The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-07-24
TEMPERANCE.
WHO FooTs The BILL 2

Country, and Upon Whom the Burden
Bears Heaviest.
The economic aspect of the drink and
TOBACCO waste, already presented in
these columns, show that the direct
burden thus unnecessarily laid upon
labor is something enormous. AS al
ready stated it amounts to fully one
sixth. of the entire productive labor of
the United States, so that the wonder is
not that we occasionally have hard
times, but that we ever have ANYTHING
else. When we divide the community
into its representative groups, or units
of commercial relation. we find that we
have fouT-t the agricultural" the
manufacturing, mechanical and min
ing, the personal and professional
services and the ''trade and trans
portation." Attending to these more
infinitely we find that the first two
groups furnish the substance of COM
merce, and that the second two groups
derive their support from services rem
dered to them, in the way of facilitating
the interchange of products or of per-
forming certain personal services for
them and for the more prosperous of
their own members. The proportions
OF these groups are nearly as follows:
agricultural, Is; manufacturing, etc.,
8; personal and professional services.
8; trade and transportation, 4. In the
third group seven of the eight are in
service or in semi-servile relations and
do not earn to exceed an average of
$500 a year; the eighth is a profession
al man whose value we may July esti-
mate at ZOO year. So, also, in the
fourth group there are three in trade, at
an assumed income of $500, and one in
transportation at not to exceed $500 a
year. Whatever there is of necessary
hard times must be traceable in the
condition of these elementary relations,
| and if the drink and tobacco waste have
any injurious influence upon CONNER
cial prosperity it must be possible to
show how and where. The tables last
presented already do this to some ex-
tent, but largely by inference. We
readily admit that tho figures them
| selves are not infallible. The grouping
of facts in the census returns are i'm
perfect, and no doubt the aggregates
are wanting in accuracy. There is no
reason, however, to suppose that these
imperfectionS affect one part of the
conclusions more than another. Some
of the positions are wholly reliable, es-
| pee; ally the following:
Upon the average the total annual
production of the farms will not exceed
S465 per head for each worker. The
wages in manufacturing range from
$3.50 in some lines to $3.50 in others, the
average for the whole country being
S3:S. The average consumption of
farm products is SEQ per head for every
man, woman and child, or $3.50 per
year for every person engaged in wage
earning occupation. the aggregate of
manufactured products of all kinds
amounts to an average of 800 head
| for every man, woman and child OF the
population, or $500 a year for every
worker. 1t is plain from the facts al
ready given that certain large classes
of workers do not and can not take and
pay for their quota of manufactured
goods. The unused surplus must be
worked off as luxury and extrav-
| agance" by the favored few. or lie in
warehouses as Overproduction. We
may also add that in the present state
of things tie manufacturing operatives
can not expect an increase Of wages, for
the reason that manufacturers are not
making money. These are the essen
tial conditions of the industrial situation
as it.exists
The fatal disturbance which waste
brings into the commercial world is in
tensified by its unequal distribution.
Unfortunately it is quite certain that
the expenditure for drink and tobacco
amounts to 500 or 1924 per year for
every man, woman and child in the
country. This, too, in the face of q
growing prohibitory sentiment which in
many localities amounts TO substantial
unanimity. Twenty dollars a year is
not the drink tax upon the laborer, but
only a third of it, for, since every work
er has two other persons dependent
upon him he has to pay $50 or even
S72 year for this waste, which if even
ly distributed would be most burden
some tax but when unequally dis
tributed becomes ruin. Here, for ex-
ample, is the agricultural group, which,
at the most liberal estimate, can not be
supposed to consume more than half of
its pro rata of drink. 1t is in the rural
communities that abstinence is the rule
rather than the exception, the farming
class being in fact the sheet anchor of
Temperance reform. 1t is even doubt
full whether the farmers use so much as
half of their pro rata of drink; but
whatever amount they may leave, it
must be charged over to the account of
the other classes, the aggregate amount
of the consumption resting upon evil
dence which does not admit OF our dis
counting it at all.
We have, therefore, in our tables of
elementary commercial relation an er-
Tor in the drink estimate equal to a
half quota for sixteen agricuIturalists,
which must be added to the consump-
ton of the other classes. Now it is evil
dent that the trade and transportation
class can hardly be expected to do
more than to drink its average, al
though possibly it might smoke consid-
erably beyond the pro rata. Drink is
not the vice of this class One-fourth
of lis members are railway operatives
and employees, who upon many roads
are abstainers by contract if not upon
principle. The remaining three-fourths
are the retail merchants of every sort
and their employees who drink but little
the habit of drinking being generally
recognized by the proprietors as detri-
mental if not destructive. Thus we are
compelled to divide among the second
and third classes the unused drink
quota of the farmers, the result being
set of tables like the following:
Sixteen agricultural producers at
$465 each ..........''...........-. s7,44O
Food consumption for 4S persons
@ $50. Observation-Disclosures $3.50
Drink and tobacco at half rate $50
per worker. .......... ........G.. 4S0
1880
Balance. $1,000
Pro rata of manufactures ~ 1880
Here we see that drink cuts off
enough of the manufacturer market