i84 THOMAS D. CROTHERS 



tack? ■ What right has the saloon to exist? What right has 

 it to peril every interest of law and order? 



The answer is to be found in the same old realm of super- 

 stitious theories that cling with deathless grasp to the public 

 mind; theories of the food value of alcohol, and its moderate 

 use as favoring longevity and happiness — these are the real 

 supports of the saloon. 



The saloon is the real schoolhouse for the cultivation and 

 development of inebriety, and is the most dangerous disease 

 center that can exist in any community. The only word that 

 can be said in its favor is that its real power is eliminative — 

 it hurries on the process of dissolution in the individual. It 

 makes all its patrons unfit, and then speedily drives them 

 down to death and extinction. It destroys the individual by 

 switching him from the main line on to the side track, ending 

 in destruction. It will be the wonderment of the future that 

 the saloon should exist so long, with nothing but the densest 

 and most criminal ignorance to support it. Alcohol must be 

 recognized in its true character as a medicine, and used in the 

 same way as arsenic or strychnine. These are some of the 

 facts that are not understood practically, that are not studied 

 in the temperance literature and lectures, and are literally 

 unknown even to the poor drink victims. 



There is a psychological factor in this problem that is 

 still more obscure and startling, and yet it enters very mi- 

 nutely into the practical solution of the question. It is the 

 unequal growth and decay of the several brain faculties in 

 each individual which come into prominence from the use of 

 alcohol. 



From heredity, disease, starvation, injury, and other 

 complex causes, certain parts of the brain undergo degen- 

 eration or are undeveloped. Some parts become atrophied 

 or shrunken; others are enlarged into abnormal proportions. 

 As a result, some faculties seem highly developed, others are 

 exhausted early, and an abnormal mentality follows in both 

 cases. Inebriety is a symptom of this abnormity. It in- 

 dicates that the brain faculties are disorganized and out of 

 harmony. The natural adjustment is broken up either tem- 

 porarily or permanently. The two most commonly observed 



