The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-02


support. made a memorable speech IN
opposition. McDougall began by saying
that the first great miracle worked oy
Christ was converting water into wine at
the wedding feast Of Cana. He said that
after Noah was able TO leave the ark the
first thing he did was to plant the vine;
he claimed that every great poet from
Homer down had digniied the use OF
wine; that every great philosopher had
used it for the exaitation OF his inteiiI-
gence. He quoted from Plato's sympo-
SUM the description Of six days drink
ing bout, when after q philosophical de-
bate on the love of the beautiful ''they
agreed to drink, and agreed that Socrates
should drink two measures to every other
mans one, because he was better able to
stand it. And so, one after another they
were laid down on the lounges after the
true Athenian style; all except an old
physician named Aristodemus. and Plato
made him the hardest headed fellow ex-
cept Socrates. He and Socrates stuck at
it till the grey of dawn, and then Soc
rates took bath and went down TO the
grove and talked academic knowledge"
McDougall closed his extraordinary
speech as follows:
Do you remember that Lord Bacon said q man
ought 10 get drunk once a month at least and
that Montague, the French philosopher, IN
dorsed the proposition? Mr.. President, these
exaltsnts that bring Us up above the cLmmon
level of the brute-oil and wine, elevate us
enable US to seize great facts, inspirations,
those who never 60 beyond the mere beastly
means of animal enjoyment never live in the
high planes of life. and cannot achieve them. /
believe in women, wine, whisky and war.
McDougall died victim to his insane
worship of Bacchus, as did Senator Yates,
of Illinois. Nevertheless, the number Of
American statesmen who have been in
temperate has been very few compared
with the leaders of English public life.
None of the presidents Of the United
States was ever charged with intemper-
ance while in Office, save Andrew john
son, although Pierce and Grant had both
been at times incorporate in private life
None of our vice presidents was ever
charged with inebriety. William 81. Craw-
ford, of Georgia, candidate for president
in 1924, died of softening of the brain, con-
sequent upon alcoholism. Silas Wright.
the great Democratic statesman of New
York, shortened his life by his intemper-
ance. Webster was charged with intem-
perance. but, as he lived to be 20 years of
age and did some excellent work the last
year of his life, it is probable that his
political enemies exaggerated his vices.
His biographer, George Ticknor Curtis.
denies that the great Massachusetts, states
man was intemperate; declares that his
home habits were abstemious; that it was
only at public banquets and during politi-
cal campaigns. when Webster was forced
to speak to petty sentiments, that he took
stimulants freely to make the great wheels
of his intellectual engine revolve.
AS whole, our American public men
have very few of them been guilty of the
deep drinking that was almost universal
among English contemporary statesmen.
Seward was always convivial man; Til
den's invalidism made the use of stimu-
lants necessary, land Senator Edmunds
inherited tendency to consumptive habit
which led him early in his professional
career to consider the moderate use of
stimulants . necessary indulgence. SEN
ator Thurman, long the colleague of
Senator Edmunds on the judiciary COM
mittee, was q man of convivial habits, for
which, however, he never assigned any
other excuse than that offered by Matthew
Arnold, who bluntly confessed that he
drank wine at dinner because cit made
life more agreeable TO him and did not
disagreeabIy affect the comfort of any of
his fellow men,"