p. 621 | Labor and Drink

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 39.

Labor and Drink.

GEN. SWIFT addressed the Young Men’s Union of Boston on the wage question. He said that $37,000,000 was spent in Massachusetts last year for intoxicating drinks. A majority of this enormous sum came out of the industrial class. He also said that the saloon can live only as it lives on the wages of the community; that the saloon is opposed to everything for which we organize government, and that while in every other business in this country the laborer averages twenty per cent., in the sale of liquor he gets only two per cent. His conclusions, like that of all thinking men, was that when labor wakes up to the real facts, it will find the saloon to be its greatest enemy, and will declare that the saloon must go. If wage-earners were truly wise, their first great fight would be against the saloon. In fact, already one great labor organization allows no liquor-dealer to join it. All the rest would do well to follow this example.—Work at Home.