Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1917-09-10
GREAT GENERALS
WHO USED LIQUOR
Napoleon, Grant, Washington and Jack
son, All Drank! Are You Listen
ing Patriots?-And So Did
Thomas jefferson

Dg SdNOydTus famous WaSnlnS-
ton Cd CD political correspond
ent
The liquor question is up in Con-
gress and thus politics for the mo-
| ment is laden down with morality.
This gives opportunity to William j.
Bryan 10 fire a torpedo after this
fashion, which a prohibition Senator
from Texas put into The Congress
sional Record:
/ Beverages that contain but a
1 small percentage of alcohol will un-
steady the nerves and impair the pro-
ductive value of the drinker, no mat
ter what his occupation may be-"
How about Thomas jefferson? He
drank wine every day. Would Mr..
Bryan say that the nerves of the au-
thor of the Declaration of lndepend-
ence and the father of the Democratic
party were unsteady This world
never saw saner mind than that
with which Thomas Jefferson was en-
dowed There was no nonsense
about him. He never said or did q
foolish thing. Many regard him as
the wisest American. He was emil
nently practical. and his brilliant inn
agination was held in complete sub
lection by a Judgment almost infalli-
BILE.
Jefferson was winebibber-that
is, he drank wine every day and he
argued with convincing force that
the proper way to combat the evil of
intemperance was to encourage the
consumption of wine, citing the fact
that in no country where wine was
cheap and abundant was there much
drunkenness He also had some re-
spect for the rights of.his fellow men.
He possibly got a hint from Plato,
who held that it was not advisable
to force the citizen to that which was
for his own good. Better TO persuade
him.
"On the other hand, George Wash
ington was a whiskey drinker; so
was Andrew Jackson; so was Grover
Cleveland; so was Ulysses S. Grant.
Used temperately, whiskey is by no
means an evil 1t is the Incorporate
use of it that makes all the mischief.
The absurd and vicious custom OF
treating has caused more than half
\ the drunkenness with which our
country was cursed throughout the
Nineteenth Century. Had every State
enacted law against treating a CEN
tury ago and rigidly enforced it to
date we would hear little about pro-
hibition
Napoleon Bonepart drank wine
daily, and daily had wine distributed
to the privates in his armies. He
knew as much about nerves as any
man who ever lived, and heap more
than Bryan knows. Most of his bat
ties were won by the nerve of his sol
diers. Take the German army of to-
day. 1t has strength of nerve that
is simply marvellous, and 80 per cent
of the rank and file of the German
army was raised on beer. and now
has it's regular allowance of it, when
it is possible, at the front.
There is tradition for it. if not his
tory, that Abraham Lincoln, the only
teetotaler who was every President
of the United States, not excepting Il.
B. Hayes, either, searched the mark
cts for a brand OF whiskey such as
General Grant drank, in order to-sup-
ply some of his other generals with
case of it.
"The Scotch consume more alcohol
than any other people in Christendom.
Yet the nerves of the Scotch are
stronger than the nerves of the
Spaniards' who consume least alcohol
of all the Christian peoples. Alcohol
is absolutely forbidden the Turks.
How does their civilization compare
with that of the people of Western
Europe, all of whom are winebibbers
in more or less degree?
"And then for statecraft-compare
Thomas Jefferson, the winebibber,
with William j. Bryan, the teetotaler!
| take that back-there is no COM
parison.
"The best place to inculcate temper
ance is in the home, while the child
is about the mothers knees. The
worst of it is that such fanatics as
Bryan are seemingly as much OPP
posed to temperance as to debauchery
Nothing but total abstinence will go
down with them. There is the mis-
cry of the whole matter
Local option is the best way to
deal with the drink evil. From The
State" Columbia. 6. c., July %, 1917.