Sunshine

Front matter

THE EDWIN C. DINWIDDIE

COLLECTION OF BOOKS ON

TEMPERANCE AND ALLIED SUBJECTS

Preface

There is a certain charm about a book containing one's own name upon the title page, which charm has driven many men and women to the inditing and publishing of books which, though they may have "rose like a rocket/' as speedily "fell like the stick." No visions of fortune impelled the writers onward — glory alone being the reward they sought. Others have rushed into print, believing a book the "open sesame" to wealth, only to find after a time their fair pages wrapping the sugar brought home from the grocery, and the bound volumes strung out in a row upon the upper shelves of the book store, covered with the dust of ages, and resting as placidly as the Seven Sleepers, and like the occupants of many graves — "unwept (?), unhonored and unsung."

Neither of these reasons can be attributed as the cause of this publication. With an experience among pen and types of twelve years, the author knows something of "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune" constantly surrounding or wounding those who venture into the charmed realms of literature. His object, then, must be sought outside of fortune and of fame.

PREFACE.

. • l*<y+A himself, m ust state t1iat

^ T'^'ZstC a - r/eoWe portion of >e

another brain must Dear a ^ui^er of enter-

praise or blame of ^^^^Uness «■ prising reeord, W ho in all the Phases ^ ^

has found dollars ^^^ glMBa , advised the were hunting dimes W ithmagnit>"igg ^

writer to fight intemperance j ih brai P ^ ^

Primarily this book is the °^J a hatred

borne by the author against ^IZ tudy years created by the memory of s eve*. yea rs t .^^

of Ufe sacrificed upon thenar of Al ^ , borne of a wasted irame a J tr ed hearts, and

ing bnsiness wrecked^ • ^^^^ to grasp a a bullet angrily ^, * £s of tbe dam ned. These soul to be sent into ^ *»* w upon brain and memories, burned as they me b en F ^ ^

heart and soul as with ^"^^ after five

real reasons for ^.^'^pUtfori, endeavorhundred nights upon tlie temperance p , by

ing t0 wound his old ^^^e Utfle, ^y another means of T^'u^Vt in the power of

PREFACE. 9

is a contribution to the literature of the great moral revolution known as the Christian Temperance Warfare against strong drink. For the young men all over our land who are daily tempted by this Moloch, for those who have fallen under its baleful curse and are now under clouds through which no rift of sunlight breaks upon their eyes, for those who walk on paths of thorns, knowing nothing of a pathway strewn with flowers, for wives whose eyes are dull and lustreless, whose cheeks are sunken and pale, and whose hearts are starving for the old-time love and tenderness, for babes whose faces seem a decade too old, and whose wasted forms tell of saloon-keepers' babes well fed and well dressed, these pages are written — with head and heart both. With the hope that the sunshine may replace the clouds and the flowers replace the thorns for some now agonized and despairing, and keep others from tasting the bitterness of the drunkard's life, the author has gone into this labor, and humbly hopes that it will not be in vain.

Furthermore, this book will be readable — as it is printed in large type. It will be interesting — for the binding has all the glories of a Kentucky sunset on it ; it will be full of errors — but no extra charge will be made for them ; it will not attempt to cover the entire field, but will only attempt in a scattering fashion to strike a blow here and there toward the final consummation of our dream — the time when intemperance shall be no more.

PBEFACE.

The author has been called "The minister of the new religion of temperance, snnshine and good humor. These three attributes of happiness will be the leading features of the book itself. Eschewing as far as possible self and science, drunken debaucheries and delirium tremens, the author will endeavor to benefit and instruct to advise and to guide, hoping that at the end of the feast all will rise from the table saying-«It was good to have been there." ,

If this preface does not suit, lay down the book and hunt up an almanac; but if thus far our company has been satisfactory, read on to the end and may sunsiune follow the reading. Thine for the higher lite.

Lou J. Beauchamp.

Hamilton, O., August 1, 1879.

Preface To Last Edition

It is now three years since the earlier editions of "Sunshine" were completely exhausted. During this time there have been continual demands for copies from individuals and the trade, which is the excuse of publisher and author for once more bringing the book into notice. Since first entering the work of Temperance, the author of "Sunshine" has presented his ideas on the subject to over two thousand five hundred audiences in many of the States of the Union. It is almost needless to say that this experience, which has gone hand in hand with continual studies of the effects of the various systems of compromise legislation in use in the different States, has made him a firm believer in the doctrine of absolute prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. This has been his platform theme for the past four years, and will be his theme until death settles the question so far as he is concerned, or prohibition itself renders further platform efforts unnecessary.

As the temperance people of many States, however, are still believing in the efficacy of local option and other half-way measures as means towards the ultimate end of complete prohibition, the author has left his views on such systems unchanged, merely announcing his devotion to the principle of the complete destruction of the liquor traffic as an act of justice to himself, and that he may be placed upon record as one of the "fanatics" who believe that one grog-shop open in a State, even under a heavy license, can cause more drunkenness, crime, misery, shame, and want than should be tolerated in a Christian Commonwealth.

Should this latest edition of " Sunshine" meet with but a tithe of the kind words and earnest thanks for helpful suggestions which greeted the first issues, the author will be entirely satisfied. Eespectfully, Hopefully,

LOU J. BEAUCHAMP.

Hamilton, Ohio, September 1, 1884.

SUNSHINE.

Chapter I, Alcohol — Who Made It?

fHEEE is a legend extant that once upon a time the gentleman who is supposed to reign over the dominions of the damned, and keep up the market price of sulphur, called around him his earthly agents, and, offering a prize to the one who should in the next year bring him the largest number of souls, asked each what means he would employ in working for the prize. The legend avers that one proposed taking the guise of the Scarlet Woman; another, Temper; a third, Gold; a fourth, Fame; a fifth, Scandal; a sixth, Fine Clothes, and so on to the last, who answered — "Your Majesty, I shall take upon myself the guise of Strong Drink, and thus accoutred have no fears but that I shall win the prize. It is the same guise I have worn for many months past, but owing to the fact that no license has been charged by the governments of the earth upon my weapon to win souls for your kingdom, I have not been as successful as I should desire. Every man in my kingdom, the United States, has been allowed to make alcohol to suit himself, without a license, and hence it has been invariably pure, and although in that state it has Avon for you many thousands of souls, under the license laws just passed by the senate and congress of that country, which forbid men even to manufacture liquor for their own use unless they take out a license, I am assured that the numbers of my victims will be trebled hereafter. The manufacture of whisky, which is the favorite drink up yonder, is now in the hands of speculators, who have discovered new plans of making it, whereby less corn and rye are used, and certain drugs and chemicals enter into the fluids. These being poisonous, more quickly inflame the brain, and Your Majesty w^ell knows it is at that time my work commences. When the man's brain shall be crazed with what the funny papers up there call "forty-rod" and "snake-fence," and the like, combinations of corn, rye and these poisons I have spoken of, I step in and suggest robbery, forgery, assaults, murder and suicide, and, checking each victim for Hades, hie myself to the next saloon to lie in wait for new victims.

"In the guise of Alcohol, if Your Majesty does not already know it, your obedient servant is welcomed everywhere. I am to be found at the home, upon the table, in the sick room, at the wedding feast, the party, the ball, and even at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper I slip into the wine typical of Christ's blood and do my duty to the king who employs me. I have even stood upon the steps of the capitol at Washington with the president of the United States, and influenced him to such an extent that he could not, in his inaugural speech, tell the names of his friends in the cabinet. I have tracked ministers, senators, authors, heroes, step by step, until I sent them hurtling to hell, and now that the government has elected me to the high office of filling its treasury and thus puts me wholly into the hands of speculators who love dollars and laugh at lost souls, the coming years shall be filled with the tales to be told of Alcohol."

His Satanic Majesty heard the story of his imp throughout, and said at its conclusion :

"Truly, beloved, you and your Alcohol are the best friends of the devil. Get to work at once, while out of respect for your government I call in my builders and extend my dominions, for surely I shall want room ere long for the souls you are to send me."

Is it not safe to say that the emissary of Satan has kept his promise?

There are in the world a certain class of men among whom, it is sad to assert, can be found many so-called Christians, who, finding in the Bible some paragraph asserting that "all things in the earth are creatures of God, made for man's use/' claim that unless we mean disrespect to God we are compelled to use whisky, wine, and other drinks of like character, moderately of course. If whisky is a creature of God their argument is still w r eak, for then in the same category we must put all other things that are dangerous and devilish, and moderately use them as "good creatures of God." Snakes might be occasionally used for neckties and tigers once in a while used as sheep-dogs, not because of their adaptability, but because God made them. A little poison, now and then, should likewise be relished by the wisest men for the reason, forsooth, God created it, and all things else, for man.

The argument that alcohol is a creature of God is denied by all right-thinking men. The golden grain, swayed by each zephyr and appearing in mighty fields as poems on the face of nature, comes fresh from the hand of God. It is full of health and strength for His creatures and yet from this same swaying poem on God's forethought for his children comes that which destroys them — not of God, however. It is not until man steps in, and taking the golden life-giving grain into his own dark dens, that alcohol comes. There, hidden from human sight, the grain is rotted, ruined and placed reeking with unwholesome vapors into worms and stills, and when all that God made pure in it has been murdered by man, from its dead body comes the poison that man makes for his brother. Alcohol is thus born in death, cradled in corruption, christened in rottenness and reeking with the blood of dead millions, goes forth, a mighty giant cursed of God and hated of true men, to conquer, leaving in its wake a trail of blighted hopes, ruined lives, debased greatness, want, disease and death. At each step of its journey it strikes down a man, a woman/or a child, and ere the next victim is reached there rises along the line a fleshless, grinning skeleton to caricature life and stand with pointed finger at the devouring monster, an everlasting monument to Strong Drink.

The luscious grape, dressed in royal purple and nestling on its throne of green, containing as it does the wine of God, bottled, sealed and branded with the sunshine stolen from the day, has no alcohol behind the imprisoned sunlight of each purple globe; but man, seeking recruits for Satan's imp, tears it from its nestling place, and crushing the royal bulb until it weeps its fate in crystal tears, takes the product, which is all of God, and placing it away where the atmosphere may hold high carnival, rots, spoils, and ferments the golden juice until the purity sealed within the grape by the sunlight and the dew steps out and HelPs Prime Minister, Alcohol, steps in. Man placed it there. God denies the product, and says : "Woe unto him who looketh upon the wine when it is red, when it moveth itself aright, when it giveth its color in the cup, for at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." And from a million graves on the hillside and in the valley comes the agonizing cry — "True, Lord, true; the serpent has bitten, the adder has stung, and the light of Thy face is shut out from us ! "

Alcohol from grain is a native of Persia, according to history, it first being discovered in that country in the fourteenth century and was used as a cosmetic by the fair beauties of that nation. At what period of time it left the toilet stand to reappear upon the sideboard history does not say, but whenever that day was, there must have been high carnival in Hell.

Alcohol, in one shape or another, has been in existence since almost the baby years of history, and for many centuries has it been stalking up and down upon the fair face of the earth, carrying physical, moral, and spiritual pestilence in its train. Whatever land it has visited, it has been only a curse; it has never been a blessing. It has roamed at will in all lands and among all peoples, and "the trail of the serpent is over them all."

Men do not like its taste, yet they bow before it. They claim freedom as a heritage and are slaves to a fluid. They are strong as Hercules, yet a wine glass wraps them in chains. Their strength, again, is like unto Samson's, yet the decanter is their Delilah. Alcohol is a monarch whose sceptre is over all the civilized world and much of heathendom. Laughing in the faces of the worshipers, he even makes the church of God his home, tearing the minister from the pulpit, the worshiper from the altar.

A medicine in high favor with many physicians, like the water-cure system in Noah's time, it kills more than it cures. For one life saved by whisky, a hundred thousand graves dot the landscape. Question — Had we better hereafter let the one man die and save the hundred thousand, by banishing alcohol from the earth, or, as heretofore, shall the hundred thousand be murdered by this demon while it waits on the shelf of the apothecary to save the one man ?

This, then, is the enemy we are to fight — a decoction of rotten grain and ruined fruit ; something that has sunshine imprisoned within its limpid depths — the sunshine stolen from a million once happy homes; something that contains strength for all (read the statement of wine-drinking physicians), but it is the strength stolen from the sinews and muscles of thousands of laboring men dead at the foot of the demon's throne. Our enemy can be carried in the hand, yet, like the jawbone of a certain ass, it has slain its thousands. It is an enemy that men laugh at before they have wrestled with it, and yet, Alexander, and Hercules, and Agamemnon, and Nero, and Caesar, and Helen, and later, Napoleon, and Blucher, and Wellington, and Nelson, and Washington, with all the leaders of hosts invincible since time was and man was, have never encompassed the victories of this dark, dread, damning scourge of God's children, born of ruin and called by fools and hypocrites "a creature of God." The wine cup has drowned more than the ocean, or, as the wit has it, "The corkscrew has drowned more people than the cork-jacket has ever saved."

Chapter II. Alcohol The Extent Of The Tkaffic

T has always been the belief of the author that statistics, sawdust and political speeches were the driest things in the world, and accordingly he has had little to do with them, but a few thoughts, in connection with the extent of the dominions of Alcohol, will not be out of place in a work of this character, and the over-sensitive reader may skip this chapter if he chooses — providing he tells no one of having done so. The chapter, however, being so full of figures, and consequently but little of the author's brain work, may be the most interesting chapter in the book.

The United States Government is a great one,* and consequently a costly one, and with its armies of officials, good, bad and indifferent, honest and ultra-honest, useful and useless, it needs an immense amount of money to move it on its axis. To raise this, as is, of course, customary, taxes have been levied until everything under the sun, save babies and coffins, has to be stamped. But with all this, a deficit would arise every year were it not for the fact that there is in existence a seductive fluid called alcohol. From this demon the United States Government last year obtained the colossal revenue of $50,420,815. 80, the year before the revenue being seven millions of dollars greater. Added to this $9,937,051.78 from fermented liquors, it will readily be seen how Uncle Sam manages to keep everything smooth in these hard times.

These liquors, spiritous and fermented, retailed for $595,786,785, an average of thirteen dollars for each man, woman and child in the United States.

These liquors were distilled by 4,537 distilleries, brewed by 3,559 breweries, wholesaled by 4,100 wholesalers, and retailed by 153,618 licensed retailers, or one of the latter for every two hundred and sixty inhabitants.

Taking the places where strong drink is retailed, placing them side by side upon both sides of an avenue, and allowing twenty-five feet for each saloon, ^ye build a street two hundred and sixty-five miles long — the street of Hell. Stand upon the temperance platform, built by the temperance men and women of our land in the last few years^ and watch the traffic in this street of Hell. Last year there went through it six million occasional drinkers. Out of this number six hundred thousand habitual drunkards were made. From these drunkards, who reeled through the street of Hell last year, Satan took the life and soul of one-sixth, and only their bloated, purpled, pimpled corpses reached the end of

ALCOHOL — THE EXTENT OF THE TRAFFIC. 23

the avenue of Strong Drink. Another sixth was made into criminals of all grades, a twelfth into idiots, and another sixth into paupers and beggars, and with these latter came their wives, parents and children, swelling the grand procession of pauperism until it stretched out mile upon mile.

With the dead bodies of a hundred thousand drunkards came the corpses of two hundred thousand innocent men, women and children killed by the traffic of the street of Hell last year — men, women and children who never tasted strong drink, but yet died because of its existence. They were burned to death in buildings set on fire by the lamp which fell from the nerveless hand of the drunkard, or by the torch of the drunken incendiary; they lost their lives in steamboat explosions, because a drunken captain ran a race, or a drunken engineer was unable to do his duty ; they were killed in a horrible railroad accident, caused by a drunken engineer or flagman; they were shot or stabbed to death by men inflamed by alcohol until they became fiends; they were starved, neglected, bruised and beaten to the grave, because alcohol was master of father, husband and son.

All this took place last year in this so-called land of the free, and the street of Hell still winds its damning length over the fair face of our beloved land, turning out each year just such horrors, while fools and hypocrites are calling the hosts of temperance fanatics, and jeering at their honest efforts to save men. To more fully comprehend the horrible extent of the drink traffic, let us study it by comparison.

The drink bill of the United States last year would give every family in our land a ten-dollar Bible, Webster's Unabridged, one set of the Comprehensive Commentary, Josephus' complete works, Dicks' works, Hume, complete, Gibbon, complete, History of the United States, in all twenty-five volumes. Besides this respectable library, it would supply each family with a religious paper, two temperance papers, a secular paper, a county paper, and an agricultural paper for one year each. Added to this, the salaries of eighty thousand ministers could be paid in full and the treasury have a balance left.

According to the National Temperance Almanac, the whisky bill of our land for the thirteen years since the war was $6,780,161,805, or $237,000 more than the war expenses. In the last five years the drinking bill was three billion dollars. With this latter sum a railroad could be built and furnished from ocean to ocean; another from Boston to the end of Florida; one from Chicago to New Orleans; and one from Lake Superior to the mouth of the Rio Grande, Texas. Also, a capitol could be built in every state in the Union, costing two million dollars for each building. Likewise a State University in each state, to cost the same sum, with an endowment of one million dollars each. Add to

ALCOHOL — THE EXTENT OF THE TRAFFIC. 25

this the national „ debt, and take the entire sum from the three billion dollars and there will be a surplus in the United States treasury of $242,748,671.22.

Take this amount of money, invest it in manufacture, and the idlers of the world would find employment, plenty would replace want, and the hum of industry, now heard at its very lowest, would rise triumphantly upon the air, our land would prosper as never before, our produce would all find markets, and "hard times" would be something to laugh at.

These millions might thus be invested were strong drink a thing of the past, but so long as the government, hungering for millions, sells souls for them, darkness will be upon the face of the earth. The cost of our penitentiaries, poor-houses, and like institutions, outweighs the revenue to the government' from strong drink, and legislators have not yet seen that the way to reduce these expenses, to get back for the nation the labor of the six hundred thousand confirmed drunkards, to save the lives of the armies to be slain by alcohol, is to do away with it once and for all.

True, men will stop right here and mutter all sorts of mutterings, and assert that without the revenue trom strong drink the government would soon be bankrupt; but to the man who looks higher and sees with a clearer insight it would seem that if the government of the United States can only exist, financially, upon the graves of its murdered children, murdered by the drink that these men say supports the nation, the sooner financial disaster overtakes the country the better it will be for the cause of God and humanity — a cause over and above all the governments that have ever existed since out of chaos the world came.

Men say to every advocate of temperance that it is all folly to preach against the overthrow of the traffic ; that the millions it brings into the nation's coffers go out into the different channels of trade, to the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the mechanic, the builder, etc., etc., and thus help along the balance of trade. In other words, they swell out like a porpoise or an alderman and say : "Sir, the traffic is one of the great national industries and must be let alone."

Good and well. Let us look at it in another light. It costs millions of dollars to support the poor-houses of our land. These dollars go into the different channels of trade — to the brick-maker, the builder, the mechanic, the butcher, the baker, the grocer, etc., etc. They help to keep up the balance of trade. Hence, pauperism, too, is one of the great national industries. Let us have more paupers and hence benefit "the balance of trade." It is said that a sheriff gets from one hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars for hanging a man. These dollars go, of course, to the payment of the sheriff's debts, to the butcher, the baker, the grocer, etc., etc. They go into the different channels of trade, and hence help keep up

ALCOHOL — THE EXTENT OP THE TRAFFIC. 27

that mysterious "balance of trade." Hanging, then, must, like the drink traffic, be one of the great national industries, and we ought to hang more men. And right here it is safe to add that God knows there are plenty of men we could use in that way to the great advantage of the country.

More money is spent each year in this land for strong drink than for churches and ministers, schools, universities and teachers, newspapers and books, charities at home and abroad, bread and clothes. Each of these brings a train of blessings, the drink a train of woes. The drink money is an entire waste to the nation as well as to the individuals, and yet petition afterpetition sent to the State Senates or to the Senate of the United States, signed by millions of names of wise men and Christian women, is only looked upon with a sneer, and the average legislator goes on with his work of protection to the makers of strong drink, knowing that every such act only makes the enemy harder to conquer, while it strikes a death-blow to the hearts of the women and children who are praying for help from the demon that has already robbed them of the love of a husband and father, and who may, after a time, turn upon them with inflamed brain and dead soul and drive the knife of the murderer to their hearts.

Looking at the figures alone we see that this great nation, the wonder of a world, is built upon whisky casks and wine kegs, and wise men and true women fear that the damning foundation will some day topple and fall, and bring down in ruins the fairest nation the sun ever shone upon, unless legislation comes to the rescue, and drives from our national halls the god of Bacchus, who, as men say, holds the reins of our national trade.

Chapter III. Alcohol Why Men Drink It

'HE conundrum at the head of this chapter is like life — it has to be given up. No reasoning man can strike the exact cause which impels men to "put an enemy to their lips to steal away their brains." In many cases, however, the drinkers are like the actor who, quoting the above line from Horatio upon the stage, was horrified at hearing a boy in the gallery shout out: "Drink away, old fellow, you're safe!" But men of brains do drink, as witness the lives of Poe, Payne, Cutter, (author of "E Pluribus Unum") Douglas, Seward, Yates, and others of the nation's galaxy of stars.

Since alcohol went from the toilet table of the Persian belle to her lover's drinking pouch, men have sung the praise of "wine, wine, rosy wine," and fallen in drunken disgrace under the table, shouting its name. From common and occasional drunkenness they have reeled, blaspheming and cursing, to inebriety, and descended step by step into the grave of the drunkard or the criminal, and all the warnings of the past have been futile to stay the tide of debauchery and crime that has marched through the street of Hell to death.

The whys and wherefores — this mighty conundrum — can not readily be explained. Not one man in a thousand confesses to a liking for the taste of strong drink ; hence, the only reason to form a basis for their serfdom is its effect — the momentary exhilaration, the forgetfulness of sorrow, the oblivion brought to cares and wounds of heart and brain. This exhilaration is but momentary ; it is kept up, like the steam of the boiler, by constant fuel, and like that boiler, the man begins to wear and rust, and with the first glass comes "the beginning of the end," found, after a time, in the ruined life, the blasted name, and the lonely grave with its handful of turf raised above the dead drunkard, or suicide.