Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

The best cure for this, in my judgment, would be for States to authorize and local authorities to adopt the ``Swedish system,'' which I found doing excellent service at Gothenburg in Sweden a few years since, and which I am sorry to see the fanatics there have recently wrecked. Under this plan the various towns allowed a company to open a certain number of clean, tidy drinking- places; obliged them to purchase pure liquors; forbade them, under penalties, to sell to any man who had already taken too much; made it also obligatory to sell something to eat at the same time with something to drink; and, best of all, restricted the profits of these establishments to a moderate percentage,—seven or eight per cent., if I re- member rightly,—all the surplus receipts going to public purposes, and especially to local charities. The main point was that the men appointed to dispense the drinks had no motive to sell adulterated drinks, or any more liquor than was consistent with the sobriety of the customer.

I may add that, in my opinion, the worst enemies of real temperance in America, as in other countries, have been the thoughtless screamers against intemperance, who have driven vast numbers of their fellow-citizens to drink in secret or at bars. Of course I shall have the honor of being railed at and denounced by every fanatic who reads these lines, but from my heart I believe them true.

I remember that some of these people bitterly attacked Governor Stanford of California for the endowment of Stanford University, in part, from the rent of his vineyards. People who had not a word to say against one theological seminary for accepting the Daniel Drew endowment, or against another for accepting the Jay Gould endowment, were horrified that the Stanford University should receive revenue from a vineyard. The vineyards of California, if their product were legally protected from adulteration, could be made one of the most potent influences against drunkenness that our country has seen. The California wines are practically the only pure wines accessible to Americans. They are so plentiful that there is no motive to adulterate them, and their use among those of us who are so unwise as to drink anything except water ought to be effectively advocated as supplanting the drinking of beer poisoned with strychnine, whisky poisoned with fusel-oil, and ``French claret'' poisoned with salicylic acid and aniline.

The true way to supplant the ``saloon'' and the barroom, as regards working-men who obey their social instincts by seeking something in the nature of a club, and therefore resorting to places where stimulants are sold, is to take the course so ably advocated by Bishop Potter: namely, to furnish places of refreshment and amusement which shall be free from all tendency to beastliness, and which, with cheerful open fireplaces, games of various sorts, good coffee and tea, and, if necessary, light beer and wine, shall be more attractive than the ``saloons'' and ``dives'' which are doing our country such vast harm.

My advice to all men is to drink nothing but water. That is certainly the wisest way for nine men out of ten —and probably for all ten. Indeed, one reason why the great body of our people accomplish so much more in a given time than those of any other country, and why the average American working-man ``catches on'' and ``gits thar'' more certainly and quickly than a man of the same sort in any other country (and careful comparison between various other countries and our own has shown that this is the case), is that a much larger proportion of our people do not stupefy themselves with stimulants.

In what I have said above I have had in view the problem as it really stands: namely, the existence of a very large number of people who WILL have stimulants of some kind. In such cases common sense would seem to dictate that, in the case of those who persist in using distilled liquors, something ought to be done to substitute those which are pure for those which are absolutely poisonous and maddening; and, in the case of those who merely seek a mild stimulant, to substitute for distilled liquors light fermented beverages; and, in the case of those who seek merely recreation after toil, to substitute for beverages which contain alcohol, light beverages like coffee, tea, and chocolate.

This is a long digression, but liberavi animam meam, and now I return to my main subject.

The American commissioners were treated with great kindness by the French authorities. There were exceedingly interesting receptions by various ministers, and at these one met the men best worth knowing in France: the men famous in science, literature, and art, who redeem France from the disgrace heaped upon her by the wretched creatures who most noisily represent her through sensational newspapers.

Of the men who impressed me most was Henri Martin, the eminent historian. He discussed with me the history of France in a way which aroused many new trains of thought. Jules Simon, eminent both as a scholar and a statesman, did much for me. On one occasion he took me about Paris, showing me places of special interest connected with the more striking scenes of the Revolutionary period; on another, he went with me to the distribution of prizes at the French Academy—a most striking scene; and on still another he piloted me through his beautiful library, pointing out various volumes in which were embedded bullets which the communards had fired through his windows from the roof of the Madeleine just opposite.

Another interesting experience was a breakfast with the eminent chemist Sainte-Claire Deville, at which I met Pasteur, who afterward took me through his laboratories, where he was then making some of his most important experiments. In one part of his domain there were cages containing dogs, and on my asking about them he said that he was beginning a course of experiments bearing on the causes and cure of hydrophobia. Nothing could be more simple and modest than this announcement of one of the most fruitful investigations ever made.