. T UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Reused ^^^^^^^ , i8f/ Accessions No.. /^.4^ 2^ f^ Shelf No.. ^^ e ^" '^Ab. A-^.*^ '5-.iAi*L.j»".;r- ii% ^^ '^ti r ' -:. •A^;*?;'.V. K.^i^. ^ y^ ■'V'.:5 • ''^•^v •i.ife, l^ ^ PREFACE. The author has long believed that a new system of Political Economy is urgently needed. The old system has well been called ^' The Dismal Science." It is the stamping-ground of selfishness, ev^ery man to get as much and give as little as possible, and by systematized heartlessness to work out an industrial millennium. The statement of the case is its refutation. Human brotherhood must have a place in any science which deals with humanity. It is refreshing to see the modern Economics becoming more human and more republican, giving large place to the principles of co-operation. By so doing it is also becoming more Christian. Its highest triumph must be to incarnate in terms of material science those sublime utterances of the Son of Man : '* One is your Father, which is in heaven," and '^ All ye are brethren." That other thought, too, must be brought into any perfect system^ ** He that is greatest, let him be your servant :" — all power the servitor of all weakness — power sweeter, nobler, and more generous — weakness happier, purer, and more secure. As part of this great problem of co-operation or brotherhood, the question, '* What shall we do with the liquor traffic ?'' comes promptly to the front. From this point of view it soon ceases to be a question. The 11 PKEFACE. brother cannot destroy the brother. It is not republican to debauch the citizen. It is not co-operative to de- grade the fellow-laborer. The relation of the liquor traffic to Economics is one which the masters of the science have scarcely begun to touch. The case is much like that of a generation ago. When slavery was rocking the continent and soon to del- uge it in blood, Political Economy was too busy to dis- cuss a theme like that. But when, in 1858, Eli Thayer declared, *' Why, sir, we can buy a negro-power in a steam-engine for $10, and feed and clothe that power one year for $5. Are we the men to pay $1,000 for a negro slave, and $150 a year to feed and clothe him ?" then the problem was nearing its solution. It is worthy of remark that the recent emancipation of slaves in Brazil has been made wholly on economic grounds. So, we believe, it will be with Prohibition. When all men come to see that there is no money in the liquor traffic, except for the trafficker, and for him only by loss to every one else, a tinal end will bo put to this system of organized robbery. The author does not hope, spite of most careful en- deavor, to have avoided all errors. The subject is vast. Cause and efifect interlace. At some points it is impos- sible to get beyond conjecture. But he has taken great pains to secure all attainable facts, and to give nothing which is not fully substantiated. This book is written for ** the plain people," who are the bone and sinew and the hope of the land. Hence a conversational has been preferred to a formal style, seek- ing to put the results of scholarship into common speech. For the same reason round numbers have been used in preference to complete ones. For instance, to almost PUKFAfK. Ill every one §50,000,000 conveys a more intelligible idea than $49,100,590. It is also easier to remember. Hence, for the purposes of a popular treatise it is really more accurate, as it is certainly pleasanter reading. The author gratefully acknowledges his obligations to Dr. Hargreaves, the pioneer in this line of study, whose ** Wasted Resources" and ** Worse than Wasted" have been frequently quoted. Much material has been taken from The Voice, not because of any political bias, but because on many points no such complete and pains- taking collection of f-^^cts was to be found elsewhere. The book is sent out with the earnest hope that it may be found useful in building up a single department of the Economics of the Future, which shall seek through the laws of earthly relationships to bring all humanity nearer in happiness and virtue to the one God, Maker of heaven and earth. May it also help toward the speedy removal of the chief fronting evil of our civiliza- tion, before the hearts that are aching shall break, and the feet that are tempted shall fall ; till the saloon's dread shadow shall nevermore darken the love-light of home, nor dijii the brightness of childhood's morning ! Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/economicsofprohiOOfernrich CONTENTS. PAOK PREFACE, i CHAPTER 1. THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT. President White and Commercialism — The Presidential Election of 1888—" The Tariff a Friend of the Liquor Trade"— Re- newal of the Battle of 1840— Prohibition Will Do More than Tariff for the Wool Interest— The Tribute Annually Levied on New York City by the Saloons — How Prohibition Will Benefit Every Honest Industry 9 CHAPTER II. PAYING THE PIPER. Cost of Liquor to the Consumers in 1889 — Annual Increase — Indirect Expense Equals Direct — Estimates of Crime, Pauperism, Sickness, Insanity, etc. — Lost Time of Liquor- Makers— Cost of Splendid Saloons — Drink Waste, Two Thousand Millions, .17 CHAPTER III. DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY ? It Cannot Possibly Repay the Loss— National and State Receipts from the Liquor Traffic — Liquor Receipts and Expenses in Philadelphia under the Brooks Law — In Ohio under the Dow Law— In Omaha with $1,000 License— Loss of Police Efficiency — Depreciation of Property — Sidewalks and Saloons. . . 32 YX CONTENTS. PAGX CHAPTER IV. HIGH LICENSE AS A MONOPOLY. •• Taxing it to Death" — Reducing the Number of Saloons — A Simple Question of Arithmetic — The Grocery Problem — The Sugar Trust — A Convention of Dentists— Mr. Onahan's Figures for Chicago— Internal Revenue Reports Show More Liquor Sold by Fewer Saloons— The Whiskey Trust Reduc- ing the Number of Distilleries — Effect on the Power of the Saloon in Politics— A Tax upon the Poor, . , , . 46 CHAPTER V. HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION. License-Paying Saloon-Keepers to Enforce the Laws against Illicit Selling — Increased Arrests for Drunkenness in Chicago— Testimony of the Chicago Daily News—l^ow it "Abolishes the Dives" in Chicago — In St. Louis— Testimony of the St. Louis Republic — Fearful Condition of Omaha- Testimony of Omaha Daily Bee — Police Report* — Official Statement of the Nebraska Non-Partisan Amendment League — Table of High-License and Low-License Cities — High License in St. Paul— Philadelphia under the "Brooks I^w" — Pittsburgh's 700 " S|x?ak-Easies" — Why More Drunkenness in Fewer Saloons 60 CHAPTER VI. HIGH LICENSE AND THE CONSUMER. The Consumer Pays the Entire Bill— Wealth-Producing Quali- ties Destroyed— The Workmen of Sheffield. England— What the National Labor Tnbiine says— The Consumer as the CoDSumee — Charles Lamb's Pathetic Words— What Oliver Ames & Son Found— Mr. Mifawl)er's Wis^lom— $200,000 for a Glass of Beer — English Workingmen and Saloons— Baloons and the Haymarkct Maswicre— In the Cronin Trial — The Piper to Raise his Price 83 CONTKN'TS. VII PAUB CHAPTER VII. THE HARVEST OF DEATH. The Duke of Alvah and the " Bloody Council "—The Graves of a Host— The Cash Value of a Man— Statistics of Mimico Industrial School on the Cost of Feeding Boys— Price of a Negro Slave — A Man Estimated as Capital on the Basis of What he Can Earn— The Saloon Does not Pay its Own Funeral Expenses— Whiskey and the Inquisition — Have You a Boy to Spare ? 95 CHAPTER Yin, A STEP TOWARD PROHIBITION^. An Unrighteous Method is Sure to Prove Unwise — The Fewer Saloons Have Greatly Increased Power — Harder to Close the Saloons when the People Have Become Used to Spending the Money — The Higher the License for the Saloon the Lower the Public Sentiment for Prohibition — " Free Rum" and the Texas Steer— Opinions of Nebraska Clergymen — James G. Blaine on the Tendency of Liquor Revenues — A Step that Has Never Stepped — The Old-Time License in Maine, Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas — Distillers Atherton and Her on " The True Policy for the Trade," . . .108 CHAPTER IX. LOCAL OPTIOX. Advocated as Peculiarly American — The Principle of "Homo Rule" — Allowing Prohibition Wherever Enforcement is Possible— Obtainable Sooner than State or National Prohi- bition—Claimed to be Eminently Successful in Practice — Objected that no Community Can Have the Right to Legalize a Wrong— Local Option in Cincinnati— The Ameri- can Idea not Piecemeal but Aggregate Liberty — Squatter Sovereignty— Douglass and Lincoln— Surrendei-s the Centres of Power— Always in Politics — Professor Scomp and Mr. Johnson on Results in Georgia — Local Option for the Tariff and the Cholera, 123 Ylll CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. '^" SUPPLY CREATES DEMAND. The Law of Luxuries and Vices— Dr. Felix L. Oswald on the Natural Aversion for Alcohol among all Living Things — Man not Excepted — Creating an Appetite — Experience of a Cincinnati Merchant — How the Dealer "Works up a Trade" — Why the Liquor Men Agitate for Repeal of Prohi- bition — Illicit Sales May Supply an Existing Demand — But not Create a New One— The Slander of *' Wanting Whatever is Prohibited" — Testimony of * ' Nasby " — Rev. Edward Ellis— The Brooklyn Eagle— The National Liquor Traffic One Vast Organized Temptation 137 CHAPTER XL. THE TRUE RESTRICTION. Difficulty of Restriction — The Steady Ratio of Income and Intemperance — Prohibition as a Restriction — The Saloons of Council Bluffs— The Clerk's Drink in Kansas— The Young Farmer and the Closed Saloon — The Cities in a State of Siege — Law as an Educator— The Dniggist at the Telephone — Words of Judge Pitman — No Stocks of Liquor Waiting — No Saloon Rent Going on to Prevent Sunday-Closing- Then " Local Option" Can Pimish the Seller in the Next Town— " Boot-Leggers" Fight Shy of Minors —" The Grandest Place to Bring up Boys," ,..,,,. 148 CHAPTER XIT. WHO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW ? Enforcement of Laws by " The Citizen, Male or Female" — The Private Individual as Detective and Patrolman — Interference is Trespass — What Executive Officers Are For — Usurping Legislative Functions — American Kings — Repeal as a Method of Enforcement — General Grant on Enforcement- Enforcement by Representatives— Repeal tlie Non-Enforcing roxTEVTs. IX TAtllS Officers — The Wtitchmau in the Mill — " Euforcing the Laws We Have" — The Lending Umbrella — The Stronger the Law the Easier to Enforce it — How Kansas Disposes of Non- Enforcing Olficers, 160 CHAPTER XIII. MAINE. Nasby's" Experience with the " Maine Law" — The Other Side — The New York World on Non-Enforcement in Lewiston — "A Political Pull"— Stealthy Approach toward Re-Submission— Put on the Stripes— Testimony of Governor Dingley — Governor Perham — Senator Frye— Judge Davis — Republican Convention of 1882 Internal Revenue Receipts Decreased in Maine while Increasing in the Nation— Not a Distillery or Brewery in the State — The Savings Banks Full 171 CHAPTER XIV. KANSAS. Testimony of Probate Judges—" Drunkenness Reduced Ninety per cent." — "The Police Force Reduced" — "Growing in Favor Every Year" — Testimony of County Treasurers — Governor Martin's Address — Maynard's "Truth about Kansas" — "Joints" and How to Get into Them— How Leavenworth is " Ruined"— Chief Justice Horton's Testi- mony — " The Drunkard's Paradise"— One Hundred and Fifty-three Business Men Testify— The Manufacture of Steel Cells Ruined — The Demand for Barrels "Fallen off Ter- ribly" — No Wife-Beating Now — Scarcity of Tramps— V;ews of Governor Humphrey— Report of the Farmers' Loan and Tnist Company— The Westej'n Baptist on Topeka — Full of Churches and Not One Saloon— Families Wh« Once Suffered through the Feather's Intemi>erance now " Dwelling in a Cosey Home of Their Own," . . .181 X CONTENTS. PAQK CHAPTER XV. IOWA. Prohibitory Amendment Carried by Thirty Thousand— Thrown Out by Supreme Court— Prohibitory Law Passed— Always Liable to Ilepeal— Effects of the Law— Letter from Governor Larrabee — Enforced in Eighty-five Counties — Ev^aded in Fifteen, Chiefly River Counties— Great Decrease of Crime — " Has Not Injured any Business Except the Saloon Busi- ne-ss"— Opposing Judges Converted to the Law by Observ- ing its Effects — Testimony of Fifty-eight Prosecuting Attorneys — Great Decrease of Drunkenness— Often Seventy- flve to Ninety per cent. — Former Revenue from Saloons More than Made Good by Increased Prosperity— Merchants Now Receive the Money that Formerly Went to Saloons — The Truth about the Rebel Cities— Burlington, Dubuque, and Davenport— Testimony of Judges of the District Courts — Governor Larrabee's Farewell Message — Governor Boies's "Statistics of Ifs" — IIow a Lawyer Got Liquor in Iowa — Governor Boies's Idea of ' ' Complete Want of Legal Restraint" -The State Debt Wiped Out, . . . .232 CHAPTER XVT. RHODE ISL.\XD. How the Amendment was Adopted— Immediate Decrease of Arrests in Providence— Drunkemiess Decreased One-half ; All Crimes, One third— Why the Law was Hated — Mr. Walter B. Frost Tells of Bank Clearings Increased $32,000,- 000— Savings Bank Deposits Increjised $0,000,000— Rise in Value of Real Estate— Enforcement Shrewdly Relaxed — Repeal by Surprise and Corruption — Non-Enforcement of License— More Drunken Men in One Week than in Three Years of Prohibition— A Quarter of a ^lillion Dollars Goes Into the Saloons of Newport that Should Go to the Grocer and Butcher and other Respectable Dealers, . . . 206 PAGE CHAPTER XVII. ATLANTA. Low License Till 1886— Prohibition One Year and a Half- Mayor Hillyer's Testimony — Decrease of Arrests and In- crease of Trade — " The Attitude of the Newspapers throughout the Union is Greatly to be Deprecated" — Edi- torial of the Constitution — Property Increased $2,000,000 — Taxes Not Increased — Former Saloons Occupied by Trades- men—More Goods Bought — Easier to Collect Bills— More Children in Schools and Sunday-Schools, and Better Dressed — Henry W. Grady's Great Speech — One Distress Warrant under Prohibition to Twenty under License — No More Garnisheeiug — Crime Decretised More than One-half — The Hand of the National Rum Power — "Yellowstone Kit" — Prohibition Goes out and High License Comes in — Inter- views with Business Men in Atlanta Commonwealth Six Months Later — Poor Sales and Bad Collections— Women Waiting on the Corners Saturday Night — Arrests Jump from 6000 to 10,000— Table of Replies from Forty-seven Business jNIen — Bad Debts Increased — One Saloon Keeper Sells More to Workingmen— " They Do Not Ask for Credit, but Pay as They Go" — Low License, Prohibition, and High License Tested on the Same Ground — Prohibition Im- measurably the Best, 276 CHAPTER XVIII. THE NEW LANDS. Starting Well— The Dakotas Reversing the Liquor Victories of the East— Fifty Thousand Men Pouring into Oklahoma in Twenty-four Hours— Without Homes, Without Law, With- out a Magistrate— Without Crime Because Without Whiskey — Attempt of the Liquor Men in Congress to Put the New Territory under "the Laws of Nebraska"— Speech of Major Pickler against it— Amendment Defeated— Wliitc Men Still to be Treated as AVell as Indians, .... 315 XU CONTEXTS. rAUK CHAPTER XIX. THE LABORING MEN. Average Cost of a Workingraan's Drink — If he Drinks Six Days, he Will Drink Seven— How $1,000 is Spent— Swal- lowing a Square Rod of Laud at Every Drink — Where One Workingman's $10,000 Went— The Cost of a Saloon Cele- bration of Washington's Birthday— Socialists and Saloons — Spending the Surplus — The Child's Hoop — The School- Girl's Hat— Helpless in a Strike — The Slaves of the Saloon — Powderly and Arthur, 320 CHAPTER XX. THE BEST CUSTOMERS. A Limit to the Food One Man Can Eat and the Clothes One Man Can Put on— Silk Underwear rs. Red Flannel — Sober Workingmen Will Outbuy the Saloon-Keepnfe88ed themselves intemperate.. 1,906 319 2,225 Claimed to be temperate . 140 16 156 Total 2,046 335 2,381 Out of 2,381 inmates 2,225 confessed themselves intern- PAYING THE PIPER. 23 perate. Only 156 '^ claimed to be temperate," and the officials evidently take small stock in that *' claimed." True, it may be said that the work-house is to some ex- tent a penal institution. It is on the border-land be- tween pauperism and crime, but its inmates are just the nuiterial of which tramps are made, and its figures are a pretty good barometer for the whole class. If ever the cost of the tramps and vagrants can be ascertained, it may be set down almost solid to the charge of intemper- ance. The criminal statistics of Prohibition Iowa for 1887 report just one vagrant. In omitting a guess at unreported pauperism, we are making a large concession to the safe side. Adding the $4,466,666 of estimated out-door relief to the §6,700,000 infirmary expenses, we have $11,166,666 for National pauperism. Dr. Hargreaves ascribes nine- tenths of this to intemperance. We are willing to put it at three-fourths. It hardly can be less than that. For, wbere pauperism is ascribed in official reports to insanity, idiocy, and disease, these very things are large- ly the results of intemperance in the subjects, or inher- ited from intemperate parents. . Many of the crippling injuries are received because either the sufferer was drunk or somebody else was ; and of the helpless classes, a very large number would not be thrown on public charity except that intemperance lias made their natural protectors unable to support them. Three- fourths, then, of the total $11,166,666 would be a little over $8,000,- 000, which we may take as a thoroughly safe estimate of the pauperism due to intemperance. Drinkers often become criminals. Here, too, ade- quate statistics are exceedingly difficult to obtain. Mr. Wines says, in his pamphlet on '^ Crime, the Convict 24 ECONOMICS Ol'' PKOHIBITION. and the Prison" : " The problem involves many ele- ments, some of which are very obscure." He takes the number of inmates of prisons and reformatories, as given in the census of 1880 at 70,000, and remarks : ^' Assum- ing that the charge for keeping up the prisons, including buildings and repairs, is not less than §200 a year for each prisoner, this iteiTi of expense will amount to nearly or quite §15,000,000 annually." He adds an estimate of the cost of arrest and trial, and says : '^ These three items, taken together, constitute the enormous sum of $50,000,000 annually raised by taxation to defend the comnmnity against the ravages of crime." Some question might be raised about institutions where the labor of prisoners is utilized, so that they are self-supporting. These are chiefly penitentiaries, where the prisoners are of adult age and sentenced for long terms. In jails and juvenile reformatories and work- houses this would not be the case. Even if we were to allow a deduction for this, it would probably be more than compensated by the fact which Mr. Wines states, that liis estimate does not include the cost of the private detective force, the sums paid by the accused to their attorneys, nor the losses to individuals resulting from successful fraud or depredations. So we may allow Mr. Wines's §50,000,000 to stand as a reasonable estimate of the national outlay for crime. Of this, many esti- mate nine-tenths, and the lowest estimate I have seen is three-fourths, as due to intemperance. How just this is will appear from a few citations. Of 8,588 arrests in Cleveland for the year 1887, 4,720, or more than one-half^ were credited to ^* Intoxication^'''^ pure and simple. Adding the offences usually duo to intemperance, the amount runs up toward eighty-eight PAYING Till PIPKR. 25 per cent. Tliere would, of course, be room for differ- ence of opinion here. Not all the cases of ** assault," etc., are due to intemperance. But, on the other hand, there are many offences resulting from the use of liquor, of which the criminal record gives no sign. The clerk becomes a drinker, then a gainbler, robs his employer, and is arrested for " theft" or ** embezzlement," with no hint of the intemperance, without which he would never have become a criminal. The late D. R. Locke (Nasby) states that numbers of boys are taught to steal in the beer saloons where they have been induced to run up a beer bill, and are put in communication with pawn- brokers who will receive anything they bring without asking any questions. Arrests from this cause would be credited to *' petty larceny." On the scaffold, it has become so common as scarcely to excite remark for the condemned man to say, " But for whiskey I should never have been here." A large proportion of our mur- ders are committed directly in saloons, or on going from them. Yet all these cases appear on the record as *' murder," and only individual inquiry can learn that liquor had anything to do with them. It is stated in a recent number of the National Baptist^ that *' out of 45,000 criminals arrested in Philadelphia in a single year, 40,000 were arrested for offences immediately connected with liquor." This is eighty-eight per cent. On the whole we are much more in danger of understating than of overstating the case. Taking this, then, as a reasonable estimate, three- fourths of §50,000,000 would be §37,500,000, which liquor-crime costs the nation. But this is not all. Mr. "Wines says : ''It is start- ling to know that, of 50,000,000 inhabitants (in 1880), over 400,000 are either insane, idiots, or deaf mutes, or 26 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. - are inmates of prisons, reformatories, or poor-houses. If to these we add the out-door poor and the inmates of private cliaritable institutions, the amount will swell to nearly or quite 500,000, or one per cent, of the popula- tion." At that rate the number would now be about 600,000. But we will keep to the records of 1880, and consider only the 400,000 who were inmates of charita- ble institutions. Of that number the 70,000 who were prisoners and the 67,000 who were paupers have been already considered. Those deducted would leave 263,- 000 "defective persons." Assuming the average cost of their maintenance to be $200 (and in many of these institutions it runs up to nearly $300 per capita, as skilled teachers and physicians must be employed at great expense), the cost of maintaining these " defective persons" would exceed $52,000,000. If we estimate one-third of these disabilities to be due to intemperance, actual or inherited, we shall have $17, 000,000 annual loss to the nation from the insanity, blindness, deafness, and other disabilities which intemperance produces. The relation of insanity to intemperance is a point deserving careful study. State and National Boards are now greatly exercised over the rapid and undeniable increase of insanity. It is worthy of inquiry whether a ratio does not exist between that and the increased consumption of liquor within the last twenty years. We see plainly that liquor will make a person insane for a little while. It would seem reasonable to suppose that enough of it might make him so permanently. J Drink produces sickness. A careful computation gives about 150,000 persons simultaneously sick in the United States, as the result of using intoxicants, at a cost of more than $50,000,000. This does not include the PAYING THE IMPKK. 27 number who are sick, because some one else uses it — the women and children starved, chilled, beaten, heart- broken, crowded into filthy, malarial alleys and cellars, for whom simple Prohibition would have the effect of the best kind of fresh-air fund all the year round. The sickness which is thus the indirect result of intemperance is at least equal to that which directly results. It is probably far greater, but we will put it down at another $50,000,000— in all, $100,000,000. But there are those who will object, ^* You are not counting the receipts from this industry. The liquor business gives employment to 500,000 men, including all who work about brewery, distillery, and saloon." But from the standpoint of political economy these men produce nothing. No addition to the national wealth comes from their labor. They must be counted and reasoned about simply as non -producers. What is the reasoning in such cases ? When Victor Emmanuel became King of Italy he found a host of monks who simply did nothing. He confiscated their estates and sent them off, because Italy could not afford to support them in idleness. But if all our liquor men would turn monks, we could build them splendid monasteries and pension them for the rest of their lives for a small fraction of what they cost us while they make and sell liquor. We pity the European na- tions with their great standing armies. Where is the harm ? Those soldiers are kept busy. They work hard at their endless drill. They corrupt nobody. They harm nobody. The answer is, it doesn't matter how hard they work so long as nothing comes out of their working. Other men earn the money to feed and clothe them, and get nothing in return. The standing armies i^K ECOKOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. of all Europe are estimated at 28,000,000, including the reserves, and their cost at $600,000,000 annually. The United States could assume the support of that tremen- dous armament, jpay the entire military hill of all Eu- rope out of our cash outlay for liquor, and still have 8400,000,000 to spare if the liquor outlay was stopped. Can we afford to let it go on ? It would be a yet truer comparison to liken these liquor employes to an invading army of 500,000 men. If they were to turn their atten- tion to burglary, and each steal $2,000 per year, and one out of every ten kill his man every year — which would be unusually prosperous and unusually murderous burglary — still they would not be as destructive as now. For this leaves out all tlie indirect cost, and we cannot count less than 60,000 deaths from intemperance every year, many carrying the estimate to 100,000. Hence, so far from counting the support of these liquor employes as a deduction from the total drink cost, it is an added item — the support of 500,000 non-pro- ducers. Their work in any productive industry, at a reasonable average for all grades of skill employed, would be $300,000,000. Tliey would add at least that much to the national wealth, which is now a dead loss, and must be carried to the debit side. What fortunes the leaders in this business wring out of the toiling masses, a few examples will show. A Chicago reporter took occasion to look up a few of the palatial drinking- places of that city. The first, which seemed rich and fine enough, cost $15,000. '* But, in quest of still finer saloons, the reporter went into one a few steps away, and was fairly dazzled by the glitter of mirrors, polished brass, and stained-glass screens, with gaslights placed behind to show off their beauties. * This PAYING TITK PIPER. cost $44,000,' said the proprietor, ' and if you don't be- lieve it, 1 can show you the bills. This is no contract job either. I said to the man who fixed it up, ** Go ahead and send in your bills. " ' This establishment is fitted up with imported English oak and mahogany wood. A wide fireplace is built in one corner of Minton tile and polished brass. Wherever a window can be put, a fan- ciful design in stained glass is placed, and a half dozen fine oil paintings decorate the walls. Across the street is another place that cost $24,000. It is fitted with marble. The bar mirrors cost $2,000, and the screen in front of the entrance, composed of massive carved wal- nut, with a mirror and clock, cost $1,400. A short tour about the principal streets showed that there were a dozen other places where the thirsty pedestrian can satis- fy his appetite for alcoholic beverages in saloons costing from $20,000 to $30,000 to fit up." As if this were not enough, New York has one saloon, and Indianapolis has now another, where silver dollars are actually used to pave the floor. Of the new one we are told : '^ The floor is laid with the most expensive tiling, and 160 silver dollars just from the mint are inlaid." With all the poverty and distress in the land, our workingmen are actually tramping silver dollars under foot as they go to get their drinks. Is it any wonder there should be hard times.? What can the best tariff legislation do to put this locked-up money in circulation ? Where the money comes from may be seen by an in- cident related by Mrs. Foote, of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in a recent address. She said : " 1 went into the home of a man who works in the Cleveland rolling-mills, in the intolerable heat of a great furnace, and earns $3 a day. It was a wretched home, 30 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. with uncarpeted floor and broken windows, a rickety ta- ble and a few damaged chairs for furniture. 1 went into the pantry to get something for the sick child I had come to see, and there was a little sugar lying on a small square of brown paper, a little tea on another, a bit cf butter on one of the wooden plates given at the grocery stores. There was not a dish in that pantry except a little handful of cracked plates and cups to set their miserable table. The bedroom was wretched past de- scription. All along that street were other homes to all appearance just like that one." When there are Min- ton tiles in the saloon there's no crockery in the work- ingman's pantry. It doesn't matter how many dollars he earns, if they go to pave the saloon floor. Adding these various items, we have for the United States the following bill : Lost labor of drunkards and tipplers $400,000,000 Lost labor of sober men 40,000,000 Pauperism 8,000,000 Crime 37,500,000 Insanity and disability 17.000.000 Sickness 100.000,000 Lost labor of liquor-makers 300,000,000 Total $902,500,000. It is to be observed that these estimates are almost all based on the census of 1880. At that time the direct cost of intoxicants, as estimated by Dr. Ilargreaves, was but $733,816,495 fpr the year. With the increase in the consumption of liquor from $734,000,000 to $1,100,000,- 000, it is certain that these indirect losses must have ad- vanced in equal proportion. That would make these items amount to not less than the direct cost now, or another $1,100,000,000. PAYING THK PIPKR. 81 We will call it, to be absolutely on the safe side $1,000,000,000, or just the net cost of the liquor after deducting receipts from tax and license. This makes a grand total of $2,000,000,000 annual loss to the nation from the liquor traffic. We came out of our Civil War with a debt of $2,800,- 000,000, and we thought that was terrible. Our only consolation was that it had saved the Union and set free the slaves. Now, in a time of profound peace, we are sacrificing every eighteen months more than the entire debt of the Civil War in maintaining the liquor traffic, to reduce our freeborn men to a slavery more hopeless than that of Southern plantations. CHAPTER III. DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY 5 " Four new distilleries will be opened in Moore County in a few weeks. This will boom the State.' ' — The Memphis Avalanche. *' "We Boom, — While the towns about us have been bragging of their progress, we have kept quiet and got in our work without kicking up any cloud of dust. Brag is all right in its way, but we don't propose to come out with a double-leaded, scare-head article every time a citizen hangs a new front gate. Booms are good enough in their way, but there must be merit behind them. With no disposition to claim this as the only growing town in Arizona, and with no desire to kill the growth of rival towns, we humbly call attention to the fact that since January Ist, fourteen new saloons, three poker-rooms, and four retail tobacco-stores have been opened in the place, and at the pres- ent moment eighteen men are engaged in building a jail capable of accommodating thirty prisoners. Wo have done all this without any brag or bluster, and we propose to keep right on in the same quiet fashion, leaving the outside world to judge for itself as to where it shall seek new homes and invest its capital." — The Arizona Kicker. The latest statistics carry the direct cost of intoxicants to $1,000,000,000 annually for the United States. As the indirect cost has at least equalled the direct in time past, it is probable that it does now, though we have no statistics on crime, pauperism, etc., later than ISSO. This is certainly a bad showing. But can we not make up for it by a High License on the drink traffic ? Well, there is one thing very certain to start with — we cannot make it all tip. We cannot get back the $1,000,000,000 cash expenditure by any license we can put upon the trade, because that would be to require DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY .'' 33 distillers, brewers, and saloon-keepers to do bnsiness for nothing, and give in the materials used to boot. This is not only too great a stretch of benevolence to expect from the liquor men, but a financial impossibility. We shall have to let them make some money out of us, if we let them do business at all. But all they make out of us will be dead loss to us, because what we buy of them does us no earthly good. Then whatever money we spend for liquor drags after it, dollar for dollar, and million for million, lost time, lost labor, crime, pauper- ism, insanity, doubling the liquor expenditure right along. High License, which cannot repay the direct outlay for liquor cannot touch the indirect. If any community could ascertain just what its saloon- keepers are making, it could better afford to lay a direct tax upon the people of that whole amount and pay it to the saloon-keepers year after year without getting any- thing in return, than it could afford to spend the same money at their bars and drink their liquor. For then the community would save the whole indii'ect cost. You would say of any workman who goes on a Satur- day spree, it would be better for him to go down to the river and throw in all he would spend in the saloon and go home sober, for then he would be fit for something Monday morning. He would be sure not to get into the lock-up, and tolerably safe against smashing his furni- ture, stabbing his wife, or beating out the brains of his little children. The same is true of a community, only more surely true, for while one drinking man may chance to avoid crime, out of a thousand men a certain number will commit crime while under the influence of liquor as surely as the sun will rise. By paying for the liquor and not drinking it we could save all that, and it would 84 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. be cheaper. It would pay any father better — not to speak of the mother — to buy green apples at the highest market price and throw them into the swill-pail than to let his boy eat them for nothing. For then he would save the wakeful nights and the doctor's bill. / It would pay the nation to buy the entire liquor prod- uct at retail prices and dump it into the two seas rather than to buy it at the same price and swallow it. Poured into the ocean, that would be the end of the expense. Poured into the people's stomachs, that is only the be- ginning, for the millions for lost time, lost labor, sick- ness, insanity, pauperism, and crime have still to be paid. Take, now, the revenue of $98,000,000* which the gen- eral Government collects from the liquor traffic. That - is very nearly $1 in $10 of the people's outlay. There is evidently no profit in that. For it is ^* we, the peo- ple," who are the Government, and '* we, the people," who are spending the money. It is *' vve" who expend the $1,000,000,000, and it is the same *' we" who get back the $98,000,000. That cannot pay. The whole nation can no more afford to do business at an outlay of $10 for $1 received than any individual can afford to do business at the same rate. It is no answer to say that we are rich enough, and make enough in other ways to bear the loss for a good while to come. If Wanamaker were to find that one of the departments of his great store was costing him $10 for every $1 received, that department would be promptly closed out. It would not satisfy him that the other departments were bringing in enough to save him from immediate bankruptcy. Such a drain * This amount was $92,630,384.89 in 1888, but increased to $98,. 036,041.50 in 1889. DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY? 35 would be stopped by any business man of sense. Why should it not be stopped by the whole people if they have sense ? It is not good financiering to get $98,000,- 000 by a direct expenditure of $1,000,000,000, and the indirect loss of another ,$1,000,000,000. The only real answer to this is, that the money would be spent anyway, and the Government may as well get what it can out of it. We have no very great respect for this argument. We cannot see how it differs from the saloon-keeper's ^' If I don't sell somebody else will, and I may as well have the money." But we are not writirig for a set of politicians, hut for the people. The people who spend this $1,000,000,000 for liquor can stop spending it, and by so doing stop the loss of the other $1,000,000,000. They would then give up the $98,- 000,000 revenue. But would that not be the best in- vestment a nation ever made — to give up $98,000,000 in order to save $2,000,000,000 ? The argument that stopping the tax would not stop the consumption of liquor does not apply here, for our plan is to stop the consumption and so, of course, stop the tax. Let the people vote that intoxicants shall not be manufactured or sold for beverage. Then the peo- ple could richly afford to resign the present tax on their manufacture and use. yrVnft^ p.ftrtnin illioit prodnctinn an d sale_j iiight conti nue for some time,\but the imme- cfiate saving, even from a partial enforcement of the law, would outnumber by hundreds of millions the tax that would be given up. It does not pay the nation to keep the traffic for the tax. Does High License pay the States ? The Internal Ke venue Report for 1889 gives 171,669 jretail dealers in both distilled and malt liquors. There 30 ECON^CMICS OF PROHIBITION. were 27,700 druggists in the United States in 1880, and of course a larger number now. Each of these would be classed as a " Retail Liquor Dealer" in the Internal Revenue Report. If we deduct these, we have less than 150,000 saloon-keepers. If we were to impose upon them a license of $1,000 each in every State, as is done in the cities of Nebraska, all the States together would collect from the liquor traffic less than $150,000,- 000. All the States together would spend $2,000,000,- 000. Manifestly that could not pay. But almost all that are called High License States charge a less rate than that, about $500 — as in Illinois and Pennsylvania — being thought very good. This can- not pay them, since double the amount could not pay, if made national and distributed evenly through all the States. The loss would be distributed as evenly and as far. Let us take the case of Pennsylvania, where the famed Brooks Law exists, with its $500 license. The Pittsburg Tiinea gives the total collections from saloon licenses in the State for 1888 as $1,837,860. The Voice computes the indirect loss on the basis of Dr. Hargreaves's estimates at $76,000,000, or $40 loss for $1 received. But if we take the entire loss direct and indirect at the increased rate since Dr. Hargreaves's book was written, Pennsyl- vania's loss on the basis of population would be now $160,000,000, and her receipts for license under the Brooks Law would be $1 in $88 of the total cost of the drink traffic. To take the case of Piiiladelphia alone, ita collections under the Brooks Law were $673,500. But as long ago as 1870, its criminal and charitable expenses resulting from intemperance were estimated by Prison Agent DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY? 87 William J. Mullen as $2,500,000. In view of the in- crease of population, it will be a very moderate esti- mate to add one-fourth to Mr. Mullen's figures, making upward of $3,000,000 charitable and criminal expenses now due to intemperance, for which the saloon kindly pays about $1 in $5. What, then, becomes of the claim that " High License reduces taxation ?" Ohio has a *^ tax," so called, of $250 on every saloon, under what is known as the Dow Law. At every elec- tion time, farmers and tradesmen are solemnly told, '' The Dow Law reduces your taxes." With many persons this single idea overrides all questions of humanity or moral- ity. If *' it reduces my taxes," it is vain for the minis- ter to talk of moral wrong, or for the reformer to grow eloquent over human suffering. The hearts of their hearers are buttoned up as tight as their pocket-books with the thought, " it reduces my taxes." Well, it doesn't. So you can afford to be moral and human beings after all. The account stands thus : State Benevolent InRtitutions for Insane, Idi- otic, etc., not including Soldiers' and Sail- ors' Orphans' Home $969,256 Charge one-third of this to intemperance (which is far too little) $323,085 State Penal and Reformatory Institutions, not including County Infirmaries $759,498 Allow nine-tenths of this for intemperance. . 613,550 Total due to intemperance $936,635 State proportion of Dow Law Tax, one-fifth of $2,225,000 $445,000. That is, the Dow Tax pays less than one-half of the State expenses due to intemperance. 38 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. The expenses by counties show the same. For County Infirmaries (which in such a State as Ohio may be set down solid to intemper- ance, the exceptions not making an appreci- able difference) $685,765 Out-door relief, 78 counties reporting 380,432 Total $1,066,197. Dow Tax for same 284,253. A little more than one- fourth. The municipal taxes are more difficult to chase down. Take, as a specimen, the city of Cleveland, which may be fairly called the brightest, fairest, and best-governed of the large cities of Ohio : Police expenses for 1887 were $257,501 Amount of Dow Tax credited in Police Account. 130,765. More than eighty per cent, of the offences for which arrests were made were such as are commonly due to in- temperance — more than one-half reported simply as " In- toxication." Eighty per cent, of §257,501 is §206,000. That is, the liquor traffic causes $200,000 of police expenses, and pays Si 30, 000 toward meeting them. We believe the ratio would not be better if followed through the pauper and criminal expenses of all our cities. The Dow Law appropriates $150 for each saloon toward the taxes of the municipality where the saloon is located. Bnt any one who has seen much of intemperance will be sure that $150 will not nearly pay for the crime and pau- perism caused by one saloon year after year. That is the whole case. The saloon docs not pay expenses. The Dow Law which does not reduce taxation in State and county does not in the city. Omaha, Nebraska, may be called the champion High License city. Of the economic effect of the system DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY? 89 there, The Voice of May 30th, 1889, publishes the fol- lowing particulars : " Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars is, in round numbers, the amount of revenue that the city of Omaha, Neb., draws annually from her High License saloons. Each saloon pays $1,000 per year, and at the beginning of 1889 there were about 260 licensed saloons in opera- tion. That is an enormous liquor revenue for a city of only 110,000 population." •3t 4f * * vf * During the present year, according to the Omaha 'Worlds the total tax levy is 48 mills on the dollar ; while in the city of Des Moines, in the Prohibition State of Iowa, according to the Iowa State Register ior May 11th, the total levy is only 22J mills on the dollar. ** And it is to be remembered," adds the Register^ '* that the property valuation for taxation purposes in Des Moines is less than forty per cent, of its real valuation, while in Omaha this valuation is placed at a high figure in order that the city may make as good a business show- ing as possible." Even this striking comparison does not tell the whole story. The people of the $1,000 High License city of Omaha groan under constantly increasing burdens of taxes. This statement is not made upon authority hos- tile to Omaha or her liquor system, but upon the testi- mony of one of her leading daily newspapers, the Omaha World. In a recent issue of the World, bitter complaints were made about the taxes. That journal said, among other things : '' Properly owners and (aot-payers of Omaha must look with some con- cern upon the taxjiijures of this year. Aside from the special taxes for 40 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. public improvements, property owners will be expected to pay $974,- 000 for regular city taxes by July 1st. This is an increase of nearly a quarter of a million of dollars ovfr last year. For the past four years the volume of regular city taxes collected from property owners has been as follows : " For 1886, $475,000 ; for 1887, $625,000 : for 1888, $739,000 ; for 1889, $994,000, ** The burden of city taxes has therefore increased thirty per cent, over last year. Is it not about time to call a halt ? . . . '* The levy is three mills heavier than last year, the valuation is several millions greater, and the amount which w>ll be collected is a quarter of a million greater than in 1888. Is it not about lime for tax-payers to protest ?" The Iowa State Register^ commenting upon this cry of distress, says : " It will be hard on the ' exiles ' who left Iowa hoping to find a place of prosperity and personal liberty inth« Nebraska metropolis." *^ It will be bard" also upon the High License ad- vocates everywhere. Omaha has tried High License for a longer period than any other American city, having charged every saloon $1,000 per 3^ear for nearly eight years. If the liquor revenue argument is worth any- thing, if an immense rum revenue reduces taxes in a city, the fact ought to appear in Omaha, with her annual in- come of $260,000 from tlie saloons. But the burden of taxes has increased steadily in that city, the increase having been thirty per cent, in the last year. The rate of taxation is higher than ever before, and is more than twice the tax-rate prevaiHng in Prohibition Des Moines, although in Des Moines property is valued for taxation purposes at only forty per cent, of its real value. The Omaha newspaper from which we have quoted does not state the reasons for the increasing taxation. But there can hardly be a doubt that the crime-produc- ing High License saloons are largely responsible for it. In a city where the work of the saloon is so destructive DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY? 41 that there is one arrest for every ten of the population, it is not to be expected that taxes will be low. In the matter of police expenses, there is a heavy item, which cannot be put into dollars and cents — viz. : It re- duces the efficiency of the police. By natural necessity, it is a great part of their business to watch saloons. Crimes are always liable to occur there. Criminals are sure to resort there. The average policeman, obliged to hover around the saloon in heat and cold, in storm and sleeplessness, is almost sure to seek alcohol's quick relief. It is for the saloon-keeper's interest to be on good terms with him, and make it pleasant for him to *' step in and get a drink." The result is thus given in the Cleveland Press : ** Tho eflBciency of the police force is becoming seriously impaired by the persistent use of intoxicating liquors by a goodly number of the patrolmen. All the men do not drink ; probably not over twenty per cent are habitual guzzlers ; but of these are several officers who are, when sober, good and reliable policemen. They are never ac- tually drunk while on duty, but keep just so full all the time. Their breaths are laden with whiskey fumes so dense that even a strong man cannot stand and talk to them without turning away. . . . This drinking habit is slowly growing, and unless a stop is put to it, there will be as many drunkards in the policemen's chairs in the po- lice court as there are on the prisoners' bench. It was only a few days ago that an officer was so full of liquor in the police court that he went to sleep, and it was only by tlie efforts of his brother patrol- men that he was straightened up to testify. " In this condition of things it must require a greater number of men for the same amount of protection. Now observe, it is the licensed saloon that does this. Make the saloon an outlaw, make the liquor-seller a criminal, ipsofacto^ and the policeman will not have to be on good terms with him as now. He will not have to guard and take care of his place as now.. Put only tern- 42 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. perate men on your force, and the only connection they will have with the '^ boot-leggers" will be to '' run them in" — like any other criminals. It is the authorized sa- loon that makes the policeman's case so hard. He must be near it. If a row occurs, or a man is killed in a sa- loon on his beat, the question will be, ^' Where were you ? You knew such things were likely to happen there. Why were you not on hand V ' He must keep his eyes, ears, and thoughts on the drinking-places, and himself within easy reach of them. Yet he cannot close them up nor stop their selling. He will often have to watch for criminals there, and must keep on good terms with the proprietor. It is idle to say our license does not give protection. It must, for taxation involves pro- tection ; and it gives it. I have seen a saloon-keeper push to his door a poor fellow who was just tipsy enough to be exasperating, and beckon two policemen. When they tried every way to avoid interference, he said, ^' I want you to arrest him," and — with manifest disgust and reluctance — the officers laid hold on the poor fellow, who then began kicking, biting, and rolling on the ground, and so was dragged away, while the man who had sold him the liquor stood in his doorway coolly watching the scene. Prohibition would have made such a thing impossible. Then if the liquor-seller had contrived to make his man drunk, he would have been amazingly shy of calling on the police to take care of him. He would have been studying the most private and secret way to avoid an interview with any member of the force, and would rather have seen anything than a uniform. It is the taxed or licensed traffic that enables the saloon- keeper to bo on good terms with the police, and compels the policeman to be a satellite of the saloon. DOKS HIGH LICENSE PAY? 48 But even as regards taxation, the expense of tlie sa- loon is more than a matter of police. Rev. Dr. Peddie, in a recent address, said : " I know a minister who had to sell his home at $-1,000 below its fair valuation because a saloon was started next door to his. No den of drink can be started without spreading depreciation in the price of houses and honest business places all around it." Is^ow the assessment is going to be lower on that priced- down property, and somebody must pay a higher rate in order to make up. Reducing the value of property has the same effect as increasing taxes, and is a far greater hardship. The saloon building may rent for more than it would for any other purpose, but all the sur- rounding property is injured. Very few owners of real estate want to have a saloon opened in the innnediate neighborhood of their property, however willing they might be to have it somewhere else. In one of our cities a fine residence on a beautiful street was advertised for rent at a very low rate. It seemed a most tempting offer till we reached the corner, and looked across the pretty lawn. On the adjoining lot, fronting on the street below, a brewery reared its tall chinmeys, poisoning the atmosphere above, while the human beings that haunted it poisoned the atmos- phere below. It only needed to look in each other's eyes, and we walked on without opening the gate. A professional, man owned a building on a busy street, renting the lower part for a store, and occupying the up- per rooms. In the building next adjoining was a saloon, 80 placed that its door was almost under his windows, and till after midnight his family would be kept awake by the talk, at once loud and low, that went on around that door. He has even had stones thrown through his 44 FX'ONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. windows to the imminent danger of the occupants. Why did he live there ? Because if he left the rooms he could not rent them to any other respectable family with that saloon adjoining. The owners of those two pieces of property could have well afforded to have their taxes doubled immediately, if they could have got rid of that brewery and that saloon. Whatever reduces the volume and profit of honest trade has the same effect. For instance, here is a village with no saloons, and badly needing new sidewalks. Some man reasons : *' !Now if we would let in three saloons here, at the Dow Law rate, we could take in $450 a year. That would build our sidewalks nicely, and not increase our taxes." But those saloons are going to take from your people from $2,500 to $5,000 apiece. The tax-paying power of some of your people is going to be reduced by that amount, say $10,000 for your three saloons. That money will be taken from all the retail business of the town, and by the interlacings of business will make everybody in the village in some way poorer — except the saloon-keepers. So, while your taxes may not be raised, your Tnoney to jpay them with is lessened^ which comes to the same thing. Here, for instance, is a dry- goods merchant who would have to pay $25 of that $450, if it was added to the tax levy. He will save that. But he will sell $500 less goods, because his customers spend their money for whiskey. How much has he saved ? He could better have afforded to biiild those sidewalks ont of his own pocket, and made them a present to the village, than to have saved the tax by letting in the sa- loons. Professor Ely tells us that in a republic *' taxation is DOES HIGH LICENSE PAY? 45 simply one form of co-operation." So considered, the idea of raising taxes from the saloon is this : Here are a hundred business men desiring some public improvement. A liquor-dealer comes in and says : ** Come down to my place, gentlemen, and drink all you can, and I will con- tribute to this improvement one-tenth of what you spend at my bar, which will probably pay the entire expense." This is hailed, strange to say, as a very generous propo- sition, and as a way of really getting the improvement^ for nothing, till one quiet man observes : ** I don't care to drink the liquor. Would there be any objection to my contributing directly toward the improvement one- tenth of what it would cost to make me drunk and sav- ing the other nine-tenths V Tlien suddenly it dawns upon the othei-s that they might all do the same, and that it would actually be cheaper to subscribe the cost of the improvement outright than to pay ten times as much by way of the saloon in order to get the one-tenth con- tributed. Besides which it occurs to them that the re- sult of the liquor-drinking will be headaches and unfit- ness for business the next day, the spoiling of a good many hats and suits of clothes, with perhaps drunken quarrels and who shall say what besides ? Behold the nation ! "Whatever we want to raise in taxes it is immeasurably better to raise by some direct assessment than to pay from ten to fifty times as much through the saloon in order to get it with its long train of poverty, ruin, and crime. For while the saloon in- creases taxes with one hand, it cuts down the value of property and the volume of honest business with the other — a combination that no license can pay for. CHAPTER lY. HIGH LICENSE AS A MONOPOLY. ** The assertion of the free. trade Democrats that the tax on whiskey should be continued, because in conformity to moral considerations whiskey ought to be taxed, is a piece of cheap and contemptible demagogy. The tax upon whiskey conserves no moral principle, and serves no moral end. It does not restrict or regulate the traffic in the slightest degree. The traffic is as free with as it would be with- out the tax. . . . The proof of this, if any were needed, is found in the opposition of the principal manufacturers and dealers in whiskey to the abolition of the tax. . . . The issue is merely an economic one. If the tax is needed to meet the obligations of the Government, and enable it to carry out a wise and liberal policy of defence and improvements, then let the tax remain." — Cleveland Leader. ** We have had High License in Illinois five years, and while it is a success as a revenue measure, it is an imdisguised failure as a tem- perance measure. It in no way checks the consumption of intoxi- catiug liquors as a beverage, nor does it in the least degree lessen the evils and crimes from such use. Call High License what it is, an easy way to raise a revenue from vice, but let there bo an end of in- dorsing it as a temperance or reform measure." — Chicago Daily News. There was a time when good men thought that High License might be made to stop the liquor traffic, and talked grandly of ** taxing it to death." It is observ- able that no one now talks of ** taxing it to death." High License has silently receded from its early claim. The utmost claim of High License now, is that There is nothing more amusing than the simplicity with which this claim is advanced and swallowed by es- HIGH LICEiiaE AS A MONOPOLY. 41 timable men. It seems to be viewed as a simple ques- tion of arithmetic, thus : If 100 saloons sell $500,000 worth of liquor in one year, 50 saloons will sell one-half of $500,000, which is $250,000. Then the advocates of High License rub their hands and smile, and say, *' We have stopped the sale of $250,- 000 worth of intoxicating liquors. What a grand tem- perance work is this !" Then they proceed to the next example — viz. : ^* If 100 saloons make 30 drunkards and 300 cases of intoxication every year, then 50 saloons will make 15 drunkards and 150 cases of intoxication in one year." This solution makes them happier still. They have saved 15 men from becoming confirmed drunkards, and prevented 150 cases of intoxication. What a noble work ! They do not think to inquire whether the work has really been done. They don't need to know the facts. Their theory shows that it 7nust he so. Well, suppose we experiment a little with the theory. Her3 is a city with 100 groceries ; if we can reduce them to 50, the grocers will Bell only one-half as many goods as before, and the people will only eat one-half as much. But a live grocer will say, ^' I'll give you $1,000 to be one of. the 50, if you'll shut the other places by law and keep them shut. These jpeojple are going to eat just as inuch as before^ and I can make more than twice the money by selling double the amount of goods over one counter." This is no longer matter of conjecture. The science of monopoly has, within the last few years, made rapid strides. It has become the study of every business to 48 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. reduce the number of establishments, while increasing the product and the profit. A familiar example of this is the Sugar Trust. A great syndicate bought up all the sugar refineries in the country, and at once closed a large part of them expressly to make more money — not with the least idea of reducing, permanently, the consumption of sugar. By the fewer establishments the Trust can at once reduce the cost of production and increase the price to the consumer, thus making money at both ends. Suppose a Convention of Dentists, desiring to preserve the teeth of the nation, were to hold a jubilee over this, assuming that the consumption of sugar was reduced in proportion to the reduction in the number of refineries ! That would be a joke worthy of Mark Twain. But it is gravely perpetrated in the interests of "temperance," great newspapers solemnly congratulating their readers on the reduction or even the non-increase of the number of saloons as so much in the interests of " temperance." The following extract from a letter of Mr. Onahan, of Chicago, has been going the rounds of the papers : " The Bubstantial and incontrovertible fact is that High License has arrested the multiplication of saloons in Chicago— that whereas in 1882-83, under a license of $52 per year, we had 3,919 licensed saloons, in 1887-88 we have substantially no more, while the popu- lation has increased from 500,000 to 900,000. So that it is not un- reasonable to assume we would have 6,000 or more saloons except for the intervention of High License." Supposing all this to be exactly as claimed, what does it prove ? Does it show that the consumption of liquor or the production of drunkenness has been in any way reduced ? Not necessarily. Both these may have been increased, and all the facts given by Mr. Onahan remain true. For, this is just what has happened to all HIGH LICENSE AS A MONOPOLY. 49 THE MANUFACTURES OF THE United States. The Cen- siis Report of 1880, Vol. II., page 926, remarks : '* The fact that in the faoe of a large increase in the number of hands employed in manufactures, of the malerial consumed, and of the value of the products, the number of establishments shows hardly an appreciable gain from 1870 to 1880, notwithstanding an increase of thirty per cent, in population, is amply accounted for by the well-known tendency to concentration of labor and capital inlarge shops and factories." Here we have all the elements of the Onahan letter, a heavy increase of population, and scarcely a perceptible increase in the number of establishments. We ought, then, according to the High License theory, to conclude that the people have used less of all manufactured goods in proportion to their number than ten years before. But the hard facts of the Census show that they used very much more. The smaller number of establish- ments used more materials, employed more hands, and produced more goods. Why may not the same number of saloons, then, in Chicago have sold more liquor and made more drunkards than ever before ? It is a question of fact. But we cannot get the facts considered. Over and over we call for the facts regard- ing the consumption of liquor, and the High License men will steadily revolve around the one point of the number of saloons. We cannot get them to touch the question of the consumption of liquor. But this is the key of the situation — the one thing of consequence. If the liquor is consumed, the intemperance will follow. We do not care very greatly how many saloons there are, if the same amount of liquor is consumed. If just as much liquor would be drunk in one great public caravansary as in all the saloons of a city, we should not consider it any gain for temperance to reduce all tlie separate establish- 60 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. merits to that one place of wholesale debauchery. We call the battle to this one point, And we affirm : 1. That no advocate of High License — as far as we have been able to learn — has ever attempted to show that High License reduces the consumption of intoxicants. This is strong 'prima facie evidence that the thing cannot be done. It is a point that the friends of High License would be eager to make if they could. 2. By the law of monopoly, the reduction in the num- ber of saloons, or their non-increase, would lead us to expect larger sales and greater consumption of liquor ; for that has been the rule with every other business in the nation. 3. The evidence shows that with the reduction or non- increase of the number of saloons, the consumption of liquor and consequent intemperance have steadily and heavily increased. We turn first to the Internal Revenue Report for 1888. There we find (p. 30) that the number of re- tail dealers in all kinds of liquors has decreased from 196,792 in 1887 to 176,748 in 1888. This many would consider a most gratifying shovting. As the number of States and cities that have employed High License dur- ing that time has been greater than ever before, we are willing to credit High License with a considerable share of this decrease, though we think nuich of it has been due to other causes. At any rate we have a decrease of liquor-dealers of 20,044. Twenty thousand less retail liquor-dealers in one year I The High License men would claim that as a wonderful gain for temperance. HIGH LICENSE AS A MONOPOLY. 61 We claim that it does not indicate necessarily any gain for temperance, and that those 20,000 fewer men may liave sold a great deal more liquor. We turn to page VI. of the same report, and there is the proof that they have. The report gives : Consumption of distilled spirits increased over that of 1887 4,185,095 galls. Or from 67,380,391 galls, in 1887, to 71,565,486 galls, in 1888. (This in- eludes fruit brandy.) Increase in consumpiion of fermented liq- uors was 1,558,693 bbls. at 31 galls, per bbl 48,319,483 galls. Total Incbease, all kinds of liquors. .52,504,578 galls. That is to say, 20,000 ftxoer liquor-dealers sold 52,- 000,000 gallons more liquor in a single year ; just 1,000,- 000 gallons a week more. The Internal Revenue Report for 1889 shows that the same double process is still going on. The number of retail dealers in all kinds of liquors has decreased to 171,669, a decrease of 5,079. The consumption of all kinds of liquor has increased by 19,226,697 gallons. That is to say, ^,^^>ia c •— *r «jt 5 o V I"? o 35 88 58 61 76 49 52 58 65 55 40 §100 43 59 55 57 71 49 49 44 61 49 66 46 62 32 73 73 61 37 57.2 55.6 * Partial Prohibition, saloons being confined to a particular dis. trict. f Estimated from half-yearly report. J Estimates furnished the World Almanac by the Mayors. § In reply to an inquiry as to the reliability of these figures, the following despatch was received : Muskegon, Mich., January 18, 1889. The Voice, 18 & 20 Astob Place. New York : Whole number of arrests in 1887, 413 ; of which 361 for drunks and 52 for disorderly conduct and other causes. John Kx'PFENHEnkrETi. Secretary Board of Poliee and ffealth. 6S ECONOMICS OF PllOHIBlTION'. These facts are developed : 1. The license fee is more than six times larger in the High-Li- cense than in the Low-License cities. 2. The difference between the nwriber of arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct is very insignificant. 3. The proportion of arrests for drunkenness and disorderly con- duct to the total arrests is greater in the High-License than in the Low-License cities. Changing the place does not change the fact. The following letter was published in The Voice, April 18th, 1889. "We would call special attention to its very clear and striking financial estimates as well as its testimony to facts : HIGH LICENSE IN ST. PAUL. HOW IT INCREASES THE PROFITS OF THE SALOONS, BUT FAILS TO DIMIW. ISH DRINKING. Editob The Voice : At first view of High License it is generally ac- cepted that the additional tax is an additional burden on the liquor business. Is this correct ? Let us see. The expense of running any business is to that extent a tax upon the business, and must be deducted from the profits of the trade or business. Now under the low $100 license St. Paul had 700 saloons. When the license was raised to $1,000, the number 6f saloons was re- duced fifty per cent, to 350 in 1888. One-half the saloons dropped out, and the expense of running them ceased to be a tax upon the business. Now the average expense of running a saloon under the old $100 fee and supporting the sa'^on-keeper's family, I think no one in this city would place under $1,500 annually. Now, under the $1,000 High License 350 saloons have ceased to draw their support from the profits of the trade. Three hundred and fifty saloons at $1,500 ex- pense each is $525,000— the amount of burden which the liquor iraflBc in St. Paul was at one stroke relieved of by High License. The additional tax of High License on each remaining saloon was, however, $900, amounting on 350 saloons to $315.00(>. Now deduct this additional burden of $315,000 from the $525,000 of expense saved to the trade by the stopping of 350 saloons, and the gain to the liquor traffic in St. Paul by the operation of High License is HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION". 69 $210,000, or $600 to each and every remaining saloon in the city ! No wonder the saloon-keepers of St. Paul are satisfied with High Li- cense. The same general results of additional profits to the saloon-keepers would be obtained should the license fee be raised still higher, for no one in St. Paul claims that High License has in any way de- creased the quantity of liquor consumed. If High Licen.se reduced the amount of liquor sold or drunk, there would be some compensation in it to society, but evidence is accu- mulating from all High License States, and especially from the large cities, what we know to be the case in St. Paul and Minneapolis, that crime and all immorality were never so rife as now. As to the restrictive sections of the High License law, they are not at all re- garded nor enforced in a single instance, as was said by the Rev. S. G. Smith, the champion of High License in this city, in his late speech before the Legislative Assembly. But the thought I wish to emphasize is, that the more you curtail the number of saloons, the more you increase the profits of the trade in any locality, for the amount of business done not only continues the same, but is steadily on the increase, proving that nothing but Prohibition can at all reach the case as a remedy. A, D. Davison. St. Paul, Minn. The following statements about the High License cities of St. Louis, Kansas City, and St. Joseph, are from the St. Louis Bepublic for May 2d, 1889 : In St. Louis the license business is all transacted by the Collector. He is bound by the law to observe cer- tain very strict rules. But the lawless saloons, by means of their political influence, compel him to evade them all. Under the Missouri law, every would-be saloon-keeper must present to the Collector a petition signed by a ma- jority of the assessed tax-paying citizens of the block. Tiic Collector, instead of investigating the signatures to a petition, simply takes the sworn statement of the ap- plicant and then passes out the license. '* If somebody discovers afterward," says X^q Bepublic, '^that half of 70 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. the names on the petition are also on the gravestones in Bellefontaine Cemetery, that is a small matter ; the li- cense has been issued and the city has the money." The Bepuhlic gives additional information about the failure of this restrictive petition revision, as follows : " Every effort but one which has been made in three years past to prevent saloons, by preventing a legal petition, has failed. It is not at all improbable thai half of the saloons open in this cily to-day are Hcensed on insufficient petitions. Saloons are frequently opened and run for several weeks, and, in some instances, for several months, with neither petition nor license. A saloon-keeper is usually given the same liberty in the matter of the payment of his license that is given a merchant in the payment of merchants' tax, notwithstanding the fact that the High License of $550 is supposed to be a regulatory tax, imposed to prevent the multiplicity of saloons as much as to raise a revenue from them." The following striking description of the methods of the brewers' monopoly of St. Louis is given by the 7?^- jjublic : "It is known by those who have taken the trouble to investigate the subject that more than one-half of the saloons of tho city are opened and operated by the breweries, and used as agencies for thrusting on the market the beer they manufacture, thus creating a demand, instead of merely supplying a natural demand, for intoxi- cants. Every new neighborhood is promptly supplied with a beer saloon. If some enterprising citizen erects a big factory to employ a large number of mechanics and workmen, the brewer has a beer saloon open at the side door or just across the street before the man- ufacturer has finished his building or engaged his employes. The Hamilton -Brown Shoe Company have just finished one of the largest shoe factories in the West. The machinery is not yet in working order, but a brewer has already opened a saloon on Lucus Place, next to the magnificent building, where every employ^ can stop and get a glass of beer, or procure a bucketful at the dinner hour. Of oourse this is very annoying to the gentlemen who have freely in- vested their money in a great industrial enterprise, for they must feel quickly the demoralizing effect of the drinking thus superin- duoed ; but they have no remedy. The saloon is there. They could HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION. 71 only complain. The brewer has the ' pull,' and the saloon is hard to put down. " These saloons are first fitted np in elegant style by the brewers, then some fellow who, in all probability, couldn't pay a month's rent or secure a petition or a bond, is put in charge as ' proprietor.' The brewery then sends an agent around the block to get a few names on a petition. (The saloon has been opened and stocked with liquors already, but as it is nobody's business nobody minds that). The petition is filed with the Collector, and accompanied by an afl&- davit that it is all right. The Collector takes it without question, and Mr. Brewer or his agent pays six months' license for the ' pro- prietor.' TLe aforesaid lucky * proprietor ' is then a full-fledged saloon-keeper, and it does not take long for him to blossom out as a ward politician with ' influence.' But the brewer holds an iron clad mortgage on the saloon and everything in it. While the saloonist is living off the profits made on the wines and liquors he sells, the brewer is paying off his own account on the proceeds of beer sales. It is safe to say that half of the saloons in the city have been opened in that way. About two-thirds of all the bonds of saloon-keepers are signed by the brewers. It is in this way that they maintain an almost absolute control over the saloon interests and can dominate this powerful political agency as they please." The license fee in St. Louis is $550. Other cities of Missouri have even higher license rates, notably Kansas City ($850) and St. Joseph ($750). The BepuUic de- clares the same demoralizing tendencies prevail there, and that the liquor interests are absolute masters of the situation in both Kansas City and St. Joseph. It says : '* What affects this city of half a million people affects lai^ely the whole State ; but the evil is not to be appreciated as far as the State is concerned, without taking into calculation ike cities of Si. Joseph and Kansas City also, where exactly the same methods are employed and the same plans are productive ff increased intemperance, too many saloons and beer bossisni in politics. One very convincing proof of the dan- gerous power of this saloon system is seen in the fact that the Rep. resentatives of these three cities in the Legislature are (with two or three notable exceptions) all arrayed aginst the only measure which strikes at the evil and proposes to put it under control. In fact, the 73 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. strong opposition to all temperance and reform laws comes from the same source." But we are assured that High License has done good in Pennsylvania. It reduced the number of saloons in Philadelphia 4,000 in a single year. It has reduced them to about 1,200 for the whole city for the year 1889. It has reduced the number of arrests for drunkenness and disorder. It has reduced the number of saloons in Pitts- burgh to 93 for the same year. This is the claim. But it is a very suspicious one. Why should High License work so differently in Penn- sylvania from what it does everywhere else ? Is it in some way connected witli the character and disposition of William Penn ? Let us sift the matter a little. The doctors have a distinction on which they lay great stress, between 2)ost hoc and projAer hoc — that is, whether one thing simply follows another or is caused by it. A good lady stated that her digestion had reached such a point, that, as she said, '^ I can't even eat bread. Why, this afternoon 1 crawled out into the kitchen and ate a piece of bread and a raw onion, and ihat bread has been dis- tressing me ever since. " There was apparently a certain lack of discrimination in her case. So in regard to the Brooks Law. It does provide for a High License (not v^ry high) of $500. Therefore every good result is due to that High License. This has been the argument obstinately persisted in and sent far and wide over the country for the past two years. But what are the facts ? The Brooks Law has a bondsman clause making it necessary for two owners of real estate in the immediate neighborhood to be bondsmen for the saloon-keeper in $2,000, that he will sell strictly according to law — i.e.y not to inebriates, not to minors, not on Sun- niGH LICENSE AS KESTRICTION. 73 day, etc. This provision would go a good way toward stopping the oli'ences for which arrests are made, and THIS PROVISION WOULD BE EXACTLY AS GOOD AND EFFEC- TIVE IF THE SALOON-KEEPER DID NOT PAY ONE CENT OF LICENSE. Then the judges to whom the licensing power is given are invested with a large discretion. They are men of high character, and have used that power of refusal to the utmost. It is chiefly this discretionary power which has reduced the numl)er of licenses. In Philadelphia last spring 3,212 applications for licenses were filed, being 2,000 more than were granted the preceding year. Undoubtedly these applicants all stood ready to pay the $500, and but for the discretionary power of the judges, Philadelphia would now have the 3,000 saloons, instead of the 1,200 which they actually li- censed. In Pittsburgh, the rejected applicants say with amusing unanimity, '* It was not the $500, but Judge White." But they will not be troubled in that way much longer. Eleven days after the defeat of the Prohibitory Amend- ment the Supreme Court virtually abolished the discre- tionary power of the judges, so that it is now obligatory upon them to issue licenses to many applicants whom they would have once refused. * Xow a great cry is rising from Pennsylvania because of this decision. But why ? Therj. still have High License. TVe have been told all this time that it was High License that was keeping down the number of saloons. Let it go on keeping them down ! A citizen of Germantown is quoted as saying, ^* Up to this time we have had but one saloon on this side of the * 310 licenses have been granted in Pittsburgh for 1890. The num- ber in Philndelphia is not known at the time this book Roes to presK. 74 ECONOMICS Of PROHIBITION. ward, but under this decision next jear we shall have them by tlie score." But they still have the High Li- cense. It is just as high as ever. The Supreme Court decision has not touched the license. Let us, then, have a fair and honest confession at last that it has not hee/i the High Licetise th(it> was doing the work, which has been so persistently attributed to it. The good has been done chiefly by that discretionary power of tlie judges which this decision practically annuls, and not by the High License, which still continues in force, though all Pennsylvania now admits it cannot do the work. From whatever cause, the number of arrests for drunk- eimess and crime are now rapidly increasing in the cities of Pennsylvania. Whether arrests were avoided before the vote on the Prohibitory Amendment, or whether the saloon-keepers have become more reckless since its de- feat, these are the facts (we quote from the Political Prohibitionist of 1889) ; ** It is not, however, the effect of the Brooks Law in decreasing the number of saloons that is to be taken as the test of the temperance value of the measure. To ascertain whether it operated to promote temperance, the police records of the various cities must be studied. Let us first examine the records in the only two counties where there was a very large reduction in the number of saloons — Philadelphia and Allegheny counties- the first including the city of Philadelphia. and the second including the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny. PHILADELPHIA, PITTSBUBOH, AND ALLEGHENY. " The Brooks Law took efiEect in Philadelphia June Ist, 1888. The following comparative figures are furnished by Joshua L. Baily : * ♦ Mr. Baily was very prominently connected with the eflEorts to secure the restrictions of the Brooks Law. He has carefully watched its workings in Philadelphia. He said in Thi Voice for January Slst, 1889 : " That there has been a diminution in drunkenness or in .the con- sumption of liquors at all in jirnportion to the decrease in the num- HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION. , 76 Commitments to County Prieon in corresponding months of 1887 and 1888 : 1887. 1888. Decreaae In 1888. June 2,737 1,5§3 1,174 July 2,728 1,645 1,083 August 2,736 1,817 919 September 2,755 1,904 851 October 2,598 1,526 1,072 Total 13,554 8,455 5,099 Commitments to House of Correction in corresponding months of 1887 and 1888 : 1887. 1888 Decrease in 1888. June 490 320 170 July 502 281 221 August 590 495 95 September 540 380 160 October 631 437 194 Total 2,663 1,823 840 The number of Sunday commitments to the Philadelphia County Prison, as ofl&cially reported on the following Monday mornings, were : June 1, 1887, to Nov. 1, 1887 679 June 1, 1888. to Nov. 1, 1888 194 Decrease under the restraining act 485 ber of saloons no one would have the temerity to claim. Indeed, there is an absence of proof that there has been any diminution whatever in the consumption of liquors, while it is conceded on all sides that the parties holding the licenses, with perhaps a very few exceptions, are doing a greatly-increased business, many of them having doubled and some of them increased their sales many fold. They are enjoying a monopoly, and there are many of them who would rather pay a largely increased license fee than have that mo- nopoly infringed. The efforts to have the present law repealed or essentially modified do not come from this class, but come mostly from those who have been shut out of the business and who desire to regain the licenses of which they have been deprived. ... I have thus endeavored to show the character and purposes of the re- straining act of 1887, and its results, as far as T have been able to ascertain them. I think it must be apparent that whatever good has come from the law is to be attributed to its restraining — shall I not say prohibitory ? — features, and that there is no ground whatever for the claim that some have set up, that these good results have been reached thrnncrh Hiqh Lirenae." 76 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. The commitments of women were : Junel, 1887, to Nov. 1, 1887 74 June 1, 1888, to Nov. 1, 1888 21 Decrease 53 ** Apparently a large decrease of crime was effected in the city of Philadelphia. But was it really the Brooks Law that wrought the change, and are the Philadelphia figures to be accepted as modifying the unfavorable testimony from other High License cities? If so, similar and even greater changes for the better ought to have been accomplished in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, for the restrictions of the Brooks Law were applied more rigidly there than in Philadelphia. " But the official figures for Pittsburgh, furnished by the authori. ties of that city, show as follows : License No. of Total Arrests for Year, fee. saloons. arrests. drunkenness. 1887 $100-300* l,500f 8,565 1,914 1888 500 244 10.443 2.123 Incr. in '88 400-200 l,256fdecr. 1,878 199 And the figures for Allegheny also show an actual increase in the total number of arrests as well as in the arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. These figures are furnished by Henry Hunt. shager, Mayor's Clerk : Arrests Arrests, for for License No. of Total drunk disorderly Year. fee. saloons, arrests. enness. conduct. 1883 $100-300t ... 1,992 723 841 1884 100-300t ... 2,945 780 1,042 1885 100-3001 ... 2.868 794 1,114 1886 100-300+ ... 2,575 790 1,030 1887 100-300{ 363 3,081 918 1,321 Ayerage for above five years : $100-300t ... 2,692 801 1.069 1888 500 78 3,042 894 1.192 iQcr. in '88 400-200 285 deer. 350 93 123 '* During the year following the great reduction in the number of saloons in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, the Pittsburgh newspapers frequently spoke of the great increase of unlawful selling and of the failure of the law to diminish drunkenness. The Pittsburgh Com- mercial OazeUe said, December 13tb, 1888 : * $100 for beer only ; $300 for strong liquors. X $100 for beer saloons ; $300 for strong liquors. f Approximate. HIGH LICENSE AS UKSTRICTION. 77 ** * The magnitude of the illegal liquor traffic is really astonishing. There is scarcely an alley or a hide atreet in any of the wards of the lower part of the city, as well as on the South Side, that does not contain from one to twenty groggeries, where beer and whiskey are sold in defiance of the law. To publish a complete list of these " saloons" would require several columns of an ordinary -sized news- paper. A legalized seller when asked yesterday if he .was aware of the violations going on, said : " Yes, certainly 1 am, but what am I going to do about it ? 1 paid the county $500 to protect my business, but yet I see men selling all around me without license. 1 can't inform on them htcause such a course would injure my trade. The people who sympathize with the lawbreakers would not patronize me if I made a fuss over the unjustnes? of my having to pay for what others are doing without paying.' " The same paper said, April 8th, 1889 ; ** ' If the drunkenness yesterday [Sunday] can be taken as a stand- ard, more drunkenness is visible to the church-goer, as well as others, on Sunday than in the days of low license and free whiskey, and this in the face of the fact that the police are vigilant and deter- mined to crush out the *' speak-easies. " There were a good many drunken men on the streets of Allegheny last night. They staggered along in pairs, and people wondered how they got their whiskey on Sunday.* • RESULTS IN OTHER CrnES.* ** In all the other cities of Pennsylvania that have been heard from intemperance and crime have increased under the Brooks Law. " Scranton.—B. R. Wade, Chief of Police of Scranton, reports for his city as follows : Year. 1883 Low License. 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 High License. " A glance shows that the increase of arrests in Scranton under High License has been frightful. Before the Brooks Law went into effect the license fee in that city was only $60 for hotels and $20 for restaurants. Then in 1888 a uniform fee of $300 was charged— five times as much as the highest former rate. But the arrests in the High License year of 1888, as compared with the last full year of Low No. of arrests Total for drunk- Disorderly arrests. ennetis. conduct. 864 720 22 938 795 24 1,400 537 139 1,465 1.090 86 l,266f 999f 71+ 1,860 1,396 111 * For farther information see The Voice for May 30th, 1889. + Xine months onlv. 78 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. License (1886), show the following percentages of increase ; Total arrests, twenty-seven per cent, ; arrests for drunkenness, twenty-eight per cent.; arrests for disorderly conduct, thirty-nine per cent. ** Wilkesbarre. — The Wilkesbarre Record gives the following com- parative figures of arrests in that city for two Low License years and two High License years, each year ending on the 31st of March : Low License. High License. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. Total arrests 1,846 1,711 2,072 1,844 " (males) 1,688 1,560 1,876 1,690 " (females) ... 157 151 196 854 Drunk 624 660 1,084 766 Disorderly 580 446 429 400 Assault 212 189 239 234 " Lancaster. — The Chief of Police of this city recently sent a letter to the Philadelphia Press (printed in that paper February 24th, 1889), in which he said : *' * Crime is seemingly on the increase as our population increases. Drunkenness and petty larceny are prevalent offences. Prostitution is on the increase. Drunkenness among women is on the increase. "We find by experience that we have much trouble with young men and girls under or about arriving at age, who are intoxicated and disorderly on our streets, through receiving intoxicating drinks, not from licensed saloons, but in hell-holes known here as " beer clubs," or in houses where beer is delivered in quantities. Many of these young people are frequently of very respectable parents. We have time and again asked young girls, when having them under arrest, the cause of their condition, and invariably the answer has been *' drink."' " Reading.— Chietot Police Mahlon Shaaber, in The Voice for April 18th, 1889, gave the following statistics :*' No. of arreetB Total for drunk- Disorderly Year. arrests. ennese. conduct. 1883 Low License. 1,141 257 226 1884 " 1,088 374 228 1885 '• 1.146 37ft 135 1880 " 1.194 575 83 1887 " 1.107 399 100 1888 High License. 1;346 358 120 The latest information on the subject comes from the Agent of the Law and Order League, under date of Jan- uary 5th, 1890, as follows : HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION. 79 PITTSBUEGH'S 700 "SPEAKEASIES." THS 1.0£NT OF THE LAW AND 06DEB LEAGUE OV THE WOBEINGS OF TEE BROOKS LAW. There are jast 92 licensed (roloons in Pittsbargh paying the $500 fee under the Brooks High License Law, but it is not an easy matter to give the exact number of " speak-easies" or unlicensed saloons iu operation, for the reason that the business of these is conducted with such caution and secrecy that it is almost impossible to gain entrance to them unless introduced by some of their regular patrons or through detectives cunning in ascertaining their raps and passwords or obtaining keys when they are distributed to customers. As the Agent of the Law and Order League, and as a licensed de- tective empowered to employ detectives, I have prosecuted about 150 proprietors of " speak-easies" since May 1st, 1888, for selling on Sunday, a fine of $50 and costs being imposed under the Act of 1855, which, providentially, was not repealed by the Brooks High License Law. Many of these quit the business. Others continued selling, and were prosecuted under the Brooks Act, but the composition of our grand juries is such that nearly all the bills were ignored and the costs imposed upon me. One or two, however, languish in the ■workhouse as a result of these prosecutions. But to return to the subject. The police authorities of the city, through Inspector McAleese, claim that they have a list of over 700 ** speak easies" with the locations and testimony to convict, but, dog-in-the-manger like, they will neither prosecute themselves nor furnish the information to any one who will. These '* speak-easies" flourish under the giiiso of "boarding," "rooms to let," grocery stores, and in cellars, garrets, and stables, and run very secretly. We are in a most deplorable state. Our county detective an- nounces annually or oftener that he is just getting ready to wipe out the " speak easies, " but we never hear of any results. Our police are the creatures of a ring whose political power is perpetuated by the liquor element, and, as a consequence, when it does strike a blow at the unlicensed liquor-dealer it is generally directed against a man who has no political pull or a poor woman. One word from the Chief of the Department of Public Safety would exterminate the " speak-easy," but the ring, whose creature he is. says to him, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther." From the Brooks Law or any other license law, high or low, good Lord, deliver us. A. WisHART, Agent Law and Order League. 80 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. With this showing of the results of the Brooks Law, the star example of the benefits of High License, we are content to rest our case ; and we protest that nowhere on the face of the earth has High License yet been shown to have value as a restriction in reducing the evils of in- temperance. Many thoughtful people still have one ground of in- credulity regarding such statements, even when the evi- dence is perfectly clear. '^ How is it possible ?" they exclaim. ** We can see how the fewer saloons may, perhaps, sell as much liquor. But how can they sell more ? Above all, how is it conceivable that they should produce more drunkenness ?" Well, we think we can explain even that. Let us take the dry-goods business for an illustration. Now, in any city reduce the number of establishments one half — not by decay of trade, but by sharp legal enactment. Those that remain will at once double their business. They will not nearly double their expenses. They will have a splendid margin of profit. They will have the power of concentrated capital. They will begin to in- troduce more elegant goods in greater variety. The lady who goes in to make some simple purchase finds herpelf in the midst of an animated scene. All around her are goods whose very sight is a temptation. Among the crowd are friends admiring and buying. The increased variety, the better assortment, are attractive. The prob- ability is that, if she has the money, she will buy far more than she thought of doing. A country pastor walked with the writer through a great metropolitan dry-goods store. On coming out, he said : ** I don't know how it is, but my wife and T came here one morn- ing and spent about ^15, and when we got home we HIGH LICENSE AS RESTRICTION. 81 made up our minds tluit if we liad gone to our little home store we should have spent less money, and while we might not have bought such elegant things, we should have got more nearly what we wanted. The abundance and elegance here are bewildering." So it is in the High License saloon. The closing of ^ many throws the whole trade into tlie number that remain. As shown in the St. Paul letter before quoted, the increased expense, inchiding th« license, bears no proportion to the increased trade. All observers agree that the saloons soon begin to ^^ put on a great deal of style. " Tlie}* introduce plate-glass, carving and gilding, oil paintings and bevelled mirrors and skilled musicians. In the evening they are all ablaze with light. The man not caring very much for a drink, who would pass by the poor, plain saloon, or, if he went in, simply take a drink and pass on, is at- tracted by all this glare and glitter. In that crowd he is pretty sure to find friends. He steps in for just one drink. There is merry talk and cheer all around him. It is pleasant to stay. First one acquaintance asks him to drink, then another. He is introduced to new ac- quaintances, and must drink with them. After drinking with one it is a slight and an affront not to drink with another. After being '' treated," it is stingy not to '^ treat." The man who went in for one drink takes a dozen*and comes out drunk. Perhaps as the stimulant mounts to his brain he quarrels with some one. In a great, drinking crowd there is always likely to be some man *^ fiojhtino: drunk." Then there is ^' disorderlv conduct," and, perhaps, a murder. In a word, the more attractive the saloons are made, the worse they are. Thousands of men — and, what is worse, thousands of boys — who would pass the *' doggeries" with utter scorn will be drawn into 82 KCONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. the gilded saloon, and where the crowd is thickest, tempta- tions to intoxication are thickest, too. Thns it is easy to see why the arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct should be more numerous in High License than in Low License cities, as the official reports show that they are. / As regards reducing the evils of intemperance, High License does not restrict. CHAPTER VI. HIGH LICENSE AND THE CONSUMER. " The tax on spirits oppresses no one. It is paid only by the con- sumer." — James G. Blaine, Letter to the Philadelphia Press, Novembtr 22d, 1882. ** Who pays the license ? Op coubse the consumeb ! For the big and rich marble palace tavern-keeper, it [High License] is a sort of additional revenue. He can easily charge five cents more for whis- key. That gives him for every one hundred drinks sold $5, while his daily license at the rate of $500 is but $1.66, and of $1,000 but $3.32. Of course no whiskey-drinker will object to pay five cents more for a drink under High License. That explains why not a few of the tavern-keepers favor High License.*' — Wa^hmglon Sentinel {Brewers' Organ), March 3d, 1888. That the consumer does pay the entire hquor tax or h cense, as the above quotations show, appears further from the frequent argument that to repeal the United States tax would be *' to flood the country with cheap whiskey" — that is to say, it is the tax which keeps it from being cheap now. The producer having to pay a tax, gets it out of the consumer by raising the price of the product. It is the same with the State assessments. */ All the liquor-seller pays or has to pay is what he gets from those who buy of him. Mike Mulligan, newly landed, starts a saloon on §50 borrowed from his cousin who has been here a little longer. Soon he repays the loan, then buys the ])uild- ing, then a corner lot, builds him a house, and has money to lend. Where has it all come ^rom ? Out of the 84 rX'ONOMlCS (jF PKUHIBITIOX. jDOckets of the poor fellows who have drunk at his bar ; out of the mouths and the very life of their wives and children. Every cent the State can wring from liim comes from the same source. When it collects its High License revenue, then, the State is gathering in the food which the drunkard's wife and children should eat, the shoes which should cover their bare and bleeding feet, the fuel which should warm their chilly rooms, the bed- ding which should cover them in the bitter nights. Some have argued that this is cruel. But there is another con- sideration. It is unprofitable. IT DESTROYS THE WEALTH-PRODUCING QUALITIES of a people. The very thing that makes slave labor un- profitable is that the slave has no motive. His coarse clothing and daily hoe-cake are all he will get anyway. Passing through Baltimore early iu the war, the writer saw a negro sawing wood with such imperceptible motions that the Yankee boy burst out, ** Why, I never saw a man work so slowly in all my life. I don't see how he can." My father answered, ** That man is a slave. It's of no use for him to work any faster ; he would make nothing if he did." Hence the paralysis of slavery. Hence, too, the paralysis of drink. All the inspiration a man's home might be to him it ceases to be, and be- comes an oppression and a reproach when he has made it wretched. There is little to rouse the patriot in the old heroic stanza if you make it read. Strike for yonr tenement rooms without fires ! Strike for the wife that in rags retires, Strike for the babe that starving expires, Saloons and a License Land I When many families have reached this point, oppor- HIGH LICENSE AND THE CONSUMER. 85 tunities of work are offered in vain. A correspondent of the New York Tribune^ of May 16th, 1883, writing from Slieffield, England, where, he says, beer is easier to get than water, writes as follows : HOW THE WOilKMEN LIVE. Said Dr. Webster, wbo has been United States Consul at Shef- field for twelve years : '* People earning their pounds a week are actually contented to live year after year, perhaps, without a bedstead, and in just such homes as you have described." ** How do you account for this?" I inquired. " The workmen here," he replied, " do not have the same ambition that our artisans at home have. They have no desire to rise. If they can get enough to keep them in bacon, bread, and 6e«r they are content. They indulge in betting and drinkiiKj. For instance, the grinders are a well paid class of men, and just now the hollow- grinding branch of that business is having a boom. They could easily earn £3 a week. But they won't work. Saint Monday must be kept, and Saturday very little work is done, and the result is, as a large manufiicturer told me the other day, that the employers are obliged to send thousands of dozens of razors to Germany in blank to be ground, while Sheffield men are drinking, dog-fighting, and betting. They seem to have but little care for the future. Many of them contribute to a biirial society and a sick fund, and they know that if the worst comes to the worst the workhouse stands ready to receive them." Such is a people from whom all motive, except the desire for intoxicants, has perished. For this state of things increasing wages bring no re- lief. Of the working people of England, Mrs. Mary Bayly writes : * " The five years which preceded 1877 were a time of onusual pros- parity in the way of earning money ; work was comparatively plen- tiful and wages high. During those years the increase in the consump- tion of intoxicating drink was enormous ; the home consumption of Gustafson, " Foundation of Death," p, 252. 86 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. cotton goods loent down eight per cent. Those -who watched the homes of the poor during those dreadful years state that their moral condition then fell to a lower point than had ever been known be- fore. There were happy exceptions not a few ; but to the vast ma- jority the large sums earned brought rather a diminution than an increase of all that is worthy the name of prosperity." How bitter to wives and children must have been those increased earnings with no increase of comfort, but only increased degradation of the bread-winner in- stead ! The National Labor Tribune says : " The injurious effects of intemperance on industry are found by investigation to be extinction of disposition for practising any use- ful art or industrious occupation. Such, indeed, will be found to be the universal tendency of this vice. Those who indulge in strong drink have little inclination or even capacity for improvement. Selfishness and apathy predominate in the character of the drunkard, and feelings of amendment, however frequently they may arise, are (juickly dissipated in the love of sensual gratification. '* In this traffic the consumer should be called the con- sumee. It is the man that is consumed, and not the liquor. Alcohol burns the red corpuscles from the blood, the grip from the muscles, the iron steadiness from the nerves ; and, with a certain Satanic selection, paralyzesand dries up the highest and finest nerve-centers of the brain till love, hope, ambition, energy, enterprise fade. Above all, the majestic will power dies, and such gleams of good as re- main are powerless for want of that controlling energy to put them into action and hold them to the mark. No man accomplishes anything great without an intense de- tennination that lasts through day and night, through months and years. But intemperance is the death of de- termination. This was, perhaps, never more forcibly expressed than in the words of the brilliant and gifted Charleft Lamb : HIGH LICENSE AND THE CONSUMER. 87 '* The wftters have gone over me ; but out of the black depths conl J I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will ; to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, yet feel it all the way emanating from himself ; to see all godliness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise ; to bear about him the piteous spectacle of his own ruin ; could he see my fevered eye — feverish with last night's drinking and feverish for to- night's repetition of the folly ; could he but feel the body of death out of which I cry — hourly with feebler outcry— to be delivered ; it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation." No, do not think we are going to be pathetic ! We simply want to make the point that intemperance strikes at the root of wealth-production. To this we have im- portant industrial testimony. After Massachusetts, in 1867, repealed her prohibitory law and substituted li- cense, Oliver Ames & Son, of North Eastpn, testified : ** We have over 400 men in our works here. We find the present license law has a very bad effect upon them. Comparing our products in May and June, 1868, with our manufactures for the same months of 1867, we find we produced eight per cent, more goods with 315 men that year than with 400 men in the same months of 1868. We attribute this falling off entirely to the repeal of the prohibitory law and the present greatly increased use of intoxicating liquors." Intemperance also destroys the spirit and habit of self- denial — the spring of wealth. It is an old story that it is not so much what a man earns as what he saves that makes him rich or poor. Even Mr. Micawber under- stood the philosophy which he could never practise. 88 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. '** My other piece of advice,' said Mr. Micawber, * Copperfield, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nine- teen, nineteen six ; result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six ; result, misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and — and, in short, you are forever floored. As I am ! ' " To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe." It is worth noticing that Dickens, who was by no means a temperance man, but painted men as he saw them, always represents Mr. Micawber in the crises of his experience, when his financial affairs were at some desperate pass, .with a bottle sticking out of his pocket or brewing a delicious punch on — somebody's — table. Saving requires self-denial, and intemperance is the death of self-denial, and renders the intemperate man at length incapable of practising it in any form or for the shortest possible time. He would give his life or his soul for* a drink. Of this Tlie London Tid-Bits gives the following striking illustration : A COSTLY " BEER." A GLASS POE AN IDEA WHICH HAS PAID $200,000 SO FAR. Two hundred thousand dollars may seem a large sum for a small article, but it was virtually paid by a man of great resources who bad an ingenious expedient for saving the horseflesh of the world. About ten years ago a veterinary surgeon, who was with the army at Bombay, found that the excessive heat of that country caused the tops of the horses' necks to sweat freely, and thereby produce sores under the leather collar. All the expedients that he could suggest were of no avail to remedy this state of things. One-fourth of the horses used for draught purposes were laid up by what is called '• sore neck." This "vet." in his younger days had studied ohemistry, and he HIGH LICENSE AND THE CONSUMEK. 89 found that snlphate of zino was the best and almost only care lor horses* '* sore necks," but the difficulty in applying this preparation lay in the fact that the horses had to rest during the time of its ap- plication, otherwise the collar would rub it off, and there was no chance for the horse's recovery. A thought struck him that to make a zinc pad and fit it under the collar would, at any rate, prove an ameliorative, and maybe cure. The man, though ingenious in his way. was much given to drink, and was looked upon by the officers of the army as a " ne'er-do weel " with bright ideas. While this was simmering in his mind and before he had put it into an actual test he happened to be in a drinking bar. His finuuces at tbis time were at the lowest ebb, for his future was mortgaged for all it was worth, and the publican refused to trust him with any more drinks. An American drummer happened to be rep- resenting a large leather house, and knew a good deal of the diffi- culty with which the American farmers of the Southwest had to con- tend. The two men got into conversation, and, as a natural result, the veterinary surgeon spoke of the idea that was uppermost in his mind, and said that he thought he knew of a remedy for that most troublesome complaint from which all horses in hot countries sufiEered. The American was perfectly convinced that he was talking to a man of good ideas though bad principles, and asked what he would take for the idea. " I am awfully hard up and can get no more drink on trust, so I will give you the idea for a glass of beer.' ' " Done !" said the other. The American at once saw there was probably millions in this, and he conceived the notion that the matter oozing from the sores on horses' necks would corrode the pad and produce sulphate of zinc — thus the disease would provide its own remedy. He also saw that zinc, being a non-conductor of heat, would keep the parts cool. The more he thought of it the more he liked it, and although his business should have kept him in Bombay some months longer, he in a few days took the first steamship to Liverpool and then to Boston, Ar- riving in Boston, he threw up his appointment with the house and started the manufacturing of zinc pads, after obtaining a patent for the idea, and he is now worth $200,000. These zinc pads are used in every country on earth, and are the greatest blessing the farmer enjoys. The story bears the appearance of truth, and all who 90 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. have seen much of drinking men have known those of whom it might easily have been true. The following forcible words of Dr. Thomas Guthrie, of Scotland, are taken from his Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 378-879. " Seven years of my ministry were spent in one of the lowest lo- calities of Edinburgh ; and it almost broke my heart, day by day, to see, as I wandered from house to house, and from room to room, misery, wretchedness, and crime ; the detestable vice of drunken- ness, the cause of all, meeting me at every turn and marring all my efforts. Nothing ever struck me more, in visiting those wretched localities, than to find that more than half of these families were in the church-yard. The murder of innocent infants in this city by drunkenness * out-Herods Herod.' I believe we will in vain plant churches and schools, though they be thick as trees in the forest, until this evil is stopped." Let any one say what (that is worthy of the name of civilization) may be expected of a man with a drunken wife, or a child with a drunken mother. It must be re- membered that a good wife is also a wealtli-producer, and most truly so when she gives her whole time to the care of home, liusl)and, and children. Mrs. Bayly, in the same letter previously referred to, says : " I have persuaded very many women to give up all paid labor and to devote themselves entirely to their families. I can recall no instance where this change was not advantageous, even pecuniarily, for the waste and destruction caused by neglected children arc in- describable. Where the wife has to earn money the children are usually in rags. Just a few indispensable articles of clothing are purchased ready-made at a slop-shop, at a price so low one wonders how anything can have been paid for making up. The mother at home can encourage honest trade by buying decent material which she makes up herself. But how is all this possible while thousands and thou.nands of pounds are swept into the publicans' tills every Saturday and Sunday night?" In his papers on *' How the Poor Live/' published IIK.II IK KXSK AND THK ('ONSrMKK. 91 during the siiininer of 1883 in the Pictorial Worlds Mr. George R. Sims says : *' The gin palaces floarish in the slams, and fortunes are made ont of men and women who seldom know where to-morrow's meal is coming from. ... A copper or two, often obtained by pawning the last rag that covers the shivering children on the bare floor at home, will buy enough vitriol madness to send a woman home so be- sotted that the wretchedness, the anguish, the degradation that await her Ihere have lost their grip." When Macaulay's *' historian from New Zealand shall take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul," what a story he will have to tell of the cause of the ruin ! How future centuiies will wonder at the tolerated barbarities of the nineteenth ! Rich and poor alike should consider that the destruc- tion of the wealth-producing qualities which we have shown to be due to intemperance is, from an economic standpoint, THE DEADLIEST INJURY THAT CAN BE DONE TO A PEOPLE. It is a deadlier injury than even the actual slaughter of the people. The first Napoleon drained France of men, till in his late campaigns he had to implore his War De- partment, *' Send me no more boys." But they were all they had to send. Yet if the de- struction once stops — if the war is ever over — the men are soon replaced. Ten years makes every boy of ten a man. It is the standing wonder of political economists how soon a land recovers from desolating war, if only an industrious, enterprising people are left. Look at our own South after the Civil War. Look at France after the Franco-German War, not only desolated by conquest, but compelled to pay an indemnity of a thousand mill- ions for the privilege of being desolated. Yet in a brief 92 KCON'OMICS OF PROHIBITION'. tenn of years the iTidemnity was paid, and France under republican institutions on the way to a better prosperity than she had known witliout war under the empire. But if the wealth-producing qualities are once destroyed, vain is the perfection of climate, vain the fertility of the soil. Some of the fairiest lands on earth lie desolate un- der Turkish misrule. Egypt, once the granary of* the world, is now tramped by the miserable Fellaheen, bare- ly owning a waist-cloth and a rice-kettle. False methods of revenue more than all else hav^e done it. The Sultan and the Khedive have kept up their rude magnificence by the desolation of their people, till they can no longer do that, but have had to mortgage their kingdoms to the bankers of Europe. No nation can live by eating out its own vitals, for the time will come when it will need what it has been eating, and there is no provision in the universe for supplying vitals to order. When they are once consumed, a nation, like an individual, must take the consequences. In the case of intoxicants, we have also to face this further danger that THE CONSUMER WILL BECOME A DESTROYER. The National Temperance Advocate sa-jB ; *' The recent formidable mob8 of the unemployed in London have an ominous significance. The drink waste in Great Britain is enor- mous, and nothing is more natural under such circumstances than that there should be great poverty and suffering. A recent report shows that the poor guardians of London have 91,000 paupers on the parish rolls compared with 71,000 for the corresponding month last year. This shows that the London ' prisoners of poverty ' are in- creasing at a rapid rate. Beer and bad trade are closely linked to- gether. Abolish the one and the other would quickly improve. It is impossible for the people of any country tQ waste their substance HIGH LTCEXSE AND THE CONSUMER. 03 as largely as in Great Britain for strong drink and not have legitimate industries greatly paralyzed thereby. " In our neglected slums are generated the pestilence, ^ the panper, and the criminal — worst of all the pauper and criminal by hereditary descent, born to the inheritance, and not to be lifted out — a savage race begotten in the very heart of civih'zation, forever a drain upon the re- sources of the industrious and the good, a standing men- ace to the perpetuity of nations and of civilization, a peril to every life and every home. The Anarchists of Chicago met in saloons to prepare for the fatal Ilaymar- ket massacre. They meet in saloons now, planning to avenge their comrades who met the penalty of the law. The saloon constantly comes to the front in the Cronin murder trial of the same city. The Standard says : *• The saloons of Chicago were a conspicuous figure in the Cronin (rial. In the history of this detestable crime it played an important part, as in all other like cases. It is there that murder is j)lanned, and thither murderers resort when the deed is done, to drown in drink any slight pain of conscience they may feel. But this inevit- able stain upon our civilization has revealed itself in a new way. A poor washerwoman had a story to tell of overhearing the last words of the murdered physician, his cry to God and Jesus, as he fell under the blows which met him as he entered the fatal door. The attempt to discredit her testimony brought to light some of her own sorrow- ful history. We quote from the published record : " ' Q. — You were asked by the lawyer for the defence if you had trouble with your husband. Will you tell the jury what the trouble was? [Objected to, overruled, and exception taken.] A. — My hus- band had lots of money in his pocket about April Ist, I went to Ertel and said to him : * Don't give my husband any more drink here.' He got mad and took his revolver and drove me out. I ran out in the street. After that he sold my husband drink and kept him there four days and five nights and took $470 out of his pocket. That was the cause of my suit. *' * Q,— Counsel asked you whether you had not been kept out of your house on two occasions. State why? A. — My husband was mad because I sued the saloon-keeper, and he put a new lock on the door and locked me out of the house.' 94 ECONOMICS QF PROHIBITIOX. ' ' The suit which this outrageously abused woman brought against Ertel was tried before a Chicago judge, who fined him $20 — the lightest punishment the law would allow ! What is to be done with such an evil as this, save to wipe it out altogether?" Remember, the saloon license in Chicago is $500. Let us be sure that if this thing goes on the piper is going to raise his price. We are training in our saloons an army of ragged, debauched, conscienceless victims, dead to every worthy ambition and tender emotion, unfit to be citizens of a republic, impossible long to control by the ordinary restraints of law. If this work goes on it means in the near future a standing army. When virtue and intelh'gence are gone the bayonet must come in. Se- curity must be had from somewhere. A standing army, vast in proportion to the size of our territory and the populousness of our cities, will be an enormous drain of revenue beyond any statistics which can now be arrayed. Its heaviest cost cannot be given in cash. It will mean the downfall of our liberty in a military despotism. A nation of drunkards will need a Napoleon, and sober men will have to submit to him as the only refuge from the worse tyranny of imbruted mobs. CHAPTER VII. THE HARVEST OF DEATH. *' I will make a man more precious than fine gold ; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir," — Isa. 13 : 12. " For among my people are found wicked men : they lay wait, as he that setteth snares ; they set a trap, they catch men." — Jer. 5 : 26. '* Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy nations." — Exk. 36 : 13. " The great London fever of 1789 took scarcely anybody but drunk- ards and tipplers. Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans, says the yellow- fever in 1806 took 5,000 drinking men before it touched a sober man. In the United Kingdom of England, Ireland, and Scotland, one visit of cholera swept away over 10,000 persons — not half a dozen teeto- talers in that number. In the city of Montreal 360 teetotalers had the cholera, and but one of them died, while 1,500 drinking men died of the disease." — New Era. " All who sell liquors in the common way, to any that will buy. nro poisoners-general. They murder His Majesty's subjects by whole- sale ; neither does their eye pity nor spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain V Is it not the blood of these men? Who, then, would envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces ? A curse is in the midst of them. The curse of God is in their gardens, their groves -a fire that burns to the nethermost hell. Blood, blood is there! The foundation, the floors, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood." — John }Vesley, 1760. When the Duke of Alvali went to tlie Netherlands, he thought he had liit npon the most brilliant scheme of revenue ever invented. Words could not express his delight and triumph at its facility. His only wonder was that no one had thought of it before. It was *' pop- 96 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. iilar," too — with his retainers and his royal master. The King had screwed out all the money he dared by direct taxation, yet had been always cramped for funds, in debt to his soldiers and his servants, and with a grumbling l>eople to boot. Alvah relieved him instantly of all this jierplexity and gave him more money than he ever had before. He kept his troops fat and well fed, with gold rings and jewels for the common soldiers to gamble over in the guard-room. He did not increase the taxes, and — within his administration — nobody grumbled. His method of raising a revenue was sublime in its simplici- ty and directness. It was simply to cut off the head of anybody who had anything, and then take all he had. Taxes of ten or fifteen per cent, became contemptible be- side this ample scheme. It is said that the President of the '^ Bloody Council," which conducted the details of the business, suffered from terrible nightmares, in which he imagined blood to be dripping from the walls and furniture. But the Duke was superior to any such sen- sitiveness, and went on his popular and prosperous way. There was found, however, to be one great difhciilty with this invention. Killing the producers stops pro- duction, and where production puts nothing in, not even tyranny can get anything out. The number of rich men is limited, and when they are decapitated for public ex- penses the supply may run out. As this fact began to appear the scheme declined in popularity, i/ The shrewder Yankee, in the nineteenth century, has hit upon an ampler scheme. He will not execute the rich meii — except incidentally. More money can be made out of the wholesale slaughter of the middle classes and the poor. There are plenty of them. The supply will not soon run out. TIIK HARVEST OF DEATH. 97 To maintain that revenue requires the sltiu^hter of 60,000 men every year. But tlie revenue is said to be *' the easiest of all revenues to collect." The man who is killed never objects, because he never believes he is going to be killed. The system is superior to electricity in this respect, because the awful chair, with its straps and wires, plainly speaks to the condemned of coming doom. But the saloon gives no warning that disturbs its victim. He talks loudl}^ of his '' personal liberty," while the deadly coils are fastened around him. The man who kills him does not object, because he makes so much in the process that he can easily furnish the mod- erate revenue the Government demands. General Charles H. Grosvenor, of Ohio, as reported in the New York Tribune of 1883, said of the Scott Law : " It is simply a tax law which permits anybody to engage in the sale of liquors and beer who can pay the tax. ... It repeals the statute of 1854 (which forbade selling to be drank on the prem- ises), and thereby atfords protection to the liquor-seller. While it is unpopular with the brewers of beer for obvious reasons, it is pop- ular with the dealers generally, for it gives them a quasi-respecta- bility. What will be the effect of this law ? There will probably be 12,000 payments under it. and $2,500,000 is a low estimate of the money that will flow into the local treasuries of Ohio from this source. This money will come to the relief of the overburdened tax-payers of the State as the quails filled up the camp of the children of Israel, The liquor-dealers are abundantly able to pay it, and those who do will make more money than heretofore, for from four to five thousand dealers will be compelled to shut up their shops. . . . The source of revenue is inexhaustible and perennial." The reference to the quails is strikingly appropriate, as any one may see by reading the account,* which con- cludes as follows : * Num. 11 : 31-36. 98 ' ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. *' And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. "And He called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, be- cause there they buried the people that lusted." Yes, this revenue ends in the graves of a host. But all the shocking barbarities of the old Spaniard's tyranny are avoided. There is no Star-Chamber trial, no dreadful scaffold, no gleaming axe, no severed heads, no dripping blood. The killing is not done abruptly in an instant, but hu- manely lengthened out through a long term of years. Fathers and mothers, wives and children, become gradu- ally used to the sorrow and degradation, and when the victim finally dies there is, for the most part, no sudden shock. To be sure, he may be shot or stabbed in a sa- loon, or hanged for shooting or stabbing some one else there. He may meet a fatal fall on the way home, or freeze to death in some neglected alley. But even these things relatives have learned to anticipate in ma^iy a dreary day and wakeful night ; and they only happen to a small fraction of the 00,000 — though, of course, no one can tell exactly who these will be. But for the most part the decline is gradual, unless attacks of delirium tremens intervene to give it a sensational character, of course very trying to the feelings of friends, but not sus- ceptible of economic valuation. On these points Gougli and other princes of the platform have exhausted elo- quence, till American business men have hardened them- selves into profound insensibility. ** The easiest of all revenues to collect" is a sufficient answer. We must view these things philosophically. Even moralists and ministers tell us it is quite incompetent to plead the moral guilt of murder in a question of legislation. This THE HARVEST OF DEATH. 99 may be urged from tlie pulpit — the saloon-keeper does not go to church ; or in the religious press — while the saloon-keeper reads the Police Gazette. But when we come to the only practical way in which the public sen- timent of a community can touch the liquor-seller — legis- lation — then moral considerations are quite out of place. If we attempt to argue that to take the mother's boy, the light of her eyes and the impulse of her every heart-beat, and just at the threshold of dawning man- hood, when all her tender care from babyhood might have happy and rich return, entice him into a den and lay him drunk on her door-step, and to carry this on through years till she sits broken-hearted by the grave, where she can scarcely weep for very bitterness of sor- row — if we attempt to argue that this should be stopped because it is wicked, learned theologians stop us short, and tell us that is union of Church and State ! These great men ought to know, but it is very hard for plain people to understand. They insist, however, that law can deal only with the injury to society. Well, we are prepared to take the matter up on the hard, cold, economic basis, and we ask, Have you ever considered THE CASH VALUE OF A MAN ? The baby a year old, in an average American family of moderate means, represents an investment of not less than §50, which may easily run up to a hundred. If we consider the mother's time worth anything, it will run beyond that amount. For if she were engaged in sume remunerative employment, she would have to pay from $2 to $7 a week to hire done what she does for her child. Pier necessarv loss of time from her work for its sake / 100 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. might be a much heavier expense. Yes, the baby boy a year old must be vahied at $50. For each of the next four years he must average as much — $250 for the first five years. For the next ten, expenses increase. There are the summer and winter suits larger every year — and how they do wear out I How the shoes are stubbed through ! There is the flannel underclothing, and there are the overcoats that won't stretch as he grows, even if they would hold together. Then the food to keep that stature rising and that machinery in motion — well, boarding-house keepers, who ought to know, would as soon board a man as a hearty twelve-year-old boy at the same table. We know a table where the man of the family is flanked by two sturdy boys, and outflanked in the eating at every meal. A recent number of the Philadelphia Hecord gives the following very interesting statistics of the actual first cost of the food of a healthy boy : "Dr. MoKinnon, the Superintendent of the Mimico Industrial School in Canada, has furnished the Toronto Mail with an interesting statement on the subject. There are 108 boys in the school, who are kept in good bodily health, and whose subsistence is bought in a wholesale way that would somewhat cheapen the cost as compared with ordinary household expenditure. The boys have all they wish to eat, and the Superintendent's accounts, not being complicated by expenses for sustenance for other persons, furnish valuable data not otherwise readily obtainable. The following statement shows the average weekly expenditure per boy : Cents. Flour 18 Oatmeal and other meal \ Barley and beans \ Bice, sago, etc 8-^ Coffee, cocoa and tea 2^^ Sugar and syrups T-flr Salt, pepper and other condiments i Fresh fruits 1 Frnitfl preserved and dried \ THE HARVEST OF DEATH. 101 Fresh meftt and fish IT-j^ Meat and fish cured 1-^^ Butter and cheese S^^j Other provisions 3i^ Vegetables 24 Milk 14 Total $1.07-i3ff " The cost of food, as above given, does not include the expense of preparing it, or incidental expenditure for superintendence, etc. But the average disbursement is astonishingly small. So far as sub- sistence goes, to raise a boy is not much more costly than to a raise a pig. If a healthy boy can be properly fed for $56 a year, there is less discouragement in the task of increasing the male population of the country than pessimist observers are wont to insist upon." It is to be observed that the allowance for fresh meat is very small — Icvss than a pound of beefsteak a week at New York prices. The allowance for milk is less than two quarts a week at the same rates. Even at country prices, these items would be very small for many fami- lies. Families, of course, must buy at retail prices. Also the expense of preparing, etc., will raise the price 6o:newhat. At this rate, $75 a year would be a very moderate allowance for the food of a boy vot '* in an industrial school." Clothing, bedding, and breakage have all to be added. On the one side, however, we must remember the host of little fellows who are not well fed, whose food falls short of even that moderate allowance, and whose clothing tells a sad story of cheapness. On the other, •we must consider the host who are fed at fully double the rates given in Dr. McKinnon's table, and clothed proportionately well. Then for these latter there are the school-books, the skates and the base-balls, the jack- knives and the bracket-saws, the gift books and the ju- venile papers— all which help to make the boy worth 102 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. growing up— intellectual, ingenious, good, and home loving. We may average the whole at $100 a year— surely a very moderate estimate — making $1,000 for those ten years, and the boy worth $1,250 at fifteen. Beyond that, the limits are wide, from the young man supporting himself, to the student at an expensive col- lege spending thousands a year. It must be remem- bered, however, that it costs the man's expenses to raise him, even if in these latter years he earns all he costs and more. His parents and society may receive then more than the cost, but all that value has gone into him, and must be counted in his worth at maturity. We can- not average it at less than $200 a year from fifteen to twenty-one. Few persons would care to take a boy of fif- teen, to do for him as they ought till he should be twenty- one, for so little as $200 a year. That makes, then, $1,200 for those six years, or $2,450 as the cost of a man at twenty- one. Of course, many are reared at far less expense. It is generally, however, with the loss of many real advantages. On the other hand, many have expended upon them vastly more in families that are /counted among the wealthy. It would seem very moderate and reasonable to put the average cost of an American young man of twenty-one at $2,000. But the cost of a thing does not always indicate its value. It might cost a vast sum to throw new soldiers into a starving garrison, and they would be worse than worthless when they arrived. However this argument might apply in China, it has no place in America, with its ample field for all worthy manhood. We may get some idea of the value of a man from the selling price at the South thirty years ago. A good, steady, indus- trious, able-bodied man would then sell for $1,500. Re THE HARVEST OF DEATH. 103 would be a man who had no school training, and none of the deftness and power which come from inherited edu- cation. On the basis of his vahie as an investment — his wealth-producing power — our American young man must be valued much higher tlian on the basis of his cost. If he lives and has his health, he can earn from $300 a year up to sums which seem fabulous, for the next forty years. Let us take the case only of wage- workers at from ^300 to $1,200 a year. Three hundred dollars a year is the interest on $5,000 at six per cent, and tlie man who can steadily earn $1 a day for 300 working days each year is worth §5,000. The man who can earn $600 a year is worth $10,000, and the man who can earn $1,200 a year is worth $20,000. So long as there is a field for wealth-producing power, the destruction of a man is the destruction of wealth. The 60,000 men annually destroyed by the liquor traffic are worth at cost, at $2,000 each, $120,000,000. Supposing them sober, industrious, and intelligent, as but for the drink traffic they might have been, and they would be equal in productive power to an investment of $300,000,- 000 at the very least. Considering the intelligence and achieving power of educated Americans and considering how many men of the finest advantages and most splen- did abilities from the professions and mercantile life go to swell the dreadful death-roll of drunkenness, it does not seem too much to estimate their average possible earnings at $600 a year, and the total wage-earning power of the men annually destroyed at $36,000,000, making their \'alue as capital $600,000,000. If every saloon in the United States paid a $1,000 license, that would yield $150,000,000. Adding the entire Internal Revenue Tax paid to the United States Government, we 104 ECOXOMICS OP PROHIBITION. should have $24:8,000,000. This is far in excess of any- thing collected in our day or likely to be for a generation to come. But even at that generous allowance, the sa- loon would not pay its own funeral expenses. Alvah boasted that he had executed 18,000 men in the Netherlands in six years, or 3,000 a year. The liquor traffic, with its 60,000 a year, outdoes Alvah twenty to one, and we have no one to do what even the cold- blooded Philip 11. ultimately did — recall the butcher and stop the slaughter. We talk of the cruelty of the In- quisition, and rejoice that the world is at length free from its baleful shadow. But Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, estimates the victims burned alive at its altars in the three hundred years from Torquemada to the beginning of the present century at only 31,912. Thirty thousand in three hundred years, and we call that cruel ! But it was only 300 men a year, while our Whiskey Inquisition burns alive nearly twice as many in one year as the Inquisition did in three hundred years, and we consider it a valuable source of revenue, *' the easiest of all revenues to collect.'' We talk of ^' regulation and taxation," and we wonder the old popes supposed they could "regulate" the Inquisition. We do not know that they ever thought of taxing it. How appalling are the atrocities of former generations ! "Woe onto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye build the tombs of the prophets and gnrnish the sepulchres of the right- eous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." In view of such facts the Christian Index asks : HA\^ YOU A BOY TO SPARE? The saloon must have boys, or it must shut up shop. Can't yon furnish it one ? It is a great factor}-, and unless it can get 2,000,000 THE HARVEST UF DEATH. 1,06 boys from each generation for raw material, some of these factories must close out and its operatives must be thrown on u cold world, and the public revenue will dwindle. " Wanted — 2,000,000 boys," is the notice. One family out of every five must contribute a boy to keep up the supply. Will you help ? Which of your boys will it be ? The minotaur of Crete had to have a trireme full of fair maidens each year ; but the minotaur of America demands a city full of boys each year. Are you a father ? Have you given your share to keep np the supply for this great public institution that is helping to pay your taxes and kindly electing public officials for you ? Have you contributed a boy? If not, some other family has had to give more than its share. Are you selfish, voting to keep the saloon open to grind up boys, and then doing nothing to keep up the supply ? In viesv of such facts, Dr. J. G. Holland wrote, ac- cepting a death rate much higher than we have given : " The property of the liquor interest, covering every department of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So long as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condition, it will cost America' s sacrifice of one hundred thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable from the cause. The cost to the country of the liquor traflfic is a sum so stupendous that any figures we should dare to give would convict us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of industry sacrificed, the amount of bread transformed into poison, the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the poverty, the pauperism, the brutality, the wild waste of vital and financial resources, make an aggregate so vast— so incalculably vast, that the only wonder is that the American people do not rise as one man and declare that this great curse shall exist no longer. The truth U, that there is no question before the American peo- ple to-day that begins to match in importance the tempernnce ques- tion. The question of American slavery was never anything but a baby by the side of this ; and we prophesy that within ten years, if not within five, the whole country will be awake to it." CHAPTEK YIIL A STEP TOWABD PROHIBITION. " And why not, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just."— 2?om. 3 : 8. ' ' As matters now stand, it is absolute!}' necessary for the entire trade to organize and get to work. Wake up, especially those who are al- ways known as very generously permitting others to do the work. This time it is business ; so, each and every one lay aside any petty trade jealousies you may have : the enemy is strong, and to vanquish him requires good work, strong work, and work together, with your baille- cry, 'High License against Prohibition.* Some dealers may not realize this condition of affairs in the trade, but all will very soon find out that, though the trade cannot now defeat Prohibition, High License can, as it will receive the support of a large majority of the press throughout the State, and the almost unanimous support of all fair-minded, sen- sible, and practical men." — BonforVs Wine and Spirit Circular^ January 25th, 1889. There are many temperance men who say, '* I do not believe in license as a finality, or a desirable thing in it- self. But I believe if we can keep raising the license higher and higher, making the saloons fewer and fewer, we can at length sweep away altogether the few that re- main. In short, I favor High License as a step toward Prohibition." To this plan there are several serious objections : 1. If license is wrong, it will prove unwise. Never in all history did good men make anything by '' doing evil that good might come." The universe is not con- structed on that principle. We do not ask any one to A STEP TOWAKU PUOHIBITION". 107 take this on feight. We cannot- stop to prove it. It will bear thinking over, and will prove itself. ^/2. This plan does not correctly gauge the facts. It is based on the false assumption that the saloons which re- inahi will each he of the same grade and power as the saloons you started with. Facts show — as stated in pre- vious chapters — that the saloons w4iich remain when High License has done its utmost will have at least as much capital, consumption of liquor, and political inlluence as the whole number had in the beginning, only concen- trated in fewer hands. Which will be the easiest to conquer ? Would it be more difficult to stamp out in Louisiana, for instance, 500 little, petty lotteries, or the great Louisiana State Lottery, with its capital of millions, its prizes of fortunes, farms, and gold watches, and with generals and eminent politicians on its official board ? ■y^ 3. This plan proceeds upon a false estimate of human nature. Are people more ready to break up a damaging business run by irresponsible individuals, or to sacrifice their own money, which they have become accustomed to receiving and spending ? Take a single town where there is one saloon run by one man who pays no license and no tax. The manufacturer loses two days on an average in the week from many of his workmen,* be- cause they drink at that saloon. He says, *^ It's a heavy tax to me and makes no return to anybody.'* The grocer looks over his list of ** bad debts'' which he cannot collect, because his customers have spent all their money in the saloon. He says, " It's a heavy loss to * The Oliver Ames Company, in Massachusettn, after Prohibition had been repealed and High License substituted, reported eight per cent, less work done by 400 men than by 315 in the same months of the previous year. 1U8 KCONOMICS OF PliOHIBITIOX. me and no good to anybody." All sober men who see their sons and their neighbors tempted and endangered say, ^' What is this business doing for the community, that we should let one man work all this havoc for his own private profit ?" / The policeman who every little while has to stop a fight or arrest a drunken desperado, at the risk of his own life and limb, says, " If they'd let me lock up that old rnmseller 1 could stop all this nonsense.'' It will not be hard to bring all the respectable men of this com- munity to say, ^' Let's shut that place up." But now put on the saloon a §1,000 license. Let the people get used to spending it, and the whole case is changed. If the manufacturer complains, they say, ** If we shut that man's place up, are you willing to pay his $1,000 a year to the tax fund ?" '* Well, no." To the grocer, ''Are you?" "Hardly." If the policeman grumbles, the answer is, " Where are you going to get your pay if you stop that man's license ? Why, your whole salary is paid out of his money. ^^ Saintly women pray and plead, temperance orators thunder, and the silent answer of the majority is, "If we let these peo- ple have their way, they'll take $1,000 out of revenues of this town. Then we should all have our taxes in- creased to make it up. Better let well enough alone." If the money is used — as in some States — for the school fund, the superintendent of schools is told, "If we close that saloon we shall have to cut down your salary," and unless he is a rare man he is silenced. Even the minis- ter is unconsciously influenced by the same argument. He docs not reason so, but he talks with solid business men who do, and has a feelinixthat they know more than A sTKF row Ai{i> ria»mi{i 1 1()\'. hivi lie does about ** practical matters." They say to liim, " We would be as glad as you to close that saloon, but public sentiment is not ready for it. It would be a use- less agitation and very likely divide your church in the attempt to do an impossibility. We are doing the best we can in burdening the saloon and making it pay for some part of the damage it does." But it is that very $1,000 license which has made that public sentiment. If we could have the issue between a liquor tradic paying not one cent of public revenue on the one side, and on the other side prohibition of the whole business that brings such woe and curse, Prohibition would come with a rush. ** Ah, yes !" is the taunting answer, ^' you want free rum." "Well, we once saw a mad Texas steer holding possession of a market-place. Men, women, and chil- dren were crowded into stores, the furious animal charg- ing up to the very doors. Horses and carriages were parked in lots, whose gates had been hastily opened be- fore them and shut behind them. A man came up very bravely with a flint-lock musket within easy range of the animal and fired. There was a little puff of smoke. The gun had "flashed in the pan." The gun looked big enough in all conscience, but the steer looked bigger than before and far more wicked. Another man came up with a Sharp's rifle, and called to the other, " Get r.it of the way with your pop-gun." What did he want that man out of the way for ? Ah, he wanted the steer free, didn't he ? Yes, free just long enough to be killed. He couldn't shoot him while the flint-lock man stood be- tween. The flint-lock man was very accommodating, and got over a fence. The Sharp's rifle was levelled one instant ; there was a sudden " crack'** ; the great 110 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. head and horns went crashing to the ground, and men, women, and children were safe. Yes, we want rum free just long enough to kill it. Good high license friends, get out of the waj with your pop-guns ! AVe can't shoot through you. Leave us face to face with our unlicensed liquor traffic, and Prohibition will bring it down, \j 4. Religious and political papers, and the liquor organs themselves, agree that the American people will not en- dure free rum, and if the liquor men will not accept High License, they will infallibly be given over to Prohibition. The Journal and Messenger^ of Cincinnati, says : " It is well known that the brewers and distillers of the country are not in favor of High License. They simply say, better for us to pay a High License than to submit to Prohibition. They are choosing the least of two evils, feeling sure they must submit to one or the other." The Freie Presse, a German liquor organ of Cliicago, in its issue of April 29th, 18S9, says : ' ' The Chicago Tribune has advocated, with the determination and zeal which mark it, the cause of Local Option and High License since Iowa and Kansas went Prohibition. To some German Kepub- licana who took exception to this, Mr. Medill explained that the only way in which the culopfion of Prohibition laws in all the Northwestern Stales, with the possible exception of Wisconsin, cou^d be hijidered was to leave it to localities to decide whether there would be * license * or * no license.* Local Option and High License were the only barriers against the Prohibition craze, and the good results of High License would soon lessen the number of those States which had come out against the granting of licenses. How accurately Mr. Medill calcu- lated the efifcct of High License on Anglo-Americans the vote by which the Prohibition amendment was defeated in Massachusetts shows. It was the great argument of the friends of personal liberty there that Prohibition would stop the sale of liquor, while the license taxes would bring in a heavy income to the community that impose them. That took with the voters, and Prohibition was beaten by an immense vote. We believe now that it is owing to the far-sighted- A STEP TOWARD PKOHIBITION-. HI nees of Mr. Medill nnd the ener^^etio position of the Tribune that Illinois has escaped paper Prohibition, and the city treasury of Chica- go has received about |;2.0()0,000 a year from the saloons. This is soQietimes severe on the saloon-keepers, but it is insurance against Prohibition." In tlie recent Amendment contest in Pennsylvania the liquor-dealers of Philadelphia wore High License badges on election-day, marshalled their voters and won the election behind that symbol. In Massachusetts, the Boston papers gave iis one reason for the defeat of the Amendment a *' general desire to give the new High License Law a fair trial/' The Herald, two days be- fore the election, came out with an elaborate article for High License against Prohibition, with these striking headlines : HIGH LICENSE. It wil,l orvE $900,000 a year to Boston. But the Amendment wiuL lose it all. Of the defeated Amendment in Michigan, Miss Fran- ces E. "Willard, who worked for the Amendment through the stormy campaign, said : *^ Its epitaph might be, Died of High License." Wherever there is danger of Prohibition, the politicians who favor the liquor interest hasten to pass or promise High License Laws, as they did in the States above referred to. On this point we are able to give a remarkable series of statements by clergymen of Nebraska, wiiich has had a license of $1,000 since 1881. These statements were giv- en in answer to questions sent out by Rev. G.M. Prentice.* In the condensation of the replies in the following tables, we give only the questions and answers (3 and 4 of the series) bearing on this single point. * A 47-page pamphlet containing the full replies from which these tables have been made may be had by addressing Rev. Benjamin J. Eipley, Windsor, N. Y. The price is ten cents. 112 ECOXOMRS OF PKOHIBITIOX. ■a i Si la £ " 3^ s§ g3 00 go §-5 -2-- .12 ara h^Oh it ■^3 ^1 ^ r »- •? 4 •22 S-i 0) Si II -Sa M O 3 .2* -"I 8 §2^-^ ^1°-.^ go y 2 .S '^ -a o , a, El" 2-^ la -z li If P H 1^ _g^ l§ ifl So ."o S « a . -u TS .Si „ >».-S hJ is O « p O^S rt-^O « H a S.S « s,1 ,2 sa H . "5 &.2 '3 to.- a O 00 rj fS O O M. o* o o Sii eg c o p •'O Ota ^ o C « c- H >5 O S!; •go . o . o ,o 3 H fl btT3 1-5 s ? §3 ■ £ -a P^ .2 3 :§■ II • 2 0^ fe CO o n CO 1.1 V o 5z; (H I I 1 'III Q •*; j;s eft O c« ^ A STEP TOWARD PROHIBITION. 113 It 5^ 111 11 6 Ill's «! — "^ 5 •— :;: to » %m E « .22 c _ 4) "^ .a-o BO Slgo ^2ll » -• MO B I- *• C 8^-2 2 :p.a'«t CS he — • •- £2 or £ a :f o o^ s i^>. a "2^ I s |5 & 3 S ntic, bery i-Pro liquo .P c^« bi^ =•^5 c o I I ' g3 O 33 03 o S S • o O 05 A STEP TOWARD PROHIBITION. 116 if § z ^^ 5 55 ^ £ 5.- Si a c o^ ^ c r * o-^tC >5 <5 H 3 II ii -a ^^ o II 11 IM ■I I III ij > o 1 ?■■ i.= O -I a,- » a — or • M3 :«> ■ ca • ^ II SI i I s. Ii II 8 3^ 2 « "S ■a >> s c a Oh V c o ;^s «2 •as a -J "^ fty ao >- O &3i oD J a g;a * e « o ai-s "" "a 00 ^ Jz; > ^ i 5o§2 t! a .2 •- V- _ S3 a !5 » 2 5 ll « XI I. a B> '•3'u C.2 II P t: ^ § 2 . is ll fi O to Jo* 2 . a (> ^••3>. 4> o a «*3 ^ 2^S*< 1 1 I 1 1 I I i »5 O O = -• a "So s 03 j<: I i I - a. a 2 S •5 S* p ad a a 'JO . • J < '.a E o^; 116 ECOKOMICS OF PROHIBITION. So as ^3 i I f ^ K .Is is 1 = •Co j= m aS «_ S ^ " go eo§g.^ "S o ■gl as S3 as a -^ It's 2 CO 03 O >.o lis §1 ^ 5 2 • ^ t I i I o B OS fe -t 8 5 >> :5 EC I ^ 1 1 ^ 1 gg *) . I?? ..^ 11! 5J — "3 I; S -a T o I e .-k- S •'O "as S >^ *» S5 6^ u I 1 -g Pi « s i 1^1 s& =^F 1^ I A 8TKP TOWARD IMtOUlBITlON. 117 118 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBTTIOX. In his famous letter of N"ovember 22d, 1883, in favor of distributing the United States Internal Revenue Tax among the several States on the basis of their population, Secretary of State James G. Blaine said : ** On the basis of the Census of 1880, it would pay about $1.75 per capita to all the people. The tendency would he to increase rather than diminish as time wore on. " It makes the tax on spirituous and malt liquors a permanent reve- nttfi to all the States, enabling them thereby definitely to readjust and reduce their own taxation.'* J When taxes have been '* definitely readjusted and re- duced " on the basis of a certain source of revenue, do people become more or less ready to destroy that source of revenue ? The answer is to be found in the experience of Illinois after the enactment of the Harper Law, fixing the liquor h'cense at $500. In the Legislature the next year a pro- posal was made to reduce the fee to $250. The answer was : '* Gentlemen, if yon do that, you will derange the finances of a thousand cities and towns." And it was not done. To all this evidence against the claim of High License to be a step toward Prohibition, we add the utter absence of any proof that it has ever had that elfect. When and where has it ever stepped in that direction ? The license fee in Maine, previous to the adoption of Prohibition, was $1, for the use of the licensing board.* Iowa had no State license, but towns and cities gave li- censes as they pleased, often at merely nominal fees — $50 to $100. In Michigan the license fee fixed by tlie Revised Statutes of 1846, ch. 41, was ** not less than $5, nor more than $20. '* It was from this that Michigan * Revised Rtatnteg, 1847, ch. 36, Bee. 4. A STEP TOWAKD PROHIBITION. 119 passed to Proliibitioii in 1850 to 1855. In Kansas, ac- cording to the old " Dram Shop Act," the hcense was from $100 to $500 at the discretion of the licensing board. It is said rarely to have exceeded $200 to $300, and could not be called a High License. The step from High License to Prohibition is '^ the nriissing link" which no man can supply. The plea that High License is a step toward Prohibition is an absolntely baseless assump- tion without one single fact in its favor. It is an ^ priori theory never realized in the actual world in one instance that any man can put his finger on. If we want the revenue from High License, let us say so. If not, let us not be deluded with the argument that it is a step toward Prohibition when exactly the opposite has been found to be the fact wherever it has been tried. President Atherton of the National Liquor Dealers' Protective Association takes quite a different view of the matter. He is the official head of the foremost or- ganization of distillers, wholesale liquor-dealers and other liquor men (as distinguished from the brewers) in the country. He has been President of the National Pro- tective Association ever since it was started in 1886. He has written the following letter, which may be found in the '' Prohibition Leaflet, " entitled '* The Fight for Life or Death in Nebraska" (italics and capitals be- ing supplied by the editor) : Brands of Fine Kentucky Whiskies • Atherton," The J. M, Atherton Company, " May field," Louisville, Ky., March 2, 1889. "Clifton," •• Windsor." '^ E. A. Fox, Esq., Eaton Bapids, Mich. "" Dear Sir : Your letter has been on mv desk for 120 ECONOMICS 01< PKOHIBITIOX. some time without reply, because of my absence most of the time from the city. The two most effective wea^07is with which to fight Prohibition are High License and Local Option. The difficulty is that the remedy is al- most as bad as the disease. High License is a vague, indefinite term, and is variously construed in different localities. I think $500 entirely too high, and a very unjust tax upon the liquor trade. Two hundred and fifty dollars is as much tax as the ordinary retail liquor-dealer can afford to pay and sell anything like old whiskey or pure liquors, however cheaply he may buy them. The true policy for the trade to pursue is to advocate as high a license as they can in justice to themselves afford to pay, hecause the money thus raised tends to relieve all owners of j^^operty from taxation and keeps the treas- uries of the towns and cities pi^etty well filled. THIS CATCHES THE ORDINAKY TAX-PAYER, who cares less for the sentimental opposition to our business than he does for taxes on his own property. The point is to prevent the gross imposition in the way of excessive and exorbitant taxation, under the name of High License. Local Option is local Prohibition, but the experience is that tJiere is always enough license counties mixed in with the No- License counties to practically supply the latter with all the liquor they need. ** I think Local Option is less objectionable in its practi- cal operations than the extreme High License. Soaner or later the trade may be able to defeat the Local Option feature, BUT UNTIL PROHIBITION IS DE- STROYED, OR ITS POLITICAL EFFORTS BROKEN, I REPEAT THAT OUR BEST WEAP- ONS TO FIGHT IT WITH ARE HIGH LICENSE AND LOrWL OPTION V.X TOWNSTHPS. ff Lo- A STEP TUWAKi) J'UUII IBITIO.N . 1 '^ I cal Option can he defeated without encouraging Prohibi- tion^ it should be done. These are my views in a general way. Of course each locality and State has its peculiar- ities, and must modify its views to such existing condi- tion's, but I think the suggestions I have herein given you are sound. ^' You will please pardon me for the neglect or dis- courtesy in delaying this reply, but my absence from the city most of the time is the reason. Would be glad to give you any information or give any suggestions at any time. With kind regards, " Yours truly, *'J. M. Atherton." HOW ILEE & CO. VIEW IT. There is a most desperate contest in Nebraska during the present year on the question of Prohibition. It is a straiglit issue between Prohibition and High License, and the liquor men are preparing to fight with all their resources for High License. A very interesting state- ment from the liquor standpoint, showing how the rum people regard High License, was made by Her &. Co. , of Omaha, the leading distillers of Nebraska, in Bon- fort'' s Wine and Spirit Circular for October 25tli, 1889. It is as follows : " The issue to be voted on is an alternative, either Prohibition or High License. It is impossible for any one to foretell the outcome of this election, and, of course, toe art all in hopes to win for High Li- censBy and thought that the outcome of the elections in the East •would assist us materially ; but we are afraid that the Prohibition victory in the Dakotas has about offset that. That Prohibition should be defeated next year in Nebraska is not only of great importance for the welfare of the State, but also of the country at large. If we can carry High License, it will be the commencement of an era of great prosperity for this State. With Prohibition on the east, south, and 122 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. north of ns, a liberal license policy will draw vast amounts of capital to this State. There are already a number of Prohibition orators, male and female, stumping the State, while the anti-Prohibition Party seems to be dormant. Early and most energetic action can- not be urged too much. The winter season is the best time to cir- culate anti-Prohibition literature, direct as well as, through papers, among the voters. In winter the farmers have time to read, while next summer, or shortly before the election, they will be too busy. There is no doubt but that good, sound arguments, demonstrating the fallacies of Prohibition, if properly circulated, will give us a majority against Prohibition. We are somewhat afraid that the Eastern States, now being safe, will render us no assistance " With such evidence, as the lawyers say, '^ We rest." CHAPTER IX. LOCAL OPTION. " For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." —Rom. 14 : 7. " The State is the normal unit of sovereignty, and it is opposed to sound theories of government to transfer to local fractions the de- cision of a question of such general and far-reaching importance. . , . Legislation of this kind breaks the educational force of law. What can be voted up or down by the people of a village or a county — what is right in one district and wrong in another— loses all moral significance."— t/udge Robert C. PUman. " Besides, the reformation of a town, or even of a State, is but the emptying of its waters from the bed of a river, to be instantly re- placed by the waters from above ; or like the creation of a vacuum in the atmosphere, which is instantly filled by the pressure of the circumjacent air. The remedy, whatever it may be, must be uni- versal -operating permanently at all times and in all places. Short of this, everj'thing Mhich can be done will be but the application of temporary expedients." — Dr. Lyman Beecher' s " Six Sermons on Intem- perance," preached in the yeor 1825. Of all the remedies for intemperance short of absolute Prohibition, none has been more highly praised than this. None has received the support of a greater num- ber of good men. It is urged in its behalf : 1. Tliat this system is peculiarly American, allowing each community to manage its own affairs in its own way. 2. That it allows Prohibition to be enacted wherever it can l)e enforced ; that where the local sentiment in favor of drink is strong enough to defeat a local ordinance 15J4 ECONOMICS OF PKOIJIISITION. against it, that sentiment would be strong enough to pre- vent the execution of a State or I^ational law if that were enacted. J 3. That Local Prohibition can be obtained where State or National Prohibition could not be ; or at any rate, very mnch sooner ; that a Local Option Law can be passed in States where a State Prohibitory Law would be defeated, and by it a large part of the State, including all the rural districts, can be put under immediate Pro- hibition. J 4. That facts sustain its claims ; that in several States it has been highly successful, notably in Georgia, where by Local Option many whole counties and numerous towns and villages are under complete Prohibition. This is certainly an attractive shov/ing. But there are objections to the system both on the ground of Theory and of Fact. (A) To the Theory of Local Option it is to be ob- jected : ] . That it is wrong to give any community the right to legalize a wrong ^ and that the business which makes madmen, idiots, murderers, and paupers, and blasts the returns of honest industry and the happiness of home, and does a host of citizens to death, is morally and po- litically wrong. No community can make the wrong right by a majority vote, and the State has no right to allow any community to legalize such a wrong within its borders. For it must be remembered that Local Option means the option to permit as well as the option to pro- hibit. By a weak — and somewhat cowardly — fear of the word Prohibition, it lias become common to speak of a Prohibitory town like Alliance, O., for instance, as *' a Local Option town." But all towns in Ohio are Local Option towns. Cincinnati has as much Local Option as Alliance. An option is a choicf.^ and there never was a choice with hut one thing to choose from, except poor ITobson's '^ That or nothing." Cincinnati takes the option of permitting the sale, Alliance the option of pro- hibiting it. That is all. The Municipal Council of Cincinnati have the option of prohibiting the liquor traffic all through Cincinnati to-morrow if they choose. Their idea of Local Option is to have it continue, and that is precisely what the law means to allow them to do, if they please. In a word, Local Option authorizes each locality to choose whether it will destroy its citizens or not. The State has no right to authorize such a choice. ^2. That it is un-American and un- republican. The ATuerican idea of liberty is distinctively not of piece- meal, but of aggregate liberty. " That these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." The towns were never independent. No town on American soil ever had authority to legalize anything contrary to the general welfare — till Local Op- tion laws came in at this late day. That is not American but Italian independence. In Italy, a few centuries ago, any town might go to war with any other — Milan with . Venice, Florence with Pisa. It was so in ancient Greece, where Athens waged long and destructive wars with Sparta, and Thebes with both, and every city could make its own treaties with all others, declare war and conclude peace at its pleasure. It was a system of weakness and ultimate ruin, bringing both Greece and Italy under the spoiler's yoke. Our fathers never pro- posed any such policy of disintegration. That system would have made it of no consequence to Virginia that Great Britain closed the port of Boston : of no conse- l^G ECONOMICS OF PUOHIBITIOX. quence to Massachusetts that Tarleton ravaged South Carolina ; and of no consequence to either that the British attacked New Orleans. Even before the adop- tion of the Constitution our fathers recognized that the country was one, and died for that idea on many a hard- fought field from Maine to Georgia. The very first ob- ject of the Constitution was, as stated in its preamble, *' to form a more perfect union j'^'' and this ideal, ce- mented by the struggle of the Civil War, has been grow- ing upon the people ever since. The very fighting point in tiiat struggle was the assumed right of any State to act for itself without reference to the wish or the welfare of all the States. That claim went down in blood. Now, what we refused to the gallant South we propose to grant to each little municipality, and call it '^ Ameri- can." In the thunder of a hundred battle-fields the American people have proclaimed that this idea is not American. The principle of Local Option is simply the Douglas doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty," or, as it was some- times called, '^ Squatter Sovereignty," applied to a new issue. Stephen A. Douglas, in 1854r, said : " If EansaH wants a slave -State constitution, she has a right to it : if she wants a free-State constitution, she has a right to it. It iH none of my business which way the slave clause is decided." Abraham Lincoln replied : " He (Douglas) contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do a wrong. " We Stand with Abraham Lincoln. We declare that system not American which makes the same act lawful in one town and criminal in another fis'e miles awav, so LOCAL OPTION. 127 that a travellino^ man would need a colored map of the State spotted like a leopard to tell him in which towns liquor-selling is a protected riglit and in which it is a punishable crime, {B) The Fact : 1. Local Option is inadequate protection. The rapid transit of our age is against it. That is not very effec- tive Prohibition which a railroad train will carry a man out of in half an hour. The mother in a Local Option town does not know but her boy will be made a drunkard within twenty miles of her home, the whole power of law upholding the tempter in the process. The wife does not know but her husband will come home drunk from the next town and beat her to death, as the result of a purcliase which is as lawful in that neighboring town as the purchase of groceries. Such things continually happen. liev. Wayland Johnson, of Dalton, Ga., assures us there is a " large and, in Georgia, constantly increasing number of intelligent and respectable poople who are Prohibitionists at heart, but who doubt the practicability of the present Prohibition measures. The last are cool- headed, thoughtful men who believe in Prohibition ab- solute and uncompromising, but are thoroughly sick of the Local Option farce that stretches a restriction ropo around one county while a deluge of bottles, jugs, and kegs flows in from the next. That this sort of traffic is inconsiderable and working very little injury, is the com- mon notion among those who have a pleasant faculty of seeing only what they desire to see. But that such is not the fact is evident to any one who is not hopelessly blind to the clearest daylight occurrences in every com- munity. That the number of besotted young men and 12K ECONOMICS OF PROF! IBITIOX. heart- wrung mothers is increasnig instead of diminishing in this Local Option State is the surprised exclamation of all good people who do not weigh evidences in the balance of their hopes." Such a law cannot be perma- nently successful. A protective law should be as wide as the danger and the need. 2. Local Option surrenders to the liquor traffic the centers of population and power. This is our answer to argument (2) in its favor. It allows the liquor traffic to maintain legalized strong- holds in the midst of our civilization. All the towns of a county may be under Prohibition except the county- seat. But the men of the county must go there for almost every transaction involving law, and often for other business. While the liquor traffic is legalized there, in- temperance will invade the surrounding towns. The village boy rarely spends his life in the village where he was born. Still more rarely does the farmer's boy re- main on the farm. The prizes of wealth and ambition are in the cities ; and Local Option gives up those very places to the enemy. The young man who goes into business there is every day throwing off provincial ideas as narrow and petty and *' behind the times." All around him are the le- galized saloons, recognized places of business with as good a standing before the law as his own, and patronized by men in the highest station. The very idea of Pro- hibition is scouted as foolish and fanatical. He is adapt- ing himself to city life. Why should he not adapt him- self to this phase of it ? Why should he not discard Prohibition as something petty and provincial ? Here, as in other cases, it will be observed, that it is the Ugalized saloon that does this. The clandestine sale LOCAL UPTIUX. 129 in spite of a State Proliibitory Law would not have the same effect, for it would be an outlawed, criminal thing which his honest principles would brace him against as against other crimes. This was precisely the case with the Bangor editor of whom '' Kasby" tells, who said : ** Up to twenty- one I never saw it, and after that I did not want it." When he w^ent to Bangor 'y^^ ivas still on Prohibition ground. Liquor enough is sold there, they say, but it is sold clandestinely. In order to get it he would have had to engage in a law-breaking transaction, and buy in a saloon that might any time be raided, and himself summoned as a witness before a criminal court. There is no charm in that kind of thing for a decent young man who has not formed an appetite for liquor. Then, too, the outnumbered temperance people in the cities have a right to the re-enforcement of the temper- ance voters in the rural districts. John B. Finch, in an address delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, in 1883, declared : " The people in the cities where the evil element controls, are on- titled to protection by the State. Is it a truly brave man and leader who would say to the drunkard's wife and child in Cincinnati, * I regret that you live in the city, but as you do, I see no help for you, for the saloon-keepers control the city, and I am in favor of Local Option ' ? It is treason to God and humanity to advocate the policy of the State turning the helpless in the great cities over into the hands of the drunkard-makers by Local Option. Ohio is a State. Every home in it is entitled to State protection." Local Option gives up the temperance men — and women —of the cities to be governed by the slums. 3. Local Option keeps the question constantly in poli- tics. It is always to be decided over again at every election — a struggle that tends to weary temperance peo- ple out, and in which, by the trickery of politics, they 130 ECONOMICS OF PKOIIIBITIUN. are alv^^ays liable to be conquered by surprise. It gives the rum power the advantage of ^' eternal hope.'* On this and other practical points we are able to call two witnesses from Georgia, the banner State of Local Option— Rev. Wayland Johnson, of Dalton * (already quoted), and Professor H. A. Scomp,t of Emory Col- lege, Oxford. It is fair to suppose that they know what they are writing about. Professor Scomp says : " Another objection to Local Option is that it is too temporary and too local. Under the Georgia general law a county may, upon peti- tion of one-tenth of its voters, determine the question every two years. As the law allows of license for one year, nothing is more common than for the saloonist to renew his license upon some pre- text after an election has been ordered and before the result has been announced. Then if Prohibition wins, the dramseller falls liack upon his ' vested-rights ' and plies his trade for about one-half of the whole period during which Prohibition is to operate. It is very easy for the liquorites to keep up the agitation for the second year, and hO ■ the matter is never settled. Local Option is the creature of cliques and political rings. A county has been carried for Prohibition but by a bare majority. The liquor men constantly look forward to the opportunity for resuming their business. Often the rumseller moves his saloon just a few miles, barely beyond the county limits, and brings a wagon into requisition, which delivers the liquor, of course bought at the saloon (?), to the thirsty customers. The law is too temporary to deprive the saloonist of the confident expectation of an early return to his former place, and so he remains an active factor in opposing it, and all the more as his money is still invested in the traffic. Thus Local Option nurtures a viper in its own bosom. "Local Option is constantly in politics. Georgia furnishes innu- merable examples of this— e.f/., of the 111 members of the House who voted for the Local Option Bill in 1885, only about twenty were re- * "The Weaknesses of Local Option," in The Voice of March 22d, 1888. f " Local Option in Georgia," in The Voict of February 9th, 1888. LOCAL OPTION. 131 tnmed to the same branch of the next" Legislature. The champions of Prohibition are steadily relegated to the shades of private life by the political bosses, who find that such men are not available by reason of their temperance records. Why ? The liquor power is against them. Local Option permits the liquor power to remain organ- ized in its interests in the State, and it is always ready to seize upon the first opportunity to restore itself. Such opportunities are con- tinually offered in the political ring- work around the court-houses." Mr. Johnson says : ** There is not a county in the State where the question is settled within even a fair degree of probability. The condition of Atlanta is the condition of every county where Prohibition has had a practical test. It is settled in one way to-day and in another way to-mor- row." 4. It disintegrates the temperance forces. This is our answer to argument (3) in its favor. By Local Option partial Prohibition may be sooner obtained, with all its disadvantages, but the complete triumph which might be won is rendered impossible. It is snatching a limited and transient advantage to lose a wide and permanent one. It is to limit every temper- ance man's view" to his own county or town. "When he can say, ** We have no saloons in our town or county," if his friend replies, '' We are cursed with them still," his answer is likely to be, ^' You must vote them out as we did. If you don't, we can't help it." It is to sub- stitute for the Christian precept, '* Bear ye one another's burdens" that very different text, ** The Devil take the hindmost" — and he does. It gives politicians unequalled power to ** shut up" temperance men. *' Have you voted out your saloons?" ^' Yes." *' Then what are you fussing about ? Let other places do the same if they want to. If not, it's none of your business." Or if the answer is, ''No," the pnliticiim replies, " Well, if 132 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITlOX. you can't get them out of your one town or county, how do you think you could out of the whole State ?" On this point Professor Scomp says : " Local Option is the weakest of bonds for uniting the people of a State to secure legislative action. Time and again has the query been propounded to us : ' If four-fifths of Georgia is under Prohibi- tion, why do you not sweep the Stale ? ' Kind friends, a great writer has said : * Collect the thunder into a single peal, and it will rend the heavens ; divide it into a thousand parts, and each becomes but a plaything for a child.' So of Local Option. In 1884-85 the demand for a general law against liquor was accumulating, heaping up, 80 to speak, ready to overleap all bounds, and tear in pieces all opposition. The Macon Telegraph, a vigorous anti-Prohibition pa- per, urged the Legislature to accede to the popular demand for a Local Option Law, otherwise the Democratic Party was likely to be rent asunder. ** The law was carried, yet to-day the temperance cause in the State would doubtless be stronger and far more efficient had the law been defeated. Then the State was a iinit and working for a com- mon end and in hearty co-operation. Since May, 1885, no Slate Temperance Convention has assembled and no Slate work has been inaugurated. The thunder peal has died away in low mutterings, ever and anon, from a county here or there over the State. "Had the Legislature of 1885 refused the law, the next Legisla- ture would have been a most pronounced temperance body, and measures more stringent than the Locil Option Law would have been adopted. But the combined strength necessary for State work was divided. To each county was served out a mess of Local Option pottage, the smallest possible ration which could still or silence the hungry cry for legal Prohibition. Temperance was turned away to the counties, and ceased knocking at the doors of the Statute-making Power. Thus with more of temperance sentiment than could be found in almost any other State, Georgia was left with the weakest bond of all among her temperance workers, and to-day it is one of the hardest of Slates to organize for efifective work in the temper- ance cause. "Local Option has left Georgia without a temperance organiza- tion, and with no plan of concerted State action. The forces which ought to be united for the reduction of certain liquor strongholds lack a head and a common nV)iL'ctivc aim. LOCAL OPTION. 138 " Local Option is of all fonus of temperance legiKlation the leuftt able to resist those temporary revulsions which come in the courso of every great moral or popular movement. Such ebbings of the tide leave the option ship stranded high and dry— stern seaward. At such times of low sentiment the vigilant enemy is always ready ; the abolition of the law is but short work and the labor of years is over thrown. Such is the ultimate fate of all such temporary measures. Adopted as an experiment, the law continues to be rpgarded as on trial and a change is always anticipated. Hercules grew weary of a battle perpetually renewed, and the hydra would eventually have conquered had the contest continued one of simple endurance. So temperance men, not having the money and selfish incentives of their foes, at last tire out and give over the conflict, usually with the promise of High License, ample restrictions, regulations, etc., which promises liquordom never yet has redeemed. " The wisest Local Option temperance men expected to vse the meas- ure as a stepping-stone to genei'al Prohibition. ' Let us work on, re- deeming county after county, until not more than a dozen liquor strongholds be left, then with one grand coupdelat we will sweep the State,* Such was the popular delusion. On the other hand, the rum power sagaciously conjectured that Local Option might be used as a breakwater against the temperance tide about to flood the State. To gain time and scatter their opponent' s forces was their shrewd policy. Local Option might stave off the final doom ; so it became the law of the land. A halt was called, and temperance enthusiasm was al- lowed to expend itself in crushing the hydra's heads in the counties, only to find the task perpetually renewed. The Prohibition line was broken, and rum still had its hand upon the legislating power. ******** " No, no. Local Option was never a permanent temperance law ; no country ever yet stopped and stayed there. Forward or backward must be the course, and alas ! the bugles always sound retreat. Best go beyond and not indulge in this fatal lotus-eating, but ground Prohibition in the Constitution of the supreme, fundamental law of the land," All Americans are our fellow-countrymen. All men are those for whom Christ died. This thought is the vital breath of all missions to the heathen and of all Christian philanthropy at ho'ue ; as that grand, early 134 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. missionary said, " I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise." Tliis spirit of Christ's out-reaching Gospel must be ap- plied to our national curse. Wlierever it spreads its wings of darkness the legions of temperance reform must crowd in, to conquer the evil for those who suffer most from it, and have least power to defend them- selves. By all that we know of the blessings of Pro- hibition in any one locality, we are bound to reach out to places yet unredeemed. The temperance men of the country are debtors to the boys of the city, to the weep- ing mothers and desolate wives and worse than orphaned children, to spread over them the aegis of uniform law with the ballots — and, if need be, the bullets — of State and Nation behind it. In such a day as this let no man retreat across the imaginary line of a municipality and witness the slaughter of his countrymen far and wide around, with the surly question of the first murderer, ** Am I my brother's keeper ?" Why have we never tried Local Option for our Tariff ? The seaports where public sentiment was sufficient might collect duties, and if goods came in free at other ports, it would be because public sentiment was not strong enough to prevent, and we could not help it. Ah, no I we will not leave the protection of cotton and woollen goods to Local Option. For that we invoke the strong arm of the Nation. It is only for the protection of our sons, of home, humanity, and character, that we will divide the country, up into helpless fragments that can- not combine together. ^ It is especially bad strategy to effect this disintegration and disorganization of the temperance forces at a time when the liquor traffic is organizing and connoiidating as LOCAL OPTION'. 135 never before. It is to fight by detacliments ngainst a concentrated army. It is to apply a local ren)edy for a national curse. It is absolutely sure without further ex- periment that Local Option can never relieve onr country from the terrible economic loss of life and treasure pro- duced by the liquor traffic. One question then remains : What practical action should Prohibitionists take in regard to Local Option '{ We can best answer by an illustration : Suppose that when cholera threatens our shores our Govenmient should commit all quarantine regulations to Local Option. We should argue and protest against such a law as unwise, un-American, inadequate, and even inhuman. We should do our utmost in every honorable way to get the people to see its folly, and the Government to replace it by an adequate national law which would defend the people against the nationa? curse. But in our own town we would do our utmost to make local quarantine accomplish all there was in it. We would appeal to the council, stir up the board of health, arouse the citizens, clean the streets, cellars, and sewers, police the roads, and strive by our local precau- tions to make the devastation as light as possible. AVe would do the same in all other towns we could reach — yet all the while maintaining our protest against the legisla- tion that gave us up to iiglit by counties and municipali- ties a nation-sweeping pestilence. The atmosphere is na- tional ; the winds that blow are continental. The ele- mental laws rolling in the pestilence on the wings of the wind would soon teach us that no man liveth and no man dieth to himself. A great cry would go up for a system of protection wide as the land. None of us may sit seltishly down in our little plot of ground and plu- 13G KCOXOMICS OF PHOHIBTTIOX. cidly see the young men t)f neighboring towns and cities going to destruction. If we do, God will require it of us, and the plague we thought we had fenced oil shall somehow find our sons and brothers in the march of His avenging Providence. J The reason Local Option cannot be made successful is, that God does not intend that it shall be. He never meant any company of men to sit down in safe seclusion and see their fellows drift by to destruction. '^ He hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." Let those who are shut up to Local Option wring from it all the good they can, yet never resting in it, but reaching out beyond their own narrow boundaries in the spirit of a broader patriotism and a truer humanity. CHAPTEK X. SUPPLY CREATES DEMAND. " Again, I flml that the constitutions treated are like the movable feasts, never twice alike. If I can produce the precise tint of flush- ing to-day, in a man, by six ounces of sherry or three ounces of the finest whiskey — the Encore whiskey, for example, which is said to be the purest— Jam told in a week or two thai the quantity has lost its effect, and that 1 must change the drink or give a little more. Then I shake in my shoes, lest by yielding I should encourage my patient to rely on the drink, to increase it and become a tippler." — A Phy- sician's Letter to Dr. B. W. Richardson. ** But when the enormous profits of brewing came to be known, when men hungering for money saw there was a net profit of from $1 to $2 on every barrel sold, capital and business capacity were put into it, and the style of conducting the business was changed en- tirely. ** When you went into the business you did not wait for a demand for your stuff, but you set about creating a demand. And you went abont your work cleverly. You established beer shops where there had never been a call for them, and you proceeded with an ingenuity that was devilish and a persistency that was infernal to make cus- tomers for your product. You laid traps for the people. You took houses and rooms eveiy where, and put into them men fitted by nature for the business, and made it to their profit to entice men and boys into your places to be taught to drink beer. The number who*se stomachs were already trained to the liquid were altogether too few for your purpose, and you began a regular systematic recruit- ing of the ranks of drunkards, which you have faithfully followed ever since, your success in this nefarious trade increasing with the money you make by it." — 77te Toledo Blade— Reply to Letter of an In- dignant Brewer. The usual law of economics is, that demand creates supply. Let there be a great influx into any region of a 138 EGOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. population who must be fed, and there will be more farm labor invested and transportation facilities created to supply the demand for food. But with luxuries the case is often different, and the supply creates the demand. One carpet or piano introduced into a backwoods set- tlement will create a demand unfelt before. The sa- gacious Romans understood this, and hence held their conquests so long. The barbarians were terrible because their only trade was war. It was their only pastime, too. The Roman commanders encouraged merchants to follow in the track of their armies, and to introduce the luxuries and refinements of civilization, till there arose a demand for them which would make the conquered peo- ple averse to war and even glad of the Roman authority, which made possible among them the arts of peace. But this is especially the law of vices. One gambling hall or one well-advertised lottery introduced into the most moral town will soon develop a passion for gam- bling among numbers of men who would otherwise have gone through life without thinking of such a thing as possible. The opening of a house of prostitution in the most quiet district is a signal to all decent families to arise and be gone. It is not merely the fear of the dis- order that will come in. It is that all who have families to care for know that the vicious element will create a rapidly-increasing demand for vicious indulgence. This is most emphatically true of intoxicating drink. It appeals to no natural demand of a healthy human or- gianization. Dr. Felix L. Oswald writes : " Dogs, cows, horses, sheep, and even hogs shrink from the taste of rum as they would shrink from the bitter waters of the Dead Sea. SUPPLY CREATES DEMAND. 139 After days of burning thirst, a caged wolf will still turn with loath- ing from a pailful of lager beor ; and the beasts of the wilderness would prefer the most insipid ditch-water to the best flavored wine. The oft-repeated fable that the Abyssinian baboons can be captured by the simple plan of exposing pots full of intoxicating drinks, seemed to imply an exception from that general rule, till the natu- ralist Brchm ascertained the fact that the taste of the noxious liquor ha-? to be disguised by a large admixture of syrup, and that, instead of being attracted by the fumes of the brandj', the victims of that stratagem are in fact stupefied by brandy-drugged syrup or honey, as they might be killed with sugar-coated strj-chnine pills. The trapper who kills wolves by scattering their haunts with pieces of poisoned meat might as well suppose that the dupes of his trick had been attracted by the scent of the poison. To animals in a state of nature the undisguised taste of alcohol in all its forms is invariably repulsive. "Has man alone lost that protective instinct of his fellow- crea- tures i The truth is, that no other protective instinct of our fellow- creatures is more fully shared by man than the instinctive aversion to the noxious products of fermentation. To the palate of an unse- duced child lager beer is as unattractive as cesspool water, brandy as nauseous as turpentine, pure alcohol as shockingly repulsive as sulphate of quinine. In other words, nature has not waited for the advent of Greek dictionaries and abstruse lectures on analytical chemistry, but, in a language as intelligible to children and savages as to scholars and sages, has ever denounced alcohol as a foo to health and life. That warning reaches every class of creatures, down to the animalculse of the duck pond, the tiny inhabitants of a water- drop which, under the lens of a microscope, can bo seen wriggling with animated specks of all possible forms, every one of which will instantly dart to the opposite corner of its little sea if its fluid should at any point be polluted with a spray of alcohol. The same warning comes even to the child of the confirmed drunkard, for no fact in human physiology has been demonstrated by more abundant proofs than the truth that no human being was ever boi^x with a passion for alcoholic beverages. That passion may be acquired in some cases more easily than in others, but its first development is always due to the influence of evil associations, never to the promptings of an in- nate appetite ; and a strict investigation of alleged exceptions would only confirm the correctness of Dr. Zimmerman's remark, that * the effects of education are too often mistalcen for hereditary tendencies.' 140 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. it might, iodeed, be questioned if the taste of any other poison is more universally abhorred bj' all nnperverted children of nature than the taste of alcoholic fluids." \j Yet alcohol has the power of creating in any human constitution an artificial demand as mysterious as it is undeniable and deplorable. The following incident hiss gone the rounds of the papers, and no one seems to have thought of denying it : A Cincinnati merchant was advised by his physician to take a tablespoonful of brandy in a glass of water every day after dinner. In a short time he said to his wife, '^ You are not giving me the full amount these last few days. It does not Jiave the same effect." A week or two passed without remark, when he again com * plained : *' Wife, you have been reducing the amount of the brandy again. I can feel the difference." The wife answered, '^ My dear, since you spoke of it before, I have been giving you two tablespoonfuls every day." The merchant leaned back in his chair with sudden as- tonishment, and said : ^' If that is the case, 1 will have no more of it." We cannot get beyond the ancient words, *' Wine is a mocker." Let any man with capital enough — it does not take much — to simply wait, start a saloon in the most tem- perate village, and he can surely build up a trade. There are the idlers who sit around the grocery in more or less unprofitable talk, but ultimately get tired of each other and go home. They have wasted time, but no cash. They are not tempted to gorge themselves on crackers and herrings. The saloon-keeper makes it pleasant for them to drop in there. It is light and warm. There are no customers to bother them, and no ladies to put a restraint on anything tlipy chonso to pay. The proprie- SUPPLY CREATES DEMAND. 141 tor *' treats" them to an occasional glass. It is the cheapest of advertisements. Their sluggish brains are stimulated. They suddenly find a motive in life. They can get stimulus without exertion. A shamefaced *• honor" requires them to buy something of the man who keeps open a place for them, and who has actually given them some of his wares. A few evenings make them sure customers. A crowd attracts a crowd. Others will drop in because they are there. Any man who wants to see them on any business must look there for them. Boys are inclined to linger where men gather. Games of cards, checkers, etc., are introduced to increase the attraction. Every man who has learned to drink in- vites his friends to the saloon. The tired laborer, com- ing home in the hot evening, sees before him the sign, ** Ice Cold Lager Beer." The saloon man stands in his door, talks of the hot day and the hard work, and in- vites him in to rest and take a cool drink. *' It will make you feel better." And it does — for the time. That man will come again. In a little while he will not be able to go home without his beer. If he does he will be miserable all the evening. A good supper does not restore his energies, nor the quiet of his home rest him as it used to do. The disease of alcoholism is established. When winter comes the appeal changes from '' Ice Cold Beer" to '' Hot Tom and Jerry," which flushes the whole surface of the body, with its deceitful warmth, leaving tho vital organs rapid- ly to chill, demanding more of the stimulant to throw the blood to the surface again. With a retinue of such customers the saloon is fairly started. With its profit of four hundred per cent, on the original cost of the liquor, it has become a paying business. Abolish it now. and 142 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. its regular patrous will go to distaat cities to get their drink, or smuggle it secretly in. Then shallow econ- / omists talk of the " demand." There is a demand, hut it has heen created hy the supply. This thing can be done in any town within one year, unless stopped by law or fought by the most vigorous and united efforts of churches and temperance societies that have a very strong hold on the community — and often in spite of the very utmost that they can do. This explains the furious opposition of liquor men to the laws of Prohibition States. They parade the figures of the amount of liquor they smuggle in, and of the *' dives" and ''joints" that flourish in Kansas, Iowa, and Maine. Then they '' agitate" for a repeal of the law, and pour out money like water to get it repealed. We protest that, on their statement of the case, this is not possible for human nature. Here is a Chicago dis- tiller who finds by his books that he is sending more liquor into Iowa than into any license State of equal population. There is no drawback of license. If he sells direct to consumers, he gets retail prices. What on earth does he want that law repealed for f From the case, as he states it, there is no conceivable reason. From the real facts there is every reason. There are liundreds of towns and villages where boys are growing to manhood without ever tasting liquor— where men go on their way without ever wanting it. In those places, tlie '' bootlegger" would be more apt to get another man's boot than to sell any out of his own. Every liquor-dealer knows that by establishing legalized saloons in such towns he can within a year create a demand which will be permanent and increasing. The '' trade" can afford to spend a million to create that demand in SUPPLY CREATES DEMAND. 143 Iowa or in Maine. They are ready to do it. It would bo a good business investment. Even in the cities where the law is most poorly en- forced, legal selling would immensely increase the sale. We indignantly deny that slander upon American boy- hood and manhood, that it ** wants to do a thing as soon as you make a law against it." The man who says that is not to be trusted anywhere. He simply advertises himself as of rascally instincts, or accustomed to ras- cally society. Does the law against murder fill our boys with a niging desire to kill somebody ? Does the law against stealing make honest clerks itch to get their hands into their employers' till ? Are we likely to have an increase of defaulting cashiers now they know they can be extradited from Canada? Every one who knows decent boys and young men knows that, while they regard the absence of law as permission, they will be kept back by self-respect and regard for the opinion of others from visiting unlawful places unless under the influence of strong persuasion, generally at- tended with a previous undermining of moral principle. The ambitious clerk in a nice store is not going to be seen by his employer or his customers sneaking into a cellar for a drink of whiskey. He is not going to know that fact about himself. But open one on the same block, as elegant in all its appointments as the store he keeps in ; have its doors swing open from the sidewalk ; let him see men of fashion and influence going and coming there, and the whole case is changed. It may be literal- ly true in the beginning that he goes there ^* to see a man'' — to collect a bill, close a bargain, make an ap- pointment. It has become one of the regular places of business of the citv, and he rcadilv drifts i?i. So far 144 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. from its being a recommendation of any so-called '' re- strictive" law that " it abolishes the dives," that is the worst thing that can be said about it. If liquor must be sold, let it be sold only in '^ dives." Let the old topers drink themselves to death there if they must. The l)oys and young men of the better class will be saved. With them the *' dives" will be the strongest temperance ar- gument. The shrewd and temperate Spartans used to call in their slaves at times and make them drink while their sons, without tasting the liquor, looked on at the disgusting spectacle, and imbibed a life-long contempt for drunkenness and all that would produce it. The ** dives" — if they must exist — may be the Helots of our civilization, and save all our boys who have not the spirit of a slave. But the legalized and gilded saloon is capable of awakening in the best of them a demand else un- known, but which, once awakened, shall become a de- structive madness. It is for this that the liquor traffic is ** agitating." It is for this that it is using all its *' pull " upon subservient politicians. For this it is using its hold upon the daily press to trumpet far and wide ^' The Failure of Prohibi- tion," thus preparing public opinion for* its repeal. For this it is working underground with its vast corruption fund. The liquor barons are not satisfied with their un- ])arallelud gains — as no avarice ever yet was satisfied. They must have this whole land for their camping-ground from sea to sea. These are not the words of a dreamer in the study. D. R. Locke, the renowned ^* Nasby," the editor, politician, and man of the world, said in his pamphlet on '* Prohibition :" " The vast brewing CHtablislimenU of Milwaukee, CincinnaM, To- SL^PPLY CREATES DEMAXD. 145 ledo, and Rochester have millions invested in this biisinosB, and their sucoess in the introduction of their beer may be measured by their wealth. They are the richest corporations in the country, and no instances are known where, with fair business management, they have not amassed enormous fortunes. ** They keep energetic men travcliin'^ all the time establishing sa- loons. In the city of Toledo, with 90,000 population, they have 800, and the number is constantly and rapidly increasing. A corporation cannot break ground in the suburbs for a factory that the brewer's agent is not there to purchase a lot upon which to erect a saloon, and the moment an addition to the city is platted, a saloon is the first building that goes up. They know every workingman and the wages he gets, and they demand their share of it, and generally get it. " Did they confine- their operations to the cities it wonld not be so bad, but they do not. They have invaded the country, and there is scarcely a hamlet or cross-roads in which they are not represented. With millions of capital, with an energy that is wonderful, with all the zeal that cupidity inspires and feeds, they are everywhere. There is not a family that they do not threaten, nor one that is outside their influence. "It is this aggressive feature of the trade which has awakened a demand for the interposition of the law to prohibit instead of re- straining. Heavy taxation of the traflBc has no efiFect, for the profits of the business are so great that no taxation has ever been reached that they could not laugh at. The profit on beer is enormous, and they have a safeguard against taxation in this, that they make their own prices and they have possession of their customers." District Secretary, Edward Ellis, of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, said, in a public meeting : *' I have been trying for ten years to get ahead of the saloon^ and never yet have succeeded. I have gone to towns that were only shanties, and have found it there. I have gone to towns that were only in tents, and have found it there. I have gone to towns that were only in wagons, and there I have found some wagon selling ■whiskey over the tail-board. Everj'where the saloon was ahead of civilization and the Gospel." The Brooklyn Faf/le (Democratic) makes the follow- ing statements : 146 ECOXOMICS OF TKOHIBITIOX. ** The brewers are at fault. Hunt the statistics of the output of malt liquor during the past five years, and they will explain the in- crease in the number of saloons. Why, if I told you that of the sixty groggeries now in operation in this parish over thirty were owned by brewers you wouldn't believe me, yet such is the case. They operate iu thjs way : For instance, if a man is a good fellow, genial and popular in the section in which he wishes to open, he needs little or no money to start a saloon. The funds are furnished by the firm, who only stipulate that the saloon-keeper shall as long as he is indebted to them sell their beer. The brewer takes a mortgage, of the iron-clad chattel description, on the stock and fixtures, and so stands to lose but very little. He always has the best of the bargain, as such customers pay more for their beer than those who are not under obligations to tho maker of it. "It has long been known that of the 3,500 saloons in Brooklyn less than one-third are owned by the individual operating them. The Sixth Ward saloon-keeper is right. If Father Fransioli and the other good priests of St. Peter's, together with local temperance reformers generally, want to secure less rum selling they must make their fight against the principal and not the agent." The concentrated national liquor traffic is one VAST organized TEMPTATION. It is like a wild beast waiting, watching for victims, especially for boys, with their unformed characters, strong energies and passions, and their prospective earning power. This trnjiic, with its uncounted millions of capital and its hall" million closely organized workei-s, is watching around all our cities, villages, and homes — its " business" to destroy by creating a fire of demand that shall burn to tho lowest hell. All the original ^tendencies of alcoholic drinks are art- fully reinforced by those who furnish the supply, that they may create a quicker and more overmastering de- mand. Says ** Nasby" : " The roan who comes to stopping nt a place of this kind every night and taking one glass, within u week funis a half dozen neces- sri>l»LY CREATKS DKMANh. 1-^7 sary. And the seller helps him along the downward road as rapidly as possible. There is always upon the counter a plate of pickled codfish, or rod herrings cut into proper lengths, or pretzels covered with salt — all thirst-provokers — and they actually put salt into the beer, that the desire for the pleasant liquor may be increased. Beer becomes a necessity to him before he is awaro of it, and his fate is fixed. The seller can count upon so much a day from him as cer- tainly as though he had it in his till. •Just as tin's volume goes to press, there conies to hand the New York Times of May 5th, with the following story strikingly illustrating the claims of this chapter. A great crowd visited Rockaway the first Sunday in May, but for some reason ^'preferred to wander through the paths' ' rather than visit the saloons. As the afternoon wore on, *' a hurried consultation" was held. An insignificant shed suddenly took fire. The church bells were rung. The fire department was summoned. '• Meanwhile all Rockaway turned out. The crowd of visitors hastened to the scene of the conflagration, the report having reached the upper section of the beach that the Seaside was in flames. When the mob reached the shed, somebody with rare presence of mind stamped out the fire. But the crowd was there, and they turned into the saloons and hotels in a manner highly gratifying to the pro- prietors. The firemen, hungry with the exertion of drawing hook and ladder through the sand, attacked the sandwiches. Extra men were required to tap the beer. The faces of the innkeepers relaxed into broad smiles, and they congratulated the firemen upon their prompt appearance, speculating meanwhile upon what the danger might have been had a hurricane been blowing. " It is safe to conjecture that the Fire Marshal will never ascertain the cause of yesterday's fire." It is not good political economy for the State to allow a demand to be created for a product which is only an economic curse. CHAPTER XI. THE TRUE RESTRICTION. ** * Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law ? ' A law framed to protect evil is a method of framing mischief by a law. A law which assumes that a thing is wrong, and yet tolerates it ; which attempts only to check and regu- late it, without utterly prohibiting it ; which aims to derive a rev- enue from it for the purpose of government ; which makes that, which is morally wrong legal, is one of those things in human affairs with which the throne of God can have no fellowship." — Rev. Albert Barnes. " The evil [intemperance] ought not to be permitted to grow in order that the police may be called in to repress it. Prevention is not only better than cure, but prevention is a duty, and cure is a lame, halting attempt to undo an evil which we have wilfully per- mitted," — Cardinal Manning. The restriction of the liquor traffic is encompassed with some insuperable difficulties which many of its most earnest advocates utterly fail to consider. When tem- perance men are not satisfied with High License and similar policies which are offered as restrictive-measures, they say, ** You are so impracticable !" *' What do you want ?" Well, let us consider a moment • WHAT temperance MEN DO WANT. 1/ 1. First, then, temperance men want to reduce intem- perance. This is certainly a quiet and reasonable state- ment. Now note the following THE TRUE RESTRICTION. 149 PABAIJ.JX PROPOSITIONS 2. Intemperance is in direct proportion to the amount of liquor consumed. 3. Any restriction ■which re- daces intemperance will reduce the amount of liquor consumed. 4. Any restriction which does not reduce the amount of liquor consumed neither can be nor ought to be acceptable to temperance 2. The income of distillery, brewery, and saloon is in direct proportion to the amxmnt of liquor consume. 3. Any restriction which re- duces intemperance will reduce the income of distillery, brewery, and saloon. 4. Any restriction which does not reduce the income of distillery, brewery, and saloon cannot reduce intemperance, and neither can be nor ought to be acceptable to temperance men. Any one who will carefully study these parallel prop- ositions will see that THE DIFFICULTY 18 IN THE PROBLEM, ex hypothesis as mathematicians say ; that is, it is in the very terms of the original proposition, and must infallibly appear in any conclusion that can be worked out from them. For temperance means the reducing of intem- perance, and of all that 'produces it. But, 5. Any restriction which reduces tJie income of distil- lery, brewery, and saloon will be BrPTERLY CONTESTED BY LIQUOR-DEALERS, and will be almost as hard to enforce as Prohibition — perhaps harder, as it is more difficult to make a building burn quietly and moderately than to put out the fire al- together. Therefore, when any brilliant genius fancies he has discovered a '' restriction which will be at once * popular ' with liquor-dealers and * satisfactory ' to tem- perance men,"*' lie had better quietly hide away his discov- 150 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION". ery and turn his energies to the invention of perpetual motion, which has been the occupation of unbalanced minds in all ages, and is likely to be sooner accomplished and more beneficial to the human race. For, to put THE MATTEB IN A NUTSHELL, Temperance men want to abol- ish intemperance, because it is the ruin of humanity. Liquor-dealers do not want to abolish intemperance, because that would be ;the ruin of their business. No human mind can unite these irreconcilable things in one policy, acceptable tp both temperance people and liquor-dealers. Many well-meaning temperance people supported High License in the States where it has been adopted, or it never could have been adopted. Many such, in other States, not aware how the experiment has failed where already tried, now favor the system in States where it has not been tried. They look upon it, and are strenu- ously urged to regard it as part of a system of gradual approaches toward complete Prohibition. But the trouble with all these gradual approaches is that they do not ap- proach. They are not steps toward the extinction of the traffic, but after years of trial they leave it richer, stronger, more firmly intrenched, with no decrease of drunkenness in the interval. There is, however, a re- striction which will meet all the requirements of honest but cautious temperance men ; which will at once stamp out the saloons in the rural districts ; which will greatly reduce their number in large towns, and put those which remain under such restraints that the sale of liquor in the whole place will be diminished from about fifty to seventy-five per cent., and which will put the trafhc in THE TRUE RESTRICTION. 151 the way of gradual extinction even in large cities. It meets all the requirements of the demand for ** restric- tion with a view to ultimate Prohibition." IT 18 PROHIBITION. Its enemies say, ** You cannot enforce it in the great cities." We know we cannot as fast as we would. We have to admit that the resistance will be stubborn and the victory slow. Tlie result there at first will be just restriction, but the best restriction ever introduced. Tlie traffic will be outlawed, its debts uncollectible. Palatial saloons will vanish. Great breweries and distilleries will be closed. Capital will be shy of taking any risks in the business, and will soon be diverted beyond recall into other channels. Saloon-drinking and saloon-treating will become unpopular, and be practised only by those whose respectability is below par. Prof. A. E. Cornwall, of Aberdeen, S. D., says, ^' The saloons of Omaha are gilded hells ; in Council Bluffs they are in old rookeries and back alleys, and are hated and despised by all respectable people. They have no power to attract or tempt the better class of young men.' ' A prominent merchant of Kansas told us this incident from his own experience. '* I had a nephew in Ohio, " he said, * ' who was getting to be a pretty wild boy. His mother wanted me to take him out with me, and see if 1 couldn't save him. He worked in our store about two weeks, and seemed to be doing very well. Then, one morning, a gentleman came to me, and said, ^ Mr. , I am obliged to inform you that that new clerk of yours has been drinking beer in the back room of 's drug-store.' I thanked my informant, and, after he was gone, called my nephew into the private office, and stated 152 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITION. the case to him, and said to him, ' This cannot be allowed. If it happens again, it will mean dismissal. 1 cannot protect you, for my partners insist that a man who will sneak away to get a drink of liquor contrary to law is not to be trusted in any capacity, and they will not have him in our employ.' ^ Uncle,' said he, ^ that's the first drink I've taken since I came here, and they've spotted me. You can depend on me. I won't do it again. ' " He kept his word, and has become a temperate, trusted, and prosperous man. What ^' restrictive" law could have been so effectual as that ? If the saloons in that city had been cut down to one hundred, or to ten, an,d those legalized, it would not have been against the young man's honesty or re- spectability to visit one of those legalized saloons. The fatal thing was to visit an outlawed '* joint." Another instance fell under the writer's own eye. It was in a village which had lately adopted Local Prohibi- tion. The saloons were still fighting the ordinance, thougli professing to sell no liquor. Two men from the country drove in at a flying rate behind a good horse, straight to a door of a saloon. They sprang out, hitched the horse, and started to enter. Just then they spied a fine, tall, square-looking young fellow coming up the sidewalk. They hailed him, shook hands heartily, said something to him which I did not hear, but all three turned and started back to the saloon. In the door stood the idle barkeeper. As the three crowded to the door, he said something to them which produced visible con- sternation. All stopped short with very blank faces, and consulted together. While they stood irresolute, the barkeeper leaned forward and said a word or two ; then, with a sh'ght beckoning motion, turned and wont through THK THli: KKSTKKTIOX. 1 .VJ the saloon into a back room. One of the older men nudged the other. Both laughed and started to follow. One of them, as he did so, laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, saying, '^ Come on !" The young -man straightened himself up to his full height — a splendid figure as he stood there— shook his head decidedly, turned on his heel and walked swiftly away, while the other two, a little less jolly, went in, and soon came out fur- tively wiping their mouths. That is the effect. Honest, self-respecting young men are not going to adopt sneaking devices to do an outlawed act. They will honor the law more than they will covet a drink. Meanwhile all the country around will be under Pro- hibition. The cities will be in a state of siege. Leading merchants will find the purchasing power of temperance communities. In ten years the country boys will be trained to temperance habits and principles, and will be finding employment in the cities and rising rapidly to places of ti'ust and influence. In ten years more they will be leading business men. Before a generation is past the boys from the country will be among the chief men in the cities. Then the siege will end. The city will be captured. Prohibition will prohibit. The laws against the liquor traffic will be enforced as well as the laws against all other crimes — with some failures and eva- sions, but with a vast sum of good, and doing more for the city's peace and protection than all other laws combined. Prohibitory laws will prohibit at once where immediate Prohibition is possible, and where complete Prohibition cannot be at once secured, these same laws will operate as a most effective restriction, continually tightening toward absolute Prohibition. 154 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. If it is objected that tliese laws will be a dead letter ir. the interval before tinal enforcement, we answer that they will not be dead with live, honest officers to enforce them, any more than the Union armies were dead when it took them four years to put down secession ; and the educational effect was far better than if secession had been ''regulated" by any process during those four years, in the hope that by tolerating it awhile the nation would be made ready for its "ultimate" suppression. In general, the way to do a thing ultimately is to begin doing it immediately. Those who urge so earnestly that it is folly to pass a law till public opinion is educated up to it, forget the power of LAW AS AN EDUCATOR. A gentleman, waiting in a city drug-store for a pre- scription one Sunday, overheard the following conversa- tion through the telephone : " Can you give mo Blank's drug-store? Say, Sam, can't you come over ? What are you doing ? Well, don't you do it ! It's against tlie law ! Do you hear ? Well, there's a law against it ! You're liable to be pulled for it ! Never inind what he says ! You may get yourself and the firm into trouble. Do you understand ? You don't know but he's come just on purpose to get you into a scrape. AVell, you quit ! Tell him you won't do it, and send him off. Now I know what I'm talking about. I'll stop when I come down in a few minutes. Now bo sure and let that alone I'' Then to the listener he said, " He's a young fellow who has just come here and don't know the law against sell- ing liquor on Sunday. A man is trying to get him to THE TRUE RESTRICTION. 155 put up some whiskey for him, and somebody must put him on his guard." We often speak of Sunday laws as '' inoperative," *' a dead letter," etc. Yet here was one, with no official to enforce it, forming opinion across the city through a telephone. It is a fact that a great part of the public idea of right and wrong depends upon what is legal or illegal. Had there been no law on the subject, I can imagine either of those young men selling whatever spirits were called for, and saying to any remonstrance, ** Why not ? Tiiere's no law against it that I know of — " nay, even adding, *' We have to furnish what customers call for." The whole burden of obligation would have been shifted to the other side. Now, it is no small gain that the young, inexperienced, and thoughtless should have set up before them a plain bar of statutory provision framed by legislators who are presumed to be thoughtful men, care- ful of the morals of the community. Lecturing in every school-house on the farmer's right to his land and crops, and the injustice of having his growing grain trampled by hunters and dogs, would not do one-half as much to form public opinion as the law which allows him to tack a shingle to a tree to warn off trespassers, and to prosecute all who disregard it. Boys and idlers reason about it, ^' What do they have such a law for?" *' Why, suppose you had a nice field of wheat or corn that you'd worked hard for. How'd you like to have it all tracked and trampled to let some fel- low get a few birds?" '^ Well, I suppose it's fair enough. You can't blame a man for protecting his land." That law is educating every boy and man in the community. It carries the accumulated sense of right of all landholders to every passer-by in a tangible form. 150 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Take away that law, and the hunter with his dogs and gun says : '^ Who's going to hinder me, I'd like to know ?" and he is bold from the sense of the TACIT SANCTION of the community. Take away the law against any practice, and the average judgment of the community is that '^ there is no harm in it." Law calls attention to the matter, forces all concerned to think about it, and if there is evil in it, forces the public conscience to recog- nize it. That is a gain. Then, if the law effectually abates, or even reduces an evil, those who did not at first approve it come to do so, aa the gain and improve- ment are forced upon the public attention. All this is true of the liquor traffic. It is too often viewed as a final settlement of the question to say that no law can be enforced which is not sustained by public sentiment, and it. is forgotten that a law which has a just basis is A MIGHTY FORMER OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT. Hon. Kobert C. Pitman, LL.D., Associate Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, says : " Government, in the discharge of its proper duties, shoald not only frame its laws so as (to quote Mr. Gladstone) ' to make it as hard as possible for a man to go wrong, and us easy as possible for a man to go right,' but it is bound to set before him a true ethical standard. . . . When the State writes ' Criminal ' over the doorway of the most elegant drinking- saloons, as well as over the lowest grog-shops ; when it places at the bar of justice the tempter by the side of his victim, and when it stamps every package of liquor as a dangerous beverage, meriting destruction as a public nuisance, it has done much to warn the young and unwary, and to turn their feet aside from the downward path. " Tin: TurK RKSTHicTioy. 157 This restriction by absolute prohibitory law will make all partial restrictions easier. Consider 1. Sunday Closing. — This is the great contest in Cin- cinnati at this time of writing. The difficulty is that there is a traffic which is legal six days in the week. The vast stocks of liquor on hand are legal property. The proprietors and bartenders are doing a legal business. They have a host of regular customers whose appetite does not shut down on Saturday night, and who have more leisure and more money on Sunday than on any other day: The Western Broker' (liquor paper), of Chi- cago, thus graphically describes the situation : " The saloons were closed in Duluth Sunday, the 16th, for the first time, and were kept relentlessly shut until 12 o'clock Monday morn- ing. Do the people who never took a drink in their lives ever pause to think what such a statement as this means ? Here on the sidewalk are torpid stomachs craving for the invigorating cocktail, unstrung nerves that just one more whiskey would put in perfect tune, and aching brains that think of nothing but brandy and soda ; in the saloon are barrels and bottles of aqua vitae, and, tantalizing thought ! only a door prevents their use. A similar situation has been depicted by Coleridge in that passage in the ' Ancient Mariner,' where he uses the famous, vivid lines : * Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.' Just substitute whiskey for water, and then you have it." The peculiar hardship is, that the whiskey is in there^ ^ ^' with nothing but a door between. " The temptation to violate the law is tremendous. Determined officers can stop the open sale, but the " side-door sale" is a more difficult matter, especially when — as is often the case — the Saloon-keeper's family-rooms open into the saloon, and the only thing visible is that he receives a large number of callers that day. But outlaw the whole tra^f- fie, make those liquors cease to be property, make them liable to be confiscated wherever found, enact a *' search 158 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. and seizure clause." Then those great stocks of liquor will disappear. There will be no vast capital and no army of dealers to fight your Sunday-closing law. If men are found drunk and traced to a certain place, it is not necessary to prove that the liquor was sold to them there, nor that the owner kept his saloon open that day. The offence is in having a saloon at all. The police can search the premises and seize the liquors for evidence of that, and abate the whole business as a nuisance. With all we hear of lax enforcement of Prohibition in Kansas, we do not hear of any carnival of Sunday selling. The chief facilities for selling liquor on Sunday are removed by outlawing the liquor traffic on all days. This is to stop the worst disorder, and to stop the heaviest drain upon the resources of the wage-workers, as the liquor men declare their Sunday sales are twice those of any other day. 2. Take Local Option. — Here is a community with so strong a Prohibition sentiment that they can close tiieir own saloons. Near by is another town with so strong an anti-Prohibition sentiment that the enforcement of Pro- hibition is very difficult. Under Local Option what happens ? Why, men go from the town which has closed the saloons, buy liquor in the town where the saloons are open, and come home drunk. Tliere is nobody to punish for that sale. The man who sold it had a legal right to sell it) so long as the buyers were not actually intoxicated on his premises. The only thing the Prohibition town can do is to fine and imprison the drunken man, which is chiefly to punish his family, and perhaps have them to support at the expense of the sober men. The Prohibi- tion officers cannot touch the sale in the non- Prohibition town. But outlaw that traffic by State law, and that THE TRUE RESTRICTION. 169 sale can be followed up, and the dealer in the adjoining town be made to smart for it if detected. That is Local Option with a lighting chance. 3. Selling to 2finors. — It is extremely hard to prove this upon a dealer who has a legal right to sell to men all the time. Some old toper may have given the boy a drink out of his own glass. But if no man has a right to sell to anybody, and boys are found to have been drinking, it is not very difficult to find where they got their liquor and punish the offender. The illicit dealers, as a rule, become very shy of the juvenile class. Num- bers of parents testify that *' Kansas is the grandest place to bring up boys" for this very reason. Thus the de- struction of forming manhood is largely prevented, and the '^ Harvest of Death" is stayed. All partial restrictions are made easier by the one crowning restriction of Prohibition. CHAPTER XII. WHO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW ? ** Your poor-houses are full, and your courts and prisons are filled ■with victims of this infernal traffic, and your houses are full of sorrow, and the hearts of your wives and mothers ; and yet the sys- tem is tolerated. Yes! and when we ask some men what is to be done about it, they tell you, you can't stop it ! and yet there is Bunker Hill ! and you say you can't stop it — and up yonder is Lex- ington and Concord, where your fathers fought for the right and bled and died— and you look on those monuments and boast of the hero- ism of your fathers, and then tell us we must submit to be taxed and tortured by the rum business, and we can't stop it ! No ! and yet your fathers — your patriotic fathers — could make a cup of tea for his Britannic Majesty out of a whole cargo— and you can't cork up a gin- jug ! KaV— Father Taylor, " The Sailor Preaclier" in a temperance meeting at Charlestown, Mass. A CORRESPONDENT of the Chicac^o Standard^ tlie lead- ing Baptist journal of the West, writes to that paper as follows : ' ' Do not let us look too much upon men in authority as the en- forcers of the law. It belongs to the citizen to see that the laws are enforced. We are a republic. Every citizen is a part of the police- power for enforcing the law. Upon citizens, male or female, rests the enforcement of our State laws." The liquor laws of Illinois to which he refers forbid the ** keeping a disorderly house," '' selling to minors, per- sons intoxicated, or in the habit of getting intoxicated,*" etc. The writer we have quoted holds that these laws, properly enforced, would be almost equivalent to Pro- hibition, and that the enforcement belongs to the citizen. AVUO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW? 161 He has put a widespread opinion into admirable state- ment. It is clear, definite, unfaltering, uncompromis- ing. Such a statement, right or wrong, is always an ul- timate gain to the cause of truth. But when we come to ask, Is it true ? three decided objections arise : 1. It is impracticable. Let us apply it to the very laws in question, and see what headway " the citizen," '* male or female," would be likely to make in enforcing them. Enforcement of law includes the detection, the arrest, and the punishment of its violators. How much can the citizen do to detect illegal selling ? I have seen two boys under sixteen years of age pass me and go into a saloon with laugh and bravado. If I had followed tliem, what could I have done ? No liquor would have been sold to them while I was there, and means would speedily have been taken to make it too hot for a recognized temperance man to remain. An unrecognized citizen who was merely seeking evidence, would soon be '* spotted," and hustled out in some kind of disagreeable row that would threaten not only bodily injury, but a stain upon his name. A de- tective could show his badge, and back it up, if need be, with a revolver. The majesty of law w^ould be recog- nized as his shield. The ^'citizen" would be looked upon as only a vile ** informer," for whom nothing was too bad. Add to this that the ordinary upright citizen has too much else to do. The best man is the busiest man. All his feelings and habits of life, too, make it practically impossible for him to linger in dens of vice and shame. If he were to try it, he would be so plainly ill at ease that he might as well wear a placard, saying, " This is 162 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. a Temperance Man." Then liis ignorance of the tricks and devices of the criminal class would make him a child in their hands, as the novice always is in the hands of the professional. But when we extend the " citizen's" action to '' male or female," the supposition becomes too wildly impossible. Women have braved the physical and moral filth of the saloon for moral influence, though, even then, with very limited success. The Crnsade, as an appeal to saloon-keepers, collapsed in the nature of things, though as an appeal to God its prayers are fast fulfilling. But woman in the saloon to enforce the laws against the proprietor, would be like woman entering a tiger's den to put a stop to his carnivorous habits. Even when her husband comes home drunk from the saloon and beats her, and smashes their little stock of crockery and furniture, she cannot ordinarily claim the damages the law allows, unless her liusband will go on the stand and swear against the man who sold him the drink, with the knowledge that no saloon-keeper in that city will ever sell him another drink. Experience proves that the drinking man cannot be prevailed on to give such testimony one time in ten thousand. The hands* of the individual citizen are tied from any effectual detection of crime. Tlie case is even worse with the arrest and punishment of criminals. If I see men engaged in manifest gam- bling in another man's parlor — see the cards played, and the heaped-up gold and silver appropriated by the win- ner — I cannot enter to arrest the proprietor or the play- ers. By crossing the threshold I should make myself a trespasser and put myself in the wrong, instead of right- ing the wrong I had witnessed. If I see the door of a saloon ajar on Sunday, can 1 go WHO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW ? 163 in, arrest the proprietor, drag him to the police-station and club him into submission if he resists ? Can I bring him to trial before me, and line him or send him to the workhonse ? I am absolutely estopped from all this. The utmost I can do is to call a policeirum's attention to that open door, and, if he arrests the proprietor, appear as a witness against him. If the police judge sets aside my evidence, holding that the proprietor had simply gone in to black his shoes, I cannot overrule his decision and inflict a 'penalty. So far from its being true, that '^ upon the citizens, male or female, rests the enforce- ment of our State laws," ** the citizens, male or female,' * are absohitely forbidden to execute our laws, and would lay themselves liable to prosecution if they shonld attempt it. 2. The existence of executive oflScers is against this theory of citizen enforcement. A nurse, worried by the care of a fretful child, ex- claimed, " People ought to take care of their own chil- dren !" '^ In that case," replied her mistress, ^' what should I want of you ?" If '^ the citizens, male or fe- male," have to enforce their own laws, what do they want of this great army of paid officials ? The sublimity of insolence has never been so perfectly attained as by this claim of men appointed, paid and sworn to do a cer- tain work, that it belongs to the people who pay them to do the work themselves if they want it done ! There is only one thing more amazing, and that is, that they have been able to get their claim accepted by the citizens, who are at once defrauded and defied ; and that minis- ters, philanthropists, and editors should become the mouth-pieces of recreant officers, to instruct the people that these men are not to be expected to do what they are sworn and paid to do I 164 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. Thus the executive usurps the legislative function, and the police department becomes a Court of Appeals to set aside such laws as it pleases, without needing any legal knowledge or study as qualification for the work. Members of the Legislature say to the people, '' We have given you a good law. Now, see that you enforce it." A year passes. The law is defiantly violated be- fore the very eyes of the officers of the law. The people form *^ law and order leagues," which cannot do the en- forcing, but might be termed '' punching-up societies," to get the men to do the work who ought to do it — and they punch in vain. Then the delinquent officials calm- ly say, *' This law is a dead letter. A law which is not enforced is demoralizing to the public conscience, and should, therefore, be repealed !" This is the very essence of kingship, when the execu- tive dispenses at pleasure with the enactments of the legislative power. Richard the Lion-IIearted or Henry the Eighth never attempte'd anything more. For at- tempting so much, Charles the First was beheaded, and James the Second banished ; and if the Prince of Wales were to try it, when he comes to the throne, he would make a short and everlasting end of royalty in England. But we, after having broken the yoke of George the Third, calmly submit to be braved by mayors, prosecuting attorneys and chiefs of police, whom we have made out of nothing to bo petty kings. It is time to re-divide the functions of government, and have it clearly understood that the executive is not co-ordinate with, but subordinate to the legislative. The Legislature has power to incorporate in any law heavy penalties upon executive officers who fail to enforce it, as has been done by the Legislature of Kansas in the WHO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW ? 166 *Mron-clad" prohibitory law, which has been in force for some four years, and stands unchallenged. The ex- ecutive has no review of legislative measures which have once been duly enacted into law. General Grant, with his clear common-sense, said on a notable occasion, ** Whether the law is good or bad is none of my busi- ness. It is law, and I have nothing to do but to enforce it. If a law is bad, to enforce it vigorously is the quick- \ est way to get it repealed." In a word, the business of the executive officer is simply to execute. He has no / other reason for his existence. 3. The essential principle of republican government is opposed to this theory of individual enforcement of law. The author we have quoted says : '* We are a repub- lic. Every citizen is a part of the police-power for en- forcing the law." This is the deadliest argument against his theory. Because we are a republic, the enforcement of law does not rest upon the individual citizen. A republic differs from a democracy in being representative. As truly as it can be said, '* Every citizen is a part of the police- power," it can be said, Every citizen is a part of the law-making power of the nation. But how do the peo- ple make laws in a republic ? Solely by their represent- atives. Pure democracy was seen when all the people {demos) of Athens crowded into the Agora, and by the show of hands enacted laws. We ^ave repudiated that system for sufficient reasons. In the long run, better laws will be made by representatives, at their worst, than by a mob at its best. Hence, in our system of government, the individual citizen never votes directly upon a law."* The way ** the people make the laws," * The people may vote directly npon a constitutional amendment, y 166 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. is by voting for representatives pledged to pass certain laws, or believed to favor them. If these representatives break their pledges and refuse to pass the laws they were elected to pass, can the people crowd into the halls of legislation to make the laws after all ? That would be 'lacobinism in its wildest form, such as Napoleon sup- pressed at the cannon's mouth. In a true republic, if the representatives fail to pass appropriate laws, the people's only remedy is to elect other representatives, who will do what the people want done. The case of the enforcement of laws is precisely the same. The whole action of the people in enforcing the laws is representative, exactly as in making them. Sometimes the people forget this. An atrocious murder is committed. All the citizens crowd together and hang the murderer. That is direct enforcement of law by the individual citizen. But all thoughtful men deplore it as contrary to the principles of our Government and the best interests of society. Direct enforcement of law by the individual citizen is called mob law, or lynch law, and tends strongly toward barbarism. The whole theory of our institutions is that the people shall execute the laws, exactly as they make them^ by their representatives. It would be just as competent for our legislators to say, " If you want better laws, come and make them," as for our executive officers to say, '* If you want your laws enforced, go and enforce thera." If the representatives of the people for the enforcement of law fail to enforce it, the rpmedy is the same as if the representatives of the people for the enactment of law fail to enact it. Put in reprefeentatives who will. Non-enforcement of law is bat that ifas no foroe aa law, till their representatives in the Legisla- ture pass knitable statnten to carry it into effect. WHO WILL ENFORCE THE LAW ? 167 not an argument for the repeal of the law, but for the\ repeal of the non-enforcing officers. Private citizens are < not called upon to become detectives or patrolmen, in order to cover the remissness of the proper officers. The ' citizen's business is not to dog the delinquent officer, nor goad him, nor coax him, hut to remove him^ and put in his place a man who does not need to be goaded, coaxed, or watched. The sharpness of private interest does this infallibly. Into a mill near inyiresidence, the proprietor walked one night, and found his watchman asleep. He did not appoint a subsidiary watchman to keep that one awake, nor sit up niglits to do it himself. He paid that man off the next morning and put in a new man the next night. The sleeper will never watch in that mill again. A little of this firm common-sense in government would at once better our whole Administration. True, the citizen cannot deal Ihus directly with appointed offi- cers, but he can always strike them through the appoint- ing power, which is elective. It would be most whole- some for every appointing officer to know that he would be held strictly accountable both for the capacity and the integrity of his appointees. Especially does it become teachers of public morality to lay responsibility where it belongs, and to teach that the enforcement of law belongs to the officers of the law, and that when they are false to their trust and their oaths, they become chief of violators and worst of criminals, and should be pursued by the withering de- nunciations of platform, pulpit, and press, and hurled from power by the suffrages of all honest men. It should be clearly borne in mind that the prospect of enforcement is not increased by weakening the law. If Chicago had made her laws so mild that the dynamite 168 rCOXOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. murderers could not have been punished, unless some one had seen the man throw the bomb, and had exam- ined it beforehand, so that he could swear that it was an explosive bomb, and if the penalty had been a $5 fine, would Chicago have had less of dynamite since ? Why, if that had been done, every judge who sentenced a criminal, every banker who refused a loan, every mer- chant who dipciiarged a clerk, every officer who arrested a vagrant, and every housekeeper who reprimanded a servant-maid would have been in danger of the deadly explosive. The law that could punish the concocters and abettors of murder, and punish 'them with death, was a law that could be enforced to some purpose. Weakening law is not a protection against non-enforce- ment. Herein is our answer to a different argument, which is commonly couched under the alluring phrase, Every little while some one comes out with this as a brand-new discovery. *' If you would only enforce the laws we have we should do very well. If you can't or won't enforce the laws we have, what's the use of clamoring for new laws ?" Well, it is said that an en- terprising Connecticut* man, whose ancestors drove a thriving business in wooden hams and nutmegs, has in- vented a new umbrella, to be called *' the lending um- brella." It is made of brown paper and willow twigs. It has all the qualities of an umbrella, except keeping the rain off. You lend it to your friend, and if he comes in dripping and complaining, you ask, ** If you won't use the ifmbrella I lent you, what's the use of my lending you another ?" The laws we have in the license States ** won't hold water,'' as the lawyers say. Tem- WHO WIM. KXFOhCE THK LAW? 169 perance men try them, spend $200 to get the saloon- keeper fined $5, and grow discouraged. Tlio law has all the properties of a temperance law, except stopping the sale of liquor. But that happens to be the very thing we want it for. The answer to all this plea is very simple. The weaker the law, the harder it is to enforce it ; the stronger the law the easier it is to enforce it. The law against coun- terfeiting is a strong law. It makes the possession of counterfeit money in any quantity a presumption of guilty intent. It makes the poeeessioa of counterfeit -plates and dies a crime. Premises can be searched for them. They can be seized where found and the owner arrested, and the tools used in evidence against him. The penalties are very heavy. The offender who is con- victed is put where he will not need to be convicted again very soon. Hence violations of the law are extremely few. Now, tone that law down. Allow any man to hold all the counterfeit money he pleases. Allow en- gravers to make all the counterfeit, plates and dies they please, to advertise them in the papers, and have stores where they can sell them as freely as chromos. Require evidence that a man has actually passed some of the money before you can convict him, and let counterfeiters be eligible for the jury. Make the penalty for the offence about a fortieth part of what it will cost to con- vict the offender. Then tell the public, *' If you can't enforce the laws you have, what sense is there in your demanding stricter ones ?" The answer would be, ** So that we can enforce them.'*^ Laws that allow anybody to manufacture liquor, keep it in stock, and to sell it to everybody except drunkards and minors, or on Sunday, or inside the imaginary lines 170 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. of certain counties or townships, and that make saloon- keepers eligible on the juries that try liquor cases, will always be too weak to be successfully enforced. But a good strong law, like the Murray Law of Kansas, can be enforced with comparative ease. That celebrated law, after defining* the duties of '*all sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables, marshals, police judges, and police officers of any town or city," declares : *'If any such officer shall fail to comply with the provisions of this section, he shall, upon conviction, be fined in any sum not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars, and such con- viction shall be a forfeiture of the office held by such person ; and the court before whom such conviction is had shall, in addition to the imposition of the fine aforesaid, order and adjudge the forfeiture of his said office." Similarly, the same law provides (Sec. 11) : "Tf any county attorney shall fail, neglect, or refuse to perform any duty imposed upon him by this act, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof be fined in any sum not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dol- lars, and be imprisoned in the county jail not leas than ten days nor more than ninety days ; and such conviction shall operate as afc/rfeiture of his office," etc. J This is going to the root of things, holding the officers of the law also amenable to the law. Public officers in Kansas are not much in the habit of telling the people that their laws cannot be enforced. Further provision is made in the event of such failure on the part of the county attorney for the attorney general of the State to enter the county, appoint as many assistants as nec- essary, see the law enforced, and collect the same feee which the county attorney would do for like service. If Missouri, Texas, and Nebraska had the same law, Kansas would soon stamp out the last remnants of the liquor traffic. We can enforce the laws we have when . we have the laws we ought to have. ♦ Laws of Kansas, 1885, Chapter CXLIX., Sec. 7. CHAPTER XIII. MAINK. " The people of Maine are iudustrious and provident. Wise laws have aided them. They arc sober, earnest, and thrifty. In- temperance has steadily decreased in the State since the enactment of the prohibitory law, until it can now be said with truth that there is no people in the Anglo-Saxon world among whom so small an amount of intoxicating liquor is consumed, as among the 650,000 ixu habitants of Maine." — James G. Blaine. The celebrated *' Maine Law" was passed in 1851, now nearly forty years ago. Has it been a success ? We will take first the testimony of the late D. R. Locke (Nasby), of the Toledo Blade, who made a tour through the State of Maine for the express purpose of satisfying himself in regard to this matter. He says : * " This is the strength of Prohibition. In Portland there are no delightful places fitted up with expensive furniture, no cut-glass filled with brilliant liquors, no bars of mahogany with silver railings, no great mirrors on the walls, no luxurious seats upon the floor — nothing of the sort. Drunkenness there has no mantle of luxury thrown over it, and the mask of sociality has been ruthlessly torn from it. If you want to get drunk in Portland, you go where the material is for that purpose, and that only. You must go and find it ■^it is not trying to find you. ** Who have taken the place of these 300 rumsellers of thirty years ago? Bakers, shoemakers, tailors, milliners, and people of that class. There are no houses vacant, and there is a better class of houses than ever. The effect of Prohibition upon the material jiros- * " Prohibition." By Petroleum V. Nasby, p. 12. National Tern- perance Publication Society. 1T2 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. perity of the city is marked. 'Ihe workingmen own their own houses, their newspapers are better sustained, they have book-stores, art- stores, and all that sort of thing, which a whiskey city of the same population never did sustain ; the small trades are all flourishing, and, despite the disadvantages the city labors under by reason of cli- matic and other conditions, it is one of the most prosperous munici- palities in the United States. There was once $1,500,000 paid an- nually for rum. That money now goes into the comforts of life, and there is still a wide margin left for luxuries. " In the country towns of Maine the effect is still more marked. The farmers, when liquor was out of sight, did not want it, their children grew up without knowing the taste of the destroyer, and comfort and prosperity have everywhere taken the place of slovenli- ness and unthrift. " The best argument I found in Maine for Prohibition was by an editor of a paper in Portland, who was, for political reasons, mildly opposed to it. I had a conversation with him which ran something like this : * ' * Where were you bom ? ' * ' ' In a village about sixty miles from Bangor. ' ** * Do you remember the condition of things in your village prioj to Prohibition ? ' *' ' Distinctly. There was a vast amount of drunkenness, and con- sequent disorder and poverty.' •' ' What was the effect of Prohibition ? ' " ' It shut up all the rum-shops, and practically banished liquor from the village. It became one of the most quiet and prosperous places on the globe.' " ' How long did you live in the village after Prohibition ? * " ' Eleven years, or until I was twenty-one years of age.' *"Then?' ** * Then I went to Bangor.' * * * Do you drink now ? ' " ' I have never tasted a drop of liquor in my life.' ♦* ' Why ? ' ' * * Up to the age of twenty-one I never saw it, and after that I did not care to take on the habit.' '* That is all there is in it. If the boys of the country are not ex- posed to the infernalisra, the men are very sure not to be. This man and his schoolmates were saved from rum by the fact that they could not get it until they were old enough to know better. Few men are MAIXK. i;.". drunkards who know not the poison till after they are twenty-one. It is the youth that the whiskey and beer men want. " Thousands upon thousands of men from other States who are slaves to the drink habit, and so securely held by it that they cannot of their own power resist, go to Maine that they may live where it is impossible to procure the stuff which makes the meat it feeds on. While liquor can be procured anywhere in Maine, if one chooses to go to the trouble and expense necessary, its procurement is so hedged about with difficulty that the victim who really desires to free him- self of his appetite generally succeeds. The help that Prohibition gives him is enough to turn the scale, and he is enabled to let it alone till his restored stomach and new blood give him will-power enough to do something for himself. It makes a difference with the man suffering for want of liquor whether he cnn step into a bar-room on every corner and take the one drink for present relief, or whether he has to go to as much trouble as would pay off a mortgage on a farm to get it. Hundreds go to Maine for a month or two and come back rejoicing in the thought that they are free. That they do not keep free is owing to the unfortunate fact that they come back to places where liquor is free, and they fall." Undoabtedly there is another side to this picture. The New York World in a Lewiston, Me., special despatch says : " In the Maine cities a political pull is the secret of succesr} in the rum business. Lewiston's story is the story of them all. One of the richest men in town is Henry Hines. He is a wholesale and retail liquor- dealer, and makes no bones of it. He owns three or four re- tail shops. They are raided only once in a great while, and then by his consent. He controls 200 votes and that is the secret of it. Ho gets the best of the other dealers because the officers don't dare to arrest him. He gives the Democratic Committee a large contribution in cash, but votes his men on the Republican side. In the rural re- gions the law is as successfully enforced as the law against stealing or any other crime. " Undoubtedly the Liquor League is working to secure Resubmission and Repeal in Maine, as they have done in Rhode Island. The prize is an inviting one. To be able to say, ^' Maine, after forty years' trial, lias repealed 174 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. Prohibition," would be an argument to discourage many of its firmest friends, and to give hope and energy to all its enemies. The first step to repeal is non-enforcement. For that the liquor traffic is now working. They can afford to pay heavy fines. They can afford to Jiave great stocks of liquor confiscated. If they can sell enough to produce manifest drunkenness and disorder, they can lead thousands to believe that the law is useless. Then they can spend great sums to trumpet all these in- cidents through the press, and one fact repeated a thou- sand times comes to seem to the people a thousand facts. They can hold up the example of High-License States, and appeal to human cupidity by most plausible argu- ments. They say, '^ You see the liquor is sold and will be. No law can stop it. But if you would put a High Li- cense on every saloon, you might raise millions of money which would reduce your taxes." Average human na- ture has not yet got far enough from barbarism to pay taxes cheerfully. Every man wishes to shift the burdens of government upon somebody else. If you can really persuade him that he is shifting them upon the liquor traffic, he feels a degree of complacency that is as much like virtue as a counterfeit dollar is like the genuine. To put money into his pocket, and at the same time persuade himself that he is doing a public service, is an exquisite satisfaction. If you attempt to show him that the liquor traffic increases taxes more than the license reduces them, he answers, '' But it is sold any way. It increases the taxes any way." This is the state of mind the liquor traffic is moving earth and — another region — to produce in the State of Maine. Will it succeed ? There are some possibilities that it MAINE. 176 may. There are conscienceless politicians of national ambition. While the temperance vote is strongest in Maine, the liquor vote controls both the great national parties. To please the liquor men is to widen the out- look of ambition beyond the State lines into the national field. There are also politicians who are susceptible to downright bribery, and the liquor men know how to place money ** where it will do the most (Satanic) good." The only remedy is for the people of every city and town in Maine to settle it that every official who does not enforce the law shall be politically dead in Maine. That will give a quietus to villainous ambition, for the man who is dead in his own State cannot be a live quan- tity in the nation. For officers who really mean to fight the liquor traffic, the only effectual weapon is imprisonment of every offender, wherever the law allows it. Now that the national liquor power is concentrating npon you, they will laugh at any fines and confiscations you can inflict. What is $100 or $500 to a trade that is raking in every year its thousand millions ? Tliey will pay the offender's fine, and start him again with a new stock of liquors, and charge it to current expenses. But when you im- prison a man, that has to be paid in propria persona. The National Liquor-Dealers' Protective Association does not wear the stripes or go to the stone pile. It would take a high conscientiousness and a good cause to lead individuals to bear this to advance a national move- ment, and saloon-keepers have not been conspicuous as martyrs. Let the officials of Maine inflict imprisonment with an unsparing hand for every liquor offence that will bear it. Let the people of Maine demand that this shall be done, and fling out of office every official who will 176 EcoxoMirs of I'uoiiiTUTrox. not do it. Three months of this discipline will silence all the boastful stories about ^^ getting all the liquor you want in Maine." In this the farmers must co-operate. The towns and cities must not be left to fight alone. Every non-en- forcing officer of any city who aspires to a State office must be squarely defeated by the rural vote. Let every city officer know that if he pleases the liquor men in his city he can never get an office outside of his city. If the law is not strong enough at any point, let the rural vote rise like the waves of a great sea, concentrating on one object, to send men to the Legislature who will make that law stronger. How much it is to have boys grow up without knowing the taste of liquor, and able to say ; ** Up to the age of twenty- one I never saw it, and after that I did not care to take on the habit !" Admit, if you will, all that is claimed about drunken- ness in Bangor, how much it is for boys to grow up in ten thousand rural homes hating and despising drunken- ness, and with not the slightest craving for the liquor which creates it I We are prepared to believe that the picture could not now be made as favorable in Portland, Lewiston, Au- gusta, and Bangor as when Mr. Locke wrote. We be- lieve the decline to be the result of a great conspiracy of the national rum power working with the aid of officials who can be influenced by pecuniary rewards or political advantage. We believe that to defeat this conspiracy the good and true yeomanry of Maine must arise to a new crusade to restore their law to energy and power, and, if anywhere it is weak, to bring the law up to the need of the times. But, admitting all this, we still have evidence that the MAINE. 177 Maine Law is accomplishing incalculable good, and that its failure would be a- vast misfortune to the State. Ten years ago Governor Dingley, in a mepsage to the Legislature, v/rote : '^ Tlie great improvement in the drinking habits of the people of this State, in the past thirty or forty years, is so evident that no man who has observed the fact can deny it. Secret drinking has not taken the place of open drinking." A year later Governor Perham stated : ** Probably less liquors are drunk in Maine than in any other place of equal size in this country, perhaps in the civilized world.'' Hon. William P. Frye, ex- Attorney General of Maine, declared : " I do unhesitatingly aflirm that the consump- tion of intoxicating liquor in Maine is, to-day, not one- fourth as great as it was twenty years ago. In the coun- try portions of the Sj:ate, where there stood at every four corners a grocery or a tavern, and within a circuit of two miles from it were unpainted houses, broken windows, neglected farms, poor school-houses, broken hearts, and ruined homes, the law has banished almost every grocery and tavern, and introduced peace, plenty, and happiness." These are the words of Judge Davis, of the Supreme Court : '' The Maine Law, even now, is enforced far more than the license laws ever were. " General Dyer, Inspector General of the State Militia, Bangor, asserts : " The law has materially improved the moral and social condition of the people, reducing crime and poverty.'' The following is the resolution passed by the Republi- can Convention held June, 1882, the largest ever held in Maine by any party : " We refer with confidence and pride to the general record of the 178 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Bepnblican Party in siipport of the policy of prohibiting the traffic in intoxicating liquors, the wisdom and efficiency of which legisla- tion, in promoting the moral and material interests of Maine, have been demonstrated in the practical annihilation of that traffic in a large portion of the State ; and we favor such legislation and such enforcement of law as will secure to every portion of our territory freedom from that traffic. We further recommend the submission to the people of a Constitutional Prohibitory Amendment." In the year 1884 a Prohibitory Amendment was added to the Constitution of the State by a majority of more than 3 to 1 — 70,783 voting for the Amendment, and only 23,811 against it, giving most conchisively the popular verdict in its favor after thirty years' experience- The aggregate receipts of Internal Revenue — which are chiefly for liquor and tobacco — decreased in Maine from $514,636.28 in 1863 to $50,286.45 in 1887.* Since that time this poorly-paying State has been consolidated with the District of New Hampshire, and the name of Maine has disappeared from the Internal Revenue list. But, some one will ask, '^ Plave not the Internal Reve- nue receipts for the whole country decreased also in the same proportion ?" By reference to the same official table, it will be seen that the total receipts of Internal Revenue for the whole nation have inereased from $41,- 003,192.93 in 1863 to $118,837,301.06 in 1887. Evi- dently some special cause has been at work in Prohibi- tion Maine, and that cause would seem to be Prohibi- tion. There is not now a distillery or brewery in the wli9Je State. How much this means is not always considered. It means that there is not a citizen of Maine who has capital in liquor production within the State, or large • Annual Report of Internal Revenue for 18H9, pp. 200-293. MAINE. 179 stocks of liquor on hand of which he desires to force the sale in the community. The following summary of economic results for twen- ty-five years is from Dr. Dorchester's " Liquor Problem in All Ages," p. 546 : ** In August, 1882, Hon. J. G. Blaine . . . said : ' The condition of Maine is prosperous to-day — never more so in the sixty-two years since the State was ad- mitted into the Union. ' In the last twenty-five years the progress of the people in all forms of material prosperity has been great. The valuation of the property of the State has increased in that time from $100,000,000 to $225,000,000. In 1857 Maine had eleven savings-banks, with aggregate deposits and accrued profits amounting to $919,571.85. In 1882, Mr. Blaine says, ' There are fif- ty-five savings-banks, and their aggregate deposits and accrued profits are to-day about $30,000,000, and, per- haps, in excess of that sum.' In 1857 there were only 5,000 savings-bank depositors ; in 1882 there were nearly 90,000." This means prosperity among the common people — young men, clerks, workingmen and women, farmers, etc. They are the patrons of savings-banks. The greater the number of such depositors, the greater gen- eral prosperity. The workingman with a deposit in tho savings-bank is not helpless in case of sickness or acci- dent. He is not a slave to a tyrannical employer. In this view it is very significant that the number of depositors had increased so vastly, from 5,000 to 90,000, or eighteen times. That is to say, eighteen people were ahU to lay up something in 1882, where one had heen able to in 1857. While the number of people able to deposit some- thing in tlie b;ink had become eighteen times greater, the 180 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. amount they were able to deposit had become more than thirty times as great, increasing from $900,000 to $30,- 000,000. The population of the State in 1860 M^as 628,- 279, and in 1880, 648,936, giving an increase in popu- lation of only about three and one-half per cent, in the twenty -five j^ears, while the savings-bank deposits have increased more than twenty-seven hundred percent., and the number of depositors has increased seventeen hun- dred per cent. Is it any wonder the liquor men think **. Prohibition a failure," when they see those $30,000,- 000 locked up in savings-banks which might just as well have l)ecn spent in the saloon ? Is it any wonder they are fairly raving to break over, and get hold of those sav- ings-bank deposits, and the constant daily earnings of the people who have been able to lay up all that money ? The liquor traffic feels that it is a kind of robbery to have kept all this cash out of their hands so long. This is the prize they are striking for, and which is deemed worth unhmited expense and imcomputed lying. But from the standpoint of the welfare of the people and the hap- piness of human homes and hearts, who shall say how much it means to have those $30,000,000 in the savings- banks, and not to have had them in the saloon ? CHAPTER XIV. KANSAS. *' Kansas has abolished the saloon. The open dram-shop traffic is as extinct as the sale of indulgences. A drunkard is a phenomenon. The bar-keeper has joined the troubadour, the crusader, and the mound-builder. The brewery, the distillery, and the bonded ware- house are known only to the archaeologist. ' ' — Senator Ingalls, in 27i« Forum, August, 1889. " What do you think of this ? Kansas is a Prohibition State. She has but one penitentiary, with 996 prisoners. Texas, on the other hand, has no Prohibitory Law, and, while having 100,000 less peo pie than Kansas, has two penitentiaries, containing 3,000 inmates.** — Good HealtK 1889. f The State which had been the first battle-ground in the anti-slaverj struggle was the first to pass a Prohibitory Constitutional Amendment. That amendment was passed in the year 1880, and went into effect with ap- propriate legislation, May 1st, 1881. There were many defects in the earlier laws, but these have been gradually removed until, in 1887, the Murray Law made Prohibi- tion effective in fact, as well as in name, over the greater part of the State. The border towns are exposed to an illicit trade from neighboring States, and in a few cities officials yet wink at quiet violations of the law. The decision of the Supreme Court (in the case of George A. Bowman and Frederick W. Bowman vs. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, March 10th, 1888) allowing liquors to be imported and delivered to consign- 182 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ees in the original packages also leads to a considerable trade which the State has no power to prevent. Yet the testimony is very strong in favor of the value and etficiency of the law. The following tables of official testimony as to the workings of Prohibition in Kansas, and covering 97 of the 106 counties of the State, are made up of replies to questions submitted by The Voice since February last to the county officials of Kansas without regard to their political affiliations or previous knowledge of their views on Prohibition. The first table consists of replies from 83 counties in answer to questions sent to the Probate Judges ; the second of replies to questions sent to the County Treasurers, tlie treasurers of 47 counties replying. Every reply, favorable or unfavorable to the workings of Prohibition, received by The Voice to these questions given at the head of the table, is printed below. The evidence is overwhelming as to the success of the Prohibitory Law. From the 97 counties heard from 94: report positively that there are no open saloons ; three (jualify their answers, but do not claim that there are sa- loons in their counties. Ninety-two replies state that drunkenness and the consumption of intoxicants have greatly diminished ; that the loss of revenue from former saloon licenses has been more than made good by the de- creasing burdens of pauperism and crime under Prohibi- tion, and by the directing of the money formerly spent in saloons into the legitimate channels of trade. Not a man claims that business has been injured by Prohibition. Of the 83 replies received in answer to the question, *' Would you advise the re-establishment of the saloons under a High License Law?" 77 answered most emphati- cally **No/'4 "Yes,'' while 2 qualify their answers. KANSAS. 183 This tabic practically covers the State of Kansas, and demonstrates conclusively that the assertion, ** Pro- hibition don't prohibit," has its foundation in imagina- tion instead of fact. The first table of answers of Probate Judges was pub- lished in The Voice of June 13th, 1889. It is given complete on the following pages, but the questions and answers are divided into two sets to adapt it to the size of this volume. In making the summaries on the following pages it has been impossible to give more than a mere skeleton of each letter. Below we print a few of the letters in detail : DRUNKENNESS REDUCED NINETY PER CENT. J. B. Dill, Probate Judge of Jewell County, Mankato : " Absolutely there is not an open saloon in the State to my knowledge. There is not one now in this county of 20,000 inhabitants, and there has not been any in existence since the law went into effect. DrunkenDess and the amount of liquor consumed for beverage purposes have, in my opinion, been reduced fully ninety per cent. The loss of the license revenues has certainly been more than made good by a great lessening of the burdens resulting from pauperism and crime and by an increase of legitimate business ; honest statistics are very de- cidedly favorable to Prohibition in this regard. I would by no means consent to the return of the saloons, breweries, and distilleries under a High License Law, and I am confident that a very great majority of the voters and tax-payers of Kansas would join me in saying, a thousand times Xo f" Added to this letter is the following indorse, ment : "We, the undersigned citizens of Mankato, Kan., heartily indorse the ubqve statement. —J. P. Fairchild, for the Bank of Man- kato ; George S. Bishop, Vice-President of the First National Bank ; A. Bailey, Register of Deeds ; O. H. Durand, Superintendent of Pub- lic Instruction ; E. A, Ross, Clerk of the District Court ; A. B. Peters, M.D., Judge." " MELIilONS IN IT." B. R. Porter, Probate Judge of Anderson County, Gamett : " I am well acquainted in Johnson, Miami, Lima, Allen, and Anderson counties. They have no saloons. There are no saloons in Eastern 184 KCONOMUS OF I'ROH IBITIOX. I— ( w o PL, m W O o o 5?: & 1 I h a CD rt ^ « 7; M 4 A P Sz; vJ • " »^ § ^ ^^ n o ^ I a o o a a 5^ g & c 2 eg ° iiiji S " S O.S c o O v^~ «■ « "-M B It c « u 3 'fcQisO I? i I I; 5S II 08 08 2 2^ J- 1 I S§ 05 <2: Is. §25 S i; C Oi fl o eccun 3 _ • . . B . O t»' s l|l i I ijiy KANSAS. iHo eg ■^ S'a J9 I It CiS u u u It: og o I "B. 3 3- « - n .a o 11 iic >c3 =^32 (^s *s g o s 8S, c o ej 3 3 g C..S Si i c « a » t ^ c ■'i2J2 c o o a 00 a "52 Set-? c- C = =S u « 8 a S c a c8 o^;? o o .Bm I «• S a 5S a "i's Pi ^ ^ 2 ^5 I <« II fr - ■ - "S ^'^ a-3oK i'E 5^ ii o^ c§ fil I a fisS Sh £9 o Ij III .-IP be V 6« ,**- «- O H .0 , ' * < * a •J * i; e» •" Ci -^«|££| o a , 5 19 S. ^ n - § "^ = ? § see C53KB „ a I? Ill it III u • ♦-♦♦si m I I 18G ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION". KANSAS. 187 ^^ p.ft<=.< -; . -c „• c -a ^ -. -i 'SMmavaJX ^int^o.o utoj^ ill" S S =2 ^ a ai T-r" a; aj ■s giS '^Sos'gaj » a / c « i S S B c fl 53 « " J' * « •<^— " *> *" c o a !^ ?J'35 g o a % a o « S ig5- II 2*3 •a d a o 83 22 •s'S c I! a) o.^ « SSoS I. I ell •^05 Ok KANSAS. 189 So 51 £ t a §5 § f- 1 IJ "3 S=.2S ■S a d ghli libit intb aay mph biUo not o' d « ca !« o oet c Prohi o. WOUl(] norit) SSS! ^> 55 S !Zhh : i 1 & I f I § I 1 3^^ S S -.-^ "O c ^1 ;§ 3 Li ! ) ^ «J OD «*• a 3 • c 2 pi ■ o o 55 ( 3 u c; o 4) £ «^ 08 y S — "So « c * "SI :l^ 5 S 5 I I |»?..« f^ .^ y^ n < M J PQ ^ a; .3 . Cl^. >^ '-5 "? "-S !> ;^v« 3 I s. I >»_• O « ^ 3 «^3S=-2 a 3 >'>5 190 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. His .J^ *'" s llll Z-3,OC0 = 11 sptp o^5 2.cc.2 SH. o or; ■S t > c- .2 (^ o 9 w ' fl O a) C "^ o a di- ss's . a O >, C S -fi =5 O' O p* « I.- I rs Is 8 2 p 9 .^3 :i;:55:5 MM.5 l^g o'o o a a « SB 1° El J n I i c8 >. , 88sS ?-< «;« =^ » 3 5^ s = (S g * o I . « r. Ch 5 « ^ fc; •• » > = Rf, * *- -1 5 S ™ J3 O ;:; o *^ an jj CO 2 as S o Cm a c2*S c o^ - 2 r IS 11 § I d-i 1 ^' §1 J :§ *;-i gi I ii I II 1 1 11 m n li I i iz. "^ CO -OS It- § l^.l =5S a ^ - 2 -I i -£* •l* £ ., ^ < .5 . . » 3: t . r r . 2 « » 192 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX, L Q I % i Q ® iiH 2 - w « ■S'b £.2 S « « -. gill 5iS 2 3 •2 '2 I'd {► g * a i'a a oj « > u C a) J 4J « -3 lijill S 2 y P^ ill 11 •*ils|ii I li 1£ •rSPa «0 o o c o a2c2 o o 1^ £§ .11 11 = p ^ .2 • S'd "3 i 73 « gi^l^i' «ooo:St-«oo«oi>,«ioSHoo-5 |2 ^ 1^ •a ^ = O 9j s i . ' l-g - O «D eo '2 h • a •S2 if c a «^ •*'ja »«'aaa,c*' o S o oj s o o 8 . 2 2 .. S * J5 2 CI s SJ^ s ■3^ „ ;iia >HSK.>i>i 111! i 12 1=0 * a . C^ a ja V o a B 3 Bad <33 N 5 P 0)3) 3 J |§ :'2gs KANSA8. c -^ 0) 4) a) o S « £ s^ e«--3^« ^-n S-3 ' =3 M «- 2 o*: lis .18"! « = = -£.= Q S -o c c ^ = •" S ii IE C r= 5 := 5 OD S -.« .3 o^>* ,13 {H $H ►^ i |2 : : E 5^=2 2 1 1 111 } h 2a,a \^:fi •pjainsiKux, -Ci'inoo tnojj 194 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. Kansas. The Murray Law is effectual. Ninety per cent. U the meas- ure of decrease in drunkenness and drinking. I say emphatically, Yes !— the former saloon revenue has been more than made good by the benefits accruing from Prohibition. High License, if advocated, would be considered preposterous. The great body of our voting population would no more re-establish the saloons, breweries, and distilleries than they would advocate the use of crude carbolic acid for gravy I The saloon in Kansas has gone and gone forever ; we know that we are better off in every way, morally, financially, and religiously. 'Tis true liquor is brought in from Kansas City and other points in Missouri, and it is used slyly. Sometimes men sell it on the sly. This business is called ' bootlegging.' At our last term of the District Court one man was convicted for selling in this way, and he was fined $100 and given a jail sentence of thirty days. I have been a resident of Anderson County for four years, and during that time I have not seen more than half a dozen drunken men, nor do I know of a single crime committed by a man while drunk in this county, except a case or two of assault and battery that I heard of. * Eesnbmission ' was the party cry of the Democrats and a few whiskey Kepublicans up to about two years ago. That cry is no longer heard in the land. In Eastern Kansas no man advocating resubmission could possibly be elected to a township or county oflBce. There are * millions in ' Prohibition. Let any State try Pro- hibition for ten years, even to the extent that we of Kansas have tried the law, and it will never return to * the trade ' again. There are millions in it for any State or people." THE POLICB FOBCX BEDUCEO. B. J. Waters, Probate Judge of Bourbon County, Fort Scott : " Prohibition is a complete success. My feeling is so strong that I wish I could go to Pennsylvania to tell the people some facts. Drunkenness has almost entirely disappeared in our city, notwith- standing the fact that our population now is nearly three times greater than when Prohibition went into effect. The consumption of intoxicants as a beverage now is confined to the few who import liquor for their private use. There is no place in our city or county where liquors of any kind can be purchased, even for medicinal pur- poses. Since the aholUion of the liqxior traffic our c'dy has prospered as she never did under the saloon system. When Prohibition went into effect we had n population of only about 5,000, xcith 22 saloons. We now have 1.5,000, and (mr police force is not so large as in the days of Uie saloon. KANSAS. 19ft The good resulting from the effects of Prohibition has been so great that I am fully convinced that our people will never favor the re- es- tablishment of the saloon, either by High License or any other method." " AN ENTIBE SUCCESS." T. B. Dickason, Probate Judge of Brown Countj', Hiawatha : * ' I do hope that Pennsylvania will do herself justice at the coming elec- tion, and she can do that only by adopting the Prohibition Amend- ment. Prohibition is an entire success. There are no open baloons that I can hear of in this part of Kansas. Drunkenness and drink- ing have been reduced from two. thirds to three-fourths. If the General Government would prohibit the issuing of stamps to all who have not obtained local permits, the sale of intoxicants would be ma- terially lessened. No amount of revenue from the saloons can com- pensate for the misery coming from the sale of intoxicants. There are many more happy families in Kansas to-day than there would be under saloon rule and ruin. Seeing the good that has been done by our law, nothing could induce me to recommend open saloons under any circumstances whatever. By refusing to tolerate saloons, Kansas got rid of a bad class of men and gained better classes." VERY SEVERE AGAINST KUM8EIXER8. W. H. Bear, Probate Judge of Coflfey County, Burlington : " There is not a saloon or other place in this county that is authorized to sell intoxicating liquors of any kind. Drinking and intoxication have disappeared almost totally. Public sentiment hero is harden- ing and growing more severe against rumsellers all the time. No ! a hundred times no ! I would not under any circumstances agree to the establishment of High License in Kansas." DODGE CITT RECLAIMED. D. W, Moffitt, Probate Judge of Ford County, Dodge City : " Crime has decreased wonderfully under Prohibition in this part of Kansas. Dodge City used to have a most unsavory reputation— perhaps the worst reputation of any city in the United States ; but now it is ex- ceedingly quiet and very moral. Saloons are an unknown quantity. Joints * are being hunted from cover to cover and driven out. The amount of liquor consumed has been decreased to a very great ex- tent. The wild carouses so frequent in the days of open saloons are rjG ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. entirely unknown now. We would never receive the saloons back i^pon the terms of High License." ONLY ONE PRISONEB IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS. David Smith, Probate Judge of Jefferson County, Oskaloosa : '* Not a single saloon is running in this county, which has the distinction of being the county first settled in the State. Oskaloosa is only twenty-five miles from Leavenworth. If drunkenness has not been diminished fully seventy-five per cent, in Kansas, why all this whining and howling by the liquor-dealers of Kansas City, St. Louis, and elsewhere? For proofs of the material benefits conferred upon Kansas by Prohibition, see Governor Martin's letter of last year, and Governor Humphrey's recent letter. Never would we agree to take the saloons back. Do you remember how the Democrats fought for resubmission in this State in the face of ever- increasing majorities, until last year not a man or a paper in the State even hinted at it, either before or after the campaign began ? And in the face of that 80,000 Republican majority last fall, do you suppose anybody will ever say resubmission again in Kansas ? For eighteen months the only nccupard of cur jail was a bootlegger, who took the risk of sneaking in uti occasional jug in a small square box by express from Kansas City, and, filling his little bottles, doled the poison out to a few old topers. If old soaks choose to order jugs of whiskey by express, concealed in boxes, they may do so a few times, but they soon become ashamed of the practice. The great and crowning glory of our Prohibitory Law is the abolition of the open saloon, where drunkards are so easily manufactured out of the young men and boys through tippling and treating. Our boys are no longer tempted. I have five boys, and ^an truthfully say I have no fear that they will acquire the drink habit. Can any father in New York or Pennsylvania say as much ?'* OBEAT NEWS FBOM TOPEKA. A. B. Quinton, Probate Judge of Shawnee County, Topeka (the State capital) : ** From my own knowledge I declare that there are no saloons in this county of about 65,000 population, and I have every reason to believe that there is no open saloon in any part of the State. A drunken person is a rare thing in Topeka's Police Court, which I presume is an average court. It does not have one case of drunkenness where formerly twenty would stand charged. The loss of the liquor revenue has been more than made good. Our KANSAS. 197 taxes are not higher than before in any partioolar, unless in»de so by BOQie special improvement tax. JVb, I Avould not advise a return to saloons under High License." " PROHIBITION IS TOTAL." Jesse Taylor, Probate Judge of Morton County, Richfield : **Plt>« hibition is total in this part of the State. We have no saloons. I think drunkenness and tippling have been reduced by ninety-nine one-hundredths. I am no crank, -but I know what Prohibition has done for Kansas, and I would not favor receiving the saloons again under High License." THK POLICE COUBT HABDLY PATS ITS RXNT. W. M. Rowney, Probate Judge of Mitchell County, Beloit : " There are no saloons here. They have been closed for the last four years. Possibly there are places in back rooms where certain persons can get liquor, but boys and young men do not enter them, and they are less likely to become drunkards than they would be with licensed saloons. There is not one drunken person seen now in this part of the State where fifty were seen when saloons were licensed. I do not believe one gallon of liquor is consumed now where ten were consumed daring the reign of the saloons. /Since ihe Prohibition Amendment toent into effect the docket of the Police Judge of ihvt city has been comparatively free from cases of 'drunks.' When the saloons tecre open about three-fourths of all the cases in the Police Cottrt were 'drunks,' and many of the other cases originated from ihe use of liquor. 77»e Po- lice Court now scarcely pays the rent of ihe office. Our j lils are empty, and crime is on the decrease. A large majority of the people of ELan- sas are very well satisfied with the law. Kansas has been very much helped socially, and from a business point of view, by Prohibition, and the people do not care to return to High License. '* FROM A VEBY PROMIinEHT JITDOE. T. J. Calvin, Chairman of the House Committee on Temperance in the Kansas Legislature of 1879 and 1881, and now Probate Jadge of La Bette County, Oswego : " The statements made in the East about Prohibition in Kansas are conscienceless. I notice that one state- ment says : ' It is a common-sense proposition that if you take from a State a lai^e portion of the revenue necessary for its maintenance, such deficit in revenue must be made up by increased taxes on th« 198 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. remaining revenue-paying property of the State.' I reply, It is a common-sense proposition that if you take from a State the open saloon, there will be no use for a large police force to preserve order, which more than absorbs the revenue, to say nothing of the court expenses arising from saloons. The revenue from saloon licenses was never enough to support the police force. The decrease of pau- perism and crime since Prohibition came into effect is really beyond c inception. It is not true that Prohibition has increased taxes. Taxes are less in Kansas than they were before Prohibition. The rate per cent, of tax depends on the valuation. In Kansas, property is assessed at only about one-fourth its actual value. As to the claiiti made by the liquor men that more people pay the United States special tax in Kansas under Prohibition than under license, I have some facts to state. From 1881 to 1887 there were a great many * bootleg • saloons in Kansas, and the operators procured United States * licenses ' and sold on the sly. But why don't the liquor statisticians refer to the figures of United States * permits ' for Kan- sas since the law of 1887 went into effect ? Kansas men know why. There has been a great decrease. In La Bette County, having 30,000 population, there is not a United States license issued, and this is due to the law of 1887. The early Prohibition statutes of Kansas were imperfect, but the present law is a success. Besides, it must bo remembered that a great many of the so-called United States ' li- censes ' are issued to drug stores. Let me ask, if Prohibition is not a success in the States where it has been tried, why is it that those .States are so strongly in favor of Prohibition ? Why is it that every rum-sucker is opposed to it and every temperance man is for it? If any person has doubts about the success of Prohibition in Kansas, let him come and visit the cities of this State and try to buy liquor. He will quickly find out that Prohibition prohibits. In this part of the State it has entirely closed the saloons. There is not a place in J he county of La Bette where liquor can be bought. / icill give any VI tn $10 who will famish proof of the purchase of so much as one drop in this county. In the whole county, with Us 30,000 inhabilants, it would he impossible to find an intoxicated man by diligent search in a week's time. Occaaionally yon will find an old toper who has been to Missouri for rum, but such cases are few. Prohibition is the secret of the un- jyarallfled increase of population and wealth of Kansas in the last eight years. Every respectable citizen of Kansas is proud of the results of the ProhJhiiory Law, and if thf qnefitlon were voted on again there would be a majority of not less than 100,000 in favor of the law.'' KANSAS. 199 NO DRUNKEMNEfiS— IKOBXASSD ESTZRPRX8B. W. A. McCollam, ex-Probate Judge of Morris County, Council Grove : ** There are no saloons in this county, ond none in the ad- joining counties, I think. There is essentially no drunkenness in sight. The cases tliat come to light are exceptional. The gain financially has been very great. The high taxation found iu most cities results from the increased enterprise of a hopeful people. They are constantly building water-works, street-railways, electric- light establishments and school-houses. Propositions for the repeal of Prohibition and the enactment of High License would find little favor. Prohibition is already a success, and every year promotes its perfect operation." GROWING IN FAVOR EVERT TEAR. John C. Collins, Probate Judge of Miami County, Paola : " Pro- hibition prohibits completely here. There is no saloon in Miami County. The Prohibitory Law is enforced as well as any of the criminal laws. I think intoxication and drinking have been dimin- ished fully ninety per cent. There is practically no drunkenness in this count}', and the vice is especially rare among young men. The Police Judges have very little to do, although in former days they had enough. No political party can succeed in Kansas that favors re-establishing the saloons. The law is a success and grows in favor every year." A. K. Webb, Probate Judge of Greeley County, Tribune : " Pro- hibition has closed the saloons completely in this part of Kansas. Not one is now to be found in Greeley County. In my judgment, drunkenness and the amount of intoxicants consumed have been de- creased ninety per cent. To your third question I reply, ' It has.' I certainly could not advise a return to the liquor traffic nnder EUgh License, knowing as I do what Prohibition has done for the people of Kansas and Iowa and for business." J. W. Gardner, Probate Judge of Pratt County, Pratt : '* Prohibi- tion has closed every saloon in the State. It has entirely eradicated drunkenness in this part of Kansas and banished intoxicants as beverages. This is a county of 13,000 poptdaiion. The county owns a Poor Rirm worfh $12,000. There has not been a single person aeni to the Farm for more than a year, Thne is not a criminal case on the doekel for the .\fay tfrm of Court. No, sir. I would not advocate a renewal 200 ECONOMICS OF PROEIBITIOX. of the legalized liquor business in Kansas under High License. Drinking intoxicants is unpopular in this State." Joseph E. Lesh, Probate Judge of Thomas County, Colby : "We know no such thing as a saloon here. There never has been a saloon in our thriving city since it was organized, May 8th, 1885, and there are no saloons in any of the neighboring counties. The Prohibition laws are strictly enforced, and Prohibition is a complete success in Northwestern Kansas. Drunkenness and drinking have been dimin- ished to such an extent that an intoxicated person is never seen. I do not doubt that if the Prohibitory Law were not enforced there would be occasional drunkenness, causing misery to women and children. The citizens of Thomas County let liquor alone, buy wholesome things, and live to make their wives and children happy. Yes ! Yes 1 Yes ! Yes ! as you say, the revenue from license has indeed been more than made good by a great decrease in pauperism and crime and by a growth in lines of legitimate business. No ! No ! No ! No ! Never will we let the miserable saloons start up again in Kansas ; never, for any license fee. We are determined to enforce the Prohibitory Law and keep out the saloons. High License is no benefit, socially or financially, to any country. We are so much op- posed to the rum traflBc tbat in our county we do not even permit the sale of liquors for medicinal or mechanical purposes. Liquor is absolutely unobtainable here. Sach wines as are needed for sacra- mental purposes are obtained by special orders from Kansas City or St. Louis." J. T. Sanders, Probate Judge of Sumner County, W^ellington : *' This county has a population oE 40,000, but there is not a place in it where a drink of liquor of any kind can be legally procured. A very few low, disreputable people known as bootleggers are occa- sionally found peddling rum, but they are now very scarce. The violations of the Prohibitory Law are but slightly in excess of the violations of laws against theft, forgery, and other crimes. The de- crease in drinking and drunkenness since the Prohibitory Law went into effect has been not less than ninety per cent., probably as much as ninety-eight per cent. A drunken man is seldom seen now, and when seen, public sentiment brands him as a criminal. Before Pro- hibition was onaoted, drunkenness did not debar a man from en- trauoe to society. A man who drinks to excess has no staniling whatever now ; he takes his place with thieves and other criminals. Utidtr license we had 15 scdoons in this city of 10,000 inhabiiants^ and the aatne number of marahala, police oncers, etc. Now wo have bui one mar- KANSAS. 201 shal and he finds but Hlile to do. When (he aaloona were Heenaed Uk4 Police Judge made quite a large salary ; now the office ia worth only $25 per month. Inveterate drunkards are reformed, and pauperism and crime have been diminisfied to the extent that the sale of liquor has decreased. Perhaps you will wish to know how I can with such positiveness de- clare that drunkenness and drinking have been decreased ninety to ninety-eight per cent, in Sumner County. I will tell you. I have resided here for ten years. I used to be the agent of two leading express companies, which brought in nearly all the beer and the greater part of the whiskey used. Under the license law we de- livered from 75 to 200 cases of beer per day. Now it is very seldom that a case of beer or a gallon of whiskey enters the city — probably not more than four cases per month are received here. We have in the county only three drug-stores that are permitted to sell liquors for lawful purposes, and their sworn statements of liquors of all kinds sold for mechanical, scientific, and medicinal purposes, for the month of April, showed only 583 sales. Yet the county, as I have said, baa 40,000 inhabitants. Besides, it lies on the border of Oklahoma, and there was a great rush through it in April to the land of rattlesnakes and malaria, and many of the emigrants did their best to persuade the druggists to make unlawful sales. The better people in Kansas, both Republicans and Democrats, all vie with each other in praising the Prohibition Law." Samuel Means, Probate Judge of Norton County, Norton : " There is not a place in Norton County where any one can buy liquor, wine, or beer openly. There is not a single drug-store where the stuff i« kept and can be purchased legally. There may be bootlegging going on, but it is done on the sly— very slyly. If liquor and beer are shipped in from Nebraska and Missouri they are shipped clandes- tinely. 1 am confident that we have not one-tenth the drunkenness that prevailed before Prohibition. I honestly think that the de- crease in expenses for pauperism and crime, as well as the increase iu legitimate lines of trade, have more than made good the saloon revenues. The court expenses are greatly reduced. We have now in the Poor-house only three persons ; before Prohibition came the county paid out from $5,000 to $7,000 annually to keep the poor. I would never ad- vise a return to the old saloon system, and we do not intend to re- turn under any circumstances." C. B. Huffman, Probate Judge of Pottawatomie County, Westmore- land : " I think I can safely say that there is not an open saloon in the State of Kansas. Some of the saloon men fought the law as long 203 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. as they had means to fight with, and they found it was a defensive warfare, whose inevitable result was to put the fighters into jail for a considerable time. They have quit fighting now. Prohibition has reduced the consumption of liquor nine tenths. Assertions to the contrary are false, and are made by men whose only object is to injure the cause of temperance. A drunken man is not seen now where ten were seen before the law was passed. Men who could not support their families decently when we had license, are now getting houses of their own. The saloon revenue paid io the Slate and couniies under the license law was insignificant compared with the decrease in crime and the reduction of costs in criminal cases. Our jail has not a simj'e occupant now, and the last occupant xjoas therefor violating the Prohibilory Law. I heard a very prominent criminal attorney say at the last term of Court here that his business had been ruined. What falsehoods the liquor men spread in the East about Kansas ! As for the statement that taxation has increased, it is utterly untrue. The revenue from the manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks never did and never will pay the expenses of criminal prosecutions caused by their use. There is one of these Eastern misrepresentations that is particularly villainous. It is the one about the so-called United States * liquor- dealers' license.' The reason there are so many of these so-called ' licenses ' in Kansas is this : Whenever any petty bootlegger wants to engage in the business, he procures a Government * license,' and perhaps the very first little bottle that he pulls from his boot-top is discovered by persons interested in the enforcement of the law and causes his arrest and punishment, I think it is very wrong for the General Government to grant ' revenue ' licenses in a State where the sale is prohibited, unless the person applying holds a permit duly given by the local authorities ; and even then it is a piece of mean- ness for a great and rich Government to keep up a system which enables the liquor men to make such misrepresentations of statistics. to say nothing of the meanness of sanctioning the sale of the accursed beverage, and making money that way. If the question of Prohibi- tion were resubmitted to the people, not one-fourth of them would vote for re- establishing the old traffic. The nearer we come to total Prohibition, the more we want it.'^ G. C. Underwood, Probate Judge of Grant County, Ulysses : " The saloons are all closed, and the Prohibitory Law was the means of closing them. If the people are in favor of the law, the saloons can be closed every time. In this county drunkenness and drinking have been diminished four-fifths ; and there would be still less KANSAS. 208 (Iraukenness if topers did not ship liquor in under falHd naiucH from other States. Prohibition lessens pauperism and builds scbool. houses and churches instead of poor-houses. It elevates the people to a higher plane of morality. I would by no means say any vord that could be construed to mean a willingness to accept the traffic again upon any conditions. The benefits from Prohibition are bo many that I cannot enumerate them. Under it there is no chance for minors to get liquors. We do not have the crimes that prevail among people who tolerate the whiskey traffic. My experience teaches me that taxes decrease instead of increase under Prohibition. LeCore the Prohibitory Law went into effect my taxes (in Bourbon County) were $3.25 per $100. I have not paid so high a rate at auj time since. This year the tax-rate (on a low assessment) is $3 per $100 in Grant County, and the school-tax alone accounts for one-half of the total. As for the United States liquor-dealei-s* ' permits,' I want to say that at this time there is only one in the whole of Grant Count J', and it is held by a druggist." J. R, S. Birch, Probate Judge of Washington County, Wnshington : " There is not a saloon, to my knowledge, within the State. Drunk- enness and the amount of liquor used have been reduced to a very great extent. The saloon revenue has been made good ten times over by a decrease in the burdens resulting from pauperism and crime, and by putting money into legitimate lines of trade. No, decidedly, I wonld not advise bringing back the saloons under High License." [This letter was received since the last issue of 77.e Voice went to press, and therefore was not included in the table printed a week ago. — Ed. The Voice.] G. G. Wade, Probate Judge of Bush County, La Crosse : ** All sa- loons in our part of the State are closed. In my judgment, the Prohibitory Law has diminished drunkenness and the consumption of intoxicants here about sixty per cent. Some liquors are smuggled into this county for individual use. In this county the saloon reve- nue is more than compensated for by benefits resulting from the law. No, never would I advise re-establishing saloons, breweries, and distilleries under High License. " TESTIMONY OF COUNTY TBEA8UEEBS. The following table is made up of replies to a scries of questions sent by The Voice in February, 1^89, to every C/Ounty Treasurer in the State of Kansas as to the work- 204 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ingand effects of the Prohibitory Law in that State.* It contains every reply — favorable or unfavorable — re- ceived by The Voice up to the time of putting this table in type. The following is a condensed summary of the replies to the questions in following table : SUMMABT. Question L — To what extent is the Prohibition Law successfully enforced in your section ?— 43 replies, and only 1 answers that the law is not successfully enforced ; 1 says " occasionally violated ;" 1 answers *' eighty per cent.;" and 1 ** fairly well." Question II. — What can you say of its effect in closing up the sa- loons?— 45 replies ; 37 say that all saloons are closed ; 1 replies ** excellent ;" 1, *' good from every standpoint;" 2, "good;" 1, " few open saloons ;" 1, " a great many closed ;" 1, "makes saloons out of drug-stores ;" and 1, " have found saloons in some parts of the State." Question III. — To what extent has it diminished drunkenness and the use of intoxicants for beverage purposes ? — 46 replies, 38 of which agree that it has diminished drunkenness and drinking from fifty to ninety-nine per cent., or *' almost totally ;" 1, that it has " lessened some ;" 1, " lessened drinking among the young ;" 1, " confined to jugs from Missouri ;" 1, ** drunkenness caused by contact with Missouri" (a High-License State) ; 1, " not diminished ;" 1, *' none ;" 1, " cannot state ;" while 1 replies that it has ''increased drunken- Question IV. — What is the effect of Prohibition on business inter- ests, and the attraction or repulsion of capital for investment ? — 45 replies, 28 of which declare that Prohibition has been decidedly beneficial ; 6, " that it has had no bad effect ;" G, '* that they see no difference ;" 1, " cannot tell ;" 1, " that times are hard, but not due to Prohibition ;" 1, *' dull as thunder ;" 1, " has destroyed values ;" and 1, " like a bombshell in an army." * For special provisions of *• The Murray Law" in regard to enforcement, with penalties against non-enforcing officers, see p. 170. KANSAS. *>0r» QuisTioN v.— Has money which was formerly spent in the hulociiM been directed to legitimate channels of trade ?— 42 repli» k, ;'>:{ of which answer yes ; 1, " presume so to great extent ;" 1, " about fifty per cent.;" 1, "in some cases ;" 1, '* where dives are closed, yes ;" 1, " yes, except what goes to license States ;" 1, has " no observa- tion ;" 1, notices "no visible effect ;' 1, "guess not;" and 1, " no." Question VI.— Has Prohibition tended to increase or decrease taxes ? — 44 replies, 21 of which reply to decrease ; 4. *' that taxes have not increased ;" 7, ** see no change ;" 6, '• cannot say ;" 1, *' tended to increase at first;" 1, "small increase;" 1, "increased slightly;" and 3, " increased." Question VII. — What has been the effect of Prohibition on criminal conditions ? — 45 replies, 33 answering most emphatically that crime hasdecreased ; 1, " verygood ;" 1, " good every where ;" 1, "good ;" 1, "jail full of convicted whiskey sellers ;" 2, " can see no differ- ence ;" 4, " cannot say ;" 1, '* crime not reduced ;" and 1, " crimi- nals increased from liquor prosecutions." Question VIU.- Has pauperism increased or decreased under Pro- hibition?— 45 replies, 30 of which answer "decreased;" 1, "no paupers here ;" 1, " pauperism at low ebb ;" 1, "no paupers ;" 1, " decreased, if any ;" 1, " not increased ;" 1, "about the same ;** 1, "no effect ;" 1, " no change ;" 1, "little change ;" 4, "cannot say ;" 1, " increased, but Prohibition nothing to do with it ;" and 1, " increased, some fools lay it to Prohibition." Question IX.— What effect has Prohibition on the growth of the State in number and character of population ?- 43 replies, 28 of which declare that it has been beneficial to the growth and character of the population ; 1, "most glorious ;" 1, ** very good ;" 2, "good ;" 1, " better than ever before ;" 1, '* excellent ;'* 1, " never more pros- perous ;" 1, the •* places of drnnkards filled by good citizens ;" 2, " no effect ;" 1, "decreased foreign immigration more than made up by natives of good character ;" 4, " cannot say." With but two or three exceptions the opponents of Prohibition will find little satisfaction in these official re- plies from 47 Kansas counties. As before, the questions and answers are given in full, but in two sets, to accommodate them to the limits of these pages. 2Ut> ECOXOMICS Ui i'KuilliJiTIOX. c CO W O P\ :?; c H O o w H o GC H QQ r W og « s g 02 CO o ;^ H ^ I ^ « ^ >< H P3 c >- '° c i 11: «i &r^ 3 eS^ -■ *^ t t 2 g c» <: o >z; a '2 > o .S t> a; o ^ « C '.5 c' 05 sis ^2 S S i S S g.S Q c?. (5 Q (3 S a ^ 8 111 S I i I f?; o o o I il in '^ -§1-: o » S »- o -• "y « 5 s S ^ S o p; d I d fe 1^ fi i^ < 2 o o < 5 ;?; a> c -" • s. & I J4 c s • s . ... Is S «s S S £ S 3 a is^ mmm 01 S 5^ mi >5 H li — o sgeg I 111! G fa, :;"< ^ O § B »^ CO "S o -^ I ^ c .2 c 1 o=co D 1 S .2 £ o "Si"" « •ass; fax: ~ a fc. 4* g c is Ill Q ri ^ Si ills !'§• li ISii' fit a' » o^na B b c o ffliiW SS' la ^' si's pi -1 1 1 mil 308 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION". 5 ii C.22 = -O £ S * s c « . > C B «j r^.E « lO »- o ^ « u g'-S-^ ja o -J c ^- -» gtXic-5c.5 cl >.JH 5 5 S bb « S at; o o c s 32 ^w •2 «5 5<^ « w {g 3 2 " o « ^ c « « 2 ■g a ^ Q< ^^ 2 >J 3 ? S£ «^ _ « = c « ^ ^"s 2 ai C ^ « « «s 2 S ^ 2o5 2S W f5 111 •2 S, . o cs o 5 ofe" ps o I I .3 ^^ ^ III if a© 5 •«■ i 5^ 'I ^ a . S h ai &§ 5 2 I «i ^ I ^ ^"is: f^ ^- S Hjai a Ok h II KANSAS. 800 210 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. KANSAS. 211 212 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. KANSAS. 218 214 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. To these tables we may add the testimony of ex-Gov- ernor Martin, of Kansas, delivered while he still held the executive office. GOVERNOR ^lARTIN'S ADDRESS. The following address was delivered by Governor John A. Martin, at the annual meeting of the Kansas State Temi)erance Union, in Representative Hall, Topeka, June 12th, 1888 : During the past four years I have had, I think, a fair opportunity to learn what has been accomplished in this State. I have visited nearly every section of it, and have talked with officers or citizens of every county. I have watched, with interest, the course of events, and the development of public sentiment touching the temperance question. I certainly have no reason to misrepresent the condition of affairs in Kansas. I have never made any secret of the fact that I /voted against the Prohibition Amendment, and I cannot, therefore, be suspected of a desire to vindicate my own original judgment when I declare, as I do, that in my opinion this State is to-day the most temperate, orderly, sober community of people in the civilized world. 1 realize fully the force of this statement, and am prepared to sustain it here or anywhere. First. I assert in the most positive language, that the temperance laws of Kansas are enforced as earnestly^, as fully, and as effectively iw are any other laws on our statute books, or as are the criminal laws of any other State in the Union. Second. I do not believe that there is to-day an open saloon with- in the limits of the State of Kansas ; nor do I believe that such a sa- loon has existed, within the borders of this State, for more than a year past. I do not mean to say that intoxicating liquors are not sold in Kansas. But I do assert, with emphasis and earnestness, that the open saloon, as it existed here at the State capital three years ago, and as it is known to-day in all other States where the liquor traffic is legalized or licensed, has been banished from Kansas utterly. / Third. I assert that whenever or wherever liquors are sold in Kan- sas at all, they are sold just as other crimes are committed — namely, in secret —just as houses are robbed, or horses are stolen, and by men who live in daily and hourly terror of the law. Fourth. I affirm that, as a rule, arrests of those who violate onr KANSAS. 216 temperance laws are as swift and certain, and thoir punishment, when arrested, as sure and full as are arrests and punishments of anj other class of law-breakers or criminals. Fifth. I believe and declare that, as a result of the enforcement of our Prohibitory Laws, and the banishment of the open saloon, full/ nine-tenths of the drinking and drunkenness prevalent in Kanaafl eight years ago, has been abolished ; that thousands of men who were then almost constantly under the influence, more or less, of in- toxicants, are now temperate and sober ; and that in thousands of homes all over this State, where want, wretchedness, and woe were then the invited guests of drunken husbands and fathers, plenty, peace, and contentment now abide. Sixth. I assert that, in every town and city throughout the State, arrests for drunkenness are annually decreasing, notwithstanding the fact that their populations are steadily increasing. Seventh. I affirm that public sentiment in nearly every section of Kansas has been steadily strengthening in favor of rigid temperance laws and their rigid enforcement, and that this growing sentiment Ih due to the plainly apparent and now generally conceded fact that our temperance laws have largely abolished drinking and drunken- ness, and the poverty, wretchedness, and crime of which the open saloon is the fruitful and certain cause. Eighth. I assert that this development of public sentiment has made drinking unfashionable. The abolition of the saloon has practical- ly abolished the American habit of treating. Young men in Kansas no longer regard drinking as an assertion of manhood. They know that the use of intoxicating liquors is more or less a bar to confidence, employment, or preferment, and especially to political preferment. The way to office does not lead, as it did eight or ten years ago, through the open saloon. The saloon as a potential factor has been eliminated from our political system. Society does not make ex- cuses for nor coddle the men whose breath smells like a distillery. Men of confirmed drinking habits are, as a rule, ashamed to be seen drinking, and the bad example of their habits is thus not flaunted before the public eye, to seduce and debauch young boys and cal> low youth. All these things have had their influences, and have wrought the happiest results in making drinking not only unfashion- able, but, in large measure, unpopular and discreditable, and the effects are plainly seen in the marked society of a Kansas assemblage of any character, civil, military, or political. Public sentiment is often more powerful than statutes, and, in KansAR, law and public 216 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. opinion nnito in regarding sobriety as the highest virtue of man- hood. The enemies of all temperance la-ws are constantly asserting that Prohibition is a failure ; that more liquor is used in Kansas than was used when the saloons were open ; and that drinking and drunk- enness have not been reduced. I avail myself of this occasion, also, to make some suggestions which, it seems to me, are worthy of consideration by your organiza- tion, and by all friends of temperance in Kansas. Wherever and whenever the laws are not honestly enforced, the local judicial ofl&cers — that is, the county attorneys and sheriffs — are the responsible parties. It is practically impossible for any one to Bell intoxicating liquors as a beverage, in any town or city in Kansas, if the county attorney and- sheriffs of the county do their duty. These officers co-operating together can make the illegal selling of liquor impossible. A sheriff who is indifferent or hostile to the laws, can largely nullify any efforts of a county attorney to enforce them, and vice versa. These are the two officers who, above all others, have the absolute power, if they have also the will, to abolish liquor selling. Both should be in harmony with the spirit of our laws, and resolve to see that they are obeyed, or liquor selling cannot be wholly prevented. Of course the police force of any city can do a great deal to suppress the liquor traffic, but even a police force earnestly en- deavoring to accomplish this result, can be thwarted in its endeavors by a county attorney and sheriff who will wink at or encourage vio- lations of the law.. In nearly every county in Kansas, I am glad to say, the local judi. oial officers are in sympathy with the spirit of our laws, and prose- cute, with vigor and sincerity, all who violate them. In only a few counties are the sheriffs or county attorneys opposed to the Prohibi- tion Law, and so do little or nothing to enforce its provisions. What is needed in Kansas is not more laws on this subject, nor more rigorous laws, but simply a sincere and vigorous enforcement of the laws we have. It is a mistake to change or modify laws at every session of the Legislature, and the friends of temperance Hhould not make such a mistake. In conclusion, I want to thank the officers and members of your organization for the generous and helpful support they have given me as the executive of the State. It is natural, I know, that men and women devoted, as yon have been and are, to a great cause, •hould At times imagine that everything was not being done that KAN.sA.>. *?17 oonid be done to promote its Buooess. Gr«at reforms move slowly. . Great results are never accomplished in a brief time. In Kansas we are attempting to abolish a business that has been legalized or li. censed for centuries ; a business whose large pecuniary profits tempt thousands of men ; a business that has, to sustain it the appetites, hereditary or cultivated, of tens of thousands ; a business that cur. torn, sentiment, and even law, has regarded as a necessary evil. The wonder is, therefore, not that so little has been accomplished, but that so much hns been done to banish from this great common- wealth this monstrous evil. I have endeavored to state the accom- plished results, as briefly and as clearly as is possible, and I feel confident that the facts I have summarized— and they are facts be. yond dispute— will be a source of joy and pride to every honest, sensible, practical friend of temperance in this State. In answer to this mass of testimony we have seen noth- ing on the other side that deserves serions consideration. It miglit be said of it all, as was strikingly shown under oath in one case, that the informant's knowledge of liquor selling in Kansas increases directly as the square of his distance from the State. Undoubtedly liquor can be procured in Kansas, and undoubtedly horses can be stolen there. To have done either is more discreditable to the man who has done it than to the law which forbids it. Mr. Maynard says : " The Kansas* saloons of to-day, the ' joints,* have few things in common with the legalized gin palaces, the sumptaons bar-rooms of other States. I have seen the interiors of some of them, and I know whereof I speak. The flashing mirrors, the polished furniture, the cut-glass bottles, the sensuous pictures, the music, the troops of noisy, coarse, and brazen men and women — none of these things are found in the Kansas saloon. The place itself yon will have great difficulty, in most instances, in finding, nnless, as the phrase go«s, •you know the ropes.' Entrance to a 'joint' must be sought through the medium of diplomacy, of whispers, winks, signal raps, and jjasswords. If you are a stranger in a town where 'joints ' ex- ist, and yuu are anxious to gain an entrance to one, the best thing for you to do is to ' fall in,' so far as you dare, with the most dia- 218 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. reputable gang you can find about. If you can succeed in overcom- ing any suspicion which may exist as to your own disreputableness, yoa may be shown the way into a ' joint.' You will be taken, per- haps, to some tumble-down building in a back alley, into a secret room connected with a blacksmith-shop or a livery stable, in a dark hole underground, or up into a dingy garret, always being sure everywhere as you approach these places that the coast is clear. And when, at last, the raps being given and the bolts drawn, you find yourself in a 'joint,' you begiil to realize what a desolate, ugly, re- pulsive place a saloon is when it is stripped of all those glittering accessories which are designed to seduce the weak and unwary to indulgence in drink, a place where the liquor traffic stands forth by itself in all its bare and hideous reality. A small, dimly lighted, dirty room, a rude wooden bench or two, a few chairs, a few ordi- nary glasses and black bottles on a shelf, a jug of whiskey-, and a cask or two of beer— these are the surroundings and the outfit of the average ' joint.' The stock of liquors on hand is always very limit- ed, for it is not considered wise to invest a large amount of capital in liquids which are liable to be confiscated any day and spilled in the gutter. In most cases the stock on hand is so small that it can be whisked out of sight in a moment if necessity demands it. A single jug of whiskey or a case of beer is considered sufficient to start a ' joint.' -\nd, as I have already intimated, there is a notable absence in these places of those sights and sounds so common in our legalized * joints ' in other States. The glitter and flash, the coarse laughter, the maudlin song, the loud oath, the shouting and brawl- ing, the jostling, swaggering crowds of boys and men, passing in and out, none of these things are to be seen or heard around the Kansas saloons. They are not the political centres of the- community, the sources of local governmental power and inspiration, places for the concoction of political schemes, rendezvous of thieves, gamblers, procuresses, and all other persons who live at the expense of the peace, virtue, and industry of their fellow-men. They are none of these things, because there is no occasion or incentive for them to become such. Those who frequent them sneak in and out with as little delay and as little noise as possible. Business is carried on in subdued tones, and glasses are clinked very lightly, if at all. " Liquor cannot bo obtained in any way or anywhere except by the methods of the sneak-thief or the midnight marauder. If you taust have the stuff, you must crawl for it, and make common cause with the vilest of the earth." KANSAS, 219 When a man boasts that he has '* got all the liquor he wanted" in Kansas, we are driven to certain conclusions aa to his character and associates. He is not the best kind of a witness to anything. In conversation with a leading merchant of Topeka, he remarked to the author, " Our business men will not employ a clerk who is known to visit joints, for we do not trust him. We hold that a man who will break that law will break any other law." We have not too much confidence in a man's keeping the law of veracity after he has been drinking in all the '' joints" of Kansas. From Leavenworth, which perhaps resisted as hard and as long as any city, we have the following testi- mony :* HOW THE CITY DIDN'T " GO TO THE DOGS." Seven years ago, when the saloons had full swing, it was almost impossible to borrow money on Leavenworth real estate ; now som* of the best companies in America have agents here soliciting loans. In the two years since the salouns were closed one of oar banks has added $150,000 to its capital. Two new banks have been established. The River.iide Coal Mine has been sunk by Kansas City capitalists, and is now giving employment to 180 men. A coal mine is being sunk by a company of 480 workingmen, who have subscribed a capital of $50,000 ; and this mine will be down to coal by the beginning of March. Mr. Harkness, of the Standard Oil Company, and others, have bought 1,600 acres of land and are opening a coal mine which will employ 600 men. A new flour mill has been built. The real estate transfers for the last two years amounted to $2,324,000. The Leavenworth Standard, a Democratic paper opposed to Pro- hibition, said, January 2d : " This year we have had what might be called a boom in small dwellings, and in the latter part of the year, in large brick buildings. Two hundred and nine buildings have been put up, at a cost of * See The Vwx of January Slat, 1889. 220 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. $208,389. The remaining seven buildings are the Union Depot, Santa Fe Freight and Passenger Depot, the public building, and the hospital at the Soldiers' Home, which will cost $635,000, making a total for the year in buildings of $861,391. The 209 buildings spoken of are nearly all workingmen's dwellings. The money that would have been spent for whiskey last year, if the saloons had been open, was put into homes. I have lived here for thirty years, and in all that time have never seen brick buildings going up in the winter ; but this winter men are at work erecting houses. All the citizens declare that Leavenworth was never so prosperous, and even our most conservative business men admit that they would not have the saloons again. The increase of business has been such tinder Prohibition and the condition of all classes (especially the poor) has improved so much, that if a vote were taken now upon the Prohibition issue in Leavenworth the vote in favor of the saloons would be so small that it would hardly be worth counting. DECBEASE OF CKIMB. Official statistics support all the above statement about the im- provement of Leavenworth under enforced Prohibition. Attorney- General Bradford gives these figures of commitments to the peniten- tiary from Leavenworth County : 1886 (open saloons), 36 ; 1887 (closed saloons), 13 ; first half of 1888 (closed saloons), 5. Bev. Sumner T. Martin, of Leavenworth, in a letter to The Voice, testifies to the beneficial results of Prohibition. He says that some liquor is undoubtedly sold secretly, but that conditions are steadily growing better. He attributes the success of the law largely to the Metropolitan Police system. The Cincinnati Journal and Messenger of March 13th, 1890, contains the following testimony from Chief Jus- tice Horton, of tlie Kansas Supremo Court : " Prohibition has now been the law in Kansas for eight years ; it is a law at present, it will continue to be the law in future. Resub- mission is called for only by the enemies of the law ; its friends, who are in a large majority, do not desire resubmission. They do not wish to bear, as tax-payers, the expense of resubmission ; they are not anxious for the presence of whiskey orators and whiskey news- paper correspondents, for the most part non-residonts of the State, KAN'S AS. 381 and with no permanent interest in Kansas, going ftboat defaming people of the State, exaggerating present evils that greater evils may come. The people of Kansas do not care to have the Btato again made the scene of the expenditure of laoney by liquor-dealers' aaao* ciations ; nor do they wish the jointist or ' boot-legger,* who still lurks and skulks in Kansas, to believe that there is, or is to be a suspension of judgment in his case. There are thousands of children in Kansas who have now arrived at the years of observation and discretion who have never se^n a saloon.* It is the intention of the great majority of the voters in Kansas that whilo these children remain in Kansas they never shall see one. It is the determination of this majority, a majority which is being daily re-enforced, that the word * saloon ' shall never meet the eyes of the children as they file out of tho doors of the publio school. With the education these children are re- ceiving, it is absolutely certain that when they become voters they will sustain the doctrine of Prohibition." To which wo will add the following testimony from a letter to the Chicago Lever, dated xVugust 12tli, 18S9 ; THE DRDNKAED'S PARADISE. WHAT PBOHIBITION IS DOINO IN KANSAS — MEBCHANTS TESTIFY OF ITS EFFECT ON BUSINESS— THE GREATEST MAJIVEL OF THE AGE. As for Kansas, the merchants are satisfied with the law as it stands, and while it is not absolutely perfect, it is better than the open saloon, and takes away the publio example and temptation, so that many people who drank from habit when liquor was in sight, now that it is 80 hard to procure have entirely abandoned it and never give it a thought. A MEBCHANT in one of the towns of Kansas related to the Lever correspondent a fact which is a fair sample of most towns in the State when saloons were in full blast. Ho had a few former customers who always brought in turkeys and other products of their farms and sold them. ♦ The author personally knew of the following incident : A bridal couple from the interior of Kansas stopped to visit with friends of ours in Ohio, and neither of them had ever seen a saloon cr a drunken man till they were married and started East on their wed- ding journey. 22"^ ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Instead of filling their orders as made np by their good wives, the proceeds went to the saloons, and it was often the case that the mer- chant had to advance them money to get some of the most necessary articles to take home. Now things are changed. These same cus- tomers never think of trying to hunt up places where liquor may bo obtained, but sell what they have, buy and pay for what they want to take home, and have money jingling in their pockets on the way home. No ! These merchants and thoir customers would not favor a re- turn of the saloon. A CIGAB DBUMMEB from Missouri, says when he strikes Kansas, coming in at Atchison or Leavenworth, until he leaves it at Galena, near Joplin, Mo., he does not know what to do with his surplus change, and he is over- loaded with money all the time he is in the State. Just as soon as other localities are reached where his customers expect to be treated, his spare change begins to lessen. So many instances might be cited in favor of the present law, and the great and good thinking people of Kansas could not be induced to return to the old system of open saloons, no more than the South could be brought back to the idea of slavery again. THE PEOPLE of Kansas do not want resubmission. They are satisfied with the present law until it can be amended and put in the best pos- sible form. The merchants say the law is better than the open saloon. That the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer now have more money, and their families are better off in every respect than under the old law, is not to be denied. There are very few open saloons in the State. There are places where it is possible to get beer and whiskey, but it has to be done in such a roundabout way that it is not resorted to by the many that otherwise patronize open saloons. From an economic standpoint, the Prohibitory law of Kansas is one of the greatest marvels of the age. The following statement was signed by one hundred and fifty-three of the most prominent citizens of Kansas — men thoroughly representing the wealth, intelligence, KANSAS. 223 and professional, commercial, and religious intoreste of the State :* " We, the nndersigned, citizens of Kansas and familiar with tho operation of the laws prohibiting the truflio in intoxicating liqaorit, declare that Prohibition has been a moral and FINANCIAL BENE- FIT to Kansas. Thtse laws are as well enforced, and in many per. tions of the State even better enforced than other criminul laws. There has been an enormous decrease iu the consumption of liquors and in the amount of drunkenness. During tho eight years since Prohibition was enacted our population has greatly increased, BUSI- NESS HAS PROSPERED, poverty and crime have diminished, and the open saloon has disappeared. A very smuU per cent, of our people are opposed to this policy. The great majority of the citizens of Kansas are well satisfied with the results of Prohibition, and would not on any account think of returning to our former system of license. " Among the signers the following names appear : Irwin Taylor, Assistant-Attomey-General ; W. A. Johnston, Assj- ciate-Justice of the Supreme Court ; D. M. Valentine, Associate- Justice ; Lyman U. Humphrey, Governor of Kansas ; Albert H. Horton, Chief Justice ; E. Wilder, Treasurer, R. li. Gemmell, Super- intendent of the Telegraph, A. A. Robinson, Second Vice-President and Martager, and E. B. Purcell, Director of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company ; Peter McVickar, President of Wash- barn College ; N. C. McFarland, late Commissioner of the General Land Office ; R. B. Spillman, Judge of the Twenty-first District ; George T. Fairchild, President of the State Agricultural College ; N. Green, ex Governor of Kansas ; John A. Martin, ex-Goveruor of Kansas ; J. B. Anderson, President of the First National Bank of Manhattan ; John F. Hensley, President of Emporia College ; J. W. X. Ninde, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church ; J. C. Miller, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Winfield ; F. J. Sauerber, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Emporia ; Charles B. Graves, Juilge of the Fifth District : Henry Booth, Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives and Department Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic ; A. R. Taylor, President of the State Normal School ; John * See The Voice of May 30th, 1889. •2U ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. S. Park, Pastor of tho First Presbyterian Church of Wamego and Moderator of the Synod ; J. A. Lippincott, Chancellor of the State University ; D. C. Milner, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Man- hattan ; Z. A. Smith, Editor of the Leavenworth Times ; John Cooper, Superintendent of the City Schools of Manhattan ; Robert Crozier, Judge of the District Court, Manhattan ; H. F. Sheldon, Mayor of Ottawa ; A. Dobson, President of the Bank of Ottawa ; George Suther- land, President of Ottawa University ; M, L. Ward, Professor of Mathfi- inatics and Political Science in Ottawa University ; P. P. Elder, ex- Governor of Kansas and ex-Mayor of Ottawa ; Horace J. Smith, Presi- dent of the First National Bank of Ottawa and Representative from the Sixteenth District ; John P. Harris, Preddent of the People's National Bank of Ottawa and late State Senator ; John A. Frow, Clerk of the District Court of Franklin County ; George T. Anthony, Collector and ex-Governor of Kansas ; A. W. Benson, Judge of the Fourth Judicial District ; J. T. Coplan, Cashier of tho First National Bank* of Atchison ; D. Martin, ex- District Judge ; George Storch, President of the United States National Bank of Atchison ; Henry Elliston, State Senator ; T. M. Pierce, County Attorney of Johnson County, Olathe ; William R, Smith, City Attorney of Atchison ; Frank Boyse, Chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee (county not stated) ; Noble L. Prentis, formerly Editor of the Atchi- son Champion; D. R. Anthony, formerly Editor of the Leavenworth Times ; J. F. Tufts, Assistant Attorney-General for Atchison County under the provisions of the Prohibitory law, from August, 1886, to January, 1889 ; C, O. French, Judge of the Sixth District ; W. M. Rice, Representative fr)m the Twenty-second District ; A. H. Sar- gent, Police Judge of Fort Scott ; A. G. Robb, Presiding Elder, Fort Scott ; J. A. Hyden, Presiding Elder, Independence District ; H. VV. Chaffee, Presiding Elder, Ottawa District ; B Kelly, Presiding Elder, Emporia District ; J. A. Motter, Presiding Elder, Leavenworth Dis- trict ; 8, E. Pendleton, Presiding Elder, Atchison District ; J. R. Madison, Presiding Elder, Marysville District ; G. S. Dearborn, Presiding Elder, Topeka District ; A. B. Embree, Presiding Elder, Manhattan District ; H. A. Gobin, President of Baker University ; George T. Thompson, Editor of the Manhattan Naiionnlist ; G. A. Atwood, Editor of the Manhattan Republican; A. Schuyler, W. B. Johnson, F. A. Cook, and J. C. B. Scott, Professors in Kansas Wes- leyan University ; J. H. Lockwood, Presiding Elder, Salina District ; Thomas Anderson, ex State Senator ; R. H. Bishop, Justioe of the Peace for eighteen years, etc. KANSAS. 220 Mr. L. A. Maynard, of the New York Observer^ who made a special tour througli Kansas for the study of Prohibition, has recorded his observations in a very calm, complete, and, withal, readable pamphlet entitled *' The Truth About Kansas." He shows that the Pro- hibitory law has injured certain kinds of business. For instance, he says :* " The police judge at Fort Scott was one of those who thought the law had injured business. It certainly lias injured his business, for the records show that in 1874, when Fort Scott had almost one-third of its present population, the office of police judge was worth $2,400 a year. Now it is worth only $800, and the amount is growing smaller every year. The same loss has been experienced in the police business all over Kansas. I was told of a man at Topeka en- gaged in the manufaclure of steel cells, for juils, who says that /tw btisi- ness has been ruined ia Kansas, and he is going to ' move out.* I also saw in the Labor Commissioner s office at Topeka a complaint from a barrel manufncturer that the demand for barrels had 'faUen off terribly ' since the coming of Prohibition. Such ' losses ' as these, I believe, are the only ones that Kansas has actually sustained as the result of Prohibition." On the other hand, he says : "The men who make complaint about the loss of revenue from the liquor-shops are too short-sighted and narrow-minded to see that the loss is being made up to them many times over by a decrease in expenditures for police regulation, for the care and punishment of criminals, and by the increase of thrift and economy among the laboring classes, and by the sounder and healthier tone of all branches of business. Tradesmen generally have a better trade than they had in saloon days, and their bills are paid more promptly. This is the universal testimony. " Of this he gives such instances as the following : A RAILBOAD MAN* 8 VIEWS. Mr. E. B. Puroell, a Director of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa * " Truth About Kansas," page 24. 226 ECON"OMICS OF PROIUBITIOX. Fe Railroad, and one of the leading business men of the State, says : •* In ray opinion the Prohibitory law of the State has been a great success from a business point of view.' . . . I know personally of num- bers of men in the neighborhood of my own town who before the Pro- hibitory law went into effect were squandering their earnings on drink, and who but for Prohibition would be to-day, I believe, with- out a home or a dollar in the world. But these men are now sober and industrious and have comfortable homes. I believe that rail- road men in this State generally share my views as to the success of the law. I have heard many express the same opinion. The amount of liquor brought into the State under the present law and the amount of money sent out are grossly exaggerated. I do not believe it is one-tenth of what it was before Prohibition." VIEWS OF STATE COMMISSIONEB OF LABOB STATISTICS. I found Mr. Fnmk H. Betton, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, at his desk in the capitol building at Topeka. He said, in substance, that he had no doubt that the Prohibitory law had been highly beneficial to the laboring classes in the State. His investigations and his personal observ^ations con- firmed him in that view. More men were earning their own homes now than ever before. The workingmen were better clothed and better fed. They do better on the same wages here than they do in towns where liquor is openly sold, IDEAS OF AN EDUOATOB. Professor D. Bemiss, Superintendent of City Schools at Fort Soott,- said : " I am certain that the Prohibitory law has been helpful to the cause of education in Kansas. We have very few children kept from school because of poverty ; very few require aid from the city in the shape of books because of poverty. I am certain, also, that the law is influencing the character of recent emigration to our State. I chose this State myself on that ground, and I know of others in this region who have come here for a similar reason. To make Prohibi* tion perfectly successful hero we need a national law forbidding the shipment into the State of intoxicating liquors. This is our chief difBcnlty." KANSAS. 227 TTHAT A BANK PRESIDENT RATH. " It seems to me the sentiment of business men hero is fill onA way on this subject of Prohibition. I am quite certain that it is here in Hutchinson. The law has been a help to us in every way, morally and financially. I do not believe you could find a citizen of this city who would own up that he wanted the saloons back here again. We closed the saloons in Hutchinson before the Prohibitory law went into efifect. 1 have a hoy twelve years old who has never seen a saloon. You might be in town six months and never see a man under the influence of liquor. There is some whiskey brought in here, but it is not one-twentieth part of what would be here if it was not for Prohibition. The amount shipped in is growing less all the time. The liquor traffic will be wiped out altogether before long." — President of First National Bank of Hutchinson. VARIOUS OPINIONS. ** We seem to have got rid of the dead-beats in this town since the Prohibitory law went into effect. We find that the poorer class of people pay their bills more promptly than they used to in saloon times. We could give you the names of men who spent about all their wages in those days in the saloons, but who are now paying for their own homes and living comfortably." — Manager of Topeka Coal Company, Topeka. " I can see a great difference in the condition of the poor in this city since the Prohibitory law went into effect, I have been visiting among the poor here for the last fifteen years, and there never was bo little destitution as at the present time, although our city is three times as large as it was ten years ago. I note a great change in the home surroundings of the men who formerly drank. They live in better shape and their children are better clothed. I know the law has been a great blessing to this city." — Mrs. Has Clark, City Mis. sumary at Fort Scott. • ' I can see a marked improvement in the habits of railroad men. They do not drink near us much as they used to, and their morals are better. Prohibition, in my opinion, is a good thing for ns all, and especially for labor." — Enilroad Fireman. *' Some of our men say that their wages go a great deal further here in Topeka than they did in places where they could drop into ihp saloons occaMonally. They cannot afford to wnd off and (?*t 2:iS EC02S"0MICS OF PROHIBITION. liquor, and so they go without it. We do not have any trouble with drunken men here." — Street car Starter at lopeka. Mr. Maynard gives, from a personal interview, the following : VIEWS OF GOVEBNOB HUMPHBEY. "As to my views on the Prohibitory law, I can do little more than to reiterate the sentiments which I expressed in my recent biennial message. I said then, and I repeat it now, that the records of courts and of prisons, from the city ' calaboose * to the penitentiary, show a diminution of crime and a falling off in our prison population, bearing the most incontestable evidence of the efficiency of the pres- ent state of the law and of the prohibitory policy which the law is designed to enforce. And I will saj^ further, at this time, that, in my judgment, if the question of Prohibition was now resubmitted to the people of this State, it would be carried by a hundred thousand majority. The law is as well enforced as any other law upon our statute-books. It does not entirely prohibit the sale of intoxicants in the State ; neither do the laws against stealing and other crimes entirely prohibit. Considering all the circumstances of the case, the law has been a marvellous success. The business of selling intoxi- cating liquor as a beverage is sinking lower and lower in the esti- mation of the people. Drunkenness is fast becoming an unknown vice with us. I have noted the fact that at political conventions and other large gatherings, which I have attended in this State in the past two years, an intoxicated man is an extremely rare sight. At a soldiers' reunion, which I attended last year, lasting three days, / did not see one man under the injluence of drink. The office of police judge in our towns and cities is becoming a mere sinecure. The business of the criminal courts is falling off every day." AN IMPORTANT DOCUMENT. Disinterested Testimony — Prohibition as a Financial Benefit. The following extract is from the annual report of Stockholders' Committee of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, of Kansas. It pays a most remarkable KANSAS. g89 tribute to Prohibition as a financial benefit to a State. The men who sign this document are all residents of Boston^ and they have no personal interest in making the statement they do except that they can make more money out of loans in a Prohibition State than under license : ** Believing it to be a matter of financial interest and otherwise to our stockholders, we digress somewhat to treat upon a question which has been and is agitating the moral, social, religions, and political welfare of all sections of our common country. We have no motive other than to apply the deductions therefrom obtained to the value of your Kansas investment. " Noting the practical.effect of Prohibition upon the people of the State, our observations lead us to believe that this movement is a grand success in Kansas, which adds, and will continue to add, value to all the lands in the State. " Whatever makes human existence less burdensome, reduces taxation, prevents crime, and destroys pauperism, is sure to give tangible and material wealth to any State. From a personal inter> view with General S. B. Bradford, Attorney General of the State, we have learned the following startling facts regarding the beneficial effects of Prohibition : " In Atchison County, in 1885, 23 persons were sent to the peni> tentiary for crimes. In January, in 1886, all the saloons in that county, 60 in number, were closed. During 1886 the number of persons sent to the penitentiary was but 13 ; in 1887 bat 6, and in the first half of 1888 but 1 person. '' In Leavenworth County the saloons were closed in March, 1887. In 1886 there were 36 persons sent to the penitentiary ; in 1887, 13. and during the first half of 1888, 5. " In Ford County, including Bodge City, the saloons were doted in the fall of 1886. In 1886 14 persons were sent to the peniten- tiary ; in 1887, 6, and during the first half of 1888, 2. 230 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ** There are at present 104 less persons in the penitentiary than one year ago. The jails of the State are practically empty. " The average of convicts is one-third less than four years ago. " In four years of Prohibition, grand larceny has decreased 15 per cent., and crimes against persons have decreased 25 per cent. " There is today one pauper to every 1,350 persons. In 1880, the lost year of the dram shop act, there was one pauper to every 750 persons. There is not a barrel of bonded liquor in the State, and there is not a distillery in the State. " We look upon the above facts, vouched tor by such high AUTHOBTTY, AS A STRONG ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF LOANS IN A StATE AD- VANCINO SO RAPIDLY IN MORAL AS WELL AS MATERIAL PROGRESS. . . . " All of which is respectfully submitted. " Levi S. Gould, " F. G. HoBsoN, **A. C. Goss, " Q. E. Rankin, " Stockholders' Committee." The following testimony is from the Western Baptist of Topeka, Kan., and, so far as we know, has never been challenged : NO SALOONS. Topeka has more churches than any city of the same size in the country. It has not a single saloon or drinkingplace, and probably this cannot be said of any other city in the Union having as large a population. Four years ago there were one hundred and forty saloons in the city, doing a flourishing business. It was claimed that it would be impossible to clean them out entirely ; but a crusade was inaugurated against them by the county officials, which in less than a year closed every drinking-place in the city. Before the whiskey element became convinced that the law would be enforced, over $25,000 in fines were collected from saloon-keepers for violation of the Prohibitory law, and more than thirty of them served out sen- tences in the county jail. It is now absolutely impossible to buy a drop of liquor in Topekn, as a beverage. There has been a very KANSAS. $81 noticeable dccreftso in the amount of crirao since the law went into efifect ; though the city has doubled in population, the number of arrests by the police in not as great as when the saloons were open. Persons who violently opposed the Prohibitory law now admit that it has been a blessing to the city of Topeka. Speaking of the closing of the saloons, County Attorney Curtis said : ** At one time there were one hundred and forty saloons open in Topeka ; their average sales per day were not less than $30 each, which would make $4,200 spent daily for liquor. This amount came largely from the working people. To-day not one dollar of that amount is spent for whiskey. Where does it go to V It goes for food and clothing for the wife and children. 1 know of scores of instances where families were suffer- ing for food because the father gave his wages to the saloon-keeper. Now they are living in a cosey home of their own ; they have all the necessities of life, and, indeed, a few of the luxuries ; the children, who were once poverty stricken and living in rags, are now attending the public school, and the father will tell you hejs the happiest man in the State, and that Prohibition rescued him." With such facts before him, the true economist would smooth such a traffic's way to oblivion and multiply the motive-power. Crowd all steam upon Prohibition and lay a broad track for it wherever humanity dwells. Let the business of the police judge, the steel- cell manufac- turer, and the barrel-maker decline, and that of the grocer, the clothing dealer, the educator, and the house- builder advance, till ours shall become a nation of homes over which the saloon's baleful shadow shall fall never- more ! CHAPTER XY. IOWA. ** Four-fifths of this State is without a saloon. Not a distillery is left in the State and not to exceed a dozen breweries are left. Boot- legging is confined to the lowest criminal tramp element. Seventy- five per cent, of our jails are without a prisoner. Grand juries are without business. Criminal expenses are greatly reduced. Bank deposits have largely increased. Lawyers are without practice. Politicians are no longer fearful about examining the question. Popular opinion is growing stronger day by day in favor of the law. These things are attested by the Iowa ministers, teachers, Governor, State ofl&cials, three fourths of the editors, and a myriad of other witnesses." — President B. F. Wright, of Iowa State Temperance Alliance. The people of Iowa passed a Constitutional Prohibi- tory Amendment on June 27tli, 1882. ^* The vote on the amendment in the State was : For it, 155,436 ; against it, 125,677 ; majority in favor, 29,759. In this vote 46,000 more ballots were cast than in the general election for Governor, in 1881.* . . . But a sad reverse came upon the friends of the Prohibitory Amendment, and it was lost on account of clerical errors in the Legis- lature passing it." This caused it to bo set aside by the Supreme Court. This has been a source of weakness to the present time, the law not established in the Constitu- tion being largely the foot-ball of conflicting parties, liable to be repealed by any legislature. * See '* Liquor Problem in All Agen," pp. 420-22. A thrilling nar- ralivo. IOWA. ;m A Prohibitory law was passed by the Legislature, and went into effect July 4th, 1884. Of the effect of this law, after three years' trial, Gov- ernor Larrabee testifies as follows in a letter published in the Keosauqua Republican^ and sent direct to the author of these pages from the Executive Oflice : A LETTER FROM GOVERNOR LARRABEE. ExxcuTivE Office, Dbs Moinbs, Ia., Jane 30, 1887. Messrs. Sloan db Rowley, Keosauqua^ la. Dear Sirs : Your letter of the 28th inst., reqaesting certain infor- mation relative to the Prohibitory law of this State and the manner in which it is enforced has been received. In reply I have to say that our Prohibitory law is being enforced in eighty-five of the ninety-nine counties of the Stale, as well an the laws against other crimes, all malicious reports to the contrary not- withstanding. In the fourteeen remaining counties, situated prin. cipally along the Mississippi and containing large towns abounding in foreign population, the law is but partially enforced, and in a few instances is even defiantly violated. These places are, however, gradually yielding to a public sentiment in favor of general enforce- ment, which is rapidly growing even in the eastern part of the State. Prohibition has certainly not injured any business interest except that of the saloon-keeper, nor has it driven any good citizens from our borders. It is true we have lost since the adoption of the Pro- hibitory law several thousand incurable vendors of liquor and perhaps a few hundred incurable topers, but we have every reason to con* gratnlate ourselves upon such a loss. Hon. G. W. Ruddick, Judge of the Twelfth Judicial District and one of the oldest and best jadges of. the Stale, in an official report, dated June 11th, 1887, makes the following statement : '* The jails in this district are now idle, and in eight terms of court held by me since January Ist there has been but one indictment presented, and I think the grand juries hare been reasonably diligent. Much of the criminal element has certainly emigrated." Hon. John W. Harvey, Judge of the Third Judicial District of Ihiii State, also makes an interesting statement oonoenMag the indaano* 3^ Of TRK ^34 ECONOMICS or PROHIBITION. of Prohibition on crime. He has been judge four years and a half. In 1883 he sentenced 31 persons to the penitentiary ; in 1884, 23 ; in 1885, 20 ; in 1886, 14, and during the first six months of 1887, 3. These were divided among counties as follows : Decatur, 9 ; Ring- gold, 6 ; Taylor, 8 ; Page, 11 ; Montgomery, 28 ; Adams, 2 ; Union, 20 ; Clarke, 6 ; Wayne, 1. The latter county has been in the district only since January, Judge Harvey says : "I am frequently asked •what is the cause of this decrease in crime during the last four years. My answer is, the enforcement of the Prohibitory liquor law. And it seems to me that the above figures prove this beyond a doubt. The first year 1 was on the bench the saloons were running ; the second and third years they were running in some localities ; but the fourth year I do not believe there was a saloon in the district. I am satisfied that there was not an open saloon. Eed Oak, in Mont- gomery County, and Creston, in Union County, were the last places in the district to give up the saloons, and the record from these two counties shows the result. The result from these counties is not because they have a larger population than the other counties of the district. Page has a much larger population than either of these counties. In the <50untie3 where the law has been best enforced there has been the least crime. During the last year it has not been an uncommon thing, as in this county (Decatur) at the last term, for the grand jury to adjourn without finding an indictment. " At first, under the present pharmacy law, some of the druggists were disposed to take advantage and abuse the trust imposed in them, but a number of convictions and fines and the revocation of a number of pharmacy permits by the Pharmacy Board, has had a wholesome efllect, and I believe that a great majority of the drug gists in this district are now disposed to obey the law." Hon. William P. Wolf, of Tipton, Speaker of the House of Repre- lientatives in the Twentieth General Assembly, writes as follows con- cerning the progress of Prohibition in his county : " When open saloon.s were running in Tipton, breaches of peace and other crimes were much more frequent than now. The records of the courts will show that aside from the prosecutions for violation of the liquor law, prosecutions in Cedar County for other crimes have fallen off more than sixty per cent, from what they were when saloons were running, for the reaHon that crimes are less frequent. It is no argu- ment that the law in some cases is evaded and secretly violated. The traffic in Tipton is driven into the dark, and the liquor law is not violated there of tener than the law against theft. Where the ollicers IOWA. 230 have enforced the law the feeling in its favor is certainly fttroDger than ever, many who had opposed it being now opposed to its le- peal. It is much stronger in the State than when it was passed, because enforcement has taken away many arguments before need against it. If submitted to day as a non-partisan question, it would carry by a much larger majority than before, and its strength must increase. " As regards the internal revenue of a State, it is no indication what- ever of the amouut of liquor consumed in that State, for the tax on liquors is paid by the manufacturer, and not by the oonsomer. For several years one of the largest distilleries in the country was in operation here manufacturing for export only. From that institu- tion alone was collected by far the greater part of the internal rev- enue of Iowa, It has long been a disputed question whether this distillery could be operated under the Prohibitory law, and about three months ago, on a final test in the district court, it was ordered closed. It is true, both shooting and murder have occurred under the Pro- hibitory law. A minister at Sioux City and a constable at Des Moines were killed in the attempt to enforce the law, but these crimes were in both instances committed by those who had always defied the law. It would be useless to undertake the task of contradicting all the false reports put in circulation by unscrupulous men. Ofiicers may, in a few instances, have shown a lack of discretion in the performance of their official duties, but this in the minds of candid men will not affect the merit of the law. The law is steadily gaining in publio favor, and Prohibition is beyond doubt the settled policy of Iowa. Could the Prohibitory Iaw at the present time be submitted to our people for their ratification, I am confident it would be endorsed by a majority of from sixty to eighty thousand votes Very respectfully, W1LXJA.M LxRBABXX. Governor Larrabee's letter is so compact that it will be well to call special attention to the most important points. In regard to the alleged non-enforcement, the Governor says : **Tho Prohibitory law is being enforced in eighty-five of the ninety-nine counties of the 'State, as well as the laws against other crimes, all malicious reports to the coutmry notwithstuuding. In ^36 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. the fourteen remaining counties, situated principally along th6 Mis- sissippi and containing large towns abounding in foreign population, the law is but partially enforced, and in a few instances is even defiantly violated. These places are, however, gradually yielding to a public sentiment in favor of general enforcement, which is rapidly growing even in the eastern part of the State." There is the process. The law puts these large towns practicallj in a state of siege, with enforced Prohibition all around them, constant information of its benefits coming from better governed counties within the State, which force conviction on business men and win their confidence, thus creating a steadily rising public senti- ment within the cities, out of which enforcement at length will come. Since Governor Larrabee's letter was written Sioux City, where the martyred Haddock fell, has wheeled into line, with closed saloons and the great Arensdorf Brewery converted into an oatmeal factory. It is some- times said that the advocates of Prohibition are not will- ing to take anything unless they can get all. They were willing to take eighty-five of the ninety-nine counties of Iowa and wait and work for the other fourteen, and they are going to take them before long. As to the general effect upon the State, the Governor " Prohibition has certainly not injured any business interest ex- cei)t that of the saloon-keeper, nor has it driven any good citizen from our borders. It is true we have lost since the adoption of the Prohibitory law several thousand incurable vendors of liquor and perhaps a few hundred incurable topers. But we have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon such a loss." Is there any other State that would care to take this consignment of exiles and consider it an element of pros- perity ? IOWA. !^7 As to the effect on crime, Governor Larrabee quoten Judge Ruddick, of the Twelfth Judicial DiBtrict, ba follows ; *' The jails in this district are now idle, and in eight terms of conrt held by me since January Ist there has been but one indictment pre- sented, and I think the grand juries have been reasonably diligent. Much of the criminal element has certainly emigrated." From Speaker Wolf, of Tipton, he quotes the follow- ing ; ••"When open saloons were running in Tipton, breaches of the peace and other crimes were much more frequent than now. The records of the courts will show that, aside from prosecutions for Tiolations of the liquor law, prosecutions in Cedar County for other crimes have fallen ofiE more than sixty per cent, from what they were when the saloons were running, for the reason that crimes are less frequent. It is no argument that the law in some cases is evaded and secretly violated. The traflSc in Tipton is driven into the dark, and the liquor law is not violated there oftener than the law against theft. "Where the officers have enforced the law, the feeling in its favor is certainly stronger than ever, many who were opposed to the law being now opposed to its repeal," With all which the Governor's concluding sentence heartily agrees : " The law is steadily gaining in public favor, and Prohibition is beyond doubt the settled policy of Iowa. Could the Prohibitory law at the present time be submitted to our people for their ratifica- tion, I am confident it would be endorsed by a majority of from sixty to eighty thousand votes, ' ' This was in 1887. Have not two years* more experi- ence spoiled it all ? Let us see. Jnst before the last ses- sion of the Legislature, in 1888, the district judges of the State wrote to Governor Larrabee, and out of twenty- four all but three declared that crime and drunkenness had been decreased to a great extent, and they would 238 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. oppose any attempt to substitute a High License and Local Option law. Several of the judges opposed Pro- hibition when it was first enacted, but the beneficial results apparent from it caused them to change their minds. Judge Harvey, of the Third District, writes : " I am not aware that there is a saloon in the district. Prohibi- tion has reduced crime at least one-half and the criminal expenses in like ratio." Judge Lewis, of the Fourth District, testifies : " The law is as \i'ell enforced as any other, and has decreased criminal expenses at least two-thirds.'* Judge Wakefield, also of the Fourth District, writes : " I am satisfied that our city (Sioux City, so long contested), hav- ing during the past year enjoyed a season of great prosperity and growth, has aided materially in the change of affairs here. As the saloons were driven out other business came into occupy the vacant places.'* Judge Granger, of the Thirteenth District, writes : " The closing of the front door of the saloon, whereby it is de- stroyed as a place of social resort, has cancelled nine -tenths of the drunkenness." Yes, certain inveterate topers and stray drummers will **get whiskey" anywhere, even by the most degrading means. But the better class of men will not drink un- less they are sustained by a considerable public opinion, by custom, and by the presence of many whom they re- spect and like. Prohibition saves all the best and most hopeful among the endangered classes. To *' destroy the i?aloon as a place of social resort" is a great thing to do. Its complete extermination is then not far away. Wo are able to quote a still later letter from Governor Larrabee, dated February 6th, 1889, in which he says : IOWA. yad *' The Prohibitory law of Iowa has much more than anawereU the ex- pectations of its former most hopeful advocates. . . . There haa been a steady growth in our population, and the census of 1890 will prob- ably .show in Iowa at leHst 2,000,000 inhabitants. The Tote at the last election showed an increase of 65,32'.) votes over the Presidential election of 1884— a larger increase than the election of 1884 showed over that of 1880. THE BANKING BUSINESS of a State is, perhaps, as fair a barometer of business as can be found. The number of banks in the State has increased from 186, in 1883, to 244, in 1888 ; deposits have increased from |27,231,719.74 to $89,935,362.68. in 1888. '* I think more than half of the jails in the State are empty at the present time. There are ninety-eight less convicts in our peniten- tiaries than there were three years ago, notwithstanding the growth of the population. " Tramps are very scarce in Iowa. There are evidently few attrac- tions for them here. Probably more than three thousand of their recruiting stations have been closed in Iowa during the past five years. IKE WIVES AND MOTHEB8 of the State, and especially those of small means, are almost unani- mously in favor of the law. The famiUes of laboring men now receive the benejUs of the earnings thai formerly loent to the saloons" That is the real trouble. That is why the law is hated, and a stupendous effort made to overthrow it. Why should these ** wives and mothers" — these ** families of laboring men" — be spending the money on which the saloon elsewhere has a perennial mortgage ? These $39,000,000 in banks, too, which might be in breweries and distilleries ! But from the point of view of human happiness and welfare, the testimony is all one way. From The Voice of June 6th, 1889, we are permitted to take the follow- ing table, which, as in previous cases, we give in two sections, on account of space : ^40 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. l-H O O IOWA. 241 I I Co ».' ^ ^5 ^11 ^ u .- «- o , h £ fctst S 3 * c UN „ c2= c = V o ^ OD « ^ O Q els 2 lils •Co c oca ^ i| 1 >c r: a o o c o 5 t^ 5.* = « o — £— OS o o s 0:5 §. i - I 8 O OS t 5 n it II 1 i §8 ? 11 SO) > O^ l# (2:fi Jill 5 3 ^ ^^N PS d !->• o •!= c t; s SES « ^ E C C C B ©C- g O . T;^ >. « i^ a ?-0 2c. :t:E^ so* II mu ^«Ja° «2 r , c °c&:5 Hill I 242 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. a x> ^ e3 ♦TO O 111 " a •I !3 SO) •« S ^ 2| 3^ hrl-r u is i .2 ^ S X EC bi C XI ■ 3 av sill 5 a: H i s « ^ o o ^•S So o> o s a. 2 2 00 ©"^J^a =5^ D . _• £ « 0) -7 2 is II I* ills |-|1 .1 J5 W 3 o id 3 •' ? O Ei4 '^^ 11 II ^ a ll1 II .S2 S ii ii ¥ §1 Is '2a- 2^^ J) ■^ o— o ♦^ O > "jr, '^ a 2 f I i ^ ^ a 5 •<■ i S I 3 ^ IOWA. MS I ! II il S -a II 1 2 as-' ;=: a a o « 5.2 2 =: g o M > ^5 .§2 s s < > $ < o '<»>55 II Caj CO o I I 2 •< la :2 So O H I. 8 ^ o a, lit II II 1 is S 4 244 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. 5 1-5 m m t O m m W o o o if o d" S o s 8 I %il ^3 2 gas oo a 1^'^ II I » - S a ScTJ ^2 I 1 8 I lJs.ll il 8^ o " *" • R •- . m5^ o I' O a ja e ■0.-= Et •^•i I p S-i . 246 ECONOMICS OF TKOIIIRITION". IOWA. 247 > B O O ^ si *2 is II I til J." ^a I t3 B 3 il =3 4) X 2 - ?^ "'ii . ? •* ~ o *— 2 o=: o ? o s }l II I I 11 .S 5 It I 31 fcca §3 © q m Z I J h II 2=1 i > X £ B af" O; V c« S 9 SI CO Ifl = 2-5^ o 1 o£ «^ $ E o a.'S li !^ go I I III i' ,8 >2c-= -c oESf 5 cS C'" C« C**o «£ PI — o a « o ^ o x> "= ' ^ « ■£ i* p C as • ' s "2 ^1 e If I £?. 1 . oo o 2 S^ ■0 2 gr aSa .So = 11 S" ^ a Sj l5 S .So ^ ^ 21-? £ 5S5 «<:fo fc II I O 55 c « Li 111 1^ E-E-M ►7,-9 II t I d 1 '^ S g I Js-g 2 I II 1 1 f n; 248 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. The above replies from the county attorneys of Iowa, covering fifty-eight of the ninety-nine counties of that State, have been received by The Voice in answer to a series of questions similar to those which elicited the re- markable letters from probate judges of Kansas, pub- lished in The Voice of May 23d. In this instance, as in the case of Kansas, The Voice had nc^ previous knowl- edge of the political affiliation or views on Prohibition of the persons addressed, and all the replies, favorable and unfavorable, are included in the table. The same letter accompanied these questions as was sent to the judges of Kansas. While the replies from the county attorneys of Iowa do not exhibit the striking unanimity of opinion in favor of the Prohibitory law as did the answers of the Kansas probate judges, they nevertheless show that Iowa's short experiment in Prohibitory legislation is regarded as a success. All over the State drunkenness, pauper- ism, and crime are reported to be greatly diminished. Several of these lawyers who formerly opposed and voted against the law now declare themselves its enthusiastic supporters, and this in the face of their admissions that criminal and other litigation has greatly decreased under the operation of Prohibition. A striking feature of the report, and indicating the necessity of national law to protect the States in their endeavors to rid themselves of the liquor trafiic, are the replies from eight or more counties that, while the saloons have been closed up and abolished, liquor is nevertheless shipped in from license States in violation of the Iowa law. The following is a summary of the replies in the table : iuWA. 2411 8T7MMABT. Question I. — How successfully has ProhibitioQ closed the saloozu in your part of the State?— 58 replies, 54 of which assert positirely that there are no open saloons ; 2, that the law is not at all enforced ; 1, that open saloons are few ; 1, that old and well-regulated saloons have been closed up, but small ones remain because of difficulty of finding and convicting the owner. Question II. — To what extent has Prohibition diminished drunken ness and the consumption of intoxicants for beverage purposes? — 58 replies, 50 replying that it has decreased drunkenness, and the consumption of liquor.-* in per cents, varying from 40 to 1)9 per cent. ; 2 say " very little ;" 3, "not at all ;" 1, " diminished beer drinking, in- creased whiskey drinking"; 1, '* increased"; 1, *' don't believe dimin. ished." A considerable proportion of the answers to these questions, it will be noticed, complain that liquor is shipped in from other States to individuals. Question III. — Has not the loss of revenue from former saloon licenses been made good by the decreasing burdens of pauperism and crime, and the directing of the money formerly spent in the saloons into legitimate channels of trade?— 58 replies, 49 answering yes ; 7, no ; 2 cannot tell. Question IV.— Would you advise the re establishment of the saloons, breweries, and distilleries of Iowa under High License ?— 54, replies, 46, no ; 5 yes ; 3, qualified. Of the unfavorable reports contained in the table, The Voice gives the following explanation : THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WORKINGS OF THE LAW IN THE REBEL CITIES. The letters show that while the law has greatly benefited nearlj the entire State, there are a few cities in irhich the full advantage* of it have not been reaped. Particularly for the cities of Burlington, Dubuque, and Davenport, the reports from the county attorney* are unfavorable. It should be remembered that these officials are eleot^ by the influence of political machines, and in counties where the politicians are especially subservient to the rnmsellera the oonnty attorneys are not likely to be friendly to the law. In order to get additional and unbiassed testimony for the three cities named, we telegraphed to well-known citiiens for brief state- 250 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ments of the facts, with intelligent explanations. The following answers have been received : BuKLiNGTON, Ia., May 31 {Special Dispatch).— JJndei High License we had, in Burlington, 5 breweries, 3 wholesale liquor houses, 39 " permit" dealers, and 80 saloons. Under Prohibition there are not more than 30 saloons in operation, and all the other places have been driven out. There is not one barrel of liquor in Burlington now where there were hundreds. All the saloons not being closed, the full benefits of Prohibition have not been obtained. For this the political influences are re- sponsible, all the civil officers— judges, mayor, policemen, constables, and justices of the peace— holding their places by the favor of the liquor men. The saloons that are still running here are operated by outside dealers, and suits are pending against them. This is a river city of about thirty thousand population. The Ger- man element is large, but the situation is steadily improving under Prohibition. The extensive vineyards and the large beer-gardens that were operated as Sunday resorts, where drunkenness and de- bauchery reigned, are things of the past. A German anti-Prohibition- ist, who was mayor for four years during the license system, says that drinking has decreased thirty per cent. ; that the saloon keepers used to violate all laws, both of God and man, especially the Sabbath law, which they now observe, and that the criminal and pauper ex- penses during the sway of High License were so great that little, if anything, was left to the city. T. VV. Barky to, a banker and an anti-Prohibitionist, states that many who formerly spent their money in the saloons are now de- positing it in the banks. The city is orderly, the police judge and half of the police force could be dispensed with, and hundreds who voted against the Amendment are now enthusiastic friends of the law. It has been successful beyond our hopes. The ex-saloon- keepers are asking for High License. More building is going on in Burlington than in any of the other river cities. Mrs, M. H. Dunham. Dubuque, Ia., May 31 {Special Dispatch). — "When Iowa voted for Prohibition by thirty thousand Dubuque went against it seven to one. Naturally in a city intensely opposed to the measure at the beginning, the most favorable results have not been gained. A large number of the citizens are foreigners, who have considerable investments in saloons and breweries, and ever since the law was enacted Dubuque has been a rebel city. But even in Dubuque the future has an ominous look for the liquor men. There is not a saloon-keeper or brewer or any one directly interested in the liquor business who would not gladly have our present law exchanged for any form of license, high or low. The breweries could not be sold for twenty cents on the dollar. The saloon keepers are beginning to understand that Prohibition has conio to stay, and many admit that they cannot resist the law much longer. The progress of the straggle against the violators has been hindered IOWA. 261 by delays in settling questions of law. Many now qucHtionK arofie, and some of them hud to go to the United States Supreme Court, They have been disposed of now, not for Iowa alone, biit for other States that may handle the saloons by Prohibitory law ; and such States need not experience the delays encountered in Iowa. It is in no sense true that Prohibition has been demoralizing in Dubuque. The citj', because of peculiar circumstanoes, has not en- joyed the benefits coming from the law in almost all other quart* rs, that is all. She has gone on as before, taking license money from the saloons, as before. \Vliilo those parts of Iowa where the law is enforced are striking object-lessons of the benefits of Prohibition, Dubuque demonstrates the folly and wortblessness of anything short of enforced Prohibition. Thus her record does not show a striking decrease in crime, although crime is not on the increase. J. T. Adamb. Davenport, 1a., May 31 (Special Dispatch). — Although the law is violated in Davenport by the connivance of the politicians, it is so far successful that the records show no increase in arrests for crime. The responsibility for violations lies upon Democrats and Republi- cans alike. Both parties try to control the liquor vote. £. W. Bbadt. These three cities are the worst spots in Iowa. Excepting a very few other cities, they are the only bad spots. On the other hand, Prohibition has been conspicuously successful in cities just as im. portant as Burlington, Dubuque, and Davenport— notably in Des Moines, Sioux City, and Keokuk. All the reputable testimony that is received goes to prove that Prohibition works magnificently over nearly the whole of the vast territory of the State, D. W. Clements, County Attorney of Fayette County, writes : *• Men here who formerly spent much money in thb 8ai/x>n and obtained their wearing apparel and their small quantitixs of obo- ceries on credit largely now buy for cash. The mkbchant beczitxs THE money formerly SPENT IN THE SALOONS AND THB 7AMILT OBTS THB BENEFIT." J. K. Macomber, County Attorney of Polk Cnnnty (including Des Moines, the State capital), writes : '• There is very little drunkenness here. It is decideolt tbub THAT THE SALOON LICENSE REVENUE HAS BEEN MORE THAN MADE GOOD BT A LARGE DECREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF CRIME AND THB DIVEBTINO OF MONEY THAT WOULD OTHERWISE GO TO THE SALOON INTO OTHER CHANNELS OF TRADE, I would not udvise a repeal of Prohibition and a trial of High License in Iowa." 252 ECONOMICS OP PKOHIBITION. HOW PROHIBITION TESTIMONIES FROM THE JUDGES OF HE Saixx)N is Pkacticallt a Thing of the Past ; Drunkenness, have been benefited ; taxation, if anything, has tended to Impboved under Prohibition, Naxe of Judge. Scott H.Ladd,., C. H. flewia Jadicial District.* Fourth. Pourth. G. W. Wakefield. 'Fourth. O. B. Ayers , J. H. Henderson. J. E. Johnson. . . D. Ryan Walter I. Hayeet 8. M. Weaver . . , ~Oeo, W. Ruddick J. W. Sweney$.. h. O. Hatch, . . H. E. Deemer.... J. H. Macomber. I Fifth. Fifth. Sixth. Sixth. Seventh. Eleventh. Twelfth. Twelfth, Thirteenth. Fifteenth, Sixteenth. 1. To what extent is thel „ TTTv„f „„„ „„„ „„,. ^* Prohibition law euccessful-l. 2- ^,'*<' ^^^^^J^^ !,^J\^i ly enforced in your sec-l^^^^jj^* ^'^ '^^^""S up the Well as most laws. Almost absolutely univer- sally. About as other criminal ptatutes. Saloons stay closed. Well as other criminal statutes. Well as other criminal statutes. Generally. Practically not at all. Thoroughly. Well as others for proven- tion of crime. In 85 of 09 counties well as other criminal laws. Well enforced except 1 county adjoining Omaha Fairly well in more thau ihreo-fourths of State. No saloons here. No saloons in district, 9 counties. Saloons closed. Not a saloon in district, 6 counties. Not a saloon in district, 6 counties. Closed all saloons in dis- trict, 6 counties. Not a saloon in this pre- cinct. Temporarily closed, but begin aijaln. No saloons in this district, 8 largo central counties. Closed except in large cities. Closed saloons in nearly all parts of State. ' ' No open saloons in this district, 6 couuties. No saloons in this district (8 connticp) except one. Quite successful. • Just before the last sessiou of the Iowa Lejjislaturo n number of the Judj;c9 of that State wrote to Governor Larabee giving ihdr opinions of the workint' of the Prohibitory law. We give below testiinonies from districts not covered by the above table : Hon. Henry Bank, Jr., Superior Court Jnstlce : At the September term, 1887, District Court of Keokuk, for the first time not a criminal case before court. Hon. n. C. Travernc, Judge 2d District ; No saloons In but 1 of 8 counties lu this district : crime diminished. Would have downed saloons long ago but for protection of FtHicrnl ConrtH. Hon. J. \y. Harvey. Judae 8d District : Lhw v.ell enforced ; no saloons ; re- duced crime and criminal expenses one-half. IOWA. 96S SUCCEEDS IN IOWA. THE DISTRICT COURTS OF THAT STATE. Pauperism, and Crimx hatx Gbzatlt Decbeaszd ; Burdoem IirrxBSsn Decrease ; While tee Chasacteb and Happiness of thx Pxopub hatb 3. To what extent has it diminished drnnkenness and the use of intoxicants for beverage purjwses ? Dninkenness remarkably re- duced. Drnnkennesa vcr\' largely ; drinking more'ihau one- half. Diminished. Largely decreased. Very much. Very largely. Dmnkenness mnch less fre- quent. Not at all. Drunkenness decreased three-fourths. Diminished dmnkenness three-fourths. Decreased more than 90 per cent. Social drinking very com- mon ; a few drunkards sobered np. Diminished drunkenness at least 75 per cent. A great deal. A wKof ^„« ,,/x., -«.r 1. «,^ 5. In your observation Very favorable. Never as prosperous as un- der Prohibition. Business has not suffered. Increased business on the whole. No bad effect. In opinions of most, good Not mnch effect cither way. Do not think capital re- pulsed. No material difference. For the better ; no capital driven away. Some cases reduced rentt», some lignor men gone to other States. No business injured except saloons and breweries. Legitimate business has not suffered. No damage to any business except perhaps the law- yers. Yes, largely. Yes, to quite large extent. Goes to building hornet. Yes. Money now saved ; people more prosperous. Yes, but can't say to what extent. Not advised. Practically same as before. Merchants find trade with laboring men much more satisfactory. Don't know. It has ; and to the acquire- ment of homes. Yes. It ha Hon. Marcus Kavanagb. Jr., Judge 0th District : Crime decreased over 60 per cent.; Prohibition added largely to individual happiness. Hon. W. F. Conrad, Judge 9th District : Crime largely diminished; eost of court** very much lessened. Hon. Lot Thomas, Judge 14th District : Beducing crime and ctiminal expeuMS: well enforced as other criminal laws Hon. J. D. GifTen, Judce 18th DifTirt : I^w seems to work well In this district. t Member Congress 2(1 Concres^ioual Dictrict Impeachment charns broaght in 1886 neainst Hayes for rcfubing to enfurce Prohibition while on tll} Seneil wer» sustained hy the Legislature. ^ Member Congress, 4th CongTe«<'i'ii'nl DiKtHit 254 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. HOW PROHIBITION SUC- Name or JUDGK. Judicial District.* 6. Haa Prohibition teiid- led to increase or decrease itaxation in ttie cities and towns of your vicinity i and to wliat extent ? Scott M. Ladd. . . C. H. Hewis O. W. Wakefield. O. B. Ayen* Fourth. Fourth. Fourth. Fifth 7. What haj? been the effect of Prohibition on criminal cojidiiions as evi- denced from the records of courts, i)ri!»ong, and froan personal observation ? J. H. Henderson. I Fifth. I J, K. Johnson. . . Sixth. D. Ryan Walter I. Hayeat 8, M. Weaver... Geo. W. Ruddiclc J. W. SweneyJ.. L.O. Hatch H. E. Deemer... J. H. Macomber. Sixth. Seventh. Eleventh. Twelfth. Twelfth. Thirteenth. Fifteenth. Sixteenth. Think municipal taxee heavier. Decreased. Increased, not due to Pro- hibiUon. Not increased. To decrease. Decreased court and crira inal expenses rompon sate for loss of license fees. To decrease. No difference. Not increased ; local po lice expenses, etc., ma terially decreased. Perhaps increased in towns and cities. Enormously decreased mu- nicipal and county ex penses. Remainfl about same. Mnnicipal taxes perhaps Increased, but merchants benefited on the whole Lower grade offences de- creased. Decreased more than one- half. Fewer arrests. Crime decreased fully one- half. Very marked decrease. Decreased three-fourths in four years. Decreased over one-half in these 6 counties. No distinct effect. Lessened ; jail population less than for many year.s. Very favorable ; crime much i-educed. Little criminal business ; most jails empty for months. No change as to crimes per se. Decreased 50 per cent. Many jails untenanted. Decreased.- • ■• ♦ Just before the last session of the Iowa Leeislature a number of the Judges of that State wrote to Governor Larabee, giving their opinions of the working of the Prohibitory law. We give below testimonies from Districts not covered by the above table : Hon. Henry Bank, Jr.. Superior Court Justice : At the September term, 1887, District Court of Keolcuk, for the first time not a criminal case before Court. Hon H. C. Traven«e. Judge 2d District : No saloons in but 1 of R counties in this district ; crime dlinini^ljed. Would have downed saloons long ago but for protecMon of Fedfrai C'onrti>. Hon. J. W, Harvey, Judge 8d Di»trict: Law well enforced: no saloons; re- duced crime and criminnl expensos ono-half. IOWA. 266 CEEDS IN IOWA— Con^tnticd. 8. Has pauperism increased or decreased under Prohibi- tion ? Decreased. Decreased. Probably comparatively de- creaeed. Larfi^ly decreased. Decreased. Materially decreased. 9. What effect lias Pro- hibition had u|>on the growth of tlie Stale in the number and cliaracter of its population ? Attracts sober and better element. Constantly improving every way. Population steadily increas- es. Next census will show large, healthy growth. Salutary. Think population bettered. Not time to tell yet. 10. Name any other ad- vantageous n-'- in your obi»er\ come from or a< I I Prohibition. Cannot say. Some increase, but not duo Probably tended to keep out to Prohibition. Certainly not increased Clears State of crimlnaki and "bummers." Benefit to working clasMa. Think have smallest per cent, illiteracy in nation. Criminal and poor ex- penses largely d»> creased People more peaceable, contentt-d ana proi-iier- ous. Very many advantageu from Prohibition. There are uone.t Decreased. Very materially decreased. some foreigners. Growth healthy ; lost none, With each year of Pro- but saloon keepers. j hibitiou opposition be- comes less. Slightly retarded growth, .. but better classes not driven away. ;Character population better;; Many business men, for- only liquor-dealers have merly opposed, i.ow fa- left, vor Prombiiion. Increased quite perceptibly. Decreased. Losing some of worst class- es ; gaining best. Saloon ont of politics ; bumment gone, fewer rogues. Dozens of moral lepers left Labor more hopeful ; sap- for Nebrcska,! but no' pliiw families better, good citi/.eD8. Hon. Marcus Kavanagb, Jr , Jud^e oth I>ibtrict : Crime decreased over SO per ividual happiness. Crime largely diminished ; cost of cent.; Prohibition iidtlt^'larg«^ly to Individual happinc Hon. W. F. Courad, Judge 9lh District r "-= -- ' '- courts very much Jetwened. Hon. Lot Thomas, Judge 14ch District : Reducing crime and criminal ex p r n sw ; well enforced as other criminal laws Hon. J. D Giffen, Judge 18th District : Law seems to work well in this district. + Mem»)er Congress ad Coneression.il District. Impeachment charges brought In 1886 againpt Hayes for refusing to enforce Prohibition while on the Wnch wcro sustained by the Legislature. X Member Congress 4th Congressional District. i A 51.000 High License State. 256 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. The above table is made up of replies received to a series of questions sent out by The Voice about March 1st to all the district judges of Iowa. It contains every reply, fourteen iu all, favorable or unfavorable, which has been received to the questions, these replies covering nine of the eighteen judicial districts of the State. In a foot-note are appended some testimonies from judges residing in districts not covered by the above table. The following is a summary of the replies given in the table : BUMMABT. Question I. — To what extent is the Prohibition law successfully enforced in your section ?— 13 replies, only 1 of which intimates that the law is not well enforced. Question II, — What can you say of its effect in closing up the saloons?— 14 replies, 9 of which answer that all saloons are closed ; 1, ** quite successful ;" 1, '* no saloons in district except in 1 of 8 coanties ;" 1, "closed saloons in nearly all parts of State;" 1, "closed except in large cities;" and 1, "temporarily closed but soon begin again." Question III. — To what extent has it diminished drunkenness and the use of intoxicants for beverage purposes ? — 14 replies, 12 of which affirm that drinking and drunkenness have been greatly diminished ; 1, " not at all ;" while 1 asserts that social drinking is very common, though a few drunkards have been sobered up. QujiSTioN IV. — What has been the effect of Prohibition on business interests, and the attraction or repulsion of capital for investment? — 13 replies, 5 of which reply that the result has been favorable ; 5, that business has not been injured except saloons and possibly lawyers ; 2, that they see no special effect either way ; while 1, that in some cases rents have been reduced on account of liquor men moving away. Question V.—Has money which was formerly spent in the saloons been directed to legitimate channels of trade?— 13 replie8,*9 of which answer yes ; 1, " money now s.ived ;" 2 do not know ; 1, '* practi- cally same as before." Question VL— Has Prohibition tended to increase or decrease Uxes?— 13 replies; 4, "decreased;" 5, that taxes have not in- IOWA. 257 creased ; 1, '* increased, not due to Prohibition ;" 1, '• inoreaMd, but merchants benefited on the whole ;*' while 2 think municipal taxes may be higher. Question VIT. -What has been the effect of Prohibition on criminal conditions?- 14 replies, 12 of which reply that crime is much de- creased, while 2 can sse no change. Question VIII. —Has pauperism increased or decreased under Pro- hibition?-13 replies, 10. answering "decreased;" 1, "not in- creased;" 1, "cannot say;" 1, "some increase, not due to Pro- hibition." Question IX.— What effect has Prohibition on the growth of the State in the number and character of population?— 13 replies, 10, that the effect has been good ; 1, " not time to tell yet ;" 1, " prob- ably tended to keep out some foreigners ;" and 1, " slightly retarded growth, but better classes not driven away.' ' Thus it will be seen of these answers to The Voice* 8 questions from nine of the eighteen judicial districts of Iowa practically but one can be construed as unfavor- able to the working of the law ; while in the foot-notes are favorable testimonies from judges in at least six of the remaining districts. The following extracts from letters of the district judges to Governor Larrabee give more fully their ap- proval of the law and their reasons fOr it. Several of these judges opposed Prohibition when it was liret agitated, but the beneficial results apparent from it caused them to change their minds, and in their letters to the Governor they objected to efforts for nipeal. Judge Carson, of the Fifteenth District, wrote : '• When in the Senate I favored Local Option, but I am now aatia- fied that the [Prohibition] statute should stand. My belief is that the efifect has been very favorable in the reduction of criminal offences, especially those growing out of brawls and quarrelling." So heartily did the judges commend the law tliat only three of the twenty-four from w}ir»m opiniona have l)€en 258 ECONOMICS OF rKOHIBlTIOX. quoted answered unfavorably. The following are ex- tracts from the letters, as published lately in the Lincoln (Xeb.) New Republic: Judge H. C. Traverse, of the Second District : *' Wo would have had the saloon down long ago if the federal courts had not stretched their protecting hands over the heads of such fellows as ' Stormy Jordan.' As it is, there is only one county (Wapello) out of the eight counties comprising this district where open saloons are in operation. My experience is that wherever saloons are closed crime is diminished" THE FEDERAL COURTS A HINDRANCE. Judge D. Stewart, of the Second District : *' I would not advise the repeal of the Prohibitory liquor law. I am satisfied that this district would have been entirely rid of saloons and breweries for the past year or two if the inferior federal courts had not interfered with the State courts." Judge J. W. Harvoy, of the Third District : *• I am not aware that there is a saloon in the district. It [Pro- hibition] lias reduced crime at least one-half, and the criminal expenses in like ratio. 1 would not and do not favor the repeal of the law. " Judge C. H. Lewis, of the Fourth District : " The law It as well enforced, as any other, and has decreased criminal expenses at least two- thirds." Judge S. M. Ladd, of the Fourth District : " There is a great decrease of cases triable before justices, but not much change in the number of higher offences." Judge G. W. Wakefield, of the Fourth District : ** I am satisfied that our city [Sioux City], havinR during the last year enjoyed a season of great prosperity and growth, has aided materially in the change of affairs here. As thb sai^oons were dbivsm OtJT, OTHZB BirannESfl OAKV IN TO OCCTTPY THB VACIHT PLACES. " IOWA. 269 Judge O. B. x\yre8, of the Fifth District : " I have no doubt but that the Prohibitory law has rednoed crim- inal offences and the expenses of the courts in this district very largely, and I certainly would not advise a repeal of it." Judge J. K. Johnson, of the Sixth District : " There can be no doubt that the effect of the Prohibitory law hM been to reduce very materially crime and criminal expenses in this district." INDIVIDUAL HAPPINESS PBOMOTED. Judge Marcus Havanagh, of the Ninth District : "11 [Prohibition] has decreased crime over Jifly per cent, and a'ided largely to individual happiness." Judge W. F. Conrad, of the Ninth District : "As to the operation of the law, my observation is that it has largely diminished crime in this district and very mncb lessened the costs of maintaining the courts." Judge S. M. Weaver, of the Eleventh District : " Crime generally is very much lessened." Judge John B. Cleland, of the Twelfth District : " The action of the law has been beneficial, and tended to lessen criminal business and expenses." Judge C. T. Granger, of the Thirteenth District : '* The closing of the front door of the saloon, whereby it is de- stroyed as a place of social resort, has cancelled nine-tenths of the drunk- enness." Judge Lot Thomas, of the Fourteenth District : " As to the effect of the Prohibitory law in this district, I am satis- fied that it is reducing crime and. as a consequence, criminal ex- pense. In this dislric' the law is as xoell enforced as are any of the mher criminal laws of the Slate. In my jndgment, it would be a grave mis- take to attempt to repeal the law or to sabstitnte Local Option or High License in its place." 260 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Judge H. E. Deemer, of the Fifteenth District : *' The Prohibitory law is working nicely in every county in this district except in Pottawatomie, and I think there it is having a good effect and gaining ground rapidly. It is a noticeable fact that there the criminai docket is much larger, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, than in other counties.*' REPEAL WOULD BE A CALAMITY. Judge A. B. Thornell, of the Fifteenth District : " The Prohibitory law has been very effective in all places in this district except at Council Bluffs. I should regard its repeal as a calamity, and have no suggestions to offer in its stead. " To all this we would add : Gov. Labbabee's Fabewell Message t8 op many counties abe now empty DURING A GOOD POUTION OF THE YEAR. AND THE NUMBER OF CONVICTS IN OUB PENITENTIARIES HAS BEKN REDUCED FROM 750 IN MaRCR, 188G TO 604 ON July 1, 1889. It is the testimony of the judges of oub C0UBT8 THAT CRIMINAL BUSINESS HAS BEEN REDUCED FBOM 30 TO 75 PEB CENT . AND THAT CRIMINAL EXPENSES HAVE DIHINISHKn IN LIKE PBOPOB- noN. IOWA. tm " There is a remarkable decrease in the busiDeRs and fees of sheriffs and criminal lawyers, as well as in the number of requiKitionK and extradition warrauta issued. "NVe have less panpern and less tramps in the State in proportion to onr population than ever before. '* BrSW£BIKS have been CONV£RTI-a> INTO OATMEAL MILXS A.V1> CAKtmSO FACTORIES, AND ARE OPERATED AS SUCH BY THEIR OWNERS. *' The report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction shows an increased school attendance throughout the State. '* The poorer classes have better fare, better clothino, BrrrxR schooling. and better houses, ** The deposits in banks show an unprecedented d^beasb. aih) THERE are everywhere INDICATIONS OF A HEALTHY GROWTH IN LEGITI- MATE TRADE. Merchants and commercial travellers bepobt lsm LOSSES in COLLECTIONS IN loWA THAN ELSEWHERE. ** It is safe to say that not one-tenth, and probably not one twen- tieth as much liquor is consumed in the State now as was five years ago. The standard of temperance has been greatly raised even in those cities where the law is not yet enforced. Many a man formerly accustomed to drink and treat in a saloon has abandoned this prac- tice in deference to public opinion. " Our courts show a marked improvement in dealing with this question, nearly all of the judges being now disposed to enforce the law, whether they are in sympathy with it or not. In those counties where the law is not enforced the fault lies almost invariably with the executive oflficers." It would not be fair to dismiss the matter without considering GOVERNOR BOIES VS. GOVERNOR LABRABEE. Governor Larrabee, after four years' experience as Governor, gives specific facts from the records. Note this : The number of convicts, said Governor Larrabee, in Iowa in 1880 was one to 860 of population ; in 1889 it was one to 3,130. *Mt is the testimony of the judges of our courts," he said further, *' that criminal business has been reduced 30 to 75 percent., and that criminal expenses have been reduced in like proportion.'' Compare with these specific statements the strongest assertions made by Governor Boies, and see how weak the latter are in fact. He says : '* It is a patent fact, known to every one who has taken the pains to inform himself, that in many of onr oitien [no names given], con- 262 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. taining as they do a large fraction of our population, the only effect of the law has been to relieve the traffic in these liquors from legal restraint of every kind, " There is not a large city in the world where the demand for in- toxicating liquor as a beverage is not supplied by either a legalized or illicit traffic therein, nor has there been nor will there be. " In ray judgment, the chief obstacle to the enforcement of this law lies in the fact that in and of itself it is a cruel violation of one of the mosk valued of human rights.' In Governor Boies's argument there is practically nothing to answer, because in the whole speech from which these are extracts he gives absolutely no statistics. It is all a priori argument against Prohibition — very old at that — and unsupported inferences therefrom. As a specimen of his inferences^ take the following : *' It is equally notorious that in the large cities of the State where the open saloon has been closed [an admission that there is some ' legal restraint ! *] a secret traffic sufficient to supply all the wants of the trade has immediately followed." This is unsupported assertion. ^' It is notorious" — which by no means shows that it is true, when the class of witnesses who make it ** notorious'^ is considered. But if the ^' secret traffic" is ^' sufficient to supply all the wants of tlie trade," what is '* the trade" worrying about ? "Why do they want to pay a license when they can sell all they like for nothing ? Such argument is an insult to the intelligence of rational men. How it is possible to get liquor in Iowa a little story will show. The author heard a well-known lawyer of Ohio relate this incident in the presence of a number of persons who can be called on to substantiate it if need- ful. He said : " After I had been at the hotel about a day and seen no liquor, I began to want some vory ranch. I went to the landlord and asked IOWA. 263 him where I cnuld get ft drink of whiskey. He replied, ' We don't sell any. It*8 against the law.' In a moment or two be turned to me, and said, * Step this way, Mr. , I would like to speak with you.' I followed him up two flights of stairs and down a long hall, till at last he knocked at a door, and said, * There's a gentleman in there who would like to speak to you, Mr. ; ' then turned and walked off. In a minute the door opened, and a man said, ' Come in here ! ' I went in, and ho locked the door, took out the key and put it in his pocket. Then he went to a dark closet and took down a black bottle and a dirty glass, poured out a drink, and handed it to me, saying, ' There, drink that quick, and get out of this ! ' Soon as I was outside the door he turned the key behind me. I was so dis. gusted that I felt as if I never wanted another drink of whiskey as long as I lived. But I did go for it several times afterward, and every day I had to go to a different room.''* Now if any one claims that there will be as much sell- ing and drinking on such a system as by open, licensed, splendid saloons, he simply shows that he is doing his best to make out a very bad case. But Governor Boies con-tinues : " It mnsi be apparent to unbiassed mind.^ that in these localities, at least, the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage has not been diminished by our Prohibitory law, but instead thereof that it has been greatly increased, if want of legal restraint of any kind will produce that effect." Not an attempt to produce one figure in evidence ! ^* The Statistics of Ifs'' would be a good name for this conclusion. If the Governor had facts ho would give them. If there were facts to be had, he would have found them. Since he gives not one fact, that is the very best proof that there are no facts on his side. But the Governor's idea of " a want of legal restraint of any kind" is sufficiently comical. It seems that to abso- lutely forhid a thing hy law is complete ** want of legal restraint." For instance, think of ** the want of legal restraint of any kind" on burglary and highway rob- 264 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. bery ! It is evident these crimes must be vastly increas- ing in Iowa. We have not heard of any instances, but it must\)Q so, *Sywant of legal restraint of any kind will produce that effect." To think of those absolutely unlicensed and unregulated burglars and highwaymen and the terrible increase of their crimes that must be going on ! But life is too short and too serious to spend on such logic. When the Governor will give us some facts, they shall have respectful attention. Till then, the statistic of Governor Larrabee and the district judges and other attested facts stand exactly where they would if Gov- ernor Boies had not spoken. In the realm of facts his speech is an absolute blank, and as such may be dis- missed from consideration. The jails remain just as empty, the number of con- victs in the penitentiary just as small, the dockets -of the criminal courts just as blank, and the bank vaults just as full as if Governor Boies had never delivered his in- augural. We remember that Governor Glick started on just such a track in K^ansas in 1882. But Governor Glick is gone and the law of Kansas stands stronger than ever. We are dealing with economics, and we have one very refreshing piece of economics to deal with. The following item appeared in the Indianapolis Journal, April 3d, 1889 : " The State of Iowa fleems to be in a highly sound and solvent financial condition. The State Treaanrer has just called in $75,000 of outstanding warrants and $220,000 more will be called for April 25th. When the last named batch is paid off the floating in- debtedness of the State will be reduced to less than $75,000, which may be increased some during the summer by current appropria- tions, but will be wiped out by the fall taxes, leaving the Ptate out of debt by January Ist. 1890." IOWA. 5*66 We next quote the following from The Voice of Juno 6th, 1889 : Keokuk, Ia., May 31. {BptciaX Correspondence.)— A most notable demonstration of the unparalleled commercial prosperity that attends Prohibition wherever it is well enforced, is the cancelling of the in- terest-bearing debt of the State of Iowa. The State Treasurer has issued a call for outstanding warrants, covering $95,000, the last remnant of the interest-bearing debt of the State. The call expires on June 25th. This is a gratifying surprise to the people of Iowa, for it was never expected that the debt would be wiped out so soon. The news that the last dollar was to be paid off electrified 'the whole State House force, from the janitors up to the Governor, and occasioned murU comment among the lawyers in attendance at the Supreme Court. And this is how Prohibition is " ruining Iowa." Now we are informed that this has actually been done, and lov^a stands in the list of States in the new Worhl almanac, with ** Funded Debt — None." When it comes to such a pass that a State has no debt, and is running short of convicts, it is high time some- thing should be done. No doubt a ** well-devityed'* system of High License would soon change allthis. CHAPTEK XYI. . KHODE ISLAND. " HUADQUABTEBS OF THE EhODZ ISLAin> \ Pbotective Trade Association, \- June 6, 1889. ) **Ikar Sir : On the 20th of this month the election will take place in this State on the question of repealing the Constitutional Pro- hibition Amendment now in force. The time for work is verj' short, and we are urgently in need of funds to carry on this campaign, and strongly appeal to you to aid us in this crisis. The final overthrow oj the Prohibitory party in Rhode Island is almost assured ai this election, bat we find that the liberal contributions of our friends here are inadequate to meet the demands of the occasion. We therefore send this appeal to our friends abroad for financial aid to assist us in making the fight. Whatever sum you may feel disposed to contrib- ute, please send at once to Mr. P. F. Madigan, Treasurer, who will acknowledge the same in our behalf. Very respectfully yours, P. F. Madigan, Thomas Grimes, Edward Smith, Patrick Maroney, P. H. Hogan, John J. Maguire, D. W, Sheehan, Hugh Gorman yer of unscrupulons political combinations. All the facts we liave on the economic conditions indicate valuable results for public order and financial prosperity from even very imperfect Prohibition. Since the return to High License, a great cry of dis- tress is goincr up from the Statr. Tim Pnwtuckct GnzHI*' 274 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. and Chronicle^ a strong Republican daily paper, says, in its issue of October 18th, 1889 : ** The citizens of Rhode Island cannot have forgotten the rather profuse assurances that were given them only a few months ago, that when the demon of Prohibition should have been exorcised from the body politic, once more would the State of Rhode Island rejoice in a government by law. " Nor will they readily forget with what unction the advocates of a repeal of Prohibition deplored the demoralizing influences of a law that was at variance with public opinion and, therefore, in- capable of enforcement, thereby destroying popular respect for all law. •• If we mistake not, the proposed conditions of righteousness have been fulfilled, and law has been made in entire harmony with that class of public opinion represented in the demand for repeal of Prohibition. " Who says that law is either enforced or respected to-day in either Pawtucket or Providence ? Is liquor being sold only according to law in either city ? How many law-breaking liquor-sellers have b^en arrested ? " There are laws and ordinances against drunkenness, and it is the sworn duty of officials to enforce these laws and ordinances. Is one driinken man arrested out of every ten that reel by our policemen ? " Will somebody tell us the conditions under which law may be permitted to be enforced ? Or is it best to annul all law ?" Tlie Gazetts and Chronicle in its same issue makes this significant remark : ** Political prostitution is one of the choice outgrowths of the beautiful and ' restrictive ' rum law. " The same paper said, September 20th : " More drunken men were seen on our streets during the past week than were seen here in the three years of the non-enforced Prohibitory law.' ' The Pawtucket Record said, about the same time : " It has been said or written that Prohibition was detrimental to business. Yes, we think it did injure the mm basinem ; at anj RHODE ISLAND. 275 rate, it appears to be prospering under the bonefloial inflaenM of license." The Newport Daily News said, September 28th : " Drunkenness is increasing, and it appears to be the general sentiment of the commnnity that no more liquor licenses nhoald b« granted. Men under the influence of lit|uor, but not in any way unable to reach their destination, are seen on any hand by the police and others." The Newport Enterprise (Tnd.) said in its issue for October 8d : " They [the people] went back to license, and before the winter is out they will find things worse than ever. There will be about seventy rum-shops now ; and it is a poor place that does not take in $60 a week. That is $4,200 a week for nil. and a quarter of a milUon a yeat^ spent in Newport for intoxicating liquors that ought to go to grocers, bakers, huichej^s, and other respectable s'ores. The trades- men will see the beauty of liceuso and rum this winter when they try to collect their bills. The city will get $25,000, and ten times that amount will go into the pockets of the rumsellers, who will send half of it out of the State, and spend more of the other half in buying up the houses of honest citizens ruined by bad debts that might have been paid if men had drunk less rum. There is no need of elec- tioneering ; the drunken men reeling round the streets will do all that, and if Local Option is put before the people in the spring, it would not surprise us to see it carried, to stay. Wait !" CHAPTEE XYII. ATLANTA. " Not a dollar of capital has gone from our city, or is going, unless it's liquor capital. We want all that sort of capital to go." — SencUor Colquitl in Brooklyn, N. Y., February 23d, 1886. '* Take the fact of owning houses. Artemus Ward says : ' A man luiiy (lie for his home, but who ever heard of a man dying for his boarding house ? ' I say to you here, it's the poor man's home, and the poor man's home alono, that has stood time and again between Jay Gould and Vanderbilt and the enraged mob of American work- ingmen. It is the conservatism of the home-owning wage-worker that has kept Socialism out of the admirable labor organizations. In the last two years there have been six hundred and eighty-seven citizens who have become home-ownera, against one hundred and fifty-three in the two years previous -citizens owing no man and owning no man as master, wearing the collar of no faction, free-born American citizens, not quibbling about personal liberty, but stand- ing with wife and little ones, honest and independent, above penury and degradation ! [Applause.]— i/e/ir^ W. Orady. The city of Atlanta, Ga., with a population of some 75,000, has now tried Low License, Prohibition, and High License. In November, 1885, the city voted for a Prohibitory ordinance, which took effect July Ist, 1886. By the construction of this law, however, the wholesale liquor houses did not shut up till some six months later, and a few wine rooms selling so-called *' native wines" were allowed to continue in operation. But the saloons were abolished July 1st, 1886. Pro- hibition continued in force till January 1st, 1888. The ATLANTA. 277 beneficial effects of the law were very marked, as will 1)0 seen by the followinf^ striking despatch FROM ATLANTA'S MAYOR. REFUTATION OP REPORTS IN NORTHERN PAPERS— QUIET STBESTB AOT) BAPPT HOMES — DECREASE OF CRIME AND GENERAL PROSPEBTTT. During the campaiga of 188G, despatches were extensively pub- lished for political eifect in Northern papers charging that the Pro- hibitory law in Atlanta was practically a nullity, antl that die '* jug trade" had become about the only important industry of the city. To meet these statements. The Daily Voice telegraphed to Mayor Hillyer, who replied as follows : " Atlanta, Ga, , October 2G.— I wish to say that in the bar-room days drunkenness was common and not always noticed. The police were less attentive and many escaped arrest. Now, if a man gets drunk, or partly drunk, it attracts attention. The police are active and vigilant, and arrests are nearly certain to follow any indications of illicit sale. The figures in the police oflBce show that the arrests for disorder and drunkenness last Saturday and Sunday were 22 ; the corresponding days in 1885 such arrests numbered 31, and in 1884, 25. Many of the cases occurring at present are chargeable to the use of domestic wine, which is not prohibited, and which, it is said, is often ' doctored.' The figures in the express office show that hardly one jug or demijohn is shipped per one thousand inhabitants, and all exaggerated reports are to be condemned. The good effects of Prohibition here are apparent. Trade in all branches, except the whiskey traffic, is prospering. There is marked improvement in the habits, the morals, and the happiness of the people. Increased prosperity is admitted and rejoiced in, both as to private and public affairs. The attitude of the newspapers throughout the Union is greatly to be deprecated. Scores and hundreds of facts prove the efficacy of the law. Atlanta now has peaceful streets and happy homes, with sober husbands, sons, and brothers, with plenty to eat and to wear, where before there were broken hearts, fear of domeelio outrage, and sometime!* actual want. The great daily press abroad says nothing of the great good that has resulted, but if a hand track load of jugs is seen (which is no great matter to sixty thousand people) this must be magnified into a * jug train,' and the whole )>reKH of the United States made to ring with it. 278 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. '* There is not one-tenth as much of intoxicants drunk in Atlanta now as there was a year ago, possibly much less than that. Formerly the advocates of bar-rooms were numerous and powerful, now nobody advocates their' restoration. Formerly the temperance issue was High License ; now, the very most that the opponents to toUd Prohibition would contend for is High License. The bar room niiisance has gone out from Atlanta forever, and we would like all the world to know it. " We are determined to give total Prohibition a fair trial under the law, and are greatly strengthened and encouraged with it so far. Our people are already practically united in the belief that the bar- room wfll never come back. I only wish that the outside world could see the truth as we have it demonstrated here. They would thus escape the danger of being misled by the many exaggerated and prejudiced rumors that are published in other States on the subject. " George Hillyer, " Mayor of Atlanta. The mayor's hopes were not realized. Prohibition in Atlanta was succeeding too well. There was the greatest danger that it would disprove the favorite proposition of the liquor-dealers and their sympathizers, that *' Pro- hibition could never be enforced in a large city." It was enforced in Atlanta, and the city was prosperous and rejoicing. Something must be done. It must be remembered that the whole liquor power of the nation is one, concentrated in one National Liquor Dealers' Protective Association. This tremendous power con- centrated upon the city among the Georgia mountains. The nation almost held its breath to watch the unequal \ contest. Henry W. Grady, brave, eloquent, and true- hearted, toiled and plead for Prohibition with all his matchless power. The Atlanta Constitution, of which he was editor, had a divided influence, his partner being for High License. But on June 2l8t, 1887, one year after Prohibition had taken effect in Atlanta, the Co?i- stitution printed the following editorial : ATLANTA. 279 ** The election at which Prohibition was pat on trial in this city is entitled to a place among great events. No election of a local nature was ever before held in a citj of 00,000 people in which more was involved. The changes proposed by it were so radical as to be almost revolutionary. Over 100 business houses were to be closed. Nearly 600 men were to be forced to give up a chosen employment. The city treasury was to be left with $40,000 less revenue. Trade amounting annually to millions was to be turned away from the city. Many large business houses were to be left un- rented. Of course, a movemefit proposing measures so radical met with the most spirited and determined opposition. Many of our best citizens regarded it with outspoken disfavor. ** It was said that Prohibition in a city so large as this was impracticable ; that it would not prohibit ; that the trade would be injured ; that taxes wonld be increased ; that the stores in which the liquor business was carried on would not be rented for other purposes ; that the same amount of whiskey would bo drunk with the law as without it, the city would only miss the revenue ; that it would be a death-blow to Atlanta's progress. ** It has now been eighteen months since the election, and twelve months since the law went into effect. Wo are prepared thus from observation to note results. PROHIBITION DOES PROHIBIT. ** Prohibition in this city does prohibit. The law is ob- served as well as the law against carrying concealed weapons, gambling, theft, and other offences of like character. If there had been as many people in favor of carrying concealed weap- ons, theft, gambling, etc., as there were in favor of the retail of ardent spirits twelve months ago, law against these things would not have been carried out as well as it was against the liquor trade. In consideration of the small majority vrlth which Prohibition was carried and the large number of people 280 ECOJ^'OillCS OF PROHIBITION. who were opposed to seeing it prohibit, the law has been mar- vellously well observed. BUSINESS IMPROVED UNDER THE LAW. " Prohibition has not injured the city financially. Accord- ing to the Assessors' books, property in the city has increased over $2,000,000. Taxes have not been increased. Two streets in the city, Decatur and Peters, were known as liquor streets. It was hardly considered proper for a lady to walk these streets without an escort. Now they are just as orderly as any in the city. Property on them has advanced from 10 to 25 per cent. The loss of $40,000 revenue consequent on closing the saloons has tended in no degree to impede the city's progress in any direction. Large appropriations have been made to the water-works, the public schools, the Piedmont Fair, and other improvements. The business men have raised $400,000 to build the Atlanta and Havvkinsville Railroad. The number of city banks is to be increased to five. The coming of four new railroads has been settled during the year. Fifteen new stores containing house- furnishing goods have been started ttince Prohibition went into effect. These are doing well. More furniture has been sold to mechanics and laboring men in the last twelve months than in any twelve months during the history of the city. The manufacturing establishments of the city have received new life. A glass factory has been built. A cotton-seed oil mill is being built worth $125,000. All im- provement companies with a basis in real estate have seen their stock doubled in value since the election on Prohibition. FORMER SALOONS NOW OCCUPIED BY TRADESMEN. ** Stores in which the liquor trade was conducted are not vacant, but arc now occupied by other lines of trade. Accord- ing to the real estate men more laborers and men of limited means are buying lots than ever before. Rents are more promptly paid than formerly. More houses are rented by the ATLANTA. ?81 / same number of families than heretofore. Before Prohibition, sometimes as many as three families would live in one bouse. The heads of those families now not spending their money for drink are each able to rent a house, thus using three instead of one. Workingmen who formerly spent a great part of their money for liquor, now spend it in food and clothes for their families. The retail grocery men sell more goods and collect their bills better than ever before. Thus they are able to settle more promptly with the wholesale men. INCREASED SALES OF LEGITIMATE GOODS. ** A perceptible increase has been noticed in the number of people who ride on street cars. According to the coal-dealers, many people bought coal and stored it away last winter who had never been known to do so before. Others, who had been accustomed to buying two or three tons on time, this last winter bought seven or eight and paid cash for it. A leading proprietor of a millinery store said that he had sold more hats and bonnets to laboring men for their wives and daughters than before in the history of his business. Contractors say their men do better work, and on Saturday evenings, when they receive their week's wages, spend the same for flour, hams, dry goods, or other necessary things for their families. Thus they are in better spirit<<, have more hope, and are not inclmed to strike and growl about higher wages. IMPROVEJIENT IN THE SCHOOL CHILDREN. " Attendance upon the public schools has increased. The Superintendent of Public Instruction said in his report to the Board of Education, made January 1st, 1887 : ** * During the past year it has become a subject of remark by teachers in the schools and by visitors, that the children were more tidy, were better dressed, were better shod, and presented a neater appearance than ever before. Less trouble htiA been experienced in having parents purchase books required by the 282 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. \ rules, fewer children have been withdrawn to aid in supporting the family, the higher classes in the grammar schools have been fuller, and more children have been promoted to the high schools, both male and female, than ever before in the history of the schools. All these indications point to the increased prosperity of the city and to the growing interest in the cause of education on the part of the people.' " There has been a marked increase in attendance upon the Sunday-schools of the city. This is especially noticeable among the suburban churches. Many children have started to the Sunday-schools who were formerly not able to attend for want of proper clothing. Attendance upon the different churches is far better. From fifteen hundred to two thousand people have joined the various churches of the city during the year. THE MARKED DECREASE IN CRIME. *' The determination on the part of the people to prohibit the liquor traffic has stimulated a disposition to do away WITH OTHER EVILS. The Ittws aguiust gambling are rigidly enforced. A considerable stock of gamblers' tools gathered together by the police for several years past was recently used for the purpose of making a large bonfire on one of the un- occupied squares of the city. The City Council has refused longer to grant licenses to bucket shops, thus puttinjr the seal of its condemnation upon the tiade in futures of all kinds. ** All these reforms have had a decided tendency to diminish crime. Two weeks were necessary formerly to get through with the criminal docket. During the present year it was closed out in two days. The chain-gang is almost left with nothing but the chains and the balls. The gang part would not be large enough to work the public roads of the country were it not augmented by fresh supplies from the surrounding counties. The city government is in the hands of our best citizens. . . . ** Our experience has demonstrated to us beyond a doubt that a city of sixty thousand inhabitants can get along and ATLANTA. 288 advance at a solid and constant rate without the liquor traffic/' HENRY W. GEADY's SPEECH. For two years the Prohibition policy had been main- tained in Atlanta, but in the summer of 1887 the liquor men began to take steps for repeal. By November of that year a hot fight was raging. The vote on repeal was to be taken in the latter part of that month. The Constitution was then under the joint manage- ment of Mr. Grady and Evan P. Howell. Mr. Howell was an uncompromising Anti-Prohibitionist. Mr. Grady was in the height of his new-made national reputation as a political orator. He was young and ambitious, and he knew full well the dangers besetting public men who meddled with Prohibition. The great Prohibitory Amendment campaigns had just closed in Texas and Tennessee, with crushing majorities for the bar-rooms. The national liquor power had announced that the next thing on their programme was to obtain the repeal of the Prohibitory law m Atlanta. Every selfish interest seemed to dictate a conservative course for Mr. Grady in the Atlanta campaign. But he madfi an independent study of the whole situation, be- came convinced that Prohibition had done great good, and on the evening of November 3d made a speech which electrified the city and was one of the most thrill- ing and convincing arguments for Prohibition ever de- livered. The force of this speech was in its eloquent and pathetic presentation of practical testimony about the improvement of the poor under the reign of Prohibi- tion, the great decrease in the number of distress war- rants, the disappearance of the practice of gamislieeiDg 284 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. wages, the change of sentiment among business men in favor of Prohibition, the increase in the number of school -going children, the decrease in crime, etc.* FROM QRADY's speech — DISTRESS WARRANTS. Here is a part of what Mr. Grady said on the subject of distress warrants : " Mr. George Adair rents houses to thirteen hundred tenants. He states that he has issued in the last year one distress warrant where he issued twenty, two years ago. [Applause.] I claim to be an in- telligent man with some courage of conviction ; but I pledge you my word, if that one fact were established to my satisfaction I would vote for this thing if I never heard another word on this subject. Have you thought what that means— a distress warrant? It means eviction ; it means the very thing that is to-day kindling the heart of this world for poor Ireland. It means eviction I It means turning woman and her little children out of the home that covers them, and to which they are entitled. I was astonished at Colonel Adair's statement. Mr. Tally, who rents six hundred or eight hundred houses, says : * I used to issue two or three distress warrants -f oar or live - a month. I have not issued a single one in eighteen months.' [Applause] Now, both of them are Prohibitionists. Let me try you with Harry Krouse. He was an Anti Prohibitionist. He said : ' My distress warrants averaged thirty-six to the year, and I have not issued one in twelve months.' I said : *•* Then, my friend, I don't carry your conscience, but how can you be an Anti-Prohibitionist ? ' " ' I ain't. My knowledge of the thing, day by day, among people I used to pester and evict has changed my convictions, and I urn a red-hot Prohibitionist.' " I went down to Mr. Scott, who did not vote for Prohibition, and asked him. He said : ' I have issued as many as twenty-five distress warrants in a month, and I have issued six in the last eighteen months, and five were to get people out of houses because they were obnoxious to the neighbors. I have issued one single distress war- rant for failure to pay rent.' ♦ Prohibition Leaflet. " Atlanta's Throe Policies." ATLANTA. 286 " I said : ' Yon didn't Tote for Prohibition.' •* He said : ' I did not believe it was practicable.' " I asked : * What do you think now ? ' " He said : ' I am going to vote, and vote for Prohibition.' [Ap. plaase.] " Mr. Roberts was a Prohibitionist He is a square man and an iDtelligent man, and is running for Council, which is a good sign. [Lft lighter and applause.] He says : * My testimony is the same. I formerly issued two or three distress warrants every month, and I have not issued one in twelve months.* THE TEBBOBS OF EVICTZOK. " Have yon ever thought about a woman being turned out of her house— the little cottage that covers her and her children ^ Can you picture— you who live in comfortable homes filled with light and warmth and books and joy — can you think of these people — human beings, our brothers and sisters, the poor mother, brave though her heart is breaking, huddling her little children about her, and the father, weak but loving, and loving all the deeper because he knows his weakness has brought them to this want and deoradation, and little children, those of whom our Saviour said : ' SuflFer them to come unto me and forbid them not ' — there asking, ' Mamma, where will we sleep to-night ? * — can you picture that and then their taking themselves up and the woman putting her hand with undying love and faith in the hand of the man she swore to fallow through good and evil report, and marchiug up and down the street this pitiable procession— through the unthinking streets, by laughing children and shining windows, looking for a hole where, like the foxes, they may hide their poor heads ? ** My friends, they talk to you about personal liberty, that a man should have the right to go into a grog shop and see this pitiable procession -now stopped— parading up and down our streets again. They talk to you about the shades of Washington, Monroe, and Jefferson. I would not give one happy, rosy little woman, uplifted from that degradation — happy again in her home, with the cricket chirping on her hearthstone and her children about her knee, her husband redeemed from drink at her side— I would not give one of them for all the shades of all the men that ever contended since Cataline conspired and Csesar fought ! " At the end of this sentence there was tremendous 286 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. cheering. Men and women waved tlieir handkerchiefs, some of them standing up. •* All of U means simply this, that where Mr. Adair, renting to all Horts of people, issued twenty distress warrants a year ago. he issues one now ; it means that out of every twenty families evicted two j-ears ago there are nineteen happy in their homes to-night. [Ap- plause.] And yet we are told we must vote to restore the old order because it has reduced Governor Brown's rental column $5,000 a year !" [Applause.] At the end of this sentence the scene was almost in- describable. Thousands of handkerchiefs waved as be- fore, men held up their hats on walking sticks and whirled them in the air. The cheering was almost deafening. *' My friends, I don't believe that statement, to begin with. I do not believe his rent income is fairly and permanently diminished $5,000 a year ; and if it is, he is my friend, and I congratulate both him and myself on the fact that he is able to stand it. I say this in no spirit of sarcasm or criticism, but I do say if there is a law, if there is a governmental theory, if there is, may it please you, an un- tried experiment that will shelter one honest woman and two uncon- scious children in their homes, it is our duty to vote that law and this Government's duty to enforce it, though it should cut it down 125,000. [Tremendous applause.! And the reason for that is not based in communism, but in humanity. If the Government owes any duty to the individual, it is that every man, woman, and child that leads an honest life is entitled to food and shelter ; and if there is a difference to be found between diminishing the luxury of the rich, or protecting the poor in their birthright, it is manliness and humanity and good government to let the rich suffer. [Applause ] '• Now, I have talked to you about the rent, about the house that a man and his wife live in ; I have shown yon, not by my own asser- tion, but by the statements of the only experts in the city — the real estate men. who for years have handled from three thousand to four thousand houses — I have shown you, I say, that where twenty suf- fered before, nineteen are protected under ' Prohibition that don't ATLANTA. SJb7 prohibit.' What would we have with Prohibition that did pro- hibit?" Upon other aspects of the improvement of the poor, Mr. Grady said, in part : NO MORE GARNI8HEEING. " The next step is to get our employers and ask their testimony. I went to Mr. Boyd, of Van Winkle ,. ." Al? !.f ' under Prohibition y if ho, Id my trade collections are much harder. I 5. In your opinion would it or would it not bo a ben- efit to buHJneHH generally if the money now spent in the ealoonefhouid be spent for clothing, fuel, furni- ture, etc., and tlie other comfona and necesBarie* of life ? Our beet information ia that (>oor people and la- boring claas look niucli better care of families, paid their grocery and other bills more urompt- Iv during Prohibition than before or since. Cannot Bay. Prohibition cannot be forced. Money spent for liquor* is a 8 ' complete loss. . . It certainly would. 4 We used to collect from $75 to $100 a week, now we can get only from S25 to S40, and very hard to do that. Collections from the labor- ing class arc not nearly eo good as during Pro- hibition. Much harder to make col- lections. Many former- ly ei)cnt earnings for provisions now buy on time and spend money in bar-rooms. Much harder to make col- lections now than dur- ing Prohibition. Much harder ; bad debts increa«je more rapidly, although I am more cau- tious than during Pro- hibition. Think collections not as good. They buy the cheapest and mostly second-hand goods. About the same class of goods. No marked difference. .They now buy a cheaper I class of goods ; want cheapest every time. Cheaper goods purchased now • under ProhibiLion they bought shoes worth from $2 to $3 ; now from $ I to fl.sa Know nothing. It Is much harder to col- lect now. When bar- rooms returned my col- lections fell off fully 25 per cent. There has been one contin- uous demand forcltcapcr goods ever since bar- rooms returned. I sell on average 25 per cent cheaper goods. Yes, sir. Answering from personal 6 experience, it would un- doubtedly be better. Undoubtedly. Re-openinff 7 bar-rooms greatest evil that ever t>efell us. In my opinion our cai>h 8 sales would increase ten- fold if the bar-rooms were closed. Most emphatically i» 9 wotild. Certatnlr would be a bene- 10 fit. Would be a great benefit 11 to the entire communiiy. 30*4 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. TABLE OF EEPLIES FROM 47 BUSI- NAMX and Br«INES8. 1. Have you noticed since the return of the open bar-' 2. Do you sell more or roome to Atlanta any in- less on average to working- crease or decrease in the i men for cash than you did average amount of your under Prohibition — in sales to the workingmen other words, have your as compared with sales to credit sales to this class of the same class of people people proportionately de- under Prohibition ? If so» creased or increased ? and which » and to what ex-:io what extent ? tent ? 12 TmCKKB. & FiNCHER— Jietail Groceries. 13 Gilbert, H. C— Grocer- ies. U Gramlino, H. 3.— Dry Goods. 15 Hughes A Law— Hats and Gents' Furnishing. 10 •Hentschel, C— Grocer- ies. 17 tHENTscuEL, William— Clothing, Genu' li\ir- nishinn. 18 Hooan, \\'. J.—Itefaii and Wholesale Grocer. 19 Holbrook, a. L.. &, Co. —Rftait Groceries. Our trade with the drink-;They want more credit and Ing classes is about half wnal it was during Pro- hibition. pay less, most of them nothing. My trade was better during I sell less ; credit sales are Prohibition. I on the increase. A decrease, I think, of 90 per cent. Can't see any difference. About 200 per cent, in- crease. We refuse more now than we did during Prohibi- No increase. I sell more for cash. ao Hcrr, H. yvood. T.—Coal and Some increase in some I do not credit business, a large fall off in others. Business generally better Credit sales to laboriiif{ in Atlanta, but do not class have increased, attribute it to open sa- loons, but to rapid growth of city and better crops. At least 10 per cent. less. Our credit sales have in- creased some : would be much larger, out we re- fuse ; demand for credit much increased. When the bar-rooms were'Sell less ; can't credit at closed I sold them half! ton at a time ; now 86 and GO cents' worth. I all. • C. Hentschel, who signed himself "Groceries" in answer ti our questions, is ?iat down In the iKxly of the Atlanta City Directory as " Ctrocerles and liquors." lo has also the following half-{>age display adverfiwment on iwge 28 of the Atlanta Directory : " Carl HentBchol, Dealer in Imported and Domestic Wines, Brandies and Whiskies and Other Liquors— Fresh Beer always on Draught— Fancy Groceries, Fine Tobacco and Cigars— 54 and 56 Decatur St., Atlanta, Georgia." t Thert are Ave IJeatschels in the Atlanta Directory— four of whom are directlj ATLANTA. 308 NESS MEN OF ATLANTA— Continued. 3. Do you notice that It Js easier or harder now to make collections in At. lama than it was nnder Prohibition ? In other word8, doeu th*» nninber of "bad debts" ftave a ten- dency to increase or de- crease f A T\^ ^^^ n^A ♦».« «.«,u 6. In your opinion would 4. Da vou find tlie work j^ -^jj j^ ^^ ^ ^ injr ,KH,p1o now ,.urc-h«HnK ^.,j^ ^^ ^^,^j„^.^^ generally if KtM.erallv a cheii H-r or a j,,^ ,„„ „,„^ spent^n better class of good, than ^^^ Bak>onB should lie 6i)ent for clothing, fuel, furni- ture, etc, and the other comforts and neceesariet of life t under Prohibition t If so, give some examples of what they buy now com- pared witk formerly. Collections are much hard- er now. It is harder to make col lections since return of bar rooms. Noticed no difference. Hy collections much better now. Cannot say. Bad debts have noticeably increased. Many buy nothing, their wiveb having to support them. Cheaper. Cheaper. Hosiery, former- ly 25c., now want 10 to 15c.; flannels, formerly 85c. to £0c., now want 20c to 80c.; shoes, for- merly $1.50 to |2, now $1 to $1.50. Noticed no change. Better goods are bongbt now than before. About the same. Have more money to buy with. Notice no difference. It would benefit our busi- 12 ness very much. It would. It would. Think it would be. Harder to collect now from Do not see much difference workingmen than dur-i as to quality ; but quan- ing Prohibition ; bad I tity and cash Lb less, debts increasing with I these people. j Harder to collect from that Colored people buy the class that spend moneys cheapest things they can in saloons. get ; during Prohibition I bought the best. 15 Would be best for mon- 16 ey to be spent for food, clothing, etc. But parties spending money for whiskey, best buy by drink than gallon, as un- der Prohibition. I think the saloons best ; 17 men formerly bought by gallon, now buy by drink. Money spent for drink 18 would greatly benefit business, and none others think otherwise except those directly or indi- rectly in liquor business. We most assuredly do ; 19 workinemen do not live as well now aa under Prohibition. 'it would. Prohibition the 20 I bett thing that could 1 happen to a town or I place. engaged In the liquor business : the saloon-keeper above described ; August Hent- schel, wholesale dealer in higer beer ; Gottlieb lleni^cliel, saloon at 4 Business, sales to the workingmen, las compared with sales to men for cash than you did under Prohibition — in other word:?, have your credit sales to this class of the same class of peoplelpeople proportionately dc- ' under Prohibition ? If eo, creased or increased ? and which? and to what ex- to what extent ? tent? 34 Pbicb & YoBTVR— Shoes. 85 Prior, G. 8.— Groceries. We found it easier du Prohibition to sell goods than now. My trade confined mostly My opinion is that the to customers whom pren- 1 working class spend some ence of whiskey does, less with me than during not affect. Prohibition. 88 Bridoer, J. C. — Coal A slight decrease. , Credit sales increased. Merchant. I 87 Bagsdale, I. N.— G^rocer- My trade not as good as; More demand for credit ies and Provisions. under Prohibition. than when had no whis- I key. Sales decreased very per- Risky to sell on credit to a ceptibly from the first! workingman who drinks. Saturday night I Have been unable to dis- cern any effect on our business. | Perceptible decrease cash The largest number are now 88 Rice, R J.— Grocer. 39 Richards, S P., & Son —Books, Stationery and Music. 40 Redus, R. R.— Wholesale Fruits and Fish. sales to workingmen j since defeat of Prohibi- tion. less worthy of credit. 41 Reese, n. 0.— (?roaT.... My sales slightly decreased- Sell less for cash, sales increased. 42 Rtan's Sons, John— WhjolesaU, JfetaU Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes. 4.3 Sawtell, T. R.— Whole- sale, Retail Butcher. 44 Thornton & Orttbb— Books and Stationery. 45 Trkadwell, Charles— Furniture Dealer. 49 Vaughan, C. J.—Bxloov. Have noticed no change. Noticed one-third oft in sales. time .\bout the same. Cash sales decreased one- third. My PAI.E8 TO woriuno-;Thet do not ask for MEN HAVE INCREASED. CREDIT, BUT PAT AS THEY OO. 47 WlLsox, R W. — C^n/VNot much difference, if Credit pnlc«nro just ns pood Furnishing and l>ry\ any ; return of bar-rooms, as under Prohibition. Ocods. I in my favor. I ATLANTA. 307 NESS MEN OF ATLANTA— Con/inued 8. Do yoa notice that it ie easier or harder now to make collection? in At- lanta than it was under Prohibition? In other words, does the number of " bad debts" have a ten- dency to increase or de- crease f Do not notice any particu- lar diflfereme ; 'my house not in neighborhood working people. Bad debts have increased. Think bad debts have in- creased. Harder to collect ; men who paid under Prohibi- tion now do not pay at all. 4. Do you find the work ing people now purchasing generally a cheaper or a better class of goods than under I*rohibiLion * If so, give some examples of what they buy now com- pared with formerly. 6. In your opinion would it or would it not be a ben- efit to business generally if the money now spent in the saloons should be spent for clothing, fuel, furni- ture, etc., and the other comforts and necessaries of life ? About the same class of goods. Don't notice any diflfer- ence. Cheaper in mv line ; now want the cheapest, for- merly the best. Nearly same, but in less amounts. They buy nothing but the barest necessaries. Collections much harder to Am not Informed, make ; prettv fair in- crease " bad debts." Harder now to collect ; great many cases impos- sible. Have noticed no change. Harder to make collec- tions ; debts increase. I FIND IT EASIER TO COL- LECT Ur RKNTS NOW THAN DURING PROHIBI- TION. Think collections Iwtter ; .\tlanta never more pros- perojis. I see no change. See no change. Purchase cheaper goods, soft wood instead of wal- nut. Cannot bat as to rrn- NITl'RK.BL'T PROM WHAT I SEE THEY BUY BETTER goods NOW. Buy as good goods* and as many as under Prohibi- tion. If Prohibition had been con- S4 tinued long enough it would have been a de- cided benefit to business. Of course ; it could not 85 possibly be otherwise. Be great benefit to have 86 money diverted from saloons. Business would be gen- 87 erally better. Would increase business 88 one-third. Such would certainly be 89 the case in this city as in any other. Undoubtedlv ; alarming In- 40 crease of levies and sale of working people's ef- fects over Pronibitjon period. Would be extremely bene- 41 flcial. Prohibition campaign most 42 injurious, disgusting pro- ceeding launched on suf- fering public, paralyzing business, estranging friends. It would ; whiskey was 4Ji sold so close to Atlanta that all who wished could send for it. Yes! Yes 1 ! Ycsl! 144 Ye*« 1 ! ! I Yes, better State by $2,-45 000,000. I THINK NOT. DoH'T 46 THINK rAMILY IN CITT BUrFERS PROM HUS- BAND'S DRINKINO. It would If they would pur- 47 cb.isc g(Kxl8 with money. 308 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. SUMMARY OF PRECEDING TABLE. Question I. — Have you noticed since the return of the open bar-rooms to Atlanta any increase or decrease in the average amount of your sales to workingmen, as compared with sales to the same class of people under Prohibition ? If so, which, and to what extent ? Forty replies (excluding 2 saloon-keepers, whose sales are much greater), of which 26 report a decided decrease ; 4 report that their trade is not with the workingmen ; 6 see no difference ; 3, that business is better ; 1, increase in some lines of business, decrease in others. Question II. — Do you sell more or less on an average to workingmen for cash than you did under Prohibition ? In other words, have your credit sales to that class of people proportionately decreased or increased, and to what extent ? Thirty-seven replies (excluding 2 saloon-keepers, who sell more for cash), of which 27 reply that there are less sales for cash and a greater demand for credit ; 6 report no change ; 1 does not credit ; 1 cannot tell ; 1 does not sell to workingmen ; 1 gives an evasive answer. Question III. — Do you notice that it is easier or harder now to make collections in Atlanta than it was under Prohibition ? In other words, does the number of *' bad debts" have a tendency to increase or decrease ? Thirty-four replies (excluding 2 saloon-keepers, whose collections are much better), of which 26 report that collections are harder or " bad debts" are increasing ; 5 notice no difference ; 1 cannot say ; 1, * bad debts" decreasing under pressure ; 1, collections better. Question IV. — Do you find the working people now purchasing generally a cheaper or better class of goods than under Prohibition ? Thirty-eight replies (exclnsive of 2 saloon-keepers, who And that better goods are purchaned), of which 17 reply that cheaper goods ATLANTA. 809 are pnrchaRed ; 20 notice no difference, except that some find a less quantity is j)urchaHed ; 1, " Onr trade never better." Question V. — In your opinion, would it or would it not be a benefit to business generally if the money now spent in the saloons should be spent for clothing, fuel, furniture, etc., and the other comforts and necessaries of life ? Forty-four replies (exclusive of 2 saloon-keepers), of which 38 reply affirmatively; 1, "Prohibition cannot be enforced;" 1 "thinks saloons best;" 1, "Saloons but as other mediums of circulation;" 1, •' We are Anti -Prohibition folks ;" 1, ♦* It will never be ;" 1, "Pro- hibition campaign injurious. " The answers to Question V are a sufficient explanation for the results set forth in the table. Much of the money that went during the Prohibition period to the retail merchants for food, clothing, furniture, and other necessaries of life is now worse than wasted in the High License saloons. TESTIMONY OF THE MERCHANTS AS TO THE EFFECTS OF HIGH LICENSE. The following are samples of the replies received from the business men of Atlanta : THEY don't BT7Y BY THE HALF -TON NOW. H. T. Htiff, coal and wood dealer : ** When the bars were closed in Atlanta the workingmen used to come and buy from me by the half-ton ; now they buy only twenty-five and fifty cents worth at a time. I sell less for canh to workingmen than I did during Prohibi- tion, and I find that it won't do to give credit at all. It is harder now than it was under Prohibition to make collections from the class of people who spend their money at the bars. Among this class it is now the practice to buy the cheapest articles they can get, whereas they used to buy the best while we had Prohibition. I think Prohibition is the best thing that can ever happen to a town or place." 310 ECOI^^OMICS OF PROHIBITION. J. C. Daniel, boots and shoes : •• I have noticed a decrease in the average amount of sales to workingmen since the legalized bar-rooms returned. It is difficult to state the extent of the decrease, but I should say about one-half. I sell less to workingmen for cash, and the demand for credit has greatly increased. It is much harder to make collections. Bad debts increase rapidly, although I am much more cautious now than I was during the reign of Prohibition. Cheaper goods are purchased now. The working people buy shoes now worth from $1 to $1.50, whereas during Prohibition they bought shoes costing from $2 to $2 50 and frequently $3. Most emphati- cally, I think it would be a benefit to business generally if the money now spent in saloons were spent for the necessaries of life. I am a Prohibitionist, but I have not put my answer too strong. I am also a Democrat and belong to the Solid South." SAIiZS TO WORKINGMEN FIFTY PER CENT. LESS. W. E. Johnson, fresh and smoked meats : " There has been a very decided decrease in my sales to workingmen since the Prohibitory law was done away with — almost or quite 50 per cent. I sell less for cash and could sell more for credit, but I know that the working classes can't pay now as they did under Prohibition. I know from experience. It is much harder to collect money now — almost im- possible to collect from those workingmen who visit barrooms. As a general thing, these classes bought better meats under Prohibition than they buy now, and much more liberally ; they purchased the best then, but now they want the cheapest they can get. Prohibition would be of incalculable benefit to all lines of business except the whiskey trade. I know this because we have experienced it and know the good it did us." W. J. Gramling, dry goods : •• The decrease in my sales to work- ingmen since the return of the open bar-rooms is, I think, about 20 per cent. We refuse credit now more than we did during Prohibi- tion. The working people buy cheaper grades of goods ; for in- stance, under Prohibition they bought hosiery worth twenty-five cents, and now they want ten and fifteen-cent hosiery ; for flannels they would pay thirty-five to fifty cents, but now they pay twenty to thirty centu ; they used to buy shoes worth $1 50 to $2, but now they give only $1 to $1.50. It would be a good thing to throw the money now spent in the saloons into other lines of trade, if that could be arranged ; for the people spend money for whiskey when ATLANTA. 311 not able to do so, and hence their families have to do without the comforts of life." THE BAB-BOOMS HURT HIM " VEBY SEBI0U8LT." John E. Evins, dealer in furniture : " When the bar-rooms returned I felt the result very seriously by a falling off of trade, and especially of collections. My trade is good and has been on the increase from the beginning of my business. I sell almost altogether on the instal- ment plan. There is less disposition and less ability to pay now than there was during Prohibition. It is much harder to collect now than it was during Prohibition. "When the bar-rooms returned my collections fell off fully 25 per cent. There has been one continuous demand for cheaper goods ever since the bar-rooms returned. I am selling on an average about 25 per cent, cheaper than formerly. It would surely be a great benefit to the entire community if the money now spent in saloons were properly spent for the necessaries of life." C. H. Burge, retail grocer : " I find a decrease of sales— especially to the working classes — as compared with sales during Prohibition. My cash trade has fallen off 25 per cent., and my credit trade has increased about that much. It is much harder to make collections now than it was during Prohibition — much harder. The working- men now get a cheaper class of goods ; indeed, they now want the cheapest every time. In my opinion, our cash sales would increase tenfold if the bar-rooms were closed. The money that was formerly spent for groceries now goes for whiskey." THE OBeXtEST evil ATLAKTA EVEB HAD. T. J. Buchanan, family groceries : " Yes, there has been a de- crease of sales to workingmen since the bar-rooms came back— about 25 per cent. I sell less for cash to these classes now, and the extent of the falling off is considerable. It is much harder to make collec- tions now. A great many who formerly spent their money for pro- visions now buy on time and spend their money in the bar rooms and leave their grocery bills unpaid. As to the class of goods bought I notice no marked difference. Most undoubtedly it would be of advantage to business generally if the money now spent in the saloons were spent for the comforts and necessaries of life. The re- opening of the bar-rooms in our city is the greatest evil that ever befel it." D. J. Baker, general merchandise : "I have noticed a decrease in my trade with working people since Prohibition oeH8<»d — I suppose 312 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. about 20 per cent. I sell less for cash by 50 per cent. In my trade I find it much harder to make collections, I cannot say that there have been any cheaper goods used in my business, for I don't handle any cheap goods or shoddy stufE. I know that money spent for liquor is a blank— a complete loss to women and children who need it. I can't express my opinion strong enough on this subject." THE FIBST SATUBDAY NIGHT OP LICENSE. B. C. Brooks & Brother, furniture : " We can truthfully say that on the first Saturday night after the return of the bar-rooms our sales showed a decrease of $28, and that our sales to working people have fallen off about one-half. Our cash sales to workingmen are only about one-fourth what they were under the Prohibitory law. "We used to collect from $75 to $100 per week, but now we can get only $25 to |40, and it is very hard work to get that. The working classes now buy the cheapest goods, mostly second-hand." J. W. Brooks & Co., retail grocers : "I have experienced a con- siderably decreased trade since Prohibition went out— at least 20 per cent. I sell 50 per cent, less for cash than I did under Prohibi- tion. Collections from the laboring class do not show near so good as they did during Prohibition. I can cheerfully answer from per- sonal experience that it would undoubtedly be better for business if the money now spent in saloons were spent for the comforts and necessaries of life." BAD DEBTS HAVE INCBEASXD. J. H. Kimbrell, Sr, &. Co., dry goods and clothing : *« Our trade with the working classes is at least 20 per cent, smaller since the re- turn of bar-rooms. The demand for credit is much greater. Men who were perfectly responsible when we had no bar-rooms will not pay at all now. It is much harder to make collections, and bad debts have increased. The demand for cheaper goods has increased. This does not apply altogether to working people, but the same is true to some extent of all conditions and professions. It would be much better for business if there were no money spent in saloons. Let me give you an illustration : On Decatur Street there are twenty two bar rooms paying 11, 000 license and two beer saloons paying $100 license ; add house rents for these places, clerk hire, cost of fixtures, and cost of goods, and an enormous amount of money is represented, for which the consumer getn nothing in retam." ATLANTA. 818 "a thousand TlMl.S IJKTTER." John Neal, fomiture : "There htm been a decrease in my sales of say about one-third to the working people since Ihe bar-rooms came back. We sell less to them for cash, and credit has decreased largely. It is much harder to make collections, and bad debts in- crease in consequence. The working people are purchasing cheaper goods ; they buy imitation goods instead of the genuine. It would be a thousand times better for the trade if the money spent in saloons were spent for comforts and necessaries." ALL THE ANSWERS GIVEN, BOTH FAVORABLE AND UNFAVOR- ABLE TO PROHIBITION. Many more letters containing testimony similar to the above might be given.. All the answers received from the forty-seven business men replying, whether favorable or unfavorable to Pro- hibition, have been given in the foregoing table, and may be summarized in the following general statements : 1. That sales of goods to workingmen have greatly de- creased when compared with the Prohibition period ; 2. That the proportion of credit sales has greatly in- creased, less being bought for cash ; 3. That under High License ** bad debts" have in- creased and collections are harder to make than they were during Prohibition ; and 4. That business men are selling a cheaper class of goods and taking in less cash than they did in Prohibi- tion days. The testimony of these replies is overwhelmingly to the effect tliat the returning saloons under High License have injured business in Atlanta and rendered woree the condition of the poor. It would be difficult to find a fairer test, and the conclusion is inevital)le that, leav- ing moral and humanitarian considerations wholly out of 314 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. account, merely as a matter of profit and loss, High License as compared with Prohibition is an unqualified financial curse, blunder, and disaster. And this testimony of injury to business and decreased personal prosperity comes during a period of great general prosperity (1889) in the nation at large, and while Atlanta herself is increasing in population and enterprise. CHAPTER XVIII. THE NEW LANDS. " What beings fill those bright abodes? How formed, how gifted ? What their powers, their state ? ««***« >• Has War trod o'er them with his foot of fire ? And Slavery forged his chains, and Wrath and Hate, And sordid Selfishness and cruel Lust Leagued their base bands to tread out light and truth. And scatter woe, where Heaven had planted joy ? Or are they yet all Paradise, unfallen And uncorrupt ? existence one long joy. Without disease upon the frame or sin Upon the heart, or weariness of life ?" * — Henry ITore, Jr. Both Dakotasfor Prohibition give us a light of hope. Numerous Iowa men have settled there and given their influence for the system they left in their own State. The new laws seem to be stringent, and should succeed, if men, good, true, and brave, stand firmly by them. The young States have done nobly. Just when older States at the East had voted down Prohibition, and the Liquor Traflfic, flushed with victory, concentrated upon them, with menaces in one hand and bribes in the other, those stanch pioneers resisted both and voted out the saloon from their borders. It is too soon for statis- tics, but it is beautiful to think what a civilization may be which is built up from the beginning without the saloon. 310 ECOXOMICS OF PROillBlTION. Oklahoma has, however, given a practical illustration of the worth of Prohibition which there is no gainsaying. Major J. A. Pickler, one of the Congressmen from South Dakota, made the following statement in Wash- ington, D. C. : "I was in Oklahoma for two months during the opening of the Territory, as an agent of the Interior Department. Fifty thousand people came into Oklahoma within twenty-four hours, all strangers to each other, as many as a dozen men claiming one town lot on which they had squatted, and four or five claiming the same tract of land. With no laws to govern this'people except the general laws of the United States, without a governor, sheriff, or constable, we had perfect peace and order, with no bloodshed whatever for six montns. I, as did all thinking men, attributed it to the Prohibition by the Government of any liquor being brought into the Territory. This is a complete demonstration that the National Government can thoroughly and successfully enforce Prohibition. I have no doubt but that it could enforce it in the District of Columbia or any place. " When yon get the United States Government to take hold of the liquor traffic," added Congressman Pickler, " the traflic's life will be short." Oklahoma is under the laws of the Indian Territory, which are strictly prohibitory. The United States otHcers examine suspected baggage for liquor, even searching grip-sacks for the contraband article, and throwing out and smashing any bottles of liquor they find. The Chicago Lever contains the following : St. Louis, Mo., August 12, 1889 {Special Correspondence).— The Lever correspondent has just returned from an extensive trip through the great Prohibition State of Kansas and the Prohibition Territory of Oklahoma, and is more firmly convinced than ever that the United States Government should be the party to take up the cudgel and wield it the same in the States as it does in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma, where Uncle Sam has sole jurisdiction of affairs. This national idea is very plainly demonstrated in the new promised and possessed land of Oklahoma, and the Lever representative saw United States regulars go through the grips on the cars at Oklahoma City, THE XEW LANDS. 317 before the passengers were allowed to leave the train, and several bottles were broken by being thrown oat of the windows. There had been evidences that liquor was being smuggled into the city in that manner, and the officers took i i the situation at once. This process is SO effectual that the liquor sympathizers in Congress, in the bill giving Oklahoma a territorial gov- ernment, made a crafty attempt to nullify Prohibition by tlie following provision : " Section 7. —That the general statutes of Nebraska, which are not locally inapplicable or in conflict with this act, or in conflict with any law of the United States, are hereby extended to and put in force in the Territory of Oklahoma until after the adjournment of the first session of the Legislative Assembly of said Territory." This, of couree, would have given over the new Terri- tory to High License. To Major Pickler belongs the honor of pointing out and attacking this insidious pro- vision. In a speech on the Oklahoma bill, printed in The Con- gressional Record for March 4rth, he said : "The Government of the United States has refused to allow the sale of intoxicating liquors in the Territory of Oklahoma. And wisely, Mr. Speaker, did the Government refuse to allow the ship- ment of intoxicating liquors into this Territory. In my judgment, had liquor been allowed to be sold in Ihat Territory during the settlement, no such record of order and bloodless history of occu- pancy would have been known as has become the history of Okla- homa. "It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that daring the coming contests concerning the organization of counties, the locations of county seats, the selection of the capital of the Territory, the election of officers, and, more than all, the exciting contests concerning the ownership of the lands and town lots of (his Territory, wherein one man will be dispossessed and the title declared in another, and in the many other exciting scenes and contests that must ensne in the organization of this Territory, it would be far better that the Con- gress of the United States should continue the policy heretofore pur 318 ECONOiMICS OF PKOHIBITION. sued by the General Government of preventing the sale of intoxi- cating liquors in this Territory until they are organized and have themselves legislated upon this question. "As I understand it, under the laws of Nebraska, "which under this bill govern this people, and to which I object, upon the petition of thirty freeholders a license is granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors. Under this law from three hundred to five hundred saloons will be opened in Oklahoma in a remarkably short time after the passage of this act. " Mr. Speaker, in the interest of a peaceable organization of that Territory, in the interest of the harmony and good name of this people, who are a grand people, and for whom, after months of inti- mate intercourse with them, I have the highest respect and regard, I do not believe Congress should permit this great promoter of dis- cord to be brought among them, " Why not substitute the laws of Kansas instead of Nebraska? I believe one-fourth of the people in that Territory were former resi- dents of Kansas ; they are acquainted with the laws of Kansas, and the administration of Kansas laws, and the procedure in Kansas courts. Mr. Speaker, they have acted largely under Kansas laws in their proceedings so far in this Territory. The city of Oklahoma adopted the laws of Kansas in its organization. " This Territory is in the jurisdiction of the courts of Kansas, the United States Marshals ordered to that Territory to preserve the peace are Kansas officers, and they are the officers who now are in this Territory preserving order. Prisoners arrested therein are sent to Kansas for trial, and from every standpoint it seems to me Kansas laws should be the ones for the present government of this people, and under these laws the sale of intoxicating liquors would be pro- hibited. And I know it is the desire of the people of that Territory that Congress should protect them in this regard as the Government has in the past." Subsequently Major Pickler said, in sin interview : •• I CAJffNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND HOW THESE CAN BE ANT OPPOSITION TO LETTING THOSE PEOPLE LIVE IN PEACE, AS THEY HAVE DONE EVEN WITH- OHT LAWS. The fact is, the American people don't seem to need LAWS POR THE PRESERVATION OF OOOD ORDER EXCEPT WHERE THERE IH WHISKEY.'* The House of Representatives, on March 13th, 1889. THE NEW LANDS. .'U 9 amended the bill by a vote of 134 to 104, extending the provisions of Section 2,139 (proliibiting the introduction of intoxicating L'quors into Indian Teiritory) to the Terri- tory of Okhihoma. So there is good hope that the new Territory may never know the curoo of the saloon. Let ua rejoice that Congress has decided to treat white men ns well as it does the Indian. Whatever the future may develop, however, be this remembered to the lasting honor of Prohibition, that fifty thousand men racing into the wilderness, with fierce contentions for title to lands, with not a magistrate among them, were able to settle all without bloodshed or life lost, because they had not a saloon. CHAPTER XIX. THE LABORING MEN. "The labor problem is, after all, only the people's problem." — J. Lloyd Thomas, in " Liquor's War on Labor's Rights." * ' The use of liquor and its influences have done more to darken labor's homes, dwarf its energies, and chain it hand and foot to the wheels of corporate oppression than all other influences combined." — R. F. T\-evellick, President of National Labor Union and Eight Hour League." " When confidence is general, and there is a good prospect that business will run smoothly and profitably, manufacturers begin to enlarge operations, and employers of every kind want more h'elp, and they have to bid up to get it ; that would be a natural rise. Such would have been the case at the present time, without doubt, had quiet prevailed ; but strikes, turbulence, and boycotts have destroyed confidence, and now a very dull period seems certain. Another illus- tration o( • killing the goose that lays the golden egg.' Apparent victories by either capital or labor, when guined by artificial press ure, will not be permanent." — ''Common Sense on Libor," by Cupples, Uplawn & Co. The best definition of republican government ever given was that of Lincoln, in his immortal speech at Gettysburg, ** Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." The laboring men, the working classes, form the vast majority of every people. Their interest is the interest of us all. Every statesman, every theologian, every republican, every patriot, must find the welfare of the laboring classes a matter of absorbing interest and of transcendent im- TllK LABORING MKN. 321 portanco. What does the liquor traffic do for them ? One answer springs to every one's lips: "It brings them misfortune. It's a cnrse to them." But in order to deal with the matter adequately, we niuFt go some- what into the particulars of the curse. How much do our laboring men spend for liquor ? Dr. Dorchester, " Liquor Problem," p. 072, estimates t.''' THE LABORING MEN. 835 ** Have you any children ?" **No." '' Do you drink ?" ** Not mucli ; only beer, and I buy that by the quart, so I get it cheaper than by tlie glass. " " How much do you use a day ?" " You see that pail ? Well, I get that full twice each day, and it costs me twenty- five cents a pail. It don't amount to much." '' Do you get your pail filled on Sunday ?" *' Yes, just the same as week days." ** Now, if you will multiply 305, the immber of days in a year, by fifty cents, you will see that it does amount to something. It amounts to $182.50." *' Well, that is so. I never reckoned it up be- fore." " Do you use tobacco ?" " Yes, smoke and chew both. I get my box filled every morning, which costs five cents, and smoke three five-cent cigars a day. I wonder how much that amounts to?" '* We can soon tell. It is 365 multiplied by 20, the amount spent each day, and it amounts to $73 a year." '' Then both amount to $255 ?" ** Yes, sir, you are correct. Is there any other habit you indulge V* *^ I don't know whether you would call it a habit, but I never work on Saturday. I take that as a holiday." '* How do you celebrate your holiday ?" *^ Well, I might just as well make a clean breast of the whole matter : I generally sit in the bar-rooms ; play now and then a game of * Pedro ' for the beer to * amuse the boys. ' ' ' 326 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ^^ How much do you think 'amusing the boys ' costs you every Saturday ?" '^ Oh, half a dollar I guess would cover it." ** Did you know it cost you $3 each Saturday instead of fifty cents ?" ^' No, I can't see it so." ** Let me show you. If you should work every Satur- day you would earn $2.50 ; you would have this amount Saturday night in your pocket. Now if you don't work you are short $2.50. Not only that, but the ilfty cents you spend to ' amuse the boys ' coming out of Friday's wages. Do you see it ? '' Now we will sum up the whole business : For beer, one year $182.50 For tobacco " 73.00 For lost time " 131.00 For ' amusing the boys,' one year. 26.00 Total $412. 50 ** If you had saved this sum every year and put it in a savings bank at six per cent, interest, how much would you have now, do you suppose ?" *' I have no idea ; I can now see why Mr. D. has laid up money, for he neither drinks, uses tobacco, nor plays cards. He works every day. Will you figure it out, Burdick ? I am anxious to know just how big a fool I have been." I had done all the figuring on a pine board in the shop. lie stood looking over my shoulder all the time, muttering to himself. The amount astonished him. li amounted to $9,676.07 — enough to astonish any man. He said, '' Bring out your pledge, put it all in, liquor, tobacco, and c^rds ! I want the whole or none. Almost THE LABORING MEN. 827 $10,000 I have squandered, and never dreamed 1 was the only one to blame." He had the pine board framed and hung up over his work bench. He shows it to every one who comes in, and asks them, '* How is it with you V There are thousands of men who are thoughtless and careless in regard to their interest, and then curse '*ill luck," '* fate," etc., where no one is blameable but themselves. « What the actual cost of drink is to men who are not *' moderate" may be seen by the following estimate from the New York World of February 24th, 1890, giving the expense of what it calls a " jag" on Washing- ton's Birthday ; " Every hotel bar, every club, every saloon was filled all day with those who came to moisten their claj' and were in no hurry to quit such pleasant work. Let us look at the cost of a modest Wall Street man's two- day celebration : Washington's bibthday. Wine at luncheon $1 75 Wine at dinner 5 00 Cordials 50 Nips, bracers, cocktails, refreshers, occasional moisteners and sundries before dinner 7 00 Things to drink before bedtime 15 00 SUNDAY. Bs and Ss 1 00 Revivers, headache-chasers, antipyretics, fog- killers, and brain-dusters 3 25 Wine at meals 3 00 Sober second thought before bedtime 75 Total $37 25 " These figures are for only one man's drinking. Wall Street men pay more for their jags than club men. A clerk on say $8 a week would pay for his two days' jag about this way : 328 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Washington's bibthday. Treating, five rounds, say five men each time $2 75 SUNDAY. Working the growler 50 Total $3 25 " The poor mechanio who has a large family to support and feels the necessity of cheering up a bit in honor of G. W,, chases the duck, hunts the fox, flies the pigeon, and works the growler at intervals during Saturday and Sunday. It cost* ten cents to fill the can, and it makes probably ten trips on Saturday and six on Sunday, so his jag costs only $1.60 for two days. Poor men can't aflEord cock- tails next morning. Possibly the broker and the club man add to the cost of their two days' moisture by three brandies and sodas at $1.50 this morning. At all events, the figures given above are modest and cheap for a two divys* jag." That $1.60 from the ^' poor mechanic's" meagre wages means untold misery to the ** large family" sore- ly needing every cent. Laboring men who do not drink should know that every drinking man cheapens the labor of all other men. In the intervals of his sprees he can do for many years almost as good work as a sober man. No employer, liowever, really wants him, because '* there is no depen- dence to be placed on him." Tie has one obvious re- source. He must live ; something is better than noth- ing ; he will sell his labor for what he can get— perhaps two-thirds, perhaps half what would otherwise be its market price. When there are many such men afloat in the community, they bring down the whole price of labor in that community. The sober man asks for rea- sonable wages. The employer answers, '* I can get plenty of men to do the work for half that money." Toll him they will not be steady, and he answers, THE I.AHOUINti MKN. 'A^i^ " "When they fall out, there are plenty more to step in." So the sober inan, by no fault of his own, finds his wages cut down nearly, if not quite, to the drinker's level. His chief advantage is that he spends what he does get better. But he does not get what ho would if this low-priced labor were out of the market. The drinker, with his recklessness of family and the future, and his spending to the last cent, is a slave. He nmst take what he can get, and with such treatment as hap- pens to come along with it. The market is full of this slave labor, and sober workmen suffer in consequence, as free labor always suffers where shive labor prevails. From the moment a man owns a house and lot or has money in the savings-bank he becomes more than a mere laborer ; he is a capitalist. He experiences the comfort of poor Richard's quaint saying : '* Now that I have a cow and pig every one bids me good -morrow.'' It is not only better for him but for the country. The man who owns something has a stake in the welfare of society and the maintenance of public order. A reporter for the Cleveland Leader spent a day inter- viewing Socialist agitators. He found that one of their leaders had given up his connection with them and had not attended their meetings for over two months. *' Why did you leave them?" was asked of him. " Well, it cost me too much money, and I couldn't afford it. I had to associate with our members and look after them. They usually stay in saloons, and every time 1 entered one it cost me ten cents or a quarter. The men frequent saloons because they have no place eke to go. They go there and talk over their griev- ances." Note the fact, which is universal in Chicago and New York as well, that the Communists and An- 330 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. archists ^' usually stay in saloons ;" that every man who enters is expected to drink at a cost of '* from ten cents to a quarter ;" that ** they go there and talk over their grievances' ' while swallowing down, at the rate of a square rod for every drink, the means which might make every one of them a capitalist, with no special *' griev- ances" to talk about. So far from its being the fact that ^* they go there (to the saloons) because they have nowhere else to go," the real fact is, that they have nowhere else to go because they go there. It is interest- ing to note where this man, who '' could not afford " to be an Anarchist, lived. *' He led the way to the sitting-room, a cosey, well- furnished apartment, and invited the reporter to a seat in an easy-chair beside a burnished base-burner. The reporter was somewhat surprised to find a Socialist in such pleasant environments. The wife was entertaining a group of young friends in an adjoining room, and several bright-faced little children were playing about the premises." Ah, yes. He *' couldn't afford it." But if he had just kept on affording it, he would have swallowed his base-burner and easy-chair and the rest of the pretty things. His wife and children would have been *' bright- faced' ' no longer. They would have moved into some mean dwelling, and he would have gone to the saloon ** because he had nowhere else to go," and *' discussed his grievances," because they would have been all he had left. Or look at it in another way. The man who spends all his earnings is constantly on the verge of pauperism. Let us not be liard on those who have to do it— the min- ister who must keep up the state of a professional man THE LABORIKQ HEN. 331 on the pay of a day laborer, the young clerk whose last cent is needed to support a widowed mother and younger children. Such cases are occasion for sympathy and re- gret. But the voluntary wiisting of a surplus is matter for downriofht condemnation. If such a man jams his hand, or sprains his ankle, or has an attack of sickness, at once he begins to run in debt. If he has been given to other extravagances, he may retrench, pay his debts, and get square with society again. But if his extravagance has been drink, in that he will never retrench ; but the more ^* blue" his circum- stances, the darker his prospects, the more he will drink, as long as there is anything to buy the drink with.- So, y on the first inroad of misfortune the drinking man goes down a step in the ladder over which there is no return. When liquor once downs a man it always iighteiia its (jrijp. The use of his surplus for drink is one of the most (/ supremely selfish things a man can do. It is to deny his family everything but bare subsistence. No self- reapectful woman would marry him if he were to say at the outeet : '^ I will furnish you lodging, food, clothing, and fire, and I expect to drink up the rest. " Yet that is exactly the status to which the wife of many a mod- erate drinker finds herself reduced, while no one thinks of the family as destitute or suffering, or of the husband as intemperate. Every last atom of margin goes to the saloon. The*^^ man is cross at being a^ed for an extra penny for home, because he needs it all for the drinks which he don't know how to live without. The very man who has the reputation — in the saloon — of " such a generous fellow," ** so good-hearted," will be snippish and savage if his wife 332 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. asks him for twenty-tive cents, because his '^ good heart" has led him to spend that on himself and '^ the good fellows" who drink with him. Then if she isn't cheer- ful, he is pitied — "such a good fellow," and " such a gloomy, melancholy wife." Let him take his hundred dollars of drink-money and spend it in being " a good fellow" to her for a spell, and see whether she'll be gloomy. He can get as bright a smile as ever he had in the days of their courtship, if he thinks it worth more than to be slapped on the back by a coarse man whose beer he has just paid for. Do you say this is moonshine ? Well, lovers are fond of moonshine, and in happy homes they never quite out- grow it. Try a little moonshine. Bring all your week's wages home, and then ask your wife to walk down street with you and buy what she most wants, and as you catch glimpses of her face in light and shadow on the way, see if moonshine isn't beautiful. In my own experience of reform work, where some hundreds of men have been induced to sign the pledge and reform — for a while, at least — the change in the men was not more striking than the brightness, cheer, and youthfulness that dawned upon the faces of mothers and sisters, daughters and wives. A young father, just as he was going out in the even- ing, was met by his little daughter, begging, " Oh papa, won't you buy me one of those pretty hoops for half a dollar ? All the girls have them, and they are so nice." *' Half a dollar for a hoop I" he answered. *' You must think I'm made of money. No, indeed ; 1 can't afford it." The little one began to cry, " Oh papa, if you only could ! 1 want it bo much, and all the girls have them." *' Well, I can't help that. Fve no money for such things. Get a hoop off that old barrel in the back yard. That will bo just as good." And he lit a cigar and walked off down street. Ho went into a nice respectable billiard-room, with saloon attachment, of course. A number of pleasant acquaint- ances were there. He played several games, with the odds rather against him, and had the liquor and cigars to pay for, amounting to a dollar and a quarter. He paid it with smiling good-nature, 'Mike a man," and walked back home in the pleasant summer evening. Near his home he overtook a crying child. It was his little Grace sideling against the wall. The other children had all made fun of her '* old hoop," and she was steal- ing home broken-hearted, trying to hide it from observa-' tion. The man had not drank enough to deaden his finer feelings. It came to him with a sharp pang that he had spent on his own pleasure more than twice the money he had just denied his loved little daughter, and sent her out disappointed to be sneered at, crushed and ostracized in her little world. He caught her up in his arms, flung the old barrel hoop to the middle of the street. *' It's not too late yet," he said ; *' come and show me where they keep those hoops, and yon shall have the nicest one there is in the store." *' Oh papa, can you ? Do you have the money now ?" ^\ Yes," he said ; " I have the money now." The little one went to bed happy, but it was long be- fore the father slept. That tear-stained face and shrink- ing figure kept coming before him, and he saw how in a thousand ways his *' I can't afford it" to his dear ones had simply meant '* I want it for my own self-indul- gence." The sharp regret made him a temperance man. 'J34 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. Since writing the above, we have come upon the fol- lowing incident, which the Philadelphia Methodist vouches for as *' a true story." *^ Papa, will you please give me lifty cents for my spring hat \ 'Most all the academy girls have theirs." ** No, May ; I can't spare the money." The above request was persuasively made by a sixteen- year-old maiden as she was preparing for school one fine spring morning. The refusal came from the parent in a curt, indifferent tone. The disappointed girl went to school. The father started for his place of business. On his way thither he met a friend, and, being hail fel- low well met, he invited him into Mac's for a drink. As usual, there were others there, and the man that could jiot spare his daughter fifty cents for a hat treated the crowd. When about to leave he laid a half-dollar on the coun- ter, which just paid for the drinks. Just then the saloon-keeper's daughter entered, and going behind the bar, said : ^* Papa, I want fifty cents for my spring hat." *' All right," said the dealer, and taking the half- dollar from the counter, he handed it over to the girl, who departed smiling. May's father seemed dazed, walked out alone, and said to himself : *^ I had to bring my fifty cents here for the rumseller's daughter to buy a hat with, after refusing it to my own daughter. I'll never drink another drop." And he kept his pledge. It is easy to see how a man who goes on hardening himself in this selfishness for years, denying his family all but bare subsistence for his own gratification, be- comes at length capable of denying them even that, THE LABOKINU MEX. XiFt when his drinking habits have reduced his income, and the drink has become a mightier need. Tiiis using the surplus for drink means tliat the wife and mother shall have no domestic help. Why, that hundred dollars would pay the wages of a girl at $2 a week, and save many a burdened woman from a broken constitution and perhaps from an early grave. If she could even hire an occasional day's work. But no, she must drag herself out weak and faint to do the family washing, while the husband genially swallows in five drinks of whiskey the money that would pay a strong woman for doing it. Fine, generous, good-hearted fellow ! The drink-money of the nation would employ — in the ^ proportion in which other money is spent — ninety-four thousand domestic servants and eleven thousand laun- dresses. Pretty hard for the mother who has been up all night with a sick baby, and then has to wash dishes, cook, sweep, dust, and mend all day, taking care of the baby and feeding it from her own breast besides. How some of that drink-money would lighten her burden I. Then those hundred thousand women who should bo employed in domestic work must crowd into the labor market among the men, bringing down wages by the irresistible laws of trade — a heavy economic loss. If the matrons of America were able to employ all the domestic help they really need, that would go far to solve the problem of the starvation wages of women workers. To spend all ho earns as fast as he earns it makes the laboring man perfectly helpless in a strike. The firsfc day that work stops destitution begins. Ten thousand men are ten thousand times worse off than one. If it was only the one, the ten thousand might scrimp a trifle 336 ECOXOMirs OV PKOinBITTOX. and support him. But when they all stop, they all begin to go down at once. The more men there are on a sinking ship the sooner it will go to tlie bottom. Hence, Mr. Powderly says : ^' Strong drink is the great- est enemy the laboring man has. The saloon and not capital has crushed every labor organization that has gone down heretofore, and there is no hope for the laboring man who persists in frequenting drinking places." It is noteworthy that the most successful strike iu many years is that of the dock laborers of London, whose leader, John Burns, is an ardent temperance man, and used all his powerful influence to keep the working- men temperate. The strike was disgraced by no act of violence, and the victory was absolute. They gained all they asked. If all this is true of the moderate drinker on handsome wages, what must be the case of the host who are not moderate and upon scanty wages ? They are the great majority. From them the liquor traffic derives its chief j^rofits. To sustain its invested capital, its vast establishments, and its present income, the liquor traffic needs drunkards ; not, indeed, those who have got where they can't earn, but those who can still work and earn, though they can neither drink mod- erately nor quit drinking. These are to the liquor traffic what cows are to the dairyman. The cows work all day eating the grass which the dairyman can't eat, and wouldn't if he could. Then they come in at night and deliver him the milk. These mechanics and laborers work all day, and then come and deliver the money to the saloon-keeper, who very likely couldn't do their work if he would, and certainly wouldn't if he could. It's easier to have them work and he get the money. THE LABORING MEN. 337 He has such a mastery over them as no Legree ever had over his slaves. lie needs no bloodhounds to keep them from nmning away. They see that ho is growing rich and tliey are growing poor, and they know it is their money that is doing it, but they bring it to him faithfully still. While each of them gets for hard work the wages of one man, the saloon-keeper without any work gets the wages of a hundred men. But there is no rebellion. It never oc- curs to one of them to say, *' I'll quit feeding this lazy scoundrel and keep my own money." No, indeed. The bronzed toiler sits down in the den of his lily- handed, iron-hearted master, hands over to him his wife's dinner, and his children's shoes, and the very rent money, which alone stands between him and the street, and talks grandly about his '* personal liberty." And the bar-keeper smiles upon him. No wonder ! Such an idea of *^ liberty" will be ranked in history as one of the most amazing delusions that ever gained power over the human ra'ce. Mr. Powderly, in a speech before the General Assem- bly of the Knights of Labor, said : ' ' The temperance qnestion is an important one, and I HometimeH think it is the main issue. The largo number of applications during the past year to grant dispensations to allow the initiation of rum- sellers was alarming. I have persistently refused them, and will en- join my successor, if he values the future success of the order, to shnt the door with triple bars against the admission of the liquor dealer. His path and that of the honest, industrious workingman lie in opposite directions. The rumseller who seeks admission into a labor society does so with the object that he may entice its mem- bers into his saloon after the meetings close. No qnestion of interest to labor has ever been satisfactorily settled over a bar in a mm hole. No labor society ever admitted a rnmseller that did not die a dmnk- jird's death. No workingman ever drank a glass of rnm who did not / 338 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. rob his family of the price of it, and in so doing committed a double crime, murder and theft. He murders the intellect with which the Maker hath endowed him. He steals from his family the means of sustenance he has earned for them. Turn to the annals of every dead labor society, and you will see whole pages blurred and de- stroyed by the accursed footprints of rum. Scan the records of a meeting at which a disturbance took place, and you will hear echoing through the hall the maudlin, fiendish grunt of the brute who dis- turbed the harmony of the meeting." In a circular since issued he uses these emphatic words : ♦* To our drinking members I extend the hand of kindness. I hate the uses to which rum has been put, but it is my duty to reach down and lift up the man who has fallen a victim to the use of liquor. If there is such a man within the sound of the secretary's voice when this is read, I ask him to stand erect on the floor of his Assembly, raise his hand to Heaven, and repeat with me these words : * I am a Knight of Labor. I believe that every man should be free from the curse of slavery, whether the slavery appears in the shape of mo- nopoly, usury, or intemperance. The firmest link in the chain of oppression is the one I forge when I drown manhood and reason in drink. No man can rob me of the brain my God has given me un- less I am a party to the theft. If I drink to drown grief, I bring grief to wife, child, and sorrowing friends. I add not one iota to the sum of human happiness when I invite oblivion over the rim of a glass. If one moment's forgetfulness or inattention to duty while drunk brings defeat to the least of labor's plans, a life-time of attention to duty alone can repair the loss. I promise never again to put myself in such a position. * If every member of the Knights of Labor would only pass a resolution to boycott strong drink so far as he is concerned for five years, and would pledge his word to study the labor question from its different standpoints, we would then have an invincible host arrayed on the side of justice." To his words, we may add those of another leader of workingraen, P. M. Arthur, Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, who says : "If I could, I would inaugurate a strike which would drive tUe liquor trafRc from the face of the earth." CHAPTER XX. THE BEST CUSTOMERS. •« There vras every element of trade prosperity present except the buying element, but, unfortunately, that element, instead of apply- ing itself to the purchase of the goods that filled the warehouses, wasted its resources at the public-house ; for instance, £24 per head (about $120) were spent yearly in drink, and but 8s. (about $2) on cotton goods, and so the people were in poverty and rags, and manu- facturers could find no market for their goods." — London Economist, 1876. If one man absorbs the wages of one hundred men, he does not give back to society their purchasing power. He can only wear one pair of shoes and one suit of clothes at one time. They must wear one hundred pairs and one hundred suits at the same time. He can only live in one house. They must have one hundred. He can only eat one man's rations. They, if they did not spend their money to fatten him, would eat one hundred times as much. If we allow the military rate of five women, children, and aged persons to every able-bodied man, saloon-keeper included, the disparity becomes still greater. It is then 500 to 5. That is, there will be 405 more pei-sons to spend the wage-money in the general market if none of it is spent in the saloon. It seems self-evident that more will be spent and more goods bought. " Ah, but," says some one, '* the saloon-keeper will buy a better quality." 340 ECONOMICS OF PROIIIBITIOX. True, and just here is one of the most amusing eco- nomic errors in the minds of sensible people. The present writer once applied to a furnishing goods dealer in behalf of a temperance paper. "Why," said the proprietor, 'Miquor men are my best customers. Just before you came in a saloon- keeper was here and bought four suits of silk underwear. I don't know a temperance man in town that would do that." ** No," we replied ; *' they don't have so much of other people's money to do it with." But, even so, was that a gain to trade ? Let us say the saloon man paid $16 a suit for his silk underwear. There was $64. Suppose one hundred of his customers had kept their money and bought what they needed. They wouldn't have bought silk, but red flannel at $2 for shirt and drawers, $4 for two suits. That is not much. John Doe would not get much genial courtesy from the store-keeper for a little matter like that. And if Mr. Grossbier came in to look at silk underwear, John might stand and fumble over the pile of red shirts till he was tired. But, all the same, John is the best buyer, because there are more of Iiim. One hundred workingmen for their red flannel suits will spend $400 against the saloon- keeper's $64 for silk. If the profit on the silk goods is 50 per cent, of the retail price, that will be $32. The profit on the woollens would be 25 per cent, of the selling price, or $100 on the two hundred suits. That is, there would be more than three times as much profit on the workingmen' s trade as on the saloon- keeper's in this single line. True, we must deduct something for clerk hire, for it will take more clerks to sell and handle the two hundred woollen suits than the THS BSST CUSTOMERS. 341 four silk ones. But that means employment for prom- ising young men and prosperity for the community. So it will take more drayage, more railroad transportation, etc., all which means employment and work for some- body, and it will take more than three hundred pounds of wool to make those two hundred suits, employing many more hands in factory, on farm, and all the way along the line. This is but one item. Suppose the same saloon-keeper gets him a custom-made suit for $35, and the workingmen only buy ready-made suits at $12 each. Still their purchases amount to $1,200 against his $35. Even if he indulges quite freely in changes of raiment, still he would hardly buy more than three suits to their one — if they kept their money to buy with. Even at that rate, their purchases would be more than ten times his. In the food market the difference is still more strik- ing. Bishop Vincent, in his spicy and beautiful ^' Home Book," p. 526, gives the following incident : "A coal miner in Pennsylvania quit work on a Saturday night, treated the boys at the saloon, went to the butcher's shop, and stood aside while the saloon-keeper bought a roast for Sunday's dinner and a sirloin steak for Monday's breakfast. The miner took two pounds of liver. The following Monday the miner made a speech to his fellow-miners, and they agreed to buy no beer for u week at the saloon. They kept their word. Next Saturday the miner went to the butcher's shop. The saloon-keeper came in, and the miner stood one side. The saloon-keeper said that, as businesH had been yery. dull, he would take liver for his Sunday dinner and Monday breakfast. The miners took roasts and steak. Which is the better for the butcher, the farmer, the merchant —one roast and forty livers, or one liver and forty roasts ?" The wife of the man who bought the silk underwear will buy a silk dress at, say, $30, with laces and trim- mings for perhaps ^20 more. How she will be waited 342 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. on ! The workingman's wife — when he don't drink — will buy a simple dress at twenty-five cents a yard. Her modest purchase will be, all told, about $5. Her custom is not worth much. But let the proces- sion in ! One hundred plain dresses— $500 against $30. Still the working classes are far ahead. Now let us take Dr. Hale's table and double all amounts for the prosperous saloon-keeper, allowing him to spend $2,000 where $1,000 is a fair average income. He will then spend for Groceries $590.40 Provisions 395.20 Fuel 86.00 Dry goods 40.00 Boots, shoes, and slippers 72.60 Clothing 206.40 Rent 394.80 Sundries 214.60 $2,000.00 Now let us take the one hundred workingmen. Many of them will not earn $1,000 a year. Some will earn more. A good stone-mason will earn $4: a day. Num- bers of machinists earn their $3 and $4 a day. But we will average the one hundred men at $2 a day for three hundred working days, or $60pfe*ch a year. They are quite ordinary people, you see, in very moderate circum- stances. But do you observe, they will have $60,000 to spend ? This, according to Dr. Hale's table, will be divided as follows : Groceries $17,1411 Provisions 11,866 Fuel 2,580 Dry goods 1.200 THE BEST CUSTOMERS. 343 Boots, shoes, and slippers. .^]^.^i-^ 2.178 Clotliing , 6,192 Kent 11.844 Sundries G.438 $60,000 That is, allowing the saloon-keeper to spend $2,000 where $1,1)00 is an average income, and allowing each laboring man to spend but $600 where $1,000 is an aver- age income, still one hundred workingmen are worth to trade as much more than one prosperous saloon-keeper, as $60,000 is more than $2,000. To the grocer that means sales — in round numbers — of $18,000, instead of $600 ; to the boot and shoe dealer $2,000, instead of $75 ; to the clothing store $6,000, instead of $200 ; to real estate owners, rents of $12,000, instead of $400. Which is best for the business of that town and for every man in it who has anything to sell ? Let us contrast it in another table : Groceries Provisions Fuel Dry goods Boots, shoes, etc. Clothing Bent Sundries It is probably not in human nature for the grocer to help feeling a little more complacency toward the man who buys $600 worth during the year than toward the man whose purchases amount to only $175. But when 100 Workingmen. 1 Saloon-keeper. $17,712 $590.40 11.856 395.20 2,580 86.00 1,200 40.00 2,178 72.60 6,192 206 40 11,844 394.80 6,438 214.60 $60,000 $2,000.00 344 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. the hundred workingmen spend almost $18,000, they are the best customers. The balance of trade is in their hands. On the eco- nomic basis only, leaving humanity out of the question, the most important thing is to take care of the working- men. If you want your town to prosper, look out for the workingmen. See that they get their full pay and that nobody cheats them out of it — that they are neither oppressed, degraded, nor discouraged. Fire the saloon-keeper and lose his $2,000 in trade. If he offers you $1,000 for a license, send that along with him. You will be $3,000 out, but your grand force of workingmen with their $60,000 will quickly make that good. *^ Oh, oh, oh !" exclaims a critic, '' you're wild as a hawk. Those men would never spend their $60,000 for liquor. Why, they couldn't. They will have to live somewhere, eat something, and have some kind of clothes on. No ordinary saloon-keeper gets any such income as that would allow, either." Well, all right. But where does the money go ? Take any one of those men with his $600 a year, tem- perate and industrious. He is always respectably dressed, suitably to his work. You never think of pitying him. His wife and children are neatly clad. They are well fed, with color in their cheeks and light in their eyes. His plain little home is comfortable. His pastor or employer can go in and sit down with no sense of wretchedness. What he buys at the grocer's or provision dealer's ho buys as indepen- dently as a millionaire. They are glad to see him come in. If a fellow- workman is hurt, this man will have a spare dollar to help make up a purse for him. TMK Hi:sT crsTOMKks. 345 Now let him tiike to drink, and in a little while tell me what has happened. A slouchy, ragged, dirty laborer, his wife and children with faces pinched and dress forlorn, his home sqnalid. Ilis wife steals into the grocery, and a hard gleam comes into the grocer's eyes the moment he sees her. She makes some poor little purchases, and the grocer charges tliem with a savage resignation, almost wishing he could be harder-hearted. The man shambles into the meat market, and though he comes first, " stands aside," as in Dr. Vincent's story, to let the saloon-keeper buy, and then takes his soup- bone or liver. What has happened ? Where has the money gone ? The question reminds one of the Kindu problem, Where is the flame of a candle after it is blown out? Query about it as you will, there stands the fact that for all practical purposes the purchasing power of that family is destroyed. 1 have repeatedly seen this process gone through in less than three years. Doubtless much is spent for tobacco in the expensive form of cigai*s along with the drink. Much is gambled away at billiards and cards in the saloon or in some ad- joining resort. Much is to be charged to lost labor while on sprees or recovering from them. But the amount spent outright for drink is more than most people are willing to believe. A reformed man remarked to the author not long since : ''If I had stopped years before I did I should be better off now. When I was drink- ing, it was nothing for me to step into a saloon in the morning and spend $5 before I came out." Mr. Sims, in his paper on " Horrible London," says :* " It is only when one probes this wound that one finds how deep it ♦Quoted by Gustafson, " Foundation of Death," p. 254. 346 ECOXOMIOS OF PfiOHIBITION. is. Much as I have seen of the drink evil, it was not until I came to study one special district, with a view of ascertaining how far the charge of drunkenness could be maintained against the poor as a body, that I had any idea of the terrible extent to which this cause of poverty prevails." Else how do you explain it that a man who has worked for weeks in a Local Option town and is paid $40 on Saturday night goes to a '* wet town" over Sunday " on a fearful drunk," comes back about Tuesday, and has to get trusted for a small sack of flour ? Such cases are happening all the time, as every well-informed person knows. So that, as a matter of fact, let the one hundred men whom we have seen to be earning their $600 a year each, and spending $60,000 in the aggregate — let them become confirmed drinkers, and in a very few years their trade will have practically disappeared. Then any live merchant will say : '' 1 wouldn't give ten cents for the trade of the whole batch. I'd rather not be bothered with it." But that trade once meant great grocery stores with piled- up sacks of flour, barrels of sugar and crackers, and all kinds of supplies, and rows of clerks crowding each other to wait on the customers. It meant the meat market full of rows of hams, jars of lard, roasts and steaks and boiling pieces, and busy men behind the counter. It meant drays full of great cases of goods for the bustling dry-goods stores, shoe stores, and hat stores. It meant a comfortable, genial feeling of interest, con- fidence, and sympathy between employers and workers, buyers and sellers, and that general cheer that comes to everybody when everybody else is prospering. Well, you've destroyed all that, and it won't take many clerks to wait on your saloon-keeper and his bar- THK BE8T CISTOMERS. 347 tenr^ers. Make mncli of thtit trade, for it's the most yoiiMl get now. Hang on to his license fee, for you are going to need it badly to jail these laboring men when they ** get into trouble" and to support their families while they are in the workhouse. ^'What fools these mortals be.'' CHAPTER XXI. THE TRADESMEN. •• Jr in every eleventh year a fire should be kindled in the United States on the first of Jannary, and continue burning till the last moment in December, and if every particle of our agricultural and manufactured products, as fast as they are produced, should be cast into the flames, and burned up until only the ashes remain, it would not inflict as much injury upon our people as is produced every eleven years by the use and sale of intoxicating drinks. The money expended for these drinks is not only lost, but the drinks entail upon our people the additional evils of vice, wretchedness, crime, and de- moralization, that far, very far, outweigh the value of the money ex- pended for them. If the products to the value of the money spent for drinks were only destroyed by fire or flood, it would not deprive our industrious classes of the mental and physical power to replace them, as do the things for which their hard-earned millions are ex- pended. What nation or people, however favored, can long exist and prosper who expend or waste the value of so much labor for poison ons drinks ? Can we wonder that we have money panics, hard times, and stagnation of trade ?"— William Hargreaves, M. D. Trade is the life of civilization. It is of no nse to me that there are fifty million bushels of wheat in Dakota. I cannot charter a car to bring me a sack of flour. In fact, the wheat wouldn't be flour after I got it unless it went through a grist- mill. I want some man to buy that wheat by the thousand bushels. I want another man to run a grist-mill, turning out flour by the hundreds of barrels. I want a wholesale grocer to keep a warehouse, from which my retail grocer may order a hundred sacks and send me one when I am ready for it. I want rail- THE TRADESMEN-. 349 roadft over which that wheat shall be tran8ported before it is ground, and the flour transported afterward. I want laborers to build those roads, trackmen to walk them, engineers and conductors and brakemen to run the trains, coal to feed the engines, iron to make them of, miners, to dig out the coal and iron, foundries and furnaces to melt that iron, rolling mills, locomotive and car works, and a host of machinists to make the rails and engines and cars that are to bring me my sack of flour. Ineed other factories to make the ploughs that break the ground, the drills that sow the wheat, the reapers and binders that harvest it, and the threshing machines that separate the grain. 1 need horses and wagons to work on the farms, to haul the wheat to the train and the flour across the city, and the delivery w^agon that brings it to my door. 1 need harness-makers to make the harness for those horses, wheelwrights to make the wagons, and teamsters to drive them and to handle the goods. I need millwrights to build the grist-mills and keep them in repair, elevators and warehouses to store the grain and flour, and a good building for my grocer to keep store in. I want thousands of quarrymen to get out stone for those buildings and masons to set the stone, lime quarries to burn the lime for mortar and plastering, brick-yards to make brick by the million, and bricklayers to build the walls. I need carpenters to shape the timbers, build the roofs and floors and the thousands of wooden cottages that all these workmen will live in, and thousands of lumbermen in the forests of Maine and Michigan to fell the trees, and saw-mills to saw the lumber, engines to run those saw-mills, lumber-yards to keep the lumber in, and steamers, barges, and tugs on the lakes to bring it to the lamber-vards. 350 EtU-NuMiCS 01- PKuHllilTlOX. It sets a large part of the continent astir and employs an army of men to furnish me my sack of flour. The same is true of the chair I sit in, the paper I write on, and every article of furniture, food, and clothing in my house. The dollar and one-half I spend for my sack of flour sets all these thousand wheels of industry in motion, and never rests till part of it reaches the farms of Dakota and part of it the coal and iron mines of Pennsylvania. Nor does it rest then, for the farmers spend it, and the miners spend it, and it starts on again. The same money is used over and over, like the water in a mill stream. The water comes to the first mill, and rushes through its great wheels, setting every shaft in that mill whirling. But the water does not stay in the wheels. If it did it would do no good. It is as neces- sary that it should rush out as that it should rush in, and when it comes out it comes with all its power in it. On it goes to turn the wheels of the next mill, and the next, and the next, the same water used over and over again, starting new machinery, giving employment to new hands all along its course. So if the nation saves its thousand millions of drink-money, that will not merely bless millions of homes and satisfy the immediate wants of those now intemperate, but the effect will be felt in all branches of industry. Saving $1,000,000,000 will not nearly describe the benefit, nor can we trace it to all its rich results. That thousand millions will be spent over and over again by each one to whom it comes, per- petually multiplying itself as it pays new labor and skill, which results in new wealth-production. The immediate objection will be made by many that the same amount expended in liquors will employ just as many persons. The answer is that the liquor trades THK TKAUESMKX. .'Jf)! are a class by themselves, employing a remarkably small number of persons for the value of the product, whether at wholesale or retail. While the percentage of the wholesale value of the product expended for labor in all other industries is 17.87, in the liquor business it is only 10.45. The increase in the cost of liquor to the con- sumer over the wholesale price is something enormous — viz., from $144,000,000 at the manufactory (in 1880) to $734,000,000 as purchased by the consumers, or an in- crease of more than 400 per cent. Comparatively a small number of persons are engaged in handling the re- tail article. Dry goods, groceries, etc., differ greatly in quality and style. They require many persons to show them. They are also bulky, and require many persons to handle them. One thoughtful and innocent lady can tire out a dozen clerks and salesmen in an easy trip down a dry goods store, and leave them laboriously putting away long after she is gone. But liquors are small in bulk and limited in variety. A full supply can be kept behind a single bar, within reach of one man's hand. The appetites of the customers are sharp, clear, and ex- ceedingly definite. The glass of beer is drawn in an instant, and the automatic fixture closes of itself. The whiskey is poured into the glass with a turn of the hand, the cork thrust into the bottle, the change swept into the till, and the sale is made. One man can wait on a crowd and scarcely stir from his place. It needs no package clerk to do up the bundle, no cash-boy to run with the change. The goods are gulped down on one side of the counter, the money is gulped down on the other, and the transaction is complete. A bushel of corn for which the farmer gets thirty cents requires heavy ploughing, harrowing, planting, ;jr)2 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIblTTOX. and cultivating in the hot sun, and, besides, cutting, binding, husking, loading, and hauling. A bar-keeper will stand in a comfortable room and sell to the farmer thirty cents' worth of whiskey in three min- utes, with no other exertion than a sweep of his arm, and on that sale he will make a profit of 400 per cent, above the cost of production. Thus $1,000,000,- 000 expended for useful articles employ 433,000 persons, while expended for liquor, the same amount will employ but 41,000 persons in its production. Hence, it is easy to see that other trades stand no chance at all beside the liquor trade, and that when men of other callings trade with the Saloon-keeper, he must gain a steady and heavy advantage, and that just so fast as he grows rich they must grow poor. By a liberal calculation, based on the brewers' own estimates and the census reports, it ap- pears that the money invested in liquors employs, includ- ing all who raise the grain, etc., only one-ninth of the labor which the same amount would employ if spent for grist-mill products. The liquor traffic, therefore, cannot be averaged with any other business in computing the amount of labor employed in proportion to the amount Bold. Another objection will be that we have computed the amount spent for liquors on the retail basis, and the amount spent foi: other goods on the wholesale basis ; that, in reality, the people would not be able to buy all these amounts of other products if they did not drink, because they could not buy at the wholesale prices, and at the retail prices they would get only one-half or at most three-fourths of the amount above given. Tiiis objection seems very reasonable at first thought. But on consideration it will appear that we have that amply THE TRADESMEN. 353 provided for. In all this computation we have taken into account only the direct cost of the intoxicants, making no mention of the indirect, which, as we have seen, will be at least as much more. This restores the balance. If a man earns $15 a week and spends it on a spree, he will probably lose the next week's work as the result. That will be the same in cost to him as if he had worked both weeks and spent the $30. If he had not drunk the liquor and had worked steadily the two weeks he would have had the $30 to spend for useful articles, and it would have been so spent. So when we have found what the nation's thousand million dollars would buy at wholesale, we have still another thousand millions to compensate the retailers for handling the product and bringing it to every man's hand and door. Then the money so spent is going to be used over and over again. The grocers will buy dry goods, and the dry goods dealers will buy groceries, and all will need boots and shoes, hats and caps. Everybody is the cus- tomer of everybody else. The two thousand millions once paid for useful articles will immediately start on again, keeping the great tide-mill of industry turning still. Many incidental advantages will be found. The grocer's profits will not be merely in increased sales, but in increased receipts. People eat now. The judgment of. charity leads the grocer to trust those who can be trusted with any show of reason. Then the saloon gobbles up the money, and the grocer is left with a string of bad debts.* In one city, the author was told of a single * See Chapter XVII., p. 276, how the business men of Atlanta, over and over, tell of the danger of trusting and the difficulty of col- lecting " since the return of the bar-rooms." 354 ECONOMICS OF PROfllBITIOX. firm of grocers, doing a large business, who bad lost in tbis way $75,000 in fifteen years. The boarding-house- keepers meet the same fate — one of the most cruel forms of fraud, because most of them are needy and dependent women. A worker m a great machine establishment told me of several young men without families who earned $4 to $5 a day, when they worked, and would drink and gamble it all away as fast as received. *' How do they live ?" I asked. He answered : '' They run up a bill at the boarding-house, and when the landlady won't trust them any longer they go to a new boarding- house, and she never can collect her bill, because they haven't anything. Fellows that live that way have to beat it out of somebody." Then the community loses it. The landlady cannot buy the new dress for herself, the shoes and hats for her children, the new furniture, carpets, and bedding, the need of which is so manifest. Then, when she has to sell ofi^ her furniture to a second-hand dealer for a song, give up her house and leave town, there'll be one less good renter, one less good customer at the grocer's and the provision dealer's, and these men will be wondering what makes the hard times, and think probably it's be- cause the tariff is too high, or not high enough. It is the far-reaching trail of the saloon-keeper. But would this money be spent for useful articles if not for liquors ? The answer is emphatically YES. One little town 1 know that adopted local prohibition three years ago. It had then three saloons. There was an immediate change. The loafing crowds in the even- ings disappeared. Croakers exclaimed, '' The town is rained." The liquor men urged on the cry and spread it to other places. Certainly the noisy evening crowds THE TRADESMEN. 355 no longer thronged the sidewalks. The farmers' horses no longer stood hitched at all the posts through sun and rain and snow, for hours together. Several houses he- came vacant. One tenant removed his goods at dusk on a Sunday evening, for some mysterious reason, and started for a whiskey town. But soon a clothing dealer took one vacant saloon, tore out the interior, put in ele- gant fixtures, and a fine stock of goods. A grocer re- fitted another empty saloon. An enterprising young man started still another grocery on the cash plan, when for along time there had been ^' too many groceries." But he prospered, because there was cash in the town to buy with. Soon a dry goods firm bought the building in the rear of their store, took out the partition, and made one room of the two in order to get space for their business. It was not long before they leased still an- other in rear of that. After the law had existed a year and a half, a Local Option contest in a neighboring town led us to look up the facts. The dry goods firm said : " If this is ruin, we are ready to be ruined right along in the same way for the next ten years. "We have never done such a business. You have only to look around our store and see for yourself." On mentioning to them a report that former customers from the country were now taking their trade to other towns, they an- swered : *' None that we know of that we care to keep. On the contrary, we are getting a new run of custom from the country around !^[ (a whiskey town), and some of their very best — ladies who want to buy nice and expensive goods, and don't want to go througli the kind of crowd that hangs around saloons in order to do it. Tlioy are driving down here now. They are com- ing to our town for their furniture, too." Tlio mer- 356 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. chant paused a moment, and then said : ^* The fact is, there's no money in a crowd that hangs around all the evening because they can get whiskey. They donH buy anything hut whiskey. There's no money in a gang of farmers sitting around the saloons the best part of the day. If they stay at home and work their farms, then, wlien they do come to town, they'll have something to buy with." The coal dealer said shortly : ** Never had such good sales and so few bad debts. It stands to reason that if people don't buy whiskey, they'll have some money to buy something else v/ith, and in this climate they're bound to keep warm." The clothing dealer, in the renovated saloon, said ; ^' We've sold $3,000 worth more goods the past year than any year before of the ten years we've been here. If you wish, I'll show yon our books." The new cash grocer said : *^ My business has done splendidly. I have the largest drayage in the place but one. I must get a larger room." So it went on. Now, after three years, a new town- hall has been built, at an expense of $15,000. Wooden stores are being removed and fine brick buildings put in their places. A new furniture store has been opened and a new brick church built. All the other churches have been newly frescoed, and two of them have put in pipe organs. Fine new residences are springing up at commanding points and old ones are remodelled till they, too, seem new. Almost all the old stores and the majority of private residences have been newly painted, till the town looks like a new place of a In'gher and hap- pier grade. Painters and paper-hangers cannot keep up with their orders. The former bar-keeper of one of the saloons has engagements as a paper-hanger for weeks in THE TRADESMEN. 857 advance, and has built himself a new houst. But that liquor towns are too easily accessible across the borders^ this town would be enjoying almost unqualiHed pros- perity. One of the council said : ** Why, we used to pay our night police out of the fines, but now we have no fines to pay him with. We have to pay him out of the taxes. But we can afford to. We make enough more in other ways." The town has no trouble in keep- ing the back door of the saloons closed on Sunday since it shut the front door the rest of the week. An air of quiet prosperity and happiness pervades the whole town. Prohibition pays and nays well. CHAPTER XXII. THE FARMERS. ** RsMABEABiiE WiLL.— A Wealthy farmer of County has jnst died, beqneathiiig his whole property to the saloons and gambling houses of his native town. His four sons are made his executors, and there is no doubt of the entire amount reaching its destination.'* — Tennessee Paper. " There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun — namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail : and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand." — Ecd. v., 13, 14. Riding one day through a fair and fertile valley of Ohio, among thrifty and beautiful farms, one house im- pressed me with sudden contrast. It was a grand old mansion with verandas before it, shade trees around, but with an indescribable air of decay, as if a blight so many acres square had fallen upon that one estate. The house had once been white, but the paint was worn away, ex- cept for a trace here and there, and the wood-work was black from exposure to the weather. The shingles of the roof lay in wind-rows. Quilts and hats and old clothes were stulfed in the broken windows, and some — where, apparently, there were not old clothes enough to till them — were roughly boarded up. The fence was leaning and the gate was down ; boards were entirely gone from the sides of the barn and others hung loose, flapping in the wind. ** Who lives there ?" I suddenly inquired. My companion gave me a name which told THE FARMERS. 359 the wliole story. The son of a wealthy man, inheritor of a splendid farm, himself a hard and skilful worker, Init every little while brutally drunk. Whiskey had the same effect on his windows in the pure, beautiful coun- try that it does upon the winfy)W8 of the forlorn tene- ment-houses in the cities. It only needed to have the rest of the farmers like him to make that whole country- side desolate and dreadful. Not long after I drove out on another road in the same section. There was a house of entirely different con- struction, a large and once opulent mansion of solid brick. But Desolation had sat down upon it. What ailed the grass ? What ailed the trees ? The very air around seemed murky and stilling. The pair of bony horses with sore backs, savagely twitching tufts of grass in the door-yard, laid back their ears and hung their under- lips with an air at once disreputable and defiant. Here, too, it only needed a name to tell the whole story — " a man mighty to drink wine, a man of strength to mingle strong drink." Unless something intervenes, neither of these farms will go down another generation in the same family. In fact, I have been told that one of these men is, even now, in the language of the coun- try, *' all broke up." I once knew a very accomplished hostler. He knew Latin, French, and mathematics, and was well versed in English literature. He had graduated at West Point, and had held honorable and responsible positions. Two fine farms had come to him by inheritance. One day he went to a physician and said : *' Doctor, I want you to examine my throat." The doctor did so, and re- plied : *' I don't see anything wrong." '* Don't you POO nnvthingr dr)\vTi thoro V *' Notliinrr wliatever." 360 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. '* Well, you ought to see two good farms, for thejVe both gone down there." Think of the toil and sweat, the early rising, the miles tramped behind the plough, the wood-chopping and stiimp-grubbing, the acres swept by the old hand scythe, the ditches dug and tilled, the rails split and fences built to make out of the wilderness those tw^o good farms for the heir to pour down his throat, or, more strictly, to give to the saloon-keeper for no consideration whatever. A touching poem expresses the same thought : SIGNING THE FABM AWAY. Fine old farm for a hundred years Kept in the family name ; Corn fields rich with golden ears Oft as the harvest came ; Crowded barn and crowded bin, And still the loads kept coming in — Rolling in for a hundred years ; And the fourth in the family line appears. Orchards covered the slopes of the hill ; Cider— forty barrels they say, Sure in season to come from the mill, To be tasted around Thanskgiving Day I And they drank as they worked and ate, Winter and summer, early and late, Counting it as a great mishap To be found without a •< barrel on tap." But, while the seasons crept along, And passions into habits grew. Their appetites became as strong As ever any drunkard knew. And they labored less, and they squandered more. Chiefly for rum at the village store, Till called by the sheriff, one bitter day, To sign the homestead farm away. THE FARMERS. 3tii The father, shuttered and scented with rum : The mother, sick and pale and thin, "Cnder tbe weight of her sorrows dumb, In debt for the bed she was lying in ; I saw the wrecked household around her stand— And the justice lifted her trembling hand, Helping her, as in her bed she lay. To sign the homestead farm away. Ah, how she wept, and the flood of tears Swept down her temples bare ! And the father, already bowed with years, Bowed lower with despair. Drink ! Drink ! It had ripened into woe For them and all they loved below, And forced them, poor, and old, and gray. To sign the homestead farm away. Oh, many scenes have I met in my life, And many a call to pray ; But the saddest of all was the drunkard's wife. Signing the homestead farm away ! Home, once richest in all the town, Home, in that fatal cup poured down, Worse than fire or flood's dismay — Drunkards signing the farm away ! — Congregationalisl. I asked a man who has had extensive business dealings as a real estate and produce dealer in an agricultural dis- trict, How does intemperance hurt a farmer ? ^' Well," ^^ he answered, *' if he goes to the saloon for his drinks, the loss of time is pretty heavy. Perhaps you'll see such a man's horses hitched in front of a saloon from early in the forenoon till along in the afternoon with nothing to eat. Then you may know that man's farm is running down, unless somebody else is doing the work. In any case, there's one man's wages lost, for that man won't do much work after he gets home. Then the 362 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION'. money he spends is a good deal, even if he drinks at home. It amounts to more than you could make him believe, generally. But the worst thing is, it hurts his judgment about putting in crops, and about trading and dickering ; and he always wants to be doing that when he isn't fit for it. Just those times he's always full of confidence, and thinks he knows it all, and anybody can take advantage of him." " It hurts his judgment." How much that means! I met a stout farmer in town one rainy day with a very cheerful face. On my remarking about the storm, he replied : ^' I don't mind it a bit. I've got my oats in. Lots of 'em feel bad, though, because they haven't." A difference of a day or two in judgment of the most neces- sary thing to do made a difference in the result which they might chase in vain all summer. At another time I myself importuned a Sunday-school superintendent, who was also a good farmer, to come to a Sunday-school picnic. He steadily refused, saying : ** 1 can't do it. I've fifteen acres of clover hay that ought to be cut, and this dry weather has lasted so long tliat it won't last much longer. I must take care of my crops, if I'm to have anything to give to the church." He resisted all persuasion, went into that hay-field, and the day after the picnic ran his last load of hay onto the barn floor about fifteen minutes before a lieavy storm, which was the beginning of three weeks of rainy weather. A lit- tle matter of judgment I If you could have got that man to take a little whiskey to distract, a few glasses of beer to stupefy, he would not have had the clear foresight. He would have gone, " like a good fellow," anywhere that promised to be agreeable. I believe my friend hit the nail on the head when he paid, *' The worst effect of THi: 1 AKMliKS. 363 drink on the farmer is that it hurts liis judgment." No amount of hard work will make up for blunders of judg- ment. We have come across a scrap which well illustrates how the liquor traffic throws the balance of toil and profit against the farmer : THE COST OF A BUSHEL OF ^COKN. There is a statistician about the Palmer House who desires to im- press every one with economic facts. Said he recently to a Chicago reporter: "Do you see that man over there? Well, he's a farmer down near Elgin. There he goes with a friend ; they are going to got a drink. The farmer will pay for it. Now, let me see. That man will sweat two mortal hours next spring to plough enough ground to raise one bushel of corn. The bushel of corn he will sell for thirty cents. He is going in there now to spend the thirty cents for two drinks. Therefore, the farmer and the corn have parted. Now let me tell you what becomes of the corn. A bushel of corn will make seventeen quarts of whiskey — four and one quarter gallons. The distillery gets its first profit— forty cents a gallon. There you are- $2 for that bushel of com. Now the Government comes in, ninety cents a gallon— $3.S5 added to the $2 makes $5.85. That brings the product of the bushel of com down to the jobber and the wholesaler, and finally, by several stages, to the retailer. By the time it reaches the latter the bushel of corn, or its product of four and one-quarter gallons, has been reduced one-half, which means eight and one-half gallons. There are sixty drinks to the gallon ; that is the average ; eight and one-half gallons mean five hundred and ten drinks, at fifteen cents each ; there we have $76.50 as the consumer's price for a bushel of corn which the farmer raises and sells for thirty cents. Who says there is no industry in this coun- try ? But the fanner we saw just now spent his whole bushel of corn in the price of two drinks, and the people who did not till the soil get away with $76.15. It is easy to see that at such a ruinous rate of competi- tion the farmer cannot live. lie cannot afford to sell his bushel of com for thirty cents and buy it back again fpr ST6.50. That is the whole problem. 3(;4 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. ^^ Anyway," one man says, '' there's a deal of com- fort in it, if it does cost dear." Yes, and there are many situations wliere there is nothing so bad as to feel comfortable. The man who is exposed in a bitter winter night at first suffers keenly. Ears and fingers and feet are stinging with pain. At length he gets all over it. He has no more pain. He has become perfectly com- fortable. He will just lie down here out of the wind and rest a little while. Ah, that feeling comfortable means death ! If he has a friend who is not so far gone, and who knows what it means, he will rouse him out of that comfort. He will shake him, force him to walk, rub his face and ears with snow till they tingle and burn like fire, beat his numb hands till the pain is almost un- endurable. He will make him fearfully uncomfortable — and save him. There's many a farmer out in the pure, open country perfectly comfortable with a foul drain percolating into his well, till he and his family get the typhoid -fever. Pity he had not been worried about it enough to purify and sweeten things. No comfort for me, I thank you, in a freezing night or with a foul well I The comfort of whiskey and beer simply comes from paralysis — the paralyzing of all the finer nerves and sensibilities, till the man is not worried over the old clothes in the broken windows, the neglected crops, the empty pantry, nor the notes coming duo which he can't pay. The best investment he could make would be a day of good, downright misery, with enough manhood left to fight the causes of misfortune by square, manly work, sober living, and honorable saving. Wait to be comfortable till the comfort is somewhere outside of your own stomach I But we are told the liquor traffic is a real financial THE 1 AKMKKS. 366 benefit to the farmers in buying their grain. Where farmers have been accustomed to seUing to brewery and distillery, they actually shiver at the question, ^* What will you do with your corn ?" A certain amount of grain is, undoubtedly, sold to brewers and distillers, and — what is especially attractive to farmers — sold for cash. Could the farming interest afford to lose the sale of that amount of grain ? Let us see. The following table was given in The Voice of May 9th, 1889 : HOW THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC ROBS THE FARMER. Pbohibition would put at least $18 IN HIS Pocket where the LiQuoB Traffic puts in $1. Farmers of Pennsylvania, the enemies of Prohibition tell you that to do away with the liquor tra£&c will ruin the grain market and otherwise depress the interests of agriculture. Let us do a little fig- uring and see if this is true. In 188G, according to the report of the Commissioner of Agricul. ture, the total value of all the products of the farms of the United States for that year, including the live-stock oii them, was $6,127,- 805,932, as follows : PRODUCTS OF THE F.MIMS, 1886. BreadstufEs. Corn, 1,665,441.000 bushels, worth $010,311,000 Wheat, 457,218.000 " '• 314,220,020 Oats, 624,134,000 " " 186,137,930 Barley, 59.428,000 •♦ " 31.840,510 Rye. 24,489,000 " " 13.181.330 Buckwheat, 11,869,000 " " 0,405.120 Rice " 5,000.000 Meats " 748,000.000 Poultry products " 186,000.000 Hides, hair, etc " 93,000,000 Dairy products. Butter " 192,000.000 Cheese *• 32.000.000 Milk " 156.000.000 366 ECONOMICS Of PKOHIBITIOX. Textile fibres. Cotton worth $257,295,327 Wool " 77,000,000 Hemp, flax, etc " 9,000,000 Vegetables. Irish potatoes, 168,051,000 bushels, " 78.441,940 Sweet potatoes " 20,000,000 Peas and beans " 13,800.000 Market-garden productions " 68,000,000 Fruits " 175,000,000 Hay, 41.796.499 tons " 353,437,699 Tobacco, 532,537,000 lbs " 39.082,118 Hops " 3,500,000 Sugar, syrnp, and honey " 33,500,000 Clover and grass seed. " 15,000,000 Total $3,717,218,994 The value of farm animals in 18S7 was as follows : Horses 12,490,774 worth $901 ,685.755 Mules 2,117,141 " 167,057,538 Milch cows 14,522.083 " 378.789,589 Oxen and other cattle 33,511,750 " 663,137,926 Sheep ... 44,759.314 " 89,872,389 Swine 44,612,836 " 200,043,291 Total $2,400,586,938 Estimating one- fourth of this $2,400,586,938, or in round numbers, $600,000,000, as the annual increase from the farm animals, the total products of the farms for the year 1886-87 therefore amount in round numbers to $4,317,000,000. What proportion of this value is due to the liquor traffic ? Let us see. FABM PBODU0T8 WHICH OO TO MAKE LIQUOR. Daring the year ending June 30, 1887, according to the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the following farm products were used in making distilled liquors : Malt (from barley) 1,825.627 bushels. Wheat 45.361 Barley 16.110 Rye 3.062,947 Corn 12,870.255 Oats 44.880 Mill feed 93.060 TliE FAKMEKb. 3t)7 Other materials 1,319 bnBhels. Molasses 2,428,783 gallons. Total 17,959,565 bushels and 2,428,783 gallons. The same year 23,121,526 barrels of fermented liquors were made. It takes two bushels of malt, or their equivalents, and two pounds of hops to make a barrel of beer, according to Dr. Francis Wyatt, Direct- or of the National Brewers' Academy. At this rate, about 24,800,000 bushels of barley, corn, etc., and 41,000,000 pounds of hops would be used in the manufacture of malt liquors, which,. added to the ma- terials used in making distilled liquors, makes in round numbers the total of the farm products consumed in the liquor business in the years 1886-87 : . , 42,700,000 bushels of grain, worth $2,300,000 Hops, worth in 1880 to farmers 3,500,000 2,428,782 galls, of molasses, worth to farmers 500,000 Total gain to farmers from liquor traflac. . .$25,300,000 But this $25,300,000 is only aboui Jive and four -fifths one ihousandthg of the annual value of the products of the farm. In other words, if the annual income of the average farmer be $500, about $2.93 of his income, estimating most favorably for the saloon, comes from the liquor traffic. WHAT THE FABMZB LOSES BY THE MQUOB TBAFFIO. Leaving out the question of the taxes the farmer pays to support the pauperism, crime, insanity, and other expenses caused by the sa- loon. Dr. William Hargreaves, the statistician, makes this estimate of the farmers' annual losses from the liquor traffic. If the $900,000,000 which is every year spent for drink shonld bo spent for the necessaries of life — food, clothing, etc.— as it would be spent under Prohibition, Dr. Hargreaves estimates that the yearly demands for the products of the farms would be increased as follows : HOW PBOHIBrnON WOULD INCBEASE THE DEMAND POB FABM PBODUCTS. Wheat . . .83.274.484 more bush. Corn 20,498,226 " Oats 9,802,488 " Eye 1,110,625 '* Buckwheat 444,461 " " J Milk, butter and cheese from farmers, worth 1.000,000 worth to farmers $181,157,263 0G8 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. 877,777 more beeves ) 1,116 850 more sheep - worth to farmers. $128,369,452 8.049,214 more hogs \ Cheese made in factories, 109, 942. 175 more lbs. ) to f 'rm'rs « ^«^ «oq Butter " " 18,710,892 " fformat'ls ^.^°a.'°^ Fruit, vegetables, canned goods, etc, (to farmers for ma- terials) ..\ 6,025 646 Wool for carpets. 29,800,438 more lbs., worth 3,487.564 Cotton, for cotton goods, 375,171,990 more lbs., worth. . 43,477,862 Cotton, silk and wool, for mixed textiles, worth 18,613,870 Wool, for woolen goods, 98,762.477 more lbs., besides washed wool and shoddy and other materials, valued at 33,690.225 Wool for worsted goods, 33,891,972 more lbs., worth 7,617,939 Total loss to farmers from liquor traffic $432,621,610 There is no exaggeration in these figures, says Dr. Hargreaves. They are proportionate estimates based on the Census Keport of 1880, and they by no means include all the products of the farm, an extra quantity of which the farmer would be called upon to supply should the liquor traffic become a thing of the past, and the tens of thousands of the underfed, under-clothed and ill-sheltered drinkers and their families spend the money for the necessaries of life instead of for liquor. In the face of this extra $432,000,000 worth of products which the farmer would be called upon to supply under Prohibition, how insig- nificant appears the paltry $25,000,000 which he now receives from the liquor traffic, and which no one doubts he more than pays out in support of the paupers and criminals produced by the trnffic ? Prohibition would put eighteen dollars in the farmer's pocket whe:e the liquor traffic puts in one. In a country like ours some new use could at any time be found for .58 of 1 per cent, of the total product. The remark of the Illinois farmer never loses its freshness, '* We'd raise more hogs and less hell.'* A few more hogs or young cattle to fatten, a few more cows to milk, or even a good flock of chickens on every farm would dispose of that much. But the answer is, ** "We could not got a living price for any of it if that much more was thrown on the gen- THi: FARMERS. iJOy eral market, for we can't but just live now." The lat- ter is true enough, unfortunately. But, strange to say, you could get a higher price for the whole crop than yon can for what is left after selling to the brewers and dis- tillers. We will prove it to you. Will a hungry man buy something to eat if he can get it ? Will a poor mother buy food for her hungry children if she can get the money to pay for it ? Well, suppose you shut off squarely the $1,000,000,000 which the nation now spends for whiskey and beer, isn't that money going to be spent for something ? Won't the families of drinking men — won't the drinking men themselves, when they quit drinking, spend that money for clothes and food and similar articles ? There never should he hard times for the producers when millions of jpeople are hungry for their produc- tions^ and there never would be if the hungry people had anything to buy witli ; and they would have if they did not spend their earnings for liquor. From an economic standpoint it is a itjonstrous spectacle that in the city there should be children crying for bread, and in tho country farmers lamenting that there is no sale for their grain. That is what the liquor traffic does for the farmers. IT DESTROYS YOUE MARKET. Here is a city containing thousands of people to be fed. Around it are wide, rich farms, barns full of grain, and a great surplus stacked out in the field. What is the natural relief for the hungry city ? To buy the farmers' grain. What is the natural relief for the farm- ers who so need money ? To sell their grain to the hungry city. But now comes along a syndicate and says to the farmers : *' We will buy one half of one per cent. 370 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. of your grain to carry out a plan we have of robbing that city. it's a brilliant scheme and sure to work. We will take from a large part of the population everything they have and everything they earn. We will fehare with you to the extent of one half of one per cent, of your total product, if you won't interfere." The farmer replies, '^ But what shall I do with the other 99 J per cent. ?" The polite agent of the syndicate shrugs his shoulders and says : '* I don't know anything about that. You'll have to sell it for what you can get. Those city people won't have any money after we get through with them." The farmers reply : ^' Take your half of one per cent. We don't want it ; and now you let those city people alone. Leave them their money and they'll buy our crop, and buy it all. They'll out- buy you a hundred to one." Tliat^s exactly the case of the liquor traffic. They buy one half of one per cent, of your grain, and then destroy the natural market for all the rest, depriving the people of their buying power. The total grist-mill products of the United States, ac- cording to the census of 1880, were $505,000,000 in value, almost exactly one-tenth of the total products of all kinds of industries, $5,369,579,191. At the same rate, if our thousand millions of liquor money were spent for useful articles, one-tenth of that amount, or $100,- 000,000, would be spent for breadstuffs in addition to what is now expended for the same ; that is, instead of $25,000,000, which the farmers now receive for grain used for the destruction of life, health, and happiness, they would receive $100,000,000 for grain used to pre- serve life, health, and happiness. Besides this, much of the amount spent for manufac- tured articles would come to the farmers of the country. THE FARMERS. 371 About $100,000,000 would be spent for woollen goods, clothings, bedding, carpets, etc., and to make these our manufacturers would need 118,000,000 pounds of do- mestic wool. Thip, at thirty cents a pound, would amount to more than $35,000,000. The entire amount of foreign wool imported and en- tered for consumption in 1880, about which a national campaign has been fought, was but 97,231,277 pounds, valued at $14,062,100, on which the duties were $4,730,- 000. In whatever way considered, the tariff slirinks into insignificance beside the great problem of the liquor traffic. The simple stoppage of the liquor traffic would create an immediate demand for American wool heavily in excess of the entire foreign importation. Tliere is more money in temperance than there is in tariff. Then, by spending $96,000,000 for cotton goods, there would be consumed 375, 000,000 pounds, costing $43,000,- 000. The South, which still feels poor from the great war, what does she say to getting an additional $43,000,- 000 for cotton ? She can get it by Prohibition. There is one point in regard to which farmers need to be especially on their guard. The Brewers' Association, at their late meeting, decided to You may expect now all manner of encomiums on cider. You will find in your papers, most likely, very pleas- ant stories, in which the bluff old farmer treats his guests with cider from the big pitcher, and grows genial and mellow in the process ; in which shy lovers sip it together ; in which little children, in the briglit sunshine and sweetness of the autumn fields, bring their tin cups and catch the new cider as it runs from the press : and 372 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. the *' barefoot boj" of Whittier's poem has a delight- some time sucking it through a straw. Wherever jou find these things, just know the brewers' trade-mark is on them. However good the paper in which they ap- pear, the sly, stealthy hand of the liquor traflBc is behind them. Especially the patent insides are open to this kind of thing, where it only needs to make a contract with one man in Chicago or Cincinnati, and have the matter sent ready printed to thousands of country papers, many of whose editors will never look at what it con- tains. You may expect casual editorial remarks on the intolerance of Prohibitionists, who would even prohibit the farmer from making a little cider, and the good writer will lament their narrowness and bigotry, which alone keeps him from joining with them. And if you could see the writer, you would see that he is already carrying around about fifty pounds of protuberant beer, and writing this delicate moral squib to get money from the Brewers' Association to buy more. Just say about all those things, *^ To work the cider racket on the farmers. ' ' Then the question arises, Why do the brewers want to boom cider ? It would seem that they would rather dis- courage it as competing with beer. They do not sell cider. Why do they wish to promote the cider inter- est ? There is some cat under that meal. What is it ? Well, according to their own resolutions they are ** un- alterably opposed to Prohibition, general and local." The fanners are, however, generally favorable to Pro- hibition. If they can persuade them that Prohibition would prevent them from ever making another drop of cider they could set a good many against it, and if they can get the farmers to vote against Prohibition in order THE FARMERS. 873 to make cider, tliey will be free to make and sell beer — that is, the brewers kindly propose to make the farmer a cat's paw to pull the very hot chestnut of Prohibition out of the fire. We think our farmers have too much sense and manliness to be manipulated in that way. But it may be as well to give, that all may know it, the words of that eminent jurist, Judge Agnew, to the farmers of Pennsylvania on this subject. One of the most valuable of his articles is an appeal to the farmers not to be misled by the liquor men's claim that the right to manufacture and sell cider would be interfered with by the adoption of the Amendment. He says : " The words of the Amendment are : ' The manufacture, sale, or keeping for sale, of intoxicating liquor, to be used as a beverage, is hereby prohibited.' •• To make cider is not to manufacture an intoxicating liquor. Cider is the mere juice of the apple, and is not an intoxicant when first made. As well might the eating of apples be forbidden. It re- quires fermentation to produce alcohol, the intoxicating principle of hard cider. Every farmer knows he does not make hard cider. It must stand several weeks before it becomes hard, and the next process is the acetous fermentation which makes it vinegar. " Then look at the absurdity of compelling the constable to visit all the farmers in his township to find out whether the owners have made cider. But if pressing out the juice of apples is manufactur- ing an intoxicating liquor, the cider-mill is as necessary to be re- turned as a distillery or a brewery. Buch is the absurdity the op- ponents of a valuable reform are reduced to in order to defame it and carry off votes. " It is to be hoped no fanner who has an apple orchard will suffer himself to be imposed upon by the silly assertion that cider is within the Amendment until it has undergone fermentation and become hard. He can make all the cider he pleases, and sell it be- fore it has reached the point when it becomes intoxicating ; or he may keep it until it becomes vinegar, and then sell it. "Of course, the man who sells or keeps for sale hard cider, as a beverage, will come within the Amendment. But we presume no 3T-i ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIOX. farmer wishes or intends to do this. It is not necessary because he makes cider to do it, for then he wonld voluntarily incur the Pro- hibition. All farmers have to do is to follow the business of their farms as heretofore, and not to turn themselves into bar-keepers or sellers of intoxicating drinks. The juice of the apple, like the juice of the grape, is harmless when, pressed. It is only when fermenta- tion has taken place one becomes /larci and the other becomes wine," Many farmers will answer : " Oh, it's easy enough to keep cider from getting hard. Just put in a little salicylic acid." But do you know the effect of that ? Wood's '' Ther- apeutics," one of the foremost medical authorities, speaks as follows, p. 621 : "Salicylic acid has been used to a considerable extent in the preparation of beer and wine. . . . On February 7th, 1881, the French Government interdicted this use, and in 1885 a commission appointed by the Academy of Medicine of Paris, at the suggestion of the Minister of Agriculture, reported (Boll. Acad. M6d., vol. xvi., 1886) that it is proved that the prolonged employment of even very small amounts of salicylic acid is dangerous, and that in susceptible iudividuals, and especially in aged persons, it is apt to cause dis- orders of digestion and disease of the kidneys." ** But if we don't use that, the cider will get hard. What shall we do ?" Do just what you would with any other alcoholic liquor. Let it alone. Hard cider con- tains from 4 to 10 per cent, of alcohol. Beer contains 2 to 6 per cent.* The reason for giving up one is a * Cider has a larger per cent, of alcohol than lager beer, strong beer, porter, or ale. The eminent State Assayer of Massachusetts, Dr. Hayes, has furnished us with the following table : *• Lager beer has from 2^ to 3^ per cent, of alcohol. " Strong beer is variable, but has a larger per cent, of alcohol than lager beer. " Porter has from 4 to 7 per cent, of alcohol. " Oolden alo has bat B-^ P«r c«nt. of alcohol. THE I'ARMERii. 375 reason for giving up the otlier. The alcohol habit is progressive and hereditary. There is a constant demand for a larger and larger amount. Where boys are brought up to drink cider, which, after the first few weeks, con- tains a considerable quantity of alcohol, where they in- herit the taste for it from parents who are in the habit of using it, there will be an alcoholic demand in their systems. When they go to the city, where they cannot get cider readily, they will be pretty sure to substitute beer. Then comes drunkenness with all its woes. Which is worth the most, a hearty, happy, clean, temperate boy, safe anywhere, or a little cider ? But cider is capable of doing the intemperate business very well on its own account. Speaking of it one day in a store, a man who makes no pretence to temperance " Cider has from 4 to 10 per cent, of alcohol. *• Also, 4-1% per cent, of the ' absolute alcohol ' in cider is equal to 10 per cent, of rum— that is, ten glasses of cider are equal to one glass of rum." It appears from this analysis that cider has a larger per cent, of alcohol than either of the other liquors named, and hence must be more intoxicating. We learn from Brande's celebrated " table, showing the proportion of alcohol in distilled and fermented liquors," that, Cider, highest average, is 9.37 per cent. •• lowest " *♦ 5.21 " This table was prepared many years ago. From Johnston's " Chemistry of Common Life" (Appleton's edi- tion, "vol. i., p. 2G2), we extract the following : "Amid these differences in quality, however, there are certain general chemical characters in which all ciders agree. They contain little extractive or solid nutritious matter. No bitter or narcotic ingredient has been added to them. They contain, on un average, about nine per cent, of alcohol— thus resembling in strength the common hock, the weaker champagnes, and our strongest English ales. " — From '• Cider in the Pledge," Xalional Temperance Society. 376 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION^. came in, and on being appealed to, said : " Well, cider makes the meanest drunk of any kind of liquor. I've been drunk on all of 'em, and it's worse than beer or whiskey any day." The wife of an intemperate hus- band, telling her story, said : ^* When my husband would get drunk on whiskey he would go to bed and sleep it off, and the worst of it would be over next morning. But when he got drunk on cider, he would be worse the / next afternoon than he was at the time." ^ The general testimony is that cider has a peculiar effect upon the temper, producing a kind of chronic savage- ness different from the effect of any other kind of liquor. The farmer who drinks such a beverage is doing a dam- age to himself. Who shall say how many country homes have been made wretched, wives made dreary and sad by constant surliness, boys and girls driven off to the city because home was so hateful, simply by chronic drench- ing with this *' meanest" of intoxicants ? It's hardly a thing worth fighting for for one's own use. But to sell it is to do a positive damage to the community. Cer- tainly Judge Agnew is right when he says, '' Farmers should not turn themselves into barkeepers or sellers of intoxicating drinks." If the farmer who even likes a little hard cider can, by giving that up, stop the selling of whiskey and beer, with their uncounted damage and woe, in the cities and towns, that will be the best invest- ment he ever made ; for it will stop the spoiling of Jiis market by the drinks that make other people too poor to buy his grain and wool. Better buy or raise an extra number of hogs to eat his surplus apples than to keep open the great floodgates of pauperism in ten thousand Baloous to make hogs of men — his own sons, perhaps, among them. To the credit and honor of the farmers THE FARMERS. 377 be it said, they have generally had virtue and intelligence to see this, and in all prohibitory contests they have ^y been the surest and steadiest supporters of Prohibition, as now so grandly in the two Dakotas. There's no money in the liquor traffic, except what the farmer loses and the saloon-keeper gets. Let the sale of liquor be stopped and the drunkard and his family be clothed and fed, and the farmer will get the money — and money that has no curse upon it. CHAPTER XXIII. THE HOME. ** The intemperate man, who has no resource but his labor, experi- ments upon his children to find the minimum of possible subsist- ence." — Horace Mann. "The child ragged and ill-used is ever the drunhard's child. Education, clothing, food, home care — all are swallowed down with the drink, and the poor child is sent out with curses and threats to force sales on a compassionate public, instead of being folded at home in the arms of parental love." — The Alliance News. *' Intemperance is the deadliest enemy of the home. Its first action is to take the man away from his dear ones. If a busy man, he commonly leaves home early in the morning, seeing little of wife and children in the hurry before departure. Perhaps he does not return at noon, or if ho does, it is only for a hasty lunch. If he is to have any happy social life with wife and cliildren, it must be in the evening. If that time is given to the saloon he becomes a stranger to his family. He does not know his wife's cares and hopes, nor even the ful- ness of her love, because she has no opportunity for its free expression. The few brief moments of conversa- tion are almost wholly given to the crowding necessities of life. Then, to a woman who is compelled for the most part to live a secluded home-life, it is disappointing to the last degree — it is even heart-breaking — to have the one to whom she has given her love and her life leave her in the little time they might be together for TJii: iiuMK. 379 other society which he prefers to her own. And such society ! It is not to be wondered at if she is not clieer- ful and hopeful, and if she finds it hard to show much tender affection in the face of such neglect. It is not surprising if she finds little encouragement to adorn her home or beautify her person, or give the little touches that make children winsome, for one who will hurry away from it all as soon as he can get through eating. Still, all this, hard as it is, mi^ht be endurable if the MAN at last came home. But who comes home ? Is it the man who walked into her girlish dreams, who was careful in dress, gentle and noble in manner for her dear sake ? No, a foul, imbruted being, from whom she would have tied with a shriek if he had suddenly ap- peared at her father's house. The man from whom every decent man has shrunk away on the street as he came home is the man this wife is to love and cherish. When we think of the unutterable disgust a sober man — who is only a man — feels for a drunkard ; how he loathes the flushed face, the foetid breath, the incoherent speech, and all the soil and coarseness of intoxication, and then think of putting that being beside a woman with all the delicacy of feeling of her sex, in the privacy of home, the loneliness of night, and the association of marriage, it is a wonder that every wife who has this to bear does not straightway become a maniac. Then the saloon devours the money on whose wise ex- penditure much of the happiness of home depends. If the wife has toiled at the wash-tub till every muscle aches and her whole being is weary, it is simply exasperating to have her husband leave her and go to spend in one hour in the saloon the money that would have paid for needed help. 380 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITION-. Clothes wear out. No washing and no mending cau keep old things forever neat. The rags will come, and when they come those who wear them will look shabby. Not even cleanliness can be fully maintained when there is a lack of changes and a lack of towels, and these cost money. The saloon cuts off the supply. Fuel and light cost money. A smouldering fire and a dim lamp cannot make a cheery room. The saloon puts the fire that should be in the grate into the man's stomach. The rations grow short. The children worry, and the wife is spiritless from exhaustion. The man looks over the bare table and grumbles, '^ There's no comfort at home." Then he claims that he is driven to the saloon because it is so bright and his home so wretched, and authors, moralists, and divines support him in the claim. This is putting effect for cause. The fact is, that if we could put out the saloon lights and fires — every one — empty the barrels, smasli the crockery, and make the saloon dark as the traffic is, those homes would soon grow bright. Dickens represents one of his wretched char- acters showing a cup of foul water to a visitor, and say- ing : *' If you had such water, wouldn't you drink gin ?" Very touching I Bid if that man had been willing to pay for water the price of his gin^ he could have had the clearest ice-water to drink. The saloon becomes bright by making the homes dark. Science tells us that when you light your fire of wood or coal, and the ruddy flame springs up and fills the room with its glow, you are simply basking in the iniprisoned sunlight of long ago. So when the saloon throws its light across the highway, a blaze of splendor, you simply see concen- trated into one dazzling focus the light that it has stolen from scores of darkened homes. Yet the more of every tin: home. 381 good it Slicks out of a man's life, and the more hope, lessly wretched he becomes, the fairer tlie saloon seems hy contrast, till lie grows to esteeming his destroyer his only refuge and hope. The lower the 8ah)on casts him down, the more necessary the saloon becomes to him. But his wife and children cannot flee to its glare and oblivion. Our civilization will not yet tolerate that. They must stay in the desolated home. Now if this were honest poverty, forced upon them by hard neces- sity, which the man was doing all he could to share and brighten, a true wife could rally all '* the beauty and truth of woman's devotion" to bear up and sustain her husband amid it all. But when she knows that the hus- band who brought her to it has deserted her in the midst of it for a selfish and swinish delight which will sink him — and them — lower yet, how does she endure it ? In answer to those who claim that woman might abol- ish intemperance by making home happy, there is a cer- tain concession to be made. If a girl marries with no skill for the life of home and no heart for its duties, she may have to reap in terrible disaster the fruit of her own criminal incompetency. No man can do a hard day's work on one kind of fancy cake. He must live upon the homely food, and it must be such that he can live upon it. If a man is not fed at his own table, the temp- tation to drink in the saloon is terribly reinforced. The work must be done. It cannot stop. Others are wait- ing on his hand or brain. He is faint and weary when he needs to be strong. His companions say : ** Take a drink and it will make you feel better." So it does, with its deceptive cheer, enabling him to draw ruinously on the vital forces of the system for the strength which should have been supplied by timely and nutritious food. 38*^ ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Thus the alcohol habit may easily become fixed, the man really thinking it a necessity, and really believing that it helps him till he finds too late that it has destroyed J him. No woman should ever marry till she has learned the trade of home-making. She should not have to practise all her crude experiments on her husband, lest she ruin the man while she is learning the trade. But, on the other hand, it must be answered that the majority of drinking men whom we have known have gone down from homes where wise, loving, and devoted wives had done all that womanly skill need do for hap- piness. This has been clearly proved when the husband has reformed. Always, then, without an exception that we remember, his home has blossomed out in beauty and cheer as soon as he gave his wife the time and money which he had been giving to the saloon. J It is doubtful if the man ever lived who would endure from a drunken wife the half of what thousands of women silently and uncomplainingly endure from drunken husbands, shutting in their own hearts their bitter misery ; teaching their children to pity the father whom they cannot honor ; refusing to testify against the man who has beggared their home and blasted their hopes, when at length he has bruised their bodies and hazarded their lives ; submitting to be robbed over and over again of their hard earnings to minister to his further degradation ; going hungry and thirsty, and see- ing their children ragged and starving — all for the young love and early hope that were once so sweet. It passes all that man's heart knows of patience and devotion. We saw a case once on an ocean steamship where such a man was dragged up to the captain by the boatswain, while the poor wife, whose screams had been echoing THK HOME. 383 from the steerage, followed fast after, white and faint. The captain, a man of many battles, laid a hand on the wretch's collar, with his other hand clenched, and light- ning in his eye, when the wife, amid all that crowd of men, threw herself between, one arm around the hus- band's neck, the other hand on the captain's arm, plead- ing, *^ Oh, captain, dear, forgive him this once I" The captain tried to hold the sternness of his face, but his grasp relaxed and he only said : '^ If this happens again, she sha'n't save you." Then the pitying woman drew the brutal husband off to the steerage, clinging to him all the way, and the men moved away silently, too deeply touched to talk of the scene to each other. But this contrast will not always last. Woman can inherit the appetite from a drunken father. She can be reduced to a habit of wretchedness where, for her, too, the brilliant, gilded saloon will have irresistible fascina- tion. Then, what language can tell the horror of the curse ? The work is already begun. Our people are tending toward that deepest depth and most hopeless ruin — the drunkenness of woman. The following extract is taken from the Cleveland Leader^ August 14th, 1889. FEMALE WINESKINS. A Boom fob theib Accommodation in Euclid Aventte, MBS. PRATHEB's CHABGK. 8h» i/jcw Eorrijied at Put-in-My to see Drunken Mothers Sleeping in the Grass. Boys giTen Wine by the Bottle— Two Girls who made a Show of Themselves. The regular monthly business meeting of the Non -Partisan Worn- 384 ECONOMICS OF I'KOIIIBITIOX. an's Christian Temperance Union, in their pleasant room at tht Nottingham Block yesterday afternoon, was well attended. ******♦♦ Mrs, Prather said that she went to Put-in-Bay a few days ago on a boat which carried twenty-five hundred excursionists. A boat from Detroit brought two thousand, and boats from other places swelled the number. She said that she was horrified, for she never saw so much drinking in her life before. She stated that she saw women who drank wine and then went to sleep on the grass, leaving their young children uncared for. Mrs. Prather said that she was particu- larly troubled about two young girls who emptied a bottle of wine on the boat. "I also saw young boys," she continued, "carrying bottles of wine down to the boat. These men certainly know that they must not sell to minors. They advertise that (he wine is not intoxicating, but I never saw so many drunken people." Miss Ingersoll said that Mrs. Prather's was the third report of the same kind that she had heard from Put-in-Bay this season. Mrs. Prather was of the opinion that the Union should protest against drinking at the Bay, and also against the selling of intoxi- cants to boys. Mrs. Phinney said that the most lamentable fact was that the women drank wine and beer. " Yet," she said, ** Kate Field recommended the use of California wine, and if the people cannot get that I presume that they are satisfied with what they oan get at Put-in-Bay." Mrs. Prather said that she had been informed that there was A WINE-EOOM IN EUCLID AVENUE which was conducted for the accommodation of women. Another issue of the same paper gives the following : "DARKENED STALLS." The Mayob Gives his Opinion about Two BZZB OABDENS ON SUMMIT BTBEET. He says that they are One of the Worst Iniquities in the City. At last night's meeting of the Police Board, the Mayor relieved his mind freely of some very pungent ideas concerning two i»alooii^ THE HOME, 385 gardens. The subject was brought up by the application of C. H. Kohler for a music permit for Lake View Pavilion, at No. 104 Sum- mit Street. " I have something to say on this subject," said the Mayor. " I recently visited the Bellevue Garden, at the corner of Erie and Summit Streets, and I have no hesitation in saying that they are 100 per cent, worse than houses of ill-fAme, It is one of the worst insti- tutions in the city. I found the stalls poorly lighted, and I was un- able to clearly see tho men and women who were inside of them. What I saw there was worse than occurs commonly in houses of ill-repute. I saw girls there who were only fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years old. Perhaps they took their first drinks there, and then they were ruined. It is high time that the police regulated these places if they have tho proper authority. And wo can do noth- ing better than close these places completely. And I say to you, sir," turning around to Kohler, who was standing behind him, " that you are doing the greatest possible damage to the citizens of Cleveland." The home must banish the wine sauces, jelh'es, etc., ^ which the fashionable cook-books — even some issued by the ^' Ladies' Aid Societies" of churclies — still provide for. Their only possible use can be to minister to the alcoholic appetite. But that appetite is not soothed, but whetted by small doses. The appetite is absolutely, in- satiable, and when aroused is to be satisfied only by enough to master the nervous system, requirino^ for that an ever-increasing quantity. Home must not be made a place of temptation. Ilow will you convince a young man at college that there is any harm in the little wine in a tiny crystal glass which holds scarcely more than he would get in a sauce at his mother's table ? Of course, those who clioose thus to sow the wind cannot be pre- vented by any warnings ; nor if they chance to reap tho whirlwind can that be stopped by any consolations. If complete Prohibition should stop the culinary use of alcohol, the loss to taste and fancy would be very slight, 386 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. while the gain to civilization and home happiness would be incalculable. We do not hear any outcry from the kitchens of Kansas. We do not learn of any defective nutrition among her people, who are exporting the food supply of a nation. In another point social usages often sin, not only against morality, but against etiquette. The young man, principled against liquor drinking, is coaxed by fascinating women, besieged by brilliant and perhaps venerable men to drink with them, till he feels it utter incivility and rudeness to decline. We need not say how often those who start him are powerless to stop him. We will not speak of the moral side of this, oa which all eloquence has been expended, and which is really too plain to need an argument. We wish to say, v/ it is not good manners. If I have a guest who does not like onions, I do not press them upon him, coax him or taunt him until he swallows them against his will to please me and mine. Still more in a matter of princi- ple ; if my guest is a Iloman Catholic I do not persuade and badger him into eating roast beef on Friday. So far from it, if I know his views, I will not have the ob- jectionable dish on my table when he is present. I will not inflict on him the embarrassment of declining. When Friday comes, my Catholic friend, or even my Catholic servant, shall have fish or other palatable food which shall not raise the question of singularity. This is but true politeness, universally recognized as such among all well-bred people. Why, in Ileaven's name, should it not apply when my guest's principle is against the fell destroyer that is cutting through all our homes, high and low, its wide swath of desolation and death ? *' Society" most come out from the manners of the Dark THE HOME. 387 Ages, revise its standards of politeness, and reapply to the question of intoxicants what is, in all other thin;:^, recognized as the only course becoming the true gentle- man or lady. So far from its being an offence for a temperance man not to drink, it is an indecorum for a host or hostess who knows his principles to ask him to do so, or even to seem to observe that he does not. This also is an economic question, for the temperance reform can never be made complete at the bottom till it is recognized at the top. Those of greatest wealth and influence and of highest culture must set an example of goodness which those of less advantages may wisely fol- low. '* He that is greatest, let him be servant of all." Alcohol is the destroyer of the home. Home must be the conqueror of alcohol if it would maintain itself or save our civilization. J CHAPTER XXIY THE NURSERY. " It is the same deathless mother's love that has knocked at the doors of the schools through State legislatures, and is to-day knock- ing at the door of our national capitol, asking that the boys may be taught. We women lay down at the cradle our youth, our beauty, our talents, anything, everything, to the little bit of humanity there. We cannot help it. It is God's providence for the child ; and may it not likewise be God's providence for the nation that has roused the heart of women and called the deathless tides of mother love to participate in this great movement ? If we save the children to-day wo shall have saved the nation to-morrow." — Mrs. Mary H. Hunt. In strictness this subject might be included in the pre- vious chapter on '* The Home," but it is of such special importance as to deserve a place and title for itself. We cannot adequately provide for the prosperity of nations unless we study the economics of the nursery. By an inscrutable, but most manifest law, everything that vitally affects the constitution and mental and moral character of the parents is transmitted to the child. This is pre-eminently true of the results of alcoholic drinks. Dr. E. Lancer^ux says :* " The person who inherits alcoholism is generally marked with degeneration particularly manifested in disturbances of the nervous functions. As an infant he dies of convulsions or other nervous disorders ; if he lives ho becomes idiotic or imbecile, and in adult life bears these special characteristics : the head is small (tending to ♦ Qnoted by Gastafson, " Foundation of Death," p. 175. thp: nursery. 389 miorooephaliam), his physiognomy vacant, a nervous susceptibility, more or less accentuated, a state of nervousness bordering on hysteria, convulsions, epilepsy, sad ideas, melancholia, hypochon- dria—such are the effects, and these, with a passion for alcoholic beverages, an inclination to immorality, depravity, and cynicism, are the sorrowful inheritance which, unfortunately, a great number of individuals given to drink bequeath to their children." Professor Sigismund Jaccoud says : '* A survey of the race leads us to afi&rm that alcoholism is one of the greatest causes of the depopulation and degeneration of nations." Dr. Norman Kerr speaks as follows : *' Defective nerve-power and an enfeebled, debilitated morale form the fatal legacy of inebriates to their offspring. Some of the circle, generally the daughters, may be nervous and hysterical, are apt to be feeble and eccentric, and to fall into insanity when an unusual emergency takes place. That the impairment of the bodily or mental faculties arises from the intemperance of one or both heads of the family is demonstrated by the healthfulness and intellectual vigor of children born while the parents were temperate contrasted with the sickliness and mental feebleness of their brothers and sisters born after the parent or parents became intemperate. . . . The most distressing aspect of the heredity of alcohol is the transmitted narcotic or insatiable craving for drink — the dipsomania of tho phy- sician — which is every day becoming more and more prevalent. Probably the alarming increase of the alcoholic heredity in Eng- land is owing in great part to the increase of female intemperance among us. It is well to state that all the evils rei^ulting from heredi- tary alcoholism may be transmitted by parents who have never been noted for their drunkenness. Long-continued, habitual indulgence in intoxicating drinks to an extent far short of intoxication is not cnlysuflficient to originate and hand down a m«rbid tendency, but is much more likely to do so than even repeated dranken outbreaks with intervals of perfect sobriety between." One lingering tradition of the old faith in liquor as ay universal remedy still persists in the home. It lingers stubbornly there, because the matters it concerns are by many deemed too delicate for public discussion, and an- 390 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. cient errors are passed from mouth to mouth under the veil of domestic privacy. But we are fast learning that the purest thing is truth, and that where it is thought modest to whisper an error, it cannot be indelicate to speak out the real facts. "With what science so clearly teaches now of the intimate connection between the whole life of the mother and the unborn infant, it is manifest that all the harm alcohol can do to adult hu- manity, it can do most effectually to the delicate organ- ism of the forming being, if the mother uses intoxicants before the birth of her child. Grant, if you please, that it may give a pleasant sense of relief from some dis- tresses, just as a man by getting partially intoxicated will be relieved of a toothache. The tooth is not made sound, however. The relief is simply the paralysis of alcohol. So, notliing in the mother's constitution is im- proved. She has gained not one atom of nutrition, not one particle of strength, but simply a momentary com- fort from the alcohol-paralysis. The influence of it surely and harmfully strikes her child. Dr. E. G. Figg, in his *' Physiological Operation of Alcohol," * relates the results of his observation in cases of decided intem- perance of mothers before the birth of their children, saying, in conclusion : " What inference could be drawn from the circumstances, but that when the mother got drunk the child got drunk ; when the mother became insensible the child became insensible ; and when the mother was collapsed the child was so also ?" The same must be true in proportion of more moder- ate indulgences. Surely no mother is justified, when ample remedies for every really diseased condition can * Qnstafson, p. 220. THE XURSERT. 391 be obtained whicli involve no such consequences, in im- planting the seeds of alcoholism in the n(?rves and brain of her child, surely to harm its structure, and perhaps to grow up into an organism that may break her heart and curse society. If, out of the traditions of the past, the dangerous advice is given even by the beloved and honored, the mother of to-day should have the wisdom and independence to walk in our day's clearer light. But the nursing babe is more especially the victim of the dram. Many pure, high-minded, temperate mothers believe, and are religiously taught, that in order to nurse their children they must take beer, ale, or other liquor. Dr. Edmunds * makes an acute observation here. He says : " Such mothers fall easy victims to circulars vaunting the nourish- ing properties of ' Hoare's Stout,' ' Tanqueray's Gin,' or ' Gilbey's Strengthening Port,' circulars which are always backed up by the example and advice of lady friends, who themselves have acquired the habit of using these liquors, and icho view as a reproach to them- selves the practice of any other lady who will n.ot keep them in coun- tenance, as the perfection of all moral and physical propriety." The writer was once speaking with a wealthy farmer on this subject, who said, with decided emphasis : '' My wife always drank ale or beer when she was nursing her children." I asked: "Did you ever feed brewery mash to your cows?" "Yes, sometimes." "What was. the effect?" "Well, they gave more milk. But there wasn't any butter in it. You couldn't make a pound of butter from it if you churned all day." Said I: "'Would that kind of milk be good for a baby ?" " I shouldn't want to try it," he answered. There is a * Gustafson, p. 223. 392 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION". boiriely statement of what medical science more exactly teaches. «/ One of the most striking facts regarding the use of alcohol is the instant and desperate endeavor of the human system to get rid of it. Every excretory organ of the body hastens to throw it out. The familiar in- stance of this is the breath of the drinker, which is so charged with alcohol as to fill the air around him, the lungs struggling to throw off the destructive agent at every breath. But with the nursing mother the alcohol finds a readier way of escape, as it must escape some- where or cause the death of the drinker. The eminent Dr. James Edmunds, in a paper on *' Alcoholic Drinks as an Article of Diet for !Nursing Mothers," says :* " It is a matter of common observation that a glass of spirit taken at bedtime by a nursing mother not merely increases the flow of milk during the night, but causes the child to sleep heavily. Under these circumstances the spirit acts, not as a purgative, nor as a diu- retic, nor as a diaphoretic, nor does much of it pass off by the lungs, but it acts as a lactogogue, because the breasts are then in a state of great activity, and form the readiest channel through which the mother's system can eliminate the alcohol. In order to efifect that elimination, tho breasts have to discharge a profuser quantity of milk ; bui the increased quantity of milk is produced by a mere addition of alcohol and water, or it is produced by impoverishing and straining the system of the mother. In either case the poisonous influence of Ihc alcohol is manifested in narcotizing the child, and it cannot need much reflection to show that children ought not to have alcohol Altered into them as receptacles for matters which the mother's sys- tem finds it necessary to eliminate. Probably nothing could be worse than to have the very fabric of the child's tissues laid down from alcoholized blood." Living at one time where this system was largely prac- * Quoted by Gustafson, pp. 223, 224. THE XURSEKY. 393 tised by nursing mothers, my observation was tliat their fat, white babies were always cross, except when thoy were stupid. That is exactly the condition of a habitual tippler. Take care what you say to him, or how you look at him in the morning before he has had his dram, or when he has gone some time without it. But when he has had a ^* good drink" you may slap him on the shoulder, and he's *' a good fellow." Just such transi- tions those babies went through. The mother would say : '^ I don't know what I shall do with him. He is BO cross." Then he would be delivered to the nurse or the long-suffering sister to '^ take him out," to worry through the time till he could get from the maternal fountain another dram. It is awful to think of a mother running a saloon for her babe in her own breast. High up in the social scale the danger is often more serious than among the mid41e class. Fashion and wealth delegate the child's nourishment to the '' wet nurse," who probably has not the self-control and high self-respect that the cultured mother would have. She knows how to secure a heavy sleep for herself and the child by night, and uses enough to accomplish the pur- pose. Of the effects of this course upon the child, Dr. Ed- munds says : *' Infants nursed by mothers who drink much beer become ffttter than usual, aud to an untrained eye sometimes appear as ' magnifi- cent children.' Bat the fatness of such children is not a recom- mendation to the more knowing observer ; they are exceedingly Ijrone to die of inflammation of the chest (bronchitis) after a very few days' illness from an ordinary cold. They die very much more frequently than other children of convulsions and diarrhoea while cutting their teeth, and they are very liable to die of scrofulous in- 394 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. flammation of the membranes of the brain, commonly called * water on the brain,' while their childhood of ten presents a painful contrast — in the way of crooked legs and stnnted or ill-shapen figure — to the * magnificent and promising appearance of their infancy. ' " There can be no reasonable doubt that a constitutional craving for alcohol is often imbibed bj such babes dur- ing this impressible forming time through the influence of what Mr. Gustafson calls " lacteal heredity," of which he says : *'' Virtues, vices, physical characteristics, and the effects of habits indulged in during lactation can be transmitted to the child." This may be one explanation of the sudden fall into intemperate habits of the children of temperate and excellent people. The child was nursed into intemperance in babyhood. It cannot be too strongly said that the best and the only safe nourishment the mother or nurse can give her babe is that which comes from substantial food well digested by a healthy organism. When that fails, it is by all means safest to resort to the milk of an honest cow, who does not use intoxicants. This is good for the mother, too. A very accomplished physician told us this anecdote. ** I was attending," he said, " a young mother with her first child. She said to me : * I sup- pose now, doctor, I shall have to drink beer.' * What for ? ' I answered. * Why, to have milk for my baby.' Said I : ' Why don't you drink milk ? ' She laughed, and asked with surprise : ^ Why, would that do it ? ' * Of course it would,' I replied, ' and in the surest and quickest way. Good milk contains all the constituents of human life, and while cow's milk would be hkely to be too strong for a tender infant, after it has passed through the mother's veins it is mingled in just the right proportions to give the child strength and health. THE XURSEEY. 395 It will be better for you, too.' She followed riiy advice, and both herself and her baby prospered.' ' Of the effects of beer-drinking on the mother, Dr. Edmunds says :* *• I have observed the following facts : The mothers frequently make flesh, and even become corpulent ; often, however, at the Bame time they get pale, and where they are not constitutionally robust in fibre they become inactive, short-breathed, coarse-com- plexioned, nervous, and irritable, and suffer from weakness of the heart and a long train of symptoms which are more or less severe according to the constitution of the mother and the quantity of alcohol she imbibes. The young mother prematurely loses the bloom and beauty of youth. Often it is quite startling to meet some lady who, during an interval of two years, has been transformed from a sprightly and charming young woman into an uninteresting, coarse- looking matron. She has nursed her first infant for twelve months. With a pure and rational diet she would simply have acquired a more dignified and womanly bearing, with a robuster gentleness of manner ; but a liberal supply of ' nourishing ' stout, etc., was adopted and imbibed regularly, in order to supply her infant with ' milk.* The presence of a nerveless apathy, or unintelligent irritability, afterward proved that a liberal supply of stimulants was required to support her strength, and although she ceased nursing, her own sensations convinced her of the necessity of continuing them. The outward and visible change is but an exponent of the degenerations and diseases which are taking root within. If there be a predis- position to insanity or consumption, these diseases are developed very rapidly, or they are brought on where proper management might altogether have tided over those periods of life at which the predisposition is prone to become provoked into actual disease." Another wrong of the nursery is the giving of actual drams to the babe. The child has been left too long, for the mother to ^^ get through her work," or to ^* see com- pany." The little one has become too faint and chilled to be able to take nourishment or to digest it if taken. Then it is walked with, tossed, trotted, and otherwise ,/ * Gustafson, p. 224. 396 KCOXOMICS OF PIIOIIIIJITIOX. tortured till maternal and paternal endurance is ex- hausted. Then '' hot whiskej and water" is given to intoxicate the little stomach and brain, and the baby goes to sleep on a teaspoonful just as its father would on half a pint. A mother who understands her business will take such an infant — if by accident it ever gets to that stage — put hot flannels over its stomach and feet, give it the hot water with something as innocent as pep- permint, and soothe it to a happy sleep, from which it will wake able to take its natural food, with no depress- ing reaction such as surely follows alcoholic stimulant. Civilization must banish this clinging relic of barbarism, the use of alcohol in the nursery. Byron said of Greece : ** When riseth Lacedsemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, Wken Grecian mothers shall fjive birih to men, Then mayest thou be restored, but not till then." To have a sound nation we must have wise mothers and healthy babies. CHAPTER XXY. POLITICS. " To preserve the Government we must nlso preserve a correct and energetic tone of morals. Liberty consists more in the habits of the people than in anything else. There are always men wicked enongh to go to any lengths in the pursuit of power, if they can find others wicked enough to support them. Ambitious men must be restrained by the public morality ; when they rise up to do evil, they must find themselves standing alone. Morality rests on religion. If you destroy the foundation, the superstructure must fall." — Da7\iel Webster, July Uh, 1802. ** The moral forces of the masses lie in' temperance. I have no faith in anything apart from that movement for the elevation of the ■working class." — Richard Cdbden. Dr. Johnson is said to have interpolated the following lilies into the ^* Traveller" of Goldsmith : " How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure !" The doctor called Goldsmith ^' an inspired idiot," but be would never have thought of that sentence either through his inspiration or his idiocy. Was the tyranny of Nero and Domitian, then, a small matter, when Roman matrons stabbed themselves to death in their own homes to avoid being torn away to the emperor's harem ? Was it a small thing when half the population were slaves, and many of the brightest genius liable to bo beaten or cruci- fied at the whim of brntal masters ? Was it a small tiling when prisoners of war were made to fight to the 398 ECONOMICS 01' 1»K0HI1UTI0X. death in the amphitheatre ? Was it a small thing when Alexander descended on rich and populous Tyre, and when he captured it after a wasting siege, crucified two thousand of its brave defenders on the sea-shore with their faces turned toward the city they had vainly de- fended, while the long, weeping train of wives and chil- dren was driven away under the lash to be sold into distant slavery ? Was the dire oppression of the Bourbon kings a small matter when it drove the French nation into the mad Revolution ? Were the Wars of the Roses a small matter when they poured out the best blood of England to decide which of two rival families should furnish England a **king" ? Were the wasting wars of Freder- ick the Great, and of Napoleon, small matters when it might almost be said of Europe, ^' there was not a house in which there was not one dead" ? lias it been a small matter to Mexico, for so many years in the past, not to know who would govern it the next day ? Far deeper was the insight, far truer the thought of the New Testa- ment writer, '' I exhort, therefore, first of all, that pray- ers, supplications, and giving of thanks be made . for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and hon- esty." The common sense of mankind has not been in fault when it has led them to forsake home, sacrifice treasure, and lay down life to overthrow bad govern- ment and to build up good government — ^* to establish justice, ensure domestic trancj^uillity, provide for the com- mon defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their poster- ity." The man who thinks he is too great to attend to ques- tions of good government simply shows that he is too POLITICS. 399 narrow. The man wlio thinks the business, professional or religious interests he is engaged in are too vast to allow him to consider governmental affairs or help to con- trol them, is simply neglecting one of the greatest factors iu the interests for which he lives. Neither home, com- merce, literature, art, nor the Church can reach its high- est development, or even be itself secure, without the aid of good, pure government. What shall be said when a paper like the Chicago Times, which is bj no means a distinctively temperance paper, publishes such an utterance as this (in its issue of June 8th, 1889) : " The largest brewerj' in Detroit has been aclded to a syndicate that threatens to be the most dangerous political power iu the United States. The breweries now control the principal distilling interests, and will in future direct every contest in which the people shall endeavor to limit the frightful havoc of the liquor traffic." That is to say, the worst element in American civiliza- tion, the cause of ^'frightful havoc," is in future to ^' direct every contest" where the people may strive to shake off the terrible yoke. Is it not time for American manhood to arise and at least make one mighty trial of strength, to see whether this is so or not — whether there is not soQiewhere in our institutions a power that may preserve all we hold dear against its spoliation ? We are told by leaders of morality and by leaders of / religion that ^' questions of morals must not be brought into politics." In the name of God, in the name of humanity, in the name of freedom, why not ? What is " politics" but a device for securing the good y of the people ? And what so deeply concerns the good of the people as true morality ? Have not all nations that have perished gone down under the weight of their 4UU i;co>;u.MUs uf i'kohibitiun. own vices ? It was not the Goths and Vandals who con- quered Rome. Rome was conquered long before by the corruption and enervation of its people, which had de- stroyed truth, honor, purpose, patriotism, home, and even physical manhood. Certainly all that tends to such results is matter for legislation and for politics, which are the foundation of legislation. If politics are not to save a nation from such a doom, what are they for ? Why should we go through the tax and strain, the excitement and expense of elections, if they are not to influence by a feather's weight these matters which most vitally con- cern the happiness, the welfare, and the very existence of a people ? \l There are some very devout and scholarly men who tell us that any political action about morals is a '' union of Church and State." Ilow they make it out that in suppressing the saloon the State is interfering with the liberty of the Church, or the Church with the liberty of the State, is beyond all ordinary comprehension. One leading theologian has said : *' If I am going to punish a man for sin, I ought to punish him for the greatest of sins, which is not believing in Christ." This is simply trifling with language, and using the word ^^sin'^ in an equivocal sense. When spoken of liquor selling, it means outward immorality. When spoken of unbelief, it means a state of the secret heart. There is a great fund of common morality which is accepted by all rational and civilized men. It is in substance that con- tained in the Ten Commandments. Now Ingersoll may not believe them inspired. With that the civil law has nothing to do. But if Ingersoll goes a step further, and because he does not believe them inspired, takes the liberty to steal or commit murder, the law will very POLITICS. 401 promptly punish liim without any infringement of re- h'gious liberty. We have a concrete case iu this very line in American life to-day — the Mormons. They be- lieve polygamy a divine institution. We say the Gov- ernment has nothing to do with your belief. But if you marry more than one wife we will fine and imprison you for it. Now, if legislation upon morals is an interfer- ence with religions liberty, this is a very flagrant case of interference. It comes into the very home circle, into the house which the common law declares the man's ** castle," into the most private relations of life, and punishes a man for marrying a woman whom he verily believes he had a divine right to marry, and who verily believes she had a divine right to marry him. In order to make the prohibition of liquor selling a parallel case to this prohibition of polygamy, it will be necessary to show that the saloon-keeper believes it is his divine right and his sacred duty to sell liquor, and that it is taught him by the most sacred teachings of his religion. The danger of interference with religious liberty is not a thousandth part as great in the prohibition of the saloon as in the prohibition of the harem. Let those who are 80 very anxious lest legislation upon morals shall harm religions liberty awake to the situation in Utah, where the United States Government is enforcing the Seventh Commandment with the stronoj hand I But we shall be told ^' the Government does not legis-*^ late against polygamy as wrong, but as injurious to so- ciety." Well, if that is the case, what is more fearfully injurious to society than the saloon ? Since the liquor seUing is doing such manifest damage to society, we may proceed against it for the damage, even if we also believe it to he viiclk'id. 402 ECONOMICS DF PROHIBITIOX. But we are ready to go further. Wo hold that in a case of manifest moral wrong — violation of the great law of common right — we may proceed against the wrong without waiting to prove the injury. For moral wrong is the greatest possible injury to society. It is very doubtful if any man can prove that polygamy has been injurious to society in Utah on merely materialistic grounds. The Mormons claim that it has been a benefit. The facts, on the whole, seem to sustain their claim. They are rich, aggressive, prosperous, advancing, colon- izing. The strength of our argument against polygamy is that it must do harm, even if we cannot show the harm ; that wrong against the marriage relation is itself the greatest harm, corrupting the very springs of public virtue and undermining the foundations of civilized society. We proceed against polygamy because it is wrong, and therefore sure to be injurious. This is the only way we can deal with public wrong, to deal effec- tively. *' Sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily." Often the wrong thing seems the prosperous thing. We cannot wait until it has destroyed a nation. We must deal with it as wrong, and therefore sure to be injurious somewhere and some time. Tiiere is a CASH VALDE IN MORALITY, though we cannot always show it at the start. Govern- ment has no more sacred duty and no higher trust than to conserve the morals of a people. In that it is sure to bo providing for their prosperity and security. It is fitting for us to plead against the saloon its vast moral wrong on those common lines of morality which all men recognize. It was 8o that wo broke down slavcrv. Wo did not POLITICS. 403 find out its economic harm till after we had destroyed it. The South thought it a source of vast prosperity. The slave-holders were not all Haleys or Legrees. Many slaves were so kindly treated that they voluntarily re- mained with their former masters, even supporting them by their own earnings in the time of poverty and need that followed the war. The great, profoundly moving thought that took iiold of the conscience of the North was that " there is no right of property in man." No one will charge Abraham Lincoln with being a foe to religious liberty. There are not many men who would venture to claim that he did not understand the philoso- phy of government. Abraham Lincoln set himself to oppose slavery after he had come to the conclusion, as expressed in his own terse phrase, " If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." The key to his whole campaign against Douglas, which roused tho hearts of Illinois and of the nation and made him Presi- dent, was the moral wrong of slavery. He said of it, in the now immortal words : ** He [Douglas] says he * don't care whether it is voted up or Toted down ' in the Territories. . . . Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it ; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. . . . And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider himself ' as much opposed to slavery as anybody,' I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that ? Perhaps you say it is a wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it in 404 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. wrong. . . . You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, ... it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these ttoo principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle." We say of this curse of our day : *^ If the liquor traffic is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." We claim that, from the economic standpoint, it is proper to urge against the liquor traffic that it is wrong as murder is wrong and as stealing is wrong, for it involves the es- sence of both ; as licentiousness is wrong, for it is the mightiest feeder of that great cancer. In the name of economics we have a right to awaken the public con- science to the liquor crime, as the surest way to abolish the liquor curse. The most sacred trust of politics is the moral well being of a nation. By that we do not mean religion, but rectitude, honesty, truth, and justice from man to man — concrete, tangible right, as against overt wrong with which law can deal. We invoke the power of legislation against the liquor traffic as a mighty, tangi- ble, overt wrong. Then we invoke it further as against a fearful national loss, waste, and peril, and wo claim that by as much as politics may take account of prisons and almshouses and insane asylums — and every legislature and governor has to answer for the record made in these matters in every campaign — by so much politics may take account of the traffic which chiefly fills those institutions of despair. Wo claim that by as much as politics may take account of the tariff, and rock the country as with an earthquake with that issue, by so much more may politics take ac POLITICS. 405 count of a traffic whose expenses are ten times* more than all the receipts from our tariff, and three times more than the total value of all our imports. The com- mon sense of the people is right. The liquor traffic is iu politics, and it is there to stay. It is the most burn- ing question with which our politics have now to deal. The temperance plank — or the want of it — is the first thing the people look for in every State and national platform. It is this in regard to which platform com- mittees are besieged, this with which they wrestle through weary hours, this which decides the fate of elections. It is fitting that it should. It " will never be settled till it is settled right." The only way to get the liquor traffic out of politics is to get the liquor traffic out of the country. We quote again from Mr. Locke the following strik- ing example of what he calls *^ the infernal part which it [the liquor traffic] plays in politics" : " In Toledo, with ninety thousand population, there are eight hundred whiskey and beer shops. The vote of the city is fifteen thousand. Now these shops will average two votes each, the pro- prietor and one assistant, which makes a total of sixteen hundred. This is a tremendous power, especially as it is wielded by one head. All these men belong to the Liquor Dealers' Association, and all act together. These men have no principles. They are not divided upon tariff, currency, and other questions ; politics is a part of their business, and their vote is cast as one, that it may bo made profit- able. They are in a business that everybody looks upon as dis- reputable ; they are in it to make money, and they care not how they make it. * The imports of the United States in 1887 were $679,159,477. The customs receipts (tariff) for the same year were $217,286,893. We have shown that the direct cost of the liquor trafl&c is more than $1,000,000,000, and the indirect cost as much again. (See Chapter II., page 17.) 406 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. " In party contests this power has tw^o points to make. First, to demonstrate that it is a power which is not to be meddled with. No matter whether the candidate aims at the Presidency, a seat in Congress, scliool directorship, or a park commissionership, the first question the Liqnor Dealers' Association asks, is. Is he a temperance man ? If he is, the whole power of the organization is turned against him. They want it understood that no one can be elec:ed to any place of honor or profit without their help. The showing of this power insures them against such troublesome interference as the enactment of early-closing laws, Sunday closing, large taxation, and, above all. Prohibition. They aim at control of the law-making power as well as the law- executing power. Secondly, they want their places to be made the centre of political management, the places where committees meet, and from whence money used in the elections is to be dispensed. From this money they take their toll, as a matter of course. The point with the brewer is to make the brewery the one controlling element in politics, and he has succeeded wonder- fully. A politician may safely snub the Church, but he grovels in the dust before the wiclder of the beer- mallet. He pays no attention to the good classes, but how ho bows to the worst ! The reason is, the good classes are divided on political and economic questions, while the liquor interest is united solely for one end. '* Once more, as to their strength : add to this vote (which is, of itself, enough to turn the scale as parties are now organized) the collateral branches of trade more or less connected with liquor mak- ing and selling. The tobacconists, the coopers, the bottlers, and the (liflEerent kinds of people who supply the saloon trade, are all under this influence, and half as many more can be added to this sixteen hundred, making it twenty-four hundred. '* But this, large as it is, is the least of it. There is not one of these eight hundred saloons that cannot control four votes besides the two behind the bar, and that comes very close to a full half of all the votes in the city. They control the poor devils who are glad to ■oil their votes for the beer they can drink a week or two before an election, and one day after. " Now take this enormous vote, mass the men employed in brew- eries, the wholesalers anerance is in the political field. The Christian citizen may not shrink from meeting it there. We speak of Christ as relying upon moral methods. So, for the most part, He did. But once in His life an evil traffic confronted Illni. That He assailed with the strong hand, throwing down the tables of its money- changers, and scourging them out of the temple they 430 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. had profaned. If ever any money-changers' tables should be overthrown it is these, whose every coin is dripping with blood and tears. If ever there was time and place for the scourge it is against this traffic, which sells not doves, but men, — to drive it out from this fair land, reserved for centuries in the providence of God to be for all nations a liouse of prayer, which it is fast making a den of thieves. CHAPTER XXVIII. CITIES AND IMMIGRANTS. •• Thomas Carlyle predicted that all great modern cities will come finally to the position in which Paris was under the Commune, un- less the reputable side of society organizes itself aggressively to counteract the dangers which make universal suflrage a peril. I stood lately among the ruins of the public buildings burned by the mob in Cincinnati. I remember the railway riots of 1877. We are performing an experiment, not only in the face of the whole world, bat for the benefit of the entire earth. It is for Americans, who believe in government- of the people, for the people, and by the people, to see that such government is made so wise and strong as not to perish from the earth. There is growing up in the liquor traffic a power that already has its clutches on our throats ; and a loss of time in organizing national reform may be the loss forever of an opportunity to save our nation from being wrecked by municipal misrule. Tlierefore, for one, I pray God to send us such a recrystal- lization of politics. as shall throw all the best elements of society into a National Keform FixTty," —Joseph Cook. ** Whiskey is the d^^namite of civilization." — Hon. John D. Long, of MassachusetiSf speech against Bonded Whiskey Bill. What shall we do with our cities, and what shall we do with our immigrants ? Two tremendous questions, and in them the future of the Republic ! I. With one-fourth of our population in the cities, with the steadily increasing drift toward them, with the field and immunity they give to the vicious classes, and the self-degrading tendencies which so rapidly multiply the number of the vicious already there, thoughtful men 432 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. are coming to hold their hreath at the menace to our ci vilization. The most startling element in the case is that so many leading men— successful politicians, editors of great dailies and of widely read magazines, distinguished lawyers, eminent clergymen, have practically given up the problem. They take it for granted that the Sunday theatre, the seven-day saloon, the beer garden and the brothel, the ward pohtician, the bummer, the heeler, and the daily murder *'have come to stay" — a cant phrase which, if anything is awkward, unpopular, or dangerous to deal with, is supposed to relieve the soul of all responsibility for letting it go on. If any law is proposed which would effectually restrain any of these things, they answer w'ith the greatest promptness, '* You can never enforce it in the cities." That is, it is claimed that THE CITIES HAVE ALREADY PASSED OUT OF THE CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC, and that the people at large are at their mercy, to pass only such laws as their worst classes will not object to. The statement seems a terrible one when put into plain words ; but the best thing to do with any idea is to put it into plain words, that we may know whether we believe it, and, if we do, what are we going to do about it. City domination has been often tried in history, and, in every case, disastrously. When Rome sucked in all the 8(»rength and riches of the provinces, so that whoever was master of Rome was master of the empire, the em- pire became not worth maintaining. Feudalism, though a system of disintegration, was a gain by multiplying centres of influence, and distributing power. When the French kings reversed the process, and drew all the nobility from their estates to reside at court, till it could be said, ** Paris is France," they prepared the way CITIES AXD IMMIGRANTS. 433 for the Revolution. The Revolution was what it was largely because all who determined its destinies could be drawn together by the midnight bells of Paris. Splen- did cities and helpless peasantry work ill for any nation. To have the rural districts held by a sturdy, intelligent, honest yeomanry, compelling laws which city as well as country must obey, is the condition of safety and stabil- ity. If our cities control us they will destroy us, be- cause their worst elements govern them. ^ The life of the city is essentially artificial. Its inhab- itants have little knowledge of the farmers' needs, and less sympathy for them. But to legislate against the in- terests of agriculture is to cut the roots of national pros- perity. At last we all depend on the farmer. *^ The king himself is served by the field." Government by cities tends always to prostrate agriculture and to de- grade the agricultural classes from a yeomanry into a peasantry. Then the country becomes a hollow shell, with some centres of magnificence rattling around in it. Within the city the worst elements have exceptional ^ power. A few roughs cannot control a rural village. They are opposed and discounted at every turn. A thing is at once resisted which they are observed to favor. One substantial farmer by a dozen words from his wagon-seat can spoil a month's intrigue of such a clique. The climate does not agree with them. But scrape them out of a thousand villages, and pile them in the city ten stories deep, and the grains which, if sepa- rate, might flash harmlessly, combine into a mine of tremendous explosive power. It is very doubtful whether the best elements of the city, unaided, can at- tain a unity equal to the consolidation of this vicious force, and a steadiness equal to its fury. So far, at least. 434 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. thej' are not doing it. The better classes of the cities must be re-enforced bj the virtue and intelligence of the rural districts, in order to control their own dangerous classes. Even as we write, one of our religious weeklies comes with an appeal of *' Help for Cincinnati" — in view of the general defiance there of Sabbath laws, and most others. It pleads for the virtue and intelligence of the State to aid them through the Legislature in their contest, saying : *' Help can only come from the State." The plea is good. The city needs t"he help of every true heart, hand, and vote in all the rural districts in order to redeem itself. How can the tendency to dangerous centralization in the cities be checked ? How can the domination of the worst classes in the city over city and country alike be ended ? To answer these questions, we must ask two others : / 1. What is the deadliest way in which the city sucks the life-blood of the country ? The answer is, by taking its grain and giving it back intoxicants ; by bringing its brawn and brain to staggering imbecility. Every man 80 spoiled is a loss to the producing power of the coun- try, and a probable recruit to the dangerous classes in the city — a double weight in the wrong scale. Prohibi- tion of the liquor traffic, while it might not at once stop the sale in the city, could at once blot out the distillery and brewery, and thus keep the city from fattening on the ruin of the country, and breeding there festering sores whose drip must return upon its own vitals. Pro- hibition Iwifi had not quite six years of bitterly disputed control in Iowa, but now the news comes that the great Arensdorf brewery at Siotix City is being fitted up for an oatmeal factory. Spread the consumption of oat- CITIES AND IMMIGRANTS. . 436 meal ! A rural population without a saloon, a tippler, or a drunkard, will have that ascendency in State and national life which vtrtue and intelligence always give. They can not only protect themselves, but bring aid to the beleaguered city. 2. What is the great focus of destruction in the city ? There is one instant answer — the saloon. If the ques- tion is of Anarchy, the saloons are the Anarchists' gather- ing places ; if of crime, the saloons are the criminals' resorts. If a criminal is evading justice, the police watch the saloons for him, and nine times out of ten find him tliere. The saloon demoralizes by more tlian the liquor that is drunk. The language that is heard, the stories that are told, the company that is kept, the rehearsal of crime, the familiarity of villainy, the freemasonry of vice, combined with the heating of the brain and the deadening of the liner sensibiHties by alcohol, are con- stantly bringing the better class of young men who fre- quent them down toward the level of the lower and the lowest. The saloons are constantly recruiting the ranks of the vicious classes from the ranks of the better classes. How can the better classes protect themselves against this steady desertion from their own ranks and this steady re-enforcement of the enemy ? They must call in the help of the country. This is no question of the country against the city, but of the country helping the best part of the city against the worst. The better part is the true city ; the rest an accretion we endure because we cannot get rid of it. It is as if the worst classes had risen in riot and the troops of the country were called in to suppress it — not to capture the city, but to protect it Against an internal foe. The better classes of the city must welcome the aid. When the country is demanding ./ 436 ECONOMICS OF PROHICITIOX. Prohibition, let no one raise the objection of '' It can't be enforced in the city." It can in the country, and that is so much to start with. In the city, too, a part of its enforcement begins from the instant of its enactment, making the manufacture and sale of liquor an outlawed business, driving capital out of it, making insurance companies shy of it, making its debts uncollectible. Then, the weakest enforcement operates as a first-class ** restriction," driving the saloon from the open street to alleys and cellars, where self-respecting young men — those best worth saving — will not go after it. Every year brings Prohibition boys from the country to be rising men in the city, and makes the enforcement of Prohibition constantly easier when once begun. Pro- hibition is a screw. Once well set, it is only necessary to keep turning the handle, and the pressure grows every moment more irresistible. The longer it is turned on, the more determined the people are not to have it turned back, but to keep twisting the handle further round. Thus, ex-Governor Martin says that, at the recent elec- tion in Kansas, ** no political party ventured even to offer a resolution in favor of reopening the question." The city can control its foreign population when it can keep them sober ; and when the police do not have to watch saloons, they will be in better condition to watch every- thing else. The country can help the city to do this. The country has a stake in the city as great as the num- ber of its bright boys and girls sure to go there. It has a light to demand a voice in shaping the city's destiny for virtue and temperance. The State must control the city, like every other foot of its territory, in the interest of all the people. When the country can help the city to Prohibition, it can help it to everything else necessary CITIES AND IMMIGRANTS. 437 to an honest, clean, safe administration of government, till the citv shall cease to be '^ a menace to civilization." Nothing so mnch as Prohibition can enable us to con- trol, purify, and redeem the ^* shims" of the city. The Cleveland Press remarks : ♦♦Perhaps tho woik of Jack the Kipper may be the canse of some good work which he has not contemplated. The degradation of Whitechapel is only what might be expected in a population which is compelled to live in a condition of brutal degradation. That such dens as those of Whitechapel should exist in a civilized land is a mockery of the very idea of civilization. On this subject the public mind is now thoroughly aroused, and it is to be hoped tiiat the result will* be seen in a clean sweep of the whole district. The science of human life has only begun to be a science, and it will continue to be nothing better than impracticable speculation nntil it is applied to the problem of the life of the poor in the great cities to which popula- tion crowds in these times. We know now that the epidemic dis- eases, the plagues, and the enormous death-rates of former ages were caused by ignorance and carelessness. We have got rid of the igno- rance ; it is high time that we rose out of the carelessness. It is time, too, that we should realize the fact that epidemics of crime- may have their cause in unsound sanitary conditions as well as in other things. It is a fact that cleanliness, if it does not always prove godliness, at least conduces powerfully to decency. Decent living makes decent people ; and where decent living is impossible, decent people need not be looked for. For its oicn sake society has an in- terest in the possibility of decent living to all its members. If one- half, or even one-fifth, of the money expended on converting the heathen were applied to the solution of these pressing home affairs, the face of many great cities, and ultimately of all, would soon begin to wear a different aspect !' ' We shall not need, however, to do less for tho heathen, and stint the pitiful ^5, 000, 000 which all our Ameiican Christendom gives to save the whole heathen world. Only stop using our $1,000,000,000 to make heathen at home, and we can build model lodging-houses, lay out wide, clean, well-lighted streets, care for the women in 438 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. homes and the children in schools, build churches and chapels and set up mission Sunday-schools, and make these waste places of our civilization blossom like the garden of the Lord. II. Immigration is denationalizing us, un-American- izing us. We have to stop and think to know whetiier we are ourselves, and the rush is so great we haven't the time to stop. "We are laying the foundations of empire, and laying them as building materials are dropped out of a cyclone. We want not to stop immigration, but to sift it ; to have the wheat of honesty, industry, muscle, intelligence, and religion dropped on our shores, and the chaff of ignorance, degradation, filth, vice, and crime blown back across the sea. For this purpose, national Prohibition will be an unequalled sieve. Mr. D. W. Gage, of Cleveland, writes in the New Era : " ComiDR from Chicago to Cleveland, I met on the train an old Republican friend and ex-senator of the Ohio Legislature. He had been taking a tour to the Rocky Mountains, and had been southwest through Kansas and northwest through Wisconsin. Said he, * I can tell just as soon us I enter a Chicago depot and look over the crowd of travellers, especially the emigrants, where they are going— whether to Kansas or Wisconsin. You "will see the clean, well-dressed, neat, intelligent classes, who use no liquor and little tobacco, going toward Kansas, and the ignorant, poorer clad, unshaved and wooden shod, with breath odorous of beer and whiskey, going toward Wisconsin.' He recognized the cause in Kansas as a Prohibition State and Wis- consin as a license State." Let Prohibition cover all our territory, and it will be heralded over the sea. Then the criminal, the crook, the tippler who is *' never drunk," but if ever sober thinks he is sick, and hurries to take something ** as a medicine," the Anarchists and the Lazzaroni, will keep CITIES AXD IMMIGRANTS. 439 away from a land where they can never again get a square drink. But the sober, the diligent, tlie saving, the virtuous, even from hands where drinking usages prevail, will recognize the hope that is in our better way. Many a father who dr'nks in England will be glad of the gain to his boys in bringing thetn to a land where they will not drink. Many a wife will use wom- an's quiet influence to get the yet unspoiled husband to a land where he may achieve his best and be saved from sinking to his worst. Prohibition would enable us to pick the best elements from all the nations. Its sifting would shape the coming centuries and mould the very race-type of the future, incorporating with our stock the choicest life-blood of every people. "What is called the '* one narrow issue" of Prohibition is equal to the solu- tion of some of our gravest problems, and to the widest view of public welfare and national destiny. What do we wish our immigrants to be ? Do we want German provinces, Irish colonies, Scandinavian counties, and Italian wards to make us a polyglot nation, and lay out on the American Continent a new map of Europe, with all the old prejudices, hatreds, and feuds of the ages past ? Do we want a Clan-na-Gael running a gov- ernment inside of our Government, with its own courts, trials, and executions? No. We want Americans, all speaking one language, all holding our land their coun- try, and centring in it all their loyalty, their sympathies, and their hopes. We want their children to hold this their native country and their fatherland. There is a good deal in the funny story of the English settler and his American-born boy. The boy proposed to celebrate ''the Fourth," and his father asked, '* What do you care for the Fourth of July ?'' ** Why, 440 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. that's the day we whipped you, pa," was the answer. We want every American-born boy and girl to be born into all our American history and institutions. "We would make of all these mingled nations one American people, the noblest and most glorious the world ever saw. > We would have our immigrants ask, not how they can [/ mould us to the customs of their forefathers in the lands from whose oppression they are fleeing, but how they can mould tliemselves to the institutions that have made America so free and grand. We would have them not looking back over the sea, but forward to the possible advance of America's future, to a civilization better and richer than they or we have known. The best way to do this is to take intemperance, with all its waste of money, its disorder, pauperism, and crime out of their path as well as ours, and make the children of all one new people never touched by the curse of the ealoon. CHAPTER XXIX. •• Slavery and alcohoj are the twin curses of the Dark Continent. Surely America will not be laggard in seconding the efforts of any Christian power whatever, whether in England or Germany, which will address itself in earnest to the task of their complete suppres- sion. Professor Drummond has appealed for our aid in stemming the encroachments of slave-hunting Arabs in Central Africa. But while the Mohammedan religion permits one form of slavery it does not permit another, and of the two the worse. Turks and Arabs are total abstainers from intoxicants. Shall we, as a Christian nation, have longer any part or lot in the infliction upon Africa of a kind of slavery which ruins both body and soul, and wrenks not merely tem- porary, but eternity-long disaster ?" — Illustrated Christian Weekly. The tablet on wliicli I am writins: lias on its cover a picture of llolnnson Crusoe under a burning southern sky, dressed from head to foot in thick furs, while he holds over his head a heavy feather umbrella. It seems never to have occurred to the novelist nor to his thou- sands of boy readers that this costume would be warm. The description is an unconscious testimony to the civil- ized man's idea that dress is a necessity to human dignity and propriety, even when one civilized man constitutes the entire population of a tropical island. Jn fact, what- ever certain travellers may say of the guileless simplicity of savages, all the people who have ever done anj'thing that history has thought worth recording have been those who wore clothes. The first step of the newly- 442 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. discovered African up from barbarism will be when lie shall cease to be " The naked Ethiop panting at the line." Ill that latitude he will not clothe himself in the skins of beasts, wild or tame, Robinson Crusoe to the contrary notwithstanding. His own rude manufactures will not furnish him much worthy the name of clothing. It is only the products of civilized looms, light enough not to be a burden, bright enough to be attractive', cheap enough to . be washed and changed often and replaced when worn out, that can ever bring such a people up the first step from barbarism to civilization. There are fifty millions of such in the Congo basin alone. All is open to trade as soon as the railroad is built around Livingstone Falls. What a demand for the cotton cloth of the Birminghams, Manchesters, and Lowells is here ! By the time this vast population should approximate the civilization of the Hindus, Burmans, and Karens, the demand for cotton cloth alone would be not less than ,§50,000, 000 annually. Missionaries testify that this is one of the first and most striking advances " made by the natives who come under the influence of Christianity. What is the effect of intoxicating liquors upon this demand ? What is its effect in civilized lands ? Where law, custom, inherited disposition and winters of cruel cold unite to demand abundant clothing, the entire trend of alcohol is toward nakedness. The ragged man, scarcely within the limits of mere decency ; the shivering woman with a summer dress on an Arctic day ; the children barefooted on the icy streets, are the familiar results of intoxicating drink in civilized lands. !N'ow try it on the THi: devil's foreign mission. 443 Equatorial savage, where custom, heredity, and climate unite to make costume the most dispensable of all human needs, and what is the result ? Rev. James Johnson, the native pastor of the island of Lagos, says : •'As you stand nt Lagos j'ou can seo fleets of canoes laden with casks of palm-oil, nuts, and other produce. But when they are re- turning home, what do they carry away with them? Very few pieces of cloth; every one of them is laden with rum and gin. We give Europe palm-oil and many other useful things ; but what does she give us in return? This vile stuff; this spirit which sends our people drunken and mad. ******** "A friend mentioned to me lately thut a member of a Glasgow firm stated to him that ha formerly employed a largo number of looms weaving cloth for the African market ; novsr he has not one. A trader in the Calabar River wrote recently to his principals to send no more cloth — drink was the article in demand. Mr. Joseph Thomson, in his recent journey into the Niger regions, found this evil so abounding therein, that it will render hopeless the demand, anticipated by some, by the natives, for unliyniled supplies of calico, as effectually as will ihe sterility of the Eastern countries through which he formerly travelled. In all its effects, moral and economical, this traflfic is only evil ; impeding the work of the Church at home, marring her mission work abroad, and destroying beneficial indus- try." * Mr. Johnson himself states :f *' At each port of call the eye becomes bewildered in watching the discharge of thousands of cases of gin, hundreds of demijohns of rum, box upon box of guns, untold kegs of gunpowder, and myriads of clay pipes, while it seems as if only by accident a stray bale of cloth went over the side." Mr. W, P. Tisdcl, special agent of the United States to the Congo, says : " Unfortunately a few gallons of trade gin will go further in trade * •• Africa and the Drink Trade," by Canon Farrar, pp. 24, 26. f Ibid., p. 31. 444 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. with the natives than ten times its value in cloth, and it often hap- pens that traders are compelled to return to the coast without having accomplished a trade because the natives insist upon having gin, while the trader was supplied with cloth alone." The submission of our makers of cotton goods in allow- ing the alcoholic trade to close in their faces the market of a continent: — the one new door of the world — is su- premely astonishing. We should expect that the Parlia- ment of Great Britain and the United States Congress would be flooded with petitions and demands from the great cotton industry against this spoliation. It may be eaid, without doubt, that if any foreign power had for- bidden our cotton manufacturers the ports of Africa, we would go into a new *' War of 1812" sooner than allow it. The South would be hot as the North for it, for the shutting out of millions of yards of cloth means the loss of a market for thousands of bales of cotton. It is only the wonderful liquor traffic which can thus sit down on a vast manufacture, and not a voice from the mercantile world be raised against it. Mr. Hornaday, in his " Free Rum on the Congo," says :* "Why, if there were only a feio millions of money to be made hy en- forcing temperance in Africa, there would be ten thousand capitalists clamoring at the doors of Congress to-morrow for the exclusive privi- lege of performing the task. What is more, every company bidding for the privilege would be ready to deposit $10,000,00{» as a guarantee of success, to be forfeited in case of failure. If the mujhiy llar was only there, there would be no need to raise a temperance army by conscription ; we should be overwhelmed with volunteers." Well, the miglity dpllar w there, if our manufacturers could only be got to open their eyes to see it. The objection will be raised by some that the negroes ♦ P. lie. THK DEVII/S FOREIGN MISSION. 445 would not work without it and would not buy other things anyway if they did not have the liquor. But this objection has had a practical answer. Mr. Ilornaday supplies the following interesting facts : •• Notwithstauding the assertions of the traders, of Mr. Tisdel, and even Mr. Stanley himself, that it is utterly impossible to trade with the natives without rum or gin, we have now most positive proof that a large and profitable business can be done without the agency of a single drop of liquor. There is one English trading company, having twelve stations between the coast and the region of the great lakes, which finds it not only possible but profitable to get along without poisoning or debauching the natives. Says the Loudon Times: •• • During the eight years in which the company has extended the ramifications of its trade over this immense distance, it has proved that it is possible to trade in india rubber, wax, oil seeds, and ivory to an enormous amount without defiling the list of their barter goods ■with a single keg of trade rum, or the all-representative •• square- face" of the West Coast trade. It is something to have established proof before us that it is not necessary to carry rum and desolation, headed up in Hamburg casks and Dutch gin bottles, to a new coun- try, before you can hope to see tusks and dividends. The Messrs. Moir, who are entrusted with the concerns of the company, testify that they have already exported 40,815 pounds of ivory, and not im- ported a glass of spirits.' "* The destruction of the nativ^es has also its economic side. It is well-nigh impossible for white men to live on the Lower Congo. It is not certain that they can work like the natives anywhere in the country. Cer- tainly the}' cannot for any such wages. There never was a more short-sighted view of the interests of commerce than that which supposes that the way to make money out of foreign peoples is to strip them, impoverish them, and destroy them off the face of the earth. That is the " Free Rum on the Congo," p. 73. 446 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. old barbarian idea of Cortes and Pizarro. All that Mexico and Peru were good for, in their opinion, was to plunder them of their gold and silver plates, crowns and jewels, then work the natives to death in gangs in mines and on plantations — never mind how fast they died. Even Columbus did not wholly rise above this idea, and one cause of his downfall was that he alienated the gentle Isabella by his persistence in enslaving the natives against her protest. The outcome was almost equal disaster to the conquered and the conquerors. The gorgeous bar- barian civilization of the Montezumas and the Incas was destroyed, and nothing given to take its place, while Spain, after a brief blaze of extravagant splendor, be- came poorer and weaker than before Columbus set sail. In the northern part of North America, on the contrary, the English, French, and Dutcli colonists came with no other idea than that of working a subsistence out of the stubborn soil and making money by thrifty trade in furs and other native products that are collected with toil and hardship. The solid prosperity of the Northern States and Canada show the superior excellence of this method on mere economic grounds. Now the United States are just awaking to tho eco- nomic possibilities of their American neighbors. But all our iiopes of wealth there now are by helping them with capital and inventions and transportation to bring out the full working power of the people and the natural riches which their soil may yield to labor. We have come to sec that the simple old expedient of hard work, as in .^sop's fable of the vineyard — work sufficiently encouraged and well directed, may find riches there beyond the Spani!*li conquerors' dreams. To get those riches we would not destroy the people, nor degrade THE devil's foreign MISSION. 447 them, nor rob them, for that woiihl spoil their working and producing and buying power, and so " kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.''^ The Roman Empire was far from an ideal government, but was, up to its day at least, the most intelligent of conquering powers in its care to preserve the conquered peoples. It would oppress them, it would rob them, but it would not destroy them. It kept up the productive power of the provinces as a means of maintaining the wealth, power, and glory of Rome. Its avowed aim was to awaken among the conquered the tastes and wants of civilization as a means of keeping them in peaceable and willing subjection. Rome would have looked with in- dignation and horror upon a proposition to introduce among her provinces a traffic which should depress the energies of the conquered people, destroy their hope and ambition, and take away the last desire for any of the advantages of civilization, and at length sweep races and nations out of existence. This all the tyranny of Nero, Caligula, and Domitian, and all the weak misgovernment of the last degenerate Caesars, never did. In comparisoa with this the slaughter of a few thousands in her splen- did arenas was humane and enlightened. Under her iron rule Britons, Gauls, Spaniards, Greeks, Egyptians, and all the Asiatics were left with national boundaries, languages, and civilizations, with splendid cities, schools of philosoph}', eloquence and art, with extensive manu- factures, and the great wise system of Roman roads open- ing profitable avenues of trade to the ends of the earth, while her strong government made the transfer safe wherever her eagles went. Pagan, profligate, heartless, the empire was yet too wise to destroy its producers. The Saracens, with the sword in one hand and the 448 FX'ONOMICS OF PROHIBITIONS Koran in the other, never waged such exterminating war as the Anglo-Saxon, with a shipload of rum in the hold and a missionary on the deck. The superintendent of Lutheran missions in West Africa, writes : "On one small vessel on which myself and wife were the only pas. senders, there were in the hold over one hundred thousand gallons of New England rum." What we have said of cotton goods applies to every product of civilization up to books and stationery. Let the missionaries try to educate, and what chance have they ? Rev. Dr. Sims, of the Baptist mission, says : "When I was assisting to conduct a mission at Bamana, the port of the Congo, it was diflScult to get the natives to assemble in a sober state on Sabbath morning." What could a minister do for such a congregation even in America, with no inherited heathenism behind them ? It must be remembered, too, that the gin bottle will travel unaided, like the cholera. It will go — it does go — from hand to hand among the natives hundreds of miles into the interior, where no foot of white man has ever trod ; and the most enterprising missionary will find the bodies and souls of the natives pre-empted before his coming by the demon of intoxication. Says Dr. Sims : "Bum is now carried into the far interior by natives and retailed at a profit. At my house, three hundred and twenty-five miles in the interior, a bottle of Itotterdam gin has been offered to me at six- teen cents (eight brass rods), and a demijohn at $3. At that place caravans of Bateke and Bakongo continually passed, of which twenty- five men out of every hundred would be loaded with intoxicating drinks. From such sources of supply I have seen many natives and Boldiers of the State become drunk immediately upon the arrival of a caravan. It is pretty certain that 50 per cent, of the returned com- merce account of the natives who live near the trading houses is given to them in liquor. At Stanley Pool not more than 25 per cent. THE devil's foreign MISSION. 449 of the value of their goods goes back to them in liquor, but that is because of the distuuee. Were they living near u trader they would be hopelessly drunken. It is a sad thought that where live years ago liquor was unknown and never asked for, the natives now beg for it, and nothing else can better ingratiate one into their favor. As for the kings near the seaside trading houses, intoxication is about their normal condition."* Not only does the traffic destroy the market for all the t/ products of civilization, but it stops native production. We know how it hinders productive work in civilized lands. Among the Africans, little used at best to con- tinuous labor, it destroys all capacity and purpose for it. Says Mr. Stanley if *' Gin is used as currency. . . . Gin and rum are also largely consumed as grog by our native workmen. We dilute both largely, but we are compelled to serve it out both morning and evening. A stoppage of this would be followed by a cessation of work. It is •custom ;' custom is despotic, and we are too weak and too new in the country to rebel against custom. If we resist^ custom we shall be abandoned. Every visitor to our camp on this part of the Congo [the Lower], if he has a palaver with us, must first receive a small glass of rum or gin. A chief receives a bottlefal, which he dis- tributes teaspoonf nl by teaspoonful among his followers. This is the Lower Congo idea of 'an all-around drink.' I see by the returns of the station chief that we consume one hundred and twenty-five gallons of rum monthly, by distributing grog rations and native de- mands for it in lieu of a portion of their wages." Yet in the interior, where Stanley had the African to himself, no leader ever got from any set of men more magnificent and continuous work, and that without the liquor. How they built and fortified their forest camps ! How they cut roads and dragged the boats aroi^d the endless cataracts ! How they marched, almost starving, ' Free Ram on the Congo,' ' p. 76. The Congo," vol. i., p. 193. 450 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. faitliful unto death ! Yet they were almost a pirate crew when they set out from Zanzibar, embroiling the expedi- tion by drunken rows in the villages in their first day's march. When he got them into the interior, where there was no liquor, other motives could move them better — as they can all humanity. It is the old familiar story, the same on every shore ; the man who drinks must have it ; the man who does not is more capable of every good without it. Commerce has its choice. On one side is a race of lazy, drunken savages, who will work just long enough to get a bottle of gin and " enjoy a fiendish holiday," and who want no other thing that civilized man produces, and have no means to pay for it if they did. As to the other side, we are told that they are dirty, immoral, etc., which is only to say that they are savages. We are told that they are lazy — a trait which may be observed elsewhere. Stanley did not find much indica- tion of it when they were after him ! It took all his energy, enterprise, and indefatigable endurance to get ahead of them. People who can build war canoes sev- enty and eighty feet long, man them with double ranks of oarsmen and warriors, manoeuvre them in fleets, charging and retreating in perfect order and steadiness ; who can build villages miles in length, with shady verandas and partitioned rooms ; who can keep great cleared spaces in their forests for market-places, which are held as neutral ground, and where tribes from every side as- sembly to trade on certain specified days ; who can take raw iron ore and work it into tools, with nothing better than a clay furnace of their own invention to smelt it in, are capable of civilization. If you doubt it, get down yonr CflBsar and read what the accomplished and victori- THE devil's foreign MISSION. 451 0U8 Roman has to say about your own British and Celtic and German ancestors, with their wicker huts and their unclad, tattooed bodies, their aversion to all industries except war, their endless tribal feuds and their human sacrifices, and then consider what very nice people we have come to be, and you will admit that there is a chance even for the African. Keep awuy the liquor of which he has no knowledge and feels no need till wo bring it to him. Offer him the bright garments, the sharp, effective tools ; build some good houses there ; give missionaries a chance to teach a sober people the prin- ciples of morality and the elements of knowledge ; and you will have a people rising in the scale of civilization, and a field for a varied, profitable, and enduring com- merce, with that steady, healthy increase which is the life of trade. Mr. Hornaday remarks :* •• Naturally, the Upper Congo country is the garden spot of Africa, and in spite of the present hostility of some of the natives at a few points, the chances are that, if judiciously 'developed,' it will event- ually produce the finest types of the African race, as well as the greatest commercial riches. If rum can be kept from these people, and white thieves, liars, and libertines excluded also ; if they can be shown what a multitude of blessings flow from peace, sobriety, hon- esty, and industry, their future progress upward is assured. *• Prodaclions. — The commercial products of the Congo basin are india-rubber, palm-oil, palm nuts, ground nuts, gum copal, camwood, wax, ivory, oichilla weed, cola nuts, baobab fibre, gum tragacauth, myrrh, nutmeg, ginger, frankincense, coffee, castor-seed, rattan canes, bark cloth, castor-oil nuts, copper, feathers, skins and hides, ••The native food products of the country (the great majority of which must be considered as belonging to the Upper Congo) are . ground nuts, bananas, plantains, manioc or cassava, maize, sugar- cane, millet, yams, sweet potatoes, beans, brinjalls, cucumbers, * "Free Eum on th« Congo," pp. 129, 130. 452 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, etc. From Stanley Pool eastward, the officers of the International Association have introduced mangoes, papaws, orttnges, limes, coffee, pineapples, guavas, cabbages, Irish potatoes, and onions, all of which appear to thrive." Ill view of the threatened destruction of all this trade, well might the Archbishop of Canterbury proclaim in Westminster Abbey of the African liquor traffic : " It is a dread commerce. But it is rather an anti-commerce. Tlie fear of il and the dread of it will soon he upon commerce itself. If we have long seen monopolies to be a bar and obstruction to trade— if we have found that to put a whole trade into the hands of one man is to kill trade— what shall we say of a system which, in the name of freedom, threatens with extinction all trades hut one ? What of hales of goods reshipped hecause, in the drunken population, there was no de- mand hut for drink— hecause they would receive nothing else in barter — would take no other wages for the early morning's work, and were incapable when the early morning was past? These, and darker tales than these, are the depositions of eye-witnesses, whom we have no ground to mistrust or even suspect of exaggeration. But these surely must be unexpected results of the foreign diplomacy which insisted, without qualification, on • the interests of trade ' and ' com- mercial liberty.' It would be treason to our neighbors to suppose that such results were foreseen— such crippling of commerce, such disabling of industrial energies as must supervene. * ' Let us cease boasting of emancipation for awhile till we shall have proved by our deeds that we are of the same race with the men who, against vested interests, against immemorial custom, against the supposed inter- ests of trade, declared the slave should go free. The emancipation of Africa and the isles of the sea from in- toxicants is a greater and more needed work. Said Sir Richard Burton : ** It is my sincere belief that if the slave trade were revived with all its horrors, and Africa could get rid of the white man, with the gunpowder and rum which lie has introduced, Africa would be the gainer by the exchange/' THE devil's foreign MISSION. 453 And Rev. James Johnson, the native pastor of the island of Logos, l)efore referred to, before a meeting of members of the House of Commons in the committee- room on April 1st, 1887, ended his speech by saying : *' The shive trade had been to Africa a great evil, but the evils of the rum trade were far worse. Tie would rather his countrymen were in fdavery and being worked hard^ and kept away from the drink, than that the drink should be let loose upon them." TVe would second Mr. Hornaday's noble proposition that the United States call a new conference of the Powers, and give all its influence for an agreement to absolutely shut out intoxicants from the Congo Free State. Let all the productive industries, all the true arts of peace unite to say to the one destroying trade of ruin and death : '* Hands off from the new markets of the world !'' Humanity and religion will not plead in vain when commerce shall give its irresistible support to their plea. It should be remembered that when all the great Powers of Europe proposed to shut out gunpowder and liquor from the Pacitic Islands because .of the terrible destruction they were working, and invited the United States to join them, our Government blocked the plan by its single veto. Let us hasten to cancel that dark blot by doing, far as the sweep of our commerce and the increasing weight of our national influence can reach, something worthy of the Great Republic. CHAPTER XXX. THE GATES OF PARADISE. ** No -way so rapid to increase the wealth of nations, and the mo- rality of society, as the utter annihilation of the manufacture of ar- dent spirits, constituting as they do an infinite waste and an unmixed evil." —London Times. "The evidence is perfectly incontrovertible that the good order, the physical and moral welfare of the community has been promoted by refusing to license the sale of ardent spirits, and that the con- sumption of spirits has been very greatly diminished in all instances, by refusing to grant licenses ; and that, although the laws have been and are violated to some extent in different places, the practice soon becomes disreputable, and hides itself from the public eye by shrink-' ing away into obscure and dark places ; that noisy and tumultuous assemblies in the street, and public quarrels cease when licenses are refused ; and that pauperism has very rapidly diminished from the same cause." — Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, 1837. " Though we have a population of ten thousand people, for the period of six months no settler or citizen of Vineland has received re- lief at my hands as overseer of the poor. Within seventy days there has been only one case among what we call our floating population at the expense of $4.00, Daring the entire year there has only been one indictment, and that a trifling case of batter}' among our colored population. . . . The police expenses of Vineland amount to $75 00 a year, the sum paid to me, and our poor expenses a mere trifle. I OHcribe this remarkable state of things to the industry of our people, and the absence of King Wcohol." —Report of Mr. Curtis, Oversetr of the Poor, and Constable of Vineland, N. J., 1883. Six million five hundred thousand acres of land open to settlement in Oklahoma, and one hundred thousand THE GATES OF PARADISE. 466 men surging like a tide on the borders, only kept back by the military arm ! AYliy ? Those six million acres meant new opportunities for industry, new openings for labor. It was not as the early Spaniards went to Mexico and Peru, or the men of '49 to California, to find gold and silver. The men of '89 crowded to Oklahoma sim- pl}^ for a chance to dig and trade. In the common march of life these are the best chances the world has to offer — the chance to do some work the world wants done and to get paid for it. But there is before the Ameri- cans of to-day an unoccupied territory compared to which all the acres of Oklahoma and all the square miles the Indians yet hold are insignificant. All the masters of political economy are saying, as with one voice, that it is not what a man earns^ but what he spends, that determines riches or poverty, indepen- dence or pauperism. It is an old, trite truth, but as rich as the aluminium whose strong, bright bars are ex- pected yet to take the place of our clumsy and rugged iron, and which lies all about us in our common clay. A while ago a daily paper came out with exultant headlines, SPLENDID SHOWING. The excess of exports over imports for the year amonnts to $165,- 000,000. "What did that mean ? One hundred and sixty-five million dollars more to spend among our own people and pay our own workers, to buy everything our people want to buy, and to pay everybody who has anything to sell. But we are ready to put into the American market $1,000,000,000 to spend' among our own people and pay our own laborers, to buy everything our people want to 456 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. bujj and to pay everybody who lias anything to sell. Will not that be something to rejoice over ? Dr. Hargreaves* suggests the following division among other industries of $800,000,000 expenditure for liquors on the basis of the Census of 1880 :f Food and food preparations $471,666,012 Boots and shoes 84,025,177 Carpets 15.896.401 Cotton goods 96,045,055 Mixed textiles 33.110,851 Woollen goods 80 303,360 Worsted goods 16.774,971 Total .$797,822,427 But our liquor bill has already run $200,000,000 beyond that amount. So to Dr. Hargreaves's estimates we will add : Furniture $45,000,000 Anthracite coal 25,000,000 Bituminous coal 30,000,000 And still we have left $100,000,000 for margin, of which we will treat by and by. But now let us see wha*- the amount already provided for will do. Take the $471,000,000 for food and food preparations. Dr. Hargreaves divides this amount as follows (*' Worse than Wasted," page 69) : Value of Products at Factory Kind of Products. or Wholcs.-ile I'nce. Flour and grist mills $252,592,856 Bread and bakery 32,912,448 Slaughtering and meat packing 151,781.206 Cheese and butter (factory) 12.871,255 CoflFee and spices 11,462.447 Food preparations, so called.... 1,246,612 Fruits and vegetables, canned, etc 8,799,788 Total $471,666,612f Think of all the women and children made hungry by the intemperance of husbands and fathers. Then think of setting before them 10,000,000 barrels of wheat flour, ♦ '* Worse than Wasted," p. 66. Of. Ibid , p. 61. - f See "Compendium Census Report, 1880," pp. 1,130, 1,104, 1,108-9, 1,127, 1,190, 112, 201-4. THE GATES OF PARADISE. 457 200,000 bushels of rye flour, 15,000,000 bushels of corn meal, 20,0^0,000 pounds of buckwlieat flour, 280,000 bushels of hominy ! All this to be bought for a small part of the money now spent for liquor— only $250,000,000. Then $150,000,000 of beef, pork, mutton, and veal. No more sroinor without meat in our bitter winters I Then we will allow $42,000,000 for sugar, syrup, and molasses to eat on those 20,000,000 pounds of buckwheat cakes, and we will throw in $11,000,000 worth of tea, coffee, and spices, and $13,000,000 for milk, butter, and cheese, ac- cording to Dr. Ilargrcaves's estimates. He adds still $33,- 000,000 for bread actually baked, and other bakery products. We have come upon another table, somtjwhat differing from the above, which is so refreshing that we must give it for comparison.* "It is estimated that three millions of homes are affected by the drink curse, and that each home will average four persons. We will now distribute the $900,000,000 among these twelve million persons : 9,000,000 tons coal, $6 a ton ." $54,000,000 3,000,000 cook stoves, $15 45,000,000 Total $99,000,000 NOW BUY FKOM THE FAEMEKS : 3,000,000 cords wood, $4 $12,000,000 6,000,000 bbls. flour. $7 42,000,000 9,000,000 " potatoes, S2 18,000,000 300,000,000 lbs. pork, $15 45,000,000 150,000,000 doz. eggs, 18c 27,000.000 150.000.000 lbs. butter, 20c 30.000,000 75,000,000 " cheese, lOo 7,500,000 6,000.000 bbls. apples, $3 18,000,000 .Other fruit, grapes, plums, currants, etc.. 9,000,000 Milk 30.000,000 300,000,000 lbs. buckwheat flour, 3c 9.000,000 Beef, valued at 45,000,000 Chickens 18.000,000 Turkeys 18.000.000 Vegetables 9,000,000 Lard 7.500,000 Total to farmers $345,000,000 *By Mr. Calvin E. Kcach in The Voiix of May 16th, 1880. 458 ECCmOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. THEN BUY FROM THE SHOE TEADE : Men's boots, 6,000,000 pairs, at $1.50 $9,000,000 ' Children's shoes, 24,000,000 pairs, at $1 24,000,000 Women's shoes, 6,000,000 pairs, at $2 12.000,000 Total to the shoe trade $45,000,000 BUY FBOM THE WOOLLEN MANUTACTUBEBS : 3.000,000 suits clothes, men, $10 $30,000,000 3,000.000 \voollen dresses, $4 12,000 000 6,000.000 children's dresses. $2 12,000.000 6,000.000 pairs woollen blankets, $2 12,000,000 6,000,000 suits underwear, men's, $2 12,000,000 6,000.000 suits underwear, women's, $2 12,000,000 12,000,000 suits underwear, children's, $1.. 12.000,000 16.000,000 pairs woollen hose, 15c 2,400,000 Total to woollen manufacturers $10*4,400,000 BUY FBOM MISCELLANEOUS TRADES : For each of 3,000,000 families. Tinware, $3 $9,000,000 1 new table, $5 15,000,000 1 set dishes, $4 12,000.000 2 table-cloths. $4 12.000,000 6 common chairs, $3 9,000,000 1 clock, $2 ■ 6.000,000 50 yards cotton cloth, $5 15,000,000 Bent 3,000,000 houses at $76.20 228,600,000 Grand total $900,000,000 *' Here we sec that the poor coal-miners of Pennsylvania will have to dig out $54,000,000 worth of extra coal. The iron moulders will have to make three million more stoves, valued at $45,000,000 more. The farmers can dispose of an extra product amounting to $345,- 000,000 more. And the woollen goods manufacturers will have to supply to a new demand in market extra goods of the value of $104,- 400,000, and the owners of tenement-houses will receive in rents over $228,000,000." It will be noticed that Mr. Reach allows more for hutter, cheese, and milk than Dr. Hargreaves, and less for flour, probably coimting at something the flour they must have already. Ho allows $9,000,000 for fresh vegetables, which Dr. Hargreaves has not provided for. THE GATES OF PARADISE. "459 His ** Other fruit, grapes, plums, etc.," will just about balance Dr. Ilargreaves'a " fruits and vegetables canned." The choice would bo matter of taste or convenience. It is very good to think of those now poor mothers becom- ing able to slip a nice rcd-cheekcd apple into the father's lunch-pail and the school-boy's pocket out of two barrels in the cellar. The man will soon find his apple worth more than his glass of beer. There will be more strength, more work, more *' staying power" in it. It is very delightful to find ^* turkeys" among the supplies of these once poor families, and '^ chickens," too. They can have a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner now, with an occasional treat for a birthday. But isn't $36,000,000 rather a large allowance for something that is rather in the nature of a luxury ? We would cut that down considerably. Mr. Reach's allowance for milk, $30,000,000— $10 a year for each family— is an improve- ment on Dr. Ilargreavcs's decidedly. "We would still in- crease the amount. It would soon come to pass that the poor would learn the great value of milk for food, espe- cially for children, and, with the $1,000,000,000 of drink money in their pockets, they would have something to pay the milkman with. Many a poor little wan baby, for whom the family '* can't afford " to take milk now, will revive and brighten as the mother holds to its lips the brimming, creamy cup. If we could only do it soon enough, before the baby dies ! Why, sir, a quart of milk a day for your baby at home is only the price of one glass of beer in tho saloon. And the little one can't have it I Let's shut up the places that create such in- humanity as that ! But ''man shall not live by bread alone." On the basis of Dr. Hargreaves's estimates we have provided 460 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. $471,000,000 for food. We add $42,000,000 for sugar and $30,000,000 for railk, making $543,000,000 for all kinds of food. Returning to his table, we will invest $84,000,- 000 in boots and shoes. For this he reckons, according to the census reports, 15,000,000 pairs of boots and 47,000,000 pairs of shoes ; but this is at wholesale prices, about $1.75 a pair for boots and $1.25 a pair for shoes. We cannot buy at those figures, much as we would like to. We must double them. But one-half the number of pairs — 7,500,000 pairs of boots — will furnish our 3,000,000 drinking men with two pairs each on an aver- age, and some extra for those whose occupations wear them out faster than others. Twenty-seven million pairs of shoes will give nine pairs for each of these 3,000,000 families, estimated at three members besides the man, whose boots are already provided for. That will be three pairs a year for each woman and child. No more bare feet on the icy sidewalk I For wet weather they ought to have rubbers. If we allow one pair each for father and mother, at seventy- five cents, and one pair each to the children, at fifty cents, that will be $2.50 for each family, or $7,500,000 in all. Prohibition will be worth something to the rubber trade. For woollen goods our $80,000,000 will give us 1,000,000 pairs of blankets, 600,000 woollen coverlets, 36,000,000 yards of ^' cloths, cassimeres, doeskins, diag- onals, and suitings ;" also 3,000,000 yards of beavers and overcoatings, besides 9,000,000. yards of satinettes, tweeds, overcoatings, and other goods. Then there would be about 12,000,000 yards of various dress goods, and about 700,000 r^hawlH. Next, the worsted goods at $16,000,000 will pour in their n)ore than 30,000,000 THE GATES OF PARADISE. 461 yards of dress goods, 1,500,000 yards of coatings, lin- ings, triininings, braids, etc., and about 300,000 worsted shawls. Now the poor can go to church. The $96,000,000 for cotton goods will provide about 1,000,000,000 yards, or 300 yards for each family of the 3,000,000 drinkers. When we consider that this means table-cloths, napkins, towels, sheets, pillow-cases, muslin curtains, calico, and underwear, and that for many fami- lies who have been kept very short of all, the amount is not excessive. We are still able to spend about $15,000,000 for car- pets, even including 2,000,000 of Brussels, 4,000,000 yards of tapestry, and about 12,000,000 yards of other varieties, besides 24,000 rugs. How many a dreary room will now be made bright and cheery 1 Then we have $45,000,000 worth of furniture, includ- ing stoves, to put into all these homes— only $15 into each home, but enough to change its whole aspect as the seasons pass. It is wear without replacement which makes the unspeakable desolation of the drunkard's home. We are going to have articles replaced as they wear out, and new ones added as new needs arise. Now a table, then a few chairs, a bedstead, a set of springs ; they come in one after another, and home grows a little more comfortable instead of more dreary all the time. We will have §25,000,000 worth of anthracite and $30,000,000 of bituminous coal, and we'll stop the shiv- ering over a few embers, we'll break up half the rheu- matisms, and head off thousands of cases of consumption. We'll MO longer have the woman who has done a hard day's washing over a smouldering fire, going out at four o'clock the next morning in a calico dress, with a little thin shawl and leaky shoes, to pick up enough coal along 462 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. tlie railroad track to keep the child reu from freezing, aiid call that '^ practical temperance." And still we have a good part of our hundred million margin to know what to do with. Let us see how much we have drawn on it. Our §42,000,000 of sugar came out of it; also §30,000,000 for milk, and $7,500,000 for rubbers, making $79,500,000, and leaving a balance of $20,500,000 still to spend. We will double the salaries of all the ministers of the Gospel, $12,000,000, or — where that is not needed — build or improve chapels. We will nearly double the amount contributed for missions, adding a solid $5,000.- 000. This will add to the above estimates $17,000,000, making $96,500,000 ; and as Dr. Hargreaves's estimate was a little more than $2,000,000 short of the $800,000,- 000, we have in all $5,677,573 from our $1,000,000,000 still to spare. What shall we do with this ? Well, something must be allowed for education, in- cluding school and other books, papers and periodicals, popular lectures, etc. Every family where there are children could take the YoutWa Cotnjpanion^ Saint Nicholas, Wide Awake, the Pansy, or Bahyland, for instance. That would give the children something to keep them ofiF the street, to talk over with the parents and with each other, and to fill their minds with useful instruction and pleasant images. Some good religious or temperance paper should come in, and occasionally a nice book on a Christmas or a birthday. Something must be allowed for sickness and accident, though both these items would shrink wonderfully among a people with no diseases of intemperance, no drunken harshness or carelessness, and all well fed, well clothed, with plenty of fuel and comfortable liomes. THE GATES OF PARADISE. 463 But there is one difficulty here. If we are going into these matters of education, taste, and refinement, that little balance of $5,000,000 won't begin to go around. That is true. But no one need be worried over a small matter like that. We have $1,000,000,000 still in re- serve — the indirect expense still untouched. Now let humanity draw its checks for all that makes human ex- istence happy, beautiful, and hopeful, and outside the Ihnits of wasteful luxury we can meet them all. There will be many differences, according to indi- vidual choice. Much of this money will be expended for rents. These drinking men all live somewhere now, but how many of them in wretched habitations ! One of the first uses of their saved money will be to rent a better residence. Instead of two miserable rooms, a pretty little house ; instead of the filthy alley, a pleasant street ; instead of the foul gutter, a patch of grass. New houses will be built by the streetful — new suburbs spring up around all our cities. The real estate business will enter on a new era of prosperity. As the fii*st needs of clothing, furniture, etc., are supplied, many will be- gin to save up the *^ drink waste " and pay it in instal- ments on the purchase of a home which shall be their own. They will have the heart to improve it, to set out vines and flowers, rose-bushes and trees, knowing that all is to be their own or their children's. What a difference it will make to thousands of women who have now only the wretched rooms with bare floor, whose gaps and splinters are only rendered more mani- fest by sweeping ; mangled furnitrre, whose dents and scratches are only more hopelessly revealed by dusting ; the dingy window, which if cleaned only shows a dingier alley ; the faded and ragged calico dress for both morn- 464 ECONOMICS or prohibition. ing and evening ; little food to cook and less fire to cook it with ; children chiefly thought of as creatures with appetites that cannot be satisfied and bodies that cannot be clothed; not a picture, book, or paper to furnish a story to read them or a fresh thought to talk over with them ; the husband daily growing coarser, duller, and more purposeless ; the certainty that to-niorrow shall be as this day and much more disconsolate ; that if busi- ness improves it will give only so much more to go into the maw of the remorseless saloon ! Then the genial minister tells the poor woman, '^ So- ciety can do nothing for you. You cannot make men virtuous by law. It is your duty to keep gentle and patient and make home so bright that your husband will want to stay in it.'' How? God only knows. And does lie know except by changing that state of things^ and giving something to brighten home with ? ^'If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them. Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things needful for the body, what doth it profit ? Even so, faith without works is dead, being alone." But Prohibition crystallizes faith into " the things needful for the bod3^'' It puts this oppressed woman into a comfortable home. It puts on the floor a bright carpet, pretty if cheap, curtains at the windows, simple furniture that is neat, trim, and strong, and some of the really beautiful pictures that modern art makes so cheap upon tlio walls. Now she will find a perfect joy in sweeping the last speck off that carpet, dusting the fur- niture till it shines, keeping the windows clear as a mountain stream. When she wishes to get dinner, there is a stove that will cook and fuel to put in it. In THK (JATKS OF PARADISE. 4C5 the pantrj there is a sack of flour and her iittlc jar of sugar, and all the spices and sundries that a good house^ wife needs. In her puree there's the money to mako the market stall a promise and not a despair. How she will slave at that cooking because *' John is so fond of this," and '' those will taste so good to the children !" She will not know that she is hot or tired. When she would sit down to her sewmg, she can change the neat working dress of the morning for a pretty home dress for afternoon. She will take some pains to make her- self a fair portion of the pretty home scene. When she goes to work on the children's clothes, there's something. to make the little garments out of. She will hear songs of hope in the hum of her sewing-machine, and there will he a light in her eyes and a song on her own lips. Good food will bring back the color to her wasted cheek. The children, as they burst in from school, will exclaim, '• How pretty you look, mamma !" or, if they don't say it, will have the settled conviction that she is the most beautiful woman in the world ; and the husband will find the charm of long ago drawing him to her side again, now the saloon's fell enchantment is broken for- ever. Now there is some use in talking to her of making home bright and attractive, and being gentle and patient amid the worries, of which life will still have enough. How those parents will delight in talking with their chil- dren about their school lessons and plays, and in reading with them the books and papers, with their mingled in- terest and instruction for old and young ! The evenings will be all too short, and the man will wonder that ever he cared to stay in a foul saloon among a herd of rude men, leaving these, his own dear ones, in unpitied mis- 4(36 ECONOMICS OF PRUHIBITIOX. ery, and listening to things he would not have them hear for all this world. How the children's eyes will brighten and their faces shine ! How strong they will be for play and how ambitious for study ! How dear their home will be to them ! How the light of love and peace and joy will make their faces beautiful ! Then all around, among the people who were never intemperate, the wave of this prosperity will sweep. The stores and the mills, the railroads and the mines, the ships and farms — all who produce or transport or deal in the goods which these rescued families are now able to buy— will share the blessing. The country will answer back the city's rejoicing. "The trees will clap their hands and the fields be joyful together.'' But this is sentiment. So hard is it to keep strictly to dry economics where human hearts are part of the problem. Well, then, let us say this man with the happy home is in no danger of becoming a pauper. The chances that ever he will be a criminal are faint and rare. You'll not need any liquor fund to support his wife and children in your poorhouse, thank you. He is not very likely to go to the insane asylum, nor his wife either. Streets of such homes as his will not breed a pestilence, and will not need half as many policemen to patrol them. The happiness will materialize in cash. With a city, a nation, of such homes, every business will boom, all our nation prospering and exulting through the two thousand million revenue of righteousness I Who would not help to bring the happy, glorious day ? What true heart will not bid us God-speed as we toil to hasten its comiug i CHAPTER XXXI. THE " ORIGINAL PACKAGE " I HAVE expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott decision, but I should be allowed to state the na- ture of that opposition, and I ask your indulgence while I do so. What id fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has used, ' resist- ance to the decision ' ? I do not resist it. If I wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I would bo interfering with property, and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas speaks of, of intorferiug with property, would arise. But I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be prohibiled in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. " That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said last night that before the decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when it was made ; but after it was made be would abide by it lantil it was reversed. Just so ! We let this property abide by the decision, hut we will try to reverse thai decision. We will try to put it where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably.'" — Abraham Lincoln, in his speech against Douglas at Chicago, July 10th, 1858. A Supreme Court decision is not a '* thus saith tlio Lord." It is not a finality. It is not above criticism. It is not beyond reversal. It is simply a declaration of the law de facto^ which is to be obeyed by the citizen until the law shall be changed or otherwise interpreted by competent authority. It does not shut off discussion of the principles of law and of right involved. The •iJ8 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITIO N . people's inalienable right to consider what is desirable as law, and what ought to be law, remains unaffected by any decision the highest court in the land may utter. In fa^t, as shown by the memorable speech of Abraiiam Lincoln, it is competent for the people from the mo- ment a decision is uttered which they believe contrary to right and justice, to begin to agitate for a reversal of that decision by the court that uttered it, or for such Congressional action as may destroy or prevent its in- jurious effects. Such agitation was begun from the moment the Dred Scott decision was pronounced, by some of the noblest and ablest men our countr^^ has ever possessed, with the results known to history. Now we come to another Su- preme Court decision whose results are startlingly bad. . In its discussion we must consider the principles of right involved. Nothing has ever stood the test of time as en- during law which was contrary to the essential principles of eternal right. f The liquor traffic is just as much a curse as it was be- fore the decision. To debauch and destroy the son of a loving mother, or the husband and father of a happy family, is just as mercenary, cruel and murderous, and just as contrary to the best interests of the Republic, as it was before. To turn those who might be good and in- dustrious citizens into sots, paupers, criminals, maniacs, aud incarnate demons is contrary to all the principles and interests for which governments are instituted among men, and menaces the very existence of civilized society. Now to say that a State which has determined to shut such a traffic out by law is forbidden by its allegiance to the general government to exercise its own police force for its own protection against an evil which is de- THE "ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 46d 6tro)'ing its own dearest interests, is not good ethics, wliatever it may be in the technicalities of law. It is not right. If there is a man in mj community who, if he drinks whiskey, is likely at any time to burn my house, harm my children, insult my wife or murder mc, it is not right nor justice to say that another man may sell him all the whiskey he chooses to sell, because the seller ships the element of destruction in from another State. If anything, the fact that he is a non-resident is so much the mare reason why he should not he allowed to do mischief where he does not belong, and to injure those whom he does not help to protect, and whose bur- dens he does not help to bear. To say that communities which, by shutting out the traflBc in intoxicating liquors, are enjoying indescribable peace and happiness, with full schoolhouses and empty jails, with workingmen dwelling in homes of their own and laying up snug little sums in the savings banks, with no tramps, no starvation and no wife beating, sliall be com- pelled by the fiat of the nation to let in that traffic with all these evils again, merely because some heartless citizen of another State is ready to desolate these communities for what he can make out of the desolation, is something more worthy of a despotism than of a republic. If all America were under Prohibition, and George Kennan were to bring us such a statement as this, ** In Russia every province from the Bahic to the PaciGc shore and from the Arctic Circle to the wall of China, and every city, town, and village in all that vast domain is compelled to allow the traffic in intoxicating liquors, however great the injury it may do, however many of the people are opposed to it, however earnestly they may plead and pray to be delivered from it. It is forced 470 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. upon them by the supreme law of the land, and to inter- fere with it would be a crime," we should liold this to be one of the most terrible indictments of the govern- ment of the Czar. Kennan tells of women flogged by brutal officers, and it makes our blood tingle across the sea ; but those women were beaten by strangers with no ties of relationship, no vows of affection, no pledge of protection. In America it is done every day, not in one case, but in hundreds. American women, whom we call free, are beaten, bruised, and murdered by their own hus- bands in their own homes. We read of it in every morning paper, and our law says this shall go on ; that no State, no county, city or town, no village or hamlet shall be allowed to shut out the one deadly cause of it all. When the Supreme Court of the United States pro- nounces such a decision as this, all our American man- hood, all our traditions of liberty, all our sense of justice and right rise in vehement and determined protest. This can never be enduring law. It is not in accord with the eternal fitness of things ; it does not establish justice, promote the general welfare, nor secure the blessings of liberty. It is not the will of God. This decision reflects the increasing dominance of the liquor power since the beginning of the war era. When the New Hampshire Decision of 1847 was rendered, a great tidal wave of temperance was rolling in. Lyman Beecher's thrilling ^* Six Sermons on Intemperance'' had been scattered through the length and breadth of the land. The Washingtonian Movement had seen its pledge signed by 600,000 men. John B. Gough, in the bplcndor of his early prime, was moving the hearts of thousands by his fiery eloquence. Governors, judges, THE "ORIGINAL PACKAGE '' DECISION. 471 eminent lawyers, and leadinf^ divines were uniting in pro- test against all license of the liquor traffic as both im- politic and wrong. Local Option had become the law of Massachusetts and other important States, and in Maine that sentiment was rapidly forming which was soon to crystaUize in the *' Maine Law." Judges are men, and all the opinions rendered on that occasion show that they partook of this strong public sentiment for temperance. This is well exemplified in the clear and forcible words of Justice Grier :* " The true question presented by these cases, and one -which I am not disposed to evade, is ichether the States have a right to proldhil the sale and consumption of an article of commerce which they believe to be pernicious in its effects, and the cause of disease, pauperism, and crime. I do not consider the question of the exclusiveness of the power of Congress to regulate commerce as necessarily connected Mith the decision of this point. "It has been frequently decided by this court that the powers which relate to merely municipal regulations, or which may more properly be called internal police, are not surrendered by the States, or restrained by the Constitution of the United States ; and that, consequently, in relation to these, the authority of a State is com- plete, unqualified, and exclusive. Without attempting to define what are the peculiar subjects or limits of this power, it may safely be affirmed that evtry law for the restraint and punishment of crime, for ihe preservation of the public peace, health and morals, must come within this category. ' ' As SUBJECTS OP LEGISLATION, THEY ARE FROM THEIR VERY NATURB OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE ; THEY LIB AT THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL EX- ISTENCE ; THEY ARE FOR THE PROTECTION OF LIFE AND LIBERTY, AND NECESSARILY COMPEL ALL LAWS ON SUBJECTS OF SECONDARY IMPORTANCE, WHICH RELATE ONLY TO PROPERTY, CONVENIENCE OB LUXURY, TO RECEDE, •WHEN THEY COMB IN CONFLICT OB COLLISION, ' Sttlus populi SUprcmO IcX. ' " If the right to control these subjects be complete, unqualified, and exclusive, in the State legislatures, no regulations of secondary impor- tance can supersede or restrain their operations, on any ground of prerog- Howard's Reports. Vol. V., pp. G31, 632. 472 ■ ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. alive or sxipremacy. The exigencies of the social compact require that such laws be executed he/ore and above all others. " It is not necessary, for the sake of justifying the State legislation now under consideration, to array the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism, and crime which have their origin in the nse or abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in the States, is alone competent to the correction of these great evils, and all MEASURES OF EESTBAIKT OB PROHIBITION NECESSAET TO EFFECT THE PUK- POSE ABE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THAT AUTHOEiTT. There 18 no Conflict of power, or of legislation, as between the States and the United States ; each is acting within its sphere, and for the public good ; and if a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be the gainer a thousand fold in the health, wealth, and happiness of the people." So when there was a question between State and Na- tional jurisdiction, they gave to Temperance the "benefit of the dovht. Chief Justice Taney concluded his opinion thus :* " Upon the whole, therefore, the law of New Hampshire is, in my judgment, a valid one. For although the gin sold was an import from another State, and Congress has clearly the power to regulate such importations under the grant of power to regulate commerce among the several States, yet, as Congress has made no regidaiion on the subject, the traffic in the article may be lawfully regulated by the State as soon as it is landed in its territory, and a tax imposed upon it, or a license required, or the sale altogether prohibited, according to the policy which the State may suppose to be its interest or duty to pursue." This the present Supremo Court lias exactly reversed. The same conflict of jurisdictions exists, and the same doubt. Congress has not passed upon the matter during these forty years. But within that time a vast tide of foreign immigration has poured in, bringing the drink- ing usages and opinions of the Old World. Within that time, too, the United States Government has become the ♦Howard's Reports, Vol. V., p. 586. THE *' ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 473 champion liquor-dealer of the world ; United States Retristered Distilleries and United States Bonded Ware- houses fill the country, and the National (xoverninent receives close upon a hundred million dollars annually from the traffic which destroys the people. Since Presi- dent Hayes went out of office, the Presidential mansion has set the example of a profuse hospitality of liquor. The National Liqnor Power has become the strongest in- stitution in the United States. Still our Supreme Judges are men. They have felt the effect of the national re- trogression. Finding the National and State jurisdiction, still in doubt, they have given the henefit of the doubt to the liquor traffic^ deciding as follows : " Whenever, however, a particular power of the general Govern- ment is one which must necessarily be exercised by it, and Congress remains silent, Ihis is not only not a concession that the powers restrved by the Slate may he exerted as if the specific power had not been elsewhere re- posed, but, on the contrary, the only legitimate conclusion is that the general Government intended that power should not be affirmatively fxfrcised, and the action of the States cannot bepei-milted to effect that which would be in- compatible with such intention. Hence, inasmuch as inter State com- merce, consisting in the transportation, purchase, sale, and exchange of commodities, is national in its character, and must be governed by a uniform system, so long as Congress does not pass any law to regulate it, or allowing the States so to do, it thereby indicates its will that such commerce shall be free and untrammelled.^' Since this decision is thus a reversal of the decision of 1847, and of the policy of the Government for more than a hundred years, it is suspicious from the start. Its effects have been startlingly bad. The New York Times says : " The brewers and distillers of the neighboring State of Missouri have established a thriving traflBo in many Kansas towns by employ- ing as agents men who were formerly saloon-keepers, who have car- ried on an illicit trade under Prohibition, and sending them beer in 474 ECONOMICS OK PKOHIBITIOX. ' original packages ' as small as pint botlles, transported in refrigferatbr cars, and whiskey put up in iwo-ounce vials. This, in effect, restores all the evils of an unrestricted liqnor traffic. " Original packages are not defined in the Supreme Court decision, and the sale in single bottles, flasks, and vials is an evasion of thi probable intent of the decision. Still, it would be a difl&cult mattei to draw the line. That u car-load of such retail packages can be re- ceived and peddled out one by one and the operation regarded as part and parcel of inter-State commerce, to bo protected against State interference, seems a rank absurdity, but where is the lino to bo established when sale in original packages through local agents is once authorized ? " The question of drinking on the premises where the liquor is sold has not been fully tested, but District Judge Caldwell has decided that the purchaser of a bottle of beer or a vial of whiskey could drink it wherever he pleased. He is not obliged to wait until he goes home, or even until he gets outside the place of sale. If the ' agent ' can Bell unmolested, anybody may buy without being interfered with, and what he buys he can consume on the spot. That is the law as now apijlied in Kansas. Another evil that has been re-established is the sale of liquor to minor children. Several ' agents ' have been arrested for selling to minors, including children cf ten or twelve years of age, but they were released on habeas corpus. Circuit Judge Foster holding that the State could in no way interfere with the sale of these imported ' original packages,' as it was a matter of inter- State commerce." The special correspondence of the New York Voice contains tlie following : Gaknett, Kan., July 20. Two original packaf^e saloons have been established, and another will bo opened soon. It afl'ords the worst phase of whiskey drinking that has ever been in this State. Boys who never saw a saloon ha%t BEEN CABBiED HOME DRUNK. The general disorder is worse than ii has ever been since Prohibition was e8tabli«hed. The first week the saloons were rather orderly, and would not allow drinking near the building. Now they furnish their patrons with a glass and let them drink just outside the door and then return the glass. They over- ride onr local laws entirely, and Judge Foster's Court sustains them. The people, en masse, tried to persuade them not to open up. Now ve are waiting impatiently, of course, to see what Congress will do. THh "uKlul.NAl. h.Vi KAGK DLliMuN. 4*4 J If they fail to give us relief we will carry the hell holes out of town by force. Not since the days of border ruffianism have our people been so greatly agitated as they are about the " Supremo Court sa- loons." A. D. McFadden, Mayor. Think of the moiirnful pathos of those two lines we have capitalized — the sorrow, shame, and heartbreak, the possible life-long tragedy — " Boys who never saw a saloon have been carried home drunk !" Mr. Perkins, of Kansas, said, in the United States House of Representatives : ** Mr. Speaker, as I have suggested, in my judgment no decision rendered in the history of the Sapreme .Court \a more unfortunate than this recent one. In my own State it has sent to us as invaders hundreds of lawless characters from the sister State of Missouri, who have organized in all the towns and hamlets of our State so-called 'United States Supreme Court Saloons.' [Laughter.] They may have left Missouri for the good of Missouri, but they have not come to Kansas for the good of our commonwealth. They come and or- ganize these original-package houses and bring, under the decision of the Sapreme Court of the United States, these feo-called original packages with them [exhibiting paper box and half-pint flask], and sell them without restraint, without license, without regulation or control, to A, B, or C, and others who will buy them— to minors, to those addicted to habits of using intoxicating liquors, on the Sabbath day, on the 4th day of July, on every other day of the week, and each week in the month, and all restraint and regulation under State leg- islation is denied and treated with contempt." The New York Herald contains the following item: Kansas City, Mo., July G, 1890. A prominent brewer said to-day : " The brewers are doing their best to quench the thirst of the Kansans, and are succeeding to a remarkable degree. Eocry brewery in the city is running to its fullest capacity, and still we are not able to supply the demand. We have established origiwil package houses aU over the State, and the sales are simply enormous, although every sale is attended with great danger. We try to keep our agents within the limits of the law. 476 ECOXOMICS OF PliOHIlJlTION. ' ' This shows plainly to us that if thb State or Kansas was not CLOSED AGAINST OUB BUSINESS WE WOULD HAVE TO DOUBLE THE CAPACITY OF EVERY BREWEBY IN THE CITY, AND EVEN THEN WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO FILL THE ORDERS. Nor is our busiaess tlio only one that is bene- fited. The box factories in the city are now giving employment to 200 more persons than they were before the decision was made." Much ingenuity is displayed in the manner of putting up " orig- inal packages," and each bottle of beer that goes into the State is in a neat little box of its own. If some enterprising man would make packages the size of a drink he would reap a rich harvest. In the debate in the United States House of Kepre- sentatives, Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, said : " I am free to say that no decision that has been rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States since that court decided that a human soul was a proper article of merchandise has so excited the feelings of this nation. . . . " Since 1882, when my State first took its strongest position touch- ing the regulation of the liquor traffic, we have not had such disgrace- ful scenes within our borders as this mandate of the Supreme Court has brought to our doors. The letters that have poured in upon me, the resolutions adopted, and mass meetings held, tell me of a condi- tion of thing for which I must blush, and which I will not describe in the National Capitol. But there is such a condition of things that I would bo derelict in my duty as a Representative if I did not seek in some legislative avenue to find a remedy. To this sad con- dition others have testified also. ..." Of the actnal working of the decision in Iowa, the fol- lowing account is given in tlie Christian Voice : " The ' original package houses' are the latest sucocssors to the old Iowa saloon. A sign before me reads, ' California Winea — Whiskey —Bottles a Specialty,'— a huge board clear across the walk on the main street of Carroll, Iowa, a few steps from the depot. How this last and latest imp from hell posts aluft his wicked invitations to sin ! Here in the heart of Iowa, too I Grand old decent, sober, Prohibi- tion Iowa I This foul monster rears aloft his poisonous fangs. Yon people in license States are so used to it I presume you do not care so much ; but here in Iowa the past ten years we have been getting cleaned np, sweet, decent, sober, industrious, and wondirfxiUy prosper- THE "t»hl(TlNAL PA« IvAUh ' i>Lcl»luN. 477 oua, and here, in spite of an overwhelming and strong ' public senti- ment,' is the nest of vipers and brood of hell set to hatch and wpawn npon the sober, law-abiding Christian people of this grand old State, a brood of loafers, tramps, thugs, and thieves. What a shame is all this ! But there is, there must be a remedy. The present Wilson Bill, which has just passed the Senate, must pass the House or there will be woe, trouble, and sorrow in thousands of homes now happy and sober. *' A friend of mine, a deputy sheriff ai\,d police officer in one of the largest cities of Iowa, told mo last week that this original pack- age business had produced more drunkenness and arrests in a month than hid hem seen in the city for years. The express companies are loaded with beer barrels, and the whole filthy, wicked business seems to bo speedily regaining its grip of death, poverty, and taxes on the people. "Let every voter watch and spot every representative that votes against the Wilson Bill in Congress. ' ' We have been told, with utterly wearisome iteration, '* Prohibition don't prohibit ;" *' Prohibition is only an- other name for free rum," etc., etc. Why, then, this mad rush of "original packages" to the prohibitory States ? That deadly enemy of Prohibition, the Omaha Bee, inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag in a recent issue as follows : " A small but enthusiastic bunch of Prohibitionists journeyed to the capital of Kansas last week to proclaim the glories of statutory sobriety, which existed only in their imagination. They trimmed the whiskers of that venerable fiction, ' Prohibition prohibits,' while within a stone's throw of the meeting place was a throng of thirsty residents rushing about with original packages. F,>r the first time in fice years liquor was sold openly in the city, and 171 less than eight hours the supply was exhausted, without apparently diminishing the demand." It is manifest to any business man tl\at if that place had been stocked full before with " free rum,'' it would not have paid to open " original package " establish- ments there, and they would have met no such rushing demand as to " exiiaust the supply in eight hours." 4T8 ECONOMICS OF PKOHIBITION. Prohibition had kept liquor from being ** sold openly in the city for five years ;" and when all is said and done, the illicit sale does not begin to meet the demand of tho inebriate portion of any community. Hence the eager- ness for '' anything to beat Prohibition." Undoubtedly there are horses stolen in Kansas and Iowa now. But it is under diflilculties that are very depressing to the busi- ness. If only some Supreme Court decision could be secured to make it lawful to steal them *^ in the original packages," for instance, the farmers would soon discover what a good law they have now. So one effect of the '' original package " invasion, and of the exciting meet- ings and debates on the subject, has been to bring out new evidence of the excellence of Prohibition. The Topeka Capital comes out with the following : TOPEKA DRUNK VS. TOPEKA SOBER. For a year the most beautiful capital city in the West has been sober. Tlie peace, the quiel, the good order havehecomethe pride and the ghi-y of the people. Strangers have commented with wonder and amazement upon the absence of saloons, and the people of the whole State have come to believe the capital of their splendid commonwealth a model city. The United Staies Supreme Court's decision has changed all this. The " original packages" are today selling $1,000 worth of liquors under the license of our highest court. Dozens of drunken men are to be seen in the alleys, on the streets, at the depot, and it ia with shame and humiliation that we see the work for sobriety and good government crumbling to pieces before our eyes. The old saloon-keepers, driven into Missouri to follow their calling of making drunkards, creating crime and pauperism, are creeping back, and with an insolent leer opening their hell holes in defiance of a public sentiment that finds itself powerless to protect the homes of the people. One benefit of this will be to show the difference between Topekf\ sober and Topeka drunk. Every citizen interested in Topeka sober should write our Con- gressmen and Senators to urge them to give us some legislation. Let Congress give ns the relief demanded, and Topeka will crush out THK "UKIGINAL PACKAGE" DEOIBION. 47» every original package houae within twenty-four hourK. The indig- nation of the people against these violators of the laws of our Stabe is deep and moat determined, and only the respect for the highest courts of the land prevents the original package venders from being summarily driven to Missouri. The Otpital counsels patience and legal methods until Congress gives the State the right to stop the present sales, and then there should be no mercy upon the merce- nary scoundrels who are selling to-day in violation of our constitution and laws. An enthusiastic convention of 3,000 delegates from all portions of Kansas was lield in Topeka July 16th. Meeting in the House of Representatives, they filled that, and overflowed into the Senate Chamber. Filling that, they overflowed upon the steps of the Capitol, and out into the open air. The three meetings were in prog- ress at once. Amid tremendous enthusiasm an address was adopted full of eloquent, heart-stirring, and con- vincing statements of fact. The address was in part as follows: " The State of Kansas is the homestead of Prohibition, and Prohi- bition acquired its right to the soil of our State by permanent occu- pancy, and by making lasting and valuable improvements. The motes and bounds of its possessions are the exterior lines of the State. Its warranty deed is recorded in the hearts of the people, and its muniments of title can be seen in every church V>uilding. school- house and happy home in our prosperous State. It is the fairest in- heritance ever given to a contented people, and the rum power has no mortgage on it. " The following official figures are presented as showing the effects of Prohibition in Kansas aud in support of the statement made above. " The school population of Kansas in 1880 was 340,647 ; in 1888, a period of eight years, there were 532,010 children of school age on Kansas soil, an increase of 191,363 in eight years. *• In 1880 the assessed valuation of Kansas property was $160,570,- 701 ,• in 1889 this aggregate is swelled to $360,815,033, a gain of more than 100 per cent, in nine years of Prohibition. 480 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. " As against the argument of financial decay, rxe offer the uddi. tional proof of confidence in the fact that within five years more than five thousand miles of railroad have been constructed within our borders, until Kansas, with her 9,249 miles of main and side track, stands second in point of mileage of all the States in the Union. " When Prohibition came, Kansas had 917 convicts in her peni- tentiary and a total population in the State of 996,096 ; after nine years of Prohibition and an increase in population of 600,000 she has 873 convicts in her penitentiary, an actual decrease of five jjer cent., notwithstanding the increase in population Our sister State of Ne- braska, with a High License system, during the same time has in- creased her prison population 167 per cent. The prison population of Nebraska has outran the general growth of population "47 per cent. Kansas, with her 1,600,000 population, has 174 in her reform school for boys. Nebraska, with her estimated population of 1,000,000, has 245 boys in her reform school. Nebraska, with 600,000 less in pop- ulation, has 71 more boys in prison than Kansas. " For the purpose of comparison, we will parallel the rates of taxes in Kansas and Nebraska for the same years that we have had Prohibi- tion in Kansas : Nebraska. Kansas. 1880 assessed 95 55 1881 " 85 50 1882 •• 96 45 1883 " 81 43 1884 •• 76.9 45 1885 •• 77.2 39 1886 " 76.2 40 1887 " 80.2 40 1888 ♦' 75 34 1889 •' G3.3 40 " The average rate in Kan.sas under Prohibition has been 43 cents and 5 mills on the $100, while in Nebraska under High License it has been 56 cents and 7 mills ; 13 cents and 2 mills lower in Kansas than in Nebraska. The rate has increased in Nebraska and decreased in Kansas, the Nebraska rate for 1889 being nearly 60 per cent higher than in Kansas. "The material prosperity in Kansas, as shown by the silent rec- ords, is more than 100 per cent, better than that of her High License neighbor, Nebraska. " The revenue paid the general Government on spirituous liquors THE "ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 4S1 is ft small pittance compared with the total cost of the amount con- sumed. " There was paid the Government as revenue in the two States the following sums in the years named : Kan. paid. Neb. paid, 1882 $63,609 $965,149 1883 69,112 1,180,607 1884 64,635 1,354,859 1885 64,344 1.796,031 1886 74,974 1,987.167 1887 57.382 2,142.038 1888 57.382 2,518,742 1889. 25,878 2,142.162 " There has been a decrease in Prohibition Kansas of 49 per cent, since 1882. and an iucrease iu High License Nebraska of 122 percent. Kansas has paid to the Government as revenue on liquors consumed by her people less than one-half million dollars since the days of her Prohibition, while Nebraska, with 600,000 less people, has paid the Government over $14,000,000 in money, or twenty-eight times as much as Kansas." In a recent letter, written from Ottawa, Kan., by Eev. Dr. J. L. Hnrlbut to the Central New Jersey Times, he Bays : " Some suggestive figures were shown me the other day, supplied by the Secretary of State, for Kansas and Nebraska [quoting the above figures]. ** There was also shown me another set of figures, taken from K. G. Dun & Co.'s commercial register, which can hardly be called a temperance text-book. In 1889 there were in Kansas 24.929 business houses, against 20,771 in Nebraska ; a difiEerence in favor of Kansas of 4,158, showing that business thrives without liquor stores. But in Nebraska there were in the year 1889, 272 failures in business, against 183 in Kansas, or a difi'erence in favor of Kansas of 89, In other words. Prohibition Kansas had one failure to every one hundred and thirty-six business houses, while High License Nebraska had one failure to every seventy-six busineps houses. That is, the chance of success in business is nearly twice as great under Prohibition as under license. " A butcher in a town in Kansas a few weeks ago noticed that 8tV' oral of his cust'^me^'.s, who had for years been paying cash for (heir meat, 483 BeONOMI-CS OF PROHIBITION. t/jere i%ow asking credit and running vp accounts. He found Ihat it waa coincident witli the opening of an * original package ' store in the town. People were spending their money on bottles of liquor, and hence had none for the hulcher. This fact was given me by a reputable gentleman, who named the town and named the butcher. Perhaps it will help to explain why there should be less business houses, but more failures in business in a license State than in a Prohibition State." In the debate, previously referred to, in the United States House of Representatives, Mr. Dingley, of Maine, said in part : " Our prohibitory laws in Maine have aided materially in making the temperance sentiment which prevails in Maine. . . . '* These general conclusions of our own people as to the benefits of our policy of prohibiting instead of licensing dram-shops are con- firmed by an examination of the internal revenue statistics. For revenue purposes, as is well known, the United States imposes a tax on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. For the year ending May Ist, 1889, the revenue from this source was $98,575,073, or SI. 95 per inhabitant on the basis of the population of 1880. " As these taxes on manufacturers and dealers of intoxicating liq- uors are collected with substantially uniform thoroughness in every State of the Union, a comparison of the amount collected in the sev- eral States gives us sopie idea of the relative extent of the manufac- ture and sale of distilled and fermented liquors. In New York the amount of tax collected by the Government from this source was $2.30 per inhabitant ; in New Jersey, $2.95 ; in Pennsylvania, $1.49, and in Maine, 3| cents per inhabitant. " The suggestion has been made that Prohibition mainly interferes with the traffic in malt liquors, but does not seriously restrict the traflSc in distilled liquors. " Inasmuch as the Government imposes a higher tax on retail dealers in distilled liquors than on retail dealers in malt liquors, and keeps the two classes of liquor-dealers separate, we have reliable means of comparing the number of retail dealers of distilled liquors in the several States, as it is well known that nearly all persons who propose to sell such liquors pay the small United States tax of $25 rather than run the link of incurring ihe severe penalties of the United States laws. THE ''ORIGINAL PACKAGE " DECISION. 483 "According to the oflQcial returns of the officers of the internal revenue for the year ending May 1st. 1890, there were 185,868 retail dealers in distilled liquors in the United States, or 1 liquor-deuler to every 275 inhabitants, on the basis of the census of 1880. " In New York there was 1 retail dealer in distilled liquors to every 150 inhabitants ; in New Jersey, 1 to 175 ; in Ohio, 1 to 230 ; in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, 1 to 400 ; in Indiana, 1 to 325 ; in Delaware, 1 to 160, and in California, 1 to 75. *' The average in all the States which have general license laws is one dram-shop to 250 inhabitants. " In Maine there is 1 retail dealer in distilled liquors to every 750 inhabitants ; in Vermont, 1 to 820 ; in Iowa, 1 to 520 ; and in Kan- sas, 1 to 800." When the United States tax on liquors, which else- where runs up to $2.95 per inhabitant, is cut down in Maine to 3 cents per inhabitant, it would seem to indi- cate that Prohibition prohibits. Besides, the Govern- ment tax on liquors may be roughly stated at about one- tenth of their actual cost to the consumer. So Maine has spent but thirty cents per inhabitant for liquor, while New York and New Jersey have spent from $23 to $29 per inhabitant. This money which Maine has not spent upon the saloons could be and has been spent upon the homes of the people. But what of the future ? The Western Broker^ in a despatch from Topeka, Kan., of June 25th, quotes the following from United States District Attorney J. W. Ady: ** The Supreme Court decides that the State laws now in force have no application to the subject of liquors imported and sold in original packages. It is not a crime now to make such sales within the State. Congress has no power to make any act done in Kansas a crime under our State laws, and Congress does not attempt to do so. After the Wilson Bill passes, the sale of liquor in original packages will still continue to be inter-State commerce. The court says inter State commerce is free, and the presumption that Congress and the States 484 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. intend that it shall be free will continue iintil there is a dirsct act on the subject. All State laws on that subject now are no laws ; they aie dead matter. , The Wilson BUI will not infuse new life into them.* ' This may indicate the future line of battle of the liquor men, and their purpose to challenge the Wilson Bill before the Supreme Court. It is urged that what the court says of *' the permission " of Congress is what lawyers call an obiter dictum, a passing remark, and by no means equal to a formal decision. The principle of the '* original package decision " will still be in question, and to that decision it is to be objected : 1. Tiiat it strikes down the police power of the States, which Congress can neither assume nor restore. The general Government cannot exercise police power within a State. That would be the last reach of centralization, and would virtually obliterate all State lines. On this point, Mr. Davis, Counsel for the State of Massachusetts in the License cases of 1847, well said : *' It will appear in the progress of this inquiry that the United States, have no power to regulate the trafl&c in wines and spirits within the States ; and if the State has no such power, then the right is abrogated. " Is not such a result hostile to the intent of all parties to the Con- stitution ? The framers did not intend it, and the States could not have contemplated it." yj The actual effects of the new decision are proving the correctness of this statement. The decision provides for an era of ^' free rum," such as has never been known on the American continent. Even *^ in good old colony times " there were some restrictions. Of the present status Senator Edmunds said in the Senate of the United States : " It is a very curious circumstance, au interesting one, that we have reached a condition of things where, according to the debate THE '* ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 4ft6 here and the judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States, the States, as the Supremo Conrt say, have no power to deal with this Rtibject ; and now we are told here that Congress has not any power to deal with it. So the result of the performance is that under the Constitution of the United States there must bo an inherent, indi- vidual civil, personal right in every man in one State to carry what- ever another State considers to be injurious to its safety and life and welfare into it and sell it ; that Congress cannot stop it ; the States cannot stop it, say the Supreme Court, unless Congress does some- thing, and we all say Congress cannot do that something. ... It is enough to state such a proposition to show that somewhere there is a fault in the logic of somebody." The Supreme Court has abolished the police power of the States, and Congress has and can have no police power to supply its place. Congress cannot say, for instance, that an *' original package" shall not be sold to a minor or a drunkard within a State ; or that it shall not be sold after mid- night, or *' to be drank on the premises." All those things belong to the police power, which the State alone can wield. In a previous decision the Supreme Court declared : " Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the extent and boundaries of the police power, and however difficult it may bo to render a satisfactory definition of it, thero seems to be no doubt that it does extend to the pbotection or the lives, health, and pbopertt or THE CITIZENS, and to the pbeseevation op good okder and the PUBLIC MOBALS. Thk LEGISLATURE CANNOT, by any Contract, divest itself of the poweb to provide for these objects. They belong emphatically to that class of objects which demand the application of the maxim, solus populi suprema lex; and they are to be attained and provided for by such appropriate means as the legislative discre- tion may devise. That discretion can no more be babqained away than thb powbb itself. ' ' Then it is evident that the States could not surrender that power even to the United States G^overnment, and ir 486 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. never meaiit to do so. On this Justice Story said on a former occasion : " The police power belongiDg to the States, in virtue of their gen- eral sovereignty, extends over all subjects within the territorial limits of the States, and has never been conceded to the United States," Massachusetts accepted the Constitution of the United States and came into the Union with the Twenty-Eight Gallon Law on her statute-book. By the Tenth Amendment, ^' the powers not dele- gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- spectively, or to the people." The inference is irresistible that the power given to the United States to regulate commerce between the States was never meant to permit the citizens of one State to establish a nuisance in another State — to set up a place for the manufacture of drunkards, or to sell fiery intoxicants to its little children. If we grant the inter-State conmierce power of Con- gress to be '* exclusive " in its sphere as between the States, we must hold the police power of the State ^'ws^ as exclusive in its sphere within the State — an older power, and more vital to the existence of civilized society. 2. This decision virtually claims for the United States Government the right to force a sale within a State in the interest of the importer, if buyers can be found. It says : *' The power vested in Congress ' to regulate commerce with for- eign nations and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes,' is the power to prescribe the rule by which that commerce is to be governed, and is a power complete in itself, acknowledging no limitations other than those prescribed in the Constitution. It is THE "ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 467 coextensive with the subject on which it acts, and cannot be stopped at the external boundary of a State, but must enter Us interior and must 6« capable of authorizinrj the disposition of those articles which it intro- duces, so that they may become mingled with Vie common mass of property within the territory entered." The United States follows tlie imported package till it is ** mingled in the common mass of property " within the State, which will in many cases be only when it is mingled in the stomach of the drinker. Then pauper- ism, murder, conflagration may follow, and the State be left to bear the consequences and meet the expenses. By this decision a man may lawfully do in another State what he cannot lawfully do in his own. The Cincinnati brewer or distiller cannot sell a drop in a Local Option town in Ohio, but he may sell all he wants to in Local Option towns in New York, -where New York brewers and distillers oannot sell. Then the New York brewers and distillers can go right over and sell in all Local Option towns in Ohio, where Ohio brewers and distillers cannot sell. Thus, we have the whole liquor traffic play- ing at a gigantic game of " Pussy wants a corner." It does not look reasonable. In the debate in the Senate on the Wilson bill, Sena- tor Edmunds said : •' Now, where is the line ? The line is, I think, a line which the Supreme Court of the United States appears to have gone over, that when your act of transportation, your act of commerce among the States or from foreign nations has become complete, and the word ' among ' no longer applies, and the commodity is in the State where its transportation is ended, and it is in the hands of its owner there, whether that owner be a citizen of one State or another makes no difference, it is then just like the commodity of the same nature, all the laws being equal, in the hands of the citizen of the State who made it there himself, the subject of the State law ; and that is what the Supreme Court of the United States within the next twenty yeara will come to." 488 ECOXOMICS OF PROHIBITION. This would seem to be the only escape from the Ciaim that every man possesses rights in any State wliere he does not belong, such as no man possesses in the State where he does belong. This claim, which the Supreme Court maintains, of the riglit of Congress to follow an imported article in behalf of the importer '^ till it is broken up and so mingled "vvitli the common mass of property within the State," is a doubtful one. True, it has been repeatedly affirmed by the court, but that proves nothing, for, as we now see, decisions that have stood uncliallenged for forty years may be swept away in a day. The claim seems to prove too much. For if the prohibition of sale of the original package to the first buyer is a restraint upon inter-State commerce, so is the prohibition of sale to the twentieth buyer. In the license cases of 1847 this was particularly noticed. Justice McLean said : " This limitation may possibly lessen the sale of the article. This may he the result of any regulation on the subject. But it consti- tutes no objection to the law. An inn-keeper is forbidden to allow drunkenness in his house, and if this prohibition be observed, a less quantity of rum is sold. Is this unconstitutional because it may re- duce the importation of the article ? . . . No one could fail to see that the injunction was laid for the maintenance of good order and good morals. To reject this view would make the excess of the drunk- ard a constitutional duty, to encourage the importation of ardent spirits." In the earlier decision Justice Daniel said even of im- ports from foreign countries, where it was claimed that the importer purchased the right to sell by paying duty to tlie Government : *' No such right is purchased by the importer ; he cannot purchase from the Government that which it could not insure him, a sale indepen- dent of the laws and policy of the State." Chief Justice Taney eaid : THE "ORIGINAL PACKAGE" DECISION. 489 " Although a State is bound to receivo and to permit the sale by the importer of any article of merchandise which CongreBS authorizes to be imported, it is not hound io furnish a market for it, nor to abstain frmn the passage of any law which il may deem necessary or advisable io guard the health or morals of its citizens, although such law may dis- courage importation." More than twenty-five years ago, in the Internal Revenue Act of June 30th, 1864:, Section 78, Congress declared that even the payment of a special license fee to the United States should not authorize any person to make sales within a State contrary to the laws of that State. Tiie law still continues in force as a section of the Internal Revenue Laws, as follows : Section 32-13 : '* The payment of any tax imposed by the Internal Revenue Laws for carrying on any trade or business shall not be held to exempt any person from any penalty or punishment provided by the laws of any State for carrying on the same within the State, or in any manner to authorize the commencement or continuance of such trade or business contrary to the laws of such State, or in places pro- hibited by municipal law; nor shall the payment of any such tax be held to prohibit any State from placing a duty or tax on the same trade or business, for State or other purposes." Commenting on the preparations of the people of Kansas to resist the sales of ^' original packages," £o7i- forVs Wine and Spirit Circular asks, menacingly : " Are the people of the State of Kansas ready to rebel against the United States? Whenever they are, they will hear from the Govern- ment in a manner not to be misunderstood." Which is nothing less than a threat to force the saloon at the point of the bayonet upon the people of the pioneer battle State of Freedom ! It has been said that nothing did so much to arouse the North for emancipation as the stretching of chains around Boston Court House, and the marching of slaves back into slavery between, files of 490 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITIOX. United States troops. Then the iron entered into the soul of Northern freemen, and slavery was doomed. We all know that the Liquor Traffic is a hard master. But if a regiment of United States troops should be marched across the border of Kansas to establish the saloon bj the bayonet under the dear old flag, the long-suppressed indignation of all the good would rise in a tempest of righteous wrath, and men who never cared for temper-- ance before would suddenly find themselves Prohibition- ists. Yet the logic of the Supreme Court decision leads to just that, to force the saloon by the bayonet — if neces- sary — upon an unwilling people. If this is not law, it must be shown not to be. If it is law, it must be made not to be. 3. This decision treats intoxicating liquors " like any other commodity.'^ The entire argument is based on this assumption. The decision says : " That ardent spirits, distilled liquors, ale and beer are subjects of exchange, barter, and trafl&c like any other commodity in which a right of traffic exists, and are so recognized by the usages of the commercial world, the laws of Congress and the decisions of courts, is not denied. Being thus articles of commerce, can a State, in the absence of legislation on the part of Congress, prohibit their impor- tation from abroad or from a sister State ? or when imported, prohibit their sale by the importer? . . . Whatever our individual views may be as to the deleterious or dangerous qualities of particular articles, we canndt hold that any artxcles which Congress recognizes as subjects of inter-State commerce are not such, or that whatever are thus recognized can V»e controlled by State laws amounting to regula- tions, while they retain that character." AYe are reminded of the strikingly similar language used by the Supreme Court in the old Dred Scott de- cision : THE •* ORIGINAL -package" DECISION. 491 " 7he right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in ih€ Constitution. The right to traffic in it like an ordinary article qf mercJiandise and pnperiy vrjis guurauteed, etc. And no word can be fonnd in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over Hhwe property, or which eni Vies properly of tluil kind to less pro'ection than- properly (f any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights /'* Then, as now, the Supreme Court saw only ** prop- ^ ertj," while the nation saw human character and homes, human hearts and lives. But intoxicating liquors are by almost universal legis- 6/ lation treated as unlike *' any other commodity." From the foundation of our Government, there have been laws forbidding their sale without a special license, or in less than certain stipulated quantities, 28 gallons, 10 gallons, 5 gallons, etc. Laws forbidding their sale on election days, to minors, to persons in the habit of becoming in- toxicated, or forbidding their sale after ten o'clock at night, or other stipulated hour, have been frequently passed. There have been laws giving damages to rela- tives for any injuries and losses resulting from their sale, and laws prohibiting their sale in thousands of towns, and over the entire area of great States. What other ** commodity '' has been treated like this? Think of a law forbidding a dry-goods merc'hant to sell less than twenty-eight yards of calico, or forbidding a grocer to sell sugar to any person under eighteen years of age, or prohibiting the sale of boots and shoes within two miles of an agricultural fair, or of beef and mutton within four miles of a Bchoolhouse, or of cakes and pies on election day, or of stationery to persons who are in the habit of using it to excess ! Everywhere are laws specially directing against intoxicating liquors, in which they are treated not " likc^ any other commodity. " 492 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. Similar instances might be adduced from almost all civilized nations, showing that intoxicating liquors are looked upon as a class of merchandise separate and dis- tinct, not to be dealt with on indiscriminate rules apply- ing to all *' trade " and ** commerce." Precedents for such a separation of special articles are readily to be found. "We- cannot press the laws against diseased meat, infected rags, etc., because those things are not subjects of commerce. But, as the dissenting judges say : *' The police power extends not only to ihings intrinsically dangerous to the public health,, such as infected rags or diseased meat, but to things which, when used in a lawful manner^ are subjects of property and of commerce, and yet may he used so as to be injurious or dangerous io Vie life, the health, or the morals of the people. Gunpowder, for in- stance, is a svibject of commerce and of lawful use, yet because of its explosive and dangerous quality, all admit that the State may regu- late its keeping and sale. And there is no article the right of the State to control or prohibit the sale of which within its limits is bet- ter established than intoxicating liquors." Congress has made a special exception, also, in the case of nitro-glycerine and similar explosive substances, providing that, as to them, " ' Any State, Territory, district, city or town within the United States ' shall not be prevented by the language used * from regula- ting or from prohibiting the traffic in or transportation of those sub- stances between persons or places lying or being within their re- spective territorial limits, or from prohihiling the introduction thereof into such limits for sale, use, or consumption therein.' " Juot such an exception should bo made in the case of intoxicating liquors. Give us a good, clean blast of dynamite, blotting out its victim in an instant, with no corruption of character or harm to the immortal soul, rather than the long, lingering degradation and debauch- ery aod the thousand times repeated laurder of drunken- THE ••ORIGINAL PACKAGE DECISION. 493 ness. Permit us to prohibit alcohol, and we will run some chances, if need be, on nitro-gljcerine. Any de- cision of any court, however high, which fails to recog- nize the exceptional character of intoxicating liquors, is one sided and defective. A despatch to the New York Worlds dated at Indian- apolis, August 9th, quotes Judge Elliott of the Indiana Supreme Court as using tlic following language at the meeting of the National Bar Association : ** In asserting Federal supremacy in recent decisions, the highest court in the land has moved through a new channel. It has carried the doctrine of central power to the utmost verge of safety. I ven- ture, in the exercise of a citizen's right, to say that in one notable instance, at least, the current of its thought has outrun tlio lines marked for it by principle and precedent. The decision of the Court in the original package case is a strong, and with profound deference I suggest, a dangerous assertion of central power. IJ the police power resides in the State — and that it does has been time and time again adjudged— the only Federaij question presented "was "WHETBEB INTOXICATING LIQUOB IS 60 FAB DIFFERENT FROM OTHER PROP- ERTY AS TO BE THE SUBJECT OF POLICE REGULATION. ThaT IT IS THERE CAN, IT SEEMS TO ME, BE LITTLE DOUBT. " It seems to me that the iust conclusion is that under our American Constitutions there is neither exclusive central power nor absolute local independence. It is, at all events, quite safe to affirm that it can never be expedient to build up a strong central power at the cost of municipal independence. If there is a right so old and so firmly interlinked with free institutions as to be known of all men, it is the right of local self-government. Of all the rights which found a place on American soil with the coming of Englishmen, it has taken the deepest root and borne the richest fruit." Hence the conference committee of the two Houses of Congress did well to give the preference to the Wilson bill passed by the Senate, which provides : " That aU fermented, distilled, or other in'ozicating liquors or liquids transported into any State or Territory for use, consumption, sale, or storage shall, on arrival in such State or Territory (or remaining 494 ECONOMICS OF PROHIBITION. therein), be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State or Territory enacted in the exercise of police powers, to the same extent and in the same manner as though such liquors or liquids had been produced in such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced there in original packages or otherwise." The exceptional and dangerous character of intoxi- cating liquors must be recognized in any sound decisions of courts or acts of legislation. 4. This decision never once mentions moral character, or the peace and good order of society, except in quota- tions. Never once are they considered as matters for legislation or judicial decisions. In summing up what a State may do for its citizens, it is said, " A State may provide for the security of the lives^ liinbs^ health and comfort of jpersons and the protection of jprojperty .^'^ That is all ! But these higher matters are worth the consideration of legislatures and courts, and most of all things impor- tant in all questions of law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly so decided, as, in the previously quoted words of Justice Grier, these *' compel all laws on subjects of secondary importance, which relate only to proj>erty^ convenience^ or luxury^ to recede when they come into conflict or collision." So recently as in 1887, in the Kansas cases, the Supreme Court used the following lan- guage : " For we cannot shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all, that {he public healthy the public morals and (he public safety may be endangered by the general use u5 Low License Cities, The Vor Live," 91 ; The Depth of the Wound, 345 ; Rev. Dr., Rum on the Congo, 448. Slavery, Moral Wrong of. Abraham Lincoln, 403. Slums, Gin Palaces Flourish in, Mr. George R. Sims. 91. Socialists and Saloons, Cleveland Leader, 329. Society, Rude Pressure to Drink in, 386. South, Recovery of after Civil War, 91. " Spcak-Ea-sies" in Pittsburgh, 78, 79. 514- IXDEX. Stanley, H. W., Rum on the Congo, 449. Starting a Saloon, 140. State, The, the Unit of Sovereignty, Judge Robert C. Pitman, 123. Statistical Tables, XVII, Sunday, Liquor Traffic, Chicago News, 17 ; Selling, Incident in Drug Store, 154 ; Closing in Duluth, 157 ; No Trouble about under Pro- hibition, 157 ; Selling, None in Kansas, 158. Supply of Liquor Creates Demand, Chapter X., 137. Supreme Court Decisions in New Hampshire Case of 1847, 470 ; in " Original Package" Case of 1890, 473 ; in Kansas Case of 1887,494. " Swallowing Land," Lord Derby, 323. Tariff, Main Issue in 1888, 11 ; the Friend of tlie Liquor Traffic, N. Y. Bar, 11 ; Effect on Wool Compared with Effect of Prohi- bition, 12 ; Import Values Compared with Liquor Consumption, 19 ; Local Option for, 134. Taxation, and Co-operation, Professor Ely, 44 ; and License in Omaha, 39. Temperance Instruction in Schools Needful, 416 ; Literature, 416. Thirst-provoking Contrivances in Saloons, '* Njisby," 146. Thomas, J. L , The Labor Problem the People's Problem, 320. Tisdel, W. P., Liquor for the Heathen, 443. Toledo Blade, Reply to Letter of Indignant Brewer, 137 ; on Maine Law, 171. Topeka without Saloons, County Attorney Curtis on, 231 ; Drunk T8. Topeka Sober, 478. Tradesman, The, Chapter XXL. 348. Tradesmen needed, 848 ; Prospering under Prohibition, 225, 253-257. Trevellick, R. F., Liquor Enslaves Labor, 320. Tnbune, N. Y., How Drinking Workmen Live, 85. " Truth about Kansas, The," L. A. Maynard, 225. Unborn Infants, Liquor and. Dr. E. G. Figg, 390. Value, Cash, of a Man, 99, 102. Vincent, Bishop J. H., "One Liver and Forty Roasts," 841. Voice, TA^ Table of High License and Low License Cities, 66 ; High License in St. Paul, 68 ; Probate Judges on Success of Prohibition in Kansas, 183 ; County Treasurers on Success of Prohibition in Kan- sas. 208 ; Leavenworth under Prohibition, 219 ; Statement of One Hundred and Fifty-three Prominent Citizens of Kansas, 228 ; Iowa Judges on Prohibition, 287, 256 ; Iowa Prosecuting Attorneys' Re- plies, 289, .24^^-- Pwwperity of Iowa. 265 : Atlnnln'<; Business Men INDEX. 515 Testify, ilOO, 313; Table Coucerning Grain, 3G5 ; "Original Ptickage" Saloons in Kansas, 474. Wage-worker, Home-owning, Hon. H. W. Grady, 270. Washington Sentinel, Liquor Tax Paid by the Consumer, 83. Waste of the Drink Traffic, William Hargreaves, M.D., 348. Wealth-producing Qualities, their Destruction, 84, 92. Webster, Daniel, Liberty Dependent upon Morals, 397 ; Dr., United States Consul, How Drinking Workmen Live, 85. Wesley, John, on Poisoners- General, 95. Western Baptist on Prohibition in Topeka, 230. " What Will you do with your Corn ?" 365. Wheeler, E. J., on Liquor Rovenues, 19. Whiskey, Tax, Cleveland Leader on, 46 ; Trust Policy, President Greenhut's Address, 53 ; Reducing Number of Establishments, 53. White. President, " Commercialism," 9 ; Judge, on Liquor Crimes, 17. Wife, Leaving Home to Earn Wages, 90 ; of Drunkard, 378-382 ; Providing Good Food, 381 ; Making Home Happy, 464-465 ; Beating, None in Kansas, 208 ; Incident at Sea. 383. Wilkesbarre, Brooks Law in, 78. Will-Power Destroyed by Drinking, National Labor Tribune, 86 ; Charles Lamb, 87. Wilson bill on " Original Packages," 493. Wine Sauce. 385. Wines, Fred H., on Pauperism and Crime, 21, 23. Wishart, A., " Speak-Easies" in Pittsburgh, 79. Wolf, Hon. W. P.. on Prohibition in Iowa, 234. Women, in London Slums, Mr. George R. Sims, 91 ; who Drink, Cleveland Leader, 383. Women's Starvation Wages, 335. Wool as Affected by Tariff or Prohibition, 12 ; Increased Market for, 371. Workhouse, Cleveland, Intemperance of Inmates, 22. Workingmen, Injured by Drink, Powderly, 338 ; Trevellick, 320 ; the Best Customers, 340. See " Laboring Men." Wright, President B. F., on Iowa under Prohibition. 232. Yellowstone Kit in Atlanta, 290. Young Men and Legalized Saloons in Cities, 128 ; not Tempted by Outlawed Saloons, 143 ; not Tempted by Council Bluffs Rookeries, 151 • Reformed by Kansas Prohibition, 152 ; Visiting Dayton salooos,427. ^"^^^^ OF THJ? universitt] OS* m^, AN INlTlAl '~ ~~ OV«,?''° TO ,r^° <=^NTS ON THE Z''*'-''^ f^^-^^ SEP 19 19^2 fJUN 5 1956 7-1988 24 HAY 2 9 1958 to REC'D LD MAY 1 1959 231^13/601?^ REC'D LD MAY 2 2 I960 APR 311984 KTD MAR 3 1 1-1) -i-:-'o,„.{i .'aj U C m HK[ I [ Y I IHf^ARIES