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SHALL I DRINK? 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER 
 
 Author of The Church of Today, The Church of Tomorrow, 
 The Supremacy of Jesus, etc., etc. 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 BOSTON NEW TORE CHICAGO 
 
Copyright 
 
 JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER 
 1914 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
Dedicated 
 to the 
 
 STUDENTS 
 of the 
 
 University of Wisconsin 
 and the 
 
 University of Michigan : 
 among those of former years 
 my life-work has been chiefly done: 
 
 Madison, 1881-1891 
 
 Ann Arbor, 1898-1905 
 
 If I were a college student, I would dedicate myself, without 
 fanaticism, but with firm courage and flaming enthusiasm, to the 
 noble cause of Total Abstinence, in order to stop the use of Drink, 
 which has been the great curse to the human family. 
 
 [iii] 
 
AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 The author and the publisher of this book extend 
 their most cordial thanks to Miss Cora Frances Stod- 
 dard, secretary of the Scientific Temperance Federation, 
 for permission to use the valuable copyrighted charts 
 which are presented in these pages. In this connection, 
 it should also be stated that the important facts which 
 they so clearly illustrate, and many others of a similar 
 character, are graphically set forth in a series of Fifty 
 Posters, in two colors, 24 by 38 inches, just issued by 
 the Federation (23 Trull Street, Boston, Mass.), for 
 use in stores, schools, libraries, churches, and on build- 
 ings and billboards. 
 
 [v] 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Drink Superstition: Ancient Ori- 
 gin AND Present Operation ... 1 
 
 II. A Question of Proportion .... 27 
 
 III. The Roots of Crime and Poverty . 55 
 
 IV. A Business Proposition 77 
 
 V. Parental Responsibilities .... 97 
 
 VI. Applied Psychology 121 
 
 VII. The Discipline that Destroys 143 
 
 VIII. The Cure that Kills 161 
 
 IX. The Function of Law 181 
 
 X. Signs of Promise 217 
 
 [vii] 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Walking Match 1 
 
 Alcohol and the Brain 19 
 
 Alcohol and Tuberculous Patients .... 27 
 
 Assaults and Efficiency 55 
 
 Alcohol and Social Welfare 60 
 
 Drink Does Its Worst 72 
 
 Employers Who Prefer Non-Alcoholized Work- 
 men 77 
 
 Alcohol and Degeneracy 84 
 
 Mortality of Children 97 
 
 Scholarship of Abstaining and Drinking Chil- 
 dren 114 
 
 On Memory 121 
 
 How Long May a Man Expect to Live? . . . 143 
 
 Pneumonia 161 
 
 Typesetting 181 
 
 Comparative Sickness 217 
 
 Marksmanship 233 
 
 [ix] 
 
“The fact that our impressions under alcohol are false and decep- 
 tive is of very great importance to us in endeavoring to understand 
 how a substance which paralyzes like alchohol can also apparently 
 ‘stimulate,’ and so gradually lead to the habit of taking it for succes- 
 sive stimulations.” — Alcohol and the Human Body, Fourth Edition, 
 page 82, 1911. By Sir Victor Horsley, M. D., and Mary D. Sturge, 
 M. D. 
 
 “The tradition that alcohol was a stimulant and tonic and pos- 
 sessed some power to give new force and vigor to the cells and func- 
 tional activity is a thing of the past. Studies of exact science in the 
 laboratory show that alcohol is a depressant, anesthetic and narcotic; 
 also that its first effects on the sensory centers are to diminish then- 
 acuteness and pervert their activity. In this way they delude the 
 victim with a consciousness of vigor and strength that is contradicted 
 when tested by instruments. The first effect of alcohol, increasing 
 the heart’s action and sending the blood to the brain with greater 
 velocity, is simply irritation, preceding the anesthesia and diminu- 
 tion of power, which follows. The patient is deceived. His con- 
 sciousness of mental clearness and strength is unverifiable, and j’et 
 he does not know it.” — Dr. T. D. Crothers, Walnut Lodge Hospital, 
 Hartford. 
 
 “The idea that alcohol stimulates mental effort and produces 
 facility of expression is rapidly disappearing. It is doubtful whether 
 a single brilliant thought or poetic or elegant expression has ever 
 owed its origin to alcohol in any form. It is true that alcohol seems 
 to take the bridle off the tongue and give free rein to conversation, 
 but this effect is produced by a paralyzing influence on the sense of 
 responsibility rather than a stimulating influence upon the general 
 flow of ideas.” — Dr. Harvey N. Wiley, formerly Chief of U. S. Bu- 
 reau of Chemistry. 
 
 “From the recommendation of a wine-seller, I learn that wine 
 enlivens the imagination, facilitates thought-connection, quickens 
 the imagination, is favorable to the clear and rapid reception of im- 
 pressions, and to the formation of judgments. Etery word a lie! 
 Careful investigation, continued for decades and conducted with the 
 finest apparatus, to determine the psychical effects of alcohol has 
 shown beyond peradventure that exactly the reverse of all these asser- 
 tions is actually the case. Alcohol paralyzes the imagination, renders 
 the connection of ideas more difficult, weakens and falsifies the 
 memory, and produces a very marked derangement of the powers of 
 apprehension and of judgment.” Prof. Emil Kraepelin, Lniversity 
 of Munich. 
 
A 62 -Mile Walking Match 
 
 Comparison of Abstainers and Non - Abstainers 
 
 'opyriglil igio, l)y Scienlilic Tcinpci aiicc I'ciloralion, IUksIou. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DRINK SUPERSTITION: ANCIENT ORI- 
 GIN AND PRESENT OPERATION 
 
 The attentive reader of Homer is keenly impressed 
 with the deep religiousness of the author and of the peo- 
 ple whom he describes. He represents gods and men as 
 intimately associated in a common life. The divine be- 
 ings watch the earth inhabitants with great solicitude, 
 keeping near them to bless or to punish. What we 
 call natural phenomena, plastic to the touch of celestial 
 wills, were constantly shaped to foster or to injure the 
 life of man. The gods had favorites whom they pro- 
 tected, while there were others whom they chastised. 
 
 On the other hand, aU human beings felt the imme- 
 diate presence of the gods. They could say with a 
 conviction seldom found today: In them we live, move, 
 and have our being. The consciousness of divine pro- 
 tection and guidance, with impending punishment for 
 disobedience, was clear and constant. In it were found 
 the sanctions of morality, the sources of heroism, the 
 springs of daily conduct. 
 
 This ancient belief in the close association of gods 
 and men in a common life found, however, expression 
 in many actions which seem to us both irrational and 
 irreligious. Of these, the most foreign to modern 
 ideas was the elaborate system of sacrifice. Slaugh- 
 tered animals were burned with painstaking ceremo- 
 nials upon innumerable altars, which were regarded as 
 the most sacred meeting places between man and his 
 
 [ 1 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 god. Then and there the divine presence was most 
 immediate and awful. Oaths there uttered and con- 
 tracts there made were supremely binding, having the 
 invisible but powerful deity as witness, who would 
 act as avenger in case of neglect. 
 
 These offerings were far more than mere 
 Feeding presents to win the favor of a heavenly 
 being, as the subject by gifts seeks to seciu’e 
 the friendship of an earthly despot. Nor were they 
 prompted solely by the sense of sin, in penitent endeavor 
 to secure pardon for wrong doing. Both these elements 
 were often present; but the chief aim in early times was, 
 in this way, actually to nourish and sustain the very 
 life of God, and so by reflex action, to enlarge and 
 exalt inan’s life also, for both gods and men participated 
 in a common existence. The heavenly being really 
 needed the earthly food so presented by his children 
 at the altar, which was in truth the common table 
 where the life of both was enriched. The idea of sus- 
 tenance was prominent in sacrificial worship. 
 
 However foolish or even revolting all this may seem 
 to us, it was a vital con\dction to those distant peoples. 
 They were doing their best, for this was their conception 
 of the universe put into action. Here we must note a 
 most important fact, that prominent among their 
 sacrificial offerings was the “libation,” the outpouring 
 of various forms of alcoholic liquors. The gods had 
 more ethereal beverages in their heavenly abode, but 
 earthly wines were very acceptable and helpful to 
 them. If the gods needed the flesh and blood of the 
 animals which men ate as food, surely they also needed 
 the wine which makes glad the heart of man. As both 
 heaven and earth were bound up in a common life, 
 and as it was man’s duty to sustain the life of his god, 
 what he himself found so helpful, banishing weariness, 
 
 [ 2 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 increasing strength, and giving joy — this man must 
 offer to the deity whom he worshipped. 
 
 It is not difficult to see why wine seemed 
 Blessings appropriate gift to God. Judging by 
 
 Apparent appearances — and this was the only way 
 
 the early man could judge — wine was the 
 supreme life-giver. Its immediate effects are appar- 
 ently most helpful and delightful: a sense of warmth 
 pervades the body; a feeling of exhilaration takes 
 possession of the whole being, fatigue and weariness 
 being banished; the tongue is loosened and speech 
 becomes rapid; new energies seem to flow through 
 every limb and every sense is apparently quickened; 
 while those who drink feel that they have entered a 
 new world, whose spacious realms they traverse as 
 though walking on air and whose innumerable treasures 
 are their particular property. A feeling of great 
 dignity and exaltation, of new capacity, of increased 
 importance springs up within them. The old world 
 with its cares, tears, and vexations, vanishes, while 
 all things become new. Deeds are done without effort, 
 as in dreams. All this is only “apparent,” as we 
 fully know today, but it was real to them, and so they 
 called liquor a stimulant. We, however, know that it 
 is not a stimulant, but a depressant and paralyzer. 
 
 Our ancestors very naturally thought that liquor, 
 which to them apparently so blesses human life, must 
 be a most precious gift to every celestial being. As it 
 produces experiences which apparently lift men up to 
 the gods, it must be the most god-given of gifts, which 
 man, in turn, with deepest gratitude, must present to 
 his Maker. Men believed that by intoxication they 
 became filled with the spirit of God. Many oriental 
 cults have resorted to liquor for this purpose. 
 
 [ 3 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 About this belief in liquor as a life-giver, operative in 
 the sacrifieial system, grew up many other customs. 
 
 I. Its use became the medium for the expression of 
 hospitality among men. The primitive mind very 
 naturally argued: If it produces friendship between 
 man and his god, certainly it is the most appropriate 
 means for expressing and cultivating good-will among 
 men. The guest must obviously be given what is 
 best. The greatest distinction that could be bestowed 
 upon him was to present him what was offered to 
 nourish the life of God, what would most increase his 
 ovv^n life. Therefore, whenever the stranger came, 
 whenever men met and wished to display friendly 
 feelings, the cup was passed. This was a verj”^ natmal 
 application of their thought about wine, to hmnan 
 affairs, extending to their fellows what also was given 
 to God in worship. The modern habit of “treating” 
 may in this way be easily and quickly traced to its 
 true psychological root. 
 
 II. For similar reasons, liquor came to be used in 
 many ceremonial ways. Great undertakings, solemn 
 occasions, and sacred events, needed the witnessing 
 presence and approval of some deity. This associa- 
 tion of sanctity, insuring divine sanction and human 
 obligation, must be secured by sacrifice. A covenant 
 between men must be sealed by bringing God near 
 through an offering of wine: that which sustains life, 
 human and divine. Hence, liquor was used to solem- 
 nize compacts between individuals and tribes, the pass- 
 ing of the cup from lip to lip symbolizing the common 
 obligation. At marriage, birth, and death, the drink- 
 ing of liquor seemed the proper thing to do, as it was 
 pre-eminently the supreme life-giver. Here is the 
 psychological explanation of the habit of drinking one’s 
 health at banquets; also of the custom of baptizing 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 the bow of the new ship with wine, a harmful relic of 
 barbarism, which it is hoped, some sensible president 
 will soon abolish! 
 
 III. It was probably later that the specifically 
 hygienic uses of liquor came into prominence. As a 
 “life-giver,” it has been universally, and is still com- 
 monly, used for medicinal purposes, resort being made 
 to it to cure all diseases, real and imaginary. What- 
 ever the ailment, the patient must be given some 
 “toddy.” At the animistic stage of human culture, 
 when every form of sickness was attributed to the 
 invasion of the body by evil spirits, very naturally 
 constant use was made of the master “spirit” residing 
 in liquors, in order to drive out those demons of disease. 
 Even the name “spirits,” by which alcohol is known, 
 carries us back to this ancient state of mind. 
 
 Resort was also made to liquor to prepare one to 
 resist cold or heat. Before beginning any great exer- 
 tion or undertaking any serous enterprise, men felt 
 that they must re-enforce themselves by using some 
 kind of drink. All this was, indeed, wise, if liquor is 
 really a life-giver. And undoubtedly, the early sacri- 
 ficial uses of wine, and its long association with sacred 
 rites as the medium of worship and the food of the 
 gods (consider for a moment, in passing, how the poets 
 even in recent times have sung its praises — a great 
 misfortune, making it necessary for parents to disin- 
 fect such literature before placing it in the hands of 
 their children), did much to inaugurate and sustain 
 these hygienic practices in the use of liquor, which 
 continue long after the psychological conditions, out 
 of which they sprang, have passed away. 
 
 With these considerations in mind, a 
 keen observer will find new interest while 
 sitting in a hotel lobby and watching the 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 stream of men who pass by him into the barroom. 
 Leaving out of account a few inebriates in a diseased 
 condition, “alcoholism,” who ought to be under re- 
 straint and treatment, probably it is true that a large 
 majority of men do not care very much for the mere 
 physical taste of liquor, so that appetite plays a sub- 
 ordinate part with a majority of these persons. 
 
 By watching the people as they pass, two main classes 
 may very easily be distinguished. 
 
 First, those who drink chiefly for hospitality and 
 fellowship. The use of liquor with them is mainly a 
 means of sociability. Very frequently this scene is 
 enacted: Two old friends meet and cordially shake 
 hands and begin to talk of old times. Soon a third 
 person is introduced and at once there is sufficient 
 social momentum to cause one of the party to suggest: 
 “Let’s take something.” So off they go to the bar. 
 The social instinct finds vent in a long-established 
 custom of drinking, and conversation flows freely 
 with the liquor, and all soon separate with a sense of 
 satisfaction. Mere appetite has here played no impor- 
 tant part, while no sinful or vicious intent has been 
 present — simply a common form of sociability, sanc- 
 tioned by long usage and rooted in ancient beliefs 
 associated with sacrificial worship, though this con- 
 nection has long since been forgotten. The custom 
 survives, chiefly, because of the social warmth which 
 finds expression in it, in which also operates the desire 
 to give a friend something that will nourish his life, in 
 the belief that liquor is a great life-giver — a “supersti- 
 tion, ” and a very harmful superstition, but still unfor- 
 tunately very active among us. 
 
 Second, besides these small social groups which 
 adjourn to the barroom for liquor, there is a succession 
 of less sociable drinkers, most numerous about the mid- 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 die of the forenoon and the afternoon. These are the 
 men who use liquor because they feel that they need a 
 “bracer” — something, as they say, to steady their 
 nerves, to remove the sense of goneness in the stomach, 
 and to put vim into their tired muscles. They gen- 
 erally drink alone and quickly, going at once back to 
 their work. If not able to reach a bar, they carry a 
 bottle. Here, too, the motive is generally innocent 
 and the mere pleasure of the palate plays a minor part. 
 They will tell you “that they do not care for the taste 
 of the stuff, ” but they feel that they cannot get along 
 without it. 
 
 Whatever morbid craving may operate here, it is 
 not a normal demand of the body, but the mere tyranny 
 of habit. Like any established routine of life, whether 
 necessary or merely perfunctory, when the periodic 
 moment arrives the demand is felt. For years at that 
 hour, these men have been in the habit of drinking; 
 and the “habit” Qiaheo, “I hold”) asserts itself. The 
 urgency does not so much represent a real need as a 
 superficial routine of life. The body has been accus- 
 tomed to this “prod” and it looks for it when the hour 
 arrives. Moreover, alcohol belongs to the “habit- 
 forming” group of drugs, like opium, that tend to 
 weaken the will and produce certain abnormal and 
 vicious demands, which enslave both body and mind. 
 
 These drinkers feel sure that they need 
 “bracer” and that it does them good. 
 
 But they are under bonds to that old super- 
 stition which represents liquor as a life-giver — a belief 
 which descends to us from the ages of sacrificial wor- 
 ship and which, like the bloody animal sacrifice, ought 
 to be banished from the face of the earth. What we 
 know is that instead of making the nerves strong and 
 stead}', liquor weakens them or paralyzes them. In- 
 
 [7] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 stead of feeding the body like a true food, it merely 
 deadens the sense of hunger, as ether destroys the 
 consciousness of pain without removing its cause. 
 Instead of adding strength to the wearied muscles, it 
 makes them forget that they are weary, as a noise in 
 the street simply diverts attention from the prattle of 
 the child at the knee without silencing his lips. 
 
 Thus, those who drink because they feel that they 
 need a “bracer” are continually self-decived. They 
 prod their bodies as the driver whips his horse, but 
 the whip adds no strength to the horse and it is no 
 adequate substitute for oats. Their belief and practice 
 represent a superstition as baseless as the superstition 
 of the African barbarian who thinks that his sacrifice 
 of a pig really secured his good crop. The line of 
 laborers who crowd the saloon bar at the close of the 
 day imagine that the drinks rest them and make it 
 possible for them to work more easily on the morrow. 
 But their belief is as erroneous and their performance 
 as foolish as the sacrificial offerings described by 
 Homer. 
 
 In fact, these modern sacrifices to Bacchus in the 
 saloon are in many ways worse than the ancient animal 
 sacrifices, because they do an immense amount of injury 
 to the drinker, to his family and friends, to the state, 
 and to his descendants, whereas the sacrificial altars 
 represented little more than a foolish waste of effort 
 and treasure. 
 
 The following statements by two eminent 
 Decide doctors are exceedingly interesting and 
 important at this point, because the real 
 truth of the matter is so clearly and forcibly set forth 
 by them. The first is by Dr. W. A. Chappie, M. D., a 
 member of the British Parliament, who asserted at 
 the Imperial Temperance Conference, London (1911): 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 “Alcohol paralyzes the functions of tissue cells in direct proportion 
 to the quantity, and frequency of the contact. The so-called ‘stimu- 
 lation’ of alcohol is a misnomer. This phenomenon immediately 
 after the ingestion of alcohol is due to the paralysis of the vaso-motor 
 centers in the brain. Because these cells are partially paralyzed, 
 they cease to that extent to perform their functions, i. e., they loosen 
 their hold on the muscular walls of the blood vessels, which thereby 
 lose their tone and contracted condition, dilate, become engorged 
 with blood, and thus quicken the heart’s action. This increased 
 blood supply temporarily increases the function of the part supplied. 
 But it b primarily a paralytic action. It b evanescent, and only 
 occupies the time between the sudden paralysis of the vaso-motor 
 centers and the discovery by the tissue cells of the deception. I 
 repeat, it can be demonstrated that every action of alcohol in the 
 body is an action on tissue cells, and is paralytic in its effect, the cells 
 of the brain suffering in the inverse order of their development, the 
 last developed suffering first and most, the first developed suffering 
 last and least.’’ 
 
 That is, liquor injures first and most that which is 
 best and highest in us, — a fact which explains the 
 frequent remark: He is such a good man when he is 
 not drunk! The drink first attacks the good in us, 
 and, having destroyed that, sets the animal in us free. 
 Dr. Chappie proceeds with this remarkable statement : 
 
 “If this is true, why do not all believe it? For two reasons. Be- 
 cause alcohol mocks those who take it, and enriches those who make 
 it. Wine is a mocker. It promises what it does not give. It gives 
 one and takes ten. But this is its primary deception. Its secondary 
 deception b the crave for more that it ultimately engenders. Like 
 morphia, it creates a craving for itself. I need not dwell on this. 
 It is due partly to habit, but chiefly to the degeneration that it in- 
 duces in the inhibiting controlling cells of the brain. People do not 
 believe the truth about alcohol, then, because they are deceived by 
 its immediate action and impelled by its remote action. But there 
 is another reason why the truth is suppressed. Many people make 
 a profit in the use of alcohol. The man who becomes rich in its man- 
 
 [9j 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 ufacture or sale has not much to say against it as a rule. There is a 
 vested interest in the traflSc. Those who profit from its consumption 
 by others seize every statement in its favor and advertise it accord- 
 ingly. I need not elaborate this point. It has a wonderful influence 
 in protecting its use from the bright glare of the search-light of truth ” 
 
 The second testimony respecting the influence of 
 alcohol is equally important, as it touches the custom 
 of drinking in order to banish fatigue, and it graphic- 
 ally explains why that habit is so harmful. These 
 are the words of Dr. W. Pfaff, a distinguished physician 
 of Germany: 
 
 “The feeling of weariness is the safety-valve of our organism which 
 protects it from over-exertion. Whoever deadens this feeling is 
 like an engineer who weighs down the safety valve of his steam engine 
 in order to get more work out of it. A well built machine will stand 
 it up to a certain point, but it is not made better by such a trial, 
 while every repetition reduces its power of resistance until it is no 
 longer equal to even its normal working power, and it soon goes to 
 pieces. The fact that after a day of hard exertion a man feels his 
 fatigue less in the evening, after taking his usual ‘moderate’ though 
 non-intoxicating quantity of alcohol, should be set over against the 
 fact that the next morning on arising he feels more fatigued than 
 when he went to bed, and furthermore, tires more easily during his 
 work than he would have done without the previous evening’s drink.’’ 
 
 This is in line with the discoveries of scientific re- 
 search, which show us that while the actual deception 
 produced in the drinker is immediate (he feels at once 
 a sense of relief), nevertheless the injurious influence 
 continues for many hours, though the amount of malt 
 liquor used may have been small. 
 
 Our very talk of alcoholic liquors as 
 Liquors stimulants is wholly misleading and mis- 
 
 stimuiants chicvous, and it ought to be stopped. The 
 
 use of the word is unscientific, and it per- 
 petuates the superstition that has done so much harm. 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 As already stated, alcohol is a depressant, a paralyzer, 
 a destroyer. And yet, so recently as the time of the 
 great English physiologist. Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, we 
 find that he, though an earnest total abstainer, con- 
 stantly referred, as in his Physiology of Alcoholics 
 (1883), to alcohol as a stimulant! The term, as applied 
 to liquor, should be banished from common speech. 
 This would help to set the young people right upon a 
 vital question. 
 
 Now, the growing intelligence and conscience of the 
 race long since put a stop to animal sacrifice as a method 
 of influencing providence or nourishing the life of 
 mankind. And surely, it is high time that this asso- 
 ciated superstition respecting Kquor, that it is a life- 
 giver, should cease to afflict our race. The foaming 
 cup does more harm than the bloody altar. The 
 drinking of one’s health at a banquet is just as much a 
 superstition (except the fellowship expressed by it) as 
 the offering of a lamb to solemnize a tribal compact. 
 The line of laborers in the saloon at sunset, drinking 
 beer, represents much more harm than all the Grecian 
 sacrifices, on all the altars about ancient Troy. The 
 man who drains a whisky bottle acts more foolishly 
 than the far-off savage who sprinkled the blood of a 
 bullock before his door to keep off the demons of disease. 
 
 This view of the Drink Habit, as closely associated 
 with a foolish and harmful superstition, must be vig- 
 orously pressed upon the attention of the rising genera- 
 tion. Men must be made to see that there is no real 
 need for liquor; All these customs come down to us 
 from barbaric times. There are far better methods for 
 expressing fellowship and sustaining life. The theory 
 of the universe upon which such uses of liquor rest is 
 viciously false. The practices themselves, besides 
 being superstitious, are positively and seriously harmful. 
 
 [ 11 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 It took many centuries and gigantic 
 mtakrnust efforts to destroy the system of animal 
 Stop sacrifice. The vested rights of priesthoods, 
 
 the impressive ceremonials enshrined in 
 sacred associations, and the hopes and fears which 
 surrounded altar and temple: all these influences the 
 prophets of spirituality had to fight. Only by the 
 efforts of innumerable martyrs and numberless heroes 
 was the victory for the moral ideal won. But at last 
 the waste of life and treasure, the revolting streams of 
 blood, the low and false views of God, associated with 
 these customs — all these have come to an end, at least 
 in Christian lands. 
 
 The hour has struck for a great battle against the twin 
 Superstition of Drink, which more foolishly misreads 
 the law of God and the need of man; which wastes in 
 treasure every day more than all temple sacrifices ever 
 cost in a generation; and which presses from the eyes of 
 women and children a stream of tears wider than the 
 rivers of blood which flowed from the world’s altars, 
 and from human life a wail of anguish louder than the 
 songs of all the temple priesthoods of the earth. And 
 in this present-day battle against the liquor super- 
 stition, born of the same ignorance that produced 
 animal sacrifice, we have to fight vested interests of 
 mammoth proportions, the venerable associations of 
 ancient customs, and a hundred mistaken notions 
 respecting personal rights and human good. 
 
 Absolutely 
 
 Needless 
 
 We hear a great deal of talk to the effect 
 that human nature craves a stimulant. 
 That tired nerves need an anesthetic, that 
 the wearied mind demands diversion, that men must 
 have some social excitement. We are told that this 
 always has been the case, that it always will be the 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 case; and therefore liquor is a necessity and the saloon 
 an inevitable institution. But this is little more than 
 careless talk: the cant of intemperance! 
 
 Human nature craves a stimulant? But alcohol is 
 not a stimulant, being instead a paralyzer and depres- 
 sant. Tired nerves need soothing? But alcohol, on 
 the whole, irritates and disintegrates nerve tissues. 
 The wearied mind demands diversion? But drinking 
 does more to deaden than to recreate. Men must 
 have some social excitement? Wholesome pleasures 
 are, indeed, necessary. But exhilaration through 
 Drink, which means inhibition of spiritual qualities and 
 disturbance of physical functions, is bought at too great 
 a cost. 
 
 The fact that thousands of abstaining British soldiers 
 and sailors lead a very jolly life, that abstainers live 
 longer than drinkers, that men who do not drink, as a 
 rule, have fewer tears and brighter homes, that socia- 
 bility of the warmest and keenest character is now 
 everywhere maintained without liquors, — these and 
 similar facts disprove the claim that alcohol is a social 
 necessity. Craving for it is abnormal and use of it 
 makes human life increasingly abnormal. When the 
 superstition that liquor is a life-giver is destroyed, then 
 higher forms of enjoyment will appear. 
 
 Numerous and decisive physiological and 
 Science psychological experiments and investiga- 
 tions, carried on especially in the past 
 twenty years, have proved that alcohol is not a life- 
 giver, but a life-destroyer. The researches of the 
 world’s greatest scientists all point in one direction 
 The facts which they present are numerous and con- 
 clusive. Some of these facts will be presented in later 
 chapters of this book. It remains to give here a few 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 illustrative examples and testimonies respecting the 
 general truth. 
 
 A very important aspect of this subject has been 
 presented by an eminent medical authority of Great 
 Britain, Dr. Edward Vipont Brown, in his treatise on 
 the Medical Aspects of the Temperance Question. 
 These are his words : 
 
 “The Physiologist has always laid great stress upon what he calls 
 ‘inhibition.’ The word, inhibition, means restraint. It is the brake 
 that you put on your bicycle to prevent its running away with you 
 down hiU. Without this power of inhibition, we should all be mere 
 creatures of impulse and slaves of passion. Indeed, it is the high 
 development of this power of inhibition which, more than anything 
 else, distinguishes the civilized man from the savage. Now this 
 power of inhibition, which has only been developed by a long and 
 painful process of education and culture, is weakened under the 
 influence of alcohol. And this is why the modest and reticent man 
 becomes, under the influence of alcohol, pushing, offensive, and 
 loquacious. It is not that the alcohol has stimulated his brain. It 
 is that it has paralyzed his power of self-control. And because it is 
 the result of paralysis and not stimulation, his judgment is impaired, 
 his -will power weakened, and his self-control diminished. His dis- 
 cretion also is impaired, and thus the alcoholic is often given credit 
 for ‘Dutch Courage.’ Several years ago a very amateur climber in 
 the Alps told a friend of his that whenever he had a crevasse to jump, 
 he always took a nip of spirits and then jumped like a bird. “You 
 should say rather,’ answered his more experienced friend, flike a fool.’ 
 Those faculties which are the last acquisition of culture and refine- 
 ment are always the first to go. Thus the power of fine discrimina- 
 tion is soon lost and the connoisseur becomes highly appreciative of 
 bad music, poor art, weak jokes, and fatuous literature. Espe- 
 cially does he appreciate himself and his own doings, and he thus 
 becomes egoistic and self-assertive. And that all this is the result 
 of paralysis, and not the result of stimulation has been proved by 
 numberless experiments which have been tried, chiefly in the psycho- 
 logical laboratories of Germany and America.’’ 
 
 [ 14 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 The worst thing about the use of liquor, as has been 
 stated, is this very fact that the sense of relief from 
 fatigue and the feeling of increased vigor of mind are 
 false reports. The discoveries of Overton and Meyer 
 (some dozen years ago) respecting the destructive 
 action of alcohol upon the lipoids (the fatty substances 
 sheathing the tissues of the body), help us to under- 
 stand why liquor deranges the whole “intelligence 
 system” of the human body, giving rise to the decep- 
 tions just noted. If the insulating covering of the 
 power cable be stripped off down the line, so as to cause 
 a leak of electric energy, the indicator in thepower-house 
 would show that much power was being used, and the 
 inference would be natural that cars were running 
 rapidly, whereas they were actually stalled. In similar 
 fashion the drinker is deceived. 
 
 Another crude illustration of what happens is found 
 in the remark of the old sailor who told the young man 
 to stop drinking just before the two balls hanging across 
 the room looked like three. Whereat the young man 
 replied that he himself better stop at once, for he was 
 now seeing two where there was really only one! Just 
 this deception produced by drink accounts for the 
 practice of Australian wool-growers who induce buyers 
 to drink heavily before making their purchases, knowing 
 that in the condition so produced their wools would 
 seem finer. This very deception is at the bottom of 
 the ancient superstition, which still persists, that 
 liquor is a life-giver, or as the great specialist respecting 
 diseases of the mind. Sir Thomas S. Clouston, M. D. 
 (long at the head of the great Insane Asylum in Edin- 
 burgh), puts it: “From the medical and scientific 
 point of view, we have this great physiological fact 
 before us, that the first thing alcohol does in 99 cases 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 out of 100 is to affect the mental working of the brain 
 of the man who imbibes.” 
 
 Even in Russia, a land so cursed with drink, these 
 conclusions are accepted by its scientists (Com- 
 mission d’Alcoolisme, 1900): “Alcohol diminishes the 
 rapidity of thought, makes the imagination and power 
 of reflection commonplace and deprived of originality; 
 acts upon fine and complex sensations by transform- 
 ing them into coarse and elementary ones; provokes 
 outbursts of eAul passions and dispositions; and in this 
 way predisposes men to strife and crime and upsets 
 habits of work and perseverance!” To this may be 
 added the conclusion of Prof. John J. Abel, as given 
 in The Physiological Aspects of The Liquor Problem 
 (Vol. II. p. 165, 1903): “We have seen that alcohol 
 from the very first has a depressant action for higher 
 mental functions. ” Also, these words by Sir Thomas 
 Barlow, M. D. (who recently presided at the Inter- 
 national Medical Congress, London, 1913): “It is at 
 all events fairly certain that the capacity for the 
 performance of fine movements which depends upon 
 the maintenance of both driving power and conduct- 
 ing power, is lessened by the use of liquor.” 
 
 In his Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture, 
 Roveda given November 11, 1911, Dr. G. Sims 
 
 Deceiver Woodhead, Professor in the University of 
 
 Cambridge, gave the results of some origi- 
 nal and very delicate experiments upon himseK respect- 
 ing “The Action of Alcohol on Body Temperature,” 
 which strikingly confirm the statements just made. 
 He equipped himself vdth apparatus that would give a 
 continuous record of surface and internal temperature 
 (the latter taken through the rectum). He writes: 
 “The alcohol (a very small quantity) was sipped slowly. 
 Almost immediately I experienced a sense of warmth 
 
 [ 161 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 and glow both in the stomach and in the skin, which 
 later became moist. The face felt a little flushed. 
 From my general sensation I was satisfied that both 
 external and internal temperatures had risen con- 
 siderably. ” 
 
 However, after a night’s sleep, when he examined 
 the record, what he found was this : While the surface 
 temperature rose for a short time, there was later a 
 permanent fall and the internal temperature fell from 
 the start. To quote his own words (The Action of 
 Alcohol on Body Temperature, p. 13, 1912): “On 
 developing the record given by the internal thermometer 
 I found, however, that my sensations had misled me com- 
 pletely, and that, instead of a rise, there had been a 
 distinct initial fall.” The apparent warmth was, on 
 the whole, a deception. The effect of the alcohol was 
 to force blood to the surface, where it was cooled, so 
 that while the surplus of blood in the external tissues 
 gave a temporary feeling of warmth, the body as a 
 whole was robbed of heat — a fact which was not re- 
 ported owing to the deranged condition of the system 
 due to alcohol. Forty years ago. Sir Benjamin Ward 
 Richardson, M. D., made similar discoveries, but even 
 the world of medical science was long indifferent or 
 incredulous ! 
 
 In these experiments. Professor Woodhead was simply 
 confirming a well-known conclusion of science, that 
 alcohol, instead of permanently warming, really cools 
 the body. This is why drinking liquor is so dangerous 
 before exposure to cold and this is why polar explorers 
 both north and south use no alcohol. It is equally 
 harmful even in warm weather. But the point of 
 chief significance, needing special emphasis, is this: 
 the fact that he, a trained scientist, was deceived 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 respecting his ov/n condition. He felt that he was 
 warmer, when in truth his body was losing its heat. 
 Nothing could better illustrate and demonstrate the 
 real effect of alcohol upon the human system: It 
 deceives the user. It so deranges the system that the 
 reports given are false. The drinker thinks that he is 
 stronger, warmer, wiser, whereas the exact opposite is 
 the fact. Liquor always lies to the user, making him 
 think that it is a life-giver when it is a life-destroyer. 
 Just here is the root of the ancient superstition which 
 we are considering. 
 
 Professor Woodhead, in an address given at Bristol, 
 England, March 14, 1911, touched upon another 
 phase of the general subject in these words: 
 
 “The doctors of the present day can help men very greatly by 
 pointing out to them that if they are taking alcoholic liquors in order, 
 as they may think, to strengthen themselves, they are doing an 
 exceedingly wasteful thing, they are using as food, substances which 
 contain very little food material. They say: ‘Yes, but alcohol can 
 be oxidised in the body.’ Yes, it can be oxidised in the body, but 
 it is a curious thing that it can only be oxidised to advantage when 
 no other food is being taken and no other work is being done. Can 
 any sane man, with those conditions, say that it is a substance which 
 is useful to a working man? He does not want to stay in bed or to 
 starve to make use of the alcohol which he takes. He assumes that 
 he is taking something that is helping him, but as a matter of fact he 
 is taking something that is clogging every part of the machinery of 
 his body, and taking something that is poisoning the most delicate 
 tissues of his body, taking something useless as a food except under 
 most extraordinary conditions. In doing that he is depriving himself 
 of good, solid, sound food, and depriving his children, because he 
 is, by using this waste material, — depriving them of warm shoes, 
 clothing, education, house room, and all things essential for the 
 building up of the child, in order that it may become a useful man 
 
 or woman. 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 There is another phase of this subject 
 Paralyzes which must be mentioned. It is of very 
 
 higher • i • i • i 
 
 Faculties great importance, but it can be given here 
 only slight attention. Brief allusion has 
 already been made to it. A serious part of the general 
 effect of alcohol upon brain and mind is that it inhibits 
 or paralyzes the higher faculties, which are the later 
 products of evolution, and therefore more easily in- 
 fluenced. The brain centers associated with our more 
 animal life are older and more hardy, with greater power 
 of resistance. Those associated with our more human 
 qualities, such as modesty, discretion, and moral feel- 
 ings, are newer, less resolute, and more susceptible to 
 derangement. As a result, when alcohol is taken into 
 the system its destructive power is first felt by those 
 higher nerve centers. The restraining influences of 
 good manners and good morals are swept aside or 
 inhibited. And left without these checks and balances, 
 the merely animal impulses come to mastery, so that 
 a man in his cups becomes boastful, obscene, beastly. 
 He does things for which he has to apologize the next 
 day. 
 
 Intoxication is, therefore, not increase of life, but 
 putting the xeins into the hands of the animal within 
 us. Liquor changes the character by paralyzing the 
 best and highest in us. It puts the real man to sleep. 
 He is not there. This inhibition produced by alcohol 
 is what makes its use so harmful and dangerous. It 
 tends to strike down all the finer products of culture 
 and civilization. It is more than merely a life-destroyer, 
 for it destroys the higher life and puts the spirit in 
 subjection to what is brutish. Therefore, we deal here, 
 not only with a superstition that is false, but with a 
 superstition that is deadly. 
 
 119 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 The experiment by Professor Wood head, 
 i^^peiin which reference has just been made, is 
 
 Discovered Only One of the most recent demonstrations 
 of the great discovery, which is the outcome 
 of scientific researches, carried on with great care for 
 the past score of years. And among these investiga- 
 tions, none have been more illuminating than those 
 conducted by Prof. Emil Kraepelin of the University 
 of Munich, formerly at Heidelberg. It is important 
 to keep in mind that his experiments were made with 
 small amounts of alcohol, — too small to produce intoxi- 
 cation; what would be called very moderate drinking. 
 Also, it is w'ell to remember that these researches were 
 conducted by several persons to avoid mistakes, and 
 similar experiments have since been frequently repeated 
 by other scientists, so that there can be no possible 
 doubt respecting the truth of the general conclusions 
 reached. 
 
 Professor Kraepelin experimented upon various per- 
 sons, beside himself, both before and after taking small 
 amounts of liquor, in order to test, among other things, 
 the comparative ability to memorize, to add figures, 
 and to respond to signals. His findings may be briefly 
 described as follows: 
 
 (1) In many cases, there was at first a slight 
 quickening of the more common, or automatic, activ- 
 ities of the mind, a fact which partly explains why 
 the drinker thinks that liquor makes him brighter 
 and stronger. 
 
 (2) However, in a very short time, there was a 
 decided deterioration in mental work, both in quality 
 and in speed. More mistakes were make; it took longer 
 to commit words; while problems were not so quickly 
 or so accurately solved. 
 
 (3) It was shown that the higher activities of the 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 mind are affected at once, while the destructive effects 
 upon them is more marked and lasting. In this way 
 alcohol upsets the normal balance of our intellectual 
 life. Inferior kinds of mental operation come to the 
 front and dominate, and even the higher faculties 
 produce under its influence a lower quality of work. 
 In brief, alcohol deteriorates the mind as a whole, but 
 more especially that which is highest in our intellectual 
 life, — a fact that has already been noted. Creative 
 processes are more quickly injured and more decisively 
 harmed. 
 
 (4) The destructive influence of small amounts of 
 drink continues to be felt for many hours. The injuri- 
 ous effect of a glass of beer often lasts for a whole day, 
 making the senses less acute, the reason less vigorous, 
 and the will less decisive. Some critics have objected 
 that an element of error, due to “suggestion,” has not 
 been eliminated from these experiments. But this 
 criticism is fully met in such cases as those of Professors 
 Kraepelin and Woodhead by the fact that their own 
 impressions were contrary to the records themselves. 
 
 Among the early experiments was one which Professor 
 Kraepelin tried upon himself, while he was still a mod- 
 erate drinker. And it was the result of this experiment 
 which made him an abstainer and deepened his interest 
 in temperance. He arranged a delicate apparatus, 
 measuring the “time reaction,” as it is called; The 
 interval that elapses between sight of a flash and the 
 finger’s pressure of a button, by which a mark is made 
 on a revolving cylinder. Of course, the more alert 
 the mind, the more quickly the finger presses the button 
 after the flash is seen. Therefore, the closer together 
 the marks are on the cylinder the more active the mind 
 and body are shown to be. 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Deceives 
 
 and 
 
 Destroys 
 
 During this epoch-making experiment, 
 after having taken a small amount of alcohol, 
 Professor Kraepelin himself felt sure that he 
 was responding to the flashes more quickly 
 than before drinking. That is, that the alcohol had 
 really stimulated him, giving him new Ufe. But 
 when he looked at the record, it revealed his mistake. 
 He had been deceived. He had been working slower 
 rather than faster. Reference has recently been made 
 to this misleading effect of alcohol in an editorial in 
 American Medicine (July 1913, p. 460): “It is fre- 
 quently diflScult to persuade the subject of the experi- 
 ment that he is really doing less work under alcoholic 
 influence, so extraordinary is the masking effect of this 
 agent.” 
 
 Here then is a verifiable, fundamental principle of 
 human life, which cannot be brushed aside or success- 
 fully disputed. We may ignore it or live in violation 
 of it. But it forever operates, like the force of gravity. 
 That principle, as already stated, is this: Alcohol is 
 not a life-giver but a life-destroyer. The menace of it 
 lies in the fact that it makes the user think that it is 
 giving him more strength, whereas it brings him an 
 element of death. It is all the more dangerous because 
 it brings him death masked as a friend! 
 
 Another element in this superstition is 
 the popular impression that the Drink 
 Habit is inevitable, a necessarj’- evil like the 
 diseases due to climate. WTien, however, we destroy 
 the superstition that sustains the saloon, the evil 
 custom will vanish, as persecution of witches ceased 
 when reason swept aside the delusion of witchcraft. 
 The gigantic efforts now made to keep the superstition 
 alive show that the evil habit is not so much based upon 
 inherent need as upon a false notion: not so much 
 
 [ 22 ] 
 
 It is not 
 Inevitable 
 
THE DRINK SUPERSTITION 
 
 upon the cravings of appetite as upon superstitious 
 customs viciously manipulated by greed. 
 
 It is also a superstition to hold that the use of light 
 malt beverages will stop the use of strong drink. It 
 is nowhere true in the wide world that light liquors 
 have driven out the use of the stronger liquors. It is 
 true, however, that the frequent drinking of a mild 
 liquor is more harmful than an occasional spree. No 
 substitute for the saloon is needed. What is needed, 
 however, is to substitute modern science for the ancient 
 superstition, and wholesome amusements for injurious 
 dissipation. 
 
 It is an encouraging sign that laborers themselves 
 begin to realize that the Drink Habit is based upon a 
 ruinous superstition. The following words are taken 
 from an article recently published in Vorwaerts, the 
 great socialistic journal of Berlin: 
 
 "We are not attacking the excessive drinker alone. We demand 
 the most complete abstinence. That is a much greater object, and 
 at the same time much easier to attain; for, with the great majority 
 of workers the desire for alcohol has not yet become a disease. 
 Alcohol is no food. The desire for alcohol is only a bad habit that 
 can, when its evils are recognized, be broken.” 
 
 The ancient superstition is still wide-spread 
 D^iSSess doing vast injury, especially to 
 
 but Drinking the young, but public opinion is fast turning 
 toward the position that the the evil lies 
 chiefly, not in drunkenness, but in drinking. It is 
 seen, for one thing, that if there were no drinking, there 
 would be no drunkenness. It is also clearly realized 
 by an ever-increasing number, that crime, pauperism, 
 and insanity are produced not by a few drunkards, but 
 by the common habit of drinking. What supports 
 the saloon, the foul source of numberless ills and woes, 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 are not the few drunkards but the many drinkers. 
 What imposes poverty upon women and robs chil- 
 dren of blessings, is not, as a rule, drunkenness but 
 drinking. We are coming to see clearly that there 
 can be no wise moderation in the use of what is wholly 
 and always injurious. All use of a cell-poison is abuse. 
 The real danger lies, not in the third glass, but in the 
 first. The railroads do not say to their men; “You 
 must keep free from intoxication,” but they do com- 
 mand: “You must not drink at all. ” The trainer of 
 athletes does not tell his men: “You must refrain 
 from drunkenness;” but he does lay down the stringent 
 rule; “You must wholly abstain.” For every real 
 drunkard there are scores of drinkers, who feel sure that 
 they never took a drop too much, never having been 
 intoxicated, and yet they have lessened their industrial 
 capacity, exposed themselves to disease, cut down their 
 chance of recovery when sick, and multiplied mistakesand 
 accidents by their so-called “moderate” use of liquor. 
 
 In view of these facts, we must teach with increasing 
 vigor that the evil lies, not chiefly in drunkenness, but 
 in drinking. This truth cannot be too often or too 
 emphatically repeated. We must make the “ moderate ” 
 drinker realize that he is doing himself great injury, 
 and bringing serious evils upon his neighbors. And, 
 above all, we must visit condemnation and disgrace, 
 not simply upon the few inebriates, but upon all drink- 
 ers. The Drink Superstition must be destroyed by 
 the creative influence of education and the restraining 
 power of law. It must always be remembered that 
 the temperance apostle of today fights, not merely a 
 morbid appetite, but a gigantic greed, carefully organ- 
 ized and skilfully led. High courage, great wisdom, 
 and noble enthusiasm are needed in this warfare for 
 the good of humanity. 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 
“Alcoholic indulgence stands almost, if not altogether, in the front 
 rank of the enemies to be combated in the battle for health.” Prof. 
 William T. Sedgwick. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
 
 “If there is one curse more than any other to which our people are 
 subject and which seems to have fallen upon us from time immemo- 
 rial, it is the curse of drink. I believe it to be the source of all crime, 
 not only in the Army, but in civil life, and I wish you every success 
 in your efforts to counteract the evil.” Field Marshal, Lord Wolseley. 
 
 “Through the long experience of my father and my grandfather, 
 extending over a period of more than a hundred years, I have reached 
 the conviction that no other cause has brought so much suffering, 
 so much disease and misery as the use of intoxicating beverages.” 
 Charles Darwin. 
 
 “Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find a 
 stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater 
 tyrant deposed; in it more of want supplied, more disease healed, more 
 sorrow assuaged. By it none wounded in feeling, none injured in 
 interest; even the dram maker and dram seller will have glided into 
 other occupations so gradually as never to have felt the change and 
 will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness. 
 And what a noble ally this to the cause of political freedom.” Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. Feb. 22, 1842. 
 
 “Without alcohol, the rural population of France would be prac- 
 tically untouched by tuberculosis. As it is, alcoholism is destroying 
 the peasantry of the healthiest and most beautiful regions by inducing 
 tuberculosis.” M. Joseph Reinach, French Parliament. 
 
 “A careful scientist has called alcohol the indispensable vehicle of 
 the business transacted by the white-slave traders and has asserted 
 that without its use this trade could not long continue.” Jane 
 Addams. McClure s Magazine, March 1912. 
 
 “The alcohol question presents itself at every corner, to every man 
 and woman desirous of solving the great social problems that await 
 solution. It is a kind of root problem, the settlement of which 
 would necessarily involve an adjustment of innumerable other things 
 which have a destructive effect on every hand. As a mere matter 
 of economy and time this is a question worthy most serious considera- 
 tion.” Sir Vezey Strong, Lord Mayor of London. 1911. 
 
 [ 26 ] 
 
'opyri^Iit n)i3, ^Du’ Srii’iitilic M'l’niprraiu'c l‘'(‘(iorat ion, Hoston, Mass. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 The modern world is full of problems. The increas- 
 ing complexity of life means many perplexities. Often 
 in solving one problem, two new ones are uncovered. 
 The battle line of civilization lengthens as the army 
 of truth and justice advances. The test of our Chris- 
 tianity is our intelligent interest in these human prob- 
 lems, and the Zealand effectiveness of our work in solving 
 them. 
 
 The problem of education comes down to us from an- 
 cient times and it is ever present. We have made 
 some gains in method and machinery since the days of 
 Plato, but the output in character is not as encouraging 
 as it ought to be. Some phases of the industrial prob- 
 lem are new and serious, and while confusion abounds 
 at this point, we may wisely give ourselves to a chastened 
 optimism. The problem of organized religion, the 
 church, is made difficult by the decay of dogma and the 
 growth of luxuries, making us an indifferent and selfish 
 people. The problem of health rises to increasing promi- 
 nence and this is well. The social problem is at times 
 vexatious and serious. Class consciousness often 
 clashes with the unity of social interests, and many re- 
 formers put too much emphasis on the mere rearrange- 
 ment of individuals and the formal redistribution of 
 properties, ignoring the supreme truth that the only 
 sure method of progress is the expansion and perfection 
 of personal life; the making of great individuals: 
 
 [ 27 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 individuals that are not self-centered but socialized, 
 and so, fully alive to the great interest of humanity. 
 
 There is, however, something greater than 
 ftoWe'm these secondary problems just mentioned. 
 
 The human problem is supreme. It under- 
 lies all others. They are all incidental to it and tribu- 
 tary to it. To be rightly solved every other problem 
 must be tested by the contribution which its solution 
 makes to the Human Problem. The chief end of ci\’i- 
 lization, the ultimate aim of Christianity, is to make a 
 soul, not simply to make scholars, athletes, artisans, or 
 church members. The fact is, all problems, in the last 
 analysis, are ethical and spiritual. The problem arises 
 just because human welfare is endangered or destroyed. 
 We are challenged to solve the various problems about 
 us in order to rescue or ennoble a soul. 
 
 Now, all people ought to see, but few people do see, 
 the important fact that Drink intensifies and compli- 
 cates the Human Problem more than anything else. 
 The most serious obstacle in the way of the solution 
 of every problem with which we have to deal is the use 
 of liquors. And yet, few people at present see this mat- 
 ter in its true proportion. It touches with evil infiuence 
 all lives all the time, and at all points. Whenever we 
 turn a corner, the menace of the saloon meets us. But 
 who sufficiently cares.? \^^lenever we open a newspaper 
 and read, the evils wrought by the Drink Habit are 
 spread upon every page. But who sufficiently cares? 
 Whenever w^e look about our neighborhood, the e\'i- 
 dences of its ravages are in many a house. But who 
 sufficiently cares? Whenever we visit ballot box, 
 council chamber, or legislative hall, we find that the 
 Liquor Interests have been there before us. But who 
 sufficiently cares? Whenever we start out to confer 
 some blessing or abolish some evil, — to improve the 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 public health, rescue the victims of the traffic in vice, 
 or better the condition of discharged convicts, there 
 stands the saloon as a bar across our pathway. But 
 who sufficiently cares 
 
 As indifferent, criminally indifferent, as 
 Indifference respectable people are on this matter, the 
 fact is clear to any one who has eyes to see, 
 that we touch here the prime factor in the solution of 
 the Human Problem. Some 6,000 Sunday schools in 
 the State of New York, but nearly 28,000 liquor shops! 
 While the latter flourish, how little the former can 
 accomplish! Ask any employer: What is your chief 
 difficulty? The reply comes quickly: So many men are 
 worthless because they drink. Inquire of the doctor 
 about his patient and so often he tells you: It is doubt- 
 ful whether I can pull him through because he has been 
 a drinker. Go back to the village that you left a score 
 of years ago, and ask about the young men who lived 
 there in your day. How frequently you are told: 
 He began to drink and was soon ruined. But who suf- 
 ficiently cares? 
 
 At the annual meeting of the National Conference of 
 Charities and Correction, held in Seattle, July, 1913, 
 the conference sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. A. 
 J. McKelway of Washington, D. C. The preacher 
 somewhat savagely charged ministers and lawyers with 
 being indifferent to the cause of social justice. He said 
 in part: “We crush our competitors through the em- 
 ployment of spies as book-keepers in rival establish- 
 ments, through rebate arrangements with complacent 
 railroad systems; we endow universities and foundations 
 for the instruction of youth and the alleviation of human 
 suffering. We work women and children in cotton 
 mills eleven hours a day, we resist every effort to raise 
 the age limit for working children and to shorten the 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 hours for the mothers of the race, and then out of the 
 profits of their industry beyond that which satisfies 
 the stockholders, we build schools and churches and 
 hospitals and playgrounds and do all manner of better- 
 ment work.” 
 
 These and other evils, which he described, do un- 
 doubtedly exist. We may hesitate to accept his lan- 
 guage or his sociological diagnosis, but no one wfil deny 
 that many things in our modern conditions are wrong 
 and unjust. But in this impassioned condemnation of 
 economic and other evils, there was no mention of the 
 Drink Curse. This avoidance of reference to intemper- 
 ance among writers and speakers on the “Social Prob- 
 lem” is general. Questions of comparatively small 
 importance are discussed with great force, but the 
 vastly greater evils arising from the use of liquor are 
 wholly ignored. Clubs, Forums, and Conferences 
 debate at length a great variety of social, educational, 
 and reformatory topics, but the programmes of such 
 organizations seldom have a reference to the Cnrse of 
 Alcohol. Everybody seems to be afraid of the matter. 
 Anyone who does mention it is usually frowned upon 
 as a crank or a fanatic. 
 
 A case in point is the Bulletin of the New York School 
 of Philanthropy, for April, 1909. A most interesting 
 and elaborate programme of studies and lectures. 
 Many important topics were discussed by celebrated 
 specialists. A casual glance is impressive, almost op- 
 pressive, so thoroughly does the social field seem to 
 be covered. But a careful search discovers just one 
 line in reference to this matter — three words , — “ The 
 drink evil," in sixteen pages of topics and sub-topics, 
 and none whatever for the summer term of 1908! 
 A curse so big that not one individual escapes its evil 
 influences from many directions, and yet practically 
 
 [30] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 ignored by those most interested in human betterment ! 
 Likewise, hardly a reference to this matter in the courses 
 of study in a majority of theological schools. 
 
 This situation is common all over the 
 world: No adequate appreciation of the 
 gravity of the liquor problem; No sufficient 
 realization of its extreme virulence or its close relations 
 and large contributions to other social evils; no willing- 
 ness to face this, the greatest element in the Human 
 Problem. Here is a matter which injures every good 
 thing in the world and which helps to increase every 
 other evil which affiicts us; and yet, indifference re- 
 specting it meets us everywhere. The plea of Dr. C. 
 W. Saleeby, a distinguished medical authority of Great 
 Britain, is timely. In referring to the programme of a 
 recently-held English conference on poverty, he said: 
 “I am bound to add the expression of my belief that 
 nowhere in the programme of proceedings of this great 
 National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution 
 are we showing due recognition of the importance of 
 the national consumption of alcohol, and of alcoholism, 
 individual and parental, as a prime, originating vera 
 causa of destitution in nearly all its forms, not least 
 those which are due to mental defect or disease.” 
 
 The Rt. Hon. David Lloyd-George, in speaking at 
 Manchester, Eng., Oct. 21, 1890, said: “No reform, po- 
 litical or social, will avail in this country unless you 
 precede it with the Temperance Reform.” And Rt. 
 Hon. John Burns, the great Labor Leader, speaking 
 in the same city more recently, said : “ If only the money 
 was spent in the purchasing of useful and labor-pro- 
 ducing commodities, instead of being wasted on beer 
 and betting, there would be no need for nine-tenths 
 of the silly and foolish palliatives that have been 
 suggested.” 
 
 [ 31 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Among those interested in so-called "uplift work,” 
 we find, unfortunate as it is, an almost universal lack 
 of any true sense of proportion respecting the impor- 
 tance of the Drink Evil in comparison with other social 
 evils. The sermon of Dr. McKelway is simply illus- 
 trative of the general attitude of Humanitarians at the 
 present time. They see clearly a lot of surface and in- 
 cidental evils, but the really big evil, the tap-root that 
 bears or nourishes so many other evils, is completely 
 ignored. For instance, all the evils catalogued in this 
 sermon, put together, do not equal in financial expense 
 to the nation, in injmy done to women and children, 
 in ethical demoralization and political corruption, in 
 terrible miseries, — they do not equal the great havoc of 
 human life caused by the saloon. The annual liquor 
 bill of the nation (to say nothing of the indirect cost 
 due to heavier taxes, increased sickness, loss of indus- 
 trial efficiency — an immense siun) is some $1,800,000,- 
 000.00, — at a moderate estimate. Enough to give an 
 automobile to every tenth family in the United States! 
 Our most unjust corporations, all told, do not rob the 
 poor of as much money as they waste in the dram 
 shops ! 
 
 One is reminded of the strange situation in Germany, 
 where there are not more than a score of cases of hydro- 
 phobia a year, and yet the coimtry makes elaborate and 
 expensive preparation to prevent and cure this malady 
 and when a case occurs there is wide spread alarm, but 
 the 400,000 drunkards in the empire, and the untold 
 misery which they cause, receive almost no attention 
 from the people at large. 
 
 How very unfortunate and unscientific — 
 of^Dra^^s”! Ignore the fact that surely one half of our 
 fallen women owe their shame, directly or 
 indirectly, to Drink (so experts assert — see quotation 
 
 [ 32 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 from Dr. Prince A. Morrow, Chapter III., p. 54) and cen- 
 ter emphasis on a few spying bookkeepers ! Ignore the 
 fact that there are 100,000 arrests for drunkenness a year 
 in Massachusetts (a hundred thousand homes disgraced 
 and a quarter of a million children thereby hampered in 
 one way or another!), and center emphasis on the child- 
 labor problem alone, itself largely a product of Drink! 
 The drinking habits of parents impose ten fold more 
 labor hardships upon children than can be found in all 
 the mills of the land. And yet, many advocates of social 
 justice do not seem to care anything about this gigan- 
 tic curse. So solicitous that the hours of labor for the 
 mothers of the race be shortened, but no eye to see the 
 thousands of mothers who are working in abject poverty, 
 because husbands spend their money in 250,000 saloons ! 
 So solicitous that the age limit for working cliildren be 
 raised, but no heart to feel for the thousands of children 
 born every year defeetive and deformed because of the 
 drinking habits of their parents! 
 
 On this point an eminent English publicist, Sir 
 Thomas P. Whittaker, has well written: 
 
 “ We are very much concerned over the well-being of the children, 
 and the raising of their condition. We like to start them well in life, 
 and all sorts of schemes are talked about. Do you realize that the 
 money spent on liquor every year in the British Isles would be sufB- 
 cient to give every child born during the year, at birth some $700.00 
 in cash? I want you to get the true perspective and the true sense of 
 proportion; and when we are wasting the money that would do this, 
 no wonder there is destitution.” And to these words we need to add 
 a paragraph from Dr. Barnardo, that great friend of London waifs, 
 who in his report for 1888, after having carefully tabulated the thou- 
 sands of cases which had passed through his Homes, made this state- 
 ment: “The astonishing fact emerged (doubly astonishing to me, be- 
 cause I was not then a total abstainer, nor even in sympathy with that 
 movement) that no less than 85 per cent, of all the children whom we 
 admitted to the Homes under my care owed their social ruin and the 
 
 [ 33 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 long train of their distresses to the influence, direct or indirect, of 
 the drinking habits of their parents, or grandparents, or other 
 relatives.” 
 
 Again, so hot in protest against the greed of land- 
 lords who maintain unsanitary tenements — surely an 
 evil that needs drastic measures; but the tempting liquor 
 shops around the corner that devour the wages of the 
 men and compel the family to live in such a place, — 
 they are passed unnoticed. And yet, the greed of the 
 liquor trade does the poor ten fold more harm than all 
 the grasping landlords in our cities. The drinking in 
 those saloons causes, directly or indirectly, more dis- 
 ease and death than the overcrowding in the tenements. 
 The injustice of the landlord is not a drop in the bucket 
 to the injustice of the saloon business, which not only 
 robs a man of his wages, but which gives him what makes 
 him a poorer workman, a poorer parent, and a poorer 
 citizen. 
 
 To show that these statements are supported by the 
 most eminent authorities on this very matter, let us 
 turn to the conclusion of IMr. John S. Nettlefold, Chair- 
 man of the Housing Committee of the Birmingham 
 City Council, who writes: 
 
 “Few people not immediately connected with, or intimately inter- 
 ested in, housing reform and rescue work in the slums of our large 
 cities, realize to the full how great an effect the drink evil has on our 
 social miseries, and therefore it is necessary to emphasize this branch 
 of the housing problem. All I have to do is to point out that so 
 long as the evil of e.xcessive drinking exists, so long will the labors of 
 social reformers, philanthropists, local authorities, and property owners 
 in attempting the solution of the Housing Problem be largely thrown 
 away. Also that where the abolition of excessive drinking facilities 
 has brought dowm the number of public-houses to a figure sufficient 
 for the legitimate demands of the neighborhood, and no more, there 
 we find a great step towards a better state of housing affairs. In 
 
 [ 34 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 confirmation of this statement is the wellknown fact that as soon as 
 you get a man in one of these bad tenements to stop drinking, he at 
 once moves to a better place for he can then pay the higher rent!” 
 
 From the fact that so many eminent re- 
 Biintoess formers and sociologists, as a rule, pay lit- 
 tle or no attention to the Drink Curse, one is 
 often moved to infer that a majority of educated people 
 are so “liquor-blind” that they cannot see the most 
 gigantic evil in the modern world ! Here, for instance, 
 is an editorial in the “Outlook” (October 1, 1910), 
 on “Literature of Crime in Russia,” which calls at- 
 tention to the great mass of common crime which is 
 rolling over the dominion of the Czar, and claims that 
 it is largely due to the wide circulation of cheap but vile 
 literature, nearly 9,000,000 copies of “penny dread- 
 fuls” (stories of criminal careers) having been sold in 
 that land in 1909. The situation is certainly distress- 
 ing, because such vicious books must have a very in- 
 jurious influence. We are glad that the “Outlook” 
 has called attention to the matter. 
 
 But why pass by something that is far more produc- 
 tive of crime and more destructive of human life in that 
 country — the Drink Habit and the Liquor Traffic? 
 The Czar is the biggest liquor seller in the world. He 
 has a monopoly of the business in the nation, from 
 which he annually derives an income of some $400,- 
 000,000.00, which comes largely from peasants, who, 
 on an average, receive a daily wage of only fifteen or 
 twenty cents! It is difficult to tell what the common 
 people really pay out for liquor (chiefly vodka), for the 
 immense sum of $400,000,000.00 a year represents 
 chiefly the profits of the trade to the government. 
 
 The cheap criminal literature (9,000,000 copies) 
 costs the people less than $300,000.00. The same 
 
 [ 35 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 people probably spend over $100,000,000.00 a year 
 on vodka — 300 times as much! The three cents for 
 the vile story is not felt; but the $10.00 a year for vodka 
 is from a fifth to a sixth of the annual income of the 
 poorest families 1 And this financial waste keeps peas- 
 ants and their families in a state of hunger and squalor, 
 which alone probably produces more crime than all the 
 literature to which reference has been made. 
 
 But consider some other serious elements of the 
 problem: This liquor induces disease and prevents 
 recovery when sick, and all this means not only pain 
 and sorrow for the family, but financial loss to the in- 
 dividual and economic waste for the nation; mill ions 
 of days’ labor are so lost during the year. The drinker 
 on this account is also a poorer and a more quarrelsome 
 workman. The effects upon his children are harmful, 
 as we positively know, both upon their bodies and their 
 minds. Then there are the crimes which come directly 
 and indirectly from the use of such strong drink. The 
 offences actually instigated by liquor, the quarrels in- 
 cident to drunkenness, the evil passions unnaturally 
 aroused by intoxicants and the deranged and depraved 
 inheritance in children, which later prompts a criminal 
 career. These are only a few of the more obvious 
 evils due to the wretched habit. So that, it is probably 
 true that where the “penny dreadful” may cause one 
 crime, the bottles of vodka cause a score. EAudently, 
 the alarm of the “Outlook” over the criminal literature 
 in Russia is a grievous case of straining at a gnat and 
 swallowing a camel! This editorial is significant and 
 alarming, because so typical of the mood of the hour; 
 fighting a lot of secondary consequences and paying 
 no attention whatever to the chief source of misery and 
 crime! 
 
 This “liquor-blindness” is really an appalhng symp- 
 [36] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 tom of the age. One twentieth of the population an- 
 nually arrested in some cities for drunkenness. But 
 this is a fact of no social consequence. Every twentieth 
 child born with a serious handicap, due to parental 
 use of liquor. But this is a fact of no social conse- 
 quence. One young man in every small neighborhood 
 annually turned to a criminal career by the saloon. 
 But this fact is of no social consequence. Every tenth 
 man more or less incapacitated as an industrial agent 
 by whisky. But this is a fact of no social consequence. 
 Three out of every four persons who step across the 
 threshold of the poorhouse driven there by the curse 
 of Drink. But this is a fact of no social consequence. 
 Twice as much money wasted on Drink as spent for 
 all kinds of insurance. But this is a fact of no social 
 consequence. The ravages of disease enlarged and 
 intensified by liquor. But this is a fact of no social 
 consequence. Surely this unfortunate indifference 
 must soon cease. 
 
 We hear today a great deal about tuber- 
 and Drink culosis and its prevention. It is estimated 
 that in 1909 there were nearly 82,000 
 deaths from tuberculosis in the United States. The 
 present war against the White Plague is an exceedingly 
 noble enterprise which will contribute a great deal to 
 human happiness and the progress of mankind. But 
 in this connection let us bear in mind: A very large 
 part of the cases of tuberculosis are due, we are authori- 
 tatively told, directly or indirectly to Drink. It has 
 become a common saying in the medical profession: 
 “The use of alcoholic beverages makes the bed for tuber- 
 culosis.” Alcohol is a cell-poison, especially destructive 
 to the white corpuscles of the blood, the police force 
 of the body, one of whose functions is to kill the invad- 
 ing disease germs. There is no better authority on 
 
 [ 37 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 this point than Prof. Elie Metchnikoff, the successor of 
 Pasteur, who states: “Alcohol lowers the resistance of 
 the white corpuscles which are the natural defenders 
 of the body. Although the phagocytes belong to the 
 most resistant elements of the body, yet it is not safe 
 to count on their insensibility toward poison. . . . 
 
 It is well known that persons who indulge too freely in 
 alcohol show far less resistance to infectious diseases 
 than abstemious individuals.” The New Hygiene, pp. 
 25-27, 1906. 
 
 This close connection between alcohol and tubercu- 
 losis has nowhere been more clearly shown than in 
 France, whose medical authorities have been foremost in 
 taking advanced ground on this subject. Dr. Jacques 
 Bertillon, Chief of the Bureau of Municipal Statutes, 
 Paris, declares: “Alcohol appears to be the most 
 deadly cause of the weakening of the organism in 
 preparation for tuberculosis. It is the master cause. 
 All other causes disappear in comparison.” Recently, 
 the Director of Public Hygiene, Paris, M. Mirman, 
 after an exhaustive study, stated: “There is an exact 
 agreement between the departments where the deaths 
 from tuberculosis are the most numerous, and those in 
 which the most alcohol is drunk.” The late Prof. 
 Paul C. H. Brouardel, M. D., (died 1906), a leading 
 hygienist (Paris), asserted most emphatically at the 
 Tuberculosis Congress, London, 1901: “Alcohol is 
 the most powerful factor in the propagation of tuber- 
 culosis.” At the same Congress, Prof. William Osier, 
 M.D., one of the greatest medical authorities in the 
 world, used this language: “It was formerly thought 
 that alcohol was in some way antagonistic to tubercu- 
 lous disease, but the observations of late years indicate 
 clearly that the reverse is the case, and that drinkers 
 
 [ 38 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 are much more liable to both acute and pulmonary 
 tuberculosis.” A most decisive testimony. 
 
 A few years later, meeting at Paris, this Congress 
 passed the following resolution; “In view of the close 
 connection between alcoholism and tuberculosis, it is 
 important to combat alcoholism as well as tuberculosis.” 
 Prof. S. E. Henschen of Stockholm, in a very elaborate 
 address at the Twelfth International Congress on 
 Alcoholism, London (1909), thus summarized his in- 
 vestigations: “Tuberculosis is the disease of poverty, 
 but alcohol is the mightiest factor in producing pov- 
 erty, especially in the larger towns.” No higher 
 American authority on this point can be cited than Prof. 
 S. Adolphus Knopf, M. D. (New York Post Graduate 
 Medical School), who writes: “That alcoholism is one 
 of the greatest direct and indirect causes that prepare 
 the field for the tubercle bacilli is now generally con- 
 ceded.” Twentieth Century Practice, vol. XX. 1900. 
 An eminent German scientist. Prof. Anton Weichsel- 
 baum. Rector (president) of the University of Vienna, 
 in a notable article, recently published, places this 
 statement at the head of his important conclusions: 
 “That in order to resist tuberculosis successfully, it 
 is absolutely necessary that we energetically oppose 
 the prevailing drinking customs, and in this matter, 
 abstinence is decidedly preferable to mere modera- 
 tion.” 
 
 Recently the people of Sheffield, England, became 
 very much alarmed over the high death rate of its 
 “ grinders,” An inquiry was made by the Home Office, 
 which, after a long and searching investigation, arrived 
 at this conclusion: That the problem of the high mor- 
 tality from tuberculosis was at least fifty per cent, a 
 temperance problem! And there is no end of similar 
 testimonies. 
 
 [ 39 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 But the menace of Drink in connection 
 with tuberculosis is not the only evil to be 
 charged against liquor, even in the realm of disease 
 and death. It is obviously impossible for anyone 
 to make even an approximately accurate estimate 
 of the annual loss of human life in the United 
 States caused by Drink. The problem is too complex 
 for precise statistical calculation. How many thousand 
 surgical patients die chiefly because they have been 
 drinkers, — who can teU.? How many thousand indi- 
 viduals contract disease because weakened by alcohol, — 
 who can tell? How many thousand die from alcohol- 
 ism, alone, — who can tell? Mr. Edward B. Phelps con- 
 cludes (The Mortality of Alcohol, p. 64, 1911) that 
 there are annually 65,897 “deaths in which alcohol 
 may have flgured as a causative or contributory factor.” 
 But this seems to many good authorities an extreme 
 under-statement. 
 
 These deaths, if we accept this low flgure, do not by 
 any means represent the total fatalities due to Drink. 
 There are among us every year some 3,000 homicides, 
 and probably half are chiefly due to liquor. In 1912, 
 there were nearly 20,000 deaths in connection with 
 railroads, steamboats, street cars, automobiles; and 
 Drink probably had something to do with at least one- 
 third of these. Then there are the thousands of deaths 
 due to industrial accidents (U. S. Census Bulletin, 
 No. 83 places the number of deaths by accidents and 
 violence at 57,500 in 1900), and probably in 5,000 cases 
 armually, liquor is the determining factor. These 
 estimates give us an annual harvest of deaths in our 
 country of about 80,000 adults mainly due to Drink. 
 To this number must be added the children who die 
 every year as the result of “alcoholic heredity” (to 
 say nothing of alcoholized environment, a powerfully 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 destructive factor). If we apply the percentages of 
 Professor Laitinen (See Chapter V., p. 99) to the 
 
 300.000 children under five years of age who die an- 
 nually in our land, we have at an inside calculation, the 
 death of 20,000 children largely due to the parental 
 use of liquor. This makes a grand total of over 
 
 100.000 human lives annually destroyed in our nation 
 by Drink. The real facts are probably far in excess 
 of these figures. 
 
 Temperance advocates are often accused 
 Mv™acy^of extreme exaggeration, being condemned 
 Temperance ^s inaccurate in statement and illogical 
 in argument. Such charges do unfortu- 
 nately have some basis in the facts of the case. But 
 any one who reads with care and fairness, both the 
 literature of temperance and the publications of the 
 Liquor Interests, must admit that the large prepon- 
 derance of sins under this head belong to the defenders 
 of the saloons. And when we consider all the circum- 
 stances, it is not strange that there are very many 
 “ temperance fanatics.” We may well marvel that there 
 are not a hundred fold more. In view of the terrible 
 destruction of human life by the Drink Curse; in view 
 of the vicious dominance of the Liquor Interests in 
 the public affairs of our lands it is surprising that a wave 
 of wild fanaticism does not sweep from ocean to ocean ! 
 The situation is sufficiently alarming and menacing 
 to stir a heart of stone to hot protest and heroic 
 action ! 
 
 One element in the present situation which 
 A New tends to stir the man who is not “liquor 
 blind,” to a state of impatience bordering 
 on fanaticism is the fact that even good 
 people in general refuse to recognize the magnitude of 
 the Drink-Evil, as has just been pointed out and in 
 
 [ 41 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 confirmation of which these few illustrative examples, 
 out of scores that might be cited, have been presented. 
 
 A single incident in the news of the day co nfirms this 
 claim. The papers have just been giving (New Years, 
 1914) a catalogue of the benefactions of the year. A 
 remarkable list, amounting to $348,000,000.00. YTiat 
 wonderful generosity! Innumerable institutions blessed 
 with large funds. Almost every possible interest 
 in human life remembered. But no gifts specif- 
 ically for Temperance: no “sinews of war” proxdded to 
 fight the greatest enemy of mankind. The root of so 
 many other evils, but no one provides suflBcient money 
 to destroy it. If destroyed, how reforms would prosper 
 in many directions! 
 
 Will not some millionaire soon come forward and say: 
 “Here is my fortune to fight the foe of every woman 
 and every child, the enemy of every school, church, 
 and home.” We need a new Nobel Prize to be given 
 to those who do valiant service, not simply to promote 
 peace among nations (a noble cause), but to destroy 
 wbat ruins the peace of ten fold more hearts and homes 
 than war ever touches. 
 
 We are not near the end of the matter. 
 Endless when we have pointed out the close rela- 
 tion of Drink to tuberculosis and other 
 diseases. The indictment along economic, 
 social and moral lines is even more serious. The con- 
 sumptive father is a burden upon his family, but he 
 does not cause miseries comparable with those inflicted 
 by the drunkard. A case of typhoid fever may so 
 lessen the resources of a family that children have to be 
 taken out of school and set to work — a misfortune. But 
 how slight this misfortune compared to the handicap 
 of a bad inheritance passed on to the rising generation 
 by the constant drinker, who, however, may never be 
 
 [ 42 ] 
 
 Chain of 
 Evils 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 drunk! At its worst, tuberculosis does not turn its 
 victim into a beast, abusing his family, and committing 
 crimes against society. How small a menace to civi- 
 lization are half a dozen consumptives in a village in 
 comparison to a saloon which is the center of financial 
 waste, social vice, and political corruption! 
 
 In view of these facts, the point to be emphasized is 
 this: How unfortunate that our leaders and teachers 
 are so devoid of any true sense of proportion. They do 
 not see the evils of the world in their real relations. 
 The most important factor in the Human Problem 
 they pass unnoticed. It is well to fight the White 
 Plague, but it is not well to be so indifferent to an im- 
 mensely greater evil, the Drink Curse. 
 
 But there are helpful voices here and there. An 
 English writer has recently pointed out: “A strong col- 
 lective responsibility is being laid on society, by hygienic 
 industrial reformers, for the drinking habits of the people 
 who are the workers. They show us that the Drink 
 Question is inextricably intertwined with all the ques- 
 tions of social waste of human health in labor.” A most 
 significant statement. Here is a statement equally 
 noteworthy, by Col. L. Mervin Mans, Chief Surgeon 
 Eastern Division, U. S. A., from an article in the Medi- 
 calRecord (Feb. 22, 1913): “Temperance has become 
 the most important sociological problem of the age. 
 Apart from its bearing on the health and preserva- 
 tion of the human race, temperance has become a cold- 
 blooded business proposition which is assuming the 
 greatest importance in the commercial world. Profes- 
 sional and business men everywhere are beginning to 
 learn that even the mildest manifestations of the Drink 
 Habit unfit men for the ordinary pursuits of life.” 
 
 The Crown Prince of Sweden used these notable 
 words some four years ago: 
 
 [ 43 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 “The temperance movement is one of the greatest of our time, a 
 movement by which the people will gain self-reliance and self-control. 
 The final aim is nothing else than the most complete possible bbera- 
 tion of our people from the destructive eSects of the use of alcohol. 
 There are, of course, differences of opinion as to the best ways of 
 attaining this end. But that the end can and must be reached is 
 the principal point upon which all are united. In our time the strug- 
 gle for existence goes on among the people with increasing sharpness 
 because general development is progressing with remarkable and 
 increasing swiltness. I do not hesitate to make this assertion: That 
 nation which is the first to free itself from the injurious effects of alcohol 
 will thereby attain a marked advantage over nations in the amiable 
 yet intensive stuggle for existence. I hope that our country will be 
 the one which will first understand and secure this advantage.” 
 
 In this connection, it is well to remember 
 j^jggjy that the present vigorous campaign against 
 the “^Vhite Plague” which has already ac- 
 complished so much, was recently inaugurated, largely 
 through the efforts of Dr. Edward T. Devine, of New 
 York City, a man of very large experience in works for 
 human betterment. On this account, it is all the more 
 surprising that, in a notable book, “Misery and its 
 Causes” (1909), by one so wise and active in philan- 
 thropic endeavor, there should be no adequate treat- 
 ment of the Drink Curse. Nowhere else do we find a 
 more striking illustration of the theme of these pages: 
 the lack of a true appreciation of this gigantic e^’il by 
 our social VTiters and workers. It is not seen in its real 
 relation or true proportion among the other e\’ils of 
 our time. 
 
 The contention of this interesting book is that the 
 causes of human misery lie chiefly in the direction of 
 economic maladministration: industrial inefficiency, social 
 injustice, and unsanitary conditions. Material factors 
 are emphasized and moral elements largely ignored. 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 As is the habit of the times, no attention is given to the 
 human will as an element in the Human Problem. 
 There is in these pages some recognition of Drink, 
 but it is slight and superficial. Its influence as a very 
 large cause of human misery is nowhere adequately 
 accepted or clearly described. 
 
 The diagnosis seems strangely superficial. Indus- 
 trial inefficiency the cause of misery Yes! But how 
 often this inefficiency is due to Drink, either to the 
 intemperance of the individual himself or to some defect 
 in him due to parental drinking. Social injustice the 
 cause of misery? Yes! But where do we find the 
 greatest social injustice? That practiced by fathers 
 upon their families by spending money viciously upon 
 liquors, and so robbing the home of necessities, and also 
 unfitting themselves for better service and larger wages, 
 which means that children must leave school and 
 mothers go out to work. Where so great a “social 
 injustice” as that which the community itself perpe- 
 trates by protecting saloons which corrupt and degrade 
 the whole neighborhood? Unsanitary conditions the 
 causes of misery? Yes! But what crowds the family 
 into the unhealthy tenement? The money spent in the 
 corner saloon would pay the rent of a wholesome 
 cottage. Unsanitary conditions? Yes, indeed! But 
 drinking liquor is the most unsanitary occupation in 
 the world. As has just been pointed out, nothing else 
 does so much to induce disease or increase mortality. 
 
 As I first read “Misery and its Causes,” I said to my- 
 self: Let me appeal to the facts of human misery that 
 lie thick about me in the very community in which 
 I once lived, a community more sober than the average: 
 In the next house, a mother in poverty and shame, be- 
 cause her son drinks (a skillful workman when sober), 
 and his family broken up because of this fact. The 
 
 [ 45 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 boy who blows the organ of a neighboring church, 
 compelled to leave school while his mother goes out 
 washing, because his father is a drunkard, though able, 
 when sober, to earn fifty dollars a week. Not far off, 
 a woman in deepest mourning, because her husband, 
 who was a sot (though a capable business man when 
 sober), committed suicide. Around the corner, a 
 widow bowed in grief, because the son, who ought to 
 support her, spends his money on Drink. Over the hill, 
 a family of little children, neglected, always in rags and 
 often hungry: the father in the saloon at night. In 
 the house of a wealthy family, a dissipated young man 
 who daily brings shame and anxiety to parents and sis- 
 ters! These are not all, but why prolong the sad list? 
 Not a case among them in which “industrial malad- 
 ministration” plays any part: but in every case. Drink 
 was the sole or chief cause of miseries. Nothing but 
 most unfortunate “liquor blindness” can account for 
 the failure of good and wise men to see this Drink Curse 
 in its true proportion. 
 
 Let us appeal again to the facts. Three 
 Record'**^ years ago last Christmas (1910), a record 
 was kept, by the Alliance News, of the rav- 
 ages of Drink in Great Britain for two weeks as reported 
 in the public press. As we take this glimpse into the 
 abyss, let us remember that this is only a very small 
 part of the story; the days of labor lost, the accidents 
 caused, the diseases induced, the homes left in cold and 
 hunger, the children prevented from attending school, 
 the loss and inconvenience of employers, the shame and 
 sorrow of wife and mother, these this record does not 
 report. 
 
 The following is the summary of the number of cases, 
 classified for convenience of reference. 
 
 [ 46 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 I. Deaths: Cases 
 
 (a) Murder and Manslaughter Charges 6 
 
 (b) Suicides 16 
 
 (c) Misadventure 38 
 
 (d) Excessive Drinking 27 
 
 (e) Children 5 
 
 II. Attempted Suicides 28 
 
 III. Assaults and Woundings: 
 
 (a) Upon Wives 42 
 
 (b) Upon Police 88 
 
 (c) In Licensed Premises 42 
 
 (d) General. . 110 
 
 IV. Children: 
 
 (a) Cruelty 14 
 
 (b) Drunk in Charge of a Child 14 
 
 (c) Juvenile Intoxication 12 
 
 V. Desertion 20 
 
 VI. Offences against Property: 
 
 (a) Theft: 
 
 (1) In Licensed Houses 16 
 
 (2) Other Cases 63 
 
 (b) Damage: 
 
 (1) In Licensed Houses 15 
 
 (2) Other Cases 23 
 
 VII. Drunk in Charge of Vehicles: 
 
 (a) Motors 10 
 
 (b) Carriages and Carts 38 
 
 VIII. Drunkenness: 
 
 (a) On Licensed Premises 26 
 
 (b) General 1,575 
 
 Total 2,228 
 
 [47] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 All this for one fortnight! Some 60,000 cases a year 
 chiefly due to Drink, as reported in the newspapers — 
 obviously many cases not reported at all, while many 
 others really due to liquor very naturally were not so 
 described. And yet, the vast flood of human miserjq 
 issuing from beer keg and whisky bottle, is apparently 
 mseen by very many of our reform leaders I 
 
 Nowhere is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter, here discussed, better set forth than 
 by the President of the Illinois State Board 
 of Health, Dr. George W. Webster, at the end of an 
 exhaustive survey of the “Alcohol Problem” in these 
 words (U. S. Senate Document, No. 48, 1909) : 
 
 “The alcohol problem is more important than the tuberculosis 
 problem as (1) it costs more lives and more money; (2) it costs the 
 United States over $2,000,000,000 annually; (3) it probably causes, 
 directly and indirectly, at least 10 per cent of all deaths in the United 
 States; (4) it predisposes to infection, destroys acquired imm unity, 
 prevents the occurrence of artifical immunity, at least in rabies, 
 lessens resistance, leads to an increased mortality in all infectious 
 diseases and after surgical operations; (5) it lessens the power of the 
 individual to resist the injurious influences of extreme heat and cold; 
 (6) it causes a deterioration of the quality of mental work; (7) it 
 diminishes the power to withstand fatigue and lessens the general 
 efliciency of the individual; (8) it is a poison and should be classed as 
 such, instead of as a food or stimulant; (9) when the physicians take 
 hold of the question in the same spirit as they have shown concerning 
 yellow fever, malaria, and small pox, instead of treating it as a moral 
 question and leaving it to clergymen, temperance workers, and en- 
 thusiastic reformers, we may expect better results; (10) more may be 
 accomplished by teaching the people the truth in regard to the fatal 
 effects of alcohol upon mental and physical efficiency than by expa- 
 tiating on the moral wickedness of drinking.” 
 
 A long list of doctors and publicists, more especially 
 in European countries, begin to see the Drink Curse in 
 
 [ 48 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 its true proportions. Sir Thomas Barlow, M.D., of 
 London, who stands at the head of the medical pro- 
 fession in Great Britain (presiding over the International 
 Medical Congress, London, while these words are being 
 written, Aug., 1913) declares: “Intemperance is one 
 of our greatest national crimes, and the greatest hind- 
 rance to our national efficiency.” Sir Robert Stout, 
 Chief Justice of New Zealand, in a recent article in the 
 “National Review,” dwells forcibly on the same point: 
 “In my opinion, no lover of his race or empire can shut 
 his eyes to the terrible evils of alcoholic drinking. It 
 is a more real danger thanthe dr eadnaughts of Germany.” 
 A very sane and careful writer on this subject, Mr. 
 John Newton, in an admirable little book, has stated 
 the matter fairly, after alluding to it as a neglected 
 chapter in political economy: “Political economists 
 and social scientists have paid insufficient attention 
 to the economic, industrial, and social effects of our 
 enormous expenditure on intoxicating liquors.” Our 
 National Drink Bill, 1909. 
 
 And to justify this statement, Mr. Newton calls 
 attention to a few startling facts, as illustrated by his 
 own country. Two months’ Drink Bill of the British 
 Isles would pay for the army, one week’s Drink Bill 
 would pay for the navy; one eighth of the Drink Bill 
 would pay for the public education; and one twelfth 
 of the Drink Bill would maintain all its highways, 
 bridges and ferries! But thousands of respectable and 
 intelligent people do not seem to care anything about 
 the matter. They maintain a truly pagan indifference 
 to this main cause, not only of industrial inefficiency, 
 but of human misery in general. 
 
 . The situation with us in America is slmi- 
 
 indifference instance: Today, press, pulpit, 
 
 and platform are constantly full of pleas in 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 behalf of the conservation of our natural resources. 
 Surely a good cause. But is not a boy worth more 
 than a tree.^ Why so eager to protect forests from fire 
 and axe, but doing so little to protect the boys from 
 the ravages of the saloons.? A hundredth part of what 
 is worse than wasted on Drink would protect all our 
 woodlands from insects and fires! Bare hills are not 
 so great a menace to civilization as ruined homes and 
 over-flowing jails. Protect the mines? Yes! But 
 what is all the iron and coal, silver and gold, worth in 
 comparison to the health, happiness and manhood of 
 the nation, all of which are menaced and lessened by the 
 use of liquor. Every man and woman ought to pro- 
 test vigorously against the present general tendency 
 to ignore or behttle the Drink Curse. 
 
 But why this indifference to the appall- 
 
 Indifference • -w-x • i /~^ i • i_ 
 
 Wiu Vanish Unnk Curser Certain reasons are ob- 
 
 vious, among them these: (1) The evil is 
 of such long standing and general familiarity, that it 
 has dulled the sensibilities of the public respecting it. 
 (2) The occasional indulgence in liquor by many good 
 people blinds them to the magnitude of the evil. (3) 
 Vested interests play an important part. In Great 
 Britain, and other countries, many noblemen and even 
 clergymen, are stockholders in Breweries and Distill- 
 eries. In America, growers of grain, owners of proper- 
 ties rented for saloons, employers of the Liquor Inter- 
 ests, newspapers which receive large sums for liquor 
 advertisements, politicians who use these interests for 
 partisan purposes, — all these are blinded by self-interest. 
 (4) Many others keep silent because they fear the 
 condemnation of public opinion. They do not wish 
 to be set down as temperance cranks and fanatics. At 
 this point, we may well refer to the plea made to his 
 fellow doctors by Sir Thomas Barlow, M. D., (to whom 
 
 [ 50 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 reference has just been made) : “Now, I do beg of you 
 to use your influence with anybody who has come to 
 the conclusion that he can do better without intoxi- 
 cants, as I have for a good many years past, and implore 
 them to have the courage to say so, whatever the con- 
 sequences may be.” London Address. 1913. 
 
 There are, however, two reasons more prominent 
 than these. I. The ancient superstition that alcohol 
 is a life-giver still holds the multitude in thrall. People 
 are still in bonds to this destructive error. And so long 
 as the public thinks of liquor as, on the whole, not only 
 an innocent but a helpful beverage, the evils of drunken- 
 ness will be tolerated. Emancipation can come only 
 as the pagan superstition is destroyed, root and branch. 
 A most vigorous campaign of wide and varied education 
 is needed to make people see and feel that liquor is a 
 life-destroyer, which always deceives, so that moderate 
 drinking is harmful. Much is being done in this 
 direction but still more ought to be done. 
 
 II. Drunkenness has long been accepted as an inevi- 
 table evil, due to an inherent appetite, which can be 
 curbed but not destroyed. The Drink Curse has been 
 viewed very much as our ancestors regarded consump- 
 tion: a mysterious visitation of providence. Such a 
 view of any human evil necessarily precludes all efforts, 
 not only toward cure but also prevention. We realize 
 to-day that appetite does not play a very important 
 part in the matter. Also, we come to see that this evil 
 is no more inevitable than consumption. When the 
 public mind is educated and aroused respecting Drink, 
 as it now is respecting tuberculosis, the curse can be 
 stamped out as this disease is being controlled at pres- 
 ent. Science is as clear in its teachings about alcohol 
 as it is in reference to the White Plague. When, there- 
 fore, we see this evil in its real nature and true propor- 
 
 [ 51 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 tion, a decisive victory will soon follow. To this end 
 we need widespread and energetic agitation. 
 
 The greatest problem which confronts civilization 
 today is the Drink Curse, which is the most serious ob- 
 stacle that stands in the way of the Christian Churches, 
 and to destroy this gigantic evil will require a more 
 heroic exercise of Christian faith than that which over- 
 threw the pagan altars of the ancient world. And in 
 this connection we find encouragement. In Julian’s 
 time (about A. D. 361) the pagan enemies of Christian- 
 ity were apparently victorious. But the spectacular 
 exhibitions were only the masks of death. So too, the 
 Liquor Interests seem invincible today to many people 
 without vision; but the doom of the saloon has struck: 
 and by the light of truth, and by the help of God’s 
 grace, the deliverance of humanity from the Drink 
 Superstition shall, ere long, be achieved. 
 
 No more hopeful sign of this coming deliverance has 
 recently appeared than the editorial in the National 
 Liquor Dealers’ Journal (Sept. 10, 1913). After re- 
 ferring to the recent progress of Prohibition, the edi- 
 torial continues : 
 
 “To us there is, The handwriting on the wall, and its interpretation 
 spells doom. For this the liquor business is to blame, it seems in- 
 capable of learning any lesson of advancement or any motive but profit. 
 To perpetuate itself, it has formed aUiances with the slums that repel 
 all conscientious and patriotic citizens. It deliberately aids the most 
 corrupt political powers and backs with all of its resources the most 
 unworthy men, the most corrupt and recreant officials. It does not 
 aid the purification of municipal, state, or national administrations. 
 , . . There are billions of property involved, and an industry of 
 great employing and taxpaying ability; but when the people decide 
 that the truth is being told about the alcoholic liquor trade, the money 
 value will not count, for conscience aroused puts the value of a man 
 above all other things.” 
 
 [ 52 ] 
 
A QUESTION OF PROPORTION 
 
 It is surely only a question of a very few years, when 
 this problem will be generally seen in its true propor- 
 tions; and when men shall come to realize its vast 
 magnitude and its many evil influences upon human 
 life, then its hour of doom will have struck. It is hope- 
 fully significant to learn from such an editorial that far- 
 sighted liquor men themselves begin to appreciate this 
 fact. 
 
“The solution of the alcohol question is urgent; It allows less of 
 postponement than the solution of all other questions. An unjust 
 distribution of property can afterwards be readjusted, but when the 
 whole nation is impregnated with hereditary suffering, an endless 
 amount of evil and misery is produced which can never afterwards 
 be remedied. The solution of all other questions will be greatly 
 promoted by the solution of the alcohol question.” Prof. Gustav 
 von Bunge, M. D., University of Basel, 1893. 
 
 “ The reasons why I have no use for alcoholic beverages on sea or 
 on shore are so numerous that it would be impossible to detail them 
 all. My standpoint is simply that liquor is unnecessary and bad. 
 It is a help only to thieves and robbers. ... I have seen men 
 robbed in many ways, but they have been able by the help of God to 
 wipe out any lasting results of such transient losses. But the rob- 
 beries of alcohol are irremediable.” Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell. The 
 Apostle to Labrador, 1907. 
 
 “ I know very well that the pleasure of drinking is an old heritage 
 of the Germans, but we must, by self-discipline, deliver ourselves from 
 that evil. I can assure you that in the course of my reign of twenty- 
 two years, I have observed from experience that the greater part of 
 the crimes which have been appealed to me for decision ought to be 
 reported as the results of the alcohol e%'il.” Emperor William of 
 Germany, Address to Naval Cadets, Nov. 21, 1910. 
 
 “A great weight of evidence indicates Drink as the most potent 
 and universal factor in bringing about pauperism.” Report of the 
 Royal Commission on the Poor Law (England), p. 221, 1909. 
 
 “A calm and critical commission reported 5,000 hungry and 10,000 
 underfed children attending the public schools of Chicago. And the 
 major causes of this suffering were traceable to the seductions of the 
 nasty, unwholesome, unsocial saloons. ... It was easily 
 demonstrated that a painful number of these children were hungry 
 because their bread-money had been converted into beer-money. The 
 brewers and distillers of Chicago had deposited in the banks the money 
 that should have nourished the pale, pathetic school children.” 
 Jenkin Lloyd Jones. “ On the Firing Line in the Battle for Sobrie y.” 
 1910. 
 
 “A large proportion of men and a still larger proportion of women 
 owe their initial debauch to the influence of alcohol. Perhaps more 
 than any other agency, alcohol relaxes the morals while it stimulates 
 the sexual impulse.” Social Diseases and Marriage (1904), p. 355. 
 By Dr. Prince A. Morrow. Bellevue Hospital M^ical College. 
 
 [ 54 ] 
 
'opyriKhl ioi<), liy Sciciitilic I'ciiipcranci’ l''r<lriation, Mass 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 The wrecks and derelicts of human society are a 
 vast number, and they represent an appalling mass of 
 vice and misery. We can only make an approximately 
 accurate estimate of the number of defectives, depend- 
 ents, and delinquents in the United States. Those in 
 institutions can be easily computed. The records teU 
 us the numbers arrested for various offences but not 
 sent to institutions: many pay fines and many are not 
 convicted though a large proportion of these are prob- 
 ably guilty. But there are many practically insane 
 or feeble minded who never come into any census report, 
 state or national. Great numbers are partially relieved 
 of the sufferings due to poverty by private charity and 
 so go uncoimted. There is a great deal of crime which 
 never comes into any report, because arrests are never 
 made. Statistics of crime are notoriously unsatis- 
 factoi^, because the enforcement of laws varies radi- 
 cally, as we go from one community to another. Again, 
 for every arrest for drunkenness there are many cases 
 that necessarily pass unnoticed by the police. So that, 
 however careful the calculation, it is impossible to 
 exclude all duplication. Nevertheless, the census 
 totals are obviously far below the real facts, taking all 
 these classes together. 
 
 The following statements present these matters 
 with approximate accuracy for the year 1910; 
 
 [55] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 I. Convicts in 2,823 Institutions, Jan. 1 112,881 
 
 Committed in 1909 479,256 
 
 All offences from vagrancy to murder. 
 
 II. Insane in 372 Institutions 187,454 
 
 III. Children in 1,152 Orphanages and Homes 107,401 
 
 IV. Adults and Children in 1,442 Homes 121,876 
 
 Received during 1909 788,691 
 
 V. Juvenile Delinquents in 1,337 Institutions 23,034 
 
 VI. Feeble-minded in Institutions 20,751 
 
 If same proportion in the Nation as in Massachu- 
 setts (See Menace of the Feeble-minded in 
 Mass., 1913, p. 4), the total number would be 300,000 
 VH. Arrests for Drunkenness: Massachusetts (1913) . . . 100,000 
 
 At same rate for the Nation 3,000,000 
 
 As police policies are so different, such ar- 
 rests greatly vary in different cities. The 
 re-arrests are not nearly as numerous as the 
 
 “Drunks” who escape arrest. 
 
 VIII. Paupers in 2,412 Institutions 84,266 
 
 A vast army receive outdoor relief. In 
 Massachusetts (1912): 52,537 
 
 At same rate for the Nation 1,500,000 
 
 Nearly 10,000 Institutions including jails! 
 
 Over 6,000,000 Individuals! 
 
 A careful writer in the New York Sun, a few years 
 ago, made the following calculation respecting the 
 Charities of the State of New York: Yalue of chari- 
 table properties, $103,000,000.00; annual cost of main- 
 tenance, $23,000,000.00; the number of persons helped, 
 75,000 in institutions; outdoor rehef given to 758,000 
 persons. If we multiply these figures by ten, we shall 
 have some idea of the burden of poverty upon our 
 nation. 
 
 To assert that the facts here presented 
 AppaUing^° make an appalling situation is obviously to 
 indulge in mild language. Just the mere 
 
 [ 56 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 aggregate in numbers, this vast mass of human wieked- 
 ness and wretchedness, is a sad spectacle. Put them 
 in single file and they would reach 2,000 miles ! Stand 
 them together, allowing a square yard for every indi- 
 vidual, and they would cover a territory of over a 
 thousand acres! The drain upon the resources of the 
 race due to them is immense: Millions of dollars for 
 the support of these institutions above what inmates 
 earn; millions of days’ labor lost every week, so that, 
 instead of adding to the resources of the world, they 
 both burden society and also subtract from its life 
 forces; thousands of officials and care-takers constantly 
 taken from the world’s work in order to protect society 
 from them or attend to their wants; rivers of tears and 
 innumerable heartaches spread through millions of 
 homes by these abnormal individuals. 
 
 Careless persons often “point with pride,” to our 
 cnaritable, penal, and reformatory institutions, as 
 evidence of our high civilization. But at best they 
 are only necessary evils. They represent, not so much 
 the success, as the failure of civilization. To boast 
 of them is like the general of an army boasting that 
 one fifth of his soldiers are in the hospital! So long 
 as these classes exist, we must have such institutions, 
 and their wise and humane management is a distinct 
 credit to church and state. But the supreme task is, 
 not to care kindly for these abnormal classes, but to 
 diminish their number and prevent their production 
 as far as possibleTI Here is the problem of preventive 
 philanthropy: To abolish the causes which produce 
 dependents, defectives, and delinquents. It is just 
 here that the importance of the Drink Curse comes into 
 view. To lessen the use of liquors is the greatest 
 agency in preventive philanthropy. The relation of 
 the Drink Habit to insanity, juvenile delinquency, 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 and feeble-mindedness is very close, but the discussion 
 will here be limited, practically to Crime and Poverty. 
 
 2!here are criminals who seldom or never 
 drink. And when they do drink it is 
 largely to brace themselves for the criminal 
 action. In such cases liquor has little responsibility 
 for the evil done. It is common for convicts to claim 
 that Drink caused their downfall, when such was not 
 the chief cause, as stated, this plea being made to gain 
 sympathy. 
 
 But when all these facts are admitted and all due 
 allowance is made for them, it nevertheless remains 
 true that a very large majority of criminals are such, 
 primarily, owing to the Drink Habit, either in them- 
 selves or their parents. The totally-abstinent criminal 
 is very rare, usually a man of considerable intelligence, 
 who, as a rule, commits offences against property. 
 And even the cold-blooded, temperate criminal, is, 
 in many cases, where he is, because of the bad inheri- 
 tance in environment or nature, largely due to parental 
 drinking. When liquor is used to brace for criminal 
 action, intemperance is probably the backlying, if 
 obscure, cause in a great many cases. The appeals 
 of convicts for sympathy, — “I did not do it but the 
 whisky in me,” — are usually true to some extent, if 
 not exactly as stated. They would not have been 
 angels without the liquor, but the liquor did give 
 mastery to the devil in them. 
 
 In no other state has the relation of Drink to Crime 
 been more carefully studied than in Massachusetts. 
 The summary made in House Document, No. 1390, 
 “Drunkenness in Massachusetts,” 1910, is a very 
 careful piece of work. The following paragraph is 
 interesting and impressive; 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 “In the State of Massachusetts in 1908 there were 86,365 arrests 
 for a single ofiFence, drunkenness, which was 60 per cent, of the total 
 number of arrests made in the state [some 60,000 arrests for drunken- 
 ness in Boston in 1913!]. Sentence was pronounced on 33,453 for 
 the same offence, which was 51 per cent, of all sentences. In the 
 same year 20,779 imprisonments were made within the state for 
 drunkenness, which was 65 per cent, of all imprisonments. But the 
 problem of drunkenness extends beyond the arrests and imprison- 
 ments on that particular charge, for on one hand hundreds of drunk- 
 ards are never arrested, while on the other hand a large majority of 
 prisoners sentenced on other charges — murder, theft, vagrancy and 
 crimes against sex — are intemperate. The Board of Prison Com- 
 missioners of Massachusetts publish the statement that 30,281, or 
 94 per cent., of the 32,077 cases impdsoned for all crimes in 1908 are 
 intemperate by habit. At the State Prison, where the worst criminals 
 of the state were sent, out of 191 prisoners committed during the 
 year, 85, or 44 per cent., were recorded as intemperate; at the Massa- 
 chusetts Reformatory for men, 30 per cent.; at the Reformatory 
 Prison for women, 57 per cent.; at the State Farm, 100 per cent.; 
 and in all jails and houses of correction in the state, 96 per cent. 
 Thus the major part of the clientele of our whole prison system con- 
 sists of men and women either committed for drunkenness or for 
 crimes to which intemperance may have been contributory. The 
 problem of drunkenness is thus urgent to citizen and tax payer.” p. 8. 
 
 In this connection also, a few words from the same 
 Report on the cost of drunkenness to the state are 
 worthy of our attention. 
 
 “The cost of drunkenness to the Commonwealth is to be estimated, 
 not merely in terms of money paid by tax payers for the arrest and 
 reincarceration of inebriates [$1,400,000.00 were so spent by the state 
 (1907-1908) on prisoners, 94 per cent, of whom were recorded as 
 intemperate in habit] ; it is to be estimated also in terms of the economic 
 loss to the community, when several thousand able-bodied men, at 
 the very age when their productive power is greatest, lose days and 
 weeks of work through uncured drunkenness and through unem- 
 ployment caused by prison sentence. Intermittent and varied sen- 
 tences force even the capable out of the habit of productive labor. 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Further, the inebriate while at large and uncured often endangers 
 life and property, endangers public morality through crime against 
 sex, and perhaps leaves to future generations the heritage of aban- 
 doned or degenerate offspring.” p. 21. 
 
 The annual meeting of the League of the Rights of 
 Man was held in May, 1912, at HatTe, France. A 
 notable paper was read by Dr. Sicard de Plauzoles on 
 “ Legislative Remedies against Alcoholism,” — the term 
 alcoholism being used in France to describe all the 
 evils due to alcoholic drinks. Dr. Plauzoles presented 
 the following facts in reference to certain crimes: “Of 
 every 100 French murderers, 52 were intemperate; of 
 every 100 incendiaries, 59 were intemperate; of every 
 100 vagabonds, 70 were intemperate; of everj"^ 100 
 assaults to commit bodily harm, 90 were committed by 
 intemperate persons; of every 100 acts of violence 
 against the person, 88 were committed while the offender 
 was actually drunk.” 
 
 Probably the most weighty recent testimony at this 
 point was given by Lord Loreburn, then (1910) Lord 
 Chancellor of England, in an address at Westminster. 
 He said (Drink and Social Reform, p. 7) : 
 
 “In my hearing in the House of Lords about a year ago or more. 
 Lord Gorell, a distinguished President of the Probate and Divorce 
 Division, said: ‘You might, if it were not for drink, almost shut 
 up the doors of the divorce court.’ Here is what the Lord Chief 
 Justice of England (Lord Alverstone) said last year; ‘After forty 
 years’ experience at the bar and ten years as a judge, I know as a 
 fact that 90 per cent, of the crime of this country depends upon 
 intemperance.’ That was last year. Then I wrote this month to a 
 friend of mine, one of His Majesty’s judges, Mr. Justice Darling, an 
 experienced judge in the criminal court, and I asked him if he would 
 tell me what he thought about it and if he would give me leave to 
 quote him. He wrote back this: ‘You may say this from me — that 
 of the crimes of violence, including especially offences agednst women 
 
 [ 60 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 and children, almost all of them, so far as they come before me, are 
 directly the result of excessive drinking. Beyond this, a large pro- 
 portion of the crimes in dishonesty are due to the same cause, but are 
 not so immediately connected with it.’ Is it not an extraordinary 
 thing that when these facts are not disputed — and they are not dis- 
 puted — and when there is a philanthropic spirit throughout the land, 
 a sense of the necessity for ameliorating the physical, moral, and 
 mental condition of our countrymen and countrywomen, is it not 
 extraordinary that in those conditions we should have the difficulty 
 that we have in passing the smallest reform connected with the licens- 
 ing system? ” 
 
 Hon. William N. Gemmill, judge of the Court of 
 Domestic Relations, Chicago (having jurisdiction of 
 divorces), recently stated that 46 per cent, of the 5,232 
 cases coming before him during the year were clearly 
 due to “excessive drinking,” — while in a great number 
 of other cases it must have been a contributing cause. 
 Chicago Examiner, Aug. 11, 1913. With such state- 
 ments before us it is certainly not necessary to present 
 further evidence. 
 
 [The problem of poverty is very complex. 
 It has many roots and many phases. The 
 relation of Drink to poverty is a much 
 larger subject then the relation of drink to pauperism. 
 For every pauper made by Drink there are a dozen 
 burdened by it with extreme want. But there are 
 many deserving poor who are destitute from no fault 
 of their own, their condition being due to disease, to 
 accident, to the wrong doing of others. If not abste- 
 mious themselves, the real cause is in no sense due to 
 liquor. 
 
 However, there are many cases of poverty appar- 
 ently due to old age, disease, indolence, or incompetence 
 where the ultimate cause has been the Drink Habit in 
 themselves or their ancestry. If we look below the 
 
 [ 61 ] 
 
 Drink and 
 Poverty 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 surface or go far enough back, we find the beer mug or 
 the whisky bottle. Born with a tired feeling and 
 therefore lazy, because the father was a toper. “ Poor 
 judgment” and therefore always in want; the entail of 
 ancestral dissipation. “General inefficiency” is often 
 only another name for the degeneracy of life due to 
 parental indulgence. The racial defect is e\’ident 
 where the connection with the use of liquor is obscure, 
 but it is there as a serious handicap. The disease 
 which frequently does not seem to have any relation 
 to liquor, is, after all, frequently directly or indirectly, 
 the result of intemperance somewhere. 
 
 It is obvious that there is a very real and close con- 
 nection between destitution and the use of liquor. 
 The leading authorities have placed the percentage of 
 pauperism directly due to intemperance from 40 to 75. 
 To this must be added the indirect influence in pro- 
 ducing want among the poor in general. As a com- 
 petent English authority, Mr. John Newton, has 
 recently stated: “It would require an absolute shut- 
 ting of the eyes to our daily experience to say that 
 drunkenness is not a powerful, constant, widespread, 
 and deciding factor in the production of an enormous 
 amount of poverty and pauperism. And of much 
 drinking which falls short of drunkenness that finds 
 its records in police statistics, the same may be saidj^ 
 Our National Drink Bill (1909), p. 22. 
 
 The recent investigation of London poorhouses 
 presented these facts: 1,433 cases were investigated, 
 867 being men (387 skilled and 480 unskilled) and 566 
 women. Of the 387 skilled men, 300 showed evidence 
 of drink, 93 being complete drunkards. Of the 480 
 unskilled men, 318 showed evidence of drink, 72 being 
 drunkards; 293 of the 566 women showed evidence of 
 drink, of whom 80 were drunkards. The following is 
 
 [ 62 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 the summary of the replies from 445 parishes in the 
 diocese of Peterborough, England: “The chief moral 
 cause of poverty in town and country alike is said to be 
 excessive drinking, want of thrift, and bad management, 
 often early and improvident marriages, or gambling 
 accompanied by drink. In fact, in many parishes 
 the reply on this point is practically that what little 
 poverty exists is almost solely due to the drinking 
 habits of the few whose families suffer in consequence. 
 Even when there is little actual drunkenness the pro- 
 portion of weekly wages regularly taken to the public- 
 house is said to keep many families always poor. ” 
 
 The subject has not been as widely or as carefully 
 studied in America as in England, but so far as we 
 have gone the conclusions reached are similar. Prof. 
 Henry W. Farnum of Yale University, working for 
 three years at the head of a select group of assistants, 
 under the direction of the Committee of Fifty, came to 
 the conclusion (Economic Aspects of the Liquor Prob- 
 lem, p.28, 1899), that 37 per cent, of the poverty found in 
 almshouses was due to Drink and 45 per cent, of the 
 cases of destitute children found in certain institutions. 
 The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics (Report for 
 1895) placed the figure at 48 per cent., and both these 
 estimates are generally considered too low. That is to 
 say, the statistics used necessarily present only the 
 more obvious results of Drink in the production, not 
 so much of poverty in general, as the pauperism with 
 which the state has to deal. 
 
 Investigations in some German cities present about the 
 same results. The percentages, however vary greatly, 
 obviously due somewhat to the different conditions in 
 different localities, but probably more to the different 
 methods of those studying the subject. Halle charges 
 one-third of the cost of poverty to Drink, Hamburg over 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 half, Geneva as much as nine-tenths. A majority of 
 German cities place the amount about half way be- 
 tween these extremes. 
 
 In the same line is the following conclusion, taken 
 from the report of an important committee presented 
 at the meeting of the American Medical Association 
 in 1912: After calling attention to the appalling 
 increase (330 per cent.) of the insane and feeble-minded 
 in the United States in the past fifty years, the com- 
 mittee asserts: “Practically all of the latter increase 
 [the feeble-minded who contribute so much to pauper- 
 ism] is due to the chronic and excessive use of alcohol 
 in one form and another and to narcotics. ” No stronger 
 testimony could be found to prove that Drink is the 
 chief cause of poverty. 
 
 Some celebrated authorities on Social 
 Poverty: Science hold that shiftlessness, sensuality. 
 
 Cause or . . , . , , . , , 
 
 Effect? criminality, and intemperance are phases 
 or outcroppings of the same fundamental 
 or back-lying degeneracy; so that it is erroneous to 
 single out Drink as the prime cause which produces 
 the others. The contention is that, instead of being 
 the “big devil,” pushing men into pauperism, lust, and 
 crime. Drink is simply an associate evil along with 
 these other evils, all being products of a common 
 depravity. The relation is concomitant, not causal. 
 This was practically the \’iew held by Dugdale in his 
 remarkable little book. The Jukes (1877), p. 39. 
 
 The problem is, indeed, complex and the interrela- 
 tions are often so intricate that it is difficult to decide 
 which is cause and which is effect or whether all are 
 related consequences. Sometimes it looks as though 
 a man drinks, because he is lazy, or sensual, or criminal. 
 Again, it is clear that a man is indolent, commits crime, 
 and gives himself to lust solely because he drinks 
 
 [64] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 liquor. The more careful researches of recent years, 
 however, throw much light upon this subject, and, on 
 the whole the facts tend to center responsibility largely 
 upon Drink: 
 
 While a man may today seem to drink because 
 sensual or criminal, nevertheless if we go to his ancestry 
 we soon find that it was the use of liquor which imposed 
 a degenerate inheritance upon him. So that, in reality, 
 the indictment against alcohol stands. Associated 
 Charity workers usually report a smaller percentage of 
 cases due to Drink, than many other authorities, 
 because they look chiefiy at the obvious causes of want. 
 But back of the apparent cause often lies the influence 
 of the saloon, j 
 
 (2) ^The fact that alcohol inhibits or paralyzes the 
 higher faculties and functions, leaving the animal 
 impulses inflamed and unchecked, clearly shows that 
 it is the real cause in a majority of cases of sensuality 
 and criminality. We do not have to take the victim’s 
 word for it: the truth is obvious. The direct psy- 
 chological and physiological effect of Drink is to prepare 
 the way for vice and crime^j 
 
 (3) Ijhe institution in which drinking is carried on, 
 the saloon, is mightily productive of all other evils. 
 Degeneracy is here institutionalized. Here center 
 the waste of wages, the low associations, the animal 
 impulses, the injury to efficiency, the menace to health, 
 which combine to produce pauperism, vice and crime. 
 If it were not for Drink, there would be no such inju- 
 rious institution as the saloon. 
 
 (4) Where it may not actually cause. Drink does 
 aggravate and intensify many other evils. It may not 
 directly give a man pneumonia, but having it, his 
 Drink Habit makes him sicker and prevents his recov- 
 ery. It may not be wholly responsible for a man’s 
 
 [65] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 poverty, but it makes it impossible for him to shake off 
 ruinous want. A sober man may commit a crime and 
 only brace himself with liquor to do it, but thousands 
 commit crimes simply because intoxicated 
 The problem of human want is evidently complex, as 
 has been stated, but the claim recently made by some 
 writers, that intemperance is largely due to poverty, is, 
 in the main, not only erroneous, but exceedingly harm- 
 ful to the cause of temperance, and also detrimental 
 to the best interests of mankind. These students of 
 social conditions have made a diagnosis that is not 
 only superficial, but injurious. They assert that most 
 people drink chiefly because they are poor: they are 
 not poor simply because they drink. They point to 
 the human wrecks in the saloon, and tell us that these 
 persons are there to drown their miseries in the cup. 
 They also tell us that the family in wretched hovel or 
 squalid tenement is in distress, not primarily through 
 intemperance, but because the parents have been 
 driven to liquor by their poverty. 
 
 These writers have mistaken the late 
 and incidental condition of these lives for 
 the real cause, which hes farther back and 
 is radically different. It is, indeed, often true that 
 later on in life people resort to Drink to drown their 
 misery: at this late stage they do drink because poor. 
 But this is not the whole story, nor is it the important 
 part of the story. When we go back to early life, when 
 we touch the formative period and the determining 
 factor, we find that the young man did not begin to 
 drink because poor. He first drank because it was the 
 custom, because he enjoyed the companionship and 
 the exhilaration, — perhaps to gratify an appetite, 
 though this probably plays a smaller part than is 
 generally supposed. Probably ninety-nine in every 
 
 [ 66 ] 
 
 A Common 
 Mistake 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 hundred of those who become drunkards start the 
 habit without any reference whatever to financial 
 conditions. It is only late in life, when want has over- 
 taken them, that they drink because they are poor. 
 
 The appeal to life at this point is decisive. If any 
 one will visit the places where young men congregate 
 to drink liquor, he will realize at once the obvious fact 
 that practically none of these persons are there because 
 poor. They are not even there simply because drinking 
 is the cheapest form of amusement. The time will 
 come when some of them will continue to drink because 
 in want; but even in such cases the poverty is only the 
 incidental factor, and at this stage more the result 
 than the real cause. A person with wide acquaint- 
 ance among the poor and intemperate would have to 
 search a long time to find an individual who began to 
 drink solely because destitute. There are such, but 
 they are very rare. On the other hand, those who 
 are poor, because they drink, crowd upon us at every 
 corner. Again, let any one investigate the history of 
 the score of drunkards whom he may know. Prob- 
 ably not in a single case did poverty have anything to 
 do with the beginning of the habit. Still, again, how 
 many cases have any of us known where loss of fortune 
 has driven men to intemperance? Very few, indeed. 
 But we do know very many instances where too much 
 money has made young men drunkards, who, long 
 afterward, probably drank because poor, although 
 their poverty really came as a direct result of using 
 liquor. 
 
 A distinguished physician who for forty years has 
 studied several thousands of cases of inebriety, one of 
 the pioneers in the treatment of inebriety as a disease, 
 informs me that superficial observation has led to the 
 view here controverted. The fact is, according to his 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 wide experience, that the social “derelict,” who appar- 
 ently drinks because poor, and of whom it is commonly 
 said that he began to drink when he lost his position 
 or property, is, as a rule, one who has been secretly 
 drinking for a long time. He had been a quiet tippler 
 for years, concealing the fact from his friends, perhaps 
 even from his family. What misfortune did was not 
 so much to drive him to drink as to cause him to drop 
 the mask and indulge openly and more frequently. In 
 the time of discouragement the man became an open 
 drinker, but he began the habit long before. And 
 those secret indulgences were largely the real cause of 
 his downfall. It is the opinion of this eminent doctor 
 that men of life-long sobriety seldom resort to Drink 
 when misfortune overtakes them. 
 
 Those social scientists, whose views on this subject 
 are here opposed, stop short with the wreckage late 
 in life, but they fail to go back to the real cause: their 
 diagnosis is false and harmful. The drunken parents 
 do today send out for liquor to drown the woes of 
 poverty. Speaking superficially, you may say that 
 they drink because they are poor. But, when we go 
 into the life history and look back far enough and 
 penetrate deep enough, what we really fihid is this: 
 Originally it was not po's^erty that led them to the 
 Drink Habit, but it was long-continued intemperance 
 that has brought them to this sad conditon. The score 
 of workmen lining the bar of the obscure saloon are 
 not there because poor, not because they have no other 
 enjoyments in life: many others who are poorer and 
 who have fewer pleasures are not there. A determining 
 factor, largely influential in causing their presence 
 there, is the ancient superstition that liquor is a life- 
 giver, — -a superstition which science has shown to be 
 utterly false. \Maile it is not true that poverty of 
 
 [ 68 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 things is the chief source of intemperance, it is true 
 that “poverty of life” largely causes the Drink Habit. 
 
 A few months ago a notable Conference was held in 
 London at which the subject of Inebriety and Destitu- 
 tion was dicussed by some of the most eminent special- 
 ists in Great Britain. These words from the address 
 of one of the speakers touch this very matter very 
 forcibly. He said in part: 
 
 “By his daily drinking the workman maintains the conditions which 
 make for destitution. He is mainly responsible for his children being 
 underfed and under-clothed; for their premature employment; fre- 
 quently for their mother having to work also; and certainly for the 
 environment which produces the low physique and the liability to 
 chronic disease which makes the medical profession declare that 
 alcoholism and tuberculosis should be concurrently combated. The 
 elimination of alcohol would stop the machinery of degeneration and 
 break down the continuity of social conditions, which otherwise, 
 through a process of action and reaction, must perpetuate the inebriety, 
 the mental and physical disabilities, the destitution, the prevention 
 of which is the intention of this Conference. ” 
 
 trhe Rt. Hon. Charles Booth (than whom 
 chM™s eUtt there has been no greater authority on this 
 subject in the world), who, in the earlier 
 volumes of his monumental work on “The Labor 
 and Life of the People,” was inclined to reduce the 
 proportion of the poverty of London due to Drink, in 
 his final volume, after reviewing a great mass of evi- 
 dence, wrote this conclusion: “The great part played 
 by Drink in the genesis of poverty cannot be denied. ” 
 Again, in his work on “Pauperism,” he made this 
 statement: “Drink does not stand as apparent chief 
 cause in as many cases as sickness or old age, but, if it 
 were not for Drink, sickness and old age could be 
 better met. Drink must, therefore, be accounted the 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 most prolific of all causes.” These surely are very 
 weighty words. 
 
 This important statement by Mr. Booth has been 
 garbled and perverted by representatives of the Liquor 
 Interests, unfortunately a common practice among 
 them. A liquor apologist in a Hull (England) news- 
 paper not long ago, quoted this statement in part, 
 stopping with the w’ords “old age,” cutting off the 
 remaining w’ords and so completely falsifying the 
 conclusion of Mr. Booth. This procedure is char- 
 acteristic of the representatives of the Liquor Trade. 
 Some two years ago the Brewers-Union, of Germany 
 caused to be widely printed in German papers an 
 extract from Prof, von Gruber which seemed to affirm the 
 food value of beer, whereas in fact, in other parts of 
 his address, he admitted this only in theorj% calling 
 alcoholic drinks a narcotic poison and a detestable 
 food ! At the recent International Hygienic Exhibition 
 in Dresden, the Brewers placed bulletins in their pavil- 
 ion containing false statistics respecting the health and 
 food values of beer. The directors acknowledged that 
 these were misleading, but they concluded that they 
 had no legal right to remove them. However, they 
 posted near them statements contradicting them and 
 giving the real facts. These are only a few mild illus- 
 trations of the reprehensible tactics which the friends 
 of temperance have to meet. 
 
 Certain parties have for some years 
 ^TMisre^' the following paragraph, as an 
 
 resented authentic confession of Frances E. Millard: 
 
 “I have said over and over again that 
 poverty was caused by intemperance: Now I say, 
 after twenty years of study and observation, that intem- 
 perance is caused by poverty.” Socialists have made 
 frequent use of this statement in order to support their 
 
 [ 70 ] 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 theory that the causes of misery are economic rather 
 than ethical, while the liquor advocates have appealed 
 to it to combat the charge that Drink is chiefly responsi- 
 ble for destitution. 
 
 But did Miss Willard ever use the above language? 
 The answer is positive and emphatic that these words 
 misrepresent her views. 
 
 The truth is as follows: In an address in London, 
 in 1895, she called attention to the obvious fact that 
 poverty does lead some persons to drink, and she inti- 
 mated that probably temperance reformers had not 
 sufficiently appreciated this phase of the complex social 
 problem. Her language was misunderstood, and it 
 was soon widely reported that she had abandoned her 
 former position (that Drink causes poverty) and that 
 she had come to hold the opposite view, expressed in 
 the above statement, that poverty causes intemperance. 
 This misleading report greatly annoyed her, and in a 
 speech at Baltimore, the following fall, she took occasion 
 to make this correction; — 
 
 “Much criticism has been expended upon me for declaring in my 
 third biennial address before the World’s Woman’s Christian Tem- 
 perance Union in June last, that as temperance people we had been in 
 error in not recognizing the relation of poverty to intemperance, and 
 because i stated that, while from the first I have maintained that 
 intemperance causes poverty, I was now ready not only to reiterate 
 that cardinal doctrine, but to add that poverty causes intemperance. 
 . . . I did not say that poverty caused intemperance in the same 
 
 degree that intemperance causes poverty, nor do I think it does. ’’ 
 
 These sentences show clearly that the statement 
 attributed to her radically misrepresented her real 
 conviction. That statement implies a complete change 
 of opinion and the surrender of her early view (that 
 Drink causes poverty), while it presents her as holding 
 
 [ 71 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 that practically all intemperance is caused by poverty. 
 What she did assert was a proposition entirely different : 
 that she had come to realize that poverty is productive 
 of some intemperance, but that Drink produces desti- 
 tution to a much larger extent, — a sane and scientific 
 conclusion. 
 
 As has been stated, it is undoubtedly true that 
 many a workman does leave his wretched home 
 and go to the saloon to drown his misery in Drink. 
 Apparently, he drinks because poor. But what is 
 generally the real situation? (1) He began to drink 
 long ago, before he was so poor. (2) He inhabits that 
 miserable hovel now because he spends so much money 
 on liquor. (3) The Drink Habit cuts off at both ends : 
 it wastes his wages which, if saved, would pay for a 
 good house, and it also lessens his wages by decreasing 
 his industrial capacity. 
 
 In view of the fact that there are some 2,000,000 
 laborers in Great Britain who spend annually, out of 
 small wages, over $100 apiece on liquor ($200,000,000.00 
 in all!) it is folly to try to belittle the influence of 
 Drink as the chief cause of poverty. When some of 
 these men become “derelicts,” they may drink to 
 drown their misery, but in few cases did they originally 
 begin to drink because poor. 
 
 The erroneous explanation of the “ drink- 
 problem,” which some social scientists at 
 Harms present advocate, has injured the temper- 
 
 ance cause in various ways, but chiefly in 
 two respects: — 
 
 I. Like the erroneous diagnosis of any disease, it 
 misrepresents the real situation and leads people to 
 resort to the wrong remedies. These social philosophers 
 see nothing to do, in order to remove the evils of Drink, 
 but to reorganize the economic groundwork of modern 
 
 [ 72 ] 
 
WHERE DRINK DOES ITS WORST AMONG 
 
 ALCOHOL-CAUSED DEATH IS PREVENTABLE DEATH 
 
THE ROOTS OF CRIME AND POVERTY 
 
 society. They hold that the case is wholly industrial, 
 while in fact it is chiefly moral and spiritual. Such a 
 view, moreover, stands in the way of that educational 
 campaign which seeks to make scientific truth the rule 
 and motive of every life, emphasizing the importance 
 of total abstinence, which these sociologists are often 
 inclined to ignore. 
 
 II. This diagnosis tends to make people tolerant of 
 the saloon and complacent toward the liquor trade. 
 It blurs the vision so that the gigantic evils of Drink 
 are not clearly seen or fully appreciated, while it dulls 
 the edge of the consciences of good people, so that 
 the corrupting power of brewers and distillers as exerted 
 on legislation and through the press, is not keenly felt 
 or courageously resisted. Its advocates, as a rule, 
 show lamentable indifference to aggressive temperance 
 action, neither helping to make restrictive laws nor 
 aiding the enforcement of such laws when enacted. 
 Therefore, it becomes the duty of all the friends of 
 temperance reform to do all they can to make clear 
 the fallacy and folly of the theory of the relation of 
 Drink and poverty unfortunately put forth by some 
 teachers of social science, even in high places. 
 
 Probably the most notable utterance on 
 Attitade ^his subject at the London Conference on 
 “Destitution” (to which allusion has al- 
 ready been made) was that by the Rt. Hon. Sir Vezey 
 Strong, who was recently Lord Mayor of London. 
 These words from his notable address are especially 
 worthy of attention: 
 
 “Alcohol is therefore a most important factor in destitution, be- 
 cause it affects so many other contributing factors. . . . It is 
 
 therefore obvious that alcohol is in itself a hindrance to a proper 
 appreciation and to the effective study of its relationship to the 
 problem of destitution; and it is important that those of us who are 
 
 [ 73 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 interested in changing the social conditions which cause degeneracy 
 and produce destitution should eliminate from our minds the bias of 
 alcohol. ” 
 
 These are wise words. No man has a right to discuss 
 this great problem, and its numerous and important 
 relations, until he has completely freed himself from 
 the bias incident to the use of liquor. The only man 
 capable of approaching the problem in a truly scientific 
 spirit is the total abstainer. The slave of alcohol may 
 not feel its evil power, but one must be free from its 
 deceptive spell to pass scientific judgment upon its 
 destruction of human life. 
 
 It is interesting to recall that INIr. Strong has prac- 
 ticed what he here preached. Many years ago, when 
 a young man and a moderate drinker, he resolved to 
 abstain for a time before hearing a temperance lecture 
 by Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, in order that he 
 might be in a proper condition to appreciate it! And 
 this experience made him a total abstainer! When 
 brewers and distillers, in a highly moral tone, tell us 
 what ought to be done to promote temperance, the 
 friends of humanity may well indulge in suspicion: 
 The mockery of greed is self-evident. Also, when so- 
 called “moderate drinkers” attempt to defend their 
 habits and applaud the benefits of Drink, the lovers 
 of mankind are justified in holding that users of what 
 uniformly deceives cannot give evidence of any value, 
 and their judgment is perverted by self-interest. Only 
 the man free from the Drink Superstition can fully 
 understand the evils of intemperance or successfully 
 lead in the victorious warfare against them. 
 
 [ 74 ] 
 
Mr. Gladstone, replying to a deputation of brewers, said: — “Gentle- 
 men, you need not give yourselves any trouble about the revenue. 
 The question of revenue must never stand in the way of needed re- 
 forms. Besides, with a sober population, not wasting their earnings, 
 I shall know where to obtain the revenue.” 
 
 “If the money spent for intoxicating liquor had been spent for 
 bread and clothing, it would have employed about seven times as 
 many workers [as are engaged in the liquor business]. \Miat becomes 
 of the argument that there will be a labor panic, if the liquor industry 
 is destroyed.?” Charles Stelzle. Recently Superintendent Bureau 
 of Social Service, Presbyterian Church. 
 
 “If a loss of revenue should accrue to the United States from a 
 diminished consumption of ardent spirits she will be the gainer a thou- 
 sandfold in the health, wealth and happiness of her people.” The 
 Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 “Whoever first brewed beer has prepared a pest for Germany. I 
 have prayed to God that he would destroy the whole brewing indus- 
 try. I have often pronounced a curse on the brewer. All Germany 
 could live on the barley that is spoiled and turned into a curse by the 
 brewer.” Martin Luther, in his Table Talk. 
 
 “From the point of view of social economics, the expenditure of 
 capital and labour on the production of alcoholic drinks is uneco- 
 nomic. It actually represents the expenditure of capital and labour 
 upon the production of a commodity which is distinctly opposed to 
 the existence of well-being, and which reduces the productivitj^ of 
 other capital and labour by reducing the eflBciency of labour.” John 
 Longdon, Oxford University Diploma in Economics. 
 
 “When intoxicants have been made, sold and consumed, there is 
 nothing to show for the expenditure except a certain crop of trouble, 
 poverty, crime, and disease. It is more than sheer waste. It would 
 have been better for everybody concerned if all the money had been 
 expended in digging holes and filling them up again.” Sir Thomas 
 P. Whittaker, Sl. P. Cassell’s Magazine, May, 1910. 
 
 [ 76 ] 
 
II 
 
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 Copyriglil 1911, by Scientific Tcinpcrance Federation. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 The editors of the journals representing the Liquor 
 Interests are constantly predicting that a dire calamity 
 would befall the business of the country if breweries, 
 distilleries, and saloons were closed by drastic laws. 
 This is the same old cry with which the paganism of 
 the ancient vimrld opposed Christianity. These modern 
 interests rej)resent Demetrius the silversmith, and 
 Alexander the coppersmith, who did Paul “much evil,” 
 because he interfered with their trade in shrines and 
 images. And we should put them where he put his 
 enemies: “Where they may learn not to blaspheme!” 
 To injure the sons of God, created in the image of God, 
 simply for worldly greed, is to sin most grievously 
 against both God and man. 
 
 The old pagans complained of the Christian mis- 
 sionaries: “You upset the business of the world. 
 The farmers who raise cattle for the temple sacrifices 
 will not be able to sell their stock. Wine growers and 
 bird raisers will have no trade, for libation will cease 
 and augurs wiU disappear. Silversmiths and copper- 
 smiths will become bankrupt. Artists and artisans 
 will be idle, because there will be no temples to build or 
 altars to decorate. You must be put out of the way, 
 because you destroy property, and drive men out of 
 employment!” There is not an argument now used 
 by liquor men against temperance but was madly 
 urged against the Christian Church in its early days. 
 
 [ 77 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 But no such calamity happened then, and 
 No Economic no such Calamity will happen now. It is 
 evermore true, that to destroy what destroys 
 Drink men helps to establish the RepubUc of 
 
 God. In the old time, when cattle ceased 
 to be used for sacrifices, the people had more meat to 
 eat. So now, the money saved from Drink, will enable 
 people to buy more bread and clothes; and to produce 
 these will employ many more men than now work in 
 making and selling liquors. For every man leaving 
 the closed brewery ten doors of honorable opportunity 
 to labor will open. As Abraham Lincoln long ago 
 said: “Even the dram maker and the dram seller 
 will have glided into other occupations so gradually 
 as never to have felt the shock of change. ” 
 
 The vineyards now devoted to wine-making could 
 readily be turned to the production of “grape juice” — 
 an innocent drink, now fast growing in favor, while 
 distilleries and breweries could, as Dr. T. D. Crothers 
 has suggested, easily turn to making crude alcohol for 
 industrial purposes, producing enough to do much of 
 the world’s work instead of destroying human life, 
 and in such a change no capital would be destroyed 
 and no laborer discharged! 
 
 Attention may well be called here to two facts: (1) 
 The same result, so far as the liquor business is con- 
 cerned, would follow, if all men should become total 
 abstainers. This would close the saloons the same 
 as drastic laws. Now, it is universally admitted that 
 drunkenness is a curse, that the expenditure of so much 
 money on liquor is an immense evil, and that stopping 
 the Drink Habit would be an untold blessing for the 
 race. Obviously, it is absurd to hold that closing 
 saloons by total abstinence is a good thing, while 
 closing them by drastic laws would be an evil thing. 
 
 [ 78 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 The effect on business in general would be the same. 
 And if good in one case, it could not be bad in the 
 other. 
 
 (2) There must be something wrong 
 Liquor with a business, when those engaged in it 
 
 Defers ashamed of what they themselves 
 
 Ashamed of i i • i 
 
 Their Trade procluce. riVery other business takes pride 
 
 in what it makes: All mills and factories 
 send their finished products to exhibitions all over the 
 world. Brewers and distillers may proudly exhibit 
 their liquors, but not their finished products as sent 
 forth from the saloon. No town advertises its large 
 number of dram shops and no employer seeking work- 
 men asks for those who drink! It is a notable fact 
 that at several conventions of liquor men, recently 
 held in our country (and the liquor press often make 
 the same plea), appeals were made urging those in the 
 business to see to it that intoxicated persons be care- 
 fully kept out of sight of the public, just as much as 
 possible! It was said: “A man the worse for liquor 
 is a very poor advertisement of our trade!” Surely, 
 no doubt about that! But he is only the common and 
 finished product of the business. In no other calling 
 are men ashamed of what they make. Certainly, the 
 abolition of a business so abnormal and ruinous to the 
 best in human life, could not possibly harm the legiti- 
 mate business interests of our land. 
 
 An apologist for the Liquor Trade recently 
 raised this very question in a college maga- 
 zine, respecting the injury which would be 
 inflicted upon general business by closing the saloons, 
 and in reply to the question, What would it mean to 
 stop the making and selling of liquor?— he said: “It 
 means that the annual investments of the brewers and 
 distillers of $359,951,097.00 to produce and put upon 
 
 [ 79 ] 
 
 Economic 
 
 Fallacies 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the market their goods are no longer to be made. The 
 farmer who grows the barley, rye, corn, and other 
 grains used in the processes will be hurt annually more 
 than $108,000,000.00 worth. A sum of more than 
 $52,000,000.00 no longer will be put into the labor that 
 produces the beer, liquors and the like. A mere trifle 
 of $10,000,000.00 for coal will not be expended when 
 the chimneys of the breweries and distilleries are cold. ” 
 In addition, it is often asserted that this business em- 
 ploys more than a million men who would be made 
 tramps, if saloons were closed. 
 
 All similar statements are full of obvious exaggeration. 
 In England, it is frequently asserted that 2,000,000 
 persons depend upon “The Trade” for a living. But 
 it has easily been shown that this figure is three or four 
 times too large. The figures for England may be 
 found in“The Economic Aspect of the Drink Question,” 
 by Henry G. Chancellor, M. P., 1911. However, it 
 is not necessary to quibble over the size of these figures. 
 We may accept the extreme statements and ask : What 
 follows? 
 
 The grains used by the manufacturers of 
 Less Whisky liquors in our land amount to only three 
 cent, of our annual crop! If that use 
 People should cease, no farmer would feel it. More- 
 
 over, this grain would be bought for food 
 to make sound bodies rather than used as at present 
 to produce w^hat unmakes American manhood. 
 
 Mr. Charles Stelzle has made a verj'^ careful sum- 
 mary which may well be quoted here. He is a verj' 
 competent writer, who sees things from the point of 
 view of the common laborer. He says: 
 
 “ Upon a conservative basis we may safely say that the annual 
 drink bill in America is $1,800,000,000.00; that is to say, this is the 
 
 [ 80 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 amount which is spent at the retail price for intoxicating liquor. 
 The amount spent per annum by the consumer for bread and clothing 
 is about the same. Suppose that the money now spent for liquor 
 should be spent for bread and clothing. What would be the effect 
 upon labor? The statistics of manufacturers for 1911 give the fol- 
 owing figures with reference to each of these groups of industries as 
 they are related to the number of workers employed, wages paid and 
 the cost of raw material used: Wage earners employed — in the liquor 
 industry, 62,920; bread and clothing, 493,655. Wages paid — intoxi- 
 cating liquor, $139,999,000.00, bread and clothing, $744,337,000.00. 
 It is at once apparent that if the $1,800,000,000.00 now spent for 
 liquor were to be spent for bread and clothing it would give employ- 
 ment to nearly eight times as many workers, who would collectively 
 receive five and a half times as much in wages.” 
 
 There is a point of great importance in 
 Rat^" me* connection which is seldom mentioned: 
 
 Liquor Trade the mortality of those engaged in “The 
 Trade.” Careful investigations in Eng- 
 land, France, Germany, and America show that the 
 death rate of the men who sell liquors is from 50 to 
 300 per cent, greater than that of average workmen; so 
 great is it that almost none ever reach old age! Now, 
 if we grant that there are 500,000 so engaged in our 
 nation, the annual loss of life among them, in excess 
 of the average mortahty, would be, at a very low' esti- 
 mate, probably about 5,000 persons. That is, some 
 5,000 lives are subtracted from our population annually, 
 because these men are engaged in selling liquor! Here 
 alone is a financial loss (counting an individual as an 
 industrial asset worth $5,000.00) of $25,000,000.00, 
 to say nothing of the great expense caused by the 
 increased sickness so produced. So high is the death 
 rate that insurance companies in general will not insure 
 the lives of men engaged in selling hquor. Brewers 
 and others are charged $5.00 per thousand extra (See 
 
 [ 81 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 “Effect of Total Abstinence on the Death Rate.” 
 By Joel G. Van Cise: Actuary for “Equitable Life”). 
 
 Here is certainly a powerful appeal to human sjnn- 
 pathy: If we have any proper regard for these poor 
 fellows, we ought, for their sake, to rescue these500,000 
 men from an employment where the death rate is so 
 excessively high: the highest among ordinary human 
 occupations. The pity of it! Thousands dying every 
 year simply because they serve the pubhc with liquors, 
 which do the drinkers themselves nothing but evil! If 
 such a great slaughter occurred anj^vhere else, in any 
 line of factories employing 500,000 men, how soon 
 something would be done about it ! 
 
 It has also been clearly and repeatedly 
 Industrial proved by industrial experiments, labora- 
 Lo^ered^ tory tests, and athletic contests, that 
 by Drink liquor lowers the industrial efficiency of 
 those who use it. Prof. Gustav Aschaffen- 
 burg has shown by careful experiments with four 
 printers that in typesetting the loss occasioned by 
 Drink was about ten per cent. That is, that 10 ab- 
 stainers, as a rule, could do as much as 11 drinkers, aU 
 other conditions being the same. The tests made by 
 Dr. E. A. Parkes with different gangs of soldiers, under 
 conditions similar in all other respects, the one drinkers 
 and the other abstainers, showed the same results. In 
 many athletic contests, notably the Sixty-two iSIile 
 Walking Match at Kiel in 1908, the superior endurance 
 of abstainers was forcibly demonstrated. Although 
 they numbered less than one-third of the contestants 
 (24 to 59), they won about two-thirds of the prizes — 
 the 1", 2", 3", 4", 8", and 9" of the ten! 
 
 The achievements of leading swimmers and cricketers 
 make plain the same fact. The finest batsman of 
 recent years is acknowledge to be Prince Ranjitsinhji 
 
 [ 82 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 of India and next to him come C. B. Fry, T. Hayward, 
 and J. T. Tyldesley: all total abstainers. The winner 
 of “the swim through London” in 1907, was J. A. 
 Jarvis, a total abstainer, who stated that he won over 
 his chief competitor, largely because friends gave his 
 opponent “a nip of whisky.” Jack Hatfield of Eng- 
 land is today the fastest all-round swimmer in the 
 world. He is not only a total abstainer but the son 
 of abstainers. The records of athletics of all kinds are 
 today full of similar cases, especially in football and 
 baseball. We may well add here the testimony of a 
 leading American authority in this general department, 
 Prof. Irving Fisher (Yale University), who states: 
 “That alcohol increases fatigue [instead of adding- 
 strength or skill] is now commonly recognized by 
 athletes. ” 
 
 Dr. John J. Abel, of Johns Hopkins University, than 
 whom there is not a higher authority in the world, 
 makes the following statement: 
 
 “Both science and the experience of life have exploded the perni- 
 cious theory that alcohol gives any permanent increase of muscular 
 power. The disappearance of this universal error will greatly reduce 
 the consumption of alcohol among laboring men. It is well under- 
 stood by all who control armies or large bodies of men engaged in 
 physical labor that alcohol and efifective work are incompatible.” 
 “Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem.” Vol. II, p. 165. 
 
 At this point it is well to present the 
 testimony of Sir Frederick Treves, Bart., 
 M. D., who was physician to the late King 
 Edward. His words refer to the campaign 
 in South Africa: “As a work producer 
 alcohol is exceedingly extravagant, and 
 like other extravagant measures, it is apt to lead to a 
 physical bankruptcy. It is well known that troops 
 
 [ 83 ] 
 
 1903. 
 
 Testimony 
 of English 
 and French 
 Military 
 Authorities 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 cannot march on alcohol. I was with the relief column 
 that moved on to Ladysmith. It was an extremely 
 trying time, apart from the heat of the weather. In 
 that column of some 30,000 men, the first who dropped 
 out were not the tall men, or the short men, or the big 
 men, or the little men — but the drinkers, and they 
 dropped out as clearly as if they had been labelled 'ndth 
 a big letter on their backs.” An eminent American 
 scientist. Dr. Henry S. Williams, after a wide sur\*ey of 
 this whole field from the vantage ground of the latest 
 scientific researches, arrives at this conclusion; ‘‘I am 
 bound to believe, in the light of what science has re- 
 vealed . . . that you are unequivocally decreasing 
 
 your capacity for work in any field (if you take alcohol 
 habitually, in any quantity whatsoever), be it physical, 
 intellectual, or artistic.” (Alcohol; How it Affects the 
 Individual, the Community and the Race; p. 50. 1909.) 
 
 The military authorities in France also state that 
 the loss which Drink causes to the recruiting of the 
 army every year amounts to a whole army corps! In 
 other words, this vast company of young men in that 
 nation are found to be so stunted or enfeebled by 
 liquor (personal or parental use), that the authorities 
 have every year to excuse that number from militarj’ 
 service. How many are incapacitated for the best 
 industrial service no one can tell, but certainly a great 
 multitude. Such facts show how vitally the Drink 
 Problem is bound up with questions of national progress 
 and prosperity. 
 
 The evidence on this point is too volumi- 
 nous to be given here, but a few more facts 
 may well be stated briefly. The Rt. Hon. 
 D. Lloyd-George, M. P., speaking at Man- 
 chester, Eng., Oct. 15, 1907, said: “It is 
 found from enquiries amongst employers 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
 of Employers 
 on the 
 Industrial 
 Harm by 
 Drink 
 
Published and Copyrighted 1912, by Scientific Temperance Federation, Boston. 
 

A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 that on Monday morning from 5 to 75 per cent, 
 of the people do not turn up owing to Drink, and 
 when they do come back they have muddy intellects 
 and impaired vitality.” 
 
 Hon. J. Frank Hanly, formerly governor of Indiana, 
 asked a wealthy factory owner who was endeavoring 
 to close the saloon opposite his factory, “Why is it 
 that you are trying to close this place novv^ when a 
 year ago you were fighting me for trying to enforce 
 Sunday closing.?” “Governor,” the man replied, “it’s 
 not a moral standard with me at all; it’s economic. 
 My men are worth 50 per cent, more to me on Monday 
 morning if that saloon is closed over Sunday.” 
 
 Mr. H. Dillon Gouge, public actuary of South Austra- 
 lia, found that the average weeks of sickness in three 
 societies of abstainers was 1,248, while in three societies 
 of men using liquor, the average weeks of sickness, and 
 therefore absence from work, was 2,319 ! That is, the 
 abstainers lost only about half as many days’ labor. 
 Consider, for a moment, how vast this economic loss 
 is when the millions of drinking workmen in our country 
 are counted. 
 
 In an address in New York City in 1883, the eminent 
 English physiologist. Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, told the 
 story of a vessel, which in going from Australia to 
 England, sprang a leak, soon after leaving Sydney. At 
 first, the captain gave his men the usual allowance of 
 grog. But soon the water began to gain on them and 
 their strength began to fail. Then he stopped the 
 grog, giving the men cocoa and sugar instead. Con- 
 ditions at once improved and when he reached port, 
 the crew was in fair condition in spite of the long and 
 severe work at the pumps. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is, therefore, no wonder that 
 the eminent Belgian statesman, Hon. Jules Lejeune, 
 
 [ 85 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 should assert at the Seventh International Congress 
 on Alcoholism: “You will never solve the social 
 question until you have vanquished alcoholism. 
 Because of it all reforms are doomed beforehand to 
 sterility.” 
 
 What, then, is the bearing of these facts upon the 
 claim that the stopping of the making and selling of 
 liquors would ruin the business of the country.? It is 
 obvious and impressive. Calculating twenty regular 
 drinkers from the laboring classes for each of our 250,000 
 dram shops, we have 5,000,000 workmen in our land 
 whose eflBciency is lessened some 10 per cent, on that 
 account. In other words, this means an annual indus- 
 trial loss to our nation of 500,000 laborers! That is to 
 say, if these workmen were to turn abstainers and so 
 close the saloons, this action on their part, would 
 practically add to the industrial efficiency of our land 
 as much as the labor of 500,000 men, plus an equal 
 number now engaged in the Liquor Trade, who being 
 added to productive industry would make a total 
 gain of a million men! To say nothing of the millions 
 of dollars which would thereby be turned from worse 
 than waste to useful channels of trade. In the face 
 of these facts, to talk longer about the ruin of business 
 from closing the saloons is both fallacy and foolish- 
 ness. 
 
 This matter may be put in another way. 
 Enormous spend some $400,000,000.00 to dig the 
 
 Labor Panama Canal is good business, because it 
 
 will facilitate the commerce of the world. 
 But suppose our nation should take $1,800,000,000.00 
 (four times the cost of that canal) — the money annually 
 spent for Drink among us, — and dig the coming year 
 a long ditch, somewhere in the Ilockj" Mountains, that 
 would have no use whatever for agriculture or traffic: 
 
 [ 86 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 that would indeed be a gigantic waste; and it would 
 not take many such enterprises to bankrupt the coun- 
 try. But the waste on liquor is, in many respects, far 
 more than this. The vast sum spent in saloons puts 
 thousands into the ditches of crime, disease, insanity 
 and poverty: not only taking them away from the 
 industrial resources of the nation, but making it neces- 
 sary to detail thousands of policemen, nurses, guards, 
 caretakers, doctors, officials (taking them from useful 
 employments), in order to protect society from the 
 products of the saloon or to help them in their misery. 
 At the ninth New York State Conference of Charities 
 at Elmira (1908), Dr. Frederick Peterson, Columbia 
 University, asserted that the actual loss every year to 
 the state from alcoholic insanity was $2,400,000.00, and 
 for the United States, it would be over $12,000,000.00. 
 
 The making and selling of liquors is as unproductive 
 labor as the digging of such a ditch would be, and, in 
 addition, it fills the ditch with a stream of misery ! The 
 drinking of liquors is unproductive consumption, because 
 it consumes the manhood and the muscle of the race. 
 Can any one look for a moment upon these startling 
 facts and doubt that the making and selling and drink- 
 ing of liquors is destructive to every legitimate business 
 interest of the land.^ Nothing else costs so much to 
 make as a drunkard; nothing else costs so much to 
 keep as the degenerates produced by liquor. An 
 eminent physician of Munich, after careful investiga- 
 tion, concluded that the cost to the city of 42 Chronic 
 Drinkers was $26,000.00 a year: In beer-drinking 
 Munich! That is the way beer solves the Drink 
 Problem! Nothing else destroys so much as drinking; 
 the maker of nothing else is ashamed of what he pro- 
 duces, but the saloon keeper! 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Influence of 
 Drink on 
 Insurance 
 
 000 . 00 . 
 
 Take the matter of insurance. The 
 Drink Bill of the British Isles is about 
 $800,000,000.00. The amount there paid 
 for all kinds of insurance is about $350,000,- 
 What is worse than wasted on liquor would 
 enable the people to add more than double the amount 
 of insurance now being carried. But more than this: 
 Many British companies now give total abstainers 
 certain advantages which mean a practical reduction 
 in annual premiums of from 10 to 20 per cent. In 
 other words, if there were no dram shops in the land, 
 and all were abstainers, the people of that nation could 
 save on their insurance premiums e^’ery year at least 
 $20,000,000.00! Only an approximate estimate can 
 be made for the United States, but it is a fair statement 
 that if all policies in our nation were upon a total 
 abstinence basis, the insurance now being carried by 
 our people would cost $50,000,000.00 less a year than 
 at present! In estimating what might be saved, on 
 the basis of abstinence, in his interesting article on 
 this subject in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 
 1913, Dr. Eugene L. Fisk, Medical Director of the 
 “ Postal Life, ” refers to the saving of over $5,000,000.00, 
 but this, he says, is reckoned on only 10 per cent, of the 
 policies carried by ordinary life companies. By taking 
 the whole number and adding the fraternal insurance, 
 the above estimate seems reasonable. This saving on 
 life insurance alone would be one quarter what the 
 Liquor Trade now pays annually to our nation in 
 revenues. And this, as already pointed out, would be 
 only a fraction of the real advantage. 
 
 From such facts as these, it is it surely 
 very clear that the Liquor Trade is the one 
 great menace to the best business interests 
 of the land. We are frequently told that shutting the 
 
 [ 88 ] 
 
 The Saloons 
 and Taxes 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 saloons would seriously cripple the government. But 
 if there were fewer saloons the state would need less 
 income. In scores of counties where there are no 
 saloons, jails and poor-houses have few or no inmates, 
 while courts and officers of the law have little to do. 
 \Mio would pay the taxes.? If the hundreds of thou- 
 sands now in penal, reformatory, and charitable insti- 
 tutions, ruined by Drink, were in normal conditions 
 of life, they alone could carry the whole burden which 
 the Trade now bears and besides be infinitely happier 
 and also make others happier. 
 
 A trustworthy English authority has reached the 
 conclusion, after a careful survey of the whole matter, 
 that the annual cost and loss through Drink in Great 
 Britain and Ireland is $1,700,000,000.00. The sum 
 paid as revenue, $180,000,000.00, is only a little more 
 than one tenth the financial loss it causes, to say nothing 
 of the immense losses of a moral nature. (See Nevdon, 
 Our National Drink Bill, p. 142. 1909.) That is, 
 
 the government practically takes a dollar from “The 
 Trade” and puts it in one pocket, and at the same time 
 takes nine dollars out of another pocket and throws 
 it away. To stop that would surely be good business. 
 
 A man who saws wood contributes more to the indus- 
 trial resonrces of the land than a hundred men who 
 pour out beer and whisky. For every dollar that the 
 city or nation receives in revenue from liquor, five 
 dollars of someone’s money are worse than wasted; and 
 for every barrel of beer or whisky consumed, the indus- 
 trial efficiency of ten men is thereby seriously lessened. 
 Such a policy is not only wasteful, but harmful. 
 
 One other illustration may serve to make 
 this matter clear. Suppose the sum an- 
 nually wasted on Drink by our people, 
 $1,800,000,000.00, should be spent in mak- 
 
 [ 89 ] 
 
 A Billion 
 
 Dollars 
 
 Wasted 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 ing good Macadamized roads across the country. It 
 would cost on an average, for a long line of such road, 
 about $40,000.00 a mile, an exceedingly liberal estimate. 
 To build a cross-continental highway from ocean to 
 ocean, would cost, therefore, about $120,000,000.00. 
 Five such trans-continental highways would cost 
 $600,000,000.00, — only a third of our Drink Bill! This 
 could be done each year and then have $1,200,000,000.00 
 left to build turnpikes north and south. On the same 
 basis of cost, one such road could be built annually 
 with this sum every twenty miles westward to the 
 Mississippi River, reaching from the Canadian line to 
 tidewater! How such highways would bless our 
 country! Reducing the cost of marketing goods and 
 produce and so bringing down the cost of living; mul- 
 tiplying the facilities of human life in many ways and 
 making agriculture more profitable and enjoyable; 
 and adding also many valuable elements to the content 
 and progress of civilization. To close saloons and use 
 the 500,000 men so liberated in road building, would 
 also be an economic gain of vast proportion. The 
 lessening of accidents, diseases, and crimes, and general 
 disorders, that would follow, would turn many a wilder- 
 ness into a blooming garden. The vision of the prophet 
 would surely be fulfilled : “ Make straight in the desert 
 
 a highway for our God!” 
 
 Let us see how the Liquor Trade works 
 How the ^ business proposition in a small 
 
 Trade Works village of 3,000 people (counting the trib- 
 iri the Average utary Country folk), with four saloons. As 
 coun^ the average per capita expenditure for 
 Village Drink in the United States is over $20.00 
 a year, on that basis, this village would 
 spend $60,000.00 annually for liquor. But, to be con- 
 servative, we wdll cut this in two and make it $30,000.00. 
 
 [ 90 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 That sum, very large for so small a community, we 
 may set down as the charge against the saloons. The 
 business gains from them are as follows: for licenses, 
 $1,000.00 ($250.00 being the average village fee); for 
 rent (the keepers living above their barrooms), $2,500.00; 
 for household expenses of four families, $4,000.00 (a 
 very high estimate), making $7,500.00, the amount of 
 money which the business spends in the town, a very 
 liberal calculation. That is, for every four dollars 
 paid over the bar, oxAyone comes back to the financial 
 interests of the community! An outgo of four dollars 
 and an income of one dollar: Surely, not much profit 
 in that to any one but the liquor men! 
 
 Or, to put the matter in another way: For every 
 four dollars that goes into any one of those saloons, 
 three dollars never comes out again to do business in 
 that town: the grocer on one side loses a dollar’s 
 trade, the market on the other side loses a dollar’s 
 trade, and the merchant across the street also loses a 
 dollar’s trade. And this keeps on for every hour 
 throughout the year! These words from President 
 David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, 
 are surely words of wisdom: “There is no possible 
 question that business prosperity rises in any town as 
 the saloon disappears.” 
 
 But there are other financial charges against the 
 saloons, to say nothing of tears and heartaches. Con- 
 sider a few of these: a dozen cases of sickness annually, 
 due to excessive drinking, causing large expenses; a 
 death from consumption caused by drinking; a divorce 
 with cost of court expenses brought about by repeated 
 intoxication; a dozen families thrown upon the public 
 or private charity of the town by drunken fathers; a 
 thousand days of labor lost because workmen went on 
 sprees (a loss of $2,000.00 a year at least); one “drunk” 
 
 [ 91 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 arrested every week, adding to police and court ex- 
 penses ; a half dozen crimes committed for which liquor 
 is largely or wholly responsible, entailing heavy ex- 
 penses upon taxpayers for prosecution and upon friends 
 to defend the accused, — and these are only some of the 
 more obvious financial losses. Much more than 
 enough to wipe out the $7,500.00 put to the credit of the 
 saloons, leaving the $30,000.00 paid over their bars as 
 a dead loss! 
 
 On the other hand, let us see what 
 How Money Spent could be done annually for the com- 
 be Better Used munity With the $30,000.00 worsc than 
 
 wasted : 
 
 For a free village library $8,000 . 00 
 
 For a free district nurse 1,500 . 00 
 
 For a course of free lectures 500 . 00 
 
 For building a mile of good country road 5,000 . 00 
 
 For keeping six young men and women in college 6,000 . 00 
 
 For a free industrial night school for girls and boys 2,000 . 00 
 
 For a village band giving free concerts 2,000 . 00 
 
 For a boys’ club and summer camp 2,000.00 
 
 For a Day Nursery 2,000 . 00 
 
 For Athletic field and sports 1,000 . 00 
 
 $30,000.00 
 
 All this will read to some people like a fairy tale. 
 But it is the statement of what could be done to bless 
 any village with the money actually spent for Drink in 
 many a small place. Without taking any account of 
 community pleasure and wholesome enjoyment, which 
 these enterprises, just named, would bring to the people, 
 with no thought of the moral and intellectual better- 
 ment which would be brought about by them, it is 
 evident that, by the different expenditure of that sum 
 of $30,000.00 business advantages of great value would 
 
 [ 92 ] 
 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION 
 
 accrue to such a village. The financial gains alone 
 would be many fold greater than from the trade (less 
 than $8,000.00) created by the four saloons; which, 
 simply as a business proposition, are left with no credit 
 to their name, while we must charge them with a heavy 
 loss inflicted upon the markets and morals of the town. 
 
 Good men often carelessly declare: “I 
 How shall vote to keep the saloons in order to 
 
 Business is j^^lp busincss!” Is that the teaching of the 
 
 Liquor'*^ Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule? 
 Tradei Is that the Master’s “royal law of love?” 
 
 Can any Christian look upon the Cross of 
 Christ, and so forget its supreme lesson of self-sacrifice 
 that he becomes willing to put greed above the good of 
 humanity? Can any intelligent American citizen 
 consider even the business facts, as just described, and 
 so completely renounce all respect for the truth of 
 things as to support a policy, as idiotic financially as 
 it is morally reprehensible? 
 
 Vote for the saloons to help business? Whose busi- 
 ness? The business of the undertaker and the grave 
 digger! Whose business? The business of policeman 
 and jailer! Whose business? The business of the 
 brothel, the asylum, and the poor farm! Whose 
 business? The business of courts respecting divorce, 
 criminals, and neglected children! \^ose business? 
 The business forced upon forsaken women, who wash 
 and scrub to support the suffering family! Whose 
 business? The business of the charity worker, who 
 toils to help the mothers in the homes made desolate 
 by drunkards! 
 
 Vote for the saloon to help business? But that vote 
 will make taxes higher, accidents more frequent, and 
 labor less skillful. Vote for the saloon to help business? 
 But that vote will tend to keep the laborer from having 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 a bank account, from owning a house, and from sending 
 his boy to college ! V ote for the saloon to help business ? 
 But that vote will send out of town three dollars for 
 every dollar that it spends in town! Before you cast 
 that vote, look at it in the white light of truth, if not 
 in the divine light of love, and see what a horrible 
 thing you propose to do. You will vote not only to 
 injure business, but also to ruin manhood, upon which 
 all trade and commerce are based. That is not to be 
 a Christian, but that is to act like a pagan, and like 
 a pagan at his worst. 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
“Alcohol and vice, not always, but with appalling frequency, go 
 hand-in-hand. The drink habit arouses physical instincts and pas- 
 sions, and at the same time weakens both prudence and honor. So 
 our sons fall who might stand, and our daughters meet temptation 
 with defenses down. The relation of alcohol to those physical and 
 moral tragedies of sex that are now being studied with new deter- 
 mination and hope, is revealed in the fact that the commonest 
 method of legal procedure against a brothel in an American city 
 today is by instituting a search for liquor. If sex health and honor 
 are essential, as they are coming to be seen to be, to personal hap- 
 piness, family life and race perpetuity, parents are sure increasingly 
 to array themselves unqualifiedly against the alcoholic drink habit.” 
 Charles W. Birtwell, General Secretary Massachusetts Society for 
 Sex Education. 
 
 “What ought not to be used as a beverage, ought not to be sold as 
 such. What the good of the community requires us to expel, no man 
 has a moral right to supply. That intemperance is dreadifully multi- 
 plied by the number of licensed shops for the retailing of spirits, we 
 all know. That these should be shut, everj' good man desires.” 
 W'illiam Ellery Channing, Address on Temperance, 1837. 
 
 “The use of alcoholic drinks is neither necessary nor beneficial to the 
 healthy child, but on the contrary works direct harm against its 
 development, undermining its health and prejudicing its moral edu- 
 cation.” Prof. Rudolph Demme, 1891. Connected for a generation 
 with the Jenner Hospital for Children, Berne. 
 
 “The happiness, the security, and the progress of the nation depend 
 more upon the solution of the liquor problem than upon the disposi- 
 tion of any other question confronting the people of our country.” 
 John Mitchell, the Champion of Labor, Address, Feb. £2, 1910. 
 
 “The ethics and religion which will tolerate alcoholism is the ethics 
 and religion of death. For not only is alcoholism the cause of nu- 
 merous diseases, it leads directly and indirectly to ruin. The cost of 
 alcohol in human life far exceeds that of war and the victims of al- 
 coholism do not die out. They drag miserably through a sick life 
 and transmit their decay to following generations.” Prof. T. G. 
 Masaryk, University of Prague. 
 
 [ 96 ] 
 
MORTALITY OF CHILDREN OF DRINKING MOTHERS 
 Children in Elack Died Under Two Years — 55 per cent 
 
 ' - ■■ '■ -iW - 
 
 MORTALITY OF CHILDREN OF SOBER MOTHERS 
 Cliildren in Black Died Under Two Years — 23 percent 
 
 Copyright 1913. The Scientific Temperance Federation, Boston 
 
 The sober mothers were relatives of the drinking mothers and had sober husbands 
 Statistics were of 62S women compiled by Dr. W. C. Sullivan, England 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 Parents are under very heavy responsibilities to their 
 children in two directions : that they give them a noble 
 inheritance and that they provide them an ennobling 
 environment. One is the biological endowment trans- 
 mitted, the other is the educational condition main- 
 tained. The blood heritage and the home nurture. 
 In both these directions, temperance plays an impor- 
 tant part. The abstinence of parents reports itseK 
 in the child, as an invaluable hfe asset. The example 
 which the parents set in the non-use or avoidance of 
 liquors and the proper instruction respecting their evU 
 effects, are among the most valuable influences that 
 can play upon the child’s expanding life. 
 
 It has long been known that drunkenness leads to 
 the degeneracy of offspring, but it has not until re- 
 cently been realized that ordinary drinking commonly 
 causes similar results. It has, however, been demon- 
 strated, within the last few years, that the use of liquor 
 leads not only to race suicide, but also to the ruin of 
 childhood. These startling and abundant facts should 
 be widely known and carefully heeded by all parents. 
 
 The most exhaustive and convincing 
 fad investigations along this line are the pains- 
 
 taking studies of Prof. Taav Laitinen, M. D., 
 of Helsingfors, Finland. In 1903, he began this work, 
 and being a physician with an extensive practice, 
 he had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
 
 [ 97 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the conditions of a great number of families, both alco- 
 hol-drinking and non-drinking. He studied as many as 
 5,845 families, with 20,008 children among them. He 
 sent out circulars asking parents a series of questions, 
 beginning: 
 
 “Fellow-countrymen, — You will do a great service 
 to science if you will conscientiously fill in this circular 
 respecting your new-born child dming the first eight 
 months of its life, and return the circular in the en- 
 closed envelope to Prof. Taav Laitinen.” Then follow 
 sixteen questions, in which are included these three: — 
 “Are the parents alcohol drinkers or abstainers?” Both? 
 (i. e., both parents). “To what extent do they in- 
 dulge, (state if daily) ; also whether beer, com brandy, 
 wine, brandy, or any other form of alcohol, or all of 
 these)?” “State whether the maternal grandfather 
 drank alcohol.” To these circulars the professor had 
 received 2,125 answers carefully filled in, when he wrote 
 the paper on “A Contribution to the Study of the In- 
 fluence of Alcohol on the Degeneration of Offspring” 
 (International Congress on Alcoholism, London, 1909). 
 He says, “When I use the term ‘abstainer,’ I mean a 
 person who has never taken alcohol, or at least not since 
 his marriage. By the term ‘moderate’ a person who 
 takes no more alcohol than corresponds to one glass of 
 beer a day; and by the term ‘drinker,’ a person who 
 drinks daily more than the equivalent of one glass 
 Finnish beer (about 4 per cent, alcohol).” 
 
 The tables made out according to the answers to the 
 circulars are most striking. The children of the ab- 
 stainers weigh on an average most at birth, the children 
 of the moderates, or one-glass-of-beer parents come next, 
 while the children of those who take more than one glass 
 of beer and are classed as drinkers, are the smallest. 
 And the difference in weight increases for the whole of 
 
 [ 98 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 the eight months after birth, for the children of the 
 abstainers develop fastest, those of the moderates next, 
 while the drinker’s children develop the most slowly. 
 “In my opinion,” adds the doctor, “a heavier and more 
 rapidly developing child would have a better chance in 
 life than a lighter and more slowly developing child.” 
 
 As regards the cutting of teeth, the same difference 
 was found. At the end of the eighth month, of the 
 children of abstainers 27-5 per cent, were toothless, 
 moderates 33-9 per cent,, drinkers 42-3 per cent. The 
 average number of teeth at the end of the eighth month 
 was about as follows: Per child of abstainers 2-5 per 
 cent., moderates 2-1 per cent., drinkers 1-5 per cent. 
 These last-named facts tend to verify the more and 
 less rapid development of the respective children, and 
 show the retarding influence upon the children of the 
 consumption of alcohol by their parents. 
 
 The proportion of deaths follows the 
 Mo^taHty same rule. For abstainers’ children it was 
 13 per cent., moderates’ children, 23 per 
 cent., drinkers’ children, 32 per cent. Besides sending 
 out these circulars the professor thoroughly studied in 
 a little country town where the daily habits of the in- 
 habitants are known to everybody, 59 drinking and 50 
 non-drinking families living in similar circumstances. 
 Of the children born to the non-drinking families 18 
 per cent, have died and 1 per cent, are weakly. Of the 
 children of the drinking parents 24 per cent, have died 
 and 8 per cent, of the survivors are weakly. 
 
 “If we reflect upon the facts above-mentioned,” 
 comments Prof. Laitinen, “we find that all observa- 
 tions, whether made on a large or a small scale, point 
 in the same direction, namely, that the alcohol-drinking 
 of parents, even in small quantities (about one glass of 
 
 [ 99 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 beer a day), has exercised a degenerative influence upon 
 their offspring.” 
 
 In view of these faets, we may well approve the start- 
 ling words of Dr. Karl Graeter of Basel, who in 1909 
 declared: “The crime, therefore, for men and women is 
 to intoxicate their children before they are born!” 
 
 The Impressive biological facts, here stated, are 
 strikingly confirmed by the careful experiments of Prof. 
 Clifton F. Hodge of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., 
 who fed alcohol to some dogs and compared the offspring 
 with those of other dogs, similar in all other respects, 
 except that they were not given any alcohol. The 
 results are as follows: Of 23 whelps born in four 
 fitters to a pair of tipplers, 9 were born dead, 8 were 
 deformed, and only 4 were viable and seemingly normal. 
 Meantime, a pair of normal kennel-companions pro- 
 duced 45 whelps, of which 41 were viable and normal — 
 a percentage of 90.2 against the 17. 4 per cent, of viable 
 alcoholics. (Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Prob- 
 lem, vol. 1, pp. 363-368. 1903.) This and many 
 
 other similar experiments warrant the conclusion of 
 Prof. Winfield S. Hall, M. D. (Northwestern University 
 Medical College, Chicago): “Alcohol given in minute 
 quantities to lower animals seriously impairs fecimdity. 
 It leads to race suicide.” (Laboratory Researches on 
 the Action of Alcohol. U. S. Senate Document, No. 48, 
 p. 19, 1909.) 
 
 An Austrian investigator. Dr. Josef 
 Diseases in Schweighofer, published a year ago (1912) 
 Children fh® conclusions of his researches along 
 the fines of alcoholic degeneracy among the 
 people of the duchy of Salzburg. He writes: “The 
 study shows that the children of drinkers develop mental 
 diseases much oftener than the children of parents who 
 are themselves mentally diseased but not alcoholic. 
 
 [ 100] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 That is, an existing tendency to mental weakness be- 
 comes fixed under the effects of alcohol while without 
 it, there may be recovery. Seventy-five per cent, of 
 the insane patients in Salzburg had notorious drinkers 
 for parents.” 
 
 One of the most notable investigations of this sub- 
 ject was conducted for ten years, ending in 1889, by 
 Prof. Rudolph Demme, of the Jenner Hospital for Chil- 
 dren, Berne, who carefully compared the descendants 
 of ten totally-abstaining families with those of ten drink- 
 ing families. The former had 61 children of whom 5 
 died in infancy, and six were defective, — 50, or 82 per 
 cent, being normal. The intemperate families had 57 
 children, of whom 25 died in infancy (five times as 
 many as in the other case), and twenty -two were de- 
 fective, — only 10, or 17.5 per cent, being normal! 
 What striking contrasts: Temperance producing 82 per 
 cent, normal children, and Drink only 17.5 per cent, 
 normal children. Temperance having 18 per cent, 
 defective, while Drink caused 82.5 per cent, defective 
 children! A European teacher of varied and wide 
 experience, Mr. Salzlechner, made this report to the 
 Hungarian Government: “The children in those places 
 where there are more opportunities for drinking are men- 
 tally less gifted. Those where alcohol is less used, are 
 more talented and of better quahty morally. It is a 
 frequent complaint that the youth of wine regions 
 are raw and coarse.” 
 
 The result of an inquiry made by Dr. W. 
 Dr^en (Mcdical Officer in His Majesty’s 
 
 Mothers Prison Service, Great Britain), as to the 
 children of 120 drunken mothers, he de- 
 scribes in these words: “Of 600 children born of 120 
 drunken mothers, 335 (55.8 per cent.) died in infancy 
 or were still-born, several of the survivors were men- 
 
 [ 101 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 tally defective, and as many as 4.1 per cent, were 
 epileptic. Many of these women had female relat- 
 ives, sisters or daughters, of sober habits and married 
 to sober husbands. On comparing the death-rate 
 amongst the children of the sober mothers with that 
 amongst the children of the drunken women of the 
 same stock, the former was foimd to be 23.9 per cent., 
 the latter 55.2 per cent., or nearly two and a half 
 times as much. It was further observed that in the 
 drunken families there was a progressive rise in the 
 death-rate from the earher to the later born children.” 
 (“Alcoholism”: Chapter on Degeneration.) 
 
 It is needless, however, to cumber these pages with 
 additional testimonies on this point, although a great 
 mass of instructive and impressive conclusions of scien- 
 tific research could easily be brought together. But it 
 would simply confirm the general statements just made. 
 In concluding this brief discussion of the important 
 subject, the words of an eminent American author. 
 Dr. Henry S. Williams, may well be given: 
 
 “If additional evidence of the all-pervading influence of alcohol 
 is required, it may be found in the thought-compelling fact that the 
 effects are not limited to the individual vho imbibes the alcohol, 
 but may be passed on to his descendants. The offspring of alcoholics 
 show impaired vitality of the most deep-seated character. Sometimes 
 this impaired vitality is manifested in the non-viability of the offspring; 
 sometimes in deformity; very frequently in neuroses, which may take 
 the severe forms of chorea, infantile convulsions, epilepsy, or idiocy. 
 In examining into the history of 2554 idiotic, epileptic, hysterical, 
 or weak-minded children in the institution at Bicetre, France, 
 Boimneville found that over 41 per cent, had alcoholic parents. In 
 more than 9 per cent, of the cases, it was ascertained that one or both 
 parents were under the influence of alcohol at the time of procrea- 
 tion, — a fact of positively terrifjdng significance, when we reflect 
 how alcohol Inflames the passions while subordinating the judgment 
 and the ethical scruples by which these passions are normally held 
 
 [ 102 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 in check. Of similar import are the observations of Bezzola and of 
 Hartmann that a large proportion of the idiots and criminals in 
 Switzerland were conceived during the season of the year when the 
 custom of the country leads to a disproportionate consumption of 
 alcohol.” Alcohol: How it Affects the Individual, the Community, 
 and the Race, p. 44. 1909. 
 
 Many years ago, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the great 
 philanthropist, in studying the condition of the children 
 in an institution in South Boston, found that one-half 
 of the imbecile children there were the offspring of in- 
 temperate parents. 
 
 There has recently been published in a 
 popular American magazine a sensational 
 Refuted article, which is full of mistakes and which 
 will do much mischief. It is an attempt to 
 popularize the so-called “findings” of the Galton 
 Laboratory for Eugenics, London, as given in a Memoir, 
 No. X, issued some three years ago, 1910, bearing the 
 names of Prof. Karl Pearson and Miss Ethel M. Elder- 
 ton. The contention of the Memoir is that alcoholism 
 in the parent does not affect the offspring. In fact, 
 it is there claimed that certain statistics respecting 
 conditions in Manchester and Edinburgh prove that 
 the children of drinkers were at least equal, (if not 
 stronger) in body and mind, to the children of sober 
 parents. 
 
 This colossal error needs instant and vigorous cor- 
 rection, and every one interested in temperance should 
 take especial pains to spread broadcast the facts. Two 
 preliminary observations may be briefly set forth: 
 (1) Aside from the question of heredity, the case against 
 liquor is overwhelmingly strong. This is a powerful 
 argument, but the general and obvious evils of Drink 
 (apart from this) ought to be decisive with every 
 person of conscience and intelligence. (2) This Galton 
 
 [ 103 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Memoir, it ought to be remembered, is only one bit of 
 testimony, even when taken at its face value, in a 
 department where a cloud of witnesses furnish volu- 
 minous contradictory evidence. 
 
 What, in brief, are the facts? W’hen this Memoir 
 was issued, it was given a qualified approval by the 
 British Medical Journal, probably the highest authority 
 in the world. Then a hot controversy broke out, which 
 lasted for several months in this J ournal, in the London 
 Times, and in other periodicals. The critics completely 
 riddled the Memoir, until it was torn into shreds and 
 tatters! Prof. Karl Pearson (who as a specialist in 
 another department is an eminent scientist) repeatedly 
 shifted his ground and qualified his statements. He 
 came out of the controversy with decided loss of reputa- 
 tion. In every respect his treatment of the eminent 
 scientist of Finland, Prof. Laitinen, was certainly 
 regrettable. A large number of distinguished writers, 
 of world renown, pointed out the numerous errors in 
 this Memoir, from various points of \dew. The most 
 crushing criticisms were presented by Sir Thomas P. 
 Whittaker, Sir Victor Horsley, M. D., and the eminent 
 medical authority. Dr. C. W. Saleeby, who had himseh 
 worked in the slum district of Edinburgh where the 
 statistics chiefly used in the Memoir had been gathered 
 and who, therefore, knew first hand a great deal more 
 about the real situation than Pearson and Elderton 
 themselves ! Dr. Saleeby (the author of a notable book 
 on “Parenthood and Race Culture”) wrote of this 
 Memoir: “The most tragic instance within my ex- 
 perience of the miscarriage of patient labor and sincere 
 intention.” (British Journal of Inebriety, April 1911, 
 p. 197.) 
 
 As a result of the controversy, so clear and crushing 
 was the evidence against it, the editor of the British 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 Medical Journal withdrew his qualified indorsement 
 of the “findings,” which had been completely disproven. 
 
 But, apparently, without any knowledge of these 
 facts, an American writer, seeking a sensational topic, 
 proceeds to parade this discredited Memoir before the 
 American public, giving no hint of its true character, 
 and ignoring its demolition by competent authorities. 
 This is a performance that has mightily pleased our 
 brewers and distillers; but it is not creditable to the 
 writer of the article, and it places the editors and pub- 
 lishers of the magazine in anything but a favorable 
 light. Surely an apology is due from them. 
 
 What is the truth of the matter? Simply this, as 
 plainly shown by the controversy just described, and 
 it is as clear as daylight to anyone who will take the 
 pains to read the Memoir itself: the so-called statistics 
 are utterly worthless for the 'purpose for which they were 
 used. 
 
 In the first place, these statistics were 
 gathered from one of the worst slum dis- 
 tricts of Edinburgh, not by experts to be 
 used in such an investigation as this, but by agents of 
 a charity organization, and set down somewhat care- 
 lessly with another object in view. It seems astonish- 
 ing that any one with claim to scientific accuracy should 
 resort to such material in discussing Drink and eugenics. 
 AsSir Victor Horsley, M. D., remarks: “No conclusion 
 whatever ought to have been drawn from such imper- 
 fect data as they present to us.” (Alcohol and the Hu- 
 man Body; p. 246). In the second place, there is here 
 no comparison between a large number of children in 
 the families of drinkers and an equal number taken 
 from total abstinence families, the only fair method of 
 comparison. The comparison in the Memoir is between 
 the children of “moderate” drinkers and those of 
 
 [105] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 “heavy” drinkers, and even this comparison is not 
 scientifically made. Out of the nearly 800 fa mili es 
 superficially studied in this Scotch slum, only 18 are 
 set down as temperate. And even here we are not told 
 how long these famihes had been temperate, nor are 
 we informed under what condition their few children 
 were born, — very important considerations. As many 
 critics have pointed out, conclusions so reached are 
 utterly vicious, because there is no real comparison 
 between the two classes of children; the corrective 
 factor, an equal number of children in total abstinence 
 families, is wholly ignored. Surely it needs no argument 
 to show that an investigation narrowly limited to the 
 children in a slum district, without any reference what- 
 ever to the children in wholesome homes, is a procedme 
 which does not deserve the name of science. 
 
 A recent and competent writer makes this statement 
 in reference to this subject; “As the matter now stands, 
 the social worker is still justified in regarding alcohol as 
 a race poison. The facts remain that parents, many 
 of them of the best stock, are voluntarily injuring them- 
 selves and their offspring through an over indulgence in 
 alcohol.” (Alcohol and Parentage. By Prof. C. R. 
 Davis. The Survey, Sept. 20, 1913; p. 738). 
 
 To this may be added the testimony of a dozen doc- 
 tors, connected with the schools of Charlottenburg, 
 Germany, who state that not one-ihird of the pupils 
 have normal physical powers, and one of them. Dr. 
 Lichtenberg, asserts: “Without a doubt this degenera- 
 tion among school youth, which was not known at all 
 some decades ago, is an essential result of the drinking 
 customs which have penetrated ever more deeply into 
 popular life. ” 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is clearly put by 
 Sir Thomas P. Whittaker in these words; “\Mien it 
 
 [ 106 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 is seen, as has now been shown, how utterly inadequate 
 and completely untrustworthy the data are for the 
 purpose for which it has been used by Prof. Pearson, 
 one can only marvel that any one admittedly so able 
 and brilliant in some directions as he is, should blunder 
 so egregiously and reason so faultily.” 
 
 Obviously, the facts respecting the influence of Drink 
 upon offspring must appeal most powerfully to all 
 right-minded parents. Nothing is stronger or nobler 
 in human life than the parental instinct: the love of 
 children. It is clear that the parent’s attitude toward 
 Drink has much to do with the welfare of the new genera- 
 tion. To indulge in liquors means to them a curse; 
 to abstain assures many blessings. 
 
 The friends of hquor often contend that 
 
 The Question , , . p • , 
 
 of Immunity many temperance advocates fall into serious 
 error by their failure to recognize that by 
 long use the human system becomes immune to alcohol, 
 so that, while Drink at first does these bad things, in 
 time the body accustoms itself to it, and escapes farther 
 injury. For confirmation, appeal is made to its more 
 serious damage to savages and to beginners in drinking, 
 of whom it is said that “they cannot carry the stuff 
 like an old toper.” An illustration in support of this 
 claim is sought in the case of tobacco. 
 
 There seems on the surface to be some support for 
 this claim. But certain vital facts are ignored by these 
 defenders of alcohol: 
 
 (1) When a moderate drinker goes to a hospital 
 for a serious surgical operation, the doctor does not 
 tell him that he is free from the dangers due to liquor 
 because he has been a drinker for many years. The 
 longer the man has been indulging, the more dubiously 
 the surgeon shakes his head. The same is true whenever 
 the drinker becomes sick with any disease. 
 
 [ 107 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 (2) No insurance company acts upon this policy. 
 Its agents never say to a confirmed sot: We will gladly 
 write a policy for you, because you have been drinking 
 so long that you are now immune to the evil effects 
 of alcohol. What they do say is the exact opposite. 
 
 (3) Scientific investigations show that the degeneracy 
 of offspring born to a drinker late in life is more frequent ' 
 and more marked than in children born soon after 
 marriage, proving that the system acquires no such 
 immunity. 
 
 (4) It is with alcohol as with other narcotics like 
 opium: the amount afterwards used would have killed 
 the beginner, though the evil effects of the smaller 
 quantity first used are in some respects more apparent. 
 However, both the opium fiend and the irresponsible 
 inebriate prove that the human system never becomes 
 immune to these poisons. 
 
 (5) Even if there were a fraction of truth in this 
 contention, the arguments for abstinence hold good, 
 for the evils actually flowing from Drink along many 
 channels, are sufficient to condemn it and lead the 
 parent, the patriot, the Christian to avoid it. 
 
 In this connection, emphasis needs to be 
 placed on the one supreme reason why 
 Morality parents should vigorously oppose the Drink 
 Habit and the Liquor Traffic, namely: 
 the evil influence of alcohol upon sex morality. There 
 is a growing interest in sex hygiene. Those best in- 
 formed respecting the problem reahze that Drink plays 
 a chief part in the initiative of sensuahty and also in 
 the maintenance of prostitution. Wise leaders are 
 demanding: We must separate the use of liquor from 
 the vice problem. This is obvious. But such separa- 
 tion can come only by stopping the use and sale of 
 beer and whisky. Therefore, the first thing that parents, 
 
 [108] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 who want to make sure that their children grow up 
 to lead clean lives, must do is to exert themselves to 
 destroy the Drink Curse, root and branch. 
 
 A full appreciation of this supremely 
 The Duty important truth is an essential equipment 
 for the best family life. It must be heeded 
 more in the future than it has been in the 
 past. Parents will come to see that here is a matter 
 that must not be neglected. They must realize that 
 the most important thing is, not simply to provide 
 their children an education, but so to live themselves 
 that their children shall have minds and bodies capable 
 of education, untainted by alcoholic degeneracy. In- 
 dulgence in liquor on the part of the parent, is likely 
 to report itself in the offspring, by lessening mental 
 capacity, or weakening the body, so that education is 
 seriously limited. Why so anxious for the child’s 
 education, but so blind to the evils of Drink which may 
 put into the child a mind incapable of the best educa- 
 tion.? Why labor and sacrifice so strenuously in order 
 to give the boy a good financial start when he becomes 
 a man, but at the same time so freely use liquor that the 
 boy will begin life with such a bad inheritance that he 
 never can succeed in business? These parental re- 
 sponsibilities must more and more be laid to heart. 
 
 But in addition to this important matter 
 ^s^ction inheritance, there is another phase of 
 
 Needed Ihc subject which needs attention — en- 
 vironment, nurture, instruction. The par- 
 ent is under obligation to see to it that the child is 
 put in possession of the vital facts, which constitute 
 the temperance gospel. Formerly, emphasis was 
 chiefly placed, in this connection, on the obligation of 
 the parent to live a sober life in order to set the proper 
 example before the child. This responsibility grows 
 
 [ 109 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 heavier as the years pass. But it is evident, today, 
 that the parent must do something more than this. 
 Parents must provide a thorough education in tem- 
 perance for their children; a comprehensive training that 
 includes, not only example and environment, but care- 
 ful nurture and painstaking instruction. They must 
 see to it that the young people who grow up in their 
 homes are thoroughly acquainted with the facts re- 
 specting the effects of the use of liquor upon body and 
 mind, and with the menace of alcohol to home and school, 
 to church and state. 
 
 These facts may be grouped under three heads as 
 follows: 
 
 I. It is well for parents to put in practice the teachings 
 of medical science that, in the little illnesses that come 
 to them and their children, there is always, on the whole, 
 some better remedy than an alcoholic drink. Many 
 times a little liquor does apparently work like a charm. 
 But something else would have accomplished the same 
 result without entailing the serious consequences which 
 follow the use of alcohol. 
 
 In the past, as we all know, resort was 
 made to liquor for almost everything; to 
 cure all aches and pains; to ward off dis- 
 ease; to protect against cold and heat; to 
 prepare for unusual exertion; to rest from 
 fatigue and exhaustion; to drown sorrow and distress. 
 We now know that in every such incident of life the 
 use of liquor is not only harmful but deceptive. The 
 help which it seems to give is in reality, as a rule, perma- 
 nent injury. The momentary relief or exhilaration 
 is followed by serious reactions. The wise mother will, 
 therefore, from now on, refrain from using hquors as 
 medicines, not only in order to set a better example, 
 but to save herself and her family. If one is in a chill 
 
 [ 1101 
 
 The Use 
 of Alcohol 
 as a 
 
 Medicine 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 from exposure, hot water is better than whisky. So, 
 in a hundred cases, it is far wiser to do something else 
 than to use the old-fashioned, but now discredited 
 “toddy.” Especially ought mothers to avoid all use 
 of “patent medicines,” which generally contain liquor 
 or opium. A bath, spirits of ammonia, or other simple 
 means will accomplish better results than liquor, with 
 no evil effects to follow. Physicians might do much to 
 help the temperance cause and also to help humanity, 
 by educating their patients along this line. 
 
 An eminent American physician, the editor of Clinical 
 Medicine, Dr. Wm. F. Waugh of Chicago, gives this 
 testimony: “Personally I stand ready to use alcohol 
 at any time when I believe it is to the best interest of 
 my patient, but I do not know a solitary use or a soli- 
 tary case occurring in the vddest range of medical prac- 
 tice in which alcohol is the best remedy that can be 
 applied.” (The Alcoholic Problem, U. S. Senate 
 Document, No. 48, p. 150, 1909). The same testi- 
 mony was given on Feb. 19, 1912, by the then Lord 
 Mayor of London, Sir Thomas B. Crosby, M. D.: 
 “In health, alcohol is not necessary to build up strong 
 bodies; while in illness I know of no disease that alcohol 
 can cure. My message may be summed up thus: — 
 teach the children the absolute safety of abstinence 
 from all intoxicants — in whatever form they may be 
 disguised.” 
 
 A celebrated German publicist. Councilor Heinrich 
 Quensel, has laid down these axioms (among others) 
 for mothers : 
 
 1. That alcohol retards the physical and mental 
 development of children. 
 
 2. That alcohol leads quickly to fatigue, and causes 
 dullness and inattention in school. 
 
 3. That alcohol promotes disobedience to parents. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 4. That alcohol causes sleeplessness and nervous- 
 ness. 
 
 5. That alcohol endangers the moral nature of the 
 child. 
 
 This advice is realized to be doubly important 
 when we learn that in several cities in the United States, 
 the sad fact has recently come to light that children 
 have come to the public schools showing signs of 
 intoxication ! 
 
 A distinguished physician of Brookljm, Dr. L. D. 
 Mason, has recently asserted: “The time may come, 
 and may not be far distant, when the use of alcohol as 
 a remedy will be, if not de jure at least de facto malprac- 
 tise.” (“American Journal of Inebriety,” July, 1913). 
 The following testimonies illustrate the trend of medical 
 theory and practice. It is a most significant circum- 
 stance that at the recent meeting, in Milan (Sept., 1913), 
 of the International Congress on Alcohohsm, there 
 was presented a message of friendly greeting signed by 
 21,000 Italian doctors! Sir William Broadbent, M. D., 
 formerly physician to King Edward, wrote: “Children 
 should never know the taste of any alcoholic drink and 
 stimulants ought to be absolutely forbidden during 
 school life. In adolescence they impair self-control 
 and are a source of danger. At aU ages when taken 
 to relieve feelings of weakness or faintness, serious 
 danger of falling under their influence is close at hand.” 
 And these words from Sir Alexander Simpson, M. D., 
 who, in lecturing not long ago to the medical students 
 of Edinburgh, said: “You will not be long in practice 
 before you will prove these five things: (1) Alcohol, 
 habitually used, can of itseK produce diseases from 
 which the abstainer is exempt. (2) That it will aggra- 
 vate diseases to which all are liable. (3) That it ren- 
 [ 112 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 ders those who habitually use it more open to attacks 
 of various forms of illness. (4) That the alcoholist has 
 a smaller chance of recovery from a fever or an injury 
 than an abstainer. (5) That in the crisis of disease 
 the alcoholist gets less benefit from stimulants than 
 the abstainer.” 
 
 These statements (and scores of similar authorities 
 may easily be cited) should forcibly warn parents never 
 to use liquor as a household medicine, as is now so 
 often done in many homes where temperance is the rule 
 of life. The rapid decline in the use of alcohol in hos- 
 pitals teaches the same lesson. (See Chapter X.) 
 
 II. Parents ought to inform themselves 
 Drtakressens respecting the facts about alcohol which 
 Opportunity have recently been brought to light by 
 scientific discovery, insurance experience, 
 athletic contests, and industrial tests. Children ought 
 to be taught that alcohol is the Great Deceiver, that 
 the increase of life which it seems to produce is really 
 a destruction of life. They ought to be made acquainted 
 with the wreckage of human life caused by Drink and 
 the financial burdens put thereby upon society, by 
 what it does to increase crime, pauperism, and insanity. 
 They ought to be shown how drinking, not simply 
 drunkenness, leads to industrial ineflSciency, the drinker 
 having greater trouble to get and hold a job, and less 
 chance of promotion. How it causes accidents and 
 makes the employer of labor less willing to hire one 
 who uses liquor, the bar being put up higher and higher 
 every year, and especially in the departments where 
 greatest skill is required. Also, how the experiences in 
 armies show that sober soldiers can endure more than 
 their drinking comrades. And it should be made clear 
 to them that the investigations of insurance companies 
 demonstrate that total abstinence prolongs life. 
 
 [ 113 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 There is one group of facts, which mil 
 Drink Certainly appeal most powerfully to boys, 
 
 AtWefic^°™ and parents will do well to impress them 
 Training upon the young mind mth tact and vigor, 
 namely: Those that show the advantage 
 of abstinence to one who desires success in athletic 
 sports. Surely any wholesome lad can be made to real- 
 ize that his standing as an athlete depends upon tem- 
 perance. Indulgence means defeat. He can be made 
 to see that liquor does to the body what mixing alcohol 
 with the gasoline would do to the automobile. It puts 
 its machinery out of order, and endangers human life. 
 Or as Luther Burbank so well states the case: It is 
 like putting sand in a watch. 
 
 In this connection, there is one other 
 nq^s department which must be briefly consid- 
 students ered, that of study. Some dozen years ago, 
 a school official of Vienna, Mr. E. Bayer, 
 investigated the standing of over 1,000 children who 
 drank some beer or wine, and compared their standing 
 with that of other children who abstained from drink. 
 The abstainers, who stood “good” or “fair” were 
 respectively 42 per cent, and 57 per cent., and those 
 who stood “poor” were 9 per cent. Those who drank 
 twice a day stood as follows: “good,” 25 per cent., 
 “fair” 58 per cent., “poor,” 18 per cent.! That is, 
 the percentage of abstainers who stood “good” was 
 nearly twice as high as that of the drinking children, 
 while the percentage of “poor” among the latter was 
 just twice as large as among the abstainers. Comment 
 is unnecessary. Some four years ago (1909), an in- 
 vestigation among 4,000 Italian children showed the 
 same results. The same year, the Hungarian Minister 
 of Education published, in his official report, conclu- 
 [114] 
 
Scholarship of Abstaining and Drinking Children 
 
 Investigation concerned 588 pupils in 14 classes. 
 
 Drinks used included wine, beer, and rum in tea. 
 
 Highest Scholarship Decreased! a .u t ai l i i i 
 
 Poorest Scholarship Increased Increased. 
 
 Investigation by E. Eayr, School Director, Vienna, 1899. 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 sions of a similar character, showing that drinking 
 children are duller, more careless, less capable of 
 mental work. 
 
 According to the notable experiments 
 Drink carried on by Prof. August Smith, at the 
 
 University of Heidelberg, and by Prof. 
 HannfuUy Ragnar Vogt, at the University of Chris- 
 tiania, very moderate drinking (from one 
 to two glasses of mild beer a day) interferes with the 
 human memory. The former compared for 27 days 
 what he was able to accomplish in memorizing figures, 
 using beer one day and abstaining the next and so on 
 for the month. His ability to memorize was very much 
 larger (25 per cent.) on the days that he did not drink. 
 Prof. Vogt showed that it took him much less time to 
 memorize 25 lines of the Odyssey when he abstained 
 than when he drank a small quantity of beer. Such 
 indisputable facts as these must appeal with great force 
 to all young people who desire to excel in scholarship. 
 They also help to destroy the ancient superstition 
 that the use of liquor strengthens the intellect and tends 
 to transform the ordinary person into a genius. 
 
 By a wise use of a multitude of facts along these and 
 similar lines, which may be graphically stated and 
 driven home by innumerable illustrations, the parents 
 of our land could, in a few years, effect a mighty rev- 
 olution that would contribute much to the progress 
 of civilization and the happiness of mankind. If 
 mothers, especially, were equipped with these facts, 
 they could be effectively used in many a casual remark 
 and made more productive of good results than any 
 direct preachment. Often the richest harvest comes 
 from seed-truths unobtrusively dropped into young 
 minds with no apparent intent to dictate or instruct. 
 
 [ 115 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 III. One other thing alert and thoughtful 
 Helpful parents can easily do; and while the method 
 Literature simple, the results will be abundant and 
 
 beneficent. Let them see to it that the 
 right kind of temperance literature is always close 
 at hand in the living room of the home. Very little 
 may be said about it; perhaps best, if nothing at all. 
 But let it be there to create an atmosphere and make its 
 impression. Somthing of this sort is especially needed 
 today to offset the false teachings and implications 
 of general literature on this subject. Even the master- 
 pieces of poetry and fiction written previous to the 
 present age, to say nothing of what is now printed, are 
 full of the direct and indirect commendation of the 
 use of liquors. The young reader gets the impression 
 that to drink is the common habit, not only of the low 
 and vulgar, but also of all gentlemen; and that all great 
 men, if they did not get drunk, did indulge somewhat. 
 He naturally infers that drinking is a manly habit, 
 necessary to robust health, good manners, and a pleas- 
 ant life. An antidote to this poison in the literature 
 of the past ought to be present in the home. And the 
 wise parent will see to it that attractive pamphlets and 
 periodicals, giving the real facts respecting the innu- 
 merable evils due to the Drink Habit, are always at 
 hand. These will be found effective aids to Christian 
 nurture in the family. Great care should be taken 
 in the selection of this temperance literature. But there 
 are a number of sources from which material of this 
 kind, attractive and trustworthy, may be obtained at 
 small expense, and some valuable pamphlets are dis- 
 tributed free. 
 
 Among the many things that are admirable and 
 available today, the following are especially recom- 
 [ 116 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 mended, because of their sanity, simplicity, and high 
 scientific character: 
 
 (1) Alcohol in Every Day Life. A pamphlet of 32 
 pages with quotations, diagrams, and authorities, pre- 
 pared by the Scientific Temperance Federation, for 
 the use of the pupils of the Public Schools of Baltimore : 
 Clear, comprehensive, easily understood. Admirable 
 in every way, 10 cents. 
 
 (2) Alcohol, and the Human Body. By Sir Victor 
 Horsley, M. D., and Mary D. Sturge, M. D. Fourth 
 Edition, 290 pp. Macmillan. 1911. 50 cents. A 
 masterpiece of scientific exposition in simple terms. 
 
 (3) Alcohol: How it Affects the Individual, the Com- 
 munity, and the Race. By Dr. Henry Smith Williams, 
 151 pp. The Century Co. 1909. 50 cents. A 
 popular and powerful presentation of facts. 
 
 (4) On the Firing Line in the Battle for Sobriety. 
 By Rev. Dr. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. 134 pp. 1910. 
 50 Cents. Unity Publishing Co. Abraham Lincoln 
 Centre, Chicago. Three Thrilling Stories, with many 
 important facts imbedded: An attractive and inspiring 
 book for young people. 
 
 (5) The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe. By 
 Ernest Gordon. 333 pp. 1913. $1.50. Fleming H. 
 Revell Company. A virile and inspiring survey of 
 Temperance Facts. 
 
 (6) Very valuable pamphlets, brief, plain, and es- 
 pecially adapted for such purposes, may be obtained 
 at very slight cost by correspondence with the Scien- 
 tific Temperance Federation (which prints an admirable 
 monthly paper for parents and teachers, “The Scien- 
 tific Temperance Journal.”); The National Temperance 
 Society, 373 Fourth Ave., New York City; The Pres- 
 byterian Temperance Committee, Conestoga Building, 
 Pittsburgh; The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 
 
 [ 117 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Evanston, Illinois; The Church of England Temperance 
 Society, The Sanctuary, London, S.W. Also, the 
 United Kingdom Alliance, 16 Deansgate, Manchester, 
 England. The Unitarian Temperance Society (25 
 Beacon St., Boston, Mass.), distributes /ree some thirty 
 valuable tracts. 
 
 (7) Once a year (February or March), Mrs. Fannie 
 D. Chase, its editor (Takoma Park Station, Washington, 
 D. C.) turns her monthly journal for yoimg people, 
 “The Youth’s Instructor,” into a special temperance 
 document, which will be found most attractive and 
 helpful. 
 
 And perhaps a word of warning, in this connection, 
 may be timely concerning the book entitled. Alcohol: 
 the Sanction of its Use (now fortunately out of print), 
 by Dr. J. Starke, a German VTiter destitute of scientific 
 position or reputation, which has misled many American 
 readers. When the translation was issued in America 
 (1907), it received praise solely from Liquor Journals 
 or those interested in Drink. It is utterly valueless 
 and perniciously false in statement. IMiere its lan- 
 guage is not so vague that it is useless, its assertions are 
 untrue, without any basis in present scientific teaching. 
 It, contains no quotations from scientific treatises and 
 it makes no exact references to modern authorities in 
 this field of research. The character of the VTiter is 
 shown by the fact that he vaguely alludes to a few men 
 like Demme, von Bunge, and Kraepehn (pp. 305-309) 
 as though supporters of his views, while the exact 
 opposite is the fact! 
 
 The Ministry of Education in Germany 
 Public” recently approved the following Bulletin, 
 Document to be distributed by certain departments of 
 the Board of Health ; 
 
 [ 118 ] 
 
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES 
 
 GIVE YOUR CHILDREN NOT A DROP OF WINe! NOT A 
 DROP OF beer! not A DROP OF BRANDY ! 
 
 Why? 
 
 Because alcohol of any kind, even in the smallest quantity, brings 
 only harm to the children. 
 
 Why? 
 
 1. Alcohol checks the bodily and mental development of children. 
 
 2. Alcohol leads quickly to exhaustion, and causes heaviness and 
 inattention in the school. 
 
 3. Alcohol causes disobedience to parents. 
 
 4. Alcohol develops sleeplessness and early nervousness. 
 
 5. Alcohol increases the mortality of the children. 
 
 6. Alcohol weakens the resisting power of the body and thereby 
 leads to the development of all kinds of diseases. 
 
 7. Alcohol continually awakens renewed thirst, and on that accoimt 
 leads easily to habits of drinking. 
 
 What should the wife and mother know of alcohol? 
 
 She ought to know: 
 
 That one ought to give children under 14 years old not a drop of 
 wine, beer or brandy. 
 
 That wine, beer and brandy are not materials for nourishment but 
 merely intoxicants. 
 
 That spirituous drinks as remedies should only be taken as necessi- 
 ties on a doctor’s prescription and only very exceptionally. 
 
 That regular taking of alcohol, in any form or quantity, damages 
 the blood, and thereby lays the foimdation of many diseases. 
 
 That regular taking of alcohol damages the working power, and leads 
 to premature sickness of those who take it. 
 
 That regular taking of alcohol hinders, prevents and makes difficult 
 the progress of a man. 
 
 That regular taking of alcohol draws many a penny out of the pocket 
 which would be better spent on the family. 
 
 That regular taking of alcohol easily leads a man to become a 
 hanger-on of the public house (saloon) and brings the family life 
 many dangers, and makes early widows. 
 
 [ 119 ] 
 
“ The indictment against alcohol has long since been drawn. The 
 sentence has been pronounced with such sharpness and so loudly in 
 all the territories of civilization and savagery, that it is unnecessary 
 to reopen discussion concerning the results of experience so dearly 
 purchased. . . . The destiny of that people which is unable 
 
 to react against the moral and physical degeneration, accepted in 
 exchange for a degrading pleasure, is sealed.” Hon. Georges Cle- 
 menceau, former premier of the French Republic. Introduction to 
 L’Aleoohol, by M. Louis Jacquet, 1913. 
 
 “Alcohol is the great purveyor of human misery. It is one of the 
 supreme factors in the world's suffering.” Dr. Lucien Jacquet, St. 
 Antoine Hospital, Paris. Brother of the author of L’Aleoohol. 
 
 The city government of Frankfort-on- the-Oder, Germany, has 
 made the following official announcement: 
 
 “No. 943. — Circulation of Placards by the Alcohol Interests. 
 
 “Lately placards have been hung out in many drinkshops, which, 
 pretending to rest on scientific bases, represent that complete absti- 
 nence from alcohol works more injuriously on the human body than 
 the extreme use of alcohol. These placards cany a title borrowed 
 from a placard of the German Union against the Misuse of Spirituous 
 Liquors, ‘What Every One Should Know About Alcohol.’ I ask that 
 the county magistrates and local police officials see to it that these 
 placards, calculated as they are to stimulate excess, disappear. The 
 attention of the drinksellers is called to the fact that the hanging out 
 of placards of this sort can be used as evidence in action for the 
 withdrawal of licenses.” Dec. 13, 1912. 
 
 [ 120 ] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 We live in an intensely practical age. Everywhere 
 the test is “utility” — not always a low and physical 
 utility, but often a high and spiritual utility. Even 
 Jesus, our Master in the spiritual life, commended 
 this test: “By their fruits ye shall know them. ” We 
 bring everything to the test of experience. We ask 
 of all things: How does it work.!* We demand of 
 everybody: What can you do.!* In all realms we 
 insist: Give us something that can be applied. 
 
 In the department of education, we everywhere 
 read of applied mathematics, applied chemistry, apphed 
 physics, applied psychology. We have schools of 
 apphed philanthropy. We train the young by doing 
 things and also to do things. Knowledge must be 
 applied. The triumph of science is found in the apph- 
 cation of knowledge to the service of humanity. The 
 advance of civilization, on its material side, depends 
 upon the application of the energies of the universe, — 
 blowing wind, running water, the stored sunlight in 
 coal and forest, — to the work of the world: harnessing 
 the old divinities to do our chores. 
 
 The same spirit is also transforming 
 Demand religion. The present Age pleads with 
 
 Applied Ihs churches: Give the world, not mere 
 
 Christianity echoes of ancient prophecies, but living 
 voices of instruction and inspiration; not 
 symbols of distant sanctities, but services to men now 
 
 [ 121 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 The New 
 Psychology 
 
 in need; not vanishing memories of old time heroes, 
 but Baming messages of love that shall make the sons 
 of God heroic today! The demand sweeps round the 
 world with ever-increasing urgency: Send forth mis- 
 sionaries of Apphed Christianity, who can make men 
 feel the presence of God, realise the eternal hfe that 
 now is, and reorganize human society upon the high 
 plane of right and justice. And the present attempt 
 to apply Christianity to human hfe, in a more ^^tal 
 and ethical way than formerly, is producing a new 
 Christianity, in which the spirit of Christ is more evi- 
 dent. In this spiritual expansion of piety, the churches 
 must make a more vigorous application of the Gospel 
 to the Drink Problem. To hve and establish the 
 Kingdom of God the Church must destroy the saloon. 
 
 We are, in these days, all disciples and 
 debtors of the “new psychology.” And 
 we are trying to apply it to every depart- 
 ment of human life. The wise mother studies the 
 psychology of her growing infant. The skillful teacher 
 must be a psychologist. The doctor has added psy- 
 chotherapy to his pills and powders. We are all reading 
 about the psychology of mobs and revivals. The novel- 
 ist sends us off on our v^acation with a psychological 
 romance. The pohticians, with their ear to the ground, 
 watch for the “psychological moment.” The teach- 
 ings of psychology find their way into shop and store. 
 On them the art of advertising is based, and by them 
 the commercial traveler wins his way. The arid wastes 
 of the “dismal science” now become attractive because 
 political economists follow the psychological method. 
 This new science has invaded the sanctuary, so that 
 the young preacher must be an adept in psychology’ 
 and Christian nurture finds here a new field and 
 friend. 
 
 [ 122 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 One of the principles to be forced to the 
 The Power front by psychology is the power of sug- 
 
 Suggestion gestion. Its medicinal, didactic, esthetic, 
 
 civic, and ethical influence is now seen to 
 be very great. The doctor, by the simple suggestion 
 of health, can calm the leaping pulse, ease the throbbing 
 heart, and even stimulate the appetite to a new relish 
 for food. The effective pedagogue does not so much 
 impart knowledge as suggest methods of study and 
 research. We begin to realize that the supreme charm 
 of all the arts lies in the suggestions of form, color, and 
 rhythm. The instructor in morals points out how 
 much depends upon the suggestions of environment; 
 wholesome surroundings help to develop noble char- 
 acters. The great statesman knows that the glowing 
 expectations of patriotism as suggested by heroic 
 monuments, impressive pageants, inspiring songs, and 
 fiery eloquence are invaluable factors in the making of 
 the commonwealth. We are all constantly students 
 and practitioners in “the school of suggestion.” The 
 divinest felicities and excellencies of our co mm on human 
 life come through this wide gateway of suggestion. 
 
 Just because all this is true, we are able 
 Advertise light of this principle, how very 
 
 ments harmful liquor advertisements are. They 
 
 produce innumerable evils, but chiefly in two 
 ways: (1) By stimulating a low and vicious appetite; (2) 
 by teaching pernicious errors. Consider the first point. 
 The billboard picture and the newspaper legend in 
 attractive type, both seductively suggestive, constantly 
 keep the use and supposed benefit of liquor before 
 millions of people. Their omnipresent “suggestions” 
 stimulate appetite, and lead directly to its harmful 
 gratification. If this were not true, the liquor men 
 would not annually spend millions of dollars in this 
 [ 123] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Poster 
 
 Suggestion 
 
 manner. Many a man would never think of drinking 
 beer or whisky did not the advertisement awaken the 
 desire in his mind. Just as obscene pictures and 
 amorous poetry create animal passions in the young, so 
 these liquor advertisements multiply and intensify the 
 popular thirst for liquors. A careful examination would 
 show that the determining impulse toward the saloon 
 comes, in thousands of cases, from the suggestion of 
 liquor advertisements. The educative influence for 
 evil with the young, along this line, is incalculable; and 
 it ought to receive our serious attention. 
 
 How often, in turning the advertising 
 pages of the magazine, do we find 
 ourselves saying, as the eye rests upon some 
 attractively presented matter: We never thought of 
 it before, but this is something that we must have. 
 And so if one inherits a morbid desire for liquor, how 
 much more powerful the suggestion to drink, arising 
 from wine or beer advertisements. The pictures, in 
 public places and on billboards, of jolly old men drink- 
 ing whiskjq of elegantly dressed young men and women 
 drinking champagne, and all such suggestive adver- 
 tisements which everwhere stare at us — these educate 
 our children in evil. If the obscene picture ought to 
 be prohibited, surely these advertisements that turn 
 men, through Drink, into the ways of death, ought 
 also to be prohibited. 
 
 The swift desecration of every landscape 
 in our coimtry by liquor advertisements 
 during the last few years is a serious menace 
 to all the precious interests of ci\'ilization. The evil 
 is appalling, and it is on the increase. It is the “new 
 profanity” which is far more offensive and more harm- 
 ful than the vulgar habit of swearing. 
 
 The human side of the command in the Decalogue — 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 
 Billboard 
 
 Desecration 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The New 
 Profanity 
 
 “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain” — is this: “Thou shall not profane the works 
 of God, much less the sons of God.” To blight the 
 life of a child of God by encouraging intemperance is 
 worse than to take the name of God in vain, because 
 deeds go deeper than words; because drunkenness 
 dishonors God more than idle speech. To plaster 
 fields and buildings with lying praises of intoxicants; 
 to bombard the sensitive minds of women and children 
 with false and odious glorifications of liquors that 
 turn men into brutes; and to put to foul uses the pic- 
 tures of beautiful women: What greater profanity can 
 curse the world? 
 
 This profanation has recently made 
 alarming strides. If we open a copy of 
 many of our leading newspapers, the won- 
 derful merits of some new brand of whisky, beer, or wine 
 are paraded before us in letters six inches long. If we 
 look upward to the blue sky, the great billboards on 
 the housetops, proclaiming the virtues of some liquor, 
 shut out the glories of the horizon. If we turn the 
 pages of many a magazine, we see between notices of 
 books and schools, the picture of a brewery or a dis- 
 tillery, If we lift our eyes to heaven we often behold 
 the church steeple framed in liquor signs. If we enter 
 a trolley car, there too the lurid appeals to man’s 
 lowest appetite are blazoned forth. If we take the 
 wings of the morning and go to the quiet countryside, 
 even there on cliff or stable the “traflBc” has put its 
 defacing sign-manual of disease and death! What is 
 all this but the worst form of profanity? 
 
 Who has not felt bruised and wounded 
 by the pictorial lies in commendation of 
 intoxicating drinks that confront us where- 
 ever we turn? A picture representing whisky as a 
 
 [ 125 ] 
 
 Pictnied 
 
 Lies 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 life-preserver, when in fact it is the greatest life-de- 
 stroyer. A picture of some bottled drink represented as 
 the giver of joy, when in fact it produces immeasurable 
 sorrows; and on the whole, a hundred heartaches to a 
 single transient pleasure. A picture of an athlete with 
 implication that strength comes from use of liquors, 
 when in fact the winners in the stadium are restricted 
 to total abstinence. A picture of a sturdy workman 
 made as attractive as possible to commend the product 
 of some particular brewery, when in fact our great 
 captains of industry put their workmen under bonds 
 not to drink. A picture of a young man at his study 
 table with bottles among his books to tempt students 
 into the use of liquors, when in fact the teacher can 
 always mark the beginning of dissipation by the poorer 
 recitation. A picture of the happy home with a well 
 filled side-board from which the beautiful daughter is 
 carrying the full glasses to all its members, when in 
 fact thousands of homes in our land are in tears from 
 the Drink Habit! What is all this deadly mis-repre- 
 sentation of life, devised simply to increase “trade,” 
 but the very worst form of profanity ! 
 
 Has anyone a right to make the beautiful 
 theTiqTof landscape swear at us by strewing it with 
 Poster glaring and offensive signs of whiskj' and 
 
 beer? Has anyone a right to cover the 
 fields with “liquor-lies” that pervert and corrupt the 
 minds of innocent children? Has anyone a right to 
 parade before a Christian community by seductive but 
 deceptive pictures the wares of a “trade” that does 
 little more than fill jails, asylums, poorhouses, and 
 pauper-graves? WTiat a prostitution of art; what a 
 degradation of life! What inexcusable profanation — 
 to use the divine figure of some beautful woman to com- 
 mend to the world a brand of whisky, the drinking of 
 
 [ 126 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 which by husband, son or father, burdens women with 
 more miseries than spring from all other evils in life! 
 Is there even a single drunkard who would like to have 
 the picture of his mother, wife or daughter so used? 
 What an outrage upon the holiest being on earth! 
 
 All our teachers are emphasizing the importance 
 and the influence of environment upon human life in 
 general, but especially upon child-life. Therefore, 
 how unwise and unfortunate to permit a nefarious 
 “trade” to corrupt and pervert our environment by 
 making it impossible for our children to take a walk or 
 a ride, to open magazine or newspaper, to look at 
 buildings or hillsides without coming face to face with 
 this “New Profanity!” 
 
 Bad as ordinary “curse- words” are, what 
 they in comparison with the profanities 
 that the liquor traffic spreads round our 
 homes, so that from the rising to the setting of the 
 sun our families are never free from these pictorial lies 
 in praise of some form of malt or spirituous drinks! 
 
 Vulgar as common swearing is, how small an evil it 
 is, in comparison with the vulgarizing influence of an 
 environment overspread and polluted with advertise- 
 ments designed to increase the use of that which cor- 
 rupts morals and destroys human life! 
 
 Repulsive as coarse oaths are, what are they, in 
 comparison with the desecration of womanhood by 
 brewers and distillers who use the human form divine 
 to popularize a liquor, the drinking of which leads men 
 to poverty and disease, overwhelms men in shame and 
 misery, and prompts men to rob and to murder! 
 
 Horrible as is the sin of blasphemy, the 
 soul uplifted in anger against God, how 
 small this sin, in comparison with the em- 
 blazonry of evil which everywhere affronts 
 
 [ 127 ] 
 
 An Appeal 
 to the 
 Christian 
 Conscience 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the eye of the Christian today : every charm of 
 color, figure, and phrase adroitly used to tempt 
 people to a larger use of liquors, carrying in this way 
 a swifter ruin to the lives of the Sons of God! 
 The greater blasphemy surely lies, not in angrj^ words 
 that dishonor God, but in the selfish traffic that cor- 
 rupts and destroys his child! 
 
 Must we forever allow the “traffic” that ruins 
 thousands of homes every year to continue to profane 
 the queen of the home by using her divine figure to 
 advertise the merits of its wares? 
 
 Must we forever be offended and lacerated m spirit 
 by a landscape desecrated by lying billboards that 
 appeal to man’s lowest instincts? 
 
 Must we forever submit to the humiliation of having 
 our children constantly confronted with the alluring 
 but false statements that this poisonous “stuff” is the 
 staff of life? 
 
 Must we forever blush as we walk the streets, seeing, 
 as we are now compelled to see, the pictorial profanities 
 by a business that fattens on the miseiies of mankind? 
 
 Some day the conscience now sleeping will awake and 
 people will not allow their property to be so profaned. 
 Some day the lovers of children will rise up in righteous 
 wrath and insist that this iniquity shall cease. Some 
 day public opinion will compel our lawmakers to enact 
 and our officials to enforce statutes prohibiting this 
 form of profanity. Already the State of Maine has a 
 law (Revised Statutes, Chap. 29, Sec. 45), which im- 
 poses a fine of $20.00 upon those who insert liquor 
 advertisements in any newspaper. 
 
 The The second point in this: These liquor 
 
 Education ad\ ertisements not only suggest e\’il, but 
 they teach innumerable and abominable 
 errors. The child reads in the family 
 
 [ 128 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 newspaper the advertisement which states that 
 “beer is liquid bread.” The statement becomes a 
 part of the child’s mental equipment. Now, this 
 is not only an error, but a very pernicious error. 
 Science has demonstrated that beer is no more “liquid 
 bread” than sawdust is good beefsteak. Nay, more: 
 while the sawdust is harmless, the beer contains a 
 poison (alcohol) which injures every faculty and funC' 
 tion of a human being. We do not allow any one to 
 advertise that dirty milk is wholesome. But this is 
 an innocent statement beside the pictorial claims on 
 billboards that liquors are needed by laborers to make 
 muscle, and by students to make brain. All horrible 
 lies, and shown to be lies in every scientific laboratory 
 in the world. And yet, we meekly allow these false 
 statements to educate youths and adults at every 
 corner! It is as wrong for the state to permit these 
 liquor advertisements as it would be to permit attract- 
 ive commendations of arsenic as harmless and of 
 opium as beneficial. We are still blind to the evil 
 suggestions of the former, because dominated by the 
 ancient superstition that alcohol is a life-giver; whereas 
 it is a life-destroyer. 
 
 When liquor men complain, “Have we 
 ^ right to advertise our goods like any 
 Falsehood Other business man.?” — we reply with 
 reason and justice: “No! You have 
 not; because yours is a trade which, for generations, 
 has been treated as in a class by itseK. ” The very 
 fact that the state has for years made special and 
 drastic laws to regulate or suppress the sale of liquors, 
 shows that this business has long been set apart from 
 legitimate trade. All liquor statutes imply the public 
 conviction that such sales are more or less dangerous 
 to the community. Otherwise we would not have 
 [ 129 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 licenses, restricted hours, special police supervision, 
 and regulations as to number and locality. No other 
 business is so treated, because no other is so fraught 
 with evil to mankind. The liquor shop is the only 
 one that directly and constantly produces criminals, 
 lunatics, paupers, idiots, ruined homes, corrupt politics. 
 Sabbath desecration, contempt of law, disorderly and 
 dangerous streets, iimumerable accidents, and a high 
 death rate. No other business has such an appaUing 
 record. 
 
 And being such a menace to human welfare, this 
 business has no right to advertise its wares, whose use 
 is harmful to individual and state, and nothing but 
 harmful. The Lord Chief Justice of England and his 
 associates teU us that Drink causes nine-tenths of the 
 crime of the land. And yet we allow brewer and 
 distiller to do all that they can to increase the use of 
 liquor by skillful advertisements. \Miat could be 
 more absurd Investigators tell us that Drink is 
 responsible for a large majority of those who crowd 
 poorhouses. And yet we allow liquor men to do all 
 that they can by suggestive advertisements to induce 
 men to drink what produces paupers. \Miat could be 
 more irrational .f* 
 
 Doctors tell us that the use of alcohol in large or 
 small quantities makes men more susceptible to disease; 
 those who drink it have less chance of recovery when 
 sick; while it actually creates many forms of disease. 
 And yet we allow the beer and whisky men to push, by 
 suggestive advertisements, the consumption of the 
 very stuff that fills the land with lunacy, cancer, pneu- 
 monia, and tuberculosis! What could be more unwise? 
 Psychologists tell us that so-called “moderate drinking” 
 weakens the mental faculties and lessens industrial 
 [ 130 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 capacity; so that a drinking man cannot think as 
 accurately, work as fast, or endure as much hardship. 
 And yet we allow the saloonkeeper to cover billboard 
 and newspaper with alluring advertisements to increase 
 the use of that which causes all this mischief! What 
 could be more unreasonable? 
 
 What foolishness ! Making restrictive 
 laws to lessen the evils of intemperance, 
 but letting the evil suggestions, which 
 aggravate the curse, go untouched! Creating innu- 
 merable charities to repair the ravages of beer and 
 whisky, but letting this suggestive billboard profanity 
 feed the roots from which destitution and degradation 
 spring ! Organize a crusade against the “ white plague, ’ ’ 
 but let these encouragements and temptations to drink, 
 which causes so much disease and death, deface road- 
 side, street-car, and newspaper! Get the children to 
 sign the pledge in the Sunday-school, but let the liquor 
 men plaster every landscape with pictorial lies about 
 beer and whisky that will make ten drunkards where 
 the church saves one! Maintain courts and policemen 
 at great expense, but let this suggestive education 
 toward crime through liquor advertisements inciting 
 to drink that produces a large majority of our criminals 
 — let this abomination go unchecked! Surely, we are 
 today merely toying with the fringes of the Drink 
 Curse, while we permit the most prolific source of these 
 evils to flourish everywhere. 
 
 The open liquor shops on almost every corner are 
 bad enough. But to have the Liquor Interests behind 
 them everywhere appealing by suggestive advertise- 
 ments (which mislead the young and stimulate evil 
 cravings), to the whole population, and in this very 
 subtle and effective manner increasing the evils which 
 [ 131 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 center in the saloon, — this is an intolerable crime 
 against civilization! The license, which the state 
 hesitatingly grants to sell liquor, does not carry with 
 it the right to multiply the evU by all the means known 
 to skillful, seductive, and untruthful advertisements. 
 Laws should be passed prohibiting this evil. But 
 public sentiment needs to be aroused and brought to 
 bear aginst papers, magazines, land owners, and car 
 companies which now permit such advertisements. 
 Even a postal card shower of protests centered upon 
 oflFenders in this hne would do much good. It is easy 
 to see that this great evil might at once be lessened or 
 stopped, if our leading business men who, as a rule, 
 favor temperance both in principle and in practice, 
 would combine and take a decided stand, by withhold- 
 ing their patronage from newspapers that carry such 
 liquor advertisements. 
 
 The time will certainly come — may it soon come — 
 when this prolific source of evils now permitted by the 
 state will be looked upon with the abhorrence which 
 we now visit upon piracy, duelling and slavery. As 
 people come to understand that science demonstrates 
 that alcohol as a common drink is a poison doing infinite 
 harm to mankind, and as the new psychology makes 
 clear to the community the power of suggestion in 
 general and the vast influence of the evil suggestions 
 due to liquor advertisements, then the lover of humanity 
 will see to it that this menace to happiness and progress 
 shall come to an end. The Christian people of America 
 must arise and put a stop to this billboard profanity 
 which is blighting and ruining thousands upon thou- 
 sands of human lives. 
 
 Wise leaders begin to see in these principles of sug- 
 gestion (central in Apphed Psychology, and in the 
 [132] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 past largely used by the liquor trade), fruitful methods 
 for the education of the public in sobriety. As John 
 Wesley took the “devil’s music” and converted it to 
 the service of God, so we must apply these principles 
 to the training of men in temperance. The billboard 
 must be redeemed and made to teach the divine lessons 
 of life. 
 
 A consideration of these facts, has led, 
 Re^deemmg home and abroad, to what is known as 
 Billboards “The Poster Campaign”: very effective 
 in itself and made necessary because so 
 many newspapers refuse to print temperance articles, 
 having put themselves in bonds to brewer and distiller 
 by accepting liquor advertisements. These posters, 
 varying in size and statement, are used in many differ- 
 ent ways. Some are small with a brief statement, like 
 the following; which are both sold and given away to 
 the general public by the Poster Committee, composed 
 of prominent men and women — half of them eminent 
 doctors— recently appointed by the Associated Charities 
 of Boston: 
 
 $1.00 IN $2.00 OUT 
 
 FOB EVERY $1.00 
 
 that the State received in 1912 from Liquor License, it paid out over 
 $2.00 in caring for the Criminals, Paupers and Insane brought to our 
 Institutions through Drink. 
 
 When you hear about revenue from liquor, — think this over. 
 
 The following is another small poster: 
 
 “Recent researches . . . tend strongly to show that even 
 
 the moderate drinking of alcohol is inexpedient. No longer are 
 
 [ 133 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 men who are exposed to cold, heat, fatigue or hardships of any sort 
 prepared or braced by any form of alcohol.” Dr. Charles W. Eliot, 
 President Emeritus, Harvard University. 
 
 These and others are for use by merchants, to be 
 put on packages, and also by individuals to be put on 
 letters, like the Red Cross stamps. Here is a most 
 effective means of popular education in temperance, 
 which will go where books and magazines will not 
 reach; which will penetrate deeper than statutes and 
 produce the public sentiment without which statutes 
 are powerless, and which, also, is especially needed in 
 these times, when the press of the country is so indiffer- 
 ent to the Drink Curse. This Poster Campaign ought 
 to be given wide and vigorous support by all who are 
 interested in the temperance movement. The work 
 at present (1913) is under the eflScient direction of 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, who will be glad to correspond 
 with all interested parties: 11 Mason St., Cambridge, 
 Mass. 
 
 Large posters for bulletin boards, billboards, sides of 
 buildings, and trunks of trees, are also printed (some on 
 cloth to withstand the rain), to be used by towns, 
 manufacturers, and individuals. The people of Cam- 
 bridge, Mass, (the municipal authorities co-operating) 
 are at present engaged in such a “poster campaign.” 
 The movement is rapidly spreading. Mrs. Tilton 
 writes: “The poster campaign is wonderful. Town 
 after town is coming in for a year’s campaign of alcohol 
 education.” One of these posters, already widely 
 used, is as follows: 
 
 [ 134 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Alcohol: 
 
 The Public Thinks: It is only heavy drinking that 
 harms. 
 
 Experiments Show: That even Moderate Drinking 
 hurts Health, lessens Efficiency. 
 
 The Public Thinks: Alcohol braces us for hard work and 
 against fatigue. 
 
 Experiments Show: That Alcohol in no way increases 
 muscular strength or endurance. 
 
 Alcohol lowers vitality; Alcohol opens the door to diseases: 
 
 Resolved, at the International Congress on Tuber- 
 culosis, 1905, to combine the fight against alcohol with 
 the struggle against tuberculosis. At the Massachu- 
 setts General Hospital, Boston, the use of alcohol as 
 a medicine declined 77 per cent, in eight years. 
 
 Most Modern Hospitals show the same tendency. 
 Alcohol is responsible for much of our insanity, much 
 of our poverty, much of our crime. Our prison com- 
 missioners reported that 95 % of those who went to 
 prison in 1911 had intemperate habits. 
 
 Yet the Public Says: We need the Revenue from Liquor. 
 The Public Should Know: How small is the 
 revenue compared with the cost of carrying the 
 Wreckage. 
 
 Your money supports the wreckage. 
 
 Your will allows it. 
 
 Your indifference endangers the nation. 
 Commercialized Vice is promoted through Alcohol. 
 
 Citizens Think! 
 
 Arrayed against Alcohol are Economy, Science, Effi- 
 ciency, Health, Morality. — ^The very Assets of 
 a Nation: the very Soul of a People. 
 
 Think! 
 
 [ 135 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 The following is a Poster (24 by 36 inches) used by 
 the city of Glasgow, Scotland: 
 
 Abuse of Alcohol and its Results: 
 
 The Committee on Health urge the citizens to consider the follow- 
 ing statements from the Report, recently submitted to Parliament by 
 the Committee 
 
 On Physical Deterioration: 
 
 Effect on Adults: 
 
 1. The abuse of Alcoholic Stimulants is a most potent and deadly 
 
 agent in producing physical deterioration. 
 
 2. Alcohol is not a food. 
 
 3. It is not a source of muscular vigor or dexterity, but the reverse. 
 
 4. It may produce temporary exhilaration, but depression soon fol- 
 
 lows. 
 
 5. Its continued use impairs the productive power of the skilled ar- 
 
 tisan. 
 
 6. Its continued use, whether in the form of beer, wine, or spirits, 
 
 even though never to the extent of producing drunkenness re- 
 sults in chronic poisoning. 
 
 7. It weakens the natural forces which resist disease. 
 
 8. It increases the risk of consumption. 
 
 9. It increases liability to disease, adds to its severity, and retards 
 
 recovery. 
 
 10. It perverts the moral nature, affects the judgment, and impairs 
 
 the memory. 
 
 11. It deadens sensibility to miserable surroundings and destro 3 's all 
 
 desire for improvement. 
 
 12. It increases the proportion of men and women who are being con- 
 
 fined in Asylums. 
 
 13. It shortens life: The death-rate of Abstainers is little more than 
 
 half that of the whole male population living between the ages 
 of 24 and 65. 
 
 Effect of Parental Intemperance on Children: 
 
 14. Intemperance in Parents brings suffering on their children. 
 
 15. It produces physical and sometimes mental weakness in them. 
 
 16. If they escape death in infancy, permanent disablement maj’ still 
 
 result from paralj’sis, epilepsj’, or idiocy. 
 
 17. The Death Rate among infants of inebriate mothers is 2^ times 
 
 greater than among the children of sober mothers. 
 
 18. The Report states that Drinking Habits are increasing among 
 
 women of the Working Classes ! 
 
 A. K. Chalmehs, M.D., 
 Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow. 
 
 [ 136 ] 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Poster 
 Campaign 
 in Europe 
 
 This “poster campaign” began in Europe 
 about ten years ago, and much has been 
 done along this line in Germany, France, 
 and Great Britain. Many towns and 
 cities have taken the matter up, in some cases as a 
 municipal policy, but more often the work is done by 
 manufacturers or temperance societies. In England, 
 chiefly by the Church of England Temperance Society 
 and by the National British Women’s Temperance 
 Association, which publish many posters similar 
 to those given above, and also some smaller in 
 size. In France, municipalities have engaged in 
 this work, which has been violently opposed by the 
 Liquor Interests, which induced the city of Paris (in 
 1903) to take down a striking bulletin, descriptive of 
 the evil effects of drinking, from all public places, 
 except hospitals! In Germany, the North German 
 Iron and Steel Trade Association (5,000 firms and 
 120,000 workmen) reported in 1906, that among the 
 three preventive measures used to combat the Drink 
 Menace were “posters regarding the abuse of alcohol.” 
 
 This “temperance poster” campaign, 
 which is new in America, is bound to sweep 
 rapidly over the country. The facts about 
 alcohol are numerous, decisive, appalling. 
 They must be put before the people effect- 
 ively. The schools are doing much, but there are 
 millions not reached by the schools. The churches do 
 something, but only a small part of what they ought to 
 do and could do. The press is largely indifferent. Social 
 workers, in general, are “liquor blind.” The Liquor 
 Interests are using the billboard extensively and seduc- 
 tively. As has been said, the billboards must be 
 redeemed. On them must be carried forward a new 
 education of the public respecting the truth about 
 
 [ 137 ] 
 
 The Poster 
 Campaign in 
 the United 
 States 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Drink. Here is important work for every society 
 striving for human betterment, and for every individual 
 who cares for the welfare of the race. Every one can 
 easily participate in it at a very small expense. Cities 
 and states may well foster the campaign. In Alabama, 
 in 1909, the Legislature passed a law, directing the 
 state superintendent of education to prepare, and 
 distribute to every school in the state, placards (to be 
 changed from time to time) “printed in large tjT)e, 
 upon which shall be set forth in attractive style sta- 
 tistics, epigrams and mottoes showing the e^dls of 
 intemperance.” A wise and significant measure. 
 The Fifty Posters, in two colors, prepared and printed 
 by the Scientific Temperance Federation (to which 
 reference is made in the Note of Acknowledgment at 
 the beginning of this book) are most admirable helps 
 for such a campaign: the most attractive and compre- 
 hensive contributions so far made to this work. 
 
 Another form of “Applied Psychologj'” 
 in behalf of temperance is the “public 
 exhibit,” where, by charts and diagrams, 
 and other means, the facts about alcohol “ are made 
 to talk loudly and persuasively to the plain people.” 
 This has recently been done on a large scale at two 
 great Health Exhibitions, that at Dresden, Germany, 
 two years ago and that at Washington, D. C., last 
 year (1912). 
 
 At the Dresden Exhibit, a section was set apart for 
 an anti-alcohol exhibit where statistics showing the 
 inevitable degeneracy consequent on the use of alcohol 
 were most forcibly presented. There is no getting 
 away from the truths of those terrible statistics. There 
 were also wax models of portions of the human frame 
 in their normal condition and also when saturated with 
 Drink. There was a list of the diseases induced by 
 [138] 
 
 The Public 
 Exhibit 
 
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Drink, with wax models of persons suffering from them. 
 The walls were covered by the pictures of men and 
 women suffering from delirium tremens. Tables show- 
 ing the effect of Drink on offspring, and its power in 
 producing degenerates, idiots, and criminals were also 
 conspicuous. The section as a whole constituted an 
 unprecedented scientific indictment of alcohol. 
 
 In Germany, vacant store windows are 
 borrowed by local committees and provided 
 
 Window . - . P , ,1 
 
 Exhibit With a great variety ot charts, tables, 
 mottoes, quotations, brochures, models, 
 posters, alcoholized organs and the like. The passing 
 public gathers about such a display as flies about sugar, 
 and just the element in the community which could 
 never be dragged into a temperance meeting gets the 
 instruction it most needs. A Good Templar lodge in 
 Frankfort recently set up an exhibition of this type 
 in two great corner windows on the Braubachstrasse. 
 At all hours of the day a veritable swarm of people 
 could be observed studying with greater or less thor- 
 oughness the charts and tables. In Switzerland, there 
 are traveling anti-alcohol exhibits which are set up, 
 flrst in one town and then in another. One in Geneva 
 was recently attended by 17,000 people in a fortnight. 
 
 Something of the same sort has been 
 sf3,rted here in America. At the recent 
 Exhibit Christian Endeavor Convention in Brockton, 
 
 Mass., the Public Market Company gave 
 its flne corner show window to the temperance com- 
 mittee, in which Robert H. Magwood exhibited ninety- 
 one dollars’ worth of family provisions, illustrating a 
 much better outlay of this sum, than the equivalent, 
 which has been found to be the annual drink cost of 
 the average American family. This, with a variety of 
 models, diagrams and pictures, showing the evils, the 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 ill-health and poverty connected with Drink, con- 
 stantly interested groups of passers, who studied the 
 facts. 
 
 In these and other ways, the principles of “Apphed 
 Psychology” must be vigorously and extensively used 
 to overthrow the Drink Superstition. 
 
 [ 140 ] 
 
“ Beer is a drug which deadens the will-power and excites the animal 
 instincts of the young; its relation therefore to immorality is most 
 momentous. In plain English, a master who allows his pupils to 
 drink beer at bed-time, and a parent who sanctions it, impbcitly 
 says to them; I give you this beer at bed-time, well knowing that it 
 wUl blunt your intellect, deaden your conscience, and diminish your 
 will-power, and that at the same time it will excite your animal in- 
 stincts.” The Use of Alcohol in Youth. Dr. Clement Dukes. Phy- 
 sician to Rugby School, England. 
 
 “To the man who is actively engaged in responsible work, who 
 must have at his command the best that is in him, at its best, to him 
 I would, with all the emphasis that I possess, ad\’ise and urge, leave 
 drink alone, — absolutely. He who drinks is deliberately disqualifying 
 himself for advancement. I do not drink.” President William H. 
 Taft. 
 
 “Each decade will make clearer the gains of abstinence and will 
 bring to its support a larger number of thoughtful people. The pres- 
 sure of economic conditions will add to the disadvantage of the 
 drinker and force to the wall with increasing rapidity those seeking to 
 relieve their misery by the use of drugs and strong drinks. New 
 and better forms of social control are constantly being devised, 
 and those now in use are gaining in strength and influence. 
 
 When we all become Americans we wili all be abstainers.” Prof. 
 Simon N. Patten, University of Pennsj’lvania. 1908. 
 
 “No obser\^ant person can travel through the East for a year with- 
 out being shocked by the manifest tendency of the white race tem- 
 porarily resident there to destroy itself through alcoholism. Alcohol 
 is destructive in the highest degree to the white race in the tropics, 
 and all through the tropics the white race exhibits a terrible lack of 
 self-control with regard to the use of alcoholic drinks. It is morti- 
 fying to the last degree for an American to see American soldiers and 
 sailors staggering about the streets of the Chinese cities where we now 
 have troops and never to see a Japanese soldier in such condition, 
 although the Japanese have five times as many troops there as we 
 have. I mention but a single fact, but the lesson of the East is that 
 the alcoholism of the white race must be overcome, or that -vdce with 
 the licentiousness it promotes, will overcome the race.” Charles 
 W. Eliot, President Emeritus, Harvard University. Unitarian 
 General Conference, Buffalo, N. Y. Oct., 7, 1913. 
 
 [ 142 ] 
 
HOW LONG MAY A MAN EXPECT TO LIVE? 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 In the March number of the British Quarterly (1913), 
 there is an article by Mr. Edwin Pugh, entitled “The 
 . , Soul of the Drunkard, ” which puts the argu- 
 Champion of ment for moderate drinking in a strangely 
 Moderate unethical and unscientific manner. The old 
 DrmMng vicious claim is urged that it is, on 
 
 the whole, morally wiser and better to drink than 
 to abstain! It is contended that, by drinking just 
 up to the point of danger and then stopping 
 short of intoxication, a person makes moral fiber, 
 disciplines the will, and promotes all the high qualities 
 of noble character. On the other hand, it is asserted 
 that abstainers, as a rule, are moral weaklings, who 
 have no power to resist temptation and endure hard- 
 ship. He charges abstainers with being cowards; — 
 afraid of experimenting with what is innocent in itself: 
 not brave enough to trust their own reason and 
 conscience ! 
 
 Mr. Pugh has no sympathy for the drunkard and 
 only contempt for the abstainer. Of the person who 
 drinks too much he writes: “So he becomes a drimk- 
 ard, not because he is vicious and weak and silly, but 
 because he is virtuous enough to risk his virtue, strong 
 enough to want to prove his strength. ” This is, quite 
 obviously, a most incoherent and illogical statement. 
 It is as much as to say: A man becomes sick, not 
 because he is careless about eating or bathing, but 
 
 [ 143 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 because he is brave enough to experiment with filth and 
 gluttony ! A man becomes a criminal not because he 
 associates with criminals, but because he has the manli- 
 ness to invite criminal temptations, in order that he 
 may discover whether he can resist them! A woman 
 loses her virtue, not because she is weak, but because 
 she is so saintly that she takes the risk of making friends 
 of libertines ! But such a position (it is not argument) 
 is simply “moral anarchy.” 
 
 As an English critic has pointed out: “In other 
 words, only the inebriate is to abstain and abstinence 
 is to be the mark of the drimkard! Go on drinking 
 until you have exceeded the fine of safety, — and then 
 stop!” Mr. Pugh’s contention simply amoimts to 
 this: You are a coward unless you drink up to the 
 point of drunkenness, but if you take a drop more and 
 become drunk, you are a fool deserving no sympathy. 
 It is only in connection with the problem of Drink 
 that we ever find such utter and inexcusable foolishness ! 
 
 All such writers make two very serious 
 mistakes: 1st: They ignore the supremely 
 important fact that science teaches us that 
 the chief evil does not lie in the compara- 
 tively few cases of beastly drunkenness, 
 but in the habit of drinking. Any and all 
 use is abuse! The small amount swallowed makes 
 mischief, injuring vital organs, lessening mental capac- 
 ity, decreasing industrial eflSciency — even though the 
 user and his companions are unconscious of these results: 
 that deception being a large part of the mischief. 
 
 2d: They ignore the plainest teaching of 
 experience that drinking (not simply drunk- 
 enness) carries with it, as a rule, a demoral- 
 izing influence. By impairing the perception, 
 as laboratory experiments abundantly dem- 
 
 [144] 
 
 Medical 
 Science 
 Condemns 
 the Habit of 
 Drinking 
 
 Moderate 
 
 Drinking 
 
 Morally 
 
 Deadening 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 onstrate, it destroys the very basis for quick and 
 accurate moral judgments. By inhibiting, or paralyz- 
 ing, the higher activities and feelings of life, acquired 
 by long racial training — modesty, restraint, self-con- 
 trol, — it breaks the check-rein which the soul holds 
 over the animal, and so lets loose the brute within 
 us: moral disintegration necessarily follows. Again, 
 the enslaving power of liquor, the habit-forming, in- 
 fluence, lies more in the constant, so-called “ moderate” 
 use, than in the occasional intoxication. The same 
 rule holds here as with opium. To take, now and 
 then, a dangerous dose does not make a morphine 
 fiend. It is the constant use of the small dose. 
 
 Here, it may be well to allude briefly 
 to the foolish claim that whisky-drinking 
 accounts for the vast superiority of Euro- 
 pean to Asiatic races. But a modern in- 
 stance puts this matter in a different light. 
 The water-drinking Japanese were more 
 than a match for the alcohohzed Russians ! 
 Moreover, to pass by all other factors — climatic con- 
 ditions, racial inheritances, religious ideals, domestic 
 habits, food supply, — and attribute European superior- 
 ity to the use of liquor, is about the most fllogical and 
 absurd proposition that can be advanced. And yet, 
 strange as it may seem, we hear this theory seriously 
 advocated by some men of prominence, who ought to 
 be free from such careless and even harmful speech. 
 
 The assertion that abstainers are, as a 
 rule, moral cowards, is too absurd to deserve 
 more than passing attention. Was John 
 Bright a weakling? He was a total ab- 
 stainer! Was Father Mathew a weakling? 
 He was a total abstainer! Was Abraham Lincoln a 
 weakling? He was a total abstainer! Are inventors 
 [ 145 ] 
 
 Water 
 
 Drinking 
 
 Japanese 
 
 vs. Vodka 
 
 Drinking 
 
 Russians 
 
 Abstinence 
 is not 
 Moral 
 Cowardice 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 like Edison, philanthropists like Dr. Grenfell, statesmen 
 like Lloyd-George, educators like Booker Washington, 
 generals like Earl Roberts, orators like Bryan, leaders 
 like Clemenceau, — are these weaklings? And they 
 are total abstainers! Everywhere railroad manage- 
 ments insist on sobriety: Do they seek weaklings? 
 What a blunder, if drinking produces courage! 
 
 Sometimes total abstainers are con- 
 Abstainers dcmued as offensively self-righteous: taking 
 righteous Unseemly pride in the mere fact that they 
 do not drink. But the good housewife 
 is not self-righteous simply because she keeps her 
 house cleaner than her friend across the way. The 
 man who refuses to drink the polluted water used by 
 his neighbors is not thereby censured for being proud. 
 The abstainer belongs to the same class: those who 
 desire to lead a wholesome life. He is not a “ one- 
 morality” individual, emphasizing temperance as the 
 only saving virtue. If he gives great attention to 
 this matter it is simply because Drink does such a 
 vast amount of evil. To him abstinence is something 
 more than a moral quality. It is a “life necessity,” 
 with relations reaching vitally into all departments of 
 individual and social affairs. 
 
 In McClure's Magazine for August, 1908‘ 
 there was a startling article by Prof. Hugo 
 Miinsterberg, of Harvard University, en- 
 titled: “Prohibition and Social Psychol- 
 ogy,” which advocated the superiority of moderate 
 drinking to total abstinence. He there advocated a 
 “sufficient use of intoxicants to secure emotional inspir- 
 ation and volitional intensity.” He farther claimed 
 that by this “moderate drinking,” a most desirable 
 moral training is secured : “ So man is schooling himself 
 
 [ 146 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 for the active and effective life by the temperate use of 
 exciting beverages!” 
 
 But what says science? Careful experiments in a 
 hundred laboratories prove that Drink, even in small 
 quantities, paralyzes the higher functions and faculties; 
 pushes reason and conscience off the throne and gives 
 a free rein to animal impulses; weakens the power of 
 the wiU and lessens the activity of the imagination; 
 deranges all the senses so that sight and hearing are 
 less acute; benumbs the fingers so that they act more 
 slowly; and, at every point, not only destroys life, but 
 deceives the user, making him think that he is stronger 
 and quicker, when in fact he is weaker and slower! 
 What Drink actually does is the exact opposite of 
 giving “emotional inspiration and volitional intensity.” 
 It seems to the drinker himself to do that, but it is aU 
 a he! 
 
 The most astonishing paragraph in Prof. Miinster- 
 berg’s article is the following passage: “The German, 
 the Frenchman, the Itahan, who enjoys his glass of 
 fight wine and then wanders joyful and elated to the 
 masterpieces of the opera, serves himself better than 
 the New Englander who drinks his ice- water and sits 
 satisfied at the vaudeville show, world-far from real 
 art. Better American inspired than America sober!” 
 
 This last sentence is the most reprehen- 
 Wit, Humor sible ever penned by a university professor 
 Md Mirth jjj “Better America inspired 
 
 Dependent than America sober. ” But why this alter- 
 on Drink native? Why not both sober and inspired 
 at the same time? As already shown in 
 these pages, it is the unanimous teaching of science 
 that alcohol does not inspire but rather deadens the 
 mind. Its influence coarsens art and lowers the quality 
 of pleasures. We have abundant testimony that 
 [ 147 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 temperance people are not destitute of mirth and 
 jollity. An eminent German professor, Dr. Martin 
 Rade, of the University of Marburg, made a notable 
 address some five years ago in Berlin, after an extensive 
 tour of America, in which he spoke in highest terms of 
 the social and intellectual brilliancy of the many ban- 
 quets in our country which he attended, where no hquors 
 ware served. A distinguished German-American, Prof. 
 Walter Rauschenbusch, of the University of Rochester, 
 speaking about the same time in Germany, bore similar 
 testimony, saying that the wit and gaiety of American 
 dinners, without liquors, surpassed those that he had 
 attended in the Fatherland. A man of the very widest 
 world-experience. Dr. Samuel J. Barrows, after describ- 
 ing the remarkable changes in New England customs, 
 liquors being banished from many social gatherings, 
 proceeded to make this comment; “Yet life is more 
 cheerful, education more abundant, music and art 
 more popular, and the physical scale of h^dng higher.” 
 (“The Outlook,” Feb. 20, 1909). No artist has dared 
 to paint a picture representing the joy of heaven as 
 flowing from a wine-glass! And yet, this is what ought 
 to be done, if what Prof. INIiinsterberg teaches is true. 
 
 The interpretation of life here set forth is too material- 
 istic; what no college professor fifty years ago would 
 have dared to advocate. How low an ideal of life 
 any one must have, who contends that “ice- water” 
 shuts a person out from the enjoyment of the opera 
 and that only a beer bottle can enable one to enjoy a 
 painter’s masterpiece! And what has ice- water to do 
 with attendance at vaude^^[lle shows? Thousands of 
 American teachers (a large majority abstainers) an- 
 nually visit Europe and enjoy its art and music as 
 much as the drinking population living there. 
 
 [ 148 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 German 
 
 Leaders 
 
 Alarmed 
 
 But is the European situation as 
 roseate as Prof. Miinsterberg would have 
 us think? Is this enjoyment of “wine and 
 opera” in the German Fatherland (to 
 allude only to that country) as innocent or beneficial 
 as he claims? German judges have taken alarm and 
 lifted up a voice of warning against the prevalent beer- 
 drinking. German doctors protest against it, as 
 destructive of the race. German lawyers have formed 
 a total abstinence society. German publicists point 
 out the grave danger here to public health and the 
 welfare of children. German educators assert that 
 beer is harming the work of students. The German 
 government forbids its use by railroad employees. An 
 eminent German professor tells us that drinking every- 
 where multiplies accidents. And the German Emperor 
 warns his soldiers and sailors against the drink-habit, 
 which he is reported recently to have abandoned. 
 Unfortunately, Prof. Miinsterberg is apparently igno- 
 rant of the temperance awakening in his native land. 
 See The Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe, by Ernest 
 Gordon, Chapters, V.-VII. 
 
 Prof. Miinsterberg is so anxious that the American 
 people shall have less care and more mirth: “If wine 
 can make one forget the friction and pain ... by 
 all means let us use this helper to civilization. ” There 
 is, he claims, a psychological necessity for alcohol in 
 order to produce enjoyment. But he certainly ought 
 to know that eminent scientists, some of whose teach- 
 ings are given in these pages, have shown that the 
 exhilaration produced by alcohol is both deceptive and 
 fleeting; what seems like new strength is really weak- 
 ness; what glows for a moment as joy is followed by a 
 long reaction of depression; what seems like fulness of 
 life is the wasting of death. It is common knowledge 
 
 [ 149 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 that the permanent result of indulgence, even in so- 
 called moderation, is to make men morose, gloomy, and 
 depressed. The individual pays for his one hour of 
 animal jollity by twenty-four hours of despondent 
 irritability. He also writes: “Alcohol relieves that 
 daily tension most directly.” Very true! But at a 
 ruinous cost of life-tissue, as the physiologist shows 
 us! 
 
 According to Prof. Munsterberg, man must school 
 himself for the active and effective life by Drink. But 
 what does the appeal to experience show.? Great 
 industrial concerns in Germany, and many in America, 
 like the Henry C. Frick Company, are demanding absti- 
 nence or are taking active measures to lessen or abolish 
 the use of liquor. What a great mistake if Prof. Miin- 
 sterberg is right! If he is right, why do fraternal 
 organizations more and more bar out those who use or 
 sell liquor? If he is right, why do insurance companies 
 discriminate more and more against drinkers? VTiere- 
 ever we look today in the industrial world, we find that 
 prohibitions against drinking become increasingly 
 strong. But all this is wrong, if Prof. Miinsterberg is 
 right. The fact is, experience everj"where shows that 
 he is wrong. The saloon is not a school preparing a 
 man for “the active and effective life.” It deadens, 
 degrades, and destroys. 
 
 Five years ago, the eminent archaeologist. 
 Prof. Flinders-Petrie, %dgorously discussed 
 the general topic of “Constraint” in a 
 popular English magazine. In making 
 application of his doctrine of “constraint” 
 to the use of liquors. Prof. Flinders-Petrie fell, it seems 
 to many, into some exceedingly injurious errors. 
 (“Hibbert Journal,” July, 1908). 
 
 The ethical right and the legal justification of con- 
 
 [150] 
 
 Constraint 
 for the 
 Public 
 Welfare 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 straint respecting the use of liquors lie in “the public 
 good,” which is far more seriously endangered by the 
 habit than Prof. Flinders-Petrie seems to be aware. 
 He would undoubtedly admit that ninety-nine men have 
 the right to constrain the hundredth man from com- 
 mitting suicide by taking a quick poison. But have 
 they not the right to restrain him from taking a slow 
 poison that will end his life in five years ? And if they 
 have the right to prevent sudden suicide, have they 
 not also the right to prevent the conditions (created 
 by the Drink Habit) which produce directly or indi- 
 rectly a very large proportion of all suicides .f* In fact, 
 is it not the solemn duty of human society thus to pro- 
 tect itself and its members.^ 
 
 Professor Flinders-Petrie would probably admit that 
 a government has the right to prevent a thousand 
 parents from striking their children, because one of 
 the blows would make one child a lifelong cripple. 
 But has it not an equal right to prevent parents from 
 drinking whisky, because in more cases than one in 
 ten the results are harmful to children? He would 
 probably admit that the people have the right to restrain 
 a family from using water from a well polluted with 
 typhoid germs, although only one person in ten in the 
 neighborhood might contract the disease in consequence, 
 and only one in five of those sick might die. But have 
 not the people an equal right to restrain men from using 
 what causes more disease and death, infinitely more 
 misery and degradation, than polluted water? The 
 legal right becomes here a public obligation. He would 
 probably admit that the state has the right to prohibit 
 men from investing their money in a lottery. But does 
 not the state have an equal right to prohibit men, not 
 only from wasting their money on liquors, but from 
 using it in a way that incapacitates them for efficient 
 [ 151 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 citizenship? Moreover, a few lotteries would not be 
 a social pest inciting to crime and producing poverty 
 comparable with the Drink Habit, nor would they be a 
 political plague like the liquor traffic, which demoralizes 
 the making and the enforcing of laws. 
 
 Professor Flinders- Petrie argues against 
 Constraint the application of “constraint” to the 
 MoraUy Hquor problem on several grounds, three of 
 Injurious which will here be considered: 
 
 (1) It destroys self-reliance. But do 
 restrictive health and sanitary laws destroy self-reli- 
 ance? Do parental prohibitions of deadly poisons and 
 vicious habits destroy self-reliance? No greater ethical 
 fallacy ever entered the mind of man than the assump- 
 tion that liberty to get drunk produces self-reliance. 
 One might as well argue that liberty to carry fire-arms 
 makes people peaceable. Self-reliance is not the prod- 
 uct of the wine cup or the whisky bottle. Common 
 observation and scientific discovery prove that it is 
 Drink that destroys seK-reliance. 
 
 (2) It is argued that “constraint” weakens character 
 by precluding temptation. This is an old but fallacious 
 argument which an appeal to the facts of life decisively 
 disproves. May we not in all soberness ask: Are 
 there not temptations enough in life without adding 
 those of Drink? Moreover, if this is a sound argument, 
 then, to develop character, we ought to invent new 
 temptations: add opium, cocaine, and others — the 
 more the better! It does not follow that the normal 
 man of the twentieth century must have alcohol because 
 his ancestors craved intoxicants: their thirst for blood 
 is no warrant for us to kill! That savages make bigger 
 fools of themselves with Drink than civilized men is 
 surely no proof that the use of whisky develops char- 
 acter: Why be a fool at aU? Again, if Drink strength- 
 [ 152 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 ens character, why not give the savage more? The 
 policy of “constraint” in Indian territory, America, 
 has helped to save the American Indian, and these 
 “Red-Men” were themselves anxious to make pro- 
 hibition a part of the constitution of the new state of 
 Oklahoma. 
 
 (3) “Constraint” tends to deceit and lawlessness in 
 prohibition states, we are told. But is not all law met 
 by deceit on the part of criminals .f* The “deceit and 
 lawlessness” to be found in our “prohibition states” 
 is very largely intruded by those who live in “liquor 
 communities.” There would be little of this lawless- 
 ness were it not for brewers and distillers outside, who 
 force themselevs in every way upon these temperance 
 states, having had in the past, unfortunately, in their 
 lawless operations, the support of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment, a situation at present (1913) modified by the 
 Webb Law, which lifts the bar and enables the several 
 states to enforce their own laws against the intrusion 
 of liquor from outside their own territory. Is it right 
 to hold prohibitionists in Portland responsible for the 
 deceit inspired by the intemperate summer visitor from 
 New York City, and for the lawlessness of the brewers 
 of St. Louis, who spend money lavishly to override 
 the laws and corrupt the officials of Maine? But even 
 with this intruded lawlessness, the state of Maine is 
 not what Professor Flinders-Petrie would have us believe 
 it to be. He has been misinformed by the apologists 
 of the Drink Habit and the liquor traffic. In propor- 
 tion to population, its criminal and pauper and lunacy 
 records are shorter, while its per capita wealth and 
 newspaper circulation are larger than in any other 
 parts of our country. One other decisive fact may be 
 mentioned here: Maine contributes, in proportion to 
 population, more names to “Who’s Who in America” 
 
 [ 153 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 than the average for the nation, far ahead of such states 
 as New York and Pennsylvania! 
 
 It is certainly surprising to read the 
 The Man assertion by Professor Flinders-Petrie, that 
 
 who Drinks State has no right to prevent men from 
 
 in3^ure°^ going off into a remote valley, where there 
 Himseu are no women to be mauled and no children 
 AJone corrupted, and having “a glorious 
 
 drunk!” His argument is that we must 
 not insist on “dry nursing” for grown-up men! But if 
 this is justifiable, why may not men go off by them- 
 selves and indulge in gambling? The simple fact is 
 that the men who do go off in this way soon come back 
 home and bring results that are harmful to their com- 
 munities. It is not the same man who returns. He 
 may not have mauled his wife, but he is all the more 
 likely to do it because of that experience. His children 
 may not have seen him drunk, but does it help them to 
 know that he was on a debauch? It is not “dry nurs- 
 ing” for the state to prohibit men from wasting time 
 and energy, money and strength, in debaucheries that 
 are out of sight. Brutish revelry is not innocent 
 because hidden in a distant valley : its harmful influence 
 cannot be hidden. 
 
 The temperance problem is, after aU, not so much 
 a mere matter of sentiment as a matter of science. 
 The mighty wave of temperance agitation now sweep- 
 ing around the world is a practical application of the 
 discovery that alcohol, even in small quantities, is “a 
 destroyer of life”: It is a movement for race-preserva- 
 tion. Hospital and Insurance records show some, but 
 not all, of its destructiveness to human life. Consider 
 the appalling lesson taught by the accompanying chart : 
 Death Rates in Pneumonia: Thousands taking the 
 disease because drinkers, and thousands failing to 
 
 [ 154 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 recover because of their drink habits! Even those 
 who contend that alcohol has some food and medicinal 
 values, under certain conditions, admit that, on the 
 whole, as commonly used, it is destructive to life. 
 Therefore, the awakened and instructed conscience of 
 mankind is insisting that every possible preventive 
 measure must be used, educational, social, and indus- 
 trial; that every possible method for saner and safer 
 amusements must be instituted. But in this gigantic 
 struggle there is also a place for stern and inexorable 
 law. The state has a right to restrain and prohibit 
 where religion cannot persuade nor education prevent. 
 
 As strange as it may seem, it is neverthe- 
 The Fallacy less a sad fact that during the last few years 
 Tem^ation ^ number of prominent writers have taken 
 is Good positions similar to those occupied by Pro- 
 Discipiine fessors Munsterberg and Flinders-Petrie. 
 
 They claim that drinking liquor, especially 
 by young men, provides admirable and important 
 ethical training. The argument is this: The use of 
 liquor is attended by the temptation to drink too much. 
 To resist this temptation, to keep within the bounds 
 of safety, to guard against excess, — this provides 
 moral discipline of the very highest value. Some will 
 fall, but, on the whole, there will be a surplus of good. 
 The theory is that the will is trained by contact with 
 the temptations incident to drinking liquor. 
 
 If true, this is a very important matter; but, if false, 
 a most deadly teaching. What, then, are the facts 
 
 I. If drinking provides valuable moral training for 
 young men, it is surely just as much needed by young 
 women, and those who advocate this doctrine must 
 admit that women ought to patronize the saloon as 
 frequently as men. And at what age ought this pre- 
 cious ethical discipline to begin? How long after 
 [ 155 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 children learn to walk and talk? Their wills and con- 
 sciences need training at a very early age. And, if 
 drinking bears such valuable moral fruitage, parents 
 ought to see to it that the custom is early begim. Per- 
 haps this is just what is needed to give the pub he 
 schools the moral excellence which some people claim 
 they so much need. An open bar in the high school 
 to develop the will and conscience of the students, 
 how fine that would be! 
 
 II. The theory surely involves us in 
 Is the some remarkable incongruities. It is gen- 
 
 , erally admitted that the saloon is one of 
 for Moral the w’orst (.11 not the worst) mstitutions 
 Development? among men, closely associated with crim- 
 inals, productive of insanity and pauperism, 
 linked to bad politics, presided over by men of low 
 ideals and practices, and turning the feet of many to 
 brothel and gambling den. It does not seem exactly 
 scienctific to send young men to such a place to secure 
 invaluable moral discipline. How can the evil tree 
 bear good fruit? 
 
 III. If a wise policy to follow with liquors, why not 
 in other directions? For example, why not teach 
 young men to use opium for the same purpose, to 
 train the will by learning just where to stop? If it is 
 a helpful practice to walk on the very edge of the slip- 
 pery precipice in order to acquire “nerve,” why not 
 have young people learn to resist temptation and 
 develop the will by a similar use of other narcotics? 
 We may go farther; it is then a vise practice to intro- 
 duce a libertine into a family of boys and girls to develop 
 high ideals of chastity! Discipline their will power by 
 letting them learn to resist his enticements! E\’i- 
 dently, Jesus was wrong when he introduced into his 
 [ 156 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 immortal prayer the petition, “Lead us not into 
 temptation. ” 
 
 IV. Is it not pertinent to ask, are there not enough 
 inevitable temptations in life without multiplying the 
 needless liquor temptations, which so often cause such 
 terrible distress and destruction.? It is true that it is 
 not well to shield and cosset the young overmuch. 
 They do need wise discipline. They must be trained 
 to do hard things. But discipline does not, as a rule, 
 issue solely from struggles with temptation. It comes 
 from bearing burdens, from services rendered, from 
 tasks carefully performed. Many of the noblest 
 characters in history seldom wrestled with what we 
 call temptations. But life is full of temptations quite 
 apart from beer mug, wine glass, or whisky bottle. It 
 is not necessary, in order to have sufficient temptations 
 for purposes of discipline in any one’s life, to foster 
 those connected with drinking. Moreover, those 
 whose wills are most strengthened and best prepared 
 to render noblest service to the world are those who 
 resist the temptation to drink. Those who acquire 
 the most moral fibre out of contact with the liquor 
 habit are those who never begin it. 
 
 V. What does the appeal to life really 
 Are show? Do the moderate drinkers who 
 
 Driver? short of drunkenness possess a higher 
 
 the Highest morality than abstainers? No one can 
 Type of look ovcT his neighborhood and find proof 
 
 of fsuch a monstrous proposition. That 
 some moderate drinkers outrank in char- 
 acter some abstainers is very true, but common experi- 
 ence does not show that to be the rule. On the other 
 hand, from two wide fields of recent experiment the 
 exact opposite is shown to be true. Distinguished 
 generals tell us that it is the universal experience in 
 
 [ 157 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the British army that, whenever abstinence becomes 
 the habit of soldiers, the petty crimes decrease and the 
 moral tone increases. Many experiments in large 
 industrial plants in Germany prove that where the 
 use of liquors has been lessened there are fewer quar- 
 rels among workmen and a noticeable improvement 
 in the morals of the men. These facts ought to be 
 
 VI. This argument that moderate drink- 
 ing is morally advantageous is pecuharly 
 unsound and mischievous, because the 
 liquor temptations are especially seductive 
 and deceptive. They are not like the 
 ordinary temptations of life. In the first place, no 
 man is a competent judge of the amount that he can 
 safely drink. Liquor completely deceives the user. 
 He thinks that it makes him warmer, stronger, heathier, 
 wiser, whereas, in fact, the actual results are exactly 
 opposite. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the 
 onlooker realizes that the drinker has had too much, 
 while he himself is sure that he has not passed the 
 limit of safety. 
 
 In the second place, alcohol is a habit- 
 forming drug, which tends to weaken the 
 will and to blur the perceptions. The 
 habit grows from month to month, while 
 the power of resistance lessens. Instead 
 of providing discipline, it forges bonds. The man with 
 a whisky bottle is never complete master of himseK. 
 His master is in the “bottle.” The bondage is all the 
 worse, because it makes the slave feel that he is the 
 only free man in the world. Of the scores of men at a 
 saloon bar during any day, many go away with less 
 power of resistance and few indeed carry home anj'thing 
 but a lighter purse and a heavier heart. That is not 
 
 [ 158 ] 
 
 Alcohol 
 a Habit- 
 Forming 
 Drug 
 
 decisive. 
 
 Liquor 
 Temptation 
 is Peculiarly 
 Deceptive 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 the place where patriots are made or good parents 
 trained. To advise young men to resort to drinking 
 liquor in order to acquire the needed discipline of life 
 is to urge them to play with fire. It is leading them to 
 become slaves of a custom that constantly lessens the 
 power to resist temptation. It associates them with 
 forces making for unrighteousness. It blinds them to 
 the clearest and most important teachings of science 
 respecting the real influence of alcohol. The time is 
 near at hand when no intelligent person will indulge 
 in advice which is nothing less than “ moral anarchy. ” 
 In pronouncing sentence upon the two men convicted 
 of violating the Mann Act (against the while slave 
 traffic), at the close of one of the most notorious trials 
 in San Francisco, Sept. 17, 1913, Judge William C. Van 
 Fleet, of the United States District Court, used these 
 words: “I wish to say that all through this case there 
 is the evidence that Drink had its paralyzing influence 
 upon the morals and the minds of these men and the 
 young girls with whom they went on that trip to Reno. 
 The terrible, debasing influence of the saloon and the 
 roadhouse is too disgustingly apparent, and I make the 
 observation here that society must pay the price for 
 permitting the existence of these highly objectionable 
 places.” And yet, we are told that such “moderate 
 drinking” as these men and women practiced, — none 
 were drunkards, — is an indispensable element in char- 
 acter-building! It is certainly mournful, and almost 
 maddening, to find educated people advocating such a 
 demoralizing doctrine. 
 
 [ 159 ] 
 
A Summary presented by Prof. Howard A. Kelly, M. D., Johns 
 Hopkins Medical School, on The Alcoholic Problem in Everyday Life: 
 
 (1) Alcohol is non-eflBcient as a food, a most awful, wasteful sub- 
 stance. 
 
 (2) May be classed as a drug and a poison. 
 
 (3) Has no rightful position as a medicine. 
 
 (4) Destroys individual, domestic, and civic felicity. 
 
 (5) Increases taxation by filling prisons, madhouses, and work- 
 houses. 
 
 (6) Greatest foe to civilization in heathen lands. 
 
 (7) Therefore could be wholly abolished with profit. The Alcoholic 
 Problem, U. S. Senate Document, No. 48, 1909. 
 
 “Alcohol is not a food in the proper acceptation of the word.” 
 Sir James Barr, M. D., Alcohol as a Therapeutic Agent. British 
 Medical Journal, July 1, 1905. 
 
 “I cannot say that I am a temperance agitator, but I am a surgeon. 
 My success depends upon my brain being clear, my muscles firm, and 
 my nerves steady. No one can take alcoholic liquors without blunt- 
 ing these physical powers, which I must always keep on edge. As a 
 surgeon, 1 must not drink.” Prof. Adolf Lorenz, M. D., Imperial 
 Hospital, Vienna. 
 
 “It is usual to charge the temperance lecturer with exaggeration. 
 It is with difficulty that men believe him when he lays bare before 
 them the dreadful ravages of intemperance. The fact does not sur- 
 prise me. Few have thoughtfully lifted the veil which the demon of 
 alcohol has, with artful cunning, drawn over his wreckage; few have 
 peered with searching eye into the fathomless depths of misery and 
 sin which open beneath the feet of the countless victims of intem- 
 perance.” Archbishop John Ireland, St. Paul, Minnesota. 
 
 “It seems to me that the problem of intemperance is one of the 
 gravest and most urgent that has ever confronted humanity.” Hall 
 Caine, the novelist. 
 
 1160] 
 
DEATH-RATES IN PNEUMONIA 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 There are many people who insist that beer is harm- 
 less, and that the way to solve the problem of intem- 
 perance and cure the evils of Drink is to drive out 
 whisky by fostering the larger use of malt liquors. Let 
 us appeal to the facts of experience and the teachings 
 of the laboratory. 
 
 It is the common claim made by those 
 
 ygjjt who advocate this policy that there is no 
 
 Liquors no drink-problem in countries like Germany, 
 
 Cure for France, and Italy, where light liquors are 
 Intemperance . , , V, , • i , 
 
 extensively used. Rut the truth is that the 
 
 mtemperanee of Germany, France and Italy is recog- 
 nized by statesmen in these lands as one of the most 
 serious evils with which they have to contend. An 
 able writer in the London Saturday Review recently 
 stated: “The increase of alcoholism is becoming pain- 
 fully evident all over Italy.” A few months ago the 
 Italian Premier, Hon. Luigi Luzzatti, in submitting 
 his bill for the reduction of intemperance, presented 
 a great mass of evidence, conclusively proving two 
 things: First, that deaths from alcoholism in Italy 
 are rapidly increasing, while the general death-rate is 
 falling; and second, that drinking lighter liquors has 
 not decreased drunkenness, nor lessened the crime, 
 poverty, and insanity due to the Drink Habit. These 
 are decisive words. 
 
 Prof. Cesare Lombroso, one of the most noted 
 
 [ 161 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 alienists, not only of Italy but of the world, recently 
 deceased, published not long ago in the Archivio di 
 Psichiatria, which he edited, the followdng stirring 
 appeal by one of the insane asylum superintendents 
 of Italy, Dr. Antonini: 
 
 “The hospitals and insane asylums are filled with 
 Italian Tes- alcoholic patients; consumption, promoted by alcoholic 
 timony that degeneracy, rages; pellagra joins itself with alcoholic 
 Insanity poisoning; crime is becoming more frequent among the 
 
 Disease and young; the suicides are legion; the people are growing 
 Crime steadily weaker and more morally degenerate.” To 
 
 this appeal Lombroso added his endorsement, and also 
 a protest against the indifference of the government respecting alco- 
 holic liquors, demanding that rigid legislation be passed similar to 
 our restrictive laws in many American states. Many statements 
 were made at the Milan International Congress on Alcoholism (1913) 
 by prominent Italian delegates in confirmation of these views. Hon. 
 H. E. Falcioni, the Italian Secretary of State, reported that deaths 
 from alcoholism have nearly trebled since 1889! 
 
 The testimony of such statesmen and scientists ought 
 to enforce silence upon returning American tourists, 
 who carelessly report that there are no drink-evils 
 in lands where wine and beer are freely used. Here, 
 also, earnest protest should be made against the foolish 
 contention of some travelers that it is necessary for 
 one going abroad to drink beer, as the water is danger- 
 ous! As a matter of fact, no such need exists. In the 
 great majority of places, the common water supply is 
 just as good as it is in America ; and in the second place, 
 pure bottled water can everywhere be bought for less 
 money than is paid for wine or beer. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that Belgium has 
 Drunkenness largest per Capita consumption of beer 
 
 Belgium of any country in the world. Therefore, 
 according to the advocates of beer-drinking 
 
 [ 162 ] 
 
THE DISCIPLINE THAT DESTROYS 
 
 as a cure for the evils of intemperance, there ought to 
 be no drunkenness and no liquor problem in that land. 
 Such, however, is not the case. The menace of Drink 
 is there very serious. To prove this, only one witness 
 need be called. One of its distinguished statesmen, 
 M. Jules Lejeune, speaking in 1897, said: “With us in 
 Belgium, alcohol [by which he meant liquors in general, 
 including beer] produces frightful ravages!” More 
 recent testimony is equally emphatic. 
 
 A worse situation exists in France. 
 About two years ago, 1911, the Brewing 
 in France Trade Review stated that the use of beer in 
 
 that land had recently increased 25 per 
 cent., but the use of the heavier liquors has also in- 
 creased during the same period (being now nearly twice 
 per capita what it is in Great Britain !) . And never have 
 the evils of Drink been so serious there as at present. 
 Five years ago a notable report was presented to the 
 Academie de Medicin, showing the alarming increase 
 of deaths in France from alcoholism. While drinking 
 more and more wine and beer, from year to year, French- 
 men have been using more and more absinthe (worse 
 than whisky, but in the same class of heavy liquors), 
 the increase being some tenfold per capita in the last 
 generation, a fact which proves that drinking wine and 
 beer does not lessen the evils of Drink and does not 
 decrease the use of heavier liquors. 
 
 The French government, in an official document 
 issued in 1905, declared: “In this region (Brittany) 
 people are so constantly under the influence of liquor 
 that the authorities do not interfere except the offenders 
 are in a condition which prevents them from moving or 
 which causes public scandal.” Even the “Trade” in 
 England admits the sad situation in France. In 
 the Brewing Trade Review for Feb., 1909, a letter by 
 
 [ 163 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 French 
 
 Catholic 
 
 Clergy 
 
 Alarmed 
 
 Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence is printed, in which these 
 words are found: “No one acquainted with the facts 
 can fail to feel proud of the comparative sobriety of 
 our country as compared with other nations, especially 
 with France!” Drink shops in France, we learn, in- 
 creased from 355,000 in 1881, to 480,000 in 1911: now 
 one to every 80 persons— for every bakery three bars! 
 In this stationary population, insanity has increased 
 in these 30 years from 47,000 to 70,000 cases! Evi- 
 dently “light liquors” have not solved the drink-prob- 
 lem in that land ! 
 
 No wonder that the French CathoHc 
 clergy, alarmed at the progress of alcohohsm 
 in France, are beginning to take measures 
 against it. The leaders in the movement 
 are Bishop Turinaz of Nancy and Bishop 
 Latty of Chdlons. Bishop Turinaz’s book, “Three 
 Scourges of the Workers,” is a volume made up of 
 pastoral letters sent to all the diocesan clergy and read 
 in the churches. It deals largely with Drink. The 
 Abbe Ract has issued a volume of 317 pages entitled, 
 “Alcohohsm and Decadence,” and the Abbe Gibier 
 one called “Our Social Sores — Alcohohsm,” 509 pp. 
 Abbe Lemmens (Lidge) has published many exceUent 
 works on this subject. Abbe Perrot has issued a power- 
 ful and popular book, “King Alcohol.” Cardinal 
 Mercier of Liege, Mgr. Duparc, and Abbe Beaupin 
 are also prominent in this movement. There is much 
 anti-alcohol literatnre in pamphlet form for wide cir- 
 culation. Bishop Latty has introduced temperance 
 instruction into confirmation classes and even into 
 Catholic schools. The National League against Alco- 
 hohsm (Paris) has printed a great number of works on 
 this subject, large and small, for old and young, pre- 
 pared by eminent churchmen and leading scientists. 
 
 [ 164 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 The situation in other European countries 
 is similar. No case can be found where a 
 in Germany larger use of beer has decreased any of the 
 evils due to Drink. The eminent scientist. 
 Prof. Emil Kraepelin of Munich, testifies: “In the 
 production of alcoholism in Munich, beer undoubtedly 
 plays the chief r6le. It must be accepted that beer is 
 capable of producing typical delirium tremens.” In the 
 year 1897, over 14,000 persons were sent by German 
 Courts to institutions to be treated for alcoholism , — 
 that too in the beer-drinking Fatherland, where drunk- 
 enness is looked upon lightly! And evidence was 
 presented at the Fourteenth International Hygienic 
 Congress that hospital cases of alcoholism in Germany 
 have increased fold in the past twenty years. No 
 wonder the Emperor is alarmed over Drink ! No wonder 
 that a noted scientist of Munich, Prof. Max von Gruber, 
 exclaims: “One cannot say anything too bad about 
 alcohol!” An eminent authority of Basel, Dr. H. 
 Blocher, a leader of the Swiss Socialists, makes this 
 statement: “The whole question whether beer can 
 be used in the war against spirits has not only been 
 settled long ago to the disfavor of beer, but today it is 
 senseless and dangerous, since it veils the real danger 
 which threatens us and conceals the abyss before which 
 we stand.” A distinguished German, Prof. Gustav 
 von Bunge, asserts: “No other drink [referring to beer] 
 is so seductive. It has been in Germany worse than 
 the whisky pest, because beer is more apt to lead to 
 immoderate drinking.” Another German, Dr. Hugo 
 Hoppe, a great nerve specialist of Konigsberg, declares: 
 “On account of the democratic equality with which 
 beer has established itself, the dangers of beer-alcohol- 
 ism are much greater than from wine or whisky.” 
 
 Recently, an eminent German scientist, Johannes 
 
 [ 165 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Leonhart, M. D., has given very decisive testimony 
 on this very point. He writes: 
 
 “In 1905, 6,046 persons were arrested in Berlin on account of drunk- 
 enness. This of course represents only a small proportion of the in- 
 toxication. The well-to-do classes do not figure in this for they are 
 able to call a cab to be taken home without attracting attention. 
 In 70 out of every 100 convictions in Berlin the offence was found 
 to have been committed during intoxication. At least 10,000 persons 
 are annually brought before the courts of the city as a result of taking 
 alcohol. The percentage of sickness, due wholly or in part to alcohol, 
 varies in different cities. In Charlottenburg, in 1904, Dr. Gravitz 
 reported that 20 per cent, of the cases received in the hospital were 
 alcoholics. In the last twenty-five years the number received into 
 the hospitals on account of alcoholism has quintupled, while the 
 population has only increased about a third. Unless alcohol is com- 
 bated, the campaigns against tuberculosis and syphilis will be much 
 more difficult. The connection between alcoholism and immorality 
 has now been shown so unmistakably that it is clear no progress can 
 be made in fighting immorality without at the same time fighting 
 alcohol. Hamburg has set the example of appropriating material 
 support to the Good Templars. The question concerning alcohol 
 is not whether Meyer or Schultz believes that he can take two or three 
 glasses of beer a day without harm, but. How is it possible to diminish 
 the immense amount of injury from it that the whole German people 
 suffer.” 
 
 In the same line, we have the statement of Dr. B. 
 Strehler of Neisse that, according to a conservative 
 estimate, founded upon the statistics of numerous city 
 and county districts, the number of drunkards in Ger- 
 many may be placed at about 400,000 who, if put 
 shoulder to shoulder, would make a line of dangerous 
 derelicts some hundred and sixty miles long! That does 
 not show that beer-drinking is a very successful “cure! ” 
 A scientific expert of Germany, Prof. Adolf von Struem- 
 pell of Leipzig writes: “Nothing is more erroneous 
 from the physician’s standpoint than to think of di- 
 
 [ 166 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 minishing the destructive effects of alcoholism by sub- 
 stituting beer for other alcoholic drinks.” 
 
 Mr. Thomas A. Edison — the great in- 
 EdiLn saw ventor, before sailing home from Hamburg, 
 in Germany after a visit to Germany in 1911, expressed 
 some remarkable views about Germany 
 and the Germans to the special correspondent of the 
 New York World who accompanied him throughout his 
 European tour. He was much interested in the indus- 
 trial activities of Hamburg, but he found almost every- 
 where in the “Fatherland” evidences of the injurious 
 effects of excessive beer-drinking, especially in the recent 
 architecture of the country. What a striking com- 
 mentary upon the fantastic notion of Prof. Hugo 
 Miinsterberg that the high art of the Germans is due 
 to much beer-drinking! And this, not from a temper- 
 ance fanatic, but from a keenly practical man, the 
 world’s greatest inventor. 
 
 There is no more harmful belief held by 
 a Hw^'ess people today than the notion that beer is an 
 
 Drink innocent drink. The vital statistics of 
 
 Great Britain show that certain serious 
 diseases, like gout, liver troubles, diabetes, are from 
 three to five times more common among brewers and 
 bar-tenders (who chiefly sell malt liquors) than among 
 the people in general. One of the most eminent Euro- 
 pean authorities on insanity. Prof. Albert Mafiaim, 
 of the University of Liege, found that about one-half 
 the persons admitted to a certain asylum as “ alcoholics ” 
 had used nothing but beer and similar drinks. So 
 common is the injury done to the heart by beer-drinking, 
 that this special trouble is known as the “ beer-drinker ’s- 
 heart,” and in Munich one out of every sixteen of the 
 hospital patients dies from this disorder. 
 
 With such facts as these before us (and a great mass 
 [167] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 of similar testimony respecting conditions in Germany 
 is at hand and could be presented, if necessary"), it is 
 surely foolish to claim that drinking beer is the remedy 
 for the evils of intemperance. The proposed “cure” 
 has been extensively tried in many nations and the 
 results are everywhere disastrous. 
 
 The fact that drinking tea and coffee has done much 
 to lessen the use of liquors is no argument in favor of 
 trying to cure intemperance by a larger use of beer. 
 And yet this argument is sometimes presented by earnest 
 people! There is here no fair analogy, because they are 
 not alcoholic as beer is. In the recent experiments 
 made in great industrial plants in Germany good results 
 have been secured, not by increasing the beer consump- 
 tion of the workmen, but by substituting tea, coffee, 
 milk, and water, for malt and spirituous liquors. 
 
 The question whether alcohol, more 
 a FoVd °° especially in the form of beer, is a real food, 
 has been hotly debated by physiologists 
 for some time. A few years ago, equally eminent 
 scientists could be quoted on both sides of the contro- 
 versy. Confusion arose for a time chiefly over the 
 definition of what constitutes a true, genuine food. 
 But the true character of a food is now admitted to 
 embrace at least three elements: It must build tissue, 
 furnish heat, and provide energ3% without doing injury 
 to any 'part of the body. It is now universally admitted 
 that alcohol, in small or large quantities, never builds 
 tissue: instead it is a cell-poison. It is needless to quote 
 authorities upon this point, because they all agree. 
 As we are compelled to abandon the old notion that 
 aleohol is a stimulant and regard it as a depressant and 
 paralyzer (this being the influence which makes people 
 feel that it rests them whereas it simply benumbs 
 them), it is clear that it does not add any lasting ^ntal 
 
 [ 168 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 force to the body or the mind. We have the authority 
 of two of America’s leading scientists in this depart- 
 ment, to this effect: “Moderate amounts of alcohol 
 (as in beer) taken with a meal, effect a very considerable 
 lowering of the capacity for doing muscular work.” 
 (Prof. M. A. Rosanoff and Dr. A. J. Rosanoff, McClure’s 
 Magazine, March, 1909). 
 
 But the advocates of the food value of alcohol center 
 their claim upon the fact that, when taken, a certain 
 amount is burned, or oxidized, in the body, and so 
 furnishes heat and acts as a food. In reply to this 
 contention, some vital objections arise: (1) The amount 
 of heat so added to the body is very small. (2) By 
 sending the blood to the surface much more heat is 
 lost through the skin than is gained by the oxidation, 
 which explains why alcohol is harmful during exposure 
 to intense cold. (3) Its disintegration of the cells, its 
 action as a poison, more than counterbalances the gain 
 from oxidation, and this fact takes it out of the class 
 of true foods. 
 
 A few testimonies may here be set dowm. 
 ^Po^son* Prof. Max Kassowitz (died, 1913) of Vienna, 
 a distinguished scientist, makes this state- 
 ment: “Alcohol is neither a good nor a bad nutritive 
 substance, but a poison attacking and destroying 
 protoplasm.” After an exhaustive investigation Prof. 
 Dubois and Dr. Schnyder of Berne, Switzerland, 
 united in making this declaration: “The widespread 
 notion that moderate drinking (even of light liquors) 
 with meals helps the laborer to do his work is false.” 
 
 Prof. W. O. Atwater, who said all that can be said 
 in favor of the food-value of alcohol, used these words 
 at the conclusion of his discussion: “It is to be remem- 
 bered furthermore that the occasions when alcohol 
 renders a necessary service as food are exceptional. At 
 
 [ 169 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 best, it is a very expensive source of nutriment. For 
 people in health it is unnecessary.” (Physiological 
 Aspects of the Liquor Problem, vol. II, p. 343, 1903). 
 
 In this connection, while discussing the food-value 
 of beer, it is only necessary to add the testimony of an 
 eminent expert. Dr. A. Holitscher of Karlsbad, who com- 
 pletely covers the ground and fairly smnmarizes the 
 conclusions of science: — “Beer is not a food; and it is a 
 conscious or unconscious deception of the public to 
 assert that it is. Beer contains, it is true, besides the 
 alcohol and extract, a quantity of food material which 
 the body can utilize. Should it not, therefore, be 
 called a food? No! Other absolutely injurious, 
 unusable, and poisonous material like glycerine, fusil 
 oil, chloroform, or ether are burned in the body and their 
 units can be estimated; but no one has thought of 
 calling them foods.” 
 
 There is much respecting the action of 
 of^Ar^icT^ alcohol upou the human body which is 
 Explorers complicated and difficult to describe, ex- 
 cept in the technical language of science. 
 But a few facts of common experience clearly show 
 that it is not, as just stated, a true food. For instance: 
 If a food, why are athletes forbidden to use it? If a 
 food, why have modern armies endured severe cam- 
 paigns far better when using no liquors? If a food, 
 why do Arctic explorers avoid using it? Listen to the 
 testimony of one of the greatest of them. Fridtjof 
 Nansen gives this remarkable testimony respecting 
 alcohol, and he is surely a competent witness: 
 
 “My experience leads me to take a decided stand against the use 
 of stimulants and narcotics of all kinds. It must be a soimd princi- 
 ple at all times that one should live in as simple a way as possible; 
 and especially must this be the case when the life is the life of severe 
 exertion in an extremely cold climate. It is often supposed that, 
 
 [ 170 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 even though spirits are not intended for daily juse, they ought to be 
 taken on an expedition, for medical purposes. I would readily ac- 
 knowledge this if any one would show me a single case in which such 
 a remedy was necessary; but till this is done I shall maintain that the 
 pretext is not sufficient, and that the best course is to abolish alco- 
 holic drinks from the list of necessaries of an Arctic expedition.” In 
 like manner Capt. Roald Amundsen in describing his great dash to 
 the South Pole said to a reporter on March 11, 1912: “Alcohol of 
 every kind was absolutely barred on the journey.” 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield many years ago called beer “liquid 
 bread:” a felicitous but false characterization, which 
 the Liquor Interest, both makers and users, have 
 ardently and continuously proclaimed from the house- 
 tops. They skillfully use all possible means to perpet- 
 uate these erroneous beliefs about liquors. 
 
 Some three years ago an agent of the 
 manufacturer of a celebrated ale stated 
 Advertisement in an advertisement in a leading London 
 paper: “When a man drinks good beer, 
 he eats and drinks at the same time. A glass of good 
 beer is as nourishing as a glass of new milk.” When 
 asked by a prominent scientist to give his authority 
 for such a statement, the brewer’s agent referred him 
 to the report of a certain Commission (the names of its 
 members he would not give!), wherein it is stated, not 
 that beer has the same food value as milk, but that a 
 quart of beer is equivalent in its calorimetric (or heat- 
 giving) value to nearly a quarter of a pound of bread! 
 That is, according to the Commission (which the 
 brewer’s agent misquoted!), ten cents’ worth of beer is 
 equal in heat producing efficiency to about two cents’ 
 worth of bread! But this is not food- value, because 
 the heat so produced in the body is offset by the larger 
 loss of heat through the cooling of the blood sent by 
 the alcohol to the surface of the body. In other words, 
 
 [ 171 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the brewer’s agent falsified his authority; made a state- 
 ment which deceived the public; while he refused to 
 give the names of the persons behind the report which 
 he misquoted and misused! Characteristic of the 
 “Trade!” In like manner in 1907, the Pabst Brewing 
 Co. of Milwaukee put into numberless newspapers an 
 advertisement, stating: “The U. S. Department of Agri- 
 culture officially declares that beer is the purest and 
 best of all foods and drinks.” The Department at 
 Washington at once branded the statement as false! 
 (See Warner, Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem, 
 p. 51. 1909). 
 
 An illustration, on a large scale, of the control which 
 the Liquor Interest exert over the organs of public 
 opinion, is found in the fact that when a temperance 
 league in Germany sent copies of Emperor William’s 
 address, made at Miirvik (1910), to 2,400 newspapers, 
 less than 350 used it in any form, while many of these 
 cast suspicion on its genuineness and others changed its 
 meaning! All this in “free” Germany! (See Gordon, 
 Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe (1913), Chapter VIII, 
 for a remarkable story of the Tj'ranny of Drink). 
 
 To make this matter of the food-value 
 Chemical of beer a little clearer, let us place side by 
 Comparison chief chemical elements in the 
 
 of Beer and • i. i i i i c 
 
 Milk same quantity of standard beer and of new 
 
 milk in proportional figures: 
 
 Beer Milk 
 
 Alcohol 5.17 none 
 
 Fat None 3.72 
 
 Nitrogenous compounds 23 3.31 
 
 Carbohydrates 4.58 4.90 
 
 This comparison completely sets aside the popular 
 impression that beer has any real food value, as it is 
 
 [172] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 wholly lacking in fat; almost totally devoid of nitroge- 
 nous elements; its carbohydrates, while nearly equal 
 in amount, are not in wholesome food compounds; 
 and moreover, its alcohol both injures cell and tissue, 
 and at the same time drives out of the body more heat 
 than it adds. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter may be put in a 
 few words. (1) Even at the best, beer is an extrava- 
 gantly costly food: One loaf of bread contains more 
 real “food- value” than a row of beer mugs a yard long. 
 (2) It contains enough alcohol to injure the tissues and 
 organs of the body. (3) It is a habit-forming drink, 
 which weakens the will and frequently leads to exces- 
 sive indulgence. (4) It is associated in its common 
 use, with innumerable social and political evils to which 
 a good citizen should not give encouragement. (5) 
 The appeal to the facts of wide experience in various 
 nations proves that beer does not drive out the heavier 
 liquors or remove the evils of intemperance. 
 
 We are often told that the panacea for 
 the gigantic evils of the modern saloon. 
 Saloon which even the users of liquors acknowledge, 
 
 is some “substitute,” where men may find 
 the social warmth and comradeship that they crave. 
 Two false assumptions underlie all efforts to cure the 
 evils of intemperance by simply providing substitutes 
 for the saloon: (1) It is assumed that the Drink Habit 
 is largely due to appetite; or, (2) That people generally 
 resort to the saloon, not so much to satisfy their appe- 
 tite, but rather to enjoy the sociability there provided. 
 Therefore, it is argued, a substitute which supplies the 
 sociability and diverts the appetite will solve the prob- 
 lem. Undoubtedly both appetite and the craving for 
 sociability do much to sustain the saloon, especially 
 with the young and the homeless. The glitter and glam- 
 
 [ 173 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 our, the excitement and hilarity of some drinking places, 
 powerfully attract the thoughtless and the lonesome. 
 But in proportion to the total amount of drinking done 
 these faetors play a subordinate part. 
 
 The chief thing to do, in fighting the Drink Curse, 
 is not simply to provide substitutes for the saloon, 
 but to destroy the superstition that creates the saloon, 
 and then to destroy by law the organized greed which 
 finds expression in the saloon. At a recent Pubhc 
 Hearing in Boston (1913) on the Drink Problem, the 
 liquor men were very urgent that more state hospitals 
 for inebriates be established. No wonder! They would 
 like to have the products of their business kept out of 
 sight as much as possible! What we need, however, 
 is not more hospitals to cure drunkards, but fewer 
 saloons. The state must strike at the roots of this e\Tl, 
 not merely doetor the diseased branehes! 
 
 The argument from history is decisive. 
 How Great evils are outgrown, not destroyed by 
 
 EvU?^^he* method of substitution. The bloody 
 
 Argument arcnain the old Roman dayswas notbrought 
 from History to an end by tame games vdth gentlemanly 
 conduct. They ceased because the Church 
 filled the breasts of the people with a radically differ- 
 ent ideal and spirit of life. The practice of duelling 
 did not cease through the substitution of less dangerous 
 weapons. It stopped only when men came to realize 
 how utterly senseless the old “code of honor” was. 
 The practice faded when the matters of “honor” 
 began to seem silly. The same may be said of gambhng. 
 This vice has been lessened, not by substituting worth- 
 less “chips” for real money, but by the growth of a 
 new sentiment. Low forms of pleasure do not cease 
 by any mechanical substitution of similar forms shorn 
 of ancient evils, but by lifting the level of life: and, 
 
 [ 174 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 when lifted to that higher level, men will easily and 
 spontaneously provide the appropriate higher satis- 
 factions. 
 
 The man who believes that alcohol is a supreme 
 necessity, because a life-giver, will not frequent any 
 substitute for the saloon where “soft drinks” are prac- 
 tically given away. They are not what he wants. 
 The place may be brighter and the music better, but 
 what he feels that he must have is not there, and there- 
 fore he will never enter. But destroy the superstition 
 in his mind that alcohol is a life-giver, — show him the 
 life insurance tables, the facts respecting athletic 
 contests, the graphic diagrams that illustrate the in- 
 crease of accidents and diseases and the decrease of 
 mental and muscular efficiency due to the use of liquor; 
 also the miscroscopic slides that reveal the havoc 
 wrought in the tissues of the stomach, liver, and kid- 
 ney by the so-called moderate drinking; and lastly, 
 the injury to children, — a veritable “slaughter of the 
 innocents,” — all kinds of defects of body and mind and 
 thousands of early deaths due to parental indulgence, 
 — then, if any manhood is left and he can be moved, 
 the saloon will be abandoned. He will conquer the 
 habit, not by way of a substitute, but by the surer path 
 of intelligence and conscience. And in that path new 
 and higher social satisfactions will spring up. 
 
 What, then, is the open way forward.'’ 
 A Campaign A Campaign of education, in the widest and 
 most authoritative manner: by pulpit and 
 Permanent platform, by press and school. But are 
 Remedy statutes useless.f* No! They are needed to 
 curb the Liquor Interests which are im- 
 mense and corrupt; and also to remove the oppor- 
 tunities of drinking: the fewer the better, and none 
 wherever public sentiment can be made effective 
 
 [ 175 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 against the open saloon. But above all we must edu- 
 cate, widely and constantly. 
 
 Is moral suasion useless? No! The more the better. 
 But moral sentiment needs scientific fact as powder, to 
 be effective, must have the bullet to propel. To feel 
 constructively and creatively men must see the truth 
 clearly. To the enthusiasm of the reformer we must 
 add the revelation of the laboratory and the test of 
 the workshop. Therefore, we must educate all classes 
 by every possible method. 
 
 Shall we cease to establish counter attractions in 
 order to divert the masses from the saloon? No, 
 indeed! Open up in slum districts beside every bar- 
 room (wherever we cannot destroy it) a more attractive 
 resort and organize as many effective influences in 
 that direction as possible. Some will be helped in 
 this way. But let us not call these resorts substitutes 
 for the saloon; the name implies false philosophy and 
 raises false expectations. Moreover, it is not in this 
 way that the solitary drinker, the home drinlcer, or the 
 banquet drinker can be reached, and they are legion; 
 nor can the young in this way be prevented from con- 
 tracting the Drink Habit, a matter of supreme impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Our chief hope is here: We must educate! We must 
 make the fact that alcohol is a life-destroyer the master 
 conviction of every young life. We must also show the 
 thoughtless moderate drinker his real danger and appeal 
 to his Christian chivalry and civic responsibility. 
 
 The saloon is sometimes called the “poor 
 a^the^oor Dian’s club.” A Very appropriate descrip- 
 Man’s Club! tion ! It makes everj'one entering it poorer 
 in all his relations of life: poorer in purse 
 and personality; a poorer husband, a poorer father, a 
 [ 176 ] 
 
THE CURE THAT KILLS 
 
 poorer son, a poorer workman, a poorer citizen. He 
 never brings out as much as he carries into the saloon, 
 but the loss from his pocket book is the smallest of his 
 losses. Somewhere in his brain a cell paralyzed, which 
 means that his mind has lost a needed tool; somewhere 
 in his blood-current a white corpuscle killed, which 
 means that a defender against disease has been de- 
 stroyed; somewhere among his heart-strings a mystic 
 cord broken, which means that when its day of stress 
 shall come, it will cease to beat. 
 
 A “poor man’s club,” indeed! That is what the 
 railroad superintendent, the merchant, the insurance 
 manager, the captain of industry tell the young man who 
 stands in its door. What comes out ? Go ask the police- 
 man, the doctor, the keepers of asylums and almshouses ! 
 What comes out? Go ask the children who cry for 
 bread, the wife who toils, the mother who mourns! 
 The “poor” man’s club? Yes, very poor/ Out of the 
 1,000 saloons in Boston came last year 50,000 men so 
 drunk that the police had to arrest them! What if 
 every Sunday night the police had to arrest 1,000 per- 
 sons coming out of the churches of the city, having 
 been made crazy by the services held there? How 
 long would such a state of affairs be tolerated? Surely, 
 a very poor club! There men are organized to make 
 politics unclean. There the demagogue has his throne 
 and plots to break good laws and to make bad laws. 
 There immigrants are taught that plunder is patriotism. 
 There proceeds daily and nightly the unmaking of the 
 American citizen. 
 
 All true clubs exist for educational, social, or benevo- 
 lent purposes. The saloon associates men, not on 
 spiritual, but on animal levels, serving no noble human 
 need, but gratifying mere appetite and providing low 
 [177] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 pleasures. It abounds in rninous temptations, not 
 in wholesome amusements. It distributes no alms, 
 but sends out many to beg or to steal. It produces 
 nothing but want; it consumes everything that enters 
 into manhood. In it works one purpose: Here greed 
 takes advantage of human weakness to coin fortunes 
 out of tears and woes! 
 
 [ 178 ] 
 
“When public sentiment demands it, liquor laws can be enforced 
 as well as any other laws.” Samuel J. Barrows. 1908. Late Pres- 
 ident of the International Prison Commission. 
 
 “Nothing more morally insane can be imagined than that Law, the 
 protector of society, should be used for the setting up and fortification 
 of a traffic by which society is oppressed and demoralized; a traffic by 
 which all the forces of education are clogged, and all the forces of vice 
 and violence strengthened. It is lamentably true that a large pro- 
 portion of our people support the Liquor Traffic at the expense of their 
 health, homes, and all that should be dear to them; but it is also true 
 that they are tempted to this by that perversion of the Law which 
 plants the drinkshop in every place, and does it most plentifully in 
 the poorest and most wretched localities. The people are to blame for 
 falling into evil, but more to blame are those who put the stone of 
 stumbling in their way, or wLo do nothing to remove the stumbling 
 block from their path.” Sir Wilfrid Lawson, M. P. Address given 
 at Leeds, England, Oct. 23, 1905. 
 
 “Prohibition has attacked the evil at its source, and the results 
 which the enforcement of this law brought about serve to indicate 
 to what extent evils, that the South have accepted as human and 
 inevitable, can be modified and cured, if proper measures are taken 
 and these measures are backed by the will of the people.” Booker T. 
 Washington. The Outlook: March 14, 1908. 
 
 “ If it [the state] lays either a regulating, a restraining, or a prohib- 
 iting hand upon the traflSc in intoxicants, it does no differently from 
 what it does in regard to adulterated meat, unwholesome meat, 
 dangerous explosives, fireworks, obscene publications, lottery tickets, 
 and numerous other subjects of sale.” Judge Robert C. Pitman, 
 Alcohol and the State, p. 92. 1877. 
 
 [ 180 ] 
 
w 
 
Effect of Alcohol on Combined Head and Hand Work 
 
 Type-setting 
 
 Experiments made on 4 Printers on 4 consecutive days. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 Law is the orderly application of public sentiment 
 to human life, individual and corporate. Without 
 the machinery of law public opinion would often be 
 ineffective or would act fitfully and ruinously by way 
 of mob rule. On the other hand, if statutes are not 
 backed by the general convictions of the people, they 
 become a dead letter. And laws generally ignored are 
 harmful to society, bringing government into contempt. 
 These are certainly self-evident propositions obvious to 
 all men. 
 
 But in this connection, a few important considera- 
 tions need to be noted: 
 
 (1) While statutes ought not to be too far in advance 
 of public opinion, still the law has a powerful educating 
 influence, so that law makers may well represent the 
 higher ideals of mankind. They should be leaders 
 going ahead, but not mere pickets too far in advance of 
 the main army. The so-called Sherman Law, regu- 
 lating interstate commerce, illustrates the principle 
 here stated. When enacted, it expressed, not the 
 general views of shippers, much less those of railroad 
 managers, but the moral ideals of a comparatively 
 small number of reformers. But it has served in less 
 than a score of years to bring the public as a whole to 
 its point of view. 
 
 (2) A statute is not a failure simply because it is not 
 always obeyed. Laws and customs opposed to theft, 
 
 [ 181 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 arson, and murder have never, even in the most ad- 
 vanced civihzation, put an end to these crimes. The 
 general principle to be followed is ob\'iously this : 
 Does the law, on the whole, restrain men from com- 
 mitting criminal acts, and, to a reasonable extent 
 afford protection to society.?' Is the welfare of mankind 
 promoted by such a law.?' The point is; Not whether 
 all criminal acts are prevented, but : Is the community 
 safer because there is such a law.?* 
 
 (3) It is often objected that all prohibitive laws 
 naturally incite men to disobedience. People fre- 
 quently declare: “When you tell me not to do a 
 certain thing, ;^ou really encourage me to do that very 
 thing.” It is likewise argued that restrictive hquor 
 laws promote intemperance. To tell a man that he 
 must not drink is to encourage him to get drunk. It 
 requires but little thought to see the fallacy of this 
 contention. The recently enacted laws against spitting 
 in public places, may have prompted a few wilful 
 persons to act upon this theory. But how quickly 
 the general public has fallen into hne with the sanitary 
 regulation. In thousands of cases today, men are 
 ceasing to drink because the doctor prohibited liquor. 
 The physician’s command, “You must not drink,” 
 does not tempt the patient to drink twice as often. 
 A restrictive statute does not prompt men to gamble. 
 The same principle applies to liquor laws. Here and 
 there a foolish man may consider it a cunning trick to 
 do what the state forbids. But such cases are rare. 
 
 (4) Sympathizers with the Liquor Interests often 
 condemn temperance legislation because all such laws 
 are merely negative 'prohibitions. We are told that 
 they are worse than useless, because they add nothing 
 to the real life of the community. But these critics 
 forget that the majority of laws, from the very nature 
 
 [ 182 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 of the case, are prohibitive. Nearly all of the Ten 
 Commandments are prohibitions, but the Decalogue 
 has not been a failure. A majority of the statutes 
 passed by every legislature practically take the form: 
 Thou shalt not do this and that. A prohibition law, 
 liquor or otherwise, is not merely a barren negation. 
 It is obviously putting some mighty conviction into 
 the form of law in order to make it effective. In the 
 case of temperance, it is the conviction that abstinence 
 is better than drinking. The best life of the community 
 thus comes to organic expression. And every effort 
 to enforce the law is educational. 
 
 (5) More common than any other fallacy in this 
 connection is the erroneous belief that it is impossi- 
 ble to make men moral by legislation. But what else 
 is the object of legislation in general? Does not the 
 state exist to promote civilization, and is not the aim 
 of civilization morality? Evidently, the state cannot 
 in any mechanical way transform sinners into saints. 
 But what is true of education, health, and business, is 
 also true of temperance. School laws help to make 
 the people wise by providing means of instruction. 
 Sanitary laws promote the public health. Wise trade 
 laws help to make the market place honorable. In 
 many ways, good laws tend to make the people good. 
 So too, effective temperance legislation helps mightily 
 to make men sober. And being sober, they become 
 more moral. This surely is the conclusion of the 
 whole matter: While morality cannot be enacted 
 and put by statute into the hearts of the people any 
 more than health into diseased bodies by legislative 
 act, yet it is the duty of the state to provide men with 
 an environment free from moral taint and conducive 
 to moral growth, as it is the duty of the state to insure 
 sanitary conditions to human society. 
 
 [ 183 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 When Gladstone, in 1860, introduced 
 lUnsUaUoL trade in wine with the purpose of driv- 
 
 ing out heavy beer through the free issue of 
 so-called grocers’ licenses, the immediate increase in 
 drunkenness, and crimes due to Drink, showed clearly 
 how people may be made immoral by law. On the 
 other hand, the world is full of impressive illustrations 
 of this fact: That, decreasing the number of saloons 
 in a given locality, shortening the hours that they are 
 open, restricting the business by stringent supervision, 
 and especially by abolishing it altogether, the morahty 
 of a community is improved. The act of 1906, closing 
 dramshops one hour earlier on Saturdays and two hours 
 earlier on Sundays, led in four years to a decrease of 
 38 per cent, in the cases of drunkenness in the five 
 Irish cities: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and 
 Waterford. Sunday closing in Glasgow (1911) cut 
 down the arrests for drunkenness to less than one sixth 
 of the average for the rest of the week ! 
 
 There were 20,000 less drinking places in the British 
 Isles in 1910 than in 1891. During the same period 
 arrests for drunkenness decreased some 30 per cent. — 
 not all due to the smaller number of bars, but certainly 
 this was the chief cause. The diminution of crimes in 
 our own American States, after a trial of restrictive 
 laws for five years, has been decisive. The increase, 
 in some cases, in petty crimes, has been due to the fact 
 that drunkenness and illegal selling of liquor, prexdously 
 largely ignored, are given more attention under the 
 new conditions. The actual crime in the community 
 decreases though these petty offences may, for a time, 
 increase. 
 
 In that interesting little book. On Liberty 
 (1859), by John Stuart Mill, many state- 
 ments are made respecting the foolishness 
 
 [ 184 ] 
 
 Question 
 of Liberty 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 of sumptuary laws, which have in our day been widely 
 used by the Liquor Interests to discourage all temper- 
 ance legislation. Herbert Spencer held similar views. 
 But a very little consideration will show the error of 
 these contentions. Two main points need emphasis: 
 First, the sumptuary laws to which Mill, as a rule, 
 referred are mere trivialities in comparison with the 
 problem of Drink. While unwise to interfere by 
 statute overmuch with the petty details of human 
 conduct, nevertheless, when the very life of the race is 
 at stake, — the welfare of home, church, and school; 
 when the ravages of disease, the miseries of women and 
 children; the multiplication of pauper, criminal, and 
 lunatic; the corruption of politics and the nullification 
 of laws are involved, — obviously these immense and 
 vital interests must not be classed with trivial sumptuary 
 laws! 
 
 The state not only has the right; it is under obliga- 
 tion to protect its own life. Even so extreme an indi- 
 vidualist as President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot of 
 Harvard University, has nobly expressed himself on 
 this point (Address before No-License Workers, Boston, 
 Oct. 29, 1908) : 
 
 “There are many subjeets today concerning whieh we must ask 
 that question — the justification of interference with personal liberty. 
 I gradually discovered that justification in the experience of Cam- 
 bridge under a No License system. It has seemed to me that the 
 elear colleetive good obtained by excluding the saloons from Cam- 
 bridge justified the abridgment of the individual’s liberty, particularly 
 when that liberty was a liberty to use for pleasure something that 
 
 was unwholesome When I see a great collective good 
 
 aceomplished at the expense of the loss of a trifling or unwholesome 
 bit of liberty, I am reconciled to that amount of interference with 
 liberty.” 
 
 [ 185 ]. 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 The arguments used by the advocates of the personal 
 liberty to drink liquor (a love of liberty that is mainly 
 only the love of greed) would be ludicrous were not the 
 situation so sad. As these pages are being written 
 (1913), the liquor men in Chicago are trying to drive 
 the women voters into their camp on the plea that, if 
 liberty to drink is now denied, the next step will be to 
 deny the liberty to eat ice-cream! How indescribably 
 silly! For, if ice-cream killed one tenth as many as 
 beer and whisky, how soon it would be abohshed! 
 The women of Illinois rebuked this foolishness by voting 
 at the recent election (Nov., 1913), /owr out of five for 
 no-license! 
 
 In the second place: In the recent and rapid evolu- 
 tion of human society, it has been found wise and 
 necessary for the state to undertake many things which 
 seemed to John Stuart IVIill like vicious policies. 
 Human conditions have, in some important respects, 
 radically changed since his day. We interfere with 
 personal liberty along the lines of Public Hygiene to an 
 extent which probably would have seemed despotic 
 to the great apostle of extreme individualism. But 
 this is clearly justifiable and for the real good of the 
 individual himself. This policy is not the abridgment 
 of any freedom needful to the indi^^dual, while it is 
 needful for the protection of the freedom of the com- 
 munity as a whole. So, also, it has been found neces- 
 sary to interfere with the liberty of the employer in 
 order to protect laborers from the exactions of organized 
 greed. 
 
 A glance at present conditions and tendencies shows 
 that numerous interferences with individual liberty 
 are made necessary by the very complexity of modern 
 society. But the need arises more largely from the 
 demands of the new conscience, growing out of a deep- 
 
 [ 186 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 ening consciousness of the unity of social interests; 
 and also, from the expansion of human sympathy. A 
 clearer moral sense demands that certain things shall 
 be done to foster that common good which in no sense 
 limits individual welfare. 
 
 And when we come to temperance, we 
 Freedom gnd another important influence operative: 
 ^sti^nce discovery that Drinlc is a life-destroyer. 
 
 Mill did not understand or appreciate this 
 fact: Science had not then published its revolutionary 
 discoveries. He, like many today, saw only the evils 
 of drunkenness. He did not realize the menace to 
 civilization in the habit of drinking, all liquors being 
 life-destroyers. This new light has streamed in from 
 numerous realms of experience and investigation. In 
 this new light, the terrible curse of Drink stands revealed 
 as Mill did not see it; and so clearly revealed that the 
 facts demand an interference with individual customs 
 for the good, not only of society, but of the individual 
 himself. Wherever we find a person opposing restric- 
 tive liquor laws in the name of liberty, there we dis- 
 cover an individual who is totally ignorant of what 
 science has demonstrated respecting alcohol, or one 
 who is engaged in the liquor business and wants this 
 liberty for mere gain. 
 
 Little attention need be paid to the representatives 
 of the Liquor Interests when they indulge in loud 
 assertions of their “rights.” That is simply the old 
 cry of the pirate, the gambler, the slaveholder; “You 
 must not interfere with my business,” — no matter how 
 evil that business may be. The “rights ” of the brewer? 
 But what about the “rights” of the children, who are 
 robbed of a good inheritance and a good home because 
 the saloon exists? The “rights” of the distiller? But 
 what about the “rights” of the voter, who finds his 
 
 [ 187 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 ballot practically destroyed by the politieal gang 
 operated from the dramshops? The “rights” of the 
 saloon-keeper? But what about the “rights” of the 
 taxpayer who has to bear much heavier burdens on his 
 account? 
 
 Why so keen about the “rights” of liquor-drinkers, 
 and so indifferent to the rights of the mother who 
 wants a clean, safe place in which to rear her children? 
 Why so loud in denunciation of all laws restrictive of 
 the liquor business, and so indifferent to the destructive 
 restrictions which this business puts upon home, school 
 and church? The representatives of the Liquor Inter- 
 ests are the chief nullifiers of all laws, who respect the 
 rights of none and abolish the rights of thousands 
 (through them the pauper, the criminal, the sick, the 
 insane lose their real liberty!), and who purchase their 
 freedom to do evil by the ruin of the souls and bodies 
 of mankind. Why talk so much about “restraint of 
 trade,” and ignore the “restraint of virtue” carried on 
 by 250,000 drinking places in our land? 
 
 A man as keenly logical as INIill, but far more modern 
 in spirit, the late Professor Thomas H. Green of Oxford 
 University, stated the truth of the whole matter in these 
 words: “Here, then, is a widespreading social evil, of 
 which society may, if it will, by a restraining law, to a 
 great extent, rid itself, to the infinite enhancement 
 of the positive freedom enjoyed by its members. 
 . . . An effectual liquor law, in short, is the neces- 
 
 sary complement of our Factory Acts, om Education 
 Acts, our Public Health Acts.” 
 
 Total abstainers are the true apostles and advocates 
 of “personal liberty,” in its highest and noblest form; 
 friends of the only freedom that is genuine and impor- 
 tant. Total abstinence from intoxicating and injurious 
 liquors is the only true realization and complete 
 
 [ 188 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 consummation of human freedom. We are freest when 
 at our best, and we are at our best only when sober. 
 Science teaches us that liquor actually destroys man’s 
 liberty in two ways: By paralyzing his higher life 
 (lessening vigor of thought, will, and conscience), and 
 by deceiving him, making h i m believe that he is stronger 
 when in fact he is weaker! 
 
 Indulgence in what is harmful to oneself and others 
 is an abridgment of liberty. Those who seek to redeem 
 the race from the curse of Drink are the greatest eman- 
 cipators of mankind. Those who indulge in what 
 involves danger to themselves and carries injury to 
 others are not really free, however much they may 
 boast of their freedom. Only those are free who main- 
 tain the highest life, who subject appetite to reason 
 and conscience, and who respect the spiritual and per- 
 manent welfare of others. To demand liberty that 
 one may maintain a business whose profits mean the 
 ruin of innumerable lives, is little less than blasphemy. 
 
 The sacred principle of liberty confers 
 Evils on no man the right to coin money out of 
 
 the degradation of manhood, the suffering 
 of womanhood, and the privation of child- 
 hood. The greatest friends of “personal liberty” are 
 those who protect and maintain their own spiritual 
 independence and seek to keep others in the path of 
 sobriety. To walk in the way that leads to drunken- 
 ness is bondage; to push others into that highway of 
 ruin, for the sake of lucre, is criminality. Social evils 
 have no inherent rights. Destructive vices have no 
 sacred privileges. Freedom grants no man permission 
 to injure himself or his neighbor. As a writer in a 
 recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical 
 Association so well puts the case: “The world is 
 [ 189 ] 
 
 have no 
 “Rights” 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 moving. The old fetish of ‘personal liberty,’ at what- 
 ever cost of danger to the public at large, seems to be 
 losing its power. ” 
 
 The principle here set forth has the en- 
 Supreme”* dorsemcnt of the highest judicial authority 
 Court in our land, the Supreme Court of the 
 
 United States. The language of its notable 
 decision is emphatic: “By the general concurrence of 
 opinion of every civilized and Christian commimity, 
 there are few sources of crime and misery equal to the 
 dram shop. . . . The statistics of every state show 
 
 a greater amount of crime and misery attributable to 
 the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor 
 saloons than to any other source. . . . The police 
 
 power of the state is fully competent to regulate the 
 business — to mitigate its evils or to suppress it alto- 
 gether. There is no inherent right in a citizen to thus 
 sell intoxicating liquor by retail; it is not a privilege of 
 a citizen of the state or of a citizen of the United States.” 
 Crowley vs. Christensen, 137 U. S. 91. In vnew of this 
 clear and explicit language of our highest tribunal, it 
 is exceedingly absurd for any one to continue to talk of 
 his “sacred right” to sell or drink liquor. At another 
 time the same court used this language: “No legis- 
 lature can bargain away the public health or the public 
 morals. The people themselves cannot do it, much 
 less their servants. Government is organized with a 
 Anew to their preservation, and cannot divest itself 
 of the power to provide for them.” 
 
 The gains for temperance secured recently 
 Hopeful court and legislature, are, however, far 
 
 Statutes and , T, . 
 
 Decisions more than prohibitory statutes, repressive 
 measures against the saloon, and the sub- 
 jection of drunkards to police regulations. They are 
 too numerous to catalogue here, but a few of the various 
 
 [ 190 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 directions which legislative acts and judicial decisions 
 have taken may well be briefly indicated. 
 
 (1) The drunkard cannot now plead drunkeimess as 
 an excuse for his crime. “The law is well settled” — 
 this is the language of the very highest legal authority — 
 “that one who voluntarily intoxicates himself and 
 beclouds his reason cannot set up such condition in 
 excuse or mitigation of a crime committed in that 
 condition.” American and English Encyclopaedia of 
 Law, vol. XV, p. 239. 
 
 (2) The courts have taken many positions like the 
 following: that transportation companies are under 
 obligation to employ none but sober men; that a com- 
 mon carrier is not bound to provide accommodations 
 for an intoxicated person; that habitual drunkenness 
 is ground for removal from public office, for dismissal 
 from positions of trust, such as executor or guardian, for 
 the dissolution of partnership, for granting divorce of 
 husband and wife, and in special cases for the voiding 
 of a contract. All these decisions are powerful helps 
 to the cause of temperance. 
 
 (3) Statutes have been passed in some states pro- 
 viding that habitual drunkenness be treated as a disease, 
 the person so affiicted being considered a patient to be 
 cured rather than as a criminal to be punished, and 
 institutions have been created to carry out this idea. 
 
 (4) Both legislatures and courts are constantly 
 enlarging the liabilities of the saloon-keeper. There 
 are many state laws similar to the Illinois Dramshop 
 Act, which, in section 9, not only holds the saloomkeeper 
 liable for injuries in person or property sustained by 
 any one through the sale of liquor by him, but the ovmer 
 of the building in which the liquor is sold is himself 
 held responsible for injuries so occasioned. And the 
 Appellate Court of Illinois, in a decision recently handed 
 
 [ 191 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 down (1904), went so far as to hold that “a saloon- 
 keeper is hable for the death of a patron while under 
 the influence of liquor sold by him.” 
 
 (5) In March 1913, a law was passed by the legis- 
 lature of New York attaching a penalty of one year’s 
 imprisonment, or a $500.00 fine, against intoxicated 
 chauffeurs: a very wise statute which other states will 
 soon adopt. But we may well ask: Why stop here.^ 
 If we abridge his hberty, why not abridge the liberty of 
 the seller who, by his business, puts this man and the 
 general public in great danger.? In Michigan, we find 
 this prohibition in a statute, first passed in 1873: “No 
 person shall be employed as an engineer, train dis- 
 patcher, fireman, baggage master, conductor, brake- 
 man, or other servant upon any railroad in any of its 
 operating departments, who uses intoxicating drinks as 
 a beverage.” Many other states now have similar 
 laws (See Chapter X) . A business firm in Massachu- 
 setts recently employed a drunkard who killed a fellow- 
 employer. The widow, Mrs. Annie McNicol, sued for 
 damages and the Supreme Court of the state has 
 decided in her favor. Mass. Decisions, vol. 215, Part 
 III, 1913. These are only a few illustrations of the 
 way in which legislative statutes and court decisions 
 are responding to the world’s growth in temperance 
 sentiment. 
 
 Policy of 
 Prohibition 
 
 The fact that two-thirds of the area and 
 over half of the population of the United 
 States are under prohibition is impressive 
 and significant. Whatever we may think of this 
 policy, it represents a deepening consciousness of the 
 immense evils of the Drink Habit and the Liquor 
 Traffic. It is a fact of which we must take account. 
 This situation has been slowly won against the gigantic 
 Liquor Trust, the corrupt politician, and the apathy of 
 
 [ 192 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 many respectable people. The forces behind it are 
 widespread, intensely earnest, and destined to increase. 
 They are temperance education in the public schools; 
 the influence of doctors and captains of industry; the 
 teachings of life insurance; the awakened conscience of 
 the Christian Churches; the aggressive fight of the Anti- 
 Saloon League; the constant pressure of the Woman’s 
 Christian Temperance Union. In the face of these 
 forces, it is evident that saloons must, sooner or later, 
 go out of existence. Their continuance is now solely 
 due to the indifference of respectable people, who, 
 temperate themselves, do not appreciate the gravity of 
 the Drink Curse. As soon as such people realize how 
 great the Drink Evil is, all necessary laws can be enacted 
 and enforced. We are fast coming to see that the 
 supreme necessity is not the regulation of the traffic, but 
 the suppression of the habit. 
 
 Prolffibition has its severe critics, and its enforcement 
 under the conditions which have long existed in some 
 places has been difficult and imperfect. But a slight 
 change in attitude among certain respectable people 
 would make the enforcement of strict repressive laws, 
 against the making and selling and drinking of liquor, 
 an easy and successful task. And this will soon be 
 brought about by the various methods of education 
 now operative and by the pressure of industry, insurance 
 and medical science. What can be done, when public 
 sentiment is sufficiently strong, has been made clear 
 by recent experiences in San Francisco, Liverpool, and 
 other cities. During the trying period following the 
 earthquake and fire, the saloons were closed tight. 
 The diminution of crime was immediate and rapid. The 
 demonstration was complete that the Liquor Traffic 
 can be stopped and its immense evils ended, just as 
 soon as the people care to do so. That drastic laws can 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 be permanently enforced just as soon as respectable 
 people realize that the emergency is constant and 
 menacing. Just as soon as they see that drinking beer 
 and whisky works havoc in times of quiet as in* days 
 of stress and strain. 
 
 The same lesson was taught during a 
 
 Enforcement 'lei-i "t- 
 
 Possible period of strike in Liverpool in the summer 
 of 1911. Justices of the Peace ordered all 
 drink shops to be closed at two o’clock in the afternoon, 
 Aug. 18. The number of daily cases in the pohce 
 courts fell at once from 180 to 41, while legitimate 
 trade in the poorer districts immediately increased! 
 This policy of early closing continued for ten days with 
 most excellent results. What is the obvious lesson? 
 Simply this; When the people wish it, when the now 
 indifferent respectable people awake to the seriousness 
 of the Drink Evil and decide that something adequate 
 must be done, then the most drastic repressive laws 
 can easily be enforced. When, for instance, we, as a 
 people, take the same attitude toward the Liquor 
 Traffic as we have long taken toward smallpox and 
 cholera, and are coming now to take toward tuberculosis 
 and other contagious diseases. The time will soon 
 come when the general public will enforce some form 
 of prohibition as it now enforces sanitary regulations 
 against cesspool and contaminated milk and impure 
 water. Deaths from the diseases just mentioned are 
 nothing in comparison to the destruction, phj-sical, 
 social, and moral, flowing from open saloons. 
 
 The experience in the Panama Canal Zone has been 
 most illuminating. Over 30 saloons in 1907. But 
 by the constant pressure of the authorities these were 
 gradually reduced until only one remained a few 
 months ago. And then, on April 24, 1913, the Com- 
 mission voted to abolish this and extend prohibition 
 
 [ 194 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 to the whole Zone! What is successful there can be 
 made successful everywhere, when the people realize 
 the evils of Drink as the officials there have come to 
 realize them. The Canal Record, April 30, 1913. 
 
 When we reach the point of view respecting the 
 Liquor Traffic that the Chinese have reached respecting 
 the Opium Habit, all necessary laws can be enforced. 
 The recently elected president. Yuan Shi Kai, in 1905, 
 denied the ballot to opium smokers in Tientsin. So 
 strong is the feeling of the Chinese at present against 
 the Habit that in several provinces the users of opium 
 are not allowed to vote, while the man who raises 
 opium is put to death. Rev. Dr. James W. Bashford, 
 Bishop of the M. E. Church, writes from Peking (Sept. 
 11, 1913) : “Inasmuch as the sentiment against opium is 
 exceedingly strong in China, it is altogether probable 
 that the present Parliament will also deny the franchise 
 to opium users everywhere.” 
 
 A famous Chinese physician. Dr. Wu 
 Testimony Lien-Tch (it was he who stamped out the 
 Doctor*^^* plague in Manchuria), while attending the 
 International Medical Congress in London 
 (1913), made this remarkable statement: “Only 
 seven years ago, half the adult population of China 
 smoked opium. Today I think that you can scarcely 
 find one per cent., who do so. I feel sure that what we 
 have been able to do in China, can easily be done in 
 Europe in regard to the question of alcohol.” These 
 words were spoken at a banquet given in London by 
 the National Temperance League, which was attended 
 by over two hundred distinguished doctors from all 
 parts of the world. And this declaration by the cele- 
 brated Chinese scientist was heartily applauded. A 
 significant statement, indeed, which we may well lay 
 to heart. Why not? Can we not do as well as the 
 [195] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Chinese? Drink does America more harm than opium 
 ever has done China. Therefore, the success of pro- 
 hibition is simply dependent upon the enlightened 
 conscience of the American people. When they come 
 to know what science teaches and also come to see how 
 great the miseries caused by liquor really are, they will 
 decree the doom of the saloon. 
 
 It is asserted by many that prohibition has been a 
 farce in Maine. The enforcement of the law there 
 has, however, been made unusually difficult because 
 of these and other similar facts: (1) The inabihty of 
 the authorities to prevent the shipment of liquors into 
 the state, an unfair and intolerable situation which the 
 recently enacted W'^ebb Law is meant to remedy. (2) 
 The use of vast sums of money by the Liquor Interests 
 to tempt the citizens of Maine to violate the law, and 
 to create through the press of the country an exagger- 
 ated impression of the situation there, claiming a 
 complete failure of the law. (3) The demands of 
 thousands of summer tourists who coerce and bribe 
 hotel keepers and others to pro^^de liquors for them, 
 and who then go abroad over the land and declare that 
 prohibition in Maine is a failure! 
 
 Under these circumstances, the wonder is that the 
 law has been enforced as well as it has been, and its 
 comparative failure in certain places, especially during 
 the tourist season, does not discredit the prohibition 
 policy as applied under normal conditions: imder the 
 conditions of an awakened consciousness of the vast 
 evils of Drink, which is sweeping o's er our land. W'e 
 can all most heartily join with Hon. Joseph H. Choate, 
 who recently used these words: “I think we owe a 
 great tribute to our brethren in the southern states for 
 the overwhelming force with which the reform has been 
 conducted. ” 
 
 [ 196 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 The benefits of the “Maine Law” (the same may- 
 be said of Kansas and other states), as shown in the sta- 
 tistics of crime, pauperism, and insanity, on the one 
 hand; and on the other, of education, thrift, and general 
 prosperity, especially when compared with “liquor” 
 states similarly situated, present an impressive argu- 
 ment for rigid restrictive statutes. The comparative 
 conditions of license and no-license towns, and of the 
 same town under successive periods of license and no- 
 license, teach the same lesson. And nowhere has the 
 experience in this line been more decisive than in 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The recent experience in Worcester 
 The Lesson (Mass.), the largest city to vote out the 
 Worcester saloon (population, 140,000), clearly demon- 
 strates what law and public opinion can do to 
 lessen the evils of Drink. The No-License party con- 
 trolled the city for two years, 1908 and 1909 : beaten by 
 a comparatively small majority, secured by corrupt 
 methods. An association at St. Louis (Mo.), in the 
 interests of the brewers there, issued a pamphlet (1910), 
 purporting to describe results under No-License in 
 Worcester, in which it was claimed, among other 
 things, that: (1) “Hospital records show an increase of 
 alcoholic patients,” over the preceding license years; 
 and, (2) “Poliee court records show that drunkenness 
 grew more common.” 
 
 [ 197 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Let Us Look at the Facts 
 
 Arrests for drunkenness (license), 
 1906-1908 = 
 
 7,971 
 
 “ “ (No-license), 
 
 1908-19101 = 
 
 A decrease of 41 per cent. 
 
 Arrests for drunkenness (license), 
 1910-1912 = 
 
 4,641 
 
 9,111 
 
 An increase of 195 per cent. 
 
 Arrests for all causes (license), 
 
 1906-1908 = 
 
 12,162 
 
 
 
 
 
 “ “ (No-license), 
 
 1908-1910 = 
 
 9,325 
 
 
 A decrease of 31 per cent. 
 
 
 
 Arrests for all causes (license), 
 
 1910-1912 = 
 
 13,811 
 
 An increase of 46 per cent. 
 
 Alcoholic Patients at City Hospital 
 (Under License) (1906-1908) = 
 
 Alcoholic Patients at City Hospital 
 (Under No-License) (1908-10) = 
 
 A decrease of 34 per cent. 
 
 Alcoholic Patients at City Hospital 
 (Under License) (1910-1912) = 
 
 An increase of 107 per cent.^ 
 
 678 
 
 Comment on these comparisons is surely unnecessarj'. 
 
 1 The police under the temperance Mayor, the Hon. James Logan, were 
 naturally more vigilant in arresting “drunks,” which would tend to make 
 comparisons with license periods less favorable to no-license than actual con- 
 ditions would warrant. 
 
 2 The Worcester Board of Health reported 48 deaths from alcoholism in 
 1906-1908 (license): 16 in 1908-1910 (no license): and 38 in 1910-1912 
 (license). 
 
 [ 198 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 In the pamphlet, to which reference has been made, 
 it is asserted: “The whole city was infested with crime 
 [during the no-license period] and 2,000 dives were 
 running men, women and children to hell’s gate.” 
 But this, if true, is an admission from a defender of 
 saloons that Drink does all the evil that the temperance 
 advocate claims. How can drinking liquor in 2,000 
 “dives” be so bad, if drinking it in 200 saloons is inno- 
 cent? The evil lies, not in the place where bought 
 but in the liquor itself. It makes practically no differ- 
 ence whether a man obtains a drink at a licensed bar or 
 from a “blind tiger.” Typhoid germs kill whether 
 taken from the town pump, or from a secret spring. 
 The above statement respecting the evils claimed to 
 have been produced by the 2,000 dives damns the 
 whole business. 
 
 Moreover, it was the Liquor Trade which stood 
 behind the 2,000 dives. Hon. James Logan asserts, 
 what is obviously true, that such “dives” existed under 
 license, and while the number increased under no- 
 license, the figure just given represents a great exag- 
 geration. In this connection, it must be remembered 
 that the “Trade” actually promoted the starting of 
 these “dives” and the arrests of the keepers (even 
 inducing low women to engage in the business), in 
 order to make a black record against the mayor and 
 turn public sentiment against no-license! 
 
 But the policy of no-license was not responsible for 
 the existence of those illegal drink shops. They were 
 largely products of a lawless business. Obviously, the 
 society against horse stealing in pioneer days was not 
 responsible for the robbing of hen roosts. The “ Trade ” 
 that encourages the unlawful sale of liquor cannot with 
 reason charge the evils of its use upon the friends of 
 sobriety. This pamphlet even quotes a Worcester 
 
 [ 199 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 brewer who boasts of his illegal sales: “I made more 
 money during the two years of no-license in Worcester 
 than ever before.” If evils existed to such an extent 
 (which was not the case), who but the liquor men were 
 responsible for “running men, women, and children to 
 hell’s gate? ” The 2,000 dives could not have furnished 
 the liquor, had not the Trade illegally sold it. More- 
 over, the claim in the pamphlet, that the records of the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission show that more 
 liquor was shipped into Worcester under no-license than 
 under license, is absolutely false. Hon. William J. 
 Meyers, Statistician of the Commission, asserts that 
 no such records exist. Such baseless claims abound, 
 not only in this pamphlet, but in liquor publications in 
 general. 
 
 More used 
 in “Dry” 
 Territory? 
 
 Two matters need brief attention at this 
 point, especially because erroneous impres- 
 sions respecting them are widespread. (1) 
 It is often asserted that more liquor is 
 consumed in prohibition territory than in other places. 
 But what are the facts? Testimony was recently 
 presented to the Interstate Commerce Commission 
 that 20,000,000 gallons of liquor were annually shipped 
 by express into prohibition states. But this would 
 make only about one and one-half gallons per capita 
 consumption for these states : the U. S. Brewers’ Associa- 
 tion (Year Book: 1912) gives even a smaller amount. 
 Careful investigations place the present per capita 
 consumption in Kansas (including medicinal and indus- 
 trial uses) at 3.01 gallons. The per capita for the whole 
 nation (including these prohibition states) is, however, 
 some twenty gallons! This does not prove that pro- 
 hibition is a farce! Again, a Portland, Maine, news- 
 paper has frequently asserted that over $1,000,000.00 
 are sent out of the state annually by the people of Maine 
 
 [ 200 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 for liquors. But this would be only about $1.50 per 
 capita for its people (not counting the large summer 
 population which consumes the most of it), while the 
 per capita for our nation is over $20.00! 
 
 It has been argued that prohibition must be a failure 
 because the per capita consumption of liquor increases 
 as the prohibition territory enlarges. But the increase 
 in use for the whole country does not prove (as any one 
 ought to realize), that more is used than formerly in 
 “dry” states. The rapid growth of our big cities, all 
 “wet, ” largely due to drinking immigrants from abroad 
 (some ten millions in the last dozen years), the increase 
 in wealth and the consequent tendency to luxury, and 
 the gigantic efforts of the “Trade” to increase its sales 
 as seen in newspaper and billboard advertisements: 
 these are the chief causes of the increase in our per 
 capita consumption. Also, the use of alcohol in indus- 
 tries rapidly increases from year to year. 
 
 To hold, as some writers do, that prohibition actually 
 promotes drinking, because the per capita use of liquors 
 has increased, in the nation as a whole, as prohibition 
 territory has extended, is an obviously illogical claim: 
 a non-sequitur of gigantic proportions. If there should 
 occur in the entire nation a rapid increase in the cases 
 of smallpox (due to immigration and unsanitary con- 
 ditions), no one would attribute this increase to the 
 more rigid enforcement of vaccination in a half-dozen 
 states. And yet, this would be no more unreasonable 
 than the assertions of these opponents of prohibition. 
 
 Evidently Mr. George B. Hugo, an intelligent liquor 
 dealer, was correct when he stated at the Sagamore 
 Sociological Conference: “There is certainly less con- 
 sumed in prohibition states: There is no question 
 at all about that. Of course it may be claimed that 
 prohibition does not prohibit; but, if it does not pro- 
 
 [201 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 hibit and they (brewers and distillers) sell more goods 
 under prohibition why are they fighting the law?” 
 See Conference Report (1910), p. 12. 
 
 (2) But there always comes up in these 
 discussions the matter of “Blind Tigers,” 
 and similar devices for the illegal selling 
 of liquors, which are said to be very numerous under 
 prohibition. In reply it may be confidently stated: 
 Prohibition prohibits as well as any system of mere 
 regulation regulates. The liquor trade, it may be 
 said, is on the whole, extremely lawless: Its finished 
 product is a criminal, and it will ^^olate any law that 
 is enacted. Prominent journals representing the 
 “Trade” openly admit this fact. Careful investiga- 
 tion shows that the proportion of “Blind Tigers” per 
 population, in license territory is just about as great as 
 in prohibition territory. A mildly restrictive hquor 
 law does not stop the illegal selling of liquors, as is 
 assumed by the opponents of prohibition. And it is 
 manifestly absurd for us to allow those engaged in an 
 admittedly evil business to dictate the terms of legis- 
 lation, saying: If you let us have our way, we udU 
 not break the law, but if you draw the rein too tight, 
 we shall sell in spite of the law! 
 
 Of course “Blind Tigers” in a community are bad. 
 But the evils which they represent will be finally abol- 
 ished, not by making hquor laws more liberal, but by 
 manifold processes of education, which will destroy 
 both Drink Habit and Liquor Traffic. And even a 
 blind tiger in a commimity is not so bad as the ferocious 
 animal with wide open eyes, at large on the streets, 
 under the protection of the law, and standing at everj' 
 corner to snap at our boys and devour our weak and 
 wayward men! 
 
 [ 202 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 Advancing 
 
 Legislation 
 
 Men are not safe, and the community 
 is not safe, until men refuse to drink from 
 the enlightened action of their own will. 
 But the state must recognize that there are many weak 
 persons in its population who need all possible dis- 
 couragement against the use of liquor and all possible 
 protection against the temptation to drink. It is 
 under heavy obligations to do all that it can, as fast as 
 it can, not simply to regulate but to destroy the Drink 
 Habit and the Liquor Traffic. To this end, it must 
 use law, so far as public sentiment will enforce it. And 
 it must foster all kinds of educational agencies to 
 create a public sentiment adequate to enforce all meas- 
 ures aimed at the destruction of these ancient evils. 
 
 Law, unsupported by public sentiment, as has been 
 stated, is ineffective, but public sentiment without the 
 law is incomplete. Therefore, temperance agitation 
 and education must constantly evolve moral feeling 
 against the habit of drinking and the maker of drunk- 
 ards. Legislation, hospitable to sobriety and repressive 
 toward intemperance, must be successfully adapted 
 to new phases of the problem. Social evils, like plant 
 pests, become in time immune to certain remedies, 
 and new ones have to be devised. The warfare against 
 evil never ends. The foe, driven from one entrench- 
 ment, burrows at some other spot. The enactment 
 of the best temperance statute is but the forging of a 
 weapon. But this weapon alone will not win a victory. 
 To overcome the great evil toward which it is aimed, 
 it must be used by righteous men, who become irresis- 
 tible by virtue of a supreme enthusiasm for humanity. 
 It is not enough to have a model law on the statute 
 book of the state: it must be enforced by public opinion. 
 The situation calls for wise statesmanship and high 
 expediency: a less stringent law vigorously enforced 
 [ 203 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 is far better than a more drastic statute that is generally 
 ignored. 
 
 The friends of temperance need to be both idealists 
 and opportunists: committed to restrictive pohcies 
 as temporary measures, and also favorable, wherever 
 possible, to legislation destructive of the Traffic. They 
 must be willing to strike it wherever it can be hit. To 
 capture even an outpost helps toward the final victory. 
 Whatever curbs the power of the maker and seller and 
 lessens the opportunity of the user means progress for 
 sobriety. Laws need to be enacted that will increas- 
 ingly restrict the Trade, shortening the hours of sale 
 and putting heavier burdens upon the business. Held 
 more and more responsible for injuries done to women 
 and children, saloons must be removed farther and 
 farther from residence districts and industrial plants. 
 Wherever public safety is concerned, law must enforce 
 abstinence. Saloons ought to be made to carry, by 
 special assessment, the entire cost of inebriate asylums 
 and hospitals. No local community should be allowed 
 to share in its license fees, bribing voters to vote for 
 saloons to lessen taxes. All such revenues (to be abol- 
 ished as soon as possible) should be used for general 
 state purposes as remote as possible from enterprises 
 supported by public taxation. 
 
 The best law respecting this matter for 
 any community is the one that can be best 
 enforced, always, however, remembering: 
 (1) No law will be universally obeyed: (2) All laws 
 will be, so far as possible, violated by many engaged in 
 the liquor business, which is always lawless: (3) It is 
 unfortunate to have any law that gives to the liquor 
 trade a vested interest or that implies the public sanc- 
 tion of it as a legitimate business. The evil influence 
 of this state endorsement of liquor is greater than the 
 
 [204 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 evil due to the sporadic contempt of law arising from 
 the imperfect enforcement of restrictive legislation. 
 
 The opponents of prohibition make very much ado 
 about the “contempt” of law, which such a statute is 
 said to occasion. They claim that the illegal selling 
 of liquors brings all government into disrespect. But 
 people should remember that some lawlessness at this 
 point is not to be compared with the general lawless- 
 ness practiced by the Liquor Trade. The saloons 
 represent a much more serious contempt of many laws. 
 Breaking a prohibitory stature, here and there, is not so 
 great a menace to good government, as the abounding 
 criminality which the saloon fosters, no matter whether 
 laws are mild or severe. To raise the issue respecting 
 the contempt of law comes with poor grace from sellers 
 of liquor who produce thousands of lawbreakers, and 
 from drinkers who, by the use of liquor, bring into 
 contempt the good of humanity and the laws of God 
 as revealed by science! 
 
 The merits and demerits of the Scandi- 
 navian method for the municipalization of 
 the sale of liquor have been acrimoniously 
 debated for some years. The opinions even of fair- 
 minded people interested in temperance reform, have 
 radically differed on this subject. After much reading 
 of the statements from both sides, and with an earnest 
 desire to make a fair presentation of the exact facts, I 
 wish briefly to describe the present situation. 
 
 The advocates of the system, which varies consid- 
 erably in different cities, make the following claims in 
 its behalf:— 
 
 (1) The liquors sold are pure, as all temptation to 
 adulterate them is removed. 
 
 (2) The city shops (called Bolags in Sweden and 
 
 1 205 1 
 
 Gothenburg 
 
 System 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Samlags in Norway), where liquors are sold, are clean, 
 orderly, and free from vicious associations. 
 
 (3) The system prevents all illegal selling, putting 
 an end to “blind tigers” and “bootlegging.” 
 
 (4) The local company of respectable citizens carrj"- 
 ing on the hquor business in any community has no 
 interest in increasing the amount sold, being paid only 
 a fixed percentage on the capital invested, all other 
 gains going to the public treasury. This is claimed to 
 be a decided advantage over the common saloon, where 
 the greed of the bar-tender verj^ naturally seeks to 
 induce customers to drink to excess. 
 
 (5) Another great advantage claimed for the system 
 of so-called “disinterested management,” is that it 
 removes the corrupting influence of the hquor trade 
 from politics. 
 
 (6) By this system the profits of the trade are made 
 to serve the whole community : The evil habit of a few 
 is compelled to do good to all. 
 
 (7) The results of a generation show, so it is claimed, 
 that both the quantity of liquors used per capita and 
 the number of crimes committed in these countries have 
 greatly decreased. 
 
 Surely this is a long and impressive list of merits. 
 But do the facts support these claims? 
 
 Let us first consider the last advantage 
 t^Farts? claimed for the system. The truth is that 
 over sixty years ago there was a great tem- 
 perance uprising in Sweden, and in 1855 (some ten 
 years before the Gothenburg system was started) a 
 parish local option law was passed, by which, by vote 
 of the people, the sale of liquor was at once stopped in 
 2,000 of the 2,400 local districts of the country (many 
 of the remaining 400 have since stopped the trade). 
 The gains for sobriety were immediate, long before the 
 
 [ 206 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 Bolag came into existence. Moreover, the system 
 itself has never been applied to more than about 
 one-fifth of the Swedish population. Obviously, the de- 
 crease at that time in the use of liquor cannot be attrib- 
 uted to the Bolag. It must be remembered, also in 
 this connection that Sweden now consumes (in spite 
 of the non-sale in so many parishes) nearly a gallon 
 more hquor per capita than Great Britain. The 
 death-rate from alcoholism in Stockholm is the greatest 
 in the world. Such facts do not commend the system. 
 
 Take now the matter of crime. When 
 Lessened system was put in force, about 1865, 
 
 a radical change was made in the law gov- 
 erning the arrests for drunkenness. Previously the 
 peace-offieer had been given two-thirds of the fine for 
 making the arrest. This poliey naturally led to many 
 abuses. When this law was repealed, these arrests 
 suddenly decreased, making this apparently sudden 
 decline in crime due to the new Bolags, which had 
 in fact nothing to do with this result. And yet learned 
 writers have made much of this circumstance. Their 
 conclusion in this respect is wholly erroneous. 
 
 Again, in the cities whieh have the system, crimes in 
 general, and arrests for drunkenness, have increased 
 faster then the population. Gothenburg today is itself 
 over five times as drunken as London if we judge by 
 police records alone, which, however, afford only a 
 tentative means of comparison. In Bergen and Chris- 
 tiania (Norway) the convictions fcr drunkenness are 
 respectively 30 and 57 per thousand annually. In 
 English cities of similar class, Hull and Liverpool, they 
 are 13 and 11. In Stockholm, the cases of drunkenness 
 are about twice what they were (in proportion to pop- 
 ulation) in the dozen years before the system was 
 established there in 1877. In spite of the general 
 
 [ 207 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 abstinence of the people in the rural districts, it is esti- 
 mated that there are 50,000 drunkards at present in 
 Sweden, one to every 14 men. Surely the system has 
 not been a panacea. 
 
 Let us now consider briefly some of the 
 sup^rte^ other claims. That in reference to the 
 purity of liquors sold needs no special 
 attention. They cannot be rendered harmless by being 
 sold in pure form by the city. People often talk as 
 though the only injury arises from adulteration. But the 
 purest liquor is a poison so far as it contains alcohol. 
 No ordinary adulteration can make it worse than the 
 alcohol in it. As a matter of fact, the evidence shows 
 that adulteration of liquors is common in Norway and 
 Sweden. Whether more or less than elsewhere, it is 
 impossible to determine. But this much is evident: 
 the system in practice does not insure purity. 
 
 Is the Bolag free from certain evils inherent in 
 the saloon? Theoretically, “Yes.” But, practically, 
 “No.” The stipulations of the law are violated there 
 just as our own laws prohibiting Sunday sales are 
 constantly violated with us. 
 
 Again, does the disinterested municipal liquor-shop 
 prevent illegal selling, — “ blind tigers? ” The testimony 
 is conclusive that such is not the case. No better 
 authority can be cited than Dr. Johan Scharffenberg, 
 who writes : “ It has been proved that there were more 
 
 illegal sales in Frederickstad after the re-estabhshment 
 of the Samlag in 1904 than in 1903, when it was closed. ” 
 The same is true in many other places, testifies the 
 eminent scientist. Prof. Harald Westergaard of the 
 University of Copenhagen. The leading dailies in 
 the large cities constantly refer to reports and arrests 
 in connection with “blind tigers,” of infinite variety: 
 
 [ 208 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 It is not 
 “Disinter- 
 ested” 
 
 even women are frequently arrested for such illegal 
 selling. 
 
 Is it true that by this system the sale of 
 liquors is made purely distinterested, so 
 that the “Trade” has no temptation to 
 increase the amount used? In theory, 
 “Yes;” but, in practice, most emphatically, “No!” 
 On this point, no end of testimony is at hand, similar 
 to the following statement by Oskar Eklund, M. P., 
 from Stockholm (1908): “The Gothenburg system 
 has never become in practice what it was in principle. 
 It almost immediately degenerated into a common 
 monetary business, and the warmth of its advocates 
 for the promotion of temperance and morality dropped 
 down to zero. ” Mr. Edwin A. Pratt, a fair and careful 
 investigator, declares, that the company formed to 
 manage the trade in liquors is no more philanthropic 
 in its motive than an Enghsh brewery. Licensing and 
 Temperance in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. 1907. 
 See also: The Breakdown of the Gothenburg System. 
 By Ernest Gordon. 1912. 
 
 The municipal liquor company, in buying its goods 
 of brewer and distiller, not only increases the liquor 
 power in the town, but it comes into entangling alliance 
 with that power, a situation, which, as experience 
 shows, is productive of much evil. The fact is that it 
 is impossible to have the liquor trade in any community 
 under any form without having there the evils that 
 issue from Drink. “Disinterested” management is 
 an illusion. 
 
 Does the Gothenburg system take the 
 corrupting influence of brewery and dis- 
 tillery out of politics? Its advocates so 
 claim. Theoretically, the companies who 
 operate the Bolags, and turn its profits 
 
 [ 209 ] 
 
 Liquor 
 Interests 
 still in 
 Politics 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 above a certain percentage over to the city, or the state, 
 are disinterested gentlemen who never lift their fingers 
 to shape the political policy of the town. But the 
 very privilege which they enjoy gives them an influence 
 in pohtics which is often corruptly used. This is a 
 notorious fact. It could hardly be otherwise, the 
 business being what it is and human nature being what 
 it is. A trade lying on the borderland of crime and 
 vice could hardly fail to have a demorahzing influence 
 upon those engaged in it. This is one of the distinct 
 evils of the system. It neecessarily tends to dechris- 
 tianize every Christian having stock in such a company. 
 His profits from Drink make him tolerant of the evils 
 of drinking. 
 
 We have at this point the testimony of a distin- 
 guished publicist of Finland. Dr. Matti Helenius- 
 Seppalii of Helsingfors, member of the Finnish 
 Parhament, who, in an address in Holland at the Inter- 
 national Congress on Alcohohsm, said : “ The influence 
 
 of the ‘trade’ is, as already said, great, even in the 
 cities where the ‘Gothenburg’ system is introduced: 
 the money which the cities derive from the saloons and 
 shops is large and one does not like to slaughter his 
 milch cow! As the abstainers saw how great a hin- 
 drance to their work the Gothenburg System was, 
 they took to teaching the youth and the people that 
 the trouble brought about by this system was much 
 greater than the profits in money received.” As a 
 matter of fact, this Scandinavian System is, in essence, 
 not a reform, but a revenue measure. The motive 
 that sustains it, is the desire for lower taxes, not an 
 interest in temperance. 
 
 Just here an important point remains 
 Compa^^ to be considered. Is it an advantage to 
 have the profits of an evil custom turned 
 
 [ 210 ] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 to the service of the whole community? Is it not, 
 instead, an unmixed evil to bribe the public conscience 
 to condone that evil just because its profits lessen 
 personal taxes and support public institutions? It 
 creates a situation which says to a man. If you will 
 let me engage in this evil business, I will pay half your 
 taxes and build better school-houses for your children. 
 This is nothing but the service of the devil under the 
 livery of heaven. Is it well, for instance, to make the 
 score of boys and girls who line the desk of the public 
 library feel that they can have one more book a 
 week because their father drank a lot of liquor in a 
 municipal grog-shop? Is not that a most demoral- 
 izing situation? Consider what might have been if 
 these fathers had not been there. None would have 
 been drunk. None would have beaten wife or child. 
 None would have gone home empty-handed to a needy 
 family on Saturday night. All would have been able 
 to buy better clothes and more books for their own 
 children. A small part of the money wasted at the 
 Bolags would have given the community greater 
 benefits than come from such profits. The arrange- 
 ment is as wasteful economically as it is ethically 
 demoralizing. 
 
 The Rt. Hon. John Burns, no temperance 
 Te^^onies fanatic, has hit the nail squarely on the 
 head in these forcible words : “ City owner- 
 
 ship of public houses (saloons) — the Gothenburg 
 system — will elevate drinking into a civic virtue, 
 boozing will be a test of local patriotism, and work- 
 people will drink their village into a free library or a 
 park by a process that will land many in the hospital, 
 some into jail, a great number into asylums, all into 
 misery, and send not a few into the cemetery!” 
 
 A fact of great significance in this connection is this: 
 
 [ 211 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 While this system is being heartily advocated in our 
 own land, the sentiment in Scandina\da is turning 
 rapidly against it. The strict temperance people of 
 those countries have never approved of Bolag or Sam- 
 lag. Three years ago during a notable strike, 55 per 
 cent, of the voters declared for prohibition, — surely, a 
 severe condemnation. The party opposed to this 
 system recently elected 128 out of 230 members of 
 the House of Commons in Sweden, and at the request 
 of this majority, on November 17, 1911, the Coimcil of 
 State appointed a Royal Commission of eleven members 
 to investigate the growing evils of the present system 
 and to suggest improvements, especially local option 
 for cities, a considerable sum of money being appropri- 
 ated for the purpose. Mr. Karl Staaff, the prime min- 
 ister, in defining its duties, said: “The financial 
 condition of the state would rest on a safer basis under 
 a general condition of sobriety than by encouraging 
 a desire for and the use of liquor. ” 
 
 These facts prove that the Bolag is not considered 
 a success by a majority of the people at home. At a 
 great meeting recently held in Stockholm (1911) to 
 memorialize the king in reference to the increasing 
 drunkenness in the city (in spite of the Bolags) Rev. 
 Elis Heuman, chaplain to the king, said among other 
 things, “The whole population is thus becoming poi- 
 soned by alcohol.” Surely we would better shun a 
 system that is so generally condemned at home. 
 
 At the International Anti-alcohol Congress held a 
 few years ago in Stockholm, the Gothenburg system 
 was the subject of a searching discussion. The weight 
 of testimony was decidedly against the Bolag. There is 
 no room here for even the briefest summary of that 
 debate. But these testimonies are tjq)ical: Prof. 
 August Ljungren, after pointing out that modern 
 
 [212] 
 
THE FUNCTION OF LAW 
 
 science recognizes no so-called moderate use of liquors 
 containing a poision like alcohol, said: “Every system 
 which overlooks this fact (as the Gothenburg does) 
 is doomed to failure.” The eminent Swedish sociol- 
 ogist, Prof. G. H. von Koch, stated: “I held for 
 many years that the Gothenburg system was based on 
 a sound principle, but the more I have studied the 
 question the more decidedly I have come to the con- 
 clusion that in practice it works out altogether badly. ” 
 Many others have likewise been obliged to change their 
 opinions for the same reasons. 
 
 Finally, Prof. August Forel, formerly of the Uni- 
 versity of Zurich, a veteran among scientific advocates 
 of temperance, used these significant words: “That the 
 Gothenburg system in Sweden is bad, we have all seen, 
 and it is confessed on all sides. How can alcohol be 
 fought as long as the community or stock companies 
 are interested in its sale?” Yes, indeed, how can it be 
 successfully fought? That simple question demon- 
 strates the fatal weakness of the system. 
 
 At the Twelfth International Congress on Alcoholism 
 held in London (1909) the best that an apologist for 
 the system. Prof. Lars O. Jensen, of Bergen, could claim 
 for it, was this: “It has been of some help to us in 
 this respect” — lessening the consumption of liquors. 
 But even this point was disputed by nearly all the 
 experts who indulged in the discussion of Prof. Jensen’s 
 paper. Proceedings, p. 237. 
 
 At the recent (1913) International Congress on Alco- 
 holism (the Fourteenth) at Milan, the sentiment of 
 the thousand delegates from forty-four countries was 
 overwhelmingly against this system. Hon. Edvard 
 Wavrinsky, member of the Upper House of the Swedish 
 Parliament, said: “We do not like the Gothenburg 
 System. . . . We seek to crush it by giving our 
 
 [213 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 towns local veto powers, and will, step by step, abolish 
 the traffic altogether.” 
 
 A dozen years ago, “Grey Arms” was 
 FaUures Opened at Broome Hill, Eng., under the 
 patronage of Earl Grey, to show how the 
 evils of Drink could be abolished by “disinterested 
 management,” and all was done that money and 
 respectability could provide. But the venture soon 
 proved a most “dismal failure,” as the authorities 
 there declared. On complaint of clergy and police, 
 fines and warnings were frequent. A clear demon- 
 stration that liquor selling and liquor drinking can no 
 more be made harmless than gambling and leprosy. 
 
 The results of the “spirits-monopoly, ” which the 
 government of the Czar began to introduce into Russia 
 in 1895, confirm the position here taken. It is claimed 
 that the object of the government was more moral and 
 hygienic than financial in establishing this monopoly. 
 But in these 18 years, both the per capita consumption 
 of liquor and also the amount of drunkenness have 
 greatly increased: the consumption per head of the 
 population increased some 13 per cent, in the seven 
 years from 1904 to 1911: this too in a time, not of 
 prosperity, but of financial distress. 
 
 The deepening conviction which is more and more 
 faking possession of earnest and thoughtful people 
 all over the world is this: What is true of opium in 
 China is equally true of liquor in every land: The 
 infinite mischief lies, not in the way it may he obtained hut 
 in its use. The fact which forcibly impresses the 
 employer, the physician, the scientist, the moralist, 
 the patriot is this: Simply to change the method of sale 
 cannot rob Drink of the evils which it produces. They 
 inhere in the alcohol and go with it however and 
 wherever it may be obtained. 
 
 [2141 
 
“Thirty years ago physicians were rather promoters of the use of 
 alcohol both as a stimulant and as a remedial agent. Now even'- 
 where on both sides of the Atlantic medical men are foremost opposers 
 of the use of spirituous liquors as a beverage or even as an agent in the 
 treatment of disease.” Prof. Frederick Peterson, M. D., Columbia 
 University, New York Medical Journal, June 11, 1910. 
 
 “This scourge of drink,” writes M. Leon Bourgeois, the French 
 ex-cabinet minister, “has a prominent place in all our social miseries. 
 We meet it everywhere. It hides itself behind tuberculosis, in mad- 
 ness, in crime, but it is always at the bottom of all our evils, of all 
 our degeneracies. It is the chief enemy of the race.” 
 
 “Alcoholism is universal in its range, no order or class is free from 
 it. It takes its dreadful toll of both sexes and of all ages. To lessen 
 its influence would be to benefit the whole community. It is an evil 
 which touches every one of us, and every one of us has his part to 
 play in the war against it.” Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, M. D., Tenth 
 Lees and Raper Memorial Lecture, Oct. 31, 1912. 
 
 “ I believe that in this simple change of personal attitude from pas- 
 sive to aggressive lies the only force that can free this land from the 
 drink habit and the liquor traflSc. It would be like dynamite under 
 the saloon, if, just where he is, the minister would begin active work 
 against it; if, just where he is, the teacher would instruct his pupils; 
 if just where he is, the voter would dedicate his ballot to this move- 
 ment, and so on through the shining ranks of the great powers that 
 make for righteousness.” Frances E. Willard, Glimpses of Fiftj' 
 Years, p. 335, 1889. 
 
 [ 216 ] 
 

 1 
 
'opyriglil iQio, by Scicntilic 'I\-in|icranco l'\‘(U'ralion. Host' 
 
CHAPTER X 
 SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 A serious wreck occurred recently (June, 1913) at 
 Stamford, Conn., on the New Haven railroad, in which 
 many lives were lost and a large number of persons 
 were injured. The engineer was not charged with 
 drunkenness in this case, though many similar disasters 
 on steamships and trains in recent years have been 
 due, not to drunkenness, but to drinking. For it has 
 been clearly shown that the use of a small amount of 
 liquor, which does not produce visible intoxication, 
 does impair the senses and the judgment and so renders 
 the man unfit for the best service and that too for a 
 period of many hours. 
 
 The New Haven officials took warning from this dis- 
 aster and at once the general manager demanded a 
 stricter observance of the rules of the company, among 
 them one against drinking. A press dispatch states — 
 
 “Without reservation he told the men that infractions of the rules 
 must cease: that drinking would have to stop, that any man who came 
 to work intoxicated would be discharged and that any man who was 
 discovered in a saloon would be disciplined immediately. He warned 
 them that the company was going to protect itself and that the men 
 would be watched. Having warned its men the railroad company 
 took steps to see that the warnings were being heeded. Detectives 
 were assigned to watch some employees and those who kept records 
 were directed to see that every infraction of the rules was reported. 
 The result was a calling together of certain men in the Harlem River 
 and Stamford yards on Thursday night. The foremen produced 
 photographs of some of them in barrooms.” 
 
 [217] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 This is a significant sign of promise and a forcible re- 
 minder of the fact that the industrial world is constantly 
 putting the bar up higher and higher against the user 
 of liquors in any quantity — a fact of which young men 
 ought to take serious note. For this fact means that 
 drinking (not simply drunkenness) closes the door of 
 opportunity against them. 
 
 In this connection it is important to note 
 the fact that the English Board of Trade 
 issued sometime ago the following state- 
 ment (approved by the Railway managers) : 
 “No man who is ever known to be on any 
 occasion the worse for liquor should be 
 allowed to take charge of an engine.” 
 Here may well be added an editorial comment in the 
 New York Times upon the engineer of the wrecked train 
 at Corning, July 4, 1912, Mr. Schroeder, who was 
 charged with having been drinking: “We had all 
 supposed that the drinking engineer, as well as the 
 drunken engineer, was banished years ago from every 
 railway line. If they have not been they should be, 
 and promptly, as the very first step toward decreasing 
 the number, equally disgraceful and appalling, of our 
 railway fatalities.” 
 
 In commenting on this wreck at Corning, an English 
 authority stated recently that it was not strange that 
 railroad managers were enforcing strict prohibition 
 upon their men, the loss of life and property from care- 
 lessness due to Drink being enormous. He quoted the 
 testimony of the president of the Boston and Maine: 
 “It has been proved that 90 per cent, of the trace- 
 able causes of railway accidents is due to intoxicating 
 liquors.” Also, the statement of Dr. Ennis of the 
 University of Heidelberg: “Over 50 per cent, of all 
 railroad accidents on German railroads are due to the 
 
 [ 218 ] 
 
 Railroad 
 
 Authorities 
 
 Prohibit 
 
 Drinking 
 
 Among 
 
 Employees 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 bewilderment of operatives through the use of alcoholic 
 liquors.” In passing, it may well be noted that, if 
 drinking incapacitates a man for running a train, how 
 much more does it incapacitate him for running well 
 the common race of life. 
 
 Dr. Reid Hunt, of the U. S. Hygienic 
 Laboratory, Washington, D. C., summarizes 
 his exhaustive investigation of this subject 
 in these words: 
 
 state Laws 
 
 Prohibit 
 
 Drink Among 
 
 Public 
 
 Conveyance 
 
 Employees 
 
 “More than thirty states, the Canal Zone, and 
 Porto Rico have laws restricting the use of alcoholic 
 beverages by railway employees; many of these laws 
 date from 1890 or earlier. In several states similar laws exist in 
 regard to electric railways and to street-cars whether propelled by 
 electricity or drawn by horses. A smaller number of states, about 
 nine, have similar regulations in regard to the drivers of stage coaches, 
 cabs and other vehicles, and six have similar laws relating to employees 
 of steam, sailing vessels, and canal boats. In Michigan and Vermont 
 the employment of anyone who uses intoxicating drinks as a beverage 
 is forbidden. In some others (New York and Ohio) the employment 
 of anyone addicted to their intemperate use is prohibited. In a few 
 (New York and Ohio) the railway is liable to a fine for employing 
 anyone addicted to the excessive use of alcohol. The latter provision 
 relating to the employment of drivers of coaches, cabs and other 
 vehicles is in force in several states. The railway is frequently held 
 specifically liable for all damages entailed by the negligence of an 
 intoxicated employee.” (Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, May, 1913, 
 p. 198.) 
 
 Dr. Hunt proceeds: — “The most frequent form of 
 these regulations is as follows: ‘The use of intoxicants 
 by employees while on duty is prohibited. Their use, 
 or the frequenting of places where they are sold, is 
 sufficient cause for dismissal.’ This seems to represent 
 the minimum requirement on the part of most of the 
 American railways. A number require total abstinence 
 
 [ 219 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 both on and off duty on the part of all employees 
 charged in any way with the direction or operation of 
 trains; in other cases this rule applies to all of the em- 
 ployees. Other railway companies require total ab- 
 stinence on the part of their employees when on duty 
 and state that preference is given to those who abstain 
 from alcohol under all circumstances. No distinction 
 seems to be made by the American railways between 
 malt and distilled liquors.” 
 
 The editor of The Locomotive Firemen and Engine- 
 men's Magazine (Dec., 1912), has recently used these 
 words : 
 
 “In our own brotherhood (Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen 
 and Enginemen), the great virtue — the great duty of temperance — 
 of total abstinence, is one of the first lessons our members are taught 
 at its altars, and this lesson is impressed upon them by the example 
 of their general ofiicers, who are all men of rigid sobriety — nearly 
 all of them being total abstainers. Our men themselves know how 
 deeply impressive this lesson is and the imposing and solemn condi- 
 tions under which it is so forcibly impressed upon them, even as 
 candidates entering the order.” 
 
 Railroad 
 Laws Con- 
 cerning 
 Drink in 
 Germany and 
 Other Lands 
 
 Great emphasis is placed in Germany 
 (where restrictions have long existed) upon 
 educational work. Thus the railway oflB- 
 cials are directed to distribute the Merk- 
 blatter of the Imperial Health Office on the 
 effects of alcohol and similar publications 
 by temperance societies; the railway physicians are 
 requested to deliver lectures on the subject of alcohol- 
 ism and to post notices concerning the effects of alcohol. 
 In Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, France, and 
 Switzerland, the regulations varj’, but there are re- 
 strictions more or less severe. In Australia employees 
 are prohibited from visiting places where alcoholic 
 [ 220 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 liquors are sold. In New Zealand the sale of alcoholic 
 drinks is prohibited not only in all of the railway stations 
 but in the dining cars. In the British Isles, there are 
 restrictive regulations, but not as severe as in Germany 
 or many American states. 
 
 The attitude of American railroad oflScials 
 The American on the subject of Drink is certainly most 
 SSiptrance encouraging. The claim of the Railway 
 Organization Age Gazette is abundantly warranted — 
 “The railroads of the United States now 
 constitute one of the grandest and most effective 
 Temperance organizations in existence.” The Spring- 
 field Republican, which always treats subjects with 
 discrimination, recently used this language: “The 
 demands of business are doing more toward eliminating 
 the Drink Habit than all the temperance orators. The 
 modern deterrent was summed up by the general super- 
 intendent of the Pennsylvania railroad, speaking of 
 the renewed effort of the company to stamp out tippling 
 among its employees, when he said, ‘You can’t run 
 trains and drink rum at the same time.’” 
 
 An official of the New York Central Railroad was not 
 speaking too strongly when he said recently: — “We 
 would sooner have a man in the road’s employ take 
 money than that he should indulge in intoxicants. 
 The damage that would result from stealing would 
 be trifling compared with the trouble which might result 
 from a conductor, or an engineer, or even a brakeman, 
 partaking too freely of intoxicants.” 
 
 It is significant that the Southern Pacific 
 aT^outhern years. Carried on a systematic. 
 
 Pacific and effective war against the saloon^ — the 
 
 Railroad railroad’s worst foe. It has supplemented 
 the strict enforcement of Rule G, prohibiting 
 the use of intoxicants on or off duty, by erecting sixteen 
 
 [221 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 club-houses for the employees at operating centers; 
 Neat rooms, well-cooked, wholesome food of the best 
 quality, and non-intoxicating drinks are provided in 
 these club-houses. Billiard and pool-tables, bowling 
 alleys, libraries, shower baths, loimging-places, halls 
 for dances and meetings, are placed at their disposal. 
 Almost from the beginning these club-houses became 
 extremely popular, and served as effective competitors 
 of the saloon. In one small railway town of 3,000 
 souls twenty-nine saloons flourished when the club- 
 house was opened. The saloons fought the club-house 
 bitterly, but two years after its opening only seven of 
 the original twenty-nine bars were left. Twenty-two 
 were closed for lack of patronage. Everywhere the 
 division superintendents reported greater efficiency, 
 sobriety and self-respect among club-house patrons. 
 Undoubtedly the clubs’ influence upon the human factor 
 assisted materially in bringing about the record of four 
 years’ safe travel. The victories won in the flght against 
 the saloon by the institution have been permanent and 
 progressive. This is, indeed, a most encouraging sign 
 of promise. 
 
 We live in an intensely practical age. 
 The Industrial Every human hfe has its industrial rating. 
 Aglto^Drink The state supervises the world’s work. 
 
 The nation insists on the conservation of 
 its energies and resources. The efficiency of the 
 laborer must be developed to the highest point; what- 
 ever menaces his economic capacity must be set aside. 
 
 How these tendencies begin to restrict 
 Industrial drinking and promote temperance is 
 shown by what is going on in the field of 
 industrial insurance. The system in Ger- 
 many provides that the cost shall be met first, by the 
 government grant; and then, the balance is shared 
 
 Insurance 
 and Drink 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 equally between the laborer and his employer. Now, 
 as drink increases accidents and diseases, making the 
 expense of such insurance higher, all parties are com- 
 pelled to consider the problem. The employer is 
 deeply interested, for, if his men drink and as a result 
 fall sick or cause accidents (the inevitable result of the 
 use of liquor), he will have more to pay. The sober 
 workman has to give more, because of the intemperate 
 habits of his co-laborer. He is therefore anxious to 
 have his neighbor stop drinking. The state is moved 
 by the same considerations. 
 
 Experience, in Germany, has shown that the burden 
 of industrial insurance is greatly increased by tubercu- 
 losis and alcoholism. For example: The Sick Benefit 
 Insurance Society of Leipsic found that the “heavy 
 drinkers” were sick two or three times as often as the 
 general class, were unfit for work from one and a half 
 to two and a half times as often, while the death rate 
 was much higher. 
 
 The insurance institutions are, therefore, obliged to 
 take steps for the cure and prevention of these evils, 
 and to use all means in their power to enlighten the 
 public regarding consumption and the evils of Drink. 
 As a result, a vigorous campaign of education is on in 
 the Fatherland in behalf of temperance, and exten- 
 sive use is made of tracts, pamphlets and newspaper 
 publicity. Popular addresses to young and old abound, 
 given by doctors and teachers. Also exhibitions, 
 which give in graphic form the facts respecting the 
 injurious effects of liquors. 
 
 It is interesting to quote here from a remarkable 
 address by Herr Karl Kdgler of Vienna on this very 
 point: “The physical, mental, and moral health of the 
 working classes is not simply a question of wages and 
 working hours, but it is also a question of alcohol.” 
 
 [ 223 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 In summing up the case against Drink as the greatest 
 enemy of Workman’s Insurance, he uses these words; 
 “It increases the number of diseases, lengthens the 
 period of sickness, shortens life, aggravates the effects 
 of wounds and causes premature incapacity. It leads 
 to a degeneration of the whole race, and thereby to a 
 general increase of the risks and burdens for every class 
 of industrial insurance.” 
 
 This widespread education in behalf of sobriety, this 
 economic pressure against Drink, in Germany (and in 
 other lands) must, in a few years, radically change the 
 habits of the people. The man who drinks is not so 
 much a criminal as a fool! For what can be more fool- 
 ish than to tie a hea\’y weight to one’s leg to act as a 
 drag wherever one goes. And the habit of drink is 
 such a drag upon life : a most serious handicap. 
 
 But the most impressive temperance 
 lesson in this connection is being taught 
 by the ordinary Life Insurance Companies. 
 The London Times in its issue for Sept. 14, 
 1905, stated; 
 
 Insurance 
 and Drink 
 
 “The experience, now very extensive, of insurance offices, seems to 
 place it beyond doubt that even the moderate regular use of alcohol, 
 in any form, is, on the whole, contributory to the shortening of life. 
 \Mien these views come to be fairly balanced against temporary grati- 
 fication of the palate, or temporary stimulation of the brain, they will 
 be likely to lead, not to a single ‘wave’ of sobriety, but to a gradual 
 change in the habits of the more intelligent portion of mankind.’’ 
 
 Two generations ago, the total abstainer 
 Lower was compelled to pay an extra rate for his 
 
 Insurance insurance policy. Todav, however, there 
 
 Rates for i i • i • i • 
 
 Total are many large companies which give him 
 
 Abstainers an advantage of from 10 to 20 per cent. 
 
 This change has been brought about because 
 [224] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 the experience of the life insurance world has shown 
 that abstainers live from 25 to 30 per cent, longer than 
 drinkers. 
 
 The Sceptre Life Association of London, organized 
 in 1864, has carried its patrons in two sections, a 
 temperance section of abstainers and a general section 
 of non-abstainers. The general manager, William 
 Bingham, states the comparative mortality for the 
 past 30 years to have been as follows: The percentage 
 of actual to expected deaths in the general section was 
 about 80, but in the temperance section only about 53, 
 or an advantage of 27 per cent, to the credit of the 
 abstainers. (Alcohol and Life Assurance, p. 3, 1910.) 
 The experience of this company for 1912 showed similar 
 results: The percentage of deaths in temperance sec- 
 tion, 38.13, but in general section, 69.70! The Scottish 
 Imperial, for the same period, reports these percentages : 
 General Section, about 86 per cent, but the abstainers 
 section only a little over 39 per cent. — an advantage 
 of some 47 per cent.! The record of the “United 
 Kingdom” of London for 44 years (1866-1910) is as 
 follows: the mortality of non-abstainers, over 91 per 
 cent., and abstainers a little over 66 percent, of the ex- 
 pected deaths, being 27 per cent, less for abstainers. 
 Other companies in Great Britain, The British Empire 
 Mutual, The General Provident, The Scottish Temper- 
 ance, The City Life (London), report similar results. 
 
 The experience of the New England Mutual Life 
 Insurance Company for the past sixty years (it makes 
 no division among its policy holders similar to the 
 “Sceptre Life”) shows that abstainers have very much 
 lower annual mortality and live longer than drinkers. 
 One careful insurance authority makes this statement: 
 Of 100,000 insured lives from 25 to 65 years of age, 
 the general mortality is 1,390, but that of abstainers 
 
 [225 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 only 786, — a decided advantage! A careful comparison 
 of the annual mortality of the Rechabites (a British 
 temperance order) and that of the Odd Fellows in 
 Great Britain (containing many abstainers), reveals a 
 similar condition, with decided advantages to the 
 credit of total abstainers, not only in the death rate, 
 but in the number of cases of sickness. 
 
 These remarkably impressive facts have brought 
 about several very notable changes in the insurance 
 world : 
 
 (1) Insurance companies, as a rule, both in America 
 and in Europe, either refuse to insure men engaged in 
 the liquor business or charge them much higher rates. 
 
 (2) All companies are exercising greater care in the 
 investigation of the drinking habits of all applicants 
 for insurance, and discriminating more and more 
 against even the moderate drinker. 
 
 (3) Many companies in various countries give total 
 abstainers special rates, for the same insurance, or 
 larger annual bonuses, or other advantages. The 
 United Kingdom of London, has recently, for a period 
 of years, granted to total abstainers holding $5,000 
 policies, from $90.00 to $290.00 bonuses! Other 
 companies give abstainers from 5 to 20 per cent, reduc- 
 tion in rates or equivalent advantages. Over 20 British 
 Accident Insurance Companies give abstainers a reduc- 
 tion of 10 per cent. 
 
 The following advertisement has been pubished 
 lately in the newspapers of Scandinavia : 
 
 “The Swedish Mutual Life Insurance Company, the 
 largest of its kind in Scandinavia, in view of the lower 
 death-rate among abstainers, has made a special 
 group for this class giving them an exceptional bonus.” 
 A Norwegian company (Andvake Life Insurance 
 Company) has also established a special division with 
 
 [226] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 better rates for abstainers. It has put this division 
 under the control of a committee elected by the organ- 
 ized temperance societies. This co-operation between 
 a life insurance company and the nation’s temperance 
 forces is a new and suggestive arrangement. Several 
 continental companies in Europe, beside these, grant 
 abstainers small favors, the best known being the 
 Life Assurance Society of Zurich. 
 
 In America, there are several life insurance companies 
 which, at present, grant total abstainers decided ad- 
 vantages (some of the largest companies have taken the 
 matter into serious consideration) : The Security Mutual 
 of Binghamton, New York, The National Temperance 
 Life Insurance Company of Texas, The Manufacturers 
 Life of Toronto, Canada, have Total Abstinence De- 
 partments, while The Equity Life of Toronto (organized 
 1903) stands most decisively for Total Abstinence. 
 In a little booklet, the Binghamton company says: 
 “At the age of twenty, a young man may expect to 
 live a certain number of years according to his habit 
 in this respect: If a habitual drinker, 15 years; if a 
 moderate drinker, 31 years; if a total abstainer, 44 
 years.” 
 
 A year ago (1912), The National Temperance Life 
 Insurance Society was organized in New York City, 
 with the declared purpose of insuring only total ab- 
 stainers. In its prospectus we read: 
 
 “ The Basic Principle of this society is, ‘ That a Total Abstainer from 
 the use of alcoholic liquors is a better Life Insurance risk than a 
 Drinker and that he is justly entitled to a lower rate by reason of 
 such Abstinence.’ Vital Statistics, Laboratory Experiments, and Life 
 Insurance Experience prove conclusively that the death rate among 
 Abstainers is 30 per cent less than the death rate among Drinkers. 
 Abstainers are therefore entitled to a correspondingly lower rate 
 and are loudly demanding it in every section.” 
 
 [ 227 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Its rates are from 32 to 21 per cent, lower (according 
 to age — 20 to 50 years) than those of companies in 
 general. It must be borne in mind that the mortality 
 of abstainers is not here compared with that of adult 
 males in general, but with a selected class: the only ones 
 accepted by insurance companies, a fact so much to the 
 advantage of abstinence! 
 
 (4) One of the most striking andsignifi- 
 Campaign of cant movements in this connection is the 
 Ed™cTtion'* Campaign of education in temperance, 
 by Insurance which is now being extensively carried 
 Companies on by the great American insurance com- 
 panies. In a recent number of The Human 
 Factor, issued by The Equitable Life, this statement 
 is made: 
 
 “Great moderation in the use of alcoholic beverages and total ab- 
 stinence are strongly recommended. The daily consumption of 
 alcohol will change a muscle of iron strength into a mass of flabby, 
 unresisting fat; a steady nervous system into an irritable, jumping set 
 of fibres; a strong and active mind into a weak, stupid and pitiful 
 state. The use of alcohol reduces the body to the lowest degree of 
 resistance to disease, especially pneumonia.” 
 
 In a pamphlet recently printed and widely circulated 
 by The Provident Savings Life Assurance Society, 
 this summary is given at the close of a clear diseussion 
 of the influence of Drink: 
 
 “Alcohol is not a ‘demon,’ but a drug; not a stimulant, but an 
 anesthetic. In so-called moderate quantities it reduces muscular 
 and mental efliciency. It suppresses the higher brain functions, 
 thereby releasing the lower. It is most dangerous to those with 
 weak family histories. The effects of excess in those of normal family 
 history may be transmitted to their children. The experience on 
 large groups of insured lives shows that moderate drinking shortens 
 life.” 
 
 [ 228 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 On April 1, 1911, The Postal Life Insurance Company 
 issued a notable Bulletin (No. 5), in which “Alcohol 
 and the Death Rate” was clearly discussed. The fol- 
 lowing paragraphs are not the extreme statements of 
 temperance fanatics but the conclusions of men re- 
 sponsive to the pocket-nerve: 
 
 “It has been conclusively shown by laboratory experiments that 
 alcohol taken in so-called moderate quantities (two glasses of beer 
 daily) reduces mental and physical efBciency. Scientific experi- 
 ments show that alcohol has been misnamed a stimulant. Its total 
 effect is anesthetic; therein lies its danger, and for some its charm. 
 The power of associating ideas is impaired after even slight alcoholic 
 indulgence, and with increased indulgence one after another of the 
 higher brain centers is put temporarily out of commission. The use 
 of alcohol in medicine as a direct heart stimulant is obsolete. It is a 
 heart poison. It is still used as a sort of temporary and rapidly avail- 
 able food in the crises of fever, but to a lesser degree than formerly, 
 as it is known to lower the resistance to disease toxines. Its use as a 
 tonic in convalescence is dangerous, and it is now seldom thus pre- 
 scribed. But aside from the evidence furnished by the laboratories 
 of experimental psychology, there are other laboratories, whose 
 testimony may be more readily accepted by the average man. Our 
 great railroad systems and manufacturing industries, where skilled 
 labor, depending on accurate mental processes, is employed, discrimi- 
 nate against even the so-called moderate drinker, — not on moral 
 grounds, but because practical business experience has demonstrated 
 the higher efficiency, both for mental and physical work, of the 
 abstainer.” 
 
 In some respects, the most notable enterprise in this 
 connection was that of the “Metropolitan” company, 
 which employed Miss Cora Frances Stoddard, Secre- 
 tary of the Scientific Temperance Federation, to pre- 
 pare, with the assistance of Dr. Richard C. Cabot 
 (Harvard University), Dr. Frederick Peterson (Colum- 
 bia University), and others, a statement descriptive of 
 
 [229] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the influence of alcohol upon life. Over 5,000,000 
 copies of this Statement were distributed (1911): a 
 master stroke for true temperance reform. 
 
 It is not to be expected that these conclusions drawn 
 from insurance experience will pass unchallenged. No 
 one pretends that they are absolutely accurate. But 
 Mr. E. B. Phelps, an extremely critical writer, who 
 looks with suspicion upon some assertions made in this 
 connection, does use this significant language: 
 
 “As to the truth of this sweeping generalization [respecting the 
 lower mortality of abstainers], there is not the slightest doubt, con- 
 firmations strong as proofs of holy writ are to be found in the great 
 mass of tabulated classifications of life insurance experience for the 
 last fifty years and more, and the carefully kept vital statistics of 
 England, Germany and some other countries for long stretches of 
 years.” (The American Underwriter, July, 1913. p. 2.) In a paper, 
 “Effect of Total Abstinence on the Death Rate,” read before the 
 Actuarial Society of America (Oct. 20, 1904), by Mr. Joel G. Van Cise, 
 actuary of the “Equitable,” the conclusion of certain wide insurance 
 experiences was stated in these words: “The rate of death among 
 non-abstainers was 35% higher than on lives of abstainers.” p. 8. 
 
 Total 
 
 Abstinence 
 in Army 
 and Navy 
 
 The growth of total abstinence in the 
 British army and navy, in recent years, 
 has been remarkable. And equally re- 
 markable the fact that it has been approved 
 by the military leaders of the Empire. At 
 a recent annual meeting of the Royal Army Temperance 
 Association, which now has a membership of nearly 
 70,000, Field-Marshals Lords Grenfell and Roberts 
 spoke of the great change which had come over the 
 army in their day, and some remarkable figures were 
 presented from Major-Gen. Lawson, C. B., and Surg.- 
 Gen. Gubbins, as well as from two Parliamentary’' papers 
 which show practical results that, as Surg.-Gen. Evatt 
 continually points out, may be effected just as certainly 
 
 [ 230 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 in civil life by the same means. Earl Roberts, corrobo- 
 rating Lord Grenfell about the good reports he received 
 from commanding officers as to the conduct of their 
 men, said he seldom met a colonel of a regiment, or a 
 major commanding a battery, or officer commanding 
 a depot, without asking him how the Association was 
 progressing, whether they have got all the things they 
 require to encourage the men to join it, and whether 
 the men who do join it as a rule stick to it for any time, 
 and how they get on, and, above all, what is the con- 
 duct of the men who do join? He always got the same 
 answer — “It is the making of the men.” Earl Roberts 
 is chairman of the Council of this Association, while 
 King George is the Royal Patron. 
 
 The benefits of this movement in the army (there are 
 nearly 30,000 abstainers in the navy!) are many and 
 decisive, as the following comparisons will show: In 
 1902, the men on an average used two pints of beer a 
 day, but by 1911, the consumption had fallen to one 
 half that amount, or one pint a day. In 1902, there 
 were 15,009 court martials, but in 1910 only 6,433. The 
 number of soldiers coiffined in military prisons and 
 barracks in 1904 was 1,542, but in 1909 only 600. In 
 1904, there were 2,231 men who won Good Conduct 
 Medals, but in 1910, over twice that number or 4,581. 
 In 1904 over 24,000 fines were inflicted for drunkenness, 
 but in 1910, about 17,000. The decrease in sickness, 
 brought about by the spread of abstinence among the 
 soldiers, has been very marked, especially in the Orient. 
 A regiment stationed in China in 1908, contained 300 
 abstainers, and the sickness among them was only one 
 half as great as among the rest of the regiment. In 
 this and other ways, it is estimated that abstinence 
 has added over 10 per cent, to the efficiency of the army. 
 The Secretary of State for War recently declared: 
 
 [231 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 “The health of the Army has so improved — mainly 
 owing to the spread of temperance — ^that they have 
 been enabled, without extra cost, to add six thousand 
 soldiers to the available forces of the country.” 
 
 The Royal ^ Writer in a recent number of the Na- 
 Army tional Temperance Quarterly (London) 
 
 Temperance summed up the encouraging situation in 
 Association following statement: 
 
 “The temperance position to-day is so strong that the Royal Army 
 Temperance Association now dominates the field previously held by 
 the canteen. Branches are active centers for social intercourse, re- 
 creation, high-class entertainments, athletic and military sports, and 
 it will readily be understood that, with an average of between 40 and 
 50 per cent, of the soldiers of a imit enrolled as temperance men, 
 the influence for all-round good on the other half of the unit must be 
 very strong indeed. The results are well shown in the Army official 
 reports of crime, health and discipline. Military offences have been 
 reduced to a minimum, the death and sickness rates are lower, even 
 in India, than amongst any other class of lives anywhere, whilst the 
 discipline of the British Army has never been at a higher standard, 
 and never so easily maintained, as it is to-day. The soldiers’ money, 
 formerly spent almost entirely in alcoholic drinks and low amusement 
 is now put to much better use. Canteens are frequented by very 
 few men, and the sale of Drink has decreased enormously. In the 
 corporals’ mess of one depot the beer sales amongst 23 corporals aver- 
 age five shillings weekly, and this may be taken as typical of the 
 prevalent rate of expenditure in the liquor bars of army canteens.” 
 
 Two of the most decided advantages arising from 
 abstinence in the army and navy are the better marks- 
 manship and the greater endurance which are the 
 direct results. 
 
 Admiral Sir J. R. Jellicoe recently made 
 Total the following statement: “As regards 
 
 tnd^od^ straight shooting, which is so largely a 
 
 Marksmanship question of eye, it is every one’s experience 
 that abstinence is necessary for the highest 
 
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SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 efficiency.” An officer in the British Navy, Captain 
 Ogilvy, who had very large experience in training 
 officers in shooting, and also great success in actual 
 warfare, went most exhaustively into the statistics of 
 this important matter and he found that the shooting 
 efficiency of the men was 30 per cent, better be- 
 fore than after drinking moderately! He represented 
 graphically the vital fact, demonstrated by his investi- 
 gations, in the form of a curve, which is known in the 
 military circles of Great Britain as the “Grog Curve.” 
 This symbol brings out very impressively the superiority 
 of total abstinence over so-called “moderate drinking.” 
 Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, a total abstainer, 
 lays stress on the fact that all his prize gunners were men 
 who did not drink! 
 
 In the Swedish army, shooting tests, conducted by 
 Lieut. Bengt Boy, in 1904, showed that on days when 
 men took no alcohol they were able to make 359.5 
 points, but only 277.5 points when, thirty minutes before 
 shooting, they drank less than two glasses of mild beer. 
 Also, tests were made with men while abstaining and 
 with others who drank about two glasses of beer a day. 
 The latter thought that they were doing better with 
 the beer, but the men when abstaining made more than 
 six times as many hits! 
 
 As to endurance, the following testi- 
 monies are significant: In 1896, General 
 Sir Francis Grenfell said: “I see some old 
 comrades, who have served in the same cam- 
 paign, and I see on the right breast medals 
 for Temperance, and on their left the medals which the 
 Queen had given them; and I think you will agree that 
 the medals on the right are as creditable as those on 
 the left. The campaign in Egypt was a teetotal cam- 
 paign. We drank the Nile and nothing added.” 
 
 [ 233 ] 
 
 Total 
 
 Abstinence 
 
 and 
 
 Endurance 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Writing of the same campaign, Lord Wolseley stated: 
 
 “All the troops up the Nile in the Soudan, have now been for 
 months without either beer or spirits, and no little army was ever 
 more contented, and no men could behave better in camp or 6ght 
 better in field than did our soldiers in their late gallant effort to reach 
 Khartoum in time to save the life of that noble hero, General Gordon. 
 The fully satisfactory results of the total abstinence practice on the 
 Nile campaign were demonstrated by the adoption of the same method 
 in the subsequent Soudan campaigns. Similar benefits followed in 
 these also. General Gatacre’s men, upon a non-grog diet, marched 
 fifteen miles across the desert, manoeuvred at halting time, and during 
 the whole five hours ‘not a single man fell out.’” 
 
 It is an encouraging fact that a good deal of effec- 
 tive temperance work is being done among European 
 soldiers. This is especially the case in Germany. The 
 German War Office distributes to its soldiers a 
 pamphlet. Alcohol and Endurance, which forcibly warns 
 them against Drink, stating that alcohol is a poison 
 which injures digestion and causes general devastation. 
 In it we read: “That there is no justification in calling 
 beer liquid bread. ... It is mostly beer which 
 causes so much mischief.” 
 
 A Vienna correspondent of the Journal of the Ameri- 
 can Medical Association, writing recently from the 
 scenes of the Balkan war, stated: “A fact worthy of 
 notice is the nearly complete absence of alcohol from 
 the daily bill of fare of the soldiers on the frontier. 
 It has also been ascertained that whenever a period 
 of endurance was required of the soldiers, those who 
 took no alcohol were much more fit for work than the 
 other men.” 
 
 In view of these facts, it is not surprising that the 
 modern General takes a deep interest in the sobriety 
 of his soldiers. The highest efficiency and greatest 
 success of his army depend upon it. It is unfortunate 
 
 [ 234 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 that so little has been done in this direction in our 
 own army and navy. In one respect our government 
 is far ahead of Great Britain: It has abandoned the 
 daily ration of grog to the men of its Navy. However, 
 in the British Navy, liquors are now to be prohibited 
 on the eve of an engagement, whereas formerly the 
 allowance of grog was then doubled. No more patri- 
 otic duty rests upon our military Chieftains. The 
 general influence of such a movement, by many lines 
 of example and reaction, would be very great upon the 
 country at large. 
 
 A few military men in our own land realize the situa- 
 tion and are deeply interested in the Temperance Cause. 
 Among them, Gen. A. S. Daggett and Surgeon L. Mer- 
 vin Maus. The Y. M. C. A. has an Enlisted Temper- 
 ance Abstinence League which has at present (1913) 
 about 6,000 members in the Army and Navy: an 
 encouraging fact, but more ought to be done for our 
 “Boys in Blue” along this line. The most earnest 
 words ever spoken by the late Gen. Frederick D. 
 Grant Were these: “If I could, by offering my body a 
 sacrifice, free this country from this fell cancer, the 
 demon drink, I would thank the Almighty for the privi- 
 lege of doing it.” 
 
 Among the most encouraging signs of the 
 Recent times, to the friends of sobriety, are such 
 pXiica^ns publications as the following, indicating 
 somewhat new and very powerful agencies 
 in behalf of popular temperance education: 
 
 I. Alcohol in Industry: No. 1, Manuals of Safety, 
 issued by the American Museum of Safety (Office, 
 29 West S9th Street, New York City. The price of this 
 valuable document is 10 cents) . This is a pamphlet of 
 40 pp., being the report by Dr. William H. Tolman, 
 Director of the Museum, of his investigations respecting 
 
 [ 235 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 the conditions among German Trade Associations. 
 For various and obvious reasons, the risks and hazards 
 of modern life have greatly increased in recent years. 
 The safety of human life requires in every direction an 
 alert mind and a vigorous body. As accidents have 
 multiplied with astonishing rapidity, industrial mana- 
 gers have become alarmed, and we have, in this 
 pamphlet, the summary of a careful study of “Some 
 European Methods of Prevention.” 
 
 This little pamphlet is a veritable arsenal of facts, 
 which show how the use of liquor destroys industrial 
 efficiency, and increases accidents. Let me present a 
 few of them: Many employers of labor in Germany 
 “report that the prevention of alcoholism in the factory 
 (by strict rules prohibiting the use of liquors or by the 
 substitution of non-alcoholic drinks) has increased the 
 product: the work is better done, there are less faults, 
 and the number of accidents has fallen.” One states: 
 “Since beer has been prohibited in the morning, I 
 have had better order in my workrooms and better 
 work.” Another testifies, “ By substituting tea for beer, 
 the consumption of beer has fallen from 2,000 to 200 
 bottles, and quarrels among the workmen have com- 
 pletely ceased.” The Continental Rubber Company 
 substituted coffee, and in 1909 prohibited brandy; 
 and in the sixteen years, from 1894 to 1910, the per- 
 centage of accidents went down from 13 to 6. In 
 1905 the German Imperial Insurance Office sent a 
 circular letter to every manufacturer in the empire 
 through the various trade associations, in which it 
 urged the instruction of their young employees and also 
 the women workers in regard to the dangers of alcohol, — 
 a most effective temperance measure. A still more 
 significant fact, showing how the danger from Drink is 
 [236] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 coming to be recognized in high places, is 
 this : “ The Emperor has ordered that every 
 recruit of the Imperial Navy and Army on 
 his entrance into the military service should 
 be provided with a pamphlet showing the 
 connection between alcohol and the military 
 strength of the nation,” — pointing out forci- 
 bly how Drink decreases the efficiency of the people. 
 
 Some ten years ago. Dr. A. H. Stehr of Wiesbaden 
 published his conclusions respecting the relation of 
 alcohol to accidents and efficiency. He showed by ex- 
 haustive investigations that the largest number of acci- 
 dents occur on Monday after the drinking of Sunday and 
 that accidents decrease as the days pass, while the week 
 begins with low efficiency which increases to the maxi- 
 mum at Friday noon : a most forcible indictment against 
 alcohol! The findings of the Minnesota Bureau of 
 Labor (1910) and the Massachusetts Industrial Acci- 
 cent Board (1912), that the most accidents occur about 
 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. confirm this indictment, as those 
 are the hours when the effects of drinking would be 
 most felt. That is, the maximum injury to the system 
 occurs some three hours after using the liquor. 
 
 No wonder, then, that Accident Insurance 
 companies, in pamphlets distributed among 
 manufacturers, warn them against permit- 
 ting men who have been drinking to operate 
 dangerous machinery. Such facts as these 
 led the Industrial Congress, held in Hamburg, 1908, 
 to pass this resolution: 
 
 “The Industrial Congress recognizes it as one of the 
 most important objects of the industrial movement 
 to oppose the devastation of alcoholism by instruction 
 and other practical means. It is therefore to the inter- 
 est of industry to remove from all gatherings and insti- 
 
 [ 237 ] 
 
 Action of 
 Accident 
 Insurance 
 Companies 
 
 Emperor 
 William 
 Orders In- 
 struction in 
 Total 
 
 Abstinence 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 tutions of all kinds, every coercion to drink and to 
 restrict the sale of alcoholic drinks either entirely or as 
 much as possible.” 
 
 It is interesting to note in passing that this industrial 
 prohibition of liquor, is not, after all a recent invention : 
 
 “Records have been found on Babylon cuneiform tablets forbidding 
 the use of wine in any form to persons engaged in public business, 
 asserting that work done for the Government by persons who used 
 wine could not be perfect. All builders of palaces, army officers and 
 superintendents of public work were required to abstain absolutely 
 from all spirits. During the reign of one of the Rameses attention 
 was invited to public disasters following the use of wine by the leaders 
 and orders given under pain of death for total abstinence among public 
 employees.” (Col. L. Mervin Maus, M. D., Address before the 
 National Association of Military Surgeons, 1912). 
 
 II. In December, 1912, The North Carolina State 
 Board of Health issued a Bulletin (No. 9) entitled: 
 The Liquor Problem and Public Health (28 pp.). Over 
 40,000 copies of this interesting and signifieant pamph- 
 let have been sent free to the citizens of the state. This 
 is a clear and conservative, but convincing, statement, 
 largely written by doctors, with abundant facts, 
 earnest appeals, and special articles for boys; It will 
 surely exert a most powerful educational influence. 
 Dr. W. S. Rankin, Secretary of the Board, summarises in 
 these words some of the results of Drink: 
 
 “It has been shown that for every unnecessary death there are 700 
 days of unnecessary sickness. On that estimate alcoholic intemper- 
 ance produces, in addition to the 65,897 deaths, 46,127,900 days, or 
 126,377 years, of individual siekness every year in this country. 
 
 Liquor is to blame for one out of 12 adult deaths. 
 
 Liquor is to blame for one out of 10 male deaths. 
 
 Liquor is to blame for one out of 7.5 adult male deaths. 
 
 Liquor is to blame for twice as many deaths a year as are caused by 
 typhoid fever. 
 
 [ 238 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 Liquor is to blame for more deaths in four years than were de- 
 stroyed in action in the four years of the Civil War. 
 
 The liquor problem is a public health problem.” 
 
 III. The Effect of Alcoholic Drinks upon the Human 
 Mind and Body (1913). This is a pamphlet of 32 pp. 
 prepared by Cora Frances Stoddard (Scientific Temp- 
 erance Federation, 23 Trull St., Boston), at the request 
 of the Anti-Saloon League of Maryland. It has been 
 distributed free to the pupils of the Public Schools of 
 Baltimore to help them in writing essays in competition 
 for 400 prizes (ranging from $3.00 to $50.00) offered for 
 the best productions on this subject. This is a work 
 of great value to which reference has already been made. 
 As an educational agency it is significant, and it will 
 prove a power for good. It opens with the testimonies 
 of athletes against alcohol. Among them that of Connie 
 Mack, the leader of the “Athletics” of Philadelphia, 
 who have in eleven years won four American League 
 pennants and two of the world’s series. He does not ap- 
 prove of his men drinking even a glass of beer. He says, 
 “alcoholism is practically eliminated from baseball,” 
 and he prophesies that “in five years ninety per cent, of 
 the players will be strictly temperate.” He also states 
 that the entire team went through the championship 
 games of both 1910 and 1911 without drinking even a 
 glass of beer. Here it may be recalled that the manage- 
 ment of the Pittsburgh club adopted this rule in 1911: 
 “The use of intoxicating drinks of any kind is absolutely 
 prohibited,” while the “Cubs” of Chicago (football), 
 have been under a total abstinence rule during 1913. 
 
 In this pamphlet, sections are devoted to the follow- 
 ing topics: the Relation of Alcohol to Work, Effect 
 of Alcohol on Skill, Brain Work impaired by Alcohol, 
 Drink and Accidents: the Relation of Drink to Crime, 
 
 [239] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 Insanity, Health, Degeneracy, and Poverty. These 
 subjects are clearly discussed, the conclusions of scien- 
 tific investigations being admirably stated and graphi- 
 cally described by many charts and diagrams. One 
 of these charts is here reproduced: “A 62-Mile Walking 
 Match.” Such a campaign of temperance publicity 
 in our public schools means the near downfall of the 
 saloon and the destruction of the Paganism of Drink, 
 which has for so many ages cursed mankind. 
 
 In 1873, the London Temperance Hos- 
 Less pital was founded, for the treatment of 
 
 Hospitals patients without alcohol. The management 
 maintains the right to administer alcohol 
 when thought to be absolutely necessarj% but this has 
 been done, so far, in only 92 cases, and then only very 
 small quantities were used. Its founders were, at the 
 time, somewhat savagely denounced for what was then 
 considered a policy that endangered human life. In 
 these forty years, it has treated, inside its walls, about 
 1,000 patients a year (1,542 in the year ending March, 
 1912), and in all about 250,000 out-patients. It has 
 had a distinguished medical staff, and its success in 
 the treatment of all kinds of diseases and all sorts of 
 patients, temperate and intemperate, has been marked. 
 Its record of cures in pneumonia has been the highest 
 of any London hospital. It has exerted a profound 
 influence upon the medical profession. At present, 
 it enjoys the confidence of all the medical schools of 
 Great Britain. Speaking in 1911 Dr. Henry T. Butlin 
 (President of the Royal College of Surgeons, London) 
 said: “The Temperance Hospital has exercised a verj’ 
 great influence in my profession here in London.” 
 It now receives grants from the great Hospital Funds, 
 that established by King Edward, and those maintained 
 [240] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 by the Railways. Among its patrons are distinguished 
 bishops, noblemen, authors, statesmen, and scientists. 
 
 The changed attitude of the public toward this hos- 
 pital is similar to the change which has recently oc- 
 curred in the great hospitals of the world respecting 
 the use of alcohol as an internal medicine. In the last 
 few years, the nine leading hospitals of Dublin have 
 gradually cut down the use of alcohol, until it is now 
 only one-seventh what it formerly was. The secretary 
 of the National Hospital for Consumptives, Dublin, 
 writes: “Liquors are not as a rule used at this hospital.” 
 The hospitals of the London Metropolitan Asylums 
 Board treat about 30,000 patients a year. The amount 
 of alcohol used as an internal medicine in 1909 was less 
 than one fourth of what was used in 1902. Many of 
 the great workhouse infirmaries in England have prac- 
 tically abandoned the use of alcohol as a medicine. 
 That at West Ham spent in 1904 $5,000.00 for liquors; 
 in 1907, only $200.00! The amount at Salisbury fell 
 from $500.00 in 1897 to $90.00 in 1905. The seven 
 large hospitals of London use less than one quarter 
 as much as they did a generation ago, and the 
 decrease constantly continues. The following state- 
 ment, by Prof. Robert Saundby, M. D., formerly presi- 
 dent of the British Medical Association, is significant: 
 “In 1859 in our hospital with 2,500 patients and staff of 
 60, over $4,000 were spent for beer, wine and spirits. 
 Fifty years later in 1909, with 5,500 patients and a staff 
 of 160 the total expenditure for alcoholic drinks was 
 $955. Instead of ordering alcohol in the way of years 
 ago, the first thing we now think of is to knock off 
 alcohol in order to eliminate a possible complicating 
 factor in all sorts of diseases.” 
 
 In the countries of Continental Europe, there has 
 been a decrease in the use of alcohol as an internal medi- 
 
 [ 241 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 cine, but not so marked as in the British Isles. Prof. 
 A. Holitscher, of Karlsbad, concludes his investigation 
 on this point wdth the statement that the diminution 
 in the past dozen years ranges from 30 to 50 per cent. 
 One distinguished authority on operative surgery 
 (University of Berne), Prof. Theodor Kocher, recently 
 remarked: “The only rational use of alcohol is outside 
 the body!” Prof. Heinrich Obersteiner, M. D., of 
 Vienna, recently stated in London (1913), as evidence 
 of the trend toward abstinence among medical men in 
 Austria, that at a restaurant in Vienna much patron- 
 ized by doctors, it is now rare to see a physician drink- 
 ing wine! 
 
 In America, the tendency in our large hospitals is 
 decidedly downward. Two small hospitals, the Red 
 Cross, in New York City, and the Frances E. Willard, 
 Chicago, do not use alcohol at all and their record of 
 mortality is lower than that of hospitals in general. 
 In the Massachusetts General Hospital the amount 
 spent for alcohol dropped from 46 cents per patient 
 in 1897 to 13 cents in 1906. The two largest hospitals 
 in the United States are the Cook County, Chicago, 
 and The Bellevue, New York City. The amount of 
 all liquors used in the latter at present (1913) is about 
 one fifth of what it was ten years ago, in 1903. The 
 Cook County Hospital presents practically the same 
 record. In other hospitals, like the Presfij-terian Hos- 
 pital of New York City and the Mercy Hospital, Chicago, 
 alcohol is used only in special cases. In a census of over 
 fifty prominent professors, in a dozen leading American 
 medical schools, taken to discover their attitude toward 
 alcohol as a medicine, over half reported themselves 
 as opposed to its use, while a majority of the others 
 advised that it be used sparingly with great care. 
 
 The following language may seem extreme to many. 
 
 [ 242 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 It is, however, from the pen, not of a “temperance 
 fanatic,” but of a distinguished American physician. 
 Dr. John D. Quackenbos, Professor in Columbia 
 University: 
 
 “The time will surely come, as civilization refines and knowledge 
 advances, when the occurrence of a contagious disease in family or 
 school will be regarded as a crime! So may we hope that in the 
 fullnessof the same time, the unscrupulous vender who deals out death 
 to his victims on the installment plan either through the medium 
 of barroom favorites, attractive nostrums, or cocaine-bearing temp- 
 erance drinks, shall be adjudged as incontestably a murderer as the 
 poisoner who takes the life of his fellow with a single dose of cyanide 
 or the footpad who kills with one stiletto thrust.” (Psychology of 
 the Drink Habit, Quarterly Journal of Inebriety, May, 1913). 
 
 The World-Victory for Total Abstinence 
 
 Present En- g™ means, been won. But 
 
 couragements , , i. 
 
 the temperance hosts are increasing in 
 number and advancing along the entire battle line. 
 Every nation shows new interest in the cause of sobrie- 
 ty, and all departments of human thought and activity 
 are responding to the call to battle against the Paganism 
 of Drink. The Fourteenth International Congress on 
 Alcoholism was held in Milan, Italy, while some of these 
 papers were being written (Sept., 1913). Therefore, 
 no extended references to it are here possible. In it, 
 44 countries were represented by 1097 delegates, a large 
 proportion having been officially appointed. Prof. 
 Charles Scanlon (an oflBcial delegate from the United 
 States), who is the efiicient secretary of the Presbyte- 
 rian Board of Temperance, writes to this effect: The 
 general sentiment was decidedly for stringent laws and 
 total abstinence. When a distinguished woman physi- 
 cian of Milan advocated the “moderate” use of light 
 liquors, the delegates (among them a large number of 
 
 [243] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 doctors) at once made a general and vigorous demonstra- 
 tion of disapproval! 
 
 All Protestant Churches, with few exceptions, are 
 earnestly at work for temperance, and they with their 
 missions, schools, and philanthropies, are the mightiest 
 single power for good in the world. The associated 
 organizations, the Young Men’s Christian Association, 
 the Salvation Army, the Christian Endeavor societies, 
 are all valiant foes of Drink. The Catholic Church, 
 especially in the United States, is doing noble service 
 in this cause: its Total Abstinence Union is indeed a 
 powerful army in itself. It is encouraging to read in 
 its great Encyclopedia, recently completed: “Alcohol 
 is never a food in any sense, be the quantity large or 
 small, but always a poison in health; in disease it is a 
 drug. It is of all causes the most frequent source of 
 poverty, unhappiness, divorce, suicide, immorality, 
 crime, insanity, disease, and death.” 
 
 Fraternal organizations are turning more and more 
 against the use and the users of liquors, the tendency 
 being especially strong among Odd Fellows, Masons, 
 the Knights of Pythias. Indicative of this changing 
 attitude are these words, from a leader of the “Native 
 Sons of the Golden West:” “Instead of protecting 
 the liquor trade we propose to protect the young men 
 of California: Our wine business is far subordinate 
 to the young manhood of our state!” 
 
 The Post Office excludes all liquors from the Parcel 
 Post, putting them under the ban of illegitimate busi- 
 ness. Express companies are conforming to the pro- 
 visions of the Webb Law and so ceasing to be longer a 
 party to the nullification of state laws. Railroads now 
 refuse to ship liquors into prohibition territor5^ While 
 it is estimated that more than a million dollars will be 
 lost annually, in this way, to the lines operating out of 
 
 [ 244 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 Chicago, the managers approve the Law, as it will lead 
 to both moral and industrial improvements where 
 enforced. 
 
 All friends of temperance are made glad that the 
 Democratic administration at Washington throws the 
 mighty influence of its example on the side of absti- 
 nence. It is a most encouraging fact that at the last 
 “ White House ” wedding. President and Mrs. Woodrow 
 Wilson served no liquors. The wife of the Speaker of 
 the House of Commons (Hon. T. S. Sproule, M. D.), 
 Ottawa, Canada, excludes intoxicants from all social 
 functions over which she presides. At the end of his 
 tour of our country, as our nation’s guest, it was found 
 that the stock of liquors placed in the Pullman car, in 
 which a distinguished South American Statesman 
 traveled, had not been touched: a notable evidence 
 that a new day is dawning. When that new day has 
 fully arrived, our Federal Government will cease to set 
 the shameful example of providing guests with liquors 
 at the public expense! 
 
 All over the world, the pupils in public schools are 
 receiving scientific instruction respecting the ruinous 
 influence of liquors upon human life. Alcohol exhibits 
 at fairs and in shop windows aid this education of the 
 rising generation in temperance. From our great 
 scientific laboratories, the severest condemnations of 
 alcohol are broadcasted over the earth. A rapidly 
 lengthening list of magazines and newspapers exclude 
 all liquor advertisements and no longer demoralize 
 young and old by false and harmful statements suggest- 
 ive of evil. 
 
 The governments of many countries are facing the 
 Drink Problem with new courage and effectiveness, 
 and everywhere the tendency of legislation is toward 
 severer restrictions. A rising tide of prohibition 
 
 [ 245 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 sentiment is found everywhere. In Sweden, 500,000 
 organized abstainers; in Norway, 250,000; in Denmark, 
 200,000 ; in Germany, 250,000, where a monster petition 
 signed by 500,000 men and women asking for a local 
 option law has just been presented to the Reichstag; 
 in Switzerland, 90,000, a fifteen fold increase in twenty 
 years; in Spain, 225 doctors in 1910 signed a Declara- 
 tion against alcohol; in Portugal over 6,000 mothers 
 demanding restrictive laws of Senate and Chamber; 
 on Nov. 18, 1913, M. Siegfried presented to the Chamber 
 of Deputies, Paris, a petition signed by 222,072 French 
 women, asking for an immediate lessening of the num- 
 ber of drink shops in the nation; in Italy a surprising 
 growth of temperance sentiment among doctors and 
 educators. In our own nation, the Anti-Saloon League 
 doing monumental work against the Liquor Traffic; 
 in many lands, the Good Templars courageously oppos- 
 ing the common foe; in the British Isles, the Rechabites 
 and Sons of Temperance, numbering now a half million 
 members (doubled in the last ten years), are fighting the 
 good fight along many lines. The Year Book (1913) 
 of the United Kingdom Alliance (Manchester, England), 
 — a most effective organization, — gives the names of 
 nearly 600 temperance organizations, in 26 different 
 countries, 15 being in Germany. 
 
 One of the most promising temperance movements 
 of the day is that among University professors and 
 students in Europe, particularly in Germany, who have 
 happily been called, “warriors in the army of light.” 
 A movement little more than ten years old; and yet, the 
 International Bureau at Zurich reports 27,000 members! 
 Many students in Germany, in preaching and prac- 
 ticing total abstinence, have shown heroic elements 
 comparable to those of the martyr of old, cheerfully 
 facing academic obloquy, loss of scholastic honors, 
 
 [ 246 ] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 and parental censure, in cases amounting to disinheri- 
 tance! Unfortunately, we have no such movement, as 
 yet, among American students. 
 
 The whole horizon is bright with promise; 
 Winning jn Russia half a million people attending 
 Sj'stinence”'^ Weekly temperance lectures, and at Christ- 
 mas, 1909, the first anti-alcohol Congress 
 met in St. Petersburg with over 500 delegates present. 
 Ardent appeals for abstinence begin to be heard in the 
 Duma of Russia; school teachers are educating their 
 pupils respecting the evils of Drink; and the “Synod” 
 has recently called bishops and priests of the Greek 
 Church to battle earnestly against alcoholism. (See 
 “The Alcohol Problem in Russia.” By Rev. I. 
 Serishev, Sergolgin, Siberia). Iceland and Japan, 
 Bulgaria and Mexico, joining hands in victories for 
 sobriety. A hundred thousand Good Templars in 
 Germany, where lawyers and doctors, professors and 
 students, are declaring for total abstinence; at Easter, 
 1913, 1,400 delegates met at Hamburg to plan for the 
 temperance education of the young; while the Kaiser 
 is pleading with increasing earnestness for sobriety. 
 Two million employees in our nation under orders to 
 avoid Drink; half of our population and two thirds of 
 our territory under stringent restrictions; the Catholic 
 Church in America, as has been stated, taking the most 
 advanced grounds for temperance — Cardinal Gibbons 
 recently declaring that “the agitation is getting a 
 foothold which eventually will mean widespread pro- 
 hibition.” In Sweden 12,000 enthusiastic students 
 pledged to total abstinence; and in Denmark the names 
 of over half the adult population recently put on a 
 petition for restrictive legislation. The economists 
 and scientists in France, Switzerland, Austria, and 
 Hungary loud in warnings against alcohol. Some 
 
 [ 247 ] 
 
SHALL I DRINK? 
 
 1,500 periodicals throughout the world exclusively 
 devoted to the cause. No liquors allowed in working 
 men’s clubs in Finland; while both in Great Britain and 
 America, prominent Labor leaders are strongly against 
 the Liquor Trade. The Woman’s Christian Temper- 
 ance Union binding the continents and the isles of 
 the sea in the web of its white ribbon! 
 
 Whatever our personal attitude to the policy of pro- 
 hibition may be, we must be deeply impressed by the 
 array of facts presented by Mr. Guy Hayler, in his new 
 book — Prohibition Advance in All Lands (1913) — which 
 shows the deepening conviction of the world that the 
 Drink Problem is urgent and important and that it 
 must be faced and solved. 
 
 An increasing number of intelligent and conscientious 
 men and women, all over the world, are coming to see 
 eye to eye, respecting certain basic principles: That 
 the destruction of the Drink Curse is fundamental, — 
 preliminary to all other reforms. That statutes re- 
 stricting the use of alcohol favor freedom and fortune. 
 That to conquer the Drink Habit is to conserve the 
 greatest of our national resources — manhood. That 
 total abstinence is the highway of human progress. 
 That drinking liquor is the surrender of personal inde- 
 pendence. That sobriety is the perfection of individual 
 liberty and civic freedom. That indifference to the 
 temperance cause is supreme disloyalty to Christ. 
 That neutrality toward the saloon is treason to human- 
 ity. That in the work of social betterment all socialistic 
 programs are insignificant beside the victory for tem- 
 perance, which would destroy the chief sources of poverty 
 while it would improve the general character of human 
 life. That a vote against whisky is a master-stroke 
 for civilization and Christianity. That, as Dr 
 Bretislav Foustka, of the University of Prague, declares. 
 
 [248] 
 
SIGNS OF PROMISE 
 
 “One of the most important movements in the life and 
 civilization of all nations, is the struggle for the sobriety 
 of the people. ... In all the ramifications of 
 thought, feeling, and living, it is not a negative quantity. 
 Abstinence offers the broadest possible road for prog- 
 ress.” 
 
 Surely, the dayspring from on high is at hand; the 
 signs of promise multiply; the voices of Truth and Love 
 call all the friends of Humanity to battle for the com- 
 plete overthrow of the Drink Superstition; and soon 
 all the sons of God shall unite in the glad song of victory 
 for Temperance. 
 
 [ 249 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Page 
 
 Abel, Prof. John J.; M. D.; Johns Hopkins University 16, 83 
 
 Addams, Jane; Hull House, Chicago 26 
 
 Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England 60 
 
 Amundsen, Captain Roald; Antarctic Explorer 171 
 
 Antonini, Dr. Giuseppe; Italian Specialist on Insanity. Quota- 
 tion from Article in “Archivio di Psichiatria.” 162 
 
 Aschaffenburg, Prof. Gustav, M. D.; Cologne. Eminent Ger- 
 man Scientist 82 
 
 Atwater, Prof. W. O.; Long at Wesleyan University. Food- 
 Value of Alcohol: “Physiological Aspects of the Liquor 
 
 Problem.” 169 
 
 Barlow, Sir Thomas, M. D.; President Royal College of Physi- 
 cians, London 16, 49, 50 
 
 Barnardo, Dr. Thomas J.; Friend of London Waifs (d. 1905) .... 33 
 
 Barr, Sir James, M. D.; Royal Infirmary, Liverpool. Recently 
 
 President, British Medical Association 160 
 
 Barrows, Dr. Samuel J.; Late President, International Prison 
 
 Commission 148, 180 
 
 Bashford, Rev. Dr. James W.; Bishop Methodist Episcopal 
 
 Church, China 195 
 
 Bayer, Mr. E.; Austrian Educator, Vienna 114 
 
 Beresford, Admiral Lord Charles; British Navy 233 
 
 Bertillon, Dr. Jacques; Chief Bureau Municipal Statistics, Paris . . 38 
 
 Bingham, William; Manager “Sceptre Life” (Ins. Co.), London 239 
 Birtwell, Charles W.; General Secretary Massachusetts Sex Edu- 
 cation Society 96 
 
 Blocher, Dr. H. Basel; Leader Swiss Soeial Democrats 165 
 
 Booth, Rt. Hon. Charles; Author “Labor and Life of the 
 
 People.” 69 
 
 Bourgeois, M. Leon; Eminent French Statesman 216 
 
 Boy, Lieut. Bengt; Swedish Army 233 
 
 Broadbent, Sir William, M. D.; St. Mary’s Hospital, London 
 (1865-1896). Formerly Physician to King Edward VII .... 112 
 Brouardel, Prof. Paul C. H.; Eminent Authority on Hygiene. 
 
 Dean Faculty of Medicine (d. 1906), University of Paris. . 38 
 
 Brown, Dr. Edward Vipont, M. D.; Distinguished Physician, 
 
 Manchester, England 14 
 
 Bunge, Prof. Gustav von, M. D.; University of Basel. Tem- 
 perance Pioneer among German Scientists 54, 165 
 
 [ 251 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Burbank, Luther; Specialist in Plant Culture 114 
 
 Burns, Et. Hon. John, M. P.; President Government Board. .31, 211 
 Butlin, Dr. Henry T.; President Royal College of Surgeons, 
 
 London 240 
 
 Cabot, Prof. Richard C., M. D.; Harvard University 229 
 
 Caine, Mr. Hall; The Novelist 160 
 
 Carpenter, Prof. William B.; M. D.; Eminent Physiologist. 
 President British Association for Advancement of Science 
 
 (1872) 11, 85 
 
 Chalmers, Dr. A. K.; M. D.; Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow 136 
 Chancellor, Henry G.; Member of Parliament from London ... . 80 
 
 Charming, William Ellery; Address on Temperance, 1837 96 
 
 Chappie, Dr. W. A.; M. P.; Formerly Physician to Wellington 
 
 Hospital, N. Z 8 
 
 Choate, Hon. Joseph H.; U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain 
 
 (1899-1905) 196 
 
 Clemenceau, Hon. Georges; Former Premier French Republic. . 120 
 Clouston, Sir Thomas S.; M. D.; President Royal College of 
 
 Physicians (1903), Edinburgh 15 
 
 Crosby, Sir Thomas B.; M. D.; St. Thomas Hospital, London. 
 
 Lord Mayor of London, 1912 Ill 
 
 Crothers, Dr. Thomas D.; M. D.; Walnut Lodge Hospital, 
 
 Hartford, Conn VHL, 78 
 
 Crown Prince of Sweden. Quotation from Notable Address .... 41 
 
 Darling, Sir Charles J.; Judge King’s Bench (Criminal Court). . 60 
 
 Darwin, Charles; Quotation respecting the Effects of Drink. .. . 26 
 
 Davis, Prof. C. R.; University of North Dakota 106 
 
 Demme, Prof. Rudolph, M. D.; At Jenner Hospital for Children, 
 
 Berne, for nearly 30 years 96, 101 
 
 Devine, Dr. Edward T.; Eminent Social Worker. Author, 
 
 “ Misery and its Causes.” 44 
 
 Dubois, Prof. Paul; Berne, Switzerland 169 
 
 Dugdale, Richard L.; Author, “The Jukes.” 64 
 
 Dukes, Dr. Clement; Physieian to Rugby School, England 141 
 
 Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin; London Capitalist and Scholar 164 
 
 Edison, Thomas A.; The Great Inventor 167 
 
 Eklund, Hon. Oskar; Member Swedish Parliament from Stock- 
 holm 209 
 
 Eliot, Charles W.; President Emeritus Harvard University 
 
 134, 142, 185 
 
 Ennis, Prof. August; University of Heidleberg 218 
 
 Falcioni, Hon. H. E.; Secretarj' of State, Italy 162 
 
 Farnam, Prof. Henry W.; Yale University 63 
 
 Fisher, Prof. Irving; Yale University. Leader in National 
 
 Health Movement 83 
 
 Fisk, Dr. Eugene L.; M. D.; Medical Director, Postal Life 
 
 Insurance Company 88 
 
 Flinders-Petrie, Prof. W’m. M.; University College, London. .. . 150 
 
 [ 252 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Forel, Prof. August; Long at University of Zurich 213 
 
 Foustka, Prof. Bretislav, M. D.; Chair of Sociology, University 
 
 of Prague 248 
 
 Gemmill, Hon. William N.; Judge of Court of Domestic Rela- 
 tions, Chicago 61 
 
 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. William E.; Quotation in reference to 
 
 Revenue 76 
 
 Gordon, Ernest; Author, Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe.” 
 
 149, 172, 209 
 
 Gorell, Lord (Rt. Hon. John) ; Judge Probate and Divorce 
 
 Court, England 60 
 
 Gouge, Mr. H. Dillon; Public Actuary, South Australia 85 
 
 Gould, Sir Alfred Pearce, M. D.; Dean Medical Faculty, London 
 
 University 216 
 
 Graeter, Dr. Karl; Basel, Switzerland 100 
 
 Grant, Frederick D.; General U. S. Army 235 
 
 Green, Prof. Thomas H.; For many years a leader at Oxford 
 
 University 183 
 
 Grenfell, Sir Francis; General in British Army 233 
 
 Grenfell, Dr. Wilfred T.; M. D.; The Apostle to Labrador. . . 54 
 
 Gruber, Prof. Max von; President Royal Hygienic Institution 
 
 Munich 70, 165 
 
 Hall, Prof. Winfield S.; M. D.; Dean Medical Faculty, North- 
 western University, Chicago 100 
 
 Hanly, Hon. J. Frank, Formerly Governor of Indiana (1905- 
 
 1909) 85 
 
 Hayler, Mr. Guy. Author, “Prohibition Advance in all Lands” 248 
 Helenius-Seppala, Dr. Matti, Helsingfors. Member Finnish Par- 
 liament 210 
 
 Henschen, Prof. S. E.; University of Stockholm. Specialist in 
 
 Therapeutics 39 
 
 Heuman, Rev. Dr. S.; Chaplain to the King. Stockholm 212 
 
 Hodge, Prof. Clifton F.; Clark University 100 
 
 Holitscher, Dr. Arnold, M. D.; German Specialist, Karlsbad 170, 242 
 
 Hoppe, Dr. Hugo; Nerve Specialist, Konigsberg, Germany 165 
 
 Horsley, Sir Victor, M. D.; Consulting Surgeon, University Col- 
 
 Howe, Dr. Samuel G.; Educator of the Blind 103 
 
 Hugo, George W.; Wholesale Liquor Dealer 201 
 
 Hunt, Dr. ‘Reid, M. D.; U. S. Hygienic Laboratory, Washington 219 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop John; St. Paul, Minnesota 160 
 
 Jacquet, Dr. Lucien, M. D.; St. Antoine Hospital, Paris 120 
 
 Jarvis, J. A.; Famous English Swimmer 82 
 
 Jellicoe, Sir J. R.; Admiral in British Navy 232 
 
 Jensen, Prof. Lars O.; Bergen, Norway 213 
 
 Jones, Rev. Dr. Jenkin Lloyd; Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago 54 
 Jordan, President David Starr, Leland Stanford University. ... 91 
 
 [ 253 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Kassowitz (d. 1913), Prof. Max; University of Vienna. Emi- 
 nent Specialist on Diseases of Children 169 
 
 Kelly, Howard A.; M.D.; Johns Hopkins University. Specialist 
 
 in Use of Radium 160 
 
 Knopf, Prof. S. Adolphus, M. D.; New York Post Graduate 
 
 Medical School 39 
 
 Koch, Prof. G. H. von; Eminent Swedish Sociologist 213 
 
 Kocher, Prof. Theodor; University of Berne 242 
 
 Kogler, Herr Karl; Austrian Scientist, Vienna 223 
 
 Kraepelin, Prof. Emil; M. D.; University of Munich. Pio- 
 neer Investigator of Psychological Effects of Alcohol. VIIL, 20, 165 
 Laitinen, Prof. Taav, M. D.; University of Helsingfors, Finland 
 
 97, 104 
 
 Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, M. P 180 
 
 Lejeune, M. Jules; Late Belgian Minister of Justice (d. 1910) 
 
 86, 163 
 
 Leonhart, Johannes, M. D.; German Scientist; Kiel 166 
 
 Lichtenberg, Dr. Hugo, Charlottenburg, Germany 106 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham. Temperance Address (Feb. 22, 1842) 
 
 Quoted 26,78 
 
 Ljungren, Prof. August, Eminent Scandinavian Temperance 
 
 Advocate 212 
 
 Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David, Chancellor of the Exchequer. . . 31, 84 
 Logan, Hon. James; No-License Mayor of Worcester (1908- 
 
 1910), Mass 199 
 
 Lombroso. Prof. Cesare, Celebrated Italian Criminologist 161 
 
 Longdon, John; Oxford University Diploma in Economics 76 
 
 Lorebum, Lord (Sir Robert Reid); Lord Chancellor of England 
 
 (1910) _ 60 
 
 Lorenz, Prof. Adolf, M. D.; Imperial Hospital, Vienna 160 
 
 Luther, Martin; Quotation from “Table Talk” 76 
 
 Luzzatti, Hon. Luigi; Recently Prime Minister of Italy 161 
 
 Mack, Connie; Manager of Philadelphia “Athletics” 239 
 
 McKelway, Rev. Dr. Alexander J.; Secretary, National Child 
 
 Labor Committee (For Southern States) 29, 32 
 
 Magwood, Robert H.; Secretary No-License League (Mass.). . 139 
 Mahaim, Prof. Albert, M. D.; University of Liege. Also Pro- 
 fessor Extraordinary, University of Lausanne 167 
 
 Masaryk, Prof. T. G.; IJniversity of Prague 96 
 
 Mason, Dr. L. D., Specialist on Inebriety, Brookljm, N. Y 112 
 
 Mans, Colonel L. Merv’in, M. D.; Chief Surgeon, Eastern Dh*i- 
 
 sion, U. S. A 43,238 
 
 Metchrukoff, Prof. Elie, Director, Pasteur Institute, Paris 38 
 
 Meyers, Hon. William J.; Statistician, U. S. Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission 200 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, Reference to “On Liberty” 184 
 
 Mirman, M. Leon; Director Public Hygiene, Paris 38 
 
 Mitchell, John; Champion of Labor, Address, Feb. 22, 1910. ... 96 
 
 [ 254 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Morrow, Dr. Prince A.; M. D.; Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- 
 lege, New York City 54 
 
 Munsterberg, Prof. Hugo; Harvard University 146 
 
 Nansen, Fridtjof, Arctic Explorer 170 
 
 Nettlefold, John S., Chairman Housing Committee, Birmingham 
 
 City Council, England 34 
 
 Newton, John, Parliamentary Agent, United Kingdom Alliance 
 
 49, 62, 89 
 
 Obersteiner, Prof. Heinrich, M. D.; University of Vienna 242 
 
 Osier, Sir William, M. D.; Regius Professor of Medicine; Uni- 
 versity of Oxford 38 
 
 Parkes, Dr. Edmund A.; M. D.; Founder Science of Modem 
 Hygiene. Long Professor, Army Medical School, Netley, 
 
 England (d. 1876) 82 
 
 Patten, Prof. Simon N.; University of Pennsylvania 142 
 
 Pearson, Prof. Karl; Gallon Laboratory for Eugenics, London. . 103 
 Peterson, Prof. Frederick, M. D.; Columbia University . . 87, 216, 229 
 Pfaff, Dr. W.; German Specialist; Distingusihed Convert to 
 
 Total Abstinence 10 
 
 Phelps, Edward B., Editor American Underwriter Magazine. .40, 230 
 Pitman, Judge Robert C.; Author, “Alcohol and the State”. .. . 180 
 
 Plauzoles, Dr. Sicard; Eminent French Scientist 60 
 
 Pratt, Edwin A.; Author, “Temperance and Licensing in 
 
 Sweden” 209 
 
 Pugh, Mr. Edwin; Quotation from, “The Soul of the Drunkard” 143 
 
 Quackenbos, Prof. John D., M. D.; Columbia University 243 
 
 Quensel, Heinrich; German Councilor. Author, “ Der Alkohol ” 
 
 (Berlin, 1909) Ill 
 
 Rade, Prof. Martin, University of Marburg 148 
 
 Rankin, Dr. W. S.; Secretary State Board of Health, North 
 
 Carolina 238 
 
 Rauschenbusch, Prof. Walter; University of Rochester. Author, 
 
 “Christianity and the Social Crisis” 148 
 
 Reinach, M. Joseph; Member House of Deputies, France. 
 
 Author, “Contre I’Alcoolisme” 26 
 
 Richardson, Sir Benjamin Ward; Pioneer in Scientific Temper- 
 ance (d. 1896). Fellow Royal College of Physicians (London) - 
 
 17, 74 
 
 Roberts, Field Marshal, Frederick S., Earl of Kandahar 231 
 
 Rosanoff, Dr. A. J.; M. D.; Physician to King’s Park State Hos- 
 pital, Long Island, N. Y 169 
 
 Rosanoff, Prof. M. A.; Director Chemical Laboratory, Clark 
 
 University, Worcester, Mass 169 
 
 Saleeby, Dr. Caleb W’.; M. D.; Author, “ Parenthood and Race 
 Culture.” Formerly Physician in Royal Infirmary, Edin- 
 burgh 31, 104 
 
 Salzlechner, Prof. Franz; Prominent Austrian Educator 101 
 
 [ 255 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Saundby, Prof. Robert, M. D.; Recently President; British Med- 
 ical Association 241 
 
 Scanlon, Prof. Charles; Secretary Board of Temperance, Pres- 
 byterian Church of America 24.3 
 
 Scharffenberg, Dr. Johan; Norwegian Specialist on Insanity ... . 208 
 
 Schnyder, Dr. L.; M. D.; Berne, Switzerland 1C9 
 
 Schweighofer, Dr. Josef, M. D.; Long Superintendent Insane 
 
 Hospital, Salzburg, Austria 100 
 
 Sedgwick, Prof. Wm. T.; Mass. Institute of Technology, Boston 26 
 Serishev, Rev. I., Sergolgin, Siberia; Russian Temperance Ad- 
 vocate 247 
 
 Siegfried, M. Jules; Member House of Deputies, France. Ar- 
 dent advocate of Temperance Legislation 246 
 
 Simpson, Sir Alexander R.; M.D.; University of Edinburgh. .. . 112 
 
 Smith, Prof. August; University of Heidelberg 115 
 
 Sproule, Hon. T. S.; M. D.; Speaker House of Commons, Canada 245 
 
 Staaff, Hon. Karl; Prime Minister of Sweden 212 
 
 Starke, Dr. J.; Author, “Alcohol; the Sanction of its Use” 147 
 
 Stehr, Alfred H.; M. D., Wiesbaden, Germany. Doctorate in 
 
 Political Economy 237 
 
 Stetzle, Charles; Formerly Superintendent Bureau of Social 
 
 Service, Presbyterian Church of America 76, 80 
 
 Stoddard, Cora Frances; Scientihc Temperance Federation 
 
 (Boston) 229,239 
 
 Stout, Sir Robert; Chief Justice, New Zealand 49 
 
 Strehler, Dr. B.; German Scientist, Neisse. Quotation from 
 
 Notable Addresses made at Berlin 166 
 
 Strong, Sir Vezey; Lord Mayor of London, 1911 26, 73 
 
 Struempell, Prof. Adolf von; University of Leipzig 166 
 
 Sturge, Dr. Mary D.; M. D.; Physician to Midland Hospital 
 
 for W'omen, Birmingham VIII 
 
 Sullivan, Dr. W. C.; M. D.; Medical Officer, Prison Service, 
 
 Great Britain 101 
 
 Taft, William H.; Address on Temperance quoted 142 
 
 Tilton, Mrs. Elizabeth; Manager Temperance Poster Campaign 
 
 (Mass.) 134 
 
 Tolman, Dr. William H.; Director Museum of Safety (New 
 
 York City) _. 235 
 
 Treves, Sir Frederick, M. D.; Consulting Surgeon, London 
 
 Hospital 137 
 
 Van Cise, Joel G.; Actuary for “Equitable Life” 82, 230 
 
 Van Fleet, Hon. William C.; Judge U. S. District Court 159 
 
 Vogt, Prof. Ragnar, University of Christiania 115 
 
 Warner, Harry S.; Author, “Social Welfare and the Liquor 
 
 Problem” 172 
 
 Washington, Dr. Booker T.; President, Tuskegee Institute 180 
 
 Waugh, Dr. William F.; M.D.; Dean Bennett Medical College, 
 Chicago Ill 
 
 [ 256 ] 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 
 
 Wavrinsky, Hon. Edvard; Member Swedish Parliament 213 
 
 Webster, Dr. George W.; M. D.; President Illinois State Board 
 
 of Health 48 
 
 Weichselbaum, Prof. Anton; Rector (President), University of 
 
 Vienna 39 
 
 Westergaard, Prof. Harald; University of Copenhagen. Eminent 
 
 Authority on Statistics 208 
 
 Whittaker, Sir Thomas P.; M.P.; Manager, “United Kingdom” 
 
 (Life Ins. Co.), London 33,76, 104, 106 
 
 Wiley, Dr. Harvey N., M. D.; Chief Chemist U. S. Department 
 
 of Agriculture (1883-1910) VIII 
 
 Willard, Frances E.; Quotation respecting Drink and Poverty, 
 
 70, 71, 216 
 
 William, Emperor of Germany; Quotation from Dedication 
 
 Address; Naval Academy at Miirvik, 1910 54, 172 
 
 Williams, Dr. Henry S.; M. D.; Formerly Superintendent Ran- 
 dall’s Island Hospital 84, 102 
 
 Wolseley, Lord (Garnet Joseph), Field Marshal. Testimony re- 
 specting Drink and the British Army 26, 234 
 
 Woodhead, Prof. G. Sims, M. D.; University of Cambridge. . .16,18 
 Wu, Dr. Lien-Teh, Peking; Eminent Chinese Physician 195 
 
 [ 257 ] 
 
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