What Labor Leaders Say of Alcohol
ORDER OF RAILWAY CONDUCTORS: “We are absolutely opposed to the saloon, and it is incorporated in our laws that a man can not engage in the liquor traffic and remain a member of this organization.” BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN: “We oppose the saloon to the extent that the brotherhood will not tolerate a member being connected with the sale of liquor.” INTERNATIONAL SEAMEN’S UNION: “We15continually enjoin sobriety upon our members by refusing to publish advertisements of the saloon, etc., in the official organ of the union.” JOHN MITCHELL: "In various ways and on many occasions the evil influence of the saloon has been recognized and pointed out by the labor-unions of the United States. While the liquor interests have sought to convey the impression that there was some common interest between trade-unionism and the manufacture and sale of intoxicants, this suggestion is repelled on every occasion when the matter is presented to the labor men in its true light and when the malign purpose of the liquor interests is exposed to view. I have no sympathy with the statement so often made that the manufacture and sale of liquor has contributed to the industrial development of the nation. On the contrary, I believe that liquor has contributed more to the moral, intellectual, and material deterioration of the people, and has brought more misery to defenseless women and children, than has any other agency in the history of mankind." THE JOURNEYMAN TAILORS: "The officers of our organization are decidedly opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and its general secretary adds: 'I have not failed, whenever the opportunity has presented itself, to declare myself upon this question.'" UNITED GARMENT WORKERS: "Our organization is decidedly opposed to the saloon." THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TELEGRAPHERS: "The use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage shall be sufficient cause for rejecting any petition for membership." THE INTERNATIONAL TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, convention of 1894, called for "the state and national destruction of the liquor traffic."