John Barleycorn

No to a host of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of California. Because of the warmth of the day I had had several drinks before casting my ballot, and dive

the suffrage amendm

ted f

ardent democracy, I had been opposed to woman suffrage. In my later and more tolerant y

you vote for it?

red, the more indignant I became. (No; I was not drunk. The horse I had ri

lighted up, I was feeling "go

I said. "It is the wives, and sisters, and mothers, and they on

friend to John Barleycor

t truthsayer. He is the august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with the Noseless One. His way leads to truth naked, and to death

me, and I knew she wond

r, white light of alcohol. John Barleycorn was on a truth-telling rampage, giving away the choicest secrets on himself. And I was his spokesman. There moved the multitudes of memories of my past life, all orderly arranged like soldiers in some vast review. It was mine to pick and choose. I was a lord of thought, th

was an acquired taste. It had been painfully acquired. Alcohol had been a dreadfully repugnant thing-more nauseous than any physic. Even now I did not like the taste of it. I drank it only for its "kick." And from the age of five to t

but every interest of my developing life had drawn me to it. A newsboy on the streets, a sailor, a miner, a wanderer in far lands, always where men came together to exchange ideas, to laugh and boast and dare, to relax, to forget the dul

drank by themselves, the sacred precincts taboo to women under pain of death. As a youth, by way of the saloon I had escaped from the narrowness of woman's influence int

I am, at the last, possessed with the drinker's desire. It took twenty years to implant that desire; and for ten years more that desire has grown. And the effect of satisfying

e does tell the truth. That is the curse of it. The so-called truths of life are not tru

make toward life

al drinkers are born not only without desire for alcohol, but with actual repugnance toward it. Not the first, nor the twentieth, nor the hundredth drink, succeeded in giving them the liking. But they learned, just as men learn to smoke; though it is far easier to learn to smoke than to learn to drink. They learned because alcohol was so accessible. The women know the game. They pay for it-the wives and sisters and mothers. An

coming?" Charmian asked. "Why not write it so as to help th

r he sat with me there at table in my pleasant, philanthropic jingle, and it is a

own yourself no alcoholic, no dipsomaniac, but merely an habitual drinker, one who has made John Barleycorn'