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England’s greatest men, are strongly advocating a
complete revolution in the handling of the liquor
traffic so as to bring about changes which will en
courage the manufacture of the milder beverages
and curtail the use of strong spirits.
Many years ago Holland, “the land of gin.’' was
cursed with saloons and drunkenness but all this
has been changed by the establishment of coffee
houses where mild beverages have the right of way.
The coffee house is regulated by law. and woe to the
proprietor who permits drunkenness, gambling, etc.,
in his place. He would not only forfeit his license,
Imt find himself quickly placed behind prison bars,
'file most stringent regulations are thrown about
the dispensing of alcoholic drinks, inebriates are
promptly sent to asylums, ami the Holland system
is unquestionably the most perfect which states
men and reformers can devise.
Time was. and that not so very long ago, when
people throughout the world were under the erron
eous impression that the Southern gentleman always
had a whiskey bottle at his <dbow or in his hand,
and there was. of course, some slight foundation for
this popular misconception of the habits of Southern '
men. As time passed, however, the more enlighten
ed and cultured people of our fair Southland awoke
to the realization of Hie fact that over indulgence i
in alcoholic beverages was injurious and injudicious,
and today, no more moderate drinkers can be found
anywhere. Hut the negroes and the more ignorant
whiles do not seem to have learned this lesson and
still drink the strongest liquors they can get.
Let us follow the example of the great European
thinkers and economists and supply the people with '
a mild and harmless beverage l which will save them i
from disaster ami degeneration.
Moral and Industrial Reform Opposed.
By Albert J. Beverage in Saturday Evening Bost.
Aside from the temporary impairment of busi
ness which the powerful ones have been able to
bring about is a certain inevitable but transient
slowing down of business caused by this change
from abnormal business conditions to normal busi
ness conditions. This is necessarily so in everything.
It is so in the ease of a man's health; so in any
change of human conditions. It is a period of re
adjustment. We are getting everything “on the
level. as the masons say. And when once they are
gotten on the level, as they soon will be, everybody
will be more prosperous and far happier than ever
before.
This is proved by the fact that English. German
and French business is universally conceded to be
the soundest ami most conservative in the world,
ami yet we have not done nearly so much toward
legislating business honesty into law as England
has done, and far. very far, less than either France
or Germany. And the business of those countries
proceeds smoothly, safely and prosperously—far I
more prosperously than ours, when we contrast our
enormous resources with their comparatively meagre
resources.
For tin* last year there has been a determined
effort not only Io check, but also to turn back this
mighty movement for common honesty in trade and
righteousness in business upon which the American
people have entered. Great forces—the greatest
financial forces in history—are determined that it
shall be turned back. Master minds —bv far the
THE REASON
most resourceful in the Republic or in the world
have been planing and are planing now to turn it
back. Unlimited wealth is at their disposal; the
craftiest minds in politics are at work—for the
people should know that many men in both parties
who are held up to them as models of public ser
vants and skillfully portrayed as statesmen are in
reality the enemies of this movement, and so the
bet ravers of the people.
I do not mean that all of them are consciously
so. Many of them, raised in the old school of poli
tics. really believe that this whole movement is noth
ing more than a form of popular insanity. They say
privately that “we art 1 in a period of hysteria.’’
They honestly think that this era of reform is a
fantastic, wicked nightmare. Who has not heard
these men earnestly (but privately always private
ly) denounce Roosevelt as a harlequin and a dema
gogue. though on the stump and before the people
they will praise Roosevelt and Roosevelt's policies?
Xow and then a man like Chancellor Day, of Syra
cuse ( Diversity, has tin l courage to say quite openly
, what these others say quite privately. Other courag
eous men like ex-Governor Black, of Xew York,
sneak with contempt about “the man on the barrel
head.’’ But these bold ones are not so dangerous
to reform as the (‘rattier and more cowardly ones
who confine their criticism to private utterance and
in public declare themselves “in line with the move
ment,” and who. concealing their real opinions,
await the day when they can turn back the hands
of the clock of time.
All these men the kings of finance who respect
not the rights of the* great mass of ordinary and
honest business men; tin* great interests that refuse
Io recognize the new ethics of business which com
mand them to consider the welfare of the people;
their paid lawyers, who invent cunning arguments
to show that all the laws we propose are unconsti
tutional; and most dangerous of all. the politician
of the old school who believes the whole movement
to be nothing more than a spasm—all these are
uniting to fight the movement. Sometimes they
voice their purpose publicly in most plausible phrase.
For example, we hear it said that “we should do no
more until we see how that which we have already
dom* will work.” But what would you think of a.
man who, when you were building a house, would
tell you to stop and live in it and see how you
liked it before the plaster was on the walls, the win
dows in their frames or the roof shingled?
I do not think that this historic movement will
be turned back. It has been checked, it is true; for
the moment it is almost at a standstill; but it will
gather new force again and sweep forward till it is
done. There were times during the Civil War when
the best of men grew faint of heart and said: “Let
the erring sisters go;” and in the midst of that con
flict a great national party actually adopted a plat
form which declared that the war was a failure.
There were times, such as the winter at Valley
Forge, when our war for independence seemed cer
tain of failure. Indeed, a whole paper might be
written showing how in every movement like the
present, in this and other countries, it seems that
the end had come before the move had accomplished
its work, but always the people themselves were
renewed from On High, their hearts were strength
ened. and they went forward tdl their work was
done.