The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-01-25
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
RUM AND POVERTY.

and Socialism.
There is paper published in New
York City called the Wine and Spirit
Review, which is devoted to the whole
sale trade in rum. 1t therefore can not
be accused of hostility to the saloon in
terest; vet in recent issue, speaking OF
the habit of beer-drinking among the
poor OF the great city, it says:
ut makes sots OF the women Of the lower
grade of life. The beer pitcher is kept going
from morning until night and the result IS an
alarming increase CT intemperance. No one
knows this better than our saloon-keepers, ana
1t is especially gratifying and hopeful sign Oh
improvement in the retail trade that there ara
men among our saloon keepers VINO nave inc
courage to acknowledge this openly"
The New York Tribune reproduces
the above and in commenting on the
closing sentence says: But if there is
saloon-keeper who refuses 10 sell beer
to women and children, we have not
heard his name" 1t might have well
added, for the information of readers
not familiar with New York City, that
in the sections inhabited by the poorer
classes the corner saloons invariably
have, on the side street, door with the
sign Family Entrance" which is used
exclusively for this class of customers
women and children with pitchers or
tin buckets for beer, or bottlss~!g
whisky. The side-door custom is 4
large portion of their patronage; and
corner rooms bring very high rents, as
they are the only ones, as a rule, that
are available for this purpose.
This state of things exists in every
large city, especially those with large
foreign-born population. The men drink
at night, as they can not do so while at
their daily toll; the women drink, and
the children are brought up to drink.
What manner of men and women will
they become, brought up from the cradle
to drink whenever there is money
enough to compass the price of a pitcher
of beer.
1t is an undeniable fact that the
| poorer classes Of our cities are infected
| with socialistic, communistic or anarch-
istic ideas. They look upon the ''rich"
as their enemies-and with them this
word is applied not only to those of
| wealth, but to every well-to-do man,
who has accumulated any property, no
| matter if nothing but his residence.
They assume that he who has any thing
laid by for rainy day has robbed the
''poor"-and by this they mean them
selves-of what is rightfully theirs
There is close connection between
these two things-the steady drinking
and the socialist propaganda. The fact
has not escaped the reader who followed
| attentively the newspaper accounts Of
the Haymarket riots in Chicago that
| the anarchist meetings were invariably
| in halls over beer salons, and that the
| leaders were always to be found in the
| saloons themselves. The same is true
of the loud-mouthed agitators in New
York and other cities. The beer saloon
| Is the hot-bed of socialism. There, over
their rotations of beer, these socialists
preach the doctrine that the only way
to remedy poverty is to rob every one
who possesses property and distribute 1t
among the poor. Did any one ever heae
of total abstainer being a disciple n
anarchism?
| The plain fact Of the matter is that
the real cause Of the poverty among the
working classes of our citizens is-rum.
How can man save any thing when he
spends all the money he can spare for
beer or whisky-when his wife drinks
beer all day long, when his children are
taught to drink, when he spends his
evenings in some foul saloon, drinking
also? There is only one other factor OF
Importance in keeping men in abject
poverty, and it is idleness. And lazi.
ness and beer-guzzling go together.
The lazy man is generally drinking
man, and the drinking man, as he de.
grades himself, very generally becomes
a lazy man. In fact, it can hardly be
doubted that much of the laziness is
nearly always to be laid at the door OF
rum-which makes the latter the sole
important factor in producing poverty.
There is a homely old proverb which
says that ''One can not eat his cake and
have it too," yet that is exactly what
these shriekers over the poverty of the
poor and the expressions Of the rich ask
to have done. No man can lay by com.
petence for his old age unless he prac.
| h1OCo OiO WI OuS vi IL ultH
want to spend every cent, and yet have
the earnings of their sober brethren di
vided among themselves. Take New
York or Chicago, and suppose it possible
to have the full money value of all the
property within their limits-both real
estate and personal property of every
kind-divided equally among the in.
habitants; how long would this equality
of wealth last? Not day. Within
twentyfour hours the saloons and the
resorts of infamy would have the bulk
of the dividend of this thriftless, i'm.
provident class, whose members live
only to crafty their selfish appetitar
and passions. 1t would take but q
marvelously short time until the il
equality as to possessions would be IS
marked as it is now. The condition If
the drinking class would be every whit
as bad as it is now. What next? Ar
other division, we suppose-with the
same result, of course.
| The mon who are the leaders in these
wild movements against industry
against sobriety, against accumulation
against wealth, know that their
! theories are moonshine, impossible Of
realization; and they know full we'll, II
they know any thing, that the poverty
4 r ~