Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-11-12
THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
Rum and the Cost of the Criminal and
Defective Classes
From the Toledo Blade.l

medical authorities of the United States.
that there is vast and rapid increase in
the criminal, defective and insane classes
of our population. This increase does not
depend upon the natural growth Of the
population Of che country, but goes on
much faster. There is constant and
alarming increase of the ratio which the
total of these three classes bears to the
total population of the country.
1t is an equally admitted fact that three
fourths OF the crime in our land is the di-
rect or indirect result of indulgence in
intoxicants. Three-fourths of the enor-
nous total cost of the ponderous police and
criminal court machinery of the country is
directly chargeable to the account of Rum.
Likewise is it an open and acknowledged
fact that fully three-fourths of the cases of
insanity in our asylums and aims houses
are also the result of Rum. The percent
ages given by the various Investigators. in
various asyl,lms of our country, run from
50 per cent.-one half-up to 50 per cent.
We take three-fourths as fair average of
the percentages given by these various au-
thorties. Not onlyis it meant that the in
sanity results directly from the effects of
Rum drinking on the patients part
though these cases are many, and the chief
OF any asylum can point out large share
OF Runs direct victims among his patients
but it is the result of loss of social stand
ing, of wealth, upon the wives of drunk
ards, and of thousand other proximate
causes which have their origin in the ac-
cursed Rum traffic.
Also it is an admitted fact by all experts
that idiocy and insanity, especially the
former, are the heritages of woe to the
children Of drunkards. child begotten
by an intoxicated parent is very liable to be
an idiot. When the parent is confirmed
drunkard, his physical system soaked and
permeated with rum, its whitening presence
constant in the blood, brain, and nerves, if
the unfortunate child escapes idiocy and
insanity, then epilepsy, melancholia, and
the long train Of incurable and obscure
nervous diseases are liable to be the inher-
tied result; or the child may be cripple,
Or deaf and dumb. Nay, more; that mys-
terious law by which an hereditary curse SO
often skips over one generation only to re-
appear in full vigor in the second genera
ton, often comes into play, and when the
children of sots themselves escape, their
own children pay the awful penalty Of their
grandfathers' slavery to rum.
The result of all this is, that the crimi-
nal, the insane, the idiotic, the deaf and
dumb, are increasing at greater rate than
the mass of the population; and year by
year the burden of their maintenance by
the state increases. Our prisons are en-
larged to find cells for the increasing
criminal classes; our asylums and hospitals
are being daily added to that room may be
found for the insane and defective classes;
cur poor houses are constantly crowded
with the homeless and helpless. And rum
is the great cause of the states being COM
PEELED to imprison OF care for at least
three fourths Of the sum total of all these
people.
The system by which these people are
supported divides the authority up so COM
pletely that the average citizen is entirely
in ignorance Of the enormous total of the
burden which is thus thrown upon the
state-or rather upon the Taxpayers.
Leaving the moral side of the matter out
of sight, let us look at its pecuniary rela-
tons, and find out approximately what rum
costs the people of the United States in
this indirect way-for it is to be remem-
aside from the enormous direct annual
outlay for rum.
According to the census of 1880, there
were 45O,O0O insane. idiotic, deaf, blind,
pauper, and criminal inhabitants. These
cost the people of the country, on an aver
age, not less than $l75 per year each, di-
rectly and indirectly. This makes total
of $75 100000 year. This is per capita
tax of $3.50 on every man, woman, and
child in the country, and we pay it, in our
taxes and otherwise, almost without our
knowledge. And it is absolutely certain
that large share of ihis-at least three
fourths-is due entirely to Rum.
Let us take the business way of estimat-
ing this burden. 1t is a common method
among business men in figuring upon some
annual, regular expenditure, to find what
principal it represents. Well, $75, 100000
year is the interest at 3 per cent on
$4,000, 100000. This principal is SO vast
that we can reach its size only by COM
parison. The national bonded debt on
Sept. l was only $1,201 ,015,112. Hence
the $75,O00,000 q year We pay rep
resents the interest, at 3 per cent, on over
double the bonded debt of the United
States. That is, to state the matter in
another shape, our permanent investment
in crime, insanity and misfortune is twice
that invested in our national debt. People
sigh over the burden of the latter; let them
wake to the realization that Rum is the
chief factor in permanent debt already
twice as large, and increasing in ratio fast
er than the nation grows in population!
Let us make another comparison. In
1880, the total permanent investment by
our railroad companies, including the con-
struction and equipment Of all the lines in
the country, their lands, stocks, bonds,
telegraph lines, etc., amounted to SIS, 1872
445,6O6. Our investment in crime, pow
erty, disease and misfortune is about half
that Of the railroads the first cost of
prisons, penitentiaries, hospitals, asylums,
almhouses, etc, the annual repairs, and
the interest on these sums, are all left out
of the one side OF the account.
BY the census Of 1880, also, the valua-
ton of the yearly product of all our manu-
featuring industries was given as $500,
579,191. II half of this were set aside as q
permanent fund for the care of our criminal
and dependent classes, at 3 per cent, the
interest would all be absorbed each year in
that way, and each succeeding year would
show an increasing deticit-for the expense
increases with their number, and this is in
creasing faster than the population of the
country.
Once more: the census report before
mentioned gives the total annual value of
the farm products Of the United States as
2.447 ,53S, 658. The entire product of all
the farms Of the country, therefore, in one
year, would be taken to make Il fund which,
put OH interest at 3 per cent. ,wonld produce
;ptarast enOnoh IN care for This class of orr