THE FIGHT AGAINST ALCOHOL

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9086, 11 May 1908, Page 6

THE FIGHT AGAINST ALCOHOL

(By Frank Morton.)

People interested in later developtaents or tne Tempreance Movement; WIU watch the "Cosmopolitan Maga«ine" fur the. next few months. Mr Arthur Brisbane commences i.: the April numoer a series of articles •dealing wuh what is popularly known *s Prohibition. The articles gain a 'certain adventitious interest from the ia.it tuat Mr Brisbane is probably tne bdst-pmd journalist the world has so far known. Mr Brisbane is editor-in-chief of the Hearst newspapers, and for tout strvht: Mr Hearst pafs him £IO,OOO a year. His articles on the "aoili vex'u" question will take tne form or an inqiury and an analysis. He sets out to state the case. He is plainly a hater of drunkenness; but he nas no brief from either .party. A.i shoeing nm consistent irapartiaility at rhe outset, here are a few extracts f rom ai* opening articled —■ "Good mem and good women have long been lighting alcohol in all its form* and in all kinds of doses, I thinkinj dzohol and drunkenness! the same, and believing that both mint be destroyed together- It has bean a longfignt—at first a fight of individual, ot religions, of societies, of a political party, pitiful in -iti endless failures, but admirable in its signified, courageous persistence. "A long, dramatic stocy is the history <*£ the fight against drunken--1.6J-. it was uu w.ien the-Bible was writien. It wis an oid and losing fight when, with hieroglyphs, chisel, and stone, kings "immortalized'their Victories, their anames, and itheir drunkjn celebrations.

"Since men first learned <-to concentrate .alcohol, -to biattn tbeirbrains up quickly and .mistake the.flame tor happiness, the discouraging.fight has gona on, Millions of women', have fought against drunkenness with their tears and their prayers, and their children have stall endured hunger and blows iat the hands of drunken fathers, ftaiests .have commanded, and implored, and still .-dumb > drink has made its appeal, «iore powerful than any other. "Taxation ha 3 fallen upon drink mare heavily .than upon-any other of man's necessities, .pleasures, or Vices. The ±ax that would have been refused on bread—even .at risk of life—has been paid an. drink willingly. . , "Thetax.bn drink .builds.hospitals in which drunkards die,.and prisons in which .they .rust. It builds.public schools, and, more than any other tax, helps to support .government. "Count Witte,.of Russia, told this writer thatihe Rusisan Government's monopoly of spirits, .which he brought about, .yields a . profit about equal to .the coat of the national kill-ing-machine, ihe [Russian arniy. *' A nice and .apprqpr iate .balance! ■"Jails have been iilled by drunkenness, gallows have been built to punish the crimes born of drunkenness. Poorhouses are drunkards'homes, and every other grave knthe.potter's field might appropriately have a bottle for a headstone." .* * * <* -* * These are the facts against drunkennes. Mr Brisbane, in his laborious impartiality, .goes to deal With the facta alleged in favour of alcohol. I .don't think .1 run much risk of boring .you, so I quote again:— "Is there any side.to the story except the prohibition side? Surely no question that has .tormented humanity for ages can be a one-sided question. Many earnest men who despise drunkenness, temperate and thoughtful men, believe that the greatest worker for temperance is the man who brews a good,. pure beer, or grows light natural wines, and fights drunkenness through the use of mild and relatively harmless stimulants. "Men always have drunk alcoholic drirks, and therefore they always will do so—we are told. thing used to be said of slavery, torture of innocent witnesses, imprisonment for debt. It is stud to-day of private ownership by a few of .the.necessities of the many—'it always has been, it always will be'. But the prohibitionist answers easily the 'always has, always will' argument. All things change here on earth; there is no 'always.' "Has any great nation in history been a nation of water-drinkers? Not one. The Gauls, in their sweeping migration west and south towards the Ibernian Peninsula, were stopped, pleased and held by the wines in .that region wheve Bordeaux now stands. Tne French nation was founded, it may be said, upon those wine-pro-ducing hills. Wine has been the dailv drii.k of Frenchmen for many cen u ies, the drink of all, from four or five years of age onward. France never has been drunken. In one city, in the prohibition State of Kansas, this writer saw more drunkenness than in Paris in four years. And in Paris the fare drunkards are usually contributed by America, England, or some other foreign country.

"In Italy the drinking of light wines is universal, and there is no drunkenness. When wine is so cheap that the cost ia insignificant, its consumption increases little, if at all. " Would ' teetotal' nations survive, and for how long, probably? Would they be able to compete with the thinking populations brought in contact with them? "The Jews have been moderate 1 drinkers of wine for four thousand yojrs. There is no drunkenness among Jews. It went hard with the u ,tutored 'teetotal' Indian who met the Pilgrim Father with his jug. Whiskey killed the Indians as fast a3 they could get it, and, in their territories, aoaolute prohibition is their one hope. "The prohiDitionist replies: 'Consumption killed the Indian as fast aa whiskey killed him. Why not arguo in favour of giving everyHouy a dose of consumption to make hi.n immune against it? "Scientists tell us that we European whites do combat consumption fairly well, for the very reason that we have all been made almost immune by time and contact, just-as we have been made immune against alcohol, so far us the wiping out of an entire race is concerned. Consumption killed the Indians as whiskey killed them, because thby were not used to either. "Have nations free from alcohol oeen successful? Mohammed succeeded in imposing prohibition upon his followers. They achieved wondaCi.iXi iuilit-ry successes—spurred on

by reckless fanaticism—for a brief | moment, and since then, nothingjust millions of men under iron rule, cutting no figure in the world's work. "Then there is India—hundreds of millions of temperate men —very temperate—ruled and held down absolutely by a handful of beer-drink-ing .Englishmen many thousand miles away. A few thousand Irishmen, j not absolutely teetotal, have done more to disturb England's peace than those hordes 'of mild, WJnalcoholic Asiatics.

'•They would not be alive at all, if they drank,' say? the prohibitionist. "Haws the greatest men in history been drinkers of water only? Very few, if an?; of them. Archimedes, Newton, Michel Angelo, Shakespeare and Beethoven all drank in moderation. They *'ill do as examples of (great • mew—the five greatest that have lived thus far, perhaps. Would they have been even greater had they never tasted alcohol? Possibly. But the argument leans'the other way." ( **t-"* * * * | The whole article is worthy of quotation, but I must leave you to read for.yourselves. I don't think that statistics or special cases actuallyiprove much at any time; but they may denote tendencies and clear the way for reasonable argument This matter of alcohol is one in regard to which my personal interest is keen. For many years 1 drank ' regularly and too much. When, finally, I stopped drinking altogether, it was not because I had ever been convinced by an argument of the temperate extremists, but because I found abstinence profitable to my own interests and dignity. I cannot say that abstinence has improved my health- because my health has been always and consistently so good that there has been no room for improvement. I cannot say that abstinence has improved my appearance, since 1 have visibly aged more during this past eighteen months than during iany previous similar period. And I certainly cannot say that abstinence has improved my temper. I have not changed my mind in the slightest degree as to the advantage of abstinence where my interests are con- • tared; but if I were ever to live in a wine-drinking country again, I should probably drink wine with the rest Nor, as to alcohol itself, have I anything to regret. 1 never overcame my ■ invincible repugnance to the flavour of beer and spirits; 1 was simply iin thrall at the exhilaration. That, upon occasion is what I miss now. As a brain-worker, I have discovered no other stimulant to take the place of alcohol. Plodding \ steadily in my groove,. I have none of those .occasional rare glows and ecstasies of energy I used to have in the old days. I find it increasingly difficult to see over the heads of the crowd. .And I understand quite well, as every man who has turned from excess to abstinence must understand, why it is that the nations of the water-drinkers have never been the nations that excslled, and why it is that your crabbed ascetic has never attained to greatness in any of the narts. We exiles from Naxos are wellfed and respectable. But we know what we have surrendered, even while we admit that in all the meaner senses the surrender has been profitable to us. We are St. Satan's penitents.