And so I draw the indictment home to John Barleycorn. It is just
those, the good fellows, the worth while, the fellows with the
weakness of too much strength, too much spirit, too much fire and
flame of fine devilishness, that he solicits and ruins. Of
course, he ruins weaklings; but with them, the worst we breed, I
am not here concerned. My concern is that it is so much of the
best we breed whom John Barleycorn destroys. And the reason why
these best are destroyed is because John Barleycorn stands on
every highway and byway, accessible, law-protected, saluted by the
policeman on the beat, speaking to them, leading them by the hand
to the places where the good fellows and daring ones forgather and
drink deep. With John Barleycorn out of the way, these daring
ones would still be born, and they would do things instead of
perishing.

Always I encountered the camaraderie of drink. I might be walking
down the track to the water-tank to lie in wait for a passing
freight-train, when I would chance upon a bunch of "alki-stiffs."
An alki-stiff is a tramp who drinks druggist's alcohol.
Immediately, with greeting and salutation, I am taken into the
fellowship. The alcohol, shrewdly blended with water, is handed
to me, and soon I am caught up in the revelry, with maggots
crawling in my brain and John Barleycorn whispering to me that
life is big, and that we are all brave and fine--free spirits
sprawling like careless gods upon the turf and telling the two-by-
four, cut-and-dried, conventional world to go hang.