River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1896-07-30
Temperance GoInnl,r.
CONDUCTED BY THE W. c. r.U.
Sale of Linnor 10 Minors.

President Roosevelt of the Police
Board made this statement:
"There does not exist more dan
gerous or more Thoroughly Ingram
eddy vicious form of criminality
than the sale of liqour to minors.
There are scores of saloons whose
owners belong to the semi-criminal
type, which make business of try
ing to debauch children of tender
years by selling them liquor. The
The amount of liquor thus con-
sumed is appalling. have seen it
estimated that over half the habitual
drunkards that figure in our police
courts had become such before they
reached the age at which they could
legally buy liquor.
Among the children themselves
appalling crimes and catastrophies
continually take place when they
have been made drunk in this man.
ner. One of the worst which | now
recollect was that mentioned in j..
A. Riis's book of a boy who was en-
ployed to rush the growler' for a
gang of men employed in factory,
who of course himself got drunk,
fell into sodden slumber in an empty
building and was eaten alive by rats.
But of course the misery caused to
the children while children is moth
ing to the horrible life of degrade
tion for which this custom prepares
them when they are grown up.
Earnest workers among the tene-
ment houses have again and again
begged us to try to stop this crime,
and as the present Police Board par
ticularly desires to bend its energies
towards suppressing the worst forms
of vice and crime and gladly well
comes the counsel of those who dis
interestedly lend their lives to the
solution of the problem of securing
better and purer conditions of life,
we did all that in us lay to stop
the traffic. 1t is, hover, an exceed
ingly difficult traffic to stop. In
the saloons which carry on the
criminal trade most extensively,
children are admitted in stream,
but only one at time. And each
is given the liquor when alone in a
little hallway or at the door by the
proprietor or bartender of the saloon.
In such saloons there are always
lookouts stationed to give warning
of the approach of any one whom
they do not recognize as friend and
possible fellow-criminal.
"No policeman in uniform can do
anything, no grown man in citizens
clothes can get evidence that will
secure the conviction or even the
indictment of the saloon-man. For
the sake of our common humanity,
for the sake of the elementary prin-
ciples of decency the traffic should
be stopped, and the only way by
which it can be effectively stopped
is to use the evidence of the minors
themselves. This evidence can be
obtained only by getting some minor
who has already been in the saloon
hundred times to buy liquor for
vicious purposes, to 60 in once more
to purchase it in order that the vile
trade may be stopped, and that by
his act thousand other children
and he himself may be saved.
cit is difficult to be patient with
plea that we shall stop the traffic
but shall not use the only means by
which it can be stopped; and it
would seem almost incredible to any
one unacquainted with the furious
anger which we have raised among
the champions of dishonesty by
honestly enforcing all laws; that any
newspaper could attack the police
for striving to put down this pecu-
liarly revolving form of crime, and
still more incredible that we should
not have the earnest support of the
magistrates. If under technical
construction of the law it be decided
that the statute which is meant to
forbid the commission of this crime
really forbids obtaining evidence to
prevent its commission, then decent
people should see to it that the stat
ute is amended. IN. Y. Post.