Thirty Olympia Men Take the 'Gold Cure' for Drink
A reprint from the Shelton Journal reports that an enthusiastic Bichloride of Gold club has taken root in Olympia, with roughly thirty men said to have been 'turned out cured' of the drink habit by the Keeley system — and a suggestion that the town is ripe for a full Keeley Institute.
Our Olympia Club.
Shelton Journal: An enthusiastic Bichloride of Gold club has been organized in Olympia among men who claim to be, or hope to be, cured from the drink habit by the Keeley system. About thirty men have been turned out cured, and it appears to be doing as much good as Murphy, the temperance maker. There is an excellent field for a young Keeley Institute in this vicinity.
“About thirty men have been turned out cured, and it appears to be doing as much good as Murphy, the temperance maker.”
In the decades before national Prohibition, the Keeley 'gold cure' institutes promised to cure alcoholism through a secret tonic and moral regimen — part medicine, part movement. That thirty Olympia men would publicly enroll shows how seriously the town took the temperance fight, the same struggle that would make Washington dry in 1916. Today's debates over addiction treatment and recovery still wrestle with the same hope for a reliable cure.
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