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 -NRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 
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 MR. RUM 
 
 By 
 
 THOMAS L. MASSON 
 
 ii 
 
 Editor of Life 
 
 The American Issue Publishing Company 
 Westerville, Ohio 
 
AGREA i many : attempts have been 
 made to set Mr. Rum right with the 
 public, but they have not been uni- 
 formly successful. He has never been proper- 
 ly advertised. Let us, therefore, place him 
 where he belongs. Let us first understand 
 what he means and who he is. 
 
 By Mr. Rum I refer, of course, to the whole 
 family of alcohol. I do not mean rum alone. 
 I mean also whisky. I mean pousse cafes and 
 beer and cocktails and cognac and champagne. 
 In short, under whatever form alcohol may 
 come T call it rum Mr. Rum. I mean it to 
 stand as a representative of drunkenness, dis- 
 ease, death, dipsomania, disintegration, debt, 
 divorce, disgrace, discord and diligent damna- 
 tion. By diligent damnation I mean the kind 
 that works while you sleep, that sits on the 
 bedpost in the morning and jeers at your 
 seared eyes and your singed nerves, that 
 salivates your sentiments, silts your courage 
 and straps you down to the toboggan, which 
 has no horse power of its own, but develops 
 its speed only on a down grade. Diligent 
 damnation always uses a toboggan, and you 
 never saw one going up hill. 
 
 But let us place our old friend Rum where 
 he belongs. Now, there is about him what we 
 may term a subjective and an objective atti- 
 tude, or we may illustrate the idea by saying 
 that there are two parties to a contract. Rum, 
 
for example, is the party of the first part, and 
 you or I or anybody else may be the party of 
 the second part. Without you or me (the 
 party of the second part), Mr. Rum, the 
 party of the first part, has a pretty hard 
 time of it. He goes about trying to find 
 trouble, and relying upon others to help him. 
 That is one of the singular things about Mr. 
 Rum. He is powerless by himself. He needs 
 a confederate, a side partner, a "pal." You 
 never saw Mr. Rum exhibiting his muscle in 
 a circus ring or walking the tight rope over 
 Niagara. He's what the gamblers call a "four 
 flusher." He travels on a large bluff. He 
 lives on promises to pay and his notes are 
 always coming due. He is always undergoing 
 
 a process of liquidation. 
 
 * * * 
 
 If Mr. Rum should put on his best clothes 
 
 and his sweetest smile, and his most insinuat- 
 ing manner, and should attempt to take a walk 
 through Kansas today well, we know what 
 kind of reception Mr. Rum would get in Kan- 
 sas, because we know what has happened to 
 him there already. Consequently, so far as 
 Kansas is concerned, rum is a nonentity. In 
 Kansas there is no party of the second part. 
 And yet it was only the other day that my 
 friend, William Allen White, was asking 
 everybody, "What's the matter with Kansas?" 
 You see, therefore, that the trouble (and 
 
 272947 
 
there seems to be trouble over Mr. Rum, for 
 everybody knows somebody who seems to 
 have been ruined by him) about Mr. Rum is 
 the invitation which is always extended to him 
 by somebody else. He never comes up to your 
 house in the dead of night, rings the door bell 
 and insists upon entering. Mr. Rum is usually 
 introduced, quite frequently by some kind 
 friend, and curiously everybody warns you 
 about him before you meet him. The ones 
 who know him best are oftentimes the ones 
 who warn you about him most. They say, "I 
 know him, my boy, I can't get rid of him ; take 
 the advice of one who has been there and 
 avoid him." 
 
 Another thing about Mr. Rum is that at first 
 he is always unpleasant in fact, he is apt to 
 be sickening. It takes a long time to get on 
 good terms with him, and you, the party of 
 the second part, do most of the work. Mr. 
 Rum stands around with his hands in his 
 pockets smoking cigarettes, and you have to 
 urge him to be your friend. Why? Well, 
 maybe you're lonesome. Maybe you want to 
 be entertained to forget yourself. Maybe 
 you're morally lazy and are ashamed of your 
 own natural resources. When Mr. Rum has 
 gotten used to you and you have gotten used 
 to him, you begin to realize that he has come 
 to stay. You suddenly try to kick him out, 
 but the next day you find him sitting in the 
 4 
 
same old place with a quiet smile on his face, 
 saying : "Old man, don't blame me. Remember 
 that you asked me to come. I was here by 
 special invitation and you cannot get rid of 
 me so easy." 
 
 One of the peculiar things about Mr. Rum 
 that is characteristic is his infinite patience. 
 How different he is, for example, from Mr. 
 Prussic Acid. When you invite Mr. Prussic 
 Acid into your house, the moment he opens 
 the door he loses no time. The only sure way 
 is to call up the undertaker before he comes. 
 But Mr. Rum goes about it in an entirely dif- 
 ferent way. In the first place, he is very 
 adaptive ; among gentlemen he is a gentleman, 
 and among toughs he is a tough. He moves 
 in all grades of society (always by special in- 
 vitation). The argument used in his favor is 
 that, take him little by little, not only will he 
 do you no harm, but he is an agreeable com- 
 panion and serves to pass the time away. Mr. 
 Rum doesn't say this, mind you. It is always 
 said for him by those who have fastened him 
 to them, and don't want to let on that he isn't 
 the best thing in the world. And isn't that 
 human, after all? When you were a small 
 boy and fell into a puddle that didn't appear 
 to be so deep as it really was, think of the 
 energy you expended afterwards in getting all 
 the other boys in the neighborhood to do the 
 same thing! You'd dare them, wouldn't you? 
 5 
 
And work on their sympathies and appeal to 
 their latent manhood just to get them caught 
 in that puddle. 
 
 Now we all know, or at least we should 
 .know, if we have had any experience with 
 life, that one of the great tests of a man's 
 common sense is his ability to select his as- 
 sociates. Rothschild laid down the rule that 
 every young man who wished to be successful 
 should make a point to associate with people 
 who were successful. We know that the test 
 of sense in business management is the ability 
 to select good men. Did you ever hear of the 
 head of a great business house putting Mr. 
 Rum on the pay roll? And yet Mr. Rum is so 
 adaptable, so ready to go anywhere and, ac- 
 cording to the statements insinuated by his 
 toon companions, is thoroughly companion- 
 able and steadfast. Perseverance is one of the 
 great qualities that go to make success; con- 
 sider the perseverance of Mr. Rum. Yet you 
 never see him presiding over directors' meet- 
 ings. He couldn't operate a typewriter or a 
 motor car. Mr. Rum never won an interna- 
 tional championship. He doesn't know how to 
 hold a baby, or ride a bicycle, or talk straight 
 English. He can't even stand up without 
 leaning against someone. Yet the boy you 
 used to know, and envy, who maybe stood at 
 the head of his class at school, whose mother 
 used to be afraid that he would get to be presi- 
 
 rt 
 
dent of the United States too soon for his 
 health this boy comes up to you years later 
 and says (with a sickly leer), "I want to in- 
 troduce my or fren' Misher Rum. Bes' fren' I 
 
 ever had. Couldn't get 'long 'thout him." 
 * * * 
 
 Now, what is the actual truth about Mr. 
 Rum? It is really quite simple. Being him- 
 self a purely negative character, he responds 
 to a certain defect in our own souls. You 
 can plaster the state of Kansas everywhere, 
 with placards stating what a fine companion 
 Mr. Rum is, but there would be no response, 
 because the people of Kansas have discovered 
 that the need which they feel for certain 
 things, and which other people have come to 
 express in terms of rum, is no longer felt by 
 them. This need is expressed by them for 
 other things which they have learned are bet- 
 ter than rum, for fresh air, for healthy occupa- 
 tions, for clean thoughts ; in fact, for all of the 
 high-minded activities that come with a well 
 ordered brain and a wholesome human or- 
 ganism. 
 
 Then it is perfectly easy to understand 
 about Mr. Rum if you only stop to look him 
 over, to "size him up" so to speak. You 
 would do this with anyone you meet why not 
 with Mr. Rum? You wouldn't go out into the 
 streets and drag the first stranger you saw 
 into your home, would you to sit by your 
 7 
 
fireside, iiext to 'your' wife and children? If 
 you wouldn't do that with a stranger, why 
 with a character like Mr. Rum, whose reputa- 
 tion for diligent damnation has spread all over 
 the world? And above all, don't feel sorry for 
 him. If he is so companionable you need feel 
 no compunctions over leaving him to himself. 
 If, as he is inclined to hint, and his victims de- 
 clare, his condition is so desirable, surely then, 
 consorting with himself is the best thing that 
 could happen to him. 
 
 Why not let him do it? Why not let him 
 be, not so patient with others, as with him- 
 self? Let him enjoy himself. Let him per- 
 petuate a society in which he shall be the 
 solitary member. 
 
 As for ourselves, let us also feel that we are 
 capable of enjoying ourselves without him 
 enjoying the honest and proper development 
 of our own natural resources, while we are 
 able to look straight into the eyes of those we 
 love most, without the secret shame that we 
 have been so weak and so unintelligent as U- 
 bind ourselves for life to a total stranger, who 
 is perpetuated solely through the moral cow- 
 ardice of mankind. 
 
YA 00923 
 
 HV&&Q 
 
 .M3 
 
 3.1 3- 1 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY