Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-07-03
THE AMERICAN SALOON
[Chicago Tribune1 ]


Two or three times there have ap-
peared in the Voice of the People
column communications regarding
the demon rum over the signature
of gentleman who refers to himself
as a saloonkeeper and handles his
English with the ease of a retired
essayist.
In the most recent of these COM
munications our correspondent said
that if the drinking man would ac-
quire or could be forced to, acquire
the "Dick Smith habit" the disagree
able and pressing questions arising
from the manufacture and sale of
alcoholic beverages would solve
themselves. 1t was Dick Smiths
habit ito flock by himself" and in
flocking thus he bought no drinks
for any one other than Dick Smith.
Sobriety is supposed to result If a
gentleman drinks as a cat walks
alone. The supposition lacks au-
thenticity. The worst of all drunk
ards is the closet drunkard. When
man begins to drink as the cat walks
he has become a little world all by
himself, and he can create sunrise
or sunset, evolve suns and grow
hepaticas, sing as the wood thrush
and feel as the peacock. all by him
sell WIN a quart Ol llquOT.
In this stage he is a hopeless evad-
er of responsibilities. of life and its
terms. He takes opiate out of his
bottle and tinges all dark clouds
with pink. Count him lost to the
community. Possibly much intoxi-
cation results from the fortuitous
forgathering of gentlemen who, each
Intending to take one little snifter
before going home, meet and take
twenty without going home at all.
The trouble with the liquor busi-
ness is that it is a business. Our
saloonkeeper friend is juggling with
nonessentials. The American saloon
is the American liquor questionable
long polished bar, the long brass
rail, and the mirrors in which our
drinking friends can see the refec-
tions of themselves in the act of
hosting a few. We should have the
closet drunkard, no doubt, without
the saloon. No set of men ever
drank themselves to death with bet
ter will and with more pleasure than
did the fox hunting English and
Irish suuires. But without the sa-
loon, the liquor question would be
an individual question.
The use of any intoxicating bev-
erage would be- in an intelligently
ordered and disciplined society, an
Individual question. 1t ought to be.
The habits of the mass ought not
to be controlled by the indiscretions
of the individuals. The erring ought
to nav. and it would be fairer that
their dependents should pay than
that sumptuary laws should control
the license of the discreet to do what
they wanted to do.
Prohibition is a bad method of
correcting the minority by regula-
ton of the majority, but the Ameri-
can saloon, inherently evil no matter
how we'll conducted 1t may be, has,
we imagine, made it virtually GER
tain that personal habits in respect
to drinking will get law set upon
them.
We love the talk of light wines
and beer. 1t is a good theory that
a people whose infants grow up on
light wines never are other than
temperate. Probably If we had the
soil which grew fine wine grapes,
varied from one locality to another
to produce varieties of splendid
wines, we might live happily and
temperately upon the juice of the
grape. but our guess is that the day
of disuse of all forms of alcoholized
beverage is approaching in the u.
S. A. They'll have a law on us and
they'll have it because we are es-
sentially a moral people and our
obligation does run to our brother.
The minority will rule us by its
voicea