The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-25
CAUSES PROMOTING soBRIETY.

During the past ten years it is very evil
dent that many of those who believed that
prohibition is the only method for eradicat-
ing intemperance have been modifying their
views to some extent. The dwindling of the
vote of the party devoted to national pro-
hibition shows that such is the case. 1t is
not often, however, that prohibitionist
goes to the other extreme and opposes
every restrictive measure upon the sale
and consumption of intoxicants The Rev
John S. Duss, head of the Harmony So
ciety, of Pittsburg, is one of the excep-
tons. He was a prohibitionist who has
labored long and earnestly in the cause;
now he is advocate of the freest and
cheapest drink which will intoxicate After
protracted investigation, Mr.. Duss has
come to the conclusion that much of the
temptation to drink comes from the diff
ficulty of getting liquor, and that by the
making Of whisky as common as lemonade,
or even as water, the interests of sobriety
would be subserved Mr. Duss has the cam
dor to aver that his mother-in-law opened
his eyes to the truth by remarking that
when she was a girl in Illinois there was
a dstillery in nearly every other house
and yet she rarely saw a drunken man,
though there was keg of whisky on tap
in nearly every house and a dipper hang
ing over it so that it could be used as freely
as water. Mr.. Duss would have the inter-
nal revenue law repealed in the interest of
total abstinence, on the ground that when
whisky is worth but ten or twenty cents
a gallon it will be so common that few
will drink it. 1t is the law which now
gives whisky value, and license makes the
sale a sort of a monopoly. 1t is, he thinks
the gilded saloon, with it's attractive sur
roundings, which makes drinking a social
habit. If whisky were free of tax and there
were no license to restrict the sale, the
business would be conducted in places in
which there would be no attractions, and
the price would be so low that the social
habit of treating would come to an erld
since asking friend to take a drink would
be equivalent to an invitation TO join in
eating an apple or in the division of a pack
age of chewing gum. Mr.. Duss makes the
further point that when whisky is so cheap
there will be no incentive to adulterate it,
and thus the poisonous compounds which
craze men would disappear
Mr.. Dusss conclusions are at variance
with those of men in this State who declare
that the general abstinence of so large a
part of the people on the farms of Indiana
is due more to the high price of whisky
which came with the taxation of the war
than to any other cause. Il can remem-
ber," said a prominent business man in this
city not long since, that before the war
farmers brought ten-gallon kegs to get
supply of whisky just as they purchased
other supplies. The price was twenty or
twenty-five cents gallon. After the tax
was imposed on whisky, which made the
price during the war nearly g a gallon,
the farmers purchased very little and after
a time few purchased any. The high price
Of whisky has done more to promote alb
stinence than any other influence" There
is reason in what the business man said
but the one great force which has made
abstinence so general and actual drunken
ness so limited is the fact that nobody will
or can afford to employ a man of intemper-
ate habits. The machinery of business and
industry is so complicated and competition
so sharp that no prudent business man will
employ a person who is cursed with the
habit OF intemperance. More than all law,
than temperance societies or the high price