THE SALOON BURDEN

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Some One Has Called the Saloon "The Poor Man's Club"

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It's the club that takes the Saturday pay,

The club that chases all hope away,

The club that empties the workman's bag

And leaves the wife a bone and a rag;

That takes the school-book from the boy,

And leaves him naught that he might enjoy;

Takes the price of his toil from the laboring man,

That empties the stomach and fills the can.

Instead of liberty makes him serve,

that destroys his stomach and ruins the nerve;

That binds man fast in the devil's chain,

That takes self-respect and destroys the brain;

That makes the home where peace might dwell

Instead of a heaven a raging hell.

With the wife out washing, her rub, rub, rub,

Beats time for the song of the poor man's club.

If you don't need clothes and can live without grub,

Why just go and join The Poor Man's Club.

An Enlightened ex-Member.

This was the confession of one who started in to defend the saloon as a business proposition and who close with this

frank statement as to his convictions on the personal effects of the business and its associations. he gave it to one whom

he believed to be in perfect sympathy with the traffic, so there was no excuse whatever for high coloring and extravagant

statements. I believe that what he said he believed to be the actual truth. In the light of these statements, should not the

saloon be outlawed from every state and community?-American Issue.