Traps for the Boys

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 6, 1908

Traps for the Boys

ONE of the most astonishing disclosures of the peculiar tactics pursued by the liquor men in their campaign against sobriety is found in the following from the Rev. John F. Hill, secretary of the Presbyterian Permanent Temperance Committee of Pittsburg, Pa. Mr. Hill writes:—

“The writer has before him a printed ticket handed him by a schoolboy in a neighboring town, who informs him that ‘lots of the boys get these tickets. They are passed ’round.’ The card reads thus:—

Of course there can be but one object in giving these cards to the boys: it is to awaken within them the passion for drink. What are we to think of a business which deliberately plans to debase childhood, and to prepare boys to become graduates of the saloon?

This is no exaggerated picture, drawn by “temperance fanatics,” as the saloon men would declare it. It is cold, hard brutal, un-American fact. The Christian Herald has seen the cards described by the Rev. Mr. Hill, and all he has stated is undeniably true. Nor is Pennsylvania the only State where such an outrageous propaganda of drunkenness is carried on. In Los Angeles, Cal., according to one of the local journals, there is a club, supported by the liquor interest, whose purpose it is to teach boys to drink. In Chicago, Mr. Hill asserts, there are on a single street twenty saloons, each of which has a children’s annex, where toys and juvenile books are spread to attract the little folks, and where “they are treated to sweetened wine.”—The Christian Herald.