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(a) As we noted when considering the value of alcohol, the higher nature is stupefied, leaving the emotions less controlled. The silliness, the irritability, the glumness, the violence, the lust of men are given freer rein. The effect of alcohol is coarsening, brutalizing; we are not our best selves under its influence. The judgment is dulled, the spirit of recklessness is stimulated - an impatience of restraint and a craving for further excitement. Even after the palpable effects of a potation have disappeared, a permanent alteration in the brain remains, which makes it likely that the drinker will "go farther" next time or the time after. The accumulation of such effects leads finally to the complete demoralization of character, to the point where a man's higher nature can no longer keep control over his conduct. This is what is meant by saying that alcohol undermines the will power.1 In particular, most sexual sins are committed after drinking; and the gravity of the sex problem is so great that this fact alone would justify the banishment of alcohol, the greatest of sexual stimulants.2

(b) A very large proportion of the crimes committed are committed under the influence of alcohol. In Massachusetts, for example (in 1895), only five per cent of convictions for crime were of abstainers. In general, statistics show that from a half to three quarters of the total amount of crime has drinking for a direct contributing cause. When we add to this the crime-inducing influence of the poverty, illhealth, and immoral social conditions caused by drink, we can form some idea of the moral indictment against alcohol.3 1 See H. S. Williams, op. cit., p. 56 ff.

2 Cf. Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, p. 189: "Even a slight exhilaration from alcohol relaxes the moral sense and throws a sentimental or adventurous glamour over an aspect of life from which a decent young man would ordinarily recoil; and its continued use stimulates the senses at the very moment when the intellectual and moral inhibitions are lessened."

3 H. S. Warner, op. cit., p. 261 ff.

(c) The liquor trade is the most powerful of all "interests" in the corruption of politics, one of the most demoralizing phases of our American life.1 The saloon power is in politics with a grim determination to keep its business from extermination. It is able to throw the votes of a large body of men as it wills. It maintains a powerful lobby at Washington and at the state capitals. In many places it has had a strangle hold on legislation. The trade naturally tends to ally itself with the other vicious interests that live by exploiting human weakness-the gamblers, the fosterers of prostitution, the keepers of vile "shows"; it has a vast revenue for the purchasing of votes, and, in the saloon, the easiest of channels for reaching the bribable voter. Corrupt political machines have been glad to use its support, and have derived a large measure of their strength therefrom. Were the liquor trade destroyed, the greatest obstacle in the way of political reform would be removed.

In sum, we can say that the evils caused by alcohol, instead of having been exaggerated, have never until very recently been sufficiently realized. The half hath not been told.

What should be the attitude of the individual toward alcoholic liquors?

In the light of our present knowledge, the attitude toward liquor demanded by morality of the individual admits of no debate. He may love dearly his wines or his beer, but his enjoyment is won at too dear a cost to himself and others; his support of the liquor trade is very selfish. He has no right to poison himself, to impair his health and efficiency, as even a little drinking will do. He has no right to run the risk of becoming the slave of alcohol, as so many of the most 1 H. S. Warner, op. cit., chap. XI.

promising men have become; the effect of the drug is insidious, and no man can be sure that he will be able to resist it. He has no right to spend in harmful self-indulgence money that might be spent for useful ends. He has no right to incur the, however immeasurable, moral and intellectual impairment which is effected by even rather moderate drinking. He has no right to bequeath to his children a weakened heritage of vitality. He has no right, by his example, to encourage others, who may be far more deeply harmed than he, in the use of the drug; "let no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." The influence of every man who is amenable to altruistic motives is needed against liquor, to counteract its lure; we must create a strong public sentiment and make it unfashionable and disreputable to drink.

Happily the tide of liquor-drinking, which has been rising rapidly in the last half-century, owing to the increase in prosperity, the great influx of immigrants from liquordrinking countries, and the stimulation of the trade by the highly organized liquor industry, has at last, by the earnest efforts of enlightened workers, been turned. Men of influence are standing out publicly against it. Grape-juice has been substituted for wine in the White House; Kaiser Wilhelm has become an abstainer, with a declaration that in the present era of fierce competition the nations that triumph will be those that have least to do with liquor. So conservative and cautious a thinker as ex-President Eliot of Harvard has recently become an abstainer, saying, "The recent progress of science has satisfied me that the moderate use of alcohol is objectionable." The yearly per capita consumption of alcoholic liquors, which rose from 8.79 gallons in 1880 to 17.76 in 1900 and 22.79 in 1911, fell in 1912 to 21.98. It is to be devoutly hoped that the tide will ebb as rapidly as it rose.

What should be our attitude toward the use of alcoholic liquors by others?

The consideration of this question falls properly under the head of "Public Morality." But it will be more convenient to treat it here, following the presentation of the facts concerning alcohol. The right of the community to interfere with the conduct of its members will be discussed in chapter XXVIII, and we must assume here the result therein reached, that whatever is deemed necessary for the greatest welfare of the community as a whole may legitimately be required of its individual members, however it may cross their desires or however they may consider the matter their private concern. The argument against prohibition on the ground that it interferes with individual rights would apply also to childlabor legislation, to legislation against street soliciting by prostitutes or the sale of indecent pictures, and, more obviously still, against anti-opium and anti-cocaine legislation. As a matter of fact, the older individualistic point of view has been generally abandoned now, and we are free to discuss what is desirable for the general welfare.

We may at once say that whatever method will most quickly and thoroughly root out the evil should be adopted. Different methods may be more or less efficacious in different places; it is a matter for legitimate opportunism. But the goal to be kept in sight can only be absolute prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and importation of all alcoholic liquors for beverages. Education on the matter, and exhortation to personal abstinence, must be continued. But education and exhortation are not alone sufficient; selfrestraint cannot be counted on, constraint must be employed. "High License" and "Regulation" have been thoroughly tried and have not checked the evil; moreover, it has been a serious blunder to make the State or municipality dependent

upon the liquor trade for revenue, and therefore eager to retain it. The "State Monopoly" system has not proved a success in this country in lessening the evil; it made the liquor power a more sinister influence than ever in politics. If liquor must be sold, the “Company," or Scandinavian system, which eliminates the factor of private profits, without fostering political corruption, is probably the least harmful method of selling.

But no method of selling liquor can be more than a temporary expedient. We must work inch by inch to extend the boundaries of absolutely "dry" territory. "Local Option" has been of very great value in this movement, and may still in some States be the best attainable status. Option by counties, with a prohibition of the shipment of liquor from "wet" to "dry" counties, is the preferable form. Statewide prohibition, for a while in disrepute because of open violation of the law, is again gaining ground, ten of the forty-eight States being entirely "dry" at time of writing. The ultimate solution can only be the adoption of an amendment to the National Constitution enforcing nation-wide prohibition; the agitation for such an amendment is already acute, and the promise of its passage within a generation bright.

The arguments against prohibition are not strong. That the law is poorly enforced in localities where public sentiment is against it is natural; but no law is universally obeyed, and that a law is broken is a poor reason for removing it from the statute books. No one would suggest repealing the laws against burglary or seduction because they are daily disobeyed. This pseudo-concern for the dignity of the law is simply a specious argument advanced by those who have an interest in the trade, and accepted by those who suppose liquor-drinking to be wrong only in excess and harmless in moderation. The reply is to show that alcohol, even in small

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