Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers Part 36

Do you ask yourself whether or not he CAN stop?

Let us consider to-day the drunkard's side of the case. ----

Very often physical weakness causes drunkenness. Many a man takes a drink because the task put upon him is heavier than he can bear. The whiskey does not help him--it hurts him. But it cheats him and makes him THINK that he is helped.

You realize that whiskey drinking as a settled habit must be fought with weapons of some kind.

WILL POWER is the great weapon to use in our own behalf. You tell the drunkard to use his will power.

But you forget that the first thing that whiskey attacks is will power.

You remind the drunkard that his weakness brings suffering on others, and you appeal to his conscience. But you forget that whiskey weakens conscience even more than it weakens the nerves.

You forget, too, that whiskey makes its victims suffer. If he could free himself he would do so, if only for his own sake.

And you must not forget that whiskey argues ingeniously, in addition to its telling of lies.

A man is overcome with some great grief. Whiskey makes him forget, or at least it makes him not care.

A man is suffering some great humiliation, some sense of personal shortcoming, that is intolerable to him. Whiskey offers to relieve him, and for the moment it does relieve him. ----

YOU who talk n.o.bly of temperance and advocate laws governing other men are apt to be proud of your own self-control.

Perhaps you have been a drinking man and have stopped. But you do not know how much lighter whiskey's hold may have been upon you than upon others.

Suppose you worked hard every day, every week and every year.

Suppose you had no pleasure in life, save the fict.i.tious pleasure and excitement that come from whiskey. Suppose you failed, and failed and failed again--and suppose that whiskey was always ready to praise you, make you feel proud of yourself, make you hold others responsible for your failures--are you sure you could let it alone? ----

In your condemnation of those who persist in whiskey drinking you must remember that what is easy for one man is very hard for another.

Suppose you should urge two animals to go without meat--one of the animals being a tiger and the other a sheep. Would you praise the sheep for its faithful keeping of the promise? Would you blame the tiger for breaking its word, if the temptation to eat meat were offered?

In men's nervous systems, in their craving for alcohol, there is as great a difference between different temperaments as between the appet.i.tes of the sheep and the tiger. One man is dragged toward the gulf by whiskey with a force of which you have no conception.

You look with contempt at a hopeless drunkard, shuffling along toward destruction.

THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF SUCH MEN WHO EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES MAKE AN EFFORT OF THE WILL OF WHICH YOU WOULD BE INCAPABLE.

But that effort, great as it is, is not great enough to save them--whiskey drags them too hard in the other direction.

Fortunately, we can all congratulate ourselves on the steady falling off in drunkenness. To drink to excess is no longer respectable. Once it was a leading sign of respectability.

Doctors in the old days wrote their prescriptions illegibly, because when called late at night they were usually drunk.

To-day a drunken doctor cannot possibly survive.

Work as hard as you can against drunkenness, for drunkenness harms every one, even the saloon-keeper himself. The drunkard soon comes to ruin and ceases to be a profitable customer.

Argue with young men, and talk to children ABOUT THEIR OWN WELFARE in the matter.

But remember also that the drunkard often has tried harder than you could try to overcome the enemy that has conquered him.

Remember that unless you have lived his life you cannot know his excuse and cannot judge him.

DRINK A SLOW POISON

Often a man talks about like this:

"I am a regular but moderate drinker. No one ever saw me drunk, and yet I drink every day. And what's the harm of it? Can you see anything the matter with me?"

The man would seem to have the advantage of you. You cannot SEE anything wrong with him. So far as outward appearances go the case is squarely against you. The man APPEARS to be all right.

But is he? The effects of drink upon the system do not show themselves to the extent of attracting very marked attention, at least until the conditions are fairly ripe.

In the man who comes out on to the street after a PROTRACTED DEBAUCH the effects of whiskey are visible; even the little children notice him.

He may not be drunk. It may have been hours since he touched a drop. But any one can see that his physical system has received a severe shock.

In the moderate drinker these signs are not visible, but the alcohol which he daily imbibes is doing its work, and slowly but surely his const.i.tution is being undermined.

Now and then we run across some old man who is hale and hearty, notwithstanding the fact that he has been a moderate drinker all his life.

But no one will think of denying the fact that this old man is an exception--a very rare exception.

Many old men who SHOULD be hale and hearty are suffering from ailments born of the drink habit, by which, in their earlier days, they were enslaved.

In the "rheum, the dry serpigo and the gout" which rack their frames, make their bones ache and render miserable and thankless the evening days which should be so full of peace and beauty, they are reaping the fruits of their "harmless" moderate drinking.

Two or three weeks ago we made reference to the report by Mr.

Mesureur, Director of the Department of Charities, Paris, upon the results of alcoholism in France.

That report was no sooner made public than the French liquor dealers were up in arms against it. Indignation meetings were held. The mails were flooded with all sorts of protests against the truth of Mesureur's claim that alcoholism was slowly but surely destroying the French people.

The discussion at last became so heated that the government took it upon itself to subject the offensive report to a careful scrutiny, with the result that it was CONFIRMED in every particular.

We quote from a poster, issued by the "Investigation Council for Promoting the Public Welfare," and now displayed all over France:

"Alcoholism is the chronic poisoning resulting from the constant use of alcohol, even if it does not produce drunkenness.

"It is an error to say that alcohol is a necessity to the man who has to do hard work, or that it restores strength.

"The artificial stimulation which it produces soon gives way to exhaustion and nervous depression. Alcohol is good for n.o.body, but works harm to everybody.

"Alcoholism produces the most varied and fatal diseases of the stomach and liver, paralysis, dropsy and madness. It is one of the most frequent canses of tuberculosis.

"Lastly, it aggravates and enhances all acute diseases, typhus, pneumonia, erysipelas.

"THESE DISEASES ONLY ATTACK A SOBER MAN IN A MILD DEGREE, WHILE THEY QUICKLY DO AWAY WITH THE MAN WHO DRINKS ALCOHOL.

"The sins of the parents against the laws of health visit their offspring. If the children survive the first months of their lives they are threatened with imbecility or epilepsy, or death carries them away a little later by such diseases as meningitis or consumption.