ONE of the first effects of alcohol is to impair the power of self-control, to relax the self-restraint that normally preserves modesty of thought and action in both men and women. As Jane Addams says: "Even a slight exhilaration from alcohol throws a sentimental or adventurous glamour over an aspect of life from which a decent young man would ordinarily recoil." "The lower tendencies and desires that have been held in check then run their course." Dr. Shaller declares that "it is impossible to lead many women astray without the use of liquors."
Many young men and young women first step aside from the path of chastity when under the influence of wine or other alcoholic drink, which has temporarily narcotized judgment and self-restraint. Forel reports on 211 cases of diseases of vice, that seventy-five per cent were infected while more or less under the influence of drink. Forty-six and nine tenths per cent were merely in "a state of slight exhilaration" from drink when they contracted the disease.
Many a girl, ignorantly brought into white slavery under the influence of drink, in sheer shame remains in it.
The drink habit also opens the paths to immorality which the victim pursues step by step. The drink habit leads eventually to loss of her social status, then to loss of her own self-respect, and to the formation of bad companionship. All this ends in the "don't care" attitude, a "self-abandonment and surrender to a life that seems to offer the best chance of obtaining alcohol and the greatest amount of excitement and attraction."
twenty years between 1887 and 1906 — an average of 9,228 a year. One in every three husbands divorced for cruelty was intemperate. Drink is the great home wrecker.
Another path from drink to immorality is the economic. The drinking woman becomes inefficient, unsuitable for decent occupations; consequently there is loss of employment, employers refuse work, friends get tired of supporting her, and as a result, faced with the prospect of starvation, the woman turns to the life of immorality for self-support.—Cora Frances Stoddard.
IF you would reduce the number of divorces, and maintain happy homes, you must destroy the liquor traffic, the great crusher of homes.