The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1916-04-04
THE WORLD AND THE WATER
WAGON
(William Allen White, Editor and
Author, in Boston Advertiser

(William Allen White, Editor and
Author, in Boston Advertiser.)
curious thing is this Worldwide
agitation against the sale of alcoholic
liquors; Russia stops the sale of
vodka; Germany restricts the manu-
facture of beer; France shuts down
on the sale of absinthe, and England
seriously considers the prohibition of
all liquor traffic. These are some of
the larger manifestations of the
movement against drinking. But in
every country the ban of insurance
companies it put upon the drinking
man The railroad employe all over
the civilized world to-day, must be so
nearly teetotaller that the old glad
life of unrestricted booZe-fighting
passed from him forever. The COM
ing of steam and electricity has done
many things to change the face of
civilization, but by speeding up ma
chinery, steam and electricity have
changed the face of the skilled labor
er more than anything else. They
have bleached him out. The hard
drinker can't hold his job in any fac
tory to-day where efficiency methods
are used.
AS men in the machine rooms have
had to stop drinking, the increased
speed they have generated has com
PEELED faster pace in the office.
Office men all over the world are
dropping liquor. Ten years ago bad
form consisted in carrying too much
liquor into n days work at the office.
twenty years ago. bad form express
ed itself In being drunk during work
ing hours. Fifty years ago a pro-
tracted spree was frowned upon. But
to-day the man who breezes into the
office after lunch with the aroma Of
a beer or a cocktail about him, is
viewed with suspicion. If not with
alarm. Personal liberty is getting
more of a jolt from the customs of
civilization than it is from the laws
in the local option and the prohibi.
tion states. For, as a matter OF fact.
the law merely follows public opin-
ion. The change in the constitution
of state comes only after the habits
of considerable mnority-if no;
a majority-have changed.
1t is not prohibitory law that ia
closing the breweries so much as It
is the wise little man in the factory
and in the Office who quietly decides
without putting on parade after his
decision, that he will cut out the
booze. When he and his neighbors
meet to talk ii over. the town goes
dry. and the state. when enough
counties are dry, itself moves out of
the wet column. And the liquor deal
ers' association views with alarm. and
blames its troubles upon the prohi-
bition ranks. They are glad OF the
honor conferred. But they really
don't deserve It,
For the liquor dealers themselves
are largely to blame for the wave OF
teetotalism that is sweeping the
world. The liquor dealer has organi.
zed his business upon the wrong ba :
Is. He is trying to sell his product
through the saloon. And the saloon
rs a sales agency is all bad. 1t is
bad, because of two things; First. be-
cause 1t is run on theory of over
the consumption of the
product, and over-stlmulation OF the
sale, is the one thing which produces
The evil OF drink; and the second
'ault of the saloon comes from the
fact that in every American commun-
ty at least, the saloon is hooked M
with vice and corruption. A mighty
organized civilization will not permi,