The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1913-06-12
Open LETTER TO
DEAN SUMNER

Dean walter Il. Sumner. in which were
set forth the views of this noted Chi
cago clergyman on the connection be-
tween vice and the liquor traffic.
/ Some of Dean Summers views met
with approval from the brewers of the
country. To some statements. how
ever, they take exception, and an an
swer has been prepared by Percy An
dreae, chairman of the United States
Brewers association.
Following are extracts from an open
letter which has been sent to Dean
Sumner:
The Very Reverend Dean Walter T..
Sumner, III North Peoria street, Chi
cago-Dear Sir: 7 have just read
your article on the social evil in last
Sundays edition of the Inter Ocean,
and there is so much in it with which
I fully and heartily agree that I feel
more emboldened to offer few com
ments on those portions of the article
in the penning of which | cannot help
believing that both your sense of JUS
tice and your sense of proportion must
have forsaken you.
Is Statement Just?
Because, by actual count, as YOU say,
236 brothel house keepers in Chicago
have added the retailing of alcoholic
beverages to their nefarious calling. is
it just to class upwards of seven thou
sand saloonkeepers in the city of Chi
cago as "the greatest supporters of
the social evil, - and "as the greatest
reapers of the profits of the social
evil?" Because these 236 brothel house
keepers collect the charge they exact
for the human bodies they supply by
adding that charge to the price of the
alcoholic (and, by the wav, the 9th
err beverages they sell is it iustifable
to denounce the liquor traffic as a
whole as "the most damnable institu-
tion at present existing in our social
! IifeY'
There are 1900 saloons in Chicago.
and the figure of 236 is Just fraction
over 3 per cent of those 1900 saloons.
Yet it is by this 3 per cent that you
are Judging and condemning the re-
naming 81 per cent. Is not this a
complete reversal of the method of
Jehovah who was willing to stay the
doom of the cities or Sodom and
| Gomorrah, if only an infntesimal frac-
tion of percentage of the people of
those cities could be proved to be
righteous and God-fearinga
Every family, every calling, every
profession has its black sheep. Take
your own profession, for instance (and
earnestly beg you to believe that
refer to that profession for no reason
personal to yourself or your fellow
clergymen, but merely because I can
| conceive of no better way to point my
argument). If you investigate the
prison statistics of the country. you
will find that comparison between
the numbers preachers of the gos
pei and the number of saloonkee eepers
| confined in our penitentiaries is by no
means one to cause the latter class to
feel ashamed. Moreover, no one who
reads the daily newspapers requires
to be informed that the particular
offenses to which the black sheep of
the first named class are most prone
are the very offeDses that constitute
the main source from which the social
evil originates. Yet would it be fair,
or just, or logical to conclude that
for this reason the clergy as a whole
is "the most damnable institution at
present existing in our social lifes'
such conclusion. Yet, in what re-
spect is that conclusion any more un-
fair, unjust and illogical than the con
elusion you have presented to thous
ands of readers that, because 236
houses of ill-fame sell liquor, therefore
the 1900 saloonkeepers of Chicago are
"the greatest reapers of the profits of
the social evils'
Gravitates After Fall.
1t is after she has fallen that she
gravitates toward the class of saloon
that caters to her kind, both male and
female, and she helps to create and
maintain that class of saloon, just as
tough nighborhood will create and
maintain tough saloon and crimi-
nal neighborhood criminal saloon
Considering the two and a quarter
million propulation of the city of Chi
cago and the well-known percentage
of mankind the world over who are
of tough, vicious or criminal procliv-
tiles. it would be surprising. in fact.
if the number of places that have
been called into existence by that
percentage in Chicago should not
prove in reality to be larger than you
have estimated
Every student of economies knows
that it is the demand that creates the
supply, not the supply that creates the
demand. and more than that, it is up
on the character of the demand that
the character of the supply is condi
toned, and not vice versa. Yet all
the arguments and all the actions of
those who, like yourself, are endeav
oring to better the moral conditions
under which we live are persistentIy
based upon the very opposite assump
tion, with the result tnat. instead of
bettering those conditions, they render
them worse.
Product of Consumer.
4 The accusation, however true it may
be, that among the thousands of Gus
toners who are supplied. or CONNER
cially assisted, by the brewing con
Germs of this city, there are some dis
reputable ones who should not be in