The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1910-10-14
BY a Working Man Who Knows.

this crusade. | am impatient about
its hypocrisy. | am impatient on ac-
count of its selfishness; am impatient
on account of its preiudices.
Who are these people who come to
You and ask you to give up anything
that has been wrung from the labor
and suffering of the past? Are they
your friends? Have they fought your
battles when you have made your
brave struggle for chance to live ?
Have the prohibtionists stood at your
head and fought your fights? Who are
they, that shutting their eyes to all the
experiences of the past, never knowing
your feelings or knowing your cause,
or having sympathy for your troubles,
would presume to place themselves at
your head and tell you what to do?
| object to great body of men, the
trade unionists of America, who repre-
sent the hopes and the fears and the
sufferings and the aspirations of their
fellow men, who have done more than
any other class of men in America to
make life better for the poor and weak,
to give more comfort and happiness to
mankind object to this great body
of men being led down blind alley by
handful of fanatics who know notn-
ing about their cause.
was reading a book the other day
by celebrated Russian physician,
Metchnikoff, who is now the head of
the Pastuer Institute in Paris. He says
men ought to live to be l20 years old
if they lived right and it is true; and
he put down food as the first cause
of their not living Longer.
Rum was one; overwork was one;
lots of them die because they work too
much-not prohibitiOnists, working peO-
pie. Food ne put down first.
Now, it is perfectly plain if a man
dies under 90 years of age and doesn't
get run over by ear, or struck by
lightning, he has died in his infancy.
Let me give you few facts | believe
are so plain that even prohibitionist
could see them if he opened HIS eyes,
which he won't. These people don't
care anything at all about life. They
think they do. They are doubtless
honest in it, but they are so carried
away with their eloquence that they
fool themselves. Do they care whether
men live to be 25 or 1875? Not cent
Let me prove it to you.
Do you know that the life of work
ineman is not more than 60 per cent
as long as the life of the rich? Now
why? Is it rum or champagne? No,
it is work The whole body of men who
toll are born into this world and know
nothing but to work ~om p.orning till
night No other trade than to earn
their living by their hands. They die
when only a little over half their life
is lived. And we fellows who live on
to be 20 or 80, as the case may be
Won know. a doctor lives ten years
longer than workingmah, a lawyer
has a better graft still, and lives five
or six years longer than doctor-but
the preacher beats all of them. laugh
teri Every workingman in the world
has his life cut off by work. | AM
speaking broadly now. OF course there
are exceptions to all rules, but, broadly,
they live out from one-half to two
thirds of their lives because they work;
and if somebody says you are going
to live one hall your days, you must
stop drinking rum for fear you will
have good time.
It's Work, Not Champagne.
When did you ever hear of prohi-
bition convention raising its voice in
protest against workingmen when their
lives were only one-half done? They
are too busy talking about rum. Now,
let me tell you more. Do you know
all of the people who are born into this
world, all who come upon the earth,
one-fifth or one-sixth of the human
race of the whole world 60 out through
one door, and that door isn't rum-that
door is tuberculosis. One out of every
five or six-they are lessening it lit
tie; they are lessening it, not on ac-
count of the scientists-one out of ev-
ery five or six die from tuberculosis,
and they die between twenty and
thirty. as a general rule, when they are
of most use to their families and their
friends. They die from lack of air
and food and room and opportunity to
live. They die, not on account of rum,
but ON account of monopoly, and if one
tenth part of the energy and money
and hot air that is spent on rum were
snent ON tuberculosis, that great scour-
AGE would have been wiped away years
apo. Do these gentlemen care anything
about tuberculosis patients? No. A
man may be eaten alive by tuberculosis,
and the prohibitionists look square in
his face and say, "0h, Rum! Rum!"
Why. in our tenement districts tuber
culosis goes from father to son, from
mother to daughter, from sister to