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THE SOBER WORLD

THE SOBER I 1 WORL
BYII
RANDOLPH WELLFORD SMITH
AUTHOR OF "I'IIDEALS OF GOVERNMENT, P
" BENIGHTED MEXICO, 9 ETC.

BOSTON
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
M DCCCCXIX

COPYRIGHT, I191 9
BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
All rights reser'ved
July, 1919
The University Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.

PREFACE

D RINK has dominated no small part of the
world for centuries. All down through
the ages it has been mankind's direst enemy
and the most direct menace to anything resembling
an integral and intrinsic civilization. Artists continue to immortalize themselves with the imagery
of Belshazzar's orgy. The lurid vision of Nero
fiddling while Rome fell and his great empire was
torn to ribbons will forever be a motif for word
painters. And for centuries to come the perfidies
and calumnies, the bestialities and brutalities, of the
beer-sotted Teutons during the World War will be
the theme of countless pen pictures.
The world is littered with tragedies colossal
and horrible beyond description, with nations and
peoples and individuals who have fallen to destruction, due to this, the greatest of all evils in human
history. The superstructure of the greatest governments under the sun has been undermined and
on more than one occasion utterly destroyed by
drunken rulers and the victims, the votaries and the
henchmen of the liquor interests.
A half tipsy Irish statesman once asked Disraeli,
the most talented and brilliant of all British diplomatists, to what he attributed his startling and nearly
always enduring achievements. "I owe what success I have had in this world to a sober mind," was
the response.

372692

PREFACE

There have been times when drink has nearly
eaten away the very heart of the British Empire;
and it is significant that the sentiment in England
is almost as strong for a sober nation as it is in this
country. Her statesmen are watching with cautious
eyes the result of America's deliberations and laws
on this much mooted question so that she may avoid
the pitfalls and contribute her share to a sober
world.
And this sober world is on the horizon. It is as
plain as the ancient handwriting on the wall, as
patent as the gold lettering on a shop window. The
world as a whole has finally and definitely wearied
of a half-crazed humanity. It is tired of a misnomer
civilization with a saloon on every other street corner filled with sodden victims, dead to everything
but desire and selfish gratification. There are long
and dangerous bridges to be crossed, but no analytical student of the situation has the remotest doubt
about the ultimate result.
The World War taught the needed lesson as it
was never taught before in the annals of man. It
is written pathetically and painfully enough in the
blood and murder and rape and pillage of the innocents in Belgium and northern France. But with
far deeper import is the record set forth in the
archives of the State Departments at Washington,
Paris and London.
In the early stages of the war there was no great
curiosity and very little comment over German
finances. It was a well established fact that the
Kaiser and his accomplices had been preparing for
years for the conflict, and equally well established,

PREFACE

vii

perhaps, that the Teuton Empire was financially
sound and well supplied with that most necessary
of all things for a successful accomplishment of her
fell purposes, gold. Preparations for the conflict
had been well under way since the memorable days
of I870, and the peasant women of France had
hardly ceased digging down in their stockings for
their hard-earned franc-notes to pay the German
toll when the smouldering fires in the Balkans broke
out and the Sarajevo murders were used as an excuse to begin the conflict.
Two, three years of the World War passed. Several loans were successfully issued; and the German
people took them up in their usual stodgy fashion
but evidently with effort. Yet money continued to
pour into the coffers of the German government.
Shut off from the world, there was a shortage of
many things, but never of gold. Of that most necessary commodity there was an abundance, and it
seemed never to grow less. The emissaries of the
Entente governments began to look about them.
It was conclusively proved that the German treasury was being bountifully refilled from time to time,
and that the money came from without, not within,
the German Empire. The truth emerged. It was
gold from the store of the German brewers, not only
in this country but all over the world. Many of
them in this country, South America and other lands
had been financed by the German government.
Some were owned outright by the Kaiser and his
sons. It was part of the scheme of the World
Dominion achievement that the brewer should do
his bit when the time came. How well he did it will

viii PREFACE
be conclusively shown in the subsequent pages of
this volume.
The magnitude of the German brewing interests
throughout the world cannot be easily overestimated. There are breweries in nearly every quarter
of the civilized globe, always owned, controlled, and
operated by Germans. Billions of capital and many
hundreds of thousands of hands are employed.
Vast tracts of land, enormous properties, strings of
hotels and various commercial institutions are owned
and controlled absolutely by the brewery interests.
The brewer has been the gravest menace to anything suggesting an effective civilization for centuries. The brewery interests own and operate a
vast majority of saloons, not only in this country
but in many other lands. This has been the observation of the globe trotter for many years. In the
last decade before the war there had been a complete
metamorphosis of Paris. The life of the once fetching cafe chantant was past and over with. No
longer the vin ordinaire at dinner. Beer, beer everywhere! The principal hotels in many instances were
in the hands of Germans. Exactly the same conditions obtained in London; and New York, even today, is the most thoroughly brewery-infected city
in the world except Berlin itself.
The insistence and insolence of the brewer in
America reached the zenith in the memorable days
of June, I919. But at the same time it became clear
that within a few months the Teuton brewer would
be held in the same affectionate regard by the
American people that Germany is held in today by
all the world.

PREFACE

In the face of the fact that every state in the
Union except three had ratified an amendment to
that most sacred and solemn document in all the
world except the Bible itself, the brewers had raised,
in the spring of I919, a slush-fund of more than
$2,000,000 to buy legislation to corrupt courts and
by fair means or foul to alter the law. The verdict
of the American had already been rendered, an! was
not readily to be changed.
The distillers of Kentucky and Virginia who made
the whiskey of our forefathers have quietly expressed their regrets and their intention of abiding
by the law; but it remains for the Teuton to threaten
and menace the Constitution of the United States.
President Wilson's political jest in relation to
beer and wine was perhaps necessary as a saving
clause for his party, which naturally did not care to
assume all the responsibility for the radical liquor
reforms. It will not mislead, however, and the Republican brethren are not likely to burn their fingers
in plain view of the brewery menace in this country
and all over South America.
In the old days the gentleman who drank too
much whiskey, rolled under the table, but eventually
resumed his vocation and usefulness, might be pardoned. But for the people sunk for centuries in
the slow poison of that most noxious of all drink,
beer, in the light of recent events there is no pardon.
And it is idle to suppose that the American will countenance or tolerate the German brewer, skulking in
the background, at home or abroad.
At the National Capital was assembled in that
radiant June of 1919 the most powerful lobby ever

PREFACE

created in the United States. It was directed from
afar by a score of corporation lawyers. But the
verdict of the American people had already been
rendered. It will never be altered until the United
States has fallen into an abyss of crime and vice as
deep as that of the Germany of today.
Bolshevism had its birth in the saloon. Anarchy
has its hot-bed there. The evil that men do, and
have done for centuries, under the influence of strong
drink is not easily reckoned with; it is incalculable.
The mad passions of men are never entirely unbridled without incentive, and liquor has been the
most powerful of all incentives for all time.
The historian dwells with deep-laden import on
the slaughter of mankind in the war. He graphically pictures the incalculable loss in the World
War, and the slaughter of the innocents. But how
relatively infinitesimal is that loss of life to that
which follows in the train of the Demon Rum For
centuries he has plied his traffic under first this
guise and then the other, with society and civilization looking on with perturbed thought and deepest
interest but always with idle hands and idler minds.
The child in the gutter, the offspring of the brute
drunkard, has been forever a song of sadness and
interest, but always the synonym of futile endeavor
on the part of man.
Mankind's kindergarten efforts, up to the last
very few years, to stop these ruinous conditions in
nearly every land on God's footstool would be
bathos but for the infinite and consequential pathos
of the whole situation. Essayists have esteemed as
a subtle theme the victim of this vice, but their

PREFACE xi
efforts have always ended in some sad song or story.
Now is the metamorphosis. Here is the transition.
From a world with this sickening and cancerous
growth at its breast the mists have rolled away, and
at last there stands in plain view a new, clean and
sober brotherhood of man with some chance of a
bona fide civilization in the perspective.

CONTENTS
CHAPT PAOXI
I. DRINKING AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL............. I
The national capital, contrary to expectation, built
up along the Potomac- From Georgetown to the
Navy Yard was crowded with saloons âNowhere
has there ever been such a hotbed of lawlessness and
crime ---The proprietor of Hancock's used a secret
cordial for his cocktails-The Sergeant-at-Arms
sought and found his quorums in the saloons - Germany has always had her agents in WashingtonDuring the Forty-Ninth Congress the restaurantkeeper of the House sold $9,580 worth of liquorThe vicious influence of the Lobby-After the
Civil War drunkenness flaunted itself shamelessly
-Women have brought about the reform at Washington -The experience of one Senator.
II. REVELRY AND CORRUPTION.... 14
Debutantes had to be protected against the social
vices of Washington society - Inaugural balls a disgrace to the Nation - President Roosevelt restrained the excesses, and President Wilson discontinued the ball-Congress was not representatively American - Congress was a jest and a byword
to the average citizen - German beer was standardized in Germany but not in America- Cheap
saloons for the negroes fostered crime - A family
of Sheas had a record of 18 arrests- Billy Williams, a noted cracksman, caught red-handed, was
allowed to go scot free.

xiv CONTENTS
III. HIGH ART SALOONS AND BLACK
DIVES............ 26
The $I50,000 painting of "The Nymphs and the
Satyr " the chief attraction of a Broadway saloon -
Ladies' hour, from Io to I2 A. M., brought many curious visitors-Decorations of saloons in Cincinnati
and Chicago - In a Brooklyn saloon the all-night
customers sleep standing up -Rope support supplied by one kind-hearted proprietor -Dr. Edward Everett Hale's pioneer sermon -Cooperation of other ministers -Work of Dr. Parkhurst.
IV. THE BREWER IN THE WAR.... 34
Berlin en fete for the celebration of the twentyfifth anniversary of the German Emperor's ruleAndrew Carnegie's arrival with forty-four American Peace Society messages (many of these societies
were financed largely by brewery and other German
interests in the United States, according to Department of Justice records) -The toast, " Here 's
to the Day! "-The deliberate misleading of Mr.
Carnegie The incident of the Emperor's nosebleed -A description of activities at Essen at that
-time - The Naval League banquet - The Prussian publicity propaganda- Pan-Germanism and
beer.
V. THE PEACE AND THE BEER INDUSTRY 47
The prominence of the Peace Society in America -
The Pan-German dream - The arrival in America
of hordes of brewers and educated GermansTheir lasting impress upon American educational
methods and ideals-The inauguration of the first
Peace movement during the Cleveland administration - Peace lobbyism - German money spent by a
woman lobbyist âThe defeat of the William C.

CONTENTS xv
Whitney navy plan- The damage to America
from the German brewer -The harm from too
much beer drinking -The union between the German brewer and the Irish saloon keeper- The
reasons for the German belief that American sentiment was entirely pro-German -The steady loss of
German prestige in America, changing into distrust
on the part of Americans âThe change in the
American from neutrality to hostility.
VI. PREMEDITATED BARBARISM.... 62
The premeditated crimes against defenseless Belgium were inexcusable - Poem, "Myself und
Gott," by A. McGregor Rose-Captain Coghlan
reproved for reading it at a Washington banquet -
The Belgian savants saw danger ahead-Most
other people thought the German cry for beer and
peace was funny -Belgium strengthened the defenses at Fleron, Chaudfontaine, Namur and Liege
â The Germans invading Belgium, found everything attractive, including full wine cellars.
VII. "KULTUR'S MOST SUCCESSFUL
HANDIWORK......... 72
Countless investigations prove that the crimes in
Belgium were committed by drunken GermansThe atrocities were all premeditated â The Beer
and Pan-Germanism rule of I911 was "no questions until after World Dominion was won "
When Choate appealed for a cour de justice arbitrale, Germany unmasked, by making violent objections to the plan-The toast, "Here is to the
Day," was drunk openly everywhere in GermanyEngland, France, Russia and Italy were not forearmed, but they could not say that they were not
forewarned-Belgium made only one mistake,
trusting alleged civilization-America awoke so
slowly that Germany thought she could be depended

xvi CONTENTS
on for cooperation in almost any war or liquor
emergency-With the sinking of the.Lusitania
care-free America began to think.
VIII. BELGIUM, VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY............ 79
In Belgium, as in Mexico, the Germans despoiled
nunneries and ravished the inmates-Germany
denied this charge and demanded the names of the
nuns-The demand was refused to save the feelings of the innocent victims -The President of the
Belgian Relief Fund brought a large number of
nuns to London - Dr. Roseboom says he saw entire
German armies so drunk as to be irresponsibleMr. Hoover says it will take $I50,000,000 to bring
order out of chaos in Belgium -Switzerland and
Spain tried to maintain neutrality -Germany sued
for peace -Statement of German government
about the enslavement of more than half a million
Belgians- Effect of pastoral letter of Cardinal
Mercier was world-wide- The printer, Francis
Dessain, was imprisoned, and Cardinal Mercier
threatened.
IX. WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES... 93
Weak men in Congress - America was forgetful of
Washington's warning against foreign influence â
America thought her Cabinet members were wise
and incorruptible - Warning of Newell Dwight
Hillis-Germany has been allowed every opportunity to get plans of our fortifications- Author
wrote his experiences at Old Point. His Editor
refused to print the article and " insult his German
subscribers "- Bartholme incident - Lansing's reply to the critics-The unheeded warnings of
England and France-Von Bernstorff departs in
injured innocence, with a prophecy of his not fardistant return.

CONTENTS

xvii

X. THE GIGANTIC NETWORK OF THE
GERMAN CONSPIRACY AGAINSTTHE
UNITED STATES....... 109
St. Louis was the first city to assert its German
patriotism. A Western Senator blocked President
Wilson's Armed Neutrality Measure-Stone, La
Follette, O'Gorman, Clapp and Vardaman worked
for the liquor interests that elected them- Von
Bernstorff deceived Lansing and planned to embroil the United States with Mexico and JapanVon Bernstorff planned a nation-wide reign of terror
-Once a German, always a German-Germany
now hates America worse than she ever hated England-America does not realize her danger because of the laxity of the press, and disbelief of the
proofs of past crimes -Proposal of patriotic oath
for German-Americans rejected in terror â Possibility of turning the great breweries into dairies.
XI. LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS.... 127
How many German-Americans there are is a mooted
question âThe German-language newspapers in
many cities were defiantly abusive and unpatriotic
after the sinking of the Lusitania - Contrast to the
French newspapers - Germany broke all her promises about stopping submarine warfare -When she
grew frightened she wailed again for peace- Indictment of Germany in Manufacturers' Record
for June, I919 âGermany is trying to raise the
revenue for the next war from American breweries.
XII. GERMANS RETURN TO OLD METHODS 136
While meekly pleading for peace, the Kaiser was
boasting that he controlled the destiny of America
- -Germans eager to resurrect hyphen and "Kultur "-C. M. Schwab defended the beer policy on
grounds of kindness to the poor man âContrast
with the patriotism of the Vanderbilts -Affida

xviii CONTENTS
vits of the deleterious effects of alcohol Small
percentage of alcohol in German beer means large
amount of drinking, and large revenue-When
beer was exempted from the I8th Amendment, the
brewers paid for a great jubilation held in front of
the Capitol at Washington - Disloyalty shown in
theatres The call for decision and sacrifice.
XIII. AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING.. I49
The adoption of the Beer Amendment will give the
brewer enough political power to be a menace to
federal, state and municipal government - Demonstration in Washington on Flag Day did not really
represent the laboring man-Gompers' statement
to Senate Judiciary Committee about the need of
vodka in Russia was false -Also his statement that
serious social conditions had been caused by the
abolishment of drink Address of Col. Dan Morgan Smith, at Tremont Temple, Boston, May 27,
1919 - $2,000,000 raised for a slush fund - Willis
J. Abbot, of Collier's Weekly, after investigation,
reported that prohibition improved civic conditions
wherever it was tried Conditions in Boston are
particularly bad- Bishop Lawrence's leafletThe Verdict, a new periodical issued by prominent Boston men - Governors of various states testified to the great reduction of crime and vice under
prohibition.
XIV. WOMEN AND ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK.......... 162
It is a pity that women attended the Labor demonstration at the Capital. Dr. Annette Abbott
Adams, born and educated in Plumas Co., California, was chosen prosecutor of German-American
Conspirators - This "Portia of the Plumas" secured the conviction of the criminals America
has not heeded the books like Maxim's Defenceless
America, and O'Laughlin's Imperilled America
-Partial list of property destroyed in America from

CONTENTS xix
1914 to 919g-Taft's comments about the recent
attacks on the Attorney-General and other National
officials - Significance of numerous marriages of
German officials with American heiresses - In Germany all women are kept in the home to breed victims for the military machine- Women like Dr.
Adams may be counted on for the rebuilding of a
new and sober world.
XV. INTERPRETATIONS OF THE LIQUOR
LAWS.8......
Thoughtful Americans are absorbed by the perils
menacing us not in Europe but at home-Bold
placards of beer propaganda were sent broadcastSome saloonkeepers defiantly boasted they would
not close July I - Elihu Root, Counsel for National Brewers' Association, holds the brewers up
to national pity-J. H. Collins in the Saturday
Evening Post says brewers can grow rich in the
ice-cream business-Brewers are vitally interested in many enterprises besides beer - Interpretations of the new law vary-States prohibiting
drink by constitutional amendment-States prohibiting drink by State-wide legislation - States in
part permitting liquor - No-liquor States - States
which have fixed 4, 3, 2 or i per cent of alcohol
as the standard- Enormous increase in consumption of liquor per capita-"To-morrow"; and
it is already twilight.
XVI. THE FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD. I98
The Salvation Army proposes to turn the saloons
into workingmen's clubs-It is a mistake to keep
the old furnishings - Psychopathic hospitals are enlarging their equipment - Methods at Bellevue
Hospital severe but remedial -Cases when treatment was too severe-Washington hospital was
poorly run -Danger of drinking men turning to
drugs is greatly exaggerated â More hotels like the

xx CONTENTS
Mills Hotel on Bleecker Street needed -Theatres,
municipal operas and motion pictures will helpSociety, responsible for the present drink problem,
must solve the problem.
XVII. LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS. 209
A Sober World of paramount importance in this
era - Liquor emphasizes the unrest in Italy, Greece
and France-German brewers influence patriotic
Americans comparatively little - Dire effect- of
President Wilson's careless comment about the selfdetermination of small peoples - Prophecy of Congressman Fitzgerald - Disclosures of Ex-President
Taft- Peace Treaty signed as ban on liquor becomes effective - Cardinal Mercier's pronunciamento - Bold attempt of De Valera to start Irish
Revolution - Boston's calm acceptance of De Valera ungrateful to Britain- Anxious waiting for
President Wilson's arrival and action.
XVIII. ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND... 219
Closely following the Labor Convention at Washington come new attempts on life and property in
Kansas, New York and New England Police
preparation in Boston-President Wilson's problem; De Valera's schemes, Bolshevist uprisings and
Pan-Germanic propaganda- Pressure of public
sentiment- Ireland an integral part of the British
Empire -Justice and gratitude forbid America to
help England's enemies.
XIX. ENGLAND AND IRELAND..... 228
Astute diplomacy of President Wilson-On the
subject of light wines and beer-As soon as Germany signed the Peace Treaty he refused to repeal
the Prohibition law-One million American soldiers still "under emergency call "- Gathering to

CONTENTS xxi
hear De Valera in Fenway Park the most memorable event since the landing of the PilgrimsPeople were to fight England, their friend and ally
-King George's letter to President WilsonParis studying the memorandum of the Irish delegates to the Peace Congress -Distinguished English visitor thrown out of a German-American inn
because of his comment on girl solicitors for the
Irish Republic-A Dominion similar to that in
Canada may be the solution- De Valera's objections to Dominion -England's policy with Ireland
Contrast with conditions in Korea.
XX. FOND HOPES DISPELLED.... 240
Debauchery of the last days of June, I919 âService on steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, Boston - Rush
to lay in last supplies of liquor - Attorney-General
Palmer's decision to allow manufacture of 2.75
beer- Surprise and distress of law-abiding citizens
-Unfortunate results of the ruling-It may be a
political move - Complexity of the problem.
XXI. UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS. 249
Lawlessness at Atlantic City â Warning given by
prima donna - Defiance in New York City and
Chicago - Temporary triumph of the Brewer -
Property and industry in Germany practically intact-English beer manufactured at home not
foisted on American trade âSome saloons stayed
shut tight after July -- Lament of saloon-keepers
who know no other business.
XXII. THE SOBER WORLD...... 262
Suffering that followed the orgies just before July I
- Difficulty of deciding on the meaning of " intoxicating beverage "- President's delay of his decision
to make Republicans assume their share of responsibility for the reform - Menace of German con

xxii CONTENTS
trol in the United States through breweries â
Cardinal Mercier's gratitude to the United States
- Revival of literature looking toward a "Sober
World " Comment in the New York Times
about Ibanez' La Bodega - Vale Drink!
L'ENVOI.............. 271
ADDENDA............ 279

THE SOBER WORLD
CHAPTER I
DRINKING AT THE NATIONAL
CAPITAL
T HE national capital of a country is its interrogation point. Men largely judge a
nation and its people by the capital, its
environs and its atmospheric conditions. Washington, the capital of the United States, as planned by
the Father of His Country and designed by Major
L'Enfant, was perhaps the most ambitious effort
that was ever made for the creation of a national
seat of government. It was conceived with remarkable symmetry of design and possibility of architectural beauty. According to the original plan, the
beautiful, radiantly picturesque Potomac was to run
through its center.
But the plans of mice and men gang aft agley.
Instead of the Capital being developed according to
the thought of its great designers, the city reached
out along the river and over dunes and marshes that
made it exceedingly unhealthful. It was evidently
Washington's thought, when he originally conceived
the plan for the Capital, that its business was to be
done along the riverway, and that the Capital itself,
that is, the residential section of it and many of the
public buildings, would naturally extend across the..

THE SOBER WORLD

stream to the beautiful Virginia hills. As years
passed, to the disgust of many thinking men and
women the city developed in the most unhealthful
section, not far from the river, where are now the
White House, the Treasury, War, State and Navy
and other Governmental buildings.
It so happened that no small proportion of the
population had to live in this immediate vicinity, and
not long after the Civil War there sprang up a condition which at once appalled and astounded many
Americans. With the approach of the larger city,
this whole neighborhood, and Pennsylvania Avenue
from Georgetown to the Navy Yard, became dotted
with saloons. Along the Avenue in Georgetown
were, just before the no-drink law went into effect,
some score or more of saloons within the radius of
a quarter of a mile. Through these dives, frequented by inebriates and every type of drunkard
from the swiller of cheap whiskey to the beer guzzler who never drew a sober breath, passed a procession of humanity well worth more than the usual
casual glance. Across the Avenue, down towards
the White House, there were brief spaces without
saloons; no very distant ones, however, because it
was exceedingly difficult for the average law-maker
or government clerk to walk, or speed, any distance
without the assistance of strong or mild drink.
Should he manage to control himself until he reached
Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, he had
no longer to restrain his appetite, for there began
the marvelous "Rum Row" of song and story.
Perhaps nowhere in this wide world has there
been, or will there ever be, such a collection of

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL I
saloons in the train of which have followed so many
wrecks of human ambition.
From Fifteenth Street to Seventeenth Street along
the Avenue, and on all the intersecting streets from
F Street to the Mall, were saloons upon saloons.
Up to a few years ago, from Fifteenth Street to the
Capitol and from the Avenue over to the Mall, was
a succession of houses absolutely indescribable in
their fantastic horror and infamy. The tragic tales
of human want and pain and sorrow that might
have been delved out of these holes, the wrecked
lives of statesmen, youths, girls, and derelicts along
the sands of life, are beyond the calculation of human
thought.
In his early days as a young newspaper man, the
writer observed this phantasmagorial procession of
human wrecks close by and from afar with profound
and deeply studious application, and he does not
hesitate to say that nowhere on earth, in his judgment or in the judgment of many municipal experts,
has there ever been any such hotbed of lawlessness
and crimni It was a spectacle unmatched, to note
the results and achievements of King Rum in this
immediate locale. Nearby was situated the notorious Shoomaker's, where, for the mere pittance of
fifteen cents, or two drinks for a quarter, the statesman, the young newspaper man, or the clerk might
have a small tumbler nearly double the size of the
ordinary whiskey glass filled to the brim. It took
an old, seasoned and absolutely alcoholic habitue
to withstand more than three or four of these libations. In fact, under certain weather conditions it
was not unusual for only two of them to put a dis

THE SOBER WORLD

tinguished statesman or youthful aspirant for journalistic honors under the proverbial table. And the
number that it sent to their graves is a record only
to be found in the annals of the Great Beyond.
Across the Avenue, a little farther down the street,
was the beguiling Hancock's. Here statesmen frequently assembled in numbers. In a little back parlor an old colored mammy dispensed Maryland fried
chicken, hot waffles and other Southern delicacies;
but most of her time lay heavy on her hands. The
proprietor of Hancock's in his early youth became
possessed of a secret cordial which he used as part
mixture for a specialty in cocktails. The colored
bartenders, always obsequious and courteous servants, would dip the glass in ice water, rim it with
candied sugar, then pour in this carmine-colored
cordial. Along the rim were bits of choice fruits, -
peaches, small clusters of grapes, cherries, a little
watermelon perhaps. It was a seductive, unusual,
and altogether delectable cocktail. The proprietor,
with much humor and a knowledge of human nature,
bedecked his walls with old theatre programmes,
with curiosities of every description, pieces of armor from ancient wars, here a sword, there an old
pistol, rare bric-a-brac, an object of vertu, everything alluring that he could think of, including pictures of Lydia Thompson and other beautiful celebrities of the stage. All this was to interest the
guests between drinks; and the interested drinker
was not infrequently carried out to one of the negrodriven hacks that used to be among the " sights " of
the national capital.
Mine Host Hancock had a keen sense of humor

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL 5
and a profound knowledge of humanity. There can
be no mistake about the fact that in the old days
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster drank at this
famous bar. Countless other men of every kind
and calibre, from judges of the Supreme Bench
down to the House messengers, frequented this bar.
It was for years a veritable gold mine; also for
years a distinct menace to this Government. Shoomaker's and Hancock's were what might be termed
national saloons. It was a spectacle worth while,
especially to the young and untutored and inquiring
newspaper man, to see the Sergeant-at-Arms with
his assistants en route to Shoomaker's or Hancock's
to gather in the statesmen of the land when it was
impossible, under ordinary conditions, to obtain a
quorum in either Senate or House. The Sergeantat-Arms never had to go much farther; enough of
the absent members were nearly always found in
these two places of iniquity to make up a quorum.
If he did not get a sufficient number there, all that
was necessary was to adjourn his forces a little farther up the street to the Congressional Hotel, or
perhaps to Welcker's or Wormley's or John Chamberlain's. But the quorum was 9lost always to be
had in this immediate vicinity. 1If not here, it was
because these statesmen had drunk themselves into
such a state that they were in the houses along the
Mall, where the Sergeant-at-Arms, even with his
authority as an executive officer of the Government,
dared not go to unearth them7.
Just how many national crimes, just how many
human wrecks, and just how many domestic tragedies have come from these holes cannot be estimated

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by human statisticians. Iis a scandal upon which
no historian will ever care to dwell. It was a situation in the history of this Government so deeply
shadowed in shame that the less said about it the
better. It is a closed chapter now. We are entering on a new era of reconstruction. In future years
the statesman will not have the time-worn excuse,
when he has failed in some important legislation,
" I had been drinking too much." He will not have
the plausible excuse in his own mind to pardon his
frailty and his folly. The temptation is no longer
there to harrow his soul. It is a new United States,
with a new Capital and a new ambition. But here
was the very heart of the evil that placed this land
in the sickeningcondition of unpreredneer which
obtained at the beginning of the World War.
Germany always had her agents at Washington.
There was not a time in fifty years that she was not
actively and painstakingly engaged with the thought
of World Dominion. Ten years before the war
with France she cast envious eyes upon this country
and cleverly and deliberately played her game.
There were times when it was so near success in the
World War that the world wondered. Had Congress
done its duty as did the secret service at Washington for half a century, the United States of America
would have been able, almost at the beginning of
the great conflict, simply to lift her hands and save
the world from the most horrible cataclysm in all
history. It was only because many members of the
military and naval committees of both Houses were
so easily influenced that the beginning of the World
War found this country with an army so small that

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL 7
it was laughable in contrast with the great land it
was supposed to represent; with a navy ridiculous
in its numerical strength; and with more than three
thousand miles of absolutely unprotected and unfortified coast.
The wrong conceived in the Congress of the
United States could never have been so far-reaching
had it not been for the fact that many of the members of both Houses were often under the influence
of, or working directly or indirectly in, the interest
of, drink. In the basement of both House and
Senate were saloons in which enormous amounts of
liquor were consumed. The writer recalls one long,
heated session of the House of Representatives during the Forty-Ninth Congress. The tariff debate
was on. It ran far into the night. Among the
leaders who took part in this discussion were Bryan,
McKinley, Randall, Dalzell, Curtin, Burs, and an
array of sober and distinguished men in the lower
House that has not been matched in any Congress
since. It was always more or less difficult to get the
proper sort of attention. It was even more difficult
to get a vote. It sometimes required all the efforts
of the Sergeant-at-Arms to get a roll-call. At one
o'clock in the morning, after one of these long sessions, the door-keeper of the House and the restaurant keeper were chatting casually in the old reception room, where they had come for a moment to
get away from the scenes in the basement. The
restaurant keeper remarked that he had just made
up his books and that he had found he had sold,
since the session was convened at twelve o'clock,
noon-it was then one, A.M.,-the small sum of

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nine thousand five hundred and eighty dollars' worth
of liquid refreshment. Little wonder that when the
occasion required, this land had no army, no navy,
and was impotent and imperilled! Drunkards, or
men addicted to drink, are not apt to safeguard the
future. It was the pleasure of high noon and the
pleasant helplessness of the midnight hours to which
they aspired. Responsibility, statesmanship, achievement flickered before them like so many fireflies.
It was in those memorable days that the Third
House or Lobby, with its accompanying women and
its long stream of turgid vice, did its work. How
much money the people of this land have been
robbed of through the instrumentality of drunken
statesmen and debauched women is another chapter
in the chronicles of this land, best left untold! It
is over with; a closed chapter that will never be reopened. How the change has been wrought and
how the Congress of the United States now does its
work is best evinced and illustrated by the experience
of the last two years. What would have happened
at Washington had this wholesale debauchery and
drinking still continued at the beginning of the Great
War cannot be readily conceived. How much the
German agent could have accomplished under the
old conditions is an interesting conjecture. How
much he did accomplish under the old conditions is
shown in some of the other chapters of this book,
without fear of contradiction.
No such shame ever encompassed a land as the
shame that dwelt over all Washington in the last
two decades of the nineteenth century. In the old
days, the days of Webster and Clay, there was some

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL 9
sort of limit for the drinking gentleman. The man
himself or his friends saw to it that he did not lie
down in bestial condition. He had to preserve to
a certain extent the attitude of self-respect or else
he was ostracized, or, worse yet, outlawed by his
associates. As the years passed, this drunkenness
became more public, but it was never so flagrant as
in the Boston of recent years, where the passerby
watched through uncurtained windows the drunken
beast staggering at the bar or the shameless somebody airing his patent helplessness to the world at
large. Even in the worst of Washington's drink
orgies there never was a time when men did not
insist upon doing this sort of thing behind closed
doors, and often, to their credit be it said, they used
a side door. But it must be emphasized again
that, steadily from the days after the Civil War
until Washington was finally made liquorless and
decent, the picture was disgusting beyond words.
Old residents vividly recall the early morning
scenes along the Avenue. In the open hacks, it was
a sight for the humanitarian to watch the scene along
that picturesque thoroughfare. Here a Congressman, there a Senator; here a young newspaper man,
there some clerk from a department, merely keeping
up with the vogue, drinking because the rest of the
crowd drank, and trying to ride it off through the
miasmic atmosphere of the early morning hour.
Nine times out of ten he didn't care anything about
the drink; seven times out of ten he disliked the
idea; and half the time, especially in the early morning hours, he loathed himself with a contempt and
a horror that might have brought about a swift and

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permanent change, but for the insistent invitation
of companions to drink again. So it ran on for
years and years. And then one day there was an
awakening, a great, luminous awakening; and it was
brought about by a little bevy of women who had
determined that the days were past when men might
make beasts of themselves, and offer as an excuse
only that the other fellow did it. And they began
their work.
It commenced with a subtlety and cleverness that
is worthy of the best mind of the best statesman of
this or any other day. Just how they did it is a
secret now known to themselves. The writer has
in his possession the names of this little group of
vwomen who started the movement in this country,
which has, in his judgment, been the one that has
finally aroused and awakened the world. Their
names should be inscribed upon a scroll of fame!
But since it is often best for the left hand not to
know what the right hand is doing, let us keep
silence. It is sufficient to say that it was the work
of women, and not men. Men never can claim
credit for bringing this country finally into a condition of sanity. Men have done fine work; their
efforts have been spectacular, the efficiency of organization that has made possible the ratification
of the amendment to the Constitution of the United
States is worthy of the highest praise; but the fact
remains that the incentive and the initiative were
supplied by a coterie of gentle women.
"I'm deuced if I know how I can get to my
room," said a Senator of the United States to the
writer a few years ago.

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL I

"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Well, every turn I make I meet a committee of
women who want to know how I stand on this liquor
question."
"Can't you tell them?"
"No," was the curt response. "I can't. I don't
exactly know how my constituents stand, and I am
representing them here and not representing myself."
"Why not tell these women the position you are
in?"
"I have told them."
"What did they say?"
"They said they would give me six months to
make up my mind how I stood."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"The six months are up and I can't get to my
committee room," the Senator said, with disgust.
I walked away with a natural feeling of contempt.
Two years later the Senator's term expired. A few
months before its expiration I met him on Broadway, New York. "I see you were defeated."
" I was."
"Who did it?"
"The women."
Then the Senator, who had had a long and rather
useful career, locked his hands about my arm and
asked me to join him in a drink at the Knickerbocker
Hotel. He was calm and his words were prophetic.
"I tell you," he said, "not only this country but
the whole world is going dry, and those that are
going to be responsible for this new condition and
this new world are women. I am with them now,

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but it is too late. When they came into my district
they told me they were going to do it. They gave
me six months to make up my mind whether I was
going to vote for or against liquor. At the expiration of that time they came into my district with a
quarter of a million dollars, and the way I suffered
is now a matter of history. And I respect and love
and admire them for it. At that time I couldn't see
my way clear to voting against the men who had
elected me, mostly men interested in one way or
another in liquor."
"Do you mean to say that you were elected to
the United States Senate by the liquor interests?"
"No, I don't mean to say any such damn thing.
I mean to say simply that all the best people in my
community are not necessarily allied with the liquor
interests, but the vast majority of them were so
involved with the liquor interests that after all it
was liquor that elected me and I thought that I had
to stand by my friends. Now, if I had the thing
to do over again and I thought I was going to pass
the rest of my natural days in the poorhouse, after
watching what these women are accomplishing, I
would readily work with them and help them in
every way. As it is, as an outsider, I am doing the
best in my power for them."
It is perhaps natural that at last women should
assume this attitude. In every corner of every
American, English, French and Italian city, and,
curiously enough, every city in the world but those
of Mohammedan peoples, are to be found countless
bastards and innocent children who are the victims
of this most heinous of all vices. It is only natural,

DRINKING AT NATIONAL CAPITAL 13
it is only philosophical, it is only humanitarian, that
at last the women of all so-called civilized lands
should do everything within their power to relieve
the child of the handicap of the drunken father, and
even - God save the mark! - in this twentieth century, the drunken mother.

CHAPTER II

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION
T HE mad revels at the national capital during the latter part of the last century and
for a considerable period thereafter excited
nation-wide comment. The old Southern, Knickerbocker and New England families that made up the
real society of Washington viewed with alarm and
disgust the wild orgies of certain factions of officialdom and firmly closed their doors. The "cave
dwellers," the residents of Georgetown Heights,
Capitol Hill, Connecticut Avenue and Presidents
Avenue (then I6th Street) observed with disgust
the growing menace of the "flowing bowl" and
righteously withdrew within their own circle. A
"bud" was not quite safe in the wet whirl; and the
debutante of the old regime who had Dolly Madison and Mary, the mother of Washington, for her
models of womanhood was carefully protected and
guarded against all strangers and intruders.
The scenes attendant upon several of the inaugural balls of that period are best left to the
imagination. And it was an era of balls and bal
masques with intoxicating Viennese melodies and
the waltzes, polkas and mazurkas of Strauss and
Waldteufel, ere the jazz, the the dansant and the
"lounge lizard" came into vogue. Elaborate balls

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

and receptions were given at each of the legations
and embassies every season. The invitations to the
most important of these entertainments were rigidly
edited and the supply of liquid refreshment conservatively curtailed.
"It was the only way to save the jolly Americans
from themselves," was the pleasant and satirical
comment of a British Minister.
The annual ball of the Chinese Minister was
always anticipated by the merriest rioters at the
Capital with infinite zest. At that high feast of
merriment there was absolutely no restriction. Seas
of champagne, lakes of sparkling Moselles and red
wines were served ad libitum. The Minister made
no effort to vise his invitation list. Anyone with
dress clothes or a ball gown was welcome at the
festal board.
The Minister himself took no active part in this
entertainment. After he had welcomed the most
important of his guests, he retired to the gallery
with his attaches and watched the gay whirl from
afar. With the Mongolian's keen sense of humor,
he never lacked entertainment, and as the early
morning grew into the new day he must have been
most forcibly impressed, for never in Hong Kong,
Canton or any part of the Celestial Kingdom could
like scenes be reproduced. Washington Society (?)
outshone itself at this event, and always around the
corner were a score or more carriages to cart home
those of the guests who were not able to find their
hired equipages, or their way without guide or
compass.
It is a pride with the latter-day American that

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President Roosevelt saw to it that the ball of his
inauguration was properly policed, and that President Wilson finally abandoned this national orgy
when he last took his seat in the White House.
There are few more disgraceful chapters in the
social history of this fair land than those that had
to do with the inauguration balls of at least three
American Presidents, where strong drink and an
absolute abandonment of social ethics wrought
scenes of never-to-be-forgotten nausea and iniquity.
The average American-that is, the average
born-in-America American-is, like his English
cousin, as clean and high-minded an individual as
it has pleased God to create. But he cannot drink
light wine as does his French and Italian brother,
and, if he has a spark of national feeling or patriotic
impulse, he has no desire to drink or to permit
within the borders of his native land the national
drink of the brute-beast who sent Edith Cavell to
her death, who raped Belgium and Northern
France, who sank the Lusitania, who sent the world
into a maelstrom of horror, and who has put a blot
upon the very word " civilization" in every quarter
of the globe!
Of what avail is civilization if it is not forceful
enough to prevent one drink-soaked nation from
half-wrecking the world?
The Washington of the early nineties stands out
in lurid tints of corruption. In the very heart of
the Capital of the nation was a brewery-not the
usual brewery with a bar for employees and the
occasional wayfarer-but a brewery with a garden
and all the paraphernalia essential to the vaunted

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

Teuton "Kultur" and freedom. From this garden
it was almost possible to throw a stone into the
courtyard of the British Embassy. Nearby was
Connecticut Avenue, then the most fashionable
promenade of the Capital, and several beautiful
squares and circles about which were ranged other
legations and embassies and many of the homes of
the most aristocratic and ultra-conservative families
at the Capital. On his native heath in Berlin
or any other important German city, the Teuton would never have dared to locate one of his
wholesale and retail saloons in a similar locality.
Such insolence would have invited severe reprimand
from no less a personage than the one-time Emperor
himself. But Washington, the German argued, was
only a provincial and primitive Capital of a new
people, to be exploited for the eventual entertainment and glory of the German people in general.
Conditions at that time fostered the German's
purpose.
The Congress of the United States was by no
means a body of representative Americans. In the
Senate there were a few men of ability and parliamentary usefulness. In the lower House was a larger
number of men of like good intent and fine character. But, as a whole, both legislative bodies were
lamentably weak, as is conclusively proved by the
laws that were enacted by the easy and always successful achievement of the German progagandists,
and by the revolting condition of the Capital itself.
The truth was, that the average American was
too busy to give any great personal attention to his
Capital. New York, with magical development,

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was rapidly becoming the greatest city in the world.
Thrifty New Englanders, with startling celerity,
were building up an industrial and commercial section of the country great in possibilities. The South
was busy with her work of reconstruction after the
"late unpleasantness" with her Northern brother,
and the West and the Pacific Coast were making a
progress that was astounding the world.
The situation offered rare opportunity to the
political mountebank and the adventurous and unscrupulous ward-heeler or henchman, and they
thronged the halls of Congress. The average professional or American business man counted for
nothing at Washington.
The Congress of the United States was a neverending source of cheap jest and cheaper jibe on the
part of the press and the public alike. The broker
in Chicago turned with relief from the reports of
congressional deliberations in the morning paper to
a dog fight; the New York banker, perhaps to last
night's play. And the staid and thoughtful business
man, who sometimes found the market disturbed
by the "pork barrel" discussions, tinkerings with
the tariff and railway funding bills, asked himself,
"How long, oh, Lord? How long before it (the
Congress) will adjourn?"
The periods between the long and short sessions
of Congress were welcomed with loud applause. If
the well-meaning but somewhat careless American
had been pressed closely about his relations with
and antagonisms to the national lawmakers of the
land, he would have replied, perhaps hotly, that the
United States of America had in the Constitution the

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

foundation for the finest government in the world,
that the Superior Court of the United States was
an invulnerable body, and, that no matter who the
President of the United States was, he was sure
to do his duty by the American people-and the
demnition bow-wows take the Congress!
This idle disregard for the national governing
body was deep-seated, and rare opportunities were
offered to many nefarious schemes, more especially
to the liquor interests, which never failed to take
advantage of every opportunity presented. The
brewer and his agents were always in the foreground. The native distiller and whiskey dealer
soon had his back to the wall. The brewer became
affiliated with another brand of dispensers who had
so learned the art of adulterating the cheapest
brands of whiskey that they could not be detected
at first from real whiskey. If the victim managed
to retain his reason for any length of time after he
began drinking the vile concoctions, he turned with
relief to beer, which was just precisely what the
German brewer wanted him to do. In those days
the actual profit on a barrel of beer never netted
the brewer a gain of less than one hundred and fifty
per cent; and his profits were often larger than
those in the old-time drug trade, which sometimes
amounted to as much as six hundred per cent.
" If the brewery business is such a successful business in Germany, why come the brewers in such
numbers to this country?" was a question often
asked at Washington. Very readily was it answered. The brewery business was strictly controlled in the dear Fatherland. Beer had to be

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made of a certain strength, was sold by accurate and
definite measurement, and must be pure. In the old
country the beer-swiller could get stupefied before
he was out of his mother's arms, and stays so the rest
of his natural life. But he could not get drunk, and
if he did anything to disturb the even tenor of German efficiency or "Kultur," it was a most serious
offense. In America - the land of the brave and
the free -all was different. The brewer might
manufacture his beer as he liked, sell it as best
pleased him, and until recent years the revenue tax
was so small as compared with his profits that he
hardly needed to reckon with it.
At the beginning of the present century the population of Washington was a trifle over 150,000, twothirds of whom were negroes. In a German city
of similar population there are rarely more than
two or three breweries, which suffice to serve the
entire population. In Washington there were four
large local breweries, with another great plant just
across the river at Alexandria, Va. Baltimore, with
a half dozen more cities, poured a constant stream
of beer into the national capital, and nearly every
big Western brewery and several Eastern ones had
their own bottling and refrigerating plants located
there.
The whole city was dotted with beer gardens; and
it was not possible to walk a quarter of a mile anywhere, except in a few remote and sparsely inhabited
residential quarters of the city, without coming upon
nests of saloons.
Along that famous thoroughfare, Pennsylvania
Avenue, from Georgetown to the Navy Yard, a

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

distance of about three miles, there were some sixtyodd saloons in the year 1917, just before the liquor
rule was abandoned. There had been a larger number in previous years, but some of the more intelligent of the liquor venders visualized from afar the
approach of an awakening America and went into
other vocations. In half a dozen blocks at the
Georgetown end of the Avenue there were no less
than a score of saloons, two-thirds of which were
run by Germans and Irishmen for the almost exclusive entertainment of the negro population. The
scenes about these abodes of vice and drunkenness
on Saturday nights and early Sunday mornings
might furnish the moralist with subject matter for
the rest of his natural life.
The Washington newspapers, such as they were,
all had for their motto "Beautiful Washington";
nothing must be said that could possibly reflect upon
the lovely Capital with its vast spaces and public
buildings. The carnival of crime continued uninterrupted for years and years after the Civil War.
Murder followed murder; crime after crime was
piled up on the records, and the police seemed utterly unable to cope with them. The police courts
were crowded with petty thieves and drink victims,
but the real offenders against the laws of the community went about undisturbed and unmolested.
Some of the crimes, now and forever historical, were
unprecedented.
A family of Sheas, all of whom, it may be said
with pardonable pride, were born in Ireland and not
in this country, had a record of one hundred and
eighteen arrests against them. Three members of

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this family were murderers. In each instance they
had been acquitted on their plea of self-defense. They
continued to do business at their old stand in the
noted " Bloodfield," until they had amassed a small
fortune from the profits of five-cent whiskey and retired to the fashionable Northwest section of the city.
"Billy" Williams, one of the cleverest and most
notorious cracksmen this country ever produced, did
business in Washington for years. He was at last
caught red-handed after robbing the Alexandria
Ferry offices of many thousands of dollars. After
the most strenuous efforts on the part of the court
and prosecuting officers and virtual instruction on
the part of the judge to convict, the defendant was
permitted to go scot free and resume business at the
old stand.
The negro population, a greater part of the time
half mad with cheap whiskey and beer, did pretty
much as it pleased. Occasionally the whites took
matters into their own hands and the negroes were
subdued. The Flagler case was effective in rousing
public opinion and served to curb the negroes for
years. The young woman in the case, the daughter
of General Flagler of the United States Army, had
repeatedly warned several negro youths off the
premises of the Flagler home in the Northwest section of the city. One morning she awakened to see
one of the boys in the garden stealing pears which
she had been saving for her father, then an invalid.
She reached for one of her father's heavy Colt revolvers, took deliberate aim and shot the boy directly between the eyes. He dropped dead in his
tracks.

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

The young woman passed two hours in the private
quarters of the Washington jail as punishment for
her crime. It was the most cold-blooded murder
that has ever come under the observation of the
writer, but it happened nevertheless just at a time,
when in all probability, it prevented an uprising
among the negroes.
When President Roosevelt entered the White
House matters had reached a climax. The brewers
and liquor dealers were running the town in a
fashion that was, despite the indifference of the
local press, about to create a national scandal.
President Cleveland, himself very fond of a glass
of beer, had always declined to interfere in any way
with the liquor interests. President Roosevelt had
been through the mill as a Police Commissioner in
New York, and under the Raines' law had had a
wide experience. He listened to the local committee
of men and women who pointed out to him that
women were being outraged and insulted in the
public streets and parks.
There were changes among the city officials, the
notorious " Division" was partly wiped out, and, on
the surface, there was some slight improvement.
But underneath, the drink evil continued to tear at
the very heart of the community.
There were then more than 20,000 female clerks
in Washington. Many of them were women of the
highest character. There was an unwritten law
that any woman who married would lose her position. The effect of such a ruling can best be left
to the imagination. All the beer gardens and
fashionable restaurants had private dining-rooms,

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and in many instances private rooming houses were
controlled. The resultant vice was hidden, but far
more menacing and far-reaching than if it had been
visible on the surface.
Washington, under a district form of government, was the immediate charge of Congress itself.
The District of Columbia committees in the Senate
and House occasionally conducted investigations and
requested reports of the vice conditions, but for
many years there was no suggestion of reformation. " Bloodfield," " Swampoodle " and other slum
sections, in which were located innumerable breweryowned and controlled saloons, continued to do enormous business. The daily trips of the brewery collectors were rewarded with great stacks of bank
notes, for it was thought best to receive payment
by this method, which prevented the sometimes too
curious bank officers from keeping tally on the enormous revenues of the breweries.
The saloons were so run that no possible profit
escaped them. All of them, with not more than a
dozen exceptions throughout the entire city, maintained sumptuous free lunch counters. The government departments paid off twice a month. It was
roughly reckoned that fully a third of the salaries
paid the government employees flowed into the coffers of the saloon keeper, and, later on, of course,
the larger part into the pockets of the brewer. The
latter gentleman was always treated with the greatest respect by all the heads of the district government and the chief officers of the various bureaus
and governmental departments. In the local newspaper offices he also received marked respect.

REVELRY AND CORRUPTION

There was circulation to be thought of, and then
again "Kultur" was beginning to take deep root.
Having conquered Washington and holding in the
palm of their hand no small amount of the floating
revenue of the city, the brewer and his fellow
Teutons turned their attention to more important
matters.
From the flagstaffs of two of the Washington
breweries German flags were flaunted frequently. It
was common to hear the German saloon keeper
boast with a leer, "Oh, ve vill have a German in de
Vite House some day." So deep-rooted had become this idea in the minds of the Teutons at the
Capital-and a numerous throng they were-that
a saloon keeper whose saloon was in the very
shadow of the Treasury Department continued to
wave the German colors from an enormous flagstaff on his building long after the Lusitania was
sunk. Several protests were made by private citizens, but he paid no attention to them. Finally, a
little group of Metropolitan newspaper men whispered a few comments and literally stood over him
on the roof while he chopped the flagstaff down with
his own little hatchet.
The lobby, the lewd woman, and the ordinary
saloon-keeper, all contributed their quota of evil
to the life at the National Capital. But the brewer
was the master mind, and, frequently, the other
vicious influences were simply his instruments.

CHAPTER III
HIGH ART SALOONS AND BLACK
DIVES
IT is hardly within the power of the ordinary
individual to realize the seriousness of the
drink situation at Washington, and in New
York, Chicago, notably Philadelphia, conspicuously
Boston, and other cities. It was at once dangerous
and menacing. The fashionable saloons in New
York during those days were remarkable in many
ways.
In one bar on Broadway, presided over by an
ex-pugilist and notorious murderer, were no less
than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth
of the most magnificent paintings. One of these, a
great centerpiece entitled " Nymphs and the Satyr,"
was generally considered by art critics all over the
world to be one of the highest examples of the
painter's art. Admirably lighted, it probably sold
as many drinks across the bar as any single attraction in the world. In the center of this great painting was the half-beast, or Satyr, surrounded by three
nude women. Every bit of finesse and cleverness
had been employed by the painter in the creation
of this remarkable work. The flesh tints, the verdure of the forest, and the whole atmosphere could
not readily be surpassed. Hung about the high

SALOONS AND BLACK DIVES

walls of this saloon- for it was nothing more or less
- were other magnificent illustrations of the painter's highest art, all of which carried a direct appeal
to the sensualist, voluptuary, and libertine.
Could there be a more dangerous combinationdrink and the cleverest form of art-to whet the
appetite of the cheap roue and libertine? Down
around Warren and Wall streets were numerous
other similar resorts of smaller size but of like
magnificence.
Not content with arraying on the side of vice the
manhood of these communities, several of these
places had "Ladies' Hours." From, say ten in the
morning until noon, any decently gowned woman
was welcomed as a guest. She was shown about
by a courier and invited to view the lewdness and
nudity of her sisters-for the inspiration and intoxication, perhaps, of the unlicensed and unbridled
painter.
Strangers and men-about-town, buyers for the
shops, cosmopolitan characters of every ilk crowded
these numerous saloons from early morning
until early the next morning, for during the Tammany regime there was no such thing as a closing time, and many of the saloon-keepers frequently
reiterated the statement that if they were asked to
lock the front door of their establishments they
would not know where to find the key.
Gotham was a veritable panorama of magnificent
saloons. In the decorations and embroideries of
many of these gilded dives there was real artistry.
Just how many youthful souls have found their hells
in these holes, no human being can ever reckon.

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Precisely the same condition existed in every important city in this country. In the smaller city the
places were fewer in number, but, in many instances,
unique and startling in their interest and environment. Cincinnati boasted of saloons paved with
silver dollars and gilded with golden eagles. Chicago had one bar the ceiling of which is said to have
cost a quarter of a million dollars, the mural ornaments and other decorative and floral work being
of a character that never failed to excite the most
favorable critical comment.
In one saloon on Ninth Street in Washington was
a collection of water-colors and lewd pictures that
was said to be valued at a like sum- a quarter of
a million dollars. It is no exaggeration to say that
millions upon millions of dollars were spent in the
art decorations of those places with no other
thought on the part of the proprietors than to
inveigle the beholder into every lustful crime.
Gradually one descended the social scale until one
reached the middle-class saloon with its ten-cent
schnapps and its swiller of beer. Along First,
Second, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and
Tenth Avenues in New York could be found fewer
examples of this character. There was nothing particularly attractive about these places. They were
all of the same kind, with the usual brass railings,
the usual glass mirrors, the usual foul-mouthed
bartender, and the usual moneyed, bejewelled and
rotund saloon-keeper.
A little farther down the way, under the Brooklyn
Bridge for example, the dives were of greater interest to the casual observer, as well as to the student

SALOONS AND BLACK DIVES

of psychology. The derelicts in some of these
places are worthy of more than passing notice.
One dive, under the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge
on the New York side, was a place that could not
readily be matched anywhere in the universe, except,
perhaps, by a place in Philadelphia. The poor
victim of drink, who had been ostracized by every
semi-decent fellow-being, haunted this hole. This
was one of the places that under Tammany protection had no key. One paid five cents for a drink of
what was known as whiskey. The combination
"bouncer" and bartender gave the purchaser a tin
cup. He might go to the barrel and drink therefrom
as much as he liked. Homeless nearly always, without shelter invariably, when he had drunk himself
into insensibility he might, through the hospitality
of the proprietor, retire to the back room. There,
if he possessed as much as two cents, he was permitted to sit on a long bench. He might sleep if he
liked. If he did not possess these two cents, he
could only stand up and, like the policeman on the
corner without, he might sleep standing. A curious
thing about the habitues of this place was that they
soon learned the policeman's trick of sleeping standing, and, curious as it may seem, there were dents
all along the wall that had been worn by the heads
of these creatures.
Early one morning, when the writer happened
into the place in pursuit of an under-world sketch for
a newspaper, he counted one hundred and sixteen of
these men sleeping standing up, and, oddly enough,
they all had their backs toward the room itself.
Curious, he asked the "bouncer" why they did not

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follow the policeman's practice and sleep with their
backs toward the wall. The cop almost invariably
leans his cheek against the lamp post. With a sneer
the "bouncer" said, "Why, anybody would know
why they didn't sleep with their backs toward the
wall! Because sometimes they fall over. If they
fell over with their faces that way, of course when
they landed on the floor they would break them."
Another place, in Philadelphia, had an invention
that created not a little interest and warm endorsement among the derelicts of that notoriously liquorruled and corrupt city. The proprietor of this Philadelphia establishment must have had some warm
feeling within his bosom, for his rear room was fitted
out not only with benches but with a heavy rope
strung along these benches. When the night shades
deepened and sleep induced by the vile concoctions
he had been drinking forced itself upon the poor
devil, he leaned his head on this rope and dropped
to sleep as comfortably as the average man or
woman would do in bed.
In the early morning, when the policeman on the
beat came in to get his "mornin'-mornin'," the proprietor, for his own protection and as tribute to his
guest, felt called upon to rid the back room of its inmates. His method of doing so was at once interesting and ingenious. To awaken this semicircle of
bums was very simple. The proprietor or the bartender, as the case might be, simply walked to a peg
in the wall and untied the rope, whereupon all the
sleeping victims rolled gracefully over on the floor,
to the delectation and amusement of both bartender
and policeman. Many men about town, after mak

SALOONS AND BLACK DIVES

ing a night of it, used to start the new day by watching this performance.
One might go on to enumerate and describe at
length like holes of horror in every city in the Union.
They were also to be found in many villages, where
they were operating in the open; and not infrequently
they were to be found in the little crossroads hamlet.
Rarely were these low dives ever presided over by
Germans. Of these countless joints throughout the
entire land there are but very few on record that
were personally operated by Germans, but the statement cannot be contradicted that at least ninety per
cent of the worst of these places, including the Haymarket, Suicide Hall, the Cairo, " Billy McGlory's,"
"Tom Stevenson's," and innumerable others of
these joints in New York and other cities were owned
and controlled absolutely by brewers. In many instances the brewer had the whiskey rights to these
places; that is, he stated the whiskey firm from which
the schnapps must be bought. Always, the brewer
was in the background. A few places in the South
and on the Pacific slope and in the far Northwest
were presided over by men and women of other nationalities; but, when it became necessary to get
down to the bed rock of the organization, no mistake could be made. Always, it was the German,
and nearly always the German brewer, who profited
by the human barter.
Sometimes a preacher of good intent visited these
joints and, occasionally, he had the temerity to
preach a sermon based on his observations. It
rarely counted for anything. Four times out of five
his congregation regarded it as an inappropriate

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subject. Cities were cities, it was argued. A certain
amount of sin and vice was natural, perhaps essential. The drunkard, like the poor, we had always
with us.
Then began the transformation. The Reverend
Edward Everett Hale, who may be regarded as
pioneer in the movement in this country for the
regeneration of this lower stratum of humanity,
preached in Tremont Temple, Boston, a memorable
sermon that reached all over the world and did
much to set other ministers about their duty in this
direction. Sermon after sermon followed all over
the country, and, remarkable as it may seem, minister after minister lost his charge for trespassing
on the sentiments and good feelings of his followers.
It was not a popular subject. Liquor was a necessary
evil. Many members of many congregations, the
heads of many families, were directly or indirectly
interested in the liquor trade. If they did not deal
directly with the liquor dealer, he dealt directly with
them. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick
maker all were in relations. In other words, it was
a wholesale lust and a wholesale evil that had to be
endured rather than cured.
The war fought in this country for a readjustment
of social conditions and the abolition of the saloon
may be said to have begun in the early part of this
century. Dr. Talmadge, Mr. Hale, the Reverend
John Wesley Brown of St. Thomas' Church in
New York, the Reverend Dr. Huntington of Grace
Church, and other divines braved public opinion
and did not hesitate to come out in the open. The
good they did was incalculable. People began to be

SALOONS AND BLACK DIVES

aroused. Associations, leagues of various titles,
civic societies, and, most important of all, many
organizations of women took up the work.
Thinking men and women the world over were
aroused. A little bevy of sweet English women in
a few brief months cleaned up that most notorious
part of London known as Whitechapel. To-day the
gin-slinger is a thing of the past. Whitechapel is
a clean tenement-house district; no longer the hideous slum it was, but in every way a creditable part
of London.
A few inspired men and women in New York
revolutionized the East Side. Dr. Parkhurst was
one of the men who did so much in this direction.
Veterans in this work will recall their trips down
town on the Sixth Avenue Elevated, glancing out of
the windows as they turned into Third Street, where
might be seen scores upon scores of half nude
women, looking through the shutters, prisoners in
vice precisely like the Geisha girls enslaved in Tokio.
Where originated these vices of lust and liquor?
How often has that question been asked Port
Said, where one sometimes sees nude women dancing
in the streets at high noon? Singapore? Constantinople? No. They had their beginnings in
the land that came very near to enslaving the best
part of the world. And the city where most of
this horror and vice of the latter part of the last
century and the early part of this century had its
birth was Berlin.

CHAPTER IV

THE BREWER IN THE WAR
B ERLIN, "the Brewery City," is built on a
plain. It is " flat and stale" with long ages
of war preparations, yet everything within its
environs was until recently remarkably profitable and
efficient. Plebeian-" a parvenu among cities"is the infinitely descriptive term of one writer. Still,
although devoid of architectural beauty, startling
municipal perfection had been attained before the
World War in many departments of the city government. To drop a bit of stray paper on one of
the public thoroughfares was punishable by immediate fine or imprisonment. The glass put-in man
could not carry through the street an unwrapped
pane to mend a broken window without fear of summary discipline. Even the nymphes du pave were
housed and herded, governed and controlled as in
no other city in the world. To leave the quarter of
the town in which they were enslaved meant punishment but little short of penal servitude. Common
carriers were ruled with a rod of government iron.
Students of civic affairs regarded the spectacular
municipal perfection with dazed and wondering
speculation. Surely the high-water mark of efficiency had been reached! Here at the great capital
of the Hun all the outward and visible signs of the
ultra-supremacy of German "Kultur" were to be

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

observed and regarded with deepest interest. Palatial beer saloons and gardens, under immediate government control, were everywhere.
Certainly the big city could not have shown to
finer advantage than it did on the brilliant day in
June, 1913, when Mr. Andrew Carnegie arrived
there, bearing with him the inspired messages of
forty-four American peace societies to Kaiser Wilhelm on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the German Emperor's rule. A city en fete
under a cloudless, smokeless sky, like an inverted
bowl of sapphire, greeted the Ironmaster. The
streets were gay with miles of multi-colored bunting,
and resonant with the strains of martial music from
a hundred bands.
Having passed many years of his long and useful
life in soot-tinted and darkest Pittsburgh, Mr. Carnegie was naturally curious in respect to the clarified
atmosphere, for Berlin has many industries. He
wondered why there were not great funnels belching
forth waves of black gases as in the Smoky City.
There was no smoke, he was told, to tinge the atmosphere with darkness or change it to the opaque
blackness of his native city in the Keystone State.
The smoke went up one funnel and was returned
through another to the basement of the buildings
where it was converted into heat.
The Teutons are most ingenious in all matters
that touch upon their desires. Such ingenuity was
invaluable during the period of the Great War. For
example, the Germans claim that during the food
shortage they have been making a very good butter
from the refuse fats deposited in the kitchen sinks.

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Mr. Carnegie, the other American and English
visitors, and several journalists of like nationalities
in Berlin at the time, found many other things to
interest them, conspicuous among which was a somewhat insistent compulsory civility that, unfortunately, however, did not serve to attract. It was
also perhaps noteworthy to find a city so distinctly
a la militaire in all its bearings when the white
winged angel of peace was supposed to be among
the main items on the programs of the festivities for
discussion and congratulation.
There were other incidents during the monstrous
celebrations at strange variance with plans for a
world peace. Worthy of comment also was a series
of banquets of the German Naval League during
which was frequently drunk the toast "Here's to
the Day " the day being the time when Germany,
by hook or crook, would be enabled to clash swords
with the land for which she held the deepest and
most unfathomable hatred, England. Incidentally,
this was a compulsory toast.
Americans about the festive boards were not infrequently asked to join in drinking this toast. If
hearty joviality or dignified mien did not mark their
compliance with this request, the aftermath was
likely to be markedly unpleasant for them and their
compatriots.
So many Teutons have been welcomed to America, so much money has been spent by the brewers in
German propaganda in the United States in the past
many years, that any question of the ultimate success of a German World Dominion was received with
deep disfavor, if not with frank and open rebuke.

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

Americans had to drink German beer whether or
no. Teuton tyranny in the matter of responding to
toasts to the Kaiser, "Here's to the Day!" and all
things German, overstepped all bounds of common
courtesy in the early days of the Great War. Even
the mask of etiquette and the commonest ethics of
diplomatic usage and expression were thrown aside
at court. Edward Eyre Hunt, one of the delegates
to the Belgian Relief Commission, in his interesting
book War Bread, relates how he was reproved
for not draining his stein of lager on one occasion.
Innumerable other similar incidents might be recorded. To the close student of things German,
the change from subtle and studied hypocrisy to
frank and open insult was warmly welcome. It
made the task of analysis and the effort to find some
trace of the milk of human kindness in the Teuton
less difficult and more pertinent. With his mask of
hate lowered, the true character of the German was
more easily sounded. He is now trying to crowd
the brewery and more drink down the American
throat.
Mr. Carnegie related the incidents attendant upon
his reception at the royal palace to the author across
a tea table in the drawing room of his Fifth Avenue
home, upon his return from abroad shortly after the
World War was declared. It is particularly noteworthy, for the reason that the intentions of beersoaked Germany at that time did not differ greatly
from those she now holds.
The Kaiser and Mr. Carnegie had been friends
for many years. On a magnificent mahogany table
in the great hall of his residence the Ironmaster has

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displayed many mementoes presented to him by
royal personages, and men and women of distinction, in token of his untiring efforts for a worldwide peace. Among them is a much prized gift
from Wilhelm himself. When the question of the
latter's sincerity and desire for peace was mooted,
the Ironmaster entered an indignant protest. He
would not have it that the Teuton ruler was not
one of the firmest advocates of world peace living
upon the earth today. With insistent emphasis
the Ironmaster related as testimony of this fact
the most minute details of his reception at the
royal palace.
As soon as he entered the great hall, almost before he started down the human lane through the
court of congratulation, the Kaiser saw him.
"Ah, there comes my friend, Andrew Carnegie!
We have had twenty-five years of peace, and we
hope to have many more," he cried aloud so all
might hear him. In response Mr. Carnegie called
back to the Kaiser when he was yet many feet away,
with all the enthusiasm he could bring to bear in
his voice, "And in this noblest of all missions you
are our chief ally."
Misguided Andrew Carnegie! No one who
knows the Ironmaster could ever question his motives, or the sincerity of his innumerable missions to
the far places, that the world might have peace.
It was in no wise his fault that troops were marching past the very peace hall on which he had lavished
his millions within a few months of the time when
he related the above incident, illustrating so irrefutably the Kaiser's arch hypocrisy.

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

It is perhaps difficult even today for the Ironmaster, whose life has been one of sterling integrity,
honesty of purpose, and ambitious effort, truly to
estimate the wolf in sheep's clothing of the Kaiser
brewery type. Indeed that feat is difficult for the
accomplished criminologist!
Mr. Carnegie might have recalled, if he had
troubled himself to search his memory with the diligence of suspicion, rather than to accept a gentleman's estimate, the ill-concealed reluctance of the
German Emperor's emissaries at the early conferences of The Hague, and their final positive declination to enter into any agreement that might have a
tendency to beget a lasting peace. He might also
have recalled the oft-told tale, and had it confirmed
by several of the guests attendant upon the anniversary celebration, of the Kaiser's nose bleed in the
same palace where he the Ironmaster was so royally
and picturesquely received.
There had been a great court reception at the
Wilhelmstrasse, followed by much feasting and
drinking. Many persons were present plainly under
the influence of drink. The Kaiser's nose began to
bleed violently. He paused and watched intently
the drops of blood as they pattered down and made
a pool on the ballroom floor.
"Your Majesty," said the beautiful Queen of
Spain, who happened to be with him at the time,
"that is more than a simple nose bleed. It may be
a hemorrhage. Do you not think a physician should
be summoned?"
" No," was the prompt and curt response, " Let's
watch it. In this way I may be rid of the last drop

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of English blood in my veins." In vino veritasl
Drink and hate had spoken.
Faintly the Queen acquiesced, and for exactly
eleven minutes German time, by the watch of a
bystander, the little throng watched His Majesty's
nose bleed and the pool grow larger and larger until
it was nearly the size of a Prussian helmet, and
curiously enough the gore had shaped itself like the
clumsy headgear. When it had ceased an attendant brought His Majesty a basin of water. He
cleaned his nostrils, announced that he felt much
better, and commanded that the music and dancing
proceed.
This anecdote is not new. Every globe trotter
and attache who has the entree to the courts of
Europe has heard it, and its verity cannot be
questioned.
It has been frequently said that the Crown
Prince, and not his father, is responsible for much
of the Prussian militarism that was so firmly imbued
in the German people. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Barring the conquest of a Viennese
soubrette or a Berlin cabaret danseuse, that most advanced type of the Prussian jeunesse doree has had
few ambitions and no accomplishments. On the contrary, the military spirit of his royal father has ever
been his most pronounced and persistent characteristic, and his whole system has been saturated with
strong drink from boyhood.
Every fair-minded contemporary historian will
bear witness that it has never been the Kaiser's
thought to win for his people their World Dominion
by the wiles of diplomacy or the finesse of words

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

and agreements. Those might be destroyed or
converted into mere " scraps of paper," as Germany
herself has so frequently interpreted like treaties
and agreements.
Victory at arms, conquest by the aid of the most
powerful military machine the world has ever known
on land, with a multitude of air-craft and submarine
piratical machines through every ocean, would, he
determined, hold the whole universe in abject fear,
and insure universal Teuton brewery rule for an
indefinite period.
Had Mr. Carnegie any doubt at that time of this
potent and paramount fact of the Kaiser's determined
intent, he should have motored over to Essen,
where are the Krupp munition plants, the greatest
in the world except Mr. Carnegie's own at Bethlehem. There he would have found that under the
direct orders of the Emperor himself, on those June
days in I9I3, 37,000 men, women and children
were at work doing nothing but turning out munitions of warfare.
Observers in Germany at that early date were
dumbfounded at the preparations for the Great
War made as early as I875. Practically every
plant or factory in Germany built since that time
was so constituted that it could almost immediately
be turned into a munition plant. The "Made in
Germany" letters on many articles sold in America,
and all over the world in fact, were a silent message
to Germans wherever they might be that the factory
where the article was manufactured would some day
be a war plant. Many children of Germans in the
United States fully understood this message. It

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was fed to them with the morning porridge of hate
to England. The saloon keepers and brewers
vaunted it under the noses of the American people,
just as they are now boasting of their $2,000,000
slush fund to control the liquor situation. He might
have also ascertained without difficulty that not in
twenty years have there been less than nine thousand
workmen steadily employed in the Krupp plants
alone, and the number was often increased to as
many as forty thousand toilers, in accordance with
the activities in the other trades.
He moreover might have learned that one grade
of guns was being made to sell to Belgium and Holland, and another grade for Germany and Austria.
Those of the Belgian guns that did not burst or explode in the defenses of Liege and Namur have
already been consigned to the scrap heap.
He would also have learned, had the Germans
deemed it wise to be communicative, that while
Winston Churchill in England was doing his utmost
to get the Great Powers of the world to reduce the
production of the number of superb dreadnoughts
and other naval war craft, the Kaiser was incessantly
pounding into his naval aides the necessity of haste
and increased production. And the brewery interests the world over were being urged to redouble
their efforts.
Had the Ironmaster been invited to the banquet
of the Naval League on the evening following his
reception at the palace, he would have been vastly
entertained by the statement of one of the guests
that at least seven of the forty-four peace societies
which he represented in his message to the Kaiser,

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

had their origin in Berlin or other cities of Germany, and owed their very existence to Prussian
propaganda financed by the brewery interests in the
United States. He would then have had the pleasure
of hearing the toast, " Here is to the Day," drunk
no less than a score of times. It was with difficulty
that Americans kept sober at these entertainments.
The German beer is as strong as some American
whiskey.
Mr. Carnegie, for obvious reasons, was not invited, however. Certainly he is open to no censure
or criticism. Could the great Ironmaster, whose
passionate desire was to leave an enduring peace
upon the world, one of the most beautiful of later
day ideals, be expected to know these things?
Hardly Yet if he had had access to the archives
of the Krupps he would have found a complete
record of all the work that had been done in the
matter of munitions at his own plants for many
years, as perfectly enumerated and card-indexed as
are copies of the plans and fortifications, railroad
bridges, roads that may be used for military purposes, approaches, etc., in the United States recorded
in the War Offices at Berlin.
But Mr. Carnegie could not be expected to be in
the possession of knowledge not yet gathered by his
own Government. So he returned to his native land
fully convinced of the fact that the German Emperor, so often since justly pictured in song and
story as the prototype of the Brute Incarnate, was
sincere in his convictions and desire for peace on
earth and good will to men.
Again, in justice to Mr. Carnegie, it may be said

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that there was nothing on the surface to give indication of the contrary at that time.
One great accomplishment must be accorded Germany and Prussianism: well nigh perfected publicity propaganda. It matters not if this achievement
is marred by trails of blood, outrage and atrocity
almost inconceivable. It was successful, to the extent that it made of more than half the civilized
world a cesspool of blood and carnage, and left
mankind at the end of a lane of terror, past milestone after milestone of human pain and woe far
beyond the descriptive art or magic of pen or paint
brush. And now the same drunken people are trying
to repeat their success in the United States with the
brewery and its output of drink for the foundation.
No such system of espionage, surveillance and
barter in the souls and bodies of human beings was
ever before employed to such vile purpose of
achievement; no such record was ever entered on
the scroll of history. With a false prayer on his
lips, a deluding kiss of peace until he was prepared,
and a two-edged sword drawn and in his hand, this
Prussian Judas Iscariot has murdered the innocents and flayed strong men to their death with a
merciless infamy that numbs the senses in their
futile effort to comprehend.
Mr. Carnegie's many appeals for Anglo-Saxon
unity, his Scotch ancestry and his intense and intimate
Americanism, made him a particularly advantageous
instrument of the Kaiser's peace message to the
world: "Ah, there comes my friend, Andrew Carnegie. We have had twenty-five years of peace and
we will have many more" âwhile the forges at

THE BREWER IN THE WAR

Essen, flaming with molten lead and iron, ground
out great guns, and the royal revelers of the Naval
League with wassail cries drank to "The Day"!
"Sacre! It ees a world fooled and a fool world
togazzer " said a Frenchman to his American companion when Liege fell.
And that, it may be added, is still another wellvoiced sentiment. The sardonic ambitions, the savage infamy and the brute lust of this Mephistophelian Teuton tyrant might have been nipped in the
bud could the world only have hearkened to its
thinkers. How often has the tale of Prussian drink,
hate and warlike preparation been told, significantly,
logically and brilliantly! As often as the sun has
set over the blood-red Mediterranean; as often as
the wails of the Belgian children for bread have
been wafted across the world; as often as God himself has rebuked the Great Powers for the rivers of
blood turned upon their peoples.
Pan-Germanism - with its brewery in the background - as it is politely termed by many futile and
temperate writers, is not a newly hatched scheme.
It is half a century old. It has been sung from the
housetops in England, France and America, day in
and day out for generations. At the crossroads
hamlet, in the vastnesses of the mountain passes,
poets, painters and writers ordinaire have drawn
and painted the lurid picture of brewery-made " Kultur" and the evils of Prussian hate and might.
But the world would have none of it! Either
the very topic was laughed away and its logic torn
to bits, or else it was buried among topics taboo.
Now and then some facile, scintillant student of the

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French school like Andre Cheradame, or an intellectual giant of the fashion of Roland G. Usher,
would, meteorlike, flash across the literary sky.
The world might hearken and pause for a moment;
but there was no retort and only faint attention. In
England and the United States mankind has continued to wallow in its money-grubbing, smug and
calm in the listlessness and absolute indifference of
bad government. And France, next door to the
Prussian octopus waiting with outstretched tentacles,
- France, forgetting I870 and the cries of her sorrow-stricken children, went heedlessly on her own
way, until the day came when the best that was in her
must lie down in the agonies of death, while beautiful flower-strewn Belgium at her doors was virtually
wiped out of existence. The awakening is here.
The lesson is learned. And a better -at least a
sober-world is assured.
Kismet!

CHAPTER V

THE PEACE AND THE BEER INDUSTRY
T HE "Peace Society," backed by the brewers,
was the best asset that Germany had before and during the early stages of the
Great War, so far as the United States is concerned.
For years America was the German's one great fear.
Should the United States by dint of perseverance
and some faint show of national wisdom ever acquire
adequate coast fortification and a really great army
and navy, the well-laid plans of the Pan-German
pirateers and their brewery affiliates would assuredly
be menaced, and the success of the scheme to murder
the world while it slept would fail in the initiative.
So elaborate preparations were early begun to
prevent any such dire calamity or radical handicap.
As early as the winter of I875, the possibility of the
United States not keeping in line and strictly observing the ethics of the Pan-German beer dream was
seriously considered at Berlin and other important
Fatherland centers.
Many old residents of New York, Chicago and
the other large cities of the United States will remember the great influx of German brewers, educators, bespectacled professors of law and medicine,
governesses and others learned in Prussian lore.
There was no apparent reason for their sudden ad

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vent into the United States in such numbers. American cities were no more illiterate or ignorant in 1875
than they had been in 874. But the German schoolmasters and schoolmistresses came in hundreds, even
thousands, and they all managed to secure employment, and all, curiously, were plentifully supplied
with money. Especially was that fact true of the
German governess, mainly for the reason that the
Teuton schoolma'am would work for about one-half
the wage charged by the French or English teacher
of children. All she wanted, she often said, was a
good home. The heads of American households
will recall that in the several years that followed it
was next to impossible to get a good governess of
any nationality except German. The English and
French teachers, disgusted, packed their traps, returned home, or went to Canada or to Australia.
Educational institutions for women were not so
numerous in the United States in those days. So it
came to pass that the American family employed a
German governess or else had none, and sent the
daughters to the often inadequate, and invariably
expensive, schools for girls. Many an American girl
at the drink table is the result of this education.
President Wilson had to employ a German governess despite the fact that the first Mrs. Wilson, a
Southern woman, had a natural preference for the
more finished teacher of the French school. The
German teachers were not long in sowing the
seed of beer and peace (?). While all classes
of men in England, France, Russia, Italy and
every civilized country under the sun are still condemning Germany's wholesale barbarity and car

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

nival of the murder of the innocents, it remains for
the United States to harbor and tolerate groups of
so-called Americans who openly sympathize with
Prussian infamy and the open saloon. How long,
one asks; how long? The brewery is still here;
and at least one court in the United States in June,
I9I9, has ruled that it may continue to manufacture beer, despite a drastic national law to the
contrary.
German beer and German infamy were taught
the people in infancy and it is in their blood. They
viewed the Belgian crimes with dry eyes, and declared with shameless falsity that England, France
or the United States might have done the same thing
under the same circumstances. There is no reason
or logic in their arguments. They will read a paragraph like this from the New York World, and in
the face of it tell you that it contains not a word of
truth:
That Government [Germany] has disputed, belittled and invaded the sovereignty of the United
States on its own soil. With the help of thousands
of paid agents, spies and criminals, many of them in
Government service, it has defied our laws, conspired against our industry and commerce, incited
strikes and riots, placed explosives in ships, factories
and warehouses, levied war from our territory upon
Canada, endeavored by bribery to persuade Mexico
to make war upon us, forged and bedevilled our
passports, and in numerous cases, by the use of the
bomb and the torch, destroyed American lives and
American property.
That is a very mild and gentle arraignment of a
part of the German crimes in the United States.

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Yet these tutors and pupils of Pan-Germanism will
insist that the facts have not been told, and that
there is much exaggeration. Now that the war is
over, the German brewers are trying the same game
all over again and endeavoring to excite the populace to override a constitutional amendment of the
United States Government.
Proof of the brewery-tainted infamy they will not
have.. When it is presented to them it is not accepted. What power the German has over a large
percentage of Americans to change their minds and
understanding from simple right and justice to that
state where they applaud the most sickening spectacles of drink and lust, here in America as well as
in Germany, is a mystery. But that the Germans,
more especially a large percentage of the German-Americans, possess this power over Americans to a large and very grave extent cannot be
gainsaid.
The German professor and the German governess have done their work well in recent years,
but their efforts and their peace and beer songs did
not suffice. American gold was pouring into German coffers. The Teutons had built up the greatest steamship organization in the world with more
tonnage by nearly twofold than any other company
on earth. Why not extend Germany's efforts, her
commerce and brewery, and most important of all,
her power in America?
There were rumblings of uneasiness in the United
States. A certain element of thinking Americans
began to view with alarm the increasing German
population, churches, theatres, press, etc. There

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

was talk of a rehabilitation of the army of the
United States, of resurrecting the navy that was
rapidly going to seed, of coast fortification.
In the early days of the Forty-Ninth Congress
the protestations against a helpless country and an unfortified coast, an imperilled, defenseless America,
became more distinct. It was not necessary to put
the ear to the ground to hear those cries of alarm
and protest. They could be heard across the continent. The Forty-Ninth Congress was deep in one
of the most important tariff discussions in the history of the country. In that body there were men
of ability, in some instances of pronounced statesmanlike qualities, McKinley, Reed, Randall, Burns,
Holman, -that had to do with the tariff which had
fallen into such estate that it had to be tinkered with
and amended. But they had small time to be discussing the country's safety. What mattered it if
Germany was increasing her army and navy at a
rate that was appalling to those men familiar with
military Europe? Germany had had its scare, and
the best minds in the Empire determined that some.
thing must be done to offset any bellicose movement
in the United States. The educators were doing
their best, but their efforts, however insistent and
successful, were not sufficiently far reaching. It was
in the days of the first Cleveland administration
that the great "peace movement" in the United
States was inaugurated by the Pan-Germanism advocates, and the Kaiser himself took no small part
in its successful launching. Hundreds of breweries
all over the country poured their gold into the
melting-pot.

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In the 9o's the national capital was a Mecca for
the Teuton peace and beer emissaries. There was
no war cloud of any great proportion on the horizon,
and no immediate prospect of one so far as the
world, the world outside Germany at any event,
knew. Yet there were peace advocates everywhere,
in the halls of Congress, about the bureaus and departments of the government at the Capital, in the
hotels, clubs, saloons, everywhere.
Those were the days when the lobby thrived at
Washington, the lobby with women, beer, wine and
every known vice, as the attraction for lawmakers
and journalists. All the railroads had a lobby. So,
too, the steamship lines, great corporations, etc.
The lobby was sometimes referred to as the " Third
House," such was its import and subtle power. In
those days the heads of those nefarious forces
worked in the open. The reception rooms on both
the Senate and the House side of the Capitol were
thronged with men and women of all types and
characters who sought to combat or advance legislation by any means, fair or foul. The colossal
sums of the people's money diverted and stolen outright through the influence of the " Third House "
will never be known. In recent years the evil has
been in a sense mitigated. While it lasted it was
one of infinite horror, with torrents of champagne,
beer, wine, whiskey, and of course the accompanying women in the background. And always "under
the rose" in the "Third House" was the "peace"
lobby, openly flaunting its purposes. Just where
it emanated from no one knew, and who supported
it no one could tell definitely.

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

In Shoomaker's, Hancock's, all along "Rum
Row" and the public saloons, there was always
some soft-voiced German professor, a mere casual
visitor, descanting on the horrors of war, the terrors inflicted upon the people of Europe because
of the dire necessity of having to maintain an expensive army and navy. And always at the end of
the discourse was the appealing finale,-" You
Americans are so fortunate because you do not have
to support a great navy and army and pay the toll
of a lot of military loafers."
The "peace movement," as it was at first known,
was in the commencement of its vogue charged up
to the farmers of the Middle West, most of whom,
it was gently explained, were peace-loving Germans.
They could not bear even the thought of war. They
came here to America where they could have their
beer, to get rid of the very thought of strife. Many
of the younger clique of lawmakers and journalists
swallowed this canard. The older and wiser men
smiled and shook their heads and said nothing. As
a matter of fact they did not really know any more
than the younger set about the definite source of
the movement. It hardly seemed likely that the
farmers all over the country were dropping their
plows and hoes to write protests to Washington
every time a bill for some adequate protection of
the country was introduced; and yet there were the
letters from constituents all over the country, principally from the large cities, where there were always many Teutons, and from the Middle West.
Sometimes there were German signatures to these
congressional communications, sometimes not. The

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German emissaries enlisted every shade and color
in their behalf.
Finally the peace game, like the proverbial murder, will out. There came to Washington, shortly
after Mr. Cleveland's little tilt over the Venezuela
matter, a beautiful Viennese; and yet she was not
the typical Austrian beauty, for her hair was as
black as a raven. But the great blue eyes set in a
face with the contour of Juno and the rose complexion of Hebe, over a figure that might rival
that of Venus herself, soon had the Capital, accustomed in those days to lovely women of every type,
talking. No one knew whence she came, and everyone cared. In an open victoria, with two men on
the box in a livery that might have been royal,
every afternoon that it was fair she drove slowly
up and down the Avenue. Presently the younger
and better looking of the congressmen and some
of the more influential of the newspaper men at the
Capital began to receive invitations to her afternoon
salons in a beautiful rented residence on Connecticut Avenue. There was always wine, music and
other women. And just before departure, invariably
before the dinner hour, she would lift her glass to
the assemblage and say, " Now, boys, we must part.
A parting glass, and I want you to promise me to
do what you can for peace, a world peace. We do
not want any more war on this earth."
Everybody drank and everybody promised.
She is dead now, peace to her ashes! Never
mind her name. No one knows how much German
money she spent in Washington; but she accomplished much for those that employed her, and

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

materially helped to promote the unprepared and
imperilled condition of the United States before the
Great War.
" I could have given the United States the second
best navy in the world if it had not been for the
German brewery influence in Congress," said the
late William C. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy,
just before his departure from the Cabinet, when
the Cleveland administration was drawing to a close
and a clerk brought him the Naval Appropriation
bill practically cut in half. It is well that men die
sometimes before their time. For it would certainly have pained Mr. Whitney to observe the tolerance of Americans for the brewery nabobs in the
United States today after the tragic events of the
World War.
"I Accuse!" written "By a German" early in
the World War, dwells on the horror of this sacrilege. This volume was translated by Alexander
Gray and is said to have been written by a former
member of the Kaiser's official household. It contains much to interest, and would be a valuable contribution to Teuton literature but for the fact that
it bears the taint of all anonymous communications.
A writer that dares not shoulder his statement of
alleged fact is always a pathetic spectacle. Every
new effort at massacre and murder is preluded by
a prayer. The Kaiser is constantly telling his people
and the world at large that God is with him in his
murder lust. Never in the memory or the history
of the world have the names of the Father and the
Saviour of mankind been used with such hideous
irreverence and vulgar profanity.

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At first startled and in a measure horrified by
this avowal of partnership with the Deity, the German people have now become so accustomed to it
that it has become an obsession. Many of the
peace meetings in the Middle West opened with a
prayer for the German people and ended with another that they might be able to murder, or, as the
Teuton preacher more politely put it, "make away
with " all of their enemies.
To those familiar with the far-reaching, beertainted propaganda of Pan-Germanism, this terrible
coupling of Heaven and the hell fires of war is not
extraordinary.
In Germany the German preacher passes from
his pulpit to the beer garden across the way. The
brewer when he comes to this country thinks it absurd, and does not hesitate to express his disgust at
the law of common decency that requires the church
to be a certain distance from the saloon. And such
is the political power of the brewer in this land at
the present moment that if there is any moving to
be done, the church, unless the congregation be an
unusually influential one, usually does it.
The brewer, invariably a great personage in his
native land, could never understand why he did not
immediately attain the same social prestige in this
country. American society, however, below the
standard in many of its ideals and customs, could
not quite accord him that privilege of close social
intercourse. So the brewer has turned his attention
to "peace principles," Pan-Germanism and American politics, all three of these entertaining diversions being identical and making for the same

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

end, the supremacy of the brewery and German
rule.
No other adverse factors in American life have
wrought as much evil as has this same brewer.
The advent of the devil himself on these shores
would have been infinitely less harmful, more acceptable. Certainly no Satanic ruler presiding over an
Inferno of Dante's picturing could have done more
far-reaching injury to American life. He, this
brewer, has done more to eat away the heart of
this republic and leave it totally unprotected at the
beginning of the World War than all the other
human bacteria and bacilli admitted to these hospitable shores in the last hundred years. All the
world knows how this same brewer destroyed the
great caravansaries, the cafes and the charming restaurants of Paris by the introduction of his vile concoctions; what inroads his beverages made upon
lower-class English life. But it is here in the United
States that his vicious accomplishments have been
supreme.
There was perhaps, in the old days, some excuse
for a man who occasionally got drunk like a gentleman and was quickly over with it. In any event,
Washington occasionally did, also Grant and Clay
and Henry and other great men, and historians pass
the matter over lightly. But it is the beer swiller,
the human being surcharged with this slow malt
poison, the by-product of German "Kultur," that
is the menace to all America as well as the European
world today. Several of the European scientists,
endeavoring to ascertain the cause for the mad
antics of the Kaiser and his Prussian confederates,

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have attributed it to the fact that seventy-five per
cent of the German people have been practically
stupefied, or in other words, partly drunk for centuries. Assuiredly drunkenness had much ito do
with the atrocities in Belgium, where irrefutable
proof has been adduced of the fact that whole
armies of Germans were drunk for weeks and
months at a time.
And the beer swiller is hardly less a menace here
in America. Stand on any corner in New York or
Chicago, except a few of the principal thoroughfares and better residential streets, and what does
one find? The eye cannot rest on any vista through
the mist of city traffic where there is not a saloon.
Usually over it is an Irish sign; if not Irish it is
German. The saloon is nearly always owned by
the German brewer, and is usually leased to the
Irishman-to the Irishman of all men-because he
hates England. If the leaves of the brewer's ledger
and cash book could be turned it would be readily
ascertained that he has been a liberal contributor
to peace. It will be discovered that his hand has
been ever ready for a "peace subscription" to the
cause of peace at Washington, to the peace society
in the big city, at the crossroads hamlet and wherever it was necessary.
For peace in America, he thought, meant power
and successful warfare for the Fatherland and in the
end, World Dominion. Idle thought! Thousands of
loyal Irishmen, following the example of their Canadian and Australian brothers, enlisted during the
early stages of the World War and, with a courage
that at times excelled that of their English comrades,

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY

changed the attitude of many British parliamentarians. But for the Dublin Revolution, engineered by
the Germans from alpha to omega, the Home Rule
Bill would have passed and become operative. The
revolution left the British government no alternative but to take the culprits to the Tower, shoot
them, and add new names to the already long list of
Irish offenders.
Attendance at any of the great peace meetings at
Madison Square Garden in New York, the Auditorium in Chicago, the Turnverein halls in St. Louis,
Cincinnati, Milwaukee and the other cities with a
numerous Teuton population, during the past trying
years revealed no ulterior thought of peace other
than to keep the United States from helping England, France and the allies and the cause of civilization and humanity. Had there been any disposition
on the part of the American Government to lend
assistance to the Central Powers, the peace societies,
with perhaps the exception of one or two organizations of women, would have melted away like snow
before a summer sun. The purpose of ninety-five
per cent of the peace societies throughout the country
was only too obvious.
Rarely was the intelligent element of the Irish
population found at these meetings. Nearly always
they were made up of the saloon element and the
paid propagandists of Germany. These were in
no sense peace meetings. There was no thought of
peace in the minds of half the thousands in attendance. They were there for the avowed purpose,
secretly if not avowedly, of preventing the United
States from standing out in the open with England

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and France, decency and civilization, against German and Turkish barbarity.
And the peace emissaries will succeed-until
when?
The injury that the "peace and beer game" has
done America is incalculable and can never be
fairly estimated. How men of such standing and
business acumen as Andrew Carnegie and Henry
Ford, whose Americanism cannot be questioned,
could permit themselves to be dragged into such
error, blindfold as it were, will forever remain a
mystery.
In a score of years there has not been a conspicuously prominent peace gathering in the United
States at which there was not one or more of the
Teuton peace advocates of the brewery interests as
the star figure.
The picture of these smirking, smiling German
advocates, always in the limelight, has been a spectacle for the gods for years past. When attention
has been called to their persistency it has been usually laughed down by a pro-German press, or else
ignored by the newspaper essentially American in
its principles. To his great credit be it said, Henry
Ford saw the error of his ways and when the shadows began to deepen over the land from which he
had amassed a fortune beyond the dreams of
Midas, mended his ways and offered his all to his
government.
At the commencement of the World War the government of Germany confidently expected and
counted on the active cooperation of the American
people, relying upon the far-reaching efforts of her

PEACE AND BEER INDUSTRY 6i
agents and brewers. She had logical reason for
these expectations. She had paid "peace emissaries" in the legislature of every important state
in the Union. She owned some of the governors
of states, body and soul, as had been unwittingly
shown by their utterances and decrees. She had
paid representatives in the halls of Congress; she
had an army of spies, a countless number of agents,
assassins and munition workers and destroyers to
do her bidding; and she had friends higher up.
If this country is turned back into the hands of the
brewer all these evils and more besides will again
arise. Far more than half the evil that men do in
the world is that which is prompted by drink.

CHAPTER VI

PREMEDITATED BARBARISM
T HE premeditated and revolting barbarism
of the German Empire, drunk for ages
with its national drink, concentrated upon
little, cultured and defenseless Belgium, is the cardinal crime of the ages. No excuse of military necessity or lack of discipline among the German forces
will hold as defense in the estimation of future historians. And the few desultory and trivial "explanations" thus far volunteered by the Kaiser, his
Teuton emissaries and brewers doing business in
America have been so tinged with palpable falsehood
that they count for naught and carry no more
weight in the minds of a world of horror-stricken
spectators than a passing zephyr.
By God's mercy and the grace of the rulers of
the most important nations of Europe, Belgium, it
was counted, was immune from such barbarism,
and by equity and precedent of international law
had been placed beyond the pale of interference in
her internal affairs.
But the ways of Pan-Germanism, the Teuton cry
for World Dominion and brewery rule swept all
the right and justice of the peoples of other nations
aside. From the German viewpoint all concrete
agreements and international treaties among governments were avowedly "mere scraps of paper."

PREMEDITATED BARBARISM

To the lay observer the attitude of Germany was
inexplicable; to the close student of the political and
military conditions which governed and controlled
the German Empire, the whole situation and appeal
for world rule would have been humorous, had it
not been for the grim tragedies which obscured the
vision.
Some years ago a talented young newspaper man,
E. McGregor Rose, with a turn for verse-making,
wrote the following poem:
MYSELF- UND GOTT
(HOCH DER KAISER)
by
A. MCGREGOR RosE
Der Kaiser of dis Faderland
Und Gott on doings command
Ve two-ach! Don't you understand?
Myself - und Gott.
He reigns in Heafen and always shall;
Und mein own Embire don't was small.
Ein noble bair I dinks you call
Myself - und Gott.
Veil some may sing the power Divine;
Mein soldiers sing " Die Wacht am Rhein"
Und drink der health in Rheinish wineOf me und Gott.
Dere's France she swaggers all aroundt.
She ausgesspielt
Too much; we think she don't amount
Myself - und Gott.
She vill not dare to fight again
But if she shouldt I'11 show her blain
Dat Elsass (und in French) Lorraine
Are Mein - by Gott.

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Von Bismarck vas a man auf might
Und dot he vos glear aud of sight,
But ach! he was nicht good to fight
Mit me -und Gott.
Ve knock him like ein man auf straw
Ve let him know whose vill vas law
Und dat ve don't stand his jaw,
Meinself -und Gott.
Ve send him audt in big disgrace
Ve gif him insuldt to his face
Und put Caprivi in his place,
Meinself - und Gott.
Und ven Caprivi got swelled hedt,
Ve very bromptly on him sit
Und toldt him to get up and get,
Meinself und Gott.
Dere's Grandma dinks she's nicht small beer;
Mit Boers and such she interfere;
She '11 learn none owns this hemisphere
But me und Gott.
She dinks, good frau, some ships she's got
Und soldiers mit der scarlet gold.
Ach! we could knock them - Pouf! Like datMeinself -mit Gott.
In dimes of peace brebare for wars.
I bear the spear and helm of Mars
Und care not for der thousand Czars,
Meinself- mit Gott.
In fact I humor every whim
Vith aspect dark and visage grim.
Gott pulls mit me and I mit him
Meinself- und Gott.
The rhythmical satire created a world-wide sensation, and a young officer of the United States,
Captain Coghlan, was rather severely disciplined by

PREMEDITATED BARBARISM

an obtuse Washington for reading it at a banqueta Washington almost as unwary and unguarded as
that of to-day, and rather helpless over the matter
of the poem because of a somewhat obdurate and
very determined German Ambassador.
"Myself and God," or "Hoch der Kaiser," as
it was otherwise known, had done its work, however. It sang itself around the world and opened
the ears of countless authors, editorial writers, students of political affairs, cartoonists and others who
make up the world of public sentiment. How little
-how profoundly infinitesimal-is the thing that
sometimes shifts the wind and turns the tide of public sentiment!
This bit of doggerel-its author would hardly
claim more for it-focussed the eyes of many
thinking men, the world over, upon Germany. Inferentially it revived the warnings, so repeatedly
ignored, of the rapidly increasing power of Prussian militarism. It caused attention to be turned
to the powerful military machine that Germany was
building up, to the ceaseless activity of the Krupps at
Essen, and the untiring efforts of the German secret
service and propagandists in every land under the
sun. The trouble in the Balkans was brewing in
earnest just about that time, at the end of the last
century, and German agents were doing everything
in their power to aggravate it.
The Belgian savants, and there were many wise
men in that beautiful land now so ruthlessly laid
low, saw the red lights of danger ahead. The Belgians themselves had lived close to the Germans;
they were brought in daily contact with them; they

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knew their hypocrisies and the dominating characteristics and fanaticism of der Vaterland idolatry. In
reality, the Belgians, with the exception of a few
sound thinkers in France and England, were the
only people who almost universally believed in the
great danger of the German Menace. The Teutons
were constantly about their business on the Belgian
marts and 'changes. They bought and sold in the
market places with the shrewdness of the Jews and
the cunning of the Turks, and the Belgians were not
deceived as to their attitude. They also knew how
their own land had been weakened and partly depopulated, when other lands drew on it for a multitude of weavers and other skilled laborers. And
Germany wanted weavers; it wanted Belgians in all
capacities. They made good workers, the Germans
knew full well - fair toilers in any vineyard.
"Give me a Walloon; he is worth four Germans," cried the German merchant to his home government. It was quite true. The Belgian workman
liked a little good old wine with his dinner, but he
was thrifty and industrious. The German, forsooth,
must be surcharged with beer all the day long and
he was never happy without the scent of the brewery
and its malt in his nostrils.
Indeed it is neither strange nor notably remarkable that representative men and women, even close
observers among the peoples of the world, refused
to hearken to the ode of Pan-Germanism and the
Teuton plaint for brewery rule. The Vaterland
tune was in the main too ludicrous to be taken seriously. The German soldier himself did not lend
color to such dire import as universal Teuton rule.

PREMEDITATED BARBARISM

He-this German warrior-was humorous rather
than ostensibly dangerous in mien. He took himself too seriously to be cast in any other sort of
mould. All booted and spurred he strutted about
the salons and courts of Europe in lurid red and
gray and gold, yet all of his embroidery and fine
linen failed to advance the thought of earth ownership with which he himself seemed to be imbued.
The world at large, and more especially the European world, declined to accept or tolerate even the
bare idea. Not so with the Belgians. Behind all
the gilded show and glitter the great mass of the
Belgian people never failed to see the black menace
of German drink and aggression and the accompanying horror of Prussian militarism. Many of
them would not acknowledge it; perhaps they did
not so much as publicly countenance the possibility,
but behind the cloak of apparent disbelief was that
most essential of all things âpreparation.
It would be preposterous to assert that some of
the Belgians were not in a measure deceived by the
socialistic dreams and arguments for a world-wide
peace, wafted across their borders from the great
horde of German socialists whose relatively deathlike silence since has been one of the mysterious
incidents in the aftermath of the Great War. But
those thus misled were a comparatively small minority. The vast majority of the populace had the fear
of the German mammoth in their hearts for years.
They had sufficient commercial dealings with the
Germans to know them intimately, and they knew
enough of the cruelties in the German colonies to
expect no quarter in the event of serious disagree

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ment. Neither did some of the most learned of the
Belgians put much faith in the deliberations of the
Convention at The Hague. The Germans were
largely engineering the peace pow-wows, to lull the
world into a sense of security until the storm broke.
One Belgian authority pointed to the close friendship existing between the Kaiser and Andrew Carnegie, and to the number of Germans employed in
important and minor capacities at The Hague.
The eloquent and untiring efforts of the many distinguished men who served as delegates to the Peace
Conventions were appreciated, but when the AngloAmerican project of international arbitration, voted
by the commission at the Tribunal, finally dropped
because of the determined and unyielding opposition
of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the veil was torn
aside.
Belgians were not at all surprised when they heard
the martial music and saw the troops marching by
the convention hall at The Hague.
Belgium had been apprehensive, and never felt
secure, since the Franco-German war of I870. So
long attaining her fine civilization, she keenly appreciated its great value, and made what preparations she could to protect her borders and retain
her finely won supremacy among the small nations
of Europe. Soon after the war of I870 great
changes in the military world began to take place.
Old ramparts and fortifications became comparatively useless because of the far more extensive
range of siege guns. Belgian officials began to feel
that it was important for their own defenses to be
strengthened, although they were comparatively

PREMEDITATED BARBARISM

new. It was some years later, however, before the
government could be made to see this necessity;
and, curiously enough, not until just before the
Great War broke out were the new fortifications
made complete.
Meanwhile, the Belgian Chambers had granted
repeated appropriations and the various fortifications throughout the land were being strengthened.
Two new tetes de pont were erected at Namur and
Liege. The old citadel at Namur, of great historical interest because of its sieges in the days of Louis
XIV, was abandoned, and a circle of nine new forts,
four or five miles apart, was erected. These forts
were manned with new disappearing guns supposed
to have a range of ten or twelve miles. Two of
these forts at Fleron and Chaudfontaine commanded
the all-important road from Germany, and they
were regarded with much satisfaction by the Belgian
military authorities.
M. Boulger, a Belgian historian of high repute,
describes these defenses as of great importance. Of
the twelve forts at Liege, or rather what is left of
them, six are on the right bank of the Meuse, and
the others on the left. The nine forts around
Namur were ranged at two and a half miles with
the perimeter at twenty-one miles.
With these admirably arranged defenses and an
army of one hundred and eighty thousand, as well
drilled and equipped as any in all Europe, Belgium,
according to M. Boulger, felt that she could put an
army of one hundred thousand men in the field with
her allies and at the same time defend her home
country. The magnificent defense that her army

THE SOBER WORLD

put up, particularly at Namur and Liege, bore out
this reckoning, and is now a matter of history.
How much better she might have done against
the overpowering Teutonic armies that literally
swamped her domains, had not some of her misguided government servants insisted upon buying
her great guns from Germany, is an interesting problem. The majority of the great guns bought from
the famous Krupps burst in their carriages!
The horror of honorable war is awful enough,
but how may man protect himself against commercial thieves?
The invading armies of drunken Teutons found a
land flowing with milk and honey. Since the Belgian revolution of 1830 the whole country had made
steady progress. There were pages of retrogression in its history, but on the whole its advancement
had been marked and successful. No land of this
latter-day world had leavened the hearts of its
Christian people to a higher degree. A people naturally cultured and refined, their methods and customs were reflected on all sides. No cities were
more beautiful or architecturally more interesting
and inviting. There is a picturesqueness and witchery about the life of the country folk in Belgium
that has made an interesting theme for song and
story in many literatures. Not a few of them had
wine cellars. Crazed with drink, the Germans committed outrage after outrage.
The whole Belgian people were taken totally unawares. War there might be, some thought, but
not within their borders. Some day their army
might have to go forth and aid some friendly ally

PREMEDITATED, BARBARISM 71
in distant lands, it was argued, but nothing more
would be necessary. Did not the Treaty of London
of I839 establish their neutrality beyond question?
So reasoned the more simple of the country folk,
and perhaps some few of the more knowing; and
the lettered priests did not undeceive them. The
priests themselves remembered the siege of Paris
and the methods of warfare always employed by the
Germans âalways the warfare of savages, wild
with strong drink-and they were silent with the
anxiety of their fear for the innocents.

CHAPTER VII
"KULTUR'S" MOST SUCCESSFUL
HANDIWORK
HE wholesale indictment and arraignment
of the German Nation for the countless
massacres and barbarities upon the Belgian
people is a chapter in the world's history black beyond description, heinous beyond redemption. The
whole of civilization has joined in universal condemnation. The accusations of direst guilt and
criminality and the indisputable and incontrovertible proof have not been confined to any particular
nationality. England, France, Russia, Italy and
even disinterested America have all had their investigators, individually and collectively. And the consensus of the results, the unanimous verdict, has
shown conclusively the most unprecedented and unparalleled crime in the annals of barbaric warfare
of drunken savages. The horror of it all is intensified in its repulsiveness by the irrefutable proof
of premeditation. It was the exception rather than
the rule to see a wholly sober soldier among the
Teutons in Belgium.
Of what avail is German " Kultur" and efficiency,
if her people of to-day must revert to the savage
methods and customs of the ancients for the persecution of an innocent and inoffensive people? It
is not on record that the eyes of little children were

"KULTUR'S" HANDIWORK

bored out with red-hot irons as in the days of old,
but that seems to be the only fiendish infamy that is
missing from the calendar of crime. One is prone
to ask, after reading the Bryce report, the reports
of the Belgian governmental commission and the
conclusions of the French and American investigators, whether the intoxicated German officers and
soldiers perpetrating sickening tortures upon the
Belgian women and children could have ever themselves rejoiced in the love and affection of mothers
or wives or sweethearts or children in their own
land. When an army of men use a screen of women
and children for protection against the enemy as
they did on the bridge at Louvain, to what kind
of manhood can they lay claim? When German
soldiers can take babes from the arms of their
mothers, toss them in the air and catch them on
their bayonets, and then point to those bayonets
as the perfection of German-made steel because it
does not bend or break-how shall these soldiers
be classified in the chronicle of modern warfare?
Poisonous gases, the undersea scavengers of the
ocean sinking ships laden with innocent women and
children, air ships raining down their hail of death
on the people of undefended villages and hamlets
may perhaps be condoned and possibly pardoned
by a class of historians because of "military necessity." But the direct individual and premeditated
cruelty of the German soldiers in Belgium will always be accorded a separate page in the history of
barbarism. Drink is the only excuse possible. It is
inconceivable that even a German, when sober, could
have been guilty of such atrocities.

THE SOBER WORLD

Close students of the Belgian atrocities and tragedies are constantly confronted with absolute proof
of premeditation in the acts of infamy and brutality
heaped upon the people, more particularly in the
country communities. And premeditation is a grave
factor in any crime, according to all criminal jurisprudence, either national or state.
Under the Beer and Pan-Germanism plan of
I9I I it was always understood that the war was to
be conducted with a "no question" rule. The Germans at Berlin often treated the provisions for noncombatants adopted at The Hague with open ridicule. Delegates were sent to the conventions with
but one idea or thought-simply to cloak with secrecy the preparations that were being made for the
Great War, and to deflect the growing suspicions
of Germany's opponents. There never was any
thought of a conscientious observance of any of
the rules that were supposed to govern and control
the rights of property, the use of explosive bullets,
or the equities of belligerents. Germany's war was
to be made upon her opponents with rules to meet
the exigencies of the moment.
One universal law, one rule, one motto, was to
be observed, and one result attained-Victory and
World Dominion. After the goal was reached it
would be time enough, it was argued by the German
militarists, to discuss law and humanity. The current deliberations of The Hague tribunals were only
adding to the gayety of nations. At the last convention, when the American Ambassador, Joseph H.
Choate, who had so brilliantly distinguished himself
at the Court of St. James, made his inspired appeal

"KULTUR'S" HANDIWORK

for a cour de justice arbitrale, so ably advocated by
His Excellency, M. Beernaert of Belgium, Germany
in a measure unmasked. No analytical observation
was needed to divine the purposes of the Kaiser and
the clique of Prussian brewers and militarists hobnobbing about his throne.
The obdurate opposition of the delegates from
Germany and Austria-Hungary to anything that
suggested even so much as unity of action in regard
to the creation of a great Peace Tribunal was in
itself sufficient evidence of Germany's ultimate intention. So historians will always have to admit
that Germany notified the world that eventually she
was going to war.
If the unmistakable attitude of the delegates did
not sufficiently convince the sceptical, a brief sojourn
in Berlin or any other of the large cities of Germany
would have furnished the most reluctant observer
with ample additional evidence. In every great hostelry, club, garden and place of public assemblage
the toast of the Naval League, "Here's to the
Day I " was being drunk publicly and with great glee
and zest. If the interested listener was at once
friendly and curiously insistent, he was invariably
informed that the "'day" was the time when Germany would let loose her dogs of war and begin her
campaign for World Dominion and brewery rule.
England, France, Russia, Italy and the other
great nations of Europe can cry out that they were
not forearmed, but hardly with a logical show of
reason can they say they were not forewarned.
The result of the universal unpreparedness was appalling, astounding to the whole world, and incompar

THE SOBER WORLD

able in its terror because of the dire tragedies that fell
upon the innocents, and more particularly Belgium.
Looking backward carefully, many writers have
tried to find some radical reason for the innumerable
disasters that have befallen that fair and beloved
little nation. The conquered sections of other lands
have not suffered nearly so bitterly.
"Belgium must be at fault somewhere," said a
distinguished man of letters. "It seems incomprehensible that such suffering and tragedy could be
heaped upon an innocent and entirely inoffensive
people."
Error there was, to be sure â the error of trust
in mankind and an alleged civilization. But none
other. Her future and neutrality were absolutely
assured, Belgium reasoned. What preparation she
could make within her means and her limited population she did make with a wisdom and a foresight
unequalled by the older, wealthier, and perhaps
wiser nations about her. The world had no right
to expect her to foresee that her land would be overrun and devastated and destroyed by great hordes
of drunken German brigands and banditti who by
no grace of thought or diction can be termed soldiers. The day had not yet come when iron-clad
treaties and international agreements between
nations were deemed mere fragmentary bits of
nothingness.
And the record! Belgium was laid low. Her
beautiful cities and villages were dismantled and
devastated. Her cathedrals, churches and homes
crumbled into ashes and ruins. Those of her people
who were not beaten into insensibility, murdered or

"KULTUR'S" HANDIWORK

massacred, were homeless. The major part of her
population lived on the charity of the world-a
world that, failing in every essential of a real civilization-was glad to render tardy assistance.
In future years the historians will ask how came
it about that the United States stood so long idly
by and watched with hands empty of swords the
crime and injustice against Belgium. And the answer will be that there were no Washingtons or Jeffersons or Marshalls or Monroes or Randolphs
among the statesmen in America during the early
years of the twentieth century to come to the fore
and insist that America do her duty to humanity at
the very beginning of the war. It will not suffice
that private means were employed to alleviate the
sufferings and the incalculable pain and woe of the
victims. In common justice a stronger arm, more
powerful and more effective means, should have
been employed in the early stages of the whirlwind
of infamy to enforce simple laws for the preservation of human life.
Did Washington not know Germany's intent?
How could the United States Government fail to
know? Has not Pan-Germanism been the favorite
topic of every clumsy German diplomatist and
brewer who has been appointed to serve in these
United States or in South America for the past
thirty years? The German diplomatists have made
no secrets of their ideals or the aims of their government. Across dinner tables, in the halls of Congress, and even within the sheltered precincts of the
Army and Navy Club at the capital, it has been a
favorite theme, rarely tabooed and never discounte

THE SOBER WORLD

nanced, because Germany has always counted on the
moral aid of the United States-if not greater assistance-in any act of war she might dare. So
many of her subjects were housed within our borders, so much of her money had been spent in propaganda and brewery building here, the "Made in
Germany" song had been so resonantly sung
throughout the land, that the Teutons had felt for
years that they might depend upon the cooperation
of the United States in almost any war or liquor
emergency that might arise.
In the early stages of the war, when Americans
saw ships sunk and their fellow countrymen consigned to dark waters, factories burned, American
interests, commercial and industrial, threatened and
wrecked, and the very integrity of their own government menaced, it began to look as if the Germans
had reckoned on sound premises.
Then came the sinking of the Lusitania, and
thoughtless, care-free America began to think! The
ruthless annihilation of beautiful Belgium, her
people, and the flower-laden borders of La Belle
France had cemented American sentiment, and reincarnated American ideals and ambitions with all
the force inspired by Washington which made it the
great republic it is to-day and will continue to be
despite the weaknesses of untutored rulers. And
that self-same American sentiment can be safely
counted upon to prevent the United States from
ever again being converted into a cesspool of German breweries. Germany's slush-fund millions will
be spent uselessly-as uselessly as the gold poured
into her war machine.

CHAPTER VIII

BELGIUM, VICTIM OF DRUNKEN
GERMANY
ELGIUM, victim of a million drunken German brutes, is essentially a Catholic country, although the Church of Rome is nowise the Church of State. Among the population
of nearly eight million Christian people there were
only about ten thousand Protestants, largely French
and English. Much of the enlightenment and civilization of the Belgians may be attributed to the efforts
of the lettered, and in many instances highly cultured,
priests. However, their most strenuous appeals and
endeavors to stay the hands of the Teuton armies
were almost futile. The most ferocious and heinous
outrages were committed in every quarter of the
land.
The Germans have introduced many new and
particularly revolting phases of warfare wherever
they have cast their blight. Mexico has been in the
throes of revolution after revolution for centuries,
but nuns and Sisters of Mercy were always free
from insult and outrage until the mailed hand of the
German put in an appearance in the country of
Cortez. As soon as Carranza deemed it wise
partly to officer his army with Germans, whole nunneries were despoiled and their inmates ravished
with a brutality past description.

THE SOBER WORLD

Germans, insane with drink, perpetrated this
same merciless, brutal outrage upon Belgium. Not
satisfied with the deportation of thousands of girls
and women from France and Belgium, they must
even violate the sacred persons of women who had
taken the veil and given their lives to humanity.
The German government officials vociferously
denied these accusations, knowing the terrific adverse sentiment that would be aroused among Mohammedans and the non-Christian nations which
they yet hoped to victimize.
If Pan-Germanism were yet to succeed, even in
small measure, the recognition that women command neither their respect nor protection would be
a terrible handicap. The Germans realized this.
Even the infidel and idol-worshiping people of the
earth hesitate at rape and seduction.
German government officials repeatedly insisted
that names and descriptions and localities where
these infamies were perpetrated be published by the
Belgian officials. The dignitaries of the Catholic
Church at home and abroad have hesitated and
finally declined to make known the names of the
many Sisters, to avoid publicly disgracing them and
making them objects of pity and solicitude in the
communities where their usefulness had already
been interfered with, if not entirely destroyed. The
records are in the possession of the churchmen,
names, dates and places where the foul crimes were
committed; records that might well be written in
blood on the scroll of history. But they will not be
made public for the delectation of a few shameless
German officials.

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 81

The Rev. J. F. Stillemans, Rector of the Church
of St. Albert, in New York, and President of the
Belgian Relief Fund, thought that it might be well
to bring some of these tortured Sisters to this country. Far from the scenes of the crimes committed
upon them, their grief might be partly assuaged, it
was thought, and the disgrace heaped upon them in
a measure mitigated. It was the purpose of this distinguished priest to ask some philanthropic American for an estate where they might be placed in
retreat. He cabled his purpose to the proper authorities abroad, and a large number of the Sisters
were with great difficulty brought as far as London,'
whence they could journey no farther, for they were
about to become mothers.
Picture this act in the drama of Prussian infamy,
you advocates of Teuton drink and brewery domain I
Paint in vivid imagery the scenes that accompanied
these orgies of riotous vice, the halls of the convents,
a crucifix here, a painting of the Saviour's face
hanging on yonder wall, the chime of vesper bells,
the throngs of Sisters in somber raiment huddled
together with fear untold and the agony of death
in their tear-stained faces- and then an army of
fatherless children, for the Church of God will not
take human life in any form.
Dr. M. P. Rooseboom, the Assistant Secretary
of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The
Hague, was in many of the scenes of horror during
the early stages of the invasion of Belgium. He
made several addresses in the homes of society
women in New York, and is authority for the statement that much of the crime in Belgium was due to

THE SOBER WORLD

drunkenness. He declares that he saw entire German armies so intoxicated that they were irresponsible. As soon as a city or town was partly sacked,
the men, without restraint from their officers, sought
the wine cellars. The cruelties that followed are
best left to the imagination.
Some idea of the devastation may be gathered
from the statement of Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, President of the European Belgian Relief Commission,
who said that at least $50,000,000o would be required to bring anything like order out of the chaos
and earthly inferno wrought by the Germans all
through Belgium.
During the winter of I916-I7 evidence of the
widespread ruin and havoc poured in from every
source. It was quite plain that Germany was making a gigantic effort to strike terror to the hearts
of all the neutral countries of Europe and create
a reign of terror by a show of unprecedented brutality and drunken orgy. Holland was being
pressed to the wall, and it was confidently predicted that in the end she would be compelled to
cast her lot with Germany or else see her population
enslaved and massacred, as in Belgium, Roumania,
and the conquered sections of France. Switzerland
was strengthening her defenses, reinforcing her
army and fearing the worst, despite the fact that
her domain had been left undisturbed in its neutrality for countless years.
The tragedy of Roumania had already been
partly enacted. Thanks to the German propaganda
of Baron de Swenck, Greece was in the throes of
dissension, and its population, divided by interne

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 83
cine strife and revolution and already partly in the
grip of the Prussian octopus, struggled for a bare
existence.
Spain, with a weak army, a population partly
pro-German, out of sheer fear battled bravely on
to maintain her neutrality, and despite her own internal differences won the admiration of a multitude
of onlookers by her vigorous protest against the
Belgian deportations.
No such spectacle of war and horror, of massacre
and crime, of loot and persistent brutality, as that
of Germany was ever seen in the history of the
civilized world in any age. Knowing that the fruits
of her evil were about to be gathered and that her
day of earthly reckoning and God's wrath was approaching she sent broadcast pitiful wails for peace,
wails that the President of the United States was
innocently instrumental in aiding and abetting, but
wails which on the whole fell on deaf ears and
passed unnoticed among thinking men and women
in whom was inculcated the simple ethics of a spirit
of fair play. The peace efforts only resulted in
more disclosures and more submarine horrors.
Such a hue and cry was raised throughout the
world in regard to the enslavement of more than
half a million Belgian men, women and children that
on January 20, 1916, the German government issued
the following statement:
"The compulsory employment of Belgian workmen in
German establishments is being seized upon by our enemies
as a welcome opportunity for inflaming public opinion in the
neutral and hostile countries against this alleged latest violation of the Belgian people.
"Those who are far removed from the war theatres and

THE SOBER WORLD

can therefore form only a superficial opinion of the conditions
obtaining in the occupied territories in the west may not,
perhaps, readily understand that the measures which have
been adopted are not only in no wise detrimental to the population from an economic point of view, but that they have
become, as it were, a social necessity in view of the peculiar
conditions which prevail there. Those who wish to comprehend these facts will first of all have to gain a clear conception of the extent of unemployment in Belgium and its consequences. The principal cause for this unemployment is to be
found in the ruthless application of the British blockade even
as against Belgium. Belgian industries are dependent on
the importation of raw materials and the exportation of manufactured goods to such an extent that the almost complete
throttling of Belgium's foreign trade by England was bound
to lead automatically to the closing down of by far the
greater part of the Belgian factories.
"At the initiative of clear-sighted Belgians and with the
cooperation of the competent Belgian Ministry, he (General
von Bissing, the Military Governor) issued in August, 1915,
an ordinance against idleness, which was supplemented and
made more rigorous in March, I9I6. These ordinances provided for the compulsory removal of workers to places of
work only in those cases in which the unemployed person
refuses, without satisfactory reason, to perform work of which
he is capable and for which he is offered adequate remuneration; every reason for refusal based on international law is
regarded as satisfactory. A laborer cannot, therefore, be
forced to participate in work of a military character."
Two days after this statement was issued, by a
strange coincidence, the steamship Philadelphia of
the American line arrived in New York, bringing
with it several disinterested Americans who had
been engaged in relief work in France and Belgium.
They brought with them proof that cannot be disputed of the fact that the deported French and
Belgian women and children had been subjected to
the direst outrage and torture and were being
worked in Germany under shotguns from sunrise

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 85
to sunset, precisely as Germany worked her negro
slaves in German East Africa.
There is now somewhere in Belgium a Prince of
the Catholic Church of such high repute, so far
beyond reproach or question that he is renowned
and revered the world over, who from the early
days of the war struggled to preserve the remnants
of his people and to minister to their needs with a
courage and fortitude that made him the most esteemed and spectacular figure in the great conflict.
It might be well for those inclined to give credence
to Germany's " statements of authority" to read
and digest the following pastoral letter of His
Eminence D. J. Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of
Malines.
EXTRACTS FROM THE PASTORAL LETTER OF
HIs EMINENCE CARDINAL MERCIER,
Archbishop of Malines, Primate of Belgium.
MALINES, Christmas, 1914.
Less than any other man, perhaps, have I been spared from
a full knowledge of the sufferings of our unhappy country.
Nor will any Belgian, I trust, doubt that, as a citizen and a
bishop, I have felt my soul deeply stirred in sympathy with
all this sorrow. To me, these last four months have seemed
age-long.
By thousands have our brave ones been mown down; wives,
mothers, are weeping for those they shall not see again;
hearths are desolate; dire poverty spreads, anguish becomes
more bitter. At Malines, at Antwerp, the people of two
great cities have been given over, the one for six hours, the
other for thirty-four hours of continuous bombardment, to
the throes of death. I have traversed the greater part of the
districts most terribly devastated in my diocese and the ruins
I beheld, and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared
as I was by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined.

86 THE SOBER WORLD
Other parts of my diocese, which I have not yet had time to
visit, have in like manner been laid waste. Churches, schools,
asylums, hospitals, convents in great number, are in ruins.
Entire villages have all but disappeared. At WerchterWackerzeel, for instance, out of 380 homes, 130 remain; at
Tremeloo, two-thirds of the village was razed to the ground;
at Bueken out of o00 houses 20 are standing; at Schaffen I89
out of 200 are destroyed - i still stand. At Louvain a
third part of the city has been destroyed; I,074 dwellings
have disappeared; on the town land and in the suburbs, KesselLoo, Herent and Herverle together 1,828 houses have been
burnt.
In this dear city of Louvain, ever in my thoughts, the magnificent church of St. Peter will never recover its former
splendour. The ancient college of St. Ives, the art schools,
the commercial and consular schools of the University; the
old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique
and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great
portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating
from the time of its foundation, which preserved for masters
and students alike a noble tradition and were an incitement
to good work - all this accumulation of -intellectual, of historic and of artistic riches, the fruit of the labours of five
centuries -all is in the dust.
Many a parish lost its pastor. There is now sounding in
my ears the sorrowful voice of an old man of whom I asked
whether he had had Mass on Sunday in his battered church.
" It is two months," he said, "since we last saw a priest."
The parish priest and the curate had been interned in a concentration camp at Munsterlagen, not far from Hanover.
Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle,
to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone 3,I00 civil prisoners
were numbered. History will tell of the physical and moral
torments of their long martyrdom. Hundreds of innocent
men were shot. I possess no complete necrology, but I know
that there were 91 shot at Aershot, and that there, under
pain of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their
graves. In the Louvain group of communes I76 persons,
men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in
health and sickness, were shot or burnt.
In my diocese alone, I know that 13 priests or religious
were put to death. One of these, the parish priest of Gel

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 87
rode, suffered, I believe, a veritable martyrdom. I made a
pilgrimage to his grave and amid the little flock which so
lately he had been tending with the zeal of an apostle, there
did I pray to him that from the height of Heaven he would
guard his parish, the diocese, the country.
We can neither number our dead nor compute the measure
of our ruins. And what would it be if we turned our sad
steps towards the districts of Liege, Namur, Andenne, Dinant, Tamines, Charleroi and other places?
And there where lives were not taken, and there where
the stones of buildings were not thrown down, what anguish
unbelievable! Families lately living at ease, now in bitter
want; all commerce at an end, all careers ruined; industry at
a standstill; thousands upon thousands of working men without employment; working women, shop girls, humble servant
girls without the means of earning their bread; and poor
souls forlorn on the bed of sickness and fever that turn to us
and cry, " How long? "
We have no answer to give but one, "It is the secret of
God."
From the outset of military operations the civil authorities
of the country urged upon all private persons the necessity of
abstention from hostile acts against the enemy's army. That
instruction remains in force. It is our army, and our army
solely, in league with the valiant troops of our Allies, that
has the honour and the duty of national defence. Let us entrust the army with our final deliverance.
Towards the persons of those who are holding dominion
among us by military force and who assuredly cannot but be
sensible of the chivalrous energy with which we have defended, and are still defending, our independence, let us conduct ourselves with all needful forbearance. Some among
them have declared themselves willing to mitigate, as far as
possible, the severity of our circumstances and to help us
recover some minimum of regular civic life. Let us observe
the rules they have laid upon us so long as these rules do not
violate our personal liberty, nor our consciences as Christians, nor our duty to our country. Let us not mistake
bravado for courage, nor tumult for bravery.
You especially, my dearest Brethren in the Priesthood, be
you at once the best examples of patriotism and the best sup

_ -__~__

+
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L. R. P Dmewm ee it-it.. de.Li...,
L. R P Veeeoey Slomoiu. co-etss.. de Lo...
L. R P Vi Howm. capocin. de Lis-i.
Le R. Cka...he-Nwol J Woorm....e d. Pont
Le Fra. AueD o (4. Wmb to.4 F Fone). Wiiesuji4lplroe -4 Li......
Li FPo. Cmoem (d.ol I...de Mr Pieo). defce..o
4* Is Mieatiamde 4de 1owpus pra de Li....
VIOCRSE DE TOURNAL
L'AbbO C Dcm.. csee d4Aco
VAb4 J. -ou.... 4. dRouses.

___

DIOCESE DE NAMUR.
L'AW I ALM~nxoe. -i de Ww-la-Villl.
L4.l6t A Ameoraost. -,* d'hal.ye
L ~bbi BmL*uDt...mbnn de. *ovdrs-.". t swer
L44&amp; oABum u.. pmufc..e au C.1dO th Saini~r..i
L 4.9. Doc. prelfr, sa Cellor. d. V.no.
L'.be C CAPr.&amp; poeo.o.e. Collie. de 0.11.-Vu.
L'Abbi ) Colm... ewt de T4.ug-T
L'Abb P CULLL &amp;oCutl.e Thkotege. d. I'Umreero
Cefgsie-. eu.ir. di Cowe.'
LAhbo Cwov.cr c0 d, Lou..
L'Abb Horn.,,,l de L.. AlIou.
L'.a...i l.u=.c,* de Sp..t,.
L'Abi Wx~lcm., kminmt.rc d, Malusb
LibS. PATIO..,cus, de D....
Le.bbe Pler..o... dEt.11.
Ledbi PhimoD cma -a. Chtilon
CL4bi hitrr. -se, dc'tht.
L'Abi Pos.-... de Sr...
LAbbWE. Sc 'EL.o s..d. Hde ae..
L ~b6. Z...n c -4 rrknti
L R P db.Zne bined.t. de ee.e..
L. CL....a. NicoU.W4. labbaye des P....oneo d4
Lil.
L. C.14g. de4 Prn,-..me ecoueeod ftlpm. 5m
ehienbl.. p.eiirc Li,,.
de.Wnsiw. N Po1`r.TlrZ a de Me.uuo.-V LI.on.
pe.f.me... l'Unm....t. C.Aliq.e de Li......
fu.illi. pP. 1.. utpe..Su1.u4

* A considerable number of priests and religious of the Catholic Church in Belgium have been slain
by the Germans. The Commission of Enquiry is not yet in possession of the complete list, but ill
publish it as soon as its compilation is possible. Above is.reproduced a fac-simile of the invitation to the
religious service celebrated in Rome on the 22nd January, 1915, for the repose of the souls of priests and
religious put O death by German troops. Afirst list of victims accompanies the invitation.

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 89
porters of public order. On the field of battle you have been
magnificent. The King and the Army admire the intrepidity
of our military chaplains in face of death, the charity of our
Red Cross workers. Your Bishops are proud of you.
You have suffered greatly. You have endured much calumny. But be patient. History will do you justice. Today
and henceforth, I bear my witness for you.
Wherever it has been possible I have questioned our people,
our clergy, and particularly a considerable number of priests
who have been deported to German prisons, but whom a
principle of humanity to which I gladly render homage has
since set at liberty. I now affirm, upon my honour, and I
am prepared to assert upon faith of my oath, that up to the
present I have not met a single ecclesiastic, secular or regular, who has once incited civilians to bear arms against the
enemy. On the contrary, all have loyally followed the instructions of their Bishops, given in the early days of August,
to the effect that they were to use their moral influence over
the civil population so that order might be preserved and military regulations observed.
D. J. CARDINAL MERCIER,
Archbishop of Malines.
Discussing the situation and Belgium's great grief
in an admirable address to the American people,
Father Stillemans said:
" Those familiar with the ecclesiastical history of Belgium
were not surprised at hearing the voice of Belgium's Cardinal
on this occasion. The Bishops of Belgium throughout the
centuries have been Liberty's first champions and Patriotism's
greatest heralds. Cardinal Frankenberg resisted in turn
Austria, France and Prussia, and died in exile. The famous
Bishop of Ghent -Prince de Broglie - energetically opposed
Napoleon the Great, and later on, William, the King of Holland; and he also died in exile. Both these prelates withstood
the foreign oppressor to his face, and neither imprisonment
nor exile could deter them from their duty. Frankenberg
issued his 'Declaration' and de Broglie his 'Pastoral.'
These two documents may well be put in a class with Cardinal Mercier's famous letter.
"It has long been the custom of the Belgian bishops to
write yearly pastorals on the leading questions and great prob

THE SOBER WORLD

lems of the day. No library contains greater learning, deeper
thought, or more wisdom than the collection of these documents. It was eminently proper, therefore, that in this the
greatest hour of sorrow for Belgium, the voice of Cardinal
Mercier should be heard. Catholic Belgium looked to him
for light and encouragement.
"Cardinal Mercier is a wonderful man -familiar with
the greatest problems, yet concerned with the smallest details; honored as few men have been, yet simple as a child;
working from early morning until far into the night, yet
always having time to listen to every one. He is known to
the whole of Belgium as a living saint - kindness and readiness personified."
The Cardinal's message to his people had a
magical effect that was felt instantly. On New
Year's Sunday, I915, it was read by the priests,
sometimes twice, in all the churches throughout the
land. Germany's tyranny had succeeded in browbeating some of the priests, but almost instantly
the letter united the churchmen, and within a few
hours the earnest message, expressed in diction that
could not be mistaken, had encircled the globe. It
is doubtful if any communication from the Vatican
ever had more salutary effect. The sympathies of
humane people in every civilized land in the world
were immediately enlisted, and it is frankly admitted by the officials of the American and European Belgian Commissions that they never would
have received such liberal subscriptions or the work
have been permitted to attain such magnitude, had
it not been for the Cardinal's terse and vivid brief
drawn against Germany's preconceived infamy. The
incidents that followed the circulation of the pastoral communication were amazing and exceedingly
fruitful in results. Many of the churches were
thronged with German soldiers who listened to the

A VICTIM OF DRUNKEN GERMANY 9I
exhaustive arraignment with rage and astonishment.
How the letter had reached the priests and been
read even in the furthermost villages and hamlets
mystified and alarmed the Germans.
The return of the letter was demanded by German soldiers with drawn swords and at bayonets'
points.
Too late The record had been made and the
truth told. The printer who typed the letters,
Francis Dessain, was imprisoned, and for a time
it looked as if the Cardinal himself might be either
incarcerated or perhaps executed. In fact he was
made a prisoner in his own palace for a few days,
but even the half or wholly drunken German mobs
hesitated to go further with this revered and honored Prince of the Church.
It is of more than passing interest to note the
effect that the words of just one courageous man
will sometimes have on the destinies of an entire
nation. It is a sad Belgium, but how much better
off than the drunken hordes across the border!
Belgium's lost people, her ruined homes, her
wrecked cathedrals and churches and her bloodstained cities and villages can never be restored to
their original life and beauty. But the world, the
world 6f religious endeavor, holds Belgium closer
to its heart than any of the other pain-racked, warridden lands, all because of the inspired efforts of
one great Christian gentleman, D. J. Cardinal
Mercier.
And out of its ashes will rise a new Belgium. For
Christians of every land and clime are united in
the task of rejuvenation and restoration, and as far

92 THE SOBER WORLD
as lies in human power the creation of a yet more
powerful and more enlightened nation.
What will be the attitude of the Belgians toward
drink remains to be seen. Had it not been for the
wine stowed away in the cellars of countless homes
much misery would have been alleviated and the
German soldiery might have shown some mercy.

CHAPTER IX
WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES
RACTICALLY all close students of modern
government concede that the basic principles and the fundamental constitutional safeguards for the rule and control ofthe United States
and the conduct of its citizens, as conceived by
Washington and executed by some of his most able
followers, were admirable. Yet no human power
or scheme of government can offset or controvert
the unprincipled efforts of great hordes of weak
men in high places*
For many years one of the principal hotels at the
Capital, the rendezvous and habitat of many members of Congress, had the walls of every room in
the house bedecked with a sign which read, "Please
do not blow out the gas." This sign is fairly indicative of the character of many of the men that
the American people had been sending to represent
them in the national halls of legislation. It is a
matter of record that no less than five statesmen
were nearly asphyxiated in the aforesaid hostelry.
But in the greatest crisis in American history Congress left a record never to be erased, that the
nation may be proud of, due mainly to the fact that
during the last score or more of years the beer and
whiskey advocates have been gradually eliminated.

THE SOBER WORLD

Had this process of elimination been put in operation thirty years ago, one dollar would have answered for ten during the prosecution of the World
War.
When the Prussian plotters precipitated the
whole world into a conflagration of fire and sword,
England was caught unawares. France was but
just recovering from the inroads upon her purse
and people because of a previous Teutonic war.
Russia was in the throes of a great effort to rise
from the ashes of her feudal system of centuries
of bad government. Ruin came upon all Europe
like a thief in the night, and there was hardly time
for a cry for help.
But no country under the sun was taken more
absolutely unawares, caught more totally unprepared and helpless, than the United States of America. The land of the brute-made, brewery-tainted
"Kultur" saw to it that such was the situation.,IJtis hardly within the bounds of propriety to
hold the American people strictly to account for this
condition of unpreparedness, impotent helplessness,
and drunken infirmity. They had elected a President in whom they had absolute confidence. That
there might be no error in this direction they reelected him for a second terri7
Few presidents have been able to pattern their
administrations after Washington, and the most
optimistic observer had to concede that politics in
this United States had been going from the devil
to a sea of inanity too deep to sound. The inscription on the wall of many national dangers fraught
with gravest possibilities had been permitted to pass

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES (p
unnoticed. Again and again we have read those
memorable words of Washington's:
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free
people ought to constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful
foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the
very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it.... Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its
tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the
people, to surrender their interests.
"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign
nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have
with them as little political connection as possible. So far
as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled
with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
" Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us
to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under
an efficient government, the period is not far off when we
may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we
may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may
at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when
belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest,
guided by justice, shall counsel."
These words have been read and re-read on the
floor of the Senate and the House. To what purpose? When the whole land was in the most menacing peril, when it was beset without and in direst
danger of strife and disorder within, the pitiable
spectacle was presented in Congress of groups and
cliques of men voicing the sentiments of German
perfidy and beer rule unrebuked and undisturbed.
The question naturally arises, anent recent debates in Congress, was Von Papen's historic remark

THE SOBER WORLD

about the " idiotic Americans " he had met entirely
unjustified? The fact that toleration of the brewery
insolence continued long after the armistice was
signed might pardon it.
Pan-Germanism was no new topic. The need
for an army and a navy and thousands of miles of
coast fortifications was not a need of the moment.
The Monroe Doctrine had been repeatedly threatened by Germany and the day saved on more than
one occasion by a trick of the pen. Yet the pen
could not be expected to do the work of the sword
always. But nothing had happened to mar the even
tenor of the luxurious life of the nation; so jolly,
indolent, pleasure-loving America continued to elect
this weakling and that ingrate to Congress, until
finally, when there came real issues before that
body, the representatives of the people stumbled
and floundered around like cab horses with the
blind staggers, but finally, be it said with pride, got
on their feet and pulled the national wagon out of
the mire. And if among these nondescript parliamentarians there happened in one with the cloak
of a Benedict Arnold and the mien of Judas Iscariot,
who could be blamed?
The important portfolios and departmental bureaus of the Government, it was confidently felt,
had been kept clean and free from foreign entanglement. Especially did the public confidence rest upon
the administration of the affairs of the Government
in the War, State and Navy departments. It mattered not that there had been not infrequent scandals in the Post Office Department, the Department
of Labor, and some of the other divisions of the

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES 97
Government which dealt more particularly with domestic affairs. The more important portfolios that
had to do with the international relationships of the
country, it was maintained, had always been kept
free from propaganda of any description or foreign
interference. But the German brewers still have
their agents in Congress and will continue to do so
until every brewery plant in America is razed to
the ground.
The World War is over. It is not at all likely
that it will be resumed at an early day, but Germany may be expected to continue to do mischief
wherever she can. Her beer industry has been discontinued in the United States, but she will continue
to earn vast sums in many other lands with her
liquor trade and her commerce. And Americans
very frequently lose sight of the fact that Germany,
the Fatherland of beer and lust and savagery, is
intact. Her fields are green with ripe crops, her
industries are running, on short time, to be sure, but
nevertheless running.
The great rulers of the world are ostensibly content with the peace pact; but the world's dreamers
and idealists cannot help but regard sorrowfully the
ruined orchards, the devastated Burgundy region
of France, wrecked Belgium, and the half world of
desolation wrought by the beer-poisoned beasts.
In a memorable address at Boston in June,
1919, the Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, the distinguished divine of Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn,
once occupied by Henry Ward Beecher, called attention to Germany's many moves on the world's chessboard, her new beer game, the recruiting of new

THE SOBER WORLD

armies, her request for an American protectorate,
and declared that Germany would bear watching
every hour of the day and night. Wise words I
The ruins from the hell-fires of her infamous warfare have not ceased smoking, and yet she is knocking at the doors of the White House to resume the
beer business at the old stands I
Senators of long service, veteran journalists, and
other men of note within the inner circle at the Capital declare that for flagrant and flamboyant daring
no such similar act was ever committed against the
American government as this prosecution of her
drink game before the guns of the World War have
cooled.
Washington is very obtuse. For many years the
Government has been run with a looseness and a
shiftless, devil-may-care sort of carelessness that has
dumbfounded some of the spectators. And for
many more years German gentlemen of all types and
classes have been granted the courtesies of the Capital and of practically every department of the Government. There is not a bridge on the Union or
Northern Pacific Railroad that Germany does not
know how to destroy easily and without detection.
In the secret archives of the German Government
are perfect maps of every approach, trail, and vulnerable point along the Mexican border. Every
rampart, sally port, moat, and the like, of every one
of the antiquated forts along the thousands of miles
of unprotected American coast is as well known to
Germany as it is to the properly appointed officials
of the United States Government. The German
government could put its hands on these records as

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES 99
soon as could the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy.
" Mr. So and So of - Peace Society is going
down to Old Point. He would like to go up on the
ramparts and examine the fortifications. Will you
request the Commandant to grant him a pass?"
Thus has spoken the Senator or the Congressman
to the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of
War scores of times during the past few years. The
Commandant might grow black in the face with rage
over the request, but, knowing American politics, he
dared not protest. It would not accomplish anything, and then again he ran a risk of being transferred to the sand dunes of South Carolina or some
post out in the alfalfa country where there was no
Hotel Chamberlin with its military life and charming environment. And what was the use? We were
at peace in those days and nothing could ever drag
us into war.
I recall attempting to run upon the fortifications
at Fortress Monroe some years ago. A sentry
promptly stopped me. Looking up on the elevation
I pointed inquiringly to two German youths.
"Oh, they have a pass," said the sentry. The
pass issued by the Commandant was requested by
the Secretary of War.
That night it was not difficult to make the acquaintance of the tourists. They very frankly displayed their admirable drawings with the explanation that they were made for amusement. This
incident occurred during the Roosevelt administration. The pass was signed by the then Secretary of
War, William H. Taft. The old fortrdss was liter* i |

I00

THE SOBER WORLD

ally falling to pieces. Since that time, mainly
through the efforts of Colonel Roosevelt, millions
have been expended by the Government on the fort
and it has been modernized. It was further improved during the Great War and is now a great
artillery fortification.
At the time I was a correspondent at Washington
for an important Western newspaper, and I sent it
a rather lengthy article describing this happening.
I promptly received a communication from the editor saying that in his (the editor's) absence the
article came very near being published, and that he
no longer had any use for a correspondent who did
not know enough to " avoid insulting their German
subscribers." I prize this letter very highly, and I
have observed with much interest that the Western
newspaper in question is now one of the leading
liquor organs of the Northwest. Every American,
who has a spark of intelligence or is imbued with
the least spirit of loyalty to his land and his flag,
must know that every move that has been made in
behalf of liquor for the past few years, certainly
since the early wholesale Belgian infamy and atrocities and the "Lusitania incident," as the insolent Teutons are pleased to term it, has been a move distinctly
and emphatically in behalf of German barbarity as
against the war waged by the Entente for a return
to the rudimentary laws of civilization and humanity. The mantle of a kindly charity may be canopied
over the heads of a few old women and German
children who have consistently essayed to be peacemakers and beer advocates, and no ulterior motive
alleged...3t men of standing, in whatever com*e:

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES Ioi

munity throughout the country they may reside, cannot hide behind any such cloak. Either they were
arrayed with the forces protesting against the ravages in Belgium, the massacre of a million Armenians, the desolation, destruction and murder of
millions in Serbia and Poland, the starvation of
thousands upon thousands of Syrians and Jews in
the Holy Land, or else they have banded themselves
together in the interest of peace for a multitude of
tyrannical beer-soaked brutes who know no law of
either God or man!
There has been no halfway stopping place. It
has been either Beer and Pan-Germanism for and
with the Teuton hosts, or the defensive warfare of
the Entente and what it stands for. The record
has been made. History writes it.
It is noteworthy that the American people are
sometimes forgetful, often forgiving and sympathetic, and rarely resentful. But in June, 1919,
many observing Americans were not always charitable in their comments about the German brewers,
the intolerable insolence of the liquor propaganda
and the possible results.
"What do the fools mean? Have they no understanding of the Constitution of the United States?"
These questions were often asked.
The German beer propagandists have become
very daring at Washington, going before Senate
Committees, House Committees, holding meetings
on the steps of the Capitol, in churches, theatres,
everywhere.
"Give them rope-plenty of rope," was the
motto of the women workers as they watched state

I02

THE SOBER WORLD

after state declare they had a right to vote, and the
men at the head of the several efficient anti-drink
organizations followed suit. America and the whole
world awaited the final passing away of the beer
jugglers.
" The conclusion is going to be like the Bartholme
fiasco," said one sweet woman as she clasped
her hands with infinite satisfaction. Whereupon
the writer unearthed the Bartholme case, almost
forgotten driftwood amid the many waters that have
flowed under the bridge in these last few memorable and riotous years.
The correspondent of the Cologne Gazette, Dr.
George Bartholme, had become a well-known figure
in the corridors and offices of the State Department,
and because of his official position had the run of the
departments during the early days of the war. An
unostentatious figure with the usual Teutonic smile
and "an occasional leer," according to one of the
secret service agents; when not watched too closely,
he came and went as he pleased, and in the stress of
tension over the international crisis but little attention was paid to him. So in the course of human
events, when it became necessary for the German
Ambassador to strike his tent, what should be more
natural than another superhuman effort made in behalf of the Fatherland under the subterfuge of the
peace myth. An excellent idea, it was conceded
among the clans of white-winged emissaries, but exceedingly difficult of execution. Washington was
weary of smoking the pipe of peace treachery-not
only wearied but censorious and very suspicious.
The toll of ships under the last edict of submarine

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES Io3
destruction was mounting, and had already reached
an alarming stage. On every hand was evidence of
increased animosity on the part of the German, and
the Gott strafe America hymn was being sung with
the same intensity as the kindred tune Gott strafe
England. But Berlin for the moment appeared to
be somnolent, and the number of munition factories
being burned, ships sunk at their piers, and other
numerous incendiarisms that had become so common in the United States was diminishing, temporarily at any event.
Bartholme, the ostensible correspondent of the
Cologne Gazette and what not, was selected to engineer the next move. Explaining his position to
the world at large and the American world in particular, the wary doctor declared that high officials
had urged him, aye, implored him to make it plain
at Berlin that the attitude of this Government to
Germany was wholly pacific. There was no doubt
at any stage of the sensational incident about the
high sources of his information. After the note or
dispatch, as it may be judged, carrying the usual
peace platitudes was sent, the gentlemen in question
were all so widely at variance in their excuses and
explanations in relation to the matter that it is needless to outline the various wordings or to use their
names. The fact remains that Bartholme, one of
Von Bernstorff's most intimate associates, was permitted to send the message through the Government
wireless, a communication upon which depended the
very life of the nation; such an incident cannot be
well exaggerated. The message stated to the world
that the President of the United States did not rep

I04

THE SOBER WORLD

resent America in demanding the immediate recall
of Ambassador von Bernstorff and the return of
Ambassador Gerard; that the bulk of the American
people were for peace at any price, and that additional overtures in that direction would be welcomed from the land of " Kultur." No matter how
the words were juggled, deleted or otherwise altered, this was the salient fact in all the several
versions made public.
It is an interesting surmise how many of these
implicated gentlemen would have been shot at sunrise in the days of Washington, and still more interesting to record that several revolutionists were
shortly before shot in the Tower of London for
lesser offenses.
It is worthy of comment that the ink on the "peace
message" was hardly dry when necessarily the following correspondence had to ensue:
WASHINGTON, Feb. I2-Secretary of State Lansing gave
out the following statement this afternoon:
In view of the appearance in the newspapers of February 11 of a report that Germany was initiating negotiations
with the United States in regard to submarine warfare, the
Department of State makes the following statement:
A suggestion was made orally to the Department of State
late Saturday afternoon by the Minister of Switzerland that
the German Government is willing to negotiate with the
United States, provided that the commercial blockade against
England would not be interfered with. At the request of
the Secretary of State this suggestion was made in writing
and presented to him by the Swiss Minister Sunday night.
The communication is as follows:
MEMORANDUM: The Swiss Government has been requested by the German Government to say that the latter is
now, as before, willing to negotiate, formally or informally,
with the United States, provided that the commercial blockade against England will not be broken thereby.
P. RITTER.

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES o05
This memorandum was given immediate consideration and the following reply was despatched
to-day:
MY DEAR MR. MINISTER: I am requested by the President to say to you, in acknowledging the memorandum which
you were good enough to hand to me on the II th inst. that
the Government of the United States will gladly discuss
with the German Government any question that it might propose for discussions were it to withdraw its proclamation of
Jan. 31, in which it cancelled the assurances given this Government on the 4th of May last, but that it does not feel that
it can enter into any discussion with the German Government concerning the policy of submarine warfare against neutrals which it is now pursuing unless and until the German
Government renews its assurances of the 4th of May and acts
upon the assurances.
No other interchange on this subject has taken
place between this Government and any other Government or person.
Nothing since the remarkable demonstration in
honor of the return of Admiral Dewey to this country after the Spanish-American War has so awakened the enthusiasm of the Americaan people as the
President's reply. There had been so much "watchful waiting," " too proud to fight" and lapsus lingua
over the "strict accountability" in the Lusitania
tragedy that the people of this country who retained
a degree of love and esteem for the land of their
forefathers had begun to wonder if there was so
much as a scintilla of national pride left at the Capital. There was much to put a quietus on the President, however. Even at this late day there appears
to be no explanation to offer for his Mexican policy
and his recognition of Carranza, but the fact cannot
be gainsaid that he has had much to contend with.

io6

THE SOBER WORLD

The least the Republican brethren say to him the
better perhaps. After nearly half a century of continuous rule, with the exception of the brief Cleveland respites, they turned this government over to
him in a condition of national nausea, compared to
which mal de mer is a pleasing ailment.
The truth was that men of real ability had turned
their faces away from the sun of patriotism. So
many walks of commerce, of the trades and professions, had invitingly beckoned that the best element
in the manhood of the nation had lost the sense
of grave duty to the republic. And we had to pay.
The Bartholme incident cemented anew the true
Americanism and brought it to the fore. Like medicine is due the German brewers and it will be
administered.
In the trial of the California conspirator it developed that all the consuls and German agents
throughout the country were under the immediate
direction of Von Bernstorff.
The methods by which German brewery agents
and propaganda had been permitted to penetrate
into every department of this National Government
and into many Western and several Eastern State
legislatures is appalling. The South was the only
section of the country free from the taint. England
on repeated occasions, with the warmest friendship,
extended to Washington the most significant warnings. France did the same thing. When these overtures have been met with the "You had better take
care of yourself " response, England replied "We will
with our navy," and she has. France, with the memory before her of what had befallen her in '7o-'7,

WEAK MEN IN HIGH PLACES Io7
and in a measure herself helpless, nevertheless
pointed to the evil inroads the Teuton was making
upon the national life of America. The brewer with
his potential purchasing power for evil, who, with
his tool, the distiller, bought up legislatures, boards
of aldermen, and governors of states, congressmen
and what not, just as he bought the labels on his
bottles, has been allowed to go his way undisturbed
-again, except in a few of the states which retain
their Americanism against all comers.
The "peace pact" and the "brew game" have
been as industriously and successfully manipulated
as the little black balls under the shells at the country fair. When this Government did not do as it was
told to by "Him of the Withered Arm," Von Bernstorff and the brewery clique, millions upon millions
in American factories, American ships and American
commerce were wilfully and laughingly destroyed.
Even the ships won in American commerce were
scuttled at their docks.
"Idiotic Americans"- it is a term that rings in
the ears, that does not die as other sounds and sentences naturally do. Up to the time of his departure
the German ambassador directed the destinies of
more than nine hundred men, whose sole duty it
was to organize and assist in the organization of
peace societies, burn factories and ships, and do almost anything that human ingenuity can devise to
embarrass this Government and create a reign of
terror throughout the land, among the very people
who had received them with open arms. After the
war, homes of distinguished Americans were again
dynamited by anarchists. What anarchists, pray?

Io8

THE SOBER WORLD

And on the eve of his departure with the honorary
degrees of eight American universities (?) in his
pocket this is what Von Bernstorff said to the press:
"I said maybe it was possible war would be averted,
didn't I? Of course, you must understand that is conditional upon Germany being able to bring the Entente to its
knees before anything happens to involve the United States.
The submarine campaign is bound to increase in intensity as
the weather gets warmer. If no Americans are killed there
will be no war. I hope that war can be averted. I may
come back to attend a peace conference. I do not know
whether I flatter myself, but I do believe that I am not disliked by people here."
Shades of darkest night May fate forfend that
Von Bernstorff return to this country for another
Peace or Beer or any other sort of Conference!
God forbid!
The darkest hours in the history of this drinkladen nation have passed. The radiant dawn of a
new America is resplendent in the East. There will
be riots, crime perhaps, murder and minor revolutions; but in the end a sane and sober people will
survive the transformation.
And there will be no place in the new land for Von
Bernstorff or any of his tribe.

CHAPTER X

THE GIGANTIC NETWORK OF THE
GERMAN CONSPIRACY AGAINST
THE UNITED STATES
HEN all the scattered strands of conspiracy throughout the United States engineered by the German government
and the brewery interests and executed by Count
von Bernstorff and his assistants during and long
after the Great War are gathered up and arranged
in concrete, historical form, it will be conclusively
shown that no such colossal attack against civilized
government was ever before attempted in the annals
of mankind.
The total disregard for human life, the absolute
savagery and murderous barbarism of the whole
herculean effort, will establish a precedent on which
the world will look back with horror and astonishment for centuries to come. It would not be fair,
however, to charge all this preconceived infamy up to
"Him of the Withered Arm," the triple-faced Von
Bernstorff, Bethmann-Hollweg, Zimmerman and the
brewery moguls. The initial effort to wrest America
from Americans and convert it into a Teuton beer
garden under German rule can be traced back authoritatively more than fifty years to the days when
the beer-soaked Heidelberg students first started

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their drill squads in the cities of the West, to assist,
as they put it, in the " conservation of the Union."
St. Louis was the first of those cities to assert its
German patriotism, -St. Louis, the great metropolis of the Middle West. It was in St. Louis that the
Turnverein halls were transformed into impromptu
armories early in the Sixties, and the beer-loving
Germans of the Middle West began their efforts for
the "conservation of the Union." It is a matter of
history and incontrovertible fact that the vast majority of those Germans cared naught about the
conservation of the United States as inspired by
Washington.
England, because of her cotton interest, and for
other cardinal reasons, was inclined to sympathize
with the South. The England of that day, with its
usual spirit of fair play, was loath to think that the
North might not have acquired its great moral sympathy and humanitarism for the negro before he was
sold to the South, instead of afterwards.
The Germans of St. Louis and other cities were
anxious to join the Union for the indirect and
roundabout reasons that the people of Great Britain and the Southland were in close affiliation.
Even then Germany hated England as no land has
ever hated another. It was another step toward
Pan-Germanism and the dream of-world rule and
beer dominion that even at that early day was beginning to assume tangible form.
From the close of the Civil War up to the present moment the efforts of first one German ruler and
then another have been directed toward getting a
foothold and gradually acquiring the controlling

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY I i

power in this government. These efforts, clumsy
and insidious though they were, were often fraught
with grave danger to this republic, as was illustrated
when a Western Senator, who is now dead and whose
name need not soil these pages, was able to block
President Wilson's Armed Neutrality Measure.
When this simple measure permitting merchantmen to arm and defend themselves against German
submarines was defeated on the very day of President Wilson's second inauguration, he sounded this
warning:
"The termination of the last session of the Sixty-fourth
Congress by constitutional limitation discloses a situation unparalleled in the history of the country, perhaps unparalleled
in the history of any modern government. In the immediate
presence of a crisis fraught with more subtle and far-reaching
possibilities of national danger than any other the government has known within the whole history of its international
relations, the Congress has been unable to act either to safeguard the country or to vindicate the elementary rights of
its citizens. More than five hundred of the five hundred and
thirty-one members of the two Houses were ready and
anxious to act. The House of Representatives had acted by
an overwhelming majority, but the Senate was unable to act
because a little group of eleven Senators had determined that
it should not.
"The Senate has no rules by which debate can be limited
or brought to an end, no rules by which dilatory tactics of
any kind can be prevented. A single member can stand in
the way of action if he have but the physical endurance. The
result in this case is a complete paralysis alike of the legislative and of the executive branches of the government.
"This inability of the Senate to act has rendered some of
the most necessary legislation of the session impossible, at a
time when the need for it was most pressing and most evident. The bill which would have permitted such combinations of capital and of organization in the export and import
trade of the country as the circumstances of international
competition have made imperative - a bill which the business

I I2 THE SOBER WORLD
judgment of the whole country approved and demandedhas failed.
"The opposition of one or two Senators has made it impossible to increase the membership of the Interstate Commerce Commission or to give it the altered organization
necessary for its efficiency. The Conservation Bill which
should have released for immediate use the mineral resources
which are still locked up in the public lands, now that their
release is more imperatively necessary than ever, and the bill
which would have made the unused water power of the
country immediately available for industry have both failed,
though they have been under consideration throughout the
sessions of two Congresses and have been twice passed by the
House of Representatives.
" The appropriations for the army have failed, along with
the appropriations for the civil establishment of the government, the appropriations for the Military Academy at West
Point and the general deficiency bill. It has proved impossible to extend the powers of the Shipping Board to meet the
special needs of the new situation into which our commerce
has been forced or to increase the gold reserve of our national
banking sysem to meet the unusual circumstances of the
existing financial situation.
"It would not cure the difficulty to call the Sixty-fifth
Congress in extraordinary session. The paralysis of the
Senate would remain. The purpose and the spirit of action
are not lacking now. The Congress is more definitely united
in thought and purpose at this moment, I venture to say, than
it has been within the memory of any man now in its membership. There is not only the most united patriotic purpose,
but the objects members have in view are perfectly clear and
definite. But the Senate cannot act unless its leaders can
obtain unanimous consent. Its majority is powerless, helpless. In the midst of a crisis of extraordinary peril, when
only definite and decided action can make the nation safe or
shield it from war itself by the aggression of others, action is
impossible.
"Although as a matter of fact the nation and the representatives of the nation stand back of the Executive with
unprecedented unanimity and spirit, the impression made
abroad will be, of course, that it is not so, and that other
governments may act as they please without fear that this
government can do anything at all. We cannot explain.
The explanation is incredible.

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY 113
"The Senate of the United States is the only legislative
body in the world which cannot act when its majority is
ready for action. A little group of wilful men, representing
no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
" The remedy? There is but one remedy. The only remedy is that the rules of the Senate shall be so altered that it
can act. The country can be relied upon to draw the
moral. I believe that the Senate can be relied on to supply
the means of action and save the country from disaster."
But out of evil good often comes. The lechery
and iniquity of just one Western politician who, with
the money and assistance of several Western breweries, had managed to work himself into the United
States Senate, did more to arouse the American
people to a sense of their woeful and alarming im,
potence than the tragic sinking of the Lusitania and
the Laconia. No such spectacle was ever presented
to the American people as the memorable filibuster
episode of the aforesaid Senate during the first week
in March, 1917.
After months of weary waiting, with insult upon
insult to the American people, the murder of countless of her citizens on land and sea, the President of
the United States asked permission to arm American ships that Americans might travel on the high
seas â and was prevented by a little coterie of
brewery-tainted politicians. Three of these Senators, Stone, La Follette and O'Gorman, owed their
presence in the Senate unmistakably to the liquor
interest. Clapp and Vardaman were also in close
affiliation with the brewery nabobs.
In its inception the Senate was conceived to be
above all things a governmental body made up of
gentlemen. In the lower house there might mayhap

II4

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occasionally be a political roustabout from the
streets and wards of some of the great cities, but
the Senate must be kept clean of the henchmen from
the alleyways of the Nation's political life. Senatorial courtesy for a century or more had been a
byword. The most daring parasites of the Lobby
kept aloof. If there was some pork bill to be scuttled through, it must perforce for the sake of good
form emanate from the House of Representatives,
and when presented to the Senate, if not seemingly
clothed in the purple and fine linen of the proper
parliamentary ethics and usage, it must, forsooth,
be cloaked in the serge of common decency at least.
In the etiquette of the Senate, next in importance
to the Supreme Court itself, there was no separate
niche for men of the type of Stone (since dead),
Clapp and La Follette. So there was no reckoning
for their advent, no provision for their discipline at
the crucial moment. But that time will prove their
undoing; the days of the brewery-made politician
are numbered.
Americans need not fear. The curtain will be
rung down on the countless throngs of arch-conspirators at the opportune moment. And before the
barred gates have closed on the last of those offenders the work of separating the chaff from the
wheat in the national life of the land will also have
begun. Only a sparse baker's dozen of the men
in the Senate were found to be tainted with German
money and brewery gold. The vast majority of
them were as clean in their votes and as clear in
their convictions for the national honor as were the
great statesmen in the early days of the republic.

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY 15
And that vast majority succinctly demonstrated that
the perfidy so viciously instigated and fostered by
German liquor influences in the Congress is near
an end.
The last act of the Teuton melodrama is rapidly
drawing to a close. And the voice of the prompter
is in the wings.
Von Bernstorff's summary dismissal and welcome
departure greatly disturbed the plans and brewery
machinery of the arch-conspirators against the Government of the United States, not only in this country, but in Mexico and Cuba, as well as in all Latin
America. The German Embassy at Washington
was the heart from which throbbed all the activities
of murder, arson and intrigue. There have been few
diplomatic Thespians at the courts of Continental
Europe or in the government chambers of any land
who are to be compared with this German emissary.
Born and reared in his early life in an atmosphere
of intrigue and cunning, he imbibed before he was
out of his teens the spirit of the House of Hohenzollern, whose motto was always that the means justified the end so long as victory was attained.
A close student of Disraeli and other great diplomats, he did not hesitate to employ the most sacred
of confidences to gain any nefarious end.
In view of the violation of the Treaty of Luxemburg, the utter disregard for Belgium and Bethmann-Hollweg's "scrap of paper" inspiration, it
requires a wide stretch of allowance and charitable excuse to pardon an American for taking a
German's word of honor in this day under any

II6

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circumstances or conditions. Yet Mr. Lansing,
Secretary of State, a gentleman and a man of honor,
did so, and it is an open secret in Washington at
this late day that it was in that fashion that Berlin
was informed of the safe delivery of the Zimmerman
note to the proper authorities in Japan and Mexico.
Text of Germany's Proposal to Form an Alliance
With Mexico and Japan Against the United
States- (Supplied by the Associated Press as
an authentic copy of the German Foreign Minister's note to the German Minister in Mexico).
BERLIN, Jan. 19, 1917.
On the ist of February we intend to begin submarine warfare unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep neutral the United States of America.
If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance
on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make
war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to
reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement.
You are instructed to inform the President of Mexico of
the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain
that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States,
and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan, suggesting adherence
at once to this plan. At the same time, offer to mediate between Germany and Japan.
Please call to the attention of the President of Mexico
that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare now
promises to compel England to make peace in a few months.
ZIMMERMAN.
Utterly unscrupulous in every characteristic of
man and officer, the actual extent of Von Bernstorff's
world-wide activities will never be known. The Wilhelmstrasse owes him a debt of gratitude that can

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY 117
not ever be paid. No Hapsburg was ever more
abjectly merciless; no Hohenzollern more infamously cruel and barbaric in purpose. It was never
necessary for him to draw on his Government. It
is a matter of record that American brewers kept
him in vast sums of money. Pretending the most
profound sympathy with this country in her Mexican
difficulties, he was constantly " hoping that we would
not be drawn into arnred conflict with that country."
How often he repeated this cant and hypocrisy to
the Washington correspondents it would take a
Chinese counting machine to record. That he wrote
at least two of the responses of the condottiere, Carranza, to President Wilson's watchful waiting notes
diplomatique is authoritatively known and not questioned at the national capital.
Commenting on a previous book, Benighted
Mexico, in which the author discusses the relationships of Germany and Mexico, the London
Times suggests that condottiere, not troubadour, is
the word by which to name the brigand Carranza.
The author stands corrected and has made the
change. It is as a condottiere that Carranza will
be known in the future.
That Von Bernstorff conceived, directed and commanded the plots for the destruction of the Welland
canal, the burning of countless munition factories
throughout the country, ships at their docks and at
sea, and the wholesale demolition of millions of dollars' worth of American property is now a matter of
public knowledge and unquestioned record.
At one time more than fifty million dollars, most
of which was brewery money collected in this coun

II8

THE SOBER WORLD

try, was on deposit in the banks of the city of New
York for the simple promotion of crime. Von
Papen and Boy-Ed repeatedly made it known that
this money was to be had for any and all purposes
that would confuse and confound the " idiotic Americans" and bring them to the Kaiser's feet.
The well-laid secret plans of Von Bernstorff to
create a reign of absolute terror throughout the
United States were of the most incredible character.
How well they succeeded is a strange record in
American history, and that success unquestionably
encouraged the beer advocates long after the Great
War ceased. That their plans were made with the
full knowledge of the possibility of his dismissal and
possible absence from the scenes of proposed action
is a foregone conclusion. Ample provision was
made for the proper execution of these plans in the
event of his disability.
Thousands of secret codes, subterranean routes
and passages for the delivery of instructions to the
conspirators, and cleverly arranged means of communication had long been arranged and prepared.
This is well known to some of the officers of the
Government. The dynamiting in Washington, Boston and other American cities of the homes of several prominent Americans was strangely like other
German infamies.
If Americans are counting on their German
friends for mercy and loving-kindness in the event
of beer rule, let them turn to Mr. Arthur Gleason's
Lay of the Non-Combatant, Cardinal Mercier's
pastoral letter, and Lord Bryce's report. They will
find that it was in the homes where they were most

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY I 9
hospitably received that the Teutons were most
brutal. They will find that a German once is a
German always. No law of God or man must stand
between him and his desires, and no worshipers
of graven images are so brutal or heartless.
In Belgium women enciente were shot down like
mad dogs for daring to protest against cruelties
imposed upon them. Once let Germany, through
her liquor interests, get a strong foothold again in
America and the worst may be expected. The
writer, who is in no sense an alarmist or pessimist,
would gladly welcome a ray of light, a vista of
possible mercy in the perspective if there is return
of brewery power. It is not to be found.
That memorable March morning, after the Sabbath when all the Senators of the United States
except the brewery proteges found it necessary to
march like messenger boys to the White House with
a manifesto of their nationalism, the press despatches told of a gathering of German-Americans in
a Western city that was made famous by a certain
brand of beer, vouchsafing their loyalty and fealty
to the United States. The nausea of it! In this
gathering were no fewer than three brewers, all
part proprietors in the largest institution of that
class in the United States, who sent La Follette to
the Senate to do exactly what he did,-attempt to
betray the land of his birth in the interest of
Germany.
The first question that thousands of the newly
naturalized Germans asked was, "When does this
oath go into effect?" When they were told " immediately," the mask dropped from their faces and

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they stood revealed in their true guise, Germans,
before and after, and for all time. Their Americanism was for the moment assumed only for their
protection and self-interest. The strains from a
single German band, one bar of the Hymn of Hate;
and their love for the United States would take wings.
I have studied the situation from the early days of
the war up to June, 1919, in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other parts of the
country. In the upper-class German clubs, saloons,
restaurants, homes of Germans and dives in Hoboken, the hatred of America and England is inconceivable. In the early stage of the war the
hatred of Germans in America for England was
intense. That hatred has veered around until to-day
it is deeper for America than for England. In an
old blue shirt with soiled linen, unshaven, pretending to be pro-German. I have personally polled
ninety-three Germans during one night in the dives
of Hoboken and the East Side of New York. In
my judgment there were only three Germans among
that number who would not murder an American
in his sleep for the Fatherland, if he thought he
could do so undetected. And they were as angry
over the liquor question as they were over the issues
of the World War.
Americans would be fully awake to the dangers
that beset them but for two facts -the laxity of the
press and the discounted proofs of past crimes and
infamies. It is a world so overridden with horror
that it is well-nigh impossible to keep pace. The
newspaper man is in no wise to be censured. He
has no time to sound warnings. A copy boy lays

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY 121
a batch of " flimsy " on his desk, and it tells of ten
thousand dead; the next page recounts the loss of
a transatlantic airship. He turns the copy over
wearily and buries a murder that would have been
worth a column and a half a little while ago in three
lines of agate over on a back page among the patent
medicine " ads." And, as he crawls wearily to bed
at dawn, he wonders restlessly where hell will break
loose next, before another sunset.
No, there is no time for warnings, no space for
journalistic casualties, courtesies or advices. It is
a world of hellish horror; of hate and malice and
crime incalculable. And the little kindnesses and
warnings that might apply to the present liquor
situation are missing from the calendars of journalism and the assignment books. But the newspaper
man, especially the newspaper man of New York
and Chicago, knows the situation, and, if it were
possible for him to do so, he would tell the world
in glaring black type that the percentage of " loyal
Germans," that is, Germans loyal to the law of the
land, liquor or otherwise, in the United States, is
greatly overestimated.
The morning after the $5o,ooo,ooo of ships were
scuttled at their docks in Hoboken, N. J. (a city
of Ioo,ooo people almost entirely Germans, where
the American flag was comparatively unknown until
the winter of I916 âI7, when the mayor insisted
upon its restoration, and where millions of machinery were destroyed) an observant spectator, widely
known as pro-German, dropped into one of the
numerous saloons that dot the waterfront and
remarked:

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" Fine work that last night? "
" Ya," said one of the group smilingly, " some of
da skyscrapers ober da water vill go next."
A little later the same spectator sought a very
powerful German banker in Wall Street. After
some Teutonic pleasantries, the spectator remarked
that there was nothing on the surface to indicate
that every German in New York was not heart and
soul against America and everything American.
The banker retorted "Nonsense."
"Why not adduce some evidence of what you
assert? " it was suggested.
"How? " asked the financier.
"You have large interests here and a large following. Why not get up a mass meeting, compile
a new and more elaborate oath of allegiance to this
country, just an oath of sympathy not necessarily
legal. See how many Germans you can get to sign
it. Its moral effect would be immense and inspire
public confidence in you people."
The great banker paled. " My God, I could not
be expected to do such a thing! It might mean
death to me."
Pinned down, Germans betray that their dominant fear is for and of the Fatherland. There is no
thought of this or any other country.
A little army of Germans born in this country
and not a few who have legally acquired citizenship
did patriotic service during the World War. They
are loyal and true Americans, and it seems a pity
that they should have to suffer for the grave shortcomings of their fellow-countrymen.
It is an easy matter for them to reassure Ameri

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY I23
cans. Let them come out into the open on the liquor
question. That attitude will place them on record
and beyond question. The Constitution of the
United States has been reframed so as to exclude
liquor and intoxicating drink. Americans born and
dyed in the blood of their native land put their integrity in jeopardy when they dare question the new
law. And the German puts himself beyond the pale
of tolerance when he presumes so to do.
A saloon which employed 77 bartenders was
closed in a relatively small town in Ohio in the
early summer of I919. The receipts varied from
$I8,000 to $23,000 a day. Sixty-five per cent of
the revenue derived was from beer, German beer,
but the American, being an American, decided to
abide by the law. The day following this announcement the press reports announced that New York
brewers would continue to manufacture beer, law
or no law, their counsel having so advised.
The result of this announcement in the light of
the new era of reconstruction will be watched with
deepest interest.
As I write, among the scores of beer gardens at
Coney Island is one that during the season frequently sells from $Io,ooo to $1S,ooo worth of
beer a day. At the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge,
on the Bowery, is a saloon where they throw up
great barrels of beer on stanchions, and the streams
that issue therefrom are sometimes not turned off
for hours. The bartender stands beneath the
shower and draws glass after glass of beer for lines
of men sometimes four feet deep across the bar,
passing over each other's heads. The revenue from

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this place runs up into the thousands each day, and
sometimes an hour will elapse without a drink of
anything but beer being sold. There are hundreds
and hundreds of these places all over the country.
They are not going out of business if it is possible
to avoid it. Many of them now are preparing to
make substitute drinks under all sorts of nomenclatures. If this is permitted, it will be almost as evil
in its effect as the intoxicating beer itself. Leading
physicians and authorities on this subject all over
the country declare that countless diseases, such a&amp;
diabetes and Bright's disease, certainly will result.
Here is presented a magnificent opportunity for
the loyal German-American to show his Americanism. There are many ways in which these great
properties could be made valuable to the American
people. Certainly not by manufacturing substitute
drinks in imitation of the old intoxicants.
Why not a dairy? In the light of countless new
diseases being discovered on all sides, medical authorities are constantly preaching the doctrine of
the value of milk as food. The demand is far beyond the supply, and after a universal law against
drinking is passed men, beyond question or doubt,
will turn their attention to healthful foods. Of
these none begins to compare with milk. The farms
that have been employed in growing malt and the
grains necessary for the production of beer could be
readily turned over to such purposes. Then the
American people would without doubt willingly entertain a belief in the loyalty of these alleged Americans. As it stands, the effort to continue the brewery
as a brewery in miniature certainly impresses the

NETWORK OF GERMAN CONSPIRACY 125
fair-minded American with the thought that there
is but one underlying purpose, the German scheme
for the further advancement of German interests
in this land. In any event, the substitute brewery
is not to be entertained or tolerated, for it will
have the same effect on the Teuton exchequer.
If the naturalized Germans in this country were to
start large dairy farms and model dairies and send
the money back home to build up another great
military machine, there is no law on the statute
books to prevent; but it would appear to be useless
and idle to attempt a substitute business in any form
or guise.
Whatever may be the attitude of the American
politician, he no longer controls the Constitution.
Woman suffrage is a law. It is just a question of
a very little time when women will hold the balance
of power. The hundreds of mothers throughout
this land cannot be ignored. They are firm in their
purpose that no such thing as drunkenness, intoxication in any form, shall further mar the human
race. The child of the drunkard and the youth in
his cups will no longer be tolerated.
The billions upon billions of money derived from
the brewery business in this country cannot be easily
estimated. In the addenda of this volume, however,
are brewery statistics that may prove of interest.
It is not the purpose of the author to burden the
text of this work with any such statistical data.
Beyond question, hundreds of millions of American
money were used in the building up of the great German military machine; just how much, no statistician
could possibly reckon. The mode of procedure

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was very simple. Beginning more than fifty years
ago, the exodus of the brewer from Germany to
these shores has never ceased. When he came here
to begin his business, his pockets were always lined
with gold. He rarely borrowed from an American
banker; it was not necessary. The money came
directly from the Fatherland. It follows that the
major portion of it has been returned there, and
it again follows that much of this money was used
to support the German armies.
Is it within the bounds of human thought that this
procedure can be repeated? Hardly. In the new
epoch there will be no place for beer, or brewer, or
substitute drink that can tear out the tissues and mar
the health of the American people. It is to be a
sober, industrious world. The wise brewer is he
who may turn his attention to the dairy or something
else respectable. None can gainsay the fact that a
dairy farm is a respectable institution and that a
dairy is a valuable means of helping the human
race. Vice-President Levi P. Morton deemed it a
privilege and an honor to build up the greatest
institution of this kind in this country. The loyal
German-American brewer should feel honored to
be permitted to follow in his steps. By no possible
estimation is the brewery respectable. No business that sends the souls of countless human beings
to their undoing can be regarded as even semidecent.
The advent of a few German-American brewers
into the milk business would in all probability change
the trend of American thought.

CHAPTER XI

LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS
O BVIOUSLY a certain percentage of the
German-Americans in the United States
are loyal to this Government. How large
is the number of those whose fealty and cooperation
can be counted upon in these strenuous times is a
much mooted question. A careful survey of the
situation from the very day that England entered
the war is not encouraging to those anxious to give
the Germans resident in the United States the benefit
of the doubt.
Early in the proceedings, when the World War
had just begun, the caustic and unwarranted attacks
of the German-language newspapers upon every officer of the United States Government, from the President down to the most unimportant consul, established precedents in the matter of abuse and vituperation. No such license or so-called freedom of
speech had ever been permitted in the history of governments, and it is doubtful if such unmitigated insolence and insult could be repeated without much
serious internal trouble. They ceased this infamy
when they had to cease it, and only after a small
army of German offenders had been interned.
The files of the German-language newspapers
throughout the entire country, particularly in Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Milwau

128

THE SOBER WORLD

kee, for days following the Lusitania tragedy, are
well calculated to fill the most casual reader with
astonishment and indignation. Every one of the
most important of these sheets was loud in expressions of satisfaction. The fact that many Americans were murdered, and the great ship with her
cargo of useful and influential human beings sent to
the bottom of the ocean was deliberately gloated
over. In England, where great freedom of speech
is permissible under trying circumstances, the culprits would have been tried for treason, taken to the
Tower, and summarily shot. France would not have
permitted the offenders to pass through the streets
of Paris alive; and there is not a civilized country in
the world where such attacks upon the very integrity
of the Government itself would have been tolerated for a moment. Internment was indeed a mild
punishment.
A leading German newspaper in New York pictured the President of the United States as a weak
invalid, his legs tottering, while the Kaiser stood
over him with his mailed fist threatening and a medicine glass filled with some noxious stuff in the other
hand. "Take the medicine now (the Lusitania)
and later on I will give you this" (the mailed fist)
was the caption. The spirit of the cartoon was fully
carried out, for it was not many months afterward
when the German Government determined that one
American ship only could proceed to Falmouth with
the American flag trailing from the stern in disgrace
and ignominy. Countless other such views were
published and distributed broadcast by the liberally
supported organs of the German-Americans. Noth

LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS 129
ing was done; there was no law then to meet such
cases, and the attacks and insults did not cease until
Bernstorff was sent home and Ambassador Gerard
recalled to this country.
How different the attitude of the French newspapers throughout the United States, which, remembering Lafayette and the assistance France rendered
this Government time and time again, had every
reason to feel aggrieved and insulted and might
well have argued that they had right to criticize the
American people. So also with Russia and Great
Britain. Distance had lent no excuse when on many
occasions the United States needed their help or
assistance.
Taking advantage of the massacre of some three
hundred Americans in Mexico and the ostensible indifference of the American people on their own continent as well as on the high seas, the German newspapers let their attacks and insulting hyperbole run
riot. The files of some of these publications have
been carefully preserved and are in the archives of
the State Department at Washington. At no distant day they will in all probability be brought to
light to good American purpose. That the German
and the German-American newspaper can mould
the sentiment of its followers and subscribers as no
American or English or French newspaper can do
is signally apparent. No Englishman or American
or Frenchman would see insult and injury heaped
upon the country whence he was receiving the bread
of hospitality without resentment. Not so with the
Teuton, who because of his possible usefulness as
an American citizen has been received with much

130

THE SOBER WORLD

tolerance in this country. He must needs be allowed
to be arrogant and assume an air at wide variance
with good citizenship.
The question of the loyalty of the German-Americans in the United States would be a much more inviting subject if anywhere among the records could
be found just one disciple of German " Kultur " who
had by voice or pen shown even a shadow of resentment of the brewery evil.
When any fair-minded citizen of the world notes
a palpable injustice to the land of his adoption, in a
spirit of fair play he must of necessity voice it to insure his standing. But there is not on record a
single instance where a German-American, important or not important, has assumed such an attitude.
On the contrary, every attack upon the integrity of
this Government in the German-American press was
warmly applauded. The beer question has engendered renewed insults and insolence on all sides.
It is well known among all those who have followed closely the American end of the beer and PanGerman crusade that the German-Americans were,
at the opportune moment, to assume the attitude
toward the Kaiser that " the King can do no wrong."
This all-important matter was among the earliest
teachings of the German "peace and beer emissaries" in America. When the psychological moment arrived, the Emperor's mission to rule the
world was to be remembered and the fact that it
was one of divine inspiration was counted all-important. It was decreed by Heaven itself, and the
Teuton tyrant has not hesitated to assert and repeat
time and again that God Himself was his ally.

LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS 131
The efficiency in this organization of infamy and
tyranny has astounded all civilized peoples. In the
German Empire and here in the United States there
are unquestionably many Germans, some of whom
might speak with authority, who cannot in reason
hold to such profane belief. Yet they dare not say
or write anything that might be construed as opposition to the almost universal thought of German
beer rule.
It was to the utter astonishment of Germany that
America declined to stoop to do her bidding, to join
in any of her Prussian infamy. Threats, cajoleries
were of no avail. Throwing their gold pieces on the
counters of the shops and cafes in northern France
during the early days of the war, the German soldiers told the attendants to "keep the change."
They would collect in Paris on Christmas Day.
The years of deadly warfare passed. The German soldiers not only failed to collect at Paris but
they met a Waterloo at Verdun. The Teuton
forces were landlocked on all fronts. German commerce was swept from the seas, Germany's navy
still corked up in the Kiel. Her colonies were lost,
her people at home began to starve to death and
those abroad were alarmed, knowing naught of their
destiny and fearing for a place even to lay their
heads. Ambassador Gerard was ordered home, and
Count von Bernstorff, the leading spirit in a long
series of the most iniquitous crimes ever perpetrated
against the American people, was given his conge
and told not to stand on the order of his going.
The early days of I917 were days of such trial
and suspense that no American will forget them.

132

THE SOBER WORLD

A tried, patient and much harassed President, finally
seeing the futile error of his patience, consideration
and irresolution toward the bestial Germans, at last
at bay, changed his policies. In May of the previous year, the German Government had given its
solemn word that it would abandon its under-sea
murder of the innocents. Like all other German
promises since time has endured, it proved to be
worth less than the proverbial pie crust, and on January 3Ist a resumption of the most brutal and barbaric method of warfare ever conceived by human
mind upon non-combatants was resumed.
It was broadly announced from Berlin that by
this method Germany would soon be able to end the
war. In the first fortnight after the resumption,
some hundred ships which were nearly all owned by
neutral nations, and among which were several
loaded with food for starving Belgium, were sunk
and destroyed. As England alone was loading and
discharging between eight hundred and one thousand ships a week from her own ports, and effectively policing a lane across the Atlantic, the undersea warfare was not appreciably noticeable. The
British Government told the world at large that the
number of sinkings would decrease day by day, and
so it did. Germany was starving, so the Berlin authorities decided that Belgium must starve also and
ordered that American relief cease. Later because
of a howl of protest from all over the world, and
for other obvious reasons, this order was rescinded.
In the United States gentlewomen glanced wonderingly at the skies as they thought of the starving
children of northern France, Belgium and Poland,

LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS 133
and silently prayed. The Man-in-the-Street gritted
his teeth and asked his neighbor again and again
wrathfully, "How long, oh, Lord, how long?"
The same Teuton brutes are now asking that
streams of their national drink be permitted to run
through American cities for the further promotion
of crime and vice.
But the lines were tightening hard about the
German Empire. It took no soothsayer with the
gift of foresight to see the approaching starvation
of the people and the possible horrors of surrender
or extermination.
Again Germany turned her eyes to America.
Was there no hope from the land across the seas?
And there was another wail for peace. Always back
to the beer and peace emissary it was harked. How
well those harrowing days are treasured in some
tutored minds I
But the Germans, a very large percentage in
America, think they are forgotten, as is evinced by
the continued efforts to force the beer game upon the
American people.
An inspired writer in the Manufacturers' Record
in an elaborate article widely quoted in the Boston
Transcript and other leading journals in June, I919,
rendered an interesting indictment:
" The more the German character is revealed to the world
through the notes which the German delegation at Versailles
writes to the Peace Conference, the more impossible it becomes to understand the depth of depravity of the German
nature. And yet the constant writing of notes is in exact
accord with the plans of the German officials when they
sought an armistice in order to stop the march of the Allied
and American Armies on to Berlin. They were wise enough

I34 THE SOBER WORLD
to know that the capture of Berlin would make an entirely
different situation, and that the German people would then
not be able to sow the seeds of discord throughout the world
in which they have been now so busily engaged since the day
the armistice was signed. Every letter written to the Peace
Conference is for the express purpose of spreading broadcast
these seeds of discord and weakening the determination of
civilization to punish this nation of liars and looters and
murderers.
" It has been said that if a man keeps on asking for a given
thing often enough he gradually weakens the power of the
one who has said 'no' until, having said 'no' time and
again and continued to say 'no,' he finally yields to the persistency of the one who has sought his favor.
"Typical of the spirit of the German notes is the one delivered on May 29 by Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, head of
the German peace delegation. In this note he says:
"'We were aghast when we read in documents the
demands made upon us by the victorious violence of our
enemies.'
" In this, as in everything else in the note, there is an entire
absence of any recognition of the fact that the German nation
stands at the bar of humanity as the convicted criminal who
has drenched the world in blood, who has brought upon it
more sorrows than all the wars of the last thousand years,
and that this war was brought on by Germany without the
shadow of an excuse and wholly for its own aggrandizement.
This nation of criminals, instead of standing before the bar
-to receive the verdict of punishment to the utmost power of
civilization to make it, demands the right to insist upon the
terms of punishment to which it will agree, and insolently
seeks to discredit President Wilson and all others who have
represented civilization in this contest against barbarism.
" Had Germany received 'a peace of justice,' the countries
which Germany sought to destroy would be relieved of all
war taxation, and the entire cost would be thrown on Germany. If civilization had undertaken the task in this way,
and from Berlin under the flags of the Allies and America
had put Germany to work for the express purpose of making
the German people, to the utmost power of money, pay the
entire cost of the war, we would long ago have had peace and
world-wide recuperative activities, and Germany, realizing

LOYAL GERMAN-AMERICANS I35
that it was paying the just penalty of its crimes, would have
accepted the decision of the world with less opposition than
it is now making to the proposed Peace Treaty.
" A restored and prosperous Germany within the next half
century would be a reflection upon the moral backbone of
civilization, and would be an encouragement to Germany
once more to make war upon the world.
"Until Germany be made in sackcloth and ashes to learn
what repentance means, what punishment for crime means,
until its children have been educated into new thinking, and
its people have learned that the nation which through such inexpressible crimes as Germany has committed, that 'the nation which forgets God shall be turned into hell,' then and
not till then the world will be safe through the centuries to
come from any further effort of Germany to dominate the
world.
" But the German people are already thinking about preparing for the next war, when they expect to crush AngloSaxonism and rule the world. That is the definite statement of one of the great German leaders of the war."
And it might be most appropriately added the
revenue for the next conflict must be raised. What
better field than America and what better business
than the beer business? And in the event of trouble
nothing more inconvenient than internment perhaps
at a charming watering place I
The truth is that Germany literally has received
no punishment in proportion to her offense. Had
a few of the hordes of beer sellers and traitors in
the United States been put in solitary confinement
for a few months on bread and water, it is doubtful
if she would ever have attempted to resume her beer
business in America.

CHAPTER XII

GERMANS RETURN TO OLD METHODS
VENTFUL, even epoch-making, was the
month of June, I9I9, in the United States
of America. Persistent American womanhood had forced Congress to acknowledge the right
of the mother, the wife and the sweetheart to suffrage. Vociferous debate and discussion at Paris
and in the United States Senate continued to excite
world interest over the mythical and idealistic
dream of a League of Nations. Peace, the fickle
jade, hung by gossamer thread from a storm laden,
ever changing, sky.
Germany, the Hercules of hypocrisy, besought an
American protectorate while the savants and wiseacres of the whole world, Christian and infidel,
rubbed their wondering eyes and tried to envisage
that ostensibly rejuvenated nation of Judas Iscariots. The cables were heavily laden with this new
desire, and attention was called to the fact that
there were localities in the Northwest of the United
States where English was not known at all, and
where the pupils were still required to sing the German national anthem. It was not noted in one of
the requests for a protectorate that there were seven
hundred and fifty German schools in the United
States where English was not spoken, and that out

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 137
of three hundred and ninety-seven teachers in the
state of Nebraska, three hundred and fifty were
Germans.
Close observers of the situation recalled the
Kaiser's address to the Military Council at Potsdam in which he said:
"Even now I rule supreme in the United States,
where almost one-half of the population is either
of German birth or German descent, and where
3,000,000 voters do my bidding at the Presidential
elections. No American administration could remain in power against the will of the German voters
who, through that admirable organization, the German-American National League, control the destinies of the vast republic beyond the sea."
It was confidently and publicly stated by prominent German-Americans in the United States that
Wilhelm would shortly be returned to his throne
so soon as the "farcical and ludicrous" peace deliberations were concluded.
The Teutons floated around in the whirlpool of
waters, and astute historians began to question the
wisdom of the peace pact of the French Generalissimo Foch.
In the large cities of the United States the daring
and increasing insolence of the loyal (?) GermanAmericans began to attract widespread attention.
In the height of the renewed Teuton activity the
New York Herald on June 8 published the following
comment in its news columns under the headlines
"Germans Eager to Resurrect Hyphen and
'Kultur ':

138 THE SOBER WORLD
"Germans in America are beginning to drag to light the
international hyphen which was denounced and laid away
during the war, and without waiting for the signing of the
peace treaty are showing their organization and power in this
country. There is evidence that the Germans have not
changed and await only the opportunity to 'come back.'
" The first of the German activities is being directed at the
schools. The Germans are bent on getting back the powerful advantage they had before the war, and their leaders have
asserted they proposed to again take their place in the schools
of this nation by having their language and the superiority
of Germany again taught to American children.
" The methods of procedure are the same as in former years;
the war has made no difference. It is the same old method
of under-cover, secret propaganda. If they cannot regain
their place one way they will in another, they assert. They
are preparing to show their power in politics, and by standing together as a political factor there is little doubt they can
exert great pressure on political parties and candidates.
"One of the first evidences of their renewed activity was
brought to light by Lawrence A. Wilkins, in charge of modern language instruction in high schools in New York. Mr.
Wilkins recently advocated abolishing all instruction in German in schools supported by public money. The German
propagandists, including many German teachers in the
schools, at once got to work. Mr. Wilkins states he received
many communications, including several anonymous letters,
informing him that the Germans would yet return to power
both in politics and in education and put German back into
the schools.
"Threats were made to him, Mr. Wilkins states, that because of the stand he had taken the German element would
deal severely with him later, for through their influence 'at
court,' evidently meaning in the Board of Education, they
would be able to force him out of the schools.
"Mr. Wilkins says that such activity by the Germans convinces him that the German element is still strong and hopeful, and that it would be wise to do away with everything
the Germans and pro-Germans want in this country."
Similar articles were published in many parts
of the country showing an ever increasing activity

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 139
on the part of the German brewers and propagandists.
Richard Croker, the Germanic advocate and
erstwhile Tammany leader, who departed from
New York some years ago for reasons which are
best known to himself and which need not appear
in these pages, returned to the seat of his former
activities and declared that the laboring man must
have his liquor. Charles M. Schwab, who is supposed to have rendered valuable service to the
government of the United States, stated his position
in relation to the liquor problem. He declared:
"I don't believe in prohibition that will enable me
or Mr. Vanderbilt or any other rich man of the
country to store our cellars with wines and whiskeys
for the rest of our lives, while the others who
haven't the money must do without. Who can
truthfully deny, prohibitionist or anti-prohibitionist,
the palpable and inherent injustice and viciousness
of a law which so flagrantly discriminates between
the rich and the poor in its operation? Nobody!"
And Schwab made this statement in the face of
the fact that the law he is discussing is already
passed and is part of the Constitution of the United
States for the government of the nation which he is
supposed to be serving in the guise of a GermanAmerican. It would be less offense to allege that
a member of the Vanderbilt family, a name that
tingles with the highest form of Americanism, was
guilty of burglary.
To revoke the spirit, renounce the verity and wilfully and deliberately disregard the solemn and
sacred Constitution of the United States day by day,

I40

THE SOBER WORLD

month by month, and year by year, with premeditation and malice aforethought, is hardly within the
purpose of any member of the Vanderbilt family.
In this connection it would be interesting to know
just how much money Mr. Schwab made during the
World War; and equally interesting by contrast to
know how much the Vanderbilt family gave away;
and also just how many weary hours and how
much service the women of that distinguished family
group of Americans passed in canteens and hospitals during the Great War. More important by
far than anything else at this writing is a school of
manners for German-Americans.
While Mr. Schwab was making his covert attack
on the United States liquor statute and the Vanderbilts, his fellow German-American, Christian Feigenspan, the President of the United States Brewers'
Association, who resides in Newark, N. J., was
amusing himself by purchasing additional breweries. His last acquisition was the Dahler Brewery
situated at Albany, N. Y. The property had not
been operated since December, I918, because of the
war-time prohibition. After making the purchase
Feigenspan made his fellow brewers throughout
the country joyous with the published statement
that the United States would never go dry inasmuch
as 2.75 beer would always be permissible.
How cleverly and astutely have the brewers
played their blood-stained cards! No propaganda
of the Great War appeared more roseate on paper.
Whiskey is abolished. The rich madeiras, the rare
old ports and burgundies, the sparkling moselles,
and the golden vints of champagnes are to be ta

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 141
booed. Nothing else is left but 2.75 beer, the
direst poison ever poured into the human system, or
perhaps a glass of Rhine wine and seltzer.
The rest of the world may parch and forever
remain dry, or else bend the knee to the Teuton
bidding. Americans can readily conceive the outcome. To get drunk on 2.75 beer the victim must
drink an enormous quantity. The more he drinks
the more coin falls into the Teutonic till. And the
more likely is the victim to acquire diabetes, Bright's
disease, and the hundred and one other kindred
diseases that physicians universally declare are the
sure result to any ordinary beer drinker but the
Teuton himself, who has a digestive apparatus
second only in elasticity to the anaconda.
The brewers' constantly reiterated falsehood
that 2.75 beer is not intoxicating is best refuted by
ten affidavits filed in the Federal Court of the City
of New York from eminent medical authorities.
It is necessary to refer to only two of these.
Dr. Arthur Dean Bevan of Chicago, President
of the American Medical Association, says:
"The question as to whether beer containing 2.75 per cent
of alcohol is intoxicating or not is not a matter of scientific
medical opinion, but a matter of common knowledge and
common sense. It is a matter of common knowledge that
beer which has been heretofore sold in the United States
containing from 31/2 to 41/2 per cent alcohol is definitely
intoxicating."
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, former Government pure
food expert, is among those who declare there is
sufficient alcohol in 2.75 beer to intoxicate the average man:

I42

THE SOBER WORLD

"Alcohol is admitted by all experts to be a toxic substance
without respect to its quantity. A little of it produces a
small degree of intoxication, a lot of it a very advanced degree of intoxication, and a certain quantity of it produces
death. I have, in my experience, seen scores of students visibly intoxicated by drinking German beer over a period of
from six to twelve hours. The fact that many other students,
drinking the same amount of beer for the same period, were
not visibly intoxicated, does not lessen the value of the observation that some were. The effect of alcohol on the
human animal is always toxic, no matter how small the
amount or what its degree of dilution. The visible signs of
intoxication are not produced by the last drink, but depend
upon all that have preceded it for many hours. Thus the
first drink is as much a cause of intoxication as the last. The
effect of alcohol in the liquid drunk is cumulative; it is not
necessary in order to produce intoxication that the human
stomach should hold at any one time a liquid containing a
sufficient amount of alcohol to produce signs of intoxication."
A thousand British, French and American authorities could be quoted in support of these views.
Meanwhile the Germans went about their business. What care the brew masters for American
authorities?
During the week ending June 14 the American
Federation of Labor held its convention at Atlantic
City, N. J. In short order a resolution asking
that 2.75 beer be exempted from the Eighteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States was passed. The vote was overwhelming
in favor of such action, the record being 26,475 to
4,005 votes. It mattered not that James A. Duncan,
the Chairman of the Labor Council, Seattle, Washington, and other delegates in good standing
pointed to the wonderful results that had been attained since the workingman was deprived of his
tipple. In the State of Washington the people

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 143
were better clothed, better housed, and living under
better conditions than ever before, he declared.
The whole convention adjourned so that the thousands of delegates might attend the demonstration
held in front of the Capitol at Washington on
Saturday, June I4. The permit for the demonstration was signed by Vice-President Marshall.
A delegate from the Central Labor Union at
Washington denied charges that brewers were
footing the bill, declaring the expense was being
borne by brewery workers.
The amount of money expended by the brewers
for the edification of the delegates reached a tidy
sum. The plaza in front of the Capitol had never
before in the history of the United States been used
for such purpose. Time and time again requests
have been made to hold like meetings, but permission has always been refused.
It was entirely apparent from the inception of the
demonstration that it was a German movement,
financed almost entirely by German money.
Day by day Americans are asking how much
further the German beer propaganda is to be allowed to go. It is impossible to divorce entirely the
attempts to assassinate the Attorney-General of the
United States, State judges, and other officials from
the Teuton, the earmarks of the attempted crimes
are so distinctly and distinctively similar to many
that have gone before.
In those trying black days before and during the
war, every known secret plan and plot that could be
devised and executed without danger to the perpetrators, from the assassination of the President

144

THE SOBER WORLD

down to the incitement of food riots in the slums of
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and many other
large cities, had been carefully schemed and arranged for with diabolic cunning.
The Secret Service people had been helpless to
prevent the burning of the munition factories and
the placing of bombs on ships going to sea. The
hordes of workmen employed in the arms-works
and the large numbers of foreigners engaged on
the outgoing ocean liners made those tasks exceedingly difficult, and but few arrests have been made.
In every other direction the work of that remarkable body of detectives has been distinctive and
successful.
During the War atavistic Germans in the United
States, pretending undying loyalty to the American
flag in the open, did not hesitate to lend their purse
and assistance under cover to outrages which, had
they succeeded, would have entailed untold suffering
and the death of some of the most important men in
the legislative councils of the people.
Regarding the United States as a foolish, wavering nation of " idiotic Americans " on an uneven
road leading to ultimate destruction and dissolution,
the Germans in the United States have played their
game with a daring and dastardly insolence as heartless and insulting as the Kaiser's attitude to suffering and sorely tried Belgium. Day by day it grows
more infamous.
With a stupidity that is perhaps characteristic,
the German-Americans seem to have been utterly
unable to envisage American sentiment. When
Germany was winning her early victories on the

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 145
Western front, and before England had corked up
her fleet in the North Sea, it was practically impossible for an American to go into one of the middle
class theatres without being insulted. In one of the
picture houses on Broadway in New York, built
with German capital, the audience must rise en
masse whenever the German colors were shown and
cheer Ioudly. President Wilson's picture when
shown on the screen was treated with open contempt. If an American happened into that theatre
and he did not rise to the German colors, his action
was sure to excite comment and often insult.
Early in the World War the New York officials
saw the imminent danger on the horizon, and took
the most peremptory measures to avoid trouble
and curb the exuberant insults of the several hundred thousand Teutons in and around the metropolis. Secret service officers and headquarters detectives have not hesitated to confide to the author
the fact that New York is, in their judgment, the only
one of the " big brewery cities " (cities where there
are big brewery plants) which is, on the surface,
safe.
When the new law is put in force next January,
St. Louis, Milwaukee, and the other large cities
which support enormous breweries will have great
trouble, it is predicted, unless more practical precautions are instituted than have been made thus far.
"Every saloon in the country, certainly in the
brewery cities," said an important official, "should
be closed until we have settled down to the work of
reconstruction; until the United States is out of the
woods in any event."

I46

THE SOBER WORLD

"The brewer can scatter a few thousand dollars
around the saloons, nearly all of which he owns, and
do more harm than half a dozen submarines, and
once that sort of trouble is started it is sure to become epidemic," declared this same official. "The
liquor men know they are on their last legs in this
country and they are just the kind of people to try
and create trouble when the occasion offers."
What temerity it was that prevented the proper
officials from taking hold of the liquor question at
the psychological moment is a question of interesting surmise. Early in the World War, Russia abolished her vodka, France did away with absinthe,
and Great Britain so restricted the saloons that
Tommy Atkins would often let the hour for his
tipple pass unnoticed.
The people of the United States can hardly hope
to pass through the present world crisis unscathed.
When the Germans entered Belgium, it is the testimony of half a dozen war correspondents, the assistant secretary of The Hague, Dr. Roseboom,
and no less a personage than Viscount Bryce, that
whole armies were bestially drunk, and committed
unspeakable outrages upon the persons of women
and children. Sober, there might have been some
few drops of the milk of human kindness in those
fiends of the moment. It is on record that in days
gone by they have been imbued with the spirit of
human feeling. But drunk to the verge of insanity,
nothing more could be expected of them. In vino
veritas. When in his cups the gentleman sometimes
touches his hat; the beast wallows in the gutter.
It is hard, say you, that a gentleman may not

A RETURN TO OLD METHODS 147
have his glass of vin ordinaire with his dinner. Perhaps I But it is a day for sacrifices. If this topsyturvy world is to be set right, if up out of this chasm
of blood-lust, out of this abyss of infamy and heinous wrong, is to come a new world, it must be built
on the altars of self-sacrifice and earnest effort for
a rejuvenated and rehabilitated national integrity.
And there can be no faltering or hesitancy along the
way. If the goal is to be reached, it can only be
won by the spirit of dominant purpose and unswerving allegiance.
"There is a rank due to the United States among
nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely
lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to
avoid insult we must be able to repel it; if we desire
to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that
we are at all times ready for war."
Those inspired words of the greatest soldier and
statesman the world ever welcomed, Washington,
apply with the same truth and force to-day as they
did in the memorable December of I793. And never
was the imperative necessity for their keen and close
observance more apparent than now at the advent
of the new era of reconstruction.
Awake, America, awake! It is a cry that has
been roundly rendered, blatantly heralded, from
Maine to the Rockies, from ocean to ocean. Every
thinker, every savant, every patriot in the nation
has sung it, and the land must awake, awake to the
German menace within its borders and throughout
the universe. Can this menace now be combated
effectively without battle, murder, and a rain of

148 THE SOBER WORLD
death within the republic? That is the question that
confronts the multitude of Americans who are oldfashioned enough to hold to the theories and practices of Washington, and his conception of the punishment of those most dangerous of all crimes
against a free people, Treason and Disloyalty.

CHAPTER XIII

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING
N O student of humanitarian or sociological
problems in the United States would dare
question the danger of the return of the
brewer to political power. The adoption of the light
wine and beer fallacy simply means that he will be
put in absolute control of the liquor business with a
complete monopoly of the trade, and resume his old
menace to government, federal, state, and municipal.
It was peculiarly significant that on Flag Day,
June 14, 1919, the great Labor demonstration in behalf of the brewers was staged in front of the Capitol at Washington, and that almost simultaneously
announcement was made from Berlin that German
Socialists were about to establish press bureaus in
every quarter of the globe.
The Socialists are definitely and peculiarly the
beer party of Germany. The Germans are of course
of the beer persuasion; but many brewers and nearly
all of the brewery workers belong to the Socialist
party, and are earnest and enthusiastic workers for
German domination and beer supremacy wherever
the Teuton may have pitched his tent. A Socialist
meeting without beer would be like nothing so much
as " Hamlet " with both Hamlet and the Ghost left
out.

50o

THE SOBER WORLD

The demonstration at Washington was of a character not likely to pass out of the public mind in the
years to come. It had been widely announced that
from oo00,000 to I50,000 Labor men and advocates
of the return-to-rum principles would be present.
But when the crowd assembled the police estimated
that no more than o0,000 were in attendance. All
the old arguments about freedom and liberty were
revived and in one or two instances attired in new
raiment. Samuel Gompers, the President of the
American Federation, who had rendered fine service
to his Government during the war, in a temperate
and well thought-out address, declared that serious
social and economic consequences would result if the
laboring man was deprived of his liquor. " Honey "
Fitzgerald, in the lower house of Congress, and once
Mayor of Boston, Mass., the city that had the distinction of declining to receive the British Mission,
expressed great confidence in President Wilson, and
stated that he was sure that Chief Executive would
rescind the war measure forbidding beer and light
wine, but that he had no hope for the later permanent measure. He frankly stated that he believed
that the people would defy the law if any attempt
was made to enforce it. State Senator Carney of
Massachusetts denied that the meeting was Bolsheviki. If the meeting was Bolsheviki the assemblage would not be standing on the steps of the
Capitol, he declared. "If we were Bolsheviki we
would go right through the building and get them,"
he stated.
No such meeting was ever before in the history
of the country held at the Capital. It will for all

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING I15
time be given a separate and distinct page in the
annals of America.
After it was over and the shadows began to
deepen above the dome of the beautiful building,
Representative Upshaw of Georgia issued a relatively lengthy statement. The statement concluded
with this cogent paragraph:
"I love the inspiring strains of the 'Star-Spangled Banner,' but the stars lose part of their beauty, and the stripes
a part of their glory, and the 'Star-Spangled Banner' loses
part of its inspiration when these. patriotic emblems and
songs are employed to continue the regime of German
brewers and to encourage the alcoholic debauches of working men everywhere.
"Many statements that I hold from labor leaders over
America prove the truth of the fact that Mr. Gompers in
his present contention does not represent the sober, nativeborn laboring man of America and especially of the South."
While the mass meeting was being held on the
plaza, Samuel Gompers and other Labor leaders appeared before a sub-committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His address to the committee was
made up of the usual platitudes and the oft-repeated
and always astounding argument that in the pursuit
of life, liberty and human happiness it is absolutely
essential for the laboring man to have light wine and
beer. According to statistics of unquestioned authority, only one working man in every one hundred
and nineteen drinks light wine; so it is apparent
that the brewer may have the field practically to himself.
When, however, Mr. Gompers declared that much
of the madness in Russia was due to the inability of
the populace to procure vodka, he naturally placed

I52

THE SOBER WORLD

himself in a very embarrassing position. The United
States in these eventful days may not be overburdened with statesmanship; but it is doubtful
if there is a member of the Senate who has not
contemplated the chaos in that land with infinite
horror and who has not publicly and privately expressed the sentiment that it was a blessing of God
that the people were unable to obtain strong drink
in any form.
Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russias, may have
been a weakling and a ruler of mental impoverishment, but when he passed over into the purples and
golds of the Great Beyond, he carried with him this
satisfaction, that he had rid his people of the
national curse, vodka, handed down to them through
long centuries of feudal government and misrule.
There is no brief for strong drink. The young
lawyer with the ink on his pig-skin still wet can
stand the most experienced barrister on his head,
if he is at all familiar with his subject, and has given
even minor time and study to the world's history.
Mr. Gompers has repeatedly stated that there is
going to be trouble if liquor is not permitted the
Labor man.
Senator Walsh of Montana asked Gompers at the
Committee meeting to cite serious social conditions
that had been caused by the abolishment of drink.
Gompers could not answer. He parried with the
response that there was no place where there was
not drink, a statement that was painfully trivial,
especially for the reason that one of the grave Senators present happened to hail from a state of which
a part is so governed that if one man gives another

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING I53
a drink and the latter accepts the drink, the giver
gets six months in jail and the acceptor must serve
a term of nine months. To the casual observer it
would appear that the law ought to be the other
way around, that the tempter ought to serve a more
severe sentence than the tempted. Not so, however. In that particular state it is argued that under
present conditions a man who gives away a drink
is a pretty big fool, but that the man who takes
one when he does not know where the next one is
coming from ought to catch h-, and they give him
nine months of it.
There is much humor in Texas over the liquor
question now that the people are enjoying the fruits
of sobriety, but the laws are enforced to the letter.
It is easier for a rich man to drink through the eye
of the biblical needle than to get a drink in Galves.
ton, Houston or any other part of Texas.
No one knows these facts better than does Gompers. He is fully cognizant of the truth that in
every state in the Union where liquor has been taken
away from the workingman the conditions have improved tenfold.
Washington correspondents and congressmen all
admitted that the mass meeting on the Capitol plaza
was by no means a representative one. There was
a conspicuous absence of the workers in the great
shipyards, railroad shops and big industries. Labor
organizations rarely represent the real labor sentiment, and the wiseacres all agreed that if there had
been any real heart in the movement there would
have been in attendance at least half a million workingmen from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,

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THE SOBER WORLD

Richmond, and the larger nearby cities. The workingmen who have tasted the fruit of prosperity, who
have glimpsed the prosperity of not only their own
families but those of their brother workingmen, have
no desire to go back to the old rum-soaked, crimeladen town or city. Each man is watching with
deepest interest his little bank account, his wife's
lineless face that used to be so full of care, and
his happy children about him.
No man living knows the horror of drink better
than Gompers. He has seen in the old days, long
before the Great War, when there was absolutely
no restriction on the liquor trade in New York, men
dynamiting elevated trains, burning buildings, destroying property, and committing crime after crime.
Half the time the men were crazed by drink.
Rarely did they win; and public sentiment, that
hated capital and would have been only too glad to
arraign itself on the side of the workingmen but for
such outrages, turned away with disgust. A vast
majority of workingmen are heart and soul in sympathy with the present world movement against the
brewer and drink. As scores of them have said to
the author, the saloon-keeper is their direst enemy.
He will take every cent they have, and when they
have spent their last dollar and lost their jobs and
their families, he will kick them into the street.
The American workingman is the highest type of
skilled labor in the world. He has come to a quick
realization of how he has been humbugged, made a
tool of and then cheated out of nearly all that is
worth while in life by the brewer and the saloonkeeper; and he is not only anxious to see the liquor

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING

I55

dealer go, but he does not want him to stand on the
order of the going.
Soldiers who distinguished themselves in the
Great War appreciate that the next few months,
the months that lead up to January I, I920, and
perhaps for a little while after, mean much to the
future of this country. Their appeals to the workingmen, officials and the women who have been victims of drink are reaching out all over the land.
Col. Dan Morgan Smith, who commanded the
"Battalion of Death," Ist Battalion, 358th Infantry, made a notable address before a great audience in Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass., on May
27, I919. The troubles that Gompers touched upon
came in for much of his attention.
" The move to stop the manufacture of alcoholic beverages is already in the Constitution," Colonel Smith said.
"But the law to prohibit its manufacture has not yet been
enacted. If the brewer is allowed to run Congress, you will
see a fine of $I or less as the punishment for any infractions
of the law. On the other hand, if you allow the brewer to
run the state Legislature, you will see state laws enacted
that will allow the brewers to manufacture beverages that
contain 6 to 8 per cent alcohol. We are not going to allow
the brewer to run his industry in some other country after
he has been stopped here.
" Does this audience know that the brewers were behind
the circulation of the buttons that read: 'No Beer, No
Work'? Do you know that they are the instigators of all
the trouble that has arisen as a result of the circulation?
Are you going to stop the threats of revolution coming from
the brewer?
" The brewers are attempting to bulldoze the public with
threats of revolution. If they are not stopped soon they
will dictate to the ministers, to the law-makers and to all.
This is pure bolshevism, and before we will stand for bolshevism we will fight another war.
"Who ever heard of any one looking for $2,000,000

THE SOBER WORLD

with which to fight a lawsuit? This is what the brewers
are now seeking with which to win their fight. If the brewer
can win, let him, but I have my doubts, as have all others."
The $2,000,000 referred to in Colonel Smith's
address was raised shortly after June I, I9I9. No
secret was made of the slush fund. Brewers openly
boasted of it and declared they would have no difficulty in continuing to do business, in spite of Constitution, war-time prohibition or anything else.
The manner in which much of this money was expended is exceedingly interesting, but does not reflect
any credit on the Americans who continue to misinterpret the definition of the words "liberty" and
"license." The bars, boudoirs, dining-rooms and
banquet halls of German-owned hotels all over the
country were literally plastered with posters of
every description. In many instances the brewery
propaganda was so illiterate and clumsy that it
only excited ridicule. Occasionally something of
an inflammatory character was posted or distributed, and then immediately taken in charge by the
authorities.
The greater part of the Teuton propaganda during the spring and summer of 1919 was concentrated to show that a majority of the American cities
which had been bereft of strong drink and the German life food were going to the demnition bowwows. The drug addict was pictured in no measured terms of horror, and the future of the whole
land was painted in tones of opaque blackness.
So strongly tinged with disaster and calamity was
the song sung by the brewers that a number of
patriotic American newspapers took up the cudgels

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING 157
and instituted surveys of the fields so blackly pictured by the Teuton tricksters. Among these journals was Collier's Weekly. Willis J. Abbot, the
well-known naval historian, was engaged to go over
a wide stretch of country and make investigations.
In a series of several papers Mr. Abbot discusses his
subject most interestingly. In every city which he
visited he found greatly improved conditions because
of the absence of liquor, and his conclusions entirely
bear out the contention of the author,-that the
brewer and all his cohorts must go.
The most significant observation recounted in
Mr. Abbot's articles was that no city that he visited
which has abandoned liquor and crime has the smallest desire to return to the old conditions. Mr. Abbot
says in the first of his articles:
"In most of the Southern States the prohibition existing
prior to the adoption of the amendment to the Federal Constitution was statutory; that is, it was adopted by the legislatures without a direct vote of the people. But in such instances the votes of the representatives from urban districts
were usually cast against such legislation. It is an interesting fact, however, and one which I shall demonstrate later
in these articles, that in almost every instance in which a
city, after a year's experience of prohibition, has had an opportunity to repudiate it, or to mitigate the rigor of the law
by adopting some qualifying amendment, its people have emphatically refused so to do. Thus far there have been few
deviations from this evidence of the satisfaction of big
towns with dry conditions, even though established against
the citizens' will. In such as have had no opportunity to
express themselves at the ballot box, official opinion is unqualified that community sentiment would be vigorously
opposed to any return to old conditions."
It has always been declared that should the Capital of the United States go dry the hotels, boarding

158 THE SOBER WORLD
houses, shops, newspapers (very sad) would all be
ruined and the Capital overnight would become a
desert waste.
Listen to this tale of a boniface as recounted by
Mr. Abbot, oh ye of little faith!
" Directly opposite the long gray colonnade of the Treasury Building a new hotel-the New Washington - has
been erected since war broke out and prohibition befell the
District. Lured by the sound of music, emphatically
'jazzed,' I found myself at midnight in a great basement
dance hall there, larger than any I can recall in New York,
with a dancing floor on which at least two hundred couples
were disporting themselves, and surrounding banks of tables
at which as many more were diligently consuming food and
distinctly 'soft' drinks. It was a Monday-not especially
a festive night-and the proprietor assured me that the
scene was equally lively every night, while on Saturdays the
press exceeded by far the capacity of the hall. The drinks
were unquestionably soft. Their alcoholic potency was as
low as their cost was high, and I learned that I30 per cent
profit was considered normal on these beverages, a fact which
should go far toward making amends for the failure of inventors to produce a soft drink which tempts to a second
libation. The manager of this new hotel had nothing but
applause for the effect of prohibition on his business. He
declared that possible losses on the bars which he had never
opened - for his hotel was established almost coincidentally
with the dry rule-was more than made up by his profits
on the soft-drink and lunch counters which took their place,
while the problems of running an orderly hotel were
greatly simplified by the absence of liquor.
"A curious incident in connection with this hotel is the
fact that the passage of the Sheppard prohibition law nearly
prevented its erection. The owner of the lot on which it
stands had agreed to a long lease and was to take a substantial
stock interest in the company. When the dry law was
enacted he withdrew, claiming that it would make profitable
hotel-keeping impossible. 'It was the best thing in the
world for us,' said the hotel manager. 'We bought the lot,
and have done a tremendous business ever since we opened.

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING 159
I never thought that I would approve prohibition in a town
where I operated a hotel, but I hope never to have to keep
a hotel in a wet town again.'"
No city in the whole country has suffered more
seriously through the liquor traffic than has Boston,
Mass. The center of a great industrial and commercial section, liquor has literally eaten away its
very heart, and vice conditions are as bad as in any
American city. Bodies of the city's best citizens have
struggled for years to right matters, but it has been
next to impossible with the tide of the brewery and
liquor interests against them. Even now there is
alarm over the outcome.
In the early summer of 9 9 the situation was succinctly set forth in an address made by Bishop Lawrence of the Episcopal Church, and quoted in part
in the leaflet of that historic old parish church now
known as St. Paul's Cathedral.
" Timid and conservative people are shaking in their shoes
at the sound of Bolshevism and lawlessness. They insist
that laws must be observed, and that those who disobey or
evade them are dangerous characters. Some of us who are
not Bolshevists will soon have a chance to test that out.
Soon the execution of War Prohibition, and later of Constitutional Prohibition, will begin. The question will then be,
not that of temperance, but of loyalty. Whether, as is the
fact, this country has in recent years spent three times as
much money on alcoholic beverages as on education, or, as is
not the fact, the ratio is the other way, is not the point. Nor
is it a question as to whether we believe in Constitutional
Prohibition or not, or whether our personal liberties are interfered with. The point is, are we going to obey the laws
or not? Are we going consciously, to evade the law, or not?
Are we going to be lawless or loyal? No man who breaks
the law, in order to have a drink, can complain if a brick goes
through his window some riotous evening."

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THE SOBER WORLD

Every time an effort was made in Boston-and
many other cities for that matter âto refute the
statement, that the cities deprived of liquor are not
tumbling ruins, a storm of propaganda from the
brewers has resulted. To make matters worse, " big
business" has been so interwoven with the liquor
interests that it was almost impossible to divorce the
two.
In Boston a little body of men, all men of distinction, banded themselves together and determined to
put the facts on record so the brewers could not
refute them. The Verdict is the title of the periodical that is the official organ of the committee, which comprises: President Lemuel H. Murlin
of Boston University, chairman; Professor John M.
Barker of Boston University, secretary; John L.
Bates, former Governor; George W. Coleman,
president of the Open Forum National Council; and
Henry I. Harriman, former president Boston Chamber of Commerce.
The committee addressed communications to the
governors of twenty-eight States where prohibition
has been in effect more than four months, and the
summaries of their replies unqualifiedly and unreservedly support the movement.
The responses from the governors of some of the
states are of the most interesting and important character. In almost every instance there has been a
great reduction in crime and vice, and Governor
Thomas W. Rickett probably summed up the situation best of all when he said the liquor question was
no longer a debatable one.
What is back of the attitude of Gompers and

AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING 161
some of the Labor leaders remains to be seen in the
coming months of reconstruction. They are certainly not representing American sentiment to the
workingmen, and one cannot help harking back to
Mr. Lincoln's memorable admonition that you can
"fool all the people some of the time, and you can
fool some of the people all the time, but you cannot
fool all the people all the time."

CHAPTER XIV

WOMEN AND ONE WOMAN'S
WONDER WORK
Wx X OMEN have played strong, dramatic
roles in the world's work during the last
few years. Their hard-won right to vote
has met with the most enthusiastic approval in this
country, and it is generally conceded that their
efforts will be of incalculable value to the nation and
its government in the years to come. It was perhaps
for this as well as many other reasons that statesmen, journalists and casual spectators observed with
sad eyes the delegation of women headed by Mrs.
Ethel Rooney of San Francisco, attendant upon the
Labor demonstration at the Capitol building at
Washington.
"How can any woman array herself with the
brewer-the German brewer-and the liquor
evil?" is the question that was often asked. Scientists decree that it sometimes takes as long as a hundred years to remove the nearly always hereditary
taint of liquor from a family of habitual drinkers.
Sometimes it is never removed. The son of the
drunkard comes from his mother's womb with the
most serious handicap that life can entail.
Yet there were women, many women, at the meeting in behalf of the liquor evil. "How could they

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 163
lend their presence to such an occasion?" ask their
sisters. Had they forgotten Edith Cavell, victim
of the beer fiends? Did they not remember the trap
the Teuton beasts with their drink-laden brains set
for Dr. Adams, that wonderful woman of the West?
Lest ye forgetl
The spirit of adventure and the accompanying
romanticism is nearly always to be found in the heart
of the Southerner. And it was some of the best of
the Virginia and Kentucky mountain blood that
joined the schooner trains to the Far West in the
halycon days of the famous "forty-niners." There
was no real excuse for the migration. There was
just as, ood water and just as good land in the
mountain fastnesses of the Alleghanies and the Blue
Ridges; but the call of the wild allured, and then
there was always the chance of discovering a great
hill of gold.
Pressing onward until but a comparatively short
distance from the Pacific, some of these adventurous
pioneers settled in Plumas County, California, way
up in the Northern Sierras, great ranges of plumasclad mountains over which the sun rises in a majesty
of beauty, and goes down in the purples and golds
of the splendor of a glorious nature that is to be
found only in a few countries.
It would be difficult to grow up other than a man
or a woman amid the mountain splendor of that
picturesque country. It is no land for the culture
of weaklings and nondescripts. There is something
in the tang of the air that makes for a fine manhood
and perhaps a finer womanhood, as is about to be

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conclusively shown in these pages. There may not
be quite so much hothouse "Kultur" in Plumas
County as in some other communities, but on the
whole there is an every-day mountain population
that any state in the Union, not excepting the mother
land of Presidents, might well be proud of. This
spectacular section of the United States has not thus
far produced any Chief Executives, but it has done
the next thing, doubtless, -presented to the world
a most useful and courageous woman, as well as the
soldier York, whom Foch declared to be the greatest warrior of the Great War.
Not so many years ago one of the maidens in
the village of Plattsville, the chief settlement of
Plumas County, began to attract attention. Racing through the village lanes and down the mountain
roads, her tawny, sun-tinted hair awry, her serious
face aglow with life and vitality, she made a picture
that caused the old mountaineers to pause and regard her more closely.
"There is something in that girl, she is more
than she looks," remarked the village wiseacre as
she whisked out of the post office and through the
village street like some nymph of the woods. "I
calculate we '11 hear from her some of these days."
Plumas County often harks back to this prophecy.
As the svelt figure of the child began to round into
the form of girlhood, the impression grew; 'Nette
Adams was no ordinary girl. She was in this sequestered sphere for a purpose, the mountaineers
with marked intuition agreed, and their pastoral
wisdom proved to be not far wrong.
About the time the other mountain buds and belles

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 165
were counting their dance cards and straw rides,
'Nette was beginning to take life seriously. The
village beaux passed her cottage in the moonlight
strumming vainly on their guitars and banjos.
There was a light within but the blinds were lowered, and "that wise Adams child" as she was sometimes termed, was poring over her books and successfully preparing herself to perform a duty that
has astounded and dumbfounded the legal profession of this country and has caused this whole world,
especially the German portion of it, to pause and
regard her with amazement. How she burned the
proverbial midnight oil, not even pausing to listen
to the music of the village beaux as it was wafted
in through her study window, became a school
teacher and afterwards in her early youth a partner
in an Oakland law firm, is not part of this chronicle.
How she happened to be an Assistant United States
District Attorney at the beginning of the Great War,
and what she accomplished, however, do belong to
this recital.
One of the best good fortunes that the very
gullible people of the United States have had since
the great conflict began is the fact that the little
slim mountain girl, steeple-chasing past the ordinary
girlhood, became an accomplished school teacher
before she was out of her teens, afterwards studied
and took her degree at law, and at the opportune
moment was to be found in the United States District Attorney's office at San Francisco. For without
Dr. Annette Abbott Adams, or "Portia of the
Plumas" as she is sometimes known, German espionage and surveillance, German arson and mur

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der, and German infamy of every class, kind, and
description, would have continued much longer
throughout the West and in many other sections of
the United States, except perhaps in New York,
where that brilliant and accomplished Virginian,
H. Snowden Marshall, was the United States prosecuting officer.
Mr. Marshall had already secured a number of
convictions of German criminals, and was impeached
by German brewery influences in Congress because
of his prosecution of the Illinois Congressman,
Buchanan. Of course nothing came of the impeachment proceedings except that the American people
were afforded another opportunity to observe and
speculate over German infamy and audacity. Mr.
Marshall was acquitted of all wrongdoing, and the
incident only added to his already fine reputation
for courage and ability, a courage and ability that
need not be dwelt upon, as he happens to be one of
the Virginia clan of Marshalls that began with the
famous Chief Justice of the United States and has
endured successfully ever since.
Because of the laxity of the statutes, the sentence
passed upon the California conspirators was farcical. Here were offenders âone an important government officer of Germany-who dealt in murder
and arson with the freedom and premeditated forethought of an East Side Gangster or a Parisian
Apache, and they are convicted with sentence of two
years in prison, and a minor fine of $Io,ooo imposed. Under German laws and customs the offenders would not have lived twenty-four hours after
the offense was alleged.

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 167
This travesty on punishment to fit the crime in no
wise detracts from the splendid accomplishment
of the " Portia of the Plumas." It was no fault of
her splendid ability and finished prosecution that
the criminals were not appropriately punished. No
woman since Jeanne d'Arc has performed a more
courageous duty to her country. Her great accomplishment has put other national and state prosecutors throughout the United States on the qui vive
and materially added to their zeal, for after a
woman, forsooth, had convicted Bopp et al. it would
be extremely humiliating for the man prosecutor to
fail; and there was hardly a state in the North, East
or West that did not have cases of the same character, if not of the same magnitude, on the calendar.
The Teuton offenses against the government were
almost incalculable. There is hardly a locality, however remote, to which the German evil did not
penetrate. In February, 1917, asking for more
severe legislation, Senator Overman made the statement in a brief address to the Senate that there were
one hundred thousand spies in the United States.
How Dr. Adams, the Department of Justice officials, the Secret Service agents, and every penny-aliner, familiar with the subject, must have smiled
at that statement, knowing full well that a million
would have been very much nearer the number and
in all probability a conservative estimate I Fires in
navy yards, machinery tampered with, untoward accidents of almost every description became so numerous that they rarely excited newspaper comment
unless very serious.
"We are not worrying about Germany; it is the

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Germans in the crew," said a young naval officer
to the author after his ship had, on three occasions,
been forced to return to port on account of "accidents." Of the several million Germans in the
United States every seventh one is still so thoroughly imbued with " Kultur," beer, and the Teuton
rule idea that there is not a crime in the calendar
which he will not help on, or actually commit, provided the act can be committed without fear of detection. If this fact were not conclusively proved
to the Secret Service and other interested government officials, they assert, there would have been
mass meetings and other protests of all descriptions
from the so-called German Americans about the
countless crimes against the people of the United
States.
It is significantly noteworthy that there has not
been a material protest of any note because of the
crimes of their fellow countrymen in the United
States, from the German-Americans or the beer
nabobs, in any direction before or since the Great
War ended-if ended it has.
Early in the year I916, when it became known
that many Germans were being sent to the United
States and Mexico on "missions for the government," several of the leading papers in Berlin protested, one with the statement that there were plenty
of Germans in this country to do the Kaiser's bidding. Subsequent events have proved the force of
this argument. A mere handful of foreign agents
have committed some outrages. The major part of
the crimes have been committed by Germans already
in this country and in many instances naturalized

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 169
citizens. The attempts to assassinate United States
Attorney-General Palmer and other officials bear all
the ear-marks of many like crimes during the Great
War.
Americans are forgetting the attitude of the
German-Americans and the German-language press
during the trying days that followed the Lusitania
tragedy, or they never would have permitted the
Labor demonstration on the Capitol grounds in behalf of the German brewers. And the German
brewery, no matter where it is located, is part and
parcel of the German Government.
The hourly expressed joy over the murder of the
innocents in the submarine warfare, at this late day
in every Teuton place of assembly throughout the
United States, is evidence of what might happen in
the event of a return of the beer power to the political life of this country.
It will be years before historians will be able to
make the magnitude of German infamy and crime
in the United States fully understood.
Many outrages Dr. Adams was able to inform
herself of before entering upon the prosecution of
the California conspirators. It was known to her
and many other officials of the United States government that by every subterranean means within its
power, food riots (the riots were not instituted until
several months after the trial of the conspirators
in San Francisco, but that they had been arranged
for and were anticipated by the agents of the Secret
Service was clearly illustrated by subsequent events),
the burning of ships and munition plants, "peace
meetings," propaganda of every insidious character

170

THE SOBER WORLD

within the range of the diseased brains of the Teutons, were being prompted and engineered through
practically every important German consulate in the
United States and Mexico. Detection in many cases
was simple, arrest and allegation simpler. The
grave difficulty in the early days of the war was the
laxity of the national laws on the statute books for
conviction in such cases; and the maximum sentence
for the grave offenses was but little short of ludicrous. In the minds of many Americans the laws
for the protection of property and human life are
totally inadequate. The Germans in this country
involved in the perpetration of the countless perfidies and crimes were well informed of the lax laws,
and the spies and confederates sent here from the
other side were also soon equally well informed.
It was a situation that government officials regarded
shamefacedly, while forced to permit the Teuton
conspirators great latitude and license. Until the
Anti-Espionage bill was passed in the Senate there
has been practically nothing done in the past forty
years to protect a defenseless and imperilled America against the spy system and the Germanic agents
and brewery potentates generally.
Just how defenseless and endangered the United
States was when the war began can be best learned
by two recent instructive and authoritative works,
"Defenceless America" by Hudson Maxim, and
"Imperilled America" by J. Cal O'Laughlin, a
well-known journalist.
The Department of Justice and the State Department have in their possession records of direct destruction to American property, and of murder of

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 171
American citizens at home and abroad, on sea and
on land, that would stagger humanity if it were not
still hurtful to the public weal to publish the record.
Of course these startling figures will eventually be
blazoned broadcast, and then, and then only, will
the gigantic scope of Teuton "frightfulness" be
brought home to the American people. In the
United States, in Mexico and on the high seas, the
number will run well up into the thousands. A
government expert who has closely followed the
situation is authority for the statement that a billion
dollars in money is a low estimate of direct injury.
How much indirect harm has been done by the
loyal (?) hordes of German-Americans in the United
States and their confederates from over the water is
beyond estimation.
Inroads have been made upon many branches of
industry; in fact, the brewery and the saloon interest
is perhaps the only "business" that has been left
free from intrusion for reasons that even to laymen
are entirely obvious. It was explicitly agreed by all
the nations at The Hague that all countries should
have the right to manufacture munitions of warfare.
Germany willingly entered into this agreement. Yet
despite this fact the following American munition
factories were destroyed with an absolute disregard
for human life. Approximately they mean losses
to capitalists in the United States of considerably
more than $o50,000,000o -besides the wanton sacrifice of many human beings.
In I9I4 (September) - The Wright Chemical Works,
Elizabeth, N. J., damaged by gun cotton. Three
killed.

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In I915 (April) -Dupont Power Co., Haskell, N. J.
Five killed.
(April) -Equitable Power Company plant,
Alton, Ill. Five killed.
(May) -E. I. Du Pont Co., Carney's Point,
N. J. Powder mill blows up. Six injured.
Stillhouse destroyed, Du Pont Works. Five
injured.
(May) -Elmer &amp; Amend factory in East
Nineteenth St., New York, chemicals explode.
Two badly injured.
(April) - Explosion of powder caps at railroad
station, Pompton Lake, N. J. Ordered investigated by Mayor.
(June) - Aetna Chemical Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.
One dead and ten burned.
(May) - Anderson Chemical Co., Wallington,
N. J. Gun cotton explosion. Two dead.
(August) -American Powder Co., Acton,
Mass. Plant crippled.
(August) -Arsenal explosion, Frankfort, Pa.
Three killed.
(July) -Du Pont Powder Mill, Haskell,
N. J. Steam pipe bursts. Four scalded.
(September) - Smith &amp; Lenhart plant, New
York. Benzol and wax explodes. Two injured.
(September) -Fireworks factory, North Bergen, N. J., wrecked. Two dead.
(August) - Frankfort Arsenal, Philadelphia.
Mysterious explosion of time fuses. Three
killed.
(September) -Train carrying 7,000 pounds of
dynamite wrecked at Pinole, Cal. Explosion
kills three.
(September) -Westinghouse Electric &amp; Manufacturing Co., Pittsburgh. Shells explode, killing two.
(July) - Sement Solvay Company, Solvay,
N. Y.. Benzol plant destroyed.
(August) - Du Pont Powder Company, Wilmington, Del. Explosion. Two killed.
(November) - Du Pont Power Co., Carney's
Point, N. J. One killed and sixteen injured.

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 173
(December) -New Fires break out at this
plant.
(October) -Aetna Explosives Co., Emporium,
Pa. Four killed.
(December) - Corcar Chemical Co., New Rochelle, N. J. Six injured.
(October) -Metallic Cap Works, Pompton
Lakes, N. J. Wrecked.
(December) - Fuse plant of Bethlehem Steel
Co., Redington, Pa. One killed and fifteen
injured.
(November) -Du Pont Power Co., Rising
Sun, Del. Plant destroyed.
(December) -Du Pont Powder Co., Wilmington, Del. Thirty-one killed.
In I916 (February) -Union Metallic Cartridge Co.,
Bridgeport, Ct. Two injured.
(January) -Du Pont Power Co., Carney's
Point, N. J. Five killed.
(January) -Du Pont solvent recovery building blows up. Two injured.
(January) - Powder flare in Du Pont works
injures seven.
(March)- Du Pont mixing house partly destroyed.
(January) - Du Pont Powder Co., Gibbstown,
N. J. Five injured.
(March) - Du Pont filtering house blown up.
(February) - Bethlehem projectile plant, Newcastle, Del. Destroyed.
(January) -Du Pont Powder Company,
Newhall, Me. Press house damaged.
(March) -Niagara Electric Company, Niagara Falls, plant destroyed. One killed, several
injured.
(January) -Du Pont plant, Pompton, N. J.
Cap explosion. One killed.
(January Io)-Du Pont Power Plant, Wilmington, Del. Two explosions.
(January 13) -Fifth explosion at this plant.
(February) - New England Chemical Co.,
Woburn, Mass. T. N. T. plant blown up.

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(April) -Du Pont plant, Bluefields, W. Va.
Wrecked. Three killed.
(May) -Du Pont Power Co. plant, Gibbstown, N. J. Destroyed. Fourteen killed.
(May) -Atlas Powder Co., Landing, N. J.
Mixing plant destroyed. Five killed and fifteen
injured.
(June) - Du Pont Power plant, Wayne, N. J.
Destroyed. One killed. Eighteen injured.
Munition trains blow up in Lehigh Valley
R. R. yards at Black Tom Island, N. J. Seven
killed. Damage to Black Tom and nearby
cities, including New York, ran into the millions.
In 1917 Canadian Car &amp; Foundry Co. munition plant
destroyed by fire and explosions.
(This list is not official. It was gathered at random by the
author and there are perhaps many other plants to be added.
The Department of Justice has declined to make public the
full records.)
Quite a tidy little list, is it not, of that most
heinous of all commercial crimes-arson!
But how few the arrests in any of the cases! It
is one phase of crime where human ingenuity and
detective knowledge are sadly at sea. It would
have taken a small army to guard any one or two
of those plants against the crime of the fiend who
attacks while the world sleeps and who cares not
how many innocent victims are destroyed.
Anent the attempts to assassinate the AttorneyGeneral of the United States and other important
officials of the Federal government in June, 1919,
months after it was supposed that German infamy
in the United States had been stamped out, former
President Taft had this to say in the New York
Herald of June 14, 1919:
"Three bomb attacks upon American society suggest comment on this method of spreading propaganda among a free,

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 175
intelligent and courageous people. It argues on the part of
the participants and instigators as gross a misunderstanding
of the psychology of American citizenship as if it were purely
Prussian in its source. Of course it is not so except in the
sense that pro-German dynamite activities in this country
before and after we entered the war perhaps suggested methods and devices, and except that there has been developed a
curious affinity between German autocratic mentality and
that of the Bolsheviki and anarchists."
To those who do not care to trouble to analyze
Mr. Taft's satirical subtlety, it may be stated that
he is filing an unanswerable brief. It is no longer
necessary to destroy munition factories. The wars
of the nations are over for the moment. But the
beer war has just begun. As Mr. Taft further says,
"Such plots will out. The criminals will be caught
and will furnish another opportunity to the softheaded to plead for leniency."
It is after all the methods of warfare that Germany has employed that has put her beyond the
pale of human consideration or sympathy-the
murder of women and children, rape, arson, the
sinking of relief ships, and every form of the most
reprehensible crime known to human mind or ingenuity-that appals a stricken world.
From the first day of the war up to the present
moment all methods of warfare and decency have
been set aside. When battles were won it has always been by the overpowering strength of the great
military machine that the Kaiser and his Prussian
lieutenants had built. Any one of the Great Powers,
so bent, might have accomplished the same thing
with infinitely more success. All the romance of
warfare was missing. Only when great masses of

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men, poisonous gases, explosive bullets and every
known form of barbarism were employed was victory attained; and like all success reached by foul
means it was only temporary, and doomed in the
end to the most titanic failure in the annals of world
wars.
And when the great masses of troops, the poisonous gases, the dum dum bullets and all the anarchistic methods of warfare failed to strike terror to the
heart of the civilized world-then the ruthless infamy of the assassin. The contrasts the world's
cataclysm has presented can never be accurately
glimpsed.
How different with England, with all the Entente
in fact! The difference is best illustrated by the
story told in every barracks and drawing room, of
the German prisoner who in the exhilaration of his
gratitude for the kind treatment he had received in
an English prison, asked how he might show it, and
was told he might sing the Hymn of Hate. Could
response be fraught with more telling satire? Had
the English subaltern been Thackeray himself he
could not have conceived a keener irony.
Dr. Adams knew all of these things. She had full
knowledge of the law and the facts when she undertook the stern task that lay before her. She was
told by her superior that she was put in charge of
the case because she could "think on her feet."
What other reasons lay back of assigning a woman
to the prosecution of a gang of the most infamous
criminals that ever infested this or any other land,
with the possible exception of another German,one Becker and his partners in crime in New York,

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 177
-is a matter best known to the Department of
Justice. On the surface, being " able to think standing on her feet" does not seem to be a reason that
will suffice. It matters not, however. It was a lucky
appointment, and Dr. Adams' chief must be credited
with good judgment. There may have been other
reasons of importance.
Bopp, the star offender in the crimes alleged, was
dean of Consul Generals in the United States. Von
Bernstorff, the chief conspirator and personally appointed star assassin of the then German Emperor,
was not an agent to overlook a possible contingency.
He played his hand so openly for months that despite the "idiotic Americans" he had reason to anticipate that in the end he would be summarily
dismissed. Needs be he must have a chief and
assistant assassin. Bopp and several highly paid
underlings were selected for the work. They had
in charge a string of conspiracies that extended
across the whole American continent, involving the
blowing up of the Welland Canal, the destruction
of scores of munition factories, the wrecking of
numerous railroads, bridges, and a wholesale plan
and scheme of murder and assassination unprecedented in world history. The details widely reported at the time must be fresh in the minds of all
thoughtful Americans.
San Francisco is far removed from the beaten
tracks of "peace emissaries," spies, incendiaries,
et al. It is distant from the Capital, the main bodies
of Secret Service agents, and not within easy hearing distance of the statesmen of the United States.
It was deemed a finer field base for the operations

178

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of destruction than New York. So there the stage
was set. Just how the play was enacted and the
game of would-be murder and viciousness played
out, is an unprecedented tale of horror.
One of the defendants had married into a wealthy
and influential American family of San Francisco.
It has been long one of the Pan-German customs.
For many years the attaches of the German embassy
have been single men when they came, the husband
of some American girl of wealth and position when
they departed. This has made America doubly the
camping ground of Pan-German fanatics.
Boy-Ed was about to take unto himself an American bride when he was detected in his various iniquities and ordered out of the country.
The hearts of the women of the type of " Portia
of the Plumas" go out in sorrow and sympathy to
those girl victims â and there are many of them â
of Pan-Germanism, who know so little of European
life that they mistake the tawdry tinsel of the palace
of "Him of the Withered Arm" for the regally
royal courts of Europe. And the difference is the
difference between the farm house of the German
on his farm in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and his
barn. The barn is always painted and well kept, but
the home is left to the last in the arrangements and
is often a sorry spectacle.
Yet woman's place in Germany is in the home,
and never by any trick of circumstance in a court
room. One million women were trained in and
around Berlin for the army; but that was necessary
and another round in the ladder of efficiency and
"Kultur." Some of them, it will be recalled, ren

ONE WOMAN'S WONDER WORK 179
dered service in the fields, and in business positions
left by men.
The fact that one of the defendants had married
into the elite of the metropolis of the Golden Gate
drew the votaries of the inner shrine to the temple
of justice, which is doubtless well. For women in
Germany, the thoughts and ideals of women elsewhere the world over is verboten. Suffrage has
never been seriously considered. Women are meant
to breed victims for the military machine. When
they fail, they are scorned; for such work is their
only task, their only excuse for being, from the point
of view of the Germany efficiency "Kultur"
machine.
So when "Portia of the Plumas" arose to
perform the task of the immortalized heroine of
Shakespeare, she faced a throng of bedecked and
befrocked men and women who represented the
most advanced types of the society of the Golden
Gate. And the defendants could not openly leer or
sneer as the Kaiser had done in his answers to the
notes of the President of the United States, but had
to conserve a certain dignity of mien. The conviction at the hands of a woman served to heap upon
them a sense of humiliation and mortification which
they made no effort to conceal. It will always stand
out and hold for itself a separate page in the record
of American achievement. You may paint the picture as you please of these human beasts of prey
convicted by a woman, a woman but yesterday a
slip of a girl, racing out of the far Sierras and down
the mountain side to do and dare for the land she
loved. Note again the picture when this modem

I80 THE SOBER WORLD
Portia had finished with them, as they wended their
way out of the court room, granting her the greatest
of all plaudits, the silence d'estime!
Women of the type of Dr. Adams may be counted
on in the rebuilding of the world, the new and sober
world. And it is that type of woman that the
German-American fears more than half a hundred
American politicians.
(The author has refrained from entering into the details
of the trial, which was a lengthy one and attracted widespread attention at the time. Despite Dr. Adams' brilliant
prosecution, Bopp was released on bail. The other culprits
received short sentences. The United States has for some
time past sadly needed something similar to the Tower of
London, it is very generally conceded.)

CHAPTER XV

INTERPRETATIONS OF THE LIQUOR
LAWS
S the summer days of I919 grew golden and
mellowed toward the harvest time, liquor,
red liquor, continued to be the epic of the
crowded hour. An American President sat at the
Peace Table of the Great Nations on foreign soil,
and strenuously fought to create an enduring pact.
Clemenceau, Lloyd-George, Venizuelos, Balfour and
the great world leaders struggled with him in that
endeavor, and in the added effort to warp into semblance of reality that most mystical of all altruistic
world dreams, a League of Nations.
Germany snarled and growled in the background,
registering demands for better terms in one breath,
and crying aloud for mercy like the fatally wounded
beast she was in the next. The world, with the memories of the murdered nations in heart and mind,
looked pitilessly on with thumbs down turned like
the rioters of Old Rome. A daring aviator crossed
the ocean without touching land or water, illustrating with clearness and cleverness that man had at
last mastered the air.
All these and many other contemporaneous
events occupied the public mind in a world once
again partly at peace, spectacular in its progress,

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vivid and intense in its multi-colored tints of kaleidoscopic human life.
But many studious and analytical Americans at
home and abroad watched with somewhat listless
eyes the trend of European events. The chaos of
Continental Europe might right itself in the natural
order. They had done their full duty in eleemosynary and philanthropic work amid the multiplicities
of suffering peoples. Those works were ostensibly
well-nigh concluded; and now to hold their attention
there were grave forces making for the direst evil
here in the United States, in Mexico and all through
Latin-America.
In no wise daunted, the Teuton brewer continued
to flaunt his insolent intent in the faces of the
American people. Banking on the well-known and
frequently avowed friendship of Carranza, the Mexican "First Chief" for Germany and all things
German, a few of the American brew-masters more
prudent and far-seeing than their fellows moved
their plants to the land of the Aztecs. Others more
daring, relying on the characteristics of some of the
"idiotic Americans," instituted a renewal of German propaganda throughout the United States that
for audacity and cardinal impudence promised well
for their plans. In the earlier spring some small
effort to conserve a subtlety of method was maintained. As the days passed, however, further and
further out into the open ventured the Teuton
agents. In every public place where it was possible
to display them, placard after placard, crude posters
and colourful, one, two, three, four and even eight
sheet printings,-the style employed by the circus

THE LIQUOR LAWS

i83

and the ambitious theatrical entertainment, -were
displayed. It was difficult to journey any distance
along city street or country lane without being confronted in one way or another with the flamboyant
propaganda. In New York, Chicago, Boston and
Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Pacific Coast the
efforts of the Teuton propagandists were peculiarly
and particularly conspicuous.
In the early days the placards usually only asked
a question: "Do you propose to have your liberty
and freedom trespassed upon?" et cetera, et cetera.
Later the Teutons employed more drastic terms.
And the cosmopolitan American, having envisaged
and followed the same efforts from the early days
of the World War in Greece, all through the Balkans, in Spain, in Italy, in Mexico, in Russia and
thence to the United States, asked himself wonderingly how long would the Federal authorities allow
such measures to continue. Useless question!
At Washington every move that was being made
in every section of the United States was being
glimpsed by lynx-eyed agents of the Department of
Justice and the Secret Service. It might be difficult
to brand the brow of the assassin who plied his nefarious trade in the black hours, but the remembrance of Dernburg, Bopp, Von Papen, Boy-Ed,
Von Bernstorff still keenly alive it was not at all
difficult to offset this propaganda.
The efficiency of this propaganda was nevertheless noticeably effective as it progressed. Brewers
in various parts of the country announced their frank
and open intentions of continuing to do business, law
or no law. Their tools, and in countless instances

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their agents, the saloon-keepers, vied with them in
threats and open plans to do business, law or no law.
Frequently not content with making these threats
openly the saloon-keepers put up signs frankly stating their attitude.
Occasionally a newspaper gave widespread publicity to these astounding moves on the beer chessboard. On June 30 the Boston Globe under
conspicuous headlines published the following in its
news columns:
"One Boston saloon keeper has made public his decision
to keep open July i, regardless of the War-time Prohibition
law. He intends to go on selling - not just 23/4 per cent
beer or light wines, but any brand of liquid refreshments,
his customers care to order, not only on July I, but after that
date.
" George F. Monahan, ex-State Senator from Charlestown,
is the man who has announced this uncompromising position,
a large sign outside each side of the door of his barroom at
20 Marshall Street stating in words that are legible across
the street, 'Will keep open July I, 1919.'
" The signs are flanked by others, one entitled, 'Look and
Think,' which depicts a death's head intruding upon an immaculate bar, with a bottle labelled 'dope' in his outstretched hand, while an indignant bartender and several
' eminently respectable' customers cry, 'Put him out.'"
Appended to the article was an interview with the
saloon-keeper, stating among other things that the
war-time liquor measure was only a "political
move."
Throughout the country similar articles appeared
in several newspapers that were friendly to the
liquor interests. And the thoughtful observer
turned back the pages of his history to the Paris
Commune, when the drink-poisoned mobs made the
streets run red with blood, to the later days when

THE LIQUOR LAWS

I85

the absinthe-soaked boulevardiers threw the sacred
vessels of the churches into the same streets and
drove innumerable priests to their death, and to the
yet later period when the Teuton beer brutes raped
and murdered tender Sisters of Mercy and flung
their butchered bodies to the starving dogs in the
alleyways of Louvain!
Meanwhile Elihu Root, once United States Senator, who at no distant day had the honor of holding
a portfolio in the Cabinet of a President of the
United States as the leading counsel for the United
States Brewers' Association, was about his business in the principal city of the United States. A
New York judge had already rendered a decision
that 2.75 per cent beer was legal, despite the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment,-an amendment,
it will be recalled, that is writ in the following comprehensive and explicit terms:
"Section I. After one year from the ratification of this
article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the transportation thereof from the United States and all territory
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, for beverage purposes, is
hereby prohibited.
" Section 2. The Congress and several states have the concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
" Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall
have been ratified as amendment to the constitution by the
Legislatures of the several states, as provided in the constitution, within seven years of the date of submission thereof
to the states by Congress."
Scores of authorities, as stated and quoted in a
previous chapter, had unanimously agreed that 2.75
per cent beer was intoxicating, and every state in the
Union except three had agreed to abide by the terms

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of the Amendment and in nearly every instance had
overwhelmingly voted its ratification. Nevertheless, Mr. Root, as counsel for the United States
Brewers' Association, which was behind the test case
made by the Jacob Hoffman Brewing Company of
New York, declared that a business heretofore considered lawful, and protected by the laws of the
state and the United States was threatened with
destruction. Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth
of property was involved, and if the law was enforced as threatened by the United States AttorneyGeneral, irreparable injury would be done before
the possibility of a final hearing in the courts. There
were two clouds that hung over this action, declared
Root. "One is the penalty prescribed under the act
of November 21, I918, which will break up and
put an end to the brewing business, and the other,
the complication arising from the insubordination
of the brewery business to the internal revenue law.
The brewers are bound hand and foot under the
law, even though they are engaged in the manufacture of 2.75 per cent beer. They are not alone
subject to prosecution under the 'war-time measure,'
but to concerted prosecution under the internal revenue law."
That was the purpose of the law, to bind the
brewers hands and feet; and bound they are
The hand of Mr. Root seemed to have lost its
fine Italian cunning,-a cunning that for a time
made him the premier of the corporation lawyers
of this country, - for he left an open door through
which Assistant Attorney-General Fitts gracefully
walked with the following comment to the court:

THE LIQUOR LAWS

i87

"A great deal has been said here of the enormous size of
the brewing industry and the hundreds of millions of dollars
involved. Is that any golden calf to fall down before and
worship? The question is, Can any litigants come into a
United States court of equity a day in advance, professing
wealth and with learned counsel, and say: 'There is a criminal law I desire to offend against; I have got it in my wicked
heart to do so; I want the equity court of the United States
by solemn decree to advise me and I will go ahead and violate the law.' Such a right has never been granted to any
litigant. If it were, what would become of our institutions?
"This bill was passed as a war measure, to preserve the
man-power of the nation. Now that our men have gone to
the front we are in duty bound to sustain them until the last
man is back. This law runs, not only until peace is declared,
but until the President by solemn proclamation shall declare
that demobilization is complete."
Lo, the poor brewer I How deep the grief of the
American people for his woe and helplessness!
Never has the former Senator and ex-member of the
Cabinet appeared to greater advantage than he did
when he made his heartfelt appeal for that damaged, seriously injured and grief-stricken individual,
the Teuton brew-master.
Cruel Mr. Fitts to attempt to tear asunder the
heartstrings of that great German-American institution, the brewery. The other American institutions that have been razed to the ground by beer, -
bought politicians and ward heelers, the human lives
that have been laid in waste, the whole superstructure of national life that had been undermined by
the institution of the brewery, -was, of course, not
a matter of any great moment. With such idle,
summer fancies, the great champion of the brewery
interest was not concerned. What is to become of
the brewery, that potent, helpful and all-important

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rock in the foundation of the national life of the
land?
That is the question, oh ye Americans! Post
haste to the rescue lest the poor, downtrodden, begrieved brewer fall fainting by the wayside!
The author, it will be recalled, has already had
the temerity to suggest the milk industry for His
Majesty, the brewer. It is conceded that it is a
far cry from the brewery to the dairy, and the
brewer may at first go far afield in the attempted
rejuvenation of industry. The toil of the brewer
and the art of the milkman are not akin. It was
simply a chance suggestion with the desire to be
helpful. No conscientious American could feel
other than sympathetic under the circumstances.
The contention of Mr. Root and other friends of
the American tribe of Teuton brewers is that there
is no possible or practical occupation for the brewer
but the brewing of beer. The brewer, it appears, is
born to the purple; he must perforce from the customs and traditions of the Fatherland do nought but
brew his native slow poison. It does not seem
to be a point well taken. "Kultur" might utilize occasionally some other vocation, and it is
plainly the duty of all Americans to hasten to the
rescue.
Anent Mr. Root's sad word-picture, varied and
perhaps useful suggestions have already been made.
Numerous writers on humanitarian and sociological problems are employing their spare time in attempts to secure absolutely sanitary, hygienic and
wholesome vocations for the sad brewer who has
lost his treasured industry. James H. Collins, a

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189

writer in the Saturday Evening Post, had the following pertinent suggestion to make:
" When a long dry spell settled down upon a certain Eastern city something over a year ago it had three prosperous
breweries. That city had been drinking about 300,000 barrels
of beer yearly, worth $2,oo,ooo0 wholesale, including revenue
tax, and retailed for about $3,300,000. This represented
slightly under a barrel of beer per capita. To-day this city
is eating 3,000,000 gallons of ice cream yearly, worth wholesale about $3,600,000, and retailing for $4,200,000. The
population of the city has grown during the dry spell, but it
is estimated that where about eight-tenths of a barrel of beer
per capita was drunk yearly, now the per capita consumption
of ice cream amounts to about eight gallons. One of the
breweries had been making 65,ooo barrels of beer yearly,
which retailed for a little more than ten dollars a barrel, and
brought about six dollars a barrel to the brewery, including
tax.
" To-day this brewery is turning out 800,000 gallons of ice
cream yearly, retailing at about $I.50, and bringing the converted brewery, roundly, $,000,000o. That is to say, there
has been an increase in the value of its products of fully 150
per cent -an achievement with some very interesting business aspects.
" Ice-cream making calls for more workers in its processes.
A brewery being a wholesale establishment operates with a
comparatively small office force. An ice-cream plant sells to
a very wide range of customers - soda fountains, restaurants,
cubs, hotels, organizations such as churches, with a large
home trade. Therefore the office force is increased by workers who keep books, make out bills, and so forth. To
make 65,000 barrels of beer yearly you need approximately
$I30,000 worth of malt, hops, corn and other ingredientstwo dollars a barrel. To make 800,000 gallons of ice cream
in the same plant you need about $400,000 worth of cream,
milk, milk powder and other ingredients. The materials required to make a gallon of ice cream cost about one-quarter
as much as the ingredients for a barrel of beer, but people
in territory where alcoholic drinks cannot be secured turn to
ice cream and other sweets, and there is an interesting increase in business. Both beer and ice-cream ingredients come
largely from the farm. But the transformation from beer to

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ice cream switches production from field crops, like barley
and hops, to the old cow. You must have the old cow for
balanced agriculture, so that is a decided benefit, a gain in soil
fertility and all-the-year-round employment on farms, with a
reduction of soil robbing and speculative risks incident to
single cropping.
" The old cow also plays a fascinating technical part in the
conversion of a brewery to ice-cream making."
Milk and ice cream! Two valuable contributions
to the brewery decalogue, it is to be hoped. There
should be more forthcoming at an early day, for the
brewer is about to make his exit cringingly, Mr.
Root to the contrary notwithstanding.
The average workingman to-day throughout the
United States spends of his income, not immediately
applied for household and other necessities, from
20 to 35 per cent in drink. The percentage varies
largely according to locality, the expenditure of the
workingman in the large city being much larger than
that of the laboring man in the pastoral community
where the corner saloon is not a constant temptation
by day and night.
Mr. Root did not cite these or many other interesting facts. He did not perhaps deem them relevant
or pertinent to his appeal that the brewer and his
interests might be safeguarded as a valuable and
important national institution. Neither did the
former Senator from New York deem it worth
while to call the attention of the court to the fact
that despite many recent removals, sales, etc., there
are in the United States considerably more than a
thousand brewery institutions which employ from
seventy thousand to a hundred thousand men, and
which are able year in and year out to pay more

THE LIQUOR LAWS

I9I

than a hundred million dollars of revenue tax without apparently being forced to undergo any serious
hardship.
Neither did Mr. Root deem it worth while to
divert the interest of the American people to the
astonishing fact that the brewing "interests" control, and in many instances operate, more than fifteen thousand saloons in the United States which
employ an additional ninety thousand men. Again,
Mr. Root was reluctant to cite the fact that the
brewery "interest" has never believed in putting
all of its pigs in one bag, and that it is vitally interested in many other American commercial enterprises besides beer, and that they range from buying legislatures to building skyscrapers. So many
American cities are so entirely brewery cities that
it has been found necessary to divert the brewery
capital in other directions.
The brew-master is almost as great a master of
publicity as he is of propaganda, as is illustrated
by the fact that he created one brand of beer that
has made at least one American city, Milwaukee,
famous.
Mr. Root, as the great friend and counsel of the
United States Brewers' Association (by what authority such an organization is permitted to use the
prefix "United States" is not apparent), knowing
full well that he had the great body of intelligent
and patriotic Americans arrayed unswervingly
against him, dwelt assiduously upon the idle brewery
properties, and worse yet, the idle workingmen.
It may have been mere coincidence, but just about
the time that Mr. Root was drawing his picture of

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the idle brewery men and their plants, W. Otis Robinson, director of the Vocational Training Division
of the Industrial Accident Board of the State of
Massachusetts, concluded an exhaustive study of the
labor situation in the United States. His deductions plainly indicated that there is not a large surplus of labor in the country, and that within five or
six months there will be a deficit of from two million to five million. With the breweries running
full time as ice cream, milk and candy plants, and
the bartenders employed as coal heavers, longshoremen, bridge workers, et cetera, Mr. Root's many
anxieties seem to be unfounded.
The interpretation of the liquor laws, both National and State, it must be admitted, is somewhat
confusing.
With the midsummer, a titanic struggle in Congress to define a strict interpretation of the constitutional amendment is sure to be precipitated. Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas fathered the measure
that seemed to meet with most approval. It literally and absolutely disbarred all alcoholic liquors
and compounds and left brewer and distiller of light
wine or beer, to say nothing of stronger drink, absolutely with no alternative. Three other measures
introduced in the Senate and referred to the Judiciary Committee agreed in their definition that no
liquor more than one-half of one per cent could
be counted legal. Months of Congressional debate
may be required to determine the issue; but the fact
remains standing out clearly and concisely that there
will be no more beer or strong drink in the United
States after January I6, I920.

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I93

Ad interim many changes might be necessary, it
was conceded by members of Congress, before a
final and satisfactory definition was reached. Just
decree for the use of wine for sacramental purposes
is, of course, a foregone conclusion. Unscrupulous
politicians and a few England-hating Catholic priests
vainly attempted to make capital of that fact, without, of course, any just cause. A vast majority of
self-respecting American Catholics all over the
United States were open in their denunciation of
the brewer and earnest advocates for a strictly temperate nation.
After the decision of the Supreme Court which
cannot be reached before the late fall of 1919 the
work of framing laws for the proper interpretation
of the constitutional amendment will have to be
taken up by the states themselves. Half the United
States was already liquorless with a wide divergence
of laws. Twenty-one states already had "no
liquor" laws. Connecticut, Rhode Island and New
Jersey were the only three states in the United
States which had not ratified the constitutional
amendment. Six states prohibited alcohol in any
form for beverage purposes.
This is the status of the States:
States prohibiting drink by constitutional amendmentArizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wyoming (effective January, I920).
States prohibiting drink by Statewide legislation -Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa,
Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington.
States in part permitting liquor, that is, under local option

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and without Statewide no-liquor laws âCalifornia, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin.
No-liquor States which have fixed one-half of I per cent
of alcohol as the standard of an "intoxicating beverage "Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, New Hampshire,
Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming. Illinois, Missouri,
Minnesota and Wyoming have taken this action in preparation for the Eighteenth Federal Amendment, and Maine has
passed a law that its standard shall comply with what is
adopted by the Federal amendment.
State which has fixed a standard of 4 per cent of alcoholRhode Island, by a recent act.
State which has fixed 3 per cent of alcohol as the standard
- Massachusetts in the case of cider at wholesale under certain conditions.
State which has fixed 2 per cent of alcohol as the standard
-Montana prohibits all distilled malt and vinous liquors
and fixes a standard of 2 per cent for "liquor or liquid of
any kind or description... which contains as much as 2
per cent of alcohol."
States which have fixed I per cent of alcohol as the standard-Vermont; Massachusetts, except for cider.
States which have not defined "intoxicating" on the basis
of percentage of alcoholic content, but prohibit all distilled
malt and vinous liquors - Arizona, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New
York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin.
No-Liquor States which have laws prohibiting all "alcoholic" liquors for beverage purposes-Alabama, Arkansas,
Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington.
Liquor advocates have called for referendum on action of
Ohio Legislature.
In I916 the total amount of beer and spirits
consumed by the people of the United States per
capita amounted to nineteen and four-tenths gallons. Fifty years ago the amount of liquid refresh

THE LIQUOR LAWS

I95

ment necessary to satisfy the appetite of the average
American was less than one-fourth that amount.
Needless to say in recent years more than two-thirds
of the drink consumed was beer.
So much for the march of Progress along one
road! And the endless trails that have been blazed
to every known crime and vice! No man or woman
of sound mentality will gainsay the benefits to be
derived from a sober nation of people.
" My conviction concerning the rum evil was confirmed a
few years ago when I was foreman of the grand jury that
investigated the white slave infamy," says John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in the Christian Herald. "I dicovered then that
the sale and use of alcoholic beverages had a very vital and
intimate relation to the white slave traffic. In fact, I doubt
if it would have flourished without connection with strong
drink.
"I was permitted to have a near-at-hand observation of
the practical operation of prohibition in Colorado in connection with the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in which I
am financially interested. When we first took hold of the
property the company actually operated a saloon, the employees, many of whom were foreign born, insisting that alcoholic
beverages were essential to their comfort. Then Colorado
went dry. In a surprisingly short time the men seemed to
forget all about the saloon, and their efficiency and earnings
increased about 12 per cent. Denver remained wet for one
year, while the remainder of the State was dry, and then Denver, by a large majority, joined the dry ranks. I believe that
I am entirely within bounds when I say that if the question
were again submitted to the voters of Colorado the State
would vote dry overwhelmingly."
Beyond doubt, a battle royal is ahead between the
two forces, one for a new light, a new life and a new
nation; the other for the continuance of the reign
of the Rum Fiend and all the consequences that
follow in his train. The one force is consistent with

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the same spirit of Americanism that put two million
soldiers in France in so brief a period that it dumbfounded the whole world, Christian and Mohammedan, atheist and infidel. The other is backed by
a flood of German money, most of which was wrung
from the very lifeblood of Americans over bars and
in beer gardens.
The situation in the United States was best summarized by the five Scotch delegates to the International Anti-Saloon Convention held at Washington, D. C., just before they sailed for home.
W. J. Allison, who headed the delegation, said,
among other things, expressing also the opinions of
his associates:
"During the six weeks that we have been in Canada and
the United States we have compared the dry territory with
parts of the country where liquor is still sold. We find
by inquiries made through business and professional men
that there is an enormous amount of data to prove that the
saloon is a great detriment to the country, economically,
morally and in every way.
"At the convention in Washington, nineteen nations were
represented and plans made to enact prohibition laws in all
these countries in the near future. Scotland is about twentyfive years behind the United States in the prohibition movement. Local option becomes a law there a year from next
November."
"To-morrow! âand it is already twilight." Bulwer's immortal lines as he painted the blackest
hours of Robespierre's career come quickly to mind.
It is already twilight in America. To-morrow
the Sober World! The beer seers and whiskey
savants may scream and rail from the housetops.

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I97

Grim revolution may stalk in the streets. Mobs
may rule for the moment, blood stain the cities. But
the morrow of a sober nation is here-already it
is twilight!

CHAPTER XVI

THE FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD
A GREAT deal of hysterical nonsense is being
written and suggested about the future of
the drunkard. Drunkenness is, of course, a
disease, as we all know. It is as much a disease as
smallpox or diphtheria. In certain respects it is
more of a disease, because the diphtheria or smallpox
patient very rarely, even in delirium, is prompted
to murder or other grave crimes. Not so with the
drunkard. There is nothing within the category of
criminal intent that does not darken his mind and
force his hand even to foul crime.
The Salvation Army, which did such remarkable
service during the World War, is already making
elaborate preparations for the care of this unfortunate individual. Perhaps no organization in the
world has done as much for the victim of liquor. In
nearly all directions the efforts of this organization
for the betterment of the liquor victim have been
efficient and admirable. It would be interesting if
anything like a record of their wonderful work in
this country could be had. Their programme, however, for the care and assistance of the inebriate
when the country is absolutely liquorless does not
impress the social worker who is an astute student
of the situation as forcibly as it might. Already

FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD i99
this organization is purchasing certain bars. It is its
purpose to maintain these, practically, as they were
conducted when saloons. The same bar paraphernalia, the same pictures, glasses, gilt and gold, and
even the brass railings are to be preserved. Is not
this an error?
It might be well to lease the same buildings, but
should there not be a radical change in the equipment and furnishings? Undoubtedly the social influence of the saloon has been its great attraction.
Thousands upon thousands of men have filled themselves up with beer and whiskey and other poisons
simply for the pleasure of standing with their feet
on the aforesaid brass railing and their elbows
on the counter glibly, exchanging views, political,
religious, social and otherwise. It does, however,
appear to be an error to retain anything even resembling the old-fashioned saloon. It might be well
to occupy the buildings and furnish them as club
rooms, with libraries having papers and periodicals, and everything that has to do with club life;
but not the brass railings, not the decanter, not the
associations of the old days when men deliberately
and with distinct thoughtfulness changed the trend
of their minds from sobriety and good sense, equilibrium and poise, to the laxity and evil of mental
nothingness.
Students of the drink victim very generally agree
that three things are essential in the redemption and
the rejuvenation of the drunkard. They are simple
and easily obtainable. They are: water -lots of
water externally and internally-good food, and
work.

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Already many of the great hospitals in big cities
are making preparations for the reception and care
of the victim of the saloon. And some of these
arrangements are admirable. The psychopathic
wards are being enlarged. In at least one hospital
of which the writer knows, additional apparatus is
being added to the hydropathic equipment. And
nothing is so essential to the restored healthiness
of the drunkard as the bath.
In this connection it may be noted that the psychopathic ward of the Washington Asylum, an institution that is anything but admirable, has one feature
that has worked wonders. The basement of this
old, ramshackle institution is diverted largely to a
great bath. Washington, as has been pictured in
earlier pages, has for many years turned out a
multitude of drunkards. Many of them became
chronic. Many of them of course had to be locked
up. The city ordinances were of the most severe
character. It was not unusual for the man who had
twice been arrested for drunkenness to be given
eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail. When
he was taken to the psychopathic hospital, if he
lived to get out, it was questionable if he ever repeated his offense. Certainly he did not if he had
any mentality left.
The treatment in the psychopathic ward of the
Bellevue Hospital at New York is severe and remedial, but it is not to be compared with that received
at the institution at Washington. In the latter psychopathic ward, when the drunkard was admitted
he was immediately disrobed and placed on a
marble slab. Then three or four heavy army blan

FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD 201
kets were pinned tightly around him with an especially manufactured pin. Over his body was poured
boiling hot water. As it seeped through the blankets
and reached the skin, of course it set the victim
into the most extreme perspiration. After this
treatment and a few hours' rest the patient was
taken to the basement and there put in a room of
needle sprays, while an orderly standing across the
room played upon his diseased carcass a two-inch
hose, part of the time of very hot water and part of
the time of very cold water. If the patient lived
through this treatment, in the course of a little
while he became strengthened and improved. The
treatment would have been admirable but for the reason that Congress had never appropriated a sufficient
sum of money to maintain the institution properly.
But the rudiments of the treatment were remarkable. Many of the patients, of course, died. If the
records of this hospital were ever examined into, it
would be found that they are appalling in their vital
statistics.
One case which the writer recalls is that of an
entire family who died under this treatment,father, mother and son. Washington some years
ago maintained a rather strict Sunday observance
of the liquor laws. It was practically impossible,
except in a few cases where one stood in favor with
the police, to get anything to drink on Sunday. This
law was observed even in many of the great hostelries. The overnight drunkard, however, managed to find some way to relieve his thirst on
Sunday morning. One drug store on Pennsylvania
Avenue, in the very shadow of the Capitol, used

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to sell hundreds of dollars' worth of alcohol.
As small an amount as fifteen cents' worth could be
purchased. The victim of the overnight jag took
his alcohol to a nearby pump, or else he bought a
bottle of ginger ale or ginger pop and prepared his
drink. The family referred to had all been drinking
this alcohol. They were arrested and taken to the
psychopathic ward of the Washington Asylum
Hospital and put through the usual treatment. All
three of them died under it within the period of a
few hours. If the hospital had had the proper head
he would of course have seen that the entire family
were in no condition to receive any such heroic
treatment.
For the average drunkard, however, no treatment is too severe that is not cruel, and the world
is just beginning to learn the vast curative powers
of water. In this Washington hospital the writer
has seen a negro placed in a continuous bath on
Tuesday and kept there until the following Wednesday. The hospital being without proper means
or the proper apparatus for the continuous bath as
it is known at Nauheim, Mentone, Nice, Monte
Carlo, Wiesbaden, and some of the great spas along
the Riviera, of course could not administer the bath
properly. The apparatus was inadequate, and consisted of a half-hogshead. Into this was put a chair.
The patient was strapped into the chair and a hose
turned on him, alternately running very hot water
for two minutes and very cold water for the next
two minutes. As the bath progressed the cold water
was made colder and the hot water made hotter.
No nourishment was given except liquid food and

FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD 203
water. The negro, a very powerful one, of course
would have died but for his magnificent physique.
When he came out of this bath his hands were as
white as the proverbial sheet, and within an hour of
the time he was released, while mentally deranged,
he broke an iron rod by jamming it up against the
wall.
To remove entirely the effects of drink from a
human being absolutely, alcoholic medical authorities
agree that it is often necessary to change every
diseased drop of blood in the man's system. This
is not an easy task, but one that unquestionably confronts every great city in this country and many
small towns. Extensive preparations for the reception of the drink victims unquestionably should
be made. A coddling system of restoration for the
drunkard is rarely practicable, or permanently remedial; as a matter of fact, it is rarely of any use
at all, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
heroic measures are absolutely necessary. Where
they are systematically and scientifically applied,
the results are remarkable.
The effect on the multitude of drug addicts during
the transition from a semi-drunken to an absolutely sober nation of people, of course, has its
difficulties. But the great hullabaloo about a nation
of drug fiends has a deal of nonsense about it. The
properly policed city is not confronted with any very
serious difficulty if there are sufficient accommodations in the psychopathic wards of the hospitals.
Without these, of course there must be a large percentage of cases of mental derangement and delirium
tremens. How to meet this rests entirely with the

204

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municipal authorities and the heads of the several
hospitals in question. There should be extensive
preparations in this direction. Statistics show a
very large increase of drug addicts in some states
which have been deprived of strong stimulants. In
no state, however, has this increase been of sufficient
strength to cause anything like the widespread
alarm which has been excited by the saloon-keeper
and his followers. This is a problem, to be sure, but
one that can be met.
Mr. Rockefeller's experience in the Colorado
mining camp is very suggestive. The drinking man,
when he is cured of his infirmity, if there is a spark
of manhood left in his body, is only too glad to face
the light again. He soon forgets the saloon; he
soon forgets his old associates; he soon forgets the
foul language, the direful horror of evil all about
him in the old days of his bar companionships; and
he is only too glad to meet a better condition half
way. There will undoubtedly be a large number of
victims of drink whose minds are too far gone and
whose systems are so thoroughly diseased that it
will be absolutely impractical ever again to make of
them useful citizens. The vast majority of the
drinking tribe of working-men and men that do not
work, however, can be easily cared for and made to
seek a new life in the proper sort of environment.
It has been suggested by a number of philanthropic workers that the canteens which have been
used for army purposes may be made available as
meeting places for the victims of the saloons. In
some cases, perhaps, this is practicable. Workingmen's clubs all over the country will, of course, be

FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD 205
of great value. Domiciles such as the Mills Hotel
in New York are of infinitely more value.
When that great philanthropist, D. O. Mills,
built the first of these hotels on Bleeker Street, with
accommodations for nearly two thousand men, he
confidently expected that he would have to dig
down deeply into his income each year for the support of these hotels. They are perhaps the best of
their kind in the world. To his infinite surprise,
and somewhat to his disgust as he told the writer,
from the beginning they were profitable. Since the
Mills Hotel was built in Bleeker Street two others
of like character have been erected. In any of these
hotels the working-men may get room for twenty
cents. It is as good as any room that he would get
in any New York hotel for a day. In the basement
he has accommodations to wash his linen and bathe
himself with absolute luxury. There are restaurants
in these institutions where a man can obtain a wholesome, well-cooked meal for twenty-five cents. He
can get sustenance in many of them for a little over
half that amount. There are reading rooms, proper
lighting facilities, and everything about every one
of these institutions is absolutely sanitary and hygienic. It is not an unusual thing to see a line of two
or three hundred self-respecting working-men, for
one reason or another out of work, waiting to get a
bed for the night. So many comforts do they have
at these hostelries that many working-men live there
permanently. There is, of course, a rebate allowed
when the rooms are rented by the week. A few
more Mills hotels scattered around the big and even
the small cities throughout the country will be of

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vastly more value than canteens and working-men's
clubs.
The average working-man, after his day's toil, if
he has n't a home to return to, is not going to sit
around a hotel or reading room or club, if he is a
good healthful, mentally sound man. He wants a
bit of air and perhaps an hour or so at a cheap
theatre. The liquorless era is going to afford the
cheap theatre, and more especially the " movie," an
enormous opportunity, and it is apparent that
the time is ripe for municipal opera houses and
theatres. One thing the retiring drunkard who has
planned to go back to his drinking as soon as his
pocket is well filled and he can do so gracefully does
not want to hear is a bit of sweet music. He will
avoid the strains of a good orchestra or the voice of
some sweet woman as he would a rattlesnake. He
does not want the better self touched. He wants to
go back to his abyss of vice, and drink, and his
cataclysm of horror without any tender memories to
destroy or mar his mental determination. But the
sober man will long for and insist upon this sort of
amusement. It is worth while to drop into one of
the cheap theatres along any avenue of any great
city to-day to bear out this statement. The acrobat,
the clown, the movie with its criminal lesson and its
horse-play, drearily interest the average intelligent
workman for the time being. But let some mellowvoiced woman make her entrance on the stage and
sing with a bit of dulcet refrain some song that
touches the heart, and you will see that workman's
hands come out of his pockets in a moment and the
applause is real, not perfunctory. The educational

FUTURE OF THE DRUNKARD 207
theatre, the cheap opera, - cheap and good opera,
â are two of the forms of entertainment that
eclipse all the working-men's clubs, all the canteens,
and all the ordinary rudimentary entertainment for
the former habitue of the saloon.
Is it necessary, however, to dwell upon these
several entertainments for the delectation of the
enforced reformed drunkard? Why not let him
go out into the world and take his place among men
and do his duty in the proper fashion? If he is too
weak, too far gone to do that sort of thing, perhaps
it is well for him to make his exit and pass over into
the shadows, where he may be better off. It is a
rather sickening reflection that this man has been
forced to pass over into the shadows without the
proper sort of redemption because his condition is
not due to his own lack of character. It is a condition that was brought on by the weakness and laxity
of society. It is a condition which the minister, the
philanthropist, the law-maker, and the statesman
are responsible for. The reflection is sometimes
not a pleasant one, that the United States has perhaps a larger percentage of drunkards than any
country of the world, for the simple reason that
the Government of the United States has endorsed
liquor as a business; the state has further enhanced
its legality; and then in turn comes a municipality
which also derives no small amount of revenue. In
other words, the whole social system, simply because
liquor has been a source of revenue, has endorsed
and distributed it. But though it will be long before they are forgotten those evil days are past
and over with. There is a new, radiant era ap

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proaching. Sobriety is no longer an asset but an
essential and a necessity.
It is well, perhaps. There is no place in this day
and time for the weakling. It is a man's epoch with
man's work, and man has to hasten to do it, because
if he does not we are going to have a world ruled
by women. As it is, the possibilities of petticoat
rule loom large on the horizon. It has taken many,
many years of absolute horror under the liquor
regime to beget a situation that in all probability is
in store for us. Women will never pardon the old
kind of government, they will never permit a large
percentage of the population of men in this or any
other land to go quietly along their way as drunkards, drug addicts, nincompoops or mollycoddles
of any class, kind or description. They are going
to insist upon strong, firm and fundamental manhood. The day of the woman with a babe at her
breast and a drunken father in the corner saloon is
over with. Just what this same woman is going to
do when sobriety becomes universal and the ship
of state is being steered in no small measure by her
fine hands and fine mind is not a pleasant reflection
for the few strong men left in the world.

CHAPTER XVII

LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS
N EVER perhaps within the memory of man,
certainly not within the recollection of
Americans, was the necessity for a nation
of sober people of such paramount importance as
it has been during this era. A crisis of world
interests was precipitated in nearly every land under
the sun. The grim spectre of revolution stalked
in many streets. Uneasiness and unrest encompassed the globe, and nowhere was this status of
disturbance and disintegration more marked than
in the United States of America. An adventurous
Irishman had arrived on these shores with the
avowed purpose of starting an Irish revolution.
Revolution already was daily increasing in Ireland,
and a continuous state of revolution existed in
Mexico with fair chances for the final overthrow
of that prince of condottiere, Carranza. Egypt,
several countries of the Balkans, and even neutral,
peaceable little Switzerland were in the throes of
governmental demoralization. In no land was this
unrest of more serious character than in the United
States. Party lines were obliterated in the whirlwind. Former President Taft frankly and openly
arrayed himself on the side of the present President
of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. In the

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THE SOBER WORLD

Senate the vast majority of thinking men of both
parties were studiously and strenuously endeavoring
to bring about the complete and properly formulated League of Nations. In the lower house of
Congress practically the same frame of mind was
existent.
With the mistakes of the Geneva Convention
and the failures at The Hague, to many minds
the possibility of a League of Nations in reality
and ultimate success seemed far away. But men,
almost to a fraction of the population that was
not revolutionary and Bolshevik in spirit, appreciated the fact that somewhere in the background
of this effort to create a world league for peace and
a tribunal where nations might take their differences
and have them settled as in a court of equity, was
the possibility of an iron-clad and powerfully cemented Anglo-American affiliation.
In the formation of the League many of the nations had been dragged in by the ears. Italy cast
her cards into the ring and got but half of the territory which she hoped for. Greece was dissatisfied,
France by no means content with the punishment
of her dire enemies; and there were many other difficulties of similar character. The statesmen of
Great Britain and all of her great minds -thinkers,
writers, government-makers, men of science and men
of letters-watched the impertinence of the German propagandists, who were distinctly and plainly
responsible for much of the unrest in this country.
Liquor, German'beer, and the Rhine wine of that
turgid stream that runs through the land which has
begotten more hatred than all the other neglectful

LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS 2 1
and cruel peoples on earth, furnished the elements
for much of this unrest.
But the efforts of the German brew-masters and
their affiliates befogged and befuddled but few
Americans on the whole: they saw clearly through
the millstone, and it was evident beyond question
that in the end the Teutons would fail. The intellectual American and every patriotic citizen of
the United States conceded and agreed-to pass
the barriers of argument-that the time had arrived for a sober nation of people, sober in the
sense that no part of the population could in drunken
vagaries incite revolution; and sober in the thought
that the time had arrived for a government of distinct equilibrium for a nation of people who possessed that most desirable of all magnetic things,
poise; for a people who could meet anywhere along
the highway of life and conserve and preserve a
sense of integral justice and equity toward all their
fellows.
The brew-masters were aghast. William M. Anderson, who has done more, perhaps, than any living man to bring about a world of sober nations and
sober people, graphically described the situation
when he said that the brew-masters' spasm of indignation at the possibility of a liquorless country
had deteriorated into a mere squall. Mr. Anderson's confidence, however, in the outcome was not
shared by many close observers. President Wilson's somewhat careless comment about the selfdetermination of small peoples had had a vastly
more far-reaching effect than perhaps he ever dared
to dream it might attain. Among the rank and file

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THE SOBER WORLD

of Great Britain's important colonies, Australia,
Canada, India, and other of her possessions, this
self-determination utterance created not a ripple on
the stream. But in Egypt, and more especially
in Ireland, it worked the direst effect. Home
Rule, forever before the world, was now bruited
about with a flagrancy and flamboyant insistence
that was at once disturbing and distressful.
It was freely asserted by the friends of this movement that it was Hidalgo, a village priest, who had
started the first and most important of Mexico's
revolutions. Every effort was made to make clear
a resemblance between Washington's fine scheme for
an independent government and the similar Irish
attempt of this day and time. Of course no Irishman cognizant of the truth could find any possible
relationship and in most instances the argument fell
by the wayside as a useless and worthless thing; but
there was still a sufficient number of people in
the United States and of people in Great Britain to
make this matter a serious issue, and for that reason it was quite within the possibility of events that
at no distant day this effort might cause additional
unrest and perhaps most serious and grave trouble.
So the more imperative was this necessity for the
quick approach of an entirely sober people.
Significant indeed was the attitude of no small
part of the population of that great American city
of culture, Boston, Mass. One of its Congressmen, a man named Fitzgerald, on authority known
only to himself, had announced from the housetops that President Wilson would beyond question
repudiate the war-time prohibition and lift the

LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS 213
ban on German beer and light wines. On the
strength of his somewhat positive statements on this
matter, hundreds of liquor dealers in the Hub of
the Universe made applications for renewals of
licenses and plans for a continuance of their nefarious businesses. It was as plain as the proverbial pipestem that this condition of things could
not continue without eventual trouble, and the world
looked on with the deepest interest. The saving
fact in the whole situation was the alignment on the
side of sobriety of practically every man of any note
in public life.
Mr. Taft, irrespective of party affiliations and
partisan future, won the admiration of the whole
country by his disclosures of German propaganda,
and by his constant comments on the German assassin. He did not bandy words and he traced in many
of his writings the attempted assignations of several
of the country's most important citizens to German
hands, the hands behind the liquor movement, and
perhaps the most evil coterie of propagandists that
ever blotted the world.
The attitude of the President begot excitement on
all sides. After the Labor demonstration on the
steps of the Capitol, Fitzgerald and several of his
associates returned to Boston and publicly repeated
that the President would unquestionably lift the ban
on German beer and light wines. He gave no
authority for this statement. He made no effort to
trace it to any authoritative source. He simply
made the plain, matter-of-fact and unvarnished
statement that his fellow-countrymen could go on
with their liquor game and the Germans with their

214

THE SOBER WORLD

breweries. Men and women alike wondered what
the outcome would be.
Germany timed-it may have been mere coincidence-the signing of the Peace Treaty to the
memorable Saturday just before July I, 1919, when
this ban was supposed finally and for all time to
place the United States on the side of sobriety and
make this country the initial land where men could
not drive themselves insane with drink, where lawmakers could not belittle their purposes, and where
crime and vice would be bound to meet a Waterloo.
President Wilson announced, after the last act in
France to beget the League of Nations covenant,
that he would sail for the United States on Sunday,
June 29, I919. The anxiety of the people on the
side of sobriety continued. If Fitzgerald was correct in his surmises how could this issue be determined? Men that knew the President and his opportune method of doing things could not read the
stars. How was America to be informed of the lifting of this ban? By wireless?
It seemed impossible that the President of the
United States, after the Congress of the United
States had firmly declined to interfere either one
way or the other, would interfere. The tension on
the public mind, perhaps, was as deep and grave as
those trying days just prior to the declaration of
war. With consuming interest, America watched
the situation from every angle, and it was wonderful to mark time to the movement of the deep
thinkers of the world as they came promptly to
the front with daring utterances and more daring
actions.

LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS 215
Standing out among these leaders endeavoring to
make plain the plain duty of all people, was that
most wonderful of all modern priests, Cardinal
Mercier. On the very eve of July I he caused to
be published an interview which appeared in every
important newspaper in the world, setting forth
plainly the attitude of most of his fellow-countrymen. In a later chapter his words are quoted.
There was no dilly-dallying in his statement. He
pointed out that despite the fact that directly behind him in the shadows was his own land, the victim of the direst outrages in all history, drink was
of infinitely more injury to men than war. His own
words the reader will peruse with interest. Ministers of the Gospel, men of affairs, and the serious
journals and periodicals of the country came to the
front with startling and astonishing conscientiousness. It mattered not to many of the great journals
that big business and the political life of the country
were so interwoven that liquor interests in a measure
had to be cared for. It mattered not that the country was about to lose an enormous amount of revenue
from the liquor trade. It mattered not that enmities
and animosities were being excited on all sides. The
really great newspapers of the land with no axes
to grind came out in the open and pointed out exactly the same salient facts that Cardinal Mercier
had brought to the light in his historic and Godinspired pronunciamento.
Meanwhile, the friends of Irish freedom, so
called, took clever advantage of the situation. De
Valera, the "President of the alleged Irish Republic," appeared suddenly on the scene at the Wal

216

THE SOBER WORLD

dorf-Astoria in New York, and frankly and openly
announced that he was here for the purpose of floating a loan of five million dollars, the funds from
which were to be used to create an Irish Nation.
How De Valera arrived here was a mystery. When
one leaves a land to go to another land to start revolution there are usually some formalities to undergo.
De Valera waived all of these, and announced that
he had been domiciled with a half-brother at the
Catholic Mission Church in Roxbury, Mass. He
also very openly declared that he had been here
for some days and had been strenuously at work
on his job. He declined to say how he had arrived,
when he had arrived, or what methods he had pursued in regard to passports, and distinctly and
emphatically showed complete disregard for the
authorities.
The observers along the way watched the spectacle with wondering eyes. It had not been very
long since the authorities of this government had
arrested and imprisoned a Mexican leader, one
Huerta, for a precisely similar act. It had not been
very long since Great Britain, whose friendship for
this country has not been questioned by any responsible man, now living or dead, for the past fifty
years, had saved the whole world from utter destruction, and incidentally had saved the United
States of America from brewery rule, from the
worst possible destruction by Bolshevik uprisings
and revolution, from just such inhumanity and brutality as that under which Belgium was ravaged,
from horrors untold, from infamies unfathomable,
and from a future that no man or woman dare dwell

LIQUOR AND AMERICAN POLITICS 217
upon even in thought. The protests from British
sources naturally excited widespread comment.
Some of the English newspapers were not sparing
in their criticism of this country for permitting such
actions. Their indignation was further enhanced
by the attitude of the Senate of the United States,
which passed a resolution favoring Irish Home Rule.
Oh Gratitude, where art thou now!
Turning over the files of the newspapers, feuilletonists and paragraph-makers harked back to the
sinking of the Lusitania, to the death of Edith
Cavell, to the countless acts of destruction and assassination in this land by Germans and their tools,
and marvelled at a land that could permit such a
gratuitous insult to the one government under the
sun that stood in a position to save the world -and
save the world it did, and saved the United States
from the most terrible ignominy and suffering
conceivable.
"Would President Wilson play into the hands of
the brew-master?" asked the friends of decency
and law. No one knew. No one could surmise.
Various were the conjectures. It was said that the
German brewers had precipitated this situation so
that they might say that President Wilson had
allowed them to believe that they might continue
the beer business and liquor trade. It was an astute
trick, a clever bit of chicanery. No matter what
action President Wilson might take, it was relatively simple to put a cloud of misconstruction on
that act. But those looking down deep under the
waters remembered that President Wilson in such
crises had never failed thus far to show rare
wisdom.

218

THE SOBER WORLD

His friendship for Great Britain no man could
question. His ability might at times be the motif
of discussion. His acts, as in the case of every other
great leader in Washington, were open to serious
comment and criticism. His Mexican policy was a
mistake. His too-prolonged absence from this country was an error perhaps. But in a crisis with the
possibility of revolution confronting, it was to be
expected that he would rise to the occasion.
Meanwhile, the efforts of the friends of liquor,
at the instigation of the brew-masters, planned to
die a hard death. One saloon keeper in Boston, as
mentioned in a previous chapter, had announced his
purpose to disobey the law, irrespective of any situation that might arise. As a result of his act, left
unpunished, the windows and walls of thousands of
saloons throughout the country flaunted similar
signs. One impressed the author of this book with
small favor. He found it in a side street leading
from a main Boston thoroughfare. It read simply,
"You will find me doing business here or else the
key to my cell."
But Cardinal Mercier's words have been read and
reread. How true his statements that wars leave
heroes sometimes, and fine memories, and fine
efforts for fine purposes, but a revolution incited by
whiskey, riots incited by German beer, disorder and
demoralization engendered by roughs and gangsters,
what does it leave? Nothing but a maelstrom of
blood, idleness, sorrow, grief, and no cause thereof
but that nauseating excuse, drink.

CHAPTER XVIII

ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND
W H ILE the transport George Washington,
erstwhile crack greyhound of the German
Merchant Marine, under forced draught
bore President Wilson to his native land, event after
event, incident upon incident, piled one upon the
other with a celerity that was startling. The old
battle between Capital and Labor was resumed with
vigor and new danger.
Following closely upon the Convention of the
Labor men at Atlantic City, the nation's principal
playground by-the-sea, came the announcement of
more strikes throughout the country. Federal authorities raided the Rand School in New York a
second time, a so-called seat of learning in which
was discovered enough inflammatory and revolutionary literature to keep a firing squad busy for the
proverbial month of Sundays, in the old days when
firing squads were considered effective and fashionable. Another ambitious anarchist exploded a bomb
in Brooklyn, doing small damage and escaping without detection. A strike was in progress in the fur
factory where the "incident" occurred. Coincidentally, Department of Justice officials discovered
an iniquitous incendiary scheme to destroy the Kansas wheat fields, laughing to the breezes with banner
crops nearly ready to be garnered.

220

THE SOBER WORLD

At the same moment Washington obtained from
secret sources the information that various public
buildings in Boston, Mass., Concord, N. H., and
other New England cities were to be bombed and
destroyed with the usual accompanying loss of life.
As a result of these reports the residents of the Back
Bay district in that ultra-mundane city passed a disagreeable quarter of an hour while the entire police
force of the capital of the Commonwealth stood for
hours at attention in the various police stations with
over a score or more of machine guns loaded and
ready for instant action.
Marking time to the panorama of infamy, listening with tense ears to the knell of unrest in the absence of the President from his troubled land, the
Attorney-General was moved to come out in the
open and again warn the bands of assassins and anarchistic agitators that infested the whole land. It
had been but a few weeks since that same official,
A. Mitchell Palmer, had his home partly blown to
fragments by a band of anarchists. In no wise
daunted, however, he made a brief but terse address
to the Senate of the State of Pennsylvania in which
he made plain the fact that if any of the night murderers succeeded in killing citizens of the United
States it would in the end avail them nothing. Mr.
Palmer stated simply and saliently that, "if any
attempt to use force and strike down high officials
to bring about a change of government in the United
States they will find more vigorous and more courageous men will arise to take their places and government by the people will go on as before. Those
who will not become Americanized after a period of

ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND 221
living here should go back to the country they came
from."
Americans had long since become distraught and
in a measure callous and case-hardened to adult infamy, to the torch of the Teuton, the firebrand
of the anarchist. They had their fill of adroit
calumny and blood-red crime during the German
reign of terror in America. The citizens of the
United States, a few of them at least, did stand
aghast at the discovery of an afternoon paper, the
Boston Traveler, when it unearthed a dozen or
more schools in the City of Culture in which anarchy
unadulterated was being taught hundreds of children, many of them not old enough to define the
word force. In describing these schools the Traveler said: "The course of instruction includes glorification of the red flag and all it stands for. Children are taught to become 'class conscious,' and to
recognize as an enemy anyone who belongs to the
capitalist group, which, of course, includes everyone with an account in a savings bank. The advantages of 'free love' and communist government
are taught." And editorially the Traveler politely
added:
" Efforts at Americanization of our aliens have evidently
been too weak an antidote for this swift and virulent poison.
Local schools of anti-Americanism have sprung up to menace liberty itself. If those who know what this country
stands for - if those who believe in America do not bestir
themselves, this movement, animated by vile purposes of bitterest hostility, will attain a strength and momentum that
will make it difficult to put down. Legal measures to close
the schools of radical propaganda should be taken at once.
The time for action has arrived, and here is something definite that can be done. Americans âloyal Americans of

222

THE SOBER WORLD

every creed and party-must turn in solid phalanx, as during the war they turned against an external foe, now
against this internal foe."
Shades of the Puritans! How long would such
schools have lasted in the halcyon years just a span
distant!
And the George Washington pressed bravely on
through the glistering, shimmering June waters of
the Atlantic, bringing swiftly the first President of
the United States who had deemed it wise to leave
his native land during his term of office. No ruler
after long absence ever returned to his people to
face graver duties or more serious, soul-stirring
tasks, and the world wondered how he would measure up, if it were possible for him to surmount the
countless difficulties that seemed to confront him.
He returned to find one adverse party in Congress with Elihu Root, the counsel for the United
Brewers Association, ex-officio at its head, endeavoring from every possible angle to undo his work
at the Peace Table in behalf of a League of Nations,
chimerical enough at best but assuredly of some
abstract value even on paper.
He returned to find safely ensconced within the
confines of the United States one De Valera, the
self-styled "President of the Irish Republic" about
to attempt to float a sympathetic loan of five
million dollars to assist in financing the government of the new " Republic of Ireland" now under
British rule.
He returned to find a veritable epidemic of unrest, commercial and industrial, social and political,

ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND 223
with a multitude of anarchists and Bolsheviki about
and doing, and the old brewery army of Pan-Germanists and trouble-makers still in the offing. He
returned to find threats and imprecations, letters
of suasion and praise a multitude of his fellowcountrymen discontented and anxious, wrought so
by the dire menace of armies of hidden foes and
enemies.
In brief and in toto, he returned to resume his
domestic duties in a situation more deeply fraught
with difficulty than had ever confronted a President
of the United States since Washington.
Could he stem the tide of revolution that wise
men declared was setting in? Could he block the
renewed brewery machinations to get hold on this
Government again, and would he dare ask one De
Valera how he entered an American port without
passport or official papers? These and thousands
of other questions the American people, the bona
fide Americans, asked themselves many times over
as the great transport pressed swiftly onward.
And they were hopeful, willing to forget and forgive past error in the Mexican policy and elsewhere,
and yet more willing and anxious to accord warm
praise and commendation for great achievement at
the meetings of the great nations for the world's
enduring peace.
Difficult and serious as the several problems confronting him appeared to be, they did not seem impossible of solution if the plain and consistent path
of governmental duty were followed to the letter.
A sober nation was practically assured. The sentiment of the rank and file of the American people
Urn;

224

THE SOBER WORLD

on the much-mooted question was no longer conjecture. In plain light of his solemn oath of allegiance to the nationals, whose public weal he
directs, he was left no alternative.
In the matter of the Bolsheviki the common people
of his land left him again without any question of
choice. They must be put down and eradicated
from the always serious problem of government.
New and more strenuous laws for the effacement of
this dangerous element which had eaten its way
into American life were needed and Congress had
already vouchsafed its willingness to pass them.
Then arose the question of the "Irish Republic."
What says the President of the United States to
the friends of Irish freedom? When asked upon
his arrival in England, not long ago, how the American people managed the Irish question, Mr. Wilson,
in his unofficial capacity, replied, "We have Irish
policemen." Unfortunately for Mr. Wilson, his
response does not bear seriously on the subject other
than to savor of misty witticism. The cities in the
United States which are most largely policed by
Irish policemen abound in liquor, crime, and the most
vulgar of the vices.
It is not at all likely that the President of the
United States will offer like suggestion to Great
Britain in relation to the widely advertised "Irish
Republic." No matter what he may think of the
practicability of an Irish Republic in these troublous
days, his duty in the light of recent events is not discretionary. When in England Mr. Wilson was
brought daily and hourly, sometimes for weeks at
a time, in contact with Balfour-in the estimate of
~ e,,

ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND 225
many close observers the most brilliant and efficient
statesman of his day and time âwith Lloyd George,
Asquith, Winston Churchill, Northcliffe, Haig,
French, Beatty and the most distinguished Englishman in the State, at the bar, in the Army and Navy,
and in every highway and byway of English life.
It is not at all unlikely that some one or other of
these distinguished gentlemen may, when the Irish
question came up for discussion, have put a hypothetical question as follows:
"Should a body of Americans come to London
and request the British Government to assist them
in creating a republic of the State of New York,
or the Mother State of Virginia, or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it matters not which, what
do you think would be the attitude of the British
Government and the English people, Mr. President?" The response is too trivial to record, but
the response secreted under some mystical veil of
political chicanery will be that of Mr. Wilson to the
Irish people. The Irish leaders of the type of Sir
Edward Carson fully appreciate that fact, and are
far more antagonistic to the thought of Irish rule
in Ireland than any faction of English people. The
American people have had a taste of Irish rule in
a number of instances, notably when Richard Croker
was the "boss" of New York and when that city
could not be matched for its lawlessness and vice.
Ireland is an integral part of the British Empire.
And to-day no American who is not lacking in that
most essential of all characteristics of decency, gratitude, is likely to forget the momentous events of
the past four epochal years. It was England

226

THE SOBER WORLD

English thought, English ideals, English life blood
and English treasure-that saved the world from a
fate worse than total destruction by fire and flood.
Time and time again during the past fifty years
when brewery money and German propaganda prevented the United States from having the tools to
defend herself, it has been the British Navy that
came to the fore.
For forty years dreamers and writers have been
telling France just what would happen to her if she
did not profit by past experiences and prepare to
meet the military machine the Teuton beasts were
preparing to destroy her. She harkened not and
it was England that saved her Paris. England battered up the German fleet and saved the beautiful
sky line of New York, the picturesque battery of
Charleston, S. C. with its beautiful homes and gardens, the obsolete but historic port of Boston, and
the thousands of miles of unprotected American
coast.
Where the United States lost a man, Great Britain lost a hundred. Where the United States spent
a dollar Great Britain dug down in the bank of
England and the pockets of her colonies for a
pound. Pass along the Strand, Piccadilly, Hyde
Park, or down in the lower strata of English life, and
you will not find a family that is not living in the
shadow of some lost one. England bore the brunt
of the conflict long before we were half way ready.
When historians half a century hence have summarized the achievements of the World War, Great
Britain will hold her place first and alone. The
fair-minded chronicler will not brook comparisons

ENGLAND, BONNIE ENGLAND 227
and he will page America's fine showing unwillingly
because of our tardiness.
England has lost millions upon millions of treasure in Mexico simply because she did not want to
embarrass the Government of the United States.
Neither the Monroe Doctrine nor anything else
could have prevented her from demanding her property and its safety from the banditti of Carranzistas
and Villistas that have dissipated it.
America owes a debt to England, bonnie England, that can never be repaid. And it is certainly
not to be repaid by setting up a modified edition of
Tammany Hall in the heart of the British Empire.
The League of Nations may be only a dream.
But back of it is the frame-work of Anglo-American
alliance that will make for a new world where the
word "civilization" may be uttered with full meaning, where the slaughter of the innocents will cease,
and where women and children may sleep in peace
and safety.

CHAPTER XIX

ENGLAND AND IRELAND
IN the ages to come, no matter what may be the
estimate of Woodrow Wilson as a man and a
leader, none will dare question the astuteness
of his diplomacy or the finesse of his political acumen. For days and weeks the German Government
had been dodging the final formality of its ignominious downfall, the signing of the Peace Treaty.
While no sane man or woman attached any value
to the signatures of the German officials to the peace
terms, they had by dint of perseverance to be obtained as a part of the record of agreement between
the Great Powers. So far as the Teutons themselves were concerned, the sacredness of a treaty
was of no moment,-merely another "scrap of
paper."
It is roughly estimated that there is $2,000,000,000
worth of brewery and other liquor properties in the
United States, the major part of which is owned by
German-Americans(?). It is known that much of
this property is owned by Germans in the Vaterland,
but as it was entered in the realty and other records
as the property of resident Americans it was not
possible to reach it legally during the war. Again,
of course, much of this property is of the brewery
class and there was a possibility of the brewer con

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

229

tinuing his business for a few months at least until
the demobilization of the army was concluded.
President Wilson, in order to lead the Teutons
on until he could force their hand, had invitingly
held out that luminous hope. He subserved a
double purpose by suggesting to Congress that it
might be well to let the people of the United States
have light wine and beer, -fooling the Germans,
Fitzgerald, Root and the whole liquor coterie, and
placing part of the responsibility for the situation
on the Republican party. The latter faction declined frankly and openly to have anything to do
with turning any part or fractional part of the government over to the brewer.
Then the whispering voices began to noise about
the report that the reason the President would not
permit the beer game to continue was because the
Germans would not sign the peace treaty. The news
was hastened to Berlin, with many imprecations and
prayers, and the German officials hurried to France
with well-inked pens and but little time to spare.
And at 3.I3 o'clock, June 29, 1919, on the fifth
anniversary and almost at the identical hour of the
assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand,
heir to the throne of the Dual Empire of Sarajevo,
the Germans signed the treaty.
It may be mere coincidence, but the ink was
hardly dry on the treaty when the President's Man
Friday, one Tumulty, gave out the following interesting paper from the White House:
"I am convinced that the Attorney-General is right in
advising me that I have no legal power at this time in the
matter of the ban on liquor. Under the act of November,

230

THE SOBER WORLD

1918, my power to take action is restricted. The act provides that after June 30, I919, 'until the conclusion of the
present war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization, the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by the President, it shall be unlawful, etc.' This
law does not specify that the ban shall be lifted with the
signing of peace, but with the termination of the demobilization of the troops, and I cannot say that this has been accomplished. My information from the War Department is
that there are still a million men in the army under the emergency call. It is clear, therefore, that the failure of Congress
to act upon the suggestion contained in my message of the
twentieth of May, I919, asking for a repeal of the act of
Nov. 21, I918, so far as it applies to wines and beers, makes
it impossible to act in this matter at this time. When demobilization is terminated, my power to act without Congressional action will be exercised.
" WOODROW WILSON."
This is one of about a score of illustrations of the
superiority of American diplomacy over the crude
and clumsy brand so often attempted by Von Bernstorff, Durnberg and Company.
One sentence in the President's message to the
liquor advocates stands out with distinct conciseness
-" My information from the War Department is
that there are still a million men in the Army under
emergency call."
Just what emergency might arise does not appear
on the surface. The War was over-Germany so
terribly defeated and keenly cognizant of her own
impotence that in a spirit of fiendish rage she had
sunk a large fleet of her own navy. It took but a
relatively small army to police that part of the conquered territory and there were French, British and
Italian troops to do that work. Of what was the
President thinking? Was there cause for alarm at
home?

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

23I

So thought the residents of at least one American
city, and that the greatest and most populous in the
land, New York. Their anxiety was such that they
made the Tammany Mayor put to test the riot call.
Many residents were blocked in side streets and
made late to dinner. With hordes of Bolsheviki
bomb-throwers, industrial troubles, the beer menace
not by any means at an end, and efforts to stage a
new republic in the heart of a friendly ally, there
might perhaps be need for an army or a faction
thereof.
It is difficult to police the larger cities of a great
country like the United States and it was evident
that President Wilson did not intend to make the
grave mistake that Greece did immediately after
one of her numerous Balkan wars and demobilize
too soon.
All over the United States the President's arrival
was awaited with the deepest interest. The very
Sabbath, June 29, that he began his voyage to his
native land, the enthusiasts for an Irish Republic
rang the curtain up on the first al fresco performance in that behalf. De Valera had passed several
days in the Presidential suite at the Waldorf-Astoria
in New York City. Miles of type in the pro-Irish
Republic press had been traversed and thence he
journeyed to Boston, where for two days he was the
center of attraction.
The gathering at Fenway Park was in some respects the most remarkable assemblage in the history of the city. Hate, dire hate for England was
expressed on all sides. Americans with memories
leavened and sweetened for their English cousins

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were asked to join in this feast of animosity for
England and everything English. Shamefacedly
some of them turned to their morning newspaper
and read the following cable to President Wilson
from Great Britain's King- a Christian gentleman
who had endeared himself to Americans in a thousand ways during the war:
"In this glorious hour when the long struggle of nations
for right, justice and freedom is at last crowned by a triumphant peace, I greet you, Mr. President, and the great
American people in the name of the British nation.
"At a time when fortune seemed to frown, and the issues
of the war trembled in the balance, the American people
stretched out the hand of fellowship to those, who on this
side of the ocean were battling for a righteous cause. Light
and hope at once shone brighter in our hearts, and a new
day dawned.
" Together we have fought to a happy end; together we
lay down our arms in proud consciousness of valiant deeds
nobly done.
" Mr. President, it is on this day one of our happiest
thoughts that the American and British people, brothers in
arms, will continue forever to be brothers in peace. United
before by language, traditions, kinship and ideals, there has
been set upon our fellowship the sacred seal of common
sacrifice.
"(Signed) GEORGE, R. I."
While the meeting at Fenway Park was in progress Parisians were trying to digest the following
clause of a memorandum addressed to the Peace
Conference by Walsh and Dunne, the Irish delegates:
"The Irish people have never believed in the sincerity of
public declarations made by English statesmen in regard
to their 'war with the Central Powers,' except in so far as
those declarations avowed that England's part in the war
had been undertaken for England's particular, imperial interests; they have never believed England went to war for the
sake of France, Belgium or Serbia, or for the protection and

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

233

liberation of small nationalities, or to make right prevail
against armed might."
Naturally it was difficult for the mirth-loving
journalists of Le Matin, Figaro, Le Temps and
other great French journals to treat such utterances
seriously. But some of the passing incidents had
attained such importance that they excited widespread interest.
A German-American innkeeper and three of his
Irish porters threw a distinguished English visitor
out of a hotel because the latter made comment
about two girl solicitors for the "Irish Republic."
A storm of protest arose from, New Yorkers of culture and refinement who recalled the deep obligations of countless Americans to the English people
during the war. But on the whole the small affair
served effectively, as it brought clearly to the foreground the fact that the "Irish Republic" travesty
was an insult to a nation that is, to say nothing else,
the honorable ally of the United States.
It also recalled to the minds of the American
people that it was the Sinn Feiners and the friends
of the "Irish Republic" that stoned and killed six
American bluejackets in Cork; that it was the Sinn
Feiners who aided and abetted the German affiliation and dastardly treason of Sir Roger Casement.
It also refreshed the American mind to the fact that
it was the Sinn Feiners who refused to enlist; who
rejected conscription and who arraigned themselves
in every instance upon the side of the heinous Hun.
Fortunately for the rank and file of Americans
and the true spirit of the people of the United
States, intelligent Englishmen fully appreciate and

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understand the somewhat chaotic status of American politics in the era of reconstruction. The war
is just over. It has brought to the surface many
underlying problems, and it has already caused a
profound rejuvenation of American principles. In
the transformation many new difficulties have been
encountered. But the process of transition has developed a new national integrity of political action
at once promising and admirable.
Nothing could have more fully confirmed that
fact than the Congressional fight over the light
wines and beer question. The President invited his
opponents who had severely criticised and questioned his motives to settle it among themselves.
He handed the light wines and beer suggestion to
them on a silver platter. They bowed and returned
it without soiling their fingers, for the patent reason that it was flagrantly apparent that the American people would tolerate no political chicanery in
relation to the brewers or any of their cohorts.
Congress may be put into the same humor in regard to the "Irish Republic" before the snow of
another winter falls. The savants and students of
the situation are sorely puzzled to know what De
Valera and his accomplices want the United States
to do.
The Irish question is an English-Irish problem.
It is not to be supposed that England is going to
adopt any suggestions offered by the American Government if that government were disposed to offer
any. And if it were so disposed against England,
the belief is expressed on all sides that President
Wilson will decline the honor. The Irish question

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235

is essentially a question for the disposition of the
British Government. It stands to reason that that
government which has always abided by the Monroe Doctrine is not going to permit any foreign
power, ally or otherwise, to interfere with its own
Monroe Doctrine.
De Valera seems to be in the wrong pew. His
chances would appear much better in Canada or
Australia, two countries which appear to be curiously content under the British rule.
Yet discontent is readily bred and De Valera
seems to have a master mind for that handicraft.
It is conceded in England, in America and elsewhere, that there should be some early solution of
the Irish question. It has for centuries been a most
vexatious and annoying problem. It begins to look
as if it were to be an eternal and everlasting source
of disagreement and political dissension between
England and Ireland. The matter of settlement
might be very easily determined with equity and fair
play to all but for the fact that the Irish themselves
are hopelessly divided. The larger faction of the
Irish intellectuals are determined, and do not hesitate to make the world understand that they are determined, not to be removed from the English wing
of protection.
They hold precisely the same spirit with which
Canada, Australia and nearly all the English colonies are imbued. Ask a Canadian why Canada does
not make plea to the world at large for independence and he will laugh in your face and reply, "I
haven't a drop of Irish blood in my veins." Then
he proceeds to tell you how, against all odds and

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ends of political and international difficulties, his
land is protected, and how, pursuant to that protection, the Canadian Government is relieved of all expense of foreign representatives, consular generals,
members of the corps diplomatique, secret agents,
etc.; and he furthermore asserts with no little pride
that there is no flag in the world more worthy of respect or more capable of commanding it than the
Union Jack. Then again, he realizes that the friendship of the British Government and of the American
people makes for an enduring peace. That is not
a dream. It is not even a League of Nations
thought. The entire world, even France and Italy,
now concede that the whole hope of a world of civilization and of Christian human purpose has its
foundation in an Anglo-American alliance.
But not so with a large faction of the Irish people
in the United States, in Ireland and throughout
many parts of the world. Sir Horace Plunkett, in
the public utterance quoted throughout the world in
the early part of the summer of 1919, went so far as
to suggest a Dominion of Ireland. Startled at first,
ultra-conservative Englishmen were resentful. But
with their usual sense of fair play, many Englishmen
assented. And the wiseacres of the world who have
been studying the Irish question from time immemorial seemed to agree that it was probably the
best solution of the problem. Coincident with the
Plunkett suggestion was the cable announcement
from an authoritative source that Lloyd George and
Wilson had agreed upon some future possible action,
looking to a solution of the Irish problem. As this
statement was made in a publication over which Sir

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

237

Horace Plunkett has immediate supervision, it carried with it some sense of authority. It was applauded by the great journals throughout the world.
It seemed to have the endorsement of the majority
of the Irish people in all quarters of the globe.
De Valera, however, no sooner became cognizant
of this plan than he immediately proceeded to repudiate any such thought or action. Ireland did not
want any dominion. Ireland did not want anything
that England could give her. Ireland did not purpose to temporize with the English. Ireland did not
purpose longer to be made a tool of. Just what De
Valera does want for Ireland is quite plain. He is
distinctly out in the open with his entire scheme and
purpose. He wants a republic in the heart of the
British Empire. He probably a little later on will
want an army and navy and a secret service. He
will want all the paraphernalia of a government,
and in little or no time he will want to wreak vengeance upon the English people,-the English
people who, it is avowedly repeated, have been the
saviours of a wrecked world.
Is there time in this wonderful era of reconstruction to give serious thought to such piffle? We think
not.
The assertion is constantly made and often repeated that England has done nothing for Irish education; that other peoples under her rule have had
all sorts of advantages in this direction and that
she has had none. The Irishman or Irish woman
making these accusations always neglects to call
attention to the fact that no one would resent an
English school in Ireland sooner than the Irish

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priest. The Catholic Church, and rightly too, insists upon its own parochial schools. It insists that
its subjects be brought up under the Christian teaching of the Mother-Church of Ireland-hence England's apparent neglect in this respect.
If a man or woman fails to pay his or her rent
in New York, Chicago, Boston or almost any of the
large cities, he or she has thirty days' notice and
then in three days may be evicted. The English
laws in Ireland are so cited on the statute books
that an Irish tenant may go a year and a month
before the landlord has any power to evict him.
In the World War there were no soldiers who
evinced finer courage than many of Ireland's sons,
but the world cannot forget the fact that there are
thousands upon thousands of Irishmen who resisted
conscription and who declined to have anything to
do with the world affray. The war is well over.
The peace terms are signed. A League of Nations
is in the perspective, and it may be of more than
passing interest to record that Ireland today is the
most prosperous land in the world according to the
estimate of many municipal experts. She acquired
enormous wealth during the war. Her people in all
vocations could find high prices for their wares.
Her agriculturists are prosperous. Her manufactories are running full time, and she has every reason to be more content than any other part of the
British Dominion, because she has less responsibility and has derived infinitely more profit. It
should not be overlooked that the British Government could very easily have forced conscription and
thereby have saved many English lives. She did

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

239

not do so for the simple, salient reason that she
wanted to make patent to every people of every
nation on earth that she was trying her best to do
the fair thing for a most difficult people.
The Irish problem will unquestionably be very
definitely settled. It has reached a stage where it
can no longer be tolerated, and England can be
trusted to exercise her far-famed sense of fair play
in solving the problem. But of De Valera the world
is aweary. When a people are downtrodden, maligned and abused and in the pitiful position that
the Koreans are today, the world is watchful and
helpful and may blink its eyes over the horrors of
revolution. There are no factions in Korea -there
are no people that are satisfied. It is one of the
most pathetic spectacles conceivable to mark time to
the enslavement of that splendid people. There
is no similarity, however, between the situations in
Korea and Ireland. At no distant day Korea will
have won her independence and Japan will be made
to restore the Shantung provinces. Ireland is sure
of final independence if she can edit out of her
national life Sir Roger Casements, De Valeras and
like types, and in these troublous times the duty of
honorable sons of Erin is patent and paramount.

CHAPTER XX

FOND HOPES DISPELLED
T HE lurid Saturday night, the sorrowful Sunday and the Monday of orgies and debauchery preceding July I, 9 9, were days
in the life of the American nation that should be
carefully and secretively cast aside. The President
had temporarily declined to remove the ban on light
wine and beer. The friends of decency and honor
and a liquorless land were exuberant and enthusiastic in their praise of the Chief Executive. They
pointed to the fact that at last there was a president in the White House who appreciated the weaknesses of his fellow-man, the horrors of intoxication
and the always consequent and immediately associate crime and vice that have to do with drink. Interestedly they watched the last few days prior to
July i, in which the land was sunk deep in dissipation and debauchery.
Not since Nero felt and watched his throne slip
from under him; not since the Bacchantean nightmares of the ancient Romans; not since the fall of
Babylon, have the cities of any country or clime
been so steeped in debauchery. In the great Cosmopolitan centres of the country, New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia â again particularly â and
Boston-again most emphatically- the scenes up

FOND HOPES DISPELLED

241

to the midnight hours of June 30 and throughout
the early morning hours of the Tuesday following,
July I, formed a veritable picture of panoramic
horror and nauseating incident. The author on the
eventful night of June 30 happened to be domiciled
at a down-town hotel in the City of Culture. About
this hostelry are prosperous shops and great office
buildings, magnificent banks, and all the industrial
and commercial activities that go to make up a great
American city. In the very centre of this district is
a sweet old church wherein work a little body of
God's ministers, doing their best to pave the way to
Life and to counteract the evil influences of scores
-aye, hundreds of saloons. There are other
churches in the vicinity of St. Paul's Cathedral but
that edifice stands out alone in the picture. On the
evening prior to that day of dissipation, on the
steps of this sacred building, the choir in its vestments assembled at the twilight hour, and across
the Common was wafted the melody of some oldfashioned hymns. It may have been, perhaps, imagination on the part of the author, but on this Sunday
evening between the orgies of the night preceding
and the nightmares of the day following, these old
hymns seemed to take on a new reverence. Perchance the choristers were thinking of the approaching day when, glancing over the crowd, it would be
impossible to see some tottering, half drunken sailor
or soldier or the illumined face of some drunkard
who even in his debauchery paused to listen to the
solemn music.
In the immediate vicinity are other churches, but
in the march of progress and drink they have been

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THE SOBER WORLD

so commercialized that one of them has closed its
doors to the service of God, and the other is so
industrially inclined that it has a cafe in its basement.
Distant, down the main thoroughfare, Tremont St.,
is the far-famed and historic Scollay Square. In
that immediate vicinity there are a score of saloons
and hotels that have been as wide open to the drunkard on God's day as they were on the week days.
There was, to be sure, some ceremony to be followed if the drinking man cared to indulge on the
Sabbath. In one of these places was a half-barrel
of hard-boiled eggs. One might purchase one of
these in the early morning and that under the laws
of the City of Culture constituted a meal. The purchaser of that one egg might drink until the midnight hours. In other hotels it was only necessary
to buy a cheese sandwich, not always made of cheese.
Drunken mobs of people kept the police busy all the
night before the law was supposed to go into effect.
Several policemen were shot, other officers of the
law mobbed, and here and there one or two were
killed. Reports from all over the country indicate
like scenes. The liquor stores were swamped with
people trying to get in their supplies for the approaching drought, and sadly enough there were
almost as many women among the purchasers as
there were men.
At last, like all evil things, the night passed. In
the morning the revellers, with parched throats, and
the sane people of the community hardly glanced
at their newspapers when to their astonishment they
found that the country after all was not to become
liquorless, that not only was liquor not banished,

FOND HOPES DISPELLED

243

but a far more difficult and far more dangerous type
of drunkenness was about to be introduced-the
selfsame drunkenness that has made Germany what
it is, the drunkenness of the beer swiller.
The Attorney-General of the United States, confused beyond any sort of possible solution and confronted by decisions of judges that 2.75 beer was
not intoxicating, decided to permit its manufacture
and its distribution. No possible censure can be
passed upon Mr. Palmer in this decision. According to the best legal minds of the country he would
have trespassed upon his office as the chief legal advisor of the United States had he done otherwise.
The fact cannot be gainsaid that according to the
rulings of several courts there was but one thing left
for him to do and that was to await the final decision of the Supreme Court of the United States or
else the deliberations and enactment of a new law
by the Congress of the United States. That such
action on the part of both the Supreme Court and
the Congress of the United States will be forthcoming before many months have elapsed, is a foregone
conclusion. The American people have plainly expressed their sentiment in regard to liquor. They
will have no more. They have determined upon a
sane and sober people and a sane and sober government. They have determined that the pursuit of
liberty and human happiness is idle and useless when
a vast proportion of the population is under the
influence of drink.
Such determination to the contrary, notwithstanding, the situation was one of revolting characteristics. Surmises were as multitudinous as the leaves

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on the trees, and suppositions were rife. And the
hopes of the seriously inclined people of the land
were sadly and rudely dispelled.
There was not the remotest expectation that Attorney-General Palmer would feel called upon to
render any such decision. The American people on
the whole thought that this land for all time was
relieved of the brewery curse. They did not think
for a moment that any possible occasion could arise
whereby the Government of the United States could
be turned back into the hands of the brewer, âand
that is literally what it means.
With 2.75 beer the brewer will have acquired a
monopoly of the liquor business throughout the entire land. With 2.75 beer he no longer has whiskey,
gin, wine, and the light drinks to which men are
addicted to contend with. With 2.75 beer the
drunkard is absolutely similar to the brutes that
raped Belgium, to this same square-headed, stolid
German Boche that shot Edith Cavell to her death,
that sunk the Lusitania, and that did a million other
iniquitous things.
In the judgment of the friends of a liquorless
world, the Government of the United States could
not have made a graver or more far-reaching mistake than to lift this ban. In the old days it was
possible for the inebriate to acquire a fair-sized
jag after drinking a half-dozen glasses of the
stronger brands of beer. Under the Attorney-General's ruling he will have to drink about three times
as many, which in the course of a very short while
will of course lead to a severe case of cirrhosis
of the liver or some worse trouble, and incidentally

FOND HOPES DISPELLED

245

the profits of the brewer are quadrupled at the lowest possible estimate. Instead of six glasses of beer
it will be necessary to drink sometimes six times six.
Instead of an hour to acquire the usual jag, the
poor culprit will have to spend six. In other words,
like the German, he will have to do one of two
things,-help to build up a machine to fight with
(because the drunkard always wants to fight) or
create a type of manhood that is utterly devoid of
responsibility and decency.
Some of those who are best informed say it was
a political move; some astute judges of government
and parties have pointed out the fact that it was
President Wilson's final effort to annihilate the Republican party. They pointed out that one Elihu
Root, the greatest antagonist of the League of
Nations and the counsel for the United Brewers'
Association, was in the main responsible for the
Attorney-General's decision. In every part of the
country Mr. Root and his assistants have brought
about an agitation that left the courts wide open for
just such a decision as that rendered by a New York
judge, favoring the distribution of 2.75 beer.
These same observers also suggested that from the
first the Republican party absolutely refused to assume any responsibility in the liquor question except
for the action of a few Republicans in the upper
and lower house of Congress, and that while they
openly declared themselves against liquor they
secretly worked for it.
It was pointed out by many ministers of his home
state that Senator Lodge had led this group of antagonists to a sober nation; that he was "non-com

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THE SOBER WORLD

mittal" on the liquor question and that he was distinctly and emphatically against woman's suffrage.
The Democrats with infinite pride pointed to the
fact that the German sympathizers, Reed and Gore,
had arrayed themselves with the Republicans and
that President Wilson saw his great opportunity,
and that perhaps he had directed the AttorneyGeneral to take just such action. In the present
humor of the country it is not likely that the Attorney-General would of his own volition and initiative ever have presumed to lay the country wide
open to the brewer again without the endorsement
of the President of the United States.
According to the Attorney-General's own statement, it was not a matter of law. The war-time
prohibition measure was perfectly plain in its expression, but the Attorney-General insisted upon a
clear and concise interpretation of that law by the
court.
Wars are wars but, as Cardinal Mercier points
out, when they are over with there is no divisional
thought. They leave in their train a great throng
of heroes and noble men and women on the one
side and a lot of despicable brutes like the Germans
on the other. But uneasiness and political differences among people over a plain case of what is
right and what is wrong are of infinitely more farreaching import. Certainly no real American is
willing to permit the upbuilding of another brewery
industry in this country. Certainly 2.75 beer does
nothing in the world but rejuvenate and rehabilitate
and reincarnate that self-same brewery business and
give it greater impetus and infinitely more powerful

FOND HOPES DISPELLED

247

influence over the whole of every community in
which there is a brewery than it ever had before.
"Two and three-quarters beer" gives the brewer
a monopoly of saloons throughout this whole land
from Maine to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. The early morning newsboy on July I
had hardly ceased to make his rounds when the
breweries throughout the country were running full
time.
In the center of one of the great cities of the
country is a wonderful church. Like the Cathedral
of St. Paul's in New York, on Fifth Avenue, it was
in the main built by the pennies of servant girls.
About it are ranged no less than seven breweries.
Beyond question, the same people who support and
work in these breweries do their share toward the
support of that church. They help to support its
seminary and other institutions. They do what they
think is right and the state and nation have said they
do what is right. Naturally they ask themselves
whether they are doing right or wrong when they
read a decision like that of the Attorney-General of
the United States. Within a few, a very few, hours
of the announcement, every one of these breweries
was running full time, and the brewery magnates,
workmen and clerks were enthusiastic over the fact
that they were to continue business indefinitely under
the laws of the United States.
No more complex situation ever confronted the
American people. The best element, beyond question, are all arrayed on the side of a sober nation of
sober people. There can be no question about the
eventual outcome. The American people expressed

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THE SOBER WORLD

plainly to the President of the United States and
to Congress that they desired this country to take
its place side by side with the other great nations in
the World War. With infinitely more significance
they have indicated very plainly to the President of
the United States and to the Congress of the United
States that they will have no more of the brewer.
Mr. Root and his cohorts can beat their heads
against the wall, but the bulwark of the American
people is a very strong piece of masonry. The 2.75
beer is only a temporary makeshift: 2.75 beer, 1.75
beer or.50 beer are all about to travel down the
road of the past. It is not in the humor of the
American people to continue any style, type or
fashion of drunkenness. The whole world is making for a sober world and America is leading the
way.

CHAPTER XXI

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS
W HEN the jaded traveler has " done " Continental Europe, visualized the Riviera
and watched the game tables at Monte
Carlo, visited the "land of the midnight sun," made
his collection of scarabs on the piazza of Sheppard's Hotel at Cairo in Egypt, he turns naturally
for new sensations to Port Said, that kaleidoscopic,
spectacular city which is the gateway to the Orient
at the entrance to the Suez Canal. Why he ventures there is an open secret. Kipling and other
writers have vividly painted the picture of human
vice and infamy that is to be found in this loathsome
hole. It is not an unusual sight to see nude women
dancing in the street at high noon.
But there is a place in America not very much unlike Port Said. It is that famed city by the sea,
Atlantic City, New Jersey, âa city which, with regret be it said, the present President of the United
States at one time thought he could revolutionize
into some sense and semblance of decency. That
he failed signally is indicated by the fact that instead
of seeing the nude women at noon time in Atlantic
City it is only necessary to wait until midnight.
That remarkable and picturesque resort further
added to its notoriety at the crisis of the liquor situation, by deliberately and flagrantly disobeying to

250 j THE SOBER WORLD
the very letter this Federal law of the United States
which was passed as a rider to the Emergency Agricultural Act of November 21. Its provisions are
as follows:
"Until the conclusion of the present war and thereafter
until the termination of demobilization, the date of which
shall be determined and proclaimed by the President of the
United States, for the purpose of conserving the man power
of the nation, and to increase efficiency in the production of
arms, munitions, ships, food and clothing for the army and
navy, it shall be unlawful to sell for beverage purposes any
distilled spirits, and during said time no distilled spirits held
in bond shall be removed therefrom for beverage purposes
except for export.
"After May i, I919, until the conclusion of the present
war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization,
the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by
the President of the United States, no grains, cereals, fruit
or other food product shall be used in the manufacture or
production of beer, wine or other intoxicating malt or vinous
liquors for beverage purpose.
"After June 30, I919, until the conclusion of the present
war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization,
the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by the
President of the United States, no beer, wine, or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquor shall be sold for beverage
purposes except for export.
"The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is hereby authorized and directed to prescribe rules and regulations, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, in regard to the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits held in
bond after June 30, I9I9, until this act shall cease to operate,
for other than beverage purposes; also in regard to the manufacture, sale and distribution of wine for sacramental, medicinal or other than beverage uses.
"After the approval of this act no distilled, malt, vinous,
or other intoxicating liquors shall be imported into the
United States during the continuance of the present war and
period of demobilization. Provided, that this provision
against importation shall not apply to shipments en route to
the United States at the time of the passage of this act.

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 251
"Any person who violates any of the foregoing provisions
shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding one year,
or by fine not exceeding $I,ooo, or by both such imprisonment
and fine."
It will be observed that the letter and spirit of this
law are as explicit as the carved image of the
Saviour on the Crucifix. This statement is made in
the spirit of equity and conscientious reverence, because this law to rid this land of the direst menace
that besets it is a sacred and solemn thing.
The spectacle of a multitude of summer idlers so
far forgetting their patriotism, so far forgetting
their love of fatherland, of law and order, as to
totally ignore such an edict is a reflection on the
American people that cannot readily be pardoned.
Atlantic City, however, is the place where just such
incidents might be expected.
Quoth a famous prima donna of salacious reputation to one of the "rounders" that she happened
to meet on Connecticut Avenue in Washington on
one of the bright days in June just a few years ago:
"Where are you going this summer?"
" I don't know," said the rounder. " Why do you
ask?"
"Oh, I happen to know that sometimes you go
to Atlantic City and I was going to make a
suggestion."
"What suggestion? I am open to all suggestions about Atlantic City."
"My suggestion simply is that you do not go to
the Hotel.
"Why?"
"For the simple reason that they have a new
rule there which will not please you."

252

THE SOBER WORLD

"What is it?"
"They ring a bell there every morning at seven
o'clock and everybody has to go to his own room."
Such is life in this great resort which is so openly
and flagrantly defying the laws of the country.
There might not have been any law on the books
so far as Atlantic City was concerned. From midnight of July I onward were enacted scenes in this
place of revelry and drink by night and day that
were remarkable even in its lurid history. People
from all parts of the United States hastened there.
Every hotel was crowded to overflowing. Drinks
of every kind and description were served over the
bar exactly as if nothing had happened to rule to the
contrary. Every saloon except the bars of a few
hotels along the Board Walk occasionally frequented by respectable people were wide open night
and day. One of the scenes most curious to the
summer visitor was of course obliterated under the
new regime. For some years past there has been a
suggestion of an observance of the Sabbath. Those
visitors who were not thoroughly posted found it
very difficult on Sunday to get a drink. As a vast
number of men who go to Atlantic City go without
their wives and daughters, naturally drink is an
important factor in their summer, fall or spring
vacation. Sometimes for reasons best known to
themselves they go down there during the midwinter, and one of the scenes which the author has
observed with the deepest interest is the crowd
along the Board Walk from half-past ten until midnight every Sunday evening. Sometimes they will
line up in hundreds ---aye, thousands-at the en

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 25
trance to the bars. For under the ruling the saloons
were closed from twelve o'clock Saturday night until
twelve o'clock Sunday night, but promptly at twelve
the closing hours were done with and the bars
opened, and again the merry-go-round continued.
All America was mystified to know just what action
would be eventually taken by the Attorney-General
and his assistants in regard to this astonishing disobedience of the law.
In other parts of the United States there were
instances of almost as flagrant disregard of the
statute. In New York hundreds of saloons kept
wide open despite the fact that the courts had not
definitely decided on the legality of 2.75 beer. They
did not hesitate to sell drinks across the bar. They
abrogated unto themselves the right to decide what
was 2.75 beer and what was a light wine, and if the
patron of the bar happened to be known and to be
one who would keep faith he had no difficulty whatever in obtaining what strong drink he desired.
In Chicago the situation was if anything more
serious than it was in New York. There was an
open and frank disregard for the national statute.
Curiously enough, the city where least might have
been expected showed to best advantage. Philadelphia adhered to strict observance of the statute except in a few isolated cases.
The hotels at Boston had their bars closed in some
instances and one or two of them, the more respectable ones, sold only soft drinks, but only a wink to
the proprietor was necessary to obtain anything that
was wanted.
The Department of Justice officials and Secret

254

THE SOBER WORLD

Service detectives made record of the various violations of the law. What was to be done in the end
depended, of course, largely upon the President of
the United States, who was speeding toward his
native land at this writing (July 3) on the transport
George Washington. Never was his presence
needed in a more important crisis in the affairs of
the nation. jt was the first time in the history of
the United States that wide-spread violation of a
national statute had ever been recorded. It was
the initial movement of the spirit of unrest that
might beget revolution, and close observers viewed
it with alarm and pessimistic prophecy of evil. So
many contradictory decisions have been rendered by
courts, so many rulings made by different officials
throughout the land, that the Attorney-General
might perhaps have been pardoned for assuming an
attitude that did not seem to be sufficiently drastic.
For the moment, beyond question, that Colossus of
Iniquity, the Teuton brewer, had won. He was
back on the stage. He had more than fully attained
everything that he desired. He had wiped off the
map all of his competitors in business. No longer
did he have to fear the Kentucky or Virginia or
Pennsylvania whiskey distiller; no longer did he
have to trouble about competition from the vine
countries of France or Spain, or the Madeira
Islands. He had the liquor trade of the United
States for the moment under his finger and gleefully
he regarded the issue. In the back parlors of the
German-American owned hotels of New York and
other cities he and his companions stood back and
chuckled merrily over their momentary victory.

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 255
"Vy de var vill make no difference," said one of
these beer masters. "Ve vill sell more beer in
America than we sell all over the vorld."
"Ach, mein Gottl" rejoined his companion, another Teuton who a few weeks ago was about to
pitch his tent like the Arab and take his dreary way
to Poland. "Ve vill stay right here in America,
Zat Mr. Root is a fine man. Zat Mr. Lodge, he
help too. Eet ees a fine t'ing to be non-commeetal."
The above conversation, which is verbatim, between two of the majestic magnates of the brewery
interests, expressed perhaps the verdict of the entire
German-American population in the United States.
Their profits with the two billion dollars' worth of
brewery properties and "interests" would at a low
estimate be doubled in five years under the 2.75 beer
conditions. As has been cited, their profits would
be doubled, perhaps trebled, maybe quadrupled in
a very short time. The light-wine-drinking population of the United States is so small that it need not
be seriously discussed.
The brewer, in his covert wisdom, knew full well
that it would be practically impossible for the Government of the United States to keep a revenue officer standing over the vats in every brewery in the
United States. So the term "2.75 beer" is simply
a misnomer. Occasionally perhaps it would be possible to detect the brewer making a stronger beer.
He might be punished for the violation of the law,
but where one violation was detected a thousand
wouid go unnoticed and unpunished. And no thinking American or onesingle moment ever conceived
the idea that any German brewer had any intention

256

THE SOBER WORLD

of obeying an American law when its avoidance was
possible. Nor could any thinking American or anyone else who knows the brewer and his methods ever
for a moment suggest that the brewer had other
than an ulterior motive in the manufacture of beer.
It is not simply the profit in dollars that is prompting the brewer. It is the old Pan-Germanism dream,
excited, encouraged and enhanced by recent events
in America. It is the old, vengeful thought of returning evil for good.
The brewer never for a moment appreciates the
fact that the Entente in Christian charity has left the
German lands and the German people, except for
their inevitable losses by war, absolutely without any
physical punishment. His fatherland is intact, his
industries are just as they were before the great conflict. The German woman and the German child,
except for a few deprivations and the loss perhaps
of some relative in the cataclysm of conflict, are
existent today just as they were before the war.
Their homes are untouched, their cities are undevastated. There is not a church spire that is not standing erect; there is not a stream of water ththas
been polluted; there is not a tree dismantled. /There
has not been an iota of injury to the whole German
country at the hands of the Entente. It is safe and
sound-and ready for business.
As a return for the philanthropic treatment of the
Entente, the German brewer, who is the most influential relic of the German nation today, has rejuvenated his propaganda in America and is setting
out just as if nothing had happened to reincarnate
the old Pan-Germanism dream and if possible to

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 257
get control of this government and of every LatinAmerican government existent.
Verily, the presence of the President is needed.
Some man of infinite wisdom, deep forethought and
sterling courage is wanted to handle the situation,
-one not only unprecedented in the history of this
land but unmistakably bearing the ear-marks of
revolution.
It has been but a few days since the Labor Union
at Atlantic City had transferred its activities to the
steps of the Capitol at Washington. It is but a
few short weeks since the brewers circulated among
the workmen of this country millions of buttons on
which were inscribed the words, "No beer, no
work." It has been but a very short time since
Elihu Root, the counsel for the United Brewers' Association, placed his drag-net for the loose fishes in
the League of Nations. Can there be any affiliation
between these two movements on the part of Root
and his assistants? Is the liquor game back of his
action in relation to the League of Nations? It is
difficult to divorce one from the other.
When one country possesses an evil thing, if it
has a sense of equity it hesitates to transfer that
evil thing to another land. Great Britain has breweries, but there are no British breweries in the
United States, and apparently no ulterior motive in
the sale of English beer. The clubman of taste and
distinction would no more think of drinking a glass
of German beer than he would think of taking an
aeroplane trip from Washington to New York in
a bathing suit. If for reason of thirst or because
there is placed before him a luscious steak served

258

THE SOBER WORLD

a la bernaise or a la bordelaise, he may want moisture for digestive purposes, other than some heady
wine, he will ask for a bottle of Dog's Head or
White Label Bass Ale. He would never think of
the German beer. He never thought of it before
the war until it was practically forced down his
throat in every American, English, French, German,
Italian, and South American hotel of any importance. But the English brewer brews his beer at
home, and if America wants it he must drink it from
a small cask or from a bottle in this country. There
are no English brewers in America and there are no
English designs on this land. The field has been left
absolutely and entirely open to the Teuton brewmaster.
It cannot be gainsaid that the situation was one
of more seriousness after July I than it was during
the weeks that preceded that date, and the President's arrival here is being anxiously awaited.
Meantime, the active forces of thinking men and
women throughout the land were again hard at
work to counteract for the moment the tide that
had set in against them. Not only were they not
at all discouraged but they seemed to agree with the
little group of Washington women who appeared
to be very much inclined to give the German brewer
sufficient rope to hang himself. That thought to
the contrary notwithstanding, the lapse back into
liquor and lawlessness cannot fail to be detrimental
to the whole people of the United States.
What mysterious magic is it about the liquor
traffic that seems to rob men of sanity and equilibrium? A Federal statute in simple and explicit

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 259
terms of expression was writ on the statute books
and in no states in the Union except those of the
South and a few in the far West was the spirit of
this law loyally interpreted and obeyed to the letter.
The decisions of the courts was not even awaited.
The saloon-keeper Monahan in the City of Culture
had openly declared that he would keep his bar
open, law or no law, and that no law should close
it. Ten thousand law-breakers assembled about
his place on the day following July I, when the
enactment of the law should have been quite plain.
So great was his business that he had to limit each
customer to one drink. What that drink contained
may be found in the records later on. There was
a marked joyousness in the mob, however, that did
not seem readily acquired from one glass of 2.75
beer.
To the great credit of numerous of the low dives
in various parts of the city, it may be said that they
were closed, tightly closed. They took no chances.
One of the proprietors, for whom one could not
help feeling pity, said to the author: "I was born
and brought up in this business. I don't know any
other. I don't know what I am going to do, but I
do know I am going to obey the law of this land."
" How do you stand with the brewer? "
"I owe him about ten thousand dollars," was the
response, "and I wish to God I owed him twenty
thousand more and had it in my pocket." That
man throughout his whole lifetime sold drinks to the
workmen in a saloon not far distant from the Catholic Cathedral in Boston on Washington Street. He
has a fine record. Few arrests are made in his place.

260

THE SOBER WORLD

The neighbors say he was never known to sell a
drink to a drunken man. That type of man is to be
pitied. He is simply a tool of a situation that has
been appalling for a century or more in the United
States of America. But he will soon find his place
in the new world, the Sober World, and the chances
are that he will be a most valuable citizen. He
realizes perhaps for the first time that he has been
simply a tool of the German brewer. He fully
understands that his family, his friends, and his own
personal well-being will be enhanced two-fold. The
author was much impressed with his statement that
he did not know what he was going to do, and he
did not have any money to do what he wanted to
do, but he did not hesitate to say that he was glad
to be relieved of the shackles that had hung about
his neck from his boyhood.
The world is going to take care of that sort of
saloon-keeper. There is not a business man in the
United States of any standing who would not go out
of his way to help him to a new life. But may God
have mercy on the brewery crowd and their affiliates
that are attempting to continue to throttle every
good sense of statesmanship in this land with their
noxious poison! We have done with them, as the
Congress of the United States will soon conclusively
and irrevocably make plain.
And when the spirit of the American people has
again spoken it will be found that the present President of the United States will speak with it.
The German brewer with some show of decency
might have been allowed to continue business in the
United States, but his insolent daring, his flam

UNPRECEDENTED LAWLESSNESS 26I
boyant disregard for all ethics and for the fundamental principles of American life have put him
beyond the pale of any leniency, consideration or
charitable thought. The time is come when he
must be disciplined and severely disciplined, and
the American people can be trusted to administer
that discipline in America just as they administered
it at Chateau-Thierry and in the Argonne Woods.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SOBER WORLD
HE old world is off: on with the new I The
requiem of that Emperor of Evils, Rum,
has been sung by the rank and file of all
clean and true-hearted Americans without a tinge
of sadness, and the highway to a sober land cleared
of all obstructions that might be deemed lastingly
dangerous is in the prospective.
The events that followed the wild orgies on the
days and nights preceding the epochal July i only
served more strongly to cement and enforce American sentiment and determination against all drink
and the invariable accompanying drunkenness. But
no great reform is ever successfully consummated
without dire human suffering. The transformation
from a land populous with cities, towns and hamlets
in which there were thousands upon thousands of
saloons, drinkeries under the polite title of cabarets,
and other hotbeds of vice and crime, could not be
accomplished without told and untold hnman suffering and crime.
A drunken father who had not drawn a sober
breath for ten years murdered his toiling wife and
then attempted to kill himself, leaving three children
to wander aimlessly about the world. There were
a score or more of other murders in the large cities.

THE SOBER WORLD

263

A dozen or more policemen were shot and two or
three of them met their death. Thousands of cases
of delirium tremens overtaxed the accommodations
of the hospitals of the country. Millions of American women were kept busy for days and weeks nursing back to sanity fathers, brothers and sweethearts
who felt called upon to celebrate the departure of
the menace.
Atlantic City, New York, Chicago and Boston
were the cities ostensibly open in their defiance of
the law. In some of the leading hotels in those
places the stranger and occasional wayfarer found
it difficult to continue his debauch but the old
habitues were entertained as of yore. The friends
of the liquor traffic reiterated their hopes and expectations. The time would never come when
strong drink could not be had, they vociferously cried
from the housetops âand there were open violations of the laws on all sides.
The Attorney-General of the United States, who
was evidently marking time until the return of the
President, frankly confessed that he was confused
and confounded over the issue. The provisions of
the law were not sufficiently explanatory and its interpretation difficult. It was still a matter for the
courts and additional Congressional action.
What constituted an intoxicating beverage was
the all-consuming question. Did 2.75 beer come
under that ban? Americans, knowing "American
politics" as practised at Washington and some of
the less important state capitals, smiled and turned
to the record of the authorities. They recalled that
the school girl who had drunk half a dozen glasses

264

THE SOBER WORLD

of 2.75 beer was as easy a victim of the rake or libertine as if she had a quart of Moet and Chaudon
or Mumm's champagne. By the same token, they
remembered that any Teuton or German-American
brew-master might drink a half a barrel of the
same two and three-quarters beverage and not
come under the ban of the police judge ruling of
intoxication.
There is one situation so grave and serious that
it is entirely bereft of humor. So the American
business man, awaiting the final hour when the industrial and commercial life of the nation would no
longer be menaced by the drunken striker or walking delegate wearing the "No beer, no work" button of the German-American brewer, smilingly
looked on and watched the vividly interesting procession of events.
The whole situation was so beautifully obvious.
The Congress of the United States was Republican;
the administration Democratic. The drastic wartime prohibition measure as well as the Federal
amendment to the Constitution of the United States
had both been fathered and passed by the Democrats. President Wilson, who never has been known
to lose sight of his party's interest, had determined
that in the new temporary crisis his Republican antagonists should shoulder their measure of responsibility for the greatest and most revolutionary
reform in the Nation's history. The Republicans
ostensibly preferred to remain on the side lines and
win the votes of the liquor canaille by silence and
occasionally expressed sympathy. This the President was loath to have happen, and some of his ad

THE SOBER WORLD

265

verse critics were so critically disposed toward him
that they insisted he had timed his departure from
Europe so that he would be at sea when the liquor
crisis arose. And they further added that his Attorney-General had been instructed by wireless to
remain a spectator in the gallery until after the
Independence Day recess of the Congress, when that
not always consistent body would have to assume
its full measure of responsibility and do the bidding
of the American people which had been so imperiously expressed during the World War.
Never before had the American game of battledore and shuttlecock been played with more astuteness and acumen on the one side and impotent helplessness on the other-for there was no mistaking
the attitude of American people as a whole. The
day of the "non-commital" politician in Senate or
House of the Congress was passed and over with.
Either he was for liquor and the interests of the
German-American brewer, or else he was against
those iniquitous factors in the national life. The
Senator or Congressman was in favor of returning
to power the Teuton brew-master and his countless
saloon-keepers that they might again menace this
government and the welfare of the people, or else
he was against such a measure.
There was no half-way inn along the wayside
wherein might rest the political mountebank. The
time had come when he must stand out in the open
highway and declare himself.
There was not in the whole United States an
American man, woman or child with ordinary
kitchen-garden intelligence who was not fully cog

266

THE SOBER WORLD

nizant of the danger of 2.75 beer to his native
land.
They-American women and children and men
â knew full well that the unrestricted sale of any
kind of beer or beverage by Germans, or GermanAmericans as we are pleased to call them, meant the
actual Germanizing of every great and many a
small city throughout the land-and in the end
perhaps a German-American United States. He
who ran might have read the dangers that beset the
path of the brewery beast of prey.
And in the end the Washington politiciansand what few statesmen there happen to be among
them- will settle the matter of liquor as the American people have indicated they purpose to have it
settled. There can be no temporizing measure.
Better a whiskey and gin joint on every street corner
in the country than one brewery in each state.
There had been brandy, rum, gin and every known
strong drink during the Civil War âin Kentucky,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia and every
state in the Union. But it is not on record that any
soldier, North or South, ever bored a child's eyes
out or raped a Sister of Mercy. And it was conceded that no other type of human brute than the
Teuton beer-swiller would commit such atrocity.
The verdict of the American people has been rendered and it awaits with confidence and determination the decision of the Nation's builders.
In many ways whenever the occasion has arisen,
Cardinal Mercier has tried to show his deep grati

THE SOBER WORLD

267

tude to the people of the United States for their
timely assistance to the people of his grief-stricken
Belgium during the World War. Some of the Sisters of Mercy who were raped and mutilated by
beer-poisoned Huns were attached to his dioceseas recounted in an earlier chapter.
On June 24, just before the several days of orgy
throughout the United States, an Associated Press
dispatch to all the principal newspapers in the United
States stated:
"Cardinal Mercier, primate of Belgium, the Militant
prelate of the Catholic Church, whose heroic figure stood
between his martyred country and the Hun during the war,
has taken a stand in favor of general prohibition. In an
interview at the archepiscopal palace at Malines the cardinal
said, 'I am a great believer in the repression of all intoxicating drinks such as alcohol and absinthe. If general prohibition were introduced, more human lives would be saved than
by general disarmament.' Alcohol kills more men than war
and kills them dishonorably. When man is killed by war, an
existence is suppressed, whereas the evil survives after inebriates have had enough of existence.
"Complete prohibition cannot be introduced instantaneously, but gradually, step by step, taking circumstances into
consideration. The use of alcohol should be made increasingly difficult and should not be made a provocation.
"This statement is regarded by prohibitionists as showing
the trend of thought among leaders on the other side of the
Atlantic, who believe that world-wide prohibition is inevitable, but feel it must come gradually as it came to America,
through education, each progressive step bringing the world
nearer to the ultimate elimination of alcohol as a beverage."
From no source could such utterance be less expected. Drinking in Belgium has always been something of an art. There was some intoxication among
the Walloons and other workingmen, but less on
the whole than in any other country of Europe.

268

THE SOBER WORLD

The little flower garden in front of the priest's house
and his hospitable glass of wine are treasured memories that the visitor carries away with him. But
the infamous cruelties of the heinous Hun have
driven drink-even mild drink- out of the world's
category, and the eminent Belgian prelate has, like
other great Churchmen, taken his place at the head
of the procession for its abolition.
The World League which assembled at Washington about the last of June, 19I9, may be counted
the all-important initial movement for the permanent removal of the evil. Delegates from many
distant countries were in attendance and the whole
movement was launched under the most auspicious
circumstances. Another most promising sign of the
times was a revival of literature looking to a Sober
World. No longer was the wine-tainted hero a
vogue and the cocktail-sipping woman the fashionable heroine. A revival of Ibanez' La Bodega
(The Fruit of the Wine), written more than sixteen
years ago, had paved the way for a new thought in
fiction that did not necessitate so many wine glasses
for decorative purposes.
Cleverly a reviewer in the New York Times embodies some of the finest touches in the great work
thus:
"There is much realistic description of the appalling
misery in which the wretched laborers, men, women and
children, on vineyard and farm, toil through weary day after
day and sleep like animals in the promiscuous association of
their quarters. The food served them is barely enough to
keep life in their bodies, and in this half-starved condition
'They dream of wine, beholding in it the strength of their
thoughts. The glass of wine stills hunger and with its fire
for a moment gladdens life.'

THE SOBER WORLD

269

"There is one rich employer, cousin of the head of the
great house of Dupont, who is a roistering young person, a
patron of bullfighters, and delighting in madcap and strenuous forms of vinous exhilaration. It gives him the greatest
pleasure to gather in the wretched laborers and craze or
stupefy them upon the choicest and most expensive wine in
the firm's bodegas. It is one of these mad pranks, when he
has succeeded in making drunk not only the laborers but
the overseer's household and all the guests with wine from
the precious bottles, that results in the tragic climax of the
personal phase of the story. But intertwined with the personal interests is another that is more abstract, although it
seems to hold for the author a keener interest. For in the
shocking labor conditions and the drunkenness of the region
he feels the concern of the reformer and the revolutionary
that he is first of all. And he brings that interest to its
climax at the end of the book in a disastrous attempt at
revolt that is grim with its mocking ironies. And afterward
the sinister hand of 'La Bodega' crushes the poor wretches
down more masterfully than before."
And because of the new world spirit for sobriety
and decency Spain, whose glories departed long
since-that wonder story of the inspired writerseems to be about to rise out of her ashes. The
same current reports come from every corner and
quarter of the globe where there has been much
drunkenness, except two âGermany and her hopeless tool, Mexico.
That tidal wave of repulsion for drink in every
form is sweeping the world. It is the most significant and pertinent forerunner in the new era of
reconstruction and it is the pride of every sterling
American that it is his loved country that is blazing
the trail.
Vale Drink!
Vale the mewing and peuking drunkard of the
Shakespeare tale!

270 THE SOBER WORLD
Vale the sodden wretch in the street that shames
the sun, sickens the child, lies down in his slime and
arises in horror to face the new day!
And picture if you may a new Sober World. It
takes no wide span of imagery. The statesman with
no whiskey or beer fences to mend or tend. The
youth with a clear road ahead and no saloon at every
milestone. The sweetheart with no horror for the
future of her lover-no fear of drink. The wife
with the child at her breast untainted with the blood
of a drunken father. The mother with no night
vigils and days of horror for the son poisoned in his
youth and wrecked in his manhood.
Verily a Sober World âa world where men may
play their parts like men, not beer-soaked Hunswill be a world worth living in.

L'ENVOI

P RESIDENT WILSON arrived to face the
tourbillon in his own land on Tuesday,
July 8. The George Washington, with a
convoy of battleships, torpedo boats and other
naval craft, steamed into the harbor of the greatest
city in the world amid scenes of royal welcome
which eclipsed the receptions of Admiral Dewey,
after the Spanish tempest in a tea-pot, and that
accorded the most beloved of all latter-day Americans, Theodore Roosevelt, upon his return from
Africa. Beneath a sky of azure and a sun of gold
Fifth Avenue presented a multi-colored pageantry,
brilliant beyond the pen in its kaleidoscopic picturesqueness- exceptional even for Gotham, the city
of spectacular pomp and pictures.
Party lines were dissolved. The march past the
great political clubs was marked by an almost equal
enthusiasm. It was impossible to detect the greater
warmth of greeting, the one from the other, for
men and women of all creeds and classes appreciated that an era in the world's history had arrived
when for the moment at least internecine squabble
and partisan piffle must be laid aside. Only the
Bolsheviki and the canaille -the same element that
hissed the name of the President of the United States
during the De Valera meeting at Madison Square

2 THE SOBER WORLD
Garden - was silent. The Tammany governor
of the state of New York and the Tammany mayor
of its chief city warmly greeted the Chief Executive
an xpressed their loyalty and fealty.
\The President had been on these shores but a
fe-murs when he made it quite plain to the red
liquor advocates and the brewery tribes that he purposed not to interfere further in the drink business.
Neither did he purpose to call the army demobilized
when it was not demobilized. Further, it might be
added it was not likely that demobilization would
be accomplished before the late fall of I9I9-if
at all before the Constitutional amendment became
effective. A great wail went up from the liquor
mobs throughout the country. The mayor of the
city of Boston made strenuous plaint to the Chief
Executive. Representative Fitzgerald alleged coercion.
Enter also one Samuel Untermeyer of New York,
a lawyer, as counsel for the interests of a group of
" British" brewers. He it was that the Department
of Justice exposed during the World War as an
associate of Dr. H. A. Albert of the HamburgAmerican steamship line in the purchase of American newspapers for Teuton purposes. More recently he had come into public notice as the counsel
for the Rand School of Social Science, a Bolsheviki
institution under investigation in New York. Mr.
Untermeyer's entrance on the brewery stage was interesting mainly because of its novel comedy. In a
formal announcement to the press of the country he
stated that he had been employed by "British" investors representing over $40,000,000 of brewery

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273

property. He declared that he was about to begin
a fight " on the ground that Congress had no power
to enact war legislation in times of peace." Poor
Congress The American public awaited its action
and the possible outcome of this startling admonition. The name of only one brewery property was
mentioned which the genial Mr. Untermeyer said
was worth $4,500,000. It is named the "ClausenFlanagan Brewery Company."
"Clausen, Flanagan, Untermeyer!"
It sounds more like a scroll from the GermanAmerican Alliances than a British investment list.
Mr. Untermeyer's debut in association with Mr.
Root cannot be counted auspicious.
X/dly coincident with his announcement came the
news from London that a little band of Americans
had arrived there and were about to begin their
war on the brewery and other alcoholic institutions.
About the same time some government figures, as
the result of war-time drink regulations in England,
were made public. In I9I3, when that country was
at peace, there were I88,877 convictions for drunkenness. In I918 there were only 29,0I9 from the
same cause. In I918 there were only 32 deaths
from alcoholism, as compared with 786 in 1913.
Children are always the sufferers from drink.
No less than 1226 were suffocated in 1913, in a
majority of cases because their parents or caretakers
were drunk. In 1918 the number of deaths from
that cause had been reduced to8T7
If this were a book of statistics many like figures
could be adduced in this country as well as England.
Nevertheless, the genial Untermeyer declares that

274

THE SOBER WORLD

"Congress cannot evade that duty [the duty of
abolishing the existing law] to the destruction of
legitimate business investments amounting to many
hundreds of millions of dollars that were built up
under the protection and encouragement of federal
and State governments ever since we became a nation âa business that has contributed, and is to-day
contributing, hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the federal revenue, to say nothing of the
tribute collected by the States."
Unfortunately for Mr. Untermeyer, Congress
has already illustrated its purpose and it is not
likely that anything that he is going to say or do
will change its attitude. What he stated in relation
to revenues-the same old-time worn argument of
the liquor lawyer-is only too true. But that revenue is blood money- money drained from the life
blood of the land, and be it said with scant pride,
money that Americans have at last arisen in shame
to refuse and repudiate.
After he had put a quietus on the liquor mob and
the Attorney-General had begun the prosecution of
the offenders against the drink law, the President on
Thursday, July 0o, addressed the Senate in relation to the League of Nations. It was notably interesting to the multitudes of Americans struggling for
a sober nation for the reason that the opposition to
the League in Congress came from almost the identically same group of politicians who have been
strenuously fighting to keep a large percentage
of the population under the influence of liquor.

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275

jl nty of liquor; no women, no league" is the
slogan that a metropolitan newspaper man applied,
meaning that the latter group are unalterably opposed to woman suffrage, to a league of nations, but
overwhelmingly in favor of liquor and more votes.)
This latter group, with its large following of the
lower order of German, Irish and Bolsheviki, would
be a dangerous menace to the republic but for the
distemper of the American people to all disturbing
internal forces. The loyal Germans and Irish in the
United States must not be confused with that element, but Americans who think cannot forget the
murders of the American bluejackets in Ireland, the
insults to the American flag and the President of
the United States, and at least one revolution
financed by Germany and fought against England
and her premier ally, the United States of America.
These are not casual happenings that pass easily
out of the public mind.
The opponents of the League of course included
Root, the Counsel for the United States Brewers
Association, Senators Reed of Missouri, Gore, and
that faction of the Republican coterie in the Senate
which seemed indifferent to party interests. But the
great rank and file of the stalwart Republicans, including former President Taft, ex-Attorney-General
Wickersham, President Lowell of Harvard, and a
host of other Republicans arraigned themselves
fairly and openly by the side of the President, remembering that such a league had been the dream
of McKinley, Choate, Hay, and Roosevelt.
Some depletion was made from the League's
ranks by Senator Johnson of California in a tour in

276

THE SOBER WORLD

New England simply for the reason that he quoted
Colonel Roosevelt as being opposed to the League.
Nothing could be further from the facts. Colonel
Roosevelt's last public utterance published in the
Metropolitan magazine in January, I918, concluded
with these words:
"Let us go into such a league. But let us weigh well
what we promise; and then train ourselves in body and soul
to keep our promises. Let us treat the formation of the
League as an addition to but in no sense as a substitute for
preparing our own strength for our own defence. And let
us build a genuine internationalism, that is, a genuine and
generous regard for the rights of others, on the only healthy
basis:-a sound and intense development of the broadest
spirit of Americanism nationalism. Our steady aim must be
to do justice to others, and to secure our own nation against
injustice; and we can achieve this twofold aim only if we
make our deeds square with our words."
The concluding phrase of President Wilson's
address to the Congress rings out as if in direct
response to his predecessor's sterling appeal.
"The war and the conference of peace now sitting in Paris
seem to me to have answered that question. Our participation in the war established our position among the nations and
nothing but our own mistaken action can alter it. It was not
an accident or a matter of sudden choice that we are no
longer isolated and devoted to a policy which has only our
own interest and advantage for its object. It was our duty
to go in, if we were indeed the champions of liberty and of
right.
" We answered to the call of duty in a way so spirited, so
utterly without thought of what we spent of blood or treasure, so effective, so worthy of the admiration of true men
everywhere; so wrought out of the stuff of all that was
heroic, that the whole world saw at last, in the flesh, in noble
action, a great ideal asserted and vindicated by a nation they
had deemed material and now found to be compact of the
spiritual forces that must free men of every nation from every

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277

unworthy bondage. It is thus that a new role and a new
responsibility have come to this great nation that we honor
and which we would all wish to lift to yet higher levels of
service and achievement.
" The stage is set, the destiny disclosed. It has come about
by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God, who
led us into this war. We cannot turn back. We can only
go forward, with lifted eyes and freshened spirit to follow
the vision. It was of this that we dreamed at our birth.
America shall in truth show the way. The light streams
upon the path ahead, and nowhere else."
Americans are no longer interested in parties and
politicians. They are looking for men - strong, forcible men to lead them out of the liquor mire into
the safe places, and there is not a phase of American
life from Church to dive, from the drawing room to
the gutter hole that the drink evil has not touched
and diseased.
America has blazed the trail to a sober world,
and if, out of the gossamer web of altruistic dreams,
-the dreams of Choate, McKinley, Hay, Roosevelt, Taft, Lowell, and Wilson, ---may come a
League of Nations that spells the Peace of the
World, God grant it may be so.

ADDENDA

THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE
IT would be neither meet nor right to go to press
with this volume without some reference to
the remarkable work that has been done by
the Anti-Saloon League. With practically twothirds of the great newspapers throughout the country in direct antagonism, the achievements of this
organization have been astonishing. From the Congress of the United States down to the ward politician, it has met nothing but the most forceful opposition from its very inception. There have been
times when the cheap politicians and the liquor interests made such virulent attacks that it looked as if
the usefulness of the League would be entirely destroyed. But some of the tales that have been circulated about its methods were so plainly invented
out of whole cloth that they served as a boomerang.
One of those that appeared to be very effective at
one time had to do with the Rockefeller Institute.
It was stated that Mr. Rockefeller and his Foundation were antagonistic to the League for political
reasons. As a matter of fact nobody can trace anything that was ever done by the Rockefeller Foundation to motives that were other than for the welfare
of the American people.
The effectiveness of the organization of the Anti

280

THE SOBER WORLD

Saloon League is in all probability responsible as
much as anything else for its remarkable achievement.
The fashion in which it has stood Congress on its
head has caused no little amusement. Such was the
power of the brewery and liquor interests a few
years ago that it was practically impossible for anybody connected with the League to get a hearing.
The conditions are so thoroughly reversed today
that the difficulty rests with the brewer. When a
Senate or House Committee hears the plea of the
brewery representative, unless it be some man of
large reputation like Elihu Root, he finds no small
difficulty in getting a hearing.
That the League has been so successful is a matter of great gratification to all Americans. It still
has work to do in the United States, but it can be said
without fear of contradiction that it has surmounted
many of the seemingly most difficult obstacles. It
is a foregone conclusion that the United States is to
become a sane and sober nation under a sane and
sober government; and no small credit for this work
is due the League.
Its work is not to cease, however, in America.
It was in the Anti-Saloon League of the United
States that the World League originated. There is
now, as has been stated in previous chapters of this
book, a universal movement looking to the absolute
dethronement of King Rum. The initial meeting
was held in Washington on June 6 and the title of
the new league was decided upon. It is to be known
as The World League Against Alcoholism. The
United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Scotland,

ADDENDA

28I

and - wonder to behold I - Ireland, England,
France, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia and New
Zealand are all recorded signatories to the constitution. The first official convention will probably be
held in Edinboro, Scotland, in September, 1920.
The Board of Presidents has already been electedDr. Robert Hercod of Switzerland, Honorable Leif
Jones of London, Dr. Howard H. Russell of the
United States, and Dr. Emile Vandervelle of Belgium. All of them are men of distinction.
It is noteworthy in lieu of Cardinal Mercier's
attitude that Belgium already has an eminent representative. In the new era of reconstruction it is
very evident that that country purposes to be in the
van. Dr. P. A. Baker, the General Superintendent
of the Anti-Saloon League of America, has been
elected the First Vice-President, and Mr. Ernest H.
Cherrington, the General Manager of the AntiSaloon League Publishing Interests, has been chosen
General Secretary of the new World League organization. Mr. Cherrington will assume the duties of
the executive office. His marked ability and his
eminent successes in his present position as the editor
of the American Issue, which is the organ for the
Anti-Saloon League, promises much for his future
work. The American Issue is published in the relatively small town of Westville, Ohio. It has been
the target for every liquor organ in the United States
for a long time past. Its motto is, "A Liquorless
Nation and a Stainless Flag." In view of the attitude of the German brewer, the "Stainless Flag"
part of this slogan is at once interesting and significant. The Reverend George A. Gordon is

282

THE SOBER WORLD

the editor of the Massachusetts Bureau of this
publication.
There are scores of men and women associated
with the Anti-Saloon League in the United States
that are deserving of high praise. The work of
William H. Anderson, the General Superintendent,
has attracted national attention. The yellow journals and brewery organs of Gotham have made it
very interesting for Mr. Anderson from his installation into that office, but he had had large experience at Baltimore and in other cities and he has
won many victories over his opponents.
Mr. Wayne B. Wheeler, the General Counsel for
the League, has been fighting all over the country,
and more especially at Washington, against the avalanche of brewery money. Some of his successes
have been simply dumbfounding.
Mr. Arthur J. Davis, the Superintendent of the
Massachusetts Department, had his hands full as
soon as he assumed that position. Boston, as is well
known, is among the worst liquor-ruled cities in the
country. The liquor " rights " have practically controlled the town for years, municipally and otherwise. They have elected the officers, run the offices,
and have made Boston one of the most conspicuous
illustrations of municipal incompetency in the United
States. Mr. Davis has had his hands full from the
first. He is a man of sterling character-a fact
which perhaps accounts in no small measure for his
large successes.
The National Legislative Superintendent is Mr.
Edwin C. Dinwiddie. His name is a byword with
most of the newsboys of the country, and his methods

ADDENDA

283

are too well known to require further comment. He
knows the ward heeler and liquor politician from
alpha to omega, and in the recent Congressional
fight he handled that coterie of men without gloves.
The Anti-Saloon League âthis is current state
history-was founded by Dr. Howard H. Russell,
who was attracted to the work originally when he
was associated with the Armour Mission in Chicago. This latter mission was founded in the time
of Bathhouse John and other proprietors of notorious joints in this city, when the life of no pedestrian
in some of the streets of a Western town was safe.
Just how the League has grown and prospered would
make an interesting book in itself. It is to be regretted that its history cannot be included in this
volume.
It may be said in summary, however, that few
organizations have done more for the betterment
of American life and American manhood.
There have been times in the history of the organization when it looked as if the iniquitous methods
of its opponents would destroy its usefulness. There
is hardly a newspaper in the country of any importance that has not been tricked into printing some
fallacious and obnoxious accusation against it. The
methods by which the German brewer and liquor
propagandist has played his nefarious game have
been contemptible in the extreme. The reputations
of men and women have not been safe. Any
method seemed to justify the means to their ends.
Despite the fact that many officers identified with
the League knew they were taking their lives and
characters in their hands, they have gone forward

284

THE SOBER WORLD

with the work until today the German brewer and
the saloon-keeper are on the defensive.
Success to the future efforts of the League in
America, and double success to its efforts to incept
a World League that may make the whole world a
new, sober world!
SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON
It is a foregone conclusion that, as has already
been hinted in previous pages of this book, there
should be some substitute for the saloon. There is
no occasion to coddle or nurse the drunkard. In
most instances he needs heroic treatment. There
are, however, some cases of an exceedingly delicate
nature, and it is important that these cases be dealt
with appropriately. The average physician knows
no more about the treatment of a drunkard than the
bar tender âin fact the bar tender gets the better
results as a general thing. It is doubtful if there
is any organization that can reach all cases in the
big cities. There are many half-way measures and
some of these are worth while.
Unquestionably one of the most important helps
for the drunkard is environment. It has been suggested by Mr. Frederick L. Locke, the President
of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, that
it might not be a bad idea to turn over for this purpose some of the canteens that have been used by
the army. This suggestion is worth careful consideration. Many a drunkard would abandon his
liquor with some sense of satisfaction if he were not
to a degree ostracized and outlawed. Human com

ADDENDA

285

panionship, good books, baths, and clean food are
essential. The organization of which Mr. Locke
is the head, on Boylston Street in Boston, has been
remarkably successful in its helpful work. This
great building has a gymnasium, a library, dormitories and everything worth while.
Of course the self-respecting victim of drink can
nearly always find a place of this kind; but as Mr.
Locke says, what is to become of the derelict, the
outcast, whose shabby clothes and poor raiment exclude him from the average workman's club? That
is going to be a problem. It is one that should certainly arouse national interest and effort.
The drunkard is a man who rarely excites sympathy. He is perhaps the most repulsive and revolting of all diseased human beings except possibly
the leper or the victim of smallpox. His inflamed
face, his foul breath, and his whole condition antagonize even the ambulance surgeon; and many
a poor drunkard has been left to die on the street
simply because the ambulance surgeon smelt whiskey
on his breath and left him with the comment, "Oh,
he's drunk." There will be thousands on thousands
of derelicts in the streets of all the cities in this
country as soon as the lid is put on tight. There is
hardly a city now where it is not possible for this
type of drunkard to get some sort of drink with
which for the moment to satisfy his craving. In the
absence of drink he turns to drugs, and the number
of drug addicts throughout the land is very much on
the increase.
America already leads the world in this respect.
There are ninety-eight thousand drug addicts in this

286

THE SOBER WORLD

country. It stands to reason that in a few months
this number will be doubled and there will have to
be treatment for them. The Massachusetts Hospital, under that renowned specialist, Dr. Neff, had
at the beginning of the war made for itself a distinct
place of usefulness by its treatment for drunkards.
It was turned over to the army as a canteen, and it
is not likely that the politicians are going to restore
it to its former usefulness.
Mr. Locke and Dr. Neff will be the nucleus of
a fine board to deal with this question. Certainly
Washington will have to take it up sooner or later.
In the old days, many a drunkard, sickened and
nauseated with the saloon, turned to drugs. He
would turn away from liquor and try his best to
regain his manhood. Nine times out of ten the
doctor started him on drugs instead of water and
food, and in a twinkling he was a morphine fiend
or a cocaine dipper. Of the two evils there is little
choice. The drug fiend perhaps dies a more horrible death, and it seems to be more difficult for that
type of victim to free himself from his hectic horror.
It is a problem, a most serious problem, that in
the end will require not only municipal, state, but
national legislation.
Although there will unquestionably be an increase, the absence of liquor is not going to increase
the number of drug addicts in anything like the proportion that the liquor crowd is trying to make
patent to the world at large. There are already in
practically every city places where they can receive
proper treatment.
The ideas of men like Mr. Locke and Dr. Neff,

ADDENDA

287

who have made a life-long study of this subject,
should be valuable. After all Mr. Locke's solution
of the problem is a very simple one. Any man who
is a derelict is worth treatment, and Mr. Locke and
Dr. Neff have put many of them on their feet who
were regarded as lost for all time. It will take
patience, ingenuity, and a deal of kind treatment to
reclaim the drug addict and the beer-swiller so absolutely eaten up with alcohol that he retains only a
semblance of manhood; but some of these men can
be reclaimed and redeemed- a startling number of
them-when the proper methods are applied.
WOMAN IN THE WORLD
The Women's Christian Temperance Union and
other organizations throughout the country are in
a measure responsible for the tidal wave of liquor
reform. It was women, as Superintendent Davis of
the Boston Anti-Saloon League says in every address that he makes, that originated this work. But
for women this country would never have been rid
of liquor, and it would never have been possible to
pass effective legislation. There are scores of
women whose names might be enrolled on the scroll
of fame. Since many of them are now working
quietly and not out in the open, and since they have
already a number of politicians listed for decapitation, it is perhaps best to keep their names under
cover. It can be said, however, that there are not a
few politicians and German propagandists in the
United States who if they knew what is before them
would gladly take themselves out of the way.

288

THE SOBER WORLD

The method of the women in the liquor game is
a rather startling one. For some years the saloonkeeper has been standing on the street corner and
telling the world at large just what could not happen. The women interested in the liquor game have
been wearing paths around the halls of Congress
and the State legislatures, and the political scalps
they have as trophies are practically countless.
Many an American politician has been asked to step
down and out when he thought he was right at the
zenith of his fame. When he traced his downfall
to its source he always found it was the women.
It is only in recent years that the Anti-Saloon
League has been able to accomplish so much, and
then its achievement has only been made possiblebecause of the advocacy of the women. There will
be, in all probability, many women associated with
the World League. If they do such work for the
World League as they have done in the United
States, men might as well quietly stand aside and
admit that getting drunk is an impossibility.
THE Y. M. C. A.
The liquor interest in the United States has had
no greater enemy than the Y. M. C. A. That "interest" and a rival organization very friendly to
the interest are responsible for most of the derogatory reports sent home from the war front. The
Y. M. C. A. made errors during the great conflict.
So did Foch, Haig, Pershing and a host of others.
But the great good it did cannot be overestimated,
and it is about to turn its efforts to the work of re

ADDENDA

289

construction with the same good purpose. The
liquor victims will of course be given attention. The
Association already has a number of hotels somewhat after the pattern of the Mills Hotels in New
York, and it is likely that more will be built. John
R. Mott, George W. Perkins, Lewis A. Crossett and
other leading officials are said to be keenly interested
in the movement. Edward A. Hearne, one of the
executive secretaries of the Association, who was a
volunteer in the Spanish War, with the allied armies
in the Boxer campaign, and with the A. E. F., is a
pioneer in the movement to find some helpful purpose for the saloon habitues.
BREWERY STATISTICS
Brewery statistics are difficult figures to assemble
with any degree of accuracy. The brewer works as
nearly as he can in the dark. It is not well for him
to come out in the limelight where the magnitude of
his business may be observed. Charles Stelzle in his
study on "Why Prohibition" is authority for the
statement, that in the old days - along about 1913
or 19 4-the American public spent annually
$2,000,000,000 for liquor. The figures in the possession of the author do not indicate quite so large
a sum. A few millions more or less do not make
any material difference, however, to the brewer or
his affiliates. The amount is sufficiently large to
stagger common comprehension. When it is worth
while for purposes of argument the brewer comes
out in the open. In his "Year Book" â"Blood
Book" would be a more appropriate title -for the

290 THE SOBER WORLD
year I191I4 the United States Brewers' Association announced that its disbursements for wages amounted
to $453,872,553, and that its annual disbursements " other" than for wages amounted to $I,1I21,696,097, making a grand total Of $I,575,568,650.
What a lurid page in American history some of
the "items other than wages" would make!
The magnitude of the liquor business in the
United States may be gathered from the following
table. The amount consumed per capita and its
steady increase up to 1908 from i85o, when the
United States Government began to gather statistics
is appalling, and the figures did not cease to rise
until the South had its awakening and some of the
States of that section began to put the saloon-keeper
and his master, the brewer, out of business.

Year Gallons
Spirits
I850 51,833,473
i86o 89,968,651
I870 79,895,708
1880 63,526,694
I890 87,829,623
I895 78,655,063
1900 97,356,864
1905 120,869,649
1906 12-7,851,583
11907 140,084,436
1908 125,379,314
1909 121,130,036
1910 13 3,1I3 8,684
1911 138,585,989
I91:2 139,496,331
I9I3 147,745,628
1914 143,447,227
I915 127,159,098
1916 139,973,684
11917 167,740,32-5

Gallons
Wines
6,31i6,3 71
10,804,687
1:2,225,o67
2 8,098,1I79
28,945,993
20,863,877
29,988,467
35,059,717
46,485,2.23
57,738,848
52,121,646
61,779,549
60,548,078
63,859,232
56,424,711
55,327,461
52,418,430
3:2,911,909
47,587,145

Gallons
Malt Liquors
36,563,009
101,346,669
2-04,756,1i56
414,2:20, i65
855,9:29,559
1,043,03 3,486
1,222,387,104
1,538,52z6,610
1,700,42I,221
x,822,3 13,525
1,828,732,448
1,75:2,634,42.6
1,966,91 1,754
1,932-,531,184:2,030,347,372
2,056,407,iso8
1,855,52,4,284
1,8i8,275,042
1,884,2z65,3 77

Gallons. Total
consumption
94,712,853
202,120,007
296,876,931
505,845,038
972,705,175
1,142,552,426
1,349,732,435
1,694,455,976
1,874,758,027
2,020,136,809
2,006,233,408
1,935,544,011
2,045,353,420
2,1i69,3 56,975
2,128,452,226
2,233,420,461
2,252,272,765
2,015,595,291
2,005,835,871

Gallons
Per Capita
4.08
6.43
7.70
io-o8
15.53
'7.75
19.85
21.55
22.79
22.22
21.0~6
22.19
22.79
21.98
22.68
22.50
19.80
19.40
20.00*

About 90 per cent of the malt liquors consumed
is beer -beer from the German brewery. There is

ADDENDA 291
comparatively little ale consumed. Fully 65 per
cent of the whiskey business in the United States is
said by some authorities to be controlled by the
brewer. It may not be so large, but, unquestionably,
he controls more than 50 per cent.
Why, a $2,000,000 slush fund is simply pin money
to his Majesty The Brewer I
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