GET ON THE WATER WAGON. 23 cry, Mother!” and his life will go out like a burnt match. I stand in front of the jails and count the whisky criminals. They say, “Yes, Bill, I fired the bulled.” “Yes, I backed my wife into a corner and beat her life out. I am waiting for the scaffold; I am waiting.” “ lam waiting,” says another, “to slip into hell.” On, on it goes. Say, let me summon the wifdhood, and the motherhood, and the childhood and see the tears rain down the upturned faces. People, tears are too weak for that hellish business. Tears are only salty backwater that well up at the bidding of an occult power, and I will tell you there are 865,000 whisky orphan children in the United States, enough in the world to belt this globe three times' around, punctured at every fifth point by a drunkard’s widow. Like Hamilcar of old, who swore young Hannibal eternal enemity against Rome, so I propose to perpetuate this fued against the liquor traffic until the white-winged dove of Temperance builds her nest on the dome of the Capitol of Washington, and spreads her wings of peace, sobriety and joy over our land which I love with all my heart. “I hold a silver dollar in my hand. Come on, we are going to a saloon. We will go into a saloon and spend that dollar for a quart. It takes twenty cents to make a gallon of whisky and a dollar to buy a quart. You say to the saloonkeeper, “Give me a quart.” I will show you, if you wait a minute, how she is burned up. Here I am John, an old drunken bum with a wife and six kids. (Thank God, it’s all a lie.) Come on, I will go down to a saloon and throw down my dollar. It costs twenty cents to make a gallon of whisky. A nickel will make a quart. My dollar will buy a quart of booze. Who gets the nickel? The farmer, for corn or apples. Who gets the ninety-five cents? The United States Government, the big distillers, the big corporations. I am John, a drunken bum, and I will spend my dollar. I have worked a week and got my pay. I go into a grog-shop and throw down my dollar. The saloon-keeper gets my dollar and I get a quart of booze. Come home with me. I stagger, and reel, and spew into my wife’s presence, and she says:
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