Is it a counterfeit business? It has been well said, "Go into the butcher stall and you get meat for money, into the shoe store and you get shoes for money, but go into the saloon and the bargain is all on one side. It's bar-gain on one side and bar-loss on the other; ill-gotten gains on one side, mis-spent wages on the other, a mess of pottage on one side and the birthright of some mother's boy on the other."
A great wail is going up from the advocates of the liquor traffic that statewide prohibition means the destruction of immense vested interests and dire results will follow.
"This our craft is in danger," has ever been the cry against reforms or changes in civilization since the "Shrine Makers of Ephesus."
When slavery was abolished it was said: "This means ruin to the South! Such a confiscation of property, with every slave set free to beg at the white man's gate, crushes every vestige of hope, and five hundred years will not bring relief." Only fifty years have passed and the South is richer than ever in her history.
Justice Grier of the Supreme Court said: "If loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be the gainer a thousandfold in health, wealth and happiness of the people."
If this is true, then this question is not only a great moral question but also a tremendous economic problem.
If production should be for use and not for abuse, the existence of breweries and distilleries are without excuse.
If one should be rewarded on the basis of service, the saloon keeper has no claim for even tolerance, much less reward.
If labor is the basis of value, men who live by selling liquor to their fellowmen are leaches on the body politic, and Ishmaels in the commercial world.