Ernest
Moore was
born in 1871. While studying at the University of Chicago he married
Dorothea Moore in 1896 and the
couple became residents of Hull House Settlement.
While living at Hull House Moore carried
out a study of the saloon in the Nineteenth Ward
of Chicago. His research,
The Social Value of the
Saloon was published in the
American Journal of Sociology
in July, 1897.
After leaving Chicago, Moore taught at
Harvard and Yale
before becoming president of the University of California. Ernest
Moore died in 1955.
(1) Ernest Moore, The Social
Value of the Saloon (July, 1897)
The Nineteenth Ward of Chicago
according to the school census of 1896 has a population of 48,280.
It is a workingman's district, and the population is typical of unskilled
labor in general. The largest foreign elements in the ward are the
Irish, German, Italian, and Bohemian, stated in the order of relative
numerical strength. Of those of foreign parentage, about one-half
are American born. As to moral condition, neither the extremes of
vice nor of virtue are reached, while the general moral tone is rather
healthful.
(2)
Dorothea Moore, A Day at Hill House, American Journal of Sociology
(March, 1897)
The old house is almost submerged.
With its hooded top story of fanciful brick, and its large flanking
of additions to right and left, there remain but the long windows
and wide doorway to hint of the aspect that was its own in the long
gone privacy of the estate of which it was an important and hospitable
part of the quiet days before the invasion of crowd and hurry and
competition.
These additions are more intrinsic than external - growing out of
growing needs - and therefore present in themselves a kind of rough
estimate of history of them. Thus, the most extensive area and the
highest wall belong to the Children's Building, on the right flank,
the corresponding smaller wing being used for lecture and class rooms,
with dormitory space above.
About the house are its tributaries, some in material form and some
visible only in spirit. Around the southern corner is a brick building,
the home of the Jane Club, an active club of working women who in
a life of five years have solved some of the most vexing questions
of co-operative living in their own social and economic satisfaction.
(3)
Ernest Moore, The Social Value of the Saloon (July, 1897)
The saloonkeeper is the only
man who keeps open house in the ward. It is his business to entertain.
It does not matter that he does not select his guests; that convention
is useless among them. In fact, his democracy is one element of his
strength. His face is the common meeting ground of his neighbors -
and he supplies the stimulus which renders social life possible; there
is an accretion of intelligence that comes to him in his business.
He hears the best stories. He is the first to get accurate information
as to the latest political deals and social mysteries. The common
talk of the day passes through his ears and he is known to retain
that which is the most interesting.
There is another primal need which the saloon supplies and in most
cases supplies well. It is a food-distributing centre - a place where
a hungry man can get as much as he wants to eat and drink for a small
price. As a rule the food is notoriously good and the price notoriously
cheap. That the saloon feeds thousands and feeds them well no one
will deny who has passed the middle of the day there.
It is hardly necessary to enlarge further upon the evils of the saloon.
They are many and grave, and cry out to society for proper consideration.
But proper consideration involves a whole and not a half truth, and
the whole truth involves its own power of proper action. In the absence
of higher forms of social stimulus and larger social life, the saloon
will continue to function in society, and for that great part of humanity
which does not possess a more adequate form of social expression.
A saloon Nineteenth
Ward of Chicago.
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