The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-02-05
1T WILL HELP THOSE
WHO ARE COMING AFTER

The Columbia, S. c., State con-
cludes a semi-humorous article on
prohibition with the following very
sensible words:
The statement is frequently heard
in places where men discuss the news,
that when the army comes home all
this prohibition business is going TO
get jolt. Abroad, we are told, our
soldiers have learned to drink light
wines, because in many cases water
available. was so polluted that drink
ing it meant not only short cut to
suicide, but a feeling of nauseating
disgust. Whether this is so or not,
certainly the troops who have already
come back have made no concerted
objection TO the law. They have fall
len in with popular feeling just as
the rest of US have done. A man as
young as the average soldier ought to
find no great difficulty in breaking
himself of habit which has become
unwise or inconvenient. No trouble is
to be anticipated from the army. 1t
lies at home among the older, the
alcohol soaked. the men to whom the
whisky habit has become second ma
ture, and whose whole system will be
pulled up with jar when whisky is
denied them-a jar to which the
grinding shock dealt an automobile by
the sudden yank of the emergency
brake is as nothing.
From them, the illicit still, the pat
ent medicine, the twenty dollar quart
when it is TO be had. They are the
distillers also of the popular sophisms
with which they bolster up their los
ing side. The faverite one perhaps is
the aphorism that if man wants to
drink you can't stop him; he is going
to get the stuff somehow; that legis-
lation never made man moral. No
body ever claimed that it did 1t mere
ly places more obstacles in the way
OF his becoming immoral, an example
and corruption of the uncontaminat-
ed younger generation.
Psychologists agree that the liking
for alcohol is so deeply implanted in
the human race, either naturally or
because of centuries of indulgence,
that in practically no cases does per-
icating it is TO train it out. 1t has
been stated by respectable authorities
that in practically no case does per-
son who has not tasted alcohol before
manhood become drunkard If it is
too late to influence all the members
of our generation, at least the next
will be able to start life under better
auspices. The constant temptation OF
what our forebears called the social
glass will be gone. Men do not miss
what they have never known.
Most of US would hesitate to agree
with Mr.. Saleeby. the disciple of Gal
ton and developer of his work, when
he admits that he would willingly see
the present generation. with its
freight of the unfit, the blasted, the
inefficient and the corrupt. go over the
precipice into utter humiliation if it
would save the next and give it bet
ter chance of health and happiness.
But his principle is right. The young
are the future. the hope of the world.
Whatever removes handicap from
the path of their progress is undoubt-
edly right. We may pity the old soak
who is being made acutely uncomfor
table by the new conditions. who in
some cases may be hurried into pre-
mature grave because of them, but we
can not allow him to mix up the traf-
fic of the world any longer. He has
had his day. and it was a long and
hot one Now let him pass with the
dodo and other curious creatures of
whom nature has wearied. He isn't
necessary.