THE SNAKE

BACK in the days of deep tan and stone-bruises we boys knew that when we killed a garter snake, the animal might be as dead as a door-nail, but the tail would continue to writhe and squirm and wiggle until sundown. This is going to be an apt comparison, because the serious cartoonists of the church and anti-whisky publications, during the long drive against red liquor, always pictured Alcoholic Drink as a coiled serpent with fangs as long as from here to there. Nearly a dozen years ago the Anti-Saloon League, the W. C. T. U., the white neck-tie preachers and all of those deacons who never drank anything stronger than Hostetter's Bitters, closed in on the enemy. They pounded Mr. Snake with stones and battered him with clubs until he was just a battered and unrecognizable smear. They looked at the mangled remains and said: "Well, that job's done! Now there isn't an evil influence left in the world."

One of the rejoicing editorial writers used an unfortunate expression in recording the victory. He said that the forces of righteousness had "scotched the serpent." He forgot that there are two definitions for "scotch." It may mean "to put an end to." Or, it may mean something that costs $80 a case and never was within three thousand miles of Aberdeen.

We all know that the venomous thing was killed in 1920, but the tail is still seemingly alive and slapping around in all directions. No one will dispute that statement and, least of all, the good people who are dead set against the drink habit. They are still attacking the whitened skeleton of the retail liquor traffic because the tail continues to wiggle. They are denouncing the saloon as if we still had one on every corner. They just can't believe that the vicious old reptile is really dead as long as that tail keeps on writhing and squirming. When death agonies continue over a period of ten years, that's a record!

The trouble nowadays is that hardly any one can write about distilled, vinous and malt beverages without trying to float a lot of propaganda. All who write or speak for or against the occasional hoisting of the hip flask or the sharp rattle of ice in the shaker seem to be fighting mad. They become so overheated from using mean adjectives that they can't calm down and discuss the past, present and future of the Prohibition Crusade and the brewery output and the conversion of corn into corn juice without getting into a lather and abusing the opposition.

Is it possible to talk about various beverages containing more than one-half of one percent of kick, to ponder upon the causes leading up to Prohibition and to give some information regarding the old-time saloon without taking sides or circulating propaganda? Undoubtedly.

In the succeeding pages dealing with retail establishments which sold intoxicating fluids under sanction of the law, nothing will be said or done with the intent of giving offense to the extreme Drys or the extreme Wets or that in between population which may be classed as Slightly Moist. The idea is to dish up history instead of attempting to influence legislation. The record of the bar-room and the influences behind it may be read aloud from any Baptist pulpit without arousing a protest from any member of the flock. Not much will be written about the effects of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act and no remedies will be proposed. Enough has been said and is being said and will be said without any brash volunteers rushing into the controversy. Just for the sake of novelty, we are going to join friendly hands and stroll into the past and find out what all the shooting is about by reminding ourselves of some undeniable facts concerning a certain kind of public resort called a "saloon."

No use talking, any viper that looks like a boa constrictor ten years after it is extinct, is worth talking about. Furthermore, they are talking about it. Those who insist upon continuing the noble experiment say: "If we compromise with the law-breakers and the forces of evil, it means a return of the saloon and its whole train of attendant horrors." Every militant Wet and member of the Association Against the Whole Proposition is shouting at the top of his voice: "Listen! We are opposed to the saloon, the same as you are. All we want is something to drink at a reasonable price and with the quality guaranteed."

The snake may continue to wiggle the tail, but no one has a friendly word for the snake. If you care to investigate you may discover evidences of the wiggle in any speak-easy and at many soft-drink parlors, table d'hote restaurants, road-houses, filling stations, barbecue stands and, possibly, a few hardware stores. But, even the obliging benefactor who is willing to slip you, for seventy-five cents, a shot of something that looks like kerosene and smells like arnica, will tell you that the saloon was an evil influence and we are a darn sight better off without it. All knocking it but still talking about it.

Do you recall any prominent and honored citizen of your neighborhood who passed on in 1920 and who is still a topic of daily conversation in the houses up and down your street? He is as much in the past tense as Julius Cæsar. But the scaly orthopoid monster known as the Saloon Business is still receiving obituary notices. As a member of the animal kingdom he must have been something of a dangerous reptile or he would not be remembered so vividly or hated so bitterly.

DISCUSSING WICKEDNESS

HOW many of you can claim any real knowledge of the saloon, obtained at first hand?

If the author let's on to know a good deal about the places at which drinkables were dispensed in the olden days, it is because every kind of saloon came under his observation. An explanation is inserted here and now to head off any sarcastic reader who might suggest that the title of this work should be "Confessions of an Ill-Spent Life."

He put in his boyhood and youth in a prairie town that had one watch-repairer, one druggist, one blacksmith and four saloons. He was not permitted to enter these dens of vice but he could not avoid smelling them or hearing the songs and the babble of loud and foolish talk. The street fights between a couple of agricultural huskies who had trained on copper-distilled Kentucky Sour Mash was a free show and the parade which trailed behind the Town Marshal and the combative drunk, up Main Street toward the "calaboose," was a frequent spectacle, not without educational value.

He was in a college town for six years. The population was 20,000 and there were exactly 94 saloons in full blast, most of them ignoring laws intended to regulate the opening and closing hours and prohibit any sale to minors. Any one tall enough to hook his chin over the dispensing counter could obtain for a nickel a large goblet of beer. The goblet could have been used as an aquarium for gold-fish. The period was the eighties and "keg parties" were...