William James Linton:

43) Temperance Tracts. A new Issue. â??The Prayer of the Saloon-Keeper.â??

n.p / n.d.

A rare single-page leaflet, from a descendantâ??s estate.

This witty prayer of an imaginary saloon keeper from Atchinson, Kansas was written and published by Linton probably in the late seventies when the obtrusive activities of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union finally led to the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in Kansas in 1881. The tract is a biased attack against puritan bigotry and the hypocrisy of influential upper-class women, whose extravagances would lead their husbands ”to bankruptcy, robbing them of all this world’s pleasures, driving them even to suicide.”