1. Decadence of morale. Causation of "grousing," friction, and disorder.
2. Drunkenness, punishments, degradations in rank.
3. Decadence of observation and judgment. Causation of errors and accidents.
4. Loss of endurance and diminution of physical vigor. Causation of fatigue, falling out, and slackness.
5. Loss of resistance to cold. Causation of chilliness, misery, and frost-bite.
6. Loss of resistance to disease (particularly diseases occurring under conditions of wet and cold), namely, pneumonia, dysentery, typhoid fever.
7. Loss of efficiency in shooting. (Half the rum ration causes a loss of 40 to 50 per cent in rifle-shooting. The navy rum ration causes a loss of 30 per cent in gunnery.)
In Sir Victor Horsley's last letter to Mr. Guy Hayler of London he spoke of the great riot that occurred in Cairo,—a riot not set on foot, as had been reported, because the men wanted more drink for themselves, but because they would not stand quietly by and see the officers drinking heavily in the hotels after the time appointed for closing canteens to the privates. He also stated that the enormous loss of men crippled and dead from frost-bite and cold at Gallipoli was due to several factors, in which alcohol played a part not only directly, but indirectly as well, owing to the neglect of the personal care and treatment of the men due to the satisfaction and complacency which whiskey-drinking produces. "Men allowed things to drift," the great surgeon wrote.
I was privileged to be in the front line with the American forces when they experienced their first general gassing and their first raid from German shock troops. I was with them in water- and mud-filled trenches; I saw them when for five and even seven days they had been constantly in the tense expectancy of men who await a raid; I slept with them and messed with them; I saw them in the agonies of the gas and soaked in the blood of their wounds; I saw them so completely exhausted that they fell asleep in their snow- and water-soaked garments upon the hard floor of a Y. M. C. A. hut, resting there without protection only as we found newspapers and canvas strips with which to cover them—their own blankets had been buried by shell-fire, and they had just come from the more advanced positions after being relieved.
These men had borne all without a rum ration. The hot coffee and tea with which the Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross and their own cooks provided them did for them all that the rum ration could have done, and with none of rum's evil after-effects. I did not hear a single soldier ask for rum. As to the insistence of some that it is impossible to supply our forces with coffee and tea under extreme front-line conditions, I was witness to the fact that under the most extreme conditions hot drinks were constantly furnished.
It will be kept in mind that by the term "rum ration" we refer to the regular and daily supply of spirits as a recognized part of the dietary of the soldier, and not to the possible use of alcohol in special instances by order of medical officers. As to this latter, I have not seen rum or spirits used. The men have themselves informed me that it has not been prescribed for them. I imagine that its introduction for medicinal purposes will depend very much upon the personal attitude of individual medical men toward alcohol as an internal medicine, just as it does in the United States. The fact that the medical profession is represented in the councils of the American army, and by some of its most distinguished leaders, and the further fact that medical authority in America has banished alcohol from the American pharmacopœia, are re-assuring. In having such men as Dr. Haven Emerson, formerly chief health officer of New York City, now a major in the medical service in France, to counsel those in supreme authority overseas, we are most fortunate.
Peculiarly difficult will be the problem arising where American soldiers are brigaded with English and French regiments. But it is a problem that must and will be solved.
Under no circumstances will this nation consent to the establishing of the rum system that now works injury in the armies of her splendid allies. That it does work injury, I know.
It is certainly true that the vast majority of men now receiving the ration of rum, if asked to express an opinion, would heartily vote for it. It is equally true that the soldiers of our allies are not a drunken mob, that they do not fall under the influence of drink menasse. But the weakening and deteriorating effect of this pernicious narcotic, water-absorbing, depressant drug poison is unmistakable.