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The Commoner
MAY, i9ir
21
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hood, crushes childhood, curses
motherhood, and has never done
good to anyone. You laboring men
spend your nickels and dimes for
booze in hopes of getting cool if too
hot, and warm if too cold, getting joy
if depressed and fellowship if lonely.
But with your money spent each year
for booze you could buy the yearly
output of
All the fresh beef of packing
plants, $327,583,456.
All the canned tomatoes, $18,747,
941. All the canned corn, $10,332,136.
All the dried prunes, $5,130,412.
All canned berries, $1,754,927.
All the wheat flour, $567,814.
979. All the beet sugar, $48,122,383.
All the boots and shoes for men,
women and children, $442,630,726.
All the women's and children's
leather gloves and mittens, $5,462,
064. All the stoves and furnaces, $78,
853,323. All the women's clothing com
plete suits, dresses, skirts, petticoats,
cloaks, underwear, shirtwaists, in
fants' clothing, etc, etc, $384,751,
649. All the men's and boys' clothing
suits, overalls, overcoats, rain
coats, shirts, etc, $568,076,635.
All the butter (real butter) $194,
999 198.
All the eggs sold, $180,768,24!.
Total, $8,825,028,078.
And have enough left to buy 68,
758 homes costing $2,000 each. Al
mbst enough to give a home to every
laboring man in the business of pro
ducing booze. This money spent for
the above articles would set the work
men to work. There would be in
creased demand for tools, clothes,
and food, and everybody would pros
per, the farmer most of all because
his customers, the city laborers,
would have more money, with which
to buy what the farmer produced.
This would be repeated every year
and prosperity would be a permanent
thing.
ONLY HALF TOLD
But the half has not yet been told.
There is still another side the tax
side of the booze question and that
is what I started out to show.
According to the last census re
port there were 5,400,556 persons
received into benevolent institutions
during 1910. It cost $1.21 a year
for every man, woman and child in
the United States to take care of the
insane, unfortunate; aged, blind, etc.,
etc. This does not include prisoners.
There are 91.8 paupers in alms
houses; 204.2 insane; 123.5 prison
ers in state institutions per 100,000
population.
Archbishop Ireland says 80 per
cent of the poverty and 75 per cent
of the social crimes are caused by
drink. Billy Sunday says, "75 per
cent of our idiots came from intem
perate parents; 80 per cent of the
paupers; 82 per cent of the crime is
committed by men under the influ
ence of liquor; 90, per cent of the
adult criminals are whiskey made."
The Chicago Tribune kept a record
for ten years and found that 53,556
murders were committed by men un
der the" influence of liquor.
This means that the per cent of
your tax money that goes to main
tain the institution and courts which
take care of the harvest of booze is a
dead waste which would stop were
there no -booze to keep up the awful
toll of crime, poverty, misery and
broken homes. About 54 per cent
of all industrial accidents are- due to
booze, to say nothing of the destruc
tion of property by drunken careless
ness. IT HITS EDUCATION
rcvprvhndv navs taxes to maintain
schools. It coa;s no more to teach a I
What
on our
large class than a small one.
effect does booze have
schools?
Down in Texas they Investigated
twenty-six wet and twenty-five dry
towns and found that nearly one
sixth of the school children In wet
towns were kept out of school by
booze. In the state as a whole about
50,000 children were annually robbed
of a public school educatioji by the
saloons.
In Indiana in 1910 there were sev
enty dry towns and twenty-two wet
counties. There was enrolled in the
common schools 69.5 per cent of the
children of school age in the dry
counties, and 55.2 per cent in the wet
counties. In other words, 43,509
children were kept out of school in
the wet counties because the people
preferred saloons to education. The
dry counties graduated from the
grade schools 3.36 per cent of all at
tending school, while the wet coun
ties graduated 2.58 per cent. Had the
wet counties been dry, there should
have been 10,223 boys and girls fin
ishing eighth grade instead of 7,877,
based on the results in dry counties.
The saloons kept 9,502 out of the
high schools and kept 1,382 from
graduating from high schools who
had a right, under "dry" conditions,
to get that schooling.
In Massachusetts the report of the
state board of education for 1910
shows that in the dry towns and
cities there were twenty-three high
school pupils per 1,000 population
and only sixteen per 1,000 in wet
towns and cities.
In Illinois 82 per cent of the en
tire school population attended
schools in dry counties, and 56 per
cent In wet counties. In California
in dry cities thirty-seven per 1,000
population attend high school and in
wet cities only twenty-eight per
1,000. What is the ultimate loss to
our country because of these children
going without the advantage of an
education? How many of them must
we again spend money on because of
crime or inability on their part to
support themselves?
But why prolong the discussion?
It is endless when one goes .to the
extreme ramifications of this traffic.
There is no getting away from the
logic of these figures. If you want
in Rfon the awful economic loss, the
.payment of taxes that are swallowed
up by booze; If you want to close tne
almshouses, insane asylums, and
prisons, and relieve the courts of the
clogged condition brought on by
booze, see that your state legislature
puts the saloons out of business, and
that the national congress stops the
evil at its source by putting thebrew
eries and distilleries out of business.
In other words, if the nation ceases
to legalize the liquor traffic we can
break the shackles that have bound
us ever since the civil war.
Don't be bamboozled by booze any
longer. E. T. Meredith, in Success
ful Farming.
THE LIQUOR QUESTION IN
FRANCE
How right we were when, in the
brief remarks yesterday with which
we Introduced the letter of Mr. Jos
eph Reinach, we said: "He greatly
deceives himself who thinks sufficient
the measures we have taken to con
quer that redoubtable enemy alcohol.
Every day we are in receipt of let
ters insisting upon the danger which
it offers and the necessity for new
measures."
Now, as he readers of that letter
noted to their great surprise, Mr.
Joseph Reinach, fighting alcohol, has
not escaped the severity of the cen
sure. Could he then have betrayed
some diplomatic secret, revealed mll
oorv movements, run the risk of
compromising the national defense?
Eddie Collins
Drinks
cm
mmC
considers it the premier, all-'round wholesome
thirst-quencher for athletes. This comes well
from one of "whom Comiskey said, after paying
$50,000 for him "I secured him for the White
Sox fans because I believe he will prove that he
is the greatest exponent or quick
thinking and the brainiest player in
the game."
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Demand the genuine and
avoid disappointment
The Coca-Cola Co.
ATLANTA, GA.
WfflBIIBIIII
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The patriotism of the former deputy
of the BasseB-Alpes is too well
known, it seems to us, for such a
suspicion to occur to the thought.
Our correspondent, lending the
weight of his opinion to our campaign
against alcoholism, limits himself to
citing some natural facts that will
impress public opinion. Was it too
much moved? But could it ever be
appealed to too strongly to arrive at
results which are envisaged by the
thought for France's future? The
race itself is at stake. Henceforth,
all French intelligence should rival
itself in zeal to conquer the public
opinion for the national cause which
the "Temps" is endeavoring to serve.
Prom this little Incident, we simply
get this conclusion: The more the
fight against alcoholism encounters
difficulties, the more those who have
undertaken It In the Interest of the
country should consider themselves
bound to redouble their vigilance and
efforts, "Le Temps," Paris, March
30, 1915.
LET FACTS TALK
The Hew Yo'-k financier who said
that prosperity Is so sure to come that
the only thing we need to fear Is that
the democratic party will be contin
ued in power after 1916 is not alone
among standpat republicans in wish
ing to attribute the results of war to
tho tariff. Republican politicians
still try to ascribe the industrial de
pression of the past few months to
tho Underwood law. Of course the
only answer necessary Is tho facts.
The dcclino in foreign trade is
their favorito topic. Compare this
decline for the first six months of
1914, before the war began, with the
same period of the preceding year,
and we find that foreign trade fell off
less than 1 per cent in that period.
For the last half of the year, when
Europe was submerged by war, it de
clined lG& per cent. Jot the tariff
was In force through tho whole year.
Take the other fact of wheh we
are so often reminded, that in the ten
months after tho new tariff went into
effect and before the war began, our
imports increased $101,000,000. More
than this amount was represent
ed by the increase in raw materials.
There was in short a decrease in man
ufactured articles. The American
manufacturer and the American la
bor were not suffering.
Even so, the increase In imports,
as the Journal has pointed, out, was
not phenomenal. In 1912, while the
Payne-Aldrich tariff held full sway,
imports increased $126,000,000. Why
didn't such an increase cause depres
sion, If the smaller increase under the
Underwood tariff was such a bad
thing?
Charging the effects of war to tho
tariff is poor economics when it isn't
downright dishonesty. But the worst
thing about such reasoning is the way
is collides with the facts. Milwaukee
Journal.
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