Weaning the nation from strong drink : the crisis and the remedy

Front matter

WEAN I THE NATION

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Copyright^ .

Chapter VII. Why?

Why it i? that the attitude of the government is so at variance with that of some of the states — Gain the sole object — The tax fee the only thing considered 68

xi xii Table of Contents

Prologue

In 1892, four centuries after Columbus discovered America, and at a time when Uncle Sam and his subjects were planning to do great honor to the occasion, the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the landing, there was a wedding, a wedding with all the beautiful surroundings that could be wished on the occasion of such fair event. What follows is but the true story of two people, a simple, truthful account of the subsequent life of the bride and groom.

The bride, a charming woman, the daughter of well-to-do parents, was endowed with fine instinct and intelligence, educated and trained in the requirements of life. In fact, she possessed all of the qualities of a beautiful, wholesome, perfect woman. A more complete or noble picture of womanhood could not be drawn or conceived.

The husband was a man envied by all who knew him. He had been born and reared in one of the best families. He was a college graduate, large mentally as well as physically, and a man of rare attainments and opportunities. He was kindly in disposition, good in character and what the world called, a model man.

10 Prologue

The relatives, friends and acquaintances of this couple looked upon this wedding as the earnest of a most happy and perfect union.

The two were well mated and, during the first ten years of their married life, were an ideal husband and wife. They were blessed with four beautiful and intelligent children. A more fortunate and contented family could not be found.

About the eleventh year of their married life, suddenly, at least without any warning to the wife, a cloud appeared. The husband came home with the odor of liquor upon his breath. This was the first real shock the wife had ever experienced. The husband, however, presented the usual excuse, "only a social glas* or two with some business friends."

During the next five years the husband continued drinking, going from bad to worse, finally wrecking his constitution, as well as his once successful business. The home was sold to satisfy debts incurred while he was intoxicated.

It is not easy to picture the agony and fear, the poignant suffering thus inflicted upon the wife during these last five years of her existence.

The tragedy came. A murder was committed. The husband went home intoxicated and in a drunken rage, while temporarily insane from alcoholic poisoning, struck the blow which killed his wife.

Prologue 11

Notwithstanding the fact that this man was not mentally himself when the deed was committed, the neighbors talked of lynching him. The officials thwarted this action by getting him securely locked up in jail. Shortly afterwards, he was put into the insane ward and soon reached the cemetery, at the county's expense.

Returning briefly to the victim, the murdered wife, the funeral was very large. There were ministers, church deacons, good people and curious people attending. Sermons, prayers and gospel singing were features of the funeral services.

Friends came to bury this woman. What did these good people do in the way of preventing another such tragedy, even in their own community? Nothing. Did they take immediate action to prevent saloon keepers and other vendors from selling alcoholic poison in their community or elsewhere? No. Did they take Uncle Sam (the Federal government) to task for his complicity in this crime? No. What then did they do? Nothing but weep and pray over the dead body. They did not even lock the door against the tempter to save the future of these four children, three boys and one girl. It is true that the children were adopted by relatives, but theirs could not be a home in the great sense of the word.

What causes such crimes? Drink. Every person who can read knows this fact. The Chicago Trib-

12 Prologue

une kept a record for ten years and found that during that period fifty-three thousand five hundred and fifty-six murders were committed by men under the influence of liquor. Over ninety per cent, of these had been crazed by the effects of the poison. Of the remaining small percentage what proportion was guilty of other crimes than murder?

What a disastrous showing! What is it that blinds the mass of the community, and paralyzes their sensibilities? What can be their excuse for allowing such a condition to exist? No doubt many readers understand that such an appalling condition does exist, but why such apathy and lack of determination to destroy the evil?

Is it not true that Uncle Sam (the Federal government) furnishes the means, and thus is chargeable with complicity in all these revolting crimes? Is it not also true, that the will of the majority, backed by determined action, can change the character of Uncle Sam, make him admit this wrong and, with one great effort, practically destroy the whole liquor traffic and at the same time end the drinking of intoxicating liquors on the part of all of his people? Then, with a reformed government, we shall have a reformed nation, one infinitely more prosperous and happy and with a glorious promise for its future.

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to assist in weaning the American nation from its greatest vice and averting its greatest peril.

The need is imperative. The very future of the Republic is involved.

It is shown plainly, and it is hoped convincingly, that the almost universal consumption of alcoholic drinks is degrading and changing the character of the community; that the cost in money is too tremendous a burden to be borne; that the cost in human suffering and human life is beyond all estimate ; that the result of a continuation of conditions as they now exist is something that cannot be faced. And, above all, here it will be shown that the government itself promotes this evil state of things and aids in its perpetuation.

States have decided that, for the general good of their citizens, intoxicating liquors shall not be sold within their boundaries. Armed with a federal license, the manufacturers and vendors of prohibited liquors violate with impunity the local laws, and thus become accessory to the infraction of all other laws resulting from the misuse of intoxicants. They become insolent, defiant, dangerous, insufferable —

14 Introduction

making sport of statutes that states have enacted for the infinite good of their people.

Herein is told the manner in which the law is made ineffective by the very power that represents in its broadest sense the law's majesty. Herein is shown how implied government endorsement enables the unscrupulous distiller and vendor to bring evil upon all communities, a pestilence, destroying hundreds of thousands and threatening the body politic; how the government, unwittingly, is encouraging the nation's deadliest enemies; how mightily they have flourished under this dark mantle of protection.

The general integrity and w T holesomeness of the federal statutes is admitted and applauded. Reverence for them, however, demands that they should be purged of an unfortunate instance of malenactment and maladministration, resulting in a monstrous evil. For this condition there must be found a remedy.

The discouragement of even the appearance of law-breaking is the very essence and high purpose of pure government. This is the priceless heritage of the people from the government's founders; its chief endowment from the real power, which is the will of the majority.

In this book there is no appeal to prejudice, no fanaticism. Facts are sufficient and abundant. A work with the title and intent of the present one

Introduction 15

would be a failure did it not prove, from indisputable evidence, reason for the indictment it sets forth and, at the same time, impress upon its readers the full significance of the facts presented. It must fail of its purpose if it does not place distinctly and unmistakably where it should lie, the duty of righting these appalling wrongs.

To call attention to a gigantic evil without suggesting a remedy would be but folly. What action must be taken by the people in this imperative necessity for self-protection will be indicated here.

It is certain that we must act from a national standpoint and in an effective way. The states already aroused and acting, must not be crippled by the Federal government.

Everything must go to the world upon merit, free from emotionalism or prejudice. Herein the facts are laid fairly before the reader. It is the hope and earnest desire of the author, that this book may be a potent agent in effecting results desired by all. Among which are :

i st. The awakening of the people, especially the non-drinking class, to a sense of their human obligations.

2nd. To help the slaves of drink by placing intoxicants beyond their reach.

3rd. To educate the young, that the coming generation may perceive and understand the real situation ; enabling it to grow up into a greater genera-

16 Introduction

tion, one healthier in mind and body, avoiding the present suffering and tragedies caused by the use of alcohol.

4th. And, finally, by forcing the complete abolition of the manufacture and sale of alcohol as a drink in the United States, put an end to sin and suffering caused by the use of alcoholic drinks. Making a new nation : — happy and strong. It can be done. The situation is perilous, but it can be changed by the American people. Herein the course to be taken is advised and urged.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Serious Reflection Cover Inlay

(Columbia, the wise and loving counsellor, pleads with Uncle Sara in

behalf of his children.) Something Must Be Done ! Frontispiece

PAGE

The Whiskey Face 17

Shielding the Stye 25

The National Bookkeeper ., 33

The Balance of Power 105

The Example without the Warning 153

A Distinction without a Difference 121

The Pitiful Reason 161

The Blue and the Gray 249

Janus-Faced 313

The Blind Tiger 321

The Summons to the Apathetic 409

I

THE WHISKEY FACE Columbia draws aside the curtain and reveals to neglectful Uncle Sam the sort of face thousands and tens of thousands of his people wear because of the degradation he has allowed to reach them. The sight appals him.

WEANING THE NATION

Chapter I. The Indictment

It is a tragedy. A father has a son whom he cherishes as few children are cherished. Prom tottering childhood, through youth to lusty and promising manhood, the son is guarded and encouraged and advised and, as might be looked for under such conditions, develops into a splendid being, a credit to humanity, a potent addition to the ranks of those whom Providence selects for rulers of the world. Strong and aspiring the son, and proud and content the father. Then the tragedy, inexplicable, unbelievable.

Just as the crest of manhood has been surmounted, just as the full career of great accomplishment and good begins, the father, the greathearted model parent, poisons the son, poisons him deliberately, cold-bloodedly, cruelly. A thing incredible!

Yet Uncle Sam — for so we will designate the government of the United States — is guilty of the ghastly crime. He is poisoning his own.

An arraignment such as this must be supported by evidence which cannot be disputed. What are the simple but appalling facts?

The drink evil is the greatest curse which could afflict a country and it has fallen with special weight upon the United States. Its cost annually in millions is such as the mind may not grasp easily; the hundreds of thousands of wrecked or ended human lives for which it is accountable are beyond all definite computation. This monstrous evil is abetted and promoted by Uncle Sam. Whoever chooses may secure from him a license for the production and sale of alcoholic intoxicants. Aside from the licenses granted manufacturers, wholesalers and others connected with thejiquor traffic, Uncle Sam, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, granted licenses to retailers alone bringing in a revenue of $5,257,980. This means, since a license costs but $25, that he authorized 210,319 persons to sell liquor directly to the people. There is no limit to their operations. They may sell when and where they please. It matters not to Uncle Sam what may be the consequences of promoting this gigantic trade in poison. He is utterly indifferent. Prisons and almshouses and insane asylums and morgues may be filled and lives and fortunes may be wrecked — all this is nothing to him. The prison, the asylum and 'the morgue are to him uninteresting objects. He is even blind or indifferent to the fact that his more than complaisance, his actual adherence to the cause of the liquor dealers, has an effect that reacts upon himself and that he is an actual loser in a monetary way. He is sightlessly and criminally stolid.

What are, more definitely, some of the results of this barter with the agents of alcohol?

Strong drink, in the estimation of the wisest physicians, is the primary cause of over seventy-five per cent, of all cases of insanity. In 1908 the state of Illinois alone appropriated $6,000,000 for the care of the insane in its asylums. .What must be the figures for the whole country? Of inmates of jails and penitentiaries and other criminal institutions the reports of superintendents indicate that the proportion who became criminals because of drink and the surroundings drinking involved is nearly ninety per cent. Think of the tens of millions of dollars spent annually in the United States in support of these places of confinement for the thousands made vicious or savage because of alcohol and no longer fit to be at large.

Crime comes from drink. Immorality and pauperism come from drink. The distinguished prelate, Archbishop Ireland, who has made an earnest study of conditions, than whom a greater authority could not be quoted, says : that to drink, may be attributed seventy-five per cent, of the social evil and eighty per cent, of the poverty.

Crime, immorality, poverty, all are encouraged by Uncle Sam. In licensing everywhere the sale of liquor he assists the forces of debauchery and puts a premium on vice. Did ever such a condition exist before, in the history of any nation, — a condition in which the dominant power promoted the degradation of the people? Even in ancient China, even in mediaeval times — for the evil of strong drink existed then as now — the rulers saw the effect and the increasing danger and sought to avert it by the force of stringent laws and infliction of the severest punishments. And here, now, in the United States, the government is on the side of alcohol.

But, not merely apathetic, not merely giving a negative endorsement to those who deal in strong drink, is the Federal government; and here is presented one of the gravest aspects of the situation. It bars the efforts of individual states, made for the protection of their own people. State laws it utterly disregards in the use of its authority to license the sale of intoxicants anywhere in the Union. A state may have decided that, for the good of all its citizens, liquor shall not be sold within its borders, but, armed with a Federal tax receipt, the manufacturers and vendors of prohibited liquors violate with impunity the local law and make sport of the solemn statutes of the commonwealth. Here arises a condition that is intolerable. Interference with the right of a state to regulate its own affairs is no light thing. The expressed wishes of the prohibition states, their years of effort, resulting in enacted laws to clear their communities of the evils of the liquor traffic, have gone almost for naught. Take, for instance, the state of Maine, long noted for its rock-ribbed prohibition principles and statutes. In that state, in 1908, nearly a thousand Federal licenses were issued authorizing the holders to manufacture or sell intoxicants. During the same period, in Kansas, where the prohibition laws are especially strict and comprehensive, 3,217 persons were given the right to retail whiskey and other intoxicating drinks, one concern to conduct a distillery, two to establish and maintain breweries and one hundred and fourteen to ply the wholesale liquor trade, a total of 3,334 persons authorized by Uncle Sam to violate the laws of a sovereign state. And conditions in other prohibition states he has made the same, disregarding their laws and all their efforts to protect their own communities.

The situation is further aggravated by the fact that Uncle Sam's contempt for state laws is only equalled in completeness by the sternness with which he enforces his own Federal laws. His tax fee is mandatory and positive, immutably so for all who would engage in the liquor traffic in any form, from the greatest distilleries and breweries to the cheapest of so-called "dives." Without the preliminary payment of this fee any sort of deating in liquor involves swift and certain punishment to the person in default. The most insignificant violator of the injunction given is mercilessly pursued and made an example of. The strictness of United States courts makes them dreaded by offenders and would-be-offenders. Infractions and omissions that would be considered trivial by a justice of the peace these courts punish with penal sentences. The greatness of the government's power and certain vindication of its laws is here made as evident as elsewhere, and even the states are not exempt from unavoidable obedience to Federal authority when affairs, from great to small, conflict as between the one and the other. Our government's dignity and authority are rightly held in respectful awe by every citizen of the Republic and its attitude of any question carries the weight of definiteness. All this is necessary to its integrity and to its importance and its paternal helpfulness of the people — but conditions may arise under which the laws regulating the exercise of this vast authority must inevitably be changed.

The general government is condoning and fostering the greatest evil which ever afflicted any race of mankind at any time. It is an agent in causing incalculable loss and suffering to its own people and in imperilling its own future. It is doing this in the face of protest from some of the states of which it is composed, and stands deliberately in the way of their efforts to save themselves. There is no debate as to the present magnitude or the constant extension of the loss and suffering. There is no dispute over the fact that the government is, practically, opposing the states in their efforts at reform. The situation is more than grave; it is immediately perilous. What are we going to do about it?

Chapter II. The Situation

An astounding and perilous situation exists with {which the American people must deal. It must be considered vigorously, simply as a national proposition, simply for the general good, simply as the immediate and imperative duty of a vast reasoning community.

The drink evil overbalances all other evils the country has to endure. It is the most tremendous burden, even from the monetary standpoint, ever borne by any people. Let us consider it definitely. A charge unsupported by data is of no avail, but the figures are at hand. The government is more than conservative in giving out information regarding the manufacture of alcoholic drinks, and recent facts are not easily obtainable, but those for one year will do for those of another, save that the governmentally fostered evil is spreading and that the figures are gradually expanding. We will take, for the sake of accuracy, the data from the government's fiscal statement ending June 30, 1906. Here is the drink bill of the nation for the year indicated :

SHIELDING THE STYE Uncle Sam, defiantly and complacently, shields and conceals the liquor dealer beneath the mantle of governmental tax receipts. Page 20

Kinds of Liquors. Gallons Retail Cost. Per Capita,

consumed, per gal. total. Cost. Gals.

Distilled spirits:

Malt Liquors:

Wines:

Total, one billion six hundred and seven million twenty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-six dollars! The figures are almost beyond imagination. And this enormous burden the people staggered under, receiving in return, what? Not good, but evil; not benefit, but injury! What a tremendous economic effect such enormous expenditures must have upon the industry and wealth of the nation, and this apart from any consideration of the physical and moral results from the liquor's consumption.

From statistics as carefully compiled, it is estimated that in 1898 the people spent about $2,200,- 000,000 for strong drink. There are over 300,000 convicted criminals in the United States and it costs approximately $1,200 a year each to watch, convict, and to house and feed them, while the average laboring man earns but $420 a year. Yet the laboring man, the poor man, is the one who must support these criminals drink has made. We have yet no income tax, and the poor man and the one of average fortune are compelled to maintain the costly machinery of thousands of courts of law and all the penal and protective institutions holding the vicious or miserable living grists these courts grind out. What attitude should the tax-payers of the nation take regarding the pending liquor problem?

But, enormous as are the sums involved and lost through the traffic in and consumption of strong drink, the money loss, huge as it is, is not a thing to be considered in comparison with the annual wreckage of hundreds of thousands of minds and bodies, with the ensuing ruin of more than as many of the innocent. Words may not be at our command to tell the story as it should be told. Never lived an orator so eloquent, never a writer with pen so gifted, that the tale of what strong drink has done in the United States might be related with half its dreadful pathos or its savage features. It is something incredible, inhuman, beyond all painting.

How is it possible that with sufficient vividness could be portrayed the murders and all other crimes, the tens of thousands of tragedies, the. wrecked lives and homes and fortunes, the leading astray of youth, the ruin of young girls, the breeding of an army of vampires, the general retrogression and debasement of the people as a whole?

It is only because the facts have not been sufficiently presented to them that Americans have not risen in their might and done away with the awful affliction so long endured. They are not usually slow to act in an emergency or when their feelings and sense of duty are aroused. Suppose, for instance, that there were such mismanagement in the Philippines, that petty battles were lost, that the health of the soldiers was not cared for and that, in a general way, the situation became so bad that five hundred men were sacrificed in the islands monthly. What would happen? There would be clamor from press and pulpit and a thousand public meetings, and prompt corrective governmental action in the premises would be a thing inevitable. Suppose a threatening pestilence of any sort were to break out anywhere between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Federal authorities paid no attention to it nor took steps to prevent its spread. How long would it be before a mighty voice of command would reach to Washington? Yet strong drink, in a day, kills more than have been lost in the Philippines since they were annexed, and slays more men and women than any pestilence. An understanding, a complete realization of what intoxicating drinks are costing, of what they are doing, is all* that the American people need. Then they will act, swiftly and determinedly.

And for this bankrupting and deadly situation the Federal government is largely responsible. Without the reckless and indiscriminate licensing of the manufacturers and sellers of intoxicants, the abatement of the evil could be left to the now helpless states. Elsewhere are given, more in detail, the reasons why state action is ineffective, but they should, without an explanation, be plain enough to all. The, indifference of Uncle Sam to state law and the wishes of communities has formed a safe refuge behind which vicious traffickers in intoxicants carry on their business, with an immunity purchased for a trifling sum. Uncle Sam takes his thirty pieces of silver and betrays his own family. He aids in the distribution of liquor everywhere and at all times, under all circumstances and even on the smallest scale. Nothing escapes the national barkeeper. Not content with the licenses issued to the more regular manufacturers and liquor sellers, he will, for the petty sum of $4 a night, issue a license to a dance hall where there are weekly or monthly orgies. This is something not generally understood. In selling beer and whiskey privileges Uncle Sam reaches out as greedily for the pence as for the pounds. Clubs organized only for drinking places in evasion of the local law have always his helpful countenance. To lodges and every social or political organization of any kind he is equally complaisant. There are hundreds of touring and sleeping cars speeding across the country every hour which are but barrooms of a kind, veritable saloons on wheels. The Pullman Palace Car Company alone secures annually hundreds of licenses for the sale of liquor to its patrons, and every great railway system of the country obtains permits from Uncle Sam for the same purpose in the dining car of nearly every train which carries passengers. The steamboats plying on the Great Lakes, on our navigable rivers, and the coast liners of the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico secure authority from him to sell intoxicants to his traveling subjects. What to Uncle Sam matter the consequences? He gets the money, money he need not acquire in a manner so desperately injurious to the people, for there are other sources of revenue available and abundant. Uncle Sam is utterly indifferent, though indifference in a crisis is as culpable in a government as in an individual. He stands by the current in which that splendid being, the nation's Destiny, is being carried to his death. "What of it ! Let the creature drown!" Uncle Sam is, in fact, one of those who have thrown him in!

There is before the country a business and moral proposition never exceeded in magnitude in the history of mankind. There has grown up in the United States a condition unendurable in the present and threatening to become worse in the future. It is not merely the individual who is in peril, but even the form of government under which we prospered to the utmost until the time came when the drink evil put such check upon all our energies and aims. This evil is not only sapping our resources, but is changing the character of hundreds of thousands of our people. There is a retrogression, especially in the cities, a decadence and debasement. The material is being steadily and widely produced of which mobs and revolutionists are made, the restless and godless who defy all established forms of government and who have overthrown governments before. Not today nor tomorrow may they be dreadful on this account, but their forces are being constantly reinforced. Of enough grave import is the condition of the present. It is such as should compel the attention and action of every citizen, of every American of intelligence who has regard for the welfare of himself or his fellow men or the future of his country.

Chapter III. The History Of Drinking

When alcoholic drinks were first devised and men began transforming themselves into beasts, to their own inevitable sorrow, is an undetermined date. Certain it is, though, that the use of alcoholic beverages of some sort began almost with the dawn of history and that as related through all history the attendant dire consequences have been the same as they are today.

All alcoholic beverages are liquids containing the product of the fermentation of some sugar or starch-containing material. With what is known as ardent spirits, such as whiskey, distillation has been added to fermentation. Distillation was a device first conceived, it is believed, in the eleventh century, when an Arabian chemist named Albucasis first distilled wine and called it the Spirit of Wine. Its use, for a long time, was confined to laboratory work, and for the preservation of animal substances from decay. Subsequently it was employed as a medicine and afterwards as a narcotic to be used in sickness. It is also said that the Arabians taught the use of it to the Spaniards and that the Spaniards transmitted their knowledge to the monks in Ireland. The name "alcohol" was given to distilled spirits in the seventeenth century. It is claimed that the word was derived from the word ghoul, meaning an evil spirit which entered and tortured the human body.

But, long before distillation was invented to increase the potency of intoxicants, fermented drinks had begun their evil work. The highly civilized ancient Egyptians had a beer called "Hagu" by which men were transformed into sots, as may be seen by this extract from a passage of the famous papyrus known as "Sallier I" and "Anastasi IV":

"I am told that you neglect your studies, have a desire for enjoyments and go from tavern to tavern. Whoever smells of beer is repulsive to all; the smell of beer holds people at a distance. It hardens your soul. You think it proper to run down a wall and break through the board gate; the people run away from you. You beat them until sore. Do not give the mugs a place in your heart. Forget the goblets. You arise and act foolishly. You beat your stomach like a drum. You stumble, you fall upon your stomach. You are smeared with filth !"