The Life and Adventures of Ben Hogan, the Wickedest Man in the World

by Ben Hogan

CHAPTER XXVII.

Ben as a Reformer—His Opinions on the Temperance Question—Physical Culture—The Social Evil—Prisons and Penitentiaries—Gambling.

The reader who has followed these pages to the present point will, I think, admit that the life of Ben Hogan has been one of strange adventure and untiring activity. It would be singular, indeed, if such a career had not left strong impressions upon the mind of the man who has followed it. These impressions have given rise to convictions on many important questions, which, to my thinking, are sound and reasonable. I shall attempt to lay before the reader some of the opinions held by Ben Hogan touching the subjects of temperance and the social evil.

With respect to the first, it is Hogan’s belief that the principle of total abstinence will never effect the reform which its advocates claim. The first distinction to be drawn is that between temperance and total abstinence. The words have come to be used by many persons as synonymous; but their meaning is widely different. A man may drink wine, beer, or spirits all his life, and still be strictly temperate. If we apply this rule to anything excepting intoxicating drinks, its validity will at once be apparent. For example: Beef is an excellent article of diet, and yet a man may use it in such excessive quantities as to overstrain the digestive organs and bring about all manner of diseases. We are not to reason from this that men should give up beef altogether. Its abuse, and not use, alone, is to be condemned.

So with liquor. If pure wine or whiskey can be obtained, and if it is taken only in moderation, it is an established fact that the system is not injured. But, says the advocate of total abstinence, hundreds of men cannot take liquor in moderation. If they touch it at all, they go at once to the wildest excesses. This is a fact; but for the sake of sound argument we must go behind the fact. Why is it that a man cannot touch liquor without plunging into excess? Because his system has been broken down by the vile stuff which is sold in most of the bar-rooms of this country. He does not know what pure liquor is; and having once become accustomed to the destroying fluids, which are sold under all sorts of names, it is doubtful whether he would appreciate the genuine article, even if he got it.

For more than forty years the doctrines of total abstinence have been preached in this country. Young men have been told that whatever would intoxicate should be shunned as a poison; and with this terrible announcement ringing in their ears, they have stepped into the nearest saloon and tested the poison in the shape of a cocktail. The Neal Dows and Murphys and Oliver Cotters have given their theory a fair trial; and the result is—what? That, making due allowance for the increase in population, there is to-day three times the amount of drunkenness in the United States that there was forty years ago. This stubborn fact would seem to knock the bottom out of the total abstinence theory. Evidently we are on the wrong track to suppress drunkenness. In Germany, everybody drinks beer and Rhine wine; yet Germany is freer from the evil of intoxication than any country in the world. In France, claret flows as freely as water; and yet you rarely see a Frenchman drunk. In the United States, nobody is supposed to drink anything, and the rates of drunkenness are alarming.

Now it is Hogan’s theory that if light wines and lager beer were made the common beverages of the people, there would be a steady decrease in drunkenness. Instead of attempting to prove to men that a glass of wine is as bad as a dose of poison, show them that a glass of wine is infinitely better than a glass of whisky, and you will carry conviction with your argument. Let beer gardens and wine rooms be made respectable, as they are on the continent of Europe. Let a man be able to take his wife and family into these places, and not be obliged to stand behind a screen and guzzle down the adulterated stuff in company with sots and ruffians. It is fair to assume that men will go on drinking in the future as they have done in the past. Stimulus is a natural craving of the system, especially where life is run on the high-pressure principle which it is in this country. Let us not undertake the impossible task of shutting off this stimulus—of preventing men from drinking altogether—but rather let us seek to make the beverages comparatively harmless.

The facilities for producing light, pure wines in this country, at an expense which shall place them within reach of all, are unexampled. California and the Ohio Valley could and should furnish wine enough to supply the whole United States without importing a bottle. The manufacture of lager beer has already become a most important industry. To our mind, lager is destined to do more for the cause of true temperance than all the ranting and radical speeches that were ever delivered on the subject. Persuade a man to drink a glass of beer instead of the manufactured stuff sold as whisky, and you put him out of the danger of delirium tremens. These views, it is to be remembered, are entertained by a man who has had abundant opportunities to study the evil effects of liquors. So thoroughly convinced did Hogan become of the impossibility of furnishing pure spirits to his patrons, that just before leaving the oil regions he refused to sell any more distilled liquors. He told his customers plainly that it was an impossibility to get good whisky. He gave them beer and wine if they wanted it, but refused to help on the traffic in adulterated liquors.

Briefly summarized, then, Ben Hogan’s views on temperance are these: