Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-05-10
FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1912.
RAILROADS IN THE SALOON
BUSINESS.

A stirring appeal to Christian rail
road presidents and directors to stop
the increasing traffic in liquors on
dining-cars is made by Mr.. Andrew
Stevenson in the New York Observer
april 11). The writer, a prominent
railroad official and active Presbyterian
layman objects to a state of affairs
which compels him, in order to dine, to
center the bar-rooms conducted by the
transportation companies of this u
try, for such have our dining-cars in
most instances become" The tobacco
fends' are also roundly denounced, and
Mr.. Stevenson, after careful observa-
lions covering period of twenty years"
is convinced that the railroads have
allowed the habits and s%elfishness of the
few to govern the health, the enjoy
ment, and the comfort of the great
majority of their patrons" And the
surprizing thing of it all to him is "that
the railroads whose boards of directors
and high officials are most prominent in
Christian work, and the most careful of
their own individual conduct, are some
times the greatest offenders" He goes
on to back his assertions with a few
facts:
1.-The other day it was stated that the
majority of the shareholders of the New
York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
were widows and children. Whether or
not that is true, one thing is certain, no
road in the country makes its dining-car
patrons quite so conscious of the fact
that they are in a barroom as does the
New Haven road. No Christian man
would take his children-no, not yer
his wife-into the dining-car on
the Merchants Limited out of Boston or
Why they call the man in charge the
conductor instead of the bartender is
difficult to understand. By actual OBJ
~servation 72 per cent. of his time was
taken on one evening recently in open
ing bottles and serving liquor to II per
cent of the passengers in the dining
car. Seventy-eight per cent. took
nothing. wonder how the Christian
directors of this road feel when they see
the reports of their bar-rooms each
month?
"On the Wabash road, a few weeks
ago, the writer boarded the noon train
out of Decatur, H., destined for CHI
cago. There is 10 dining car on this
train. So a buffet parlor car cares for
the needs of the passengers. A small
table is set at each chair where the pas
senger eats. There were fourteen pas
sengers altogether in the car, including
three ladies', whom it was easily to be
seen were women of the most refined
tastes and habits. There were two
girls of seventeen or eighteen, evidently
returning home from college. The rest
were a MKT class. One man and a
woman commenced ordering drinks,
within an hour both were under the in
fiuence of liquor, and what transpired
was a disgrace to American civilization.
Yet we all had to be subjected to their
coarse vulgar suggestive talk. l
thought; Surprising one of those girls
had been the daughter of the president
of the Wabash road, what would she
have thought? l know the president
of this road well enough to know he
wouldn't allow his daughter to go into
a bar-room or a questionable resort
under any conditions, and yet she would
have been subjected to the worst sort
of an experience had she been one of
those girls on that buffet parlor-car of
his"
One of the meanest things about it,
to Mr.. Stevenson, is to have to sit in a
dining-car opposite a passenger who
drinks to access. He has noticed THAI
most of the controversies in the dining
cars causing humiliation and discomfort
to the passengers came from those undel
influence of liquor" Most of the rail
roads have, we are reminded, helped Il
found Railroad Young Mems Christian
Associations for their employees, thu
enabling them to ''eat, sleep, and ge
their recreation under auspices othe,
than the saloons, as was formerly thu
case" Yet the writer has in mind one
road, with a Presbyterian presiden
and seventeen railroad associations
which Operates about thirty dining
cars altogether, thus compelling SOM
thirty young men to act as bartender,
and some one hundred and fifty walters
to serve the very stuff to others the.
would be discharged for using, if the.
were seen drinking it themselves.
And this it appears, is but n of many
This Christian railroad man is "amazet