Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/548

 TEMPERANCE

490

TEMPERANCE

most frequent sources of demoralization. Such vigorous and sustained efforts have had a marked effect in Ireland. Arrests for drunkenness, which were 98,401 in 1899, have fallen each year to 68,748 in 1909, and the expenditure on drink, though still appallingly large (£13,310,469), considering the needs and poverty of the country, is now more than a million less than it was ten years ago. And though the "Drink Bill" of the United Kingdom, which was £179,499,817 in 1902, has now decreased to £155,162,485, owing to some extent to the growth of a more enlightened public opinion, there is yet abundant need of temperance propaganda before the population of the British Isles learns as a whole to avoid excessive drinking, as a vice that is both degrading to the individual and very injurious to the State.

General works: Woolley and Johnson. Temperance and Social Progress of the Century (London) ; Dawson and Burns, Temperance History (1889-91); Rowntree and Shehwell, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform (New York, 1900); Shadwell, Drink, Temperance and Legislation (New York, 1902) ; Paterson, Licensing Acts, I8S8-1904; The Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws (1896-99); The Alliance Year Book (1911); Annual Report {Thirty-Second) of the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance (1910—); New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. Catholic works; Bridgett, The Discipline of Drink (1S76); Manning, Our National Vice (1886); Cullen, The Pioneer Temperance Catechism (1911); MoRAN, Early Church Legislation in Ireland; PuRCELL, Life of Cardinal Manning^ II (London, 1895), xxii; Handbook of the League of the Cross.

Joseph Keating.

In the United States and Canada. — United States. — The first temperance work in the United States was due to a reaction against intemperance, which threatened to make the Americans a nation of drunkards. The culminating period of intemperance was the seventy-five years between 1750 and 1825. Nearly everyone drank intoxicating liquor. It was the family beverage. It was the prevailing mark of hospitality. It was regarded as a discourtesy^ even an insult, to refuse it. At all functions, pubhc and private, social and commercial, sacred and solemn, intoxicating beverages were used. Not only was liquor regarded as indispensable on such occasions, but the erroneous belief prevailed that no hard work could be accomphshed without the stimulating glass. Labourers and mechanics were provided with their quota of hquor, twice a day, at the sound of the town bell, that summoned them regularly at eleven and four o'clock. The farmer stipulated with his help when he hired them for harvesting that they were to receive a certain amount of "spirits", which was generaUy whisky or New England rum. Strong liquor was supposed to make strong men. This supposition was not questioned until the fatal effects of drinking habits were evident in the multitude who went down to drunkards' graves. Intemperance was widespread, increasing day by day, till it reached its climax at the close of the Revolutionary War. Congress furnished the Colonial troops with Uquor to strengthen them in the hardships of war. The soldiers returned to their homes and added to the wave of drunkenness that rose high and spread far and wide. It was commonly stated at the end of the Revolution that the United States consumed more liquor per capita than any other nation. It was generally admitted that no man could be found who had not been drunk on some occasion. The out- come of this iniiver.sal intemperance was a reaction in favour of temperance.

The first pronounced effort at reform was inaugu- rated by Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, a mem- ber of the Continental Congress in 1770, and one of the signers of tlie Dei'laration of Independence. In 17S5 he issued a ]nuii|)h]ct entitled "Inquiry into the effects of ardent spirits on the human body and mind", which was widely read in America and England. No organized movement resulted from it, but it affected public opinion strongly and laid

the foundation of subsequent temperance work. The reform inaugurated by Dr. Rush did not advo- cate total abstinence; the public was not prepared for any such remedial measure. The first step to- ward it was the abolition of the custom of affording liquor to employees. Then moderation in the use of distilled liquors was encouraged; this developed into abstinence from this class of hquors, and the moderate use of wine, beer, and cider. Finally after a half-century of effort in regulating the use of liquor, it was demonstrated that the plan of modera- tion had proved a failure, and that the only practical remedy was total abstinence.

The first temperance organization was formed by two hundred farmers in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1789. The members merely pledged themselves not to give liquor to their farm hands. This action met with bitter opposition from the workmen, who persecuted the members of the new society and heaped every indignity upon them. Such was the prejudice in favour of strong drink that this very moderate temperance movement was considered drastic and revolutionary. The first society of pledged abstainers was formed in April, 1808, at Moreau, Saratoga County, New York. Forty-seven members pledged themselves to abstain from dis- tilled spirits and wine except in case of sickness or at public dinners, under penalty of a fine of twenty-five cents, and fifty cents for actual intoxication. Other societies were established which prohibited not the use but the intemperate use of intoxicating hquors. One of these societies was organized in a tavern, at the bar of which the officers treated the others. Members were fined twenty-five and fifty cents for drunkenness, and a by-law of one society required members who had become drunk to treat all the other members.

The vice of drunkenness called for a more adequate effort than the mere advocacy of moderation. On 13 February, 1826, "The American Temperance Society" was estabhshcd at Boston. This opened a new era, and paved the way to total abstinence. The new society advocated total abstinence, but, from considerations of prudence, it was not enforced. The purpose of the society was to mould public sentiment and to reform the habits and customs of the community. Gradually men began to see that drunk- enness was to be combatted by attacking the drink- habit. Ten years later, in 1836, the second national temperance convention held at Saratoga declared for total abstinence from distilled and fermented liquors. Dr. Dorchester in his "Liquor Problem in All Ages", commenting on the work of this period, says: "In the year 1835 more than eight thousand societies had been formed, with more than one million five hundred thousand members, every state except one being organized. More than four thousand distil- leries had been stopped, and eight thousand mer- chants had ceased to sell ardent spirits. More than twelve hundred vessels in which it is not used sail from our ports." The year 1840 gave birth to the Washingtonian Temperance Society, a total abstinence organization, which began at Baltimore with six members, and grew to six hundred thousand. In time, two-thirds of this large society fell away. Other societies lost members and men who regarded teetotal- ism as the sovereign remedy of intemperance turned their attention from the drinker and the drunkard to the dealer in liquor, whose livelihood dependc<l on the drinker, and inaugurated anotlier phase of temper- ance reform, which eventually took the shape of prohibition. Neal Dow of Maine became the leader of the new agitation, and after per.sistent and un- wearying effort succeeded in 1S51 in securing the passage of an absolute ])rohibitory law conmionly known as the "Maine Law". In subsequent years prohibition of the liijuor traffic became a law in Miime-