Union Labor Bulletin

Is Labor Wet?

We regret to note that the American Federation of Labor has joined with the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, the Constitutional Liberty League of Massachusetts, and the Moderation League of New York to spend its hard-earned funds for a forlorn campaign to bring booze back to the workingman. Institutions, like individuals, are sometimes known by the company they keep, and the allies of the A. F. of L. in this case are notoriously poor company, backed by the very booze interests that flouted the law, demoralized workingmen's homes, corrupted legislatures and took untold millions of dollars out of the workers' pay envelopes in the days of the open saloon.

For these people to talk about "temperance reform" is almost indecently humorous.

The Railroad Brotherhoods, as well as hundreds of thousands of sober, industrious workingmen in the A. F. of L., are opposed to booze because they know it never made any man a better citizen, a better worker, or a better husband and father. We do not believe the remarkable growth of labor co-operative banking in this country would have been possible if the workingman were still shoving his savings over the bar. We are further convinced that the progress of the American labor movement depends upon leaders with clear, cool heads, and not upon those whose brains are addled by alcohol. Perhaps it is worth observing that the leaders of British labor, who have made such substantial progress economically and politically since the war, are overwhelmingly dry.