The Washington herald., 1914-12-20


Harvard College had its frs tendow-
ments from those who made and sold
New England rum. Girard College
also had its beginning in the trade
OF Stephen Girard, who trafhcked IN
the great American staples Of whis-
key and rum, and one of the condi-
tions left by Stephen Girard was
that no preacher should enter Girard
College.
William Penn, George Washington,
Roger Williams, Samuel Adams,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison
and others OF the carly days were not
averse to the manufacture and sale
OF whiskcy, wine, rum, and beer, and
were identified with the manufacture
and sale of these products to which
many people now object as the source
of all evil
The only prohibition against an in
stitution or industry written into the
Constitution of the United States
was that Congress should make no
law respecting an establishment OF
religion. Those old builders OF ma
tion who did not hesitate to make
whiskey a part of the ration for the
Continental army, and pledge their
the upbuilding OF nation, would not
have an established religion as part
OF the foundation. They were pecu-
liarly stubborn and independent in
their patriotism in those early days.
Roger Williams Brewery.
Roger Williams, driven out of
Massachusetts on account of his re-
ligion, set up a brewery in Rhode
Island and made beer when he was
not engaged in preaching the gospel
But today, he is a reckless man who
would assaiI Roger Williams as an
agent of the devil, as he was then
accused in Massachusetts,, not on &C
count of his beer, but OF his hetero-
dox religion.
Abraham Lincoln, in his one great
temperance address, said: From
the sideboard of the parson down to
the ragged pocket OF the homeless
loafer, it (whiskcy) was constantly
found. Physicians prescribed it for
this, that and the other diseases; gov
crnmcnts provided it for soldiers and
sailors; and to have a rolling or rails
ing, a husking or hoc-down, anything
in short, without it, was positively in
suffcrable. So, too, it was every
where a respectable article OF manu-
facture and merchandise. The max
ing of it was regarded as an honor
able livelihood and he who could
make mostswaS the most enterprising
and respectable. Large and small
manufactures of it were everywhere
erected, in which all the earthly
goods of their owners were invested.
Wagons drew it from town to town:
boats bore it from cline to cline, and
the winds waited it from nation to
nation; and the merchants bought
and sold it, by wholesale and retail,
with practically the same feelings on
the part of seller, buyer. and by
stander as one felt at the selling and
buying OF plows, beef, bacon or any
other OF the real necessities of life
Universal public opinion not only toll
Grated, but recognized and adopted its
use"
Just Like Bank note.
Whiskcy was associated with lib
crty in the administration of Wash
ington, and large part of the country
rebclled against the excise tax on
whiskey then, just as the colonists
became insurgent against the tea tax
a few years earlier. McMasters says
that as a bank note was to the man
in Philadelphia, so was a gallon OF
whiskey to the man in Pittsburgh.
Whiskey meant ready money and it
was the most compact form IN which
the corn and rye of Western Penn
Sylvania could be marketed and sent
over the Allegheny Mountains. So
when the First Congress OF the United
States followed the recommendations
of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary
of the Treasury and placed an ex-
else tax on whiskey, averaging 10
cents a gallon, the farmers of West
ern Pennsylvania rose in revolt.
Tom Tinker" became ubiquitous and
synonym of liberty and independ-
ence. Every man who posted a no.
tice of protest in the woods or clear
ings or along the roads signed him
self Tom Tinker" and in that name
declared for whiskey and liberty
against excise and English laws made
by Americans as well as by English
men. The people OF Virginia, North
Carolina and South Carolina SYM
pathized with the farmers of Western
Pennsylvania in their opposition to
the excise tax, because they all made
whiskey, considered rye whiskey a
purely American product, and part
of the new republic. It was the great
American beverage, typical OF the in
dependence that had dumped the tea
into Boston Harbor. President
Washington and Congress had a
whiskey rebellion on their hands
within four years after the beginning
of the new government, and it was
SO threatening that the President not
only raised an army, but accompanied
it as commander-in-chief as far as
Bedford, Pa. The whiskey rebellion
was put down without bloodshed, but
by a compromise, for Congress hur-
riedly enacted law to try the cases
IN the State courts, in case the al
legged violations were fifty miles dis
tant from a Federal court, and later
the Objectionable tax was repealed.
Effect of the Whiskey Rebellion.
That rebellion, however, associated
whiskey with the spirit which made
the republic and carried its conquest
into the West. 1t was the chief conf
mercial product and part of the food
OF the Western pioneer, and he re-
sented the Federal tax on whiskey as
he would have resented tax on the
rye or corn from which it was made.
1t was his marketable form of those
products of the soil and he was
ready to defend it with his life. The