The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-06-01
TEMPERANCE READING.
WHAT THEY DO.

The Saloon Kindergarten for Instruc-
tion In Drinking How the Rum Thirst
Is Created.
Save in the States and portions of
States in which the traffic in rum has
been outlawed, there is not city in
which the streets are not dotted with
saloons with open doors, inviting all
to enter; not town where they are
not found, not village but has its
dramshop. They cater for all classes
of men, from the pretentious saloon
on prominent street, adorned with
paintings and resplendent with mir
rors and frescoing, its bar frequented
by well-dressed men, whose calls are
served by bartenders in immaculate
linen and diamonds, down to. the low
est dive, filled with the poorest and
most degraded, whose demands for
rum are responded to by a dirty
keeper, who serves out doctored
whisky and stale beer. To visitor
from some other sphere, it would APP
pear that the males of the human race
are possessed of strange thirst,
madness for rum, that requires the
means of its satisfaction to be easily
accessible to every one.
The fact in the case is. however, that
the saloons are not so much the means
through which the craving for rum
can be conveniently satisfied without
loss of time, as they are training
schools for drunkards, kindergartens
for instruction in drinking. Instead
of being established for the purpose of
satisfying terrible thirst, which must
be appeased, they are the means
whereby the thirst is first awakened
in tens of thousands of men. 1t is an
awful fact that there exists such q
thing rs the rum thirst-that, through
indulgence. the physical system of the
drinker becomes so diseased that it
demands more of the same poison as
the only means of deliverance from its
pangs. 1t is thirst which has its par
allel in the opium habit and other
phenomena of the kind. But if the
saloons were to be confined to the
supplying of the demands of the
unhappy victims of this accursed
thirst, they would soon die out
for want of patronage; for the man
who has become the slave to rum is an
habitual drunkard, and in the major
ity of cases soon becomes so poor that
his custom is not profitable; while his
life, after he reaches this stage, is
short, as disease and rum soon carry
him to dishonored grave
We repeat, if the patronage of the
saloons were restricted to this class of
men-these in whom the rum habit is
fully established-they would speed
lily become largely reduced in num-
bers. At least half of them would
at once become Improbable, and their
keepers would be driven to close their
doors and turn their attention to some
better occupation. Hence, it follows
that half the saloons, at least, exist
solely because of the persons who are
dallying with rum, and allowing the
rum appetite to grow upon them by
insidious steps. They exist because of
the men who are learning to be
drunkards-who are slowly debasing
their manhood by making themselves
dependent upon alcohol in some form.
These men are moderate drink
ers.'' They scorn the idea that they
should ever become the besotted, de-
based victims of the rum habit, yet
they are treading the path which leads
directly to that goal. The great
majority of these frequenters of the
saloon are young men-men with life
all before them, and with but little to
aid them in the struggle to achieve
success save their talents and energy.
They are full of ambition, buoyant
with hope; yet they indulge in "mod-
crate" drinking, oblivious of the fact
that moderate drinking leads directly
to immoderate drinking. Rum palsies
physical and mental energy. deadens
ambition, and substitutes leaden de-
spair for buoyant hope; and he who
aspires to achieve success in his life
struggle with the world would better
daily with venomous serpent than to
indulge in rum, even though it be in
moderation.
There are examples. we know, of
men who achieved success who were
also drinking-men. but they are the
| exceptions. For every one of these
who can h named, there are thou
sand-yes. ten thousand-who have
failed in business and made wreck
of their lives through rum. The vast
| majority of men can not fight the
world successfully with rum for a
friend. Then, too, the young man
| should consider the fact that the feel
ing is growing everywhere that the
young man who frequents saloons is
an unsafe person to employ. No mer-
chant wants him for an important
| clerkship, no business firm desires to
trust him, no self-respecting young
woman wishes to put her life's hap
| piness into his hands, no one wishes
to put business responsibilities under
his control. The shortest and best
avenues to worldly success are closed
| against him from the start
Man is a gregarious animal, and
loves to meet his fellows. Here is one
secret of the saloons success, of it's
terribly debasing power over mankind.
With its light, and warmth, and socia-
bility, the saloons attractions are great
to many men, especially if they lack
that finer mental fiber which revolts at
coarseness, and rudeness, and ribald
or vulgar conversation. In place of
seeking to find ennobliag and safe as
sociations, of making a social place
for themselves among pure surround
ings, they take the ready-madc society
they find in saloons. Once a part of
the current they go steadily downward
| with it.
The saloon is thus the primary
school in which men take their first