It is estimated that fifty per cent of municipal expenditures for the maintenance of police departments is for the arrest of the intoxicated portion of the population. Add to this the cost of trial, conviction, and maintenance of convicted persons in jails, penitentiaries, etc.
It is estimated that twenty per cent of the insane owe their insanity directly or indirectly to alcohol, and there are probably at least 150,000 insane persons in the United States, cared for at public expense. Assuming that twenty per cent of these owe their insanity to alcohol, and that McDonald's estimate of $400 is the loss per person per annum to the state, we have for this one item alone the sum of $12,000,000. This corresponds411exactly with the estimate of Dr. Frederick Peterson.
Add to the foregoing the loss of time of those convicted of crime, the loss of time while intoxicated, or while recovering from its effects.—G. W. Webster; M. D.
"WE license the liquor traffic, to get revenue to support the army, the navy, and old soldiers' homes. Then we pass laws to forbid the use of liquor in the army, the navy, or old soldiers' homes."