The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-07-13


OF cities, let him pick out the cleanest and
most respectable families in them, not the
orutalized sots whose life is one grand al
coholic stupor, and let him inquire of them
why they choose to live In suoh quarters
Ihey may have various reasons to offer.
out Ior many of them the real reason il q
good-sized beer bill.
mere are two instances out of a hundred
where the drlnklng-habit reacts with ire
nehuous force upon the workmen They
are enough 1or my purpose, and prove con-
ciuslvely the assertion in a previous mar
agraph that the worst tendencies of mod.
ern labor conditions are aided and strength.
ened by the drinking habits of workmen
themselves. The labor unions and other
labor organizations have not changed
things for the better on this point, MIR.
Powderly's being the solitary voice which
has been officially raised in warning and
entreaty against the strongest foe of work
men. If one chose to go infinitely into the
subject, the bare items of thirty-six dollars
year, child-labor, tenement miseries and
the like would take in many unnoticed
companions. The days spent in idle
ness after heavy potation, the COM
forts denied the home, the neglect
ed children whose after-lives bear the
marks of parents Indifference to
duty, the growing brutishness of a
peer sodden nature, the great opportunities
iost and good works delayed for lack of
means so foolishly squandered, these are
items which make atremendous sum in the
lie OF one man; and they all find their
source ana sustenance in the steady work
man whose whisky bill or beer bill is thir-
ty-six dollars year. And they can be in
creased. But for the present it will do to
make one computation. / have known
many persons who drank at the rate of
three dollars month for thirty wears.
They would be numerous class but for the
fact that moderation of this kind so easily
and frequently becomes excess, and conse-
quent destruction. At fifty these persons
were without money or credit. Had they
been abstinent and saving what would have
been in the ordinary course of things their
financial, physical and moral standing at
the end of thirty years. Such as they
ought to have been are very scarce in our
midst, and such as they are must increase
with every year.
What can be done to emancipate labor
from the grasp of the liquor demonl There
are three things which can be done imme-
diately which will find favor in every quar-
ter, about which there can be no debate,
and whose success will gladden. the hearts
of millions. First, pass around the pledge.
total or partial, among all the workmen of
the land Let every labor union and or
ganization be a temperance body, where
the cold figures and hard facts of moder-
ate drinking shall be taught to the mem
bers, every influence used to make them
total abstainers or nearly so, and every eff
fort put forth to Keep them of one mind in
the Temperance cause. Let the pastors of
churches, the teachers of schools, the heads
of societies, the foremen of shops, master
and superiors in all places, parents among
their children, friends among friends; let
all, in word, who have influence exert it
to induce others to take the pledge; let
them teach them to know why they take
it, and to stick to it like the oyster to his
SHE'LL This is third of the good work,
and can be done easily and done well if it
be persevered in year after year until the
public mind is unit on temperance.
Next let every vote that can be voted
throw all its power against the gilded
saloon and forever smash an institution
which is vile. There is no other word
to describe it. 1t has bred many infamies,
but none greater than that of destroying
the young men of the Nation. For i'm
mense numbers of boys the saloon is the
postgraduate course of the ward or parish
school. It is solemn and terrible fact
that the American youth of this period are
to an alarming extent actually bred in the
saloons. Their chief study is pool. Theft
chief aim is to drink to the verge of in
toxicatiol without showing it. Whatever
form of selling drinks shall in future be
tolerated it is certain that the saloon must
go. High license or no license, this in
stitution is politically and socially damned.
Whatever takes its place, whether it be
the town pump, whittier few come and
where none linger, or some mode of selling
drink radically different from the ordinary
bar, the saloon must go. Last, let the law
closely watch the brewers and their brew
cries, distillers and their distilleries, and
straiten them in such ways as to prevent
them from tempting their victims restrict
ing and guiding the manufacture and dis
posal of their product with firm hand and
wary eye, and, above all, seeing to the
quality, which is now so poisoned that
many die from the quality rather than the
quantity.
These three things will undoubtedly go
far towards Kidding not only workmen but
the whole country of the liquor evil. The
first work will aid the second, and both
will assuredly compass the third, for appe-
titles being toned down or destroyed in
many and the saloon temptation being gone
the breweries and distilleries will have so
little to do that the law can easily regu.
late the traffic. Moreover, the three works
must go together. Any one being left out
the attempt to manage the two remaining
will be apt to find at best in brief tri-
umph and the succeeding failure. Finally,
the time is ripe for the Temperance move
ment The need of it is bitter. If it ceases
not until the liquor interests be left dead
and rotten on the public gibbet the good it
will have accomplished will be equal to
the second founding of this American Ma
ton.