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 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME VI

NOVEMBER, 1900

NUMBER 3

THE SALOON IN CHICAGO. 1

PREFACE.

THE investigations of which this is a partial report were made under the auspices of the Ethical Subcommittee of the Com- mittee of Fifty. " This committee, made up of persons repre- senting different communities, occupations, and opinions, is engaged in the study of the liquor problem, in the hope of securing a body of facts which may serve as a basis for intelli- gent public and private action. It is the purpose of the com- mittee to collect and collate impartially all accessible facts which bear upon the problem, and it is its hope to secure for the evidence thus accumulated a measure of confidence, on the part of the community, which is not accorded to partisan state- ments."

The investigations here reported were carried on from the Chicago Commons, a social settlement in the very heart of the industrial district, in one of the river wards of Chicago. It is probable that no better laboratory for the study of the social problems of America exists than this same district. Here, as from upturned strata, we can discover what have been the forces that brought about the present conditions, and some of the agencies now at work in the formation of the future.

1 Published by permission of the Committee of Fifty.

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