Smyrna times., 1926-10-13
.uHCOLN'S HABITS AND VIEWS
IN REGARD TO USE OF LIQUOR
PROHIBITION AS VIEWED BY
THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR
Editorial in Christian Science Monitor
BY William E. Barton, Author of
''The Life of Abraham Lincoln"

4 DY lIs 11A bOAts 61h~AAOA VA
'The Life of Abraham Lincoln"
l count that day lost whose low de-
scending sun brings to me no inquiry
as to Abraham Lincoln"s habits and
opinions with regard to the use Of
Liquor. The opponents of the Volstead
Law, or some of them, have created
out of whole cloth declaration which
Lincoln is alleged to have made con-
cerning the dangers of prohibition and
the rights of personal liberty. On the
other hand, some of the friends of
prohibition have attributed to him
sentiments which he is not known to
have uttered.
l, being a lifelong total abstainer,
and now a prohibitionist, regret deeply
to discover any attempt, on the part
of those with whom l am in agree
ment in these matters, to exaggerate
or invent utterances of Lincoln on this
or any other subject, or to accept as
genuine any except those that can GER
tainly be proved. We ought to leave
all invention and approach to false
hood to those who oppose our high
ideals.
The truth, as established by the
most rigid tests, ought to be good
enough for US. Nor have any SYM
pathy with the effort to establish, as
genuine utterances of Lincoln, the
merely possibly genuine ones. We
have no moral right to say to those
who oppose US, eve think Lincoln
said this, and you can not prove that
he did not say it." l cannot prove
that he did not say that two and two
are five, but doubt it.
Within the past few weeks my mail
has been unusually filled with re-
quests of this character, and l deem it
well to go somewhat into detail in a
general article on Lincoln's attitude
toward liquor.
First, then, the community in which
he was born was whisky-drinking
community. Practically everybody
drank. Knob Greek, where he spent
the major part of MS boyhood in Ken
lucky, empties, little way below his
fathers house, into the Rolling Fork,
(which even then had distilleries, and
which later became famous for its
whisky. The Eighteenth Amendment
made the Rolling Fork wailing place,
and the ruins Of the distilleries are
lstill landmarks there.
When Thomas Lincoln sold his prop
lerty in Kentucky and converted it into
medium of exchange, he took whisky,
loaded it onto fiatboat, f1oated it
down the Rolling Fork, and down the
main stream of Salt River and little
way down the Ohio to the mouth Of
IAnderson's Greek, which was the land
ling for the new home in Indiana.
Whisky had a less fuctuating value
than the wildcat currency of the time.
Furthermore, when the Little Pige-
on church was organized in Indiana,
land Thomas Lincoln joined by letter,
land his wife, Abraham Lincoln's step
Imother, "by experience" subscriptions
for the church building were receiv-
liable in manufactured corn" No
lraising of a house, even of meeting
lhouse, was attempted without liquor
Thomas Lincoln was neither a total
abstainer nor a drunkard. He was,
for his time, very moderate drinker.
could easily name neighbors, and
even relatives, Of Lincoln of whom
this could not be said. For instance,
Thomas Lincoln's eldest brother, Nor
decai, perished in "the deep snow" of
1830-31, partly from exposure and
partly from what he drank to keep
the weather out. And Thomas Lin
coins uncle Thomas, brother of Capt.
Abraham Lincoln, the Kentucky pion-
Ieer, had tragic domestic experience
wroking out of his ownership of a
still.
do not think it can be proved that
Abraham Lincoln was lifelong total
abstainer, but he appears never to
, have liked liquor, and he came to be-
> lieve. that its use was productive OF
Igreat harm. He was a temperate
man, who became practically total
Iabstainer. He neither drank liquor
nor chewed nor smoked tobacco. Thai
> was his established personal habit.
He was accustomed to tell story
labout himself. After his one term il
Congress, he made an earnest and un
successful attempt to secure a posi-
tion in Washington as COMMISSIONS
of the Land Office, and, having return
4 ed to Springfield from Washington
made special journey back again il
a the futile attempt to secure the ap
= pointment. But he lost it, because
while he was Wing, and had dom
his best to secure both the nomination
:. and the election of Zachary Taylor
: the strength Of the Whig Party il
Illinois lay in the northern part, an,
a Chicago man, Justin Butterfield
wanted the place and had the backing
;s of Daniel Webster.
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