Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-08-19
THE STORY OF A SALOON CITY.
Something for the People Of Maine to Think
About---How the Liquor Interests
Gain Control.

81 600 tax, after that he had to sell
enough more to pay his rent and his
other taxes, if any; he had to pay the
| inevitable and often enormous profits
to the big brewers who stood behind
him-all this before he could make q
penny for himself. Is it any wonder
that he had to push his business? is
| ii any wonder that he began to break
| laws right and left in order to in-
crease his sales a man must live
In Ohio | heard the saloonkeepers
much abused, but l wondered where
the blame really belonged-whether it
belonged wholly with them or with
the SNUG society around them which
class of men must break the law or
starve
Saloons Must Have New Boys.
1t became necessary. then. for sa-
loonkeepers at all hazards to stimu-
late trade. THEY MUST NOT ONLY
KEEP ALL THE OLD DRINKERS
AND INDUCE THEM TO BUY MORE:
LIQUOR AND BECOME DRUNKEN.
BUT THEY MUST GET IN PLENTY
OF FRESH YOUNG CLIENTS
FRESH YOUNG BOYS FROM THE
SCHOOLS AND FACTORIES.
You have no idea" wrote Super
ntendent Simpkins of the Newark
schools on November 80, 1903, just be-
fore the local option election, how
difficult it is to raise a boy or girl in
Newark. At every turn, day or night.
he faces one of the so saloons. Great
signs stretch across whole buildings
or shine in electric lights from the
roofs. Is it any wonder he is caught?
Only few nights since | saw several
schoolboys drunk behind one of tho
tell you what | know of some of the
doings of the young men in this city.
some of them yet in school, yol
would not believe me-
Saloons Made Attractive.
oh. the saloonkeepers made their
places attractive. Music was there,
and slot machines and gambling de-
vices, and lewd pictures-eyerythin
to attract the lowest instincts of men
Not only was liquor sold at night and
on Sunday in open defiance of the law,
but 1t was sold to boys. and even TO
children. Not only were the lesser
gambling devices such as slot ma
chimes. in full operation, but any man
who wished could find games of faro,
stud poker and craps in close connec-
ton with the saloons. A man made
drunk, downstairs was easily relieved
of his remaining money upstairs. But
this was not all Several of the sa-
loonkeepers were owners of houses OF
prostitution. They have what they
regard as a good system for "regulat-
ing" the social evil at Newark. All
these houses. about 80 in number, are
relegated to one long street in the
lower part of the town by the railroad
tracks, in plain view of every passing
train Saloonkeepers and bartenders.
as | have said, were interested in
many of these places. and to encour-
age the trade there they kept picture
machines in their saloons containing
pictures of an utterly understandable
character. Those boys and young
men, therefore, who when half drunk
en-. did not go upstairs to the gamb-
ling places, were melted to seek out
the houses of prostitution. Thus they
were tossed back and forth, beaten
with the fails of vice." until all their
money was shaken out-and then. II
they couldn't walk, why, they were
cast into the streets for the public TO
pick up and care for in the Jail or
Hospital.
Where Were the Police?
BY this time the question must have
arisen in the minds of every reader of