Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1884-05-07
What Rum Costs Those Who 10
not use il.

L L
not use it.
To count the cost OF rum to the coun-
try from a llar-and-cent standpoint
is to take the very lowest view of the
subject. The mother of a ruined son
would gladly give ten times what the
ruin cost, in money, to have her son
restored to her, and esteem the dollar
and-cent loss as nothing The wife
cursed with drunken husband would
be willing to continue in rags and
semi-starvation could she have her
husband restored as he was before be
was drawn into the fatal whirlpool and
morally wrecked. But rum has a
money side as well as a moral one, and
there are those who would consider
the money side, though they cared but
little for the other.
| Rum is the heaviest burden the peo-
pie have to bear, and those who do not
use it are compelled to bear it with
those who do. 1t can be demonstrated
that rum costs the United States more
per day than did the support of the
armies in the rebellion 1t costs the
country directly more than the entire
school and religious systems put to-
gether. The sum total of its cost foots
up more than all other taxes combined
1t is the one great expense that out
weighs everything else.
The city of Toledo has population
of 10000 1t supports 500 dealers in
alcoholic stimulants. We take Toledo
as an example, the proportion holding
good everywhere the traffic is free or
licensed
To support these 500 places, there
must be paid out annually for liquor
not less than 50, 100000 Go over the
figures. Each saloon must average
$40 per day; they could not well live
on less. They do business every day
in the year, at least in this rum-ridden
city, which makes the grand total
50, 100000 per annum. 1t is perfectly
safe to say that it will not fall below
$2,5OO,OOO.
x
But the loss does not stop with the
mere loss of the money. Were the
money taken from the people and
dropped into the harbor it would be
better than to use it as it is being used
A power for good, when properly used
it becomes positive curse when filter
ed through the gia-mills and beer
shop. 1t becomes then positive, ag-
gressiye evil. 1t is not only wasted,
but it becomes the destroyer of those
who waste it. 1t not only absorbs the
proceeds of labor but it destroys the
power of labor The workingman
whose Saturday night in beer shop
has extended over the Sunday and
Sunday night, is in no condition to do
work of any kind on Monday. If he
works at all it is by fortifying himself
with more rum, under which be breaks
down before the week is half through
No drunkard ever does full weeks
work; indeed the time comes as GER
tain as the rising of the sun, when
work at all is impossible. The drunk
is not lazy; rum has made him incapa-
BILE; semi-starvation accompanies the
half-working stage, during which the
family suffers from insufficiency of the
necessities of life, and worse follows.
In the final stage they have nothing,
and their care is another burden upon
the already rum-robbed communities
that harbor them.
Add to this already too long train of
evils the cost of the police system and
the criminal courts, ninety per cent. of
which is chargeable to rum, and put on
the top of that the cost Of penitentia-
ries and jails, and some idea may be
had of what rum costs the people who
do not use it.
x No drinking man feeds
or clothes his family properly, or even
accumu;ates enough to build house.
he does not even pay rent promptly,
and is never properly housed. The
necessities of life being impossible for
the families of such, of course the luxu-
ries are as far away as the stars. In
such families there are never books,
magazines or newspapers, and what is
worse, education of the children is gen.
orally impossible for want of decent
clothing, bringing up thousands in the
Ignorance that leads to crime. The
drunkard of this generation inaicts a
curse upon the next.
We leave out all mention of the
woes unnumbered the poor victims of
rum have to endure we only call at
tention to the loss sustained through
it by those who are not drunkards.
1t is the simplest possible financial
proposition. Rum absorbs the money
that should go to the providing of the
necessities of life, thus robbing the
trader in those necessities 1t destroys
the ability to labor, thus robbing the
community of whatever benefit that
labor would be to it. 1t compels sober
men, who pay taxes, to support police,
jails, aims houses, penitentiaries, courts
and the other adjuncts of our very bad
civilization, all made necessary by
rum.-TOled0 Blade.