The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-06-25
rALNAGE'S SERMON.
Fifth Discourse Of the Series on
'The Labor Question"
strons Drink the Worst Foe of the
LaLOrer-The Penalties Inseparable
From the Indulgence of the Habit
The Advantages of Abstinence.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for the
subject of the fifth disc purse of his series
on ''The Labor Question" "Srong Drink
the Worst Foe of Labor" and illustr ated it
from the following text:
He that earneth wages. earneth wages to
put it into bag with holes.-rHag gal, l., 6.
DIR. Talmage said: In Persia, under the
reign of Darius Hystaspes, the people did
not prosper. They made money, but did
not keep it. They were like people who
have a sack in which they put money, not
knowing that the sack is torn or eaten of
moths or in some way made incapable of
holding valuRbles. AS fast as the coin
was put in one end of the sack it dropped
out of the other. 1t 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
of homesteads or wardrobe, or family
penses 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 q hundred holes.
classes have spent for rum during the last
thirty years and I will buy for every
worlzingman 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 prancing span of sor-
rels or bays, and secure him a policy Of
life insurance, SO that the present home
may be well maintained after he is dea d.
The most persistent, most overpowering
enemy of the working classes is intoxi-
eating liquor. It 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 q large percentage of its earnings.
1t holds out its blasting solicitations to the
mechanic OF operative on his way to work,
and at the noon-speu. and his way
home at even-tide; on Saturday, when the
wages are paid, it snatches 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, "and take possession of the Amer
lean Nation"
The rum business is pouring its vitriolic
damnable liquids down the throats of hum
dreds and thousands of laborers, and while
the ordinary strikes are ruinous both to
employers and employees, 1 proclaim a
universal strike against strong drink,
which, If kept up, viii be the relief of the
working classes and the salvation of the
Nation. 1 will Undertake to say that there
is not healthy laborer in the United
States who, within the next ten years, If
he will refuse all Intoxicating beverage
and be saving, may not become a capital
ist on a small scale. Our country in year
spends 81 800, ,O50, 900 for rum. OF course
the working classes do a g reat deal of this
expenditure. Careful statistics show that
the wage earning classes of Great Britain
expend in liquors S5OO,OO0,OO0 year. Sit
down and calculate. o, workingman, how
much have you expended in the direc-
tions? 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 worlIin gman's phys
ical energy you deplete his capital. The
stimulated workman gives out before the
unstimulated workman.
Ny father said: ''I became temperate
man in early life because 1 noticed in the
harvest that, though L was physically
weaker than other workmen, could hold
out longer than they. They took stimu-
lants; I took none"
A brickmaker in England gives his exc
perience in regard to this matter among
men in his employ. He says, after in
vestigation: ''The beer drinker who made
the fewest bricks made $50 900 /; the abb
stainer who made the fewest bricks, 1885,
900. The difference in behalf of the abb
stainer over the indulger, $780,"
There came a very exhausting time in
the British Parliament. The session was
| prolonged until nearly all the members got
sick or worn out Out of 652 members only
two went through undamaged; they were
| teetotallers.
! When an army goes out to the battle the
older who has water or coffee in his
canteen marches easier and fights better
than the soldier who has whisky in his
canteen. Rum helps man to fight when
! he has only one contestant, and that at the
| street corner. But when he goes forth to
maintain some great battle for God and his
country, he wants no rum about him. When
the Russians go to war a corporal passes
along the line and smells the breath OF
every soldier. If there be in his breath a
taint of Intoxicating liquor the man is
sent back to the barracks, Why? He can
not endure fatigue. All our young men
know this. When they are preparing for
regatta or bah club or for an athletic
wrestling, they abstain. Our working
people will be wiser after awhile, and the
money they fling away on hurtful in
/ dulgence they will put into cooperative
! association, and so become capitalists. If
the workingmen puts down his wages and
| then takes his expenses and spreads them
out so they win just equal, he is not wise.
/ / know workingmen who are in a perfect
| fdget until they get rid of their last
dollar.
The following circumstance came un der
our observation; A young man worked
hard to earn his $500 or 500 yearly. Mar
| riage day came. The bride had inherited
| 500 from her grandfather. She spent
| every dollar Of it on the wedding dress.
Then they rented two rooms in the third
| story. Then the young man took extra
| evening empIoym ex hauated
/ with the days work, yet took evening en-
| ployment. II almost extinguished his
| eyesight. Why did he add even
ing employment to the day employ
ment2 To get money. Why did he
want 10 get money To lay up some-
thing for a rainy dayg No. To get
/ his life insured, so that in case of bis death
his wife would not be beggar? No. he
/ put the extra evening work to the day
/ work that he might get one hundred and
/ fifty dollars to get his wife 4 sealskin
coat. The sister of the bride heard Of this
achievement and was not to be eclipsed.
She was very poor and she satup working
nearly all the nights for a great while un-
/ I'll she bought a sealskiu coat. ! have not
heard of the result on that street. The
| street was full of those who are on small
L