Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1905-03-04
THE SOCIAL DRINKER
a PROMISING CANDIDATE FOR THE
iNEBRIATES' HOME.

The serpent In the Occasional Wine
Cup No Less Deadly Than the Adder
I'm the Continuously Flowing Bowl.
n Social Curse.
Personal opinion is largely a matter
Of education and environment. No
where perhaps is this fact more strong
ly emphasized than in the conflicting
beliefs regarding the liquor question.
In broad and general manner it
must be conceded that all respectable
people believe in sobriety. But all re-
spectacle people do not see the impor-
lance of total abstinence.
Those who have been reared in homes
where wine is served as a matter of
ordinary hospitality see nothing oh
jectionable in such a practice, or il
they do it has too many adherents
among the rich and powerful to occa-
sion much criticism. The thing we are
accustomed to we accept without argu-
ment. The custom that is sanctioned
by social usage is too often adopted
without question.
All this of course. refers TO drinking
in 50 called moderate and harmless
way. Wine is thought by many to
give dash of brlliance and old world
splendor to Il festive occasion, 1t is ex-
pected to promote sociability and pro-
vide an element of wit and sparkle
But the hostess who serves ii does not
expect her guests to use her hospitality
as an excuse for inebriety. She may
consider young man weak if he can
not drink in moderation, but she GER
tainly despises him if he drinks to ex-
cess.
There may be a touch of incongruity
about the method that sets a ball roll
ing and then cavils because il keeps
on till it gets to the bottom of the hill.
But ii illustrates even more strongly
one great fact of these strenuous times
that sobriety is necessity. 1t is not
only n duty in the broadcast and most
comprehensive sense. but it is an abso-
lutte necessity if one would reach any
thing like the best results of which he
is capable. Business requirements de-
mand il, and social position echoes the
demand. for those who are most lavish
with wines ut their own table are of
ten the first to ostracize an offender.
Sometimes the offender Is one of the
most brilliant members of some eXclu-
Sive circle. Alcohol is Il great con-
noiSSeur where victims are concerned.
1t chooses the brightest and best And
many woman who unwittingly has
helped to cause some other mothers
sorrow sits i'm loneliness and suffers the
agony of heartbreaking grief because
her own gifted boy is drunkard.
No one starts out deliberately to be-
come nm incbriate. but it is only n little
way from tie good fellow" who takes
n social glass with his friends TO the
poor drunbard who has no friends-or
at least none outside of his own family
for usually there is faithful wife
who is begs ing an | pleading with him.
or there is Il heartbrollen mother who
is praying and hoping that some time
the tide may turn. and often there are
little chldrepsTho family understand
the blight on their young lives. Such
devotion speaks well for what a man
must have been before whisky gained
control of his life
Whisky is Il great despoiler. Those
who see Il man only after he has come
under its power have but n faint CON
ception of the changes ii has wrought.
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