The following article appeared in “The Indicator” for December 18th , 1886

Use of Beer in Piano and Organ Factories.

The use of the favorite German beverage in factories during business hours we regard as reprehensible on purely selfish and economic grounds. We noticed, during our recent Eastern visit, that in some of the factories it was a common practice for the workmen to send out for pails of foaming lager to refresh themselves in their work. We would make the point that the establishment whose men are allowed thus to drink at odd times cannot produce as good results in workmanship as that whose men keep within the bounds of strict temperance during business hours at least. A beer-muddled brain transfers its qualities to the less cunning instrument it helps to fashion. We believe it would be a wise step to prohibit the use of beer while employees are at work. Though regarded by most of them as harmless, and by many as a necessity—and we are the last to deny the workman any proper right or lawful indulgence—the use of the cheap and possibly not harmful beverage during the hours devoted to labor is a hindrance to work and certainly not helpful to the worker. In this connection we call attention to the statement of Edward F. Cullerton, one of Chicago’s Aldermen, in reference to raising the saloon license:
“If you saw what I see every day you would condemn me to the pillory for not being in earnest. Up in my neighborhood the men work hard all the year round and earn big wages, but their families are none the better for it. Why? At the opening of the alleyway leading to every lumberyard, at the gates of every factory, there is a saloon. There is a decoy of the saloonkeeper in every gang of workmen who entices his fellows into the gate and alley saloon at every opportunity—at noon, in the morning before work commences, in the evening when work is over—surely every pay-day. I know men working in those shops up in the Fifth and Sixth Wards who earn from $20 to $35 a week, whose slate at the gate and alley saloons runs up to $10 and $15 per week. Those men have families. They have to live on a pittance per week, less than their husbands and fathers spend in the doggeries.”