Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1909-08-04
In Nineteen Years / am Discharged
from Twenty-four Jots.

S'' '"SiSJ-tSdI SoL
From 1889 to 1908 l have been var
iously employed by different individ-
uals. firms, and corporations, in fac
tories, yards, and offices. In this
period of nineteen years have held
twenty-eight different jobs, and been
discharged from twenty-four of them.
mainly because remained away from:
duty while under the influence of in
toXicating liquors. found it easier
to get work in the larger cities,
and the twenty-eight jobs We're
in eighteen cities of the metropolitan
class. The character of my work
ranged from shoveling snow for a
week, at twenty cents an hour, to the
chief clerkship of railway office EN-.
ploying one hundred and twenty-five
men.
In the saloons of the eighteen larg-
er cities, in this period, liquor-drink-
ing conditions were the same as in
my own minority. Fifty per cent of
the saloon drinkers were minors. In
Kansas City, Missouri, in 1897, in my
thirty-fifth year. l was shocked to
have a seventeen-year-old drinker say
Daddy, what'll you have?' Since
then hundreds of minor saloon drink
ers have joyously and generously ask
a1 ma tho capna ot,ns tipp
Respectable moderate drinkers can
not verify my estimate that fifty per
cent of saloon drinkers are minors,
at the onyx bars where they drink.
Nor can my statement be verified at
various metropolitan buffets, where
sober bartenders, sober cashiers, Sob
er managers, sober porters, and sober
walters refuse to serve drinks to i'll
dressed, down-and-out appearing per
sons, or to well-dressed persons show.
ing the influence of liquor in looks,
speech or action. In the alleged re-
spectacle saloons no drunkards, min
ors, sleepers, loungers, or panhandler
are allowed. The iails, bridewells,
warehouses;, pens, asylums, and re-
formatories hold alcoholic liquor
slaves who at one time drank among
the well-dressed and wellgroomed at
swell places. To get my percentage
one must go all the way down the
line, from the Pompeian Pool Room
of the Chicago Auditorium Annex to
the village bar-room with it's pool
table. All saloons do not sell to the
minor trade. The saloonkeeper de-
cides his minor trade. Certain city
saloons are so situated that they
attract only business and profession-
al men. To clarity my point, | know
of large saloon in Chicago, on La
Sale Street, near the Board of Trade
Building, that does not sell one per
cent of its entire trade over the bar
to minors; but on West Van Buren
Street-a mile from the Loop dis
trict-I know of saloon that one
year ago sold to twelve minors whom
know personally, and sixty per cent
of its entire trade was to minors.
Another saloon on West Madison
Street sold ninety per cent to minors;
it was known as a "kid joint and
Stunned by adult drinkers.
am Imprisoned for Drunkenness.
The first time and every time |
was arrested for drunkenness and put
behind the bars like a Gagged animal,
| lost my self-respect, and became
temporarily disheartened as to the
prospect of ultimately freeing myself
from alcoholic liquor slavery. The
police-court system of arrest and
filming drunkards is perfectly logical
on the assumption that slave
should not be allowed his physical
liberty when he becomes public
nuisance. My own experience of be-
ing jailed for drunkenness in 1890
1896, 1898. 1904. 1905 twice and 1907
leads me to, believe that falling fol
drunkenness either disheartens OF
makes desperate the liquor slave
Six of the seven times | was jailed
was discharged without being fined
by the police judge. Six of the sew
en- times that l was Jailed. was
| Concluded on Page Eight.