p. 12 | Liquor in Disguise

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 13, 1865

Liquor in Disguise.

WHAT is liquor in disguise? "The whole tribe," says Henry Ward Beecher, "of panaceas for the nameless ills of life." All the multitude of absolutely infallible (?) remedies for every imaginable disease that flesh is heir to, under the name of "bitters," with which the country is now flooded. Under all the pompous titles given to these nostrums, backed up by assertions of their marvelous powers to cure, liquor is concealed and sent out on its errand of death through the land. We have further proof of this, in the late advertisements of mixtures more recently compounded. It is now no uncommon thing to meet with the very innocent and sheepish declaration, on the part of the proprietors of these humbugs, "These bitters do not make drunkards. These bitters do not make drunkards." Ah! What is the matter? Why it is becoming pretty generally understood that the "bitters" of the day are but villainous masks for intoxicating liquors; and what a confession is this of the fact! And as every sensible person upon learning the facts, will repel the imposture by discarding the bitters, it becomes necessary for these animals in lions' skins, to throw in a bray right here to guard their impositions upon this point.

Henry Ward Beecher in a late sermon, justly deals with these knavish shams, and shows how they are entering in to help swell the tide of intemperance so rapidly threatening to engulf the great mass of the rising generation. He says:

"Laxity and indulgence are also returning to the body of the community. Young men are very widely becoming drunkards. And it is not any longer regarded as disreputable among large classes in the community to be seen publicly drinking. Young men that least need it, if anybody needs it, are seen with growing frequency indulging in intoxicating drink as a part of their diet. They are introducing it into their social circles, and into their casual meetings; and it is becoming a notorious matter that our young men are becoming excessive drunkards.

"Intoxicating drinks are likewise becoming articles of diet again in the household. I trust not so extensively as some have feared; but there is a tendency in that direction, to which we should give heed.

"For men to regard alcohol as a panacea for all ills and ailments, and run to it as a stock medicine, I think would be the worst of all possible illusions. And here as one denounce the whole tribe of panaceas for the nameless ills of life, as liquors in disguise. It would be well to have it understood that these 'Golden Bitters,' 'Santa Cruz Bitters,' 'Plantation Bitters,' and numerous other preparations of the same class, whose names are paraded on every picturesque rock along our great thoroughfares by pandering scoundrels, are rum, rum, RUM, with a little something added to disguise it. To advertise these things is to encourage intemperance; and to suffer them to go unexposed is to leave the community the prey of a subtle and most damaging evil. All these promises of rejuvenation, all these pretenses of ability to revitalize worn-out men, are miserable shams. All these preparations for men and women, that claim the power to do such wonderful things, are scarcely disguised abominations of intemperance, are fit only for deception, and are a shame and disgrace to any respectable store or respectable family. And it is high time that this outrageous hypocrisy, under the color of medicine, should be exposed, and trod into the ditch from which it came, and to which it belongs."