8 GET ON THE WATER WAGON. his insane rage are yet robbed of every known joy and privilege of childhood, and too often grow up neglected, uncared for and vicious as the result of their surroundings and the example before them; “personal liberty” is not for the sober, industrious citizen who from the proceeds of honest toil and orderly living, has to pay, willingl; or not, the tax bills which pile up as the direct result of drunkenness, disorder, and poverty, the items of which are written in the records: of every police court and poorhouse in the land; nor is “personal liberty” for the good woman who goes abroad in the town only at the risk of being shot down by some drink-crazed creature. This rant about “personal liberty” as an argument, has no leg to stand upon. Now, last year the corn crop was 2,553,732,000 bushels, and it was valued at $1,350,000,000. Secretary Wilson says that the breweries use less than two per cent; I will say that they use two per cent. That would make 51,000,000 bushels, and at fifty cents a bushel that would be about $25,000,000. How many people are there in the United States? 80,000,000. Very well, then, that is twenty-seven cents per capita. Then we sold out to the whisky business for twenty-seven cents apiece—the price of a dozen eggs or a pound of butter. We are the cheapest gang this side of Hell if we will do that kind of business. Now listen! Last year the income of the United States Government, and the cities and towns and counties from the whisky business, was $350,000,000. That is putting it liberally. You say that’s a lot of money. Well, last year the workingmen spent $2,200,000,000 for drink, and it cost $1,- 200,000,000 to care for the judicial machinery. In other words, the whisky business cost us last year, $3,400,000,000. I will subtract from that the dirty $350,000,000 which we got, and it leaves $3,050,000,000 in favor of knocking the whisky business out on purely a money basis. And listen! Last year we spent $6,000,000,000 for our paupers and criminals, insane, orphans, feeble-minded, etc., in the United States, and eighty-two per cent of our criminals are whisky made, and seventy-five per cent of the paupers are whisky made. Our na-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=