The Dangers of Light Wines and Beers
The United States Brewers’ Association, in its recent convention at Atlantic City, adopted resolutions favoring the extension of suffrage to all American women, and expressed its gratitude for the work done by women in many states toward abolishing disorderly houses. One of our Western editors says: “The position taken by the brewers is the right one. The makers of wholesome light wines and beers can go farther than any other equal number of men to solve the distressing problem of drunkenness, if they will divorce themselves from any connection with the interests which encourage hard drinking, and protect and finance the low saloons in which drunkenness is common.” The editor of the paper from which this quotation is taken poses as a reformer. He has been helping to clean up the red light districts in some of our large cities, but he thinks that these reforms should not go too far, that there are light wines and beers that are wholesome. The large number who are clinging to the groundless notion that even the small amount of alcohol in either wine or beer may be wholesome, are hindering the efforts of true reformers. And because men are satisfied with superficial or half-way reforms, they are led into the delusion that the world is getting better all the time. The man who is drinking wine or beer, is attending the primary school of drunkenness, and is being led on to form the habit that will require stronger drink later. There are very few exceptions to the rule.