The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-01-23

make of beer and paid for the license
fee and other advances made by the
latter by the increased price he paid for
each keg of beer-an account being
kept-and when the debt was cancelled
he obtained his beer at the regular rate.
This system, which is common to all
large cities, seems to have been largely
overdone in Chicago. These brewery
agencies have multiplied until they are
now greater in number than the drink
ing habits of the people can maintain.
Hence they have ceased to be sources
of profit to the hreweries, and the sys-
TEN is an expense instead. Feeling
this, the brewers of the city recently
got together and decided to abandon
the plan and to furnish their beer only
to those men who are able to pay their
own licenses and expenses. The high
license law of Illinois is proving too
heavy a tax on the saloons. They must
be diminished in number if their
keepers are to make good profit on
their trade.
1t is estimated that this contemplated
withdrawal of the brewers support
will result in the closing up OF between
| fifteen and sixteen hundred of the
drinking places in Chicago. And, what
is still better, those that will thus be
| shut up are largely those run by i'm
proper characters and whose patrons
are largely among the lowest and most
dissolute class. While every saloon is
an unmixed evil these low dens, which
are practically gathering places for the
idle, the dissipated, the vicious and
criminal elements, are by far the worst,
! fer they afford centers around which
these elements gather and are thus a
menace to good order and the public
peace. They are the kindergartens of
crime, the training-schools of vice, and
their closing will be distinct gain to
the city.
The practice of brewers and whole
sale liquor dealers in furnishing the
means of starting saloons in order to
extend their own trade. is a most per-
nicious one. 1t is in effect an effort to
increase the number of drinking men
and drunlards. A man who has q
charge desires, of course, to make
it profitable, so that he can dis
charge his debt to his patron and make
money for himself To do this he must
have custom. and therefore he sets him
self to work to obtain it. All is fish
that comes to his net. He will take the
boys pennies, the wages of the poor,
the money that should buy food
and clothing for the wives and
Ill: IL
cares not where it comes from;
it may be stained with the tears
of a despairing mother or wife, black
ened by fraud or vice, or red with the
blood of crime. What he wants is mon
ey, and it matters not how it is OBJ
tanned, So that it passes over his coun-
ter in exchange for the liquid poisons in
which he deals.
lie endeavors, therefore. to increase
the number of visitors to his saloon in
every possible way. He scrapes ac-
quaintance with young men, in order to
invite them to come; he is hail-fellow-
well-met with every one he meets, with
the same selfish end in view-the in
crease of his patronage, and hence OF
his profits. So it follows that such q
saloon becomes plague-spot in its 10
cality. 1t is a direct agency for the
manufacture of drunkards, and its pro
prictor does the devil missionary work
in laboring to induce men to make il
their resort. These brewers agencies
| are largely responsible for the increas
ing percentage of drinking men among
, the masses of our cities.
That the system has been overdonC
to so great degree that it is no longer
, profitable to its promoters, and thai
therefore those of Chicago are to aban
don it is good thing. 1t will shut III
, the worst of these rum-holes and purify
: the city to that degree. A large gain
t to law and order may be expected wher
, some fifteen hundred of these places arr
, shut up through the withdrawal of thci
backing. Our cities are the stronghold
r of the rum power, and it is there tina
: the most active work needs to be done
in the education of the masses of TIN
l people-first in personal sobricty ant
>. Sclf-cOntrOl. and second in llnowlettg,
of the evils that are inevitable as Il re
+ suit of the rum traffic Toledo Blade.