Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-06-27
ARE HARD. DRINKERS
Many Congressman Indulge Too
Freely in Wet Goods.
Total Abstainers Are Few and Far
Between-Interestin Talk with
an Old Washington Hotel
Clerk.
Especial Washington letter.
HAT man is one of our most

valuable guests, although
he only pays $40 per
month";" said a hotel clerk, pointing
to one of the older members of the
house of representatives. Continu-
ing he said:
THE proprietor was very angry
with me when told him the low rate
I had made, and insisted that should
change it to SIS per month. I told
him that I knew my business as a
room clerk better than he did. That
man spends upwards of 800 each
month at our bar, buying drinks for
himself and for his friends.
HE is a strange sort of man, and l
knew exactly how to take him when
he came asking for rates last Novem-
Der. I had entertained him at an
other hotel. He is stingy about his
room and board, and stingy about his
clothing, always having a cheap tailor
or buying ready-made clothes but he
is a spendthrift when it comes to
gratifying his appetite for whisky.
Moreover, he wants jolly drinking
fellows around him, and he treats the
crowds, no matter how big they may
be-" Then, swelling himself with
pride and conceit, the clerk said:
There are very few hotel clerks
who have the sense to think of the
bar room and billiard room in max
ing rates for their guests. I'd rather
take in drinking man at low
rate, than a temperance man at u
high rate. There is more profit in
liquor than in food and hence it's
better for the house to have guests
of that sort. The boss realizes that
now, and he lets me make rates to
suit myself for the guests, because l
know all of the congressman, and
nearly all other public men, and
know their appetites.'
The member of congress who has
the distinction of being pointed out
as a statesman who spends money
enough for whisky every month to
support a small family in luxury has
been sent to the national house of
representatives again and again by
his constituents, until he is now
regarded as one of the foremost men
of his party, and his whisky-soaked
brain has had much to do with the
legislation of this republic.
The speaker of the house of repre-
ScHtdtI| WIOIOS power,
some respects, than any other man
in our republic. And yet the writer
has seldom seen that power con-
ferred upon any man whose brain is
entirely and absolutely free from al
coholic contamination. The growth
of the temperance spirit in our land
will continue until public sentiment
will make ineligible to high Office any
man whose thinking machinery is
made abnormal by alcohol.
For little more than quarter of
a century the writer has watched ma
tional legisla ton, and in all of that
time there has been but one chair
man of the committee on ways and
means who was absolutely free from
alcohol influence, and that was Mel
son DingleS, of Maine. And yet The
chairman of that committee is the
man upon whom primarily depends
all legislation concerning the raising
of revenue for the expenses of our
great and growing government.
Speaking out of experience, and out
of the recollections of those who have
been here for half century, it may
be added that Nelson Dingley was
the only absolutely non-alcoholic