EDWIN C. DINWIDDIE Subject Section Shelf No. Glass. Book. THE EDWIN C. DINWIDDIE COLLECTION OF BOOKS ON TEMPERANCE AND ALLIED SUBJECTS (PRESENTED BY MRS. DINWIDDIE) Cbe liquor JJroblem. THE LIQUOR PROBLEM IN ITS LEGISLATIVE AS- PECTS. By Frederic H. Wines and John Koren. An Investigation made under the Direction of Charles W. Eliot, Seth Low, and James C. Carter, Sub- Committee of the Committee of Fifty to Investigate the Liquor Problem. With Maps. i2mo,,$i.25. ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. By John Korkn. An Investigation made under the Direction of Professors W. O. Atwater, Henry W. Far- nam, J. F.. Jones, Doctors Z. R. Brockway, John Graham Brooks, E. R. L. Gould, and Hon. Carroll D. Wright, a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Fifty. With an Introduction by Prof. Henry W. Farnam. i2mo, $1.50. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON. By Raymond Calkins. An Investigation made for the Committee of Fifty under the direction of Elgin R. S. Gould, Francis G. Peabody, and William M. Sloane, Sub- Committee. i2mo, {1.30, net. (Postage 13 cents.) THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. Edited by John S. Billings, M.D. An Investigation made for the Committee of Fifty under the direction of John S. Billings, W. O. Atwater, H. P. Bowditch, R. H. Chittenden, and W. H. Welch, Sub- Committee. 2 vols. 8vo, $4.50, net. (Postage 36 cents.) THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. A summary of investiga- tions conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893-1903. By John S. Billings, Charles W. Eliot, Henry W. Far- num, Jacob L. Greene, Raymond Calkins, and Francis G. Peabody, Sub-committee, iimo, $1.00, net. (Post- age 9 cents.) HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York THE LIQUOR PROBLEM A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY THE LIQUOR PROBLEM A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY 1893-1903 PREPARED FOR THE COMMITTEE BY JOHN S. BILLINGS, CHARLES W. ELIOT, HENRY W. FARNAM, JACOB L. GREENE, AND FRANCIS G. PEABODY »Vo M BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ^^^ 0' ^.M COPYRIGHT 1905 BY FRANCIS G. PEABODY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September iqo^ Gift MRS. Edwin C. Dinwiddfe Aug. 6, 1935 CONTENTS Pi.OB I. Introduction. By Francis G. Peabody . . 1 II. A Summary of Investigations concerning THE Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem. By John S. Billings .... 15 III. A Summary of Investigations concerning the Legislative Aspects. By Charles W. Eliot 43 rV. A Summary of Investigations concerning the Economic Aspects. By Henry W. Farnam 79 V. A Summary of Investigations concerning THE Ethical Aspects. By Jacob L. Greene 135 VI. A Summary of Investigations concerning Substitutes for the Saloon. By Raymond Caleins 143 PKESENT ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY May, 1905 OFFICERS President. Hon. Seth Low, LL. D., New York, N. Y. Vice-President. ♦Charles Dudley Warner, Esq., Hartford, Conn. Secretary. Prof. Francis G. Peabody, D. D., Cambridge, Mass. Treasurer, «Wm. E. Dodge, Esq., 99 John St., New York, N. Y. Executive Board. THE above named OFFICERS AND: Dr. J. S. Billings, Astor Library, 40 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. President Charles W. Eliot, LL. D,, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. *Col. Jacob L. Greene, Hartford, Conn. Hon. Carroll D. Wright, A. M., LL. D., Clark College, Worcester, Mass. Members. Prof. Felix Adler, 123 East 60th St., New York, N. Y. Bishop Edw. G. Andrews, D. D., Methodist Building, 150 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. Prof. W. O. Atwater, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. viii THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY Dr. J. S. Billings, Astor Library, 40 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. Charles J. Bonaparte, Esq., 216 St. Paul St., Baltimore, Md. Prof. H. P. Bowditch, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. Rev. Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., 700 Park Ave., New York, N. Y. Z. R. Brockway, Esq., State Reformatory, Elmira, N. Y. John Graham Brooks, Esq., Francis Ave., Cambridge, Mass. *Hon. James C. Carter, 54 Wall St., New York, N. Y. Prof. R. H. Chittenden, Sheffield Scientific School, New Haven, Conn. Right Rev. Thomas Conaty, D. D., 114 East 2d St., Los Angeles, Cal. John H. Converse, Esq., Baldwin Locomotive Works, Phila- delphia, Penn. Wm. Bayard Cutting, Esq., 34 Nassau St., New York, N. Y. Rev. S. W. Dike, LL. D., Auburndale, Mass. *Wm. E. Dodge, Esq., 99 John St., New York, N. Y. Rev. Father A. P. Doyle, Paulist Fathers, 455 West 59th St., New York, N. Y. President Charles W. Eliot, LL. D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Rev. Father Walter Elliot, Paulist Fathers, 455 West 59th St., New York, N. Y. Prof. Richard T. Ely, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. f Prof. Henry W. Farnam, 43 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, Conn. Rt. Rev. T. F. Gailor, D. D., University of the South, Se- wanee, Tenn. Daniel C. Gilman, LL. D., Baltimore, Md. Rev. Washington Gladden, D. D., LL. D., Columbus, Ohio. Richard W. Gilder, Esq., Union Square, New York, N. Y. Dr. E. R. L. Gould, 281 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTY ix ♦Col. Jacob L. Greene, LL. D., Hartford, Conn. Dr. Edward M. Hartwell, 5 Brimmer St., Boston, Mass. Rev. W. R. Huntington, D. D., Grace Church, 804 Broad- way, New York, N. Y. ♦President Wm. Preston Johnston, LL. D., Tulane Uni- versity, New Orleans, La. Prof. J. F. Jones, Marietta, Ohio. Hon. Seth Low, LL. D., New York, N. Y. President James MacAlister, LL. D., Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, Penn. Rt. Rev. Alexander Mackay-Smith, D. D., Philadelphia, Penn. Prof. J. J. McCook, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. Rev. T. T. Munger, D. D., New Haven, Conn. Robert C. Ogden, Esq., 784 Broadway, New York, N. Y. Rev. Prof. Francis G. Peabody, D. D., Cambridge, Mass. Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter, D. D., 29 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. Rev. W. I. Rainsford, D. D., 209 East 16th St., New York, N.Y. Jacob H. Schiff, Esq., 27 Pine St., New York, N. Y. *Rev. Prof. C. W. Shields, D. D., Princeton, N. J. Prof. W. M. Sloane, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. ♦Charles Dudley Warner, Esq., Hartford, Conn. Dr. Wm. H. Welch, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. Frederick H. Wines, LL. D., Springfield, 111. Hon. Carroll D. Wright, A. M., LL. D., Clark College, Worcester, Mass. I INTRODUCTION By FRANCIS G. PEABODY 8BGBETABT OF THB COMMITIEB OF FITTT INTRODUCTION The Committee of Fifty for the investiga- tion of the Liquor Problem was organized in 1893. Among its earliest votes was the fol- lowing Declaration of Intention : " This Committee, made up of persons representing different trades, occupations, and opinions, is engaged in the study of the Liquor Problem, in the hope of securing a body of facts which may serve as a basis for intelligent public and private action. It is the purpose of the Committee to collect and collate impartially, all accessible facts which bear upon the prob- lem, and it is their hope to secure for the evidence thus accumulated a measure of con- fidence on the part of the community which is not accorded to personal statements.'* The Committee of Fifty was therefore not organ- ized to create one more agent in practical reform, but in the belief that a consensus of competent opinion, in which physiologists and economists, men of academic life, men of affairs, and members of most diverse re- 4 INTRODUCTION gious communions, could unite, would pro- vide a starting-point for a rational and trust- worthy method of action. " It was from the first understood/' wrote the Vice-President of the Committee, Mr. Charles Dudley Warner (Harper's Magazine, February, 1897), " that the prime business of the Committee was not the expression of opinion or the advancing or advocacy of one theory or another, but strictly the investigation of facts, without reference to the conclusions to which they might lead." On October 20, 1893, the Conmiittee of Fifty appointed four sub-committees to con- sider respectively the physiological, legisla- tive, economic, and ethical aspects of the Drink-Question. Each of these sub-com- mittees undertook a series of independent investigations, which issued in a series of reports concerning some aspects of the prob- lem submitted for consideration. To each of these publications has been prefixed the following note ; ^^ By vote of the Committee of Fifty, January 10, 1896, reports made by its sub-committees to the whole body may be published by the Executive Committee as contributions to the general inquiry ; but to INTRODUCTION 5 all such publications is to be prefixed the statement that reports of sub-committees are to be regarded as preliminary in their nature and only contributory of facts upon which the general discussion may in future be undertaken by the Committee as a whole/' These volumes therefore express the judg- ment of the sub-committees only, whose names they bear; though it is believed by the Committee of Fifty that the composi- tion of its sub-committees, and the character of the researches directed by them, give reasonable assurance of fidelity in the pre- sentation and estimate of the evidence ex- amined. The voliunes thus issued have been published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Bos- ton, as follows : (1) The Physiological As- pects of the Liquor Problem, 2 vols., 8vo, $4.50 net, 1903 ; (2) The Liquor Problem in its Legislative Aspects, 12mo, $1.25, 1897 ; (3) Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, 12mo, $1.50, 1899; (4) Substi- tutes for the Saloon, 12mo, $1.50, 1901. With the publication of these volumes, the programme proposed for itself by the Com- mittee of Fifty was in the main fulfilled. During the twelve years of its organization, 6 INTRODUCTION the Committee has met in general session seventeen times. Each member has paid his own expenses ; and the laborious and ex- pensive investigations of the sub-committees have been paid either by members of those committees or by subscriptions privately se- cured. The Physiological Sub-committee has expended $7,100; the Legislative Sub-com- mittee, $6,945; the Economic Sub-committee, $4,550; and the Committee on Substitutes for the Saloon, $404.36. The total disburse- ment for the work of the Committee of Fifty, apart from the personal expenses of the mem- bers, has been approximately $21,529.35. In the course of these investigations, how- ever, it has frequently been suggested to the Committee of Fifty that a brief Summary of the conclusions reached by the various sub- committees might be of interest to readers who were not likely to examine the more elaborate and technical volumes. Serious stu- dents of the Liquor Problem might be ex- pected to analyze with care the mass of facts collected, but many readers, it was urged, would be satisfied if they might obtain, in some abbreviated form, an indication of those results of inquiry which seem to have im- INTRODUCTION 7 mediate bearing on the practical conduct of life. Accordingly, on February 10, 1904, it was voted : " That the Chairmen of the four committees responsible for the volumes thus far issued be instructed, in cooperation with their colleagues, to prepare Summaries of their researches, adapted so far as possible to popular reading, and that these Chairmen, with the Secretary of the Committee of Fifty, be a committee to incorporate these Summa- ries in a volume of moderate size, which shall express the general conclusions of the work of the Committee of Fifty and shall be sub- mitted to the Committee for its approval at a later meeting." The following pages contain the Summa- ries thus authorized and approved. It is neces- sary, however, to call attention once more to the limited scope and intention of the entire series of investigations. The volumes do not enter the region of exhortation and argument, but restrict themselves to the statement of what appear to be demonstrable facts and to the inferences which these facts appear to dic- tate. On no other terms could the Committee of Fifty have been organized or maintained. Its members represented many different atti- 8 INTRODUCTION tudes of mind toward practical methods of temperance reform ; — total abstinence and moderation, legal prohibition and the licens- ing system. The problem before such a com- mittee was that of formulating the facts on which thoughtful students of various tradi- tions and tendencies might agree. The series of special investigations are not missionary tracts or moral appeals, but scientific studies of physical and social facts. This limitation of purpose, however, far from indicating indiJfference to practical re- form, may on the contrary suggest new ways of applying the spirit of reform. If, in the con- fusion of opinion which prevails concerning the drink-problem, a body of facts can be col- lected which in any degree represents the truth as it is now understood by students of physical and social life, then — while such facts are not likely to satisfy all who are already com- mitted to special methods of reform — they may provide a foundation for more rational and comprehensive measures. The cause of temperance has been much obstructed by intemperate speech and exaggerated state- ment, and has suffered much through dis- sensions among those who should have been INTRODUCTION 9 allies. There is much to fear from excess of drink, but there is also much to fear from excessive statements which experience soon discovers to be unsupported by facts. An investigation, therefore, which disclaims di- dactic intention may not be without didactic results. To affirm, for instance, as is done by the report of the physiological Sub-com- mittee, that the limit of judicious use of alcohol as a beverage is : (a) A single glass of wine per day; (b) For persons of middle age or over ; (c) As a sedative, at the end of the day ; may appear to those accustomed to inflammatory appeals a diluted form of tem- perance argument, but to other minds it may appear a more convincing and commanding statement than to teach that a single glass of beer is a step to a drunkard's grave. To point out, as is done by the Legislative Sub- committee, that " it cannot be positively af- firmed that any kind of liquor legislation has been more successful than another in pro- moting real temperance," may be to minds trained to regard a single form of legislation as redemptive a somewhat impotent conclu- sion ; but this apparently negative conclusion will to other minds open the way to a more 10 INTRODUCTION tolerant and judicious application of law as a means rather than an end, and will suggest a cautious opportunism which adapts methods of law to variations in local condition, racial tendency, and density of population. Indeed, it is not impossible that a mere statement of the facts concerning the drink- habit, as that social peril presents itself to a considerable number of reasonably impartial observers, may of itself carry to some minds the force of a new argument for temperance. Differences of opinion concerning methods of reform should not obscure the practical agree- ment of all thoughtful students of society concerning the menace to modern civilization through the abuse of alcoholic drinks. The truth on the subject is so grave and porten- tous that it needs no exhortation to carry an appeal to the conscience and the will. According to the Economic Sub-committee, twenty-five per cent, of the poverty of the United States may be traced directly or indi- rectly to liquor; nearly fifty per cent, of crime is referred to intemperance as one cause, and in thirty-one per cent, it appears as a first cause. Facts so prodigious as these should silence the sectarian controversies INTRODUCTION 11 which divide the advocates of temperance, and should summon all intelligent citizens to the realization of a common peril and a common responsibility. The purpose of the Committee of Fifty will be accomplished if the facts which they have collected and set forth may contribute in any degree to a more rational and comprehensive union of the forces in American life which make for sobriety, self-control, good citizenship, and social responsibility. For the convenience of readers who may wish to pro- ceed from the present Summary to any of the preceding volumes issued by the Committee of Fifty, the contents of the series may be briefly indicated : — 1. The Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem ; 2 volumes, 773 pages, 1903 : Investigations made by and under the direction of W. O. Atwater, John S. Billings, H. P. Bowditch, E. H. Chittenden, and W. H. Welch. These volumes contain : — i. An investigation on the influence of alcohol and alcoholic drinks upon the processes of digestion, by Professor R. H. Chittenden. ii. A further study of the influence of alcohol and alcoholic drinks upon digestion with special reference to secretion, by Professor R. H. Chittenden, Dr. L. M. Mendel, and Dr. H. C Jackson. iii. An investigation on the effects of long-continued doses of alcohol or alcoholic liquors in producing organic changes in certain tissues and organs of the body, made 12 INTRODUCTION by Professor William H. Welch and Dr. J. Frieden- wald. iv. An investigation as to the effects of alcohol and alcoholic drinks on the growth, development, and repro- ductive powers of animals, by Professor C. F. Hodge of Clark University. V. An investigation on the influence of alcoholism on infection and immunity, by Professor A. C. Abbott of the University of Pennsylvania. vi. An investigation of the extent to which alcohol is consumed in the living human body, and its action as a force producer and a food, by Professors W. O. Atwater and F. G. Benedict of Wesleyan University. vii. An investigation on the relations between the use of alcoholic drinks and insanity, made by the American Medico-Psychological Association. viii. A statistical investigation as to the relative pre- valence of the use of alcoholic drinks among brain- workers in the United States, by Dr. J. S. Billings. ix. An investigation of the opinions and teachings of leading physiologists and pathologists of the present day, with regard to the effects of alcoholic drinks, and a comparison of these with the teachings of text-books in use in the common schools of this country, by Pro- fessors H. P. Bowditch of Harvard, and C. F. Hodge of Clark University. 2. The Liquor Problem in its Legislative Aspects, second edition, 1900 : An investigation made under the direction of Charles W. Eliot, Seth Low, and James C. Carter. i. A study of Legislation in Maine (prohibition), Mas- sachusetts (local option), Pennsylvania (high license), South Carolina (State dispensaries), by John Keren. INTRODUCTION 13 ii. A study of Legislation in Missouri (local option), Iowa (prohibition), Ohio (State tax), and Indiana (license), by Frederick H. Wines. 3. Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, 1899 : An investigation made under the direction of Henry W. Farnam, by John Koren, with the cooperation of the representatives of thirty-three charity organization societies, eleven children's aid societies, sixty alms- houses, and seventeen prisons and reformatories. i. The Liquor Problem in its relation to poverty and pauperism. ii. The Liquor Problem in its relation to the desti- tution and neglect of children. iii. The Liquor Problem in its relation to crime. iv. The relations to the Liquor Problem of the negroes and the North American Indians. V. Social Aspects of the Saloon in large cities. 4. Substitutes for the Saloon. An investigation made under the direction of Francis G. Peabody, Elgin R. L. Gould, and William M. Sloane, by Raymond Calkins, with the cooperation of many teachers, students, settle- ment workers, and other investigators. A study of men's clubs, boys' clubs, churches, mis- sions, coffee-houses, amusements, and other substitutes for the saloon. The cities selected for study were : — San Francisco, Denver, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, New Haven, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Memphis. Rev. Mr. Calkins, the editor of this volume, has also prepared for the present volume the Summary of the same subject. n A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM By JOHN S. BILLINGS, Chairman WITH THE COOPERATION OF THE SUB-COMMITTEB A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CON- CERNING THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AS- PECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM There are many kinds of alcoholic drinks in use in different parts of the world, but the characteristic ingredient of all of them is ethyl alcohol, produced by the fermentation of starch or sugar. They are commonly di- vided into three classes: (1) wines; (2) malt liquors ; (3) distilled liquors; to which may be added, (4) root beer and like beverages con- taining small quantities of alcohol, (5) kou- miss and other preparations made from milk by the fermentation of milk sugar, (6) alco- holic preparations, "tonics," "nerve stimu- lants," " aids to digestion," etc., sold under such names as bitters, celery compound, malt extract, and the like. The following table shows the proportion, by weight, of ethyl alcohol in the alcoholic drinks most used in the United States : — 18 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Per cent, of Alcohol. Average. Range. French clarets ........ 8.- 6-12 French white wine 10.3 9-12 German Rhine wines, Moselle, etc. . 8.7 7-12 Sherry 17.5 16-20 Madeira .......... 15.4 15-16 Champagne 10.- 8-11 American champagne 8.- 6-10 American red wine 9.— 6-12 Sweet catawba >. . . 12.— 10-15 American lager beer ....>. 3.8 1-7 Vienna lager beer 4.7 3-5 Munich lager beer 4.8 3-5 English ale and porter 5.- 3-7 Hard cider .... c ... . 5.- 4-8 Brandy 47.- 40-50 Whiskey, American best 43.- 41—48 Whiskey, American common • . . 35.— 25-43 Whiskey, Scotch, Irish 40. 36-43 Rum 60. 40-80 Gin 30. 20-40 Chartreuse 32. Absinthe 51. ^Drake's Plantation Bitters .... 27.6 *Boker's Stomach Bitters .... 35.6 "^Paine's Celery Compound .... 17.- *Ayer*s Sarsaparilla ...... 21.5 *Hood's Sarsaparilla 15.8 ^Greene's Nervura 14.2 * Very large sales of these are reported. PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 19 The physiological effects of moderate quantities of alcoholic drinks on the average adult depend upon whether they are taken before or after physical or mental work, and upon whether they are taken with food or not. Alcohol is a respiratory stimulant of only moderate power for human beings. Highly flavored wine and other alcoholic drinks which contain stimulating ethers have a more pronounced stimulating action than pure ethyl alcohol, and the stimulating action of alcohol is greater in the case of fatigued persons than in those who are not exhausted. The special effects of alcohol and alcoholic drinks upon secretion and digestion may be summarized as follows. When alcoholic fluids are taken into the stomach in not too large quantities, there is first a direct stimulation, leading to the rapid secretion of a powerful gastric juice. This is followed by a more or less rapid absorption of the alcohol, accompanied in turn by an indirect or secondary stimulation of gastric secretion. The presence of alcohol in the stomach does not materially Interfere with the diges- 20 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM tive action of gastric juice when the content of alcohol is less than five per cent, of abso- lute alcohol. When, however, the proportion of absolute alcohol in the stomach-contents becomes equal to ten or twenty per cent, of proof spirit, retardation of gastric digestion becomes noticeable, while the presence of fifteen per cent, of absolute alcohol may re- duce the digestive action one quarter or one third. Strong alcoholic beverages, such as whiskey, brandy, rum, and gin, ordinarily containing from forty to fifty per cent, of alcohol, have an action upon gastric diges- tion practically proportional to the amount of alcohol present. In the healthy individual these liquors can be considered to impede directly gastric digestion only when taken immoderately and in intoxicating doses. Wines in small quantities do not retard gastric digestion, but, on the other hand, appear to stimulate. Larger quantities of wine, however, retard gastric digestion some- times in a very marked degree. This retarda- tion is due in large measure to other sub- stances than the alcohol. This is likewise true of malt liquors; the substances other than alcohol, such as the extractives, exer- PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 21 cising a very decided inhibitory effect when taken in large quantities. Kegarding salivary digestion, alcohol and alcoholic beverages when taken into the mouth produce a direct stimulating effect upon the secretion of saliva, increasing at once and in a very marked degree the flow of the secretion. This acceleration, however, is of brief duration. Pure alcohol has no very marked influence on the digestion of starchy foods by the saliva. Wines, as a class, show a powerful inhibitory influence upon the di- gestion of starchy foods by the saliva, due entirely to the acid properties of the wines. Alcohol as used in small quantities, dieteti- cally, does not interfere with pancreatic diges- tion. Alcohol taken in moderate quantities pro- duces effects on nutrition similar to those produced by the starches, sugars, and fats in ordinary food in that it is oxidized in the body and yields energy for warmth, and pos- sibly for muscular work. Roughly speaking, four grams of alcohol will yield the same amount of energy as seven grams of sugar, starch, or protein, or as three grams of fat. The chief service of the fats, sugars, and 22 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM starches of ordinary food is as fuel to supply- heat and muscular energy. Alcohol in moder- ate quantities acts in the same way, so far as heat production is concerned, and may be substituted for an equivalent quantity of starch or sugar to produce the same amount of energy. All of the ordinary nutrients in serving as fuel protect one another and body material from consumption. Alcohol has the same effect. Alcohol may, therefore, be considered as a food for fuel purposes, but it does not contribute to the building or repair of tissue and is not a complete food, that is to say, it cannot alone support life permanently, al- though in certain forms of disease a person may take relatively large quantities of alco- hol when he could not well tolerate any other kind of food, and thus be able to survive a time of special stress. Alcoholic drinks are rarely used for food purposes, and they are a costly and undesir- able kind of food, except in rare and special cases. Even their moderate use just before or during physical or mental work usually diminishes the total amount of work done. While alcohol in moderate quantities may act PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 23 as a fuel food, in large quantities, and for some persons even in small quantities, it acts as a poison. It is difficult to give a satisfactory defini- tion of a poison, for there is no substance which is always and everywhere a poison. The term is relative ; conditions and circum- stances of various kinds must always enter into its conception. No one would maintain that a cup of delicately flavored tea is in any sense injurious or poisonous to the average healthy adult, and yet caffeine, the active principle of this cup of tea, is a poison as surely as is alcohol. The term poison belongs with equal propriety to a number of other food accessories, as coffee, pepper, ginger, and even common salt. The too sweeping and unrestricted use of this term in reference to alcoholic beverages immediately meets with the reply that if alcohol be a poison it must be a very slow poison, since many have used it up to old age with apparently no prejudicial effects on health. It is certain, however, that the excessive and continued use of alcoholic drinks tends to produce disease and to shorten life. The forms of disease produced by the excessive 24 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM and continued use of such drinks are usually those which affect the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the blood-vessels, and the nervous sys- tem. Chronic catarrhal inflammation of the stomach is a common affection of persons using alcohol to excess, but the lurid pictures of the drunkard's stomach given in certain popular or pseudo-scientific temperance tracts are drawn from the imagination and not from nature. Cirrhosis of the liver, though not the most common, is the most characteristic pathological-anatomical condition produced by alcohol, and probably over 90 per cent, of the cases of hepatic cirrhosis are due to this cause. It is the result especially of drink- ing strong spirits, being rare in beer drink- ers. Excessive indulgence in alcohohc liquors is an important cause of chronic Bright's dis- ease, especially of the small granular kidney. In those who drink large quantities of beer, hypertrophied and dilated hearts are com- paratively frequent. The special toxic action of alcohol is, in the first instance, upon the nervous centres, as is shown by the familiar symptoms of a drunken fit. It is as yet impossible to deter- mine the part to be assigned to inherited or PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 25 acquired constitutional habits of the body, chiefly in the nervous system, in the causa- tion or pathology of the various disorders of the nervous system caused by or due to alco- holic excess. It is important to knov^r that the immoderate drinking of alcoholic liquors may be the first symptom of some chronic disease which, when later recognized, is er- roneously ascribed to alcohol as the cause. It is known that many of the mental and nervous disorders of alcoholism, attributed to the toxic action of alcohol, are, nevertheless, dependent in a large measure on an underly- ing defective constitution, as an excessive indulgence in alcohol rarely produces certain of these disorders in persons of normal con- stitution. Inebriety in the parents or more remote ancestors ranks among the more im- portant causes of this inherited instability of the nervous centres. After making all allow- ances for this share of inherited or acquired defects in the causation of nervous manifesta- tions of alcoholism, there still remain many cases in which alcoholic poisoning is evi- dently the cause of serious disease of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves in persons of previously normal constitution, so far as can 26 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM be ascertained. The excessive use of absinthe and other cordials and liqueurs is particularly injurious to the nervous system, for in these the flavoring essences, as well as the alcohol, are poisonous to the nervous system. One of the symptoms of alcoholism most common in beer drinkers is obesity, or exces- sive production of fat, which may appear in situations where it is not normally present, the most dangerous position in this respect being between the muscle fibres of the heart. The continued use, in excess, of the stronger wines and of strong beer or porter is a recog- nized cause of gouty manifestations in those predisposed to this disease. A much larger number of the victims of alcohol die of some infectious disease than of the special alco- holic affections. Persons suffering from chronic alcoholism have their resistance to many infectious diseases markedly lowered, as shown both by the increased liability to contract such diseases and by the greater severity of the disease when it occurs. Phy- sicians generally recognize that pneumonia, cholera, erysipelas, and other infectious dis- eases in persons who habitually drink to excess are more serious and more likely to PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 27 produce death than in others. There has been a common belief that those who use al- cohoHc liquor freely acquire a certain degree of immunity from tuberculosis. Alcohol, if it does not actually predispose to tuberculosis, certainly furnishes no protection against it. The course of tuberculous disease in alcoholic patients is often more rapid than usual. The common idea that a large part of the injury to health due to the use of alcoholic drinks is caused by injurious substances such as fusel oil and furfurol, which have not been properly removed, or by substances added as direct adulterants, is erroneous, as is also the common notion that cheap liquors contain large quantities of such harmful ingredients. The injurious effects of the amount of fusel oil present in ordinary sa- loon liquors are trifling in comparison with the effects of ethyl alcohol contained in them, and the principal adulterants in the cheap whiskeys are water and caramel, a harmless coloring matter made from sugar. The general conclusion is that fine old whiskeys and brandies are nearly as likely to produce ill effects as the cheaper varieties of the present time, if taken in the same quan- 28 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM tity, and in general the injurious effect is in proportion to the ethyl alcohol contained, which seems to be the chief reason why wine and beer are less injurious than distilled liquors. The injurious impurities and by-products of alcoholic drinks may be excluded alto- gether as a cause of alcoholism, for no mat- ter how high the toxic influence of these may be, it is plain that their role in causing the lesions of alcoholism is one of secondary importance. When alcoholic drinks are used only occa- sionally, or in moderate quantities daily with meals, the effects in man differ greatly in different individuals, depending on constitu tional peculiarities, age, occupation, climate etc., and they also differ greatly in animals as shown by experiment. An extended and prolonged series of ex periments to determine the effects upon rab bits of long-continued use of alcohol, made for the Committee of Fifty by Dr. Frieden- wald, showed that the young and smaller animals were the most susceptible. Some individuals seemed capable of tolerating daily intoxicating doses of alcohol for an indefinite PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 29 period. One rabbit was given alcohol for over four years without permanent ill effects ; others were fed with alcohol for three and a half and for three years. On the other hand, some of the animals died of acute intoxi- cation after a few doses, and the majority succumbed after a shorter or longer period of time with gradual loss of weight and exhaus- tion. The ultimate effects upon man of the mod- erate use of alcoholic drinks cannot be ascer- tained with much accuracy for short periods of time. We have no trustworthy data as to the proportion of total abstainers, occasional drinkers, regular moderate drinkers, and pos- itively intemperate persons in the United States. From such information as we have, it seems probable that of the adult males in this country not more than 20 per cent, are total abstainers, and not more than 5 per cent, are positively intemperate in the sense that they drink to such excess as to cause evident injury to health. Of the remaining 75 per cent., the majority, probably at least 50 per cent, of the whole, are occasional drinkers, while the remaining 25 per cent, might, perhaps, be classed as regular mod- 30 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM erate drinkers. In the majority of these occa- sional drinkers and in many of the regular moderate drinkers, such as those whose drink- ing is limited to one or two glasses of wine at dinner or of beer at the end of the day, no especial effect upon the health seems to be observed either by themselves or by their physicians. An inquiry into the use of alcoholic drinks among brain workers in the United States, including the leading members of the legal, medical, and clerical professions, distinguished scientific men and educators, managers of great corporations, etc., indicates that the percentage of total abstainers, out of 892 replies, was 18 per cent. ; being 1.4 for phy- sicians ; 7.3 for lawyers ; 19.2 for business men ; 21.4 for professors and teachers ; and 54.0 for clergymen. Of occasional drinkers, the percentage was 64.9 ; being for physi- cians, 83.4 ; for lawyers, 71.6 ; for business men, 53.7 ; for professors and teachers, 67.4 ; for clergymen, 43.4. Of regular moderate drinkers, the percentage was 16.3 ; being for physicians, 15.1; for lawyers, 21.1; for business men, 26.5 ; for professors and teach- ers, 10.6; and for clergymen, 2.6. The PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 31 remarks of persons furnishing the reports from which these statements are derived are in many cases interesting. They represent all shades of opinion, but in general agree that the use of alcoholic drinks as a stimulus to mental effort gives bad results, although they may be agreeable as restoratives in fatigue. The regular moderate drinkers use mainly light wines ; the occasional drinkers chiefly whiskey and beer. Men use alcoholic drinks mainly because of their effect on mental action, and especially upon the emotional faculties. The taste and odor of the drink, its stimulating action on the digestive tract, the circulation, etc., are minor considerations affecting the preference for particular forms of drink. Sometimes the use of such drinks is due to a special desire to increase intensity of consciousness, — more often it is due to a desire for the seda- tive and quieting action which wine or beer, taken with dinner at the end of the day's work, exert upon mental tension or sensa- tions of bodily fatigue. Very often such drinks are used merely as an incident in social life ; there is no special 32 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM desire for them, but it is less troublesome to accept them than to refuse them. On the other hand, the craving for such drinks is sometimes due to abnormity or disease of the nervous system, and this is especially the case when such craving is paroxysmal, that is, occurring only at intervals of weeks or months. The question as to the amount of alcoholic drinks which can be used freely by the aver- age adult without producing bad results is a difficult one, because individuals differ greatly in their susceptibilities to injurious effects from such drinks. It seems probable that there is such an average permissible quantity of alcohol, the minimum estimate of which is a glass of wine or a pint of beer in the twenty-four hours. The English standard, as formulated by Anstie, is the equivalent of one and one half (Ij) ounces of absolute alcohol per day, or about three ounces of whiskey, or half a bottle of claret or Rhine wine, or four glasses of beer, it being under- stood that this is to be taken only at lunch and dinner, and that the whiskey is to be well diluted. At least one third of an ounce of alcohol, PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 33 diluted to ten per cent., must be taken before any departure from the normal course can be detected in the average adult, and while the effects vary with the dose, it has yet to be shown that harm is done when the dose is less than that required to produce an effect in psychological and physiological tests of divergence from the normal. If all substances known to be injurious in large doses are to be entirely given up on the assumption that small doses are also injurious, then all condiments and spices must be removed from our tables. Even sugar in concentrated solution is a powerful cell poison. Certain poisons are normally present in our tissues in such quantities that they subserve no harmful but rather a bene- ficial purpose. Such are the active principles of the thyroid gland and of the suprarenal capsules, both of which are far more power- ful poisons than alcohol ; that is, their lethal dose is several hundred times smaller. There are good grounds for believing that alcohol itself is always being produced in small quantities in the course of bacterial fermenta- tion in the intestinal canal, that it is, in fact, normally present in the healthy organism. 34 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM In the table given above, showing the pro- portion of alcohol present in certain drinks, there are included a few of the so-called patent medicines which have a large sale in the New England States. A much more extended table of these drinks is given in an appendix to the report of the sub-committee on the physio- logical aspects of the liquor problem, vol. ii, pages 346-347. It will be seen that some of these drinks, under the names of bitters, cel- ery compound, sarsaparilla, etc., contain a greater percentage of alcohol than ordinary wines and beers and are consumed in quan- tities so large that they must be classified as beverages rather than as medicines, under which name they are commonly sold. As an example, it may be stated that 300,000 bottles of Ayer's Sarsaparilla are sold annually in Massachusetts, and as this contains 21.5 per cent, of alcohol, by weight, it is clear that many people are partaking pretty freely of an alcoholic drink without, perhaps, being aware of it. The sale of these beverages is greater in those States having prohibitory liquor laws than in those not having them, and their pop- ularity is due almost entirely to the stimulat- PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 35 ing effects of the alcoliol which they contain. They are not used for social purposes. In view of what is known as to the effects of the moderate or occasional use of alcoholic drinks upon man, much of the methods and substance of the so-called scientific temper- ance instruction in the public schools is un- scientific and undesirable. It is not in accord with the opinions of a large majority of the leading physiologists of Europe as shown by the statement printed on page 18, volume i, of the report on the Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem. This appears to us to be a matter of grave importance. It is not desirable to attempt to give sys- tematic instruction to all children in the pri- mary schools on the subject of the action of alcohol or of alcoholic drinks. To older chil- dren, and especially those in the high schools, it does seem proper that instruction should be given as to the principal facts known about the use and effects of alcoholic drinks, the sociological and especially the ethical rela- tions of the subject, the means which have been tried to prevent the evils resulting from alcoholism, — and the results, — the object being to enable them to form an intelligent 36 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM opinion upon the whole subject, especially to distinguish between mere assertions and sci- entific evidence. This teaching should not be made a special, isolated matter, but should be a part of some elementary instruction in physiology and hy- giene, and all that is really useful and desir- able can be given in a brief time, equivalent to a few lessons, following the lessons on food, and in this connection the fact should be emphasized that there is such a thing as in- temperance in food as well as in drink, the former not infrequently leading to the latter. In these lessons might be taught what the ordinary alcoholic drinks are, and of what and how they are made, the difference be- tween simple fermented drinks, like beer and wine, and distilled liquor, such as whiskey, the nature of the so-called " temperance drinks," and the general effects of alcohol as a stimulant and as a narcotic. It might be taught that while in moderate quantities beer and wine may be, in a certain sense, a food, they are a very imperfect and expensive kind of food, and are seldom used for food pur- poses ; that they are not needed by young and healthy persons, and are dangerous to them PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 37 in so far as they tend to create a habit ; that in certain cases of disease and weakness they are useful in quantities to be prescribed by physicians ; that when taken habitually it should be only at meals, and, as a rule, only with the last meal of the day, or soon after it, and that alcoholic drinks of all kinds are worse than useless to prevent fatigue or the effects of cold, although they may at times be useful as restoratives after the work is done. It should also be taught that alcoholic drinks are almost always a useless expense, that their use in excess is the cause of much disease, suffering, and poverty, and of many crimes ; but that such use is sometimes the result, rather than the cause, of disease. It should not be taught that the drinking of one or two glasses of beer or wine by a grown-up person is very dangerous, for it is not true, and many of the children know by their own home experience that it is not true. In looking at the liquor problem from an educational point of view, one is impressed with the fact that many of those who are seeking to reform the drinking habits of the community by educational methods have 38 . THE LIQUOR PROBLEM failed to grasp the true educational nature o£ the temperance movement, a movement which, to be of permanent value, must be based upon a strengthening and upbuilding of the character of the individual, and not upon the amount and nature of the information imparted with regard to the physiological action of alcohol. With the terrible effects of the abuse of alcoholic drinks constantly before one's eyes, it is of comparatively little importance what one believes about the physiological action of alcohol on digestion or on heat production. On the other hand, the presence in every community of a large number of healthy and vigorous individuals for whom a small amount of alcohol forms a portion of their daily diet makes it impos- sible to take seriously the statements, too frequently made, as to the danger of indul- ging in a single glass of wine or beer. No one can doubt that the abuse of alcohol constitutes a threat to our civilization, and that the history of mankind would have been very differently recorded had it been possible to eliminate all the crime, misery, and disease directly or indirectly traceable to alcoholic excess. It is no wonder, then, if thoughtful PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 39 people, the world over, are engaged in vigorously combating this terrible social evil. Among the various agencies employed in conducting this campaign, the education of school children is, in this country, the one to which those engaged in the total abstinence propaganda have attached especial importance. In nearly all the States and Territories of the Union instruction in the physiological action of alcohol has been made compulsory, and, where text-books are used, they are usually made to accord with extreme total abstinence views. They are, moreover, often openly " indorsed and approved " by a well-known powerful total abstinence society. So powerful has been the pressure which this organization has been able to exert upon school committees that pub- lishers often find it difficult to sell text-books which are not thus indorsed. With regard to these educational methods, it is important to observe that they receive little or no support from the members of the medical profession, who by their training are especially qualified to judge of the accuracy and value of the statements as to the physio- logical action of alcohol which form the im- portant features of the text-books in question. 40 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Of the practical results of such instruction the teachers themselves are, of course, the best judges, and, as far as they have been consulted, the weight of their testimony is emphatically opposed to the so-called " Sci- entific Temperance Instruction " as now given in our schools. Now there is no reason to doubt that physi- cians and teachers are as anxious to check the evils of intemperance as are the most strenuous advocates of total abstinence, and it is, therefore, highly important to discover, if possible, some common ground upon which they and all other educated and intelligent people may take their stand in working out an educational scheme relating to the physio- logical action of alcohol. The above attempt to outline such a scheme is commended to the thoughtful consideration of those leaders of the temperance movement who desire to cooperate with the representatives of profes- sional opinion in physiology and pedagogy. With cordial cooperation on the part of all who honestly desire to combat the evils of intemperance and are willing to recognize the fact that many articles on our dietaries (in- cluding alcohol) may under certain circum- PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 41 stances have a nutritive value and under other circumstances a poisonous effect, and that these results may be combined in vary- ing proportions, there should be no difficulty in coming to an understanding as to the main features of an educational scheme which might well take as its motto the words of the Chinese proverb, " Intoxication is not the wine's fault, but the man's." ^ While the regular moderate use of alco- holic drinks taken only with food at the end of the day may produce little or no effect on the health of the average adult, such mod- erate use by young persons often leads to excess, and the cases in which such use is beneficial are exceptional. In general, the habitual use of alcoholic drinks is undesirable, and the increasing knowledge of this fact has led to a marked diminution of such use in this country among educated people. In all occupations where keen senses, sharp attention, or great concen- tration of the mind are called for, alcohol in any form or amount is injurious when taken during the performance of duty in hand. He ^ A Collection of Chinese Proverbs (No. 1005). Wm. Scarborough, Shanghai, 1875. Triibner & Co., London. 42 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM who has mental labor of a certain kind to perform, and he upon whom great responsi- bilities devolve, is forced, if he would be at his best, to use alcohol as a restorative only at the proper season. Alcohol gives no per- sistent increase of muscular power. It is well understood by all who control large bodies of men engaged in physical labor that alcohol and effective work are incompatible. The formation of the drink-habit commen- cing with occasional and moderate habitual use almost always occurs before the age of thirty-five, and there is very little danger of its occurrence after the age of fifty. m A SUMMAEY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING THE LEGISLATIVE AS- PECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Bt CHARLES W. ELIOT CHAnUIAH OF THE SUB-COMMIITBB A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CON- CERNING THE LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM. In April, 1894, the Sub-committee on the Le- gislative Aspects of the Drink Problem, con- sisting of Charles W. Eliot, Seth Low, and James C. Carter, engaged Dr. Frederic H. "Wines of Springfield, IlHnois, and Mr. John Koren of Boston, Massachusetts, to investi- gate the working of the liquor legislation in several states of the Union in which that legis- lation, or its history, has been characteristic or especially instructive. Mr. Koren worked for the sub-committee nearly seventeen months (May, 1894:-October, 1895), studying on the spot the prohibition legislation of Maine, the local-option law in Massachusetts, the license law in Pennsylva- nia, and the dispensary law in South Carolina. Dr. Wines devoted nine months of his time between August 1, 1894, and September 1, 1895, to studies of the working of the Missouri liquor law in St. Louis, of the his- 46 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM tory and operation of the Iowa legislation, of the Ohio mulct law, and of the liquor legis- lation in Indiana. The reports made by Dr. Wines and Mr. Koren were published by the Committee of Fifty in a volume issued in 1897. In an in- troduction to that volume the sub-committee described the investigations and summarized their results as follows : — These investigations cover eight different kinds of liquor legislation. They are not complete statistical inquiries, for the reason that it is impossible, with any resources at the command of the Committee of Fifty, to obtain satisfactory statistics on this subject for any State of the Union. It would re- quire the authority of the general govern- ment and an immense expenditure to make an exhaustive statistical inquiry on the sub- ject of the consumption of alcoholic drinks ; and it is very doubtful if even the national government could obtain all the important facts on this most difficult topic. The consid- erable consumption of alcohol for medicinal and industrial purposes masks the consump- tion for drinking purposes. The amount of alcohol produced in the country gives, of LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 47 course, no clew to the amount consumed as drink in any single State. The internal reve- nue laws of the United States and the freedom of interstate commerce complicate the whole situation. Neither have the researches of Dr. Wines and Mr. Koren resulted in complete statistical statements of the number of arrests for drunkenness, or for drunkenness and dis- orderly conduct, or of the number of crimes attributable to alcohol. Indeed, one of the results of their investigations is that no secure conclusions can be based on any such statis- tics now in existence, so much are the acces- sible statistics affected by temporary, local, and shifting conditions. Nevertheless, these reports give a trustworthy account of the legislation in each State dealt with, and of the efforts made in the several States to en- force the laws enacted ; and they give some indications of the success or non-success in promoting temperance of the various kinds of legislation described. They inevitably deal, also, with the social and political effects of the various sorts of liquor legislation. Within these limits, they are believed by the sub-committee to be accurate and impar* tial. 48 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM The reports relate to communities which differ widely in character. Some relate to compact and some to scattered populations ; some to people most of whom are native-born, and some to communities in which there is a large admixture of foreign-born persons. The principal occupations in the States examined differ widely. Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis contain chiefly a manufacturing and trading population, while the population of South Carolina and Iowa is in the main agri- cultural. The difficulties in the way of researches of this kind are enormous. In matters which affect private character, truthful reports are proverbially hard to obtain. The accessible statistics are incomplete or inaccurate, or both. The effects of intemperance in pro- moting vice and crime are often mixed with the effects of many other causes, such as un- healthy occupations, bad lodgings, poor food, and inherited disabilities ; and it is very dif- ficult to disentangle intemperance as a cause from other causes of vice, crime, and pauper- ism. At every point connected with these investigations the studious observer encoun- ters an intense partisanship which blinds the LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 49 eyes of witnesses and obscures the judgment of writers and speakers on the subject. The reports deal with some communities in which the local sentiment has been in favor of the enforcement of restrictive laws, and with others in which the sentiment has been adverse to such enforcement. On the whole, they embrace a sufficient variety of legislative enactments, and a sufficient variety of expe- rience with these enactments, in communities of various quality, to make the conclusions to be drawn from them widely interesting and instructive. Taken together, they cer- tainly present a vivid picture of the difficul- ties of such inquiries, and give effective warning against the easy acceptance of partial or partisan statements on the sub- ject. From the eight reports thus obtained, the sub-committee derive the following statement of results and inferences, which omit all reference to similar legislation and experience in other States, and make no pretension to any exhaustive or universal character. It is evident that methods which succeed in one place do not necessarily succeed in another. Moreover, none of the eight reports deals 50 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM with the question under European or cosmo- politan conditions. The results of the investigation and the inferences from it which the sub-committee laid before the Committee of Fifty include a consideration of prohibition, its successes, its failures, its concomitant evils, and its dis- puted effects; local option; the systems of licenses ; licensing authorities ; restrictions on the sale of liquors ; druggists' hcenses ; and the effect of liquor legislation on politics. Prohibition, Prohibitory legislation has succeeded in abolishing and preventing the manufacture on a large scale of distilled and malt liquors within the areas covered by it. In districts where public sentiment has been strongly in its favor it has made it hard to obtain intox- icants, thereby removing temptation from the young and from persons disposed to alco- holic excesses. In pursuing its main object, — which is to make the manufacture and sale of intoxicants, first, impossible, or, secondly, disreputable if possible, — it has incidentally promoted the invention and adoption of many useful restrictions on the liquor traffic. LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 51 But prohibitory legislation has failed to exclude intoxicants completely even from districts where public sentiment has been favorable. In districts where public senti- ment has been adverse or strongly divided, the traffic in alcohohc beverages has been sometimes repressed or harassed, but never exterminated or rendered unprofitable. In Maine and Iowa there have always been counties and municipalities in complete and successful rebellion against the law. The incidental difficulties created by the United States revenue laws, the industrial and medi- cinal demand for alcohol, and the freedom of interstate commerce have never been over- come. Prohibition has, of course, failed to subdue the drinking passion, which will for- ever prompt resistance to all restrictive legis- lation. There have been concomitant evils of pro- hibitory legislation. The efforts to enforce it during forty years past have had some unlooked-for effects on public respect for courts, judicial procedure, oaths, and law in general, and for officers of the law, legis- lators, and public servants. The public have seen law defied, a whole generation of habit- 52 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM ual law-breakers schooled in evasion and shamelessness, courts ineffective through fluc- tuations of policy, delays, perjuries, negli- gencies, and other miscarriages of justice, officers of the law double-faced and merce- nary, legislators timid and insincere, candi- dates for office hypocritical and truckling, and office-holders unfaithful to pledges and to reasonable public expectation. Through an agitation which has always had a moral end, these immoralities have been developed and made conspicuous. The Hquor traffic, being very profitable, has been able, when attacked by prohibitory legislation, to pay fines, bribes, hush-money, and assessments for political purposes to large amounts. This money has tended to corrupt the lower courts, the police administration, political organiza- tions, and even the electorate itself. Where- ever the voting force of the Hquor traffic and its allies is considerable, candidates for office and office-holders are tempted to serve a dangerous trade interest, which is often in antagonism to the pubhc interest. Frequent yielding to this temptation causes general degeneration in public Hfe, breeds contempt for the public service, and of course makes LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 53 the service less desirable for upright men. Again, the sight of justices, constables, and informers enforcing a prohibitory law far enough to get from it the fines and fees which profit them, but not far enough to extinguish the traffic and so cut off the source of their profits, is demoralizing to society at large. All legislation intended to put restric- tions on the liquor traffic, except perhaps the simple tax, is more or less liable to these ob- jections ; but the prohibitory legislation is the worst of all in these respects, because it stimulates to the utmost the resistance of the liquor-dealers and their supporters. Of course there are disputed effects of efforts at prohibition. "Whether it has or has not reduced the consumption of intoxicants and diminished drunkenness is a matter of opinion, and opinions differ widely. No dem- onstration on either of these points has been reached, or is now attainable, after more than forty years of observation and experience. Local Option, Experience with prohibitory legislation has brought into clear relief the fact that sump- tuary legislation which is not supported by 54 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM local public sentiment is apt to prove locally impotent, or worse. On this fact are based the numerous kinds of liquor legislation which may be grouped under the name of local option. In the legislation of the eight States studied, five forms of local option occur : In Massachusetts, a vote is taken every year at the regular election in every city and town on the question, Shall Hcenses be granted ? and the determination by the majority of voters lasts one year. In Missouri, a vote may be taken at any time (but not within sixty days of any state or municipal election) on demand of one tenth of the qualified electors, town or city voters having no county vote and vice versa, and the vote being taken not often er than once in four years ; but in counties or municipalities which have voted for license, no saloon can be licensed unless the majority of the property-holders in the block or square in which the saloon is to be situated sign a petition that the license be issued. In South Carolina, every application for the position of county dispenser must be accompanied by a petition in favor of the appHcant signed by a majority of the freeholders of the incorpo- LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 65 rated place in which the dispensary is to be situated ; and more than one dispensary may be established for each county, but not against a majority vote (operative for two years) in the township in which the dispen- sary is to be placed. In Ohio, local prohibi- tion is permitted, the vote being taken at a special election on the demand of one fourth of the qualified electors in any township. In Indiana (law of 1895), a majority of the legal voters in any township or ward of a city may remonstrate against licensing a specified appHcant, and the remonstrance voids any license which may be issued to him within ten years. The main advantage of local option is that the same public opinion which determines the question of license or no-license is at the back of all the local officials who administer the system decided on. The Missouri provi- sions seem to be the completest and justest of all. One year being too short a period for a fair trial of either license or no-license, Massachusetts towns and cities have to guard themselves against a fickleness from which the law might protect them. Under local option, many persons who are not prohibi- 56 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM tionists habitually vote for no-license in the place where they live, or where their business is carried on. Persons who object to public bars, although they use alcoholic drinks them- selves, may also support a local no-license system. By forethought, such persons can get their own supplies from neighboring places where Hcense prevails. If their sup- plies should be cut off, they might vote dif- ferently. There has been no spread of the no-hcense pohcy in Massachusetts cities and towns since 1881, except by the votes of towns and cities in the immediate vicinity of license towns and cities. Licenses, The facts about licenses and the methods of granting them are among the most impor- tant parts of the results of this study. There is general agreement that hcenses should not be granted for more than one year. The Massachusetts hmitation of the number of Hcenses by the population (one license to 1000 inhabitants, except in Boston 1 to 500) has worked well, by reducing the number of sa- loons, and making the keepers more law-abid- ing; but the evidence does not justify the LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 57 statement that it would work well everywhere. The Missouri restriction — no license within 500 feet of a public park — and the Massa- chusetts restriction — no license within 400 feet of a schoolhouse — are both commend- able. Another Massachusetts provision, to the effect that the holder of a license to sell liquors to be drunk on the premises must also hold a license as an innholder or victualer, is well conceived ; but the means of executing it have not been thoroughly worked out. Penn- sylvania, outside of Philadelphia, licenses only taverns and restaurants to sell intoxicants for consumption on the premises. County courts have been, and still are, common licensing authorities in the States reported on. Officials elected for short terms, like the mayor and aldermen of cities, make bad licensing authorities ; for the reason that the liquor question thereby becomes a fre- quently recurring issue in municipal politics. A Massachusetts law of recent date provides for the appointment by the mayor of any city of three license commissioners, each to serve six years, one commissioner retiring every second year. This arrangement pro- vides a tolerably stable and independent 58 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM board, without violating the principle of local self-government. Every licensing authority should have power to revoke a license promptly, and should always have discretion to withhold a Hcense, no matter how complete may be the compliance of the appHcant with all preHm- inary conditions. The objections to using courts as licensing authorities are grave. In cities, licenses are large money-prizes, and whoever awards many of them year after year is more liable to the suspicion of yielding to improper influences than judges ordinarily are in the discharge of strictly judicial duties. Wherever the judge- ships are elective offices, it is difficult for can- didates to avoid the suspicion that they have given pledges to the liquor interest. Since judicial purity and reputation for purity are much more important than discreet and fair licensing, it would be wiser not to use courts as licensing authorities. There are also grave inherent objections to the whole license system, when resting on the discretion of commissioners, which the experi- ence of these eight States cannot be said to remove. No other element connected with a LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 69 license does so much to throw the Hquor traffic into politics. It compels the traffic to be in politics for self -protection. It makes of every licensing board a powerful political en- gine. A tax law avoids this result, and is so far an improvement. The Ohio law is a case in point. Bonds are generally required of licensees. Experience has proved that wholesale dealers get control of the retailers by signing numer- ous bonds for them. This practice can be, and has been, prevented by legislation of various sorts, — as, for example, by enacting (Iowa, 1894) that no person shall sign more than one bond, or (Pennsylvania) that bonds- men shall not be engaged in the manufacture of spirituous or malt liquors. The appearance of office-holders and politicians on numerous bonds, as in Philadelphia, might be prevented by a law declaring that holders of elective offices shall not be accepted as bondsmen for licensees. Before a license for a saloon can be issued, Massachusetts requires the consent of the owner of the building in which the saloon is to be, and the consent of the owners of pro- perty within twenty-five feet of the premises 60 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM to be occupied by the saloon. Iowa requires the consent of all property-holders within fifty feet of saloon premises. The Missouri pro- vision is a thorough one, and can be evaded only at considerable cost and risk. Known methods of evasion are building and selling tenements so as to increase the number of voters in the block, and dividing ordinary lots into many small lots held by different persons. It has been a common practice to require every applicant for a license to file a certifi- cate, signed by twelve or more respectable citizens, testifying to the applicant's citizen- ship and good character. This certificate is of some value to a careful licensing author- ity, but it may conceal the carelessness of an unconscientious authority. In connection with a tax law it might work well. In 1872- 73, at a time when the Supreme Court of Iowa had declared local option unconstitu- tional, Iowa demanded that this certificate should be signed by the majority of the voters in the township, city, or ward for which the license was asked, — thus securing a kind of local option. As a rule, the upper limit of license fees in LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 61 cities and large towns has by no means been reached. The examples of Missouri and St. Louis (combined fee), North Adams in Massachusetts, and Boston prove that the trafi&c can be made to yield much more rev- enue than has been supposed. In 1883 the principal fees vrere doubled in Boston with- out diminishing the number of applications. They were raised again in 1888. In St. Louis the traffic pays a state tax, a county tax, an ad valorem tax on all liquors received, and a municipal tax which sometimes reaches $300 a month for a single saloon. When a license attaches to a place, and not to a person, the owner of the shop fixes the rent, not by the value of the building for any business, but by the special value of the license. That is a profit which the municipality might absorb in the license fee. Restrictions on the Sale, The most important question with regard to any form of liquor legislation is this : Is it adapted to secure the enforcement of the restrictions on the sale of intoxicants which experience has shown to be desirable, assum- ing that only those restrictions can be en- 62 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM forced which commend themselves to an enlightened and effective public sentiment ? The restrictions which the experience of many years and many places has proved to be desir- able are chiefly these : — There should be no selling to minors, in- toxicated persons, or habitual drunkards. There should be no selling on Sundays, election days, or legal holidays in general, such as Christmas Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July. Where, however, such a restriction is openly disregarded, as in St. Louis, it is injurious to have it in the law. Saloons should not be allowed to become places of entertainment, and to this end they should not be allowed to provide musical in- struments, billiard or pool tables, bowling alleys, cards, or dice. Saloons should not be licensed in theatres or concert halls ; and no boxing, wrestling, cock-fighting, or other exhibition should be allowed in saloons. Every saloon should be wide open to pub- lic inspection from the highway, no screens or partitions being permitted. There should be a limit to the hours of selling, and the shorter the hours the better. LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 63 In the different States saloons close at vari- ous hours. Thus, in Maine cities in which saloons are openly maintained, the hour for closing is ten p. m., and in Massachusetts it is eleven p. m. ; hut the county dispensaries of South Carolina close at six p. m. It has been found necessary to prevent by police regulation the display of obscene pictures in saloons, and the employment of women as bar-tenders, waitresses, singers, or actresses. Most of the above restrictions can be ex- ecuted in any place where there is a reason- ably good police force, provided that pubhc opinion accepts such restrictions as desirable. If public sentiment does not support them, they will be disregarded or evaded, as they are in St. Louis, although the Missouri law is a good one in respect to restrictions on licensees. The prohibition of Sunday selling is an old restriction in the United States (Indiana, 1816), and the more Sunday is converted into a public holiday the more im- portant this restriction becomes, if public sentiment will sustain it. All restrictions on the licensed saloons have a tendency to develop illicit selling; but 64 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM much experience has proved that illicit sell- ing cannot get a large development by the side of licensed selling, if the police adminis- tration be at all effective. It is only in regions where prohibition prevails that illicit selling assumes large proportions. In license cities, where the regulations forbid sales after ten or eleven o'clock on Saturday evening and sales on Sundays, the illicit traf&c is most developed after hours on Saturday and on Sunday. Druggists' Licenses, The selling of intoxicants by druggists has been a serious difficulty in the way of enfor- cing prohibitory laws. In Iowa, when the law of 1886 closed large numbers of saloons, the druggists were almost compelled to sell liquors, — at least to their own acquaintances and regular customers. In Maine, the sale by druggists has always been a favorite mode of evading the law. States which have insisted on a proper education of pharmacists, and maintained a state registry for pharmacists, have had an advantage, when the closing of saloons has brought a pressure on drug-stores to supply intoxicants ; for the supervision of LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 65 the State secures a higher class of men in the pharmacy business. The checks on the selling of liquor by druggists are chiefly these : first, none but a registered pharmacist shall be intrusted with a license ; secondly, no druggist shall sell in small quantities without a written prescrip- tion by a physician, and this physician must not be the druggist himself or one interested in the drug-store. The sale of liquor by druggists cannot be perfectly controlled, how- ever, by either or both of these regulations. Liquor Cases in the Courts. Under all sorts of liquor laws great diffi- culty has been found in getting the courts to deal effectively and promptly with liquor eases. Alike under the license law in Massa- chusetts and imder the prohibition law in Maine, this difficulty has presented itself. In Maine, after more than forty years' experi- ence, and after frequent amendment of the law of 1851 with the object of preventing delay in deaHng with liquor cases, it is still easy to obtain a year's delay between the commission of a liquor offense and sentence therefor. In Massachusetts, so many cases 66 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM were placed on file and nol pros'd that, in 1885, a law was passed against the improper canceling of cases. This law checked the evil. In 1884, 78 per cent, of all the liquor cases were placed on file or nol pros'd ; in 1885, 34 per cent., and in 1893 only 3.41 per cent. Wherever district attorneys and judges are elected by the people, this trou- ble is likely to be all the more serious. One consequence of the delays and miscarriages in liquor cases is that the legal proceedings in enforcing a liquor law become very costly in proportion to the number of sentences im- posed. Experience in various States has shown that the penalty of imprisonment prevents obtaining convictions in liquor cases. This penalty has been tried over and over again by ardent legislators, but in practice has never succeeded, — at least for first offenses. Fines have seemed to ordinary judges and juries sufficient penalties for liquor offenses. Laws with severe penalties have often been passed, and courts have often been deprived of all choice between fine and imprisonment ; but in practice such enactments have proved less effective than milder ones. LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 67 A wise discrimination is made in some States between the fines for selling liquors in counties or municipalities which have voted for no-license, and the fines for selling with- out a license in counties or municipalities which have voted for license. The first of- fense requires the heavier fine. In Missouri, for an offense of the first sort the fine is from $300 to $1000; for an offense of the second sort, from $40 to $200. In States where a license system prevails throughout, the fine for selling without a license needs to be high. Thus, in Pennsylvania, the fine for this offense is from $500 to $5000. It is, of course, important that the fine for selling without a license should be decidedly higher than the annual cost of a license. It has been thought necessary to stimulate the enforcement of liquor laws by offering large rewards to informers. Thus, in Ohio, half the fine imposed goes to the informer, whenever a house of ill-fame is convicted of selling liquor. In South Carolina, twenty cents on every gallon of confiscated liquor is paid to the informer, and any sheriff or trial justice who seizes contraband liquors is paid half their value. Laws like these excite in- 68 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM tense animosities, and necessitate other laws for the protection of informers. They have been effective, however, in some instances. Transportation of Liquor, The subject of the transportation of liquor into or within a State has been a very diffi- cult one for legislators in every State which has tried the policy of prohibition, or of local no-license, or of State monopoly. Maine has struggled for more than forty years with the problem of preventing the transportation of liquor intended for sale, but with very limited success. That state, however, presents pecul- iar difficulties ; for it has a much-indented coast and several navigable rivers, so that many of its principal towns and cities are accessible by water as well as by rail. The most minute and painstaking legislation has failed to attain the object of the prohibition- ists. In South Carolina the legislature has been more successful in defending the state monopoly. The lines of transportation are comparatively few. Severe penalties have been enacted against the transportation of contraband liquor; arbitrary and vexatious powers have been given to sheriffs, consta- LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 69 bles, and policemen ; and the activity of the local police has been stimulated by a pro- vision that negligent municipalities may be deprived of their share of the profits of the state dispensary. Legislation of this sort intensifies political dissensions, incites to so- cial strife, and abridges the public sense of self-respecting liberty. In States where local option prevails, transportation by express be- tween license communities and no-license communities is practically unimpeded. Arrests for Drunkenness, Dr. Wines and Mr. Koren both dwell at various points on the great difficulty of draw- ing useful inferences from tables of arrests for drunkenness during a series of years. The statistics are often imperfect or mislead- ing because of the efficiency or non-efficiency of police ; or the tables have been constructed on different principles in different years; or the police administration in the same city has changed its methods during the period of tabulation ; or the drunk law has been altered ; or the poHcy of liquor-sellers in re- gard to protecting intoxicated persons from arrest has been different at different periods. 70 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM In spite of these difficulties, the statistics of arrests for drunkenness may sometimes afford satisfactory evidence concerning the working of the prevailing liquor legislation, although the precise cause of the increase or decrease of arrests may remain in doubt. Thus, in South Carolina, diminution of the number of arrests was an undoubted effect of the Dis- pensary Law ; but it is not sure whether the diminution of public drunkenness was due to the early hour of closing (six p. m.), or to the fact that no drinking on the premises was allowed in the state dispensaries, or to the great reduction in the total number of liquor-shops in the State. In Massachusetts, an important change in the drunk law made in 1891 caused an increase of arrests, but a decrease of the number held for trial. In Philadelphia, the percentage of arrests for in- toxication and vagrancy to all arrests declined after the enactment of the so-called " High- License Law ; " but the probable explanation was that the keepers both of Hcensed saloons and of illicit shops protected drunken people. Another possible explanation was the inade- quacy of the police force of Philadelphia. In St. Louis, where the saloons are numer- LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 71 ous and unrestrained, public order is excel- lent, and arrests for drunkenness are rela- tively few ; but this good condition is perhaps due as much to the quality of the population as to the wisdom of the liquor legislation. The fact suggests the doubt whether the amount of drunkenness is anywhere propor- tionate to the number of saloons. Removing the Motive of Private Profit. Iowa endeavored to carry out the philan- thropic idea of removing from the liquor traffic the motive of private profit, so long ago as 1854, by legislation which appointed salaried county agents for the sale of liquor, the specific reason given for this legislation being that no private person might be pe- cuniarily interested in the sale of liquor. No State has thus far succeeded in carrying out this idea. The Dispensary Law of South Carolina proposed to create a complete state monopoly, with no private licensed traffic and no illicit traffic, and with all the profits of the business going to the public treasury. This law, if successfully carried into execu- tion, would, it should seem, remove from the traffic the motive of private gain. The law 72 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM has not been entirely successful in this re- spect, because the salaries of dispensers are made to depend on the amount of business done in their respective dispensaries ; and it therefore becomes the private interest of the dispenser to enlarge his business as much as possible. There is at present no American legislation effective to this desirable end. Theoretical Difficulties of Liquor Legislation. The South Carolina Dispensary Law well illustrates the theoretical difficulties which beset liquor legislation. It proposes to main- tain a highly profitable state monopoly of the sale of intoxicants. The revenue purpose is extremely offensive to prohibitionists ; yet this motive appears plainly in the practical administration of the law, as well as in its theoretical purpose. Thus, for example, the state dispensers sell the cheapest kinds of distilled liquor, because it is more profitable to sell that liquor than any other, the tastes and capacities of their customers being con- sidered. Again, the law does not prohibit the manufacture of distilled, malt, or vinous liquors; but, on the contrary, in some re- spects encourages those manufactures within LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 73 the State. The fundamental conception in the law is distinctly antagonistic to the theory that liquor-selling is sinful or unholy; for the State itself assumes the whole of that business and takes its profits. Although supported by prohibitionists at the time of its enactment, it flies in the face of all logical prohibitory theory. It has been enforced with a remarkable degree of success, but at great cost of political and social antagonisms. The theory of the Ohio legislation is inter- esting in itself, and also because it suggested the present Iowa legislation. In Ohio, licens- ing is prohibited by the Constitution ; but when a person is found selling liquor, he is required to pay a tax of $250, and to give a bond to observe certain restrictions on selling. The tax is far too low, particularly for city saloons ; and the restrictions are not suffi- ciently numerous, and in many places are not enforced. Under the law as practically ad- ministered, saloons are much too numerous. On the other hand, this law prevents in some measure the evil effects of liquor legislation on politics. There are no licensing author- ities, no political offices for conducting or supervising the liquor business, and only a 74 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM moderate amount of liquor litigation. These are weighty recommendations of the law. Although the Iowa legislation was origi- nally suggested by the Ohio law, it has a very different theoretical basis. In Iowa, prohibi- tion is the rule ; but by paying a fee or tax, and submitting to numerous well-devised re- strictions, a liquor-seller may procure exemp- tion from the operation of the prohibitory law. Neither the Ohio theory nor the Iowa theory is satisfactory from the point of view of the prohibitionists, any more than the theory of the South Carolina Dispensary Law. In the present state of legislation, different laws must be judged by their practical effects, and not by the ethical theory on which they rest. Promotion of Temperance hy Law, It cannot be positively af&rmed that any one kind of liquor legislation has been more successful than another in promoting real temperance. Legislation as a cause of im- provement can rarely be separated from other possible causes. The influences of race or na- tionality are apparently more important than legislation. That law is best which is best LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 75 administered. Even when external improve- ments have undoubtedly been effected by new legislation, it often remains doubtful, or at least not demonstrable, whether or not the visible improvements have been accompanied by a diminution in the amount of drinking. Thus, a reduction in the number of saloons in proportion to the population undoubtedly promotes order, quiet, and outward decency ; but it is not certain that the surviving sa- loons sell less liquor in total than the previ- ous more numerous saloons. Again, it is often said that restrictions on drinking at public bars tend to increase drinking at home or in private, and there is probably truth in this allegation ; but comparative sta- tistics of public and private consumption are not attainable, so that it is impossible to hold a well-grounded opinion on this point. The wise course for the community at large is to strive after all external, visible improvements, even if it be impossible to prove that inter- nal, fundamental improvement accompanies them. Liquor Laws in Politics. Almost every sort of liquor legislation cre- ates some specific evil in politics. The evils 76 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM which result from prohibitory legislation have been already mentioned. Under a license system, there is great liability that the pro- cess of issuing licenses will breed some sort of political corruption. Whenever high-paid offices are created by liquor legislation, those offices become the objects of political conten- tion. When a multitude of offices are created in the execution of liquor laws, they fur- nish the means of putting together a strong political machine. Just this happened under the dispensary system in South Carolina, where a machine of great capacity for politi- cal purposes was created in a short time, with the governor of the State as its engineer. The creation of this machine intensified the bitter political divisions which caused the adoption of the Dispensary Law and made possible its enforcement. The activity of liquor-dealers' associations in municipal poli- tics all over the United States is in one sense an effect of the numerous experiments in liquor legislation which have been in progress during the last thirty years. The traffic, be- ing attacked by legislation, tries to protect itself by controlling municipal and state legislators. LEGISLATIVE ASPECTS 77 The commonest issue over which conten- tions about local self-government have arisen has been the liquor issue. The prohibition- ists early discovered that local police will not enforce a prohibitory law in places where public sentiment is opposed to the law. They therefore demanded that a state constabulary should be charged with the execution of that law. This issue has arisen in States whose le- gislation stops far short of prohibition. Thus, in Missouri, the governor appoints the excise commissioner who is the licensing authority in St. Louis; and in Massachusetts, where local option and high license prevail, the police commissioners of Boston are appointed by the governor. So far as enforcement of the laws goes, state-appointed officers or com- missions have often brought about great im- provements. In South Carolina, the Dispen- sary Act could not have been enforced had it not been that the governor was empowered to appoint an unlimited number of consta- bles to execute that one law. He was also empowered to organize at any moment a metropolitan police for any city in which the local officers neglected their duties in regard to the enforcement of the Dispensary Act, 78 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Nevertheless, violations of the principle of local self-government are always to be de- plored, unless a municipality has exhibited an absolute incapacity to govern itself, or unless the violations are plainly based on another valuable principle, namely, that of voluntary cooperation for common ends whose scope transcends the limits of single muni- cipalities. There are, of course, other promising di- rections for efforts to promote temperance, such as the removal of the motive of private gain in stimulating the liquor traffic, the sub- stitution of non-alcohoHc drinks for intoxicants as refreshments or means of ready hospitality, and the giving of a preference in certain em- ployments to total abstainers or to persons who never drink while on duty, particularly in those employments which have to do with the care or supervision of human beings, an- imals, and machines, or with transportation by land or sea ; but since these interesting topics do not strictly belong to the present legislative aspects of the drink problem, the sub-committee do not dwell on them. IV A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING THE ECONOMIC AS- PECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM By henry W. FARNAM SECRETABT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEB A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CON- CERNING THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM I. SCOPE AND OBJECT OF THE INVESTIGATION It should be clearly understood at the out- set that this chapter does not attempt to deal with all of the phases of the liquor problem which may have an economic bearing. The important subjects treated in the 12th An- nual Keport of the Federal Department of Labor, and relating principally to the pro- duction and consumption of liquor and the amount contributed by the traffic towards taxation, were, from the beginning, excluded from our investigation, because they were already provided for. Nor did we attempt to duplicate any of the work done by the Mas- sachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor and published in its 26th Annual Report. Of the questions that remain, our investi- gation considers : — 1. The relations of the liquor problem to poverty and destitution as evidenced in the 82 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM work of charity organization societies, alms- houses, and societies for the care of poor children ; 2. Its relations to crime as shown in some of the leading reformatories and State prisons of the country ; 3. Its relations to the Negroes and to the North American Indians ; 4. The economics of the saloon as the chief distributing agency of liquor in large cities. By limiting our field we have made it possible, as we believe, to cover it more thoroughly than has been done hitherto. Several valuable investigations, it is true, have already been undertaken into these sub- jects in the United States. The Massachu- setts Bureau of Statistics of Labor has, we believe, the honor of having been the pioneer in this field, and in its 12th Annual Report, published in 1881, gave the results of an in- vestigation into the statistics of drunkenness and liquor selling, from 1870 to 1879, and the influence of intemperance upon crime. The 11th Census also published a report made under the direction of Dr. F. H. Wines, which dealt with pauperism and crime in ECONOMIC ASPECTS 83 general, and gave many facts with regard to the relations of intemperance to these evils. More complete in many respects than either of these is the 26th Report of the Massachu- setts Bureau of Labor, already referred to. The 12th Report of that Bureau, valuable as it was, covered but the single county of Suf- folk, and dealt with the convictions for one year. It related only to crime, and not to pauperism. The 11th Census, while covering the whole country and including both pau- perism and crime, necessarily confined itself to pauperism in almshouses, and took no ac- count of cases of poverty relieved by private persons. Moreover, it did not undertake to investigate the extent to which intemperance is directly a cause of poverty. Its statistics confine themselves to the liquor habits of the inmates of almshouses. These two things are, of course, quite distinct. The 26th Report of the Massachusetts Bureau covered not only crime and pauperism, but also insanity, and studied liquor as a cause in all three cases ; but it did not relate to any poverty excepting in almshouses ; and it did not extend beyond the boundaries of a single State. Most of the other statistics hitherto collected upon 84 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM these subjects have been obtained inciden- tally in connection with other investigations. Among the more important studies with which our work may be brought into com- parison are the investigation of the German Imperial Statistical Bureau into public poor relief, made in 1885 ; a similar investigation undertaken by Dr. Boehmert into pauperism in 77 German cities in 1887; the investi- gations of Mr. Charles Booth in England, published in his "Life and Labour of the People " and " Pauperism and the Endow- ment of Old Age;" and the figures collected from the charity organization societies by Professor A. G. Warner for his " American Charities." As compared with these investigations, we may fairly claim for our work : — 1. That, with the exception of the German reports of 1885 and 1887, it covers a larger number of cases numerically than any of those mentioned ; 2. That it covers a greater variety of cases than any of them, since we have studied not only paupers in almshouses, but also cases of destitution treated by various classes of pri- vate societies, and cases of crime ; ECONOMIC ASPECTS 85 3. That it covers a much wider area terri- torially ; 4. That it gives us valuable facts with re- gard to a greater number of nationalities. Such a thorough investigation has neces- sarily involved the expenditure of considerable labor and time. Mr. Koren was employed almost continually upon the subject for over two years. For a year he had the assistance of a statistical expert, and during five months, of four tabulators. This, however, was but a small part of the work performed, for we had the gratuitous services of the agents of 33 charity organization societies and 11 chil- dren's aid societies and schools, while the superintendents and chaplains, or other offi- cials, of 60 almshouses and 17 prisons and reformatories rendered most valuable service either gratuitously or for a merely nominal consideration. II. IMPORTANCE OF THE INVESTIGATION The reader may perhaps question the econ- omy of our work. Are the results worth all of the labor spent in obtaining them ? Many persons whose judgment is worthy of respect have raised this question, and some have 86 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM answered it in the negative. This is especially true of those who are engaged in the active work of poor relief. Seeing about them the evil effects of drink, and the mass of poverty and degradation due to other causes as well, they naturally say, " What is the use of try- ing to get more facts to present in a statis- tical form ? We know enough about liquor to know that its effects are bad ; whether a greater or smaller percentage of cases can be attributed to this one cause has little to do with the practical problems which press upon us. We cannot afford to waste our strength and our money in a search for statistics when all of the facts that we need to know are before our eyes." This objection is a very natural one. A generation ago it would probably have been insuperable, and the investigation just made would have been quite impossible. A very large number of the cases considered have been supplied by the charity organization societies, and the oldest of these societies in our country was less than twenty-one years old when our investigation was begun. Even fifteen years ago there were very few of them, and it is doubtful whether, at that time, they ECONOMIC ASPECTS 87 would have had the means or the interest necessary to collect the elaborate facts which they have so kindly and generously put into our hands. We have ourselves often been surprised at the willingness of hard-working agents to undertake additional labors, simply for the sake of adding to the fund of human knowledge. The fact, however, that almost all of the societies which were approached upon the subject entered readily, and in some cases eagerly, into our plan, and that but two refused to cooperate on any other ground than that of expense, is in itself the best proof that practical workers feel the need of just such facts as we have collected. The same objection may be raised against scientific work in any department of human activity which aims to mitigate the ills of humanity. The hard-working country doctor is loath to spend his time over the microscope, when so many people require his skill in the healing art. Still less willing is he to make experi- ments on living animals in order to satisfy his mind regarding some theory of disease. Yet the progress of modern medicine has been due to the fact that a few men have been enabled to work in their laboratories 88 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM instead of at the bedside, and have thus gathered the facts and formulated the theo- ries without which the bedside practitioner of the day would be helpless indeed. It is in this spirit of scientific research that the present investigation into the liquor prob- lem has been undertaken. Of course we all know that drunkenness is bad. We all know of families ruined by the dissipation of their breadwinner. Such general facts are not to be sought for in such a study. Nevertheless, in spite of the vigorous efforts of nearly a century, the liquor problem is still with us. We know that, in spite of very drastic laws, the liquor law which will really seriously check intemperance is still to be discovered. This, at least, may be taken as the result of the investigation of the Legislative Sub-com- mittee, which, after a most thorough study, culminated in a negative conclusion. We know that the efforts made by moral and re- ligious agencies, great as have been their successes in individual cases, have not solved the problem. But we also know that difficult problems in other departments of life have been solved by means of a careful and scien- tific investigation, and by the use of many ECONOMIC ASPECTS 89 hypotheses and many scientific laws, no one of which, taken by itself, may seem to have had a very far-reaching value. We therefore believe that, in the ever present liquor prob- lem, which touches upon so many different phases of life, a careful investigation of the facts, such as we present, will be one contri- bution which, taken in connection with others, may perhaps succeed, in the course of time, in making the conditions under which we live better. The progress in sanitary conditions and in the treatment of disease, made through scientific investigation, ought certainly to en- courage us in attempting to further a moral reform by similar means. It will thus appear that our averages and percentages are not merely the playthings of over-subtle minds, but that they have a very practical use for practical workers. For those who are dealing with the poor, it must be of value to know the relative importance of different causes of poverty, because in this way only can they economize their energies and make them tell to the best advantage. It is equally important to know how different nationalities are affected by the liquor habit, for this knowledge should influence not only 90 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM philanthropic effort, but often legislation. A comparison of the results of our study with the data obtained by the Physiological Committee cannot fail likewise to be of immense practical importance. If it should be found, for instance, that the economic effects of alcohol are more marked and striking than its physiological effects, or again, if the opposite should be found true, either will serve as a guide to those advocating temperance. They will know on which side of the question to lay the most emphasis. Such a comparison can- not be made for the present, but the more careful and systematic the work of this com- mittee, the more significant and trustworthy will such a comparison be, when the time comes for making it. Finally, our investiga- tion need not confine itself to a study of causes, but should also take into account the efficacy of economic ways and means, without belittling the results of moral suasion, reli- gious effort, and medical practice. In short, the more complete and thorough our know- ledge of all of the effects of liquor, the better shall we be able to adapt our means to our ends. "We may perhaps find that there is no panacea for this disease. It shows itself in ECONOMIC ASPECTS 91 too many different ways and under too greatly varied conditions. We may also find that, by adopting different methods for different conditions, we shall be able to attack it with something of that scientific accuracy with which such diseases as small-pox have been handled in the past, and with which typhoid fever and consumption are but beginning to be handled now. It may be found that eco- nomic pressure alone, if properly directed, may be a potent means of promoting temper- ance and diminishing the evils of the alcohol habit. An investigation of this kind, however, has much broader bearings than the liquor problem alone. It was, for instance, on account of the result of a statistical inquiry that Mr. Charles Booth, although strongly impressed with the importance of liquor as a cause of poverty, became the advocate of universal old-age pensions in England. This study of the almshouses, as well as of the condition of the population of the east end of London, led him to the belief that a large percentage of pauperism was due to old age and sickness, and a small percentage to vice or bad habits. Intemperance figured as a cause of pauperism to a very small amount in his statistics. 92 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Such figures as we have collected cannot fail to throw light on such proposals as his. If the figures from the United States should confirm the English figures, there might be the same reason for advocating universal pen- sions. Yet when we find that on an averao^e the poverty which comes under the notice of the charity organization societies can be traced to liquor in some 25 per cent, of all the cases, and that in almshouses the percentage is 37, we are inevitably led to the belief that, while much poverty may be due to the faults of society, more than a quarter of it in our coun- try is due very directly and obviously to a very prominent fault of the individual. III. RELIABILITY OF OUR RESULTS We shall naturally be met with the inquiry how far our figures can be relied upon, and this involves our method as well as our success in carrying it out. That there is an element of error in all statistical figures will be readily conceded. We believe, however, that we have reduced this element to as small dimensions as possible. There are two ways of getting statistics. One is to cover the entire area in question and to endeavor to count every case ECONOMIC ASPECTS 93 that may arise. Another consists in selecting certain sample districts, areas, or institutions, and studying these. The former method is usually the best where the facts to be gathered are comparatively simple and do not involve the element of judgment. But such an in- quiry can seldom be undertaken excepting by a government bureau, on account of the expense. And as an investigation by the Government usually involves the employment of paid agents all sent out from one centre, if there are any deviations from the exact facts, they are more apt to vitiate all figures in the same direction. Moreover, it is often difficult to employ a large staff of enumer- ators of sufficient intelligence to make an in- quiry involving moral elements. We believe, therefore, that the method pursued by us, though it does not pretend to cover more than a fraction of all cases, is, on the whole, more reliable. The institutions and societies have been selected, not with reference to any known peculiarity in their clients, but solely on account of the interest and ability shown by their agents, superin- tendents, or other officials. We have thus been able to command at a trifling expense a high grade of labor. 94 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM The personal equation will, of course, enter more or less into their returns. One enumer- ator will he inclined to attribute a doubtful case to liquor, when another will not. But we can rely here on the well-known statistical law, according to which the error in the totals is much less than the errors in the individual investigations which go to form the totals. This may seem paradoxical to persons un- familiar with statistics, and yet it rests upon a simple observation. Where the chances are equally good that an observation may differ either on one side or the other from the exact truth, it is probable that in the mass the errors on opposite sides will balance each other. The individual bricks turned out from a kiln might differ considerably among them- selves, yet one wall of one hundred courses of bricks will differ from another wall with the same number of courses but very little. A careless writer will sometimes put five words in a line, sometimes ten, yet the number of words in a hundred lines will vary little. On the same principle we feel that, as there was no bias common to all of the enumer- ators, whatever personal elements may have entered into the returns made by one are ECONOMIC ASPECTS 95 pretty apt to be balanced by errors of the opposite kind made in some other. We there- fore believe that our method is a good one. As regards the material accuracy of our return Sj we may anticipate that they will be challenged from two opposite sides, for it so happens that they do not lean to either ex- treme, but fall, as it were, midway between the figures hitherto published. It was claimed, e. g. a generation ago by De Gerando, who wrote in 1839, that 75 per cent, of the pau- per cases in the United States were caused by drink,^ while Charles Loring Brace says that two thirds of the crime of every city are due to drink.^ A somewhat similar estimate is made by Mr. Boies, who says that alcohol is the direct or indirect cause of 75 per cent, of all crimes, and 50 per cent, of all the suffer- ings endured on account of poverty.^ On the other hand, more recent investiga- tions place the percentage, as a rule, very 1 De Gerando, Bienfaisance Puhlique, vol. i, p. 318. The author refers to The Christian Almanack for 1824, and to the New York Ohservei , vol. vi, as authorities, but in neither of these publications could any justification for his percent- age be found. 2 Dangerous Classes of New York, pp. 65, 66, 1872. • Prisoners and Paupers, p. 137, 1893. 96 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM much lower. Mr. Charles Booth, in his mon- umental investigation into the population of East London, concludes that about 14 per cent, of the poverty in classes A and B of his investigation, and 13 per cent, in classes C and D, may be attributed to liquor. This in- vestigation was made, not into the " profes- sional " pauper class, so to speak, but into the poor of London, and classes A and B included the lowest classes of the community, classes C and D those slightly above them. In his study of pauper cases in the workhouse of Stepney, he attributes 15 per cent, to drink and immorality. Most of the figures hitherto pubHshed for our country fall short even of this. The fig- ures quoted by Professor Warner from vari- ous charity organization societies range from 21.9 per cent, to 4.9 per cent., but in only two cases out of twelve go above 14 per cent.^ The cases collected by the New York Charity Organization Society in 1897 show 13 per cent, of liquor cases, while similar societies in Baltimore and six other cities yielded about 6 per cent. Still smaller are the figures in Germany. The great investigation made in 1 A. G. Warner, American Charities^ p. 34, 1894. ECONOMIC ASPECTS 97 1885 into the causes of pauperism by the Imperial Statistical Bureau claimed that in only 2 per cent, of the cases could the pau- perism be attributed to the abuse of liquor, while Dr. Boehmert's study of 77 German cities gave as the result 1.3 per cent. As be- tween these extremes of 1.3 per cent, on the one hand and 75 per cent, on the other, where does the truth lie ? We must, of course, un- derstand first of all that the percentage can- not be expected to be the same for different countries, or different parts of the same coun- try, or different periods. The Germans fur- nish a comparatively small number of cases in our investigation, and it may be that in Germany those who come under official poor relief on account of drink may be less numer- ous proportionately than the same class in our own country. It should also be noted that the German figures are based, not upon an ofiicial investigation, but only upon the official record of causes as stated, in most cases, by the applicants themselves. That such records should give the whole truth re- garding the influence of liquor upon pauper- ism can hardly be expected. The general statements made by De Ge- 98 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM rando and Brace are not to be taken as giving serious statistical facts. Even if they were approximately true at the time at which they were made, it is to be hoped that the world has made progress in half a century, and that were De Gerando or Brace to make a similar investigation now, they might reach a less discouraging conclusion. We must not, there- fore, expect absolute agreement between the figures of different times, different conditions, and different countries. We should, however, expect to find agree- ment between the contemporaneous figures in the same country with a homogeneous population, or at least to be able to explain discrepancies, and there is an undoubted dis- crepancy between the results of our investi- gation and the results hitherto gleaned from the record of cases kept by the charity organ- ization societies. Our own figures, based upon the investigation of such societies, show 25 per cent, of the cases investigated to be due to the use of liquor, either on the part of the applicants themselves, or of other persons. To take individual societies, the New York society returned in our investigation 23 per cent, in the aggregate and Baltimore 21 per ECONOMIC ASPECTS 99 cent. The discrepancy between these figures and those previously published is partly due to the fact that our figures include liquor as an indirect cause, while the others only con- sider it as a direct cause. Thus, while New York returned an aggregate of 23 per cent, of liquor cases, in only 19.5 per cent, was liquor a direct cause, w^hile Baltimore returned an aggregate of 21 per cent., of which liquor was a direct cause in only 11 per cent. This fact explains the discrepancy in part. The rest must be attributed to the greater care exercised by the agents in studying up indi- vidual cases for us. It is often difficult to de- cide whether or not a case of poverty is due to liquor, and in making the general statis- tics published in annual reports, there is a natural tendency to understate this cause on account of the very difficulty of getting the facts. In addition to this, there is a very proper desire to give doubtful cases the bene- fit of the doubt in making a record which may in the future determine the treatment of individuals, lest the statement that the appli- cant has become poor through liquor should prejudice his case, when he applies for relief. Our own investigation was stated to be, at 100 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM the outset, purely impersonal. It was to have no effect upon the treatment of individuals. This would in itself prevent the lowering of the percentage in doubtful cases. Moreover, the attention of the agents being especially directed to one point, they naturally made a more careful study, and detected liquor cases which might otherwise have escaped their attention. We are confident that there was no desire on the part of the agents to make out large averages. Their instructions were carefully given in advance, and they were told that we wanted nothing but the truth. They were likewise instructed that, in the doubtful cases which often arise, they were not to attribute a person's poverty to liquor simply because he might, at some time in the past, have used up for drink a part of his in- come which, if prudently saved, would have carried him over a period of hard times. In other words, we did not think it fair to as- sume that all that was spent upon liquor would otherwise have been saved. That would have implied an amount of forethought on the part of the poor which does not exist. Poverty was not to be attributed to drink, unless the connection was direct and imme- ECONOMIC ASPECTS 101 diate, as, e. g. unless drink led to loss of em- ployment, or prevented the person from get- ting a situation, or unless he was known to drink to excess. For these reasons we feel considerable con- fidence in the fairness of our figures, a confi- dence which is confirmed by the results them- selves. The figures from different parts of the country generally show a small divergence from the mean, and in all cases in which this divergence is at all considerable, it can be easily explained by special local conditions. The very fact that the figures do not go to one extreme or the other is, to the minds of many, an indication of their fairness. In short, while we do not claim absolute mathe- matical accuracy for statistics based upon rather uncertain moral phenomena, we do believe that the results are as reliable as cir- cumstances will permit. Finally, they are confirmed in the only case in which we have the means of making a direct comparison with figures obtained under similar condi- tions. An investigation into the relations of liquor to pauperism and crime was under- taken in 1895 by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, an office which enjoys 102 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM a well-earned reputation for accuracy and skill. The results of this investigation were published in the 26th Annual Report of the Bureau, and show that in Massachu- setts about 39 per cent, of the paupers in almshouses had been brought to their condi- tion by the personal use of liquor, and that about 10 per cent, had come there through the intemperate habits of parents, guardians, or others. Our figures, based upon alms- houses throughout the country, give an ag- gregate of a little less than 33 per cent, of cases due to the personal use of liquor, and about 8.7 per cent, due to the intemperate habits of others. While our figures are slightly below those for Massachusetts, they are much nearer to them than to any other sets of figures quoted, and this fact is an im- portant evidence of their general accuracy. IV. SUMMARY OF RESULTS The special investigation of the Economic Sub-Committee relates, as has been stated, only to certain of the economic phases of the liquor problem. The report of the Department of Labor relates to certain other phases. In- asmuch as both investigations were planned ECONOMIC ASPECTS 103 SO as to supplement each other, a survey of the economic aspects of the liquor problem should give the results of both investigations and show their bearing upon each other. These two reports taken together disclose the positive and negative aspects of the case. The report of the Department of Labor gives us a view of the wealth represented in the pro- duction and sale of intoxicating drinks. It states how much of the product of the farm goes into the production of liquor ; how great is the value of the annual product ; how much capital is invested in making and retailing intoxicants ; how many persons derive their livelihood from the traffic ; and how large an amount is contributed by it towards paying the expenses of national, state, and local governments. The report of the Economic Sub-Commit- tee shows us the reverse of the medal. We see here a large part of the destruction of wealth and of human capital caused by this same agency. We learn what fraction of pauperism, destitution, and crime may be fairly attributed to liquor, and how this loss is distributed among different classes and races. 104 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM From the facts thus ascertained we shall also draw conclusions which may be of prac- tical use in dealing with the problem. For while the wealth represented by and the num- ber of persons interested in the liquor traffic indicate the economic forces which resist ef- forts to restrict the consumption of intoxi- cants, other facts, which will be referred to in their proper place, will show us some of the economic forces which work against the traffic, and which powerfully promote tem- perance. Magnitude of the Liquor Interest. Looking first at the report of the Depart- ment of Labor, we learn that the farm pro- duce consumed in the production of various kinds of liquors in 1896 was about 58,000,- 000 bushels, if we add together the differ- ent grains alone. This included about 0.93 per cent, of the consumption of corn, 11.27 per cent, of the consumption of rye, and 40.44 per cent, of the consumption of bar- ley (p. 31). The total product of all kinds of liquors in 1890 was $289,775,639, of which $182,731,622 was represented by malt li- quors, $104,197,869 by distilled liquors, and ECONOMIC ASPECTS 105 $2,846,148 by vinous liquors (p. 27). The capital invested in the liquor traffic of all kinds was estimated in 1896 at over $957,- 000,000 (p. 50), of which 59 per cent, was found in the retail trade exclusively, and 15 per cent, in the retail trade combined with some other business. The total revenue col- lected in 1896 by the Federal Government, States, counties, and cities, was about $183,- 213,124 (p. 65). It is estimated that no less than 191,519 proprietors of establishments are interested in different forms of the liquor traffic, and that they employ 241,755 per- sons. A great many of these people devote only a part of their time to the liquor traffic. It is estimated that it would have required 172,931 employees to carry on the business, if they had devoted their entire time to it (p. 51). Adding together the employees and the proprietors, we thus learn that the liquor traffic suffices to give employment to over 364,000 persons, and if we assume that each of these breadwinners maintains on the aver- age a family of four persons besides himself, we have a sum total of over 1,800,000 per- sons deriving their support directly from the manufacture of and traffic in intoxicants, 106 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM entirely apart from tlie farmers who produce the raw material, and the transportation agen- cies which transport it. This would represent a population as great as the combined popu- lation of New Hampshire, Vermont, Khode Island, and Connecticut in 1890, and would be about three quarters of the population of the colonies at the time of the revolt against Great Britain. These figures give us some idea of the mao:nitude of the economic inter- ests represented by the traffic. The economist naturally asks, however, whether all of this wealth and all of this activity constitute a real addition to the economic power of the country. Whether alcohol is a poison or a food is a question for physiologists, not for statisticians, and we do not propose to enter into it here. Whatever its possible effects may be upon the human system in small doses, all agree that, when taken in excess, it may diminish the power to labor, and lead to poverty and x^rime. By measuring the effects of liquor which involve a direct charge upon the public, we may thus ascertain a part of the loss of wealth occa- sioned by intoxicants. We do not, of course, pretend to estimate the total loss to the ECONOMIC ASPECTS 107 country. We cannot, for example, tell how heavy is the burden borne in silence by fam- ilies and individuals on account of the drink- ing habits of relatives, nor can we ascertain to what extent disease, or loss of vitality, or of productive power is occasioned by liquor in those who may still be self-supporting, but are not as efficient wealth producers as they otherwise would be. Looking, then, simply at the burden entailed upon the public, it nat- urally divides itself into two general classes, that occasioned by poverty, and that occa- sioned by crime. In the former, again, we must distinguish between the poverty treated in almshouses, the poverty treated by private charities, and the destitution of children treated by special institutions estabHshed for them. Inasmuch as the percentages for vari- ous classes in the figures derived from private charities run closely parallel to those derived from almshouses, differing somewhat in their aggregate, but differing comparatively little in their relations to each other, we may very properly treat all the various forms of desti- tution together. 108 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Pcycerty due to Liquor In studying the causes of poverty, we are confronted with a very obvious difficulty in that individual cases may often be attributed to more than one cause. Thus a person may be at once intemperate and lazy ; another may have met with special misfortune, but at the same time be shiftless ; a third may be sick from a disease which might have been avoided by more regular habits. The ideal method of investigation would be to combine the causes in such a way as to show their relative importance. This point of view was emphasized by Professor Warner and Dr. Dike before the American Statistical Associa- tion/ and more recently some special arith- metical methods of showing these complex relations have been proposed.^ In investigat- ing a single cause, however, it was obviously impossible to adopt any such method ; and it seemed better, especially as no statistical 1 See Publications of the American Statistical Association^ vol. i, pp. 184 and 201. 2 On this subject see " A Statistical Study," by A. M. Simons, American Journal of Sociology y March, 1898, pp. 614-622 ; and " A New * National Blank,' " by Philip W. Ayres, Charities Review, December, 1898, p. 469. ECONOMIC ASPECTS 109 method for accomplishing this difficult task had been generally accepted among econ- omists, simply to ask the question whether or not the use of liquor had been a cause of poverty in the cases investigated. In many of the cases which make up our totals, it is to be assumed that other causes contributed to the impecunious condition of the subject. It is also to be understood that in no case was intemperance given as the cause of pov- erty, unless it was so important that without it the poverty would probably not have ex- isted, and unless it was obviously the princi- pal and determining cause. As a general result of our investigation, we may state that, of the poverty which comes under the view of the charity organization societies, about 25 per cent, can be traced di- rectly or indirectly to liquor, 18 per cent, of the persons studied having brought on their poverty through the personal use of liquor, and 9 per cent, attributing it to the intem- perance of parents or others. The general percentage is less than the sum of the partial percentages, because in some cases liquor acted both as a direct and as an indirect cause. Of the poverty found in almshouses, 37 per cent. 110 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM can be traced to liquor, and of this again 32 per cent, is due to the personal habits of the inmates, and 8 per cent, to the intemper- ance of others. In the case of the destitution of children, not less than 45 per cent, was found to be due to the liquor habits, either of parents, guardians, or others. While we cannot state in the aggregate how large a burden this represents for the United States, our percentages enable any one to estimate with a fair degree of accuracy how great the burden in any fairly representative State or subdivision of a State may be, of which the total can be ascertained. It is not enough, however, to get general figures, since they include many heterogene- ous elements ; perhaps more important and more valuable are the figures which show the different percentages for different classes of the community. Our tables and the report of Mr. Koren give the figures in detail. In this place it will suffice to bring out the more salient results, showing the difference (1) between the sexes; (2) between those of different political condition ; (3) between different occupations; and finally between different races and nationalities in the United States. ECONOMIC ASPECTS 111 Looking first of all at sex, we find, as we should expect, a great preponderance of cases of the male sex. Of the male paupers in almshouses over 42 per cent., of the women only 161 per cent., came to their poverty through the use of Hquor. If, however, we look at liquor as an indirect cause, we find the figures reversed. While only 6 per cent, of the men owed their poverty to the intem- perate habits of others, 12.7 per cent, of the women were in this unfortunate condition. A still greater contrast is found in the case of the applicants for private charity. Of such male applicants 22.7 per cent, became poor on account of liquor, and of females only 12.4 per cent. ; but again, if we look at liquor as an indirect cause, we find that only 3.8 per cent, of the men could charge their poverty upon the intemperance of others, while 17 per cent, of the women could do so. The picture which these figures call up of the lives of women ruined by the intemper- ance of their husbands or fathers is too sig- nificant to need any comment. If we compare the political condition of the poor, the contrast between classes is not as striking, but still important. Looking 112 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM first at the paupers in almshouses, we find that, while 32 per cent, in the aggregate owed their condition to the personal use of liquor, these were distributed very unequally among the different classes. The aliens make the most favorable showing, and give only 23 per cent, of liquor cases ; the citizens born come next with an average of 29 per cent., while the naturalized citizens figure to the extent of 43 per cent. The cases due to the intemperate habits of others show less differ- ence in the percentages. The returns from the charity organization societies tell the same story. While among aliens only 14 per cent, have become destitute through the per- sonal use of liquor, the citizens born return 17 per cent, of such cases, and the naturalized citizens 25 per cent. These figures do not justify the inference that naturalization stim- ulates the hquor habit. They are probably explained by the fact that those nationalities which are most apt, on account of the lan- guage, to claim naturalization — such as the Irish, the Scotch, the Canadians — happen also to be those nationalities which are espe- cially addicted to drink. Thus many of them, when they have lived in the United States ECONOMIC ASPECTS 113 long enough to obtain naturalization, have become demoralized by the high wages that they receive and drink to excess. The tables with regard to parentage bring out a good many facts which will well repay study in detail. A single one will here be re- ferred to. In the tables regarding pauperism, it appears that, while those who have two foreign parents show more cases of pauperism due to liquor than those whose parents are native, those who have a foreign father and a native mother give a higher percentage than either. The percentage of pauperism due to the personal use of liquor when both parents are native is 26; when both parents are foreign, it is 35 ; and when the father is foreign and the mother native, it is 41. When the conditions are reversed, the father being native and the mother foreign, the percentage is only 31. In the tables based upon the returns of the charity organization societies, we do not find quite the same contrast, the percentage of cases due to intemperance being about the same for those who have a foreign father and a native mother as for those whose two parents are foreign. In both cases it is a 114 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM little over 21 per cent., but we still find that the combination of a foreign father with a native mother is worse than the combination of a native father with a foreign mother. It may be that this fact is explained by the consideration that native women who marry foreigners do not, as a rule, belong to the most steady and conservative classes. But whatever the true explanation may be, the fact is in itself worthy of consideration. Particularly interesting are the returns which distinguish nationalities and races. In a country which has so many race pro- blems to solve, this part of the investigation must have a very practical bearing upon pos- itive methods. The comparison of races is somewhat vitiated by the fact that many of them are but feebly represented in the tables, and that, therefore, the percentages must be more accidental than in the case in which we have very large numbers. Thus, if we look at the charity organization figures first, we find that those nations which show the small- est percentages of liquor cases are Italy, Rus- sia, Austria, and Poland, but in all of these the totals are small. If we take the rest, which are more largely represented, we find ECONOMIC ASPECTS 115 that Germany leads, only 14 per cent, of their applicants being chargeable to the liquor habit. Norway and Sweden follow with 16 per cent., the United States with 17 per cent., England with 18 per cent., while Can- ada and Scotland show 21 per cent., and Ireland 29 per cent. The relative rank of the different nation- alities, as given in these figures, is strikingly confirmed by the returns from the alms- houses. The percentages themselves are nat- urally all higher, but the different nations come in almost exactly the same order. Here we find that the Italians, Poles, and Austrians lead, with percentages running from 9 to 14 ; next come the Germans with 25 per cent., the Scandinavians with 27 per cent., the native-born with 29 per cent., the Canadians with 32 per cent., the English and Scotch with 39 per cent., and the Irish with 40 per cent. If we compare the Caucasian race with the Negroes on the one hand and the native Indians on the other, we find that the liquor habit is apparently not very prevalent among the Negroes. They show an aggregate of but 9 per cent, in the charity organization socie- 116 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM ties, and of 17 per cent, in the almshouses, as compared with 19 per cent, and 33 per cent, for white people in the same schedules, and these figures are strikingly confirmed by the careful, detailed reports made by a large number of correspondents in the South, as well as by the personal investigations of Mr. Koren. Indeed, the Negroes, being with few exceptions native born, lower the average for the native-born Americans, which would be above 19 per cent, in the charity organization societies, were it not for the Negro element. The Indians, on the other hand, though they do not appear in any of our statistics, ob- viously represent the other extreme, and from the reports of Indian agents and other corre- spondents, it appears that they drink more for the sake of intoxication and less for social pleasure than any other race in our country, and that the effects of liquor upon them are worse. While the Negro recovers rapidly from the effects of drink, the drunken Indian is a person whom it is well to avoid. We cannot draw conclusions from a study of occupations with the confidence which we feel in studying the different races, partly because it was not feasible to collect occupa- ECONOMIC ASPECTS 117 tion statistics from the private societies, and partly because the occupations considered are so numerous that, in many cases, the totals for each occupation are very small, and the percentages are liable to be accidental. Such figures as we have show, however, that the saloon-keepers lead : 84 per cent, of those enumerated in almshouses are found to owe their condition to the use of liquor. Next come the sailors with 58 per cent., the butch- ers with 57 per cent., the printers and iron and steel workers with 55 per cent. each. In gen- eral, the more skillful occupations do not make a favorable showing as compared with the unskilled. Thus the iron and steel work- ers and printers, the cooks and waiters, the machinists, all give a percentage of 50 or over, while laborers show but 44 per cent., mill operatives 43 per cent., and farmers 33 per cent. The intemperance of sailors is a familiar phenomenon, due partly to the fact that their life precludes the formation of a high stand- ard of Hving or a settled domestic existence, and that, therefore, when turned adrift on land, they are very apt to spend their earnings in sensual enjoyment. In the case of the printers, machinists, and iron and steel work- 118 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM ers, it is probable that their intemperance is due to the strain of working under high pressure, and to the exhaustion produced by unsanitary conditions. It should be said, however, that these figures do not necessarily measure the intemperance of the various oc- cupations. We have counted, not the whole of the trade, but only those members of the trade who are in almshouses. In general, the higher the earnings of any person, the less likely is he to become a pauper except through some fault of his own. We should, therefore, naturally look for a large percentage of liquor cases in the better paid occupations. This same consideration should be borne in mind in interpreting the figures relating to other classes of paupers. The charity organization societies deal in the main with adults, as do also the alms- houses. As shown by our statistics, 45 per cent, of the inmates of almshouses enter be- tween the ages of fifty and sixty-nine. In order to get a fair view, therefore, of the poverty occasioned by drink, it is necessary to make a special investigation of destitute children. While the number of children studied by us is only 5136 as against some ECONOMIC ASPECTS 119 37,000 adults, we believe that we have cov- ered sufficient ground to indicate fairly how large a part of the destitution of children is due to the abuse of liquor. This part of the study was made through three different agen- cies : through societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and humane societies, deahng chiefly with children of the lowest class; through state organizations of the National Children's Home Society, dealing with many illegitimate infants ; and through two state public schools, which are, in fact, state orphan asylums. The general average derived from these cases shows that nearly 45 per cent, of the children harbored owed their destitution to the intemperance of par- ents, while nearly 46 per cent, owed their destitution to the intemperance of parents and others together. The worst phase of the poverty occasioned by drink is thus seen to be in the fact, not that the drinker himself suffers, but that innocent persons suffer still more. When we distinguish between the white and the colored children, we find the same contrast, though not so marked, as was found in the case of pauperism and poor reHef, for 120 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM of colored children, only 39 per cent, owed their condition to the drinking habits of parents or guardians, while nearly 46 per cent, of the white children were in this con- dition. Comparing children of native-born parents with those of foreign extraction, we find, as we found in the other studies, that the native Americans appear to advantage as compared with foreigners ; 43 J per cent, represented the proportion of children of native parents, and 49J per cent, the propor- tion of children of foreign parents whose poverty was brought on by liquor. If we still further analyze the parental condition of these children, we find, as might naturally be expected, that those whose father was foreign and mother unknown furnished the largest percentage of liquor cases, nearly 60J per cent, in all, even more than were found where both parents were unknown. We also find that those who had a foreign father and a native mother supplied a larger percentage of liquor cases than those who had a native father and foreign mother. These figures confirm the results obtained from the study of pauperism and poverty, and indicate that, for some reason, the com" ECONOMIC ASPECTS 121 bination of a foreign father with a native mother, or a mother of unknown nationality, is particularly unfavorable to temperance. Crime due to Liquor, The study of crime offers peculiar diffi- culties. Crime being an intentional act, the causes must be facts which influence the motives of men. And as the motives of men are often mixed, it is evident that several mo- tives may combine to cause a crime. Crime cannot, therefore, be attributed to a single cause as easily as poverty. This fact has necessitated a somewhat complicated method of classification, under which we have en- deavored to ascertain, not only how far in- temperance was a cause of crime, but also how far it was a first, second, or third cause, and also how far it was found combined with other leading causes, notably unfavor- able environment and lack of industrial train- ing, in bringing about crime. We have also been obliged to make a further distinction, and to separate crimes against the person from those against property. Our tables are thus much more intricate than those relat- ing to pauperism and poor relief, but they 122 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM also contain many facts which go beyond the immediate scope of our investigation, and which cannot fail to be of value to the crim- inologist. The danger of making sweeping statements with regard to intemperance as a cause of crime is nowhere better illustrated than in this section of our investigation, and the reader cannot be too strongly urged to study carefully for himself the tables and the explanation of them given by Mr. Koren be- fore trying to reach general conclusions. He should also be cautioned against the attempt to compare our figures with those based upon different classes of offenders. The statistics collected by this committee relate only to convicts in State prisons and State reformato- ries. They do not include ordinary jails, and, therefore, do not take account of persons convicted for mere misdemeanors, drunken- ness, or violation of the liquor laws. A few only of the leading results need be referred to here. The investigation covered 13,402 convicts in seventeen prisons and reformatories scat- tered throughout twelve States. It was con- ducted with great care, in many instances by the chaplains, in others by the superintend- ECONOMIC ASPECTS 123 ents of the institutions in question. Of the total number of cases thus investigated, it appeared that intemperance figured as one of the causes of crime in nearly 50 per cent. It was, however, a first cause in only 31 per cent. While, therefore, intemperance appears to contribute to crime in nearly half the cases investigated by us, a result which is strikingly confirmed by the investigation of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics for that State, it was almost always only one of several causes, and appeared as a leading cause in less than a third, and as the sole cause in but 16 per cent. The difference between the importance of liquor as a cause of crimes against property and of crimes against the person is surprisingly small. It is, as would be expected, somewhat more prominent in crimes against the person, 51^ per cent, of such crimes being attributed to liquor, either on the part of the criminal or of others; but even in the case of crimes against property, the percentage is 49J. As in pauperism, however, we find con- siderable differences in the showing made by different nationalities ; and the order in which the races are ranked, when we con- 124 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM sider intemperance as a cause in general of crime, is similar to the order in which they are ranked when we consider it as a cause of pauperism, though the two are not identical. Thus the smallest percentage of crime due to intemperance, 25 per cent., is furnished by the Russians. Next come the Austrians with 34.62 per cent., the Germans with 44.87 per cent., the Italians with 50 per cent., the Americans with 50.23 per cent., the Eng- lish with 52.92 per cent., the Poles with 53.41 per cent., the Scandinavians with 56.25 per cent., the Irish with 56.70 per cent., the Canadians with 56.74 per cent., the Scotch with 58.33 per cent. This table takes no ac- count of the Negro race, who constitute but 2000 of the total jail population studied. If we compare them with the whites, we find a singular contrast to the results of the tables on pauperism and poverty ; for while intem- perance was a cause of poverty in but very few cases among the Negroes, it appears as a cause of crime in a larger proportion of cases than among the whites. This apparent con- tradiction finds its explanation in the fact already mentioned, that while the effects of liquor upon the Negro are apt to be tempo- ECONOMIC ASPECTS 125 rary, they are, at the same time, more acute. Thus a Negro under the influence of Hquor is much more apt to commit some impulsive crime than a white man. He is, however, less apt to become permanently a slave of the habit and thus to sink into pauperism. The Saloon, Having considered the extent to which pauperism and crime are due to liquor, in our country, our investigation would be incom- plete, did we not give some attention to the means by which a large part of the liquor is conveyed to drinkers. The evils of excessive drinking are well recognized, and yet the sa- loon seems to flourish in spite of these evils. We must, therefore, analyze the saloon, as we have analyzed the statistics of pauperism and crime, and endeavor to learn its true na- ture. The reports which have been made for us in several large cities, especially Chicago, New York, Boston, and San Francisco, con- cur in showing that the saloon, though sup- plying the means of intemperance, is not exclusively devoted to this purpose. Its char- acter differs naturally with the locality in which it is situated, and with the nationality 126 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM and occupation of its patrons, but it generally attracts custom by ministering to the social wants of the poor man.^ Here he finds com- panionship, recreation, literature, even kind- ness, and help in trouble. What more natu- ral than that he should become its patron, even though the desire for drink may not be very strong? This is seen in the fact that saloons flourish among nationalities like the Jews in New York, which are noted for their moderation. The fact that the saloon is more than a mere drinking place, and that it supplies many legitimate wants besides the craving for intoxication, should be frankly recog- nized, and ought to be of help to those who are engaged in practical efforts to counteract the evils of intemperance. This part of our investigation has been carried on mainly through the agency of social and university settlements, and these institutions are already taking advantage of the knowledge gained in their daily experience with the poor to offer at least some of those counteracting 1 This feature of the saloon was graphically described more than a quarter of a century ago, by Charles Loring Brace, in Dangerous Classes of New York, p. 64. ECONOMIC ASPECTS 127 attractions and positive forces without which the driving out of the spirit of drink will be of no avail. V. ECONOMIC FORCES WORKING FOR AND AGAINST THE CONSUMPTION OF LIQUOR The large interests represented by the capital invested in the production and sale of liquors and the large number of persons who gain their livelihood in connection with it do not necessarily represent a force working for intemperance. They certainly indicate, how- ever, some measure of the resistance which must be encountered in any effort to abolish or restrict the use of liquor, and they explain the success with which radical reformatory measures are often thwarted. Yet these fig- ures, formidable as they are, are not alto- gether discouraging. The largest interests are represented by the least alcoholic bever- ages. In 1890 the manufacture of malt liquors gave employment to 34,800 persons and yielded a product of $182,731,622 ; the manufacture of distilled liquors employed but 5343 persons and yielded a product of but $104,197,869.^ In 1900 the value of malt 1 Twelfth Annual Report of the Department of Lahorf p. 27. 128 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM liquors had increased to $237,269,713, and the persons engaged in their production to 46,685, while the value o£ distilled liquors had fallen to $96,798,443, and the producers to 4383.^ And if we look at the consumption of liquors for a series of years, we find a marked decline in the more alcoholic varie- ties. It is, unfortunately, no longer true, as it was in 1896, that the per capita consump- tion of distilled liquors in the United States is declining, the amount having risen from 1.01 gallons in 1896 to 1.46 in 1903. But in 1840 the average was 2.52 gallons per capita. On the other hand, the consumption of malt liquors has risen from 1.36 gallons per capita in 1840 to 18.04 in 1903.' Thus we find a gradual substitution of lighter for stronger drinks. This does not seem to be fortuitous. There are very powerful economic forces which almost compel moderation in modern indus- try. It does not seem too optimistic to say that a complete change has taken place in the habits of the wage-earning class since the 1 Twelfth Census^ vol. vii, p. 10. 2 Twelfth Annual Report of the Department of Labor, p. 35, and Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1903. ECONOMIC ASPECTS 129 days, in the early part of this century, when men went on strike for the sake of getting their rations of rum. It was considered a remarkable achievement in 1817 for a ship to be completed, in spite of such resistance, without the use of Hquor in any form,^ and James Brewster had to overcome a long-es- tablished custom when he put a stop to drinking in his carriage factory in New Haven, early in the century. This change has been furthered by two agencies : the self-interest of the employed on the one hand, and the self-interest of the employers on the other. Not only were rations of grog common among mechanics in the early days of the century, but the early labor organizations were almost always more or less associated with drink. It was common in England for the unions to meet in public houses, and a certain allowance, known as " liquor allowance," was made for drinks. Even as late as 1837, according to Mr. and Mrs. Webb,^ the rules of the Steam Engine Makers' Society directed that one third of the weekly contribution should be 1 Wright, Industrial Evolution^ p. 276. 2 The History of Trade Unionism^ p. 185. 130 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM spent in the refreshment of the members. The executive committees of the larger societies, however, began to oppose this cus- tom, and in the revision of 1846 the provi- sion just quoted was left out of the rules of the society. As the unions have become larger and wealthier, they have been able to emancipate themselves from the public houses by having their own places of meeting, while the impor- tance of keeping sober during strikes has impressed itself more and more upon them. The very magnitude of their financial opera- tions necessitates the election of temperate men to the higher offices, and the develop- ment of an elaborate system of insurance benefits gives each member a direct interest in the sobriety of his fellows. No member of a union wants to feel that his contributions, laboriously saved from small earnings, are to be used up for the support of a drunken fellow member. What is true of English unions is true to a large extent of our own, and as far as their public utterances are concerned, our unions stand strictly for moderation, in spite of occa- sional lapses on the part of walking delegates ECONOMIC ASPECTS 131 and others. Injunctions in favor of modera- tion are found in many passages of their rules. Thus, in some cases, the rules provide that, if a man is discharged on account of drunkenness, no steps shall be taken to rein- state him, as in the case of the Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. In many cases the liquor traffic, as such, is tabooed ; and a man who goes into it is excluded from the union. This is done by the Metal Pohshers, the Core Makers, the Iron Moulders, the Retail Clerks, and the Knights of Labor. In still other cases the person is excluded from the benefits to which he would be entitled in case of sick- ness, accident, or unemployment. This is true of the Iron Moulders, the Blacksmiths, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, the Wood Workers, the Painters and Decorators, the Leather Workers on Horse Goods, the Tobacco Workers, the Cigar Makers, and the Retail Clerks. Many unions fine or otherwise punish those who attend meetings in an intoxicated condition, and the Trades and Labor Council of Fort Wayne, Ind., goes so far as to provide that " the Council shall never, on any occasion, where it is giving a demonstration^ celebration, 132 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM excursion, picnic, ball, or entertainment of any description, sell intoxicating liquors itself, or grant the privilege to sell intoxicating liquors to any person or persons, firm, society, or company." The employers, on the other hand, equally feel the importance of sobriety as a means of preventing accidents, of insuring good work, and of securing responsibility. The report made by the Department of Labor on this subject reveals an agency which has hitherto been little noticed. The schedule of inquiries issued by the Department brought returns from over 7000 establishments, employing 1,700,000 persons. These establishments are no small fraction of the industry o£ the country. In transportation lines, 713 replied, representing 458,000 employees. Of the 6976 who answered the specific inquiry regarding liquor, 5363 reported that means were taken to ascertain the habits of employees, and 1794 prohibited, more or less strictly, drink- ing. In most of these cases, the philan- thropic motive seems to have counted for little. Of the 1794 who restrict their em- ployees in the use of intoxicating liquors, 28 give as their reason, " to make good example ECONOMIC ASPECTS 133 for other employees;" two, "to guard against temptation ; " and two, " for the good of employees." Generally, the object is either to prevent accidents, or to secure better work, better economy, or greater responsibiHty in positions of trust. As more things are done by machinery, as trolley-cars supplant horse-cars, as imple- ments of greater precision and refinement take the place of cruder ones, as the speed at which machinery is run is increased, as the intensity with which people work becomes greater, the necessity of having a clear head during the hours of labor becomes impera- tive, and the very conditions of modern busi- ness life necessitate sobriety on the part of the workers. Those who would find profit- able employment realize more and more the importance of moderation in drink. It is hardly necessary to say that the Sub- committee on the Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, having been appointed to study those aspects only, has not referred to the moral side of the case. But it cannot be without interest to those who are especially active in the use of moral agencies of reform to learn that these agencies may often be 134 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM powerfully reinforced by economic considera- tions. Our investigation shows, as we believe, that economic forces are already working in the direction of moderation which need but be stimulated and directed to become effec- tive allies of the moral agencies which are attacking the evils of the liquor habit. A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE LIQUOR PROBLEM By JACOB L. GREENE CHAISMAfi OF THE 6CB-C0MMITTES ^ SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CON- CERNING THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OP THE LIQUOR PROBLEM ^ As the reports of the several committees have been presented, two things have be- come increasingly evident : 1st, Each report, whether dealing with the physiological, eco- nomic, sociological, or legislative aspects, heads up in a problem whose ethical signifi- cance is too obvious for discussion : a ques- tion of right use and abuse; of means of remedy and control ; of individual and col- lective responsibility. Each problem so pre- sents itself as to demand immediate issue in personal conduct and in collective attitude and action, and bears on its face the main lines at least of its own determination. The ethical aspects presented by these reports seem to group themselves somewhat as follows : — The Physiological Committee has clearly 1 The death of Mr. Greene, March, 1905, has prevented the amplification of his special report. 138 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM defined the value of alcohol as a food and Its usefulness as a food adjunct, and has dis- criminated these from its use as a mere stim- ulant and as a remedy in the hands of the medical profession: its range of necessary use in either aspect is shown to be very limited : the dangers from use so limited, whether in personal effect or in the forma- tion of morbid appetite, are practically 7iiL Danger arises outside such use — how far outside seems to be a matter of individual temperament, condition, and circumstance : the proper limits, if any, of mere pleasurable use, are therefore impossible of definition : but it is here that the border-land of danger is entered : the influences which here tend to operate disastrously are rooted in the social nature and relations of man. As re- gards the great body of drinkers in saloons, these are clearly set forth in Mr. Calkins* very valuable report to Dr. Peabody's sub- committee ; and the same influences, under varying conditions, operate to the same end in all groups of society. It seems hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole strength of the liquor traffic lies in the weakness of human nature on its social side, and it is on ETHICAL ASPECTS 139 the structural social unit — the family — that retribution falls most crushingly. The economic aspects, in large and in miserable detail, are a part of the extension of its blighting malignity to all whom the drink-habit touches. The study of the legis- lative aspects shows how inadequate, if not worse, is mere statutory prohibition : how it fails to touch any spring of evil ; and how at best it can but support some remedial treatment based upon something other than legislation ; something that finds deeper and sound hold in human nature on its social side. Obviously, the questions of remedy resolve, themselves to two: those which are pallia- tive of the visible evils that aiB^ct or threaten society and tend to minimize and remove them as far as possible by some method and degree of repression, and those which go deeper and seek to remove the source of the evil by the redemption of human nature, procuring its action on a right ethical plane. And this last can be accomplished only in the souls of individual men. Man by man they must be won to righteousness. There is no salvation for the mass as a mass. Atom 140 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM by atom must the leaven do its slow, tedious, patient work until the whole is leavened because each particle is leavened. There is no short cut. Secondly, the wider study of the drink- problem brought out very clearly the oft forgotten fact that, especially in our mixed American communities, it is in the large and in a very definite sense a local problem, in that its aspects of evil and its remedial treat- ment vary with the character of the popula- tion, and what may be suited to or practi- cable under one set of conditions involving race, temperament, industrial, economic, and social conditions, may require much modifi- cation applied to different conditions. It therefore becomes practically impossible to dogmatize with universal acceptance, or to formulate rules of procedure everywhere equally appHcable. It came to be felt that, as methods must more or less vary, the best aid that could be given to men competent to the local work would be to furnish them the facts set forth in the several sub-com- mittee reports, simply emphasizing their eth- ical significance, and leaving them to apply the clear principles according to circum- ETHICAL ASPECTS 141 stances, unhindered by prescription. And no amount of prescription can make effective the work of incompetent men, or men incap- able of applying principles for themselves. As in all human effort on the dual lines of overcoming the evil that men are doing and removing the evil itself from the hearts of men, there needs be on the part of all laborers in this field of reform a clear recognition of the fact that the work is never done : it is always being done ; it is always unfinished. Each new generation, each wave of tempta- tion that passes over the lives of men, renews the problem and demands new labors. To one observant of the manifold degra- dations and distresses caused by drink, and moved by divinely human pity and indigna- tion alike to remedy the same, one of the greatest trials and difficulties is the neces- sary combination of patience with labor, the due mingling of discretion and zeal. The apostolic wrath that would have called down the consuming fire from heaven seems none too hot. But there can be no doubt that, however definite the aim or however severe the ultimate standard of the temperance re- former, so far at least as the effective action 142 THE LIQUOK PROBLEM of the community within its proper lines of duty and right is concerned, he must be a more or less patient opportunist. He must move by such steps as are for the moment practicable, and from the secure basis of a recognized good so attained move forward to the next attainable better: the proper steps and their proper order being questions dependent on many locally varying consider- ations. VI A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON By RAYMOND CALKINS EDITOR OF THE VOLUME, "SUBSTIIOTES FOB THE SALOOM" A SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS CON- CERNING SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SA- LOON The volume of which this report is a summary deals with a single aspect of the liquor pro- blem. The study begins with the saloon as it exists in our American cities and takes account of only one of its characteristics ; its contribution to sociability, its importance as a factor in the social and recreative life of its patrons, and in a larger sense of the com- munity as a whole. Beginning at this point, the possibility is discussed of offsetting and finally overcoming the social features of the liquor traffic ; the different legislative systems are examined in their bearings upon this aspect of the liquor problem, and that system is commended which it is believed will reduce to a minimum the social possibilities of the saloon. The remaining and by far the largest portion of the volume is devoted to a review of the different methods by which the social life of 146 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM the people may be satisfied apart from the saloon. This study is intended to be an in- clusive survey of those features of the social life of our American cities which rival the attractions of the saloon. In each case the effort is made to suggest specific and practical ways in which social substitutes for the saloon may be established, in which social oppor- tunity for the people may be provided, which shall be wholesome, educative, and contribu- tive to a higher form of individual and community life. In the summary which follows, no attempt is made either to suggest the sources, or to prove the reliability, of the material which forms the basis of the discussion, and the story is not told in the order in which it appears in the text. The subject is simply sketched in outline, and the definite conclu- sions reached are in each case presented. For the fuller discussion the writer is referred to the volume itself. A careful study of the saloon as it exists to-day in our American cities has revealed the fact that it is performing a double office, it is satisfying a twofold thirst ; it SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 147 is meeting the physical craving for intox- icating liquor, but it is also meeting the thirst for fellowship, for amusement, and for recreation. Not only is the saloon performing such a service, but it has, or has had, the field practically to itself ; in a word, it has had handed over to it by the community the monopoly of the social life of the majority of American wage-earners. There are various ways of verifying such an assertion. One is to look at the patronage of our saloons to-day. Investigation in Boston in 1895 revealed the fact that no less than two hundred and fifty thousand of Boston's inhabitants, or about fifty per cent., daily visited the saloons of that city. This was supposed to be an exaggerated estimate ; but in 1898 a very careful census taken of the city of Chicago revealed the fact that nine hundred thousand, or over fifty per cent, of the population, daily frequented the saloons of that city. When one looks at these figures closely, bent upon discovering the cause of such a hold of the saloon on the community, he discovers that the saloon is ministering to a much deeper desire than that for alcoholic liquors ; nothing less than the satisfaction of 148 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM the deeper thirst for fellowship and recreation can adequately explain so large a patronage as this. A concrete and thorough examination of the saloon itself has verified such a conclu- sion. An inquiry which has been carried on in cities of all sections of the country, which has included every type of saloon in each city, has revealed the immense importance of the saloon as a social centre. Whatever its particular character may be, the saloon as such offers to its patrons a social rendezvous ; it provides them at a minimum of cost with a sure stimulus to sociability, and its atmos- phere is one of social freedom. Besides these general advantages, the saloon affords cer- tain specific and valuable opportunities apart from the provision of liquor. Some of these features are intended directly for amusement and recreation. Tables and cards are fre- quently supplied by the proprietor, and some- times card rooms. Reading is not so com- mon, but the daily papers are by no means rare. The saloons are the headquarters for athletic information ; they are the centres of political activity ; they are the only labor bureaus that many workingmen know any- SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 149 thing about ; they take the place of the so- cial club. Many of them provide adjacent rooms where labor unions and lodges may meet. Nearly all provide a so-called "free lunch " where, either without extra cost or for a small amount, sufficient food is fur- nished to satisfy an ordinary appetite. In these and in many other ways, the saloon has intrenched itself in the social life of the people. It is nicely planned to meet needs which are not met in any other way, and the social importance of the saloon is practically the same whatever may be the legislative system under which it exists. Such, in a word, is the social side of saloon life as it presents itself to-day in all of our American cities.^ It goes without saying that the liquor dealers are not the proper persons to have charge of the social life of our American working people, and that the liquor saloon is not the proper place for the social instinct to find its satisfaction. The liquor dealer is not disinterested in the provision which he makes ^ See Substitutes for the Saloon, pp. 1-24. See also "Why Working Men Drink," the Outlook of September 14, 1901. 150 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM for the comfort and pleasure of his patrons ; he expects to make good for any such ex- penditures by his additional receipts, and his expectations are rarely disappointed. Intem- perate drinking results, and the squandering of the week's wage. Gambhng and the social evil are closely allied with the perils of drunk- enness. The seriousness of the situation is evident when it is understood that the saloon stands at the same time for the source of the city's crime and the centre of much of its social hfe. The first part of this statement few will question. That the latter part is also true will become apparent to any one who will carefully examine the saloon as it exists and then will search for other existing agen- cies which are performing anything like the same social service. They are not to be found. As yet adequate substitutes for the social benefits which thousands of people actually derive daily from the saloons have not been developed. It is to this problem that the experience, the wisdom, and the wealth of those interested in social progress must now be directed. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 151 The negative approach to the problem is by the legislative repression of the social side of the saloon life. Can a system of liquor legislation be devised which shall extirpate the social function of the saloons? This question may safely be answered in the af- firmative. Experimentation in liquor legisla- tion has developed a system under which liquor selling may be made as prosaic as any retail grocery business, and a saloon as de- void of social attractions as a dry goods store. It would be possible to place upon the statute books of all our cities without delay a liquor law which would effectually annihilate the social features of the saloon. The cardinal principle in such legislation is the removal of the element of profit from the sale of liquor. Here we may say the root of the whole matter rests. Once permit men to sell liquor for the money they can make out of it, and the attractiveness and social features of the saloon life are bound to fol- low. With an eye to larger profits the dealer will seek by every imaginable method to stim- ulate his sales. It will not be possible for the State by subsequent legislation appreciably to diminish the social attractiveness of the 152 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM saloons when once the fatal error has been made of delivering over to men the liquor mo- nopoly for money-making purposes. Under a low license system the saloons multiply, and enter into lively competition with each other, and thus increase in attractiveness. If the State imposes a high license, then the saloon keeper not only has to pay the ex- penses of rental and wares and services, but in addition he has to pay to the State from one thousand to two thousand dollars, and he must make his profit beside. The State cannot expect its treasury to be reimbursed, and at the same time demand that the liquor dealers abstain from their methods of in- creasing their income. There is no way of diminishing the social activity of the saloon so long as liquor selling and money getting are put together in the same system. The retention of the element of profit is the objection to existing systems of governmental control of the liquor traffic. The South Caro- lina dispensary law, for example, substitutes pubHc profit for private profit. That by this means progress has been made toward the solution of the problem there can be no doubt. The South Carolina dispensaries are SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 153 by no means centres of social life ; they have been shorn of all attractiveness, having lost utterly the atmosphere of conviviaHty. Drink- ing is not permitted upon the premises, the purchasers are not encouraged to loiter, and the store-keeper has no personal interest in the amount of his sales. But vast perils still remain. The saloon is still in politics; for the control of the saloon opposing parties still contend at the polls. The amount of liquor sold and the consequent accruing rev- enue are still a matter of vital concern to the State at large, for, according to this system, the profits of the liquor traffic are applied to the tax rate. If the amount of liquor sold be reduced, the tax rate will be raised. In the South Carolina system to-day the salaries of certain government officials are regulated by the amount of liquor sold. This system, therefore, though it may be a step in ad- vance, is defective, for the element of profit still remains. The nearest approach to the complete elim- ination of the element of profit has been made by the Norwegian or Company system, which may be said to contain the essence of scientific modern liquor legislation. The 154 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM workings of the system are by no means per- fect, the results by no means all that could be desired ; but the cardinal principle of the removal of profit either for the State or for the individual has been incorporated in what is to-day without doubt the best existing sys- tem of liquor legislation. The saloons are no longer attractive places of resort. The bar- keeper has no personal interest in his sales ; on the contrary, his salary is dependent on his observance of the conditions under which liquor shall be sold. The State is not inter- ested in the amount of the returns, for these are not applied to the tax rate, but are applied, after the payment of costs, to the establish- ment of social resorts, educational enterprises, and for purposes of public improvement. Such a system is available in our own country at any time that enlightened public sentiment demands it. Whatever special form it shall assume, it will contain the following essential features : — First. The local option principle will re- main in full force ; it will not be obligatory upon any town or community to have a dis- pensary, the dispensary will exist by vote of the separate communities themselves. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 156 Second. There will be absolutely no pri- vate profit. No inducement will be offered to any liquor dealer or bar-keeper to retail more liquor rather than less. Third. All profits will go to the State, but no profits will be applied to the tax rate. Fourth. All profits, after payment of ex- penses, will be redistributed to communities for the purpose of public betterment. Fifth. All profits will be distributed irre- spective of whether the community has voted for or against the dispensary, thus putting no premium upon the existence of the dispen- sary.^ The possibility of legislation to extirpate the social attractiveness of the saloons by removing the element of profit has thus been demonstrated. This, however, is the lighter portion of our task ; a more difficult matter is to develop the right kind of social centres ; to supply the peculiar satisfactions which many find to-day within the walls of the saloon. It is to this aspect of the problem that we must turn. What are the possibil- 1 Compare, Substitutes for the Saloon^ pp. 25-44. Also Rowntree and Sherwell, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform^ 9th edition, pp. 509-604. 156 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM ities for recreation as they exist to-day in our American cities ? How may existing condi- tions be improved so as to meet the social needs of the people and to nullify the social attractiveness of the saloon, while it exists, and to take its place when by proper legisla- tion it has been removed ? Social life suggests the club, and club life in America has its unique and interesting aspects. It is necessary to begin the study of men's clubs with the boys, because boys' clubs are a distinct feature in the social life of American cities, and because only a few years are needed under wrong conditions to convert any boy into a steady patron of the saloon. In all our cities clubs or gangs of boys exist in great numbers whose only ob- ject is amusement. A good description of the life of these groups may be found in Mr. Riis's "The Battle With the Slum " and Mr. Wood's "The City Wilderness." Without meeting place other than the street or an abandoned shed, without proper guidance or control, it is no wonder that the drift of these juvenile clubs is steadily toward the saloon, or that the ever-watchful saloon keeper should SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 157 seek to supply them with certain comforts which they lack elsewhere. It is at this point that the labor of a corrective influence should begin. The effort should be made to redeem the life of these groups by providing them with a proper meeting place, with wholesome interests, and with genuine ideals. The full story of what has already been accomplished at this point cannot be told here. Only cer- tain conclusions can be enumerated. For one thing, it has been determined that this work can best be done not by the municipality, but by individual or private philanthropic enterprise. The formation and guidance of these clubs by the municipality carries with it too much danger of political control. At one point, however, the cooperation of the municipality is not only desirable, but indis- pensable. The city buildings and grounds must be thrown open for the use of these clubs. School buildings, school yards, public parks, public playgrounds, are necessary if the club life of the boys in our American cities is to be developed in right directions. Where these have been placed at the disposal of private individuals and associations work- ing among boys, the most encouraging re- 158 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM suits have been achieved. The importance of handicraft, manual training, sloyd, and car- pentry as factors in moral development has also been demonstrated. To-day these are widely employed as the best means of secur- ing the attention and developing the latent moral interest in boys of all ages and con- ditions. A third point is the necessity not only for further open spaces upon which the play instinct may find expression without the interruption of the street and the interference of the police, but also for instruction in the right forms of exercises and in the develop- ment of the highest forms of group life. Noteworthy in this direction have been the results achieved by the Outdoor Recreation League in New York and by the Massachu- setts Civic League, whose reports are indis- pensable to all who are interested in this form of enterprise. It may safely be said that the conditions for the right sort of work among the boys of our cities have been wrought out, and that no department of modern social work presents to-day so many encouraging aspects. Besides the boys' clubs, there are in every city large numbers of self-formed young SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 159 men's clubs. These bear various names, such as athletic clubs, literary clubs, social clubs, but their object is generally the same, — to provide a social rendezvous for their members and some form, however crude, of social life. These clubs meet in rooms for which a mod- est rental is paid. To these rooms the mem- bers come each evening to play cards, to smoke, and to have a good time. The num- ber of such clubs is very large, probably at least one club for every one hundred young men in the poorer sections of any city. As might be expected, the morale of these clubs is not high, and their existence is often very precarious. In many of them intoxication is not uncommon ; and few, if any, have a posi- tive influence for good upon the members. Yet aside from the saloon, — and the distance between the two is never large, and has a constant tendency to diminish, — these clubs provide the only means of recreation which many of the young men of our cities know. The opportunity here presented is very inviting and equally difficult. It is much harder to influence the young men's clubs than the boys' clubs. Those who have ac- complished the most in this direction are 160 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM undoubtedly the workers in the settlements. Connected with almost any settlement may be found groups of young men, many of whom have grown up within the settlement influence. By means of guilds or series of clubs their connection with the settlement is maintained and the life of the clubs is largely transformed. The great necessity for this important work is a suitable meeting place ; especially a hall for dancing and other social entertainments. The absence of such rooms has more than once caused the disintegration of otherwise flourishing clubs. The fact is that there are for rental very few rooms and halls except those having a saloon connection or a saloon proprietor. The provision of such clubrooms and halls might well be made by the municipality. It would be a new, but by no means unwarranted, use to make of pub- lic funds. Municipal clubhouses would nearly pay for themselves directly out of the rental received, and would more than pay for them- selves indirectly from the increase of good order and the decreased influence of the sa- loon. Such clubhouses are also a legitimate form of what has come to be known as " busi- ness philanthropy." In New York the Social SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 161 Hall Association inaugurated by the Nurses' Settlement, and the new clubhouse to be connected with the Alfred Corning Clark Neighborhood House on Rivington Street, and to be known as the Edward Clark Club, are practical illustrations of this important form of philanthropy. It is expected, at least in the former case, that the new clubhouse will be self-supporting and will pay an interest on the capital invested. The effort to reach the social life of the young men of our cities is not, nor should it be, confined to the right development of clubs already existing. Many clubs have been formed, and clubhouses have been erected, for the benefit of young men by private philanthropy, and the running ex- penses, which have far exceeded the receipts for membership, have been met by an endow- ment or annual grant. There is no better illustration of a club of this type than the well-known Hollywood Inn, which affords a temporary home and many otherwise unat- tainable comforts to upwards of five hundred men of Yonkers, New York. Similar enter- prises are the Lighthouse, of Philadelphia, Salem Fraternity, and, in a more educational 162 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM way, the Prospect Union of Cambridgf, and the clubs connected with many large inanu- facturing establishments in the country to- day. These all go to prove that great good can be accomplished where men and women give of their wealth to provide social oppor- tunity for the working people ; it must al- ways, however, be borne in mind that such clubs cannot hope to become self-supporting institutions. Of great importance also is the work ac* complished in our cities by the Young Men's Christian Association, which is the largest and wealthiest institution in the country de- voting itself exclusively to work among young men. Its importance in the present discussion cannot be denied. Its constituency, it is true, is not as a rule of the class to which the saloon makes its strongest appeal. Its programme includes the religious aim and the conducting of religious exercises according to Protestant modes of worship, and its constitution does not permit all to have equal controlling rights. On the other hand, the aim of the association is to reach all grades of young men in our cities; its methods are more and more calcu- lated to meet their needs; its educational. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 163 social, and athletic privileges are open to all without distinction, and its attractive work bears directly upon the saloon problem. Its managers are seeking to make it an effective factor in solving the social problem of the young men in our cities ; and within its own field, which appears to be constantly widen- ing, it is accomplishing its aim. If we pass to the adult social life of the married men among American wage-earners we are met at once with a singular phenome- non. As a rule these have no social clubs and no visible opportunity for recreation out- side of the home and family life. When the young man marries he drops out of his club and enters no other organization of a purely social sort. The club of the married man is either the union or the lodge, and neither of these is primarily a social organization. It is impossible to analyze the life of the union or of the lodge at this point. Such an anal- ysis, however, has conclusively shown that, as at present conducted, neither the union nor the lodge, as a rule, is an important fac- tor in the social life of American wage-earn- ers. The meetings of both are infrequent, 164 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM not over once in a fortnight on an average. The union is chiefly concerned with the serious problems of wage and hours of labor, the label, the strike, and the boycott. Of the nearly six hundred fraternal organizations, by far the larger number exist chiefly for insurance and financial benefit, and not for social purposes. The oldest and largest of the lodges do the most in promoting the social life of their members, an example which the younger orders would do well to follow. No greater single advance could be made toward the solution of the social problem in America than for unions and lodofes ahke to include the social aim in the programme of their activities. Permauent rooms, open every evening with some provision for amusement, would go far towards offsetting the attrac- tiveness of the saloon. Again, however, we are confronted with the need of suitable club-rooms. Again we are reminded that little progress in any branch of recreative reform can be made until club-rooms at a moderate rental are available, free from the associations and control of the saloons. The surprising thing, however, is to dis- cover the absence of permanent social clubs SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 165 among married American wage-earners. In England the case is different. There the Workingmen's Club and Institute Union has an enrollment of hundreds of different clubs and thousands of married workingmen. Begun as a philanthropic and temperance organization, it became independent and self- supporting in 1884. Since then in the control of workingmen, these clubs have provided social enjoyment for their members, have developed certain educational features, and, while not teetotal clubs, have undoubtedly been effective competitors of the public houses. There seems to be no real reason why such clubs should not be successful in our American cities. A company of men or women interested in social progress, with means at their disposal, might engage the services of a skilled secretary who would proceed to form such clubs and to unite them by some central board of control. A democratic management, the absence of the taint of patronage, the prominence of the recreative idea, and a judicious settlement of the question of the furnishing of intoxi- cating liquors would be the essential condi- tions of the success of such a movement. 166 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM Thus far we have discussed certain aspects of the social life of our American cities from within. Approaching the subject from with- out, we discover various opportunities for so- cial recreation of a general nature. Of indoor amusements, apart from those already discussed, we may mention the bil- liard room, the social pubhc halls, and the theatre. The billiard room, as it is generally operated, is more of a saloon annex than a saloon substitute. Where it is not controlled by the saloon-keeper or connected with the saloon, it is placed as near as possible to it, and is a stepping-stone to the saloon to the youth who has not already contracted the drink-habit. The situation certainly suggests the possibility of rescuing these places of legitimate entertainment from the associa- tions which tend to degrade them, and by making them helpful instead of harmful centres of recreation. Under competent man- agement they would certainly be self-support- ing- In every large city, especially in the tene- ment districts, there are public halls which serve as centres for the social life of the neighborhood, where dances, weddings, and SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 167 family and neighborhood celebrations take place. The social value of these halls is great, affording, as they do, one of a very few places of recreation where men and wo- men can meet upon a common social basis. Nearly all of these halls are, however, owned or operated by liquor dealers, and a bar is commonly to be found. At the larger dances and public balls, intoxication is very com- mon. All this emphasizes once more the need of respectable, quiet, and well-ventilated halls where liquor is not served, as essential to the solution of the social problem. A very careful study has been made of the theatre in its influence upon the social life of the people. In general, it must be said that its influence falls far below what it might and ought to be, because the best plays are beyond the financial reach of the people who most need them. The melodrama, which used to be offered at low rates, has largely given way in our day to vaudeville perform- ances which are by no means so wholesome in their effect. In cheap vaudeville theatres the tendency is constantly downward, and these are precisely the theatres most fre- quented by those who need a higher and 168 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM better form of recreation. The theatre — that is as it exists to-day — is an educational or helpful centre of amusement for only the merest fraction of the wage-earners of our great cities. And it will never become, in the best sense, "a people's theatre" so long as it is controlled by syndicates having an eye solely to profits. If the interests which at present operate the theatres of the country cannot take a proper view of their opportu- nity, then the work must be taken up either as a philanthropic or as a municipal enter- prise. We have the beginnings of such a municipal theatre in France. It ought not to be long before it is realized in our own cities, where there is desperate need of whole- some dramatic entertainment at rates within reach of the wage-earners. Outdoor amusements compete only indi- rectly, perhaps, with the saloon ; yet their general influence is large in lifting the peo- ple, for at least a portion of the year, above the saloon level. Of the need of playgrounds for the children mention has abeady been made. The open spaces and small parks in aur large cities are of the utmost importance SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 169 also in furnishing the laboring people "with an attractive meeting place, and with the social opportunity which the saloon affords. The large parks at a distance from the poor resident sections never take the place of these neighborhood parks, which, however small, are of incalculable service. The large parks in many American cities are too inaccessible, and the rate of transportation is too high to make them a great benefit for the poor peo- ple. A public park, to be of the greatest value to the working people, must not be in- accessible from any part of the city, must be reached by a five-cent fare, and must offer amusements that attract and divert. The growing custom of street-railway corpora- tions to own and operate public amusement parks is commendable where these are free from objectionable amusements. The open- air vaudeville shows, however, are not always above reproach, and where liquor is freely sold the results are not good. The municipality is able to contribute to the solution of the social problem in other ways which may be conveniently mentioned here. The athletic interest affords a field for the wise use of municipal funds. The 170 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM public gymnasium is a little known institution in our American cities, yet where it exists its influence for good has been immediately felt. Boston operates several municipal gym- nasiums, the operation and maintenance of which have cost only moderate sums, while the benefits in increased healthfulness and sobriety have been marked. A substantial, roomy gymnasium can be erected and equipped for $20,000. It would be difficult to suggest a more profitable investment of a city's funds. Outdoor gymnasiums are conducted by the municipality in Boston, in New York, and elsewhere, with unvarying success from the point of view of patronage, economy, and visible results in the decrease in lawlessness and intoxication. It is much to be wished that these might be estabhshed in every munici- pality. The same is to be said of the public baths. These are always crowded wholly be- yond their capacity, and exert the most whole- some influence. A bath costing $20,000 will accommodate 800 daily, and will do much to promote a city's health and morality. No municipality will really have discharged its duty until it brings within the reach of all, SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 171 in winter as well as in summer, facilities for securing the physical cleanliness that bears such close relationship to social and moral well-being. The efPort to compete with the saloon upon the basis of food and drink presents a very difficult problem. The most that can be said of temperance drinking places is that they satisfy the normal thirst without compelling one to enter a saloon for that purpose. On the ground of satisfying the natural craving for drink, these temperance places are exerting a large influence. Unhappily, however, where the morbid appetite for liquor begins, this competition ceases, and the superior attraction of the alcoholic drink can be met only by the provision of other attractions of such a kind and variety that they will overcome the single appeal to appetite. Such, in a word, is the philosophy underlying the coffee house, the tea saloon, the temperance tavern, and all similar institutions. As against the bar with its beer and whiskey there is a bar with its temperance drinks, and, in addition, a well- stocked reading-room, a billiard room, a bowl- ing alley, and perhaps good lodging and 172 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM wholesome food, — resources that can satisfy not only the normal thirst, but the normal desire for recreation and sociability as well. Where these are provided, and all religious and charitable ideas are excluded, temperance drinking places may expect a fairly good patronage, and may under favorable condi- tions pay the running expenses. They cannot expect, however, to realize any profit on the capital invested. Another plan has been suggested. It has been proposed that temperance saloons recog- nize the demand for alcoholic stimulant as legitimate, and provide good beer and light wines to be sold with discretion and with no attempt to make a profit. This plan is already in operation in England. The Bishop of Chester and other influential persons organ- ized in 1897 the People's Restaurant House Association, the aim of which is to establish canteens and refreshment houses at large public works where liquor shall be distributed under right conditions. These conditions are held to be as follows : the manager to be paid a fixed salary, and to be allowed no profit on the sale of alcoholic drinks; but to be allowed a profit on all food and non-alcoholic SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 173 drinks which are prominently displayed and promptly served ; and great care to be taken to secure the pure quality of the liquor sold. This association, which has done good work in England on what we may well believe to be right principles, has not been systemati- cally imitated in America. Yet it may be said to present a practicable plan for proceeding at once to better the conditions under which intoxicants are sold without waiting for fur- ther legislation. Lunch rooms and restaurants, of which so many are to be found in all our cities, are not in any real sense competitors of the saloon free lunch for the reason that, as a rule, the restaurant keeper, in order to make a living, is obliged to place such a price upon the food or to serve it under conditions so unattrac- tive as to leave the free lunch practically un- rivaled. It is only as the element of profit is eliminated from the retailing of food that it can be served in sufficient quantities, for a low enough price, or with sufficient attrac- tions, to overcome the superior advantages already held out by the saloon. In this way eating places may become rivals of the saloon as food centres and social centres as well. 174 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM This fact is itself a great encouragement, and ought to stimulate without any delay activity in this branch of temperance work. It will fall to churches, temperance organizations, and private philanthropies that are not look- ing for a return on capital invested, to form lunch-room or coffee-house associations, and to plant lunch rooms or restaurants in local- ities where saloons are abundant and where the saloon free lunch is drawing all the trade. Nothing that manufacturers have done for their employees can show better results than the provision by the company of good meals at low prices. By this simple means alone the comfort and morals of large num- bers of men have been noticeably improved, and often neighboring saloons have been driven out of business. In conclusion, two other methods of rival- ing the influence of the saloon must be men- tioned. They are the most fundamental of all. The first is the method of improving the outer conditions and the inner life of the home. The second is the education and moral enlightenment of the individual. The natural and rightful competitor of the SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 175 saloon is the home. But before home life begins, houses should be provided with at least the elementary conditions of sanitation, privacy, air, and space. Yet these are denied to thousands of working people in our cities, who seek in a saloon what they should find in the home. Sanitary reform is the founda- tion of any effort to provide suitable homes for the working people. Experience has con- clusively shown that this cannot be surely and expeditiously brought about by the regu- larly constituted authorities alone. The co- operation of public-spirited citizens, sanitary aid societies, and other associations is very desirable. It has also been definitely deter- mined that whenever the housing problem becomes acute, either the regular or specially appointed officers must have the authority to expropriate evidently unwholesome buildings, to evict tenants, and to prosecute offenders. Until such a statute has been enacted httle real progress can be made. Ordinances seek- ing to regulate the erection of new tenement buildings will have regard to light, air, fire- escapes, sanitary and bath conveniences, and to the prevention of overcrowding. There is to-day no excuse whatever for the erection 176 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM of buildings in any American city violating these fundamental conditions. But the chief encouragement in this important branch of reform comes from the fact that improved housing pays not only in the results accom- plished, but in dollars and cents. An analysis of the economic experience of all companies engaged in providing good housing facilities for the poor — such, for example, as the City and Suburban Homes Company of New York — has demonstrated that "about four per cent, and a safe reserve can be earned on model tenement buildings anywhere charging customary rents, provided the total cost of the completed property does not exceed five hundred dollars per room." Such, then, is the encouraging experience in this branch of social economics. It is to be remembered also that the evident effect of the erection of im- proved dwellings is to raise the standard of tenement erection by those who are not ani- mated by any philanthropic motive.^ Similarly encouraging, although here the amount of evidence is not so large, are the results of recent experiments to establish 1 " Substitutes for the Saloon,'* pp. 268-288, Municipal Affairs Magazine^ March, 1899. SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 177 hotels for unmarried workingmen at prices within reach of the poorest. The experience of Hke enterprises in England has been con- firmed, that such hotels can accomplish an inestimable social service, and, in addition, be made to pay all expenses and to yield a comfortable income on the money invested. Home life depends, of course, even more upon the mental and spiritual resources of those who inhabit the home than upon the external conditions of the home itself. It is clear that the housing of the people does not solve the problem of home life ; yet, in so far as externals are favorable, they do help to raise the standard of living, and to increase the self-respect of the home-makers. The unselfish love of that which is holy, the steadfastness of purpose which holds one close to the fulfillment of his ideal, and the willing sacrifice of all that stands in the way of its realization, — these are the elements of a home wherever that home may be. Fun- damental and personal as these essentially are, it is by no means in vain that one strives to reach and strengthen them. All that is done to refine, to educate, and to cultivate the ideals reacts upon the character, and 178 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM fulfills its highest aim when the man thus reinforced takes the product of his own enlightenment into his home. The same re- finement due the man is vastly more an ob- ligation to the woman, who is the real maker of the home. It is her personality that cre- ates the home atmosphere, and upon her strength of character depends very largely the influence and the power of the home. Thus the real solution of the liquor pro- blem from this, as from every other point of view, is seen to rest finally in the moral equipment of the individual. Those forces that make for the development of personality are in the last analysis the forces that are doinof the most to overcome the evils of the liquor traf&c. It is at this point, rather than in the development of institutional activity, — although this is by no means unimpor- tant, — that the Church can render her most effective service. It is here that the relation of public school education to public morality is clearly visible. And it has become apparent that a system which in spite of its excellence retains only six per cent, of the total popula- tion of the United States within its schools after the age of fourteen years is not doing SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 179 what it should to develop those inner re- sources o£ mind and heart which alone can create and satisfy desires far above the ap- peals of appetite. To make good these defi- ciencies the municipal night schools, public lecture courses, free public libraries, univer- sity extension societies, educational classes connected with the Young Men's Christian Association, and such popular educational institutions as Cooper Union in New York, have been established. Free reading-rooms in crowded districts have met with large suc- cess. Where these are provided with well- lighted front entrances, comfortable seats, tables supplied with reading matter and the daily papers, they attract large numbers. Such reading-rooms are amazingly rare, yet the cost of maintenance is slight, and their popularity and usefulness are unquestionable. Night schools are a most important part of this supplemental system of education, and where the curriculum is made broad enough to bear directly on the occupations of the youthful wage-earners, and where the teacher comes fresh to the work, their effectiveness is very great. The free lecture courses pro- vided by the Board of Education in New 180 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM York and elsewhere, as well as by the vari- ous university extension societies, provide intellectual and educational stimulus to hun- dreds of thousands of people. These lectures have been most effective where care has been taken to secure the very best lecturers, and to make the work in each centre continuous. Such work cannot in the nature of the case be self-supporting, but it is one of the most judicious of the civic investments of the taxpayer. Public libraries in order to do their best work must be free, must make it easy for the people to get their register cards, and must plan to facilitate the use of books. This can best be accomplished by working in coopera- tion with other educational centres, by branch and traveling libraries, and by permitting free access to at least a considerable number of books, so that the sight of the books may stimulate circulation. In fact, the ideal of all popular educational enterprises is to reach the largest number, and to supply as con- cretely as possible the specific needs of the different elements of the city's population, in the belief that " a man needs knowledge, not as a means of livelihood, but as a means SUBSTITUTES FOR THE SALOON 181 of life ; " that the future of the saloon de- pends on public sentiment and on economic conditions that will improve only as public education advances and enters more and more deeply into the life of the people. Of even greater educational value is the silent but pervading work being carried on by the little groups of settlement workers in nearly all of our American cities. Such work is too personal to be describable in outer terms. But if this chapter of social reform were to be adequately presented, it would be felt by every one to be among the most fun- damental of all attempts to meet the issues growing out of the social allurements of the saloon. The volume of which this report is an ab- stract has been written to little purpose if it has not shown, on the one hand, the danger of leaving the saloon to keep its present strategic position in the social life of the American people, and, upon the other hand, the present possibility, both by the negative method of repressive legislation and by the positive method of developing wholesome recreative agencies, of satisfying the legiti- 182 THE LIQUOR PROBLEM mate demand for sociability and amusements in higher and better ways. If these two points have been clearly demonstrated, the ultimate solution of the liquor problem may not be as far distant as we have sometimes been tempted to believe. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ 021 930 886 3