OCR Text |
Show DAILY ONE THING NEVER LEFT HIM STATE UTAH JOURNAL. SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1904. OF ChildMoney, Friends, Clubs, Ambitions, Wife and ren Dropped Away, but the Faithful Bottle Remained. and one (From the San Francisco Examiner) could have seen years ago, victim that is the week whisky ago, Thl, la a true story, readers. The writer tirst knew the man In told about here. It is hard for us to learn through Ixtndon. He was successful, owned a bank, had a fine house In the city and the exrience of others, but no man another in the country, horses and can fail to be impressed by this ex carriages and a promising family. He ample. belonged to some of those clubs In The man once had everything that which membership means cheap and he wanted, and one thing that he did desired distinction. not want, or need the whisky He had ambition. Ilia friends pre dieted that his success and affluence Had he given up that one unneces- would grow and his ambitions be re- - I sary thing, he might have kept all the , allsed as the years went by. and the reraa,nin,f sreur.of hla Among hi. other possession, thl. life have been happy and use might man had one to which he attached. fuL then, but slight Importance. This was a Hut with the power of bottle which was passed to him quite which that very bottle supplied often by a solemn butler, who always he clung to it to the end of his him, brought with It a smaller bottle con- ! fortune, and he will cling to it good taining soda water. a m,racle the pnd of hla ,,fe un,e j The curious part of the story la should save him. of of the j that thla man gradually ioat ail In mere selfishness and the desire Important things, all of those which he for wealth, success and ease, there are originally valued very highly, and that to be found powerful temperance arhe never lost that one small, unimguments. Young men must make up portant bit of property the plain, their minds, in this day of competiblack bottle of which, in the beginand organised, exacting struggle, tion ning he thought so little. that a man who would go to the top The man was seen again the other not try to carry that bottle with must day toward dusk on the sidewalk of him. recto a western city. .It was difficult But for the real man, the young ognise him, and he evidently was surman worthy the opportunities of modprised that any one should recognize ern the arguments against whislife, him, and take the trouble to check should be baaed, not on selfishness, ky him In his shuffling march. on a noble desire to be a useful but actualwere His clothes dirty and and worthy human being. ly ragged. The brim of his hat was Whisky takes away your money, torn. Hla face waa bloated, his look houses, your friends, your prosyour uncertain. His diffident, timid smile, of getting those things. pects with all the old gone, But It does worst than that. It waa very pathetic. The man told hla story, and as he takes away your manhood and your told It in a restaurant, after being courage; It takea away your right to men In the eye, and your aaked to eat and drink, he whispered look other to use the strength that nature power A to the waiter, little whisky." And the waiter brought him that same haa given you. Whisky destroys the will, and supdark bottle that had been brought to the lying arguments with which plies him so often in the days of hla proslta victims deceive themselves. It perity. The story that he had told was hla arouses the lowest Instincts of vice and of dissipation and chokes the posatory, but It waa not THE story. The real atory was very simple; you sibility of progress toward better who read thla can easily gueaa Its things. If whisky controls you, you cannot main features. It la a story that you can read In the face of men that com- he a man. Leave It alone. ; i j self-contr- ol self-relian- ce mit suicide, of those that commit murder, of others that shuffle along n aa thla man shuffled poor, heart-broke- failures. The man had gradually loat hla mental keenness and capacity for business. Others got his banking business away from him. But the bottle stayed with him. He gradually came to rely more and more upon It, and to value Its companionship as hla force of character diminished. His friends left him. and he had to leave hla clubs. But the bottle still stuck to him. The dues that it claimed he had paid faithfully. It waa there at hla elbow when hla other friends disappeared. H loat hla houae in the city and hla houae In the country; but that bottle, which represented now hla chief possession, waa still with him. Hla wife and children had to go to thoae who could take care of them. But they did not take the bottle away with them. The wife had tried only too often to take away that bottle, but ahe had to leave It. She could take away the children the law allowed her to do that. The sheriff could take away hla horses and hla carriages the law allowed that. The governing committee could put him out of the cluba, and friends could take away hla reputation and remaining chances of employment with a shake of the head. But no power on earth and no law could take away the bottle, that stuck to him, and he stuck to It. The man who had traveled with his bottle from success and fortune to! ragged clothes and pathetic despair. ate his dinner and drank hla whisky, i and, with the drunkard's pitiful self- - i deception, said: I don't look much do I? I am afraid I have been drinking pretty hard since luck went against me. It la not many of my old friends that speak to me when they see me now." : Even that poor man could not aee that it waa whisky which had turned fortune against him not 111 luck that had turned him to whisky. Whisky conquers- men by deceiving them, by encouraging them to think that their drunkenness is some one! elses fault. Tears before this man had deceived hlmaelf when told by anxious wife and friends that he must give up that bottle, or give p everything else. And now that all but the bottle had gone he atlll deceived hlmaelf Into the belief that the bottle, which caused hla misery, had come really aa a friend at the end, as a solace to hla misfortunes. How great a benefit It would he If every young man In this country The Commercial National Bank 1.) President Middleton, who waa one of the Nauvoo legion, and captain of the of Weber company first Infantry county waa called upon to reinforce a colony of Mormons at Lemhi, Idaho, who were threatened with an Indian uprising and he, and some forty others, repaired to the Salmon river country to strengthen the position there. "It was In February, 1858, that the Indiana made a raid upon our people In Idaho, killing two men and wounding five others and carrying off several hundred head of stock. When we arrived the strengthening of our fort waa absolutely essential. This waa done by us working hard during the day and taking turns of guard by night. My clothes, like the others, were buckskin, and for twenty-fiv- e nights I slept in them. Being hard pressed by the re J men we dispatched two messengers to President Young at Salt Lake bearing dispatches callIt ing for additional reinforcements. waa a ride of four hundred miles that these men set out upon, but after enduring many hardships and privations they reached their destination. Upon President Young hearing of our sorely pressed condition he forwarded an advance guard of ten men bringing us the glad tidings that he was sending reinforcements to relieve ua. When those ten men hove In sight our joy was unconllned, for we knew that deliverance waa at hand. the Mr. Middleton then described manner In which they threshed their grain in the fort during the time of the siege and stated that when they left they stored It away in cellars, and long years afterwards It was discovered by prospectors and sold for fabulous prices. Mr. Middleton said: Continuing, "We left Lemhi In March and on arriving In the northern part of Utah w found the people migrating south. This was being done on the Instructions of the church authorltlea because of the threatening attitude of the government against ua at that time. When w got to Ogden moat of our homes were deserted." After describing the mode of migration, President Middleton said that before the exodus was completed, a compromise waa effected between the church and the government and they were enjoined to return to their homes. "Although a whole summer had been loat In thla transition," said Mr. Middleton, "fortune smiled upon ua, for there waa more rainfall that season than had ever been known before, so that there wae consequently an abundant voluntary crop of grain and forage to sustain both the people and the stock during the ensuing sea- G. H. TSLAUB, WM. G. MINOR, President. Vice-Preside- W. E. HELLER, nt. Secri-tarv- . PARLEY DRANEY, Treasurer. FRED G. GROVES, Dir. etor. 2214 Washington Ave. Three Doors Soiith of Tabernacle Corner TELEPHONE 605-- K Do You IF SO, son. Eat? CALL. ON PAST AND PRESENT. of Ogden, Utah J, W. GUTHRIE President A, R, HEYWOOD... R, T. HUME Vice-Preside- nt Assistant Cashier Contrasting the conditions of thoae early days and the present, President Middleton said: "When I got married I was the owner of the lot on which I now live (on Twenty-sixt- h atreet. near Washinge ton), two cows and calves, and pony. Those were my worldly possessions. I married Martha C. Browning, a daughter of Jonathan Browning, father of John M. and M. 8. Browning. My father's home consisted of a log cabin about 14x18, covered with dirt About twelve feet on the north side of his house he had a granary built of adobe about twelve feet square. I built two walls between the houae and the granary and thla gave me a room 10x12 feet In which I put an fireI provided a place In the corner. home made bedstead In the granary cay-us- ed Drafts on All Parts of the World. I - (Continued from Page LETTERS OF CREDIT TRAVELERS CHECKS Available Everywhere and our cooking utensils consisted of an kettle, a small skillet, a frying pan. three or four tin plstee and about as many knives and forks of a varied assortment We also had a table, the legs of which were fashioned from a boxelder and the top of which was the lid of a drygoods box. Our bedding consisted of a straw tick, a pair of sheets and a couple of home made quilts. Two or three chairs were given ua as pres-en- ts and our household was complete." Today, however. President Middle-to- n owns a beautiful home on the site of these humble beginnings and has been blest with nineteen children, forty-fiv- e grand-childrand several D. RAGAN 361 Twenty-Fourt- h SOLE AGENT EOR THE Ferndale Line of Groceries & Vegetables and Fruits PUT UP ESPECIALLY FOR FINE TRADE en great Reverting to the amusements of those days President Middleton said that the pastimes then were of a private character and that Intoxicating liquors were scarce and very little of them used. The dress wss modest and homespun, but the men and maids were as strong tn virtue, character, Individuality and probity then as they were at any period of modem grand-childre- n. Payments by MONEY ORDERS Promptly Executed. civilization. St. & Telephone 145 |