Waterbury Democrat., 1901-04-18

Il for It is the other--your giving way to I an impulse to drink-that fills me with | concern. You come up like a man. ad-
 init your fault, and say you deserve and
 thought it all over. Sandy. My heart and ! my arms go out to you in your distress and
 humiliation, and-I have not one word | of reproach or blame to give you.
 For now shall tell you what had | thought to say when your graduation drew
 nigh, had we been able to master me- l chanics and molecules and other mathe-
 nautical rot not as useful to cavalry off, | cer as 9 binocular to a blind man, and that I ought to have told you when you start. I ed out for yourself as young ranchero,
 but could not bring myself to it so long
 as you seemed to have no inclination that
 way. Times, men, and customs have great I Iy changed in the last 40 or 50 years, my
 boy, and greatly for the better. Looking
 back over my boyhosd, can recall no day
 when wine was not served on your grandfa-
 ther's table. The brightest minds and I bravest men ;n all Kentucky pledged each other day and night iE. the cup that some l times cheers and ofttines inebriates, and
 no public occasion was complete without I champagne and whisky in abundance, no
 personal or private transaction considered suspicious unless appropriately wet
 '.Those were days when our statesmen I raveled in sentiment and song. and drank and gambied with the fervor of the fol- 1 lowers of the racss. was boy of ten- | l mates, I was called from our merry games | to join the gentlemen over their wine and drain a bumper to our glorious Harry of | the Vest and before went to the Point, I Sandy, I knew the best, and possibly the | worst, whiskys made in Kentucky-we all 1 did-and the man or youth who could not l stand his glass of liquor was looked upon as milksop, or pitIed, and yet, after all. | respected, as tsinged eat'-a fellow who
 owned that John Barleycorn was too much | for him, and he did not dare single round
 with him.
 | Then came the great war, and wars are | always in one way demoralizing. West | Point in the early sixties was utterly unlike | the West Point of to-day, and no worse
 than dozen of our greatest colleges. Tha l corps still had its tales and traditions of
 the old-tirne Fourth of July dinners at the mess hall. when everybody made dash I for the decanters and drank everything in ] sight It was the only day in the year I On which wine was served. It was in my I time the invariable custom for the super l intendent to receive the board of visitors I on the day of their arrival at his quarters l and to invite the officers and the graduat- I ing class to meet them, and to set forth, l as for years had been the fashion at Wash- I ington, wine and punch in abundance and | the very officers detailed as our instructors I would laughingly invite and challenge the | youngsters so soon to shed the gray and l wear the blue to drink with them again and again. have seen doZsas of the best l and brayest of our fellows come reeling
 and shouting back to barracks and
 thoughtless set of boys laughing and ap- l plauding. F
 q was stationed at the Point soon after l graduation and the men who drank were
 the rule, not the exception. Social visits | were rarely exchanged without the intro- l duction of the decanter. The marvel is l that so many were temperate in our meat | and drink as my father and grandfather
 used to plead when, regularly every morn- 1 ing, the family and the negro servants were mustered for prayers. At every post where 1 I was stationed, either in the east or where 1 I was most at home-the far frontier | whisky was the established custom, and | man after man, fellows who had made fine l records during the war. and bright boys with whom had worn the gray at the 1 Point. fell by the wayside and were court. martialed out of service.
 "In 70 and II we had q board that swept I the army like seine, and relegated scores | of tipplers to civil life. but that didn't 1 stop it. Little by little the sense and man. 1 hood of our people. began to tell. Little
 by little the feeling against stimulant be- I gan to develop at ths Point. It was no 1 longer a joke to set hedgIing officer to taste the tempter-it was crime. Four l years after I was commissioned we had | one total abstainer out of some 50 officers I at the mess, and he was man whose life l and honor depended it. Three years ! ago. when went to see you, there were | dozens at the mess who never drank at all, l only eight who even smoked. Athletics and | rifle practice had much to do with this, I l know, but there has gradually developed l all over our land, notably in those cornmu- i mites where the custom used to be most l honored in the observance, a total revul- l siol of sentiment
 Quarter of s century ago even among | many gently nurtured women the sight of 1 a man overcome by liquor excited only
 sorrow and sympathy; now it commands | nothing less than abhorrence. I and my | surviving contemporaries started in life | under the old system. You. my dear boy, 1 are more fortunate in having begun with ] the new. Among tn old soldiers there are | still some few votarfes of Bacchus who l have to count their cups most carefully | or risk their commissions. Among those | under 90 our army has far more total ab-
 stainers than all tn others in the world. | and such soldiers as Grant, Crook Merritt l and Upton, of our service, and Kitchener ] of Khartoun, are on record saying that | the staying powers of the teetota1ler exceed l those even of the temperate man, and 1 staying power is thing to cultivate.
 ..As you know, I have never banfshed l wine from our table, my boy. Both your | mother and had been accustomed to see | ing it in daily use from childhood, yet she 1 rarely touches it, even at our dinners. But, ] Sanford, sent John Barieycorn to the | 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 1 better than wine, 1 never offer it to the 1 youngsters. They don't need it, Sandy. and l no more do you.
 "But you come of race that lived aa did their fellow nen--to whom cards, the l bottle and betting were everyday affairs. 1 It would be remarkable if you never de- l ve1oped a tendency towards one or ali | of them, and 1t was my duty to warn you l before. I mourn every hour wasted over | cards and every dollar ever won from l comrade more than-mueh more than--the | many hundred dollars I lost in my sew 1 eral years apprenticeship to poker. It's 1 just about the poorest investment of time l a soldier can devise
 i l''Knowing all do, and looking back over i the path of my life, strewn as 1t is with l the wrecks of fellow men ruined by whisky. | declare if I could live it over again it | would be with the determination never tc l touch a card for money or glass for liquor l .'Anc now. my own boy. let me bear the i blame of this--your first transgression. l You are more to us than we have ever told 1 you. You are TOW your sisters guardian 1 and knight, for, though she goes under the | wing of Mrs. Dr. Wells, and owing to her | intense desire to take a woman's part We i could not deny her, both your mother and l are filled with anxiety as to the result. ] To you We look to be her shield in every | possible way. We have never ceased to l thank God for the pride and joy He has