Ol'Cat, there are some folks that
get emotional about the mere mention of booze. I had a Grandmother like that. There was once a U.S. Senator that delivered a speech on the Senate floor that became known as the "If by Whiskey " speech. I regret to say I haven't been able to find it. But the essence was that, yes Whiskey can wreck lives but it can also sooth the rumpled beast. Good news folks I found it. But I was wrong in my attribution. The label "if-by-whiskey" refers to a 1952 speech by a young Mississippi lawmaker, Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr., on the subject of whether Mississippi should prohibit or legalize alcoholic beverages: 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, and 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. Columnist and linguist William Safire popularized the term in his column in The New York Times, but wrongly attributed it to Florida Governor Fuller Warren. [edit]
