The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-07-24
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE.
AMERICAS FREEDOM FROM
OBLIGATION TO DRINK.

European travellers have more than
once expressed their establishment
that they were not pressed to drink
alcoholic liquors in America as they
are in Europe. An omnipresent wine
or beer list is not the first thing thrust
under the eyes on entering place of
public entertainment, and may even,
indeed, not be seen at all.
Dr. Robert Hercod, secretary of the
International Temperance Bureau at
Lausanne, writes interestingly in
L'Abstinence of his experiences in this
respect during three weeks visit to
America: My general impression is
that the social obligation to drink does
not exist in the United States, at
least in the surroundings that hur-
ried traveller has opportunity to OBJ
serve, in the world which is met at
hotels and on railway trains. This
phenomenon is Individually a great
advance over the situation in Europe
Enter the dining-room of hotel
in Europe. The first question asked
of you by the waiter before you are
hardly seated is: What wine do
you take?' Or at least it is, What
drink do you wish?' But it appears
that self-respecting traveller can
drink only wine You do not dare, al
though an abstainer, to answer
Water and in order not to disgrace
yourself completely. in the eyes of him
who serves you, you order mineral
water which perhaps you don't know
what in the world to do with.
I'm the United States, in the good
hotels, the waiter who approaches you,
very often negro who receives you
with his expansive smile, does not ask
at all what you wish to drink; he
brings you glass of excellent ice
water which he will take pains to re-
new throughout the meal You are
free to order another drink, tea, cof-
state, wine or beer. But even in the
hotels having a license one rarely sees
alcoholic drinks on the table, Some
travellers hold to their glass of beer
and order it, but, obviously, it is not
good form.
I'm the lobby, that great animated
hall of American hotels, which during
the whole day is crowded by busy
groups composed of hotel guests and
those who have nothing to do there,
one often finds a drinking fountain
and at hand an automatic apparatus
which delivers you paper drinking
cups. During the hot days of an
American summer, it is a pleasure
thus to refresh ones self. 1t is not
abstainers alone who profit by it, but
all the frequenters of the hotel. l
happened to arrive in Pittsburgh the
day of meeting of National Bust
ness Association, group of travellers
interested little enough in general in
the question of alcoholism Among
them, no doubt, were many abstainers
by principle The hotel where 1
lodged was the headquarters and it
was new sight to a European to see
all these business men not disdain-
ing the glass of fresh water. ii. -.
'On the great Hudson steamer, car
rying 5000 passengers from New York
to Albany, four fountains were in
stalled on each of the decks, and all
were well patronized In the railroad
dining cars / was never asked what
wine I wanted. Americans perhaps
drink at home on formal occasions,
but not, or at least very little, in pub
i1p natinp plaopC
"Thus, in the middle classes, at any
unfortunately did not have OPP
portunity during my stay of going
among the millions Of working people
one is not morally forced to drink
as is too often the case in Europe;
drinking customs do not exercise the
tyranny that we deplore among us.
THAT is not to say, of course, that
there is not drinking in the United
States; but the one fact that no in
direct pressure is exerted on the great
mass to oblige them to drink is of
capital Importance. When we attain
that result in Europe we shall have
made immense progress
Translation made for