Practical prohibition

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Dedication

To Prof. William Hudson, A. M., of Trinity University, as a token of rny high appreciation of his varied and extensive learning, the innate goodness of his simple heart, and of my lasting gratitude for the unselfish and disinterested kindness bestowed during the halcyon days of my college life, this book is respectfully inscribed by The Author.

Chapter I. Introductory

Popular Errors and Difficulties in the Way of Reform.. . 27 CHAPTER II.

CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

Hereditary — Defects in Training Children's Appetites and Impulses — Bad Examples — Curiosity — Indiscriminate Social Treating — Fashion's Power — Social Condition of the Country 41

Chapter III. Effects Of Rrunkenness

Physical, Moral and Social 59

Chapter IV. Remedier For The Evil

Early Training — Parental Influence — Good Example- Woman's Freedom from the Vice — Her Special Work 66

CHAPTERS V & VI.

REMEDIES INDEPENDENT OF LEGISLATION.

The Church and its Ministry — The Sunday School .... 81 Individual Effort — Organized Effort 88

CHAPTERS VI, VII, VIII & IX.

PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION.

Local Option 100

State Prohibition — General Discussion of the Subject. . . 121 Open Letter from D. B. Culberson 128

CONTENTS.

Constitutional View — Prohibition and the Democratic Party — The Loss of Revenue and Destruction of Property — Importation of Liquor— An Open Letter

Dissected. . 151

Letter from John H. Reagan 150

Review of the Anti-Prohibition Platform 164

CHAPTER X.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION.

General Discussion — Senator Blai'rs Speech — General Considerations — Review of Progress during the last Century — Forms which Legislation has Taken — The Situation and Requirements — Recapitulation — Importance of Local Option Movements — Action 171

CHAPTER XL

THE LICENSE SYSTEM.

High License — Low License — Free Trade in Whisky —

.Dr. Talmage on License . , 206

CHAPTERS XII & XIII.

Prohibition and Natural Laws 230

CHAPTER XIV.

RROHIBITION AND THE PRESS.

The Daily and Weekly Papers — Anti-Prohibition Speakers and Leaders — Cheering Words to the Temperance Workers , 241

Maine 265

Iowa t . 271

Ohio 282

Illinois 302

Connecticut 318

CONTENTS.

Rhode Island 320

Vermont . . 321

New Hampshire 322-370

New Jersey 322

Pennsylvania 322

New York 323

Maryland , 328

Virginia 347

West Virginia 349

Kentucky 352

Tennessee 355

North Carolina 357

South Carolina 358

Louisiana 361

Delaware 363

Georgia , 363

Alabama 364

Arkansas 364

Mississippi 365

Florida 365

Michigan 366

California 367

Colorado 369

Oregon 370

Nevada 371

Nebraska 371

Minnesota 372

Missouri 373

Texas — Letter from Attorney-General J. S. Hogg. . . 373

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS 381

CONCLUSION 382

PEEFAOE.

Sometime in the fall of 1886 I took up a notion that I would write for some paper that would condescend to publish them, a series of articles on Practical Prohibition. Being a regular subscriber of the Texas Observei', a religious weekly published at Mexia, in this State, and knowing well the liberal sentiments of its able editor upon the question of prohibition, I requested him to grant me the use of his columns for the purposes stated. At that time I hoped to be able to exhaust the subject, as far reaching and extensive in its scope as it is, in a half dozen articles. My principal object in writing them has been, to awaken a more calm and unprejudiced investigation of the subject in the minds of our people, than has characterized the arguments going the rounds of the press, and the vindictive discourses of a large number of temperance lecturers, who have long been infesting the country and, in many instances, doing incalulable injury to the cause of prohibition ; also to get our people to be more temperate on the subject in private conversation, and to discuss its merits and demerits with more tolerance and less vindictiveness. I did not dream of writing or publishing a book devoted to the subject of Practical Prohibition, at the time I began with the series, nor for a long time thereafter. Certain friends of mine, however, whose attention had been attracted by the arguments contained in the series, approached me with the flattering request that I cause them to be compiled and printed for general circulation in pamphlet form, and I had about decided to act up'on the suggestion. A short time ago Mr. Luther Benson, the well-known lecturer. when on his tour through the northern counties of the State.

Preface

spent a few days lecturing in Greenville, and while here was the guest of the writer. While at my house his attention was called to the series, and, as I had carefully preserved a file of the papers containing them, he took upon himself the trouble to read them in their order. He at once declared that he thoroughly and unreservedly endorsed every line they contained, and urged me to prepare them for publication without delay, and suggested that it would be more satisfactory to have them published in a more durable form than the one in which I had about decided to give them to the public. Upon his repeated assurance that he would aid me in every way possible in the matter of their distribution and sale so that I might suffer no serious loss by the venture, I decided that I would begin at ance the preparation of the work for the press. The idea of personal gam has never entered my mind in the publication of the work, and if the good people of Texas and other parts of the country should think the effort worthy of their favor, I shall be more than satisfied if I am able to come out even on the enterprise. The great cause of prohibition to which the book is devoted is entirely welcome to the long hours of patient study and labor I have given to its pages, which contain the series of articles contributed to the Observer, corrected and enlarged. In the preperation of the work for the press I have received valuable aid from my young friend Earle Edmundson Esq., a student of law in my office. I am also indebted to Mr. Sam. H. Dixon of Austin, Tex., Author of "The Poets and Poetry of Texas" for his kindly supervision of the typographical arrangement and other matters incident to the publication of the work. I have been materially aided by the timely suggestion of others in the revision and correction of the manuscript for the press.

V. W. Grubbs.

Greenville,. Tex., June ist, 1887.

SKETCH OF THE AUTHOE'S LIFE.

Two reasons prompt me to accompany this volume with a brief history of the life of its author. First, I am a comparative stranger to the reading public, and a natural curiosity on the part of my readers will lead them to an inquiry into my antecedents, if I am supposed to have any \ second, I hope thereby to encourage the young men of my State, whose opportunities are meager and whose surroundings inauspicious and unfavorable, to push forward with energy and perseverance in their efforts to succeed in life : to inspire them with renewed hope and self-confidence in their struggles with adversity, to make themselves useful in the world. It may be, too, that the secret wooings of vanity and conceit have contributed their shares in due season to urge me to speak, as I am going to do of my varied life and experience. However that may be, I am quite certain that the great desire of my heart is, to accomplish some good by giving the account, which, in the main, I promise, shall be true. Many things which have happened and many of the errors into which I have fallen, and which it would be of no possible benefit to my readers to know, I shall omit. They are ever too fresh in my own memory, and I would to God, that I could forget them, as they have long since served their purposes.

I am the son of William Grubbs, now deceased, and was born in Calloway county, Kentucky, on the morning of the first day of May, A. D., 1848* My father's ancestors were from Virginia. My paternal grandfather was of Irish descent, and my grandmother was of a Scotch family by the name of Duncan. My mother's name before her marriage with my father was Anne Utley Wade. My maternal grandfather, Hon, Vincent A. Wade, after whom I was named, was a man of some political prominence in his county, having been frequently elected a member of the Kentucky Legislature. He was descended, I think, from the Welsh. My maternal grandmother was an Utley, and was born near Raleigh, N. C; moved thence to Tennessee and was there married to my grandfather, who, in an early day, moved to Kentucky. She was one of the noblest and greatest women I have known, and to her precepts and courageous example in the great battles of life, I owe perhaps, more of what little success I have attained than to the influence of any other person, my own mother not excepted. My grandfather Wade, having been completely broken up by politics and security debts, emigrated to Texas in the early settlement of the State and located near what is now known as the town of Crandall in the western portion of Kaufman county, where he opened up a small farm, and soon afterwards died, leaving my heroic grandmother, Mrs. Phoebe Wade, to raise a large family of children, nearly all boys, the oldest being not over sixteen years of age at the time of his father's untimely death ; the youngest, a daughter, now Mrs. Lafayette Murphy, being an infant. Our family remained in Kentucky, but was preparing to follow at the time of my birth, when a misfortune befell my father which made him a cripple for life.

My mother's father dying about the same time, the removal was prevented. The premature death of my father, in 1855, made it necessary for my mother, with her children, consisting of three boys and two girls, the oldest, my sister Jane being then abont ten years of age, to move to

SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. II

Texas and seek the aid and protection of her mother and her brothers, one of whom, my Uncle Barksdale, usually called "Baz," Wade coming back to Kentucky to wind up the business of my father's little estate, and move us to Texas. He was, indeed, a noble specimen of intellectual and physical manhood, the oldest and grandest of that pioneer family, a fit person in every respect, to be the couselor of his widowed mother, and the guardian and protector of the younger members of the family. He, with his two younger brothers and my oldest sister died of an epidemic about the same time, two of them dying the same day. My mother was an invalid and had been for years. Her nervous system had been completely shattered, and this awful calamity seemed more than she could bear. It appeared for a long time that her mind would give way, under the weight of the affliction in spite of every effort to console her. But she finally recovered, and the climate of Texas and the absence of trouble almost entirely restored to their normal condition her shattered nervous centres. In 1858 she was married to Mr. R. O. Anthony, and we moved to his home in Ellis county, about twelve miles east of Waxahachie, where we remained until the year 1862, returning to Kaufman county. Of that union there were born two sons and a daughter who have been to me as my own brothers and sisters.

My stepfather has been to me more than an ordinary father. No nobler or kinder-hearted man, with all of his peculiarities, was ever permitted to breathe the breath of life. His generosity and unselfishness, his patience in affliction, which has been constant and severe, often becoming dangerous, serious, and distressing, have been, at all times, remarkable. While he never, at any time, so far as I remember, denied me a favor that he was in the leastwise able to confer, his means were never sufficient to keep the others of the family up and justify him in contributing much, if anything, to my education. Indeed, I had not the heart to ask or to receive it when I saw and realized the accumulated necessities of the family.*" My mother and my two brothers, Thueston and William., and my sister Laura, now Mrs. McSween, all three of whom are now living near the old homestead, and surrrounded by happy and interesting families, were, at all times, ready to da anything in their power to aid me in my struggles for an education, even to the denial of themselves the ordinary comforts and necessaries of life. My half-brothers and sister, Sam, now deceased, Joseph, and Jennie Anthony, (now Mrs. S, W. Roberts, of Kaufman,) were equally selfsacriflcing, and my feelings of gratitude towards them all increase and grow stronger as the years pass away. I cannot take time to narrate the ordinary incidents of my wild life from the days of my removal to Texas, in 1855, until I arrived at the age of seventeen, which was about the close of the civil war. The greater part of the time after I became large enough to ride a Spanish pony was spent on the broad prairies as a cow-driver or herder of horses. My school days had been few; my education had been badly neglected. I could ride the wildest and most dangerous horse that roamed the prairies, if I could keep him still long enough to mount him. I delighted in the sport, although it kept my poor mother dying from uneasiness, and often would she try to dissuade me from going into the danger. But my chief ambition seemed to be to acquire the reputation of the best rider in all that section of the country, and in that I was reasonably successful. All on earth I had or cared to have, was a horse, saddle and bridle. The idea of the accumulation of property, or of obtaining an education,, much less qualifying myself for a learned profession, never

* Since the above was written my step-father has passed over the dark river. He died at his home near Crandall, in Kaufman county, on the 3d day of April, 1887, and now sleeps in the Kaufman Cemetery beside his oldest son, Samuel R. Anthony, who died at the Agricultural and Mechanical College near Bryan Texas, on the 22nd day of November, 1881.

once flitted across my imagination. I concluded in the fall of 1865 that I would go back to Kentucky on a visit, and to gather up the fragments of the proceeds of our old homestead and bring them to Texas. To those people up there I was a great curiosity, and I rather enjoyed the distinction. I started home in February of the following year with about two hundred dollars in gold in my pocket, the accumulated rents ot the old family homestead. Took a steamboat at Paducah and in due time landed in New Orleans. I was good picking for the sharpers, and, had it not been for a kind and fatherly old gentleman, a Mr. Husbands, who then lived in Hunt county, Texas, with whom I had accidentally become acquainted, I should have been fleeced before I could have possibly gotten away from the city. But I finally made it home, and from that good day until the present, I have been satisfied with Texas.

Nothing could have more effectually calmed every feeling of discontent than that wild goose chase to Kentucky. It gave me a lasting impression of my own ignorance, and also of the fact that my manner of life was anything but conducive to the development of my manhood and the accomplishment of any noble purpose of my life; so I set about at once to obtain a good, practical education; sold my horse, saddle, and bridle, and every hoof of cattle, and all other property that had accidentally fallen into my hands, and entered a high school at Kaufman, where I was able, by the kindness of my friends, to remain for two sessions. At the end of that time I had not a dollars worth of property on earth. While there I was taken notice of by Judge Green J. Clark, and he seemed to feel a deep and abiding interest in my future. He called me into his law office one day and gave me the first idea I ever had of making a lawyer out of myself. His kindly words of encouragement sank deep into my heart. The brief history he gave me of his own life and its struggles made a lasting impression upon my mind, and I remember every word he spoke to me on that occasion as well as if it had been yesterday, though twenty long years have since passed away. I thought over the difficulties in the way, and they arose up before me like mountains in the distance, but while they were rising, my own resolution grew stronger, and at length I started on my long and wearisome journey. I had a good friend in Kaufman, Rev.

D. W. Broughton, now a resident of Dallas, who advised me to go to Tehuacana and enter the first session of the Trinity University, which began in September, 1869. The months intervening I had given to teaching and other pursuits, by which I had realized about one hundred and fifty dollars, that being every cent I could command at the time I entered the college, which was in November of the year 1869. It was all gone before the close of the session, although I had been quite economical and saving. During the session I had made many friends among teachers, pupils, and the good people of the town and community. Should I undertake tomention the many acts of kindness and words of encouragement which were bestowed upon me from the time I entered the college till I left it, and to mention the names made sodear to the memory of those happy days, it would require all the space set apart for the material intended for this volume. When I spoke of leaving school for the purpose of replenishing my exchequer, there was a positive dissent by every one of my teachers, who insisted that I could easily work my way through, and that they would all help me to accomplish the undertaking. I went home in June, 1870, full of doubt and uncertainty as to the course I ought to pursue. I had by that time acquired a thirst for knowledge that it seemed impossible for me to satisfy or suppress. I spent the entire vacation in the hardest, heaviest, and hottest work of my life. I took a contract to build a barn for my step-father, and, donning my old threadbare clothes and broad brimmed hat, I repaired to the woods, where I cut down and hewed the timbers with my own aching arms, hauled them out, and completed the work just in time for the opening of the ensuing session of the college.

When I had paid up the old score at home, I had sixteen dollars left with which to finish my collegiate education ; but by my own work at odd times during the session, and by teaching during the vacations, coupled with the unselfish kindness of my teachers and the friends by whom I was surrounded, I was enabled to graduate with some credit and honor, on the 12th day of June 1872, after nearly three years of assiduous and unremitting application to my studies. I can not forbear mentioning the fact that I was on that day the recipient of the first gold medal ever bestowed by my literary society, which a few weeks before, had been awarded to me by a unanimous vote of its members. The society included upon its roll of membership at that time many names which have since become prominent in Texas \ a number of them who joined in the bestowal of that honor have far outstripped the writer in the race for worldly honors and distinction. Their triumphs, and they have been many and brilliant, afford me a degree of pleasure and satisfaction that could scarcely be surpassed by my own elevation.

During the latter years of my stay at Tehuacana I was specially befriended by a lady, who now lives in Greenville, Mrs. Anne Terrell, with whom I boarded, and had it not been for her disinterested kindness in not pressing me for my board bill, when I could not have possibly paid it, I should have been forced to abandon my studies long before the time for my graduation. She was ever my friend and my sympathizer in time of trouble and despondency. She is true, generous and forgiving when a friend — equally positive in her dislikes. She is a woman of strong, well denned traits of character, and a heart full of kindness and sympathy for those whom she deems worthy of her esteem. I owe a debt of lasting

1 6 PRACTICAL PROHIEITION.

gratitude to Dr. W. E. Beeson, president of the college at that time ; and indeed, I could recall many others to whom I owe much for the kindness they were pleased to bestow. But to none of whatever class do I owe more than to the man to whom this first effort of the author is respectfully dedicated; that gifted though eccentric genius, Prof. William Hudson, the then principal of the commercial and art departments of the University. For patient, untiring industry and for broad and far reaching generosity and philanthropy, I have never known his equal. He was unkind and ungenerous to none but himself. Upon others, often unworthy, he lavished his hard earnings, which were usually small, while his own necessities and those of his family went unsupplied. He still lives to do good and to behold the fruit of his labors, in the triumphs of a host of young men and young ladies, who have been permitted to share the benefits of his untiring efforts in the department over which he so long presided. He is now professor of natural science in the same institution; and may he be long spared to bless it and its glorious work in the education of the young people of Texas. I would like to go on with the whole catalogue of teachers and students whose memory I love as I love my own life. Dr. Beeson has long since passed off the stage of action. Professors Quaite and Lowry preceded him. Professors Hudson and Gillespie are the only survivors of the faculty. They are growing old and infirm, and, in the regular course of nature must soon pass away.

I left college perhaps the most happy and hopeful individual who ever entered upon the responsibilities of actual life. I was about the close of the last session elected assistant professor in the commercial department of the college, at a salary with which I ought to have been satisfied. But before the opening of the session in which I was confidently ex pected to distinguish myself as a teacher, I fell into a fit of

SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. I 7

despondency which cast an impenetrable gloom over every prospect that had hitherto loomed up so brightly before me. The very memory of the hopes and aspirations which had lit up my path way through college life, seemed to haunt me in my waking hours, and to chide and disturb me in my slumber. They appeared to me in all the hideous and horrifying aspects of so many ghosts that would not " down at my bidding." I was unfit for business, unfit for pleasure, unfit for even the miserable existence I suffered. Had it not been for the thought of my mother and my brothers and sisters, and that inward dread of the great beyond, it is probable that I would shave voluntarily put an end to my joyless, hopeless, miserable life.

"Apart I stalked in joyless misery,"

and determined to give up forever the object for which I had studied and return home to live the balance of my days in nameless obscurity. I did not know then that the depression was caused from a sudden relaxation of the mental faculties after a continued strain of so many years to their utmost tension. I could not foresee the end, which I constantly dreaded a thousand times worse than the summons of death, whose approach I would gladly have welcomed had he made his ghastly appearance. It was indeed fortunate that I had but a short time before entering college, voluntarily made the resolve that I would not drink whisky, otherwise I would have in all probability, sought refuge from myself in the deadly wine cup ; but, when I contemplated such relief, I thought of my resolution, which I would rather die than to break ; such had been the sacredness with which I had been taught from my youth to regard the force of a resolve voluntarily and deliberately taken upon myself. I verily believe that that timely resolution saved me from the snares and temptations into which so many thousands have fallen under l8 PRACTICAL PROHIBITION.

like circumstances. I unceremoniously abandoned my position in the college and returned to the humble roof of my mother. She understood me better than any one else in the broad universe. She had suffered from despondency herself, and it was from her that I had inherited the tendency. She humored my every fancy, agreed with me in all my folly, and left nothing undone that could contribute to the restoration of my wonted mental vigor and cheerfulness. She would have the boys and girls to get up fishing parties, and, in some way,, induce me to go along with them, which I never wanted to do. Every day or so I would ride out on the prairie with the boys, and drive up the horses and cattle. In a short time I was once more myself, but not until after I had spent a month or more in Kaufman in business as a bookkeeper and salesman.

As an evidence of my unfitness for such business, I am constrained to relate the following trifling incident, which occurred a few days after accepting the situation. My employer had just bought a large lot of cotton, for a place like Kaufman, forty or fifty bales. He gave me the paint pot and brush,, and directed me to go out into the yard and mark and number the bales of cotton, giving me the first number, the memorandum given me on a slip of paper being 'j up,' intending, of course, that I should begin with the number 7 and go on consecutively until I reached the last bale. I had studied the science and art of lettering while in college, and felt that I was specially fitted for this particular work. I worked manfully for more than a half day, and returned feeling like I had earned some distinction as a marker of cotton. Imagine the disappointment and chagrin of my employer when he went out into the yard to ship off his cotton finding every bale marked '7 up' in the most artistic letters and figures. But he was a kind-hearted man and too mindful of my feelings to say what he must have thought of my ignorance and stupidity.

During my schoolboy days I had cultivated a fondness for poetry and drawing, and had no little ambition to acquire the reputation of a poet and artist. I spent many hours in writing spring poetry, such as love ditties and acrostics, with which I supplied my lovesick fellow collegians. I spent many other hours iri drawing, under the skillful direction of Prof. Hudson, of the commercial and art department of the college, who ever seemed to take special interest in my advancement. Of all the poetry I ever wrote, which would have made a volume of two or three hundred pages, I never had published but two pieces — one devoted to my sweetheart, who had gone off "with a handsomer man;" the other to "modest ugliness;" the publication of the first of which inflicted a wound upon the pure, unoffending and sensitive heart of one, the recollection of whose kindness, and of whose gentle and forgiving nature rebukes my folly and chides me even to this day for my own inexcusable rashness. A thousand times, the bitter memory of that one error, the outburst of passionate resentment for a wrong that existed only in my own morbid imagination, haunts me with the ghostly vision of countless joys, which died long before their time. More than a thousand times have I regretted it, not so much for the disappointment of my own heart, which was bitter enough, as for the consciousness of having perpetrated an unprovoked and deliberate wrong upon one of the purest, sweetest, and best of her gentle sex. Although I have never realized the joys of the married state, I deem it not improper to state that it has not been caused by any failure on my own part, to appreciate and admire the virtues, goodness, and ennobling characteristics of woman.

A strange fate seems to have followed me all the days of my marriageable life. A fate that I cannot account for. I could relate a history of my matrimonial mistakes, that would far outstrip the alleged "mistakes of Moses." They would, with a very small amount of coloring, furnish the groundwork of a half dozen interesting novels; but I cannot record them here in a book whose purpose it is to deal with more important and practical truths. But I cannot dismiss the consideration of this part of my personal history without disposingofmy poetry and the products of my devotion to the other fine arts. I had read Byron, Burns, Shakspeare, and others of my favorites until I could recite verbatim et literatim many pages in succession of their finest productions. I verily believe that I could at that time have repeated two-thirds of Childe Harold, and I have no ideahowmany others I had at my very tongue's end. In the line of poetical quotations I was fully equipped for the responsibilities of life, which lured me onward and upward to the contest. I soon found that poetry and painting were not the kind of armor I needed. Having fully realized this fact, I promptly decided to abandon both to their fate; and having ransacked every nook and corner for the manuscripts of poetry I had written, I gathered them up and piling them into a great heap, set fire to the mass, and in less time than it takes me to record the account, the product of my whining, lovesick muse went up, amid flame and smoke, into the regions of nothingness, for which they were by nature peculiarly adapted. I love good poetry yet, in its place. I admire pictures as but few others can; but the stubborn realities of life are to me a study more grand and important, a work more glorious and profitable, than the lifeless, speechless shadows upon the canvas of art. I have ever been a lover of the "harmony of sweet sounds," and have attended a score of singing schools in my life; and, while I can sing tolerably good bass by practicing long enough, I have never been able to tell the difference between a sharp and a flat, or between the key of A and the key of F, or any other letter. In fact, I never could distinguish one note from another on the staff, although I have studied for days and weeks in an effort to learn it. It is, I believe, an impossibility for me to learn music by note. I have no music in my soul except as it is beaten into it by the most untiring and persistent effort, and then it won't stay there.