WHAT AUTHORITIES SAY.
What shall we do to prevent the evils of a too free use of intoxicating
drinks, and to make our people truly temperate?
This question was ably discussed in the State Board of Health of
Massachusetts some years ago, and Dr. Bowditch, the chairman of the
board, expressed himself at that time as follows: “I am confident that
our people could be gradually led to a higher temperance by appeals to
common sense while deprecating the evils of intemperance, by observing
that the use of some liquors is deleterious, while the temperate use of
others does little or no harm. I deem a love of stimulants as much a
human instinct as any other of the so-called human instincts. And the
proposition of total abstinence from stimulants because intoxication
prevails widely in the community, seems to me as preposterous as
it would be to advise universal celibacy because of the existence
of gross evils in connection with those instincts that lead to the
divine institution of marriage. By classifying all liquors as equally
injurious, and by endeavoring to further that idea in the community,
are we not doing a real injury to the country by preventing a free
use of lager beer instead of ardent spirits to which our people are
so addicted? In the sincere belief, gentlemen, that this analysis of
our correspondence will, eventually at least, tend to help onward the
most excellent cause of temperance everywhere, and in the hope that
none will be offended at the expression at times, of my own individual
opinion, which in the course of the discussion I have deemed it my
right and duty to give, I remain
Your colleague and friend,
HENRY J. BOWDITCH,
_Chairman of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts._”
In his annual report to the State Board of Health, Dr. Bowditch said,
speaking of the question of temperance in connection with the use of
light wines and beer, “I fully agree with all that has been said of the
value of light wines as an aid to temperance, but I sincerely believe
that Germans are destined to be really the greatest benefactors of this
country by bringing to us—if we choose to accept the boon—their beer.
Lager beer contains less alcohol than any of the native or foreign
grape wines. This fact with the other fact that the Germans have not
the pernicious habits of our people, would if we chose to adopt their
customs tend to diminish intemperance in this country. From the study I
have made, lager beer can be used freely without any apparent injury to
the individual, or without intoxication, and would be really a promoter
of the temperance cause, and if we could so manage as to furnish the
people with lager beer and dispense with distilled or alcoholic liquors
entirely, the community would be immensely benefited.” And on page 301
in the same report, the Doctor properly said, “Whisky-drinkers are seen
staggering through the streets or lying insensible in some corner,
wherever this beverage is used. But among the light wine tipplers and
beer-drinkers, even when drinking freely, drunkards are very seldom
seen.”
We have previously shown that in many cases the introduction of beer
has added to the welfare of society, and that its use is perfectly
consistent with habits of sobriety and temperance. From this we
drew the inference that the production should be encouraged and its
increase hailed as a sure pledge of improvement in the matters of
drunkenness, disorder and crime. The same conclusion was reached by
Dr. Bowditch as the result of correspondence conducted with a view to
ascertaining fully the actual state of the case at home and abroad. He
caused a series of inquiries to be carefully prepared and forwarded
to thirty-three resident American ambassadors and to one hundred and
thirty-two consuls, also to many other men in private or official
positions, whose statements and opinions would be entitled to respect.
When the answers were received the unanimity of the opinions expressed
was almost startling. _All_ are in favor of beer as a light, wholesome
beverage, superior even to the light wines. Following are given a few
extracts from the great mass of answers received:
A physician in Massachusetts writes, “I should make a distinction
between the use of intoxicating liquors and the lighter drinks. What
a blessing it would be for the community if we could furnish the
people with the best of lager beer and dispense with distilled liquors
entirely.”
Another physician, also resident in Massachusetts, says, “I have had
a very large practice among the Germans for twenty years, and my
observation has been that they are remarkably free from consumption and
chronic diseases. I have attributed it to their free use of lager beer,
and do conscientiously believe that the moderate use of this beverage
is beneficial.”
A letter from the consulate general of the United States at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, reads thus: “Twenty years ago the state of
affairs in reference to temperance was different. By the improvement
in making beer and the selling of it to the people at large, at low
prices, things have changed wonderfully. Drunkards have disappeared. A
great deal less of cider and wine is consumed. Everybody now generally
drinks beer. Intoxication has decreased. It cannot be said that the
general health of the people suffers in this part of Germany. In the
city of Frankfort, with a population of over one hundred thousand, and
an average annual mortality of fifteen hundred, hardly five persons
on an average have died of delirium tremens, which all the eminent,
physicians here attribute to the free use of lager beer.”
Mr. John Jay of the United States Legation at Vienna says: “I am
advised by those in whose judgment I have full confidence, that the
chief drinks in Austria are wine but particularly beer, the latter
of which is drunk by all classes of society at home and at places of
amusement, and that but comparatively a small amount of spirituous
liquors is consumed except in Galicia. Touching the relative amount of
intoxication in the country where I am residing, and that seen all over
the United States, I do say that I have seen more intoxicated persons
in the streets of New York in one day than I have chanced to see in
Vienna during the past year.”
Baron Liebig, the eminent chemist, makes the following statements:
“Beer unites in its composition a number of constituents whose action
is such as to more or less completely neutralize the alcohol whose
tendency is to exalt the function of the brain and nervous system.”
“Fermented juices, in general, differ from spirits in containing
alkalies, organic acids and certain other substances.”
“Pure lager beer when taken with lean flesh and little bread yields a
diet approaching to milk, and with fat meat, approaching to rice or
potatoes.” And in another place, “In beer-drinking countries, it is the
universal medicine for the healthy as well as for the sick, and it is
milk to the aged.”
Dr. Schlaeger of Vienna, also a distinguished chemist, says:
“It is my opinion, based on numerous cases that have come under my
professional observation, that delirium tremens and other maladies
to which inebriates are subject are caused chiefly by the use of
_distilled liquors_. Therefore the manufacture and sale of beer should
be encouraged. It should be free from taxation in order that it may be
placed within the reach of all at a low price and thoroughly take the
place of ardent spirits.”
The editor of the Chicago _Tribune_, writing from Germany, says:
“Drunkenness is so rare and infrequent that it may be said not to
exist. I have traveled thousands of miles through Germany, in various
directions, visiting nearly all the chief cities, and have made
diligent inquiry of American consuls and other well-informed persons,
and received but one answer everywhere, _viz._, no drunkenness among
the Germans; public sentiment would not tolerate it; the habits of the
country are all against it. And what is the reason of this freedom from
inebriation? It is the total absence of whisky and the substitution of
lager beer.”
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN’S HOUSE AND BREWERY IN PENNSBURY, BUCKS
COUNTY, PA. (See page 26.)]
Mr. Y. G. Hurd wrote to Mr. Bowditch in reference to the beer question
and after referring to the records of the Essex police court and
alluding to intemperance caused by ardent spirits, continued as
follows: “Of all our commitments 60 per cent. are directly traceable
to drunkenness. Is the enforcement of a prohibitory or any other law
alone to rid us of the monster? Were there only the pecuniary interest
of the liquor traffic to meet, powerful as it is, the result would not,
be doubtful. But there are climatic influences, the universal desire
for stimulants, the education of our civilization for some centuries,
social customs and hereditary tendencies, all tending in a greater or
less degree to perpetuate the evil. * * * * * A visit to Chicago and my
observation there of the habits of the German population, first brought
to my mind doubts that total abstinence will ever be an accomplished
fact. I visited the beer gardens on Sunday to see how the Germans spend
the day. There was a band of music, a dance floor, rude seats and
tables like our New England picnics, in a beautiful grove, and lager
in such quantities as I had never conceived. Everybody, old and young,
drank and seemed to continue to drink during the afternoon. But lager
was the only beverage. No liquors, no drunkenness and no fights or
disorderly conduct. The young men and maidens were merry and danced,
the elder drank and talked with the gravity and dignity becoming to
respectable German citizens; the children sipped their glass of lager
and gamboled on the grass, and all went home apparently sober, to
resume without doubt, their usual avocations on the morrow. There were
probably two thousand persons taking their weekly recreation, and this
was only one of half a dozen similar places about the suburbs of the
city. Now if this had been an American or Irish congregation, and the
beverage the usual vile concoctions called whisky, gin and brandy,
would not the closing scenes of the afternoon have been very different?
Broken heads, bloody noses, and the wayside strewn with the wrecks
of humanity in beastly intoxication. I thought if we could be rid of
the grosser liquors—banish them, put them in the pale of dangerous
drugs to be only dispensed by the physician like other poisons, and
substitute the lager of the Germans and the light wines of France and
_our own country_—should we not be doing our best to exterminate the
curse of drunkenness? I expect we shall yet come to this conclusion.
The difficulty is that with the tastes of our people, lager and wines
will be, indeed, now are, a cover for the sale of the grosser liquors,
and worse than all, these liquors are without exception, adulterated
or poisonous. I have written at your request this somewhat candid
statement of my present views as briefly as possible.”
A physician who has under his professional charge, a large institution
for the maintenance of aged persons, informs us that the demand for
stimulus in the form of tea is a matter of constant observation, and
he moreover gives it as his opinion that from twenty to twenty-five
per cent. of the whole number are _tea sots_, drinking tea regularly
from four to six times a day and as much oftener as they can procure
it. They show the effect of this over-stimulation by increased mental
irritability, muscular tremors and a greater or less degree of
sleeplessness. Another fact to the same purport has been communicated
to us by a friend. A domestic in the family sometimes appeared
intoxicated and as it was certain she could not get at any of the
liquors generally considered intoxicating, the circumstance excited no
little surprise and curiosity. At last the problem was solved by the
discovery that she drank large quantities of the strongest tea. This it
will be seen is in exact conformity with the opinion of Mr. Gladstone
as previously quoted, and more or less marked cases of the same nature
have doubtless been observed by many of our readers.
A. Schwarz, Esq., of New York, the editor of “Der Americanische
Bierbrauer,” a man known in both hemispheres, as an able writer and
chemical student, who by his life-long study in fermented beverages
has won for himself the thanks of every brewer, writes thus: “Among
all drinks, as well those which nature furnishes in abundance as those
which are produced by human skill, lager beer especially commends
itself by its properties as an excellent beverage.
“Milk contains nutritious substances (protein) and various salts.
“Wine contains alcohol and small quantities of salts.
“Mineral waters, which render such valuable service to the diseased
human organism, contain carbonic acid and salt.
“Coffee and tea contain volatile aromatic oils and alkaloids.
“Strong spirituous liquors, as whisky, brandy, rum, arrack and gin,
contain only more or less alcohol, with some etherial oils.
“The various popular so-called temperance drinks are distinguished only
by their watery contents, which are flavored with sugar and extracts of
plants and herbs to make them taste less insipid.
“Beer contains protein, alcohol, salts and carbonic acid gas, and hence
possesses nutritious, stimulating and refreshing properties.
“It is not our intention to write a eulogy of beer. We will only state
in its favor what cannot be denied by any man, be he a physician or a
mechanic, a philosopher or a manufacturer, a chemist or an engineer, a
wine-drinker or a temperance man.
“We denote as extracts of beer those solid substances which are not,
through the fermentation of the wort, transformed into volatile bodies,
and therefore remain as a sediment after the evaporation of the beer.
This extract consists of malt sugar obtained by the mashing process, of
albumen contained in the malt and now dissolved, and of certain salts,
especially phosphoric salt, which were originally contained in the
barley, and have not been lost during the process of brewing.
“The amount of the extract of beer mainly depends on the original
concentration of the wort and on that state of fermentation in which
the beer is consumed; it varies from three to eight per cent.
“By virtue of its protein and its salts, it has a very nutritious
effect upon the human organism, and though it does so in a less degree
than meat or bread, yet on account of the form of solution in which
it appears in the beer, it is easier assimilated, _i. e._, it easily
enters the organism and plays a prominent part in the formation of
milk, muscle, flesh and bones,—and the quantity of alcohol contained in
beer is so small and so much diluted with water, that it can produce
intoxication only if consumed in a very great quantity, _i. e._, by an
immoderate use.”
An international congress has just been held in Paris on “Alcoholism,”
and the Belgian delegate, Dr. Barella, constituted himself the
champion of beer. He contended that the consumption of spirits should
be discountenanced, because these beverages are harmful, and that
the consumption of beer should be encouraged, because it is a sound,
wholesome and harmless drink. He pointed out that in countries where
the wines are good, and the beers agreeable and nutritive, much less
spirits are consumed, and _vice versa_.
Following is a summary of the points made in the report of Dr. Bowditch
previously quoted. They will be found useful and interesting, and
the whole document deserves the highest praise for thoroughness of
investigation, caution of statement and fairness of spirit.
1st. Stimulants are used everywhere, and at times abused, by savage and
by civilized men. Consequently intoxication occurs all over the globe.
2nd. This love of stimulants is one of the strongest instincts. It
cannot be annihilated, but may be regulated by reason, by conscience,
by education, or by law when it encroaches on the rights of others.
3rd. Climatic law governs it, the tendency to indulge to intoxication
being not only greater as we go from the heat of the equator towards
the north, but the character of that intoxication becoming more violent.
4th. Owing to this cosmic law intemperance is very rare near the
equator. It is there a social crime and a disgrace of the deepest dye.
Licentiousness and gambling are small offenses compared with it. To
call a man a drunkard is the highest of insults. On the contrary at the
north of 50° it is very frequent, is less of a disgrace and is by no
means a social crime.
5th. Intemperance causes little or no crime toward the equator. It is
an almost constant cause of crime either directly or indirectly at the
north above 50°.
6th. Intemperance is modified by race as shown in the different
tendencies to intoxication of different people.
7th. Races are modified physically and morally by the kind of liquor
they use as proved by examination of the returns from Austria and
Switzerland.
8th. Beer, native light grape wines and ardent spirits should not
be classed together, for they produce very different effects on the
individual and upon the race.
9th. German beer and ale can be used even freely without any very
apparent injury to the individual, or without causing intoxication.
They contain very small percentages of alcohol (4 or 4.5 to 6.50 per
cent.). Light grape wines, unfortified by an extra amount of alcohol,
can be drunk less freely but without apparent injury to the race, and
with exhilaration rather than drunkenness. Some writers think they do
no harm but a real good if used moderately. They never produce the
violent crazy drunkenness, so noticeable from the use of the ardent
spirits of the north. Ardent spirits, on the contrary, unless used very
moderately, and with great temperance, and with the determination to
omit them as soon as the occasion has passed for their use, are almost
always injurious, if continued even moderately for any length of time,
for they gradually encroach on the vital powers. If used immoderately
they cause a beastly narcotism which makes the victim regardless of all
the amenities and even the decencies of life, or perhaps they render
him furiously crazy, so that he may murder his best friend.
10th. Races may be educated to evil by bad laws, or by the introduction
of bad habits. France and a small part of Switzerland are beginning to
suffer from the introduction of absinthe and other spirituous liquors.
Especially is this noticeable since the late Franco-German war.
11th. A race, when it emigrates, carries its habits with it. For a time
at least, those habits may override all climatic law.
12th. England has thus overshadowed our whole country with its love
of strong drinks, and with its habits of intoxication, as it has more
recently covered Ceylon, parts of the East and Australia.
13th. This influence on our own country is greater now than it would
have been if our forefathers, the early settlers, had cultivated the
vine, which would have been practicable, as seen by the examples of
Ohio and California, and from the fact that the whole of the United
States lies in the region of the earth’s surface suited to the grape
culture.
14th. If these early settlers had done this our nation would probably
have been more temperate, and a vast industry like that of France, of
Spain and of Italy and Germany, in light native wines, would long ago
have sprung up.
15th. The example set by California and Ohio[21] should be followed by
the whole country, where the vine can be grown. As a temperance measure
it behooves every good citizen to promote that most desirable object.
We should also allow the light, unfortified wines of Europe to be
introduced free of duty instead of the large one now imposed. Instead
of refusing the German lager beer, we should seek to have it introduced
into the present “grog shops” and thus substitute a comparatively
innoxious article for those potent liquors, which now bring disaster
and death into so many families.
[21] Ohio has already made very great progress in this direction, and
its wines are lighter than those of California. [Author.]
16th. The moral sense of the community should be aroused to the
enormity of the evils flowing from keeping an open bar for the sale of
ardent spirits, while those for the sale of light wines and of lager
beer or ale should not be opposed, except for the sale to habitual
drunkards after due notice from friends. Sellers violating such law
might be compelled to support for a time the family of their victim.
17th. The horrid nature of drunkenness should be impressed by every
means in our power upon the moral sense of the people. The habitual
drunkard should be punished, or if he be a _dipsomaniac_, he should be
placed in an inebriate asylum for medical and moral treatment, until he
has gained sufficient self-respect to enable him to overcome his love
of drink.
We give next an extract from an article written by Dr. Willard Parker,
which article was printed March 20th, 1879, in the _Religious Herald_,
a temperance paper published at Hartford, Conn. Dr. Parker says:
“We have never had a single case of an inebriate in the asylum at
Binghamton, (N. Y.,) who came here from using fermented beverages, he
may have begun with them and gone on to other and stronger liquors,
but the mere fermented beverages did not make an inebriate of him;
* * * and while men use simply fermented liquors with no more alcohol
than comes from their fermentation, drunkenness is but little known.”
He says also that fermentation is a process of nature which will
continue to exist as long as there is sugar and starch. Fermentation
is the work of omnipotence, not the work of man, it grows out of the
very constitution of things and is as truly a divine process as growth
itself.
Professor Mulder of Amsterdam remarks in the preface to his “Chemistry
of Beer,” page IV., “I dare say without exaggeration that we find
united in beer all the wholesome substances that are met separately
in the various carbonic acid mineral waters, in wine and in bread,”
and in reference to the alcoholic property of beer he says, page 461:
“Many people are prejudicially influenced by the frequent misuse of
alcoholic beverages and kept from reasoning honestly and truly as to
their salubrious effects in a diluted form such as we find in beer. If
we consider the beneficial effects of good beer on the system we cannot
help attributing a share in the result to the alcoholic element, even
if it be held that alcohol has in itself no nutritive power.” The same
opinion is held by Prof. Pittenkofer, the renowned and well-deserving
chemist and hygienist, on the strength of numerous observations and
results of minute examination.
Professor Stahlschmied formerly at Berlin and at present at the royal
polytechnic school at Aix-la-Chapelle, says in his work “Chemistry
in reference to Fermentation,” page 255: “Up to the present time,
experiments on the nourishing properties of beer have not been
sufficiently numerous to furnish definite conclusions. It is not so
much the small amount of organic extract that is to be considered as
the ashes and phosphates which are here provided in a form easy of
assimilation. In this respect beer is next to milk and furnishes an
aliment that is directly bone producing.” It is well known that beer
is very commonly taken by nursing women on account of its nourishing
and milk-producing qualities and the fact furnishes evidence from
experience to the same purport as the technical statement just quoted.
The report of the Department of Agriculture at Washington as far back
as the year 1866 speaks as follows: “The intemperate use of beer is
like the intemperate use of anything detrimental to health, but a
moderate use of pure beer will aid digestion, quicken the powers of
life, and give elasticity to the body and mind and will not produce
any of the terrible results named by fanatics and ignorant people. In
certain forms of dyspepsia it is a valuable assistant to other remedies
and in some cases of debility requiring a mild tonic and gentle
stimulant beer has been found of the greatest benefit.”
Touching the nutritious properties of beer as compared with the grain
from which it is made Professor Mulder says: “The food value of beer as
compared with grain is as one to fourteen, no account being made of the
food value of the alcohol contained in beer. The albumen value of beer
as compared with grain is as one to six, the fat as one to seventy and
the chemical salts as one to twenty-five. On the whole, the latest and
most trustworthy results of scientific investigation go to show that a
well brewed beer, properly compounded with hops and well matured, is to
be considered a beverage which has a most beneficial influence on the
transmutation of substances in the human body; if moderately taken.”
Sir Henry Labouchere, editor of “Truth” and formerly member of
Parliament for Windsor and Middlesex, an accomplished linguist, and
fitted both as an original thinker and by experience in the diplomatic
_corps_ at most of the capitals of Europe, to form a just opinion, says
that experience shows that beer is a most wholesome beverage, that when
pure it is not intoxicating and can be drunk freely, that its use adds
to the health and strength of man, that intoxication hardly exists
where it is the national beverage and that its introduction in all
parts of the world would be a blessing to mankind.
Professors Ure and Huxley, Dr. Harvey, Dr. Abercrombie and Bayard
Taylor, the celebrated traveler and recent ambassador at the court at
Berlin, as also our great statesman and historian George Bancroft,
all came, after careful study and personal observation, to the same
conclusion, that beer is not only healthy, refreshing and enlivening
as a beverage, but also an excellent means of rooting out the love of
strong drink and securing genuine temperance.
Dr. A. Baer, member of the Royal Sanitary Council, and chief physician
at the prisons of Berlin and Ploetzensee near Berlin has, within
a few months, published a valuable work on alcoholism. He says,
“Beer is of all drinks best adapted for a stimulating beverage of
general consumption. It combines with the refreshing, animating and
thirst-quenching elements, distinct nutritive qualities, mainly due
to the abundant presence of certain salts, and thus becomes one of
the very best substitutes for extract of meat. The greater number of
characteristic principles of the one are found in the other, but the
decided nervous animation experienced after drinking beer is chiefly
due to the large portion of phosphate of potassa, which _Mitcherlich_
says forms 20 parts in 100 of beer ashes, and which, according to
Ranke, constitutes the principal active ingredient in meat broth. To
the presence of this salt, beer owes its strengthening influence during
convalescence and in cases of general debility, and its marked tendency
to produce corpulency, as shown in beer-drinkers. In addition to this
the bitter principle of the hops has a tonic power of marked value in
assisting digestion while the modicum of alcohol has a stimulating and
animating effect on the brain. On the whole, beer as a beverage cannot
be excelled, as it possesses a number of qualities which jointly have a
most salutary effect upon the human organism.”
In a report presented a short time ago to the Industrial Society of
Mulhouse the well-known Dr. Schoellamer thus speaks of beer:
“Beer is one of the best drinks that we can recommend, its consumption
being most wholesome. Good beer ought to be regarded as an excellent
drink, capable in itself of replacing all other fermented drinks. Thus
its moderate consumption must be strongly recommended. If its price is
high a great obstacle is placed in the way of a natural consumption.
“Beer contains from two to eight per cent. of alcohol, a dose of
carbonic acid equal to three or four times its volume; when it is
exposed to the air it loses all its gas. It contains besides azote and
phosphates; for example, a liter of good beer, made exclusively with
hops and barley, contains 0.80 gr. of azote, which corresponds to 5.26
grains of albuminoid matters. There are again from 0.60 gr. to 0.80 gr.
of phosphoric acid, that is as much as in 530 grammes of meat or 220
grammes of bread. The solid extract of beer contains salts favorable to
nutrition, etc. It is on these accounts that beer may be considered a
beverage of the first order.
“It slacks thirst admirably, and as it contains a great deal of water
it is perhaps the best of all for that purpose. As an alcoholic drink
it is superior to all spirituous liquors. It is the most tonic, the
most operative, and the most nourishing. Complete drunkenness is almost
impossible with ordinary beer, whatever quantity may be consumed; what
is known as “alcoholism” is not produced by it. In fact beer exercises
on the human economy a tonic, nutritive, diuretic, and slightly
stupefying action, the last effect being due to the essential oil
contained in the hops, but large quantities must be absorbed before
this effect can be produced.”
Professor W. Nasse, president of the Society of Medical Officers of
Insane Asylums in Germany, presented for consideration at their annual
meeting held at Hamburg, Sept. 17, 1876, the following question: “How
can we specially assist in preventing the injury which results from
the use of alcoholic liquors?” It was decided that the only means was
in promoting the use of good mild beer. The same opinion has been
expressed by Dr. Selman in an address delivered at Dusseldorf, and also
by Dr. Roller of Illenau, a meritorious specialist in mental diseases,
and by Professors Griesinger of Zurich and Schreiber-Berzelius of
Sweden. All the authorities just quoted hold a high rank in their
profession, and contributions from their pens frequently appear in the
_Quarterly Journal of Inebriety_, published at Hartford, Conn.
The Contemporary Review has lately published a series of papers on the
same topic, written in a popular style by several London physicians of
celebrity, including Dr. Walter Moxon, Sir James Paget and others, and
all opposing the doctrine of total abstinence and declaring themselves
in favor of beer as a promotive of the real temperance cause. Dr.
Albert T. Bernays, too, has considered with great minuteness the cause
of intemperance and his conclusion is that beer is the safest kind of
alcohol and should be adopted as a common beverage by all classes of
people.
In the Minnesota Legislature when the prohibitory law was under
consideration, Dr. Riley, a representative from Houston county, spoke
as follows: “In the district where I reside there is a large number of
Germans who have come from the old country and planted grapes, and now
there are magnificent vineyards stretching along the hillsides where
formerly there was not grass enough to feed a sheep. They raise large
quantities of very fine grapes which they ship all over the country.
They also make very fine wine. The proposed law will destroy these
vineyards of my constituents. * * * Perhaps it will be necessary to
pass a law to protect those miserable drunkards who cannot protect
themselves but it is not necessary to restrain others of their liberty
to drink when they want or need it.
“Why, I have seen ladies at a tea-party, perhaps not drunk, but
certainly very jolly from drinking tea, and yet they come to this
Legislature with petitions signed by all whom they could influence
or bulldoze into signing, men, women or children to the number of
ten thousand. There are eight hundred thousand people in Minnesota,
and we are proposing to let these ten thousand override the other
seven hundred and ninety thousand. They claim as prohibitionists that
drinking tends to impoverish the people. Do you believe that? Look at
the Germans! Many of them take a piece of land that would scarcely
support a hog and make a fortune of it. They all drink beer. They take
their wives and their children to the beer garden and sit down and
drink their beer every day, and even the babe in arms will stretch
to get a taste of it. These people are not impoverished by it. These
people are so healthy in my neighborhood that I have actually not been
able to make a living out of my German constituents.
“They say it tends to the degeneration of the human race. How does it
happen that in New England where prohibitory laws are in force the
race has so degenerated that they do not seem to be able to raise any
children? Look at the Germans who drink beer all the time. You will
find a large family of healthy children in almost every German house.
Are they degenerated?
“The children of total abstinence people are constantly dying. From the
vital statistics of Minnesota I learn that over two thousand children
died last year under two years of age. They would not have died if they
had been fed on good wholesome beer. I would advise mothers—and I have
advised them in my practice—to give their sickly children plenty of
beer, and I know I have saved many an infant’s life. Beer is the best
cure for dyspepsia in the world. I have cured women of this terrible
disease by advising them to drink three glasses of beer every day, and
I say again to you mothers that if you will drink beer and feed your
children on beer you will raise more and healthier children.
“Referring to the vital statistics of the state, I find that but six
men died of intemperance during last year—two of delirium tremens and
four of something else, which they couldn’t tell anything about, and
so called it intemperance. And yet you want to stop drinking. Eleven
were killed by horses during the same time. Why don’t you abolish
horses—never use them or go near them? Thirty-five committed suicide.
Why don’t you prohibit the use of firearms and knives, and drain all
your lakes and rivers for fear some poor fool will drown himself? Some
152 died of heart disease. I don’t want any heart in mine. Twenty
ladies were scalded to death. You ought to prohibit the use of hot
water for fear that more ladies will get into it and perish.
“England away across the sea has brewed beer for many hundred years and
will continue to brew for thousands of years more, and to the fact that
the English people have drunk beer all that time I do conscientiously
attribute her present greatness. Beer-drinkers are slow but sure. Look
at Germany, that great nation. We could not pay her for the money we
have borrowed of her. Her great army, the best in the world, her great
statesmen, her philosophers, were all raised on beer.”
[Illustration: _Fred Lauer_
HONORARY PRESIDENT UNITED STATES BREWERS’ ASSOCIATION]
The Hon. Frederick Lauer in a speech before the Brewers’ Convention at
St. Louis, June 4, 1879, thus presents a phase of the beer question
which is certainly of importance:
“What we now want to ensure the future happiness and prosperity
of the country is the enactment of liberal laws to induce the
industrious classes of overcrowded Europe to flock to our shores.
We want immigration for the purpose of building up our towns and
cities, developing our manufacturing enterprises, and cultivating the
millions of fertile acres in this country now lying idle. The thrifty
German is accustomed to his daily ration of beer. In the land of his
nativity he has his parks and public gardens, where family unions
and social gatherings take place amid the ecstatic influence of the
foaming lager. The English, Irish, Scotch, and people of other European
countries are noted patrons of malt liquors. The greatest liberality
should, therefore, be shown them in the indulgence in their customary
beverages in the land of their adoption. With the more general use of
malt liquors the hundreds of quack medicines now in the market will
disappear, as it has been proved by experience in countries where malt
beverages are the popular drink, that health and longevity are marked
features, and dyspepsia and chronic complaints are rare. The tide of
emigration is again swelling to this country. According to the _New
York Herald_ of the first of May last, the total number of immigrants
landed at New York for the first three months of 1879 was 11,288, more
than two-thirds of whom came from Germany, England and Ireland. The
emigration of aliens to the United States from 1789 to 1877 is set down
in round numbers at 10,000,000, who, with their descendants have built
up this great nation. Since May 5, 1847, the emigration to this country
has reached 5,732,183 souls. In view of these facts nothing should be
done to interfere with the happiness of those who seek our shores, but
by means of wise laws they should be protected in the enjoyment of
their rights and privileges. To be successful as a government we should
invite immigration, and develop our great natural resources, and then
by promoting health and temperate habits by the adoption of beer as the
national beverage, we will increase as a nation, and be in truth and in
fact the greatest country on the face of the earth.”