Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1911-06-07

editors Note - The following
article is published at the request
of the President of the Winneshiek
County Law and Order League. The
columns of Public Opinion are al
ways open to free discussion of
public issues).
A letter from the Munich headed
Beer in Bavaria written by Col.
Henry Waterson, has lately been pub
lshed in local paper by request.
am going to try and show, in this
article, that Col. Watterson is large
ly ignorant of the ravages of liquor
in Germany, and that he is unac-
Quainted with the conclusions of
prominent German Investigations as
TO the effect of even so small guam
tity of alcohol so that contained in
glass of beer, upon the human
system. Henry Smith Williams, M.
D., published two articles in the Oc-
tober and December numbers of
McClure's Magazine of 1908. l
take undisputed facts largely from
him.
No wonder that Germany is in
terested in this question. Germany
spends s3,OO0,000,0O0 marks,
($75O, 00O,000) for alcoholic bever-
ages, or three times the expenditure
for army and navy, and, seven times
the cost of the public schools" is
there any food in this vast ex-
pense? DR.. Neumann, professor of
hygiene in the German University of
Heidelberg, and one of the foremost
authorities on the subject says
From the stanpoint of practical
hygiene, we have only to
say that alcohol should be used as
little as possible, because it is an
irrational, very dear. and an equal
ly dangerous foodstuff."
Is there any physical strength in
all this vast expenditure? DR..
Schmyder and Prof. Dubois have
shown through an apparatus called
the"ergograph" that two glasses of
wine taken in the course of lunch
con, reduced muscular power to the
extent of per cent. The loss of
physical power through mild
stimulants has been established
so fully by these Germans investiga-
tiers that the German Kaiser has
lately made such remarks concerning
the use of beer in the German army
and Navy as to call out the protest
of the Bavarian brewers. DR.. Will
Jams goes on to say
"The result of this work publish
ed in pamphlets and booklets secur-
ing wide circulation. is creating a
public interest in the temperance
movement that would surprise any
one who thinks Of the Fatherland as
the place of universal beer-drinking.
The average German of to-day
ls keenly alive to the position of
Germany as a world power. Con-
vince him that the habitual use of
alcoholic beverages tends to lower
the efficiency of race and he will
become an ardent advocate of wa
ter drinking, to the establishment
OF the world And precisely this DIR
yiction is gaining ground day by day
thanks to the PRONUNCIATION of liter
AZURE presenting the results of these
new experiments to which we are re-
terring." / could easily fill several
columns showing that in Germany
liquor is producing crime, insanity
proyerty and disease in about the
same proportion as in this country.
Drs Baer and Lacquer report that
IN the asylums for the insane the
proportion of alcoholics including
congenital idiocy reached As per
cent in one year in Prussia and
from all parts of the German en-
plre comes the same story says DR.. |
Williams.
Guttstadt has shown that tuber-
culosis claimed 100 victims in every
thousand deaths of persons over
twenty five years of age. But this
proportion rose among walters in
beer halls to SIS. The men who |
served beer to Watterson in Munich
certainly ought to have purchased |
q lot in the cemetary before entiring
upon their calling. The Germans
may be naturally the most temper
ant of men and better able to drink
beer in moderation than the aver
age nationality but to hold up beer |
as the cure for intemperance is to
fly in the face of German investiga-