Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-01-31
BOOZE At PRINCETON.
President Patton Discusses the Matter
at Length.

Ih1nkS Liquor IS MOI OSed 10 EXCESS
as Generally as Formerly, But
Agrees to the Proposition That
There is Too Much Moderate
Drinking" for the Good Of Stu
dents or School.
Princeton, N. j., January 30.-A few
days ago President Francis L. Patton
announced that he would address the
undergraduate body to-day upon the
subject Of temperance. At conse-
quence Marquand Chapel was crowded
at o'clock to-day. In the audience
were several signers of the Princeton
Inn liquor license. among them Grover
Cleveland Prof. Charles Woodruff
Shields, whose resignation from the
Presbyterian church was caused by
criticism growing out of his signing
the petition, and Prof. Charles Greene
lockwood. DR.. Patton said
''At their meeting in October the
attention of the trustees was turned
to the recent agitation which has SO
seriously involved the good name of
Princeton University. A committee
was appointed to
CONSIDER THE WHOLE SUBJECT
and report at subsequent meeting
OF the trustees That report was pre-
sented and adopted at a meeting held
on the Esd of December 1t was re-
solved that a strict, literal and i'm
partial enforcement of the existing
law respecting intoxicating drinks be
enjoined upon the faculty and that
the president Of the University be
asked to make a statement to the stu
dents on the whole question.
Il bear testimony to the high moral
tone of the students of this Univer-
sity.
Il know that they have been mis-
represented and misunderstood. Their
hilarity, their boisterous outbursts of
eXuberance, their songs, which often
have a more bacchanalian sound than
I would wish, and in some instances
their ineXcusable acts of wrong doing,
have produced impressions which the
facts will not justify; and they have
on many occasions been charged with
drunkenness for no other reason than
garious instinct which sometimes as
sumes an almost irrational mode of
expression, animal spirits have been
allowed too much freedom, and speech
and action have not been kept within
those metes and bounds which mature
men in the busy walk Of life are apt
to associate with sobriety.
But there was
NEVER LESS REASON
for adverse criticism of Princeton than
during the period in which it has
been so unsparingly bestowed upon us.
| have taken pains to find out the
truth and | am still mistaken in my
conviction that the tendency in Prince
ton is steadily in the direction of a
diminished use of alcoholic drinks
Still | must not be blind to the
fact, and after making all allowance
for willful misrepresentation or mis-
take, / am constrained to believe that
there is far more of what is called
moderate drinking among us than the
wisest and best friends of Princeton
could wish, and there are those among
you who are putting their future in
peril by the excessive use of intoxicat-
ing drink.
"There is nothing unnatural in the
desire of the trustees for a vigilant
enforcement of what has for many
years been the law of the University
in regard to alcoholic liquors. While
I am in full sympathy with your feel
ings that the University man is not to
be treated as though he were in a
preparatory school, | am ready to take
my
FULL SHARE OF RESPONSIBILITY
for the report, which, as chairman OF
the committee dealing with the ques-
ton. made to the Board of Trustees.
There are two classes of men whom
7 have particularly in mind; those who
have already fallen into Incorporate
habits and those who are in danger of
forming those habits. Drunkenness
is practically an objectionable sin in
our academic life. 1t must be under
stood that a man cannot be guilty of
repeated acts of intoxication and con-
tinue in this University if his offense
is known to the authorities.
81 wish more particularly, however,
to say a kindly word to those who are
understood to be moderate drinkers
If any duty is intuitively given us in
consciousness it is temperance. | mean
the duty CT self-control. Let me eau
ton you, then, against the habits
which nut Self-c0ntrOl in nerjI "