The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1907-01-10
EARTHQUAKE CURE FOR DRINK.
Up Time They lilac
San Francisco.
From the New York SUI

= tOAii tilS y totN SuIA..
The Earthquake as q Rum Cure'-that
write one of these days, when 1 get the
time said an army surgeon recently
transferred from San Francisco.
I'D hate to say, for fear of being ac-
cuSed of eXaggeration,' he went on, how
many quite hopeless San Francisco soaks
were shaken out of the rum habit by the
earthquake and fire and by the long per-
iod of enforced abstinence hat followed.
The destruction of a city by earthquake
and fire is a pretty heroic method of cur
ing rum fighters, and I'm no maintaining
that it was meant that way. But l am
here to say that it worked out that way in
hundreds of instances that came under my
own observation.
After the earthquake the sale of rum
was shut off tight.
San Francisco always was a. hard
drinking town. There's something in the
climate cut there that makes drink taste
pretty good.
The poor devils assuredly suffered hor-
ribly. The hundreds of waterfront wrecks
who We're on the verge of delirium ire
mems had an especially vicious siege of 1t.
i never saw or heard of so many human
beings walking aimlessly around with the
D.. It's in my life. They moaned, howled,
begged, pleaded and implored for liquor,
but there wasn't any chance for them to
get any.
For more than a week hundreds of men
were little less than wild men. and the SOL
diers had all they could do to handle them.
These men could not at first be put to
work with the rest of the men. They were
too weak.
They couldn't eat or sleep, but lust
tossed around and groaned. Bromides and
quoting drains We're served out to the
worst cases. But the open air and the
positive necessities of the situation began
to bring them around after the first three
or four days.
They began to eat a bit. The coffee and
the rough fare of the camps helped them.
They got their share of the tobacco served
out to all hands. and that put a bit of.
spirit into them.
Just as soon as 1T was perceived that
they We're fit to work they were put at 1t
at the point of the bayonet. They worked
and the work was the great thing for
them. The labor drove the liquor out of
their systems and made them hungry
and hundreds of EN- hadn't been hungry
for food or for anything else but rum for
years n years.
1T made them sleep. The chill air, full
of ozone, helped, too, when they had been
hanging around the foul back rooms of
groggeries most of their time.
1T was positively bully TO see the way
~ $50 ohSoiio oiIC II IIot
misery of their condition wore off and
they got to leading the normal life. They
filled out, became husky and strong:
1T was astonishing to note what really
good looking fellows many OF these fellows
became under the influence of abstinence
from rum, hard work, coarse but whole
some food and clean living. And the
thing surprised them as much as it die
those of us who were merely studying the
situation.
me to flag the booze thing even af.
ter they begin peddling 1t again. was a re.
mark I overheard among them a do7er
tones a day. If I felt any better ]
| couldn't stand it. haven't felt like tht:
since ! was a kid. Didn't believe I evel
would feel SO chesty and bully again. NJ
more suds-Im through
THE men of the better element whe
were caught in the midst OF heavy drink
ing by the rum drought were surprised
and delighted, too, to find how vigorou.
| and clear headed and generally fine the,
/ felt without their constant ntps.
"Out Of curiosity, when the SALOONS re
sumed business early in July, I kept al
eye on a large number of these fellows O.
all classes, whose cases had come Inde,
my own observation, to note If they would
stick. N.nety-five per cent. Of thos,
watched stuck.