SAYS PROHIBITION IN RUSSIA WILL SAVE 500,000 MEN
Insurance Expert Claims That If Czar Carries Out Present Intention, Loss of Half Million in War Will Be Made Up in Decade.
New York, Dec. 11.--Results of an investigation in which an entirely new set of statistics had been gathered were put before the Association of Life Insurance Presidents at their annual meeting at the Hotel Astor yesterday and threw a new light on the influence of alcoholism, overeating, undereating, and other factors in shortening lives.
The investigation, which has just been completed, concerned the causes of premature deaths in the last 25 years among the 2,000,000 policy holders of 43 leading insurance companies. The object of the investigation was to determine which types of persons could be insured safely at regular rates, which ones should pay extra premiums, and which ones should be refused. The results were given by Arthur Hunter, chairman of the bureau that made the investigation.
"If the Government of Russia carries out its present intention to abolish permanently all forms of alcoholic beverages, the saving in human life will be enormous," said Mr. Hunter. "The loss of 500,000 men as the result of the present warfare could be made good in less than ten years through complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages by all the inhabitants of Russia.
"Among saloon proprietors, whether they attended the bar or not, there was an extra mortality of 70 per cent., and the causes of death indicated that a free use of alcoholic beverages had caused many of the deaths. The hotel proprietors who attended the bar, either occasionally or regularly, had as high a mortality as the saloon keepers.
"Among the men who admitted that they had taken alcohol occasionally to excess in the past, but whose habits were considered satisfactory when they were insured, there were 289 deaths, while there would have been only 190 deaths had this group been made up of insured lives in general. The extra mortality was, therefore, over 50 per cent."
Cardinal Gibbons says: "Reform must come from within," and he opposes prohibition; but there is no question but what prohibition is the right thing as has been proved, for in some persons the only thing "within" is alcohol and ignorance.