Society: Its Origin and Development Part 17

238. =In Europe.=--A large proportion of the immigrants from Europe have been peasants who have come out of rural villages to find a home in the barracks of American cities. In the Old World they have lived in houses that lacked comfort and convenience; they have worked hard through a long day for small returns; and a government less liberal and more burdened than the United States has mulcted them of much of their small income by heavy taxes. Young men have lost two or three years in compulsory military training, and their absence has kept the women in the fields. From the barracks men often return with the stigma of disease upon them, which, added to the common social evils of intemperance and careless s.e.x relations, keeps moral standards low.

Thousands of them are illiterate, few of them have time for recreation, and those who do understand little of its possibilities.

Religion is largely a matter of inherited superst.i.tion, and as a superior force in life is quite lacking. To people of this sort comes the vision of a land where government is democratic, military conscription is unknown, wages are high, and there is unlimited opportunity to get ahead. Encouraged by agents of interested parties, many a man acc.u.mulates or borrows enough money to pay his pa.s.sage and to get by the immigration officer on the American side, and faces westward with high hope of bettering his condition.

239. =In America.=--On the pier in America he is met by a friend or finds his way by force of gravity into the immigrant district of the city. Usually unmarried, he is glad to find a boarding place with a compatriot, who cheerfully admits him to a share of his small tenement, because he will help to pay the rent. With a.s.sistance he finds a job and within a week regards himself as an American. Later if it seems worth while he will take steps to become a citizen, but recently immigrants are less disposed to do this than formerly. Many immigrants do not find their new home in the port of landing; they are booked through to interior points or locate in a manufacturing town within comfortable reach of the great city; but they find a place in the midst of conditions that are not far different. Unskilled Italians commonly join construction gangs, and for weeks at a time make their home in a temporary shack which quickly becomes unsanitary. Wherever the immigrant goes he tends to form foreign colonies and to reproduce the low standards of living to which he has been accustomed. If he could be introduced to better habits and surrounded with improved conditions from the moment of his arrival he would gain much for himself, and far more speedily would become a.s.similated into an American; as it is, he is introducing foreign elements on a large scale into a city life that is overburdened with problems already.

Changes in the manner of living are often for the worse. Instead of their village houses set in the midst of the open fields here, they herd like rabbits in overpopulated, unhealthy warrens, frequently sleeping in rooms continually dark and ill-ventilated. They still work for long hours, but here under conditions that breed discouragement and disease, in the sweat-shop or the dingy factory, and often in an occupation dangerous to life or limb. Though they are free from the temptations of the military quarters, they find them as numerous at the corner saloon and the brothel, and even in the overcrowded tenement itself. If they bring over their families or marry here, they can expect no better home than the tenement, unless they have the courage to get out into the country, away from all that which is familiar. Rather than do that or knowing no better way, they swarm with others of their kind in the immigrant hive.

240. =Tenement House Conditions.=--In New York large tenements from five to seven stories high, with three or four families on each floor, shelter many thousands of the city's workers. These are often built on lots too small to permit of air and light s.p.a.ce between buildings.

Some of them contain over a hundred individuals. Three-fourths of the population of Manhattan is in dwellings that house not less than twenty persons each. The density of population is one hundred and fifty to the acre. Twelve to eighteen dollars a month are charged for a suite of four rooms, some of them no better than dark closets.

Instances can be multiplied where adults of both s.e.xes and children are crowded into one or two rooms, where they cook, eat, and sleep, and where privacy is impossible. Thousands of children grow up unmoral, if not immoral, because their natural sense of modesty and decency has been blunted from childhood. The poorest cla.s.ses live in cellars that reek with disease germs of the worst kind, and sanitary conditions are indescribable.

If these conditions were confined to the immigrant population, Americans might shrug their shoulders and dismiss the subject with disparaging remarks about the dirty foreigner, but housing conditions like these are not restricted to the immigrant, whether he be Jew or Gentile. The American working man who finds work in the factory towns is little better off. The natural desire of landlords to spend as little as possible on their property, and to get the largest possible returns, makes it very difficult for the worker to find a suitable home for his family that he can afford to pay for. Yet he must live near his work to save time and expense. Old and dilapidated houses are ready for his occupancy, but though they are often not so bad as the large tenements, with their more attractive exteriors, they are not fit dwellings for his growing family. A flat in a three-decker may be obtained at a moderate rental, but such houses are usually poorly built, of the flimsiest inflammable material, and they, too, lack privacy and modern conveniences.

241. =Effects of these Conditions.=--It must not be supposed that these evils have been overlooked. Building a.s.sociations and private philanthropists have erected improved tenements, and have proved that the right sort of structures may be made paying investments. State and munic.i.p.al governments have appointed commissions and departments on housing, fire protection has been provided, better sanitary conditions have been enforced, and hopelessly bad buildings have been destroyed. But slums grow faster than they can be improved, and the rapidly growing tenement districts need more drastic and comprehensive measures than have yet been taken. The housing problem affects the tenant first of all, and in countless instances his unwholesome environment is ruining his health, ability, and character; but it also affects the community and the nation, for persons produced by such an environment do not make good citizens. The roots of family life are destroyed, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease hold hands along dark and dirty stairways and through the halls, foul language mingles with the foul air, and drunkenness is so common as to excite no remark.

s.e.xual impurity finds its nest amid the darkness and ill-endowed children swarm in the streets.

242. =Possible Improvements.=--There must be some way out of these evil conditions that is practicable and that will be permanent. Those who are interested in housing reform favor two kinds of measures--first, the prevention of building in the future the kind of houses that have become so common but so unsatisfactory, and the improvement of those already in existence; second, provision of inexpensive, attractive, and sanitary dwellings outside of the city, and cheap and rapid transit to and from the places of labor. Both of these methods are practicable either by voluntary a.s.sociation or State action, and both are called for by the social need of the present.

There are definite principles to be observed in the redistribution of population. The principle of a.s.sociation calls for group life in a neighborhood, and it is as idle to think that people from the slums can be contented on isolated farms as it is to suppose that they can be converted readily into prosperous American agriculturists. Close connection with the town is indispensable. The principle of adaptation demands that the new homes shall answer to the needs of the people for whom they are provided, and that the neighborhood shall be suited to those needs. The houses will need to be enough better than those in town to offset the greater effort of travel. The principle of control demands that the new life of the people be regulated as effectively as it can be by munic.i.p.al authority, and if necessary that such munic.i.p.al authority be extended or State authority be localized. There are difficulties in the way of all such enterprises, but social welfare requires improvements in the way the working people live.

It is notorious that immigrants and working people generally have larger families than the well-to-do. The children of the city streets form a cla.s.s of future citizens that deserve most careful attention.

The problem of the tenement and the flat is especially serious, because they are the factories of human life. There the next generation is in the making, and there can be no doubt about the quality of the product if conditions continue as they are. It is important to inquire how the children live, what are their occupations and means of recreation, their moral incentives and temptations, and their opportunities for the development of personality.

243. =How the Children Live.=--The best way to understand how the children live is to put oneself in their place. Imagine waking in the morning in a stuffy, overcrowded room, eating a slice of bread or an onion for breakfast and looking forward to a bite for lunch and an ill-cooked evening meal, or in many cases starting out for the day without any breakfast, glad to leave the tenement for the street, and staying there throughout waking hours, when not in school, using it for playground, lunch-room, and loafing-place, and regarding it as pleasanter than home. Imagine going to school half fed and poorly clothed, sometimes the b.u.t.t of a playmate's gibes because of a drunken father or a slatternly mother, required to study subjects that make no appeal to the child and in a language that is not native, and then back to the street, perhaps to sell papers until far into the night, or to run at the beck and call of the public as a messenger boy. Many a child, in spite of the public opposition to child labor, is put to work to help support the family, and department store and bootblack parlor are conspicuous among their places of occupation. Mills and factories employ them for special kinds of labor, and States are lax in the enforcement of child-labor laws after they are on the statute books.

244. =The Street Trades.=--Employment in the street trades is very common among the children of the tenements. There are numerous opportunities to peddle fruit and small wares at a small wage; messenger and news boys are always in demand, and the bootblacking industry absorbs many of the immigrant cla.s.s. By these means the family income is pieced out, sometimes wholly provided, but the ill effects of such child labor are disturbing to the peace of mind of the well-wishers of children. Street labor works physical injury from exposure to inclement weather and to accident, from too great fatigue, and from irregular habits of eating and sleeping. It provokes resort to stimulants and sows the seeds of disease, vice, and petty crime.

Moral deterioration follows from the bad habits formed, from the encouragement to lawbreaking and independence of parental authority, and from the evil environment of the people and places with which they come into contact. Children are susceptible to the influence of their elders, and easily form attachments for those who treat them well.

Saloons and disorderly houses are their patrons, and when still young the children learn to imitate those whom they see and hear. Even for the children who do not work, the street has its influence for evil.

The street was intended as a means of transit, not for trade or play, but it is the most convenient place for games and social enjoyments of all sorts. The little people become familiar with profane and obscene language, with quarrelling and dishonesty, and even with more serious crime, and no intellectual education in the schoolroom can counteract the moral lessons of the street.

245. =Playgrounds.=--Various experiments for keeping children off the street have been proposed and tried. Vacation schools in the summer provide interesting occupations and talks for those who can be induced to attend; their success is a.s.sured, but they reach only a small part of the children. Gymnasiums in the winter attract others of the older cla.s.s, but the most useful experiments are equipped and supervised playgrounds. For the small children sand piles have met the desire for occupation, and kindergarten games have satisfied the instinct for a.s.sociation. The primitive nature of the child demanded change, and one kind of game after another was added for those of different ages. Swings, climbing ladders, and poles are always popular, and for the older boys opportunities for ball playing, skating, and coasting. All these activities must be under control. The characteristics of children on the playground are the same as those of their elders in society. Authority and instruction are as necessary as in school; indeed, playgrounds are a supplement to the indoor education of American children.

246. =The City School.=--The school is expected to be the foster-mother of every American child, whether native or adopted. It is expected to take the children from the avenue and the slum, those with the best influences of heredity and environment, and those with the worst, those who are in good health and those who are never well, and putting them all through the same intellectual process, to turn out a finished product of boys and girls qualified for American citizens.h.i.+p. It is an unreasonable expectation, and the American school falls far short of meeting its responsibility. It often has to work with the poorest kind of material, sometimes it has to feed the pupil before his mental powers can get to work. It has to see that the physical organs function properly before it can get satisfactory intellectual results. The school is the victim of an educational system that was made to fit other conditions than those of the present-day city; the whole system needs reconstructing, but the management is conservative, ignorant, or parsimonious in many cases, or too radical and given to fads and experiments. Yet, in spite of all its faults and delinquencies, the public schools of the city are the hope of the future.

The school is the melting-pot of the city's youth. It is the training-school of munic.i.p.al society. In the absence of family training it provides the social education that is necessary to equip the child for life. It accustoms him to an orderly group life and establishes relations with others of similar age from other streets or neighborhoods than those with which he is familiar. It teaches him how intelligent public opinion is formed, and brings him within the circle of larger interests than those with which he is naturally connected.

He learns how to accommodate himself to the group rather than to fight or worm his way through for a desired end, as is the method of the street. He learns good morals and good manners. He finds out that there are better ways of expressing his ideas than in the slang of the alley, and in time he gains an understanding of a social leaders.h.i.+p that depends on mental and moral superiority instead of physical strength or agility. As he grows older he becomes acquainted with the worth of established inst.i.tutions, and his hand is no longer against every man and every man's hand against him. He likes to share in the social activities that occur as by-products of the school--the musical and dramatic entertainments, the athletic contests, and the debating and oratorical rivalries. By degrees he becomes aware that he is a responsible member of society, that he is an individual unit in a great aggregation of busy people doing the work of the world, and that the school is given him to make it possible for him to play well his part in the activities of the city and nation to which he belongs.

READING REFERENCES

VEILLER: _Housing Reform_, pages 3-46.

RIIS: _How the Other Half Lives._

CLOPPER: _Child Labor in the City Streets._

MARTIN: "Exhibit of Congestion," art. in _The Survey_,20: 27-39.

GOODYEAR: "Household Budgets of the Poor," art. in _Charities_, 16: 191-197.

"The Pittsburgh Survey," arts, in _The Survey_, vol. 21.

LEE: _Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy_, pages 109-184.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE DIVERSIONS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE

247. =The Demand for Recreation.=--The natural instinct for recreation is felt by the working people in common with persons of every cla.s.s.

They cannot afford to spend on the grand scale of those who patronize the best theatres and concerts, nor can they relax all summer at mountains or seash.o.r.e, or play golf in the winter at Pinehurst or Palm Beach. They get their pleasures in a less expensive way in the parks or at the beach resorts in the summer, and at the "movies,"

dance-halls, and cheap theatres in the winter. They have little money to spend, but they get more real enjoyment out of a dime or a quarter than thousands of dollars give to some society buds and millionaires who are surfeited with pleasure. Recreation to the working people is not an occupation but a diversion. Their occupation is usually strenuous enough to furnish an appet.i.te for entertainment, and they are not particular as to its character, though the more piquant it is the greater is the satisfaction. Craving for excitement and a stimulus that will restore their depleted energies, they flock into the dance-halls and the saloons, where they find the temporary satisfaction that they wanted, but where they are tempted to lose the control that civilization has put upon the primitive pa.s.sions and to let the primitive instincts have their sway.

It is a prerogative of childhood to be active. If activity is one of the striking characteristics of all social life, it is especially so of child life. The country child has all out-of-doors for the scope of his energies, the city boy and girl are cramped by the tenement and the narrow street, with occasional resort to a small park. It requires ingenuity to devise methods of diversion in such small areas, but necessity is the mother of invention, and the children of the city become expert in outwitting those whose business it is to keep them within bounds. This kind of education has a smack of practicality in that it sharpens the wits for the struggle for existence that makes up much of the experience of city folk, but it also tends to develop a crookedness in mental and moral habits through the constant effort to get ahead of the agents of social control.

248. =Street Games.=--To understand how the youth of the city get their diversions it is well to examine a cross-section of city life on Sat.u.r.day afternoon or Sunday. Family quarters are crowded. Tenements and apartments have little spare s.p.a.ce inside or outside. Children find it decidedly irksome indoors and naturally gravitate to the street, to the relief of their elders and their own satisfaction.

There they quickly find a.s.sociates and proceed to give expression to their restless spirits. It is the child's nature to play, and he uses all his wits to find the materials and the room for sport. His ingenuity can adapt sticks and stones to a variety of uses, but the street makes a sorry subst.i.tute for a ball-field, and while the girl may content herself with the sidewalk and door-steps, the boy soon looks abroad for a more satisfying occupation. Among the gangs of city boys no diversion is more enjoyable than the game of c.r.a.ps, learned from the Southern negro. With a pair of dice purchased for a cent or two at the corner news-stand and a few pennies obtained by newspaper selling or petty thieving the youngster is equipped with the necessary implements for gambling, and he soon becomes adept in cleaning out the pockets of the other fellows.

249. =Young People's Amus.e.m.e.nts.=--Meantime the older boys and girls are seeking their diversions. At fourteen or fifteen most of them have found work in factory or store, but evenings and Sundays they, too, are looking for diversion. The girls find it attractive to walk the streets, while the boys frequent the cheap pool-room, where they find a chance to gamble and listen to the tales of the idlers who find employment as cheap thieves and hangers-on of immoral houses. From these headquarters they sally forth upon the streets to find a.s.sociation with the other s.e.x, and together they give themselves up to a few hours' entertainment. A few are contented to promenade the streets, but amus.e.m.e.nt houses are cheap, and the "movies" and vaudeville shows attract the crowd. For a few dimes a couple can have a wide range of choice. If the tonic of the playhouse is not sufficient, a small fee admits to the public dance-hall, where it is easy to meet new acquaintances and to find a partner who will go to any length in the mad hunt for pleasures that will satisfy. From the dance-hall it is an easy path to the saloon and the brothel, as it is from the game of c.r.a.ps and the pool-room to the gambling-den and the criminal joint. It is the lack of proper means for diversion and proper oversight of places of entertainment that is increasing the vice, drunkenness, and crime that curse the lives of thousands and give to the city an evil reputation.

250. =The Saloon as the Poor Man's Club.=--The saloon is an inst.i.tution peculiar to America, but it is the successor of a long line of public drinking houses. There were cafes among the ancients, public houses among the Anglo-Saxons, and taverns in the colonies. At such places the traveller or the working man could find social companions.h.i.+p along with his gla.s.s of wine or grog, and by a natural evolution the saloon became the poor man's club. It is successful as a place of business, because it caters to primitive wants and social interests in considerable variety. It is a never-failing source of supply of the strong waters that bring the good cheer of intoxication, and lull into torpid content the mind that wants to forget its worry or its misery. It is a place where conventionality is laid aside and human beings meet on the common level of convivial good-fellows.h.i.+p. It is the avenue to fuller enjoyment in billiard-room, at card-table, in dance-hall, and in house of a.s.signation, but though the door is open to them there is no obligation to enter. It is first aid to the sporting fraternity, the resort of those who delight in pugilism, baseball, and the racetrack, the dispenser of athletic news of all sorts that is worth talking about. It frequently provides a free lunch, music, and games. It is the agent of the political boss who mixes neighborhood charity with the dispensing of party jobs. "The saloon is a day-school, a night-school, a vacation-school, a Sunday-school, a kindergarten, a college, a university, all in one. It runs without term ends, vacations, or holidays.... It influences the thoughts, morals, politics, social customs, and ideals of its patrons."

251. =Subst.i.tutes for the Saloon.=--An inst.i.tution that fills a place as large as this in the social life of the American city must be given careful consideration, and cannot be impatiently dismissed as an unmitigated social evil. The saloon is unsparingly denounced as the cause of intemperance, prost.i.tution, poverty, and crime, and much of the charge is a fair indictment, but it is easier to condemn its abuses than to find a satisfactory subst.i.tute for the social service that it performs. If the saloon must go, something must be put in its place to perform its helpful functions. It may have to be legislated out of existence in order to check intemperance, for the satisfaction of thirst is its princ.i.p.al attraction, and its prime function is to furnish drink, but the law can be more easily enforced if other social centres are available where the average man can feel equally at home.

A model saloon managed by church people or labor unionists has been tried, but has failed to solve the problem. The Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation on its present basis does not reach the cla.s.s of men that frequents the saloon. Coffee-houses, reading-rooms, munic.i.p.al gymnasiums, and baths, may each provide a small part, but none of these nor all together fill the gap that is left after the saloon is abolished. Attractive quarters, recreational facilities, and a spirit of democracy and freedom appear absolutely essential to any successful experiment in subst.i.tution. The patrons wish to be consulted as to what they want and what they will pay for, and unless the subst.i.tute is self-supporting it is sure to fail. The most promising experiment is an athletic club maintained by regular dues, where there is abundant room for sport and conversation, and where it is possible to secure food at a moderate price and to enjoy lively music at the same time. Under a reasonable amount of regulation such an establishment cannot become a public nuisance, and it supplies a social need on a sound economic basis.

252. =Monopoly Experiments.=--It has been proposed to draw the virus of the saloon by removing the element of private profit and placing the traffic under State management. The South Carolina dispensary system was such an attempt. It broke up the saloon as a social centre, for drinking was not allowed on the premises, but it did not stop the consumption of liquor, the profits went to the public, and the saloon element became a vicious element in politics. The Norwegian or Gothenburg system was another experiment of a similar sort. The liquor traffic was made respectable by the government chartering a monopoly company and by putting business on the basis not of profit, but of supplying a reasonable demand of the working cla.s.s. Fifty years' trial has reduced consumption one-half, has improved the character of the saloon, and has removed the immoral annexes. The system is not compulsory, but the people must choose between it and prohibition. The main objection raised against State monopoly or charter is that the government makes an alliance with a traffic that is injurious to society, and that is contrary to the fundamental principle of government. At best it can be regarded as only a half measure toward the abolition of the trade in intoxicants.

253. =The Seriousness of the Liquor Problem.=--There can be no doubt that the liquor problem is one of the serious menaces to modern health, morals, and prosperity. Intemperance is closely bound up with the home, it is a regular accompaniment of unchast.i.ty, it is both the cause and the result of poverty, it vitiates much charity, it is a leading cause of imbecility and insanity, and a provocative of crime.

It stands squarely in the way of social progress. It is a complex problem. It is first a personal question, affecting primarily the drinker; secondly, a social question, affecting the family and the community; thirdly, an economic and political question, affecting society at large. Consequently the solution of the problem is not simple. Different phases of the problem demand a variety of methods.

Intemperance may be approached from the standpoint of disease or immorality. It may be treated in medical or legislative fas.h.i.+on. It may receive the special condemnation of the churches. One of the most effective arguments against it is on the basis of economic waste. The best statistics are incomplete, but the conservative estimate of a national trade journal gave as the total direct expense in 1912, $1,630,000,000. This minimum figure means eighteen dollars for every man, woman, and child in the country. The indirect cost to society of the wretchedness and crime that result from intemperance is vastly greater. United States internal-revenue statistics indicate an increased consumption in all kinds of liquor between 1900 and 1910, although the territory under prohibition was steadily enlarging.

254. =Causes and Effects of the Traffic.=--The leading causes of intemperance are the natural craving of appet.i.te and the pleasure of mild intoxication, the congenial society of the saloon and the habit of treating, and the presence of the public bar on the streets of the poorer districts of the city. The mere presence of the saloon is a standing invitation to the men and boys of the neighborhood, and it grows to seem a natural part of the environment. It is far more attractive than the cheerless tenement and the tiresome street. The sedative to tired nerves and stimulant for weary muscles is there; the social customs of the past or of the homeland re-enforce the social instincts of the present and draw with the power of a magnet.

The effects of intemperance may be cla.s.sified as physical losses, economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is exhilaration, but this is succeeded by la.s.situde and incompetency. The stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well established that even small quant.i.ties of alcohol weaken the will power and benumb the mental powers. Habitual use depletes vitality and so predisposes to disease. Life-insurance policies consider the alcoholic a poor risk. The economic effect is a great preponderance of loss over gain. Somebody makes money out of the consumer, but it is not the farmer who produces the grain, the railroad company that transports it, or the government that taxes it; less than formerly is it the individual saloon-keeper, but the brewer and distiller who in increasing numbers own the local plant as well as manufacture the liquor. Neither the nation that taxes the manufacture for the sake of the internal revenue, nor the city or town that licenses the sale, gets enough to compensate for the economic loss to society. Among the specific losses to consumers are irregularity and cessation of employment, due to the unreliability of the intemperate workman and the consequent reluctance of employers to hire him--a reluctance increased since employers are made liable to compensate workmen for accidents; the poverty and dest.i.tution of the families of habitual drinkers; and the enormous waste of millions of dollars that, if not thus wasted, might have gone into the channels of legitimate trade.

Finally, there is a wide-spread social effect. Intemperance ranks next to heredity as the cause of insanity. One-third to one-half of the crime in the country is charged to intemperance. Alcohol makes men quarrelsome, upsets the brain balance, and introduces the user to illegal and immoral practices. The saloon corrupts politics. It has been estimated that the liquor traffic controls two million votes, and some of it is easily purchasable. When it is remembered that the saloon is in close alliance with the gambling interest, the white-slave interest, the graft element, the political bosses, and the corrupt lobbies, it is easy to see that it const.i.tutes a serious danger to good government throughout the nation.

255. =The Temperance Crusade.=--Intemperance has grown to be so wide-spread and serious an evil that a crusade against it has gathered strength through the nineteenth century. In colonial days the use of liquors was universal and excited little comment, but groups of persons here and there, especially the church people, opposed the common practice of tippling and began to organize in order to check it. It was not a total-abstinence movement at first, but was designed particularly to check the use of spirituous liquors. Temperance revivals swept over whole States, but were too emotional to be permanent. When the second half of the century began organization became more thorough and the Good Templars and Woman's Christian Temperance Union a.s.sumed the leaders.h.i.+p of the cause. These organizations stood for total abstinence and State prohibition, and by temperance evangelism and temperance education the women especially pushed their campaign nationally and abroad. Among all temperance agencies the Anti-Saloon League organized in Ohio in 1893, and extending through the United States, has been most effective. It has federated existing agencies and enlisted organized religion. It has pushed no-license campaigns in States that had an optional law, has secured the extension of prohibition to scores of counties in the South and West, and has extended the area of State-wide prohibition, an experiment begun in Maine in 1851, until eighteen States are now under a prohibitory law (1915).

256. =Remedies for Intemperance.=--There is a general agreement among people who reflect upon social ills that intemperance is a curse upon large numbers of individuals and families through both its direct and indirect effects. It seems well established that even moderate drinking produces physical and mental weakness and even as a temporary stimulant is of small value. It is not so clear how to check the evil without injuring personal interests and violating the liberty which every citizen claims for himself as a right. Three methods have been proposed and tried as remedies for intemperance. The first of these is public appeal and education. Public addresses in which arguments are presented and an appeal made to the emotions have led to the signing of pledges, and sometimes to the control of elections, but they have to be repeated frequently to keep the individual who is moved by his impulses up to the standard. Slower is education through the press and through the school, where the evil effects of alcohol are demonstrated scientifically, but it has been tried patiently, and there is continually a large output of temperance literature.

257. =Regulation.=--A second method that has been used extensively is regulation. It seems to many persons that the use of liquor cannot be stopped, and if it is to be manufactured and sold, it is best to regulate it by a form of license. In many of the American States the people are allowed local option and vote periodically, whether they will permit the legal manufacture and sale of intoxicants, or will attempt to prevent it for a time. Local option has kept a great many towns and counties "dry" for years, and it is a step toward wide-spread prohibition. It is regarded by many as a better method than a State prohibition that is ineffective. Those who oppose all licensing on principle, do so on the ground that there should be no legal recognition of that which is known to be a social evil.

258. =Prohibition.=--Prohibition is to most temperance advocates the master key that will unlock the door to happiness and prosperity. The enforcement of prohibition in Russia after the European war began in 1914 had very impressive results in the better conduct and enterprise of the people. Where it has been carried out effectively in the United States, the results soon appear in diminished poverty and wretchedness and in a decrease of vice and crime. The legitimacy of this method is recognized even by liquor manufacturers, and they are willing to spend millions of dollars to prevent national prohibition, realizing that though it would not destroy their business it would greatly lessen the profits. The prohibition policy has bitter enemies among some who are not personally interested in the business. They think it is too drastic and call attention to the sociological principle that prohibitions are a primitive method of social control, but the trend of public opinion is strongly against them on the ground that prohibitions are necessary in an imperfect human society. Government increases its regulation of business of all kinds, and the police their regulation of individuals. The failure of half-way measures has added to the conviction that prohibition rigidly enforced is likely to be the only effective method for the solution of the liquor problem.

READING REFERENCES