Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1901-09-11

would laughingly invite and challenge the
youngsters so soonSto shed. the gray and
wear the blue to drink with them again
and again. I 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.-
Il 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
T that so 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
Twas 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 I had worn the gray. at the
Point. fell by the wayside and were court
martiaied out of service. .'~ 3
SIN 10 and ~ 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 Hto develop at the Point. 1t was no
longer joke to set fiedgling officer to
taste the tempter|it was crime. Four
years after I was commissioned we had
one total abstainer out Of some 50 officers
at the mess, and he was man whose life
and honor depended on 1t. Three years
ago, when I went to see you, th0re were
dozens at the mess who never drank at all,
only eight who even smoked. Athletics and
rifle practice had much to do with this,
I know, but there has gradually developed
all over our land, notably in those commu-
Mt .Vuh he 70 ~
honored In the observance, a total revul-
sion of sentiment. 1879 ..1.
"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. 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 Tar more total abb
stainers than all the Others in the world.
and such soldiers as Grant, Crook, Merritt
and Upton, of our service, and Kitchener
sof KhartouIn, are on record as saying that
the staying powers of the teetotaller,exceed
those even OF the temperate man, and
staying power Is q thing to cultivate. | 7
s s.55 AS YOU know; have never bantshed
wine from our table; my boy. Both your
mother and / had been accustomed to Gee
!. ing 1t IA daily use from childhood, yet she
srarely touches it,Seven at our dinners. But,
Sanford, seft John Barleycorn to the
right about the day your blessed mother
promised to- be my wife, and though I all
ways kept 1t in the sideboard for old COM
sades whose heads and stomachs are still
sound, and who find It agrees with them
<1oo
youngsters. They don I need It. Sandy, and
/ no moresdo you. 555 sz 8,5
s- But you come Of q race that lived as
Z did their fellow men-to5 whom cards, the
bottle and betting were everyday Affairs.
4 Il would be remarkable Il you never de-
veloped tendency towards one or all
OF them. and II was my duty toI warn you
before u III mourn every hour = wasted over
cards and every dollar ever won from q
comrade more than much more than-the
many huldreds dollars lost IN my sey-
ssEal yeazs apprent icsship to poker. r. rs