My first lecture--A cold and disagreeable evening--A fair audience--My
success--Lecture at Fairview--The people turn out en masse--At
Rushville--Dread of appearing before the audience--Hesitation--I go on the
stage and am greeted with applause--My fright--I throw off my father's old
coat and stand forth--Begin to speak, and soon warm to my subject--I make
a lecture tour--Four hundred and seventy lectures in Indiana--Attitude
of the press--The aid of the good--Opposition and falsehood--Unkind
criticism--Tattle mongers--Ten months of sobriety--My fall--Attempt to
commit suicide--Inflict an ugly but not dangerous wound on myself--Ask
the sheriff to lock me in the jail--Renewed effort--The campaign of
'74--"Local option."
I delivered my first lecture at Raleigh, the scene of many of my most
disgraceful debauches and most lamentable misfortunes. The evening
announced for my lecture was unpropitious. Late in the afternoon a cold,
disagreeable rain set in, and lasted until after dark. The roads were
muddy, and in places nearly impassable. I did not expect on reaching the
hall, or school house, or church in which I was to speak, to find much of
an audience, but I was agreeably disappointed; for while the house was by
no means "packed," there was still a fair audience. Raleigh had turned out
en masse, men, women and children. I suppose they were curious to hear what
I had to say, and they heard it if I am not much in error. I was much
embarrassed when I first began to speak--more so than I have ever been
since, even when in the presence of thousands. I did the best I could, and
the audience expressed very general satisfaction. I think some of my
statements astounded them a trifle, but they soon recovered and listened
with profound and respectful attention. My next appointment was at
Fairview. Here, as at Raleigh, I had often been seen during some of my wild
sprees, and here, as at Raleigh, the people came out in force to hear me. I
improved on my first lecture, I think, and felt emboldened to make a more
ambitious effort. I settled on Rushville as the next most desirable place
to afflict, and made arrangements to deliver my lecture there. A number of
the best young men in the town of the class that never used liquor, but who
had always sympathized with me, went without my consent or knowledge to the
ministers of the different churches, and had them announce that on the next
Monday evening Luther Benson, "the reformed drunkard," would lecture in the
Court House. I was nervous from the want of my accustomed stimulants, and
the added dread of appearing before an audience before whose members I had
so many times covered myself with shame, and in whose Court House--the very
place in which I was to speak--I had been several times indicted for
violations of the law, almost caused me to break my engagement. While still
hesitating on what course to take, whether to go before the audience or go
home and hang myself, the dreaded Monday evening came, and with it came my
friends to escort me to the stage, which had been extemporized for me. I
waited until the last moment before entering the room.
On making my appearance I was greeted with applause, but instead of
reassuring me, it frightened me almost out of my wits. However, it was too
late to retreat, and so making up my mind to die, if necessary, on the
spot, or succeed, I hastily threw off my father's old and threadbare
overcoat (I had none of my own) and stood forth in a full dress coat, which
showed much ill treatment, and immediately began my lecture. As I warmed to
my work, and got interested, I forgot my embarrassment and talked with ease
and volubility. I did not fail, in proof of which I have only to add that
on the following day I met Ben. L. Smith on the street, and on the strength
of my lecture, he went my security for a respectable coat and pair of
boots.
From Rushville I started on a lecture tour, taking in Dublin, Connersville,
Cambridge City, Shelbyville, Knightstown, Newcastle, and other places. By
degrees I widened the field of my lectures until it embraced the whole of
Indiana and parts of many other States. In a little more than three years I
have spoken publicly four hundred and seventy times in Indiana alone. From
the very first I have been warmly and generously supported by the press.
There have been exceptions in the case of a few papers, but they were only
the exceptions. Since my first effort to reform, all good people have aided
me. But from the very first I have had to fight opposition and falsehood. I
have been accused of being drunk when I was sober, and outrageous
falsehoods have been told about me when the truth would have been bad
enough. After I had got fairly started to lecture I had always one object
paramount, and that was to save myself from the drunkard's terrible fate
and doom. After a short time men who drank would come to me and
congratulate me, saying that I had opened their eyes, and that from that
day forward they would drink no more liquor. Mothers, wives, and sisters,
who had sons, husbands, and brothers that indulged in the fatal habit, came
to me and encouraged me by telling me how much good I had done them. I
began to feel a strong additional motive to lecture and save others. And
here I wish to say that my efforts to save all men whom I met that were in
danger (and all are in danger who touch liquor in any form) of the curse,
have been the cause of much unkind criticism. People have said: "O, well,
we don't believe Benson is in earnest. He don't seem to try very hard to
quit drinking himself. He doesn't keep the right sort of company," and so
on. This was the language of men who never drank. I have had drinking men
by the score come to me with tears in their eyes, and beg to know if there
was any escape from the curse. Since taking the lecture field I have paid
out in actual money over a thousand dollars to aid men and families in
trouble caused by the use of liquor. I have the first one yet to turn away
when I had anything to give. I have more than once robbed myself to aid
others. Oftentimes my labor and money have been thrown away, but I have the
satisfaction of knowing that I did my duty. In some cases, thank heaven! I
have cause to know that my efforts were not in rain.
For ten months from the time I quit drinking and began to lecture, I
averaged one lecture a day. I lived on the work and its excitement, making
it take, as far as possible, the place of alcohol. I learned too late that
this was the very worst thing I could have done. I was all the time
expending the very strength I so much needed for the restoration of my
shattered system. For ten months, lacking two days, I fought my appetite
for whisky day and night. I waged a continued, never-ceasing, never-ending
battle, with what earnestness and desire to conquer the God to whom I so
fervently prayed all that time alone knows, and he alone knows the agony of
my conflicts. I dreamed that I was wildly drunk night after night, and I
would rise from my bed in the morning more weary than when, tired and worn
out from overwork, I sought rest. The horror of such dreams can be known
only to those who have experienced them. The shock to my nervous system
from a sudden and complete cessation of the use of all stimulating drinks
was of itself a fearful thing to encounter. I was often so nervous that,
for nights at a time, I got little or no sleep. The least noise would cause
me to tremble with fear. I suffered all the while more than any can ever
know, save those who have gone through the same hell. The manners and
actions often induced by my sufferings and an abiding sense of my
afflictions not infrequently militated against me. It has often been said:
"He acts very strangely--must have been drinking." Again: "I believe he
uses opium." These assertions may have been honestly made, but they were
none the less utterly false. If people could only know just how much the
drunkard suffers; how sad, lonesome, gloomy and wretched he feels while
trying to resist the accursed appetite which is destroying him, they would
never taunt him with doubts, nor go to him, as I have had men, and even
women, come to me (I say "men and women," but they were neither men nor
women, but libels on men and women), and say that this or that person had
said that that or this person had heard some other person tell another
person that he, she, or it believed that I, Luther Benson, had been
drinking on such and such an occasion; or that some one told Mr. B., who
told Miss X.T. that J.B. had said to Madam Z. that such and such a one had
actually told T.Y. that O.M.U. had seen three men who had heard of four
other men who said they could find two women who had overheard a man say
that he had seen a man who had seen me with two men that had a bottle of
something which he felt pretty sure was Robinson county whisky. Therefore
B. was drunk!
These things had the effect on me that this account will probably have on
the reader--they annoyed me exceedingly at times. At times the falsehoods
were more malicious still, causing me many sleepless hours. At the end
of ten months of complete sobriety, during which I never tasted any
stimulant--ten months of constant struggle and determined effort--I fell.
Alas, that I am compelled to write the sad words! I had broken down my
strength; my mental and physical energies gave way, and my appetite had
wrapped itself as a flaming fire about me, consuming me in its heat. I
commenced drinking at Charlottsville, Henry county, and went from there to
Knightstown on a Saturday evening. On the following Monday I went to
Indianapolis drunk, and there got "dead drunk." My friends in Rushville,
hearing of my misfortune, came after me and took me with them to that
place, where I remained utterly oblivious until the next Sunday, when, by
some means--I have no knowledge how--I got on an early train that was
passing through Rushville, and went as far as Columbus, where I got off,
and soon succeeded in getting a quart of liquor. Between the hour of my
arrival at Columbus and night I drank three bottles of whisky.
That night I returned to Rushville, and while mad with liquor, made an
attempt on my life by cutting my throat. Well for me that my knife was dull
and did not penetrate to the jugular artery. The wound self-inflicted was
an ugly but not dangerous one. I kept on drinking for a week or more, until
I found that it was utterly out of my power to resist drinking so long as I
remained in a place where I could see, or buy, or beg whisky. I finally
went to the sheriff and asked him to lock me up in jail, which I finally
persuaded him to do. Once in jail I tried in vain to get more liquor. I
remained there until the fierce fires of my appetite smouldered once more,
and then I was released. I lay in bed sick several days at this time, sick
in mind, soul, and body. I felt that for me there was nothing left. I had
descended to the lowest depths. I was forever ruined and undone. Many who
had said that I would not or could not stop drinking seemed to be delighted
over my terrible misfortune. The smile with which they would say, "I told
you so!" was devilish and fiendish. But many friends gathered about me and
cheered me with hope that by renewed effort I might rise again. Well and
truly did a great English poet, Campbell, I believe, say:--
"Hope springs eternal in the human heart."
I determined once more that I would not give up, I would fight my tireless
enemy while a breath of life or an atom of reason remained in my being.
It was now July, 1874. An exciting political campaign was coming off, the
main issue was "local option." I took the side and became an advocate of
local option, and until the election in October, averaged one speech per
day, frequently traveling all night in order to meet my engagements. That
campaign broke me down completely, and on the first of November I again
yielded, after a prolonged and desperate struggle, to the powers of my
sleepless and tireless adversary. So terrible were the consequences of this
fall that in the hope of preventing others from ever indulging in the
ruinous habit which led to it, I wrote out and published a full account of
it under the title of "Luther Benson's Struggle for Life." Inasmuch as this
book will be incomplete without it, I will embody that brochure in the next
chapter, so that those who have never read it may now do so, if they
desire.