The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-03-07
TIE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF lNTEMPERANCE.

Three saloonkeepers of Chicago Assessed
by O Jury s17,5OO Damages For
D%ebauching John HedIund, a Skilled
Carpenter-Despoiled Homes.
If three saloonkeepers OF Chicago
have to pay $4,000 damages apiece to
the family of a man whom they have
ruined and debauched, how much
would the 100000 saloons of America
have to pay on the same basis for all
the homes they have wrecked and are
now wrecking, provided simple justice
in the premises were required at tnelf
hands at the present time? That is the
startling question suggested by a re-
markable decision in Judge TuthilPs
Court, in which a jury assessed three
saloonkeepers SIT 800 damages (under
the Civil Damage act for debauchinG
John Hadlund, a skilled carpenter,
and despite the repeated protests and
warnings of his wife and friends, per.
sisting in selling him liquor after his
will power was gone and his body a
prey to- alcoholic poison.
Five years ago Hedlund was q sue.
cessful workman, earning 81 a day at
his trade. To-day he is a ~drunkard,
made so by law. and his wife and five
little children, the youngest two years
old, are in desperate circumstances.
The testimony developed the fact that
the defendant sa%loonkeepers had put
Hedlund under considerable financial
obligation, and had exhausted their
wiles to bind him fast as a patron even
after he had become a confirmed
drunkard.
I think it was Bob Burdette who once
declared that if the liquor trafic's AFRO.
CANT demand for compensation was
accepted by the State and it were pos.
sible to estimate the exact indemnity, il
should pay for the millions 1t had
robbed the people of the thousands OF
homes it had wrecked, and the crime il
had produced, it would bankrupt the
business in a day and require every
cent Of wages it's entire force of EN-.
ployers. and employees could earn IN
honest occupation for 1909 years to
come. But taking this Chicago decision
/ as a conservative basis Of reckoning
and who would declare this verdict
too high a price for such. legalized
home Wrecking-what would it cost the
liquor traffic If every f1reside similarly
despoiled throughout the land should
rise up and secure at least the same
financial compensation" for the traf.
fc's diabolical destruction Of home and
love and competence and character and
all the sacred, moral and material pos
sessions of American hOme-life?
1t would be very conservative, and
far within the undoubted facts, to
credit an average of at least one
wrecked home to the record of infamy
of every saloon doing business in
America during the past five years
That means 100000 despoiled homes,
and, at the rate of $4,000 damages from
each saloonkeeper (really from the
brewer or distiller behind it,, it would
call for an indemnity Of $1,2O0.OO ,OOO
Zone billion. two hundred: millions), a
I sum nearly three times as great as the
total capital now invested in the en-
tire liquor business. (See United States
Census Reports for 1909
This ST. 200, 600, 900 of course cannot
possibly compensate for the manhood
damned for eternity, the environment
of misery and vice everywhere bred
by the saloon, or the political dry rot
and public corruption it has fed and
fostered in both State and nation since
the formation of the Republic. But II
serves rs q gentle hint to the liquor
traffic that square deal" on the COM
pensation principle would not mean
Government pension of some half O
billion or so to the oppressed trade"
but on the other hand would really
put the whole business in the hands OF
q receiver in the twinkling Of an eye.
Suppose ten thousand American
wives of drink victims should conclude
that the time for hopeless resignation
to circumstances had passed, and
| should: at once sue for like damages In
the next twelve months? The Amer
lean people would then have to face
the real issue of the hour. Is it pa
triotic or manly or common sense to
longer ignore the ravages Of this gigan.
tic legalized curse in u midst and
not rise as one man and blot 1t out
forever? 1t may not come that way,
but the hour is close at hand when
that question will be burned into the
heart of the American people and VIII
provoke their irresistible vengeance
| upon a business whose vested interests
have defed the laws of God and man
for more than half a century.-Asso
! ciated Prohibition Press. .