t is increasing the
vice, drunkenness, and crime that curse the lives of thousands and
give to the city an evil reputation.

250. =The Saloon as the Poor Man's Club.=--The saloon is an
institution peculiar to America, but it is the successor of a long
line of public drinking houses. There were cafes among the ancients,
public houses among the Anglo-Saxons, and taverns in the colonies. At
such places the traveller or the working man could find social
companionship along with his glass of wine or grog, and by a natural
evolution the saloon became the poor man's club. It is successful as a
place of business, because it caters to primitive wants and social
interests in considerable variety. It is a never-failing source of
supply of the strong waters that bring the good cheer of intoxication,
and lull into torpid content the mind that wants to forget its worry
or its misery. It is a place where conventionality is laid aside and
human beings meet on the common level of convivial good-fellowship. It
is the avenue to fuller enjoyment in billiard-room, at card-table, in
dance-hall, and in house of assignation, but though the door is open
to them there is no obligation to enter. It is first aid to the
sporting fraternity, the resort of those who delight in pugilism,
baseball, and the racetrack, the dispenser of athletic news of all
sorts that is worth talking about. It frequently provides a free
lunch, music, and games. It is the agent of the political boss who
mixes neighborhood charity with the dispensing of party jobs. "The
saloon is a day-school, a night-school, a vacation-school, a
Sunday-school, a kindergarten, a college, a university, all in one. It
runs without term ends, vacations, or holidays.... It influences the
thoughts, morals, politics, social customs, and ideals of its
patrons."

251. =Substitutes for the Saloon.=--An institution that fills a place
as large as this in the social life of the American city must be given
careful consideration, and cannot be impatiently dismissed as an
unmitigated social evil. The saloon is unsparingly denounced as the
cause of intemperance, prostitution, poverty, and crime, and much of
the charge is a fair indictment, but it is easier to condemn its
abuses than to find a satisfactory substitute for the social service
that it performs. If the saloon must go, something must be put in its
place to perform its helpful functions. It may have to be legislated
out of existence in order t