The Real Jesus of the Four GospelsAtwater, John Birdseye
Religion
The Real Jesus of the Four Gospels
Atwater, John Birdseye
Jesus Christ -- Biography
Furthermore, prohibition, besides being opposed both to the laws of
Jesus and the laws of nature, has the essential weakness, as a remedy
for intemperance, that it attacks the means or rather one of the means,
of intemperance, and not the cause--the _causa efficiens_, as the
logicians would say. The Anglo-Saxons have for centuries been
meat-eaters and liquor-drinkers. What end they would have attained on a
diet of vegetables and cold water, we can only guess, but all science is
wrong if it would not have been some end quite different. Now, this
appetite for stimulants--the growth of centuries--is not to be
eradicated by prohibiting the use of alcoholic drinks, any more than the
appetite for fornication can be eradicated by the suppression of houses
of prostitution. In spite of all the prohibition laws in the world, the
appetite for stimulants will continue to exist in the Anglo-Saxon race,
and will seek its gratification in one way, if not in another. Whether
these substitutes may not be worse in the end than alcohol, remains to
be seen. Suppose, for instance, that accustomed liquor-drinkers should
now substitute, as their stimulant, large quantities of strong tea or
coffee, or, possibly, some concentrated product of one or the other of
those plants. Probably nine-tenths of our medical authorities would
agree that the change would be, generally speaking, undoubtedly for the
worse.
It is to be observed that never in the United States has there been
made any general systematic effort towards temperance, such as is now
being made towards prohibition. No greater hypocrisy has ever been
worked off on the American people than that under the name of
"Temperance." Societies have labeled themselves with that name, orators
and prominent leaders have paraded under that name, when, in
fact, it was a mere subterfuge, and the bearers of it were really
prohibitionists. Probably no one who has ever worked for real temperance
measures in any of our large cities but would testify that his work has
been seriously hampered by the entire lack of interest, if not by the
actual hostility, of these so-called temperance reformers and societies.
In fact, many of them would make no scruple in openly avowing that they
were opposed to any practical temperance measure, because it would
retard the coming prohibition. With the hearty support of the
prohibitionists, there is no reason today why scientific temperance
measures should not be put in force throughout the United States, that
would do away with at least seventy-five per cent of the evils of
drunkenness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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