THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY BY MADISON C. PETERS, D.D. Author of "The Great Hereafter," "Sanctified Spice," "Empty Pews, " The Path of Glory," " Wrongs to be Righted," etc. NEW YORK WILBUR B. KETCHAM 7 and 9 West Eighteenth Street Copyright, 1898, by MADISON C. PETERS. TO MY CONGREGATION, WHOSE KINDLY COUNSEL, UNWAVERING LOYALTY AND GENEROUS SUPPORT IN EVERY GOOD WORK, HAVE MADE MY LABORS AMONG THEM BOTH LOVELY AND SUCCESSFUL, I GRATEFULLY DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. " My love be with you all in Christ Jesus, Amen." A PREFACE TO BE READ. The Bloomingdale Church, Boulevard and W. 68th Street, New York, is one of the handsomest churches in this city of great churches. Inherited wealth enabled a small con- gregation to build this fine structure. When the present pastorate began, nearly nine years ago, the member- ship was 64, and an attendance of 50 was considered a crowd. The debt was $50,000, which however, is small when the value of the property is considered. The West End was then a comparatively new section of the city. We began our work of gathering a congregation — in this we have succeeded — a congregation limited to the capacity of the house— composed of not less than twelve different denominations. Our many benevolent and home mission- ary enterprises tax the liberality of a generous congregation to its utmost. The Pastor, desiring to help the people to become free from debt, makes this book his offering, and all the profits derived from its sale go towards paying off the mortgage indebtedness on the Church. The book is pub- lished by the Church and sells for One Dollar. The Bloom- ingdale Church, though denominationally connected with the Reformed Church in America, is essentially the church of the people. Its doors are open to every good cause, and its charities are dispensed with lavish hand to all who are in need, regardless of creed. Our Church, especially Sunday nights, is the home of the churchless in New York, and of the strangers visiting here. The Pastor would rather the people paid this debt than the few rich. He hereby thanks in advance the gentlemen of the press for such notice as they may see fit to give of the book and the object of its sale. 8 A PREFACE TO BE READ. The sermons in this volume with two exceptions were preached during the past winter. They are printed now as they were preached and have been chosen simply be- cause of their bearing on timely topics. That they may do good, is the prayer of THE AUTHOR. New York, May 1, 1898. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. PAGE The Drink Problem, the Financial Problem — Tariff and Silver Secondary Issues— No Reason for Poverty in America, if we were a Sober People— Our poverty Explained— Indisputable Facts, Unimpeachable Authorities and Irrefragable Proofs — How to Re- vive Business and Set every Man at Work — If the Money now Wasted in Drink were Expended for Necessities, what a Business Boom we should Have — Not Over-Production but Under-Consumption Our Trouble — More Capital Invested and Less Labor Employed in the Liquor Industry than in Any Other in the United States — Facts and Figures to Awaken Serious Thought among those who Study Industrial Problems or Frequent Saloons — New York's Liquor Bill for One Year if Diverted to the Manufacture and Purchase of Necessities we should have to Work Night and Day with Two Shifts of Workmen to Supply the Demands — Neither Open- Mints nor Open-Mills but Closed Saloons the Pan- acea for Poverty 17 CHAPTER II. PATRIOTISM, PEACE, AND PIETY. Not All who Seem to Fail have Failed Indeed— Never Give Him the Heel who wants the Hand — Not Enough to be Rightly Disposed— What we Feel we y * 10 CONTENTS. PAGE Must Act — Our Soldiers — Heroes not Confined to Campaigns and Battlefields — Duties are Ours, Re- sults are God's — Patriotism a Universal Passion — Decoration Day should be a Holy Day, not a Holi- day — The Blue and the Gray — One Country Now —Loyalty of the South— $50,000,000 for Defense a Patriotic Peace Measure — A Modern Navy giving Effective Surveillance to all our Maritime Interests and Protection to the American Honor and the American Citizen Everywhere is the Power whose Offspring is Peace — The Horrors of War — The Development of War Enginery — Naval Expendi- tures of European Powers — Grant and Sheridan on Arbitration — We are Alert to Foreign Foes, but Asleep as to Internal Assaults — The Better Pa- triotism 41 CHAPTER III. AMERICA'S MOST POPULAR SIN. Americans the Profanest People in the World — A Use- less Vice — Ungentlemanly — Washington and Lin- coln on Swearing — Indicates Low Breeding — The Best Measure of a Man is his Mouth — The Profane Cowardly — Its Wickedness — Oaths have an Eternal Echo— God hears Them — How to Suppress Pro- fanity 67 CHAPTER IV. DEPARTED BLESSEDNESS. Your Abandoned Closets— The Man who Found Time to Die — Doing our Duties under the Disagreeable Idea that God expects it of Us — We should Serve Him not because we Must but because we May — People whose Hands Freeze in their Pockets when They would Draw out their Purses — He is Rich who CONTENTS. 11 PAGS Lays out Much — Poverty not a Passport to Heaven, nor Wealth a Barrier There — Wanted — Christians who are Willing to be Financially Crucified to Establish the World's Market on a Golden Rule Basis — How to Prove the Genuineness of Your Christian Love — Your Life belongs to your Race — Our Self-indulgence Pitifully in Contrast with the whole Conduct of our Master — First Cultivate your Church for God if you Never do Anything Outside — Trunk-like Christians — The Disappointed Dea- con — Worldly Professors of Religion — The Rock- ing-horse Type of Spiritual Life — The Higher Life — How to Attain it — Salvation — Identity of Worth with God . . 80 CHAPTER V. FAST LIFE AND ITS QUICK END. The Pleasures of Sin Short-lived — Testimonies of Burns, Chesterfield, Voltaire, Byron, and Others — Sowing Wild Oats — The Devil's Maxim — A Witchery about Sin — Over the Rapids — Astride a Savage Brute — No Inquisition so Bad as that which the Doctors have to Look Upon — Self-Control — Illustra- tions of the Bondage of Sin— Not True that " The Good Die Young " — The Companions to Avoid — Woman Enters the Portal of Shame Through Man's Base Betrayal — Plea for Single Standard of Morality — Young Man, How is Your Life? Is it Pure, Filled with Honor for Woman ? Are you Tampering with Evil ? 104 CHAPTER VI. JUSTICE TO THE JEW. The Jew in Finance — Jewish Authors — Scientists, Philosophers, Statesmen, Musicians, etc. — The Jew as an American Patriot — The Jew in Charity — Morally and Socially Considered 134 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. MANHOOD VS. MONEY. PAGE Money Does not Make the Man — Manhood More Valu- able than Millions — Manhood Alone can Truly Save Us— The Really Happy People are not the Wealthy — The Harpy of Discontent — Money Making not the Highest Success — Better be a Man than Merely a Millionaire — The Jingle of Coin the Snare of So- ciety — Manhood Alone Abides 129 CHAPTER VIII. THE PEARL OF PEARLS. The Pearl in Scripture— Curious Learning about its Formation Current in Antiquity— Precious Stones a Form of Money in the East — The Pearl as an Emblem of Salvation— The Triumphs of Christian- ity—Making Sacrifices that Others May be Blessed —The Immortality of Influence— The Pearl Fisher's Dreadful Trade— The Sacrifices Necessary— Souls versus Pearls— Our Redemption— What it Cost Jesus , 140 CHAPTER IX. THE DRAWING PREACHER. The Secret of Mr. Moody's Drawing Power— The Over- Mastering Thought of the Cross— The Cross the Most Resistless and Restless of Agitators— A Leaf from an Indian Missionary's Experience 159 CHAPTER X. THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. The Living Dead— The Blight of Frivolity— Trifling Details — Female Dissipation — Valjean's Dream — Dead-Weights— The God-Defying Extravagance of CONTENTS. 13 PAGE Modern Society — Sacrifice of Health — Women who are More Disturbed over an ill-fitting Dress than a Forgotten God — How to Cure the Restlessness of our Society Women — Life More than Mere Lapse of Years — The Beautiful Legend of the Sweet-toned Bells of the Angels 164 CHAPTER XL CHRISTIANITY VS. CHURCHIANITY. Creeds and Churches not Christianity — Christ's Spirit — Humility — Compassion — Who is a Christian? — Gen. Lew Wallace on the Christianity of Christ — The Lord's Creed — Christ's Forgiving Spirit — Bishop Heber's "Alternative" — Harriet Beecher Stowe's Forcible Illustration on the Kind of Help we get in Prayer — Making Religion the Business of Life — The Path of Sorrow Leads to the Land where Sorrow is Unknown 183 CHAPTER XII. THE SPIDER. Lesson The First : God Has made Nothing Loathsome — The Spider's Wondrous Construction — Second ; Industry and Perseverance will mount into Kings' Palaces — Third: Insignificance no Excuse for Doing Nothing — Fourth : Through the Grace of God we may at last Ascend into the Palace of the 199 King Immortal BLOOMTPTODALE CHURCH. HIGH OFFICIAL AUTHORITY ON STATISTICS. The Hon. Robert P. Porter, superintendent of the cen- sus of 1890, in his letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 12, 1897, writes : That popular New York preacher, Dr. Madison C. Peters, gave one of the most practical and statistical discourses on the hard times cause and cure that I have ever heard. Preachers, as a rule, are afraid to use statistics, but this young man used them to such good account that his large audience was thoroughly impressed. He told us that while we were prating over the tariff, and growing purple in the face discussing the silver question, the liquor ques- tion was raising havoc with the nation. Now we have heard this before. But we have not heard it in the way this vigorous man put it Sunday to the large crowd of in- telligent listeners at Asbury Park. There was no senti- mentalism about his presentation. He treated it as purely an economic question. We talk about hard times, and yet we spent last year nearly $1,000,000,000 on liquor to pour down our throats. The audience was shown just the amount of raw material and of labor in ten dollars spent in shoes, in clothing, in furniture, and half a dozen other necessities and the amount in ten dollars spent in liquor. In the one case, but a trifle over one dollar benefited either the farmer or the wage-earner. In the other cases, five or six dol- lars went to the classes now complaining most of hard times. If only half this immense sum could be directed to the purchase of other commodities (articles* needed by the wives and children of men who waste their money in drink) every mill and every shop could be opened, and every idle man could be put to work. If all, we should 16 AUTHORITY ON STATISTICS. become the busiest and most prosperous nation on earth. He brought these facts home with vigor. New York, he said, complains of hard times, and yet last year spent $139,000,000 on liquor. If spent on more useful articles, every idle man could have been employed. We are not suffering from over-production, but under-consumption. Look at the families of the men who guzzle their $1,000,000,000 per annum, and you will see why they do not begin to consume what they should consume and what they would consume if their fathers and husbands were sober and thrifty. I. THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions ? who hath complaining ? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek out mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth do wn smooth- ly : at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Proverbs xxiii. 29-32. One of the supreme problems of the hour in politics, whether the view-point be moral or financial, is the anti-saloon issue. The tariff and silver are secondary issues, intricate ques- tions of detail, appropriate for non-partisan commissions of experts to handle. Considered IT 18 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. merely as a matter of dollars and cents, it is the burning question of the day. The entire amount received for tariff in 1895, was less than $153,000,000, or take the average annual re- ceipts from customs for three years ending June 30th, 1894, when the McKinley bill was in operation, they were only $171,000,000, or less than $2.50 per capita of the population. The total output of silver in this country in 1894 was $64,000,000, giving to every man, woman and child in the country less than one dollar. How utterly insignificant are these figures compared to the $1,000,000,000 which it is reli- ably estimated is the direct tribute which the people of this country pay to the support of the liquor traffic. The ordinary expense of the United States Government for all of the depart- ments, during 1895, was less than $375,000,000, so that the drink bill for that year was three times the amount required to run the entire government of the United States, and the drink bill for that year was nearly sixteen times as great as the entire value of the silver product of the country. Neither open mills nor open mints will do so much to abolish poverty, stamp out crime, insure permanent prosperity, and guarantee our people their inaleniable right to the pursuit of happiness, as closed saloons. No power of legislation and no power that can be obtained by labor combinations, can help the laboring man who spends his money THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 19 in drink. The men who devote their time and money to social reforms without pointing to the saloon as the first cause of poverty and deg- radation are striking with a straw, and seek- ing figs where only brambles grow. It is estimated that fully one-half of the drink bill comes out of the wages of the workingmen. The wage classes cannot support in idleness and luxury 232,295 liquor dealers and their families, their bar-tenders and their families, and pay the enormous rents of their dram-shops and hope to prosper themselves. Archbishop Ireland, in an address in Chicago, said : " Three-fourths of the crime, three- fourths of the inmates of poor-houses and asylums, three- fourths who are recipients in any way of public or private charity, have been reduced to poverty through their own intem- perance, or through the intemperance of their natural protectors. Providence has given us a bounteous land, no better or more fertile soil than ours receives the dew of heaven, industry and commerce thrive among us to the envy of the nations of the world. There is no reason, if we are a sober people, why poverty should be known in America. Our laboring classes have golden opportunities awaiting them ; they earn generous wages, and the road to higher fields is not closed to their ambition. What, then, is the matter ? There is a yawning gulf, ever wide open, swallowing up their means — 20 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. the saloon, a despotic king more insatiate in his demands than even a barbarous tyrant or heartless landlord, claims tribute from them, — alcohol. It is computed that saloons, in large cities especially, average fifteen dollars as daily receipts. At that rate some $20,000,000 flow annually into our Chicago saloons, and a large proportion of this enormous sum is wrung from the hands of the working classes, whose families meanwhile are in want, and who one day with their children may be thrown upon public charity. Much is said and written about re- forming the masses, raising up the people, giv- ing to all comfortable homes. The men who propose social reforms without pointing to the saloons as the first cause of poverty and deg- radation talk in the air. The catechism of social economy is brief, but undeniably true. It is this : How enrich the people ? Make them sober. Make the people sober, and there shall be no fear among us of communism, nihilism or other dangerous movements which in older countries threaten society. The laboring classes in America will have a stake in this country, if they avoid drink ; they will be as interested as other classes in the permanency of our in- stitutions. Thoroughly sober, they will have the intelligence and ability to protect them- selves against monopolies, there will be no room for social revolutions. Around the beer table do prating socialists mainly hold their coun- THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 21 sels, and it is while their heads reel and the saloon-keeper closes his till upon their dollars that they complain of the poverty of the masses and demand, in the name of justice and hu- manity, radical changes in society. " The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, acting under the instruction of the Legislature, has made an investigation of the relation of the liquor traffic to pauperism, crime and insanity. The method adopted was that of direct inquiry of the inmates of the State institutions, and of all the persons passing through the courts of the State for a year. The result of the investigation made a sug- gestive and important volume. As to the in- sane, as far as could be ascertained, seven out of every ten had intemperate parents, and one out of every four was believed to have been made insane by his own intemperate habits. Of all the paupers in the State institutions, three out of every four were addicted to the use of liquor, and nearly one-half had intemperate parents. Of all the arrests for crime during the year, two-thirds were for drunkenness. Taking into account all kinds of crime, in about eight and one-half cases out of every ten the intemperate habits of the offender led to a condition which induced the crime, and, excluding the minors, ninety-six out of every one hundred persons 22 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. convicted of crime were addicted to the use of liquor. The late Dr. Howard Crosby, for many years a close observer among the poor of New York, once declared that in all his investigations he had " never found a family borne down by poverty that did not owe its fall to rum." In 1886, "The Voice" obtained from superin- tendents of alms-houses and poor directors of several cities estimates of the percentage of the pauperism due to drink. The results were as follows : Worcester, Mass., males 90 per cent., females, 70 per cent. ; Albany, N. Y., 90 per cent. ; Meadville, Pa., 90 per cent. ; St. Charles, Mo., 75 to 85 per cent. ; Minneapolis, Minn., 80 per cent. ; Hamilton, Ohio, 75 per cent. Carroll D. Wright, the eminent statistician, says: "I have looked into a thousand homes of the working people of Europe — I do not know how many in this country — and I never had to look beyond the inmate to find the cause of poverty. So far as my own observa- tion goes, drunkenness is at the bottom of the misery, and not the industrial system or the industrial conditions surrounding the working- men and their families." Charles Booth, in his thrilling book on " Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age," says: "Drink is the most prolific of all the causes of poverty." John Burns, M. P., and one hundred and THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 23 thirty-nine other British labor leaders, in an address supporting the Veto bill in 1893, said : " The chief cause of the present-time poverty and debasement of the poor is drink." Chief Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Loco- motive Engineers, said, in a speech to working- men : " If I could I would inaugurate a strike that would drive the liquor traffic from the face of the earth." T. V. Powderly, former General Master Workman of the Knights of Labor, says : " The liquor traffic is responsible for the misery among nine-tenths of the working classes." T. P. Whittaker, M. P., in a recent speech before the Total Abstainers' Union of London, said, that the drink bill of £140,000,000, for the year was equal to the rent of all the houses of the country. If paid to the railway companies every person could travel free, there would be nothing to pay for the carriage of goods and a surplus of some £60,000,000 would remain. Or the money spent on drink would suffice for the taxes and the rates with free gas and water thrown in. Equally forcible comparisons could be made for this country. Professor Peabody, of Harvard, writes to the Forum that the result of an investigation in Boston was that, in 1895, the number of per- sons visiting the saloons of that city every day was 226, 752 or one half of the entire popula- tion. If each person expended ten cents at the 24 THE PANACEA FOR POVEETT. saloon the amount for the year would be $6,- 802, 560. In contrast with this outlay he places the $2,016,160 expended on public schools, the $1,041,296 spent on the fire department, and the $1,318,186 being the total bill of the police department, and the $2,241,814, expended on public parks, all these items together being less in amount than the sum spent in the bar-rooms of the city. His reckoning of only ten cents a day as the outlay of each visitor to the saloons is certainly a very moderate one. These figures should awaken serious thought among those who frequent the saloons. Former Governor Hughes of Arizona, shows the utter impossibility of anything but hard times when the drink traffic is draining over a billion of dollars annually, which should go into legitimate industries, when he says : " Take Arizona alone, and her drink bill annu- ally, if put into the development of our mines, would do more than all the foreign capital com- bined brought here for that purpose. Put this money into irrigating canals and the recla- mation of our productive desert land, and it would return a hundredfold to the territory ; it would provide farms for thousands of fami- lies annually. Then, behold the prosperity which would follow. Every trade, every busi- ness would throb with energy, and the people would be in the full enjoyment of the good things which would flow therefrom. This is THE PANACEA FOE, POVERTY. 25 no dream, no tale of the imagination, but facts." Joseph Meclill, the distinguished Chicago journalist, testified before a Congressional Committee of labor and education: "I have rarely known a steady, sober, industrious man, who saved his surplus earnings, and prudently invested them, but attained independence be- fore old age, and I have never known a work- ing man, no matter what might be his wages, who frequently indulged his appetite for liquor, that ever made any headway." And, continues Mr. Medill, " the money thus thrown away on liquor by the wage-workers in the last ten years would have provided each family with a home free of rent, thereby emancipating them all from servitude to a landlord. If in- vested in railroad stocks and bonds during the last ten years, it would have transferred the ownership of every single railway in the United States to the labor classes who squander their wages on drink." The following incident which has gone the round of the papers has been authenticated by a member of my church, whose father is the president of the bank in question. A large manufacturer in Marseilles, Illinois, one Satur- day, paid out about seven hundred dollars to his employes, in new five dollar bills. On Monday, about four hundred dollars in those bills were deposited in the local bank by saloon-keepers. 26 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. The employer comments that this does not prove that all this money was paid for liquor, as it is not known how much was given back in change, hut it does prove that the men who drink make it a rule to pay the saloon keeper before any- one else gets his pay. It brings out in a strik- ing and unanswerable way the relation of the saloon to the industrial problem. Following the careful estimate of George B. Waldron, based upon the Government reports of 1894 and 1S95, — of $10 spent for shoes, trac- ing them back through the factory and the tannery, $2.89 goes to pay the farmer for his hides, and $2.91 to the tanners and the shoe- makers. Of 810 spent for a suit of clothes, $2.28 goes to the farmer for his cotton and wool, and 82.77 for wages to the spinner, the weaver and the tailor. Of the $10 spent for furniture, $3.68 goes to the furniture makers, $1.68 pays for the lumber and other materials which the farmer furnishes ; or of $10 spent for carpets, the carders, spinners and weavers get $2.69, while the farmer who raises the wool gets $2.40. But out of the $10 spent for beer and whisky, only 96 cents go to the farmer for his grain, and 38 cents to the man who produces the liquor. Or, to use his other illustration : Suppose you spend 5 cents for a glass of beer. According to the census for 1890, about 12 per cent, of the nickel goes to the farmer to pay for his grain and hops, THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 27 and about 5 per cent, is called for in wages — in all, 17 per cent., or about one-sixth of the nickel spent for beer benefits in its manufacture, the farmer and the workingm an. In the same way, tracing the manufacture of the bread through the bakery and the flouring mill back to the farmer, it is found that 35 per cent, goes to the farmer for grain, and 33 per cent, to the baker and miller in wages — in all, 68 per cent., or more than two thirds of the nickel spent for bread benefits in its manufacture, the farmer and the wage- earner. The rest of the nickel left, after paying the farmers and the workingman for their work, five-sixths in the case of beer and one-third in the case of the bread, goes to pay the trans- portation, rents, interests, profits and cost of retailing. Every time a man spends a nickel for bread instead of for beer, he pays the difference be- tween 68 per cent, and 17 per cent., or 51 per cent of his nickel (which means about 2 1-2 cents) more to the farmer and to the wage- earner than if he had spent the nickel for beer. Now, 2 1-2 cents all alone is not much, but when ten billion nickels go for beer instead of bread, as was the case last year, and for each nickel the farmer and the wage-earner lose 2 1-2 cents, it amounts to the very neat little sum of $250,000,000 a year. It is difficult to see how the ten billion mugs of beer can do any good, 28 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. but the ten billion loaves of bread would give one loaf a day each for a year to more than 27,000,000 people. These figures explain the poverty, suffering and want of all the poor in the land. The amount of money now worse than wasted on drink, if used to promote our productive industries, would cause such a re- vival of business throughout the land that we should think the millennium had dawned upon us. If instead of spending one billion for drink, suppose we turned this money into channels of useful industry, see what it would do : $150- 000,000 expended for food and provisions — what an impetus to the grocery business all over the country ! $37,000,000 for clothing— what em- ployment would this furnish for woolen and cotton mills, to tailors and dressmakers ! $13- 000,000 for boots and shoes — what a boon to shoe and leather factories ! $600,000,000 spent for new houses — what a demand for lumber, building material, carpenters, masons and me- chanics ! $200,000,000 expended for furniture — what an increase in furniture and upholstery establishments ! Workmen, do you want a way out of hard times ? Spend the money now wasted in drink on the necessities of life, and the manufacturers' demand for raw materials will give employment to 1,000,000 more men on our farms. Closed saloons would mean 300,000 more shoemakers, carpenters and mechanics. THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 29 Not over-production, but underconsumption is our trouble now. You cannot spend your money in the saloons and in the stores also. Close the saloons, and more goods of all kinds will be demanded, more would be manufac- tured ; multiplied labor would be required to make and sell them ; wages would be high ; every man at work, and everybody would be happy. A woman came into a shoe store, timidly, as if unaccustomed to buying. "What can I do for you?" inquired the merchant. "I want a pair of shoes for a little girl." " What number?" " She is twelve years old." " But what number does she wear ? " "I do not know." " But what number did you buy when you bought the last pair for her ? " " It is so long since she had a pair of new shoes. Her father used to drink, but he stopped that, and this morning he said to me, * Mother, get Sissy a pair of shoes. I don't know when I have bought her a pair.' I thought if I told you how old she was you would know just what size to give me." The wives and the children of the men who drink "consume" in the economic sense, too few shoes, too few clothes, and too little food. The Herald and Presbyter prints a letter to a 30 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. Pennsylvania grocer, which is quite interest- ing, not only to those who spend money for liquor, but to the men in legitimate business who have goods to sell. The letter is as fol- lows : Dear Sir, — Having been accustomed to spend twenty-five cents a day for whisky, I find by saving it I can order from you during one year, 3 bis. flour, 100 lbs. granulated sugar, 25 lbs. corn starch, 125 lbs. macaroni, 60 lbs. white beans, 2 lbs. ground pepper, 1 doz. scrub brushes, 50 lbs. sal. soda, 20 lbs. roasted coffee, 25 cans tomatoes, 24 cans mackerel, 50 lbs. best raisins, 1 doz. packages herbs, 40 lbs. oatmeal, 20 lbs. rice, 1 brl. crackers, 11 lbs. hominy, 18 lbs. mince meat, 1 doz. brooms, 20 lbs. Oolong tea, 21 cans green peas, 20 lbs. dried apples, 25 lbs. prunes, 40 lbs. laundry starch, 28 lbs. table salt, 25 lbs. lard, 12 bottles maple syrup, 100 bars soap, 2 gals, chow-chow, 1 ream note paper, 500 envelopes, 2 newspapers for one year. I had no idea my drinking had been costing me so much. I now live better and buy more for my family." Appended to this list is the statement of the grocer that the money saved would provide all the goods enumerated. Many a merchant who, with a moderate profit on goods enough to properly supply those who would naturally buy from him, would make a good living, now does THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 31 a dull business, and is obliged to credit where he knows there is danger of loss, while the saloon-keeper near by gathers in the dollars of the heads of families. Thomas Whittaker, the veteran English temperance worker, was one day called on un- expectedly to address a crowd of workingmen who had gathered about him. Addressing the audience, a man in the crowd called out, " Look here, canny man." Mr. Whittaker looked there. The man was drunk. "Look here, canny man!" He looked again. "A quart of ale is better than a quart of water for a workingman." The speaker said, "Say it again, brother, say it again." He was not quite ready for him. He did so, and then Mr. Whittaker said, "You have uot put it right. A quart of ale in that hand costs you sixpence, a quart of water in this costs you nothing. To start fair you must have sixpence in the hand where the water is." George Charlton, the butcher, was in the crowd. "Now take the sixpence and go to my friend George Charlton and ask him to give you as nice a piece of steak for fourpence as he can. Then go to Mrs. Bell, next door, and get a penny worth of nice potatoes. On your way home go into the baker's shop and get a penny worth of bread. Now, you have spent your sixpence. I hope your wife can cook your potatoes and beef- steak, and serve it hot with a hot plate and a 32 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. little pepper and salt, and while you are eating your beefsteak and hot potatoes, tell me, wagon men of Newcastle, whether a quart of ale is better for a hard working man than a quart of water.-' And the multitude cried out, "Beefsteak forever." There are 1,688 drink manufactories in our land. Invested in these places is the sum of $299,220,818. There are only three industries that exceed in capital invested that of the liquor business — cotton goods, foundry and machine products and lumber. We invest in boots and shoes $95,282,311, nearly one- third less than that invested in drink manufactur- ing. Employed in these distilleries and brew- eries are 49,018 persons. There are nearly as many employed in the glass manufactory which has a capital of only $10,966,850. In the brick and tile industry, $82,578,566 is in- vested and 109,151 persons employed. More capital is invested and less labor employed in the liquor industry than in any other in the United States. The total gross receipts in the liquor industry reaches the enormous sum of $326, 801, 616, being over $27,000,000 more than the capital invested. Out of these receipts only the sum of $36,052,721 was paid as wages to employees. For the liquor thus made the people paid to the saloons and drug-stores in 1895 the sum of $962,192,851. England has nearly one hundred million THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 33 dollars in this country bound up in the liquor business. For this kindness of the English investor in thus lending money to this profit- able trade, our manufacturers sent to England in 1895 $5,951,204. Nothing pays so well as the drink business. That was eye-opening advice an actor gave his friend : "My Dear , "A gallon of whisky costs about $3, and con- tains about sixty-five fifteen-cent drinks. Now if you must drink, buy a gallon and make your wife be bar-keeper. When you are dry give her fifteen cents for a drink, and when the whisky is gone she will have, after paying for it, $6.75 left, and every gallon thereafter will yield the same profit. This money she should put away, so that when you have become inebriate, unable to support your- self, and shunned by every respectable man, your wife may have money to keep you until your time comes to fill a drunkard's grave." There were sold in the City of New York from January 1st, 1895, to January 1st, 1896, 4,805,167 barrels of beer, which at the whole- sale value of 85.50 per barrel, cost the saloon keepers, $26,428,418. The people who drank this beer paid at least $100,000,000. So much for beer. There were 200,000 cases of cham- pagne consumed last year at a cost of 34 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. $5, 300, 000. Other wines and brandies, 2, 990, 865 gallons, costing about $27,000,000. In addi- tion to all this 51,000 barrels of domestic whisky during the same year, and 48,000 bar- rels of domestic alcohol blended with it, and enough other liquids amounting to 130,000 barrels, which, when sold by the glass, amounted to over $2,000,000. Thus last year, in spite of the hard times, the citizens of New York drank 5,051,000 barrels of all kinds of liquors at a cost of $138, 710, 208. Now this vast sum, diverted by Law and the Gospel to the pur- chase of necessities, would give New York such a business boom that we should have to work night and day with two or three shifts of workmen to supply the demands and luxuries. The drink problem is the financial problem. The closed saloon is the panacea for poverty. McDonald Clarke, who wrote those exquisite lines: Now twilight lets her curtain down And pins it with a star, was commonly called the "Mad Poet," and actually died some twenty years ago in a lu- natic asylum. But if his lines On The Rum Hole have ever been surpassed we have yet to find them : Ha ! see where the blazing grog-shop appears, As the red waves of wretchedness swell, How it burns on the edge of tempestuous years, The horrible LIGHTHOUSE OF HELL. THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 35 There is enough in the history of the sa- loon's dealings with the American homes to arouse the hot blood in every heart. An old miser on the coast of California con- ceived the strange fancy of building himself a home out of the fragments of wrecked vessels. The whole edifice was a combination of bulk- heads and bulwarks, of lockers and cabins. It was weatherboarded with planks that had been ripped off the ship's side by howling winds and savage breakers. The ceilings were deco- rated with beautiful linings of sumptuous steamer cabins. The kitchen was the galley of a wrecked merchantman. This sounds strange. It may be fiction, but go with me through the great cities of our land, our cities of saloons, and I will show you wreckage pal- aces more interesting than that. Go up and down our most fashionable thoroughfares and I will show you many a magnificent wreckage palace — spacious grounds, splendid trees, con- servatories blossoming at the bidding of the man who dwells in splendor. The doors of the palace are of massive walnut. The carpets of richest texture. The frescoes on the ceilings are works of art. The studios of the world have been ransacked for the pictures on the walls. The beds are of softest down. The wines that sparkle on the board are the rarest, and yet this house is built of wrecks — wrecks sadder than ever the sea wrought — wrecks not 36 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. of ships but of happy homes, of loving wives, innocent children and immortal souls. Who is the owner of this mansion ? A brewer ! From that wreckage palace let me take you to a house where a hard-working man once blessed a happy family. There was bread enough and to spare, there was fire on the hearth, there was carpet on the floor, and pic- tures on the walls. But come with me now. The furniture is gone, the cupboard is bare, everything is pawned, a faded, broken woman bends over the wash-tub, and pale-faced, starv- ing children sit by the window. What has wrought this desolation? Everything has gone into the wreckage palace. Why, workmen, why be so foolish as to spend your hard-earned wages and rob your- selves and your families in order to build up pal- aces, buy horses and carriages, diamonds and luxuries, for brewers, distillers and saloon- keepers and their families, while you and your loved ones receive nothing in return but deg- radation, distress and death ? And you, Christian men, what are you going to do about this traffic ? A gentleman once said, "I do not favor the prohibiting of the sale of liquor ; it would be an injustice to the men in business, besides it would throw thousands out of employment." He was answered: "You do not look at the issue from the right side. You take a contractor's THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 37 view. Just before the war closed a Govern- ment contractor said in a car, ' I hope the war will not close in two years. I will lose thou- sands of dollars, besides thousands will be turned out of employment from the Govern- ment works.' A lady passenger, clad in weeds of mourning, rose to her feet, and with a tearful voice said, 'Sir, I have a brave boy and a husband sleeping the sleep of death in a soldier's cemetery. I have only one boy left, and he is in the front of the foe. God ! I wish the cruel war would end now.' ' He saw the point. Do you ? It may be your boy or your girl that will fall the next victim to the drink "industry." In a far western town some years ago re- sided a widow who had a son, sixteen, and a daughter eighteen years of age. A saloon was opened, and the boy, who had been an ex- emplary boy from childhood up, was soon led into drinking, and in less than fifteen months in a drunken spree he killed a comrade. He was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The day of execution came on, and it found his sister at the State capitol before the Governor asking executive interfer- ence in her brother's behalf. The mother was in the prison cell, hoping, praying, comforting her boy, as only a mother can. The hour of execution wore on. He was literally torn from his mother's arms as she fell fainting; to 38 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. the floor. He was taken to the gallows, the black cap adjusted, the trap sprung. The rope broke and he fell almost lifeless to the ground. As they raised him the blood gushed from his mouth and nose. He, thinking of his mother, said in a husky voice, " Oh, mother, for God's sake won't you have them hurry, won't you, please ? " He was again led to the scaffold, the rope was adjusted, the trap sprung and his soul sent into eternity. Men of America, for God's sake, hurry ! hurry ! ! hurry ! ! ! not to open any more of these places of iniquity, but hurry to blot them out and drive them from our land ! Hurry to wipe away this foul stain from the face of Christendom ! Be willing to be counted singular in the eyes of men rather than unfaithful in the judgment of God. Thomas Jefferson, speaking of slavery, said : "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just, " — and I tremble for my country when I remember that the votes of her citizens give this monster iniquity the sanction of law. Upon you, my fellow-citizens, devolves this work, for you are in this land the real sover- eigns. It is your voices which sway the State and national conduct. You have the power to stay the tide of intemperance if you have the will. It is for you to speak the word and this bane of social, civil and domestic life will be sent to join slavery. I proclaim a strike to- day. A strike against the drink ! Strike, THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. 39 keep striking until you hit the right spot. Rally round the cry " Down with the drinking saloon ! " For, sang the late Francis A. Sim- kins : There is not in all the borders of our wide domain A blight so dark and deadly, nor a foe so fell — A plague so devastating, with its countless slain — A thing so reeking with the fetid breath of hell, As that foul traffic which, unwhipped of justice, plies Its blasting, desolating work of death and shame — Unheeding man's despair, or childhood's piteous cries, Nor sparing youth nor age, nor fairest, loftiest name. Author of ruined homes and bright hopes dashed to earth, Transforming men to "brutish beasts" and helpless slaves — The light of reason blotted out, as at their birth — Consigning them, despairing, to dishonored graves. Artificer of beggary, disease and death ! Monster insatiate that knows not how to feel : All beauty blasting like the simoon's breath, Its life perpetual menace to our country's weal. God of all Righteousness ! let the avenging hand Of infinite power fall swift upon these haunts of crime, 'Till soon within the borders of our rescued land They shall no more be known throughout recorded time, Foul, festering plagues ! what right 'neath heaven have they to live One hour, to taint the fountain of our nation's life ? Surely to human need they can " no good thing " give, But only whelm in shame and sorrow, sin and strife. If Heaven's own lightning com6 not down to smite And blast and wither this nefarious trade, Then let the thunder of the people's voice indict The foul and guilty thing whose matchless crimes have made 40 THE PANACEA FOR POVERTY. Of good men devils, and their happy homes destroyed — Of countless children orphans, hapless, helpless, poor — Bringing to wives and mothers misery unalloyed, And burdens heavier than their crushed hearts may endure. Shame to the Christian nation that supinely brooks An evil so gigantic and a crime so vast : Shame to the State that with indifference looks Upon the hideous rum-wrought lessons of the past : Shame that this harlot mother of unnumbered woes Should nestle and be nourished in our goodly land : Shame, that this barbarous and most vile of mortal foes Should from our rulers gain a ready, helping hand ! Arouse, ye Christian men ! Awake to duty's call, The time is come for action — quickly fall in line ! The fight is close impending — there is work for all, Be ready for the conflict, and forthwith combine To drive the ravening monster from our natal shores — Leaving nor trace nor trail of sanctioned wrong behind : Up ! up ! and bar the hateful demon from our doors, And vanquish, and for aye, the arch foe of mankind ! II. PATRIOTISM, PEACE AND PIETY. If the Syrians be too strong for me, then shalt thou help me : but if the children of Amnion be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee. Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God : and the Lord do that which seemeth him good.— 2 Sam. x. : 11-12. The king of a neighboring and friendly nation had just died, and as he had during his life been considerate of David, the latter thought he would send a letter of sympathy to his son. But some of the princes of the King of Amnion thought that they saw in David's action a cunning purpose to spy out the land, and they persuaded him that there were hostile intentions towards him, so that he basely insulted the am- bassador of David, and sent him away grossly offeuded, and as no apology was forthcoming, the ultimatum was a declaration of war. The Ammonites, conscious of their inferiority to the people of Israel, hired the Assyrians to come and help them. The preparations were made for a terrific struggle. The enemy dis- posed themselves into two companies, one of the Ammonites and one of the Syrians, the 41 42 PATRIOTISM, PEACE, AND PIETY. plan being to charge the forces of Israel at the same moment on the front and the rear. David's army was led by Joab, and his brother Abishai, the former being commander-in-chief. Perceiving the design of the enemy Joab di- vided his forces also, the choicest men he took under his own direction to fight the Syrians, who were the better soldiers, and the rest of the army he put under the charge of Abishai to fight the Ammonites ; but before a single sword was drawn and in the presence of their men, Joab uttered with a loud voice this mem- orable speech: "If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me, but if the children of Amnion be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee. Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God, and let the Lord do that which seemeth him good." From these pa- triotic words let us see what practical lessons we can carry home with us. Lesson I. Mutual Helpfulness. "If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me, but if the children of Am- nion be too strong for thee, then will I help thee." We are mutually dependent upon one another. We should help our neighbors when in trouble. The true man must live for the good of others as well as himself. Hierocles says that each one of us is a center, circum- PATRIOTISM, PEACE, AND PIETY. 43 scribed by many concentric circles. From our- selves the first circle extends, comprising parents, wife and children. The next con- centering circle comprises relations, then fel- low-citizens, and lastly, the whole human race. It seldom happens that the various members of even the same family, though equally deserv- ing, are equally successful in life. Of two brothers one carries all before him and elbows himself to the front. The other, just as worthy, good, able, industrious and painstaking, never meets with success. Therefore what General Joab said to his brother, is just what each of you should say to the other : " If I am in trouble, you will help me, and if you are in trouble I will help you." Some men's failures in life are more creditable than some men's successes. There is much mistake on this point, and these lines of the poet have force : Not all who seem to fail have failed indeed, Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain, For all our acts to many issues lead, And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain, Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain, The Lord will fashion in his own good time (Be this the laborer's proudly humble creed), Such ends as, to his wisdom, fitliest chime With his vast love's eternal harmonies. There is no failure for the good and wise, What though thy seed should fall by the wayside, And the birds snatch it — yet the birds are fed — Or they may bear it far across the tide, To give rich harvest after thou art dead. 44 PATRIOTISM, PEACE, AND PIETY. It is nothing derogatory to a man if he is given a lift. If God has made yon poor he has made yon to receive. If rich he means you to bestow. how much mutual assistance is needed everywhere ! If you are in a position to get in a brother who is out, do it. If you are in difficulty, do not be ashamed to ask assist- ance. There are many ways in which you can help each other. Let the strong assist the weak. May be there is some one on whom the Syrians of infidelity, or the Ammonites of sensual temptation have come down with overwhelming force, he is in danger of being swept away from all manliness and truth. Don't give him the heel who wants the hand. To the rescue, men ! Snatch him with pity from the pit into which he has fallen, put your arm around him, stand by him and assist him to beat back the foe. Do good whenever you can. Sometimes a s mile wi ll do it, Oftener a kj ^w ^d, a look of sympathy, or an acknowledgment of obliga- tion. Sometimes a little help to a burdened shoulder or a push to a heavy wheel will be in place. Sometimes a word or two of good coun- sel, a seasonable admonition, at others a sug- gestion of advantage to be gained and a little interest to secure it. These are little things which will be received with lasting gratitude. And thus every instance of kindness shown, whether acknowledged or not, opens up a little PATEIOTISM, PEACE, AND PIETY. 45 well-spring of happiness in the doer's own breast, the flow of which may be made perma- nent by habit. What a blessed world we could make it if we walked the way of life as the Saviour once walked our earth, filling all the air about him with an aroma which was so subtilely distilled from kindly deeds, helpful words and an unselfish life. Every one of us, however small or poor, may in some way or other assist our fellow-creatures, There is nobody who cannot do some good, and everybody is bound to do diligently all the good he can, in all the ways he can, to all the people he can. It is not enough to be rightly disposed. What we feel we must act. What we pray for we must strive to accomplish. If you cannot do much, do something. He who waits to do a great. deal of good, at once will never do a ny. Good is done by degrees. Life is niade up pj little things. To one man in a million, and but once in an age, does the occasion offer for doing a great deed. True greatness consists in being great in l ittle th ings. How are railroads built ? By one shovelful of dirt after another, one shovelful at a time. There are 1,500,000,000 people in the world now that there is danger of overlooking our individual responsibility and duty. You may suppose that your failing to contribute your part to the world^s hanpiness will not be missed. < >v