The heart of a conscientious magistrate should thrill with a special sympathy, should be aware of a great responsibility, whenever there appears for judgment in his court a man who for the first time has lost control of himself through drink. To mar this man forever is an easy task; to make him may be difficult, but it is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.
The hard drinker who for the first time is haled into court as the consequence of intoxication never is willing to concede either to himself or to others that he needs help. His soul revolts before the mere thought that he has more than temporarily, even momentarily, lost control. He is likely to deny that he has developed a craving for alcohol, and emphatically and indignantly to assert that his drunkenness has been merely incidental to the social spirit, an accident, and in general a thing of no primary importance. The thought that without help there is even a possibility that he may drift from bad to worse is abhorrent to him, and is indignantly repudiated. He will cheerfully admit that many other men of his acquaintance have fallen victims to the effects of alcohol, but he will vehemently deny the possibility of a similar fall on his own part. The magistrate who thoroughly understands all the details of the alcoholic's psychology, and who is sufficiently adroit of mind and speech to take advantage of this understanding, giving the culprit who has been brought before him every benefit of a carefully and intelligently organized knowledge of alcoholism, could not fail to be one of the most useful of society's servants and safeguards.
The man or woman taken before a magistrate as the result of alcoholic over-indulgence offers a peculiarly perplexing problem. Society has placed itself in a highly inconsistent position as regards its relation to alcohol. It permits a man to pay it for the privilege to sell alcohol to any one who asks for it, the only restriction being that he may not sell it to a person who already has "had too much." This leaves the decision as to a customer's needs and capacity, as well as perils, to be rendered by the man behind the bar. Thus to an extent we intrust daily the destinies of an appreciable proportion of our public to a class of men who certainly have done little to earn general confidence. In nearly every State, if not in all, laws exist imposing penalties upon the dealer in alcohol who sells drink to a person who is already in a state of intoxication; but a careful study of the records of our courts would fail to reveal any large number of liquor dealers who have been charged with this offense, while it is obvious that most persons found upon the public streets or elsewhere in a state of intoxication must have had alcohol served to them at a time when they had already "had enough." As a matter of fact, the intelligent mind cannot fail to realize that the man who has "had enough" invariably has had too much.