River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-03-12
A Lesson to the Nations Lawmakers.
(By Rev. DR.. James B. DUNN
Copyright, 1922
Continued from last week.)

ana degrees, from corporation and
college dinners, with their semi
pagan toastS and alcoholic h1larity,
down to the plain come boys let's
treat" in a low saloon. In the
tenement and White House they
have been honored and cherished.
They have identified themselves
with our most common avOcatlonS,
with all the civilities, transactions
and epochs of life, they have en-
twined themselves around the heart
and led captive the understanding
of the wise and the good. Every
event of general interest is signal
lied with drinking-the acknowl
edgment of important services, the
celebration of great events, all ac-
companied with great dinners,
where the wine cup plays the most
important part, and it is in the OBJ
servance of these customs when too
frequently the appetite for liquor is
originated. They constitute the
school for drunkenness. But for
their existence intemperance would
have no place among our social
vices. A man may drink apart and
alone, when he has become intern
perate, but few learn the art Of
drinking apart and alone.
IT'S true, there are those who
may drink on such occasions with
comparative safety to themselves.
The story is told of an artist who
had some trouble in discovering a
head for a drunken tinker which he
wished to introduce into a picture.
At length he found cobbler that
he thought would suit when we'll
primed with liquor, SO he set him in
his studio in the proper attitude,
with a bottle of gin beside him and
permission to drink whenever he
pleased. The bottle Of gin was
soon emptied, but the cobbler con-
tinued as sober as judge; another
bottle was brought and emptied,
with no better result. Be OFF,
cried the artist in a passion; it
will cost more to make you drunk
than the picture will fetch" Now,
while some at the Washington ban
quet may have been as drink proof
as the cobbler, there was one con-
gresham who could not indulge
with like success. With him it was
certain ruin, and doubtless, though
his name is not given, he was of a
warm, open, generous tempera-
ment, as such are most liable to
become victims of social indulg
ence.
But, it is asked, how can one be
hospitab1e? How can he receive,
and, still more, give hospitality,
without partaking of intoxicants?
Why, the mere fact that you find
such difficulty in giving and TAX
ing hospitality without the use of
liquors shows there is something
rotten in the social state"
This absurd idea of hospitality
being, as the chemists say, "solu
bic only in alcohol" is the strong
est fiber in the strong root of ma
tional intemperance-the drinking
custom-and it must be severed.
"You cannot enjoy yourself other
wiser" Does your enjoyment, then,
depend on animal spirits, or alco-
holic spirits? Is it reality of the
mind or only fiction of the bottle?
You cannot show your kindness
and friendship otherwise?" Is it
either kind or friendly to put an
enemy into your neighbor's mouth
to steal away his brains? To press
upon him that which he does not
need, and which, by an inexorable
law of nature, will consequently, if
taken, injure him?
In giving hospitality there need
be no practical difficulty. Keep
spirits" for the medicine chest
alone, and have no alcoholics on
the table.
Why tempt your friends by plac-
ing Intoxicating drink before them?
You would not offer them digitalis
or prussic acid, and why give them
what is just as much poison, and
may be more destructive? Give
your friend prussic acid and he will
die at once-the suffering will be
short, the tale soon told-but give
him alcohol and you may cherish or
call forth a taste which will torment
him with indigestion, unnerve and
para1yze his powers, excruciate him
with govt, and bring him slowly to
the grave; but not perhaps until he
has sacrificed his property, his
character, his friends, his soul.
Drinking practices would be COM
paratively free from harm were they