Editorials from the Hearst NewspapersBrisbane, Arthur
Philosophy
Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers
Brisbane, Arthur
Editorials; Essays
The sight of a drunken man going home should make every other man
and woman sad and sympathetic, and, horrible as the sight is, it
should be useful, by inspiring, in those who see it, a
determination to avoid and to help others avoid that man's fate.
----
That reeling drunkard is GOING HOME.
He is going home to children who are afraid of him, to a wife
whose life he has made miserable.
He is going home, taking with him the worst curse in the
world--to suffer bitter remorse himself after having inflicted
suffering on those whom he should protect.
AND AS HE GOES HOME MEN AND WOMEN, KNOWING WHAT THE HOME-COMING
MEANS, LAUGH AT HIM AND ENJOY THE SIGHT. ----
In the old days in the arena it occasionally happened that
brothers were set to fight each other. When they refused to
fight they were forced to it by red-hot irons applied to their
backs.
We have progressed beyond the moral condition of human beings
guilty of such brutality as that. But we cannot call ourselves
civilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that
the reeling drunkard is thought an amusing spectacle.
LAW CANNOT STOP DRUNKENNESS-- EDUCATION CAN
Everybody knows that until recently the average statesman, the
majority of prominent men, in England, drank to excess.
Pitt was a drunkard--and Pitt was the most remarkable statesman
in England.
Fox was a drunkard.
In fact, to write a list of England's greatest men, who lived
more than a hundred years ago, would be to make a list of famous
drunkards.
To-day the drunkard in public life is practically unknown in
England, as well as in America. No legal pressure has been
brought to bear upon the prosperous drunkard.
He was not badgered by policemen or by blue-laws.
He could get ALL that he wanted to drink WHENEVER he wanted
it--yet, OF HIS OWN ACCORD, the prosperous drunkard has
reformed and become temperate. ----
Our own great Daniel Webster was a drunkard, as were many other
great Americans. No man to-day could be a drunkard and at the
same time be respected.
Education, experience and common sense have done their work, and
drunkenness is now left to self-indulgent fools, or to those
whose lives are made dull by poverty, to whom alcohol affords the
only escape from horrible monotony.
It would, perhaps, be worth while for the advocates of temperance
to study the causes which have practically eliminated drunkenness
from the most intelligent classes of men.
Education undoubtedly is the greatest factor.
In nearly all the public schools now the evil effects of alcohol
are taught.
These evil effects are taught, not in a lackadaisical way, with
sentiment or religious duty as a basis. They are taught as
FACTS.
Facts appeal to the mind, and they persist in their effect in
later life, when moral suasion and religious appeals are
forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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