A CLEAR MIND THE NEED OF THE DAY 335 



Insurance companies have found by recent carefully col- 

 lected statistics that, on the average, drinkers are shorter lived 

 than abstainers. It is not surprising that these companies 

 will not insure the lives of hard drinkers, but they have also 

 found that the moderate drinker has a shorter life than the 

 total abstainer. 



The great business enterprises of this country have realized 

 the sapping influence and dangerous tendencies of the use of 

 alcohol. Of seven thousand industrial concerns questioned 

 in this respect, 75% when engaging employees take into con- 

 sideration the question of their use of alcoholic drinks. Over 

 half refuse to employ persons in certain positions if they use 

 alcohol. The large railroads exclude from places of respon- 

 sibility those addicted to it, and banks will generally dis- 

 charge an employee if they find him frequenting saloons. In 

 short, a person is now seriously handicapped in getting a 

 good start in life if he is accustomed to use alcohol in any 

 form. He must frequently cease to strive for good, respon- 

 sible positions and be content with those below the grade he 

 could otherwise reach. Moreover, physicians in recent years 

 are prescribing alcohol less and less as a medicine, many of 

 them being convinced that its use for most purposes is futile. 

 According to a report of the British Medical Society, with 

 those persons over twenty-five years of age who use alcohol 

 habitually, life is shortened on an average of about ten years, 

 and the injury to the young is still greater. 



"The best bred man indulging in wine with permissible 

 moderation no more escapes the minor psychical changes 

 induced by it than does the meaner slave fail of its sense- 

 destroying power when he drinks till he remembers his misery 

 no more. In the case of the former the mental changes in- 

 duced will never attain the degree when self respect and social 

 conduct are outraged, and they will pass unnoticed by all 

 except those who are keen observers of their own mental 

 states." (Abel) 



