The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-09-04

time the calf commences to eat corr
until its appearance as beef in the mar
ket; that is, more than seven times as
much corn goes to make beef than is
used to make the whisky which sells
for the same amount of money. Now
| was ready for my farmer friends, for
they knew and l knew that the chances
for mans family having plenty of
beef to eat are in inverse ratio to the
quantity of whisky he drinks. So when
ever they confront me with the ques-
ton: ''Where should we find market
for our corn if distilleries are closedP'
Yankeelike | reply with another ques-
ton: (Which pays you best, to put one
bushel of corn into whisky to make a
man worse than brute, and bring his.
wife and children to the poor-house
for you to support, or to put seven
bushels into beef to make good blood
and Drawn and brain for that man and
his family so they can support them
selves?"
There Is another thing about this dis
tilling business by which farmers are
badly fooled. 1t is the competition into
which it brings their honest, corn-fed
beef with distillery-fed cattle. The
distiller can fatten cattle literally upon
nothing, so far as cost to himself is
concerned. He gets big money back
for what he pays you for corn, in the
whisky, while on its leavings, which
otherwise would be utterly valueless,
he fattens beef and pork, and of course,
he can undersell you in the market.
This competition so lowers the price of
beef you sell to the butcher that on
the amount you receive for it you lose
more than the profits of all the corn
you can sell to the dstiller. And this
loss to you is no gain to the consumer.
The butcher asks his customer just as
much for the distillery-f fed beef as he
does for yours; so whatever money is
made in the transaction besides that
made by the distiller goes into this
middle-man's pocket, not into yours.
We rise no higher now than the level
of your pocket book. There is a sani-
tary and moral phase to the dstillery-
beef question that we advise you to
study up in the loathsome stalls where
distillery-fed cattle are kept. Aside
from all that, have | not made out a
case strong enough to convince YOU
that the market for your corn will not
be destroyed by shutting up the dis
tillery?
The distillers have fooled you long
enough by their cry: mo market for
corn without distillerles." They fool
you in regard to the proportion of corn
used in their nefarous business The
number of bushels so used given in the
aggregate, seems enormous, and, with
out comparing it with the whole
amount raised in the State, you are sure
to think the proportion much greater
than it really is. But comparing it
with the entire crop, the amount used
by distilleres is but as a drop in the
bucket. By careful computation in T.
linois it proves to be one peck for each
man in the State. Are you willing to
let the distilleries run and take the risk
of ruin to your neghbors' or your
own boy, which their running entails,
rather than to endanger your chance
to find market for peck of corn? If
so you would better use that peck in
making starch to stiffen your back
bone.
In Iowa, before it adopted prohibi-
ton, George Woodford's calculation
showed that the land used to raise corn
for distilleries would not furnish room
to bury the victims of the dstillery's
twin brother, the saloon. Do away
with saloons and distilleries, and you
will not need so much ground for
graveyards. Union SiQndL