The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-11-07
PROHIBITIONS GREAT BOOST.


PROHIBITIONS GREAT BOOST.
DR.. Charles w. Eliot, who has retired
recently from the presidency of Har-
ward University, has occupied a most
distinguished and significant place in
the development of higher education in
the United States. More than that he
has taken a keen interest for many
years in public affairs and has had the
courage of his convictions sufficiently
to speak right out in meeting even at a
risk of gaining unpopularity.
But none of his utterances or opin-
ions are of more Importance or of more
interest to the whole people of this
country at this time when the battle
line is so plainly marked between the
friends and foes of prohibition, than
those which he delivered on Thursday
evening, October 20, before a conference
of the Massachusetts no-license league.
1t is referred to by the Boston news
papers as one Of the most notable ad-
dresses of his life and it probably is,
although he has given voice to many
remarkable ones.
Having been a moderate user of
alcoholic beverages in the form of wine
and beer during most of his life. and
positively opposed to prohibition, or
no-hcense as being an infringement of
personal liberty, his views on both sub
jects have undergone radical change
He now holds to the position that
alcohol IN very moderate doses dimin-
ishes the efficiency of the working
man." and that the habitual use of
a IN fc IL IL -
intellectual and nervous power and he
declared furthers that "no-license is the
best for all the people of a com
munity."
An excerpt of DR.. Eliot's changed
views on this all important question
cannot fail to be of interest, and espe-
cialiy in a prohibition state like Kan
sas where there is frequently the i'm
proper question in a few localities as to
whether or not the prohibitory law
should be- Ngidly enforced He said.
among other things:
1.-THE effect of alcohol on the time
reaction of the human being has been
studied carefully, tested in hundreds of
thousands Of cases, and there is no
question about the i'll effect of alcohol
even in very moderate doses on the
time reaction. That means that alcohol
in very moderate doses diminiShes the
efficacy of the workingman in most In
stances, makes him incapable of doing
his best in the work of the day.
so / say that the recent progress of
medical science, largely accomplished
through animal experimentation, has
satisfied me that even the moderate use
of alcohol is Objectionable; that the
habitual use of alcohol in any form is
lowering to the intellectual and nervous
power.
Nov, If a man be leading a purely
animal or muscular life, I will say. he
can perhaps feel no evil effect from
this drug. but if he is leading an in
te1lectual life, If he is engaged in an
action which interests him keenly, stirs
him, impels him to the use of his mind
then he will inevitable feel the slowing
effect, the deteriorating effect of this
drug.
Now, I was brought up as a youth
and as a young man as a student and
teacher of chemistry. an exact science,
and 1 was taught to believe in nothing
so much as the open mind, and I felt
that exact observation and just infer
ence were the foundation of that kind
of knowledge which should determine
conduct
And so L have tried all my life to
keep an open mind, particularly on
burning questions, and suppose that
Is the reason why, as have grown
older and seen more, 1 have changed
my view about license and no-license
feel as If much had been proved that
it is physically and mentally and NOR
ally for the advantage of a population
as whole to go without alcoholic
drinks, as rule.
But then 1 was brought up in my
youth, in church and school and college.
to believe in human liberty as the only
condition for developing human virtue
or anything In the human being that
deserves the name of virtue, a self :
sustaining. sef-controlling principle
Isn't 1t a great interference with lib
erty, with the liberty that God gives
man, to undertake to prevent people
who want alcoholic drink from getting
it? What is the justification of that
interference with liberty2
Il have somewhat changed my mind
about that since Cambridge first tried
to establish the practice of no-license
thought 81 years ago that a poor man
in Cambridge had as good right as
had to get some beer or some wine-i
always hated distilled liquors-to get
some beer or some wine when he want
ed it, What is the justification of inter-
ference with that liberty? He often
needs to have his heart gladdened-.