The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1920-04-23
&, POSITIVE PROOF THAT
ALCOHOL SHORTENS LIFE
Actuary Produces Statistics of
Forty-three Biggest Insurance
Companies as Evidence
BEER USERS HIT HARD
In Compiling the Figures Cases
of Confirmed Alcoholics Are
Not Included

Many and varied are the benefits of
the Prohibition policy as reported in
the daily press. Most common OF
these is the tremendous reduction i'll
crime and the increase in deposits in
savings banks. The Philadelphia
North American of April 4, however,
reports one marked benefit that is
worthy of more than passing notice.
The North American says:
Dry Policy Blooms Insurance Business
"The tremendous new demand for
life insurance is being traced to Pro
hibition. Money which has flowed
into saloons is paying insurance pre-
miums Booze prevented many vic
tim from obtaining insurance and Pro-
hibiton is giving him the opportunity
and chiefly because Prohibition makes
people live longer lives and because
insurance companies know this fact
they are staunch supporters of Prohi-
bition. They arc on the dry side Of
the liquor question if for no other
reason than because boozeless days
mean postponed funerals.
Liquor kept a whole lot OF people
from passing physical examinations
and it caused many lapsed policy.
The victim got a drink instead of a
premium receipt but the saloonkeepcr
never brought the widow a check
when the husband kicked out. Laps
ing policies now are unusual and wild
VOWS were never so wealthy. These
postponed funerals mean also that
more dividends are returned to the
policy holders.
Statistics From 43 Biggest Companies
"These are few Of the already Wis
ible benefits OF the boozeless boom
as seen from the inside of the insur-
ance company office. f. w. Marshall,
assistant actuary Of the Fidelity Mu-
tual Lille Insurance Company, unused
over some of the benefits yesterday
afternoon and turned page after
page Of cold-blooded figures proving
what he said. They were figures
compiled from the statistics OF the 43
biggest life insurance companies in
The country, showing what booze will
do to policy holder and to the policy
holder who may have been drinker
at one time even though reformed.
They were figures that proved re
formed drinkers have small proper
lion of the chance of abstainers to
grow white hair and help raise grand
>children.
And life insurance fr9res only give
the rosiest side OF the life and death
problem as it pertains to booze.
Where there was one moderate
drinker able to pass a physical exam
nation there we're thousands so
soaked in rum they never had the
price of hundred dollar benefit and
much less were they able to pass an
examination had they had the money
to pay the initial payment. SO these
the most unfortunate victims OF booze
are not included in the statistics.
Increased Death Rate of Drinkers
"Mr. Marshall said yesterday:
Nothing seems TO be more clearly
proven than the statement that the
free use of alcohol greatly increases
mortality Here are some Of the
things that the statistics show.
among policy holders who drank
booze but were in no sense excessive
drinkers the death rate has been one
third greater than the average deaths
from all causes.
"Thc policy holders who admitted
having consumed an excessive guam
tity of liquor made a mortality list
which is three-fourths times the aver
age.
"Thcse careful Investigations show
that every day alcoholism doesn't
Kill pCOplc out liity SHOW dlOOliOl 10
behind suicide, diabetes, pneumonia,
=. and tuberculosis, and policy holders
who were light drinkers and who
died of these diseases were twice as
numerous as the abstainers who died
of the same thing. Cirrhosis of the
liver the figures show, killed five al
cohol users for each abstainer who
died OF that disease and for every alb
staincr who committed suicide two
drinkers took their own lives, and the
longer the booze habit the greater
the suicide rate Even the saloon en-
ployes were affected. The figures
show that mortality was' extremely
high among men employed where they
had easy access to booze.
Beer Drinkers Hard Hit
Mortality in reference to booze and
Prohibition may be divided among
four groups as follows:
(D Total abstainers;
~ Moderate users of beer, light