Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 1, 1883

Temperance.

Liquor-Drinkers Unfit for Office.

WHILE the Civil Service Reform Bill was in discussion in the United States Senate, Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, introduced the following section as a condition of appointment under it:

"That no person habitually using intoxicating beverages shall be appointed to, or retained in, any office, appointment, or employment to which the provisions of this act are applicable."

Senator Brown, of Georgia, proposed an amendment to this, inserting the words "to excess" after the word "beverages," so as to read: "That no person habitually using intoxicating beverages to excess shall be appointed to, or retained in, any office," etc. Before the question was taken up, Mr. Blair made a speech on the subject, of which the following is a part:—

Of course the original language of the amendment itself implies all that is contained in the proposition of the Senator from Georgia. It is a prohibition of the employment or appointment in the service of the United States of any one to whose case the provisions of this act, if it should become a law, would be applicable. The habitual use of intoxicating liquors would probably be conceded to be the use of such liquors to excess, so that I hardly think the Senator's proposition improves or increases the force of the amendment as it now is.

It must be conceded that if the primary purpose of the bill is the improvement of the civil service, and we are to incorporate a variety of provisions in the bill looking to that end, the suggestion which I make in this proposition is as important to the country, is as well calculated to improve the civil service as a whole, as any provision whatever contained in the bill.

There has been much discussion of the principles of Jefferson from time to time, and they have been alluded to in this debate; and he has been quoted as saying that capacity and integrity form the ground criterion for appointment to office and not political sentiment or affiliations. That is true; but later in Jefferson's life, at the close of his administration, Mr. Jefferson announced another principle as still more important. I have his language here. I am not able to refer to the precise place in his works where it may be found, but I know it has been common stock in the temperance literature of the country for many years. At the close of his administration Mr. Jefferson wrote:—

"The habit of indulging in ardent spirits by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public than all other causes; and were I to commence my administration again with the experience I now have, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?"

That would be the first question propounded by Mr. Jefferson to-day, were he the President of the United States, or the head of one of the departments, or in any position of authority making appointments in the civil service.

Of course in the limited time allowed me it is impossible to present this subject as it ought to be presented. I would say further that the Congress of the United States having, as I understand it, without any amendment of the Constitution, little power to legislate on the general subject of the use or abuse of intoxicating liquors throughout the land, I think it is the duty of Congress when there comes an opportunity for us to say and establish in the statutes of the country anything which is for the encouragement of the cause of temperance, as it is called, and for the discouragement, the denationalization, the delegualization, and the destruction of the evils of intemperance, it should be so established. Here is an opportunity to say in an enactment of the United States a word which it is for the benefit of the civil service of the United States to say, and I think we shall fail in a high duty, however trivial the amendment may seem to some, if we fail affirmatively to put in this bill the provision which I offer in the amendment.

It is a matter of statistical truth that in this country the grand amount of production in the last year was about $7,000,000,000. Of that amount about $1,100,000,000 has been expended in wages of laboring men. During the same period there has been consumed in this country the amount of $1,483,000,000 in what is neither more nor less than the patronage of the tippling shop. To that extent have the wages and the productions of the American nation been absorbed and destroyed by this unnecessary and accursed habit. We only expend about $80,000,000 in this whole country in the cause of education, common school and all others combined, the higher and lower forms of education. We pay annually about $100,000,000 for the support of all religious institutions, churches, clergymen, and all manner of expenditure for the cause of religion, whether Catholic or Protestant. We pay about $750,000,000 directly over the counter for intoxicating drinks. The other amount, nearly $750,000,000, which makes up the $1,538,000,000 which I have specified, is chargeable to the extra expenditure made necessary in the administration of the criminal law for the protection of society, for the support of the idiotic, the insane, and other forms of direct expenditure resulting from the use of ardent spirits.

For the American people to keep sober three years, or, two years and a half, would pay the national debt. Really the destruction of human life every year in this country as a result of the improper and unnecessary use of intoxicating liquors is as great as it was in any one year of the war. Year after year in the unnecessary use of intoxicating liquors in this country we are carrying a burden as great as that of the War of the Rebellion itself.

I think that I am justified in offering this proposition, and that the Congress will not be justified in its rejection.

I do not think that in the departments at Washington there is a larger proportion of men addicted to intoxication, nor so large, perhaps, as in the community generally; and yet heads of departments and others not quite so high in official station have frequently assured me that one of the most serious difficulties which they had to contend with is this habit on the part of many of their best employees; that while to be sure they have the right of dismissal and they sometimes exercise it, it is an ungracious and unpleasant thing to do; that if there was something in the statutes of the land which was in itself a serious admonition to this class of Government employees, it would have a very powerful tendency to restrain the habit on the part of those who are addicted to it. Outside of Washington, in the custom-houses and in the largest post-offices, it is a difficulty frequently complained of by those who have to administer the civil service that many of their employees are addicted to this bad habit, not always so far as the person himself is concerned immorally very bad habit; sometimes it is a disease, sometimes a thing for which the man is to be pitied rather than censured; it is a misfortune. Very often they say on account of the prevalence of this habit among that class of employees the civil service is very seriously injured.

It has seemed to me that it would not only be wrong but impolitic, even if we were to appeal to the lower class of motives, for us, now that we have this opportunity, to fail to speak one word showing that the Congress of the United States, irrespective of party, I hope, at least sympathize with those who would destroy the destroyer of the American people.

Following these remarks Mr. Sherman said:—

"Mr. President, the evil of intemperance in a man holding a public office is so common and so great that I was disposed, and am disposed, to vote for the proposition of the Senator from New Hampshire."

"The vice of intemperance in this country is one so prevalent, not only in private life but in public life, that I should be glad to vote for a general proposition and place it upon the statute-book, that any man who is habitually intoxicated, or drinks to excess, shall be excluded from appointment; and, still more, that all the officers of the Government should distinctly understand that when a man is habitually intoxicated in the discharge of a public duty he should be promptly discharged by the head of the department."

"As an executive officer I was myself often placed in that position where with extreme reluctance I was compelled by sense of public duty to remove a man for intemperance, sometimes men of the highest qualifications, of the keenest wit and ability, and intelligence, who were guilty of this offense, there being no statutory provision pointing out the necessity of removing, and it resting simply upon the inconvenience to the public service. Now, especially in the departments, it seems to me that the initiation ought to be made by laws to the heads of the departments to justify them promptly in removing a man habitually intoxicated. Many cases of this kind occur, especially in the army and navy."

In closing the report, which appeared in the Lever, the writer said:—

"And there is authority for this position far above that of Jefferson. The Almighty declares that it is not for rulers to drink wine nor strong drink; therefore it is not for voters to elect them. Positive law!"