The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-24
A NEW BOOK FROM PRESIDENT
ELIOT

President Eliot, of Harvard, has the
habit of often turning up in new
place with a strong word or brave
deed; but perhaps he has never done
anything that is likely to produce
longer controversy than the investiga-
tons that he has directed into the. eff
fects of different kinds of liquor laws.
He caused first-hand investigation
to be made in eight states, among
them Maine and Iowa, as examples of
prohibition states; Massachusetts, In
diana Pennsylvania, as examples of
states under different kinds of high
license and other restrictive laws;
South Carolina as an example Of the
state dispensary system, and Ohio as
an example of the simple taxing (no
license) system. President Eliot frank
ly sets forth conclusions that are in
cOntrovertible-cOnc that serious
students Of the subject had already
reached, but had never been able to
fortify with SO large a number Of facts
gathered from SO wide an area of in
vestigation. Among the conclusions
thus fortified are these-that prohibi-
ton, while 1t has produced good re-
suits in some communities where pub
lie sentiment was In entire accord
with it, has directly developed such
stupendously bad results in other COM
munities as not to commend itself as
an agent Of temperance. High license
and all methods Of restriction must
be regulated always with reference to
the point Of severity that public opin-
ion will support-and no further One
remarkable result shown by this in
vestigatiOn Is that in many cases
one might say in most Cases-the ex,
actly contrary result Of particular laws
has followed from the result expected.
In South Carolina, for example, the
Of thn a n or-xY
tenn expected to lessen drinking in the
rural districts and expected that one
result would be a possible increase of
drunkenness in the towns. The cons
trary was true. President Eliot's book
for the book setting forth these in
vestigations is written partly by him
and wholly under his directions ex-
pected to be a notable contribution to
sociology. 80
CLEAN FICTION TO THE FRONT.
The old question Of the Commercial
necessity as it is sometimes expressed,
Of making fiction immoral has been
raised again, strangely enough this
time not by an indecent story, but by
a notably clean one. Paul Leicester
Ford s STORY of an Unt9Ide LoVe," now
running in the Atlantic Monthly, is a
love story and nothing but a love
story, ana II HAS the ulSuuCIlOn OIL
being as chaste as any story that can
be found in the whole wide range of
literature. Since Mr.. Ford is prov
ing again that nautiness is really not
as interesting as pure-mindedness, he
is receiving the credit Of leading a re-
volt against the wicked novelists
This surely is the way to lead such a
revolt-by practice rather than by
preaching. 1t is not simply the prud-
ish and the puritanieal, but the great
mass Of clean-minded mankind, espe-
cially womankind, who know that the
better side of life is immensely more
interesting, as well as more wholesome
than the criminal and unfortunate side
It is pleasing to our national feeling to
observe that the worst recent sinners
In this matter are English story tell,
ers, and that the upholders of clean
fiction are American; and if Mr.. Ford
finds jrofit, as he has undoubtedly
found pleasure, in making a conspic-
uously clean love story, so much the
more convincing. His preceding novel,
1.-THE Honorable Peter Sterling" con-
tinues its unusually successful career