When even rolling in wealth, no tongue can tell the torments I suffered both in soul and body. The excesses of the maddening bowl and of the gaming table had nearly done their work, when a whisper came to my conscience that I must alter my ways or be lost to all eternity. I had, somehow, become impressed with the necessity of a change of life, and I, therefore, made an effort to redeem my terrible past. Under Heaven I have succeeded to some extent, for I am no longer a slave to either of the vices just named. And, oh! if I could but impress upon the youth of this country the vital importance of temperance, and of a good and pure life, how happy I should be. If I could but depict to them the horror of my feelings when after a hard night’s drinking and gambling I found myself in the morning all but a beggar on the streets, without a penny in my pocket or a friend in the world, staggering seedy and blear-eyed into a pawnbroker’s shop to pledge my overcoat for the price of my breakfast—could I describe this as graphically as my heart would prompt me to do, I should be, indeed, grateful for the gift. For, let it be understood, that through the instrumentality of the glass and of the gambling table more souls are sent to perdition than through any other means. Look at all your murders throughout the length and breadth of the land, and take a peep into your prisons. Who perpetrates the one or fills the other?—the gambler or the drunkard. Who is your suicide and wife deserter from Maine to California?—the gambler or the drunkard. Who brings ruin upon his family and reduces the partner of his bosom and his little ones to state of beggary?—the gambler or the drunkard. And who lives without God in the world and dies without hope?—the gambler or the drunkard.
I have been broad and specific in my statement regarding my life, so that there might be no misinterpreting my faults, and so that thereby they might loom up before the youth of this and every land in their true and repulsive colors. God knows it cost me many a pang to say all I have said of myself, but this was one feature of the palliation of my various crimes and offences. I must confess all! I must hide nothing, else my repentance should not be complete or sincere.
I hope and trust that there may yet be some space left to me to do good in the world; and, in view of the fact that I am not in the sear and yellow leaf, I think I can discern a bright gleam in the future. Still, I have done so much evil that I scarcely dare mention what little good I had allowed to fall to my lot. I shall, therefore, permit this drop to fall unobserved into the bucket and begin life anew. Often my heart and tongue struggle to say that which is embarassed by a restricted education, but which lies burning or smouldering far down in the depths of my being. When I see the youth about me wasting the precious moments of their lives as I have wasted mine, and think of the possible fate that awaits them, I sometimes shudder at the contemplation of their future. When I see a young man in business hours, or after or before them, wending his way to the tavern or liquor saloon, to which every vice gravitates, I feel as if I could spring forward and arrest him on the threshold of the dangerous spot.
There is something so infectious in the atmosphere of such places, that it is next to impossible to shake oneself free from it once it has touched the blood. Its fascination is that of the deadly serpent, which holds you in thrall until escape is impossible, and the poisonous fangs are buried deep in your soul. To learn the terrible power of such places has cost me dear, and I now turn from them with a loathing so deeply seated as never to be brought to tolerate them again. They are the destroyers of time, of the purse, of the health and of character; and they brand a business man so effectually and so fatally, that even his friends and the sharers of his orgies shake their heads portentously in relation to his ultimate fate. No drunkard has ever succeeded in life, or taken up an exalted position in society; and when we all know that the constant use of alcoholic stimulants not only destroys the physical body but ruins the mind, what infatuation must it be to ever permit a drop of such stuff to cross our lips.
In my day I have seen wealth melt like the snow and sink into this vortex where it was lost forever to him who had possessed it. I have seen families that were once the very embodiment of prosperity and happiness scattered to the winds by this monster curse. I have seen pride tumble into the gutter from a pedestal upon which it once stood admired and respected; and oh, I have seen manly and female beauty fall beneath its infernal spell. Could I this moment, with one sweep of my pen, rid the land of this mighty demon, I should account myself the happiest of mortals in performing the act. There is no sacrifice too great that tends to its utter destruction, and no mission more holy than that which struggles toward its annihilation. Every effort that has been put forth in the cause of temperance and morality by those good men and true who are working in this field toward elevation of society, and to save the natural man from himself, is approved by Heaven so palpably that a blessing follows close upon its heels. Hence our ministers and temperance lecturers should be sustained to the fullest by the head, the heart and the pocket of a nation. What we want are good and faithful citizens—men who are true to themselves and humanity, and these are not to be fostered in a gambling or a liquor saloon. In this relation parents and perceptors must constantly keep stretching out their hands and plucking the young brands from the burning. Nor is it necessary to effect this that the regime to which we would submit them should be severe or uncongenial. Youth is the time of sunshine, and we must not cloud it with rules or precepts antagonistic to its joyous essence. We must give it judicious scope, and surround it with healthy and innocent enjoyments and amusements. And while we should, as it is our duty, inculcate morality and religion, we must remember that a healthy mind and body are indispensable to the true growth and development of both.
Again, it is so difficult to retrace one’s steps once that vice has got a firm hold, that the danger of the first cup becomes apparent at a glance. Hence we must see how necessary that we should neither touch, taste nor handle the inebriating cup. The steps toward final and complete ruin are in the first instance at times so imperceptible that we scarcely know we are transgressing and pursuing a downward track until we may be almost past redemption. Often we see the fond mother and the fond father tempting their children to taste some sweetened beverage that is simply alcohol in disguise. Such kindness is fraught with the utmost danger, for the tastes and habits of the young are easily formed. Youth has a tendency to reckless indulgences, which in this relation, as well as in others, should be narrowly watched; and, as for the most part these tastes are engendered in the first case beneath the eye of the parent, surely the greatest prudence and caution should prevail. Man is an imitative animal in every sense of the word. Consequently, how all-important it is that in the respect now under consideration we should set a pure example before the younger members of our families by both word and act. If the child perceives the father or the mother indulging to any extent whatever in those mixtures falsely called wines or pure spirits—that is, if they should be given to their wine-glass of punch after dinner, or at any period during the day—the child, whether boy or girl, is, of course, tempted to follow the example; and so on the very hearthstone which should have fostered the germs of sobriety and purity we sometimes find this viper warmed into life whose fangs are so pregnant with poison that the first touch often proves fatal.
And now for the cautious, the moderate and sober drinker—the man who never exceeds, although he daily indulges in the intoxicating glass. He, let it be clearly understood, is an infinitely more dangerous person, and does more veritable mischief than the absolute and confirmed drunkard that we find rolling about the streets. In the one case we find a man of a certain temperament and constitution, who has prudence and self-control, tempting others, who are differently constituted, into the indulgence of habits that they are utterly unable to keep in check. The moderate drinker is in this respect a decoy-duck of the devil. He says, “look at me, I never exceed; a man can take a glass in reason, and fill all the duties pertaining to him at the same time.” This is dangerous logic, but it is what he is hourly preaching by his example. Does he not know that for one individual who can drink, or that has the power to drink in moderation, there are thousands, aye, millions, who in this respect have no control of themselves whatever. Step into any of your bar-rooms or liquor saloons, and show me if you can the number who frequent such places and who drink moderately. There is no such thing as moderation connected with such people. One glass begets another, until the brain is dulled or maddened, and the young or the old life blasted for the time being, while at the same moment time and money flows away unnoted and unimproved. Nay, more, and I have experience to back the assertion, there is not under the sun one place that tends to demoralize a youth so rapidly and irrevocably as one of those dens where bad liquor, bad cigars, and bad everything else are rife. The gambling table is a horror also, but, as a general thing, it beggars its victim so swiftly as to paralyze him for some time at least, and prevent him from indulging in its excesses, because of his want of means. But in the liquor saloon, for a very trifle, you can indulge in low habits of intemperance, and so lay the foundation of your destruction as to place your case in a very short period beyond all hope.
And yet, let it be understood that I do not place all liquor dealers in the category of bad men. Very far from it. I have known many of them to be good and generous; yes, and opposed to intemperance. I have known many of them to refuse to supply further with drink persons who had already had “enough,” as the term goes, and even refuse money under the circumstances. These are simply good and honest men, who have got into the wrong groove, and who are utterly exalted above the less scrupulous dealers of their class; and had they chosen any other vocation, where their goodness of heart would have had full scope, they would have become ensamples in it worthy of imitation and all praise. But the groove, and the circumstances that surround it, bear a stigma which the honesty or kind-heartedness of one good man, or a thousand, cannot wipe away—cannot obliterate. The wine cup has done such damage—has broken so many hearts, ruined so many fortunes, and destroyed so many lives that no light can fall on it but what is the most fearful, lurid and repulsive to any well-ordered mind.
But some one will say, “Ben Hogan, this is all very well, but what remedy do you propose—how are you going to help us out of the mire?” In answer I reply, “If society is at present so constituted that liquor saloons cannot be done away with, I propose that not one saloon throughout the length or breadth of the land shall be permitted to sell a single glass of liquor that is not as pure and as sound as liquor can be. I propose that, in this respect, there shall be such vigilance used and adequate legislation, that adulterated liquors shall become impossible, and that none but respectable persons should be licensed to sell. In addition, I should make it the law of the land that every bar-room from Maine to California should be closed at ten o’clock at night, and not opened until eight o’clock in the morning, and that any violation of this rule should be punished with a heavy fine. Let this system be once adopted, and we shall have less midnight brawls, and less stay-out-at-night husbands, squandering the means that should be devoted to the well-being and happiness of their families, and destroying their own health, prospects and reputation; while, in addition, they will have no incentive to leave their houses at daybreak in the morning to quench their burning thirst at the same accursed fountain. Curtail the confirmed inebriate at night and in the morning by keeping the liquor saloons closed against him, and hopeless as his case may be, all hope is not lost. Let one have no incentive to be absent from his home after ten o’clock at night, or to leave it before eight in the morning, and you leave him time to take a glance at his condition at least. As the case now stands, the man who is addicted to the use of ardent spirits has scarcely time to recover from one debauch until he becomes embarked in another. He gets home at midnight, and for the purpose of stimulating his sinking spirits, or easing his fiery head, he is up and out at daylight, and, although intending to take but one glass, begins the day as he had begun the misspent yesterday. Had he been home at ten o’clock on the night before, and were he presented with no bar-room inducement to leave his house before eight o’clock in the morning, he would have had ten hours sleep or rest, instead of four, and a respite of the same length from the fatal glass; for, I contend, that most drinkers do their destructive work outside their own dwellings, and among boon companions.”