San Francisco and Blind Pigs
The “blind pig,” the “blind tiger,” etc., are Americanisms that are used to designate places where intoxicating drinks are sold on the sly. They are usually supposed to exist only in territory where the selling of liquor is prohibited by law, and then these “blind pigs” operate under cover, selling to a confidential list of customers regardless of the law. When the saloons are driven out, one of the arguments presented against it is that if we shut up the saloons we will have “blind pigs,” and the “blind pigs” are worse than the saloon itself. The people who make this argument may not know it, but it is nevertheless true that places which have the open saloon are often cursed with as many “blind pigs” as they have saloons themselves, or more. For instance, in the work of reform that Mayor Rolph is prosecuting so vigorously in San Francisco, he is not only bringing criminal policemen to the bar of justice, but he is ordering some of those who are still tolerated on the forces, but who are questioned, to make a record for themselves in upholding law and order, or something will be done about it. In one of his recent meetings with some of the police commissioners, the attorney for the Royal Arch appeared before them and requested that something be done to suppress the 1,500 “blind pigs” that they knew existed in San Francisco. The Royal Arch is the organization of the great liquor monopoly. It desires to have its trade go through specific channels, and, incongruous as it may seem, is in favor of the open saloon and very much opposed to the “blind pig,” because they can not11handle the business through this particular kind of liquor dealer. The Royal Arch has unquestionably the best of opportunity for learning that there are 1,500 “blind pigs” in the place, and their authority on such a subject is of the highest order. That is quite a record for a single city, and especially for a city that is so well filled and so thoroly cursed by saloons as is San Francisco. This record of “blind pigs” in San Francisco is by no means phenomenal, for similar investigations have shown that where open saloons thrive best the “blind pigs” usually are most numerous. So the argument that closing the saloons will result in the curse of the “blind pig” is utterly overcome by the facts. The first step in prohibition and cleaning up a territory is to throw out the open saloons; then it is easier to find the “blind pigs,” and let them be driven out as soon thereafter as possible. And when we consider how rapidly the world is being driven into crimes and vices of every sort and character, some of them unspeakable in their nature, and when we consider further that the saloon is the greatest propagator of these evils, it is high time that all good people work together as one man to abate and suppress this crying evil of the day.