"Hardly," answered the proprietor, "but I needn't worry, it will come in later." He nodded to the camps west of town, "All the boys are working."
This is the attitude of these keepers. They consider the earnings of the lumberjack as their legitimate spoil and part of their yearly income.
The wife of one of the saloon proprietors, overhearing a remark concerning her jewels and apparel, said:
"I can afford to wear rich clothing. My husband has about a thousand men working for him in the woods." The meaning was obvious: that these men would spend their earnings in the saloon, at the gaming table, and in the retreats connected with her husband's establishment.
The brazen effrontery of those engaged in this business is indescribable. The flesh and blood of men is to be lowered to the level of the brutes, appetites of lust are to be satisfied, passions of evil are to be encouraged, and no shade of shame is to be found on the countenances of this depraving element. Where money is to be had the souls of men are not to be considered. Human misery is nothing. There is money in the damning business—then damn the soul and get the money is the policy.
An extensive self-satisfaction, a mantle of self-righteousness, clothes the men of this vocation.
"Bad? Of course it's a bad business," said one, "but if we don't sell the stuff some one else will. As long as there are fools to buy it we intend to supply them. It's their lookout, not ours."
"But don't you think you are morally responsible for tempting men?" I asked.
"All a man is responsible for is being honest," he replied. "I have been honest in all I have done. No man was ever robbed in my place, and the games are straight. I may go to hell when I am through here, but my job will be shoveling coal to make it hotter for the hypocrites who profess to be honest and then steal when they get the chance."
They talked freely of their business and one gambler had the courage to make this assertion: