The great safeguard of a drunkard"s children undoubtedly lies in the warning which they see every day in their home and in the earnest advice which the man who drinks will give to all young people if he have any conscience left.
If the man who drinks would save his own children from the same danger, he can do so better than any other. He need not lose their respect by telling them of his own mistakes, if these mistakes have been hidden from them. Let him simply tell them, without personal reference, what he knows about whiskey, its effects on a man"s happiness, success, self-respect and physical comfort.
Whiskey gives a great many things to men. Of these gifts here are a few:
Lack of friends, lack of will, lack of self-respect, lack of nervous force--lack of everything save the hideous craving that can end only with unconsciousness, and that begins again with increased suffering when consciousness is restored. ----
Fathers and mothers blessed with self-control and with good children should use the picture of a drinking man as a useful, moral lesson in talking to boys and girls from seven to twenty years of age.
Children are impressed most easily through their imaginations.
An intelligent father or mother can produce upon a child"s receptive mind an impression that will last for years.
With the fear of whiskey there should be impressed upon children sympathy and sorrow for the unfortunate drunkard.
One of the ablest men, and one of the most earnest in America, said to his friends very recently:
"I never drink, as you know. But when I see a man lying drunk in the gutter, I know that he has probably made that very day a harder effort at self-control, a n.o.bler struggle to control himself, than I ever made in my life. He has yielded and fallen at last, but only because all of his strength is insufficient to overcome the disease that possesses him."
Teach your children that drunkenness is a horrible disease, as bad as leprosy. Teach them that it can be avoided, that the disease is contracted in youth through carelessness, and that it is spread by those who encourage drinking in others. Tell them that the avoiding of whiskey is not merely a question of morals or obedience to parents, but a question involving mental and physical salvation, success in life, happiness, and the respect of others.
THOSE WHO LAUGH AT A DRUNKEN MAN
How often have you seen a drunken man stagger along the street!
His clothes are soiled from falling, his face is bruised, his eyes are dull. Sometimes he curses the boys that tease him.
Sometimes he tries to smile, in a drunken effort to placate pitiless, childish cruelty.
His body, worn out, can stand no more, and he mumbles that he is GOING HOME.
The children persecute him, throw things at him, laugh at him, running ahead of him.
GROWN MEN AND WOMEN, TOO, OFTEN LAUGH WITH THE CHILDREN, nudge each other, and actually find humor in the sight of a human being sunk below the lowest animal.
The sight of a drunken man going home should make every other man and woman sad and sympathetic, and, horrible as the sight is, it should be useful, by inspiring, in those who see it, a determination to avoid and to help others avoid that man"s fate.
That reeling drunkard is GOING HOME.
He is going home to children who are afraid of him, to a wife whose life he has made miserable.
He is going home, taking with him the worst curse in the world--to suffer bitter remorse himself after having inflicted suffering on those whom he should protect.
AND AS HE GOES HOME MEN AND WOMEN, KNOWING WHAT THE HOME-COMING MEANS, LAUGH AT HIM AND ENJOY THE SIGHT. ----
In the old days in the arena it occasionally happened that brothers were set to fight each other. When they refused to fight they were forced to it by red-hot irons applied to their backs.
We have progressed beyond the moral condition of human beings guilty of such brutality as that. But we cannot call ourselves civilized while our imaginations and sympathies are so dull that the reeling drunkard is thought an amusing spectacle.
LAW CANNOT STOP DRUNKENNESS-- EDUCATION CAN
Everybody knows that until recently the average statesman, the majority of prominent men, in England, drank to excess.
Pitt was a drunkard--and Pitt was the most remarkable statesman in England.
Fox was a drunkard.
In fact, to write a list of England"s greatest men, who lived more than a hundred years ago, would be to make a list of famous drunkards.
To-day the drunkard in public life is practically unknown in England, as well as in America. No legal pressure has been brought to bear upon the prosperous drunkard.
He was not badgered by policemen or by blue-laws.
He could get ALL that he wanted to drink WHENEVER he wanted it--yet, OF HIS OWN ACCORD, the prosperous drunkard has reformed and become temperate. ----
Our own great Daniel Webster was a drunkard, as were many other great Americans. No man to-day could be a drunkard and at the same time be respected.
Education, experience and common sense have done their work, and drunkenness is now left to self-indulgent fools, or to those whose lives are made dull by poverty, to whom alcohol affords the only escape from horrible monotony.
It would, perhaps, be worth while for the advocates of temperance to study the causes which have practically eliminated drunkenness from the most intelligent cla.s.ses of men.
Education undoubtedly is the greatest factor.
In nearly all the public schools now the evil effects of alcohol are taught.
These evil effects are taught, not in a lackadaisical way, with sentiment or religious duty as a basis. They are taught as FACTS.
Facts appeal to the mind, and they persist in their effect in later life, when moral suasion and religious appeals are forgotten.
Teach every child that alcohol destroys his chances of success, impairs his muscular efficiency, inflames the substance of the brain and prevents development--MAKE HIM FEEL THAT A DRINKING MAN IS A SECOND-CLa.s.s MAN, AND YOU WILL HAVE DONE MUCH TO DESTROY THE DRUNKENNESS OF THE FUTURE. ----
As a matter of fact, drunkenness, like dirt, is mainly an accompaniment of poverty and a sad, hopeless life.
For the man or woman given to drinking, when the troubles of life are no longer to be borne, some relief must be had.
Make the lives of human beings more comfortable, make good food more plentiful, spread education--and you will solve the problem of excessive drinking.
THE DRUNKARD"S SIDE OF IT
You lucky, well-balanced ones talk much, and sincerely, of the horrors of drink, and of the drunkard"s weakness.
You think the whiskey drinker ought to stop.