Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-11
THINGS IN GENERAL.

Made Power for Good.
WRITTEN Ton rHV DIsPArcH.I
There are two classes of the community for
whom somehow the rest of MS feel ourselves
responsible, and to whom we consider it our
duty to give good advice. And they need 1t
| badly enough. They are the rich and the poor.
| What shall the rich man do with his big bank
ACCOUNT What shall the poor man do with
his houseful Of hungry moutnss How best to
get this great supply and this deplorable de-
mand together7
The trouble is that nobody really knows
There is abundance of advice. of one sort and
another, good, bad and Indifferent but much
| less of the good than of the other. Nobody
knows what to advise
have Just been reading DR.. Rainsford's arti-
| Gle in the Forum about "How to Help the
| Poor" 1t is the New York poor that he ID
| talking about. The conditions are quite dit
ferent from those which confront rs here in
Pittsburg. The great churches here have not
followed the rich uptown. and forsaken the
| poor. and become great religious club houses.
They are still on duty, down along the business
streets. within the reach Of the worst districts
of the city,set where they can do the most good
They are only thinking, as yet. about moving
away. And the tenementhouse evil has not
assumed great proportions here. Nor il the
liquor interest, in Its worst phases, supreme as
| it is in other places Pittsburg has good many
| things to be thankful for.
OF course there is no lack: OF poverty. The
| agents Of the Society for the Improvement OF
the Poor have plenty Of sad tales to tell. But
| 1t is not London poverty nor New York Pow
| erty. We read "In Darkest England" and
"How the Other Half Lives'-two books that
| every thoughtful man and woman ought to
| read, and read carefnlIy,-and we nnd state
.rff oh oh hoo m
counterpart in this town. What we want Is
| that these wretched conditions shall never
have any counterpart here.
The Great Gain Which Has Been Made.
One great gain has been made in the fact that
nowadays everybody is interested In these
things That is a gain. indeed. General
Booths book showed that, If 1t showed nothing
else. II offered . plan for the uplifting OF
those that an down, and everybody read it. and
of those who read hundreds put their hands in
their pockets. Men said. if this man can an
swer these hard questions and settle these per-
nicious conditions into peace and justice, here
is money.
Dives no longer leaves Lazarus wholly un.
needed. The priest and the Levite DO not any
longer pass by on the other side. Everybody
is interested.
Except perhaps, the saloonkeepers and tho
men who own the tenement houses There are
no two classes of men whom it is more impor-
tant to have interested than these. These men
are more responsible for the lives OF the poor
than any others. They represent institu-
hons which are permanent, which are here to
stay. There is no use In thinking about setting
FIRE to all the saloons. or hanging all the men
who own mismanaged tenement houses. One
is sometimes tempted to consider such steps as
within the bounds of advisability. But the
saloon and the tenement house would 20 on.
Eu IfxraY OI.a m n
and he is going to have something to drink.
These two facts we may as we'll take into &C
count. He is welcome to i've in the city II he
wants to. even though that means living In .
tenement. And he has a right Ito drink bis
mug of beer. But there are two other facts
which we have to set down ON the other side.
he must not get drunk Overcrowding and
drunkenness are the two worst factors IN the
condition of the poor. The tenement house
owner Is responsible Tor the overcrowdine, ana
the saloonkeeper is responsible for the drunken
ness.
But who are these peoplef Who are these
owners of tenements and keepers OF saioonsf l
suppose that some of them ere devils. men
whose being compels MS even against our VIII
TO believe in the certainty of hell. But can't
think that of most Of them. They are evil
IDENTIFY after the dollar. Overcrowding and
drunkenness mean money in their pockets.
That is plain. But they don't realize what over.
crowding and drunkenness mean. They don't
understand how what means money to them
turns earth into place Internal; poisons the
air which we all breathe.
The saloon as q Power for Good.
The saloon Is the workingman's club. and If
the saloon keeper would he could make the
saloon respectable. uplifting and . power for
good in the community. The saloon could be
as strong factor in religion as it is in politics.
agree with Mr.. Stead that the church of the
future will run saloon. A good. earnest and
drinks across bar could do more for the moral
elevation of the poor than 10 parsons Let
him say, 1.-The men who come to this saloon
shall be better, not worse because they come"
and he needn't hold any prayer meetings, and
he needn't stop selling LIQUOR, either.
haven't much confidence in temperance sa-
looms. I don't believe that tea can ever com. |
pete successfully with beer. But there is o |
pretty good attempt at such competition in a |
plan they are trying now in London, called the |
"teetotum."
The ''teetotums" grew out of the need Of |
having some strong financial backing for the |
temperance saloon. The other kind Of saloon,
as everybody knows, finds its capital. when it |
starts out, from the wholesale dealers, from |
the big breweries and distilleries. In New |
York a vast majority of all the saloons are |
wholesale dealers. Now, who will support tho |
temnerance saloon? Why, said Mr., Buchanan,
of Oxford House, the tea-dealersi Why notf |
The wholesale tea and coffee houses will find |
the capital to start these retail establishments.
And that plan was tried. The tea-dealers were |
discovered to be as ready as the brewers to
make money. There are four Of these tee
totums in London to-day, paying their own
way, making a handsome return to invested |
capital, always full of decent people. Down
stairs one may order whatever refreshments he |
requires. There are tea, coffee cocoa, soups, |
meats. vegetables. etc, with the ordt-
nary buns. The only difference being that in
addition to the supply OF beverages. tea and
sugar are sold as in an ordinary depot. The |
place is bright, Clean we'll warmed and lighted, |
but does not differ materially from the ordinary
cafe excepting in the addition Of the tea-shop.
Features That Are Distinctive.
The distinctive features of tho institution
are only visible when you leave tbs ground
floor and 60 upstairs. You cannot, however,
enter these precincts unless you are = member
of the club, paying q pence week. or intro
duced by a member who buys you ticket
costing penny every day excepting Saturdays,
when it is pence and when there is an enter
tainmept. Upstairs are rooms where MEM
bers of the club-6O0 of them at one of the tee.
lounge and smoke, and eat and
drink, and read. and play at billiards and study.
There is q hall, too where theatrlcal exhibi-
tions are given every Saturday night, with de-
cent farces and comic songs which are neither
unclean nor idiotic. The people who come are
never preached to- nor lectured at. They are
simply supplied with clean, respectable club
room and are catered to with food and drink |
and amusement which they want, but which
are uplifting, too.
There Is some sense in such scheme as that.
Now they are going to have . big one in New
coffee room and lounging place, starting with
z 600 shares at IS each. The defect In most Of
the coffee-room experiments has been thar
they have not been attractive They have not
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