Connecticut western news., 1910-10-06
Do you drink liuuor


 once answered you, when you asked me simiIsr question, but I wasn't quite so insulting in my reply to him as was to you. replied, That is ques- tion that must settle for myself
 "'That is true he replied, but it is also my business as an employer of 2,000 men to have a sober attorney in the handling of my business Every one of the II manufacturers upon whom I called, MT Spooner, asked me the same question and 10 out of 12 of them turned me down for the same reason. Then I went and signed a pledge of total abstinence, attached to which is a prom isory note by which must pay a certain sum of money if ever drink intoxicat- ing liquor again. Having done this I went back to the same manufacturers and secured the business of five of them. and am getting along now we'll,
 Say, men, a traffic that puts young man to that disadvantage is an unfair traffic. You cannot find an advertise. AAASAAh HI AOWSPoP1A any AhlA- road that reads Wanted four drunken engineers and four drunken conductors to handle cars on our road, nor one for farm hand that gets drunk every Sat- urday night no one wants him nor for bartender that is a drinking man i; they have to keep sober. A traffic that puts men under disadvantages is unfair. It is unfair to the homes cursed by it. You know their conditions. It isn't necessary to go into discussion of these. You can't get away from the fact that anything that makes the home bad Is unfair to the home,
 "While in the west I found that its leading men were mostly New Eng flanders. Why have they become lead ing men? Because the homes of New England have become the ideal homes of the world. Because the father and the mother work together to send the boys and the girls to school that they may become educated, and it IS the old home spirit that now and then draws them back again to old New England Anything that hits at the home hits at one of those splendid foundations on which our civilization is built-the school, and the liquor traffic is unfair to the school. The home, the church and the school have been the foundation of New England. s.-..
 "One thing that has been hard on the boys and the girls of to-day, is the drink habit coming down through generations. In New York city, To per cent. of the difficulties of children in the schools exist through drunken parents. The child coming from the drunkard's home is jsered at by companions and is an object of numerous charities, and these disadvantages takes the courage out of boys and girls. The saloon causes this, hence the saloon is unfair to the schools
 "The saloon IS unfair to the town You get your little income out of the grant ing of licenses. But what is it. Study the figures. You find you make nothing by it. You take in an average of S250 for hotel license and for that license you lot an average of $6,000 slip oyer the bar. for that is the average of profits of the saloon. On such 8 showing as this, how are you getting rich. It is unfair to the town financially.
 But some one says you can't run your schools, nor have electric lights and such things without license. Let me tell you a story that happened in town that I might name. The assessors were looking over their lists preparatory to regulating valuations and coming upon one farm listed at $2500 one of them said. This valuation is not right. That place would not sell to-day for $500. There was time when it was worth the amount listed, but the fellow who owns it is drunk all the while and it is not fair to assess him $2500 that place must be listed at $15O0,' and it was done.
 "A little further down on the list was another place listed and one of the assessors remarked. Look here. This Swede bought that place for $500 and its worth $3000 to-day if its worth cent. TEis man and his family have worked upon it all their spare time and have brought it up to double what it was worth when he bought 1t. Here's q chance to get that $500 back uron the grand list that we have just taken off on the other fellow. So it was agreed to place valuation of !$3, ,000 on the house of the hard working, sober Swede, aud make him pay for the lost valuation ou the property of the uruuGen bum who spent his time hanging around the saloon. The sober man WAS made to carry this additional burden and so it is every time. The l. .rdworLing. thrifty man has to support the idle and the shiftless because of the saloon, and traffic that causes such conditions is an