During the next twenty-five years brewing developed without the least hindrance and attained to an economic importance second to but few American industries. True, prohibition loomed up again and had to be met at the polls; but although it gained a firm footing in two States, it was defeated in fourteen others. It killed brewing in these States, but its immediate results only helped to accelerate the growth of brewing throughout the country. In many States beer had by this time become the common drink of the people and even in the Southern States the people welcomed the establishment of local breweries, rendered possible by artificial refrigeration and the great improvements in the process of manufacture.

Just about this time, however, the prohibitionists seemed to have realized that in so far as the consumption of beer was recommended by the best minds as a measure of temperance, calculated to decrease the use of spirits, in just so far did it help to counteract their movement. From this time onward their whole agitation actually became a fight against beer. But a majority of the newspapers and of rational reformers still continued to advocate the use of the fermented drinks.

GROWTH
OF TRUE
TEMPERANCE

In 1881, Dr. Thos. Dunn English, the famous literary man, scientist and physician, published a remarkable pamphlet in which he advocated and justified the moderate use of beer. The eminence of Dr. English as a writer and his unchallenged integrity as a public man, procured the widest hearing for his views. The book was universally discussed and, of course, called forth a storm of adverse criticism. But it made a deep impression and in the light of the progress since achieved along the line of true temperance, this modest little treatise by Dr. English has prophetic as well as historical value. The following paragraph has never been surpassed for terse wisdom and philosophic truth, in all the literature of the subject:

“The assumption by extremists that beer represses the finer emotions, retards intellectual activity, destroys the physical power of the race, leads to crime and pauperism, and does many other terrible things, is simply absurd. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Certainly the Germans compare favorably on these points with the Mussulmans, who are claimed as water-drinkers. The latter have sadly degenerated since the days when their victorious hordes overran Europe, and threatened to place the crescent in triumph over the cross. I am aware that the followers of Mohammed are not the abstinents they are supposed to be. The Turks not only indulge in opium and tobacco, but in brandy—brandy is not wine—the Eastern tribes in lagmi, and the strictest believers in various alcoholic stimulants not coming from the grape, and so outside of the letter of the prophet’s prohibition. But the Mussulmans do not drink beer, and the Germans certainly do. The Anglo-Saxon race rose to greatness under the consumption of vast amounts of ale, and with indulgence in that stimulant kept up the steady vigor and intellectual power of a race that has imposed its ideas and language over a larger share of earth than any other people. In this country, where the consumption of malt liquors has risen in seventeen years from less than a million and three-quarter barrels to over thirteen and three-quarter millions, have we degenerated as a people? Last year over fourteen millions. Have we not manifestly gained by the partial substitution of a beverage containing a small portion of alcohol and a larger portion of nutritive matter for one containing fourteen times as much stimulation and no nutritive element at all? If you could create man over again, and make him other than his Maker has made him, you might constitute him without a craving for stimulants or for heat-food in its most concentrated form. As it is, the best you can do is to lead his instinct and direct his habits into the safest channel for both, and keep him in that as in all other things, within the bounds of moderation.”

Time has but strengthened the force of Dr. English’s argument, while the production of beer has risen to over fifty-eight million barrels and the consumption of whiskey has markedly decreased. This extraordinary increase of production has been accompanied by a pronounced gain in temperance and general well-being on the part of the working classes, the chief consumers of beer.

Dr. English’s conclusions as to the comparative virtue of malt liquors, so furiously disputed on the publication of his little book, would challenge very little controversy to-day. We have been making progress in the interval, as witness these figures of beer production in the United States:

Barrels Barrels
188013,347,111189433,362,373
188114,311,028189533,589,784
188216,952,085189635,859,250
188317,757,892189734,462,822
188418,998,619189837,529,339
188519,185,953189936,581,114
188620,710,933190039,330,849
188723,121,526190140,517,078
188824,683,119190244,478,832
188925,119,853190346,650,730
189027,561,944190448,265,168
189130,021,079190549,522,029
189231,855,626190654,651,636
189334,591,179190758,622,002
190858,814,033

A REVOLUTION
IN DRINKING
HABITS