The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1891-01-15
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
AN AWFUL BURDEN.

TEMPERANCE Mules.
AN AWFUL BURDEN.
Tho Enormous Amount Paid Out for Drink
i'm One Year.
The liquor traffic Of the United States
reaches q stupendous total annually. It
was estimated at $9OO, 600, 900 per year in
1858, and the annual increase of sales at
$75, 600, 600. That would bring the sum
total up to about 81, 500, 600, 600 per year
at present. This is a tax upon the peo-
plea tax paid voluntarily by those out
of whose pockets it directly comes, but
nevertheless tax, and worse; for the
payment is for no useful purpose, nor
does the payer get any thing of value in
return for his money. Quite the reverse,
in fact.
This total, alarming as it is, is not all.
The indirect losses resulting from the
liquor traffic, such as the loss Of pro-
ductive industry, the expense of main
tanning the pauperism and of suppress
ing the crime and violations of order
caused by it, certainly will make up
total equal to that expended annually
for drink. This is a tax also; but it is
not a voluntary one in this case. It is
a tax this time on the sober and indus
trious taxpayers, those who own taxa
BILE property. The cost of the support
of poor-houses, insane asylums, police
forces, courts and prisons forms no in
considerable part of the burden of taxa
tion-and the drink traffic is the cause
of the greater part of their cost.
1t is interesting to compare the drink
bill of the Nation with the entire an
nual revenue of the United States from
farm products, our industries of a me-
chanical nature, from mining, railroads,
and so on, which is estimated at $12,-
600. oo0, 900 per year. The Nation wastes
this tremendous total in drink every
cost of the traffic as equal to the total
direct sales of rum in all its forms, the
Nation pays out, because of the traffic,
the twelve billion dollars in four years.
This is record which demands con-
sideration at the hands of the American
people. The politics of the Nation at
the present time is pivoted on the tariff
question, and the anti-tariff men are de-
claring that the Nation groans under an
unsupportable burden because of the
duties paid on imported goods. Now,
the total of duties collected on all i'm
ported articles per year is only about
1920, 900, 900. If this is 'burden," what
shall be said of the National drink bill,
nearly seren times as great per year? Is
it not seven times more imperative to
redeem the people of the Nation from
the payment of this enormous and un-
necessary burden?
The whole anti-tariff sentiment of the
country has been created-how? BY
steady, persistent agitation, the pres
entation of arguments designed to help
that side of the case. Here is a lesson
for every man who realizes the terrific
burden of the rum traffic, and desires to
remove it from the people. The cam
paign of education" must be begun.
Every pulpit in the land must educate
the people in the evils of the drink
traffic, and the physical and moral deg
radiation that follows indulgence in the
drink habit. Every school-room must
be center for the instruction of the
rising generation in these things.
Every Temperance advocate must be
imbued with the same spirit that filled
the apostles of old, and must use his
best endeavors for the enlightenment
of his neighbors and friends.
And this work must proceed upon two
parallel lines-the one being that of
pledging men to total abstinence per-
sonally; the other, warfare against the
saloon and all it represents.
Education of the people is the work
now most needed. Every Temperance
man has around him, in his own local
ity, an ample field for personal work;
every minister has a field which is
white to the harvest; and Temperance
societies and organizations must push
the work in the dark spots of our land
the cities They are to-day the
strongholds of the rum power, and it
is there the hottest battle of the cam
paign must be fought. We must edu-
cate, educate, EDUCATE. until the masses
see the evils OF the rum traffic.-Toledo
Blade.