Mark Twain Quotes
Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it.
Twain, Mark. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. American Publishing Company, 1894.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The Congressmen who voted for Prohibition in the next century had not read or believed this quotation of Twain’s.
There was no Federal regulation of food and drink then. Fast buck whisky purveyors would include all kinds of ingredients and processes, safe and sanitary or not. Many Americans died or became very sick from eating tainted food then. Even bad whisky had killed many. TR chose whisky as his example, because Congress was filled with heavy drinkers and whisky was then the favorite Congressional drink. Roosevelt, with these tactics got the first federal food regulatory laws passed over enourmous opposition, not unlike the fight over Obamacare which would take place a century later.
This method of substance abuse prevention represents what scientists now call “environmental prevention” where instead of dealing with individual alcoholics the environment is altered to reduce the likelihood of developing fewer alcohol-related problems. Almost every state uses Locke’s principle and regulates the number of liquor outlets in any most areas. Those communities which have a very high density of bars and liquor stores tend to have more alcohol-related violence. The riots of the Watts area of Los Angeles in the late 20th century took place in one of the highest densities of liguor stores in the country.
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. Early in his career, as Secretary to the Emperor, he was assigned to oversee the education of the young king of Bohemia. Piccolomini’s advice of temperance was not at all based on theological reasons as drinking was rampant, even among the clergy. Also, he recognized the major effect of peer pressure on teenagers as it affects drinking behavior.
This is a very important quote for it shows the young, pragmatic, pluralistic, tolerant politician who ran for the Mayor of Istanbul. As he acquitted power he became an insular, ego maniac, intolerant, authoritarian, paranoid, and often irrational. But in his earlier years he was an outstanding leader and politician. In this quotation he instructed his campaign followers to not berate or physically assault those Muslims who drank alcohol in reseraunnts, but instead to salute them and bring them into the movement by being tolerant of all the various degrees of orthodoxy to islam. The the fundamentalist drinking alcohol is a serious sin, but doing so in a public place is a danger to the community norms and morality. He used to advocate a big tent.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
