Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-08-19

| We believe no one has more graph
ically described the evils of the saloon
and the progressive moral degradation
| which grows out of the established
saloon, than has Ray Stannard Baker,
in his story of actual conditions in the
| city of Newark, Ohio. This city.
| whose founders had selected the site
with the sagacity of prescience, had
grown, in 1908, to a population of APP
pro&imately $4,000. Ii was generally
accepted as an average American city
of that size, and few there were who
foresaw the settings of a tragedy that
would startle the world. Yet on July
s. 1910, this city. which had been mar
velously blessed by nature and u
scientific grasp of the things which
God had provided, was a scene of d
tragedy which stirred the newspapers
and magazines of the civilized world
to unusual activity. A part of Mr..
Bakers story in the American Maga-
zine for April. reads IS follows:
1t is wonderful story, this story
of the saloon in the town of Newark,
Ohio for bound up within it is every
element of every problem which this
country is now having to face.
In the first place, away back 50
years ago, before the modern move
ment toward industrial Capitalization
began when each shoemaker was the
town manufacturer of shoes, when
each woman spun her own wool and
made her own candles and baked her
keeper owned his own saloon, and
sometimes even made his own beer
and whiskey. His wife and daughter
served the bar, and the neighbors
came in of an evening to visit. See
Dickens not unpleasant picture of the
tavern life of the first half Of the last
century.
The change i'll the saloon has been
exactly coincident with the change in
tNttJ Obiti lawn VI 'oi
life. The saloon gradually ceased to
be d domestic enterprise. New meth
DDS were invented for making beer.
Huge breWeries in distant cities be-
gan to monopolize the trade. Gun
ming methods of blending and color
ing enabled the great distllers of
whiskey to undersell and drive out the
smaller manufacturers. In short. the
sale of Intoxicating liquors became
vast, centralized and more or !, IS
monepolistie enterprise. The homelike
tavern gave place to the bar The
proprietor's wife and daughter fled be-
fore the hired bartender. and the
whole business began to grade down.
ward Any business which cannot adj
nit respectable women is on its swift
way toward perdition.
Competition in Rum Business.
Now the breath of the nostrils of
business is profit, and the more bust
ness the more profit. With new meth
DDS of making and preserving beer.
with extraordinary improvements in
transportation, it was easy and cheap
for brewers in Milwaukee, brewers in
st. Louis and brewers in Pittsburg,
to place their wares in every little
town in the Middle West. And these,
with the local breweries, all strug-
Cling for trade, had the effect of slim
ulating the business to degree scarce
ly realizable. Before this competitive
onslaught. the old-fashioned respect
able saloonkeeper who owned his own
place and his own fixtures almost dis
appeared l shall tell presently the
story of the experiences of one such
old fashioned saloonkeeper in Newark.
Hundreds of irresponsible men, men
not only of no standing and no prop
erty. but often men with evil or GRIM
inal records, crowded into the bust
ness. The brewers, greedy for profits,
paid their rent, furnished the saloon
fixtures and supplied them With all
the goods they sold.
Unless you have examined the condi-
tons yourself you can have 10 idea
what this all meant in town IKE
Newark-this fierce overstiinulatloh;
this competition of great monied IN
terestg in the hunt for prohts. For
downright brutal. bloodthirsty dlsre-
gard of human life or human chaFac-
ter there was probably nothing ever
like it in the worlds history. In 1908,
just before local option election, New
ark had over 50 saloons' Think OF IT,
in town of less than $4,000 people.
In other words, it had one saloon ior
every so or 20 adult men.
The Easy Money Method.
Think further what this meant in
Newark. WITH THE BEST INTEN-
lTIONS IN THE WORLD, BUT WITH
4 IlT L 4.