Why Labor Leaders Oppose the Prohibition Movement
A working man argues that prohibition is a distraction from the real dangers facing laborers, such as unsafe working conditions and monopoly power.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
I admit I am somewhat impatient at this crusade. I am impatient about its hypocrisy, I am impatient on account of its selfishness; I am impatient on account of its prejudices. Who are these people who come to you and ask you to give up anything that has been wrung from the labor and suffering of the past? Are they your friends? Have they fought your battles when you have made your brave struggle for a chance to live? I object to this great body of men, the trade unionists of America, who represent the hopes and the fears and the sufferings and the aspirations of their fellow men, being led down a blind alley by a handful of fanatics who know nothing about their cause. Every workingman in the world has his life cut off by work. A half million workingmen were killed and maimed last year, the victims of our industrial machines. They were ground up by cars; they died in molten vats of steel and lead; they had their arms and hands cut off by machines. If one-tenth part of the energy and money and hot air that is spent on rum were spent on tuberculosis, that great scour would have been wiped away years ago. The labor organizations have taken their earnings and sent men to the capitals to plead for legislation that would make safety appliances for railroads and cars; that would make mines safe; that would protect life. Have you ever been to a legislative body and found a committee of prohibitionists there to help plead your cause?
“A man may be eaten alive by tuberculosis, and the prohibitionists look square in his face and say, 'Oh, Rum! Rum!'”
This piece highlights the early 20th-century tension between 'moral' reform movements and economic class struggle. Much like contemporary debates over whether to prioritize individual lifestyle changes or systemic industrial regulation, this writer argues that the prohibitionist focus on personal virtue obscures the structural violence of hazardous work and tenement poverty.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.