Temperance by N. Y. Independent

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 37.

Temperance.

By N. Y. Independent

A Hint for the Trade Unions.

We happen to know of a large building, not yet finished, whose builder has reduced his expenses by a grog shop for the workmen. Every laborer on the building has credit at the bar to the full amount of his wages. Most of the hands drink off a considerable part of their earnings. We know of one who, at the week's end, found fifteen cents standing to his credit.

The profits on all kinds of liquor, from beer up, are enormous, from 200 to 400 per cent., and in some cases more. This grog shop amounts, therefore, to a discount of from 67 to 80 per cent., cunningly applied to the wages of the workmen on the building.

We understand this is not a singular case, and we hear stories of brutal influences being used to drive or draw the man into this discounting mill.

How wide the practice has extended we do not know. For humanity's sake, let us hope it has not gone far. If the trade unions want something to do that will tell more than anything else on the welfare of the workingmen, let them look after matters like these.

Instead of sending committees around to learn whether non-union men are employed on the work, let them send committees on the better business of finding what rum shops are open in the vicinity, and use their power to keep the men out of them.

What we have related above shows how much reason there is that they should act. It makes no difference what wages a man earns in a day, if he drinks all he gets, or drinks all to within fifteen cents in a week. A sober man at one dollar a day is better off than one of those fellows trapped in a whisky shop who gets four dollars a day to waste.

The trade unions must look after the manhood of the men if they want to raise them up and make them strong to face the world.

It makes little difference whether other builders adopt the plan we have spoken of to cheapen their construction or not. If there is a rum shop at hand for the workman, the result on him is the same. He gets just as much liquor, he pays as much for it, and at the week's end he has as little left. The measure of profits in the case we have related is the same in all, and it may stand as a fair sample of the way the rum shop lives on the workmen, and of the amount every one of them draws from them.—N. Y. Independent.