Religion: Licensed Beverages

One thousand saloonkeepers lifted grateful faces in Atlantic City last week to hear a good word from a minister. The Rev. John Fuller Mangrum, 36, of St. Edward’s Episcopal Church in Mount Dora, Fla., told the ninth annual convention of the National Licensed Beverage Association that they should not tolerate being treated as “second-class human beings” by churches in the grip of “puritanism.”

“Quit being ashamed and embarrassed,” he said. “Don’t hide behind the scorn of the professional ‘drys.’ You have let them shrink you into a gigantic inferiority complex.” Pastor Mangrum, who knows his licensed beverages from five years in a Skid Row parish in Detroit, told the tavern owners to join churches and work with community organizations. “If one denomination does not have need of you, except when it wants back-door contributions extracted through implied blackmail . . . you will find that the traditional Christian groups want you and need you.”