THE COCKTAIL HABIT

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 31, 31 October 1929, Page 13

THE COCKTAIL HABIT

Sir, —Your correspondent, “Madam X,” ■writing with reference to liquor at dances,' complains that the deputation offered no tangible solution to combat the evil. Her own suggestion is that we should leave things exactly as they are. One of her reasons is that while she was in the United States she saw young people drinking alcoholic liquor, and even alleges that at one place ( the name of which is not given), 75 per cent, of the boys and girls were hopelessly intoxicated.- “Madam X” has apparently been in strange company, but in considering the question of prohibition in the United States we need to refer to the conditions that existed before it, and also take the testimony of those whose evidence is of real weight. As far back as 1886 the Women's ' Christian Temperance Union published statements deploring the fact that boys in public schools were carrying flasks of liquor in their pockets. In 1911 we could read of 200 drunken students who marched into the library of Stanford . University, carrying beer casks with them, and made a night of it, and as a result bne student was shot. You do not hear of that kind of thing nowadays. ■ . Sir W. T. Grenfell —the Labrador missionary of world-wide reputation—who has lectured from New York to San Francisco in every State, has stated that he’was chief speaker at the National Education Association at : their conference in 1927, when - 15,000 educators were present. Dr. Grenfell said: “All the big men were there. It was a unanimous testimony that prohibition was doing wonders for American youth.” This simply confirms what the “Literary Digest” discovered when it sent: out a questionnaire to the' heads of over 200 colleges and universities asking the heads •of. these institutions whether drinking had increased or decreased since prohibition, The "Digest” said: “The replies are well-nigh unanimous in reporting that drinking in the colleges and drinking by the younger generation as a whole has decreased tinder prohibition . . . and many of them agree that the student body of to-day is of a much higher moral and intellectual standard than any generation in the days of booze and beer.” - "Madam X” is quite right when she suggests ,the responsibility, rests upon mothers —and I may say upon fathers also—but how are you to avoid these unfortunate happenings at dances if, like “Madam X,” you favour "a little drinking. at well-conducted cabarets”? It is the “little drinking” where the danger lies, because the little leads to more.— I am, etc., J. MALTON MURRAY. ■ General Secretary, N.Z. Alliance. October 29, 1929.