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 A BOUT seventy years ago a Quaker applied to 
 an English life insurance company for life 
 insurance and was asked ten per cent extra 
 because he was a total abstainer, as it was then 
 believed that a total abstainer could not live as 
 long as one who used liquor. He refused to 
 pay the increased rate and said he would prove 
 the theory wrong and, if I am correctly informed, 
 organized the United Kingdom Temperance and 
 General Provident Institution of London in 1841. 
 
 The Compay kept its total abstainers and non¬ 
 abstainers in two separate classes. In 1903 the 
 Company published the results of its experience. 
 The moderate drinkers had died at the rate of 
 T00.4 per cent of the death table; and the total 
 abstainers at the rate of 74.3 per cent. Moderate 
 drinkers as compared with total abstainers showed 
 a death rate of thirty-five per cent higher. These 
 figures are especially significant as they cover a 
 very long period of time (over sixty years) and 
 expected deaths of about fifteen thousand, thus 
 giving sufficient numbers for the law of averages 
 to obtain. This is more significant when it is 
 known that life insurance companies frequently 
 overlook some physical defect in a total abstainer 
 that would not be overlooked if the man was a 
 moderate drinker. For instance, a few weeks 
 ago a man with a fine family history and a 
 good health record applied for insurance. His 
 weight, however, was beyond normal (about two 
 hundred and ten pounds). His answer as to 
 amount of liquor consumed showed that he took 
 about four drinks of whiskey daily. Had he 
 been a total abstainer his weight only would 
 
 t orobably not have kept him from obtaining insur- 
 
 3 
 
ance, but the two things combined caused his re¬ 
 jection. 
 
 A word in regard to the death losses among 
 heavyweights. The average man five feet six 
 inches weighs one hundred and forty-six pounds 
 and the normal variations from this is about five 
 pounds for every inch of height. 
 
 It is discovered that the death rate is less 
 among men slightly lighter than the average and 
 increases pretty steadily from five per cent abovjs 
 the average upward. 
 
 A large insurance company reporting on meiji 
 thirty per cent or more above the average the 
 death loss has been one hundred and fifty-two 
 per cent of the expected. However, among heavw 
 young men from about eighten to twenty-five t 
 years of age the death rate is more favorable than 
 the average. Thus it would seem that where 
 men are naturally heavy they were desirable risks 
 Those who become corpulent through excessive 
 drinking and excessive eating have quantities of 
 dead matter in their system that nature has not 
 been able to throw off and hence the risk of death 
 becomes greatly augmented. 
 
 You will take notice in reading of death noticed 
 of those dying of sunstroke during the hot spells 
 in the Eastern cities that more than three-fourthsj 
 of them are men. One day when over forty pa¬ 
 tients had been carried into a hospital in Phila¬ 
 delphia, I visited that institution and inquiring of 
 an old attendant there as to the condition of the 
 patients when brought in he voluntarily furnished 
 me the information that nine-tenths of them were 
 “full” when brought in. 
 
 A Life Insurance Company has greater control 
 over its death rate than over its interest rate. 
 Large amounts of money must be invested ac- 
 
I 
 
 cording to the ruling rate of interest with only 
 slight variations. 
 
 The death rate of a company depends in the 
 first place upon the character of the agents. An 
 agent who patronizes a saloon will make friends 
 in that class, and if that class are insured a high 
 death rate must result. An unprincipled agent 
 might make corrupt arrangements with a com¬ 
 plaisant physician who will pass bad risks for a 
 consideration. 
 
 There are certain races of people shorter lived 
 than others. The average length of life seems 
 to depend largely upon the morals. The death 
 rate of tropical climates is much higher than 
 that of the temperate climates, and the death rate 
 of cities higher than that of the countries. The 
 death rate of fat men or very lean men is higher 
 than those of normal weight. The average life 
 of the ancestry and the diseases of which they 
 died largely control the length of life of their de- 
 cendants. 
 
 A great deal of attention is lately being paid to 
 what is called “moral hazard.’’ A man known to 
 be gambling, whether it is speculation or plain 
 betting, has his moral hazard risk increased. 
 There is a high death rate among such politicians 
 who are known as “Grafters,” such as bribe or 
 accept bribes. 
 
 In +he great Insurance investigation an ap¬ 
 palling percentage of those involved died about 
 eighteen months after exposure. Of four men in¬ 
 dicted for the graft of $9,000,000 for the furniture 
 of the state capital of Pennsylvania, I think I 
 am correct in saying that three deceased within 
 a few' months after they were found out. The 
 death rate is also very high among those men 
 who betray financial trusts, such as defaulting 
 
 5 
 
bankers and those who spend estates entrusted 
 to their care. 
 
 By carefully watching all risks—moral, physi¬ 
 cal, family history, occupation, climatic condi¬ 
 tions, habits, etc., one company has been able to 
 reduce its death rate over a period of forty-five 
 years to less than sixty-one per cent of the ex¬ 
 pected, according to the American Death Table. 
 
 A man who goes on a roaring drunk occasion¬ 
 ally and then for weeks drinks nothing at all is 
 a better risk than a man who never gets drunk 
 but is always drinking. 
 
 From a paper read by Roderick McKenzie be¬ 
 fore the British Institute of Actuaries it appears 
 that between the ages of thirty and forty years 
 there were abstainers’ deaths of 42,001 among a 
 certain number, and drinkers, 70,041. At ages 
 from forty to fifty, abstainers, 6,246, and drinkers, 
 10,861. It is a popular idea that in old age drink 
 is good for the length of life. I believe there 
 are no statistics to prove this contention, al¬ 
 though the figures do show that there is less dif¬ 
 ference between drinkers and abstainers in old 
 age than in earlier years. But I believe the time 
 never comes when the death rate is not higher 
 for the moderate drinkers. 
 
 The death rate for Canada is lower than that of 
 United States. They consume less liquor per 
 head. The death rate of United States is less 
 than Great Britain. Great Britain less than 
 France and Germany. The death rate of Scan¬ 
 dinavia is less than any other European nation 
 having a large portion of territory that is under 
 the prohibitory law. The death rate of all these 
 nations is almost in proportion to the number 
 of gallons consumed yearly. 
 
 The Sceptre Life Insurance Society, Limited, 
 of England, for the years from 1884 to 1903, in- 
 
 6 
 
elusive, gives the following figures: For abstain¬ 
 ers, 1,440 expected deaths, actual deaths 792; non¬ 
 abstainers, 2,730 expected deaths, actual deaths 
 1880. The ratio being fifty-five per cent for the 
 total abstainers and seventy-nine per cent for the 
 non-abstainers. 
 
 Scottish Temperance Life Assurance Company, 
 Limited, for twenty years, from 1883 to 1902, in¬ 
 clusive, shows abstainers die at the rate of only 
 forty-five per cent of the expected and non-ab¬ 
 stainers at the rate of seventy-one per cent of 
 the expected. 
 
 The Actuary of the Mutual Life Insurance 
 Company of New York undertook a study of the 
 effect of drink on the death rate of his company, 
 taking the American Death Table as a guide and 
 shaving this about twenty-five per cent for the 
 first five years to cover the effect of selection, 
 and then comparing actual losses with this 
 amended table among abstainers he found the ex¬ 
 pected loss of 5,455,669 and an actual loss of 
 4,251,050. This was a rate of seventy-eight per 
 cent of the expected. Of the drinkers the ex¬ 
 pected loss was 9,829,462 and the actual loss was 
 9,469,407. The drinkers showing ninety-six per 
 cent loss as compared with the other section of 
 seventy-eight per cent. 
 
 It should be remembered at the same time that 
 Life Insurance companies are supposed not to 
 insure anyone who is an immoderate drinker. 
 Every company that I am acquainted with asks 
 in the application particularly as to these habits— 
 drink, opium, smoking and other drugs, the same 
 as they inquire into the diseases and defects of 
 family record. If the death rate of the selected 
 drinkers is one-third greater than abstainers what 
 will be the still higher death rate among those 
 whose habits preclude their being insured at all? 
 
 7 
 
Comparatively few Life Insurance companies 
 insure liquor dealers, and the latest custom when 
 companies accept them is to add twelve years to 
 the actual age of the applicant. What place ought 
 civilization grant to any business that will sub¬ 
 tract twelve years from the life of the man who 
 runs it? 
 
 In 1903 a committee of the Acturial Society 
 published a book giving the results of mortality 
 experience of the leading Life Insurance com¬ 
 panies of this country on ninety-eight different 
 classes of lives, and among those classes are hve 
 which may have some bearing on the point at 
 issue. The experience covered was for thirty 
 years from 1870 to 1899, inclusive, i. e., all policies 
 issued during those years showing their experi¬ 
 ence for the time they were in force. 
 
 Under the head “Hotel Keepers Not Tending 
 Bar” there were 1,188 deaths, when only 97r.9 
 were expected, i. e., 122 per cent of the expecta¬ 
 tion by the Modified Healthy English Mortality 
 Table (being the same Table applied to all 
 classes). Under the head “Wine or Liquor Seller 
 Abstainer,” there were 411 deaths for an expecta¬ 
 tion of 343.7, i. e., an actual mortality of 119 per 
 cent of the expected. Under the head of “Wine 
 and Liquor Seller, Non-Abstainer,” there were 
 1,704 deaths, against an expectation of 1,303, i. e., 
 131 per cent actual deaths, as compared with the 
 expected. Under the head of “Brewer or Em¬ 
 ployee,” 796 deaths against an expectation of 
 588.2, or 136 per cent of the expected. Under 
 the head of “Distiller or Employee” 205 actual 
 deaths, against 192.4 expected, or 106 per cent of 
 the expected. 
 
 From this it would appear than even the total 
 abstainers who handle liquor are not exempt from 
 the wages of sin as they die at the rate of 119 
 
 8 
 
per cent of the expected. Either the business 
 itself is a life depressant or the mentally, or mor¬ 
 ally, or physically deficient enter the business. 
 Whatever the cause, or they fail to tell the truth 
 when applying for Life Insurance, the death rate 
 even among the total abstaining liquor dealers is 
 19 per cent greater than the expected. It also 
 appears that the Brewery Employee and Brewer 
 have a greater death rate as a class than any 
 other class connected with the business except 
 the bartender. This would indicate that beer in¬ 
 stead of being a safe drink is on the whole a 
 most injurious one. 
 
 The death rate of the average man engaged in 
 the liquor business is greater than the following 
 dangerous occupations and of those who have 
 suffered the following diseases as below quoted: 
 
 Railroad locomotive engineer. 127 
 
 Seaman or fisherman.108 
 
 Steel grinder. T20 
 
 City fire department.U3 
 
 Officer in the Army.1 [6 
 
 Persons having had— 
 
 Renal colic, calculus or gravel.T07 
 
 Blood-spitting. to8 
 
 Inflammatory rheumatism more than once..TO/ 
 
 Hip-joint disease.r28 
 
 Syph ill is.133 
 
 The power of evil seems to be commensurate 
 with the power to deceive and it is only as it 
 was written that the devil was a liar from the be¬ 
 ginning. so his chief vicegerent, the liquor traffic, 
 has been the greatest deceiver of mankind. Men 
 have thought to obtain lengthened life by it and 
 have invited death instead; they have sought 
 health by it and thereby multiplied their diseases; 
 they have obtained the devil’s joy, which is nine- 
 tenths pain; they have sought to obtain intellect- 
 
 9 
 
ual acuteness and have ended with cooked brains; 
 it has promised riches to the State and costs $9 
 of taxes to $1 of revenue to the State; it prom¬ 
 ises yet an easy way of living for the saloon¬ 
 keeper and gives instead a kind of life that is 
 not worth the living, as the suicide statistics of 
 saloonkeepers indicate. 
 
 The wisest man of the ages more than three 
 thousand years ago said: “Wine is a deceiver and 
 strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived 
 thereby is not wise.” 
 
 Even the medical fraternity have been deceived 
 and their deception has added to the death toll of 
 each succeeding generation, from poisoned infants 
 to the drugging of men already poisoned with 
 disease up till old age, where they add artificial 
 palsy to the decreptitude of the already infirmed. 
 Proofs are coming in constantly now that mil¬ 
 lions of men have been slain by the doctors ad¬ 
 ministering the poison of alcohol. 
 
 The London Temperance Hospital which for 
 over twenty-five years has not used a drop of 
 liquor has lately published their experience, and 
 in Typhoid Fever especially that Hospital has had 
 a death rate of thirty per cent less than the 
 other London hospitals. 
 
 The ordinary doctor taking a Tyhpoid Fever 
 patient after the body has created antitoxines and 
 destroyed the disease germs, and the fever has 
 ceased and nature takes a breathing spell before 
 starting on the upward grade, and nature seems 
 inert, the fool doctor as a rule still pours the 
 poison into the system. Nature recognizes the 
 toxic and in alarm starts all the organs of the 
 body to work to rid itself of the new poison— 
 liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, perspiration, and if a 
 nursing mother, her milk will cary off the alcohol. 
 Every organ of the body that can do any work 
 
 10 
 
sets itself to rid the system of the poison, and at 
 this point the doctor, recognizing the activity, 
 says the patient is better. The fact is that the 
 little strength the patient has left is being drained 
 to rid itself of the extra burden and shortly after, 
 unless the patient is strong, he collapses and dies. 
 It has taken the medical profession thousands of 
 years to begin to discern the difference between 
 the final effects and the immediate symptoms. 
 
 Dr. Spratling reports a history of alcoholism in 
 the parents of three hundred and thirteen out of 
 nine hundred and fifty cases. More than twenty- 
 two per cent of these unfortunates are thus suf¬ 
 fering from the mistakes of their parents. Nor 
 does this by any means tell the whole story, for 
 the report shows that five hundred and seventy- 
 seven additional cases (more than sixty per cent 
 of the whole) suffer from “neuropathic heredity,” 
 which means that their parents were themselves 
 the victims of one or another of the neuroses that 
 are peculiarly heritable, and that unquestionably 
 tell in a large number of cases of alcoholic, indulg¬ 
 ence on the part of their progenitor^ "Fven to 
 the third and fourth generation,” said the wise 
 Hebrew of old. And the laws of heredity have 
 not changed since then. 
 
 The world is just beginning to waken up to the 
 necessity of sanitation in reference to tubercu¬ 
 losis. This has been found to be a germ disease 
 and preventable, but probably the greatest ally to 
 the disease has been liquor. 
 
 Somewhat startling statistics from the Prov¬ 
 inces of France show that those Provinces drink¬ 
 ing the least wine have the fewest deaths from 
 tuberculosis; and those Provinces having the 
 greatest number of gallons of wine per head con¬ 
 sumed have the most deaths from tuberculosis. 
 
 Of the saloonkeepers of France, out of every 
 
 11 
 
thousand that die more than five hundred of them 
 die of consumption. Thus the saloon is not only 
 a moral plague spot, but a physical one as well. 
 
 We will now consider for a moment the death 
 rate of those actually engaged in the liquor busi¬ 
 ness. First, we will take Germany, where it is 
 said they can always drink and never be drunk. 
 In Prussia in 1901 out of 159,000 deaths occur¬ 
 ring after twenty-five years of age, fifty-two per 
 cent of the whole lived to over sixty. Of per¬ 
 sons insured in the Gotha Life Insurance Com¬ 
 pany, of physicians forty-nine per cent live to 
 over sixty; of teachers, fifty-one per cent; of 
 clergy, sixty-five per cent; of men engaged in 
 the liquor trades, average thirty-one per cent; 
 brewery employees, eighteen per cent; bartenders, 
 seven per cent. According to these figures the 
 bartender has only one chance in nine as to the 
 preacher in living to over sixty years of age. 
 
 In Prussia of every one thousand deaths oc¬ 
 curring over twenty-five years of age, one hun¬ 
 dred and sixty-one are from tuberculosis. But 
 every one thousand deaths among bartenders, five 
 hundred and fifty-six are from tuberculosis. 
 Among Brewery employees three hundred and 
 forty-five. School teachers, one hundred and 
 forty-three. Physicians, one hundred and thirteen. 
 Clergy, seventy-six. The average covering all 
 callings would be much less if the death rate in 
 
 liquor trades was eliminated. 
 
 In the statistics of accidents, the miners show 
 ninety accidents to the thousand, the breweries 
 one hundred and eighteen per thousand. This is 
 a higher average than any other trade, even the 
 most perilous, and Professor Guttstadt gives to 
 these the name of “bier-leiche” (beer corpses!. 
 
 Before Theodore Roosevelt became President 
 he was appointed Police Commissioner of New 
 York. He found an ordinance closing saloons on 
 Sunday, and contrary to the opinions of almost 
 
 12 
 
the whole press of the city and without much aid 
 from the three other police commissioners, pro¬ 
 ceeded to enforce the law. The death rate of 
 the city immediately dropped nearly five per cent, 
 and if my recollection serves me, the deposits in 
 the savings banks increased over $1,000,000 per 
 week during this enforcement. 
 
 The tendencies of liquor drinking toward 
 causing suicide has received ample verification 
 before and after the earthquake of San Francisco 
 in 1906. During the Ruef and Schmitz admin¬ 
 istration the suicide rate of the city reached an 
 enormous proportion, being sixty-one per one hun¬ 
 dred thousand in 1905. The next highest in America 
 being Hoboken, N. J., at 29; Oakland, Calif., was 
 26.7; Chicago, 20.4; New York City, 17.7; and 
 Philadelphia 14. i. e., the suicide rate of San 
 Francisco was nearly three times the larger of 
 any of the other large cities. There they were 
 killing themselves at the rate of two every three 
 days. In May and June, 1905, there were forty- 
 eight suicides in the city. Then came the earth¬ 
 quake and fire and two months of prohibition. 
 San Francisco went home for the first time in its 
 life sober. Tens of thousands of women who had 
 dreaded to see their husbands return home had 
 a few weeks of happiness. 
 
 I am fully satisfied that the average man and 
 woman in San Francisco was happier two weeks 
 after the great earthquake and the fire than two 
 weeks before. It is a very forcible reminder of 
 the Scripture, “A man’s life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things that he possesseth.” 
 There was more brotherly kindness and of gen¬ 
 eral good cheer, less selfishness, and very many 
 less heartaches, all of which was reflected plainly 
 in the faces of the average men of the city. I 
 studied phenomenon as keenly as I ever studied 
 
 13 
 
any sociological question. There arc probably 
 more men alive today, notwithstanding the sev¬ 
 eral hundreds of deaths of the earthquake, than 
 there would have been if the so-called disaster 
 had not occurred. In suicides alone there are 
 several hundred more men alive than there would 
 have been at the old rate. 
 
 The saddest sight I saw in the whole time of 
 the disaster was that of a drunk crazed woman 
 with a big bottle of liquor, and a young daughter 
 about thirteen years of age trying to take the bot¬ 
 tle from her, and a man apparently the husband 
 of the woman, aiding the daughter to get pos¬ 
 session of the liquor. The frantic cries of the 
 daughter and the demonial determination of the 
 drunken woman to continue her debauch among 
 the smoking ruins were more pitiful and frightful 
 than the view of the ruined city. 
 
 During the two months of prohibition the sui¬ 
 cide rate of San Francisco dropped from 48. to 
 8. just at the time when we had experienced the 
 appallingly disastrous loss of property and friends, 
 and when it would be imagined that self-destruc¬ 
 tion would be more frequent. To make the mat¬ 
 ter a little more emphatic, one must consider 
 Oakland (which is just across the Bay) with San 
 Francisco at this time. Oakland thought she 
 needed the revenue from liquor and saloons and 
 kept the saloons open constantly, attracting all 
 the bums of the city, and they are still there 
 killing themselves, although San Francisco bids 
 fair to get them all back shortly under tl^e new 
 political conditions. Oakland suicide rate jumped 
 from 26.7 in 1905 to 66.2 in 1908, and then stood 
 as the highest suicide city of any one in America. 
 
 The suicide rate for 1909 which has just come 
 into my hands, shows San Francisco 59.9; Oak¬ 
 land, 55.1; Hoboken, 52.6; Chicago, 19.6; New 
 
 14 
 
York, 20.5; Philadelphia, 16.2. The suicide rate 
 seems to be increasing in almost all the Ameri¬ 
 can cities. 
 
 I believe it is now conceded that the Ger¬ 
 man race, the great beer drinkers, have more sui¬ 
 cides than any other people. In the German 
 Army the rate is very high. Beer and idleness 
 will make most any man feel that life is not worth 
 living, especially when it is connected with other 
 vices that go along not only with the saloon, but 
 with army life. 
 
 It is a strange thing that with the evils and dis¬ 
 gusting conditions surrounding the saloon busi¬ 
 ness anyone should stay in it. But I am reminded 
 of Milton’s “Masque of Comus” in which he says 
 they who partook of the cup of Circe had their 
 images transformed to that of ounce, tiger, hog 
 or bearded goat, and they so perfect in their mis¬ 
 ery that they not once perceive their foul disfig¬ 
 urement, but boast themselves more comely than 
 before. 
 
 And again it is an illustration of the great truth 
 in the Messiah’s declaration as to the deceitful¬ 
 ness of riches. If it were not for the money in 
 the business it would sink of its own weight, but 
 many men are willing to run the risks of death 
 bodily and spiritually to obtain money without 
 giving labor or other value received, and are cer¬ 
 tainly deceived in their expectation of obtaining 
 happiness in this manner. 
 
 15 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS — URBANA 
 
 N30112124136141A