al
instincts of the present and draw with the power of a magnet.

The effects of intemperance may be classified as physical losses,
economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is
exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. The
stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well
established that even small quantities 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 destitution 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 constitutes 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