Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1902-05-10
THE MAN WHO DRINKS.
Al Put by Andrew Carnegie, There
IL No Place for Him Any
where.

No man to-day has the attention of
the world more than Andrew Car
negie. People not only wonder at
his gifts, they listen when he speaks.
He is not infallible, but his words
are extremely apt TO be weighted
with sagacious observations and prac-
teal wisdom.
"A drinking man." said Mr.. Car
negie, addressing company of Y.
NJ. c. \. railway men few days ago,
SHOULD have no place in railway
system; indeed, he should have no
place anywhere"
One of the compelling reasons why
Mr.. Carnegie has done and is doing
so much to multiply libraries all over
the country, is the fact that the free
public library, with the reading habit
which it creates, can be made SO pow
erful an offset to the ever-curseful
saloon.
If Mr.. Carnegie owned a railway
and was responsible for its manage
mept, he would make short work
with n drinking engineer, a drinking
conductor, with a drinking man up
in the switch-tower, or with a drink
ing man in the seat of the train dis
patcher. It would be n criminal
caSelessness that should tolerate
such a person in such a position.
Let some terrible disaster happen
as, also, too often such disasters
have happened through criminal care
lessness, and the public be made
, aware of the facts, the general de-
mand would be quick and incisive for
the enforcement of at least one form
of a prohibition law.
The foremost practical statesman
in France at the present time is
Premier Waldeck-Rousseau. He is a
patriot who sees that the worst peril
threatening his own country are not
foes from without but insidious foes
from within. There is no other coun-
try in the world where so much in
toxicating liquor is drunk per capita
as in France. Naturally, this fact is
awakening alarm. Said this French
statesman in a recent address: 1.-THE
common use of alcoholic drinks
threatens the perpetuity of the
race"
If. according to Mr.. Carnegie. "a
drinking man should have no place
in railway SYSTEM" where may he
go to find his own safe and accept
able place? Surely not in any de-
partment of our stupendously vast
and exacting industrial system of
the present day. The great trusts
of the time have, at the best, all they
can do ITO have and TO hold" the nee
essary confidence of the public to
keep them from tumbling into confu-
sion any unlucky moment. When
Charles Schwab the other day at
Monte Carlo, made a spectacle of
himself before the world as a pam-
bier, it was nowhere taken as a good
omen. Let it be generally known
that any OF these men placed at the
head of similar enormous financial
or industrial combinations, have be-
come drinking men, with unwhole-
some brains liable at any time to be
set on fire with some loosened inn
pulse or caprice, such carelessness
could not fail to be criminal.
In the January Fortnightly Re-
view, j. Holt Schooling makes a most
suggestive comparative study of the
drink bills of the United States, the
United Kingdom. Germany and
France. Bad as the drink habit in
the United States Is, the comparison
on the whole is strikingly in favor
of our country. Mr.. Schooling's con-
clusion of the whole matter is that,
from the mere plane of our national
industrial leadership, 1.-The developed
alertness and prompt energy of the
American may, it is quite likely, be
due in some part, to their relative
| abstinence from alcoholic drink"
Indeed, as Andrew Carnegie says,
drinking man should have no place
anywhere; least of all, in home
Union Signal.