Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that eighty-four per cent of all criminals under conviction in the correctional institutions of that State committed their crimes under the influence of alcohol. [Footnote:  Ibid, p. 72] When we add to this the still greater numbers of incapables supported by their families and friends, we realize that the national drink bill is really very much greater than the mere sums spent for liquor.  Comparative statistics show graphically how strikingly pauperism, crime, and destitution are diminished by prohibition.  It is variously estimated that a fourth or a third or more of all acute poverty is due directly or indirectly to alcohol.  Our municipalities are always poor; all sorts of needed improvements are blocked for lack of funds.  If this leakage of the national wealth can be stopped we shall be able with the money saved to create a radically different and higher civilization.

(3) The moral harm of alcohol is comparable to its physical and economic harm.

(a) As we noted when considering the value of alcohol, the higher nature is stupefied, leaving the emotions less controlled.  The silliness, the irritability, the glumness, the violence, the lust of men are given freer rein.  The effect of alcohol is coarsening, brutalizing; we are not our best selves under its influence.  The judgment is dulled, the spirit of recklessness is stimulated-an impatience of restraint and a craving for further excitement.  Even after the palpable effects of a potation have disappeared, a permanent alteration in the brain remains, which makes it likely that the drinker will “go farther” next time or the time after.  The accumulation of such effects leads finally to the complete demoralization of character, to the point where a man’s higher nature can no longer keep control over his conduct.  This is what is meant by saying that alcohol undermines the will power. [Footnote:  See H. S. Williams, op. cit, p. 56] In particular, most sexual sins are committed after drinking; and the gravity of the sex problem is so great that this fact alone would justify the banishment of alcohol, the greatest of sexual stimulants. [Footnote:  Cf.  Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, p. 189:  “Even a slight exhilaration from alcohol relaxes the moral sense and throws a sentimental or adventurous glamour over an aspect of life from which a decent young man would ordinarily recoil; and its continued use stimulates the senses at the very moment when the intellectual and moral inhibitions are lessened.”]

(b) A very large proportion of the crimes committed are committed under the influence of alcohol.  In Massachusetts, for example (in 1895), only five per cent of convictions for crime were of abstainers.  In general, statistics show that from a half to three quarters of the total amount of crime has drinking for a direct contributing cause.  When we add to this the crime-inducing influence of the poverty, ill health, and immoral social conditions caused by drink; we can form some idea of the moral indictment against alcohol. [Footnote:  H. S. Warner, op. cit, p. 261.]