Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-16
ALCOHOL DEFENDED
BEFORE INSTITUTE
Educator Advocates Its Use
to Rid World of Weak
WiIIed.
BY THOMAS II. HENRY,
Etaff Correspondent of The Star.

! UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, August
16.-Can prohibition be enforced and
law or no LAWS it worth enforcing?
Can society win in the end against
the war chests and machine guns OF
organized banditry?
These questions brought forth strik-
ingly divergent opinions in the round
table and open forum discussions at the
Institute of Public Affairs here yeSter-
day
The vets found their ardent cham
pion in DR.. Paul Barrenger, dlStln-
guished Virginia physician and former
president of Virginia Polytechnic Insti-
tute, who concluded his address with a
plea for more alcohol to kill off the
weak and prevent the oVerpopulation OF
the earth.
Declaring that great families and
pestilences now were things of the past,
the veteran educator insisted that man.
kind should find some saner device than
periodic war for keeping down the popu-
lation.
Alcohol Takes Weak.
"The worst thing about this reduction
by war is that it takes your BEST" he
said Cannot mankind find something
as potent in destroying lives which will
take the weakest? There lies the future
of alcohol for the human race-it is a
taliSman, choosing and taking. in time
and order, only the weak of will. 1t is
the mercifully mercilesS hope OF man
kind"
Such organizations as the w. c. T. u,
declared DR.. Barrenger, have only them
selves to blame for drinking among high
school and college students, because
they tempered with text books OF
physiology, bringing pressure to bear to
have inserted scientifically false state
ments about the evil effects OF alcohol
which only served to advertise the
product.
"A million dollars a year for nearly
40 years." he said, would not have
advertised booze as it has been adver-
tised in our schools by the w. G. t. U.
and their politico-religious advisers"
He illustrated this by high school
song. First the leader sings:
What does alcohol do to the
stomach?"
Then the collective chorus chantsx
alcohol irritates and inaames the
stomach"
In contemptuous scorn." he said,
"they go through the whole body
stomach, brain, heart--and all soothing
". 1t put me to thinking and investi-
eating. 1t was soon manifest that
these textbooks for 80 or 40 years have
been putting it so strong that these
BOYS and girls do not believe word
of it. Every one of them determines to
test it out, by stiff drink, at the first
chance and does so on hard liquor. To
do less would be to confess an in
feriority complex. This revolutionary
change in alcoholic appetite. from age
to adolescence. is the natural harvest
Of half century of fanatical folly.
with the passage of the eighteenth
amendment the high school girl natu-
rally joined the boy for try-out, and
there was nothing for her also, but
the same SO per cent hard liquor. II
IS fearful first communion for girl. p"
Wade H. Ellis, Washington attorney,
proposed that the Federal Government
bring into line for prohibition enforce
ment States such as Maryland, New
York and Wisconsin, which are with
out enforcement laws by abandoning
them to the tender mercieS of the I'M
regulated bootlegger~ until they came
to their senses.
Prohibition. and Crime.
There is a direct relation between
prohibition and the alleged crime wave,
said Arthur V. LASTLY, st. Louis at
torney IF prohibition were enforced"
he declared, 1T would largely solve the
problem of excess major crimes"
Millions are now in the Golfers of
master criminals" Mr.. Lashley contin-
ued, land these millions are being used
to recruit, train and maintain in affiu-
ence thousands of criminals. We have
become known among the peoples of
the world as a nation of murderers. The
bootlegger gunman has set the fashion
for easy killing, quick getaway, and the
minimum of risk
An appeal for reform in the admin
istration of justice as crime prevent
alive was made by Judge William B.
Swaney of Chattanooga, Tenn, former
chairman of the committee on law en-
forcement of the American Bar As
ISOLATION.
Our criminal laws and procedure are
about so years behind those of Eng
land" Judge SWaney said. Judges
prosecuting attorneys and sheriffs are
generally elective and are inadequately
paid. They are subject to party dicta-
ton and control and are, in many in
stances, prospective candidates for po-
litical Office.
THE criminal is a progressive citi-
zen. Many of them are capitalists. They
have found 1t comparatively safe to rob
homes, stores and banks.
The remedy is to make crime neither
safe nor profitable. So long as the
criminal Is allowed to cheat the law
and make profitable business of crime,
so long will crime increase and flourish
What we need in this country is to over
haul our court system as has been done
IN England during the past IS years."
A.