Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-05
STICK TO THEIR OATHS

| II swore off seventytwo men on New
| Year eve." said a well-known notary pub
| lie. (which is just eleven more than l adj
| miulstered the swear-off oath to last year.
| I've been swearing off men for the past
| fourteen wears. and 1 am in a position to
state that a great many more OF the
| swearers-off stick to their resolution than
/ the newspaper jokers, harping on the
! swear-ofr gag. suppose
| "Out of the sixty-one fellows who look
| the oath here last New Year eve thirty-
| nine have stuck That. it seems to me, Is
| a pretty good showing. These thirty-nine
| all took the oath for a year, and l sup
! pose that good many of them nave
| fallen off the wagon, now that their year
| is up, and are suffering the pangs accom-
| panying big heads this morning. But those
that have fallen off the cart will be around
here to see me and swear on again Wllmn
the next few days, and my supply "a
swear-off blanks will be pretty well USED
| up before the beginning OF teDruary. me
men who get en- the wagon for year, only
! to fail off when their year is up seem ~
| imagine that they just naturally must get
off on a big jamboree at the end OF thelr
time to make up for their years abstinence;
! But they're always in such good phys,cai
shape after their years iet-up tnai wnel
| they do start again the old stuf1 1alrly khochs
| them endways, and when they get PACK 70
themselves they're SO sore ana penlee en-
| that they are mighty glad to get thelr NJ
lie swear-off for another year ON Fecofu.
! ..Of the remainder of the siXty-one whom
| \ sWore off last year. most of them lasted
| for several months. One OF them 1eli on
! the cart the very next Gay aItei .aAiiis
the GA tn with me, and then he came around
! here and wanted to swear OF again. out
l had to tell him to go elsewhere 10 put
| his name to blank. don't like 10 nave
| a man perjure himself in my ONCE more
| than once inside of two days. In tact'
| / try to be pretty certain that men VINO
| take the swear-off oath with me reaiiy
mean what they are about, ana that tneS
| have a sincere and wholesome determine
| ton to cut the old stuff out. l never give
| the oath to a swearer-on who IS orought
| here to take the oath by somebody else
by his wife, for example. IhatS pretty
| much In the line of coInpulsion, and l
| never feel as if man who is fairly driven
| UP to the swearing-or bench Is gong 10
| stick or that he really means to STICK. he
| lust takes the swear1ng-oH oath because
| he's driven to it, and there's always
| sort of I'm doing this under duress' feel
| ing away down in his midriff.
| I'm the swear-off blank that use the
| space is left vacant for the amount of
| time the swearer-off Is to stay good but
| they generally want it filled in to read one
| year. 1 don't like to swear a man OH Tor
| a shorter or for longer time than year
| 1t takes a man who drinks good deal at
| least a year to forget his addiction TO the
| stuff. if he, lasts that long. AS for the
| chaps who declare that they want to swear
like to put their resolution to too severe a
| test Five years is a long time, and a
| lot Of temptations can come the way OF d
| man used to drinking in that space OF time.
| Moreover the binding force as it were of
| a fiye-year swear-Off oath is bound to lose
more or less of its effect during the prog
ress of that amount OF time. II man
| wants to swear off fer five years, he ought
| to do it in installments He ought, mean,
to renew his oath every year The trou-
Bile is. though l say, that the great
off boy 70
manned glued to the aqua vehicle for a
twelve month, feel if they've got bit
of jamboree a-coming to them, and they
go off and get the deViment of the desire
out of their systems before they turn up,
a bit palsied and unstrung. and take on
their resolution fer another year:
lone of the things that ! can't under
| Standard I've been swearing EN- off, as
| say, for a good many years-is why SO
many fellows feel it to be absolutely nee
essary to go out and get all corned up be-
fore they do their swearing-off stunt;
There's absolutely no sense in that, viewed
from any angle. Yet most men, when
they form a really determined resolution
to swear off for the new year, ina CINE that
! they simply must have a final picking be-
fore they put their signatures to the oath
It's foolish, if only for the reason that
the vast majority of drinking men expert
ence the actual need. on the morning fol-
lowing a spree, to have a few hairs of the
dog that bit them, it were, and in most
cases few drinks the next day are not
only not injurious, but positively helpfu
to the sufferer from too much alcohol. The
| man who is on record with his ar-off
! CATH therefore, makes it unnecessarily
| hard for himself. He should get his little
| iamboree over and done with, providing
he feels that he simply must have it. be-
| fore he turns up at the notarys office to
| put his name to the OATH
Another thing that I can't understand is
why they'll insist upon swearing off or
New Year eve when there is SO much
| temptation lying in the path of most men
| to drink more than Is good for them or
New Year day. It's wonder they wouldn't
defer their swear-off till New Year night.
Then they could damage themselves up as
much as they pleased on New Year day,
!. | and still their swear-of would date from
, ! the first of the year.
II swear some men off for short pc
RODS as three months. These are the pc
riodical spreers who go off on their lit
tie toots every month They swear
off for the purpose of seeing II they have
the resolution and stamina to stay on tht
cart over and beyond two or three of thei
| regular periods in the rum vortex, and
good many of them stick. But l would
rather all hands Of the swearers-of
. put their quitting period down at one year
If they abide by the terms of their oath
A man who can stay sober a whole veal
| can, in my opinion, remain sober for the
balance of his life. And man who re
mains sober for year finds, out, in tina
= space OF time. how much more fun sobrietl
really is than drunkenness. The wise fish
of this day really finding tina
there's more happiness in perfect abstemi
. BUSINESS. I've got one man my list wht
SWore off with me the first time, for
year, fourteen years ago, and he's beer
, coming back, renewing his oath, every lew
Year eve since that time. nor has he eve
taken drop in all OF that time.