The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1901-10-04

and to invite the officers and the gradual
ing class to meet them, and to set forth.
as for years had been the fashion at Wash
ington, wine and punch in abundance. and
the very officers detailed as our Instructors
would laughingly invite and challenge the
youngsters so soon to shed the gray and
wear the blue to drink with them again
and again. ] have seen dozens of the best
and bravest of our fellows come Keeling
and shouting back to barracks and q
thoughtless set of boys laughing and ap-
plauding.
81 was stationed at the Point soon after
graduation. and the men who drank were
the rule. not the exception. Social visits
were rarely exchanged without the intro
duction of the decanter. The marvel is
that many were temperate in our meat
and drink as my father and grandfather
used to plead when, regularly every morn
ing. the family and the negro servants were
mustered for prayers. AT every post where
was stationed, either in the east or where
was most at home-the far frontier
whisky was the established custom, and
man after man. fellows who had made fine
records during the war. and bright boys
with whom l had worn the gray at the
Point. fell by the wayside and were court
inartialed out of service.
I'm 10 and II we had board that swept
the army like seine, and relegated scores
of tipplers to civil life. but that didn't
stop it. Little by little the sense and man.
hood of our people began to tell Little
by little the feeling against stimulant be-
gan to develop at the Point. 1t was no
longer joke to set f1edgling officer to
taste the tempter-it was a crime. Four
years after / was commissioned We had
one total abstainer out of some so officers
at the mess, and he was man whose life
and honor depended on it. Three years
ago, when l went to see you, thaCe were
dozens at the mess who never drank at all.
only eight who even smoked. Athletics and
n with
know, but there has gradually developed
all over our land, notably in those commu-
mites where the custom used to be most
honored In the observance, total revu!-
sion of sentiment.
Quarter of a century ago even among
many gently nurtured women the sight of
man overcome by liquor excited only
sorrow and sympathy; now it commands
nothing less than adherence. 1 and my
surviving contemporaries started in life
under the old system. You, my dear boy,
are more fortunate in having begun with
the new. Among the old soldiers there are
still some few vOtarieS of Bacchus who
have to count their cups most carefully
or risk their commissions. Among those
under 40 our army has far more total alb
stainers than all the others in the world
and such soldiers as Grant, Crook, Merritt
and Upton, of our service, and Kitchener
of Khartoum, are on record as saying that
the staying powers of the teetotalIer exceed
those even OIL the temperate man, ana
staying power is a thing to cultivate.
LAS you know, 1 have never banished
wine from our table, my boy. Both your
mother and / had been accustomed to see
ing it in daily use from childhood, yet she
rarely touches it, even at our dinners. But,
Sanford, 1 sent John Barieycorn to 'he
right about the day your blessed mother
promised to be my wife, and though al
ways kept it in the sideboard for old COM
rades whose heads and stomachs are still
sound, and who find it agrees with them
better than wine. 1 never offer it to the
youngsters. They don't need it, Sandy, and
no more do you.
But you come of a race that lived as
old their fellow men-to whom cards, the
bottle and betting were everyday affairs
1t would be remarkable If you never de-
veloped a tendency towards one or all
of them, and it was my duty to warn you
| before. 1 mourn every hour I wasted over
cards and every dollar I ever won from q
comrade more than-much more than-the
many hundred dollars I lost in my sew
eral years apprenticeship to poker. It's
just about the poorest investment of time
a soldier can devise.
knowing all do, and looking back over
the path of my life, strewn as it is with
the wrecks of fellow-men ruined by whisky
I declare if I could live it over again il