The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1930-11-01
TIE BEER AND WI.SE FALLACY
Beer Amendment to Liquor Laws
Would be the End of Prohibition;
ITS Beer is Intoxicating

physiology, Yale university The professor
is quoted as follows:
mo beverage which II. common usage IS
drunk only in such amounts that not
more than the equivalent of eighty cubic
ceniimenters of absolute alcohol is alb
sorbed into the blood an hour, can prop
erly be denominated as intoxicating
General experience shows that few
persons care to drink two liters (half a
GALLON Of beer in an hour Under this
definition, therefore beer containing 3 or
4 per cent alcohol by volume is not intox-
icatinr A person who is accustomed to
drinking beer does not become intoxicated
in the proper sense of the word even if in
each Of several successive hours he drinks
a liter of 4 per cent beer
This statement has given rise 10 edi-
torials advocating amendment of the Vol
stead law TO permit the sale of such
harmless" beverages.
When a lone professor makes n state
ment like the above. 1t is considered good
copy by the wet press. though the real
scientific findings and outstanding au-
thorities on the subject are to the con-
trary
A book might be filed with practical
and scientific testimony all aoreeing with
the statement of DR.. Fuoene Lyman Fisk,
of the Life Extension Institute, who SAYS:
"Acohol is alcohol either in whisky or
beer. 1t is nonsense to claim that beer is
a hvoienc drink 1t IS drunk chiefly fer IS
alcoholic effect and If the alcoholic ef-
feet is produced the dancer of alcohol *
lists Any one who doubts that beer can
produce a certan form of infoxication
need onlv visit the saloon aud watch the
beer drinker in various STAGES of befud-
dlement or excitement. If beer does not
intoxicate or produce any alcoholic effect.
what becomes Of the racial CRAVING for
stimnlants' which it is said 10 satisfy?
Furthermore. heavy beer drinking. as in
the case Of brewery EMPLOYEES adds the
dancer of excessive fluid intake entirely
apart from alcohol The heavy mortality
of brewery employees is sufficient evidence
that beer so far as its effect unon the
masses of men is concerned, is not a by
gienic drink"
Dr.. Harvey Wilev food and druo ex-
pert testifvin~ before the New Jersey
legislature in 1920 and in a letter dated
April T. 1923. gave his opinion as follows:
"An alcoholic content of 2.75 pc. cent, by
WEIGHT, is equivalent to 3.45 per cent by
volume. There is no question in the mind
of any informed person in regard to the
toXity of such q beer 1t may not and does
not produce violent intoxication in most
persons but it does produce intoXication
in every person Those who are more sus-
ceptible take on the form of intoxieation
we'll known as drunkenness. Others per-
haps do not exhibit symptoms which
would call attention to an intoxicated
state, except after drinking large quanti-
ties AS beer is frequently drunk in large
quantities by beer users, sometimes
amounting to 10 or 90 or even 80 or 10
glasses a day, it is entirely possible that
an alcoholic content of 2.75 per cent. by
weight, would keep a person who would
indulge in from 20 to 80 glasses a day in
a constant state of intoXication. Others
more susceptible would be visibly intoXi-
Gated by less number of glasses and all
who would drink it would be intoxicated
by a less number Of glasses, and all who
would drink it would be intoxicated to a
certain extent oy single glass.
THE present limit on alcoholic content
in the Volstead act is the only safe one
to adopt if we propose to obey the limi-
tations fixed by the Eighteenth Amend
ment"
The United States Statistical Abstract
for 1920, page SOL gives the following fig
ures, showing the total consumption by
gallons per capita of distilled spirits,
wines and malt liquors for the year 1918:
Per capita consumption of dis
titled spirits Observation-Disclosures. SO
Per capita consumption of wines 40
Per capita consumption of malt
liquors .................... ii on
Per capita cinSumptiOn of all iu-