Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/26

 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

r n. and that the everyday use of alcohol among

h or. ;torily proves the value of the use and not the

abuse ot a.coh 1 as a food direct and indirect."

Such it is believed is the social value of the saloon. That it functions to certain social wants otherwise not supplied is our thesis. That its wares are poison is nowhere lost to sight, but that the poison appears in their abuse and not in their use is our contention. It is also admitted that social want is very inade- (juatclv supplied by the saloon. That a condition in which the idea can express itself in emotional terms only is essentially pathological. But it is believed that the saloon will continue to supply it as long as its opponents continue to wage a war of rmination against all that it represents, instead of wisely aid- ing social life to reach that plane where its present evils shall no longer be its accidents. The saloon is a thing come out of the organic life of the world, and it will give place only to a better form of social functioning. That a better form is possible to a fully conscious society no one can deny. When and what this form shall be remains for society's component units to declare. The presence of the saloon in an unorganized society is proof con- clusive that society can wisely organize the need which it supplies.

It is hardly necessary to enlarge further upon the evils of the saloon in a protest against the predominance of one-sided state- ments in that very particular. They are many and grave, and cry out to society for proper consideration. But proper con- sideration involves a whole and not a half truth, and the whole truth involves its own power of proper action. In the absence of higher forms of social stimulus and larger social life the saloon will continue to function in society, and for that great part of humanity which does not possess a more adequate form of social expression the words of Esdras will remain true : It is wine that "maketh the mind of the king and of the fatherless child to be all one, of the bondman and of the freeman, of the poor and of the rich. It turneth every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt; and it maketh every heart glad." c MOQRE

CHICAGO.