Temperance then is the truest medium between total abstinence and excess, and in the same manner, beer occupies the medium position between ardent spirits and water. This fact is of the greatest importance, and until the public thoroughly understands the differences, whether from a moral, social, economic, or sanitary point of view, between distilled and fermented liquors, or in other words, beer and whisky there can be no hope of proper legislation as to the traffic in these articles. This legislation is now greatly influenced by the public advocates of total abstinence, among whom, if their own repeated claims be taken into account we might expect to find only disinterested, high-minded philanthropists. But it is notorious that their ranks are largely swelled by ignorant, ambitious or foolish men, whose vanity or pecuniary interest determines their action, and whose persistence and numerical strength will constitute an effective power until legislative bodies and the people at large are more thoroughly informed as to the actual experience of countries in which the problem has been dispassionately studied and brought to a successful solution. In too many of our states the liquor laws represent the triumph of ignorance and prejudice over reason and the welfare of the community. We hold that the solution of the temperance question is to be found through fermented liquors, and “BEER AGAINST WHISKY” is our motto. Before coming, as we shall do later in this book, to a detailed examination of the facts in regard to the use of beer, it may be well to declare briefly our position, and give some indication of the kind of testimony that will be more fully displayed under a separate heading. We hold that the production and sale of beer is so far from being subversive of public morals, that experience in all countries where beer is the national beverage, demonstrates precisely the opposite of this position. We hold too, that the use of beer is not merely indifferent, but, within the limits of temperance (_i. e._ moderation), a good and rational means of developing the mental and bodily powers of man. We cannot join in the gratulations of those who now—as they say—so enthusiastically enjoy the blessings of total abstinence. During the last thirty years we have seen something of the operation of this enthusiasm, not only in Great Britain, but in the native state of the originator of the movement in this country, and we find it impossible to assent to the famous proposition that a pledged abstainer is a drunkard saved. We have been convinced that a pledged abstainer is too often a man who drinks in secret and thus adds hypocrisy to his other sins. Notice this passage from evidence given before a state committee appointed to inquire into the action of the restrictive laws. The Hon. James H. Duncan of Haverhill, says: