TEMPERANCE LEGISLATION.
By W. N. Glenn
An act of Congress, passed in 1895, requires the Commissioner of the Department of Labor to secure information regarding the excessive use of intoxicating liquors among the employees of large corporations. In accordance with this law the Commissioner is said to be sending out a schedule of questions to the managers of large manufacturing establishments, transportation companies, etc. The spirit that lies behind the giant liquor interest is very prolific of schemes for leading the opposition into some roundabout chase in order to stave off any practical action. Statistics have long ago demonstrated the devastating effect of the use of intoxicating liquors. In fact, the dire results of such indulgence are plain to common observation without the formal processes of official statistics. Such laws are generally the offspring of the liquor interest, and only serve as blinds to temperance people and temperance advocates, who are generally too easily quieted with that most deceptive of all subterfuges, the “half loaf.” One of the “reform” evils of the present day is a dependence upon securing reform through the civil law. This means a dependence upon the lawmakers, who, for the most part, are politicians whose principal object is reelection or promotion to higher place. They wish to be in favor with all classes, but especially with the class which is the most potent in politics, and that is the class which is under the influence of the alcohol habit and the liquor business. The “temperance” people, many of whom are only nominally such, make demonstrative demands for legislation, and the liquor traffic consents to allow some “half-loaf” measure, some temporary mollifier of temperance zeal, something involving a long series of “red-tape” proceedings through the manipulations of those who can be influenced to bring it to naught. Investigations and statistics “drag their slow length along,” till the “half loaf”7finally crumbles away to give place to some new delusion. Investigating the excessive use of intoxicants among the employees of great business corporations is one of the tamest pretenses in behalf of temperance that could be suggested. Of all the wage-earning classes in the world the employees of large corporations are the most abstemious. In these great institutions there is always much depending upon the alertness, promptitude, and general faithfulness of every one, in whatever position. Therefore managers require sobriety on the part of employees, and employees know that their positions are always at stake. So, whatever might be their inclination under other circumstances, the one thing most of all that is demanded of such employees is sobriety. This is a point that is quite generally overlooked in the wholesale summing up of the dreadful effects of liquor drinking among wage workers. It is easy to see that the selection of this class for government investigation was a shrewd game in the interest of the liquor traffic. Any report that is likely to come of such investigation will, almost to a certainty, be to the advantage of the liquor power. Many temperance people are deluded with the idea that high license is a long stride, a “half loaf,” in the securing of prohibition of the liquor traffic; but it transpires that the powerful California Protective Association, composed of some 8,000 wholesale and retail liquor dealers, is making an effort to secure a state high license law for the protection of the liquor business. The underlying design is thus to place the business entirely under the control of state authority—away from the local influence of municipalities that from time to time may be controlled by temperance sentiment. But the siren song of a high license law is very soothing to some ardent temperance advocates. Another pretty idea is just now looming up in the way of proposed legislation. The governor of California proposes, it is said, to lay a considerable portion of the burden of supporting insane and inebriate asylums upon the liquor traffic, by a direct tax. The plausible plea is that “the liquor traffic is directly responsible for a major portion of the insanity, pauperism, and crime of the state.” Many temperance people are hailing this proposition as a blow at the liquor business; but while the governor is gathering statistics, the president of the Protective Association comes out with a statement that the idea originated with them. The liquor men now boast of their support of the public schools, and if they can add to that a few other good things, they will become so entrenched in the good works of our common society that their business will be deemed indispensable to the public treasury. The great enemy of souls is about as anxious to manipulate the so-called temperance legislation in the interest of alcoholism as he is to introduce legislation in regard to religious matters. His strong fortress is deception; the modern politician is his pliant, though often unwitting tool; and human legislation is a potent means of securing his varied objects.