Temperance by Lever

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 2, 1882

Temperance.

By Lever

Five Thousand in One Year.

THESE are the figures that represent the net profit of one saloon in Michigan during last year. The keeper of the saloon, as we were informed, had formerly been a clown in some of the leading shows of the country. Abandoning the show business, he betook himself to drunk-making, and settled in Michigan.

The patrons of this drunk-maker were largely laboring men, at work on the railroad. These men, without exception, were poor men who were entirely dependent on their daily labor for a subsistence for themselves and their families. Their wages were not large at the best, yet from these men this one saloon made a clear profit of $5,000 in one season.

Let us look at this transaction from the different stand-points from which it presents itself, and if possible get a correct idea of the monstrous crime involved in the business.

In the first place the inequality between the men who paid and the man who received the money involved in this transaction, is very marked indeed. On the one hand was a class of hard-working, industrious, self-denying men; on the other a genteel loafer, who probably never did a dozen hard days' work in his life; yet the loafer gets the money, and the hard-working men and their families remain in poverty and want. Is there any justice in this? We hear a good deal said about the cruelty of capital in its dealings with labor, but I never knew a case where capital defrauded honest labor to such an extent as this in so short a time.

Did any dry-goods merchant ever make a clean profit of $5,000 out of so small a number of hard-working men in the short space of one year? Did any bloated bond-holder ever ask so large a per cent. of the hard earnings of the poor?

Again this genteel loafer, more properly villain, gave these men absolutely no "value received" for their hard-earned dollars. No dry-goods merchant, clothier, grocery-man, miller, or other tradesman could give so poor a return for money paid them, and not be arrested for swindling. No swindler or burglar, saloon-keepers excepted, would be allowed to take a like sum of money from a similar number of men without landing in the State's prison.

The fact that these men, under the influence of depraved tastes, were willing to be swindled does not change the moral aspect of the case in the least. The fact that the great State of Michigan recognizes this transaction as legitimate does not change the nature of the crime in the least.

Again that which this ex-clown, and present saloon-keeper gave these men in return for the $5,000 not only did not benefit them, but actually injured them. No intelligent man in his sober senses can deny this. Without the liquor which this apology for a man sold these men they would have been healthier, wealthier, and wiser by a good many per cent. They would have been more efficient workers on the railroads, better husbands and fathers, better citizens, and in every way better men.

In view of these facts, what shall we say of the business, falsely so called, of this saloon-keeper? Is it too much to say that it is a nuisance and ought to be suppressed? Is it too much to say that this saloon-keeper is a criminal, and ought to be punished? — Lever.