An Unprofitable Trade

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 15, 1883

An Unprofitable Trade.

TAKEN all in all, the liquor traffic isn't profitable to either party in the transaction. Now and then you hear of a man who has made a comfortable little fortune in the trade, but it generally happens that these men have had sagacious wives who held fast to the profits. A large majority of those men who have gone into saloon-keeping or tavern-keeping to get rich or to make a living by easier means than productive labor, have lost money. Look at the commercial reports of Dunn or Bradstreet; month after month I have noticed that the failures in the liquor business have outnumbered those in any other branch of trade, and in some States they have exceeded in number the failures in all other branches. Of course, in a large measure, this fact is accounted for not by the smallness of profits, but by the damaging personal consequences of the trade upon the dealers. The man who makes drunkards, soon or late, becomes a drunkard himself, and that means bankruptcy all around. Moreover, the liquor seller ruins his health, almost without exception. Here is testimony from a reliable source. The general life insurance office of Canada has lately issued the following order: "In consequence of the excessive mortality experienced in the case of innkeepers whose lives have been assured with the company, it is hereby notified that from this date the directors will not undertake these risks on any terms." Everybody understands the meaning of this statement.

In every locality may be found conspicuous illustrations of the facts here stated. Where can you point to a liquor-selling hotel or restaurant that has had a quarter of a century of unbroken prosperity, that has not changed proprietors, settled its obligations at a discount, or been sold out under the hammer? There are some, of course, but they are few. I believe that not a dozen liquor dealers of Onondaga County, either wholesale or retail, can look back on an unbroken quarter-century of honest financial success; those acquainted with the facts will recognize the general truth of this statement without disagreeable specification, and if the estimate is found to be slightly erroneous, they can make their adjustment. I might name village after village whose inn-keeper has fallen from a position of respectability (as the word is commonly applied) down to the level of beggary or imbecility, or has gone to jail for crime. There is now pending in the United States court the case of a man, a hotel keeper, who a dozen years ago controlled the politics of the largest town in the county. His present condition is truly pitiable, and strikingly contrasts with his affluence of a few years ago. His head is white, his strong frame is shaken, his credit is ruined, his home broken up, and he stands indicted for one of the most serious offenses against the Government.

Another case quite as distressing came to my notice not many days ago. A man who had long had a monopoly of the liquor business in one of the suburbs of this city, was supposed to have laid up a competence for himself and family. In the early life he had seen the ill effects of the traffic in his father's family in England, but this did not deter him from engaging in the same business when he had reached the age of manhood. He made money, and his stout constitution endured the strain. By and by his wife died from the tremens, and he for a time abandoned the business, but subsequently re-entered it and added to his establishment year by year. The other day he was carried to the poor-house, a wreck in the prime of life, his strong frame transformed to hideousness. His property has been all dissipated, and his little ones have been taken care of by families from whom he would a few years ago have scorned to receive a favor.

This seems to be one of the saddest aspects of the liquor evil. There is a double loss, an absolute wasting of resources. If the money which the man takes from his family to spend in drink were to be bestowed upon the family of the seller of the drink, the tragedy would be less appalling; in a certain way good would come out of evil in that case, and the produce of a generation's labor would be preserved. But this double degradation—the ruining of buyer and seller and the families of both—with what may we compare it? It is defeat without corresponding victory, loss without gain; it is murder and suicide at a single stroke.