If By Whiskey

Was talking to a friend yesterday and remembered this. Hadn’t thought about it, but then I realized that it fits perfectly with the attitude of the MAGA crowd about impeachment, i.e. Donald Trump and Bill Clinton. Enjoy this bit of history trivia. It’s supposed to have really happened.

IF BY WHISKEY

On Friday, April 4, 1952, a 29-year-old Mississippi state representative named Noah Sweat delivered a speech at a dinner banquet for his fellow legislators. He was nearing the end of his only term in office. Mississippi was debating the legalization of liquor at the time and the young Rep. Sweat (whose nickname was “Soggy,” by the way), was invited to speak to the controversy.

The speech he delivered that evening took him several weeks to compose, and has gone down in the annals of rhetorical history. He spoke passionately, brilliantly and with great conviction… for both sides:

“If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame, and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

“But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, heartaches and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

“This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”