Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

society"
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How Drunkards Are Produced
By William James Robinson, A.M., D.D.
We have in America 4,000,000 alcoholics, and
probably 3,000,000 problem drinkers (near alcohol
ics). A majority of our men and almost half of our
women drink. Many high school boys and girls, col
lege and university students drink. In all these
groups the percentage of drinkers varies in different
parts of the nation. This situation is deplorable in the
extreme. How can such a condition exist in a socalled
Christian nation It exists because the wor
shipers of Baccus dominate the "land of the free and
the home of the brave." I will prove this.
Liquor is being sold at taverns, night clubs,
roadhouses, honky-tonks, drug stores, lunch counters,
and department stores. The number of drinking
places has increased from 177,000 in pre-prohibition
days to more than 494,452 in 1952. Many of these are
equipped with every thing conceivable to induce boys
and girls, men and women to drink. There is one
place where alcoholic beverages can be bought for
every 300 persons, including children as well as
adults. One place where liquors are sold for every
71 homes. There are almost two liquor outlets for
every church. Americans spend nearly twice as much
for alcoholic beverages as for education and several
times more than for spreading the gospel. To put it
bluntly we are more determined to degrade our na
tion than we are to uplift our people. The facts stated
prove that we are more nearly a Baccanalian nation
than we are a Christian nation.
But you ask how this condition was developed
We once had National Prohibition. Conditions were
not perfect then. No friend of prohibition will say
they were ; but they were very much better than be
fore prohibition and exceedingly better than they
have been since repeal.
How was repeal brought about Many factors
compose the answer to this question. First, and more
important than any other, was diabolical greed. A
men desired to de
goodly number of very wealthy
stroy prohibition claiming that it was in every sense
a curse to the people. They claimed that it was the
cause of almost every imaginable evil. They openly
said if the law could be repealed it would save them
many millions of dollars. They preferred to make
debauches of the laboring people, keep their families
in intolerable poverty, squalor and lead them into dis
grace, base immoralities and crime if by so doing
they could amass millions of dollars. Many openly
urged the people to break the law in order to make
it unpopular. There is not a fouler, more disgraceful
or deplorable chapter in American history than the
history of how repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment
was accomplished.
After Repeal
Prominent people urged every one to drink. One
of the most outstanding women in America and well
known abroad (I am ashamed to call her name)
urged young women to learn how much they could
safely drink and stay in that limit. This was the ad
vice of the liquor dealers. They said drink moderately
296
but do not get drunk. They knew moderate drinkers
would soon drink to excess. A more diabolical bit of
advice was never given by the devil himself. You had
just as well tell little ducks to go into the water but
never swim as to tell people to drink moderately but
never get drunk. Large numbers of people calling
themselves the "elite" and "high seemed to
think they could not have a delightful social affair
without alcoholic cocktails. It is possible that some
people have no better judgment than to urge people
to drink but do it moderately believing you need to
drink to be delightful socially.
The example of the rich, the supposed leaders of
society, was followed by aspiring people in lower
classes of culture and finances. The "elite" and social
leaders tried to make it appear that to be "some
body" you must drink and so millions drank and
started on the way to shame, disgrace and to "skid
Row" and so we now have 4,000,000 alcoholics, one
in six of whom is a woman. And these are men and
women from every rank of society including men who
at one time were regarded as ministers of the gospel.
There is no degree of shame and disgrace to which
moderate drinking will not lead people. Mark you,
social drinkers who are prominent are a curse to
many less prominent persons.
Advertising
Never in American history has any business
spent so much on advertising. Distillers and brew
ers spend millions of dollars annually in the most de
ceptive, most alluring advertising that money can
pay conscienceless ad writers to produce. Many of
America's keenest minds have sold their abilities to
promote this diabolical business and have succeeded
far beyond their fondest expectations. They have
paid such fabulous prices for space that it amounts
to bribing editors and owners of many publications,
but thank God there are still some notable publica
tions that love integrity better than the alcoholic
gold.
Other factors could be mentioned but space for
bids. Just keep in mind the liquor business is diaboli
cal in the extreme. It violates more laws than all
other business and its devotees are the greatest law
breakers in the nation. It leads men and women, boys
and girls, from all ranks of society that it can induce
to imbibe and to commit all kinds of disgraceful acts
and every known crime, but it has never led one per
son, to rise from degradation and live nobly. Yet
every day scores of our brightest boys and girls, men
and women, are induced to begin, drinking. Truly
"fools rush in where angels dare not tread." No won
der beholding the wrecks made by liquor, Wisdom
exclaims "What fools we mortals be !"
We must arouse our people to the fact that
"Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging: and
whosoever is deceived thereby is not Prov.
20 :1. According to this proverb more than half of our
people are not wise. "At the last it biteth like a ser-
(Continued on page 297)
COVENANTER WITNESS