Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1910-12-16
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STRONG DRINK is RUIN0us
Men Pre-enlnent for intellectual At.
tainments All On Side of
Temperance.

]
strong drink is an incentive to fire the
imagination to lofty heights of fancy
impossible to be reached in sober
| moments
Both Burns and Poe were victims
of the drinbhabit and both geniuses
but their cases SO far from supporting
the claim of alcohol to usefulness ar
cues against it.
II Burns and Poe, God-gifted as they
were, had kept their faculties clear
and their reasons undimmed. what
might they not have done? The for
mer might have become the Homer
OF the Eastern and the latter the
Dante OF the Western World AS il
was, these twin stars of the armament
OF literature scintillated ftfuliy for
only few years. They simply reeled
through life until they came to the
verge of premature graves and tot
tered into them ere half their time on
earth was spent, writes Madison c.
Peters in an exchange.
The age of Johnson may be termed
the golden age of English literature
Its sky was studded with brilliancy,
but how long did the light last? Men
or such transcendant gifts as Gold.
smith, Savage and Shenstone did not
know the meaning of life. Their brief
careers were spent nriotous living
Charles Lever, prince of Irish novel
lists, represented the Irish suuires and
gentlemen as hard-headed, hard-drink.
ing, rollicking fellows, whose CHIEF
amusements were fox hunting. love.
making, and breaking one another's
heads. For the most part this por.
trayal was true, but there were some
notable exceptions to Levers crea.
tons among the gentry of Ireland.
The men who did the most for Ire.
land, who reflected an undying glory
on her cause, were, If not teetotalers,
at least temperate. Grattan, Flood,
Wolfe, Tone, Fitzgerald and Emmett
were temperate. O'Connell seldom
drank glass of wine. The Duke OF
Wellington was an abstemious man.
Parnell in the heyday of his fame
could not be induced to touch liquor.
His head was always clear in the
house, and this was the secret of his
political foresight, which enabled him
to accomplish so much.
The great leaders of English poli.
tics, both in the past and present cen.
turles, have been strictly temperate
men, Gladstone only touched light
wines on rare occasions. Morley, abb.
four, Spencer, Harcourt, Salisbury.
Chamberlain, all early took their
places beneath the temperance ban.
ner At royal receptions and ambas
sailors balls none of these men could
be induced to take liquor in any form.
The well known literary men of
England in our time have almost to
a man been temperate. Dickens.
though he drank glass of ale be-
times, never exceeded discretion.
Reade, Besant, Paine, Buchanan, Ten
nyson and Browning were all on the
side of temperance
The same can be said of the leading
statesmen and writer's of Germany
France, Italy and other European
countries at the present day.
The same is notably true of emf
nent Americans. Have any of our
great inventors been drunkards? They
I have spent their days and nights In
lceaseless activity, perfecting their de-
signs with clear brains and steady
hands, only desisting to obey the call
of exhausted nature.
Edison, the wizard of electricity.
never touches intoxicating liquors.
Could the Wrights and Curtiss. Zen.
pelin and Bleriot have conquered the
air with rum-drenched brains and
jangling nerves?
Our great scientists and medical
men, knowing well the dangers that
Turk in the sparkling glass, shun it as
they would deadly poison. Kelvin,
Crookes, Roentgen and Koch have all
been total abstainers.
Drink saps the vital organs and
dulls the brain. 1t has stripped the
crown from the brow of manhood and
engirdled it with a crimson band of
shame; it has plucked the flowers
from the garden of success and In
their place has strewn the weeds of
failure. 1t has wrenched the sword
of victory from the hands of conouer.
ors, turned it into scourge and driv-
en- them from the arena of fame into
the darkness of obscurity; from rova]
brows it has taken imperial crowns
and dashed them into fragments on
the stone of defeat and ignomy.
The men who made America were.
with some notable exceptions, of ab-
stemious habits and austere lives
Liquor never adds, but always sinh.
tracts. So far from being a stimu-
liant, it is an anaesthetic; it deadens
instead of quickens. Science has
classed 1t as sporifc or narcoti,,
Instead of helping man up it drsrs
him down; instead of placing him on
the sun-crowned heights of success
and honor it places him in the gutter
of failure and shame