I join the Booster Club for business and prosperity. A man said, "I will tell you what is the matter with the country: it's over-production." You lie, it is underconsumption.
Say, wife, the bread that ought to be in your stomach to satisfy the cravings of hunger is down yonder in the grocery store, and your husband hasn't money enough to carry it home. The meat that ought to satisfy your hunger hangs in the butcher shop. Your husband hasn't any money to buy it. The cloth for a dress is lying on the shelf in the store, but your husband hasn't the money to buy it. The whisky gang has his money.
What is the matter with our country? I would like to do this. I would like to see every booze-fighter get on the water wagon. I would like to summon all the drunkards in America and say: "Boys, let's cut her out and spend the money for flour, meat and calico; what do you say?" Say! $500,000,000 will buy all the flour in the United States; $500,000,000 will buy all the beef cattle, and $500,000,000 will buy all the cotton at $50 a bale. But we dumped more money than that in the whisky hole last year, and we didn't fill it. Come on; I'm going to line up the drunkards. Everybody fall in. Come on, ready, forward, march. Right, left, here I come with all the drunkards. We will line up in front of a butcher shop. The butcher says, "What do you want, a piece of neck?"
"No; how much do I owe you?" "Three dollars." "Here's your dough. Now give me a porterhouse steak and a sirloin roast."
"Where did you get all that money?"
"Went to hear Bill and climbed on the water wagon."
"Hello! What do you want?"
"Beefsteak."
"What do you want?"
"Beefsteak."
We empty the shop and the butcher runs to the telephone. "Hey, Central, give me the slaughter house. Have you got any beef, any pork, any mutton?"
They strip the slaughter house, and then telephone to Swift, and Armour, and Nelson Morris, and Cudahy, to send down trainloads of beefsteaks.
"The whole bunch has got on the water wagon."
And Swift and the other big packers in Chicago say to their salesmen: "Buy beef, pork and mutton."
The farmer sees the price of cattle and sheep jump up to three times their value. Let me take the money you dump into the whisky hole and buy beefsteaks with it. I will show what is the matter with America. I think the liquor business is the dirtiest, rottenest business this side of hell.
Come on, are you ready? Fall in! We line up in front of a grocery store.
"What do you want?"
"Why, I want flour."
"What do you want?"
"Flour."
"What do you want?"
"Flour."
"Pillsbury, Minneapolis, 'Sleepy Eye'?"
"Yes, ship in trainloads of flour; send on fast mail schedule, with an engine in front, one behind and a Mogul in the middle."
"What's the matter?"
"Why, the workingmen have stopped spending their money for booze and have begun to buy flour."
The big mills tell their men to buy wheat and the farmers see the price jump to over $2 per bushel. What's the matter with the country? Why, the whisky gang has your money and you have an empty stomach, and yet you will walk up and vote for the dirty booze.
Come on, cut out the booze, boys. Get on the water wagon; get on for the sake of your wife and babies, and hit the booze a blow.
Come on, ready, forward, march! Right, left, halt! We are in front of a dry goods store.
"What do you want?"
"Calico."
"What do you want?"
"Calico."
"What do you want?"
"Calico."
"Calico; all right, come on." The stores are stripped.
Marshall Field, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., J. V. Farrell, send down calico. The whole bunch has voted out the saloons and we have such a demand for calico we don't know what to do. And the big stores telegraph to Fall River to ship calico, and the factories telegraph to buy cotton, and they tell their salesmen to buy cotton, and the cotton plantation man sees cotton jump up to $150 a bale.
What is the matter? Your children are going naked and the whisky gang has got your money. That's what's the matter with you. Don't listen to those old whisky-soaked politicians who say "stand pat on the saloon."
Come with me. Now, remember, we have the whole bunch of booze fighters on the water wagon, and I'm going home now. Over there I was John, the drunken bum. The whisky gang got my dollar and I got the quart. Over here I am John on the water wagon. The merchant got my dollar and I have his meat, flour and calico, and I'm going home now. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home without booze."
Wife comes out and says, "Hello, John, what have you got?"
"Two porterhouse steaks, Sally."
"What's that bundle, Pa?"
"Clothes to make you a new dress, Sis. Your mother has fixed your old one so often, it looks like a crazy quilt."
"And what have you there?"
"That's a pair of shoes for you, Tom; and here is some cloth to make you a pair of pants. Your mother has patched the old ones so often, they look like the map of United States."
What's the matter with the country? We have been dumping into the whisky hole the money that ought to have been spent for flour, beef and calico, and we haven't the hole filled up yet.
A man comes along and says: "Are you a drunkard?"
"Yes, I'm a drunkard."
"Where are you going?"
"I am going to hell."
"Why?"
"Because the Good Book says: 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,' so I am going to hell."
Another man comes along and I say: "Are you a church member?"
"Yes, I am a church member."
"Where are you going?"
"I am going to heaven."
"Did you vote for the saloon?"
"Yes."
"Then you shall go to hell."
Say, if the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, the man that votes for the saloon that sold the whisky to him will go to hell. If the man that drinks the whisky goes to hell, and the man that sold the whisky to the men that drank it, goes to heaven, then the poor drunkard will have the right to stand on the brink of eternal damnation and put his arms around the pillar of justice, shake his fist in the face of the Almighty and say, "Unjust! Unjust!" If you vote for the dirty business you ought to go to hell as sure as you live, and I would like to fire the furnace while you are there.
Some fellow says, "Drive the saloon out and the buildings will be empty." Which would you rather have, empty buildings or empty jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums? You drink the stuff and what have you to say? You that vote for it, and you that sell it? Look at them painted on the canvas of your recollection.
What is the matter with this grand old country? I heard my friend, George Stuart, tell how he imagined that he walked up to a mill and said:
"Hello, there, what kind of a mill are you?"
"A