GET ON THE WATER WAGON. 9 tlonal increase in wealth was only $5,000,000,000, so you can figure out how long it will take us to go into bankruptcy with that cussed business on our backs. The average factory hand cussed business, on dur backs. The average factory hand earns $450 a year, and it costs us $1,200 a year to support each of our whisky criminals. There are 326,000 enrolled criminals in the United States, and 80,000 in jails and penitentiaries. Three-four Ihs were sent there because of drink, and then they have the audacity to say the saloon is needed for money revenue. Never was there a baser lie, or a heart so vile or lips black enough to utter such a lie. “But,” says the whisky fellow, “we would lose trade; the farmer would not come to town to trade.” You lie. I am a farmer. I was born and raised on a farm and I have the malodors of the barnyard on me today. Yes, sir. And when you say that you insult the best class of men on God’s dirt. Say, when you put up the howl that if you don’t have the saloons the farmer won’t trade—say, Mr. Whisky Men, why do you dump money into politics and back the Legislatures into the corner and fight to the last ditch to prevent the enactment of county local option? You knew if the farmers were given a chance they would knock the whisky business into Hell the first throw out of the box. You are afraid. You have cold feet on the proposition. You are afraid to give the farmer a chance. They are scared to death of you farmers. I heard my friend, Governor Hanly, of Indiana, use the following illustrations': “ ‘Oh,’ but they say, ‘governor, there is another danger to the local option, because it means a loss of market to the farmer. We are consumers of large quantities of grain in the manufacture of our products. If you drive us out of business you strike down that market and it will create a money panic in this country, such as you have never seen, if you do that.’ I might answer it by saying that less than two per cent of the grain produced in this country is used for that purpose, but I pass that by. I want to debate the merit of the statement itself, and I think I can demonstrate in ten minutes
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