The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1877-03-01

| w OOlcn BOOuS. %, Otj, OJO
Boots and shoes. .. 80, S22, 045
Furniture and house fix
lures. ............ 37,76O, $50
$3.50, G52, 463
Add as expenses and prof
it's of retailers, etc. -. III, 347, 537
800, 900, 900
which is less than the annual sum paid
to our liquor sellers.
Suppose this amount had been paid
to the industries above mentioned,
how great would have been the bless
ings conferred! We are prepared to
prove by the United States census re-
port for 1870, that if one-half the
money wasted in the purchase of liquor
had been expended in food and food
preparations, our people would have
needed IA, 359 additional food-prepar-
ing establishments, would have given
employment to 4S, 43G persons whose
wages would have amounted 10 $12,-
993, 337, and would have caused de-
mand for $241, 231, All worth of addi-
tional raw material. There is no ex-
aggeration in these figures; they are
brought to your notice that we may
see why it is that in this new country
so many thousands of our people are
under-fed, or actually starving. You
can but believe if the army of drunk
ards could not get their dram, they
would buy more food. Our farmers
would receive for grain alone $751;
157, 263, which is $131, 056, 975 more
than all the value of all the materials
used in the manufacture of liquors in
1870; for the census returns give $49,-
100, 2SS as the value of materials made
into liquors.
Now, let us see what would have
been the effect upon our manufacture
ing interest had a portion of our bar
bill been spent upon them. Sup
pose we had spent Ss4, 22S, 676 for
cotton goods; SIT, 702, 670 in woolen
goods; 500, S22, ,O45 for boots and
shoes, and $37, 769, $50 for furniture
and house fixtures. In spending the
money thus, instead of for intoxicating
drinks, there would have been re-
qulred 20,7l2 additional manufactur-
ing establishments which would have
required 223, 206 hands to have run
them, whose wages would have been
$7S, 249, 052, and for materials $685.
1874, 3O4.
Thus you perceive that by expend
ing the money spent in our grog-shops,
800, 900, 900, which is our annual
'drunk bill," for these much-needed
products, we would keep running 35,
070 establishments, employ 271, ,642
persons, pay for wages SOL, 142, $50,
and cause a demand for $406, 365, 775
worth of raw materials, and leave
Sl04, III, 767 for profits and expenses
upon the commodities after leaving the
place of production and reaching
consumers. Now contrast what might
be with what is-instead Of having
these 30, 900 additional factories hum
ming in our ears, the few we have are
suspending; instead of employing our
11e, 900 poor-house paupers, and their
woIse-of brothers, the tramps, in prof
table labor, those who would work
cannot find it; our cities crowded with
idle mechanics, clerks and artists; all
idle, not because they want to be,
but because the liquor shops have
absorbed the wealth of the country
to such an extent as to pirs-
lyze every branch of productive labor.
We are leaving out of view altogether
the moral aspect of the traffic; but
simply as business transaction is not
the licensing of these shops destructive
TO the material interests of the country
The traffic in and use of Intoxicating
drinks not only prevents productive Ia
Dor and wastes the capital expended
for them, but the materials used in
ihelr manufacture is q total loss; and
all our citizens, whether they use alco-
hohc drinks or not, have to make up
or suffer the loss. The liquor traffic is
the deadly foe of all productive labor;
it is a perfect Ishmaelite among them.
All branches of productive labor have
a beneficial influence upon each other.
But between them and the grog-shops
there is ever an antagonism. No one
derives benefit from the liquor; the
consumer is enfeebled physically and
mentally by it, and would have beea
better of If he had burned his money,
ere he purchased his DRAM Look then
upon this traffic rs the prolific source
OF all our financial embarrassment, of
the vice, the idleness and misery, which,
like a tide of burning lava, is flowing
over the land blasting aud burning all
that is fair and beautiful in this, the
grandcst country the sun ever shown
upon. The remedy is in our own
hands. Il is for the people to say
whether this old sge of drunkenness,
idleness, thriftlessness debauchery,
ignorance, pauperism, crime and eter-
nal damnation shall cease, and new
era dawn upon US, an era in which So
briefly, industry, enterprise, morality
and virtue shall spread their mingled
delights around Us; in which cur
children viii not know the, deadly IN
iiuence OF the grog-shop; in which our
fields shall wave their wheaton treas
ures, our stores be crowded with pay
ing customers. our highways be
thronged with wagons moving back
and forth the products Of our farms,
our looms our, factories, our mines,
our fisheries. II We continue to spend
seven hundred millions ofdollsrs annu-
II