“SELL DRINKS OR STARVE.”
Do you wonder that they sit hour after hour at a table guzzling beer with their drunken customers?
It is the old story of—“Do this or starve.”
In the “redlight” districts of Chicago certain breweries have the monopolized concession from the vice lords to sell their commodity. No one else dare enter into the precincts to peddle his goods.
The Vice Trust demands a terrible stipend. Therefore the beer must be sold at an outrageous price. The over lords must get their share, the girls in the houses must be paid their horrible commission and the keepers must make their profits.
The sale of this beer in the disorderly houses is a direct violation of the law governing the sale of liquors. All this beer and other intoxicants are sold without a city license.
There are one thousand places in the city selling liquor without a license. Nearly all these are houses of prostitution. This figure is arrived at by a comparison of federal tax records on the sale of liquors and the records in the city license department of the city clerk. The houses of ill fame dare not ignore the laws of the United States. So, they purchase a federal liquor license at the nominal sum of twenty-five dollars a year.