CHAPTER XI

.

WHAT AUTHORITIES SAY.

What shall we do to prevent the evils of a too free use of intoxicating drinks, and to make our people truly temperate?

This question was ably discussed in the State Board of Health of Massachusetts some years ago, and Dr. Bowditch, the chairman of the board, expressed himself at that time as follows: “I am confident that our people could be gradually led to a higher temperance by appeals to common sense while deprecating the evils of intemperance, by observing that the use of some liquors is deleterious, while the temperate use of others does little or no harm. I deem a love of stimulants as much a human instinct as any other of the so-called human instincts. And the proposition of total abstinence from stimulants because intoxication prevails widely in the community, seems to me as preposterous as it would be to advise universal celibacy because of the existence of gross evils in connection with those instincts that lead to the divine institution of marriage. By classifying all liquors as equally injurious, and by endeavoring to further that idea in the community, are we not doing a real injury to the country by preventing a free use of lager beer instead of ardent spirits to which our people are so addicted? In the sincere belief, gentlemen, that this analysis of our correspondence will, eventually at least, tend to help onward the most excellent cause of temperance everywhere, and in the hope that none will be offended at the expression at times, of my own individual opinion, which in the course of the discussion I have deemed it my right and duty to give, I remain

Your colleague and friend,

HENRY J. BOWDITCH,

_Chairman of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts._”

In his annual report to the State Board of Health, Dr. Bowditch said, speaking of the question of temperance in connection with the use of light wines and beer, “I fully agree with all that has been said of the value of light wines as an aid to temperance, but I sincerely believe that Germans are destined to be really the greatest benefactors of this country by bringing to us—if we choose to accept the boon—their beer. Lager beer contains less alcohol than any of the native or foreign grape wines. This fact with the other fact that the Germans have not the pernicious habits of our people, would if we chose to adopt their customs tend to diminish intemperance in this country. From the study I have made, lager beer can be used freely without any apparent injury to the individual, or without intoxication, and would be really a promoter of the temperance cause, and if we could so manage as to furnish the people with lager beer and dispense with distilled or alcoholic liquors entirely, the community would be immensely benefited.” And on page 301 in the same report, the Doctor properly said, “Whisky-drinkers are seen staggering through the streets or lying insensible in some corner, wherever this beverage is used. But among the light wine tipplers and beer-drinkers, even when drinking freely, drunkards are very seldom seen.”

We have previously shown that in many cases the introduction of beer has added to the welfare of society, and that its use is perfectly consistent with habits of sobriety and temperance. From this we drew the inference that the production should be encouraged and its increase hailed as a sure pledge of improvement in the matters of drunkenness, disorder and crime. The same conclusion was reached by Dr. Bowditch as the result of correspondence conducted with a view to ascertaining fully the actual state of the case at home and abroad. He caused a series of inquiries to be carefully prepared and forwarded to thirty-three resident American ambassadors and to one hundred and thirty-two consuls, also to many other men in private or official positions, whose statements and opinions would be entitled to respect. When the answers were received the unanimity of the opinions expressed was almost startling. _All_ are in favor of beer as a light, wholesome beverage, superior even to the light wines. Following are given a few extracts from the great mass of answers received:

A physician in Massachusetts writes, “I should make a distinction between the use of intoxicating liquors and the lighter drinks. What a blessing it would be for the community if we could furnish the people with the best of lager beer and dispense with distilled liquors entirely.”

Another physician, also resident in Massachusetts, says, “I have had a very large practice among the Germans for twenty years, and my observation has been that they are remarkably free from consumption and chronic diseases. I have attributed it to their free use of lager beer, and do conscientiously believe that the moderate use of this beverage is beneficial.”

A letter from the consulate general of the United States at Frankfort-on-the-Main, reads thus: “Twenty years ago the state of affairs in reference to temperance was different. By the improvement in making beer and the selling of it to the people at large, at low prices, things have changed wonderfully. Drunkards have disappeared. A great deal less of cider and wine is consumed. Everybody now generally drinks beer. Intoxication has decreased. It cannot be said that the general health of the people suffers in this part of Germany. In the city of Frankfort, with a population of over one hundred thousand, and an average annual mortality of fifteen hundred, hardly five persons on an average have died of delirium tremens, which all the eminent, physicians here attribute to the free use of lager beer.”

Mr. John Jay of the United States Legation at Vienna says: “I am advised by those in whose judgment I have full confidence, that the chief drinks in Austria are wine but particularly beer, the latter of which is drunk by all classes of society at home and at places of amusement, and that but comparatively a small amount of spirituous liquors is consumed except in Galicia. Touching the relative amount of intoxication in the country where I am residing, and that seen all over the United States, I do say that I have seen more intoxicated persons in the streets of New York in one day than I have chanced to see in Vienna during the past year.”

Baron Liebig, the eminent chemist, makes the following statements: “Beer unites in its composition a number of constituents whose action is such as to more or less completely neutralize the alcohol whose tendency is to exalt the function of the brain and nervous system.”

“Fermented juices, in general, differ from spirits in containing alkalies, organic acids and certain other substances.”

“Pure lager beer when taken with lean flesh and little bread yields a diet approaching to milk, and with fat meat, approaching to rice or potatoes.” And in another place, “In beer-drinking countries, it is the universal medicine for the healthy as well as for the sick, and it is milk to the aged.”

Dr. Schlaeger of Vienna, also a distinguished chemist, says:

“It is my opinion, based on numerous cases that have come under my professional observation, that delirium tremens and other maladies to which inebriates are subject are caused chiefly by the use of _distilled liquors_. Therefore the manufacture and sale of beer should be encouraged. It should be free from taxation in order that it may be placed within the reach of all at a low price and thoroughly take the place of ardent spirits.”

The editor of the Chicago _Tribune_, writing from Germany, says: “Drunkenness is so rare and infrequent that it may be said not to exist. I have traveled thousands of miles through Germany, in various directions, visiting nearly all the chief cities, and have made diligent inquiry of American consuls and other well-informed persons, and received but one answer everywhere, _viz._, no drunkenness among the Germans; public sentiment would not tolerate it; the habits of the country are all against it. And what is the reason of this freedom from inebriation? It is the total absence of whisky and the substitution of lager beer.”

[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN’S HOUSE AND BREWERY IN PENNSBURY, BUCKS COUNTY, PA. (See page 26.)]

Mr. Y. G. Hurd wrote to Mr. Bowditch in reference to the beer question and after referring to the records of the Essex police court and alluding to intemperance caused by ardent spirits, continued as follows: “Of all our commitments 60 per cent. are directly traceable to drunkenness. Is the enforcement of a prohibitory or any other law alone to rid us of the monster? Were there only the pecuniary interest of the liquor traffic to meet, powerful as it is, the result would not, be doubtful. But there are climatic influences, the universal desire for stimulants, the education of our civilization for some centuries, social customs and hereditary tendencies, all tending in a greater or less degree to perpetuate the evil. * * * * * A visit to Chicago and my observation there of the habits of the German population, first brought to my mind doubts that total abstinence will ever be an accomplished fact. I visited the beer gardens on Sunday to see how the Germans spend the day. There was a band of music, a dance floor, rude seats and tables like our New England picnics, in a beautiful grove, and lager in such quantities as I had never conceived. Everybody, old and young, drank and seemed to continue to drink during the afternoon. But lager was the only beverage. No liquors, no drunkenness and no fights or disorderly conduct. The young men and maidens were merry and danced, the elder drank and talked with the gravity and dignity becoming to respectable German citizens; the children sipped their glass of lager and gamboled on the grass, and all went home apparently sober, to resume without doubt, their usual avocations on the morrow. There were probably two thousand persons taking their weekly recreation, and this was only one of half a dozen similar places about the suburbs of the city. Now if this had been an American or Irish congregation, and the beverage the usual vile concoctions called whisky, gin and brandy, would not the closing scenes of the afternoon have been very different? Broken heads, bloody noses, and the wayside strewn with the wrecks of humanity in beastly intoxication. I thought if we could be rid of the grosser liquors—banish them, put them in the pale of dangerous drugs to be only dispensed by the physician like other poisons, and substitute the lager of the Germans and the light wines of France and _our own country_—should we not be doing our best to exterminate the curse of drunkenness? I expect we shall yet come to this conclusion. The difficulty is that with the tastes of our people, lager and wines will be, indeed, now are, a cover for the sale of the grosser liquors, and worse than all, these liquors are without exception, adulterated or poisonous. I have written at your request this somewhat candid statement of my present views as briefly as possible.”

A physician who has under his professional charge, a large institution for the maintenance of aged persons, informs us that the demand for stimulus in the form of tea is a matter of constant observation, and he moreover gives it as his opinion that from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the whole number are _tea sots_, drinking tea regularly from four to six times a day and as much oftener as they can procure it. They show the effect of this over-stimulation by increased mental irritability, muscular tremors and a greater or less degree of sleeplessness. Another fact to the same purport has been communicated to us by a friend. A domestic in the family sometimes appeared intoxicated and as it was certain she could not get at any of the liquors generally considered intoxicating, the circumstance excited no little surprise and curiosity. At last the problem was solved by the discovery that she drank large quantities of the strongest tea. This it will be seen is in exact conformity with the opinion of Mr. Gladstone as previously quoted, and more or less marked cases of the same nature have doubtless been observed by many of our readers.

A. Schwarz, Esq., of New York, the editor of “Der Americanische Bierbrauer,” a man known in both hemispheres, as an able writer and chemical student, who by his life-long study in fermented beverages has won for himself the thanks of every brewer, writes thus: “Among all drinks, as well those which nature furnishes in abundance as those which are produced by human skill, lager beer especially commends itself by its properties as an excellent beverage.

“Milk contains nutritious substances (protein) and various salts.

“Wine contains alcohol and small quantities of salts.

“Mineral waters, which render such valuable service to the diseased human organism, contain carbonic acid and salt.

“Coffee and tea contain volatile aromatic oils and alkaloids.

“Strong spirituous liquors, as whisky, brandy, rum, arrack and gin, contain only more or less alcohol, with some etherial oils.

“The various popular so-called temperance drinks are distinguished only by their watery contents, which are flavored with sugar and extracts of plants and herbs to make them taste less insipid.

“Beer contains protein, alcohol, salts and carbonic acid gas, and hence possesses nutritious, stimulating and refreshing properties.

“It is not our intention to write a eulogy of beer. We will only state in its favor what cannot be denied by any man, be he a physician or a mechanic, a philosopher or a manufacturer, a chemist or an engineer, a wine-drinker or a temperance man.

“We denote as extracts of beer those solid substances which are not, through the fermentation of the wort, transformed into volatile bodies, and therefore remain as a sediment after the evaporation of the beer. This extract consists of malt sugar obtained by the mashing process, of albumen contained in the malt and now dissolved, and of certain salts, especially phosphoric salt, which were originally contained in the barley, and have not been lost during the process of brewing.

“The amount of the extract of beer mainly depends on the original concentration of the wort and on that state of fermentation in which the beer is consumed; it varies from three to eight per cent.

“By virtue of its protein and its salts, it has a very nutritious effect upon the human organism, and though it does so in a less degree than meat or bread, yet on account of the form of solution in which it appears in the beer, it is easier assimilated, _i. e._, it easily enters the organism and plays a prominent part in the formation of milk, muscle, flesh and bones,—and the quantity of alcohol contained in beer is so small and so much diluted with water, that it can produce intoxication only if consumed in a very great quantity, _i. e._, by an immoderate use.”

An international congress has just been held in Paris on “Alcoholism,” and the Belgian delegate, Dr. Barella, constituted himself the champion of beer. He contended that the consumption of spirits should be discountenanced, because these beverages are harmful, and that the consumption of beer should be encouraged, because it is a sound, wholesome and harmless drink. He pointed out that in countries where the wines are good, and the beers agreeable and nutritive, much less spirits are consumed, and _vice versa_.

Following is a summary of the points made in the report of Dr. Bowditch previously quoted. They will be found useful and interesting, and the whole document deserves the highest praise for thoroughness of investigation, caution of statement and fairness of spirit.

1st. Stimulants are used everywhere, and at times abused, by savage and by civilized men. Consequently intoxication occurs all over the globe.

2nd. This love of stimulants is one of the strongest instincts. It cannot be annihilated, but may be regulated by reason, by conscience, by education, or by law when it encroaches on the rights of others.

3rd. Climatic law governs it, the tendency to indulge to intoxication being not only greater as we go from the heat of the equator towards the north, but the character of that intoxication becoming more violent.

4th. Owing to this cosmic law intemperance is very rare near the equator. It is there a social crime and a disgrace of the deepest dye. Licentiousness and gambling are small offenses compared with it. To call a man a drunkard is the highest of insults. On the contrary at the north of 50° it is very frequent, is less of a disgrace and is by no means a social crime.

5th. Intemperance causes little or no crime toward the equator. It is an almost constant cause of crime either directly or indirectly at the north above 50°.

6th. Intemperance is modified by race as shown in the different tendencies to intoxication of different people.

7th. Races are modified physically and morally by the kind of liquor they use as proved by examination of the returns from Austria and Switzerland.

8th. Beer, native light grape wines and ardent spirits should not be classed together, for they produce very different effects on the individual and upon the race.

9th. German beer and ale can be used even freely without any very apparent injury to the individual, or without causing intoxication. They contain very small percentages of alcohol (4 or 4.5 to 6.50 per cent.). Light grape wines, unfortified by an extra amount of alcohol, can be drunk less freely but without apparent injury to the race, and with exhilaration rather than drunkenness. Some writers think they do no harm but a real good if used moderately. They never produce the violent crazy drunkenness, so noticeable from the use of the ardent spirits of the north. Ardent spirits, on the contrary, unless used very moderately, and with great temperance, and with the determination to omit them as soon as the occasion has passed for their use, are almost always injurious, if continued even moderately for any length of time, for they gradually encroach on the vital powers. If used immoderately they cause a beastly narcotism which makes the victim regardless of all the amenities and even the decencies of life, or perhaps they render him furiously crazy, so that he may murder his best friend.

10th. Races may be educated to evil by bad laws, or by the introduction of bad habits. France and a small part of Switzerland are beginning to suffer from the introduction of absinthe and other spirituous liquors. Especially is this noticeable since the late Franco-German war.

11th. A race, when it emigrates, carries its habits with it. For a time at least, those habits may override all climatic law.

12th. England has thus overshadowed our whole country with its love of strong drinks, and with its habits of intoxication, as it has more recently covered Ceylon, parts of the East and Australia.

13th. This influence on our own country is greater now than it would have been if our forefathers, the early settlers, had cultivated the vine, which would have been practicable, as seen by the examples of Ohio and California, and from the fact that the whole of the United States lies in the region of the earth’s surface suited to the grape culture.

14th. If these early settlers had done this our nation would probably have been more temperate, and a vast industry like that of France, of Spain and of Italy and Germany, in light native wines, would long ago have sprung up.

15th. The example set by California and Ohio[21] should be followed by the whole country, where the vine can be grown. As a temperance measure it behooves every good citizen to promote that most desirable object. We should also allow the light, unfortified wines of Europe to be introduced free of duty instead of the large one now imposed. Instead of refusing the German lager beer, we should seek to have it introduced into the present “grog shops” and thus substitute a comparatively innoxious article for those potent liquors, which now bring disaster and death into so many families.

[21] Ohio has already made very great progress in this direction, and its wines are lighter than those of California. [Author.]

16th. The moral sense of the community should be aroused to the enormity of the evils flowing from keeping an open bar for the sale of ardent spirits, while those for the sale of light wines and of lager beer or ale should not be opposed, except for the sale to habitual drunkards after due notice from friends. Sellers violating such law might be compelled to support for a time the family of their victim.

17th. The horrid nature of drunkenness should be impressed by every means in our power upon the moral sense of the people. The habitual drunkard should be punished, or if he be a _dipsomaniac_, he should be placed in an inebriate asylum for medical and moral treatment, until he has gained sufficient self-respect to enable him to overcome his love of drink.

We give next an extract from an article written by Dr. Willard Parker, which article was printed March 20th, 1879, in the _Religious Herald_, a temperance paper published at Hartford, Conn. Dr. Parker says: “We have never had a single case of an inebriate in the asylum at Binghamton, (N. Y.,) who came here from using fermented beverages, he may have begun with them and gone on to other and stronger liquors, but the mere fermented beverages did not make an inebriate of him; * * * and while men use simply fermented liquors with no more alcohol than comes from their fermentation, drunkenness is but little known.” He says also that fermentation is a process of nature which will continue to exist as long as there is sugar and starch. Fermentation is the work of omnipotence, not the work of man, it grows out of the very constitution of things and is as truly a divine process as growth itself.

Professor Mulder of Amsterdam remarks in the preface to his “Chemistry of Beer,” page IV., “I dare say without exaggeration that we find united in beer all the wholesome substances that are met separately in the various carbonic acid mineral waters, in wine and in bread,” and in reference to the alcoholic property of beer he says, page 461: “Many people are prejudicially influenced by the frequent misuse of alcoholic beverages and kept from reasoning honestly and truly as to their salubrious effects in a diluted form such as we find in beer. If we consider the beneficial effects of good beer on the system we cannot help attributing a share in the result to the alcoholic element, even if it be held that alcohol has in itself no nutritive power.” The same opinion is held by Prof. Pittenkofer, the renowned and well-deserving chemist and hygienist, on the strength of numerous observations and results of minute examination.

Professor Stahlschmied formerly at Berlin and at present at the royal polytechnic school at Aix-la-Chapelle, says in his work “Chemistry in reference to Fermentation,” page 255: “Up to the present time, experiments on the nourishing properties of beer have not been sufficiently numerous to furnish definite conclusions. It is not so much the small amount of organic extract that is to be considered as the ashes and phosphates which are here provided in a form easy of assimilation. In this respect beer is next to milk and furnishes an aliment that is directly bone producing.” It is well known that beer is very commonly taken by nursing women on account of its nourishing and milk-producing qualities and the fact furnishes evidence from experience to the same purport as the technical statement just quoted.

The report of the Department of Agriculture at Washington as far back as the year 1866 speaks as follows: “The intemperate use of beer is like the intemperate use of anything detrimental to health, but a moderate use of pure beer will aid digestion, quicken the powers of life, and give elasticity to the body and mind and will not produce any of the terrible results named by fanatics and ignorant people. In certain forms of dyspepsia it is a valuable assistant to other remedies and in some cases of debility requiring a mild tonic and gentle stimulant beer has been found of the greatest benefit.”

Touching the nutritious properties of beer as compared with the grain from which it is made Professor Mulder says: “The food value of beer as compared with grain is as one to fourteen, no account being made of the food value of the alcohol contained in beer. The albumen value of beer as compared with grain is as one to six, the fat as one to seventy and the chemical salts as one to twenty-five. On the whole, the latest and most trustworthy results of scientific investigation go to show that a well brewed beer, properly compounded with hops and well matured, is to be considered a beverage which has a most beneficial influence on the transmutation of substances in the human body; if moderately taken.”

Sir Henry Labouchere, editor of “Truth” and formerly member of Parliament for Windsor and Middlesex, an accomplished linguist, and fitted both as an original thinker and by experience in the diplomatic _corps_ at most of the capitals of Europe, to form a just opinion, says that experience shows that beer is a most wholesome beverage, that when pure it is not intoxicating and can be drunk freely, that its use adds to the health and strength of man, that intoxication hardly exists where it is the national beverage and that its introduction in all parts of the world would be a blessing to mankind.

Professors Ure and Huxley, Dr. Harvey, Dr. Abercrombie and Bayard Taylor, the celebrated traveler and recent ambassador at the court at Berlin, as also our great statesman and historian George Bancroft, all came, after careful study and personal observation, to the same conclusion, that beer is not only healthy, refreshing and enlivening as a beverage, but also an excellent means of rooting out the love of strong drink and securing genuine temperance.

Dr. A. Baer, member of the Royal Sanitary Council, and chief physician at the prisons of Berlin and Ploetzensee near Berlin has, within a few months, published a valuable work on alcoholism. He says, “Beer is of all drinks best adapted for a stimulating beverage of general consumption. It combines with the refreshing, animating and thirst-quenching elements, distinct nutritive qualities, mainly due to the abundant presence of certain salts, and thus becomes one of the very best substitutes for extract of meat. The greater number of characteristic principles of the one are found in the other, but the decided nervous animation experienced after drinking beer is chiefly due to the large portion of phosphate of potassa, which _Mitcherlich_ says forms 20 parts in 100 of beer ashes, and which, according to Ranke, constitutes the principal active ingredient in meat broth. To the presence of this salt, beer owes its strengthening influence during convalescence and in cases of general debility, and its marked tendency to produce corpulency, as shown in beer-drinkers. In addition to this the bitter principle of the hops has a tonic power of marked value in assisting digestion while the modicum of alcohol has a stimulating and animating effect on the brain. On the whole, beer as a beverage cannot be excelled, as it possesses a number of qualities which jointly have a most salutary effect upon the human organism.”

In a report presented a short time ago to the Industrial Society of Mulhouse the well-known Dr. Schoellamer thus speaks of beer:

“Beer is one of the best drinks that we can recommend, its consumption being most wholesome. Good beer ought to be regarded as an excellent drink, capable in itself of replacing all other fermented drinks. Thus its moderate consumption must be strongly recommended. If its price is high a great obstacle is placed in the way of a natural consumption.

“Beer contains from two to eight per cent. of alcohol, a dose of carbonic acid equal to three or four times its volume; when it is exposed to the air it loses all its gas. It contains besides azote and phosphates; for example, a liter of good beer, made exclusively with hops and barley, contains 0.80 gr. of azote, which corresponds to 5.26 grains of albuminoid matters. There are again from 0.60 gr. to 0.80 gr. of phosphoric acid, that is as much as in 530 grammes of meat or 220 grammes of bread. The solid extract of beer contains salts favorable to nutrition, etc. It is on these accounts that beer may be considered a beverage of the first order.

“It slacks thirst admirably, and as it contains a great deal of water it is perhaps the best of all for that purpose. As an alcoholic drink it is superior to all spirituous liquors. It is the most tonic, the most operative, and the most nourishing. Complete drunkenness is almost impossible with ordinary beer, whatever quantity may be consumed; what is known as “alcoholism” is not produced by it. In fact beer exercises on the human economy a tonic, nutritive, diuretic, and slightly stupefying action, the last effect being due to the essential oil contained in the hops, but large quantities must be absorbed before this effect can be produced.”

Professor W. Nasse, president of the Society of Medical Officers of Insane Asylums in Germany, presented for consideration at their annual meeting held at Hamburg, Sept. 17, 1876, the following question: “How can we specially assist in preventing the injury which results from the use of alcoholic liquors?” It was decided that the only means was in promoting the use of good mild beer. The same opinion has been expressed by Dr. Selman in an address delivered at Dusseldorf, and also by Dr. Roller of Illenau, a meritorious specialist in mental diseases, and by Professors Griesinger of Zurich and Schreiber-Berzelius of Sweden. All the authorities just quoted hold a high rank in their profession, and contributions from their pens frequently appear in the _Quarterly Journal of Inebriety_, published at Hartford, Conn.

The Contemporary Review has lately published a series of papers on the same topic, written in a popular style by several London physicians of celebrity, including Dr. Walter Moxon, Sir James Paget and others, and all opposing the doctrine of total abstinence and declaring themselves in favor of beer as a promotive of the real temperance cause. Dr. Albert T. Bernays, too, has considered with great minuteness the cause of intemperance and his conclusion is that beer is the safest kind of alcohol and should be adopted as a common beverage by all classes of people.

In the Minnesota Legislature when the prohibitory law was under consideration, Dr. Riley, a representative from Houston county, spoke as follows: “In the district where I reside there is a large number of Germans who have come from the old country and planted grapes, and now there are magnificent vineyards stretching along the hillsides where formerly there was not grass enough to feed a sheep. They raise large quantities of very fine grapes which they ship all over the country. They also make very fine wine. The proposed law will destroy these vineyards of my constituents. * * * Perhaps it will be necessary to pass a law to protect those miserable drunkards who cannot protect themselves but it is not necessary to restrain others of their liberty to drink when they want or need it.

“Why, I have seen ladies at a tea-party, perhaps not drunk, but certainly very jolly from drinking tea, and yet they come to this Legislature with petitions signed by all whom they could influence or bulldoze into signing, men, women or children to the number of ten thousand. There are eight hundred thousand people in Minnesota, and we are proposing to let these ten thousand override the other seven hundred and ninety thousand. They claim as prohibitionists that drinking tends to impoverish the people. Do you believe that? Look at the Germans! Many of them take a piece of land that would scarcely support a hog and make a fortune of it. They all drink beer. They take their wives and their children to the beer garden and sit down and drink their beer every day, and even the babe in arms will stretch to get a taste of it. These people are not impoverished by it. These people are so healthy in my neighborhood that I have actually not been able to make a living out of my German constituents.

“They say it tends to the degeneration of the human race. How does it happen that in New England where prohibitory laws are in force the race has so degenerated that they do not seem to be able to raise any children? Look at the Germans who drink beer all the time. You will find a large family of healthy children in almost every German house. Are they degenerated?

“The children of total abstinence people are constantly dying. From the vital statistics of Minnesota I learn that over two thousand children died last year under two years of age. They would not have died if they had been fed on good wholesome beer. I would advise mothers—and I have advised them in my practice—to give their sickly children plenty of beer, and I know I have saved many an infant’s life. Beer is the best cure for dyspepsia in the world. I have cured women of this terrible disease by advising them to drink three glasses of beer every day, and I say again to you mothers that if you will drink beer and feed your children on beer you will raise more and healthier children.

“Referring to the vital statistics of the state, I find that but six men died of intemperance during last year—two of delirium tremens and four of something else, which they couldn’t tell anything about, and so called it intemperance. And yet you want to stop drinking. Eleven were killed by horses during the same time. Why don’t you abolish horses—never use them or go near them? Thirty-five committed suicide. Why don’t you prohibit the use of firearms and knives, and drain all your lakes and rivers for fear some poor fool will drown himself? Some 152 died of heart disease. I don’t want any heart in mine. Twenty ladies were scalded to death. You ought to prohibit the use of hot water for fear that more ladies will get into it and perish.

“England away across the sea has brewed beer for many hundred years and will continue to brew for thousands of years more, and to the fact that the English people have drunk beer all that time I do conscientiously attribute her present greatness. Beer-drinkers are slow but sure. Look at Germany, that great nation. We could not pay her for the money we have borrowed of her. Her great army, the best in the world, her great statesmen, her philosophers, were all raised on beer.”

[Illustration: _Fred Lauer_

HONORARY PRESIDENT UNITED STATES BREWERS’ ASSOCIATION]

The Hon. Frederick Lauer in a speech before the Brewers’ Convention at St. Louis, June 4, 1879, thus presents a phase of the beer question which is certainly of importance:

“What we now want to ensure the future happiness and prosperity of the country is the enactment of liberal laws to induce the industrious classes of overcrowded Europe to flock to our shores. We want immigration for the purpose of building up our towns and cities, developing our manufacturing enterprises, and cultivating the millions of fertile acres in this country now lying idle. The thrifty German is accustomed to his daily ration of beer. In the land of his nativity he has his parks and public gardens, where family unions and social gatherings take place amid the ecstatic influence of the foaming lager. The English, Irish, Scotch, and people of other European countries are noted patrons of malt liquors. The greatest liberality should, therefore, be shown them in the indulgence in their customary beverages in the land of their adoption. With the more general use of malt liquors the hundreds of quack medicines now in the market will disappear, as it has been proved by experience in countries where malt beverages are the popular drink, that health and longevity are marked features, and dyspepsia and chronic complaints are rare. The tide of emigration is again swelling to this country. According to the _New York Herald_ of the first of May last, the total number of immigrants landed at New York for the first three months of 1879 was 11,288, more than two-thirds of whom came from Germany, England and Ireland. The emigration of aliens to the United States from 1789 to 1877 is set down in round numbers at 10,000,000, who, with their descendants have built up this great nation. Since May 5, 1847, the emigration to this country has reached 5,732,183 souls. In view of these facts nothing should be done to interfere with the happiness of those who seek our shores, but by means of wise laws they should be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges. To be successful as a government we should invite immigration, and develop our great natural resources, and then by promoting health and temperate habits by the adoption of beer as the national beverage, we will increase as a nation, and be in truth and in fact the greatest country on the face of the earth.”

##