Smyrna times., 1886-09-22
The Lager Beer Saloon.

The old whisky bar, or rum-hole was
bad enough; but it had this advantage,
that it had the credit of being frankly
disreputable. 1t had no defenders.
Lager beer is not so intoxicating as
those distilled liquors, but the lager
beer saloon is more demoralizing than
the old doggeries. The importation of
lager beer is the worst evil that has
come into this country since slaves
We're first brought to Virginia. The
effect is not immediate, but the evil is
progressive and the habit debasing. A
young man who has got into the habit
OF trequenting the lager beer saloon, is
pretty nearly ruined.
1t is because lager beer tippling is
not so disreputable that it is so danger
Gus. In our cities the lager beer saloon
IS everywhere and it is patrenized by
the mass of the wOrkmen. Little chill
dren are sent by scores to bring a pail
of beer to their parents. They are
taught to haunt these spots, and to
drink from their earliest years. Our
modern drunkenness begins on lager
beer, so that lager beer makes most of
our drunkards. 1t is the parent not
only of drunkenness, but of all stupid
lnetiiciency and unthrift. 1t is a besot-
ting drink, where it does not produce
absolute intOxication.
The lager beer saloon is the haunt of
lazy and crazy fools. 1t tempts men to
sit still and do nothing but talk Stiffness
and mischief. The one danger which
threatens the Knights of Labor, comes
from Tho InOoV. hoo,
derly has again and again warned them
of 1t. If their members can keep from
the lager beer saloon they can be trust
ed to be clear-headed and dilligent. It
is the men who hang about the lager
beer saloon that stir up differences be-
tween employers and employed. We
never had report of a strike, perhaps
a just one, degenerating into violence,
but that it is out of the saloons that
crowd runs to beat an honest laborer.
1t IS the lager beer saloon that is always
the headquarters of violence, lawless-
ness and anarchy. The Chicago anar-
chists did their plotting in their saloons.
The leaders of the same crew in this
city keep larger beer saloons. Shut up
the larger beer saloons and you have
broken up the whole organization of
the anarchists.
The corrupt politics of the day has
its center in the lager beer saloons.
That is where the pot-house politicians
gather, where the candidate sets up a
keg for the crowd. Shut up the larger
beer saloon, and you have done three
fOurths of what is necessary to purify
the politics of the country.
So we say, whatever else is left. shut
up the lager beer saloon. There is
curse in it. 1t must be abolished. 1t
should have no quarter. The man who
sells lager beer ought to be shut out of
the Church. The man who makes it
should be ostracised from decent So
ciety. These men are foes to God and
their country. There should be no
mercy shown to the traffic. The
sacred cause of prohibition must make
war on the fermented as we'll as the
distilled stuff 1t makes no difference
what the politicians say, what German
vote, the Republican Party may lose.
for the lager beer saloon must 90; and
if the German vote or the Republican
Party resist they must go too. Down
right abolition and prohibition, sweep
ing and complete, unyielding and COM
pulsory, is the only thing to which we
can give cOnsent.--NelO York, Iadepen-
dent.