New Britain herald., 1915-12-13


 spirituous liquors and wines. If beer and light wines are included it raises the amount to s2,29O,0O ,000 in round figures. This takes no account of the cost incurred for prosecution and other regulative necessities, nor of the constant cost of care for the l victims of intemperance. This is simply the initial retail cost. The : flgures are so very large we can hard i ly comprehend them. A few compar- lsons may aid us Five years of this 1 liquor bill would buy all of the real estate of New York and Chicago at assessed value, would have met the national debt of Germany and France before the war began. We could meet our own national debt with half of this yearly expenditure or pav the interest on it with one day of these liquor receipts. Ten years of this liquor bill would buy every railroad in the country; six months of it would buy all of the output of coal at all of the mines of the U. $. and all of the U. s. iron products could be purchased with the income of three months business. This annual liquor bill amounts to one-seventh the value of all the gold dug, coined and
 
 world since Columbus discovered America. Two years and eight months of the Boer war cost Great Britain $500, 900 but during same time America was spending s5,5OO.OOO ,O0O for liquor. America loses more Ly fire than any other nation. A house burns, on an average, every ten min utes; the houses burned, if set side by side would make an unbroken line. of desolation from New York to Chi cago, yet recent report of the New York city fire department shows that the total loss by fire is but $26S cents per capita but the liquor bill of 1913 amounts to more than so for each man, woman and child in this coun- try. The amount of money in circu- lation in the '. s. in 1913 was $34.6O per capita and two out of every three dollars of that passed through the hands of the liquor dealers during the year. The drink bill of New York city alone if turned into dollar bills such as are in use in business, (nos new dollar bills,) and piled one on ton of the other would make a stack as high as the Woolworth building. The cashier of the Irving National Bank worked this out for me at my suy- gestion.
 And so we might go on. but it is o1teh said that the above figures Go not rightly estimate a loss as much of thls money goes out for wages for carnage etc., which is good business, all of which sounds very plausible un- ! til you look deeper into the economic facts. We have to ask how nonch so- ciety gets in return for the product which is turned upon it and more we must ask what per cent. labor gets compared with what it would get were 1t transferred to business which is useful. It is not fair to simply say that labor is employed and that thi, money circulates in business enter prises we must ask whether or not l there is real economic loses in this production which would not occur in the production of useful material. Not Friend to Labor
 Beer is reported to have made Mill ; waukee famous, bu- in 1913 the pro- ducers of beer and malt in that city 1 employed 5,1O0 workmen on an in vestment of $53,45O.OO0 or one workman to every $10,4S0. At the same time the boot and shoe industry of Milwaukee was employing 3,925 Workmen on an investment of $4,- 1 20O,0O0 or one workman to every ; SLOTS. For every million dollars in vested in the manufacture of lum Der 519 men are employed: for every mill 1 lion dollars invested in the manufac- l ture ot textiles 57S men are employed; :; l Tor every million dollars invested in 1 the manufacture of leather products 1 469 men are employed, but for every 1 million dollars invested in the manu- ] fracture of liquor, = men are en- ] ployed. Certainly such business is /; not the friend of labor, and when YOU go further and see what it does fo. the family of the poor man who nas ! become it's slave, the loss is beyon d ] reckoning. And certainly we must ] finally judge the value of any business concern by the value of the finished ! product which it turns out. Jeff Jones, an eminent member of tho British parliament once said, I met i the finished product of the saloon He 1 was lying in the gutter. He had no hat on; the hat trade was suffering. His coat was full Of holes: the cloth ing trade was suffering. He had holes in his shoes: the shoe trade was suf- fcring. He had on the remnant of a shirt; the wooden trade was suffering ] He had on no socks: the hosiery trade was suffering. He was dirty; the soap trade was suffering. I can hardly mention a useful industry that was no: suffering because of that mans inso- briety. He might we'll have added that probably no institution was suf- fering much as the home if this was a married man.
 Tt certainly is not good economy to continue business which employs less men by far for the capital invested and then turns out a finished prod uct that is not only a misery and a curse to itself but a constant drae upon society both morally and finan-