554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ed, acknowledged his discouragement 

 to a sagacious friend, who suggested to 

 him that there was a sure way in which 

 the cause might be made to succeed. 

 " It has been shown," said he, " that the 

 use of alcohol is very injurious to the 

 human stomach. Men care for their 

 stomachs more than for anything else. 

 Prove to them that alcoholic liquors 

 impair and destroy the digestive organs, 

 and your case is won and that work 

 done." Mr. Delavan, accordingly, had 

 prepared a series of colossal lithograph 

 j)lates, showing the progressive influ- 

 ence of alcohol upon the coats of the 

 stomach, from the first congestion that 

 follows moderate indulgence in the 

 stimulant, onward through the stages 

 of inflammation and disorganization to 

 the final ulcerated condition shown by 

 t\\6 post-mortem of habitual drunkards. 

 The enterprise was pushed with great 

 vigor. Hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars were spent in the manufacture of 

 these stomach - charts, and they were 

 hung up conspicuously in the halls of 

 court-houses, on the walls of public in- 

 stitutions, and in all places where they 

 could be observed by everybody. That 

 these illustrations did good service there 

 can be no doubt, although able medical 

 men denied their strict accuracy. One 

 eft'ect was to concentrate so much at- 

 tention upon the stomach that all other 

 parts of the human system were neg- 

 lected, and this made necessary new 

 scientific expositions, showing that the 

 peculiar and most injurious effect of in- 

 gested alcohol is upon the nervous sys- 

 tem and the brain. 



But, while great good was undoubt- 

 edly accomplished by the means adopt- 

 ed, and, indeed, all the good tljat could 

 be expected from them, the results were 

 still unsatisfactory — that is, the evil of 

 intemperance was not swept from the 

 country as the sanguine reformers had 

 anticipated. The movement was driven 

 as a crusade having a definite end. At- 

 tention was so concentrated upon the 

 evils of intemperance that they came to 



be considered as almost the only evils 

 with which mankind are afflicted. Fer- 

 vor of feeling grew into heated and pas- 

 sionate partisanship, with impatience of 

 tardy results. There was but little rec- 

 ognition of anything hke natural laws 

 in the case, and no admission of the 

 great truth that radical changes in the 

 conduct of human nature must proceed 

 slowly and are limited by many condi- 

 tions. There grew up a conviction that 

 the temperance movement as thus pros- 

 ecuted had proved a failure. Men had 

 been instructed, persuaded, and de- 

 nounced, until it was felt that these 

 agencies had accomplished everything 

 of which they were capable, and it was 

 resolved to push on to more stringent 

 measures. If men could not be induced 

 to abstain voluntarily from the use of 

 intoxicants, then they must be com- 

 pelled to abstain. Government must 

 be appealed to, to force the results 

 which moral influence had failed to se- 

 cure. If men would not stop drinking, 

 they must be deprived of the means of 

 drinking, and so it was determined to 

 strike at the trade in alcoholic liquors, 

 and to outlaw it by prohibitory legisla- 

 tion. 



The temperance question was thus 

 launched into politics, a change of great 

 import, as it was the virtual abandon- 

 ment of the policy hitherto pursued. 

 Moral influences were, of course, not 

 openly repudiated, but it remains true 

 that they no longer characterized the 

 temperance movement. The faith in 

 them had departed, and its place was 

 taken by the new faith in the efficacy 

 of political action. We called atten- 

 tion last month to the overshadowing 

 influence of the great superstition that 

 political agencies are omnipotent for 

 the accomplishment of social ends. 



In the face of notorious facts, and 

 in the teeth of all experience, we cling 

 to the notion that government can do 

 everything ; so that now it is widely be- 

 lieved that a reformation of social hab- 

 its, involving the strongest appetites. 



