wooldridge download

tion, absurd exaggeration and misrepresentation on the part of the anti-drink zealots. It occurred to me that this was a good illustration of the statement I have repeatedly made, that this irrational attitude of the anti-alcoholists creates an artificial, unnatural association of the ideas of rational use and irrational excess, and thus promotes intemper- ance. To a normal mind in a normal environment it would never occur to think of drunkenness in connec- tion with a social glass of wine, any more than at a meal it would occur to think of a feast of Lucullus with asafoetida as an evacuator of the stomach and similar delectable performances. By establishing this association of ideas, these people, to whose natures temperance is unknown, create a tendency to intemper- ance which is not present normally. Fear of disease weakens the system and opens the portals for in- fection. Fear of intemperance is likely to work in a similar manner. Let us drink as we should eat, normally, rationally, temperately. Banish the fear of the hospital and the death's head from our tables, and we shall enjoy our meal and get the full benefit it is capable of giving. Likewise, disperse the mists of moral perversity artifi- cially generated by the anti-alcoholists, in which to dis- play their ghastly pictures of poor-house, insane asylum and prison and other figments of a disordered imagina-