Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1914 — LIQUOR PROBLEM IN THE DIFFERENT NAVIES OF WORLD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIQUOR PROBLEM IN THE DIFFERENT NAVIES OF WORLD

Daniel’s Ban Sets New Precedent in Navfcl Circles. r— , QUEEN VICTORIA AND GROG No Drinking Among English Officers and Men When Fighting Is to Be Done—lntemperance on Russian Fleet. New York.—-Queen Victoria, down to within the last ten or fifteen years of her long reign, was very fond of cruising along the south coast of England on board one or another of her steam yachts. One windy day, says a writer in the New York Times, she established herself with her ladies at the lee of one of the forward deck cabins and was quietly reading, when-she noticed an unusual commotion, first among the. members of the crew and then among the subaltern officers. They were constantly approaching, then stopping short, whispering to one another, and thereupon withdrawing with a very perturbed look on their faces. Finally her curiosity was excited and, catching sight of Admiral Sir John Fullerton, ; then in command of the royal yachts, she summoned him and inquired what was the matter and whether a mutiny was brewing. "Almost, ma’am,” he replied. "Ydu see, ma’am, you are sitting with your

back to the cabin where the grog is kept and the crew are afraid that they will have to go without their daily ration.” The queen laughingly consented to rise and allow her chair to be moved, so as to permit of access to the grog tub, on the condition that she was accorded a glass thereof. Quaffing it, she expressed her approval of its taste, and Incidentally of the practise of allowing the members of the crew a daily ration of rum. It may, therefore, be taken for granted that any such edict as that issued by Josephus Daniels, secretary of the navy, prohibiting not only the drinking but even the presence of alcoholic liquors on board any American warship, or within the precincts of any American,, navy yard or station, would not have commended itself to the British queen. All of the influence of Queen Victoria during the sixty-three years she spent on the throne were exercised in favor of temperance, Edward VII following in her footsteps in this respect, and its efficacy can be realised by a comparison .with the hard drinking which prevailed during the first four decades of

the nineteenth century in all walks of British life as compared with the very general sobriety of the present day. In the first twenty years of her reign inebriety was the fashion among all .classes of the population, temperance an abnormality, and the expression “drunk as a lord,” no mere figure of speech. Since 1860 intoxication has been frowned upon by society as bad form and intolerable vulgarity, and the masses have taken their cue from the classes in the matter. Within a year after the accession of Edward VII to the crown he caused a notification to be quietly Issued to the officers of the navy and army that he would feel himself juet as much honored by their drinking his health in water as in wine or spirits. At the mess dinner of every British regiment, save the Black Watch, and on board every British warship the toast of “the king” is given each night of the year. It is a custom dating from the end of the seventeenth century, when sympathy for the lost Stuart cause was widespread and it was considered necessary to require officers of the army and navy to pledge each day in this fashion their loyalty to William and Mary, to good Queen Anne and to the British sovereigns of the house of Hanover. Some secret adherents of the Stuarts used to compromise matters with their confidence by toasting the sovereign over their fiifger bowl, so as to satisfy themselves that they were drinking the health not only of the monarch in London but of the king “over the water” —that is to say, the exiled James II at the court of St Germain, and his son and grandson, known as the Old and Young Pretenders, respectively. For this reason the use of fingerbowls was prohibited in most naval and military messes, and even to this day it le contrary to etiquette to have them appear on the dinner table when any member of the reigning family of England is present. If the Black Watch refrain from giving this daily toast of . “the king” at their mess dinner, it is because, having been raised to fight the Stuart, they have always claimed that their loyalty to the English house of Hanover was above suspicion. While the daily ration of grog to the crew is still continued on British warehips (although long since abandoned in the United States navy), yet their commanders have strict Instructions that in lieu of the double allowance of spirits formerly served out to the crews when going into action, not a drop of alcoholic liquor, no matter whether spirit, wine or malt, is allowed among the officers and men when there is any fighting to be done. In order to slake the thirst engendered by the heat, exertion and smoke inseparable from a naval combat, supplies of oatmeal and water for drinking are arranged all-over the ship. This is, of course, a very radical departure from the former practise. But it is a step which has been rendered

imperative by the extreme importance of sighting, with the utmost degree of exactitude, the guns, upon the precision of which the success of every action at sea depends. In naval engagements there is little boarding to be done in these times of ironclad warfare. It is no longer necessary to pepper the hull of a man-of-war full of small shot-holes. in order to sink her. This can bo achieved by one single well-directed shot from any of the great guns with which the warship of the present day Is armed. Everything, therefore, depends upon the precision of the gunnery, and the belligerent whose every shot carries is practically certain to win the day. Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, when last here, during a conversation with me on the subject, laid stress on the fact that the prize gunners of the Mediterranean fleet which, when under his command, made such a sensational record In gunnery, were all men who did not drink, and who were, therefore, able to shoot with more precision than those whose pulse was in the least bit quickened by a stimulant But total abstinence is merely encouraged—not enforced. Similar conditions prevail in the Japanese navy, and whereas in that of Great Britain Inebriety was formerly treated with relative Indulgence, it is nbw punished with ouch great severity as to put a stop virtually to all heavy drinking among the officers. The latter do not have to be completely tn-

toxlcated and bereft of their senses th order to incur court martiaL The ieast departure from perfect sobriety la nowadays made a subject of disciplinary action, and the consequence is that many officers prefer to be known as total abstainers rather than that any momentary excitement, any departure in one word from their normal manner and frame of mind, should be unjustly ascribed to stimulants. Then, too?, the modern warship is the most complicated piece of machinery in existence. Practically everything is done by electricity. The conning tower, or the cabin from which the captain directs every movement of the ship, has its walls literally .covered with electric push buttons and small levers. It is necessary that every faculty of the human brain should be keenly alert and sharpened to the finest point to know just what button or lever to touch in a moment of emergency, since the slightest mistake might result in an appalling catastrophe, with the destruction of the lives of all the crew of 600 to 800 men. ' The responsibility is overwhelming. It is not only one’s own career and life that hang in the balance, but the fate of the ship, representing a cost of perhaps as much as >10,000,000, and the existence of all one’s fellow creatures on board. Men who have to shoulder this risk do not dare to drink. The risk is too appalling. They abstain from stimulants of their own initiative. They do not need any such edict as that Issued by Secretary of the Navy Daniels to keep them from drinking. •_ Emperor William, who since his accession to the throne, twenty-six years ago, has not only endowed Germany with a magnificent fleet, but has raised her from almost the very lowest place on the list of the naval powers of the world to. the second place, next to Great Britain and ahead of the United States, France, Italy and Japan, may be trusted to know something about naval matters and naval men. Yet the kaiser has contented himself with warmly recommending total abstinence in the German navy. He has carefully refrained from issuing any orders on the subject He merely points out the advantages of extreme temperance on shipboard. Since officers and men know that their advancement depends upon their sobriety, that not only will inebriety entail diegrace, but that even the mere reputation of being fond of good cheer is apt to Impair their prospects of promotion, they avoid drink. The kaiser realizes, as does his cousin, King George of England, a sailor by profession, that to seafar-

ing men who are called upon to face the fury of the elements, especially in winter time, spirits are often a matter .of vital necessity as a restorative after extreme exhaustion or exposure. In the navies of France, Italy, Spain and Austria the men get their daily ration of spirits, while wine is served on all the mess tables of the officers. There is no heavy drinking on board, and comparatively little on shore, the people of the wlne-dr-lnklng Latin countries of Europe being a sober race. Though inebriety on the part of officers is very severely , punished, It is rare that one hears of any of them being courtmartialed for an offense of this kind. The only, pxcess in this line that I can recall on the part of naval officers of any European power were those which so seriously handicapped the armada of poor Admiral Rozjestvensky on its memorable voyage from the Baltic to final destruction in Jap* anese waters by Admiral Togo in 1905. No small share of the responsibility of that memorable disaster was due to the widely kpown.and widely discussed intemperance of most of the officers of the ill-fated Russian fleet The only warships that are run on absolutely teetotal lines are those of the embryo Canadian navy. But the experiment can hardly be considered as very successful, since the ships flying the dominion flag have been particularly unfortunate in the way of stranding and other mishaps of a more or lees serious character, due, apparently, to faulty navigation.

Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels.

Emperor William of Germany.