Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1898-10-19
Temperance Comment.

Temperance Comment.
Edited by the Press Superintendent of the
w. @. T. U. of Willmar.7
"What ought not to be used as a
beverage, ought not to be sold as
such. ''-Channing.
u II
If men will engage in this destruc-
tive traffic; if they will stop to reap
the wages of iniquity, let them no
longer have the law-book for a pillow,
nor quiet their consciences with the
opiate of court license.
Frelinghuysen.
The suspension of the free and un-
limited coinage of silver at the ratio
OF Is to l OF gold, called the "Crime of
49," is held responsible by some for
the SCATTERING of prices and the dis
turbance which followed it.. The aver
age annual contraction of currency
during the past twenty-three years,
occasioned by this cause, has been
$21, 900, 900, or ;'Sc per year per capita,
and to this cause a suffering nation
is pointed with the assurance that this,
and this in chief, is the cause of the
destruction of a wage earning which
aggregates above seven billions, or
$l27 per capita, annually!
II II
But the liquor traffic costs this peo-
pie over 81, 200, 00O, 900 annually, paid
directly over the bar, which is cause
more adequate to, and logically con-
nected with, the effect: and in addition
thereto the traffic entails a loss in
crime, poverty, indigency, loss Of
time, destruction of material, sickness
and death to the amount of 1882, 000,-
600 annually. 1t would seem clear
that the prices have not been de-
pressed by the shrinkage OF 38c per
year per capita in national currency,
but that the $28 per capita spent for
that which is not bread, has created
vast army of non-consumers who have
been unable to buy food, who have
bought no clothes nor shoes, nor other
commodities; and the mills have shut
down and the sober and Industrious
men have been, in return, compelled
to join the army of non-consumers,
and less wheat has been bought and
prices have gone down again, and
fewer goods have been purchased, aud
more factories have been closed.-W.
G. Calderwood, in Midland Christian
Advocate.
In an article written for the Min
neapolis Times, Father Mahony says:
These latter months, pending the TAX
ing of the plebiscite, it was easy
enough to see ''where the shoe
pinched,' who expected to be hurt by
prohibition, and therefore wanted,
even at heavy cost, to keep the peo-
pie from declaring for it. It was not
the patriotic or charitable or philan-
thropic people, it was not those al
ways interested in the education,
virtue and crimelessness of the people,
but the "licensed hotel keepers and
the distillers and brewers, that taxed
themselves to the amount of $100,OO
for Literature" in the shape of made
to-order articles in the newspapers,
but disguised as candid editorial opin-
ion, on the tyranny and at the same
time the failure of prohibition, the
threatened loss to the public revenue,
and to honest labor, and the other
bogies of the beer lords. These peo-
pies enormous industry would lie de-
stroyed," of course, but it has yielded
them enough already, and anyhow,
their interests should not stand a
moment in the way of the general well
fare. The demand which they meet is
not a general demand, or the people
would not vote against them. 1t is a
demand which, to a very large extent,
their presence creates and stimulates,
and which would hardly be felt more,
were they removed. AS the mines in
Wales said of a large and once very
bibulous population there whom the
local landlord had rid OF their numer-
Gus drinking places, 'they know they
can't get it, and they don't think of
it," The demand for liquor in vast
numbers of>people has no more right
to be supplied than the burglars and
demand for the tools Of
their mischievous crafts. The general
BODY of the sober, lawabiding people
that has to take the consequence, does
we'll to take away the opportunities,
facilities, and temptations furnished
by the drink business.
But ''the thousands of workingmen
it employs will be compelled to join
the army of idle men," A wicked fall
lacy! The support withdrawn from
IN r ,,s Il - I.