Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-02-06

before he created an appetite for to-
bacco. You cannot inherit an appe-
tite for liquor.
sociabiIity the Cause. i
IF You will take the time to trace
drink you will soon discover that the
source of drunkenness is conviviality or
sociability. Men like to be sociable
and show their friendship and be a
good fellow. And the saloon Is place
Of sociability Men get together in
the saloon and treat each other. They
treat each other until the first thing
they know they have taken too much
for a clear vision and mind. 1t Is a
broad statement but this conviviality
is the cause of all drunkenness. And
when we put stop to the open saloon
we put a stop to this courteous, friendly
invitation to drink. Men cannot
gather and treat each other to be
good fellows. Your liquor men say
they are selling more liquor now than
they did when they were running the
open saloons. Tell me why then, they
are putting so much money into this
fight for the open saloon? They should
be content to allow their business to
prosper as they say 1t is now. l have
known Germans to become total alb
stainers because they could not drink
the lager beer produced in this country
without drinking to excess. They can
not control themselves with the liquor
that they send down their throats
here. It is not like that Of Germany
These Germans are strong but the
average man can not see far enough
ahead to realize the result and keeps
on drinking until he is down, loses his
job, and goes down, down. No bust.
ness man will hire drinking man.
He is not wanted in the industrial world
in the social world; in fact the world
doesn't want him. He begins to wan.
der aimlessly about, doing nothing and
having no desire to get anywhere but
place to drink. He becomes lazy,
won't work And think of the wife.
She is broken hearted. When they
were married, all was happiness. She
perhaps did not know of his drinking.
Immediately she starts to work to re-
form him. She believes that she can
do it. But it takes a mighty strong
woman and a strong love of man to
conquer the drink habit. When she
fails she tries to adjust herself to the
conditions. She tries to make the best
of things. The husband soon begins to
drink more heavily. He begins to bring
liquor home, although already drunk.
In his drunken state he is unaccount-
able and asks his wife to drink. She
refuses and then he begins to curse
her. questions her virtue and abuses
her In desperation at her husbands
cursing and abuse and his questioning
her loyalty to him, she drinks his
proffered liquor and continues to
drink, until she, too, goes down the
road. They go hand In hand. Soon they
cannot make both ends meet. They
begin to pawn, sell and their homo
looks like a junk shop. Their children
are neglected, run the streets and
grow up in wantonness. One night the
patrol drives up to the door and they
are both hauled away to jail for dis
turbing the peace In their drunken
revelry. The papers come out with this
story. CDR. Earle then read news
paper clipping of their trial in court)
That is the present my friends. went
to that same paper, took the files and
looked up the marriage of this couple.
It took place fifteen years ago. l will
now read you this clipping of their
marriage. (The clipping told of the
happy marriage of the two, their pros
poets, their standing in the com
munity. in fact it was quite long
article. as both were popular.) Con.
trast those two newspaper clippings,
the difference resulting from fifteen
wears of life. What did it? The saloon
did it. friends. This man was one of
the social drinkers. He learned to
drink in the saloon. know this to be
4. fact from my own personal knowl.
edge. A drunkard loses his sense OF