'' f-' T I
The Commoner
VOL. 15, No. 4
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Mr. Bryan on Total Abstinence
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Address dolivered by Secretary Bryan at Phil
adelphia, March, 16, under the auspices of the
National Abstinence Union.
Mr. Chairman, Ladles and Gentlemen: (This
being a men's meeting there was laughter and
applause when the ladies were included in tho
opening sentence).
You need not laugh at the word "ladies," for
there aro a few ladles here on tho platform, and
I am speaking through you to a large number of
ladles who, though at homo, aro as much inter
ested In this meeting as you are. I am proud to
participate in this great temperance meeting. I
have no reason to doubt the statement that has
been made in your presence tonight namely,
that this is tho largest gathering of men ever
assembled in the United States, at a temperance
meeting. Tho National Abstainers' Union is
built upon tho broadest of foundations. It wel
comes to its ranks those of every creed. Tho
two lettors read tonight show how comprehensive
la flia (ntnrnof folt T nrn,1 .i .
ff- phasize the value of Mr. Sunday's sup-'
port. Doctor John R. Mott is one of
ft thfi mORt finiinfnf. nf tllO P.lirlHHnn lnvmon nt
America, and I am glad that the movement has
his endorsement. I am gratified too that Arch
bishop Pendergrast has given to this meeting the
splendid support of his emphatic approval.
Congressman Logue, a member of the reception
committee tonight who has long been identified
with the temperance movement in this city, in-
ML- forms me that the Catholic total abstinence so
cieties of the city have an enrollment of more
tban seventeen thousand members. You may be
interested to know that tho two temperance
speeches which I have made in recent years to
largo audiences were made, the first one at Chi
cago under the auspices of the Catholic Total Ab
stinence Union of the United States, and the
second at Atlantic City before the National As
sembly of the Presbyterian church. I hope that
this organization may be able to bring nto effec
tive co-operation all the believers in total abstin
ence, without regard to race, creed, or party.
This meeting is held for a specific purpose and
that purpose is to deal with one of the great evils
which afflict society. It is not to be compared, in
Its breadth and depth of interest, with the series
of meetings which have been held here by Mr.
Sunday. He, with tho support of the ministers
of tho city, has been appealing to the men and
women of Philadelphia to consider the greatest
subject with which man has to deal, namely, re
ligion.. Religion has been defined as the relation
that man fixes between himself and his God, and
nothing else is in the samo class with it because
nothing else affects, as religion doos, the entire
life and all its activities. When a man's heart
has been brought into harmony with the will of
tho Heavenly Father, the whole life is regulated
because the heart is the center and source of the
influences that control life. Tonight we deal
with but one of the outward manifestations of
this inward relation wij;h one habit nanfely,
the drink habit, and I can not hope to present
a stronger indictment of the habit of liquor
drinking than Mr. Sunday has already presented
to this audience. No one can surpass him in
portraying the evils of intemperance or tho value
of total abstinence, but I venture to present the
subject as it appears to me, in the hope that I
may be able to reach and influenco some who
have not yet joined the total abstainers. Before
taking up tho arguments in favor of total abstin
ence, let me call your attention to the importance
of the subject.
It is estimated that the people of the United
States spend almost two pillion and a half an
nually for intoxicating liquors. It is difficult for
the ntind to comprehend so large a sum unless
we resort to comparisons. Let me suggest a few.
It has recently been stated on high authority
that the cost of the war now raging in Europe
reaches tho enormous total of three hundred and
venty-five millions a week or more than fifty
millions a day. Jf this is true the drink bill of
the United States would carry on tho war for
six weeks and that means that the daily cost of
liquor to the people of the United States is more
than one-tenth of the toll that the belligerent
nations pay because of tho awful conflict now
racing the greatest that tho world has over
knqwu, whether measured by the number of men
fat ngaseu, uw uoBiruuuvoueaB oi xno implements
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employed, or its expensiveness to the nations in
volved. The cost of the Panama Canal, the most gi
gantic engineering feat in history, was about four
hundred millions of dollars. Is it not appalling
to think that we spend for drink every year
something like six times the cost of the Panama
canal?
I have endeavored to secure an accurate esti
mate of the amount of money spent on education
in this country, and the figure given me is seven
hundred and fifty millions of dollars. This pays
all the teachers who instruct the children, from
the kindergarten to the university, in this land
of more than ninety millions. It provides sal
aries for the great intellectual army whose ines
timable service no figures can describe. If we
were to cease these expenditures, this nation, so
conspicuous in all that contributes to the civil
ization of the world, would lapse into barbarism.
And yet we spend for drink more than three
times as much as we spend for education.
The'annual appropriations of the federal gov
ernment are a little less than a billion and a
quarter of dollars. This sum includes the sal
aries of all of the public officials from the pres
ident down. It includes the salaries and ex
penses of our ambassadors and ministers
through whom we maintain diplomatic relations
with the entire world; it covers the cosVof our
consular service which looks after our commerce
in foreign lands. It includes the expenses of the
treasury, which handles our money, collects our
taxes and supervises the banking system of the
nation. It covers the expenses of the army and
the expenses of the navy. It provides means for
enforcing the laws of the United States. It in
cludes the operations of the postofflce depart
ment, which carries mail to every village, hamlet
and city, with its fifty-six thousand postmasters,
its nineteen thousand railway clerks and its seventy-five
thousand mail carriers in the cities and
in the country. It covers the expenses of the in
terior department, with its multiplied agencies
for dealing with pensions, with the public lands
of the country, with irrigation and with Indian
affairs. It covers tho expenses of the agricul
tural department with its experimental work and
its search throughout the world for that which
can be profitably grown in this country. It sup
plies the needs of the rapidly increasing depart
ment of commerce and the vitally important
work of the department of labor. It supplies the
funds needed by the interstate commerce com
mission for the regulation of railroads and by
the new federal trade commission for the preven
tion of monopoly. All of these governmental
agencies employed in administering the federal
government of this great nation are operated at
an expense of less than a billion and a quarter of
dollars. Think, if the mind can comprehend it,
of this nation spending twice that amount for
alcoholic liquor?
Here are four comparisons. Do they help you
. to understand what a drain on this country the
drink habit is? According to the estimate given
the average tax laid upon each citizen by the use"
of liquor is more than twenty-five dollars a year
or, counting five to the family, more than one'
hundred and twenty-five dollars to the family an
nually. If any political party attempted to make
an annual increase in the taxes upon the people
to the extent of one-fifth of that sum, it would be
wi if0? f PTer Sy an in"snant public.
When it is remembered that this tax is not uni
form but is, on the average, heaviest upon those
east able to bear it, is it not our duty to cons der
bSrdenl be re"eVed f this enous
The object of this meeting is not to discuss tho
governmental phases of the liquor traffic but
rather to dea with remedies that can be applied
by the individual without the aid of statute law
and fortunately the plans which we present t
night involve no controverted questions What
ever the differences of opinion there may be as
to legal remedies, no one doubts that total ab
stinence is, as far as it goes, a complete remSfc
for the drink habit. Everyone who" by his 0wn
resolve separates himself from those who drink
and allies himself with those who do not drink
to this extent lessens the amount of liquor con!
framed and 1 ghtens the task of those who e
called upon to deal with the subject thrmfJS
legislation or through the enforcement 0f law
Our appeal is to the individual and I ask your
attention while I present a few of the reasons
which, to my mind, justify total abstinence.
In the first place, let us consider the physical
reasons against the use of alcohol To begin
with, drink brings no advantage whatever to the
one who drinks and, since intelligence demands a
, reason for any course of aotion, the fact that NO
GOOD REASON CAN BE GIVEN" FOR DRINK
ING ought to be sufficient to prevent the use of
liquor to any extent.
But the use of liquor is not only unnecessary
and indefensible from the standpoint of advant
age, but it is objectionable as a beverage even
when taken in the smallest quantity. It has
been scientifically demonstrated that THE MOD
ERATE USE OF ALCOHOL DECREASES A
MAN'S EFFICIENCY. An athlete can not do his
best if he drinks at all this has been demon
strated by experience; a typesetter will. make
more mistakes when drinking then when sober
this has been established by experiment; al
cohol makes a soldier less accurate in his aim,
and let me add that the present war is giving
conclusive proof that total abstinence has its
value on the battlefield. Russia has gone to the
extent of abolishing the sale of liquor even
though in doing so she sacrifices an annual rev
enue of four hundred millions in the midst of a
war. The German Emperor is an advocate of
total abstinence. The British government is re
fusing liquor to its soldiers and in France the
legislature Is considering the liquor' question. If
"John Barleycorn" is a failure in a fight, who
can respect him in time of peace! The accidents
in industry are increased in proportion as liquor
is consumed these are but a few illustrations of
the effect of alcohol, even when but little is
taken.
But there is an argument still more easily un
derstood, namely the increasing demand for total
abstinence which Is being made by employers.
On boats, grog used to "be furnished to sailors;
it is becoming more and more the rule to deny
it to them altogether. The owner of a ship can
not afford to trust passengers or cargo, or even
the vessel, to a man who allows his brain to be
befuddled by alcohol. Our railroad managers
are applying more and more stringent rules
against drink. They can not afford to take the
risk of either loss of life or damage to property
involved in the employment ot men who use
liquor. And so on through other industries; the
more important the employment the more rig
idly the use of liquor is forbidden.
If a young man wants to know public opinion
in regard to moderate drinking, let him present
a recommendation saying that he is a moderate
drinker. Why do recommendations, intended to
help those to whom they are given, omita' ref
erence to the fact that a man drinks, if he does
drink at all?
I spoke a few nights ago to eight hundred and
fifty midshipmen at Annapolis naval- academy,
and a finer body of young men it would be im
possible to find. Not one of them is permitted to
use intoxicating liquor. Why is the use of liquor
forbidden to those men except on the ground that
it would be hurtful to them? They are being
prepared, at government expense, for govern
ment service, and the fact that they are not per
mitted to use. alcohol should impress all young
men who seek to fit themselves for important
work.
' THE USE OF ALCOHOL NOT ONLY LOW
ERS A MAN'S PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY BUT
IT IMPARTS CONSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS
TO HIS OFFSPRING. Even if the pleasure de
rived from the use of alcohol were not followed
by a pain that overcomes the pleasure even if
it did not manifest itself in the impairment of
the individual who uses it the fact that its ef
fects are transmitted to the child and thus visits
an undeserved punishment upon it, ought to
weigh mightily with the man who has not de
cided the drink question for himself.
But there is another reason why one should
not drink at all, namely, THETQANGER OF
DRINKING TO EXCESS. It cannot be truth
fully said that every moderate drinker becomes
a drunkard, but it is true that every drunkard
comes from the number of those who drink mod
erately; none come from the ranks of the total
abstainers. I remember to have heard a tem
perance lecturer use an illustration when I was
a boy; I pass it on to those of this generation.
He admitted that there is a. difference between
the moderate drinker and the drunkard, but ho
described it as the difference between the pig and
the hpg the hog being a little older than the
4-pig;
The drunkard; has indulged the habit longer
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