particular elements of the
population. A question of profound interest in connection with this
aspect of Prohibition demands a few words of discussion. It has been
asserted with great confidence, and denied with equal positiveness,
that Prohibition has had the effect of very greatly increasing the
addiction to narcotic drugs. I confess my inability to decide, from
any data that have come to my attention, which of these contradictory
assertions is true. But it is not denied by anybody, I believe, that,
whether Prohibition has anything to do with the case or not, the use
of narcotic drugs in this country is several times greater per capita
than it is in any of the countries of Europe--six or seven times as
great as in most. Why this should be so, it is perhaps not easy to
determine. The causes may be many. But I submit that it is at least
highly probable that one very great cause of this extraordinary and
deplorable state of things is the atmosphere of reprobation which in
America has so long surrounded the practice of moderate drinking. Any
resort whatever to alcoholic drinks being held by so large a
proportion of the persons who are most influential in religious and
educational circles to be sinful and incompatible with the best
character, it is almost inevitable that, in thousands of cases,
desires and needs which would find their natural satisfaction in
temperate and social drinking are turned into the secret and
infinitely more unwholesome channel of drug addiction. How much of the
extraordinary extent of this evil in America may be due to this cause,
I shall of course not venture to estimate; but that it is a large part
of the explanation, I feel fairly certain. And my belief that it is so
is greatly strengthened by the familiar fact that in the countries in
which wine is cheap and abundant, and is freely used by all the
people, drunkenness is very rare in comparison with other countries.
As easy and familiar recourse to wine prevents resort to stronger
drinks, so it seems highly probable that the practice of temperate
drinking would in thousands of cases obviate the craving for drugs.
But when all drinking, temperate and intemperate, is alike put under
the ban, the temptation to secret indulgence in drugs gets a foothold;
and that temptation once yielded to, the downward path is swiftly
trodden. Finally, there is a broad view of the whole subject of the
relation of Prohibition to life, which these last reflections m