New Britain herald., 1916-03-22
WHAT OTHERS SAY Views Op all sides of timely questions as discussed in e1- changes that come to the Herald Office.
Sense Better Than Sentiment in the
 Alcohol Question.
(NeW York Sun )

kANSW OIh CuHj
 A recent report of the United States public health service discussing the Sale and Use of Intoxicating Liquors" furnishes data that should give pause to those whose well meaning effort i'll the direction of prohibition has been based chiefly on sentimental grounds. From the available data it would ap pear that the annual per capita con sumption of alcohol in the United States amounts to about twenty-two gallons in 1850 to over twenty-five gallons in 1910, since which time there has been a very slight decrease. The fact that the steady and rapid in crease of alcohol consumption up to 1910 has at last been checked proves conclusiveIy that the former scnti- mental temperance agitation by song, drama and literary output was la mentally unsuccessful and that the decrease in consumption did not be- gin until sentiment was substituted by logical dem monstration of the depre- ciatng action of alcohol upon the physical and mental activities of the body.
 Legislation designed to restrict the manufactur sale and use of intONi- eating liquors has been winning place rapidly only in the past five years. During the year ending January 1916, eight states began to enforce statewide prohibition. When the law of Virginia becomes operative in this year at total of nineteen states will have adopted this system. The ex- aggerated data presented by partisan prohibitionists have damaged the cause of temperance seriously: for ex- {,i, in an address at Germantown, Pa, that about 2,300,000 Americans were killed by alcohol in one year and that 2,00O Americans are slain each day by alcohol, when the fact is that in 1912 all the deaths between the ages of 14 and 50 would be about 1000 a day from all causes. Captain Hobson also made the unfounded statements that alcohol caused 5000 American men to murder their wives each year, and 2,5O0 to kill their children. In nine prohibition states twelve per sons in 10000 population were con- victed of murder, and in the twelve licensed states 3.6 in 100000 were so convicted Georgia, a prohibition state, had 715 prisoners condemned for murder, and New York only forty two. The Hobson argument proves a veritablc boomerang.
 Malignant narrow and unrelenting partisanship has been a serious detri- mcnt, besides causing a diSreSpect for law by reason of it's failure to be enforced. On the other hand, Chief Surgeon Maus of the eastern depart mcnt of the United States army re- ports that alcohol is the greatest fac tor making for inefficency in the army, and estimates that it's interdic- tion would reduce the sick rate 15 per cent. He adds that alcohol is re- sponsible for practically all the crimes committed by soldiers: it diminisnes capacity for work, marching endur- ance and accuracy in rifle practice, and impairs the ability of officers to command troops. Such facts are util- ized moro and more by industrial concerns. Railroads of Europe and America that have adopted rules for their employees in respect to the use of alcohol arc not primarily governed by moral considerations, but chiefly by their demand for fficiency and by* industrial economies.
 The public has become convinced that WhatNer encroaChment upon so- called personal liberty may be in NOlVed in these autOcratic restrictive regulations is unimpOrtant in com parlson with safety of the people