Mrs. Booker T. Washington.Mrs. Booker T. Washington.
Another incident of those days I have heard him tell of in these words: "Word was sent over the plantation for all 'the hands' to come up to the 'big house.' We went, and to us men, women, and children gathered in the yard some one standing on the veranda read a paper. I was too young to understand why the men and women around me should have begun to shout, 'Hallelujah! Praisede Lawd!' when the reading was finished, but my mother, bending down to where I was clinging to her dress, whispered to me that we were free."
Not long after the close of the war the Washingtons left the plantation and went to West Virginia, where, in the coal mines, work could be had which would pay money wages. At first Booker worked in the mines with his brothers, but he soon became dissatisfied with the chance for improvement which that work afforded. "The first thing that led me to study," he has said, "was seeing a young colored man slowly reading a newspaper to a group of colored people who surrounded him with open mouths and gaping eyes. He was almost a god to them." The chance to study was soon found. An energetic woman of kindly nature hired the young colored boy to work about her house as a general chore-boy. Finding that he was anxious to learn, she offered to teach him to read in the spare minutes of his work, and did so. One day he overheard a man talking about Hampton, where General Armstrong had already begun his noble work. This, the man said, was a place where black boys could go to school, and at the same time work to pay their way. "As soon as I heard that," Mr. Washington has said, "I made up my mind that Hampton was just the place for me, and that I would go there. I started, although I had no money and did not even know where Hampton was. I felt sure I could inquire the way as I went, and work my passage. I walked a good share of the way, begged some rides, and when I had earnedany money which I could spare, paid my fare to ride on the trains. I reached Richmond, Virginia, one night too late to get any work, and I was entirely out of money. While I was walking about wondering where I would get a lodging, I happened to see a nice dry place under a stretch of plank sidewalk. Watching my chance when no one was looking, I crawled in and curled up to sleep. The next day I was so fortunate as to get work helping to unload a vessel, and, as the job lasted several days, I came back each night to my lodging under the sidewalk, thus saving all my wages except the little required for food. In this way I was able to get money enough to carry me the rest of the way to Hampton, and leave me fifty cents when I got there."
In these days of entrance examinations to various institutions of learning, it is interesting to read of the examination which young Washington was required to pass before he could enter Hampton. He tells us of it thus: "Of course," says he, "they knew nothing of me, and, after my long tramp, days of hard labor and nights of sleeping in barns and under sidewalks, I suppose I could not have presented a very prepossessing appearance. After looking me over in a not very encouraging manner, they gave me a broom and took me into a room, which they told me to sweep. I suppose I swept that room over three or four times before I was satisfied to call it done, when a teacher came in and took her handkerchief and wiped the walls to see if she could find any dust on them. After that they said I could come to the school. So you see I passed my examination.
"At Hampton I found the opportunity, in the way of buildings, teachers, and industries provided by the generous, to get training in the class room, and by practical touch with industrial life to learn thrift, economy, and push. I was surrounded by an atmosphere of business, Christian influence, and a spirit of self-help that seemed to have awakened every faculty within me, and caused me for the first time to realize what it meant to be a man instead of a piece of property.
"While there I resolved that, when I had finished my course of training, I would go into the far South, into the 'black belt' of the South, and give my life to providing the same kind of opportunity for self-reliance and self-awakening that I had found provided for me at Hampton. My work began at Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881, in a small shanty and church, with one teacher and thirty students, without a dollar's worth of property. The spirit of work and of industrial thrift, with aid from the State and generosity from the North, has enabled us to develop an institution of a thousand students, gathered from twenty-six States, with eighty-one instructors and thirty-eight buildings.
"I am sometimes asked what is the object of all this outlay of energy and money. To that I would answer that the needs of the ten million colored people in the South may be roughly said to be food, clothing, shelter, education, proper habits, and a settlement of race relations. These ten million people can not be reached by any direct agency, but they can be reached by sending out among them strong selected young men and women, with the proper training of the head and hand and heart, who will live among these masses and show them how to lift themselves up. The problem that Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself is how to prepare these leaders."
The first time I went to Tuskegee I happened to ride for half a day through the State of Georgia in the same seat in the car witha man whose conversation showed him to be one of the class to whom the designation "unreconstructed" has sometimes been applied. An officer in the Confederate army, he had accepted the situation at the close of the war, but now, after thirty years, although he spoke of existing conditions without bitterness, he spoke of them with little or no sympathy. I had some doubt how he would comment on my errand, when I told him that I was on my way to attend the Negro Conference at Tuskegee. Imagine my surprise when he exclaimed: "Going to Tuskegee, are you, to see Booker Washington? Just let me tell you there's a man that's got the right idea of things. He's teaching the negroes to work. I wish the South had a thousand Booker Washingtons." This man, I learned afterward, when I was in Atlanta, was one of the most prominent and successful business men of that city.
The second day of my stay at Tuskegee, as I came out of the rude buildings where the conference had been held, a young colored man waiting at the door accosted me. "Is not this Mr. ——," he said, "and at the World's Fair were you not in charge of such an exhibit?" naming one of the educational exhibits. I said I was the man. "Don't you remember me?" he added, telling me where he had been working at the time. I did remember him perfectly, and asked how he happened to be so far removed from Chicago.
"It was like this," he said. "Next year I went to the Atlanta Exposition. While there I heard Mr. Washington speak, and learned about his school where negro boys could learn a trade. Ihad always been at a disadvantage because I did not know how to do any kind of work really well. So I came here and began to learn carpentering. I have the trade nearly learned now, and when I graduate from here I shall know how to really work."
Soon after beginning my long car ride from Tuskegee back to the North I stepped into the mail car on the train to post some letters. The envelopes I had used bore the imprint of Tuskegee Institute in the corner. As I handed them to the postal clerk, he glanced at the printing in the corner and exclaimed: "I say, that Booker Washington is a wonderful man, isn't he? I never saw him, but he's teaching those people there to work." Then he went on to tell me about a young colored man whom he had known who had gone to Tuskegee and learned harness-making, and then come home to set up business for himself. This man told me later that he had never been farther north than Louisville.
It seemed to me as if here was an interesting coincidence of unsought testimony, and all tending to show how consistently Tuskegee teaches a gospel of work. Industrial training goes hand in hand there, with mental and moral teaching, in earnest effort to help the thousand young negro men and women there and make their lives count for the most possible for themselves and their race.
A Class in Mental Philosophy.A Class in Mental Philosophy.
Any one who has heard Mr. Washington speak at any length to audiences of his own race knows how earnestly he advocates industrialeducation for the negro. As might be expected, then, we find at Tuskegee practical hand training. The advantage is twofold. The students not only learn to work, but in doing so many are enabled to work out all or a part of the expenses which otherwise in many cases would have prevented them from remaining at the school.
Armstrong Hall. One of the oldest buildings at Tuskegee.Armstrong Hall.One of the oldest buildings at Tuskegee.
Of the thirty-eight buildings at Tuskegee, all but the first three, and these are among the smallest ones, have been built by the students. Several of the largest of these buildings are of brick, and the educational process begins in the institute's own brickyard, where a class of muscular young men are making bricks under the direction of a capable instructor, and in making them learn the trade which they expect to follow in after life. This yard not only makes all the bricks the institute uses, but many thousand more to be sold each year for use in the surrounding country.
Alabama Hall. One of the first buildings erected by the students.Alabama Hall.One of the first buildings erected by the students.
I heard Mr. Washington tell to an audience of fifteen hundred negroes, in Charleston, South Carolina, a characteristic story of the beginning of this brickyard. "After I had been teaching a while at Tuskegee," he said, "I began to feel that I was partly throwing away my time teaching the students only books, without getting hold of them in their home life and without teaching them how to care for their bodies and how to work. I looked about forsome land, and found a farm near Tuskegee which could be bought. I had no money, but a good friend had confidence enough in our prospects to loan me five hundred dollars to pay down toward the land so as to secure it. After that it was not long before I had the school moved. Then I would teach the boys for a part of the day, and then for the rest of the time take them out of doors with me to help clear up the land. In that way we did all the work we possibly could. When it came to making bricks for a building, though, we were stuck. We could make the bricks, and did, but none of us knew how to burn them. For that it was necessary to have a skilled man, who must be paid. I was out of money by that time, but I owned a gold watch. This I took to a pawnshop and raised all I could on it. The money I got was enough to pay a man to burn the bricks and teach us so that we could do the next ones ourselves. That watch is in pawn yet, but we have got thirty-eight buildings."
Students at Work on New Trades-School Building.Students at Work on New Trades-School Building.
Another class of young men are learning bricklaying. They take the bricks as they come from the yard and put up the walls of the buildings, while the carpenters do the woodwork. The classes in woodworking are among the most important at the school. The institute now owns a large tract of valuable timber land, while among the industrial buildings on the grounds is a good sawmill,equipped with the necessary machinery. Whatever lumber is needed in the erection of the buildings is cut on the timber lot, drawn to the mill, and sawed. In this way one class learns to saw and handle lumber. Besides the regular carpentry classes, joiner work and carriage-making are carried on. A large part of the furniture in the buildings, including the beds, tables, and chairs in the dormitories and dining rooms, was built in this way. All the carts, wagons, and carriages which are used about the place were built in the carriage shop, and the hickory lumber wagons turned out there have so good a reputation that all not needed on the place are sold readily to be used on the near-by farms. The carriages are painted, ironed, and trimmed by the young men, and no better proof of the workmanship can be asked than some of the rides I have had in them about Tuskegee.
One End of the Dining Hall at Tuskegee.One End of the Dining Hall at Tuskegee.
The management at Tuskegee tries to have a building always in course of construction for the benefit of the building classes. This year they are erecting a trades-school building. Last year they built a handsome brick church, which will seat two thousand persons. The building of this church shows well what the school's building classes can do. The designs were drawn by Mr. R. R. Taylor, the young colored man who is the instructor in mechanical and architectural drawing. One of his pupils designed the cornices with which the building is finished, and another designed the pews which furnish it. These pews were built in the school's joiner shop. The bricks were all made in the school's brickyard, and laid by the students. Men learning slating and tinsmithing covered the roof, and the steam-heating and electrical apparatus were also put in by the students, although this is one of the first of the buildings where the students have been sufficiently advanced in those trades to do the last-named work.
As it was determined to employ only negroes as instructors at Tuskegee, it was at first difficult to find enough men and women of that race skilled in the arts and trades which it was wished to have taught there, and teachers were brought to the institute from all over the country. Now, however, as each year sees the industrialclasses better under way, the tide is setting out, and Tuskegee yearly turns out teachers of trades, both men and women, who are eagerly sought by other institutions which are coming to see the value of industrial training. In many cases these teachers go to such positions at lower wages than they might hope to earn if they went to work at their trades, but they do this because they feel they have a duty to the institute and to the friends who have sustained it, to help extend its influence as widely as lies within their power. The question is often asked if a negro having learned a trade can find work at it. I do not think that the Tuskegee students who have thoroughly fitted themselves feel any anxiety about this. I remember speaking on this subject to the teacher in the harness-making and saddlery department, a good workman and a superb physical specimen of a man. He told me that during the long summer vacations he had left Tuskegee, and had never had any trouble in getting work and keeping it in shops in Montgomery and other towns of the State.
A Class of Tailors.A Class of Tailors.
'Building a Hat'; Millinery Department."Building a Hat"; Millinery Department.
Among the buildings at Tuskegee is a foundry and machine shop, which is always full of work, especially in the way of repairs upon agricultural machinery for the farmers about Tuskegee, because there is no other shop of the kind within thirty miles at least which has facilities for doing such heavy work as this. Printing, tailoring, blacksmithing, and painting are taught. Since a large proportion of the students at Tuskegee are young women, arrangements are made to furnish opportunities for them also to learn to work. They do all the work of taking care of the dormitoriesand dining rooms, learn plain and fancy cooking, candy-making, millinery, dressmaking, and all the most modern methods of laundry work. One class learns nursing, under the direction of a capable trained nurse.
In speaking of the trades taught at Tuskegee, it should be remembered that agriculture is reckoned among them, and one of the most important. A very large percentage of the negroes of the South must continue to live upon the plantations and gain a living by tilling the soil. As a general thing their knowledge of how to best do this is lamentably deficient, and they labor under great disadvantages. They do not own their land, but rent it at ruinous rates. They mortgage their crops and eat them up before they are harvested. They plant nothing but cotton, because that is about the only crop that can be mortgaged, and are therefore obliged to buy food at any exorbitant prices which the dealers may demand. Tuskegee tries to remedy these evils by teaching the young men who come there the best methods of modern farming. If the farmers' sons can remain only a short time they carry back to the home plantations some new ideas to put in practice there; if they can remain for the full term of three or four years, they are fitted to take full charge of the work on any large plantation. The institute has a farm on which are raised the crops best adapted to the soil and climate of that part of the South. The men who have charge of this work are among the most able in the entire force of instructors. Mr. C. W. Green, the farm superintendent, has no superior in the South as a practical farmer. Mr. George W. Carver, the head of the agricultural department, is a graduate of the Iowa State College. To my mind, no more valuable text-book for Southern scholars could be furnished than a little pamphlet which this man has recently issued, telling how he raisedbetween two hundred and three hundred bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground, whereas the average yield of that crop in the same part of the country is less than fifty bushels to the acre.
An Institute Cabbage Field.An Institute Cabbage Field.
Tuskegee has a large herd of cows and a good dairy and creamery, in which a class of men receive instruction in dairy work. An incident which occurred in connection with this dairy furnishes a story which Mr. Washington likes to tell, because it illustrates a point which he constantly impresses upon his colored audiences. One of the surest ways to abolish the color line, he tells his hearers, is to learn to do some kind of work so well that your services will be really needed.
The Start from the Barn. Farm Students.The Start from the Barn."Farm Students."
"There came to my knowledge," says Mr. Washington, "the fact that the owners of a certain creamery were in search of an able superintendent. We had just graduated a man who was thoroughly capable in every way, but he was just about as black as it is possible for a man to be. Nevertheless, I sent him on to apply for the place. When he made his errand known to the owners they looked at him and said:
"'A colored man? Oh, that would never do, you know.'
airying Division; making Butter.Dairying Division; making Butter.
"The applicant for work said very politely that he had not come there to talk about his color, but about the making of butter. Still, they said he would not do.
"Finally, however, something the man said attracted the attention of the owners of the creamery, and they told him he might stay two weeks on trial, although they still assured him that there was no possibility whatever of their hiring a colored man. Hewent to work, and when the report for the first week's shipment of butter came back—would you believe it?—that butter had sold for two cents a pound more than any butter ever before made at that creamery! The owners of the establishment said to each other, 'Why, now, this is very singular!' and waited for the second week. When the returns for that week came back—a cent a pound more than for the week previous, three cents a pound more than the creamery's best record before our man had taken charge of it—they didn't say anything. They just pocketed the extra dividend, as welcome as it was unexpected, and hired the man for a term of years. That extra three cents a pound on the price of the butter he could make had knocked every bit of black out of the color of his skin so far as they were concerned."
Delegates to the Tuskegee Negro Conference.Delegates to the Tuskegee Negro Conference.
Out of the desire of Mr. Washington to help the struggling negro farmers has grown one of Tuskegee's greatest institutions—the annual Negro Conference which assembles there each year. About ten years ago Mr. Washington invited a few of the negro farmers who lived near Tuskegee to meet at the institute on a stated day "to talk over things." Perhaps twenty men accepted the invitation. These men, gathered in one of the smaller rooms of the institute, under Mr. Washington's leadership discussed the problems with which they had to contend, and different ones among them told how they had succeeded or failed. The meeting was felt to be so helpful that another was planned for the next year. From that small beginning has developed a conference which now brings to Tuskegee, in February of each year, two thousand persons, from a dozen States, and representing many occupations besides that offarming. These men and women are the parents of the generation which is at school at Tuskegee and similar institutions. These fathers and mothers lived "too soon" to be able to profit by such advantages. Few of them can read or write, and nearly all of them know by experience what slavery was. They see their children learning so much which was unattainable for them that they ask, "Is there no chance for us?" The conference is Tuskegee's attempt to answer that cry. As one grizzled old negro preacher, whom I heard make the opening prayer one year, said, "O Lawd, we wants ter tank de for dis, our one day ob schoolin' in de whole year."
Negro Conference in Session in Tuskegee Institute Church.Negro Conference in Session in Tuskegee Institute Church.
Beginning with this year the conferences will be held in the new church, which will comfortably seat all the delegates. Until this church was completed, though, there was no audience room at the institute which would begin to accommodate all who came, and the sessions were held in a rude temporary building, which was also utilized for chapel and graduation exercises. Convenient as the new church is in every way, I shall always miss the unique gathering in that old pavilion. Imagine a broad, low building of unplaned boards, its floor the earth, and its seats backless benchesmade by spiking planks on to posts driven into the ground. From its rafters hang masses of Spanish moss, amid which streamers of red, white, and blue bunting are woven. On the walls are many American flags, looped back with the spiked leaves of the palmetto tree. Booker Washington stands on a low platform at one end of the room, and all around him, packed just as closely as they can be, are the people, while hundreds of late comers cluster around the doors and open windows like bees around the opening of a hive. No matter if the benches are backless and hard. No opera audience in five-dollar chairs ever sat half so interested for an hour as do these men and women through all the day, which, long as it is, proves far too short for what they have to say. This is the one day of the year for them, and not a minute must be wasted. The speakers are the men and women themselves. Mr. Washington simply starts the discussions and steers them so as to make all the time count. He is a genius as a presiding officer, and gets more out of the limited time than any one else could do. The subjects which they discuss are the practical ones which concern them most vitally. Some I have mentioned—non-ownership of land, crop-mortgaging, and the evil of raising only cotton. Others are the need of a longer school year and how to get it, the foolish extravagances of buying showy clocks, sewing machines, and organs before a house is owned to put them in, and similar subjects. The time is never long enough for all there is to be said. The effort is to make this a center from which some helpful thought will be carried out to take root during the year.
"Plain-Sewing" Room."Plain-Sewing" Room.
I saw a striking example of the influence which the conference may exert at one of the sessions. A tall young mulatto woman had finally succeeded in getting a chance to speak, for there are always twice as many to talk as can find time. "Last year brother Washington told us," said she, "that three acres of land, properly carried on, would support a person, and told us how, and said that a woman as well as a man could carry on the land. I made up my mind I'd try it. I did, and it's so. I hired three acres of land and had it plowed. I had it plowed deep, too. No lazy nigger half done the job, for I sat on the ground myself to see it done." She then went on to tell what her seed and fertilizer had cost, what she planted and raised, and what her profits were, showing them to be quite enough, as she had said, to support her for a year.
Loud applause greeted this report, and cries of "Dat's good!" and "Go ahead, sister!" but through it all the woman was seen to be still standing where she had spoken, waiting for a chance to go on, and with no sign of satisfaction in her face at the approval shown her. Raising one yellow hand high above her head, as soonas she could be heard, she cried in a strangely thrilling voice, which echoed through the dusky room: "How can you waste the one day of the year for us in such foolishness, when the life of a race is in jeopardy? Get to work! We must learn first to help ourselves, if we want God to help us!"
Hardly had this woman finished speaking when it was seen that another woman had risen and was waiting for a chance to make herself heard. I think I never saw a more pitiful figure. Very black, old, with a gaunt form on which a shabby dress hung loosely, her face was that of a person for whom life had been so hard that hope was for her a word unknown. Two or three men in the audiencesaid, "Oh, sit down!" as if they wondered what such a person could have to say which would not be a waste of the meeting's time, but she would not sit down. Standing there until the noise had hushed, she began:
"I wants ter tank Gawd I'se come here ter day an' heard what dat sister had ter say. I don' know what made me come. I'se nebber been here before, but I'se so glad I come ter-day! I'se been de mother ob sixteen chillen. I hain't nebber had a home nor a mule nor eben a dress dat wa'n't morgiged. My chillen's gone an' lef' me as soon as dey's growed up, an' now my ole man is gone too. I tought dere wasn't nuffin lef' for me ter do but jes' die, but now I'se goin' home an' get some lan' an' do for myself an' my littles' chillens what nobody has ebber done for me. I kin do it, an' I tank Gawd I'se been here ter git de word."
It seems to me as if this was missionary work of the best kind, and it is such work as this that Tuskegee is doing constantly.
By APPLETON MORGAN.
[Concluded.]
X.Quality Inspection.—In my paper in these pages, in 1894, I remarked, "If there is any such thing as a salutary liquor law, not derived from excise or police jurisdiction, it would be, perhaps, a statute insuring the purity of liquor; reviving that old English functionary, the 'ale-taster,' with his care over all drinkables exposed for sale." And surely this would be a legitimate and a constitutional law, as providing for the public safety (which is, after all is said, the origin and summit of all law). To kill a rattlesnake the rattlesnake must first be recognized as alive, and the old cry of the Podsnap that nothing improper exists is fast disappearing. It seems to me that at present, and in view of the fact that Mr. Reed's plan would involve a social and economical plant which could only be accumulated by long and deliberate legislative action, and admitting that the drink evil not only calls for legislative action but has received it for sixty-two years, and so accustomed our communities to expect it; admitting also Mr. Bellamy's and Mr. Reed's basic proposition that there is no reason why any human being should starve, and that it is not public policy that any creature of the State (even if a criminal confined for crime in a State penitentiary) should starve—admitting all these, it seems as if this plan really might be the best and most immediately practicable plan yet. Every State, withoutany criticism or clamor of constitutionalists against paternal government, appoints its official tester of illuminating fluids, that conflagration may not ensue and the public safety be imperiled by the destruction of the citizens' homes. Why not a State "tester" of the stimulant which may inflame the vital forces of the citizen himself, and so imperil the public peace, which, by all laws, is the public safety? Municipal corporations appoint inspectors of meat, of milk, of fruits, of confectionery, precisely under this constitutional duty of preserving the public health, upon which, most largely of all, the public safety depends. Why not, then, inspectors of the potables which the public drink?
By having liquors examined, and only pure liquors sold, and condemned liquors destroyed, precisely as in the case of unclean or impure meats, milk, fruit, and confectionery; much could be practicably, and in a minimum lapse of time, accomplished to the decrease of the liquor evil. The prohibitionists themselves, by placing and replacing and abolishing and experimenting with all sorts of statutes upon the statute-book, have accustomed us to State regulation of the sale of intoxicants, and, least of all, can complain of yet one more experiment toward the decrease of drunkenness.
Let the national or State government have liquors examined, and those not up to the standard emptied into the sewers, precisely as in the case of milk found filthy, dangerous, or questionable. The Government might also supervise the distilleries and forbid the manufacture of what are called "quick-aging" goods, or "continuous distillation," precisely as it controls the manufacture of oleomargarine. It is not improbable that a commission appointed to this good work might, by just, equitable, and easily-to-be-borne statutes, prescribe a time limit or period after which no spirituous liquors should be sold less than, say, five years old (the age of liquor being said to regulate its irritant and insanitary and to conserve its really salutary and sanitary qualities). I believe (not without consultation and a deliberate exchange of opinion with experts) that the good effects of such legislation would be almost instant; I believe that from pure motives of self-interest alone the distillers and rectifiers of liquors, instead of fighting such a law, would be eager to compete to furnish pure brands of liquor for the State censors, in the certainty that the State must adopt the best and the purest. To-day the public is served with precisely what the publican finds it most to his profit to sell. It may be only dirty water which he sells at a price at which he could (to his own immense profit) sell pure liquor. In every drinking place in the land, to which the public resorts, there are two prices—one price for what you order, and the other for the same "good." I believe that one of these days the world will remember, as curiouslyas it now remembers the days of the stagecoach or the tallow-dip, a time when a man desiring a dram of liquor was obliged to drink whatever the dram-seller found it profitable to sell him.
We have tried about everything else. Why not try this? We have conceded to our legislators the right and the jurisdiction. Since we can not adopt Mr. Reed's proposition to feed everybody, why not enter the wedge right here and do the next best or a next best thing—see that the people not only eat proper meats and fruits, but that they drink, if drink they will, pure liquors? And it need be added (however it may appear to be a sop to Cerberus) that it would not antagonize that most powerful class, whose organized and capitalized opposition every other liquor-regulating law which has ever been suggested has at once antagonized, and been obliged in the end to if not conciliate, at least to recognize in the adjustment of equities. Fortunately, we have not to begin our experiments out of whole cloth. Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington have led the way, and made the adulteration of liquor a misdemeanor. (New York, however, has probably negatived the best results of the prohibition by adding that the prohibited adulteration must only be "with any deleterious drug, substance, or liquor which is poisonous or injurious to the health," which is shutting one door and opening another, and relegating to the lawyers and their experts a tedious inquisition as to what the word "poisonous" or the term "injurious to health" may mean, in the course of which the offender would walk free.) The question as to whether it would conserve the public peace as well as the public safety by decreasing drunkenness can only be favorably conjectured. Experience of such a law only can show. To begin with, it would increase the cost of a dram. A glass of true whisky, for example, might be twenty cents instead of ten, and (the law forbidding adulteration) this would probably in itself lessen dram-drinking. In England, many years ago, a similar law was found to eventuate in compelling that only the highest grades of ale should be sold at a certain price. This led to the offering of a second, and then of a third grade, and finally of what was claimed to be a blending of all three grades or an "entire" (which was the origin of the termENTIRE, that later began to be the name of an alehouse—a legend still seen on English alehouse signs). But the law we now suggest, by preventing the blending of three grades of spirits, might, while lessening the sales, increase the excise revenues, and perhaps accomplish whatever may be left to be accomplished in conserving at once the health, the peace, and the income of the State.
That a system by which only pure liquors can be exposed for sale as beverages is feasible, seems already assured, the States ofOhio, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Washington having already long since adopted a partial statutory policy of the sort, and the State of New York, in 1896, having followed. In order to demonstrate what these have accomplished, and what improvements can be suggested, there were addressed to the proper officers of each of these States the following questions, viz.:
1. In your State what officer is charged with enforcement of the provisions of its liquor statutes, forbidding adulteration of liquors exposed for sale as beverages? And must such officer be examined as to his experience or as to his competency only?
2. Is his standard of unadulterated liquors established by law, and if so, what is it? Or is the officer's judgment as to what liquor may or may not be sold discretionary according to the circumstances of each case?
3. Is the examination to be conducted by taste or tasting (sampling), the old English method, or by chemical analysis?
4. Is adulteration so defined as to include the mixing of liquor with water, or only with substances or liquids in themselves toxicants?
5. Is the effect of this clause thought to be beneficial? Has it, for example, decreased drunkenness?
To the first question Mr. Samuel P. Sharpless, State Assayer of Massachusetts, reports as follows: "An assayer of liquor is appointed under our public statutes, who is charged with performing such duties as are referred to him. No particular examination prior to appointment is laid down. The presumption is that an analytical chemist will receive the appointment, as in the twenty years in which the law has existed only analytical chemists have received the same."
As to Ohio, Mr. Joseph E. Blackburn, Dairy and Food Commissioner, says: "The office of Dairy and Food Commissioner is charged with the enforcement of all laws governing the sale of food, drink, and drugs. He is not required to stand any examination, and his experience and qualifications are not considered except as to his eligibility as a candidate. It is distinctly a political position, and all the parties nominate candidates for the place."
As to Michigan, Mr. Elliot O. Grosvenor, Dairy and Food Commissioner, says, "The Dairy and Food Commissioner of the State is charged with enforcement of the law relating to adulteration of liquors."
As to Illinois, Hon. E. C. Akin, Attorney-General, writes: "It is the duty of the several State's attorneys to prosecute for violations of this section, on complaint of any one, or by indictment. There is no officer charged with the duty of making examinations or tests of liquors."
As to New York, Hon. Henry H. Lyman, Commissioner of Excise,replies: "The district attorneys of the several counties in this State have direct and exclusive control of all criminal prosecutions against violators of the liquor-tax law, but indirectly the matter of enforcing this section devolves upon the State Board of Health. By the provisions of section 42, chapter 661, laws of 1893, the State Board of Health shall take cognizance of the interests of the public health as affected by the sale or use of foods and adulterations thereof, and make all necessary inquiries and investigations relating thereto. It shall appoint such public analysts, chemists, and inspectors as it may deem necessary for that purpose, etc. Upon discovering any violations of the provisions of the act relating to the adulteration of foods or drugs, the State Board of Health shall immediately communicate the facts to the district attorney of the county where the violation occurred, who shall thereupon forthwith commence proceedings for the indictment of the persons charged with such violations."
To the second question, as to what is held to be adulteration, in Massachusetts the only standard fixed by law is that of the United States Pharmacopœia. Chapter 272, Acts of 1896, undertakes to provide certain standards. But so far not a single case has been brought under this act, since it has not been made the duty of any one in particular to enforce it. The assayer and inspector can only examine such liquors as are brought to him by the proper officers. He has no authority to institute proceedings even if he finds the liquor to be badly adulterated. Such action must be taken by the officers making the seizure. But Mr. Sharpless writes that, in his opinion, the law (section 31 of chapter 100 of the public statutes) providing for taking samples of liquors for analysis contains in its last sentence a clause which renders it inoperative: it requires such samples to be paid for if they are found to be of good quality. Mr. Sharpless adds: "Under this section I have received perhaps on an average twenty samples a year for the past fifteen years. These samples have generally been whisky, gin, brandy, and rum. The Legislature has been repeatedly requested to give the assayer authority to take samples in the same manner as they are taken by the milk inspector, but has as uniformly refused to give him that power."
Ohio reports that the legal standard for liquors is the requirements of the United States Pharmacopœia.
In Michigan the law does not define any standard for adulteration or unadulteration. Nor is it left to the mere judgment of any officer. "In case of prosecution the fact of adulteration would have to be proved to the satisfaction of the jury by any competent evidence." This is the language of Mr. Samuel A. Kennedy, Deputy Secretary of State. Mr. Elliot O. Grosvenor, the Dairy and Food Commissioner, indicates the nature of the evidence, however, asfollows: "If the word 'standard' can be used in connection with the word 'adulteration,' our law does regulate this standard. We send you under another cover a copy of the law concerning liquors, so far as within the jurisdiction of this department, from which you will see we have little or no discretion in the matter." The clause marked by Mr. Grosvenor is as follows: "The law relating to liquors seems to be meant only to prohibit the sale of spirituous or fermented or malt liquors containing drugs or poisons or substances or ingredients deleterious or unhealthful; and provides that each barrel, cask, keg, bottle, or other vessel containing the same shall be branded or labeled with the words 'Pure and without drugs or poison,' together with the name of the person or firm preparing the package. This applies to every package of whatever size—it matters not whether they are put up for immediate delivery or for stock purpose. This includes all bottled ale, beer, rum, wine, or other malt or spirituous liquors, also the bottles used for dispensing over the bar. The State has no standard of proof, but liquors in packages where proof is indicated must test to that proof. Compounds containing nothing deleterious or unhealthful may be sold as cordials. The blending of liquors will be permitted, if spirits or other ingredients are not added. Dealers purchasing and receiving goods not properly branded or labeled are not relieved from any responsibility, if they sell the same without branding or labeling."
In Illinois the standard is not mentioned, but the articles forbidden are plainly set forth by the criminal code of the State, which provides that "whoever adulterates, for the purpose of sale, any liquor used for drink, with cocculus indicus, vitriol, grains of paradise, opium, alum, capsicum, copperas, laurel water, logwood, Brazilwood, cochineal, sugar of lead, or any other substance which is poisonous or injurious to health; and whoever sells or offers, or keeps for sale any such liquor so adulterated, shall be confined in the county jail not exceeding one year, or fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both."
In New York there is a standard fixed for wines, and sections 46, 47, and 48 of the laws of 1893 are devoted to the definition of pure wine, half wine, made wine, and the adulteration of wines generally. But there is no standard of purity enacted for spirituous or malt liquors, and it is left to the discretion of the inspecting officers whether any liquors inspected and analyzed by them contain any deleterious substances.
As to question third, all the States seem to agree that chemical analysis is the safer, but adulteration seems to be considered by them all as a fact, to be proved by any competent process, even the taster not being barred, as he certainly is not by the clause as to inspectionin the State of New York. Mr. Grosvenor, Food Commissioner of Michigan, however, says that the only test recognized by his department would be that made in its own laboratory by its own two chemists.
As to whether the adulteration could be by water only, all our courteous informants refer us to their answer to the question as to standards but Ohio, whose Food Commissioner (Blackburn) replies, "Yes, if the proofage is reduced to less than one hundred degrees." In Massachusetts, Mr. Sharpless says, "In a case brought a number of years ago the court refused to consider water as an adulteration; no recent case has been brought."
As to the fifth and vital question, whether the clause against adulteration tends to decrease drunkenness, Mr. Sharpless adds the following valuable record of his experiences as State assayer in a State which, in thirty years, has experimented with about every known form of liquor statute: "So far as I have observed, the quality of the liquor has but little to do with the question of drunkenness. In some localities where prohibition has been strictly enforced we find that the class who will have liquor is obtaining it in other than the well-known commercial forms. Frequently we find that large quantities of extract of ginger are being consumed. A number of cases have been brought against the venders of this article, as an alcoholic beverage containing more than one per cent of alcohol. These cases have generally proved successful in stopping its sale. Essence of peppermint and of checkerberry, for example, are favorite tipples. During the past summer a case was found in which 'So-and-so's Drops,' a nostrum, a mixture of ether and alcohol, was being used as an intoxicant. The so-called 'native wines' have given us some trouble. These are essentially a fermented solution of sugar and water, with sufficient juice of some fruit for flavoring and color. When made without the addition of spirits they contain about fourteen per cent of alcohol. They are generally pretty poor stuff. About two years ago we had an epidemic of so-called 'malt extracts.' These, with very few exceptions, were found to be essentially porter. The alcohol in them averaged about six per cent, and they were quite palatable beverages. They contained about seven or eight per cent of solid extract.
"It has been several times proposed here that no liquors should be sold unless their purity was certified to by the State assayer. This I have uniformly opposed, for the reason that, while the State may well prohibit the sale of adulterated liquors, it is no part of its business to certify to the purity of any man's goods; and, unless the State becomes the sole vender of liquors, it has no means of keeping track of them.
"It has been my practice during my term of office never to give a certificate in regard to a liquor to any one but the officers authorized to ask such a certificate. In other words, the only way a private person can get an analysis of liquor made by the State assayer is to take it to the chief of police of his town or city and make a complaint in regard to it; as the assayer is paid by the State for his work, it would obviously be wrong for him to do work which he might, have to revise in his official capacity.... I may perhaps be allowed to add a few words as to what is defined in this State as an intoxicating liquor. When the State assayer of liquors was first appointed he soon became convinced that some limit must be fixed to the allowable amount of alcohol contained in a liquor. After consultation this amount was fixed at three per cent by volume at 60° F. This law remained in force several years. Soon after it was found that a large amount of beer was being made which contained about 3.5 per cent of alcohol. This was a palatable beer, and the venders gave the officers much trouble. The regular trade, who were selling lager beer and ale, and paying for the privilege, were also much opposed to its sale, and the Legislature was asked to reduce the limit to one per cent by volume. This at one stroke destroyed a large amount of illegitimate trade. The Massachusetts law, as it now stands, is that ale, porter, strong beer, lager beer, cider, all wines, and any beverage containing more than one per cent of alcohol, by volume, at 60° F., as well as distilled spirits, shall be deemed to be intoxicating liquor, within the meaning of the license provisions, and this section of the law has been decided by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth to be constitutional.[A]The question is never raised now in the court as to whether a liquor is actually intoxicating; the only question being, Does it contain more than one per cent of alcohol? If it does (and as a matter of fact cases are very rarely brought in which the sample does not contain at least two per cent of alcohol), the court has no power except to convict, if it be proved that the article was kept for sale. The result of this law has been that the sale of beer, with the idea that it is possible to convince the court that it is not intoxicating, has entirely stopped. Some few attempts are made to produce a beverage that shall contain less than one per cent of alcohol. And several brands are on the market which, when cold, taste very well, but which contain only about 0.85 per cent of alcohol. Generally the only test made in regard to liquors is as to the amount of alcohol that they contain; or, rather, whether the amount of alcohol exceeds one per cent, that being the maximum amount that can be sold withouta license. Such examination is generally made by distilling the liquor and determining the alcohol in the distillate.
"The whiskies examined have in Massachusetts, as a rule, been free from any substance more injurious than the alcohol they contain. They have generally (as well as the other distilled liquors examined) been of standard strength—that is, they have contained about fifty per cent of alcohol, and as a rule have not given much over the amount of residue allowed by the Pharmacopœia. As you will see by the foregoing remarks, the provisions of the Massachusetts liquor law, so far as adulteration is concerned, are practically a dead letter. I have been repeatedly before the Legislature asking for such modifications of the law as would enable me to make an intelligent study of the subject; but it seems satisfied to allow the matter to stand as it now is. Several difficulties arise in regard to any enforcement of the law. One of these—that samples must be paid for, and there is no appropriation to pay for them—I have already pointed out. In the second place, the State Board of Health (which has full power to inspect liquors under the food act) has discovered that the chief adulteration is water in distilled liquors, and that this, together with a little burned sugar and sirup, is practically the only adulteration. Large amounts of rectified spirits are used in the preparation of whiskies for the market, where the whisky is used only as a flavoring material. But such manufactured whiskies meet the requirements of the Pharmacopœia better than the genuine article, being more free from the higher alcohols and ethers than a pure whisky. The only point in which they do not agree is that they are not three years old. But the only method for determining the age of a liquor that I am acquainted with, is the brand on the barrel. It certainly can not be determined by any chemical means."
But, with the exception of Massachusetts, where Mr. Sharpless points out clearly the reason why the law against adulteration is a dead letter, all the reports speak encouragingly. Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio believe that the operation of the provision will do genuine good. Says Food Commissioner Blackburn, of Michigan, "It is my opinion that this law has and will decrease drunkenness, for the reason that pure liquor will not create the unnatural appetite that compounded, adulterated, or artificially prepared liquors do."
The State of Washington sends no report. There is a provision in the South Carolina law providing that liquors shall be "pure"; but, as the State is the dispenser of liquors, the operation of this clause has not been considered exemplary for the purposes of this article. Mr. Lyman, in New York, thinks that sufficient time has not elapsed to fully pronounce as to the benefits of the law.
XI and XII.High License and Local Option.—Certainly the examination of these statutes and reports of their results in forty-nine States and Territories leaves it beyond question that so far the very best results have accompanied the combination of these two provisions. Perhaps the best example is in the largest of the communities to be affected—viz., in the State and city of New York. Here, by separating the plebiscitum or referendum into four local options—viz., (1) selling liquor to be drunk upon the premises where sold, (2) selling liquor not to be drunk upon the premises where sold, (3) selling liquor by apothecaries only on physician's prescription, (4) selling liquor by license granted to "hotel keepers" only—the result obtained has been, I think, precisely what I contended for in the paper of five years age, namely, the value of liquor has been recognized, and its sale provided for without denying its dangers as a temptation, or the disastrous effects of drunkenness. To use the exact words of the commissioner's report: "The tendency is to recognize the propriety of the sale of liquors by hotels and pharmacists in many communities where they will not, by their votes, approve the sale by saloons and groceries; and while there are now twenty less absolutely 'no-license' towns than when the law took effect, there are very many less saloons and groceries where liquors are dispensed." And this while not in any way compromising or dallying with the proposition which the prohibitionists and temperance societies insist upon (and which is all they have as a basis for their claims), viz., the consequences of intoxication and the public policy of its prevention. To show that, as a fact, an equivalent result has been reached in every State in the Union where high license and local option are united, would unduly tax these pages. But one or two prominent examples are of the paradoxical results—as gratifying as they are paradoxical—that the fewer the places where liquor is sold the larger the revenue to the State, and the less the drunkenness, may be cited. In the State of New York in two years of high license the reduction in selling places was 5,484; the increase of revenue to the State was $9,094,646.01; the decrease in the number of arrests was 22,689. In the city of New York alone the reduction in places was 1,204; the increase of revenue was $3,549,851.90; the decrease in the arrests for drunkenness was 3,044. Similar results are reported invariably as the fruit of high license elsewhere in the United States. In the city of Chicago, under an exceedingly high license, the reduction in one year was 200 in the number of saloons, while the increase of revenue was $1,250,000; and yet the decrease in the number of arrests was 1,217. Contrast this result with the condition of affairs in the triple-steel-barred prohibition State of Maine! Says an ex-Mayor of Portland: "I went into office perfectly free; I think Ienforced the law impartially with all the vigor I could control.... I looked it all over to see what I had accomplished; I found that I had driven out of the business one set of men, and another had come in worse than the first. I found that the young men were establishing club rooms. Not only did they become drinking places, but they brought in gambling and other vice. While I was driving liquor out of the ordinary shops I was driving it into houses and kitchens, where even children dealt in it.... I am sorry to say it, but the law makes perjury alarmingly common; it opens up ... an avenue for bribes.[B]
"The local authorities could not be trusted to enforce the law. The price of liquors has been lessened and the quality is worse.... To those who shunned the open bars the apothecary shops supplied liquor by the bottle as often as desired.... Then arose pocket peddlers, young men who loiter about the street supplying customers from the bottle with a drink known as splits—a concoction of the cheapest alcohol mixed with a dash of rum and coloring matter, which produces a dangerous form of intoxication.... At the city agency the question 'Medicine?' and the answer 'Yes,' was quite sufficient, and throngs of people were constantly waiting with flasks to be filled.... 'Bars,' 'Eating Houses' (so called because protected by the police), 'Kitchen Bars,' 'Pocket Peddlers,' 'Hotel Bars,' 'Apothecary Shops,' 'Bottling Houses,' 'Express Companies,' 'Clubs,' and the 'City Agency.'"
But all these, under the very eye of the late Hon. Neal Dow, were powerless to convince the Hon. Neal Dow that his policy was not a massive and monumental success, and to the end of his days the good old man delivered glowing eulogiums upon its exalted benefits to a suffering and liquor-ridden world!
Among the novel devices among the statutes of States classed as licensing sales of liquor (or which have rejected prohibition) may be mentioned the following: Apothecaries may sell without a license if they keep records of sales. Purchasers of liquor must make affidavit of the purpose for which they require the liquor. Physicians prescribing liquors must make affidavit that they are required by the case they are attending. Public officers who tolerate or refuse to prosecute are fined. Name of owner of premises where liquors are sold must be painted in large letters on outside window with the word "owner" added. A provision that any one may sell liquor, but that the Legislature may provide in any way it sees fit against "the evils resulting therefrom." No barmaids, or dancing, gambling, or oil paintings on premises where liquor is sold. Theprovisions that eatables must or must not be sold where liquor is retailed are about numerically even. (It will be remembered that the New York ["Raines"] law at first abolished free lunches, but insisted that while one must not have food with his liquor on week days, he could not on Sundays have it without—the last provision still being enforced). Similarly, in some States, liquor dealers must not keep lodging houses, while in others they must. West Virginia says that a tavern or hotel must not be used as a liquor-selling establishment only, and that a refusal to give diet or lodging to any one demanding it will forfeit its license to sell liquor. One State (Colorado) recognizes the so-called "gold-cure," and authorizes "the person most interested," or the county, to send habitual drunkards at county expense to "any respectable gold-cure institute." In Illinois a drunkard is by law a vagrant, and drunkenness is a cause for divorce. In Louisiana the excise man who makes an erroneous estimate of the amount of business done (Louisiana regulates the liquor business according to sales only, disclaiming any preventive or reformatory object) is removable from office. In Tennessee applicants for license must state the amount of business they intend to do. Kentucky regulates the price of liquors sold, being the only American State so doing (except that South Carolina says that the price of a potion shall not be "more than fifty per cent above," or if used as a medicine "more than ten per cent above," the cost thereof to the seller—rather a difficult matter to approximate). Arkansas prohibits sales within three miles of a church, schoolhouse, or academy. The sales of liquor to Indians is prohibited, and the exclusive right of army officers to purchase it is conserved, at the proper frontiers. Texas inserts in her statutes a fine for keeping a "blind tiger" (defined to be a place "where intoxicating liquors are sold by any device whereby the party selling or delivering the same is concealed from the person buying or to whom the same is delivered"). And, in Kansas, twenty-five reputable women must unite with twenty-five reputable men in applying for a license to sell liquor. No State or Territory mentions the size or quantity of liquor to be sold at any price, as is the European custom.
It would seem, therefore, that, with the exception of the State of Maine alone, all the American Commonwealths are gradually harking back to the standpoint of the earliest liquor laws. Moderation (temperance) in drinking was the public policy. Leaving out the act of the British Parliament, in the year 1735 (which gave Governor Oglethorpe the right to prohibit the importation of ardent spirits into Georgia, which was not a measure to prevent intoxication, but to give a monopoly to Governor Oglethorpe), the first temperance association was that founded by Dr. Rush; and it is related that the venerablepresident, upon being elected, rose with a glass of brandy in his hand and gave the toast: "Gentlemen, fill your glasses. Let us show the world that we know how to drink in moderation."
To sum it all up. Why, since we can not set out with a club or a headsman's axe to reform mankind; since there are substantial rights to adjust and innocent parties to protect, why is not the proposition to prevent by law the exposure of adulterated liquors for sale as beverages the best so far suggested? Is there another which at the same time is constitutional, equitable, peaceable, and so conservative of the public safety, which creates no law-breaking class out of honest citizens, sheds no blood (as blood was shed in South Carolina in 1875 because men of Anglo-Saxon breed could not be readily made to concede that a man's house was not his castle), and which imports no new doctrine into American policy?
I, for one, believe that, with it, the solution of the drink problem would be in sight. High license and personal damage laws are two thirds of it. If a man desires to sell liquor let him pay one or two thousand dollars, or other substantial sum of money, to the school or the police or the poor fund of his neighborhood. Let him be liable in damages, as are common carriers or any others who deal in conveniences or commodities in which there is possible risk to the community, for what is injured by his operations. As to the remaining third of the remedy: the sole objections to local option (viz., that it may be abused at the polls, where the total-abstinence interest might be as capable of a wrong use of money or of other undue influence as the liquor interest, or that it might be inconvenient to the public) are fully met by making adulteration impossible and providing for a compulsory, rigid, and universal inspection of liquors exposed for sale as beverages. And then, besides, it will be unnecessary to burn down our village to roast our pig.
A curious experiment, at Carnot, in the Congo, is described in the journalLe Chasseur Françaisin the shape of the collection and raising of the animals which the natives bring in from the bush. Large numbers have been taken in. Some of the animals die, some escape. Among those that have stayed are two wild hogs, which roam at liberty, eat from the hand, and follow like dogs. There are a jackal, mangoustes, small rodents, a company of monkeys, and a young tiger cat, "which is the lawgiver to the others." None of the animals is confined, except that the jackal is tied, though he follows; but it has been necessary to separate the guinea-pigs from the rest. A large monkey has assumed the office of shepherd's dog, and takes care of the sheep. There are also dogs—"good company, but not of much value"—eight horses, with a colt that will eat at the table if allowed to; forty horned cattle, which are multiplying; and asses, which are also increasing.
A curious experiment, at Carnot, in the Congo, is described in the journalLe Chasseur Françaisin the shape of the collection and raising of the animals which the natives bring in from the bush. Large numbers have been taken in. Some of the animals die, some escape. Among those that have stayed are two wild hogs, which roam at liberty, eat from the hand, and follow like dogs. There are a jackal, mangoustes, small rodents, a company of monkeys, and a young tiger cat, "which is the lawgiver to the others." None of the animals is confined, except that the jackal is tied, though he follows; but it has been necessary to separate the guinea-pigs from the rest. A large monkey has assumed the office of shepherd's dog, and takes care of the sheep. There are also dogs—"good company, but not of much value"—eight horses, with a colt that will eat at the table if allowed to; forty horned cattle, which are multiplying; and asses, which are also increasing.