The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-07-11
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
NECESSARY REFORM,


Men Who Drink Should Not Be En-
ployed by transportation Companies.
One of the trunk railroad lines has
notified its employees that any man
who gets drunk on or off duty must
quit the company's service. This gen.
eral order of a single line ought to be
made universal order for all corpora
tions intrusted with the lives of human
beings.
But does the order as uttered 60 far
enough? Is it not notorious that men
employed upon railroads and steam
boats are too often drinking men?
Certain of the older railroad lines have
long since forbidden the sale of intoxi-
cants in the eating houses of their
routes, and have built and equipped
reading-rooms, where employees, re-
freshed by food to be had at fair prices
from the company's servants, can rest
and spend their leisure in rational
and helpful way. But it still is true
that many of the railway stations are
near saloons which are located in their
vicinity for the purpose of catching the
wages OF railway employees. No rail-
road should permit its employees to be-
come habitues of drinking places. They
can not prevent the location of saloons
near their shops or switching points or
round houses. They can supply the
men with clean and comfortable read
ing-rooms. with coffee and sandwiches,
and then forbid their visiting drinking
places while on or off duty.
The steamboat lines have done prac-
tically nothing to diminish the vice of
intemperance which prevails to a de-
grading degree among the water-men
of the inland lakes and the rivers. The
mariners drinking resort is generally
crowded with booty fellows. Rousta-
bouts of the docks, deck hands and even
officers of steamboats, will be found
drunk on duty and drunk off duty. The
more miserable among them are habit
ually in debt to the keepers of water
line doggeries and cheap boarding.
houses, where they drink more than
they eat. 1t ought to become univers-
al discipline of transportation compa-
MES not to employ under any circum-
stances men who drink intoXicants 1t
is folly to say they can not get along
without them. They can if they are
furnished sufficient good food and their
tenure of place limited by their abso-
lutte sobricty. If one company had the
moral courage to set the example all
others would have to follow if they de-
sired to retain public confidence.
1t has been repeatedly demonstrated,
in the polar expeditions, illustrating
the fact in arctic latitudes: in India and
equatorial explorations, that the men
enduring severe and extraordinary hard
ship came out of them better by total
abstinence from stimulants than when
they reSorted to these doubtful agents
of artificial vigor. The barbarous and
vulgar practice Of creating" by which
the human stomach is compelled to be-
come receiving vat for unnecessary
and injurious liquids, is more respon-
sible for drunkenness and irresponsible
ity than mems own belief that they
need stimulants.
Whether transportation companies
employees are disposed to be abstainers
or not of their own accord they ought to
be required to be abstainers as a con-
dition of employment. They have no
right to take into their mouths what
will muddle their brains while intrusted
with the lives and property of others.
1t is not enough that they shall not
drink while on duty. No man can tell
when the effect of the alcoholic or malt
stimulant taken off duty will reach his
nerve centers. He is certain to be to
some degree affected by every drink he
takes, and neither he nor anybody else
can fix the term of the effect Chicago
Herald