Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/451

 THE SALOON IN CHICAGO 437

reason, as may already have been inferred, is simple enough : wherever a large number of men assemble, there will be in their number the usual proportion of men who drink beer and other liquors. Consequently, about these places the dealers in these drinks gather for the sale of their wares. I cannot make the definite statement, but I do not believe that the proportion of men who drink is as great among the men in these societies as among those without. Nevertheless, beer is occasionally, but very seldom, found in their halls, and, as a German minister said to me: "Some hold lodge meetings above the saloon and after- meetings in the saloon below." They prefer these halls because they are forced to the rent being very much lower than in any other halls. The brewing companies make up for this low rent by the increased sale of drinks.

It must be remembered that the lodges meet but once in two weeks, together with the social meetings that arise out of their association together ; that they do not reach, as a rule, the very poor ; that in certain foreign lodges nearly all the members drink ; that there is a formality about their meetings from which the saloon "club" is practically free. But for all that, it is not possible to say just how much fraternal organizations of Chicago have accomplished, consciously or unconsciously, in staying the hold which the social side of saloon-life has been gaining upon all classes of men.

TURN-VEREINS AND SINGING-SOCIETIES.

The most popular forms of social intercourse among the foreign element, especially the German, Polish, and Danish, are Turn-Vereins and singing societies. While it is true that a large per cent, of these nationalities have this form of social life, it must be remembered that beer-drinking is almost universal among these people, and often very often in connection with their societies, which generally meet over saloons. The opportunity given in the Turn-Verein to work off the surplus animal spirits may in some small degree have something to do with the small per cent, of excessive drinking among these people. That they have this much of a social substitute, and that drinking is universal among them, are facts to be noted later.