Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-07-02
rALMAGE's SERMON.
~, discourse Of the Series on
~The Labor Question"

Drink the Worst Foe Of the
,o,orer-The Penalties Inseparable
rom the Indulgence of the Habit
The Advantages of Abstinence.
p.v. 7. Dewitt Talmage took for the
.,hioct of the fifth discourse of his series
"The Labor Question: "Strong Drink
H.. WorstF Foe of Labor" and illustrated it
..om the following text:
No that earneth wages, earneth wages to
-, IT into q bag with holes.-GHnggai, l., 6.
Mr.. Talmage said: In Persia, under the
r0irn of Darius Hystaspes, the people did
Mt prosper. They made money, but did
Mt keep it. They were like people who
have a sack in which they put money, not
tnowing that the sack is torn or eaten of
moths or in some way made incapable of
holding valuables. AS fast as the coin
,ras nut in one end of the sack it dropped
ant of the other. It made no difference
how much wages they got, for they lost
them?
What has become of the billions and
billions of dollars in this country paid to
The working classes? Some Of these moneys
have gone for house rent, or the purchase
1T homesteads or wardrobe, or family ex.
nenses or the necessities Of private life, or
To provide comforts in old age. What has
become Of other billions? Wasted in fool.
ish outlay. Wasted at the gaming table.
Wasted in intoxicants. Put into a bag
with a hundred holes.
Gather up the money that the working
classes have spent for rum during the last
thirty years and l will buy for every
workingman a house, and lay out for him
a garden, and clothe his sons in broad
cloth and his daughters in silks, and stand
at his front door a prancing span of sor-
rels or bays, and secure him a policy of
life insurance, so that the present home
may be we'll maintained after he is dead.
The most persistent, most overpowering
enemy of the working classes is intoxi-
eating liquor. 1t is the Anarchist of the
centuries, and has boycotted and is now
boycotting the body and mind and soul of
American labor. 1t is to it a worse foe
than monopoly and worse than associa ted
capital. 1t annually swindles industry
out of a large percentage of it's earnings.
1t holds out its blasting solicitations to the
mechanic or operative on his way to work,
and at the noon-spell, and on his way
home at even-tide; on Saturday, when the
wages are paid, it snatches a large part of
the money that might come to the family
and sacrifices it among the saloon.keepers.
Within eight hundred yards of Sand Street
Methodist Church, Brooklyn, it has fifty
four saloons and is plotting now for an
other. Stand the saloons of this country
side by side, and it is carefully estimated
that they would reach from New York to
Chicago. Forward march" says the rum
power, land take possession Of the Amer.
lean Nation"
The rum business is pouring it's v%itriolic
damnable liquids down the throats of hum
dreds and thousands of laborers, and while
the ordinary strikes are ruinous both to
employers and employees, I proclaim a
universal strike against strong drink,
which, if kept up, will be the relief of the
working classes and the salvation of the
Nation. L will undertake to say that there
is not a healthy laborer in the United
States who, within the next ten years, if
be will refuse all Intoxicating beverage
and be saving, may not become a capital.
LIST on a small scale. Our country in a year
spends $1,000, 050, 900 for rum. Of course
the working classes do a G reat deal of this
expenditure. Careful statistics show that
the wa%ge-earning classes of Great Britain
expend in liquors $500 ,000, 900 a year. Sit
down and calculate. o, workingman, how
much have you expended in the direc-
tons? Add it all up. Add up what your
neighbors have expended, and realize that
instead of answering the beck of other
people you might have been your own
capitalist.
When you deplete a ~workingman's phys
ical energy you deplete his capital. The
stimulated workman gives out before the
unstimulated workman.
My father said: IT became a temperate
man in early life because I noticed in the
harvest that, though I was physically
weaker than other workmen, I could hold
out longer than they. They took stimu.
lants; l took none."
A brickmaker in England gives his ex-
perlence in regard to this matter among
men in his employ. He says, after in
vestigation: "The beer drinker who made
'ne fe"est bricks made 659,000; the alb
stalner who made the fewest bricks, 746,.
Wo. The difference in behalf of the alb.
stainer over the indulger, $780,"
mere came a very exhausting time in
ire British Parliament. The session was
prolonged until nearly all the member got
SICK or worn out. Out of $50 members only
TWO went through undamaged; they were
teetotallers.
The following circumstance came un der
our observation: A young man worked
nafd to earn his 5000 or 500 yearly. Mar
Rage day came. The bride had inherited
soo from her grandfather. She spent
Every dollar of it on the wedding dress.
men they rented two rooms in the third
P'ory. Then the young man took extra
ISenlng employment-almost exhausted
Hn the days work, yet took evening en-
r"yment. It almost extinguished his
!sslght. Why did he add even.
y employment to the day employ
usnt? To get money. Why did he
ant to get money! To lay up some-
lhg for a rainy day? No. To get
IS ME insured, so that in case of his death
~ wife would not be a beggar? No. He
~ me extra evening work to the day
.fA that he might get one hundred and
NY dollars to get his wife a sealskin
'st' The sister of the bride heard of this
,uNeVement and was not to be eclipsed.