The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-01-08
'G|VEUS BEER
SENATE URGED
/. BY EDUCATORS
Its Harmless and Can
Save Our Youth From
Booze Say Yale Experts.
BACK 4 PER CENT TYPE
Brew Is Aid to Social Life,
High in Food Values,
Professors Assert.
United Press


WASHINGTON, Jan. 8.-Two
Yale professors went on record be-
fore a senate beer committee today
as favoring the return of beer in
an effort to save the countrys youth
from hard liquor.
Dean Clarence w. Mendell, in
letter to the committee holding
hearings on the per cent beer bill
of Senator Hiram Bingham (Rep.,
Conn.,, said beer developed team
play by bringing people of divergent
types together. Failing to get beer,
he said, students turned to hard
liquor.
Previously, Professor Yandell Hen
derson had said that cutting off
beer has had a bad effect upon col
lege student life in promoting the
drinking of the highly intoxicating
forms of distilled spirits.
Henderson, professor of applied
physiology and expert on volatile
poisons at Yale, estimated it would
take eight or ten quarts of 4 per
cent beer to cause what he would
consider intoxication.
Dean Mendell Writes
Senator Bingham read the let
ter from Dean Mendell, who will
be unable to appear before the
committee.
There hardly can be any doubt,
Mendels letter read, that the eff
fects of hard liquor on the boys
constitution and especially on his
outlook on life are bad. ! believe
that the effects of beer in such
quantities as any normal boy would
consume it are harmless.
1T is a dangerous thing and q
very ominoug thing for the future
of the country to have its future
living at the high tension at which
boys today are living and trained,
under a system which gives them
unconsciously deep seated con-
tempt for law"
Henderson said it would be hard
to change the present habit of hard
liquor drinking, but urged that I'VE
see that the oncoming genera tons
are not forced to know and drink
liquor by the kick in contains"
He Likes to See 1t
He made clear his own preference
for beer with the remark, I'D like
to see good beer"
"Then," he added, Il wouldn't
have to pour down my throat some
of the concocitions my friends offer
and which I drink just to be po-
lite"
Two Capitol policemen wandered
into the hearing. They displayed
interest in the proceedings.
Henderson characterized prOhibi-
ton as "the worst experiment in de-
sign and execution that l ever have
heard of"
Henderson said alcohol has a Sc
dative effect opposite to that Of
coffee
In my opinion, man who needs
a cup of coffee to wake him UP in
the morning and in the evening
after a hard days work, needs some
beer to quiet him down again." he
said.
Bishop Canon, prohibition leader
who was in the audience, smiled
amid the general laughter.
Aid to Digestion
Chairman Metcalf asked if diluted
alcohol as in 4 per cent beer could
be classed as a food and aid to
digestion.
Yes, I should think it would,
replied Henderson.
Bingham next called DR.. Charles
Norris, chief medical examiner of
New York City.
Norris agreed emphatically" with
Henderson. He said beer contained
many valuable nutritious solids,
most of them derived from hops,
in addition to alcohol.
"The advantage of beer, in my
opinion" he said, ''is that it pro-
vides us with a nutritious drink
which is not indigeStible.
In reply to a question by Senator
Buckley. he said that beer less than
2.75 per cent by weight would not
sustain the nutritious solids.