Passing the Painted Door
By John G. Wooley
WHERE the most men and the weakest men and boys must pass, the painted door is set swinging, to catch the poor, the ignorant, the reckless, the homesick, the discouraged, and silently shut them into the reek of a leprosy that eats off the fingers of opportunity, eats away the lips of truth, eats out the eyes of ambition and the heart of hope. Just at the point where Christian civilization ought to brace and cheer a faltering man, it shunts him downward, by the legalization of the saloon.—John G. Wooley. "A LICENSED bar is not a kindergarten of sobriety."