The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-10-14
How 1t Entices the Youth Of the Land to En-
ter Upon the Practice of Habit Which
Ends in Priyation, Misery and Death.
Its Arrogant Action in Politics, and Its
lmpudent Defiance of the Law.
The Plan Proposed by Anti Saloon Republicans
for Restraining the Evil-A Document
Worthy the Attention Of All Citizens.

ans was issued LnlS evening"
1.-THE national committee of anti saloon Re
publicans, appointed by the conference held in
Chicago Sept 16 1856, make. through their ex
ecutive committee, to the Republican party in
the United States, and to all friends of temper
ance and order, this statement and appeal, and
they ask for it such acceptance and such re-
sponse as the gravity and urgency of the matter
shall demand:
"The evils of the liquor traffic. as embodied in
the American saloon system, have reached a
magnitude and degree of Gestructiveness that
threaten the foundations Of government, society
and the home. The time has therefore come
when political parties Snd their private citizens
must take sides openly for against the traffic.
with its methods and its results, Neutrality is
henceforth impossible; Indifference is henceforth
a betrayal of the trust involved in citizenship.
The anti-saoon Republican movement recog-
nizes and proclairns this state of things. The
American liquor traffic, whatever it
may have been, is no longer
legitimate and law-abiding branch
of trade, serving to supply a natural and un-
forced demand for any commodity, however
harmful. The saloon system, encouraged and
directed by the distillers. brewers and wholesale
liquor dealers, has become vast and vigilant
organization for forcing market for intoXicat-
ing drink. 1t creates a demand where none be-
fore existed, that it may profit by supplying that
demand it artificially stimulates evil habit
that it may thrive by pandering to it, it method
ically breeds debauchery, poverty, anarchy and
crime for pay: it purposely seeks to multiply the
number Of drinkers and hence of drunkards; it
invades every new community, demands tribute
from every home, and lies in wait with fresh en-
ticements for each new generation of youth. 1t
deliberately fosters the treating custom and in
tensifies the widespread social pressure toward
drinking by inventing new pretextS for treating
and being treated. Each one of our two hundred
thousand drinking places forms a distinct
center of aggressive forces and skillful devices
for spreading the drink habit among men.
Every plausible temptation and solicitation that
trained talent can suggest, is used to entrap the
young, the ignorant, the toiling and the home
less, with the knowledge that customer once
secured, Is usually customer for life The
saloon system is an active cause, not an innocent
result; it is the parent, not the child, of the
mass OF human misery which everywhere ac
companies it. Experience indicates that four
ffths of American drinking and drunkenness is
due, in the first instance, not to any natural
appetite of our people, but to the presence and
sleepless efforts Of this gigantic engipery work
ing seven days-a week and twenty-four hours
day, unrestrained by any scruple, and every
where coptemptuous of public and private
rights.
''If the saloon is the enemy of society, it is the
special foe of the workingman and his home.
Defective laws and unjust customs which bear
hardly upon labor ought to be, and must be- re-
formed; but the central cause of the unthrift.
and the resulting unrest, among wage workers
is the frightful waste of the wage fund included
in the gross receipts of the saloons This alb
sorption of the earnings of labor by the dram
shop, representing direct yearly waste of hun
dreds of millions of dollars, also proportionately
destroys the ability of the working class to pur-
chase and consume the necessaries and comforts
of life, thus greatly curtaiing production and
trade, diminishing the sources of employment,
and tending to hold wages at the lowest level.
Add to this the consequent loss Of time. vitality
and working power, and the taxes paid by labor
70 ha drin froff1
and a sum is produced which figures cannot rep
resent, and which, If returned to the pocket
of labor, where it belongs, would largely
replace misery with comfort. idleness with we'll
paid employment, turbulence with content and
solve for all time the worst phases of the labor
problem. The so-called prosperous classes do
their full share Of drinking, but the share that
falls TO those workingmen who drink has be-
come, under the aggressive policy OF the sa-
looms, burden greater than they can bear.
And the workngman who himself avoids the sa-
loon still shares the load Both in and out of
labor unions the sober and frugal workman car
ries his drinking and wasteful comrade on his
back This law is infeXible. Workmen whose
energy, trustworthiness and skill are daily i'm
paired at the saloon determine the standard of
through drink they fix a low average of daily
production in great establishments and wages
seek corresponding level
1.-The representatives of the liquor traffic in the
United States have become a league of law
breakers. Not content with resisting by per-
sonal and political action, the passage of laws
in restraint of their destructive calling, they
have banded together to violate every such law
when passed. They demand the protection of
law for themselves, and strike down the partial
protection which law, enforced, would furnish to
society against the intolerable evils they pro-
duce. Not content with unitedly refusing TO
obey the law until compelled by legal process
they openly resist enforcement by criminal
means. Arson has become a common weapon
used to intimidate communities which try to
free themselves from the saloon curse, and the
more desperate defenders of the traffic do not
stop at assassination as a means of warfare, as
the blood of Haddock. in Iowa, testiies from
the ground. They predict failure for all restrict
i've or prohibitory laws, and then, to make good
their prophecies, burn the property or take the
ment Such outbreaks always made by
liquor dealers against restrictive legislation as
an interference with the freedom of sale-never
by liquor drinkers as against interference with
theAfreedom of drinking.
This widespread violation of one set Of
wholesome laws breeds general contempt for all
law, and opens hospitable door for those mod
ern allies of the saloon systeEl-communism and
anarchy. The criminal class, which is multi
plying faster than courts and prisons can dis
pose of it. finds its breeding place, Its schools its
incentive and its council chamber, in the saloon.
whose keeper sets daily example of O criminal
disregard of law and the public good.
lone of the gravest political dangers which
now confronts the Republic is the corrupt use of
money to influence elections and legislation
With this evil once intrenched in our political
system and acquiesced in, free institutions
would be at an end. When bribery can defeat
or reverse the will of the majority. self govern
ment is farce The saloon power in the United
States Systematically uses its corruption fund
without scruple and without stint, to control
primaries, to carry elections by the purchase of
votes, to prevent restrictive legislation with
bribery, to obstruct the course of justice by
tampering with juries, aud to punish with defeat
public servants who have incurred. its displeas
ure This Wholesale crime against free and fair
government is not even denied or concealed.
TIE rrepressible conflict between the saloon