Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-01-08

have never heard any one recognize
but nevertheless the fact-that high
tariff is best for some people and tree
trade is best for others. This tariffic
controversy keeps business struck
through with uncertainty, and that un-
certainty results in poverty and wretch
edness for a vast multitude of people.
If the eternal CAB on this subject could
have been fashioned into loaves of
bread. there would not be a hungry
man or woman or child on all the plan
ct. To the end of time, the words of
the text will be kept true by the tariffic
controversy-"Y have the poor always
with you"
ALCOHOL AS A SOURCE OF DISTRESS.
Another cause of perpetual poverty is
the cause alcoholic. The victim does
not last long. He soon crouches into
the drunkard's grave. But what about
his wife and children? She takes in
washing, when she can get it, or goes
out working on small wages, because
sorrow and privation have left her in
capacitated to do strong woman 8
work. The children are thin blooded
and gaunt and pale and weak, standing
around in cold rooms, or pitching pen
MES on the street corner, and munching
a slice of unbuttered bread when they
can get it, sworn at by passersby be-
cause they do not get out of the way,
kicked onward toward manhood or
womanhood, for which they have no
preparation, except depraved appetite
and frall constitution, candidates for
almhouse and penitentiary. Whatever
other cause of poverty may fail, the sa-
loon may be depended on to furnish an
ever increasing throng of paupers. oh.
ye grogshops of Brooklyn and New
York and of all the cities; ye mouths
of hell, when will ye cease to cIaunch
and devour? There is no danger of
this liquor business failing. All other
styles of business at times fail. Dry
goods stores go under. Hardware stores
go under. Grocery stores go under.
Harness makers fail, druggists fail,
bankers fail, butchers fail, bakers fail,
confectioners fail, but the liquor deal
ers never. 1t is the only secure business
know of. Why the permanence Of
the alcoholic trade? Because, in the
first place, the men in that business, if
tight up for money, only have to put
into large quantities of water more
strychnine and logwood and nux vomica
and vitriol and other congenial concom
mitants for adulteration. One quart of
the real genuine pandemoniac elixir
will do to mix up with several gallons
0F t,,;1Iar lo,,orofi0n Rncidoc fhof
these dealers can depend on an increase
of demand ON the part of their custom
ers. The more of that stuff they drink,
the thirstier they are. Hard times,
which stop other business, only increase
that business, for men go there to
drown their troubles. They take the
spirits down to keep their spirits up.
There is an inclined plane down which
alcoholism slides its victims-claret,
champagne, port, cognac, whisky, tom
and jerry. sour mash, ON and down un-
til it is a sort of mixture of kerosene
oil, turpentine, toadstools, swill, es-
sence of the horse blankets and general
nastiness. With its red sword of flame,
that liquor power marshals its process
sion, and they move on in ranks long
enough to girdle the earth, and the pro-
cession is headed by the nose blotched,
nerve shattered, rheum eyed, lip bloat-
ed, soul scorched lnebriates, followed
by the women, who, though brought up
in comfortable homes, now go limping
past with aches and pains and pallor
and hunger and woe, followed by their
children, barefoot, uncombed, freezing,
and with wretchedness Of time and
eternity seemingly compressed in their
agonized features. Forward, march,"
cries the liquor business to that army
without banners. Keep that influence
moving on. and you will have the poor
always with you. Report comes from
one of the cities, where the majority of
the inhabitants are out of work and de-
pendent on charity, yet last year they
spent more in that city for rum than
they did for clothing and groceries.
THE IMPRovIDENcE OF woRKMEN.
Another warranty that my text will
prove true in the perpetual poverty of
the world Is the wicked spirit of i'm
providence. A vast number of people
have such small incomes that they can
not lay by in savings bank or life in
suIance one cent year. 1t takes every
farthing they can earn to spread the
table and clothe the family and educate
the children. and if You blame such
people for improvidence you enact a
cruelty. On such a salary as many
clerks and employees and many minis
ters of religion live, and on such wages
as many workmen receive, they cannot.
in 90 years, lay up 30 cents. But you
know and know many who have COM
petent incomes, and could provide some
what for the future. who live up to every
dollar, and when they die their chill
dren go TO the poorhouse or on the
street. By the time the wife gets the
husband buried, she is in debt to the
undertaken and gravedigger for that
which she can never pay. While the
man lived he had his wine parties and
fairly stunk with tobacco, and then ex-
pired, leaving his family upon the char
ities of the world. Do not send for me
70 corno ond couducf fha ohae0f1ieg and