Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-02-13
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
RuM AND POVERTY.

] lOfA WY tdAltQ lnC w lHt anu t'BlIlb
Review. which is devoted to the whole
sale trade in rum. 1t therefore can not
/ be accused of hostility to the saloon in
terest; yet 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 saloonkeepers, and
1t is especially gratifying and hopeful sign Of
improvement in the retail trade that there are
men among our saloon keepers who have the
courage to acknowledge this openly"
The New York Tribune reproduces
the above and in commenting on the
closing sentence says: 'But if there is
a saloon-keeper who refuses 10 sell beer
to women and children, we have not
heard his name" 1t might have we'll
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 bottles for
whisky. The side-door custom is a
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
foraio,n- lor,, ,Nouulatian Tho man 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 10 compass the price of pitcher
Of beer.
1t is an undoniable fact that the
poorer classes o. 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
'poorn-and by this they mean them
selves--of what is rightfully theirs.
There is a 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 potations of beer, these socialists
preach the doctrine that the only way
TO remedy poverty is to rob every one
who possesses property and distribute it
among the poor. Did any one ever hear
Of total abstainer being a disciple of
anarchism2
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 a drinking
man, and the drinking man, as he de-
grades himself, very generally becomes
a lazy man. In facts 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 homoly old proverb which |
says that zone 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- /
tees the virtue of frugality; these men I
want to spend every cent, and yet have /
the earnings of their sober brethren di- /
vided among themselves. Take New 4
York or Chicago, and suppose il 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 last2 Not day. Within
twenty-four hours the saloons and the /
resorts OF infamy would have the bulk 1
of the dividend of this thriftless, i'm
provident class. whose members live 1
only to crafty their selfish appetites
and passions. 1t would take but a
short time until the in
as to possessions would be as
marked as it is now. The condition of
the drinking class would be every whit
as bad as ii is now. What next? An
other division, we suppose-with the
same result. OF course.
The men who arc the leaders in these
wild movements against industry,
against sobriety, against accumulation,
against wealth, know that their
theories are ulooushine. impossible of