Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-09-19
C0LD-WATER TRAITORS

|COLD-WATER TRAITORS.
PROHIBITION GAINING WITH
GERMA N-AMERiCANS.
leagues Favoring Temperance Forming
IN Large Numbers in the Central States
The National President Speaks of tho
Growing Cause.
From the Chicago Herald
.Prohlbition among the Germans of
ghlcago is making rapid strides" said
nenry Rieke. who is the President of the
National German-American Prohibition
League, as we'll as successful real
estate dealer of this city,. "But while
progress right here is undeniable, it is
much more pronounced among the Ger
mans in the Western States, more par
tlcnlarly in the rural districts. The fact
is, temperance-or, if you will, prohibi-
tlon-has not much of chance in large
centers of population. The constant
mlngling of all sorts of people holding
every sort of opinion on the drink cues
ton, as we'll as ON every other subject,
makes it practically impossible for every
man, excepting one of the strongest sort
OF principle, to withstand the temptations
TO indulge in intoxicating liquors. Bust
ness reasons, perhaps, much more even
than the social habits of Germans, have
great deal to do in the cities with the
universal habit of drinking. You see,
there are so many lines of work and
branches of trade in one way or an
other dependent on the brewercs and
on the saloons. Many of the smaller
agents for intoxicants who have no office
OF desk-room of their own, and who are
constantly out in the streets drumming
up trade, make the saloon their place of
business, where the transaction in hand
IS talked over and the result reached. In
that way the saloonkeeper becomes ac-
quainted not only with the persons but
also with the circumstances of his
patrons, and he is not slow to avail HIM
self OF the various opportunities thus af-
forded him. He will arrange appoint
ments to be kept in his place, and he
will in variety of other ways take adj
vantage of his knowledge of his patrons
affairs. Then the detestabe custom of
treating has much to do with increasing
the evil. So many who cannot really af-
ford to stand treat do it merely because
they hate to be thought mean or stingy. :"
"But do the Germans not treat each
other in their own country?"
sNever Treating is a purely Ameri-
can Institution, apparently invented for
the sole benefit of the saloonlleeper.
Over in Germany nobody except here and
there a half-drunken peasant or farmer
when Oh carousal would think of pay
ing for another mans drinks. To offer
10 6o IN, foo 1,o
as an insult, as implying that the other
man cannot afford to pay his score. This
is one of the mistaken ideas Americans
labor under in regard to their fellow
citizens of German blood. Germany is
not, as any one can tell YOU who has
Travelled in that country, half as much
given to drink as this country of ours.
There are many, many thousands in
Germany who never drink beer. wine, or
spirits, even without being pledged to
prohibition. They are abstainers of
their own free will and choice. Outside
of Bavaria, where they average about
as much beer per head of population as
we do in Chicago, there is not nearly SO
much beer drank as there is here"
You were speaking of the fact that
the prohibition movement among the
Germans finds a better field in. the rural
sdlstrs-..s -.Nhg should this be SOP"
"FOr various T...so4s. .Inere is not
nearly so much temptation to drink
there, for one thing. Another reason is
that the people living in the country
have more regard for their neighbors'
opinion of them, and, besides, they are
more thrifty and more saving, and they
do not like to spend so much of their
substance on such things as cocktails
and champagne and whisky sours.
They're too shrewd for that. Our sue
cess in converting Germans to the pro-
hibition idea has been astonishingly
large There is hardly hamlet or town
or village in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan,
Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and the two
Dakotas, where there are Germans, that
we have not made converts. Our efforts
have been mainly confined to these
States so far, but we are now reaching
out for Nebraska, and by and by we
shall extend our works to the Eastern
States as we'll, more particularly New
York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
The idea that Germans cannot turn pro-
hibitionists is an entirely erroneous one.
There are just as earnest and Jealous
temperance workers among them as
among Americans.
L