Saloon (the Liquor Traffic) and the Labor Movement Divorce
Nov 15
Everything posted on here can be found and read for free at this link . The book showcases a committee hearing to criminalize alcohol, and "traffic" of alcohol, and various speeches, newspaper clippings, etc. You can probably guess by now, that this is where our modern day creation of "organized crime", "human/drug/sex trafficking", and "modern day slavery" actually comes from. The issues they're talking about are systematic ones, but they largely blame people who drink alcohol, and anyone who works in the alcohol trade. There's numerous descriptions of alcohol as "slavery", and even people blaming alcohol for prostitution/sex trafficking (they called it white slavery/white slave traffic back then). They viewed alcohol workers, and drinkers as a hindrance to gaining basic rights, and increased wages. Some union leaders made statements and plans to exclude them and criminalize them. Basically they're desperately trying to play respectability politics and to be seen by the upper classes as the "good, respectable, and deserving poors". Despite some socialists, communists writing about the 'white slave traffic' and 'organized crime, none of their analysis really matter when you look at the larger picture. It doesn't matter how progressive sounding they try to make it, these narratives have a pattern of doing several things:
Human Trafficking/Organized Crime/Underground Narratives tend to:
· stigmatize poor people
· divides labor
· justifies the segregation, persecution, and criminalization of the most marginalized
Nowhere is this made clearer than when workers report or discuss how to completely cut ties from saloon workers, and try to find alternatives to everything they lost from cutting solidarity.
[Extracts from annual reports of President Samuel Gompers to American Federation of Labor conventions.I
Years ago saloon proprietors would give their meeting rooms free, or offer a bonus to such associations of workmen as could be induced to become tenants. This rule often applied years ago to the unions of labor. Gradually, but constantly, the unions have sought meeting places in buildings in which intoxicants are not on sale; but despite their best efforts a sufficiency of halls and meeting places was not and is not available. I commend the thought to your consideration, whether we have not the right to insist that our unions in the various cities and towns throughout the country shall have the right and the opportunity for the use of our public school buildings in which to hold their evening meetings.
If you peel back the layer behind all the genuine and sometimes fake concern about various social issues, alcohol, drugs, and trafficking, you'll be able to see the real politics behind this narrative. These workers were largely kicking migrants out of their worker collectives. And they were criminalizing them and making their labor illegal. They were making fun of them for being sad and angry over their betrayal of the more marginalized and stigmatized workers. In other words, human trafficking and organized crime narratives are largely dog whistle politics. It doesn't matter if people genuinely believe it or are super progressive in how they view it. The narrative itself is part of a larger structure and history.
“Organizing around alcohol is in some ways a politically correct way to go after other immigrants . . . It’s not entirely polite to say, ‘I want to get all of the Catholics out of America.’ But it’s very polite to say, ‘Alcohol is ruining society.’”
I hope you find the following readings as eye opening as we did:
Let me also quote from the speech of the then president of the United Mine Workers — Tom L. Lewis: Because the liquor traffic tends to enslave the people, to make them satisfied with improper conditions, and keeps them ignorant, the leaders of the trades- union movement are called on to fight the saloon.
I picked it up from McClure's Magazine for this month. I find in there an article by Miss Jane Addams. the most prominent social-settlement worker in this country, an article under the title "A new conscience and an ancient evil "; there is a chapter on social control, and then a subheading afterwards entitled "Alcohol, the indispensable vehicle of the white-slave traffic."
In March, 1912, McClure's Magazine, under the title "A new con science and an ancient evil — social control," Jane Addams says:
ALCOHOL THE INDISPENSABLE VEHICLE OF THE WHITE-SLAVE TRAFFIC.
Another humanitarian movement from which assistance will doubtless come to the crusade against he social evil is the great movement against alcoholism, with its recent revival in every civilized country of the world. A careful scientist has called alcohol the Indispensable vehicle of the business transacted by the white-slave traders and has assorted that without its use this trade could not long continue.
[From the Toronto Globe, Monday, November 15, 1909.l
Saloon is Worst Enemy of Labor — Leading Trade-unionists use Plain Language — Stirring Denunciations — An Unusual Meeting with an Unusual Platform — Messrs. Mitchell, Lennon, Lewis, Simpson, and the Rev. Charles Stelzle Address 4,000 Men in Massey Hall — Deal with Question in Straightforward Manner.
"The time has come when the saloon and the labor movement must be divorced." This quotation from an address by President Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, was used with telling significance at the mass meeting of workingmen in Massey Hall on Sunday afternoon when prominent labor leaders met to deliver addresses upon " The saloon and the labor movement." It was an unusual meeting. Unusual for its numbers, for 4,000 men were there; unusual In the nature of the audience, and especially unusual In the nature of its platform. Not one of the prominent speakers was a temperance agitator In the ordinary sense. All of them were men who have achieved distinction in the labor movement. Even the chairman. Rev. Charles Stelzle, head of the department of labor in the Presbyterian Church, had to confess that he could not remember having made a temperance speech before.
SOME OF THE SPEAKERS. There was John Mitchell, who leaped into fame as the leader of the United Mine Workers in their great strike seven years ago: Tom L. Lewis, the man who succeeded Mitchell when the latter resigned his place of leadership: John B. Lennon, treasurer of the American Federation of Labor, who, in his 20 years of office, has bandied over $2,000,000 of the federation's funds: and our own James Simpson. All of them, speaking from the standpoint of labor representa tives, gave testimony that the saloon is the worst enemy the trades-union move ment has to contend against.
FATHER WAS A BREWER. Rev. Charles Stelzle, who acted as chairman, gave the meeting Its first thrill when he calmly announced in opening that he was well qualified to speak about the liquor traffic. His father had been a brewer and later a saloon keeper, be said, and he had no sympathy with those men and those journals who pictured saloon keepers as low-browed brutes. They were a very human class and had usually wholesome aspirations, like any other class of men. Though not a prohibitionist, he would be glad if he could put the liquor traffic out of business. Ix>Cal option was but a practical application of the principle of the referendum, which was one of the democratic principles for which labor was contending. The labor man who protests against local option stultifies himself. The speaker argued that it was nonsense for any man to talk about his liberty to do as be liked. A man could not even speiid his money as he pleased. The community Insisted that a man must first provide for his wife and family before he may spend his money upon himself.
MUST DIVORCE SALOON AND LABOR. " The time has come when the saloon and the labor movement must be di vorced," he said, and added, "That is the official statement of the American Federation of Labor." He quoted from three reports by President Goinpers urging unions to build labor temples and to avoid meeting where liquor was ob tainable. The day was fast coming when every labor leader would have to be a total abstainer. Even the bartenders realized the value of temperance and bad started a total-abstinence society. The English workingmen insisted that all their parliamentary representatives must be abstainers. They wanted them to sand in their places in the House with clear brains, and souie day every labor organization in America would make the same demand of their leaders.
JOHN MITCHELL'S ADDRESS. "Poverty has driven many a strong man to drink and drink has driven many a strong man to poverty," said John Mitchell, in arguing that the liquor traffic was the enemy of trades-unionism. " I am not at all impressed with the argument that if you close down the liquor traffic you bring about a calamity. When you shut down a distillery, a factory takes its place; and when you close up a saloon, a grocery store is put in. " We men of the mining industries have demonstrated that higher wages and shorter hours conduce to temperance in everything that the word implies. A man who comes from his work fagged in brain and body is much more likely to seek stimulants than the man who leaves off work still feeling strong in mind and body. The latter wants to spend his time and money with his wife and family. I am willing to assert that when all men work but eight hours a day and receive for it a fair wage there will be less liquor drunk in the world than there is to-day. I say this, realizing that nothing has done more to bring misery upon innocent women and children than the money spent in drink.
a workingman's duty. "No man has a right to spend a cent upon himself until he has first provided for his family. But the average workingman does not yet earn enough to give his family all the comforts they deserve. He has no money to spend on drink without robbing his family. I believe that in the proportion that the labor movement grows so will the temperance movement grow. The labor movement was not formed merely for the purpose of getting more wages and shorter hours. If that was all. I would not consider it worth while to devote my life to it The purpose of the labor movement is to secure a better standard of living and to make the lives of men, women, and children happier and brighter."
LOWERS STANDAND OF LIVING. Mr. John B. Lennon asked: "What is the effect of the liquor traffic on the standard of living of the people? Is there any influence gone out from the saloon that has helped to make men and women better? The labor movement is essentially a moral movement. It stands for equal opportunity for men and women, though it believes that it should be made more easily possible for women to become home makers. Who can deny that the liquor traffic is driving women to work in factories, in workshops, and at washtubs who ought not to be there? The trades-union movement is opposed to child labor, yet who can deny that the liquor traffic is driving into industrial life boys and girls who should be in the school or on the playground? The liquor traffic tends to decrease wages, never to increase them. The use of alcohol makes workmen less skillful and drives men to lower scales of employment and reward. Every cent spent in the liquor business is wasted. It brings no social benefit and no moral uplift."
MR. LENNON DEFIES CRITICS. "I have been criticized for my fight against the saloon," said Mr. Lennon, " but I give notice here and now that I will fight the traffic as long as the saloon opposes the interests of the people. Too many men nnd women are going down stream to degradation for me to keep silent. To the trades unionist there is no redeeming feature in the saloon. Go anywhere whore Its influence is felt and you see the demoralization it brings. We are fighting for social well-being, civic benefits, and moral uplift. Never a foul plot is organized to injure public rights and social well-being but the saloon is used for the job. They never use the trade unions or the Ministerial Association, which is only a trade union under another name. The saloon is the enemy of the people for whom we work."
WHAT THE MINE WORKERS THINK. " If you want to know where the miners of America stand upon the temperance question, I'll tell you," said President Tom L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers. "In our constitution we have a clause which forbids any member to sell intoxicants, even at a picnic. That's what we think of the liquor traffic. " Some people say that the saloon is a necessary evil. I don't believe in that kind of doctrine. I don't believe that legislation alone will eradicate the traffic. Nothing but the spread of education will accomplish that. We have laws against crime, but they do not prevent the criminal. When we raise the stand ard of living and education we will do a great deal to kill the traffic. We be lieve that the trades unions are doing more for the cause of temperance than any other institution in the world, and we can produce the facts. The Christian churches are established for the purpose of replacing paganism with Christianity; the trades union movement is organized to educate the people, to drive out ignorance, and elevate the toilers of our land. Because the liquor traffic tends to enslave the people, to make them satisfied with improper conditions, and keeps them ignorant, the leaders of the trades union movement are called on to fight the saloon." NO BAR IN LABOR TEMPLE. *• Mr. James Simpson, who followed, said that the labor leaders of Toronto were alive to the menace which the saloon was to the progress of the workingman. When the Toronto Labor Temple was founded a clause was put in its constitution prohibiting intoxicating liquor from the premises.
Editorial Comment on Toronto Labor Temperance Meeting.
temperance question among union men.
The conflict between the late Toronto convention of the American Federation of Labor between the advocates of total abstinence and the "personal-liberty" men was far more intense than the newspaper reports indicated. It was. of course, Charles Stelzle. the Presbyterian labor expert, who headed up the temperance sentiment, and Jere Sullivan, the secretary of the Bartenders' Union, led the fight against him. Characteristically, Mr. Stelzle met the situation by direct assault. Without hesitancy or evasion he said that he had no favors to ask of organized labor: that his work was cut out for him and he proposed to follow it to the end. * * * The outright, downright frankness of the speech caught the delegates promptly, and they were soon rewarding the speaker with tumultuous cheers. And the ovation which was rendered him at the close of his speech was one of the climax scenes of the convention, the noisy applause continuing for fully three minutes after he had resumed his seat. The bartenders and their friends were disconcerted a good deal by this incident, but far more by the Sunday afternoon meeting in Massey Hall, which had been advertised plainly and directly as a temperance meeting. Strenuous at-- tempts had been made to induce the delegates to stay away, and the liquor crowd believed that they had insured a small attendance and a general " frost." They were quite dumbfounded by what actually came to pass — the 4.000 sittings of the great hall occupied by labor men to the last seat and much standing room also taken. The enthusiasm of the meeting was pitched to a high key.
The saloon men on Monday lost further ground by a tactical blunder quite illustrative of ingrained liquor stupidity. They distributed in the convention a cartoon representing union labor as an ass that Mr. Stelzle — a cadaverous person with a tin halo — was trying to pull into the " dry " stable. Apart from the ill judgment of the sneer at Mr. Stelzle where his admirers were so numerous, it was surely the worst of sense to represent labor thus contemptuously at a labor convention.
In the way of sentiment and sympathy the temperance contingent certainly had the clear advantage as the convention drew to a close. — The Interior, Chicago.