The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1917-03-31
THE WET SIDE
LOGIC DON 7 COUNT
|SSALOO|V CRUSADE

BY F. L. Bradley, President Duluth Trade
Union League.
The electorate of Duluth will on
on whether the city shall be a COM
mCnity Of liberty and license or one
subjected to the dominion of fanatic-
ism over reason. No one can hope
to make any impression by logic,
however strong and unswervable it
may be, on the purblind and bigoted
leaders of the prohibition movement
or their hired assassins Of the funda-
mental rights of citizenship. These
men are joined to their idols and it
is best that we let them alone. But
the people of this city as mass are
not yet lost to reason, and they are
not paid to stifle it. Appeals to them
still have weight and are given con-
sideration.
''Bctter Free Than Sober.''
When the good bishop Of Win
chester said ''Better have England
free than SOBER" he did not mean
that it would be good to have Eng
land drunk. He meant that fanatic
ism is never satisfied; that when it
is given an inch in one direction it
always claims an ell in other direc-
tons. He meant, in substances, that
the whole theory of sumptuary legis-
lation is a delusion and s. are, and all
attempts to put it into practical
operation are assaults upon the liber-
ties of the people, the stability of in
dustry, the security Of pre- Jerty and
the work opportunities of hosts Of
persons dependent upon their daily
earnings for their livelihood.
The Basic Rule of Life.
Today the advocates of prohibition
cry out against rum. Tomorrow they
may be railing against tobacco, and
later their target will be coffee or
some other source Of enjoyme nt.
They wholly ignore the one basic rule
Of life. If men are given freedom,
opportunity, clothing, food, homes
apd sunlight, they can look after their
own morals, and they can't do this
in any other circumstances. Take
the ideal and the-~fact of freedom
from the human race, and. slowly
and painfully but nevertheless, in
evitably, it will go back to barbarism
and the brute creation.
Don't Deal With Causes.
If the short-sighted pseudo REFORM
ers who clamor so violently against
drunkenness and. the woes it engend-
ers could only be brought to look
deeply into the problem they claim
to have the power to solve, and
the conditions which cause drunken
and for the elimination of the evil
of which they complain. But they
are only superficial =, in their vision,
even when they afexhonest and sin
cere. They wish to-: remove the OPP
portunit.es for drunkenness, but they
will do nothing to aid in removing
the causes !of,.1t.:..-,::.-,..:..:
-LaboEs Real Struggle.
These men know that the labor
organizations in this country have
for years kept their agents before
every legislative body in America
pleading to have little children taken
out Of the mines, the mills the
factories, and put into schools; to
have workers furnished with plenty
of pure air, good light, thorough VEN
tilation and other sanitary condi-
tons in their workshops, to have the
dangerous machinery they are obliged
to work with guarded by safety
devices; to have laws enacted giving
the toilers they speak for prompt and
adequate compensation for injuries
suffered in connection with their
labor; to have workers protected by
law in their struggles to get living
| wages, decent home conditions, and
chances to develop and cultivate in
themselves and their families the
higher attributes Of being.
Theirs Is Policy of ''Don'ts."
Have the prohibitionists ever aided
the workers in these efforts? Not
particle. On the contrary they have
INSTRUCTED all such movements if
they have not openly opposed them.
| pleading for their lives, their limbs,
! their homes, their wives, their chill
| dren-for conditions that would go
| far toward eliminating drunkenness
the prohibitionists have been 11iss-
ing into the ears of legislators: For
Gods sake don't give us those things!
Don't waste time on the child labor
evil. Don't trife over employers La
bility or workmen's compensation or
safety devices! Don't bother about
| mills or mines or decent living con1i-
tons. Don't do anything but destroy
rum, and then we can see about the
other things" And in places where
they have won out on this issue have
the workers been able to get them to
| give thought to the other things?
Never! They always take refuge in
| some new fad and ask the workers to
wait until they shall have fastened
| it upon the country.
WAGES INCPEAcEn