The Young Man and the World

by Albert J. Beveridge

You risk too much, and you risk it needlessly. My earnest advice is not to try it. I will leave to the doctors the description of its effect on nerve and brain, and to common observation the universal testimony to the peculiar blurring of judgment which stimulant of any kind usually produces. Besides, it is a very bad thing for a young man to get a reputation for.

I have concluded, after very careful observation, that there is a mighty change being wrought in this habit, and that a great majority of the young men who are now the masters of affairs are abstainers. In short, drinking will soon be out of style, and very bad form.

Consider these illustrations: I know a young man who is just forty years of age and who is practically the head of one of the greatest business institutions in the world. He has worked his way to that position by ability, character, and untiring industry, from the very humblest position in his company's service. He is a total abstainer.

I know another, also just forty, who is president of one of the largest banks in America. When I first knew him, very many years ago, he occupied the position of cashier in a comparatively obscure financial house. Merit alone has placed him where he is now. He had no friends when he began, no "influence," hardly an acquaintance. But he had himself, clear brained and steady pulsed—and that was enough. He, too, does not touch stimulants of any kind.

Or, to get out of that class of occupations—one of the most successful political "bosses" in this country, a man who makes politics his profession, and who, just past forty, is in control of the political machine of one of our great cities, rose to that position, by ability alone, from the occupation of a street-car driver. He also is a total abstainer.

Not only do any of these three young men not drink—also they neither smoke nor swear. And they are types of twentieth century success. The "stein-on-the-table-and-a-good-song-ringing-clear" kind of man is out of date.

You see, so nerve-consuming are all the activities of modern life that only the very highest types of effectiveness succeed. Brain of ice, hand of steel, heart of fire, clear vision, and cold, steady grasp of the lever and masterful, and yet a passionate relentlessness—these are necessary. Stimulants destroy effectiveness; that is the trouble with them. And you need every ounce of your power. Do not let the people who talk "moderation" to you persuade you otherwise. We find many such in what is called "society," where the taking of wine moderately is universal.

I repeat that you cannot tell what your powers of resistance are. Unfortunately, many of the world's noblest characters have had nerves so finely wrought and brain so vivid that a single drop of stimulant started a perfect conflagration within them. One of the ablest men this country has ever known, when questioned by a friend as to what had been the greatest pleasure of his life, said: "The greatest 'pleasure' of my life is the delirium of intoxication"; and then he went on to say how sure he was that if the fires of desire had never been lighted in his blood he would have done better work.

All of us can recall such examples in our own experience. Don't risk it, therefore, young man. Why take the chance? for even if you discover no taste for it, you will find that there is nothing in it, after all. Why this hazard of your powers, just to find out whether you can resist? It is a one-sided gamble, is it not? Even fools refuse to play when they know that the dice may be loaded.

Don't think that you have got to be a great public man, or a big politician, or a celebrated scientist, or distinguished in any line, before these practical truths apply to you. You must build your whole life upon them from the very beginning. For example, I know a man who for several years has been exercising ever-increasing power in his State. He selects his lieutenants with greatest possible care, consulting with trained advisers about the qualifications of each man to whom any political work is to be trusted.