCIAL REFORM 193 manity. The place should be free from all conven- tionalities, offensive restrictions, or thoughts of char- ity. The intent and names of the financial backers need not be disclosed to the public. If these social centres are placed upon a purely business basis, they can be made self-supporting within a short time. The defect with many of the efforts along this line, however modest and unobtrusive, is that they be- tray their semi-religious character, and consequently are disappointing. Many of the workers are in- spired with an idea incapable of attainment. The majority of men do not wish to be patronized, cod- dled, or made the objects of charity. They come to- gether to express themselves rather than to be im- pressed. There is a crying social need throughout the country for public drinking-fountains and toilet- rooms. Friends of sobriety can do no better social service than to awaken public interest along this line, and to induce public officials to provide numer- ous drinking-fountains with a supply of pure, cold water for every month of the year, and likewise es- tablish public toilet-places. These conveniences are social necessities which are not overlooked by the saloon-keepers. One justification for the existence of these public utilities is the very fact that many saloons oppose them. It is known thp.t one drinking- fountain was the means of closing two saloons ad- jacent to it. Another method for removing the mo- tives for entering the saloon is for each community to provide a large, cheerful rest-room, with easy- 194 THE SALOON PROBLEM chairs and couches as well as water and toilet con- veniences for the people who come to town to trade, or to meet friends. Many shrewd business firms draw trade by fitting up attractive rest-rooms with toilet conveniences for their customers. Civil authorities, corporations, and others should see to it that inexpensive houses are built outside of the congested districts of cities so that artisans, clerks, and employees may be induced to buy them. When men become thrifty and own a home they get rooted in the soil and make better citizens and take a deeper interest in neighborhood surroundings. More important still is the need of mothers who will have a greater concern and interest in training their sons to a life of industry, thrift, and manliness; mothers who will make home attractive and adorn it with a personality radiant with good cheer; moth- ers who understand hygienic laws, and will not de- plete the nerve force of their sons by permitting them to keep late hours, or to have their appetites and passions overstimulated by the use of unwhole- some food or any intoxicating drinks; mothers who will keep in close, sympathetic touch with their sons' thought-life and struggles; mothers who understand and teach that self-mastery is the highest law of life, and that the moral, dynamic power and adequate motive to gain it come only through maintaining a normal but intimate relation with the Heavenly Father. We are led inevitably to the conclusion that sa- loons cannot be abolished by rival substitutes. Men AND SOCIAL REFORM 195 of drink habits prefer the old haunts. Experience, however, proves that those who are not already pa- trons of saloons will respond to higher motives than that of intoxicating liquors. The increased facility for providing good tenements, wholesome food and water, and public conveniences, together with the methods of furnishing social centres and educational privileges, will rob the saloon of many of its attrac- tions and make all efforts for saloon suppression much easier to accomplish. 196 THE SALOON PROBLEM CHAPTER XII SIGNS OF PROMISE For right is right since God is God; And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin. F. W. FABER. A wave of prohibition is sweeping over this country from one end to the other that threatens to engulf and carry to destruction the entire whisky enterprise. It is growing stronger each day, and each day towns and cities, counties, and even states, are added to that class in which the whisky business cannot be carried on legitimately. BONFORT'S WINE AND SPIRIT CIRCULAR. Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed in it more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starving, no widows weeping; by it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even the drammaker and dramseller will have glided into other occupations so gradually as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness. LINCOLN. IT seems befitting in the closing chapter to sur- vey briefly some of the encouraging tokens of progress for saloon suppression. The perils have been pointed out, but it does not necessarily follow that ruin and disaster will come. It is always well to face the facts and be prepared to meet them courageously. Although the dangers of the saloon to society are serious and cannot be minimized, yet the total influence of the social forces at work is on the side of sobriety and good order. The founda- tion of this optimism will be more apparent as we AND SOCIAL REFORM 197 refresh our memories with some of the advance steps already taken and discover in the signs of the present social status a prophecy of final victory. Among the many tokens of encouragement is that of the growing appreciation of the virtue of temper- ance and abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors. There is much less drinking of alcoholic liquors at public dinners, clubs, and public func- tions than formerly. Drunkenness is no longer con- sidered a weakness, but a reproach. The facts show clearly that the ideals of manhood are changing for the better. Then, too, the foremost physicians and scientists strongly condemn the beverage use of in- toxicating liquors. The British Medical Journal voices a growing conviction among physicians in these words, " If you cut off the moderate supply of alcohol entirely, you diminish the death and sick rates one half." Upwards of 15,000 physicians of England have lately signed a petition for the com- pulsory study of hygiene and temperance, like that required in America, in all the public schools of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the business world is a powerful opponent of the saloon. In nearly every branch of business drinking-men are not tolerated and drunk- ards receive little or no consideration. For business reasons alone employers of labor are demanding men whose brains are not muddled through drink. More than a million employees on the railroads are placed under absolute abstinence and forbidden to visit saloons. The same requirements are* made 198 THE SALOON PROBLEM virtually of mail carriers and postal clerks, except in the line of official duty. The example is extend- ing to other lines of business. Merchants and man- ufacturers who are intent and alert are adopting the same measures. The strenuous demands of economy and good service help to enforce the rules for total abstinence. Men who drink are discounted. And they find it more and more difficult to secure employment in any desirable business. The influence of the anti-saloon movement is greatly strengthened by the determination of captains of industry not to employ men who drink. The sky is red with promise as we think of the general spirit of reform sweeping over the country. Good citizens express a stronger desire than ever before for a clean, honest, and efficient public serv- ice. They are aroused to a deeper sense of their po- litical duties. The Municipal Voters' League of Chicago has secured, by endorsement, the majority of the members of the Board of Aldermen who work in the interests of the city. Similar organizations are multiplying in other cities, with excellent results. Throughout the country there is a growing move- ment for civic righteousness. The day is rapidly passing when a corrupt man can run successfully for any public office. The cleaner a man is morally the stronger he is as a party candidate. The late Senator Hoar testifies to the growth of temperance sentiment among public men in these words : " When I first entered Congress, in 1869, the practice of whisky-drinking prevailed very largely here, and AND SOCIAL REFORM 199 the drinking at dinner-parties and on social occa- sions was very heavy. There has been a wonderful change in all that. The men from the South and West, where the temperance reform spread some- what later than in the North and East, are uniformly temperate. Many of them are entirely abstinent from every form of strong drink. I do not know a man to-day in either house of Congress whose coun- tenance bears the indication that he is an habitual drinker of whisky. I could have counted a good many in both houses of Congress thirty-five years ago." Again, the public press and some popular magazines are exposing official corruption in many cities and States, and thereby awakening a stronger civic pride. Signal victories for law, order, and de- cency are won by mayors, attorneys, and other civil authorities. These facts are a triumph for good citizenship, and point to the good time coming when organized iniquity shall be banished from society. Another good indication of moral progress is found in the fact that the hostile attitude of the cit- izens to the saloon is finding expression in munic- ipal ordinances, in statutory enactments, and in Congressional acts. Heroic statesmen are standing on the public platform and in legislative halls and discussing in a fearless manner the merits of saloon suppression. The general adoption of local option in nearly all of the States is giving the people a fight- ing chance to drive out the saloon by applying this democratic principle. Congress also has enacted laws forbidding the sale of liquor in or adjacent to 200 THE SALOON PROBLEM any government building or reservation. The army canteen has not been abolished, but the sale of in- toxicants in them has been prohibited. This neg- ative work has been followed by positive acts. To im- prove the canteen and to make it attractive and help- ful to the soldier, $1,850,000 has been appropriated. These advances in legislation will become the com- mon property of civilization. Other nations will profit by our experience. Another sign of coming victory and triumph over the saloon is the spirit of unity abroad among the churches. This unity of spirit is revealing itself in the fraternal and practical cooperation of the churches for the overthrow of the saloon. Radiant hope is enkindled by the federation of the various denominations to work out this specific problem. Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Gentiles, have not only declared their willingness to cooperate, but in some States are actively at work to suppress the beverage-liquor trade. The recent achievement brought about by the organized opposition of the churches to the saloon is only one of the many en- couraging signs of the times. In the not distant future the saloon will be ban- ished from society, but the hope for reform of the drink habit will come through an evolutionary proc- ess. Relative abstinence will be attained by an easy and natural method. The gradual spread of information relative to the evil physical effects of the beverage use of intoxicants, as well as the growth of refinement among the masses, will induce indi- AND SOCIAL REFORM 201 vidual temperance on a large scale. Personal absti- nence from intoxicants is the basal principle in the reform. The scientific instruction regarding the use of alcoholic liquors now going on among the millions of pupils in the public schools in every State of the Union is gradually changing the social customs for the better. The plan provides that each pupil shall have three hundred and thirty lessons, distributed through nine years, for the study of physiology and hygiene, and one fourth of this time is given to the study of alcohol and other narcotics. The good fruits of this work are in evidence. Those who will remove the bandage of ignorance and prejudice from their eyes regarding this work cannot fail to discover that it will greatly help to undermine the foundations of the saloon system. Besides this, large and flourishing total abstinence societies are formed in schools, churches, and young people's societies, and are inducing hundreds of thousands to sign the pledge for total abstinence. The Catholic Total Ab- stinence Union is adding thousands to its member- ship every year. The children of the annual confir- mation classes in the Catholic Church are pledged to abstinence, as well as the young men studying for the priesthood. Again, the saloon is so repugnant that compar- atively few native Americans are identified with the traffic. The saloon-keeper is a social outcast. He is forbidden to enter respectable society, and he is barred from benevolent orders, lodges, and churches. Some of the State municipal codes forbid 202 THE SALOON PROBLEM them to hold any public office. The demands of public opinion have forced the liquor-dealers to or- ganize in order to combat the encroachment made on their privileges to minister to the vices of the community. Great "defense funds" are raised. Lawyers and others are employed, with the view to influence Legislature and to protect the trade. The cry of distress is heard from the liquor-dealers all along the line. The liquor organ, The Bar, voices the general feeling of alarm. Speaking of the anti- saloon forces, it says: "Let them increase in like ratio their numbers a few years to come, and our business will be swept from existence. Every dis- tillery, every brewery, and every saloon will be closed or compelled to operate as an outlaw." These forebodings are shared by the president of the National Retail Liquor Dealers' Association. In his recent address before the convention held at Pittsburg he sets forth the situation in these words: "To be honest and not to deceive ourselves, if we glance over this great country we find that prohibi- tion, local option, high license, and unjust legal re- strictions are in the ascendency, and growing more popular in the different States at the present time than ever before. Peer into every city, town, and hamlet; then read the city ordinances; visit the coun- cil chambers in the various cities; visit the different Legislatures and the halls of the Congress of the United States; consult with your law-makers, and you will be astonished at the combinations arrayed against the traffic that we represent. The truth is AND SOCIAL REFORM 203 the enemy is gaining ground rapidly upon us, and we are being overpowered by the tremendous forces battling against us; and just as rapidly as they gain ground, just that rapidly we are going into decline and being surrounded and hemmed in by these adverse forces." The Southern Liquor Dealer, the foremost liquor journal of the South, in its Novem- ber issue of 1903, says : " At the rate the liquor busi- ness is going on now it will only be a few years until the saloons will be forced out of Kentucky, except in the larger cities. Since July 6 there were twenty- one local-option contests in precincts, districts, towns, and counties, and the 'dry' won in nineteen and lost in two. Of the one hundred and nineteen coun- ties in the State, sixty are without saloons, thirty- one with saloons but in one place, fourteen with saloons in but two places, and three with saloons in but three places." These extracts taken from liquor organs are typical of the general feeling of the saloonists that their traffic in alcoholic beverages is on the edge of utter oblivion. The people who do not keep their hand on the pulse of reform are not aware that a great tidal wave of anti-saloon sentiment is sweeping over the coun- try. In several of the States, by the voluntary act of the people, vast areas of territory have suppressed the saloon. The State of Maine has set itself right on the saloon question. Prohibition is rigidly en- forced throughout the State. New Hampshire is re- trieving its lost ground and the public sentiment against the saloon is stronger than ever. Vermont 204 THE SALOON PROBLEM has no saloons in two hundred and ten towns. The thirty-three wet towns in the State have less than 100,000 population. More than one half of the ter- ritory of Massachusetts and Connecticut are free from saloons. Rhode Island is making steady ad- vances toward sobriety. Of the thirty-eight towns in the State, fifteen are "dry." New York and Pennsylvania are faithfully at work developing pub- lic sentiment and fanning it into a flame of indig- nation against the monster saloon iniquity that has fastened itself upon the vitals of these States. Nearly all the Southern States have banished the saloons from a large section of their territory. Ninety per cent of the population of North Carolina live in pro- hibition territory. Two thirds the area of West Virginia has no saloons. Georgia has one hundred and four prohibition counties out of one hundred and thirty-seven. In Mississippi sixty-five out of seventy-five counties are "dry." In Kentucky sixty- three of the one hundred and nineteen counties in the State do not permit the sale of liquor. Tennes- see has eighty-four out of ninety-six counties "dry." Texas has one hundred and fifty-six prohibition counties, and the majority of the others have partial prohibition. One half of its territory and one half of its population are under local-option rule. It is estimated that out of a total population of 27,000,000 of people in the Southern States, more than 17,000,- 000 are living in prohibition territory, and through- out the entire country more than 30,000,000 of peo- AND SOCIAL, REFORM 205 pie are enjoying comparative freedom from the sa- loon. Space will not permit us to speak of the encour- aging work going forward in the Middle and West- ern States. We cite a few to show the trend of the great anti-saloon movement now in progress. Ohio has 1,371 townships. Nine hundred of these town- ships, or seventy-five per cent of the territory, have no saloons. Out of the seven hundred and sixty-four municipalities, four hundred and seventy are "dry." There are five entire counties and eleven county- seats without saloons. Four cities aggregating a population of 40,000 have banished the saloon. Un- der the Beal Law eight hundred and fifty saloons were voted out of existence in two and one half years. Six months after the Brannock Law went into effect forty-three residential districts of cities, having 250,000 people, voted "dry," and thereby excluded from their midst two hundred and sixty- five saloons. Fifty-seven per cent of the area of Indiana, containing a population of 833,000, are without saloons. Five hundred and eighty-three towns out of a total of nine hundred and seventy- five in the State have no saloons. Sixty per cent of the area of the State is "dry." Iowa has ninety- nine counties, sixty-five of which have no saloons, and eleven others have but one town each in which there are saloons. The anti-saloon movement took a remarkable stride forward in Illinois when the various denominations of the State federated to put 206 THE SALOON PROBLEM up a legislative battle in behalf of the principle of local option and to put forth systematic and stren- uous moral efforts to suppress the saloon in that State. Hyde Park, containing forty-four square miles, comprises one fourth of the area of Chicago, and is practically free from saloons. This is a bright spot on the otherwise dark surface of Chicago. Pro- hibition has been in force more or less in Kansas for more than twenty years. The law is enforced in one hundred of the one hundred and five coun- ties. The five counties where the law is not enforced have less than six hundred saloons. The value of the law is apparent. Forty-four counties have no paupers; twenty-five counties have no one in the poorhouses; forty-five counties have no occupants in the jails; and thirty-seven counties have no crim- inal case on the court docket. The whole of South- ern California is rapidly freeing itself of the saloon. Pasadena and other cities and towns live and flour- ish without the saloon. Northern California is like- wise gaining in anti-saloon territory. Oregon has local option by precincts, wards, and counties. Whole counties are voting out the saloons. Washington and other Western States are awakening to the per- ils of the saloon, and are putting forth vigorous ef- forts to suppress them, and gaining many signal victories. All the facts go to show that there is an enormous mass of public opinion and a still greater amount of conviction in favor of abolishing the saloon. The cry that the saloon must go is no temporary craze. AND SOCIAL REFORM 207 Instead of being ephemeral, it is the essential ac- companiment of a healthy moral public sentiment. The gravity and extent of the saloon as a generator of crime, an obstacle to progress, and a check to civilization is more and more recognized. The pub- lic conscience is unprecedentedly sensitive on the question. There is a strong and growing conviction against it. In certain quarters even the press is averse to giving any aid to the liquor traffic. Out of one thousand newspapers in the State of Kansas, seven hundred and eighty-seven will not publish a liquor advertisement at any price. The high morale of the people is asserting itself. The integrity, virtue, and dignity of the average American lead them to try and check the drink-habit tendencies and to work with a good degree of success to eradicate the saloon evil from society. Those who discover the meaning of these facts will be buttressed with a fresh faith in the final victory. The present situation cannot be understood with- out its historical setting. A brief outline touching here and there the historical mountain -peaks will be sufficient for our purpose. Modern temperance reform began more than one hundred years ago. At that time the drink habit as a social custom was frightful. Intoxicants were served at nearly all so- cial gatherings and public occasions. The habit affected all classes. "Dr. Leonard Woods could count among his acquaintances forty intemperate ministers, and at an ordination in 1841 he saw two ministers who were indecently drunk." 208 THE SALOON PROBLEM The temperance-reform movement has not moved forward by leaps and bounds, but by slow and steady advancements. In April, 1808, Dr. B. J. Clark or- ganized in Moreau, New York, the first Union Tem- perance Society. In 1825 Dr. Lyman Beecher de- livered six sermons on intemperance which were "the tremendous shots heard around the world." The result of this and other efforts led gentlemen of various Christian denominations to assemble on January 10, 1826, in Park Street Church, Boston, to effect a temperance organization. On February 13 of the same year the friends of the movement re- assembled and organized "The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance." Consideration of prudence held them back from adopting a total- abstinence pledge. The following April, The Na- tional Philanthropist, a weekly paper, was started in Boston. Its motto was, " Temperance drinking is the downhill road to intemperance." In January, 1827, Rev. Justin Edwards, D.D., visited many cities in Massachusetts, and by November had raised $13,311.53 to carry forward the work of the society. By January, 1829, two hundred and twenty- three organizations were effected, extending over sixteen States. In February, 1833, many members of Congress met in the Senate chambers at Wash- ington, D. C., and formed the American Congres- sional Temperance Society, on the basis of entire abstinence from the use of spirits and from traffic therein. In the same year four hundred delegates from twenty-one States met in Philadelphia and AND SOCIAL REFORM 209 formed the American Temperance Union. In 1836, at the second national convention at Saratoga, it was blended with the national society, which was formed in 1826. The society now took distinct grounds in favor of total abstinence from all intox- icants. The Washingtonian movement was started in Baltimore in April, 1840, by six reformed inebriates. The movement spread rapidly. Multiplied thou- sands in all parts of the land signed the pledge for total abstinence: there were 60,000 in Ohio; 29,000 in Pennsylvania; 30,000 in Kentucky; and like re- sults followed in many other States. From this movement sprang, two years later, The Sons of Temperance, which was followed later by The Good Templars, The Temple of Honor, and other or- ganizations. The central idea was to correct the drink usage and to reform the drunkards. Mean- time a prohibitory law was enacted in Maine, in 1846, and a more stringent one in 1851. Similar legislation was enacted in Vermont in 1852, New Hampshire in 1855, and Connecticut in 1854. The Civil War came on and interrupted the reform, and meantime the liquor traffic gained a new foothold in many sections. Very little was done in the re- form until 1869, when the National Prohibition Party was organized for independent political action against the saloon. The first nominating conven- tion was not held until February 22, 1872. About two years later the Woman's Crusade began, in Ohio, and spread over that State and finally swept 210 THE SALOON PROBLEM over the country like a prairie fire, and now has girdled the globe with the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union, which is doing valiant work in edu- cating public conscience along temperance lines. Each one of these movements has been a successive step in the onward march of public-sentiment build- ing, and has prepared the way for more concerted activity against the common foe. In 1893 another anti-saloon movement, under the name of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League, was in- augurated in Oberlin, Ohio, and took definite shape through the influence, faith, and zeal of Rev. How- ard H. Russell, LL.D. Some years later, in Decem- ber, 1905, The American Anti-Saloon League was formed in Washington, D. C. The underlying con- ception and meaning of the movement was to fed- erate the various religious denominations and tem- perance societies upon an interdenominational and interpartizan basis, with the view of maintaining a united and aggressive campaign against the saloon. The work that began so feebly and yet heroically has gone on increasing in volume and intensity until at present forty-six States and Terriories are organ- ized and more than three hundred and fifty persons are giving all their time to the reform. Nearly all the leading denominations have declared their willingness to cooperate, and already active and successful work is being done wherever the move- ment is started under proper leadership. The move- ment, like others, had its discouraging period, but has demonstrated in a preeminent manner the AND SOCIAL REFORM soundness of its principles and the efficiency of its methods. Its very success justifies its existence. Doubts and suspicions, apparent at first, have given place to welcome and encouragement. The move- ment has restored confidence as to the remedy for the saloon evil. People who heretofore had grown disheartened are now hopeful and courageous. The guarantee of future success and permanency of the movement grows out of the fact that, like the missionary cause, it is not an organization separate and apart from its constituents to exploit the people, but a movement of the churches that has taken root deep in the thoughts and hearts of the rank and file of the membership. It is well to bear in mind, however, that there is no easy victory ahead. The drink habit has touched every State and territory, town and hamlet, and is devastating our fair land with its curse. The saloon itself is intrenched in society, and this enemy will contest every inch of ground. However, we have started in a fight that can be won. True, there will be alternating lights and shadows, but there is no reason to be dismayed. God cannot use a discour- aged man. No reform ever made such rapid head- way as this one. All the forces of civilization are arrayed against the saloon. The pulpit, the press, the public school, and the public platform all de- clare that the saloon must go. Besides, it is a gen- erally accepted belief that the will of God is to be operative in society to-day, and have a practical issue in righteousness. The saloon is directly op- THE SALOON PROBLEM posed to this divine social ideal. In the midst of the constant gigantic struggle to suppress this evil it is well to remember that there is an invisible com- radeship. Christ walks the highways and is with his people in the conflict. He is a living friend who knows the trial. He offers us the opportunity to cooperate with him and to determine the destiny of the"nation and of the world. It is for each one to go forward with a constraining faith, an unwaver- ing purpose, and a loyal spirit to manifest hostility to the saloon by every honest effort and honorable means, and thus prove worthy of the high commis- sion. If men of all creeds and political faiths will work together in this spirit, the golden rule of Christ will soon be the golden age of man and social redemption will be an accomplished fact. Cj)oug!)tsi g JHet on t^e BY HENRY NORMAN " The Negro Philosopher" THIS volume is made up of a series of aphorisms, observa- tions, and bits of every-day philosophy which show keen intellectual insight and knowledge of human nature. A curious interest attaches to the book from the fact that its author, Henry Norman, is a man of pure African blood. Some four years ago he began contributing to the press, and the present work is made up of selections from these contributions. Emer- son might have said things better than this humble black man has done, but he certainly never said anything truer. We heartily commend the book to thoughtful readers everywhere. Boston Transcript. Beautifully printed on fine paper, and elegantly bound in cloth, this volume -will appeal to the most fastidious lover of books, while the subject-matter cannot fail to arouse a deep interest in every thoughtful reader. PRICE, 81.00, POST-PAID. THE FOLLOWING BOOKS BY JUDGE HENRY A. SHUTS HAVE ATTAINED A WORLD- WIDE REPUTATION: THE REAL DIARY or A REAL BOY. (!N ITS ELEVENTH EDITION.) "SEQUIL;" OR, THINGS WHITCH AINT FIN- ISHED IN THE FIRST. (!N ITS FOURTH EDITION.) LETTERS TO BEANY AND THE LOVE-LETTERS or PLUPY SHUTE. 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