The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-07-13
HOW 1T AFFECTS LABOR.


HOW 1T AFFECTS LABOR.
The Sad Lesson in the Fact That $50
Year Is the Minimum Given to Whisky
and Beer Out of the Wages of Every
Moderate Drinker Among the Working
Men in the Land-Suggested Remedies.
Rev. John Talbot Smith has an in
teresting contribution to the labor and
drink question in recent number of
the Catholic World, from which we
take the following:
Thriftlessness at home is not, in my
opinion, safe charge to make against the
work people. The cooking might be i'm
proved and wholesome variety of foods
introduced into their kitchens, but DELHI
crate extravaganza is not often found
among them in kitchen matters. The good
quality of their clothing and jewelry has
often been commented upon unfavorably
by those who see only the holiday work
man. Yet the great majority of work
people never buy more than two complete
suits year. 1t is a compliment to theH
natural quicl1ness and good taste that by
means of this wardrobe they can make a
more decided impression than many would
be aristocrats.t
No; it is only in the matter of whisky
and beer that the work-people are truly
thriftless and extravagant, and there, un-
fortunately, no words are too strong to
paint their prodigality, whose evil effects
are so far-reaching and take so many
forms that one is bewildered in tracing
them The evil is confined almost entirely
to workmen, the women, except in few
cities, rarely falling under the influence of
the drinking habit. If it were otherwise,
the misery, now tolerable and alf-hidden,
in which SO many families are plunged,
would become an open shame and mon
strous burden to the community.
Upon inquiry the first fact which strikes
one is the universally of the drinking
habit among workmen, young and old, and
of every variety of occupation. The only
distinction on this point that l could find
among them was that some drank more
and others drank less but all were tainted
witt the habit-masters and apprentices,
printers, weavers, holders, clerks, day
laborers, railroad men, tailors, shoe
makers and mechanics generally. And the
next fact which strikes one disagreeably
is that of this vast army of habitual drink
ers hardly one in ten will admit that he
was ever betrayed into drunkenness, not
oftener, anyway, than about once or twice
year. All affirm themselves moderate
drinkers. The third fact, which clinches
the other two, is financial one, and still
more disagreeable than its fellows. am
speaking, be it remembered, of those who
are called moderate drinkers, whose pota-
lions bring no visible distress or disgrace
upon themselves or their families. Their
moderation is altogether a sham. Let me
give some results of my personal investi-
cation: l have known young printers,
whose wages are usually good, and
whose regulations in this particular
instance were fair, who spent monthly
from $40 to SIS on whisky and
beer. l have known day-laborers with
monthly wage of $500, and family to
support, who found it easy to tax that
slender stipend from three to six dollars
for liquor holders and iron-workers, in
some places notorious for their beer-dr
ing propensities, / have known to have
such tremendous thirst that it cost them
monthly from $40 to $50 to assuage it. Rail
road men, whose business demands absti-
nence more than any other, are the slaves
of the treating habit, and in their hours of
leisure run the iron-worker very close in
the quantity of their rotations. In a word,
known to me and whose occupations are of
all kinds, not one spends less than 50
Month on liquor, and hardly single one
can make it his boast that he has never
been intoxicated. 1t intensifes astonish-
ment and regret over these discoveries to
see the number of young men with whom
steady drinking has become matter of
pride and habit both. For these young fell
lows the saloon is decked with mirrors
and bric-a-brac, and for them the pool-room
has been introduced as an aid to the bar.
Their money is poured out like water, and
the habits thus formed oftener cause their
youth to be followed by a beggared man.
hood and an early grave than by any hap
pier condition.
Thirtysix dollars year is frightful
tax to levy upon mans wages Yet / as
sert once more, dealing in no vague figures
of bureaus" or Government statistics,
but speaking from actual, personal knowl-
edge: that it is the tax levied and collected
by the degraded appetite of many scores of
thousands of workmen upon the labor of
their hands. Nor do | mean that it is that
statistical effigy called 1.-The average" 1t is
the minimum tax paid by the moderate
drinker among workmen. 1t is a sum four
times as large as he contributes to his
church and nine times larger than his
quota towards education.
The effects of this so-called moderate
drinking habit are somewhat startling
One can easily picture the happy condition
OF 100 workmen who have laid up in a com
mon fund $50 year for ten years. 1t is
not so easy to picture what the same
workmen have lost in ten years of spend
ing, because their loss is always more seri-
Gus than can be represented by dollars.
Generally speaking, the worst tendencies
of modern labor conditions are aided and
strengthened by drinking workmen This
is serious statement to make when it is
remembered that the labor organizations
are made up of moderate drinkers; but,
serious as it is, there is no difficulty in
proving it.
The worst feature of the modern indus
trial system is it's effort to class its human
forces with the mechanical in the produc- |
ton of necessities and luxuries. This effort
is visible in the long hours of labor in
sisted on by employers, in the opportunities
to work overtime granted to workmen, in
the disregard of sanitary regulations in
factories, and in the employment of chill
dren. The inhumanity of these things is
plain and disgusting. Yet who is found |
readiest to earn the wages of extra labor!
Whose children are sent most quickly to |
the sacrifice? The man who spends thirty |
six dollars year for whisky or beer must
find some means to make up and to assuage
with heavier draughts a thirst which too
often increases yearly. The Legislatures
have passed laws against child labor, but
members of labor unions connive With en-
ployers to evade them. They must do it.
Their beer bills must be paid, and the
children must pay them. So, too, laws
have been passed against long hours of
labor, but the evil of extra labor is not |
done away with, for the drinkers must |
work extra to earn the price Of their |
drink. And these two things, the employ
mept of children and the overtime system, /
besides running the health of thousands, |
have much to do with reducing wages to !
the lowest notch. This fact can not be put |
out of sight that the children of the moder-
ate drinkers are the earliest workers in |
the vineyards of capital.
The tenement system is another disgust