The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-08-31
Temperance Reading.
THE MILL AND THE STILL.

dant an article Of commerce is grain,
and so naturally is one associated with
the other, that we scarcely ever give
the subject of cereals as a source of
liquor the consideration it deserves. To
the average individual corn and grain
mean food, and chiefly bread; and to
assert to such one that grain is as
great a curse as it is blessing is almost
invariably to call forth both surprise
and indignation.
And yet it is true. Corn, typical of
all grain, according to its subsequent
treatment, according to the process to
which it is subjected, comes forth. from
mil or still, a blessing or a curse bread
or liquor. Both children of common
mother, the Cain and Abel of post
cereal life, they differ as essentially in
every characteristic as do two human
beings; the one bringing health,
strength and happiness to even the
humblest homes, the staple food of all
nations, the basis of all nourishment;
the other, save in very rare instances
and under peculiar circumstances. an
unmitigated curse, bearing disease, dis
honor and even death into thousands of
homes, blasting fair young lives, blunt
ing every good attribute of mind and
soul, prostituting honor, honesty and
integrity, deadening conscience, incit-
ing to crime, leading to rags, squalor
and starvation, manning the gallows,
peopling she poor-house, crowding the
courts and filing the prisons.
To it may be justly ascribed nine
tenths of all crime, suicide, poverty and
prostitution; from its deadly seed
spring idiocy and insanity. Through
its agency family ties are sundered,
promising lives engulfed in debt and
dishonor, friends and secrets ruthlessly
betrayed, hopes and ambitions blasted,
and Gods masterpiece of creation
man himself-made bloated wreck.
In no sense a food, alcohol will Deith-
er impart nourishment nor sustain life;
but, on the contrary, its use invites,
causes and complexities disease, both
organic and functional, poisons the
blood and tissues, weakens the muscles,
disorders the nervous system, and de-
StroyeS the mind and faculties.
How marked the contrast between
the two! the one in every sense life-giv-
ing, happiness-bestowing, body-nour-
ishing; the other essentially a destroyer
of all these, whose footsteps are invari-
ably accompanied by misery, despair
and dishonor. Yet the difference is but
a step-simply one of degree. The
Toured grain, moistened and kneaded,
leavened with a touch of yeast, COM
menees to ferment. The starch of the
flour, through the agency of the yeast,
breaks down into alcohol and carbonic
acid gas, the latter penetrating every
par5 of the loaf, and making it light
and spongy. Then comes the heat of
the oven just at the proper moment,
killing the yeast germs, putting a sud-
den stop to all fermentation, and giving
us the brown and fragrant loayes Of
bread.
Huge tanks and watts in which thou
sands of bushels of grain are soaking
The same leavening of the mass, the
same fermentation and breaking down
of the starch into carbonic acid and al
cohol, but so treated and favored that
the latter is yielded in the largest posi-
BILE amount. No restraining hand of
heat to limit the process at the point
where food ends and liquor begins, but
every endeavor made to obtain the lat
ter. Then the gaping nav of the still,
and the serpentine coil pouring forth
its steady stream of liquor, man. worst
enemy. Liquor is simply one step be-
yond bread in the same chemical pro-
cess, yet how widely, terribly different
in their effects upon man!
" / was made to be eaten and not to be drank
TO be husked in barn, not soaked in a tank.
I come as blessing when put in a mill;
AS blight and curse when run through a
still.
Make me I'm into loaves, and your children
are fed,
But into drink, will starve then instead.
In bread I'm servant the eater shall rule;
In drink I'm master, the drinker fool.
Then remember my warning-my strength
If eaten to strengthen, if drank to destroy"
The subject under discussion is a very
wide one. Not only must we consider
the evil that liquor does, but the waste
of all the million bushels of good grain
that would otherwise be made into food
that it takes to feed the stills and pro-
duce the alcohol, or the thousands OF
acres of fertile land devoted to it's cult
walton that might be far better used in
raising other foods if the demand for
alcohol Qiquor) did not exist. To how
many destitute men and women and
cherries homes would their products
yield plenty and happiness!
Economically, we must consider the
millions of wasted lives, the impover-
ished, beggared and starving families,
the resulting crime, and the army of
paupers, lunatics and criminals, the
heavy taxation that is required to sup
port the prisons, hospitals, lunatic asy-
lums and alms-houses, as well as the
fact that the wages and the results of
the industry of all these inebriates are
lost to us, and that, were they steady,
sober, industrious men, would be add
ing to general trade and prosperity.
The sum thus lost and thus expended in
restraining and providing for these in
dividuals is enormous, aggregating bill
ions yearly.
Who that has looked out over the
acres of ripening grain, the stacks of
golden corn, the sheeted white of the
barley fields; who that has watched the
sturdy harvesters, the lusty, healthy
reapers shearing Mother Earth of her
bounteous crops; who that has joined
in the festivities of ''husking bee"-
can for a moment hesitate as to which
is the proper destination of the grain,
the mill or the still? How like sacrilege
it seems to throw such rich and golden
products, capable of Welding so much
strength and health and nourishment,
into the yawning mouth of the still, to
come forth poison and a destroyer!
From the quaint old mill, with its
whirring stones, its messy wheel and its
swiftly flowing stream, it passes to the
ends of the earth, carrying health,
strength, growth and nourishment to
old and young, rich and poor-to all a
blessing, to none curse. The hungry
laborer, the poor beggar, the chubby
faced golden-haired toddler with his
huge slice and buttered-fngers, the
wealthy banker and the houseless tramp,
all welcome and appreciate it.
The cooling rain, the bright cheerful
sunshine. the fertile fields, the grateful
dew, the busy hum of insect life, the
fragrance of the wild flower, the carol
of the robin, the melody of the harvest
er, the creak and plash of the old mill
uyhpnI-ava avnn tho ba,,Y,xy c,,,;la ~, tho