BEGINNINGS IN TEMPERANCE REFORM.
THE early period of the temperance reform had its own problems and peculiar difficulties. Its leaders had not the light of experience to guide them; it was a pioneer movement. There was no record anywhere of any practical concerted action against the evil of intemperance. Admonitions—danger signals—there were in abundance from early Old Testament days—wo pronounced upon those that rise up early that they may follow strong drink; wo upon him that puts the bottle to his neighbor and makes him drunken; solemn warning against the snares of the winecup, which at first coquets and fascinates, but at last bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Yet warnings merely had been to but small purpose. The wo of strong drink already rested upon the land, and what men asked themselves was how to banish the curse. Strong drink everywhere—in the home, as a daily table beverage, as a means of hospitality, on the occasion of a wedding, or christening, or funeral; at parties, town-meetings, fairs; at the dedication of a church, or the ordination or installation of a minister; on every occasion people drank. Consequently drunkenness flourished—drunken fathers, drunken sons, drunken doctors, drunken lawyers, drunken magistrates, drunken ministers. Indeed, not a man could be found—so a common saying in those days ran—who had not been drunk at least once in his life. Out of all this one thing only stood out clear; something must be done. But just what, and how to do it, was not clear. They went forward, however, if the light was insufficient. They formed temperance societies. Crude efforts they were; they pledged men not to drink to excess. It was moderation that they sought to inculcate. They were fighting drunkenness, not drinking. For instance, the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, formed in 1813, the most important of the early societies, states as its object, "to discountenance and suppress the too-free use of ardent spirits," adding "and its kindred vices, profaneness and gaming; and to encourage and promote temperance and general morality." In one instance, where a temperance society was organized in a tavern, the members, after signing their names, all took a drink at the tavern bar, adding example to precept to show the world what true moderation is. So men stumbled forward in the twilight of the reform, having a kind of zeal, but little knowledge. The reform was soon to have, tho, that most thorough of teachers—experience. In the light of experience men found it necessary to correct their judgments, and to adjust themselves anew to the situation. In preaching moderation they found they were doing nothing more than other men before them had done. They began to reason it out that to combat drunkenness effectually required something more specific—nothing less than the entire abandonment of strong drink as a beverage. While they were bewailing the effect, they were, with their philosophy of moderation, perpetuating the cause. The word temperance came to stand thenceforth more and more for entire abstinence.15Here the reform was to encounter its first resistance. Drinking was so universal, and the inertia of social custom or habit is itself a difficult thing to arrest. Then appetite had to be reckoned with; such general use had made men addicted to the cup. Lastly, and perhaps most stubborn of all, it was thought that strong drink, moderately used, really possessed virtue; and error, when honestly, and even religiously, held, is an uncomfortable thing to collide with. Strong drink was regarded as a kind of elixir of life. A man who had reached his three-score and ten would ascribe his strength to the blessings of a kind Providence, and the merits of good old New England rum. Farmers kept their help in the field constantly supplied with a bottle of rum. The man who could not drink was regarded as not being of much account when it came to hard work.