other means. It is perhaps too early to say with any degree of assurance that such would be their final verdict. It is clear however that prohibition has been sustained by an earnest, even zealous, propaganda which none of the other schemes have had and this may explain its greater hold on the public favor. At present it would appear that it is not the form of regulation which the majority of the people are ready to accept. "As more things are done by machinery, as trolley-cars supplant horse-cars, as implements 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 imperative and the very conditions of modern business life necessitates sobriety on the part of the workers. Those who would find profitable employment. realize more and more the importance of moderation in drink.” CHAPTER IV. SUMMARY. That over-indulgence in intoxicants constitutes a menace to social welfare has long been accepted by thinking people as a settled truth. For over a half-century organized effort has been on foot to curtail the use of alcoholic stimulants with a view to its ultimate discontinuance. In presidential, state and municipal campaigns appeal has been made to the voting population to return legislators and executives who would see to it that alcoholism be wiped out. As a matter of national policy the movement has made but little headway; here and there at different times a number of states have enacted prohibitory legislation, but in none of them has prohibition been more than a qualified success. The experience of municipalities and other local units has been as varied as local conditions. In the meantime the per capita consumption of alcoholic liquors has risen from 4.17 gallons in 1840 to 19.99 gallons in 1903. The increase has been mainly the result of the enormous. growth in the consumption of malt liquors which rose from 1.36 gallons per capita in 1840 to 18.04 in 1903. The per capita consumption of distilled spirits was 2.52 gallons in 1840 and 1.46 gallons in 1903. It has been said that the change has been favorable. That while there has been an enormous increase in the per capita consumption it has been entirely in the use of the less intoxicating liquor and that on the whole less alcohol is now consumed than in 1840. This may be doubted. The decrease of 1.06 gallons in the per capita consumption of distilled spirits is more than offset by the per capita increase of 16.68 gallons in the consumption of malt liquors. The amount of alcohol consumed, in fact, may fairly be said to have doubled by the exchange. Side by side with the increase in consumption has gone the development of the financial and economic forces engaged in the production and distribution of liquors. Regarding the manufacture and sale as a unit the capitalization of the industry aggregates a billion and a half of dollars. It gives employment to approximately five hundred thousand people, and, assigning to each of them a family of four, furnishes support to two million citizens of the republic; without considering those who are engaged in the production and transportation of the products that go into its composition and those employed in transporting the manufactured article. Not only has the traffic become strongly intrenched on the purely industrial side but the financial integrity of the government itself has in a measure become bound up in its permanence. Nation, state, county and municipality, derive a large and an increasing proportion of their support from taxes imposed on the manufacture and sale of liquor. At the present time about fifteen per cent of the total revenues derived by all the units is paid by this industry. We find another consideration that makes most strongly for the permanence of the traffic in liquors. The saloon has become the center from which, more than from any other single institution, radiates the social life of the American workingman. These are considerations that must be borne in mind by those who are impatient to be rid of the institution and would root it out at a moment's notice. According to the report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Laber 39.44 per cent of the paupers in the institutions of that state became such through the use of intoxicants. Two-thirds of the convictions for crime were convictions for drunkenness. Alcoholism led to 84 per cent of the whole number of convictions, and about 51 per cent of the total number of convictions for crime other than drunkenness. The Committee of Fifty estimates that 25 per cent of the poverty relieved by charity organization societies results from liquor, and 37 per cent of the pauperism found in institutions is due to that cause. 50 per cent of the crime is due in part to intemperance; while 16 per cent has that as its sole cause. In the great majority of cases liquor is partly responsible for crime. But the pauperism which comes within the purview of charity organization work or finds its way into almshouses represents but the smallest part of the misery and economic waste properly attributable to the use of liquor. The time needlessly wasted, the vast economic resources diverted from their legitimate channels, must all be taken into consideration in attempting to cast up the damage which alcohol works to society. Statistics, common observation and the history of political parties all seem to emphasize that prohibitory legislation is not suited to the present temper of the American people. The best thought of the time is beginning to unite in the belief that the solution of the liquor problem does not lie in high license or prohibition or a governmental dispensary. The liquor industry is rooted in a social need. Patient study and thoughtful endeavor must devise some means which will more effectively satisfy the want which the saloon at present supplies. Table I.—Distilleries in operation and breweries and production of distilled spirits, fermented liquors, and domestic wines, 1880-1903. |