THE DIVERSIONS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE
247. =The Demand for Recreation.=--The natural instinct for recreation
is felt by the working people in common with persons of every class.
They cannot afford to spend on the grand scale of those who patronize
the best theatres and concerts, nor can they relax all summer at
mountains or seashore, or play golf in the winter at Pinehurst or Palm
Beach. They get their pleasures in a less expensive way in the parks
or at the beach resorts in the summer, and at the "movies,"
dance-halls, and cheap theatres in the winter. They have little money
to spend, but they get more real enjoyment out of a dime or a quarter
than thousands of dollars give to some society buds and millionaires
who are surfeited with pleasure. Recreation to the working people is
not an occupation but a diversion. Their occupation is usually
strenuous enough to furnish an appetite for entertainment, and they
are not particular as to its character, though the more piquant it is
the greater is the satisfaction. Craving for excitement and a stimulus
that will restore their depleted energies, they flock into the
dance-halls and the saloons, where they find the temporary
satisfaction that they wanted, but where they are tempted to lose the
control that civilization has put upon the primitive passions and to
let the primitive instincts have their sway.
It is a prerogative of childhood to be active. If activity is one of
the striking characteristics of all social life, it is especially so
of child life. The country child has all out-of-doors for the scope of
his energies, the city boy and girl are cramped by the tenement and
the narrow street, with occasional resort to a small park. It requires
ingenuity to devise methods of diversion in such small areas, but
necessity is the mother of invention, and the children of the city
become expert in outwitting those whose business it is to keep them
within bounds. This kind of education has a smack of practicality in
that it sharpens the wits for the struggle for existence that makes up
much of the experience of city folk, but it also tends to develop a
crookedness in mental and moral habits through the constant effort to
get ahead of the agents of social control.
248. =Street Games.=--To understand how the youth of the city get
their diversions it is well to examine a cross-section of city life on
Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Family quarters are crowded. Tenements
and apartments have little spare space inside or outside. Children
find it decidedly irksome indoors and naturally gravitate to the
street, to the relief of their elders and their own satisfaction.
There they quickly find associates and proceed to give expression to
their restless spirits. It is the child's nature to play, and he uses
all his wits to find the materials and the room for sport. His
ingenuity can adapt sticks and stones to a variety of uses, but the
street makes a sorry substitute for a ball-field, and while the girl
may content herself with the sidewalk and door-steps, the boy soon
looks abroad for a more satisfying occupation. Among the gangs of city
boys no diversion is more enjoyable than the game of craps, learned
from the Southern negro. With a pair of dice purchased for a cent or
two at the corner news-stand and a few pennies obtained by newspaper
selling or petty thieving the youngster is equipped with the necessary
implements for gambling, and he soon becomes adept in cleaning out the
pockets of the other fellows.
249. =Young People's Amusements.=--Meantime the older boys and girls
are seeking their diversions. At fourteen or fifteen most of them have
found work in factory or store, but evenings and Sundays they, too,
are looking for diversion. The girls find it attractive to walk the
streets, while the boys frequent the cheap pool-room, where they find
a chance to gamble and listen to the tales of the idlers who find
employment as cheap thieves and hangers-on of immoral houses. From
these headquarters they sally forth upon the streets to find
association with the other sex, and together they give themselves up
to a few hours' entertainment. A few are contented to promenade the
streets, but amusement houses are cheap, and the "movies" and
vaudeville shows attract the crowd. For a few dimes a couple can have
a wide range of choice. If the tonic of the playhouse is not
sufficient, a small fee admits to the public dance-hall, where it is
easy to meet new acquaintances and to find a partner who will go to
any length in the mad hunt for pleasures that will satisfy. From the
dance-hall it is an easy path to the saloon and the brothel, as it is
from the game of craps and the pool-room to the gambling-den and the
criminal joint. It is the lack of proper means for diversion and
proper oversight of places of entertainment that 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 cafés 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 to check intemperance, for the satisfaction
of thirst is its principal attraction, and its prime function is to
furnish drink, but the law can be more easily enforced if other social
centres are available where the average man can feel equally at home.
A model saloon managed by church people or labor unionists has been
tried, but has failed to solve the problem. The Young Men's Christian
Association on its present basis does not reach the class of men that
frequents the saloon. Coffee-houses, reading-rooms, municipal
gymnasiums, and baths, may each provide a small part, but none of
these nor all together fill the gap that is left after the saloon is
abolished. Attractive quarters, recreational facilities, and a spirit
of democracy and freedom appear absolutely essential to any successful
experiment in substitution. The patrons wish to be consulted as to
what they want and what they will pay for, and unless the substitute
is self-supporting it is sure to fail. The most promising experiment
is an athletic club maintained by regular dues, where there is
abundant room for sport and conversation, and where it is possible to
secure food at a moderate price and to enjoy lively music at the same
time. Under a reasonable amount of regulation such an establishment
cannot become a public nuisance, and it supplies a social need on a
sound economic basis.
252. =Monopoly Experiments.=--It has been proposed to draw the virus
of the saloon by removing the element of private profit and placing
the traffic under State management. The South Carolina dispensary
system was such an attempt. It broke up the saloon as a social centre,
for drinking was not allowed on the premises, but it did not stop the
consumption of liquor, the profits went to the public, and the saloon
element became a vicious element in politics. The Norwegian or
Gothenburg system was another experiment of a similar sort. The liquor
traffic was made respectable by the government chartering a monopoly
company and by putting business on the basis not of profit, but of
supplying a reasonable demand of the working class. Fifty years' trial
has reduced consumption one-half, has improved the character of the
saloon, and has removed the immoral annexes. The system is not
compulsory, but the people must choose between it and prohibition. The
main objection raised against State monopoly or charter is that the
government makes an alliance with a traffic that is injurious to
society, and that is contrary to the fundamental principle of
government. At best it can be regarded as only a half measure toward
the abolition of the trade in intoxicants.
253. =The Seriousness of the Liquor Problem.=--There can be no doubt
that the liquor problem is one of the serious menaces to modern
health, morals, and prosperity. Intemperance is closely bound up with
the home, it is a regular accompaniment of unchastity, it is both the
cause and the result of poverty, it vitiates much charity, it is a
leading cause of imbecility and insanity, and a provocative of crime.
It stands squarely in the way of social progress. It is a complex
problem. It is first a personal question, affecting primarily the
drinker; secondly, a social question, affecting the family and the
community; thirdly, an economic and political question, affecting
society at large. Consequently the solution of the problem is not
simple. Different phases of the problem demand a variety of methods.
Intemperance may be approached from the standpoint of disease or
immorality. It may be treated in medical or legislative fashion. It
may receive the special condemnation of the churches. One of the most
effective arguments against it is on the basis of economic waste. The
best statistics are incomplete, but the conservative estimate of a
national trade journal gave as the total direct expense in 1912,
$1,630,000,000. This minimum figure means eighteen dollars for every
man, woman, and child in the country. The indirect cost to society of
the wretchedness and crime that result from intemperance is vastly
greater. United States internal-revenue statistics indicate an
increased consumption in all kinds of liquor between 1900 and 1910,
although the territory under prohibition was steadily enlarging.
254. =Causes and Effects of the Traffic.=--The leading causes of
intemperance are the natural craving of appetite and the pleasure of
mild intoxication, the congenial society of the saloon and the habit
of treating, and the presence of the public bar on the streets of the
poorer districts of the city. The mere presence of the saloon is a
standing invitation to the men and boys of the neighborhood, and it
grows to seem a natural part of the environment. It is far more
attractive than the cheerless tenement and the tiresome street. The
sedative to tired nerves and stimulant for weary muscles is there; the
social customs of the past or of the homeland re-enforce the social
instincts of the present and draw with the power of a magnet.
The effects of intemperance may be classified as physical losses,
economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is
exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. The
stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well
established that even small quantities of alcohol weaken the will
power and benumb the mental powers. Habitual use depletes vitality and
so predisposes to disease. Life-insurance policies consider the
alcoholic a poor risk. The economic effect is a great preponderance of
loss over gain. Somebody makes money out of the consumer, but it is
not the farmer who produces the grain, the railroad company that
transports it, or the government that taxes it; less than formerly is
it the individual saloon-keeper, but the brewer and distiller who in
increasing numbers own the local plant as well as manufacture the
liquor. Neither the nation that taxes the manufacture for the sake of
the internal revenue, nor the city or town that licenses the sale,
gets enough to compensate for the economic loss to society. Among the
specific losses to consumers are irregularity and cessation of
employment, due to the unreliability of the intemperate workman and
the consequent reluctance of employers to hire him--a reluctance
increased since employers are made liable to compensate workmen for
accidents; the poverty and destitution of the families of habitual
drinkers; and the enormous waste of millions of dollars that, if not
thus wasted, might have gone into the channels of legitimate trade.
Finally, there is a wide-spread social effect. Intemperance ranks next
to heredity as the cause of insanity. One-third to one-half of the
crime in the country is charged to intemperance. Alcohol makes men
quarrelsome, upsets the brain balance, and introduces the user to
illegal and immoral practices. The saloon corrupts politics. It has
been estimated that the liquor traffic controls two million votes, and
some of it is easily purchasable. When it is remembered that the
saloon is in close alliance with the gambling interest, the
white-slave interest, the graft element, the political bosses, and the
corrupt lobbies, it is easy to see that it constitutes a serious
danger to good government throughout the nation.
255. =The Temperance Crusade.=--Intemperance has grown to be so
wide-spread and serious an evil that a crusade against it has gathered
strength through the nineteenth century. In colonial days the use of
liquors was universal and excited little comment, but groups of
persons here and there, especially the church people, opposed the
common practice of tippling and began to organize in order to check
it. It was not a total-abstinence movement at first, but was designed
particularly to check the use of spirituous liquors. Temperance
revivals swept over whole States, but were too emotional to be
permanent. When the second half of the century began organization
became more thorough and the Good Templars and Woman's Christian
Temperance Union assumed the leadership of the cause. These
organizations stood for total abstinence and State prohibition, and by
temperance evangelism and temperance education the women especially
pushed their campaign nationally and abroad. Among all temperance
agencies the Anti-Saloon League organized in Ohio in 1893, and
extending through the United States, has been most effective. It has
federated existing agencies and enlisted organized religion. It has
pushed no-license campaigns in States that had an optional law, has
secured the extension of prohibition to scores of counties in the
South and West, and has extended the area of State-wide prohibition,
an experiment begun in Maine in 1851, until eighteen States are now
under a prohibitory law (1915).
256. =Remedies for Intemperance.=--There is a general agreement among
people who reflect upon social ills that intemperance is a curse upon
large numbers of individuals and families through both its direct and
indirect effects. It seems well established that even moderate
drinking produces physical and mental weakness and even as a temporary
stimulant is of small value. It is not so clear how to check the evil
without injuring personal interests and violating the liberty which
every citizen claims for himself as a right. Three methods have been
proposed and tried as remedies for intemperance. The first of these is
public appeal and education. Public addresses in which arguments are
presented and an appeal made to the emotions have led to the signing
of pledges, and sometimes to the control of elections, but they have
to be repeated frequently to keep the individual who is moved by his
impulses up to the standard. Slower is education through the press and
through the school, where the evil effects of alcohol are demonstrated
scientifically, but it has been tried patiently, and there is
continually a large output of temperance literature.
257. =Regulation.=--A second method that has been used extensively is
regulation. It seems to many persons that the use of liquor cannot be
stopped, and if it is to be manufactured and sold, it is best to
regulate it by a form of license. In many of the American States the
people are allowed local option and vote periodically, whether they
will permit the legal manufacture and sale of intoxicants, or will
attempt to prevent it for a time. Local option has kept a great many
towns and counties "dry" for years, and it is a step toward
wide-spread prohibition. It is regarded by many as a better method
than a State prohibition that is ineffective. Those who oppose all
licensing on principle, do so on the ground that there should be no
legal recognition of that which is known to be a social evil.
258. =Prohibition.=--Prohibition is to most temperance advocates the
master key that will unlock the door to happiness and prosperity. The
enforcement of prohibition in Russia after the European war began in
1914 had very impressive results in the better conduct and enterprise
of the people. Where it has been carried out effectively in the United
States, the results soon appear in diminished poverty and wretchedness
and in a decrease of vice and crime. The legitimacy of this method is
recognized even by liquor manufacturers, and they are willing to spend
millions of dollars to prevent national prohibition, realizing that
though it would not destroy their business it would greatly lessen the
profits. The prohibition policy has bitter enemies among some who are
not personally interested in the business. They think it is too
drastic and call attention to the sociological principle that
prohibitions are a primitive method of social control, but the trend
of public opinion is strongly against them on the ground that
prohibitions are necessary in an imperfect human society. Government
increases its regulation of business of all kinds, and the police
their regulation of individuals. The failure of half-way measures has
added to the conviction that prohibition rigidly enforced is likely to
be the only effective method for the solution of the liquor problem.
READING REFERENCES
STELZLE: _The Workingman and Social Problems_, pages 21-50.
MOORE: "Social Value of the Saloon," art. in _American Journal of_
_Sociology_, 3: 1-12.
MELENDY: "The Saloon in Chicago," art. in _American Journal of_
_Sociology_, 6: 289-306, 433-464.
CALKINS: _Substitutes for the Saloon._ _Regulation of the Liquor
Traffic_ (American Academy), pages 1-127.
PEABODY: _The Liquor Problem: A Summary._
GRANT: "Children's Street Games," art. in _The Survey_, 23:
232-236.
PARTRIDGE: _The Psychology of Intemperance_, pages 222-239.