Fortune Tellers and Whisky
By B.
CLARENCE DE MAR, noted athlete of days gone by, and seven times the winner of the grueling Boston Marathon, recently told the story of a famous Indian runner of yesterdays. This Indian could win every long-distance race he entered if he had let liquor alone during the weeks of training, but when he drank up to the day of the race he lost every time. Finally, his backers, who stood to win large amounts of money on the races when the Indian won, decided to play a ruse upon him before each race. Knowing he was superstitious, they would adroitly take him to a fortune teller a week or two before a race. The fortune teller, instructed by the Indian's friends, would gaze long at his palms, and then tell him in all solemnity that if he drank whisky during the next two weeks it would kill him, but that if he did not, he would become very famous, and would make lots of money. And the strange part of the story is that the fortune teller was right in that the Indian became both rich and famous because of his speed on the race tracks. But why does anyone have to go to a palm reader to find out that liquor militates against speed and success in the race of life? This is a fact so universally proved throughout the generations that have been addicted to liquor that it is as common knowledge as that 2 and 2 make 4. Liquor has never done anything good and useful for anyone at any time in all the history of the world. Its record is uniformly black. Its only effect has been degenerative, physically and morally. If you must play with something, choose a python or a cobra. They are safer playmates than booze. Especially should this lesson be impressed upon our children. Let it be emphasized that liquor is only a loss and detriment. We may have to wait for the confirmed boozers to pass away before Prohibition is an unqualified success; but the next generation, if educated right now, will shun booze as they would leprosy. B.