The Whisky Interests as Taxpayers
By A. O. Tait
By A. O. TAIT
Editor "Signs of the Times" THE last brewers' year-book is authority for the statement that the internal revenue from malt liquors for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, was $65,245,544.40, and from distilled spirits $157,542,063.70, or a total of $222,787,608.10. This vast sum of money is paraded before our eyes, and we are excitedly asked what the government would do if this revenue were cut off. We are also told of the large additional sums that are paid into city and town treasuries by the license fees of the saloon. To care for the product of the saloon has cost, in some localities, as high as ten dollars additional for each dollar paid in by the whisky men. Not very profitable to have some one give you a dollar when you immediately have to put ten more with it and turn around to spend it on the product of the donor! Who Does Pay the Revenue?
But all this to one side. Do the liquor interests in reality pay any revenue after all? In order for this whisky revenue to be paid, men must flock to the saloons and drink. The money spent in the saloon, in myriads of cases is taken directly away from suffering mothers and children. It is money that these should have for bread and clothing and for fuel to keep them warm. In order to supply the necessities of the home, the frail wife of the drunkard is often driven to the wash-tub to earn any pittance that she can. And even the money that she gets by her grinding toil is often snatched out of her hand and carried away to the saloon under the spell of the alcohol demon that possesses her husband. Money that is taken and used in this way is the worst kind of blood-money. And yet much of what the liquor men get with which to pay their enormous revenue must come in this cursed way. Then let it be affirmed that, after all, the liquor interests are not paying this big revenue. Instead, they use the demon of appetite to seize the money that ought to give bread to starving children, provide clothing for the shivering bodies, and supply the necessities of the suffering wife; and after getting their money in this cruel way, they wish us to regard it as a necessary and beneficial revenue. Let us not be deceived by such sophistries. Let us as men stand up and pay whatever tax is necessary to support our government, local and national. Let us as men refuse to allow the saloon to collect our taxes from suffering women and starving and naked children. Tear the cloak from the hideous falsehood. Let the fact be seen, in all its ugliness, that every dollar of liquor revenue should be labeled with "Murder," "Vice," "Robbery," "Starvation and Nakedness of Children," "Sorrow and Suffering for Helpless Women."