New Resolves and New Hopes.
And now, dear reader, after having given you some insight into my
turbulent and, for so far, misspent life, I stand before you and before
Heaven with uplifted hands and tearful eyes, imploring the forgiveness of
society and the great and good Being I have so long and so persistently
offended. Surely, I can say of a truth that "the way of the transgressor
is hard;" for now I most solemnly aver that never during my wild and
reckless career had I experienced a moment of true peace or happiness.
Under the promptings of the Evil One and of my own fallen nature, all was
confusion and crime; and were it not for a benign and forgiving Providence
I should long ere this have been beyond all hope.
When even rolling in wealth, no tongue can tell the torments I suffered
both in soul and body. The excesses of the maddening bowl and of the
gaming table had nearly done their work, when a whisper came to my
conscience that I must alter my ways or be lost to all eternity. I had,
somehow, become impressed with the necessity of a change of life, and I,
therefore, made an effort to redeem my terrible past. Under Heaven I have
succeeded to some extent, for I am no longer a slave to either of the
vices just named. And, oh! if I could but impress upon the youth of this
country the vital importance of temperance, and of a good and pure life,
how happy I should be. If I could but depict to them the horror of my
feelings when after a hard night's drinking and gambling I found myself
in the morning all but a beggar on the streets, without a penny in my
pocket or a friend in the world, staggering seedy and blear-eyed into a
pawnbroker's shop to pledge my overcoat for the price of my
breakfast--could I describe this as graphically as my heart would prompt
me to do, I should be, indeed, grateful for the gift. For, let it be
understood, that through the instrumentality of the glass and of the
gambling table more souls are sent to perdition than through any other
means. Look at all your murders throughout the length and breadth of the
land, and take a peep into your prisons. Who perpetrates the one or fills
the other?--the gambler or the drunkard. Who is your suicide and wife
deserter from Maine to California?--the gambler or the drunkard. Who
brings ruin upon his family and reduces the partner of his bosom and his
little ones to state of beggary?--the gambler or the drunkard. And who
lives without God in the world and dies without hope?--the gambler or the
drunkard.
I have been broad and specific in my statement regarding my life, so that
there might be no misinterpreting my faults, and so that thereby they
might loom up before the youth of this and every land in their true and
repulsive colors. God knows it cost me many a pang to say all I have said
of myself, but this was one feature of the palliation of my various crimes
and offences. I must confess all! I must hide nothing, else my repentance
should not be complete or sincere.
I hope and trust that there may yet be some space left to me to do good in
the world; and, in view of the fact that I am not in the sear and yellow
leaf, I think I can discern a bright gleam in the future. Still, I have
done so much evil that I scarcely dare mention what little good I had
allowed to fall to my lot. I shall, therefore, permit this drop to fall
unobserved into the bucket and begin life anew. Often my heart and tongue
struggle to say that which is embarassed by a restricted education, but
which lies burning or smouldering far down in the depths of my being. When
I see the youth about me wasting the precious moments of their lives as I
have wasted mine, and think of the possible fate that awaits them, I
sometimes shudder at the contemplation of their future. When I see a young
man in business hours, or after or before them, wending his way to the
tavern or liquor saloon, to which every vice gravitates, I feel as if I
could spring forward and arrest him on the threshold of the dangerous
spot.
There is something so infectious in the atmosphere of such places, that it
is next to impossible to shake oneself free from it once it has touched
the blood. Its fascination is that of the deadly serpent, which holds you
in thrall until escape is impossible, and the poisonous fangs are buried
deep in your soul. To learn the terrible power of such places has cost me
dear, and I now turn from them with a loathing so deeply seated as never
to be brought to tolerate them again. They are the destroyers of time, of
the purse, of the health and of character; and they brand a business man
so effectually and so fatally, that even his friends and the sharers of
his orgies shake their heads portentously in relation to his ultimate
fate. No drunkard has ever succeeded in life, or taken up an exalted
position in society; and when we all know that the constant use of
alcoholic stimulants not only destroys the physical body but ruins the
mind, what infatuation must it be to ever permit a drop of such stuff to
cross our lips.
In my day I have seen wealth melt like the snow and sink into this vortex
where it was lost forever to him who had possessed it. I have seen
families that were once the very embodiment of prosperity and happiness
scattered to the winds by this monster curse. I have seen pride tumble
into the gutter from a pedestal upon which it once stood admired and
respected; and oh, I have seen manly and female beauty fall beneath its
infernal spell. Could I this moment, with one sweep of my pen, rid the
land of this mighty demon, I should account myself the happiest of mortals
in performing the act. There is no sacrifice too great that tends to its
utter destruction, and no mission more holy than that which struggles
toward its annihilation. Every effort that has been put forth in the cause
of temperance and morality by those good men and true who are working in
this field toward elevation of society, and to save the natural man from
himself, is approved by Heaven so palpably that a blessing follows close
upon its heels. Hence our ministers and temperance lecturers should be
sustained to the fullest by the head, the heart and the pocket of a
nation. What we want are good and faithful citizens--men who are true to
themselves and humanity, and these are not to be fostered in a gambling or
a liquor saloon. In this relation parents and perceptors must constantly
keep stretching out their hands and plucking the young brands from the
burning. Nor is it necessary to effect this that the regime to which we
would submit them should be severe or uncongenial. Youth is the time of
sunshine, and we must not cloud it with rules or precepts antagonistic to
its joyous essence. We must give it judicious scope, and surround it with
healthy and innocent enjoyments and amusements. And while we should, as it
is our duty, inculcate morality and religion, we must remember that a
healthy mind and body are indispensable to the true growth and development
of both.
Again, it is so difficult to retrace one's steps once that vice has got a
firm hold, that the danger of the first cup becomes apparent at a glance.
Hence we must see how necessary that we should neither touch, taste nor
handle the inebriating cup. The steps toward final and complete ruin are
in the first instance at times so imperceptible that we scarcely know we
are transgressing and pursuing a downward track until we may be almost
past redemption. Often we see the fond mother and the fond father tempting
their children to taste some sweetened beverage that is simply alcohol in
disguise. Such kindness is fraught with the utmost danger, for the tastes
and habits of the young are easily formed. Youth has a tendency to
reckless indulgences, which in this relation, as well as in others, should
be narrowly watched; and, as for the most part these tastes are engendered
in the first case beneath the eye of the parent, surely the greatest
prudence and caution should prevail. Man is an imitative animal in every
sense of the word. Consequently, how all-important it is that in the
respect now under consideration we should set a pure example before the
younger members of our families by both word and act. If the child
perceives the father or the mother indulging to any extent whatever in
those mixtures falsely called wines or pure spirits--that is, if they
should be given to their wine-glass of punch after dinner, or at any
period during the day--the child, whether boy or girl, is, of course,
tempted to follow the example; and so on the very hearthstone which should
have fostered the germs of sobriety and purity we sometimes find this
viper warmed into life whose fangs are so pregnant with poison that the
first touch often proves fatal.
And now for the cautious, the moderate and sober drinker--the man who
never exceeds, although he daily indulges in the intoxicating glass. He,
let it be clearly understood, is an infinitely more dangerous person, and
does more veritable mischief than the absolute and confirmed drunkard that
we find rolling about the streets. In the one case we find a man of a
certain temperament and constitution, who has prudence and self-control,
tempting others, who are differently constituted, into the indulgence of
habits that they are utterly unable to keep in check. The moderate drinker
is in this respect a decoy-duck of the devil. He says, "look at me, I
never exceed; a man can take a glass in reason, and fill all the duties
pertaining to him at the same time." This is dangerous logic, but it is
what he is hourly preaching by his example. Does he not know that for one
individual who can drink, or that has the power to drink in moderation,
there are thousands, aye, millions, who in this respect have no control of
themselves whatever. Step into any of your bar-rooms or liquor saloons,
and show me if you can the number who frequent such places and who drink
moderately. There is no such thing as moderation connected with such
people. One glass begets another, until the brain is dulled or maddened,
and the young or the old life blasted for the time being, while at the
same moment time and money flows away unnoted and unimproved. Nay, more,
and I have experience to back the assertion, there is not under the sun
one place that tends to demoralize a youth so rapidly and irrevocably as
one of those dens where bad liquor, bad cigars, and bad everything else
are rife. The gambling table is a horror also, but, as a general thing, it
beggars its victim so swiftly as to paralyze him for some time at least,
and prevent him from indulging in its excesses, because of his want of
means. But in the liquor saloon, for a very trifle, you can indulge in low
habits of intemperance, and so lay the foundation of your destruction as
to place your case in a very short period beyond all hope.
And yet, let it be understood that I do not place all liquor dealers in
the category of bad men. Very far from it. I have known many of them to be
good and generous; yes, and opposed to intemperance. I have known many of
them to refuse to supply further with drink persons who had already had
"enough," as the term goes, and even refuse money under the circumstances.
These are simply good and honest men, who have got into the wrong groove,
and who are utterly exalted above the less scrupulous dealers of their
class; and had they chosen any other vocation, where their goodness of
heart would have had full scope, they would have become ensamples in it
worthy of imitation and all praise. But the groove, and the circumstances
that surround it, bear a stigma which the honesty or kind-heartedness of
one good man, or a thousand, cannot wipe away--cannot obliterate. The wine
cup has done such damage--has broken so many hearts, ruined so many
fortunes, and destroyed so many lives that no light can fall on it but
what is the most fearful, lurid and repulsive to any well-ordered mind.
But some one will say, "Ben Hogan, this is all very well, but what remedy
do you propose--how are you going to help us out of the mire?" In answer I
reply, "If society is at present so constituted that liquor saloons cannot
be done away with, I propose that not one saloon throughout the length or
breadth of the land shall be permitted to sell a single glass of liquor
that is not as pure and as sound as liquor can be. I propose that, in this
respect, there shall be such vigilance used and adequate legislation, that
adulterated liquors shall become impossible, and that none but respectable
persons should be licensed to sell. In addition, I should make it the law
of the land that every bar-room from Maine to California should be closed
at ten o'clock at night, and not opened until eight o'clock in the
morning, and that any violation of this rule should be punished with a
heavy fine. Let this system be once adopted, and we shall have less
midnight brawls, and less stay-out-at-night husbands, squandering the
means that should be devoted to the well-being and happiness of their
families, and destroying their own health, prospects and reputation;
while, in addition, they will have no incentive to leave their houses at
daybreak in the morning to quench their burning thirst at the same
accursed fountain. Curtail the confirmed inebriate at night and in the
morning by keeping the liquor saloons closed against him, and hopeless as
his case may be, all hope is not lost. Let one have no incentive to be
absent from his home after ten o'clock at night, or to leave it before
eight in the morning, and you leave him time to take a glance at his
condition at least. As the case now stands, the man who is addicted to the
use of ardent spirits has scarcely time to recover from one debauch until
he becomes embarked in another. He gets home at midnight, and for the
purpose of stimulating his sinking spirits, or easing his fiery head, he
is up and out at daylight, and, although intending to take but one glass,
begins the day as he had begun the misspent yesterday. Had he been home at
ten o'clock on the night before, and were he presented with no bar-room
inducement to leave his house before eight o'clock in the morning, he
would have had ten hours sleep or rest, instead of four, and a respite of
the same length from the fatal glass; for, I contend, that most drinkers
do their destructive work outside their own dwellings, and among boon
companions."