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 may
serve to suggest. When a given evil in human life presents itself to
our consideration, it is a natural and a praiseworthy impulse to seek
to effect its removal. To that impulse is owing the long train of
beneficent reforms which form so gratifying a feature of the story of
the past century and more. But that story would have been very
different if the reformer had in every instance undertaken to
extirpate whatever he found wrong or noxious. To strike with crusading
frenzy at what you have worked yourself up into believing is wholly an
accursed thing is a tempting short cut, but is fraught with the
possibility of all manner of harm. In the case of Prohibition, I have
endeavored to point out several of the forms of harm which it carries
with it. But in addition to those that can so plainly be pointed out,
there is a broader if less definite one.