Part 18

Corroborative evidence of the baleful alliance between alcohol and tuberculosis is furnished by the fact that in France the regions where tuberculosis is most prevalent correspond with those in which the consumption of alcohol is greatest. Where the average annual consumption was 12.5 litres per person, the death rate from consumption was found by Baudron to be 32.8 per thousand. Where alcoholic consumption rose to 35.4 litres, the death rate from consumption increased to 107.8 per thousand. Equally suggestive are facts put forward by Guttstadt in regard to the causes of death in the various callings in Prussia. He found that tuberculosis claimed 160 victims in every thousand deaths of persons over twenty-five years of age. But the number of deaths from this disease per thousand deaths among gymnasium teachers, physicians, and Protestant clergymen, for example, amounted respectively to 126, 113, and 76 only; whereas the numbers rose, for hotelkeepers, to 237, for brewers, to 344, and for waiters, to 556. No doubt several factors complicate the problem here, but one hazards little in suggesting that a difference of habit as to the use of alcohol was the chief determinant in running up the death rate due to tuberculosis from 76 per thousand at one end of the scale to 556 at the other.

Pneumonia and tuberculosis combined account for one-fifth of all deaths in the United States, year by year. In the light of what has just been shown, it would appear that alcohol here has a hand in the carrying off of other untold thousands with whose untimely demise its name is not officially associated. I may add that certain German authorities, including, for example, Dr. Liebe, present evidence--not as yet demonstrative--to show that cancer must also be added to the list of diseases to which alcohol predisposes the organism.

_Hereditary Effects of Alcohol_

If additional evidence of the all-pervading influence of alcohol is required, it may be found in the thought-compelling fact that the effects are not limited to the individual who imbibes the alcohol, but may be passed on to his descendants. The offspring of alcoholics show impaired vitality of the most deep-seated character. Sometimes this impaired vitality is manifested in the non-viability of the offspring; sometimes in deformity; very frequently in neuroses, which may take the severe forms of chorea, infantile convulsions, epilepsy, or idiocy. In examining into the history of 2554 idiotic, epileptic, hysterical, or weak-minded children in the institution at Bicêtre, France, Bourneville found that over 41 per cent. had alcoholic parents. In more than 9 per cent. of the cases, it was ascertained that one or both parents were under the influence of alcohol at the time of procreation,--a fact of positively terrifying significance, when we reflect how alcohol inflames the passions while subordinating the judgment and the ethical scruples by which these passions are normally held in check. Of similar import are the observations of Bezzola and of Hartmann that a large proportion of the idiots and the criminals in Switzerland were conceived during the season of the year when the customs of the country--"May-fests," etc.--lead to the disproportionate consumption of alcohol.

Experimental evidence of very striking character is furnished by the reproductive histories of Professor Hodge's alcoholized dogs. Of 23 whelps born in four litters to a pair of tipplers, 9 were born dead, 8 were deformed, and only 4 were viable and seemingly normal. Meantime, a pair of normal kennel-companions produced 45 whelps, of which 41 were viable and normal--a percentage of 90.2 against the 17.4 per cent. of viable alcoholics. Professor Hodge points out that these results are strikingly similar to the observations of Demme on the progeny of ten alcoholic as compared with ten normal families of human beings. The ten alcoholic families produced 57 children, of whom 10 were deformed, 6 idiotic, 6 choreic or epileptic, 25 non-viable, and only 10, or 17 per cent, of the whole were normal. The ten normal families produced 61 children, two of whom were deformed, 2 pronounced "backward," though not suffering from disease, and 3 non-viable, leaving 54, or 88.5 per cent., normal.

As I am writing this article, the latest report of the Craig Colony for Epileptics, at Sonyea, New York, chances to come to my desk. Glancing at the tables of statistics, I find that the superintendent, Dr. Spratling, reports a history of alcoholism in the parents of 313 out of 950 recent cases. More than 22 per cent. of these unfortunates are thus suffering from the mistakes of their parents. Nor does this by any means tell the whole story, for the report shows that 577 additional cases--more than 60 per cent, of the whole--suffer from "neuropathic heredity"; which means that their parents were themselves the victims of one or another of those neuroses that are peculiarly heritable, and that unquestionably tell, in a large number of cases, of alcoholic indulgence on the part of their progenitors. "Even to the third and fourth generation," said the wise Hebrew of old; and the laws of heredity have not changed since then.

I cite the data from this report of the Epileptic Colony, not because its record is in any way exceptional, but because it is absolutely typical. The mental image that it brings up is precisely comparable to that which would arise were we to examine the life histories of the inmates of any institution whatever where dependent or delinquent children are cared for, be it idiot asylum, orphanage, hospital, or reformatory. The same picture, with the same insistent moral, would be before us could we visit a clinic where nervous diseases are treated; or--turning to the other end of the social scale--could we sit in the office of a fashionable specialist in nervous diseases and behold the succession of neurotics, epileptics, paralytics, and degenerates that come day by day under his observation. It is this picture, along with others which the preceding pages may in some measure have suggested, that comes to mind and will not readily be banished when one hears advocated "on physiological grounds" the regular use of alcoholic drinks, "in moderation." A vast number of the misguided individuals who were responsible for all this misery never did use alcohol except in what they believed to be strict "moderation"; and of those that did use it to excess, there were few indeed who could not have restricted their use of alcohol to moderate quantities, or have abandoned its use altogether, had not the drug itself made them its slaves by depriving them of all power of choice. Few men indeed are voluntary inebriates.

_Alcohol and the "Moderate" Drinker_

It does not fall within the scope of my present purpose to dwell upon the familiar aspect of the effects of alcohol suggested by the last sentence. It requires no scientific experiments to prove that one of the subtlest effects of this many-sided drug is to produce a craving for itself, while weakening the will that could resist that craving. But beyond noting that this is precisely in line with what we have everywhere seen to be the typical effect of alcohol--the weakening of higher functions and faculties, with corresponding exaggeration of lower ones--I shall not comment here upon this all too familiar phase of the alcohol problem. Throughout this paper I have had in mind the hidden cumulative effects of relatively small quantities of alcohol rather than the patent effects of excessive indulgence, I have had in mind the voluntary "social" drinker, rather than the drunkard. I have wished to raise a question in the mind of each and every habitual user of alcohol in "moderation" who chances to read this article, as to whether he is acting wisely in using alcohol habitually in any quantity whatever.

If in reply the reader shall say: "There is some quantity of alcohol that constitutes actual moderation; some quantity that will give me pleasure and yet not menace me with these evils," I answer thus:

Conceivably that is true, though it is not proved. But in any event, no man can tell you what the safe quantity is--if safe quantity there be--in any individual case. We have seen how widely individuals differ in susceptibility. In the laboratory some animals are killed by doses that seem harmless to their companions. These are matters of temperament that as yet elude explanation. But this much I can predict with confidence: whatever the "safe" quantity of alcohol for you to take, you will unquestionably at times exceed it. In a tolerably wide experience of men of many nations, I have never known an habitual drinker who did not sometimes take more alcohol than even the most liberal scientific estimate could claim as harmless. Therefore I believe that you must do the same.

So I am bound to believe, on the evidence, that if you take alcohol habitually, in any quantity whatever, it is to some extent a menace to you. I am bound to believe, in the light of what science has revealed: (1) that you are tangibly threatening the physical structures of your stomach, your liver, your kidneys, your heart, your blood-vessels, your nerves, your brain; (2) that you are unequivocally decreasing your capacity for work in any field, be it physical, intellectual, or artistic; (3) that you are in some measure lowering the grade of your mind, dulling your higher esthetic sense, and taking the finer edge off your morals; (4) that you are distinctly lessening your chances of maintaining health and attaining longevity; and (5) that you may be entailing upon your descendants yet unborn a bond of incalculable misery.

Such, I am bound to believe, is the probable cost of your "moderate" indulgence in alcoholic beverages. Part of that cost you must pay in person; the balance will be the heritage of future generations. As a mere business proposition: Is your glass of beer, your bottle of wine, your high-ball, or your cocktail worth such a price?

EDITORIALS

THE PEASANT SALOON-KEEPER--RULER OF AMERICAN CITIES

The great wave of temperance which is now sweeping Europe and America has its chief impulse, no doubt, in ethical and religious sentiment. But a new force is operative--the force of an exact knowledge of the evil physical effects of alcohol. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of this new element in temperance reform.

The story of the modern series of scientific experiments with alcohol, begun about twenty-five years ago and still in progress, is given by Dr. Henry Smith Williams in this number of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. These investigations, largely conducted in Continental Europe, include experiments on the senses, upon the muscles, and upon the different human intellectual activities, from the simplest to the most complex. Without exception they show that every function of the normal human body is injured by the use of alcohol--even the moderate use; and that the injury is both serious and permanent.

This knowledge is of concern to all the world. But there is in America a particular and special concern over a condition which may be believed to be unparalleled in human history--certainly in modern civilization: the power of the saloon in American government, especially the government of cities.

The fact is notorious; yet the condition is not clearly understood. Sixty years ago, with the first flood of European immigration, the character of American city governments changed suddenly and entirely. A great proportion of the peasantry who arrived here from the farms of Europe stopped in our cities. They were isolated from the rest of the population; their one great social center was the saloon. And out of this social center came their political leaders and the manipulators of their votes. The European peasant saloon-keeper, for more than half a century, has been the ruler of a great proportion of American cities.

The case of Tammany Hall, for so many years the real governing body of New York, is most familiar. Its politicians for half a century have graduated into public affairs through the common school of the saloon. Its leaders at the present time are perfect examples of the European peasant saloon-keeper type, which has come to govern us. The same condition exists to a large extent in nearly every one of the larger cities in the country. An analysis of the member-ship of the boards of aldermen in these cities for the past few decades shows a percentage of saloon-keepers with foreign names which is astonishing.

A government necessarily takes the character of those conducting it. The business of saloon-keeping, which produced the present management of our cities, involves, from the conditions which surround it, a disregard for both law and proper moral ideals. Ordinary commercial motives urge the proprietors, as a class, to increase the sale of a commodity which the State everywhere endeavors to restrict; and a savage condition of competition drives them still further--till a great proportion break the provisions of the law in some way; while a considerable number ally themselves with the most degraded and dangerous forms of vice.

The government by this class has been exactly what might have been expected. A body of men--drawn from an ancestry which has never possessed any knowledge or traditions of free government; educated in a business whose financial successes are made through the disregard of law--are elevated to the control of the machinery of law and order in the great cities. Another type of citizen--men of force and enterprise unsurpassed in the history of the world--by adapting the discoveries of the most inventive century of the world to the uses of commerce, have massed together in the past half century a chain of great cities upon the face of a half savage continent, and left them to the government of such people as these. The commercial enterprise of these cities has been the marvel of the world; their government has reached a point of moral degradation and inefficiency scarcely less than Oriental.

The debauching of our city life by this kind of government has been frequently pictured in this magazine. A government by saloon-keepers, and by dealers in flagrant immorality, finds both its power and profit in the establishment of vice by its official position. The progress of such a government is shown in George Kennan's description of the former régime in San Francisco, published in MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE of September, 1907:

"Instead of protecting the public by enforcing the laws, it devoted itself mainly to making money by allowing gamblers, policy-sellers, brothel keepers, and prostitutes to break the laws. Its honest officers and men tried, at first, to do their duty; but the police commissioners, under the influence or direction of Ruef, interfered with their efforts to close illegal and immoral resorts; the police court judges, allowing themselves to be swayed by selfish political considerations, released the prisoners whom they arrested."

Conditions similar to this have been shown in this magazine to exist in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburg, and other great cities of America. The results have been a general disintegration in the moral fiber of cities. Life itself is much more unsafe than under the well-ordered governments of European cities. The murder rate in Chicago and New York is six or eight times as great as in London and Berlin. Even such a primary necessity of civilization as the safety of women is lost sight of. A leading Chicago newspaper said in 1906:

"It has ever been our proudest boast as a people that in this country woman is respected and protected as she is in no other. That boast is becoming an empty one in Chicago. Women have not only been annoyed and insulted in great numbers on the street within a very short time, but not a few have been murdered. In the year before the Hollister tragedy, there were seventeen murders of women in Chicago, which attracted the attention of the city."

The system of government which produces this result was well described some years ago by the late Bishop Potter, speaking of conditions in New York.

"A corrupt system," he said, "whose infamous details have been steadily uncovered, to our increasing horror and humiliation, was brazenly ignored by those who were fattening on its spoils, and the world was presented with the astounding spectacle of a great municipality, whose civic mechanism was largely employed in trading in the bodies and souls of the defenseless."

Aside from giving direct encouragement and propagation to the more terrible forms of vice, the European peasant saloon-keeper government of our cities furnishes a fitting field for so-called respectable men--but really criminals of the worst type--who help organize and perpetuate saloon government for the purpose of securing, by bribery, franchises for public utilities without paying therefor. Thus American cities have been robbed as well as badly governed.

There are signs of amelioration of these conditions in most of the great cities of the country. But every advance is made against the fierce antagonism of just such systems as Bishop Potter described; and those systems exist in every large American city to-day--either in direct control or ready to take control at the slightest sign of relaxation by the forces which are opposing them. And the foundation of this evil structure is the European peasant saloon-keeper.

MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, in the next year, will consider the horrible influence of the saloon on American life. Dr. Williams will follow his article in the present number by studies of the influence of alcohol upon society at large, upon racial development, and upon the State. The author is especially equipped for his work. He is in the first place perhaps the greatest living popularizer of national science and history in America; and he has himself made life-long observations upon the influence of alcohol--both physical and social--first as a medical practitioner in the treatment of the insane at the great asylums at Bloomingdale and Randalls Island, and later by study and observation in the chief capitals of Europe, where he has lived the greater part of the last ten years. The sound judgment and impartial temper which have characterized his work in other fields will be found in his treatment of this great subject.

THE ELDER STATESMEN

Senators Sherman, Hoar, Edmunds, George, and Gray; these were the men who made the present Sherman Anti-trust Law. They were the men who made largely the financial and constitutional history of the United States for the three decades following the Civil War. They brought to the consideration of the trust problem an intimate knowledge of constitutional law, an open, unbiased attitude toward property rights, and a thorough devotion to the public interest. They gave long and careful attention to the question, spending two years on this bill. There was nothing hasty or ill-considered about their action. They sought to end special privilege and put all citizens on the same basis of free competition. Of all their great services to the nation none probably equals in importance this bill, which may be called the Magna Charta of industrial and commercial liberty.

The amendment of the Sherman Act may be an important public issue for some time to come. If it were possible to assemble for this work a body of men as able and as disinterested as the Elder Statesmen who framed the original act, the interests of the public would be safe.

Transcriber's Note

Hyphenated words have been retained as in the original text.

Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

OE ligatures have been expanded.