Evening journal., 1907-10-10
Prohibition Does Note Promote Life or Prevent Death

People who are not subject to inn
mediate and personal contradiction or
refutation are liable to reach the limit
of misstatement in their public utter
ances. This is the difficulty with the
average clergyman and temperance
orator. they, as a rule. speak to SYM
pathetic audiences, who enjoy and ap-
prove the most extreme statements.
and there is no one to cry Hold! or
to arise in opposition or refutation.
This condition also renders them care
less in their Investigations as well
as reckless in their assertions. Ger
tain forms of speech, notions and fall
lacies have consequently become the
stock in trade of the average reformer.
They ought to be forced to a basis
of faotsj conceit and ignorance should
not be allowed to strut about so Vainly
and njuriously without a check.
One Of the most familiar phrases
upon which the changes have been
rung 40 years TO my knowledge, is that
100000 men go down to a drunkards
grave and a drunkard's hell every year"
In 1906 there were, in round num-
bers about 551 900 deaths of males in
the United States; of this number ap-
proximately one-third were children
under 5 years of age, and probably
one-half under 20 years; which would,
according to their statement, leave
about one-ffth Of the males who died
that year, filling drunkards graves and
enjoying a drunkard's hell, or one in
FIVE travelling this route. Such a
statement is a wild eXaggeration, not
to say worse.
Looking back over the years and re-
membering that this statement has
been going the rounds of platform and
pamphlet for a half century we can
readily discern its ridiculous falsity-
AS a matter Of fact impure milk
and impure water kill more in a month
than alcohol does in a year.
or the total deaths in the census
year of 1900 there were 317,532 of chill
dren under years Of age. at least
one-half caused by insufficient nour-
ishment or impure milk
Typhoid fever invariably the result
from contaminated water supply, caus-
ed 35,379 deaths, a far larger number
than any reasonable estimate would
charge to the use OF intoxicants.
II is frequently asserted that con-
sumption is largely induced by the use
of alcoholic beverages, but again, the
census shows that of the deaths re-
sulting from consumption, a total OF
100, $50, there were OF males 53,626. and
of females 56,124, or a large excess OF
females who are not supposed to bC
affected by alcoholism.
1t is also frequently asserted that oi
the unnatural deaths, violence. mur-
der, etc. a large percentage are from
the use Of alcohol; often stated four.
fifths in the case of murder.
But careful examination will prove
that alcohol is not directly responsible
for even one-tifth.
Jealousy, greed, revenge, are th'
main causes or incentives to murder
in which the use of alcohol is a mere
incident.
The deaths by violence or accident
on railroads and in factories and mines
are rarely associated either directl.
or indirectly with the use of spirits
The death rate in prohibition states
is not less than in licensed states o
the same character Of occupation anC
location.
Maine, with stringent prohibition
has practically the same death rat
as New Jersey, one Of our most libera
states.