"One of the waiters serving drinks was no older than 14 years. At midnight this boy was sitting at one of the tables half asleep trying to support a drunken man. Fifty minors were illegally present. Ten minors drank intoxicants. Three minors were intoxicated. Twenty soldiers were drinking intoxicants. About fifteen soldiers were intoxicated. One of the soldiers dancing was so drunk that the girl could hardly hold him up. There were four instances of kissing, five of embracing, three of improper handling, and one fight." _The Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Company operates the largest brewery in Chicago_. [Illustration: AN EVERY-DAY VICE SCENE] [Blank page] CHAPTER XV. LAWS ARE OPENLY VIOLATED I want to say here, however, that not all the brewers are as black as they are painted. There are some among them who are clean and honest men who, bitterly resent the lawless methods of their colleagues. Upon the request of the respectable element I have frequently warned the brewers of the country that nothing could save their industry unless they made up their minds to become law abiding citizens and stop fooling the people. I have warned them on many occasions that they had no right to enlist the sympathy of the people as long as they persisted in defying the laws enacted by the people, but my warnings fell upon deaf ears. What can cause greater hostility toward the brewers than the fact that midnight closing and Sunday laws are openly violated with their knowledge and connivance and that political influence and the liberal use of money will gain them immunity from prosecution? Has it not frequently been said that the "dough bags" of the brewers control the courts and influence their decisions? _"Absence of drunkenness, law and order, and the reduction of crime to a minimum, have invariably followed the 'dry' wave"_ CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER VICE BACKED BY BREWERS CABARETS AND TANGO DANCE RESORTS How little my advice was heeded was clearly shown by, the appearance of a comparatively new vice--openly aided and abetted by brewers--which in a few years has spread its poisonous tentacles to all parts of the country. I refer to CABARETS AND TANGO DANCE RESORTS What more can inflame the mind of the public against the brewers than these vulgar and liquor flowing twentieth century dives, especially when the fact is considered that many of these gilded hells are owned and operated by brewers themselves? In many European cities similar resorts are classed among houses of ill repute and the same police regulations are applied to them. Here, they are brazenly advertised as "afternoon teas" to lure the unwary. In my travels I have visited many of the most prominently advertised places of this kind in different parts of the country to study the habitues. It can not be denied that most of these dives are the rendezvous of the demimonde, breeding places of vice, crime and degeneracy, and an ally of the white slave traffic.