Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/24

 .MERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

uli, pictures, and good music is absent. The con-

iiit st,.m ' purposive intelligence- is denied a thousand

Mings which si uilale lo s\\ ill and happv thought in other forms

v are entirely wanting here. But human energy, which

ill the primal social fact, demands an avenue of escape

and rinds its conditions in the best way it can.

Moreover this stimulus not only supplies immediate social need. It has all the value for present-day civilization that stimu- lant- have eVCt had in the formation of history. It helps to pre- the idea which as vet cannot become an act, and failing in its function must otherwise die. Such, psychologists tell us, is the value of the stimulant to free the individual from the con- sciousness of the limitation which prevents the realization of his ideal, and to preserve his ideal for him and for society. It is here that the saloon gets its ultimate social value. The bac- chanals were promoters of the Greek state, and the drinking of the Dark Ages contributed to the realization of the modern individual. Upon what beside shall the emotional life feed? or where shall it find its resting place of achievement, while the act itself is impossible save in the heightened activity of an exhilarated self: In this way it is believed that the saloon is aiding in the development of a higher form of society by pre- serving in its patrons a higher social hope. This is but a part of the social need to which it ministers, but by no means the least part.

'I here is another primal need which the saloon supplies and in most* ipplies well. It is a food-distributing center

a place where a hungry man can get as much as he wants to eat and drink for a small price. As a rule the food is notoriously good and the price notoriously cheap. And that air of poverty which unfailingly attends the cheap restaurant and finds its ade- quate expression in ragged and dirty table linen is here wanting. Instead polished oak tables are used and upon them reposes free an abundance such as to constantly surprise a depleted purse. That the saloon feeds thousands and feeds them well no one will deny who has passed the middle of the day there.

As to the physiological effects of the use of alcohol, the