(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. [Footnote: See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 56] 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. [Footnote: 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.">[
(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, ill health, and immoral social conditions caused by drink; we can form some idea of the moral indictment against alcohol. [Footnote: H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 261.]
(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. [Footnote: H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. XI.] 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 there from. 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 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 stumbling-block 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 liquor-drinking 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 child-labor 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; self-restraint 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, practice that is always harmful must be fought by the law as well as by moral suasion. Public sentiment must be educated up to the law; and the existence of the law is itself of educative value. Moreover, the old observations of non-enforcement must now be modified; recent experience shows that the prohibition States are on the whole increasingly successful in enforcing their laws. The new national law prohibiting importations from "wet" to "dry" States helps immensely; and with the forbidding of importations from abroad and of the manufacture of liquor anywhere in the country, the problem of enforcement will settle itself. Except for the precarious existence of "moon-shiners," and for what individuals may make for themselves, the stuff will not be obtainable. [Footnote: For the arguments for prohibition, see H. S. Warner, op. cit, chaps. IX, XII. Artman, The Legalized Outlaw. Fehlandt, A Century of Drink Reform. Wheeler, Prohibition.] That prohibition involves the ruin of a great industry is true; these millions of workers will be free to give their strength to productive labor, these millions of dollars can be invested in some industry useful to mankind. Confiscation will work hardship to the brewers and distillers; so it does to the opium-growers, the makers of indecent pictures, and counterfeit money. A trade so inimical to the general interest deserves no mercy. The States that have unwisely used the "tainted money" drawn from the industry by license will have a far richer community to tax in other ways; for every dollar got in liquor-license fees, many dollars have been lost to the State. As Gladstone said, "Give me a sober population, not wasting their earnings in strong drink, and I shall know where to obtain the revenue." Pending the enactment of legal prohibition, what is called industrial prohibition is proving widely efficacious. Growing numbers of manufacturers, railway managers, and storekeepers are refusing to employ men who drink at all. The United States Commissioner of Labor reports that ninety per cent of the railways, eighty-eight per cent of the trades, and seventy-nine per cent of the manufacturers of the country discriminate already against drinkers. The only other point to be noted is that the saloon-the "public house," the "poor man's salon"-must be replaced by other social centers, that give opportunities for recreation, cheer, and social intercourse. The question of substitutes for the saloon will be alluded to again, in chapter xxx. [Footnote: See Raymond Calkins, Substitutes for the Saloon. H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap. VIII. Forum, vol. 21, p. 595.] The nation-wide campaign against alcohol is on, the area of its legalized sale is steadily diminishing. We who now discuss it may live to see it swept off the face of the earth; if not we, our children or children's children. And we must see to it that no other drug opium, morphine, or the like gets a similar grip on humanity. Our descendants will look with as great horror upon the alcohol indulgence of our times as most of us now do upon opium smoking. "O God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!"
The best book for practical use is H. S. Warner's Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem (revised edition, 1913), where extensive references to the authorities will be found. Two other excellent popular books are H. S. Williams, Alcohol (1909), and Horsley and Sturge, Alcohol and the Human Body (1911). See also Rosanoff, in McClure's Magazine, vol. 32, p. 557; Rountree and Sherwell, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform; T. N. Kelynack, The Drink Problem: Scientific Conclusions concerning the Alcohol Problem (Senate Document 48, 61st Congress, 1909); and the five volumes of conclusions of the Committee of Fifty, published by Houghton, Mifflin Co, under the general title, Aspects of the Liquor Problem; a summary of these conclusions is published with the title The Liquor Problem, ed. F. J. Peabody. Barker, The Saloon Problem and Social Reform. Fanshawe, Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada. C. B. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XVI. The best available data, to date, on the physiological questions underlying the moral questions may be found in G. Rosenfeld, Der Einfluss des Alkohols auf den Organismus (1901) A.B.Cushney, The Action of Alcohol (1907)-paper read before the British Association; Meyer and Gottlieb, Pharmacology (1914).
CHAPTER XVII
CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE TEMPERANCE
In the indulgence of the appetites is a manifest necessity for health and efficiency-temperance in work and play, in eating and drinking, in novel reading and theater going, in whatever activity desire may suggest. But two appetites stand on a different footing from the others, and demand more than temperance. The love of alcohol and the other narcotics, being, as we have seen, a pathological and highly dangerous appetite, productive of scarcely any real good, must be completely rooted out of human nature, as it readily can be, to the great advantage of mankind. The other great appetite, that of sex, cannot be treated so cavalierly; to eradicate it or deny its fulfillment would be to put a speedy end to the human race. The solution of the problems of sex is therefore not so simple, the remedying of the evils of which sexual passion is the source not so feasible. On the one hand, we have to recognize the sex instinct as normal and necessary, the source of the keenest, and, indirectly, of some of the most lasting, pleasures of life; the denial of its enticements to the extent which our Christian ideal demands provokes perennial resentment and rebellion. On the other hand, we are confronted by the incalculable evils which unrestrained lust produces, and forced to admit the imperious necessity of some strictly repressive code. To many, the gravest dangers in life lie here; the sex instinct is the great rebel, promising a glorious liberty, a melting of the barriers between human bodies and souls, an ecstasy of mutual happiness that nothing else can offer. Yet beyond these transient excitements lie the saddest tragedies-disease and suffering, unwished childbirth, heartbreak and death. Desire sings a siren music in our ears; but the bones of those who have surrendered to the song lie bleaching on the rocks. These sweet anticipations presage sorrow and ruin; there is no heavier sight than to see happy, heedless youth caught by the lure of this strange, mysterious thrill and drifting to their destruction-"As a bird hasteth to the snare, And know not that it is for his life." So much is at stake here that we must be more than ordinarily sure that we are not biased, that we are not binding ourselves by needless restrictions. But after whatever doubts and wanderings, the man of mature experience comes back to the monogamous ideal with the conviction that in it lies not only our salvation but our truest happiness. A thousand pities that so many learn the lesson too late! Nothing in the whole field of ethics is more important than for each generation, as it stands on the threshold of temptation and opportunity, to see clearly the basic reasons for our hard-won and barely maintained code of chastity. A reverence for authority, a deep- implanted sentiment, a recurrent emotional appeal, and a barrier of scruples and pledges may keep many within the lines of safety. But the morality of sentiment and authority must always be based on a morality of reason and experience. We must therefore begin by recapitulating the fundamental reasons for our monogamous ideal.