Do you suppose Thomas F. Marshall, our gifted Kentucky orator, dreamt
when he stood at the foot of the ladder of fame and all Kentucky
pointed him to the golden glory of its summit, that his last words
would be: "And this is the end. Tom Marshall dying; dying in a
borrowed bed, under a borrowed sheet, and without a decent suit of
clothes in which to be buried!"
I well remember the first time I saw Thomas Marshall. He had returned
from Washington, where he had thrilled Congress by his eloquence. He
was announced to speak in Lexington on court day afternoon. I went
with my father from our country home to hear the then golden mouthed
orator. For nearly two hours he swayed that audience as the storm king
sways the mountain pine. On unseen wings of eloquence he soared to
heights I had never imagined within the reach of mortal tongue.
I also remember the last time I saw this brilliant Kentuckian. He was
standing on a street corner in Lexington, Kentucky. His hair hung a
tangled mass about his forehead, his eagle eyes were dimmed by
debauch, and a thin, worn coat was buttoned over soiled linen. As he
straightened himself and started to the bar-room, I could see traces
of greatness lingering about his brow like sheet lightning about the
bosom of a summer storm cloud. Not long after he was telling political
stories in a drinking tavern. When he tired of the tumult of the
bar-room and a sense of his better self came over him, some one said:
"Give us another, Tom." Rising to his feet he said: "You remind me of
a set of bantam chickens, picking the sore head of an eagle when his
wings are broken."
At one time in a temperance revival in Washington he took the pledge
and kept it for months. During this time in a temperance meeting he
was called upon to speak. The following brief extract shows the charm
of his eloquence:
"I would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly sober man, the
glad play with which my pulse now beats healthful music through my
veins, the bounding vivacity with which my life blood courses its
exultant way through every fiber of my frame, the communion high which
my now healthful eye and ear hold with the universe around me, the
splendors of the morning, the softness of the evening sky, the beauty,
the verdure of the earth, the music of winds and waters. No, sir! with
all these grand associations of external nature re-opened to the
avenues of sense, though poverty dogged me, though scorn pointed its
slow finger at me as I passed, though want, destitution and every
element of early misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day
to day: Not for the brightest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's
brow; not if some angel commissioned by heaven, or rather some demon
sent from hell to test the resisting power of my virtuous resolution,
were to tempt me back to the blighting bowl; not for the honors a
world could bestow, would I cast from me this pledge of a liberated
mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the
horrors that once beset my path. So help me Heaven, I would spurn
beneath my feet all the gifts a universe could offer, and live and die
as I am--poor but sober."
Drinking young man, Thomas F. Marshall once stood where you now stand.
He said then what you say now, yet after that beautiful tribute to
sobriety and the pledge of total-abstinence, he stood at a blacksmith
shop door, and as the smith drew the red hot iron from the forge, Mr.
Marshall said to some friends: "Gentlemen, I would seize that rod of
heated iron and hold it in my hand till it cools, if it would cure me
of my terrible appetite for strong drink." This is but one of the many
fallen stars the demon of drink has snatched from the galaxy of
Kentucky's greatness and hurled into the darkness of eternal night.
A man who could drink and not get drunk said to me: "I have no
patience with, nor sympathy for a drunkard. If I couldn't eat what I
want and quit when I choose, I wouldn't claim to be a man." Whether he
could or not, depends on conditions. Let my arm represent the scale of
life, with will on one side and appetite on the other. When a man is
healthy his will stands at eighty, his appetite at fifty. That man
eats when he likes, or lets it alone as he chooses. But let this
healthy, strong man take typhoid fever, and after six or eight weeks
be reduced to almost a skeleton. At this stage, the fever having
subsided, let the doctor say to the once strong man: "The fever is
broken; be careful about your diet, no solid food, only chicken broth
and gruel." Place by the bed of this once strong man a table and on
this table a roast turkey, stuffed with oysters. On the floor place a
coffin and say to the patient: "You see that turkey and that coffin.
If you eat the turkey today, you'll be in the coffin tomorrow." Go out
and leave the man alone with the turkey. Will he eat it? I don't care
if he's a preacher or a doctor he will, regardless of the advice of
doctor or terror of the waiting coffin. Why will he eat when he knows
it means death? Because his will has gone down to twenty and his
appetite up to one hundred.
My father had typhoid fever and when the time of convalescing came my
mother left him alone while she was in the yard with her flowers. I
went into the house and found father had left his bed, crawled to the
cupboard and had hold of what was left of a chicken. I called to
mother; she came running, and taking the chicken from him said: "Don't
you know to eat solid food will kill you?" Father replied: "I know if
you hadn't come in I would have had one square meal."
Did I say too much when I said the preacher would eat the turkey?
Years ago Saint John's pulpit in Louisville, Kentucky, was filled by a
preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his
fame as an orator. He had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair
would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by
the sermons of her eloquent son. He married a wealthy widow and had
everything wealth and refinement could suggest. He saw no wrong in the
wine glass and kept a supply in his cellar. Gradually appetite
demanded stronger drinks and one morning his wife said: "Husband, you
were drunk last night." A few months later he resigned his position
and went west, hoping to break the spell of his habit. But no mountain
was high enough, nor cavern dark enough for him to hide from his mad
pursuer. He returned to Louisville and gave himself up to the
maddening bowl. His wife left him and went to a country home which she
had saved out of her wealth. One night when he was sleeping drunk in
one room, his old mother in another said: "Oh God, is my cup of sorrow
not yet full?" The pitying angel pushed ajar the golden gates and the
broken heart entered into rest.
Time and again this man took the pledge, but only to fail. When the
"blue ribbon" wave swept the country he again took the pledge, and
this time went on the platform as a temperance advocate. He drew great
audiences, and when he had kept his pledge for months we invited him
to Louisville. It was my privilege to introduce him, or rather to
present him to the great audience. Before going on the platform he
said: "I have made a mistake in coming here. It was here I lost
everything a man could ask to make him happy. The memory of my sainted
mother comes over me, and my wife is so near and yet so far from me."
To bring him back to himself I said: "These things will help you to
give the greatest lecture of your life. Come, a great audience of old
friends are waiting."
When introduced he said: "My friends, if I ever did a dishonorable act
before I fell from the pulpit through drink, rise and tell me." Soon
he had his audience in tears and lifting his eyes heavenward he said:
"O my sainted Mother, look down from your home in glory and see your
poor drunken boy. He has staggered all the way back, his feet upon the
up-hillward way, and will travel it with a martyr's step."
He further said: "Will I ever drink again? No; this brow was not made
to wear the brand of a vassal, nor these hands the chains of a
drunkard. Here in Louisville, where I fell in my manhood's might, I
vow I will never drink again." Manhood's might is too weak to win
alone in the battle against sin. Poor J.J. Talbott went down to rise
no more, and on his dying bed, when a minister quoted passage after
passage of promise from God's word, the answer came: "Not for me! Not
for me!" Peace to his ashes.
Young man, will you tamper and trifle with strong drink? Do you say
you can drink or let it alone? I admit you can drink but are you sure
you can let it alone? If you can _now_, are you sure you can two years
hence? I saw a giant oak tree lying in the track of the wind. It had
been called "the monarch of the Sierras." Under the very nests where
tempests hatch out their young, it grew to its greatness. It had seen
many a storm, clad in thunder, armed with lightning, leap from its
rocky bed and go bellowing down the world. But the storms that shook
it only sent its roots down and out that it might fasten itself the
more firmly to the earth. For long years this old tree stood there,
bowing its head in courtesy to the passing storm, while its branches
were but harp strings for the music of the winds. One evening as the
sun went down over the mountain's brow, not a storm cloud on the sky,
a little wind went hurrying round the mountain's base, struck the
great oak and down it went with a crash that made the forest ring.
Young men, why was it a tree that had withstood the storms of ages,
should, before such a little gust of wind bow its head and die? Years
before, when in the zenith of its strength and glory, a pioneer with
an axe on his shoulder, went blazing his way through the wooded
wilderness that he might not be lost on his return. Seeing the great
tree he said: "That's a good one to mark," and taking his axe in hand,
he sent the blade deep into the oak. Time passed with seemingly no
effect from the stroke given by the axeman. But steadily the sun smote
the wound, rain soaked into the scar, worms burrowed in the bark
around it, birds pecked into the decayed wood and finally foxes made
their home in the hollow trunk, and the day came when resisting force
had weakened, boasted strength had departed and the giant monarch of
the Sierras stood at the mercy of the winds that have no respect for
weakness.
There are young men before me today, who can drink or let it alone.
Temptation to them is no more than the gentle breeze in the branches
of the oak in the zenith of its strength. True, temptation has been
along their way blazing, here a glass of wine, there a glass of beer
and yonder a glass of whiskey. They can quit when they please, but the
less they please the more they drink, the more they drink the less
they please. They don't quit because they _can_, if they couldn't quit
they would, because they can, they won't. Thus they reason, while
appetite eats its way into their wills, birds of ill omen peck into
their characters and finally they will go down to drunkards' graves,
as thousands before them have gone. Young men, in the morning of life,
while the dew of youth is yet upon your brow, I beg you to bind the
pledge of total-abstinence as a garland about your character and pray
God to keep you away from the tempter's path.
I wonder that young men will trifle with this great "deceiver." I
wonder too at so much ignorance on the question among intelligent
people. Some years ago after a temperance address a gentleman was
introduced to me as the finest scholar in the city. Next morning we
were on the same train, and referring to the lecture of the evening
before, he said: "I heard your address and was pleased with your
kindly spirit, but I beg to differ with you, believing as I do, that
when properly used, alcoholic liquor as a beverage is good for health
and strength." I felt disappointed to hear a great scholar make such a
statement, but I ventured the reply:
"If that is true God made a mistake, since He made the whole phenomena
of animal life to run by water power. He made it in such abundance it
takes oceans to hold it, rivers and rivulets to carry it to man, bird
and beast, while in all the wide world He never made a spring of
alcohol. If it's good for strength, why not give it to the ox, the
mule and the horse?" It takes a good deal of faith to trust a sober
mule; I'm sure I wouldn't want to trust a drunken one. There is not a
man in my presence who would buy a moderate drinking horse, and no one
would wilfully go through a lot where a drunken dog had right of way.
Yet we license saloons to turn drunken men loose in the street, some
of them as vicious as mad dogs.
Good for strength? When Samson had slain the regiment of Philistines
and was exhausted and athirst; when in his extremity he cried to the
Lord: "Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy
servant, and now shall I die from thirst." What was done to revive him
and renew his strength? Was strong drink recommended as a stimulant?
The Bible account informs us God "clave an hollow place in the jaw,
and water came thereout." Don't you think if alcoholic liquor had been
intended as a beverage for mankind, the great Creator would have made
a few springs of it somewhere? Bore into the earth you can strike oil,
but you can't strike whiskey. You can find sparkling springs of water
almost everywhere, but nowhere a beer brewery in nature. It's water,
blessed water all the time. On your right it bubbles in the brook; on
your left it leaps and laughs in the cascade; above you it rides in
rain clouds upon the wings of the wind; beneath you it hangs in
diamond dew upon the bending blade; behind you it comes galloping down
the gorge "from out the mountain's broken heart;" before you it goes
gliding down the glen, kissing wayside flowers into fragrance and
singing, as rippling o'er the rocks it runs: "Men may come and men may
go, but I go on forever." Oh, bright beautiful water! may it soon be
the beverage of all mankind.
I know some say: "This is a free country; if a man wants to drink and
be a brute, let him do so." The trouble about that is, while strong
drink will degrade some men to the level of the brute, drunkards are
not made of brutes. Some thirty or more years ago a grandson of one of
the greatest statesman this country ever produced, was shot in a
saloon while intoxicated. While that young man was dying, but a few
blocks away a grandson of one of the greatest men that ever honored
Kentucky in the Senate of the United States, was in jail to be tried
for murder committed while drunk; and in the same city at the same
hour in the station-house from drink was a great grandson of the
author of "Give me liberty or give me death." Whom did Daniel Webster
leave his seat in the Senate that he might hear his eloquence? S.S.
Prentice went down under the cloud of drink. A gifted family gave to a
Southern State a gifted son. His state sent him to the halls of
national legislation, but drink wrought his ruin. Horace Greeley was
his friend, and finding him drunk in a Washington hotel said to him:
"Why don't you give up what you know is bringing shame upon you and
sorrow to your family?"
He replied: "Mr. Greeley, ask me to take my knife and sever my arm
from my shoulder and I can do it, but ask me to give up an appetite
that has come down upon me for generations, I _can't_ do it." He threw
his cane upon the floor to emphasize his utterance. A few days later
in the old Saint Charles Hotel, he pierced his brain with a bullet and
was sent home to his family in his coffin.
Bring me the men who are drunkards in this city, strip them of their
appetite for strong drink, and they are husbands, brothers, fathers,
sons, and as a rule, generous in disposition.
Thank God, while drunkenness will drag down the gifted and noble,
temperance will build up the humblest and lowest. Bring me the poorest
boy in this audience, let him pledge me he will never take a drink of
intoxicating liquor as a beverage, let him keep that pledge, be
industrious and honest; my word for it, in twenty years from now he
will walk the streets of the city in which he dwells, honored,
respected, loved, and the world can't keep him down. I rejoice we live
in a land where I can encourage a boy, a land where rank belongs to
the boy who earns it, whether he hails from the mansion of a
millionaire or the "old log cabin in the lane;" a land where a boy can
go from a rail cut, a tan yard, or a toe-path, to the presidency of
the United States; a land where I can look the humblest boy in the
face and say:
"Never ye mind the crowd, my boy, or think that life won't tell;
The work is the work for aye that, to him that doeth it well.
Fancy the world a hill, my boy; look where the millions stop;
You'll find the crowd at the base, my boy; there's always room at
the top."
Have you a trade? Go learn one. Do you know how to do things? Go try;
you may make mistakes, but do the best you can like the boy who joined
the church. At his uncle's table soon after he was asked to say grace.
He didn't know what kind of a blessing to ask, but he did know he was
very hungry, so bowing his head he said: "Lord, have mercy on these
victuals." I have faith in the boy who will try to do a thing. I
believe in a boy like that one in a mission Sabbath school in New
York, who though he had but little knowledge of the Bible, had a way
of reasoning about Bible lessons. The teacher of his class said to
him: "James, who was the strongest man of whom we have any account?"