Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1884-05-15
BY THE w. c. i. u.
The Toledo Blade to the Milwaukee Brew,
ers. Once More.

The more the business of brewing is
considered, dear sir, the more of inter-
est it develops. Your remarks were
vely brief-but brief as they We're it
would require large volume to set
forth all that they suggest in reply.
One point we wish to elaborate. 1t
is probable that if you and your kind
had continued the business of brewing
in the way it was conducted 20 years
ago, there never would have been so
universal demand for your suppress
sion. Were the brewers quiet people,
content with the ruin of the few who
seem to be foreordained to ruin. very
likely you would not have been dis
turbed. And even now We're you tole-
rably quiet, were you content with
spreading disease, death and damna-
tion in a mild sort of way, you would
not meet with the opposition that you
have encountered, and the still more
you are certain to encounter.
But you are not, and neyerhave been,
content with anything in reason. Your
business is filing the alms-houses and
jails, and feeding the gallows at
frightful rate. 1t Is robbing legitimate
tradesmen to a degree that is astound-
ing. 1t is devastating homes and de
praving young men by the hundred
thousand. 1t is wrecling homes every
where-and beer-wrecked home is
wreck indeed. 1t is swelling the ranks
of the paupers, the thieves, the prosti-
tutes, the gamblers, at q rate too rapid
for any religious or other influence to
stem. 1t is debauching boys and rum
ing girls. 1t is. swelling the vast army
of drunkards at a rate hitherto un-
dreamed of, and, as you know, drunk
enncss includes every crime and evil
that poor humanity is liable to. You
are pouring out a stream of death,
moral and physical, which is widening
every day: and yet you persist in ex-
tending this frightful business by force.
Your pest-holes disfgure the center of
your city, and you are going out into
the suburbs and establishing new traps
for young men and boys every day.
You are putting into these places the
worst men in the world. You have
back rooms for the encouragement of
games which are demoralizing, and
you put vicious and debasing literature
upon the tables IN the front. You make
your places the resort of vicious char
acters. We defy you to point to one of
them which you own and control, which
contains a single thing, from the pic
lures on the walls to the games that are
played, that is not debasng and de-
moralizing inlts tendency. Your busi-
ness has vice for It's basis, and the more
vicious you make men the better it is
for your trade. Consequently, through
yonr lieHtenants, you encourage every
thing that is calculated to degrade hu-
manity and destroy what there is that
is good IN men. You seek in every
way that your ingenuity suggests to
entlce men and boys into your places,
to the end of planting in them an APP
petite for beer, an appetite which once
fixed is irresistible, and will not be de-
MED. In brief you have declared war
upon humanity and are making a raid
upon decency.
You have not confined your work to
the cities. You have gone out into the
towns and villages of all the states and
done for them what you have for the
cities. In every village your signs are
displayed in the most public places.
You have invaded the rural districts,
for it makes no difference to you
whether your victims are city or cOun-
try bred. There isn't Il village in the
country, not under prohibition rule,
where the evidences OF your presence
are not to be seen on the walls of the
houses and in the faces of your victims.
Many Il mother in these once quiet viii
lagos mourns the loss of her sons
through you, and many a father curses
the day you planted a plague-spot near
his home. The cities were not large
enough for you-there were dollars to
be made outside of them, ana you have
gone wherever you can find IA dollar.
And following you comes the long pro-
cession of other vice, for in your bust
ness all the other vices follw.
But this is not all. You have assumed
control OF the politics Of the country.
that you may be shielded against re-
straining law. You have control of
vast army of voters. You have, first.
your thousands of lieutenants, the NOM
inal proprietors of the saloons you own,
and rs every one of them has to have
from one to dozen subortlinates, that
vote alone is very large one. Add to
this the number of voters whose occu-
pations are directly or Indirectly de-
pendent on yours, and add to this the
still greater number of whisky-worn
veterans whose votes can be controlled
for beer, and your political force swells
to most alarming proportions. And
lnasmuch as you don't care straw for
anything but beer, neither you or your
followers divide upon the questions of
the hour. AS your voting power IS
massed and can be controlled, as one
man, you are a power in politics that is
to be dreaded more than any other in
the field. Other occupations divide up
on the questions that come up for con-
sideration--you have only one question
to consider, and that is beer. Where
the democracy choose to carry you, as
in Ohio, you are democratic--The re-
publican party could have you if they
choose to bid higher.
A great many people are considering
this question of your political contol,
and they are right.
You and those in your trade have
control Of the city of New York, and
they had strength enough last fall to
control the election in that state. AS
parties were divided you controlled the
great state of Ohio. Your brother
brewers in New York have already an