Communications
COMMUNICATIONS EVOLUTION OF A MODERATE DRINKER New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-To some of the implications contained in the article of the Reverend J. Elliot Ross published in The Commonweal in...
...If it be wine that we should concentrate upon as distinguished from too much of brother's "cherry pie," let us read the lessons of Holy Writ: "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess...
...Plainly, Adam and Eve were held accountable on that score in spite of the seduction involved, Prohibition, on the other hand, abolishes this distinction and makes the occasion the cause of the sin of intemperance, and implicitly of other transgressions, sapping thereby a vital and basic principle and ultimately weakening the entire structure of Christian morality...
...Self-imposed abstinence and government control by honest civil service operators, and the instilling of religious principles in early childhood by prudent and conscientious parents and teachers, emphasizing the sin against God and man of all abuses of the gifts of God, will do more good to promote temperance and abstinence not only from intoxicating beverages, but from all other "intoxicating" stimuli of mind and body, such as are now playing havoc with the morals and well-being of the nation...
...The terms He used are comprehensive, including, at least not excluding, intoxicating liquor...
...All penal institutions are overcrowded, new ones must be built...
...Obviously, if religion were subjected to the same repression, mankind would be either without creed or, far worse, the subject of a coerced faith...
...For instance: "All the talk about personal liberty leaves me cold...
...In the Gospel of Saint Mark, chapter VII, verse 15, we read: "There is nothing from without a man that entering into him, can defile him...
...But this conception is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of Christ, and this writer calls upon Father Ross to conciliate the discrepancy...
...The a priori method occupies in scientific investigation its proper place, but syllogisms alone would not advance the world a cubit...
...However, a collation of this with other passages (1 Corinthians, 111:22...
...Nor can I force myself into concurrence with his main thesis...
...I fear that were this viewpoint pressed to its logical conclusion, there would result a sort of universal negative, since it is quite thinkable in our geographic divisions that there may readily be found parts of the world's surface where that which is relatively innocuous for nine-tenths of humanity at large would be utterly deplorable for the remainder...
...reveals that he is intending to give not a command but advice, which by its very nature is purely voluntary in character, restrictive in its application to individuals and temporary in duration...
...Father Ross as a trained theologian treated the case mainly from the angle of asceticism, buttressing his verdict with favorable quotations from the Sacred Scriptures...
...Are we then to deduce that there should be no Catholic Church, no Church of England and no Calvinistic creed...
...The meaning of this passage seems to be abundantly clear, and its application no less so...
...Clearly the drink evil is one of them...
...The nurse, as a last desperate means, gave him a water-glass full of whisky, and the soldier recovered, and is living today -not a drunkard...
...By their sudden and intemperate abandonment we suffer at once physical and nervous reactions of grave moment...
...it has a right to any sane mode of asceticism peculiarly its own...
...Laws which can be broken without any harm to one's neighbor are.counted but a laughing-stock, and so far from such laws restraining appetites and lusts of mankind, they rather heighten them...
...It would seem that we ought to have national prohibition of prohibition to eliminate the bribery, perjury and unjustifiable homicides corrupting our civil and political manhood (only parenthetically mentioning our womanhood...
...Temperance and voluntary abstinence are virtues...
...Cardinal Gibbons, the level-headed churchman and loyal citizen, was emphatically opposed to prohibition as a means of promoting temperance...
...for such a law prohibiting the use of liquor, a commodity not inherently evil, destroys the very possibility of supernatural merit by totally removing the physical object of the virtuous act...
...Caffein poisoning is probably one of the most pernicious evils of which man may become the victim...
...the latter appear to be too complex...
...x:3i...
...It is too well known to need repetition here...
...COMMUNICATIONS EVOLUTION OF A MODERATE DRINKER New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-To some of the implications contained in the article of the Reverend J. Elliot Ross published in The Commonweal in its issue of November 20, I am quite unable to subscribe...
...I have unhappily met with no inconsiderable number of addicts of both...
...The locus classicus, however, in defense of the client is contained in the Gospel of Saint Mathew, chapter XI, verse 18: "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say: He hath a devil...
...There has always been a certain percentage of inebriates in the world, even in the Old and the New Testament, becoming charges of the state...
...From its effects I have observed queer mental divagations: intellectual opacity, sluggish reactions, the complete loss of initiative, dour pessimism and overwhelming pathological disturbances making for the sort of life that might be viewed as at its best when ended...
...But its rigor was for the chosen few and not for the common man...
...yet it is assuredly with human nature that we are forced to deal...
...We find the incident recorded in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 11...
...Before Father Ross the theologian, therefore, the undersigned ventures to appear as counsel for the defense to plead the case of the moderate drinker, holding for him no brief other than warranted by the attitude and practice of the supreme Authority Himself, the Founder of Christianity, and documented in the pages of the infallible record...
...Must we punish, and limit the personal and licit habits of 95 percent of free men to redeem the 5 percent of weaklings that will not redeem themselves ? According to the logic of some prohibitionists, the state would have as much right to proscribe riches and confiscate wealth to eliminate poverty-a source of much suffering, and very often the only reason for crime-as it has to legislate for abstinence by prohibition...
...Certain parts of Chicago were shambles produced by the utter abuse of liquor, hence for the balance of the world there should be no such thing as liquor...
...Verse 18: "And He saith to them: So you are also without knowledge...
...There were millions of such families in this country previous to the Volstead Act, and are today...
...Dear old Timothy, how well he understood...
...But to persuade the average man and the general public to adopt such a standard is to prefer the Old Testament asceticism of Saint John to the New Testament freedom granted and practised by Christ...
...If the legislative prohibition of certain beverages is logical and justifiable, as well as just, to protect a small minority, then it is logical and equally necessary to have national prohibition of automobiles, medicines, poisons, books, magazines, bathing beaches, dances, songs, theatres, movies and matrimony, as well as countless other items, that a certain class of people are abusing, and always will abuse...
...Let us for a moment examine the practice of smoking and coffee-drinking...
...Or is Father Ross in a position to give a different interpretation to Christ's endorsement of moderation in drink...
...Drink no longer water but just a little wine for the stomach's sake and thine own infirmities...
...In fact he all but consigned him to utter reprobation...
...From this we gather that He did not look upon intoxicants as inherently evil...
...As a result, witness the utter futility of sumptuary legislation...
...Is Father Ross intending to lend a helping hand to bring about this result...
...In the new annex of the federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth near by, are now more than twelve hundred convicts, nearly all dope fiends and victims of the "noble experiment," and more are coming daily into the jails and penitentiaries of the country...
...It would seem that the Church general finds it easier to preach extremes than to counsel means...
...understand you not that everything from without, entering into a man cannot defile him...
...THEOPHILUS P. SCHWAM...
...As far as I can see, drink interferes a great deal more with personal liberty than does the Volstead Act...
...God gave us reason to use His gifts...
...Paul, Neb...
...Whatever cannot be abused, the same cannot be used meritoriously-to put it into the form of an aphorism which Father Ross cannot seriously question...
...Yet in spite of these, Christ changed water into wine, and not wine into water...
...There are millions of such families in European countries that need no Volstead Act...
...To untie the knot is baffling...
...From all these cruel historic inflictions in the name of religion there may be counted millions more of lives destroyed and miseries created than ever were encompassed by ardent liquor...
...Nor do we need to cap our argument by references to the Inquisition...
...But the things which come from man, those are the things that defile man...
...Father Ross's argument loses much weight when he says that his family always had fermented and distilled beverages, yet no one ever abused them...
...Every good gift of God has been abused by some in the past, and will be abused now and in the future...
...It is nevertheless peculiarly relieving to read a paper that treats temperately of intemperance, since of course total abstinence in principle is precisely as intemperate as actual debauchery...
...REV...
...Prohibition, as we have it now, is causing intemperance in places where before the Volstead Act, temperance was practised, e.g., in our high schools, universities, etc...
...With prohibition, we were told, our jails would be empty and crime abolished...
...Christ refrained from adopting for Himself and His followers Saint John the Baptist's austere asceticism, which was perfectly in accord with his mission as the forerunner of the Redeemer and pre-ordained as part of the divine scheme of salvation...
...The main difficulty, I think, is to be discovered in the fact that most of us are disposed to emphasize the importance of special instances...
...For centuries our metabolism has been contributed to by certain varieties of chemicals, among which in one form or another are to be found the products of fermentation and of distillation or of both...
...But the recommendation of a recourse to civil force is the poorest expedient of all...
...We thus circumscribe our globe by the immediate impressions of a particular locality...
...In medio stat virtus...
...Leavenworth, Kan...
...The abuse must be minimized, and the abuser punished...
...There seem to be certain evils in this world which are better curbed by prudent moderation than by the crusader's zeal for eradication...
...TO the Editor:-Praiseworthy is the personal example of Father Ross exhibiting his attitude toward total abstinence...
...nitimur in veti-tum semper cupimusque negata.' " Thus wrote Spinoza, nor do I think the truth of these observations of his can be successfully gainsaid...
...Verse 19: "The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a wine drinker...
...I spoke personally to a soldier whose case had been considered hopeless...
...Finally, Father Ross rather impatiently reflects "that persuading individuals to total abstinence is a slow progress...
...It suffices to observe that Christ offered the assembled guests the occasion of indulgence to excess...
...Did Christ know of the violators of temperance of His day, of our day...
...From this action of Christ we deduce the rule of moral conduct which permits one to be to his neighbor the remote and even the proximate occasion of sin for a proportionately grave reason...
...But we will not consider the Turk nor even the casual Mohammedan...
...Self-imposed abstinence, however, so fondly wished and encouraged by the Catholic Church, is one thing, and fanatical legal coercion to regulate the habits of free citizens in a matter based neither on a Divine nor a natural law, is another...
...Suffer both to grow until the harvest...
...Hark, amid the clamor of the impetuous servants the Master's voice resounds in tones of imperturbable calm: "No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle you root up the wheat also together with it...
...The twin sisters, Justice and Liberty, are in tears...
...In India quinine is indicated and consumed in relatively vast quantities, while in North America its similar employment would speedily invite the visitations of the hospital authorities and the patient's relegation to the psychopathic ward for observation...
...JOHN VERNOU BOUVIER, JR...
...A critical analysis of all the circumstances leads one to infer, without straining logic or becoming irreverent, that some of the wedding guests may have become intoxicated...
...Such, in truth, is the viciousness of purely deductive reasoning...
...In spite of the Volstead Act and prohibition, the United States government has on a certain occasion (to my personal knowledge) shipped whisky to save the lives of soldiers...
...The reason for Christ's action is stated in verse 11...
...The result, also, is a life which has little to commend its continuance...
...prohibition by legal force is a curse...
...He cared little for the abuse heaped upon Him for His liberal view on the subject, and the Catholic Church still bids her ministers to read to the faithful portions of the Gospel which cannot but be looked upon by every sincere and consistent prohibitionist as subversive law and its enforcement...
...Sound morality based upon true religion will solve the problem for the state, as well as the individual...
...It is that, no doubt, and moreover, in the opinion of the writer, it is one of uncertain success...
...What the Church, indeed all churches and all Christian teachers, should struggle to implant for man's betterment is the understanding and practice of temperance...
...A. WAGNER...
...Sapienti sat...
...It is with no greater show of probability that the Apostle to the Gentiles and subtle theologian is made out to encourage temperance enforced by the civil law...
...Is it necessary to advert to the tortures of James to Anglicize Ireland, to the inhumanities of Charles to establish the supremacy of the Church of England, to the Puritanism of the Civil Wars leading to the licentiousness of the Restoration or to the piety of the last days of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, that were followed by the licentiousness of the Regency...
...The attempted cure is fare more detrimental than is the condition which it is designed to relieve...
...If the Paulist community prescribes total abstinence as a condition of admission to its limited membership, well and good...
...Fundamentally the weakness inherent in all forms of attacks upon intemperance consists in the defiant disregard of the accumulated tendencies of human nature in its evolutionary development...
...Catholic moral theology therefore distinguishes between the occasion and the cause of sin, restricting the latter to an act of self-determination on the part of a free agent who is answerable for the consequences...
...Christ therefore declared Himself a moderate drinker, and by this clear statement forever set the standard of Christian conduct in the matter of drink as one of reasonable moderation...
...Prohibition, however, meaning thereby the proscription of liquor as a beverage for all persons, in all places, in any quantity and under all circumstances whatsoever, can justify its sweeping inhibition solely on the ground of liquor's being assumed to be inherently evil...
...Therapeutically, coffee has a conceded value but as a domestic beverage with which large numbers gratify themselves quite extravagantly, it is a veritable black menace...
...It is true that Saint Paul declared himself willing to abstain from meat and drink for the sake of his weaker brother...
...This attitude toward intoxicants Christ put to practice at the first given opportunity of His public life...
...However, for the purpose of making out a plausible case for the defendant it is not necessary to go to that extent...
...Nowhere do we find that the reasonable use of God's gifts is to be forbidden on account of the misuse of them by a small minority...
...Christ spoke for all times, persons and circumstances...
...cut it then and be done with it...
...Smoking to excess leads, as is generally recognized, to a host of nervous disorders that obscure the mind, impair the memory, wreck the system and disorganize the entire physical economy...
...TO the Editor:-The Reverend J. Elliot Ross, in a contribution to The Commonweal on November 20, prosecuted the case of the moderate drinker, handing down a decision much in disfavor of the defendant...
...Again, in man's residuum of evolutionary subconscious traditions, there has been abundantly revealed the universal resentment against inhibitions...
Vol. 11 • December 1929 • No. 8
