St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-06-14
LABOR'S WORST ENEMY.
DR.. Talmage Makes Strong Drink the
Worst Foe Of Labor" the Sub
iect of His Sermon.
What the Money Workingmen Have Spent
for Rum in Thirty Years Would
Purchase in Comforts.
He Urges That Strike Against
Strong Drink Would be the
Salvation of the Nation.
How the Drunkard Loses His Soul
"A Prayer for Another
Woman's Crusade.
Dr. Talmage's Sermon.

Speclai to the Globe.
BROOKLYN, June 13.-Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage. d. D.. preached to-day in the
Brooklyn Tabernacle the fifth of his SER
mons on 1.-The Labor Question" His sub
Ject was Strong Drink the Worst Foe of
Labor" After explaining appropriate
passages OF Scripture. DR.. Talmage took his
text from Haggai l., 6: He that earneth
wages, earneth wages to put it into bag
with holes" DR.. Talmage said: ''In Per-
STA, 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 to
put money, not knowing that the
sack is torn or eaten of moths. or in
some way made incapable of holding valu-
ables. AS fast as the coin was put in one
end of the sack it dropped out at the other.
1t made no difference how much wages
they got, for they lost them. ''He that
earneth wages. earneth wages to put it into
bag with holes" 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 ward
robe. or family expenses, or the necessities
of life, or to provide comforts in old age.
Wasted in foolish outlay. Wasted at the
gaming table. Wasted in intoXicants. Put
into bag with a hundred holes. Gather
up the money that the working classes
have spent for rum during
THE LAST THIRTY YEARS
and I will build for every workingman a
house, and lay out for him garden, and
clothe his son in broadcloth and his daugh-
fnpc Gil cfo ri Of hi
prancing span of sorrelS or bays, and secure
him a policy of life insurance so that the
present home may be well maintained after
he is dead. The most persistent, most over
powering enemy OF the working classes is
intoxicating 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 worse foe
than monopoly, and worse than associated
capital. 1t annually swindles industry out
of large percentage of its earnings.
1t holds out its blasting solicit
tations to the mechanic or operative
On his way to work, and at the noon-spell,
and on his way home at eventide; OF Satur-
day, when the wages are paid, it snatches
part OF the money that might come to the
family and sacrifices it to the saloonkeep-
ers. Within 800 yards of Sand Street
Methodist church, Brooklyn, it has fifty
four saloons and is plotting now for
another. Stand the saloons in 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 Ameri-
can nation. The rum business is pouring
its vitrlolc and damnable liquids down the
Threats of hundreds of thousands of labor
ers, and while the ordinary
STRIKES ARE RUINOUS
both to employers and employees, I pro-
claim 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 healthy laborer in the
United States who, within the next ten
years, if he will refuse~ all intoxicating
beverages and be saving, may not become
az capitalist OH small scale. Our country
in year spends one billion, five hundred
million and fifty thousand dollars for rum.
OF course the working classes do great
deal of this expenditure. Careful statistics
show nov that the wage earning classes of Great
Britain eXpend i'll liquors, one hundred
million pounds, or five hundred
million dollars year. Sit down
and calculate, O working man.
how much you have expended in these di-
rections 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 CAPT
tallst. When you deplete a workman's
physical energy you deplete his capital
The stimulated workman gives out before
the unstlmulated workman. Again, the
inebriate suffers through the loss of hi.
| home l do not care how much he love:
his wife and children; if this passion fo1
strong drink has mastered him. he will dc
the most outrageous things. and if he coulC
not get drink in any other way, he WoulC
sell his family into eternal bondage. How
many
HOMES HAVE BEEN BROKEN UP
in that way no one but God knows. Oh, il
there anything that will so destroy MAJ
for this life and damn him for the life tina
is to come? [ hate that strong drink Will
all the concentrated energies of my soul
hate It, DO not tell me that man can BIZ
happy when he knows that he is breaking
! his Wlfe'S heart and clothing his children
with rags. Why, there are on the road.
and streets of this land to-day little chill
dren, barefooted, uncombed and unkempt-
want on every patch Of their faded dres:
and on every wrinkle of their prematurelS
old countenanceS, who would have been il
churches to-day and as well clat
as you are, but for the fac
that rum destroyed their parent:
and drove them into the grave, o rum.
thou foe Of God, thou despoiler of homes.
thou recruiting officer of the pit. [ hate
thee! But my subject takes deeper tone
and that is, that the unfortunate of whom
l speak suffers from the loss of the soul.
The Bible lntimates that in the future
world. If we are unforgiven here. our ba6
| p Ssi0ns and appetiteS, unreStrained. will
- along with us and make our torment
there. So that, [ suppose when an inpbri-
ate wakes up in the last world, he will fee
all Infinite thirst clawing Oh him. Now,
down in the world, although he NAV have
been very poor. he could beg or he could
steal cents with which to get that which
would Stake his thirst for little while: but
IN ETERNITY
where is the rum to come from? Dives
could not get one drop of water. From
what chalice of fire will the hot lips of the
drunkard drain his draught? No one te
brew it. No one to mix it. No one te
pour it. No one to fetch it. Millions OF
worlds then for the dregs which the young
| HAL JuSt uoW Slullg OH Tie SaWduSted f1OOl
of the restaurant. Millions of worlds now
for the rind thrown out from the punch
bowl of an earthly banquet. Dives cried
for water. The inebriate cries for rum.
| Oh, the deep, exhausting, exasperating.
everlasting thirst of the drunkard in hell,
Why, if a fiend came up to earth for some
Internal work in a grog-shop and
should go back, taking Oh its wing
| just one drop of that for which
the inebriate in the lost world longs. what
excitement would it make there! Put that
one drop from off the fend's wing on the
tip of the tongue of the destroyed inebri-
ate; let the liquid brightness just touch it;
let the drop be very small, ii it only have
in it the smack of alcoholic drink; let that
drop just touch the lost inebriate in the
lost world and he would spring to his feet
and cry: THAT is rum, aha! That is
rum!" And it would wake up the echoes
of the damned: ''Give me rum! Give me
rum! Give me rum!" In the future world
l do not believe that it will be the absence
nf Id hot mil tho