The copper era and Morenci leader., 1914-10-23

the spreading of cocainism and NOR
phinism, of sexual perversionS and
ruinous habits among the abstainers
is alarming. But even in the surface
anyone can see to what degree of dull
ness on the one side and of vulgarity
on the other side the masses are led
if the means of physiological relief are
cut off from a strong hardworking
population. To fight intemperance by
Prohibition means to substitute one
evil for another; a reform by slow edu-
cation towards moderate use of light
wine or beer, is the only way to perma-
nent success in this country, as long
as Americans remain Americans.
The Contentious of DR.. Williams.
OF course there are not few who
are convinced that alcohol is luminous
for everyone, even in moderate quaint
ties; and it has become the fashion to
support this belief by the results of
scientific investigations. My whole
life belongs to science, but after most
careful study l am convinced that
there exists no scientifically safe fact
which demonstrates evil effects of
adult men. Every claim on the one
side has been disproved by just as i'm
portant experiments on the other
side. Even on physiological ground
everything is uncertain. Or. Williams
of New York tells us that alcohol is
never food; and Dr. Anna, of New
York, the president of the New York
Academy of Medicine, tells us that al
cohol is always a food. DR.. Williams
writes that alcohol always lessons the
power for work; and DR.. Dana writes
that, as proved by recent experiments,
alcohol has no effect, one way or the
other, on the capacity of work If
given in moderate daily doses. :, DR..
Williams writes that alcohol is the
greatest evil of society; and DR.. Dana
writes that the immediate removal of
alcohol from social life would lead to
social and radical decadence.
But /, a psychologist, am naturally
more interested in the mental side. DIR.
Williams and SO many others dogmati-
caIly assure us, for instance, that alco-
hol cuts off the power of mental pro-
duction. But is really a psyche
logical laboratory necessary to demon
strate the hoIlowness of such general
1 know scores of men
who never produce better than after
a moderate use of alcohol, and it is
well known that this is true in ex-
ceptional cases even where immoder-
ate use is INDUCED in. 1 had to hypno-
tie only recently a well known New
York author whose secret trouble is
that he has never written a page of
his brilliant books but after intemper-
ate use of whiskey. DR.. Williams as
sures us that every moderate use of
wine and beer reduces the powers of
Intellectual activity; and again the
experiment is said to
have proved that I must think there
nstinctively of the man who has
given to the world the methods of
experiment, Professor
Wundt, of Leipzig, the greatest living
psychologist. He is seventy-six years
Did today; has written about forty
which are acknowledged the
world over as the deepest contribu-
lions to psychological thought; has
written this year an epoch-making
book; and yet has taken for sixty
years, twice a day, beer and wine
with every meal. attended last sum-
ner a number of International con-
crosses and saw there at many BAN
Iuets the leaders of thought from all
nations. 1 watched the situation care
fully, but did not discover any abstain
ersi among the sharp and great think
srs OF any nation.
Total Abstainers Not Clearer Think
ers.
To demonstrate that the abstainers
enjoy clearer methods of thinking
than such drinking scholars would be
indeed an interesting experiment, but
from the Prohibitionist literature 1
cannot gain the impression that clear
ness of thinking is their particular
strength. Typical of their unclearness
is the way in which they draw arbi-
trary consequences from the real ex-
periments. 1t is, for instance, quite
;-I,E 20 Ioir hot OH lr0-
mental associations slower, but they
interpret it is if that means a destruc-
tive Gripping of our mental life. They
do not even ask themselves whether
or not this ietardation of association
of ideas may not perhaps be a most
helpful and useful relaxation of certain
brain centres. With the same logic
they might demonstrate to us that
sleep is a most ruinous invention of
nature, as it para1yzes our brain cen
tres still more; and they have not the
slightest understanding for the funda-
mental fact that such an inhibition in
every single act of attention. They
do not take the trouble to ask
whether or not our associations are
also changed through the digestion of
a dry meal.
With such careless misinterpreta-
lions of isolated experiments, 1 could
to you most easily that
every hour of physical exercise is
ruinous for the higher mental life; or
that the fatigue from the hearing of
one hours lecture makes mental Grip
pies out of all of u.s. The fear of those
who want to cut off bottle of light
beer with the evening meal from the
home table of a hardworking laborer
on account of the psychological expert
ments is comparable only with the
fear of those who wish that every
man might live isolated in the middle
of the ocean because in every other
place the laboratory can demonstrate
numberless microbes and bacteria.
A Temperance Campaign Approved.
The only reasonable argument