The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-04

. Sadly the inebriate looks from tbs
hill top at the setting sun, for he mus
realize that he and his race must soor
follow that Iuminary and that fol
them there can be no dawn. no awak-
ening. The doom of the drunk is seal
ed. The greatest temperance move
ment the world has ever seen is now
in progress and before its memorable
advance everything must yield.
For centuries poets. wits, bon-vi-
wants and even some rather stately
philosophers have celebrated the viz
tues Of wine, which is simply polite
name for booze. Stern old st. Paul
slips in a kindly word for it and the
miracle of changing water into wine
is an incident that many good people
allude to uneasily Classical literature
reeks with the juice of the grape and
| it is very evident from this source that
contemporary society fairly wallowed
in alcoholic excesses-and felt proud of
il. Wherever we get a glimpse OF ev-
eryday life through the dark ages it
Is sure to be associated with wine,
wassail and drunken orgies. that not
uncommonly terminated in free fights
which on more than one occasion fur
nished material for history. Coming
down to our own times, say from the
beginning of the last century to al
most it's close, we find that the drink
ing habit was almost universal 'tAs
drunk as a lord was 10 unmeaning
figure of speech. It had it's origin and
solid foundation on facts that were
generally familiar. The gentleman that
didn't drink. who was a teetotaler. |
actually suffered socially and was |
looked down upon as a poor spirited |
fellow who would never make his ;
mark in the world At a dinner party, /
after the ladies retired to the drawing |
room, the male guests only too often |
into a generous competition as to /
which should consume the largest guam {
tity of liquor and work up to a proper 7
state of gaiety before adjourning TO |
the upper regions. It was not regard
ed as an offense or especially disgrace i;
full to call on a lady in more or less
advanced state OF intoxication; on the
contrary, such an incident was made
fun and charitable persifiage. The old
Southern gentlemen gained a great
for dallying with the bottle,
which they earned honestly enough,
doubtless, but not pre-eminently for
they only drank a little more openly
than others. The practise ran through
all polite society, by which I do not
mean the negligible quantity repre-
tod 1,rry H@.7$ l
'essional classes, the commercial and
business circles, the mon of large at
airs in the worlds esteem, who prac-
.ically set the pace for the rest of US.
And yet the voice of protest has
never been silenced. There were in
iuential Greeks and Romans who
poke and wrote in bitter indignation 1
It the drunken degeneracy of their !
lines. The early Christians cried out ]
n the wilderness against the abomin- I
tion of intemperance and through {
modern times we have 8
cen many earnest men and women, :
ways sincerely but not always with I
wisdom, giving up their very lives to I
he cause of sobriety and the morals t
hat usually go with it. Yet I think a
hat if nothing but moral questions I
ere involved, the combined forces OF r
'acchus. Gambrinus and John Barley
orn would win out handily now and >
/ the future, just as they have in the .
Ountless centuries past.
What makes the silent temperance
lovement of today so crushing and
'reSiStible is that for the first time
history it is causing the poor old | y
runk to be Disseminated against all
long the line. He is being shouldered $
out of the snug places
e used to occupy, he is given the L
iarble hand and CLASSY eye wherever y
e tries to break into new employment u
e is welcome nowhere outside of a q
arroom. Business men seem to be o
list waking wide up to the fact that a
lie man who comes to his desk in the p
orning, nursing a hold-over, is not a
cry reliable person to intrust with n
nportant affairs that may possibly re- b
lire sound judgment and at least ac- O
tracy. Lawyers found out some years e
go that the size of their fees were e
inverse proportion to their daily a
fps along the cocktail route and the Ii
st prominent physician who was m
al good fellow and a liberal patron ci
saloons passed away long ago. d
Tops, factories and, above all others, Ia
companies insist on a.
briefly among their employees and r.
tai abstinence among those holding e.
lportant jobs. The pleasant old GUS -
m of nursing DRINKS has gone en- -
ely out of vogue. Time was when =,
once valuable bank clerk who went -
'ong used TO be Systematically held -
by sympathetic superiors. That is q
say, no end of pains were taken to -
ep the erring one out of temptation 81
d after a prolonged spree the bank III
esident would send for him and APP -
al to his better nature in way that sd
'uld make a goat weep. There was ar
lot of real Christian charity about de
2 procedure but it wasn't business, ex
itch rules the world today. Now. a tn
unken clerk is thrown out of a bank no
commercial house as unceremoni- VII
sly as a dead cat, and a sober man ty
<es his place. ar
IF course, I am writing in a local no
" of conditions and changes as [ of
We seen them in California, but from on
I can gather the movement is quite a