Get on the Water Wagon - William Ashley Sunday

26 GET ON THE WATER WAGON. “What do you want?” “Flour.” “Pillsbury, Minneapolis, ‘Sleepy Eye?’ ” “Yes; ship in train loads of flour; send on the fast mail schedule, with an engine in front, one behind and a Mogul in the middle. “What’s the matter?” “Why, the workingmen have stopped spending their money for booze and have begun to buy flour.” The big mills tell their men to buy wheat and the farmers see the price jump to over $2.00 per bushel. What’s the matter with the country? Why, the whisky gang has your money and you have an empty stomach, and yet you will walk up and vote for the dirty business'. Come on, cut out the booze, boys. Get on the water wagon; get on for the sake of your wife and babies, and hit the booze a blow. Come on, ready, forward, march! Right, left, halt! We are in front of a dry goods store. “What do you want?” “Calico.” “What do you want?” “Calico.” “What do you want?" “Calico.” “Calico; all right, come on. The stores are stripped. Hey, Marshall Field, Carson, Pierre Scott & Co., J. V. Farwell, send down calico. The whole bunch has voted out the saloons and we have such a demand for calico we don’t know what to do. And the big stores telegraph to Fall River to ship calico, and the factories telegraph to buy cotton, and they tell their salesmen to buy cotton, and the cotton plantation man sees cotton jump up to $150 a bale. What is the matter? Your children are going naked and the whisky gang has your money. That’s what’s the matter with you. Don’t listen to those old whisky-soaked politicians who say “stand-pat on the saloon.”

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