iO GET ON THE WATER WAGON. to any thoughtful man, to any farmer, that the brewer who furnishes him a market for a bushel of corn is not his benefactor, or the benefactor of any man, from an economic standpoint. Let us see. A farmer brings to the brewer a bushel of corn. He finds a market for It. He gets fifty cents and goes his way, with the statement of the brewer ringing in his ears that the brewer is the benefactor. But you haven’t got all the factors in the problem, Mr. Brewer, and you cannot get a correct solution of a problem without all the factors' in the problem. You take the farmer’s bushel of corn, brewer or distiller, and you brew and distill from it four and one-half gallons of spirits. I don’t know how much he dilutes them before he puts them on the market. Only the brewer, the distiller and God knows. The man who drinks it doesn’t, but, if he doesn’t dilute it at all, he puts on the market four and a half gallons of intoxicating liquor, thirty-six pints. I am not going to trace the thirty-six. It will take too long. But I want to trace three of them, and I will give you no imaginary stories plucked from the brain of an excited orator. I will take instances from the judicial pages of the supreme court and the circuit court judges reports in Indiana and in Illinois to make my case. “Two years ago in the city of Chicago a young man of good parents, good character, one Sunday crossed the street and entered a saloon, open against the law. He found there boon companions. There was laughter, song and jest and much drinking. After awhile, drunk, insanely drunk, his money gone, he was kicked into the street. He found his way across to his mother’s home. He importuned her for money to buy more drink. She refused him. He seized from the sideboard a revolver and ran out into the street and with the expressed determination of entering the saloon and getting more drink, money or no money. His little mother followed him into the street. Oh, men of Delaware county! His fond mother follows him into the street. She put her hand upon him In loving restraint. He struck it from him in anger and then his sister came and. added her entreaty in vain. And then a neighbor, whom he knew, trusted and respected, came
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=