^•igsr-T ■ - r ’ T ’m.: A jj THE SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE FEDERATION 36 BROMFIELD STREET BOSTON, MASS. T HE Scientific Temperance Federation was organized in 1906. There was then no general interest in the scientific facts about alcohol. Its aim is popular education in facts which medical and social science have discovered about alcohol. Not until the people clearly understand these facts, will they take definite and lasting action against the use of alcohol and the liquor traffic. The Facts Taught The facts deal with effects of alcohol upon health, efficiency, industry, longevity, and race soundness. For nine years the Scientific Temperance Federation has been persistently putting them before the American public through various educational agencies. An Organization With a Specialty It has been, and is, the only organization in the United States devoting its efforts solely to this educational work. Progress Made It is a striking feature in the temperance situation today contrasted with that of ten years ago, that now everyone who is acquainted with the alcohol question recognizes these scientific facts as the best reasons for abolishing alcohol, and that educa- tion concerning them is a work of first necessity. Contributed New Methods The Scientific Temperance Federation is an exceedingly important factor in securing this advance in public opinion. It has contributed to the American anti-alcohol movement several valuable new methods of work. It has led in applying to the alcohol question the methods of education against alcohol suc- cessfully used in Europe, and in the United States against tuber- culosis and typhoid, and in behalf of child welfare, and mental soundness. Resources for Facts The Federation has been able to lead in this work because it has specialized in the collection and dissemination of infor- mation on alcohol. Its library contains much material not found elsewhere in the United States. It is consulted by university professors and students, writers on social subjects, physicians and lecturers. It is closely indexed in a catalog of over 6,000 cards which give ready reference to books, reports, pamphlets, magazines and other periodicals, notes and cross references to other scientific libraries. The Federation is in close touch with the leading European societies of similar purposes. It numbers among its correspond- ing members several of the European experimenters and uni- versity professors acknowledged as authorities on the alcohol question. These, and similarly well known American physicians, cheerfully give special information and advice on questions re- ferred to them by the Federation. Uses Existing Educational Agencies The Scientific Temperance Federation has strictly avoided adding the expense and machinery of new local organizations to the temperance work of America. The Federation believes that it is better to work through the varied existing agencies for disseminating facts. This saves the expenses of multiplied or- ganization, and also brings behind this work of education in the facts about alcohol the influence of educational agencies which are not primarily temperance organizations. The Federation works, therefore, through Boards of Health, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Press, Insurance Societies, Expositions (Tuberculosis, Child Welfare, Hygienic, Charities, etc.), Conferences, Missionary Societies, and Sunday Schools, as well as with the distinctively temperance organiza- tions. Making an Appeal to the Eye The Federation was the first organization in the United States to attempt to present the scientific facts about alcohol in concrete, graphic form by charts and diagrams. These were originally prepared in the form of hand-made charts. They were instantly welcomed as something new, inter- esting and convincing. They went into every section of the country and to several Canadian provinces as little travelling exhibits. 2 The Scientific Temperance Federation Exhibit at The World in Baltimore. Editors asked for them to illustrate articles on the alcohol question. In the five years these hand-made charts were used, they reached millions of people. But such charts were necessarily expensive. There were not enough of them to reach the great universal field of the country. The next step led to an extremely important develop- ment in the temperance work in the United States. The First Anti-Alcohol Exhibit In 1912, the Federation was invited to contribute an exhibit on the alcohol question to the Exposition of the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography at Washington, D. C. The success of European temperance exhibits was an encour- agement to undertake this for this country. Funds available for the purpose were meagre, but the prep- aration of the exhibit was accomplished. The Exposition man- agement scrutinized carefully beforehand the facts to be used and in many cases the plans for presenting them. When com- pleted, the exhibit contained about 250 diagrams, models and pictures. They illustrate graphically the most important scien- tific, social and industrial facts about alcohol. Many of the separate exhibits won special commendation as exceptionally clever and varied. The Jury of Awards of the International Hygiene Congress Exposition awarded the exhibit a diploma of merit. 3 Safety First — The Scientific Temperance Federation Exhibit at the International Safety Exposition, 1913. The exhibit has been in practically constant demand during the intervening three years. The Federation’s policy of reach- ing the people through general educational agencies has been followed in its use. It drew great, interested crowds during the six weeks’ period of the two great Missionary Expositions, the World in Chicago and in Baltimore. It was awarded gold and silver medals at the International Safety Expositions of 1913 and 1914. Closely attentive and inquiring business managers, officials of great industrial cor- porations, workingmen, thronged it twelve hours a day. It has been used at Mental Hygiene and Child Welfare Exhibits, at the International School Hygiene Congress, the International Sunday School Convention, great national religious and temper- ance conventions, by local Young Men’s Christian Associations, at State Fairs, on travelling health car exhibits, etc. During 1915, the exhibit was displayed at the Panama- Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco under the direction of the Federation’s Field Secretary in connection with the Anti-Saloon League of America, reaching from 500 to 2,000 people daily. In 1916 it visited many cities of the country as 4 A Store Window Exhibit of Facts About Alcohol. a part of the Social Service Exposition composed of exhibits from the Panama-Pacific Exposition. In connection with this work, the Field Secretary addressed many schools, colleges, normal schools, and women’s clubs. Local Anti-Alcohol Exhibits The Federation has encouraged and stimulated the small local anti-alcohol exhibit. Its pamphlet, “Reaching the People Where They Are,” gives directions for organizing such exhibits in stores and halls. Crowded attendance in every case has demonstrated the value of this contribution of the Scientific Temperance Federation to the educational temperance work of the country. Parts of the exhibit have been duplicated and are at work in Canada ; or, as loan exhibits, are rented for definite periods in towns and cities carrying on an educational campaign against alcohol or against the saloon. Twenty-five thousand people saw the exhibit in fourteen days in Lowell, Massachusetts. The local expense for bringing this large amount of information to 25,000 persons was less than it would have been had the com- mittee in charge simply tried to convey to them one fact by a postal card. Whom the Exhibit Reaches Secretaries of boards of health, college presidents, official representatives of foreign governments, newspaper representa- tives, members of Congress and other legislative bodies, em- 5 ployers, men engaged in all kinds of industry, athletes, fathers and mothers, young men and young women,' boys and girls of ages and degrees. Even the “gutter snipes,” once interested, come again and bring others with them, and eageriy demand that these friends be told what has been told .to them, the new, fascinating story of “alcohol and the joims , (germs)’!’, or what the baseball manager has to say about drink as a handicap to efficiency and success. The exhibit opens the eyes of men, women and children to what alcohol is doing around them, suggests hovy largely it is contributing to incidents or conditions in which they had not hitherto looked beneath the surface. I The Results of ti-ie Exhibit i Practical personal problems regarding drink are often pre- sented in the opportunity for quiet conversation and instruction which the exhibit affords when under the charge of a' competent demonstrator. It has at hand instant teaching material in the form of concretely illustrated facts for meeting personal ques- tions or doubts concerning the effects of alcoholic drinks. Hun- dreds of persons have expressed their gratitude for what they have thus learned. Three statements by visitors to the exhibit of the Scientific Temperance Federation are typical of repeated comments by the hundreds of thousands of people who have seen the exhibits during the past four years : The first was that of a young man, evidently of good fam- ily and general intelligence. He said that, with other young men, he had often indulged in the use of alcoholic liquors be- cause they were easily accessible. When shown a number of charts relating to health and efficiency, he said from time to time, “I didn’t know these facts,” and finally he said with conviction, “No more of this for me.” The second significant remark came from a man who con- fessed that he had been a bartender for many years. He said he knew all of these facts were true, that he had seen them from behind the bar. He had himself been obliged to leave drink entirely alone because “there is no place to stop.” As he passed on, he declared : “This is the greatest pres- entation of the anti-alcohol question which I have ever seen. If anything could stop young men from going to the saloon and contracting the drink habit, it will be conviction by cold, hard facts such as you have here, and I believe these will do it.” The third remark came from a clergyman, a pastor in one of the most widely known churches in America, who said, “This exhibit has converted me. I’ve always been a ‘temperance man’ but now I’m going to fight alcohol.” 6 "If anything could stop young men from going to the saloon and con- tracting the drink habit, it will be conviction by hard cold facts such as you have here in the exhibit on alcohol, — and I believe these will do it.’’ ■ — Ex-bartender. Posters The immense educational value of the exhibit of the Scien- tific Temperance Federation makes it clear that some, at least, of this material ought to be in every town in the country. This has been made possible by the American Issue Publishing Com- pany which has published a series of fifty posters, prepared by the Federation from exhibits. Large, attractive, all illustrated, many printed in two colors, these posters have been carrying their truths about alcohol into every State in the country and to many foreign lands. Nearly 100,000 large posters were sent out in two years, to say nothing of many thousands of the small sizes. (See illustrations pp. 10 and 11.) Used in Campaigns Against the Saloon They have proved a most helpful and important factor in several states in campaigns for the abolition of the saloon, be- cause they show dispassionately and convincingly what the alcohol which the saloon sells does to individuals and to society. Factories and Churches Churches and Young Men’s Christian Associations are using them on their bulletin boards. They are being put up in shops, mills, railroad stations, stores. Employers in some of the most important industries of the country are using them in their plants for the information of employes. They often sup- plement the posters with pay-envelope leaflets, data for which 7 came from the Scientific Temperance Federation. The results of this industrial education are already excellent. Stereopticon Slides The Scientific Temperance Federation has prepared a popular illustrated lecture for the stereopticon showing the scientific facts about alcohol. These and other slides are con- stantly in demand. Young Men’s Christian Associations, schools, educational museums, ministers, and lecturers, who deal not only on alcohol but with allied subjects, are constantly carry- ing to the people through the medium of these slides the infor- mation that the Federation has thus made available. Publications The Scientific Temperance Journal edited by secretaries of the Scientific Temperance Federation brings out each month the latest scientific, social and economic facts on the alcohol ques- tion. It reports the various practical educational methods used in this or other countries to get facts to the people. The Journal is the only publication of this nature in the United States and aims especially at getting the facts to the leaders of thought who in their own towns and cities have an opportunity through pulpit, press, college, school, social and professional relations to shape and guide public opinion. Books and Pamphlets The Handbook of Modern Facts about Alcohol reproduces the posters and with explanatory and supplementary data is an important compendium of facts concerning alcohol. The industrial aspects of the question are presented for the employer in the pamphlet, Alcohol’s Ledger in Industry. The workman’s viewpoint is represented in a series of pay-envelope leaflets. Five million copies of a special bulletin prepared by the Federation for the M etropolitan Life Insurance Company were published by that company in ten languages, reaching 7,000,000 policyholders. Another pamphlet prepared for the International Young Men’s Christian Association has been widely circulated by that organization among its members and associates. The International Series of Pamphlets (1915) edited by the secretaries of the Federation brings to the American public for the first time some of the best European works on the alcohol question, accounts of experiments, addresses of university pro- fessors, etc., heretofore not available in English. 8 When we help- fathers to be sober we help end this plight of children. "The number of children forced to leave home because of drunken parents mounts into the thousands every year.” — Mrs. Frederic Schoff. Public Health Campaign A new series of publications on Alcohol and Public Health continues the campaign which the Federation has been pushing for several years to secure educational work against alcohol by boards of health. This health movement may now be fairly said to be under way in view of the cordial public approval given the New York Health Department in its announced purpose to in- clude education in its work of promoting public health. Another forthcoming series deals with alcohol and the child. The Press Special articles are written for the temperance and general press. Leaflets and pamphlets have been issued on the relation of alcohol to tuberculosis and other social questions, the special dangers of beer and wine, compilations of pointed, practical facts which have a wide circulation. Lectures Lectures on the scientific and social phases of the alcohol question are T given by the secretaries before churches, schools, clubs, conventions, congresses. Correspondence Information is sought by many correspondents on a wide variety of subjects which the Federation library enables us to supply. The compilation of special material for writers and lecturers is no small part, and an important one, of the Fed- eration work. It helps leaders lead. 9 DRINK BURDENS . f Abused or Neglected because 1 Children In black of Intemperance of Parents 45 8 nor t'unt L or Guardians J ^ Of Every Dollar Given for Relief of Neglected or Destitute Children $0.46 Goes to Care for the Results of Drink Indirect Influence One of the most important results of all this work of the Scientific Temperance Federation has been the use of its mate- rial by other educational agencies. Some of those with which the Federation has worked in pursuance of its policy to utilize existing educational forces have already been indicated. There is also that large group of correspondents who ask for special data for use in papers, reports, articles and editorials. Even more important is the use of facts put out by the Federation which find their way into the many articles pub- lished by the magazines and weeklies which are having a power- ful influence in shaping public opinion against alcohol. The Federation has no “corner” on data, but, repeatedly, facts for the original publication of which it has been respon- sible, reappear in magazines and reports in forms and under circumstances which show clearly that Scientific Temperance Federation publications are the source from which they are derived. 10 Prevention the Work to be Done The prevention of alcoholism and its consequences to so- ciety is recognized as offering the largest promise of solving the alcohol problem. The facts about alcohol are the fundamental facts of the alcohol problem. The movement for abolishing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks is only justifiable and reasonable on the ground of the injury which the alcohol does to the individual and to society. Therefore, the educational work the Scientific Temperance Federation is doing is basal to every other line of temperance activity. In its effort to prevent the evils attributable to alcohol its work is fundamental to all other social reforms in so far as alcohol contributes to the evils which these reforms are trying to remove or prevent. Working Force The Federation’s actual direct work has been done by a force never exceeding the number of two secretaries, a field secretary who is out with the exhibit, a stenographer and one, or at the most, two clerical assistants. This limited force has initiated and devel- oped the new plans of work described, worked out and edited the ma- terial which includes the editing of a month- ly periodical and daily editorials, besides the leaflets, posters, books, and pamphlets. It has done much of the actual manual work of pre- paring exhibits ; it does all the reviewing, col- lecting and filing of the library resources ; car- ries on the correspond- ence ; keeps the books ; gives public lectures ; and. in addition, has raised a large propor- tion of the funds that have made possible the work done. Tax Payer and Philanthropist Pay Drink’s Bills ■hc> S » c a« iM ilwn wap Am dbvcttjf «r to Mfe Poverty 25% Pauperism 37% Chfld Misery 45.8% 003 Insanity 25# Crime 50# Divorce 19.5# How Much of This Do You Pay? "If the alcohol question were solved there would still remain other social questions to be solved, but it is also true that ds things stand today no other question of social welfare can be taken up with any prospect of securing effective results until the alcohol auast&n is Solved.” “ vJutffiO Htrmann Popvrt, Hamburg. Germany. 11 Finances The annual budget of the Federation averages $ 6,000. About $ 1,500 are derived from invested funds, lectures, articles, exhibit and slide rentals. The remaining $ 4,500 depends upon memberships and con- tributions. Needs The $ 6,000 suffices only to barely continue the work on its present basis. To meet the needs of a growing demand $10,000 annually is imperatively needed: 1. To enlarge the exhibits and to keep them at work under competent supervision in at least 50 cities of the United States. 2. To provide another secretary and stenographer to meet the increasing demand for new posters, pamphlets, and arti- cles for the general press. 3. To enlist in educational work against alcohol agencies not now co-operating in such education. 4. To develop and get into operation certain new educational plans not yet fully employed in the United States. 5. To supply libraries and reading rooms with facts about alcohol to counteract the pro-liquor publications furnished by the liquor agencies. 6. To secure recognition and discussion of the alcohol question in great industrial, educational, social welfare and medical conventions. 7. To furnish the literature urgently needed in many sections of the country where there are no funds to pay for it. 8. To establish systematic study of the alcohol question by women’s clubs, young people’s societies. 9. To conduct training classes for those who wish to be speakers or leaders in the educational work against alcohol. The Scientific Temperance Federation has proved its value. It offers givers an opportunity for constructive work in the largest sense, prevention through education in doing away with the evils of alcoholism. 12 |fd* - V c j f I ' V ■ \ . ... . , /•