Liquor Selling on Railroads

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · May 9, 1912

Liquor Selling on Railroads

IN a recent number of the New York Observer, Mr. Andrew Stevenson raises serious objection to a state of affairs by which he is forced against his will, in order to obtain necessary food while traveling, to “enter the barrooms conducted by the transportation companies of this country”; for such he charges railroad dining-cars have in most instances become. He then proceeds to give several incidents occurring on different roads, where the passengers were brought into a state of offensive intoxication through liquor that was dispensed to them in the dining-car. Most of these railroads strongly promote Young Men’s Christian Associations among their employees; but while they do this, Mr. Stevenson charges that these roads operate dining-cars that compel young men to act the part of bartenders, and to serve to others intoxicants which, if they themselves used, would result in their discharge from the service. When so-called Christian men vote as they talk, and are willing to carry out in their own business, even though it may mean the loss of dollars and cents, the same principles which they profess as a part of their Christian belief, conditions of this sort, and many other conditions in the world, will be greatly modified.