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BEER AS THE CHIEF ALLY OF TEMPERANCE.
“If you say to me that I ought not to drink
perhaps 1 would agree with you; but if you toll me
that I MI ST NOT DRINK, I WILL drink, because
1 have a natural right to do so—to drink what I
please.''—Henry Ward Beecher.
Stimulants men will have, and the only road to
success in combating intemperance is to permit the
mild drinks to dislodge the strong concoctions, lit
largely to make drunkards of men.
In the Old World men drink aleolholic beverages
just in proportion to the coldness of the climate 1
which they inhabit, and the bleaker the country, the
larger is the percentage of alcohol contained in the
popular drink of the people.
The climate in Scotland would be almost intoler
able to the large majority of people in the I’nited
States. It is cold, raw and damp. London “Punch"
once propounded the conundrum, —“Why is Queen
Victoria like Scotland, and what is the difference
between them.’" and then published as the answer
“The Queen reigns and reigns and reigns and never
gives her son a chance; while in Scotland, it rains
and rains and rains and the sun never gets a
c ha nee. ’ ’
The Scotchman is the strictest Sabbatarian on
the face of the globe, but he consumes more whiskey
than the citizen of any other nation. The Scandi
navian ranks second, ami the Northern Russian and
Finlanders come third. In other European coun
tries, all of which are sufficiently old for the people
to have made up their minds what beverages and
foods are best suited to their several needs, under
the various climatic conditions, we find as we travel
southward that the national beverage ami the popu
lar drink becomes milder and milder, while drunken
ness becomes more and more rare.
In the northern Herman States where distilled
spirits predominate there is much drunkenness,
crime and poverty; but in the southern States where
beer and wines have largely displaced the stronger
beverages, the people are healthy, happy and pros
perous. and an intoxicated person is very rarely en
countered : —The Kaiser said recently:—“The nat
ional food drink of the Fatherland can alone save
the alcohol districts of Germany from frightful dis
aster and degeneration.”
In France, Italy and Spain where the bulk of the
people drink nothing but their native wines, the
people are models of industry and sobriety.
Os course, the excessive use of beer, or even light
wines, is injurious, but if all substances known to bo
injurious in large doses are to be entirely given up
on the erroneous assumption that small doses are
also injurious, then all condiments and spices must
be removed from our tables. Even sugar in con
centrated solution, is a powerful poison, and it is
generally admitted that tea and coffee have played
frightful havoc with the nerves of the people; while
infinitely more people are injured at the American
soda fountains than there are at the German beer
gardens.
THE REASON
The Committee of Fifty, which was composed of
such men as Seth Low, Bishop 11. C. Potter, Presi
dent Eliot of Harvard 1 Diversity, Attorney General
Charles J. Bonaparte, President Preston Johnston oi
Tulane I Diversity. Jacob 11. Schill, Bishop E. G.
Andrews, and Felix Adler made the most valuable,
important and exhaustive investigation of all phases
of the liquor question which has ever been made.
In their Report, they gave the percentage of alcohol
which is found in the various alcoholic beverages.
They stated that American whiskey contains from
IP, to 4S'< of alcohol. Scotch and Irish whiskey
from 36'7 to 43'1, rum from 40'< to SO' ( , gin 30' ,
French clarets S', . French white wines 10'7, Ger
man Rhine wines S'; , sherry 17'7, American cham
pagne S',, American red wine American beer
3 1 -.',. Imported beers Pi to o',. English ah* and
porter o',, hard cider 3'4 and various nerve tonics
and sarsaparillas from 14'< to 33',. ’riius.it will be
semi that tin 1 beverage containing the smallest
amount of alcohol, according to the most reliable
and certainly the most non-partisan report ever is
sued, is American beer.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that when
out* form of stimulant is denied the people, they
will invariably obtain another and almost invariably
a stronger, more secret, and more injurious substi
tute. The fundamental error of the Prohibitionists
is in their classification of all stimulants upon the
same level, and so long as they maintain this atti
tude a solution of the drink problem will never be
found, it certainly seems reasonable that since all
enlightened persons admit that intemperance is a
great evil, and since human beings will continue to
demand ami get alcoholic beverages until such time
as human nature becomes sublimated, it is far better
to supply them with a mild beverage than to attempt
to change them utterly in the twinkling of an eye.
by enacting legislation which prohibits the sale of
anything containing even a small percentage of
alcohol, regardless of the fact that it has been re
peatedly demonstrated that prohibition in this
drastic form never has, and probably never will
prohibit.
The President of the French Republic takes great
delight in his vineyard, and the French are now
legislating against strong alcoholic spirits; yet this
same enlightened nation encourages the manufacture
and sale of wine, ale and beer as the best means of
driving strong drink from their land.
The Lord Mayor of London is a wealthy Brewer,
‘and the English discriminate between the Brewer
who produces ale and beer, and the Manufacturer
of strong alcoholic spirits. Mr. Arthur Sherrell,
M. P.. of London, after years of study and investi
gation, issued a book (*alled. “The Temperance
Problem and Social Reform,” and in this book he
advises encouraging the sale of milder beverages as
the only means of effectually solving the temperance
problem. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, late
Premier of Great Britian. Lord Peel, and many of
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