REFORM CANNOT BE ATTAINED BY PUNISHMENT At the foundation of the present treatment of the alcoholic is usually the idea that threatening with punishment can be effective. Actual experience and the slightest examination prove this to be preposterous. Many a man who drinks when he knows he should not, does so because he cannot control himself, and he who has lost his self-control is obviously irresponsible. A threat, or the remembrance of a threat, cannot restrain him. A man who had committed a crime while drunk, but whose whole career had otherwise been reputable, was sentenced to life imprisonment. After he had served six years his friends presented so strong a case to the governor that he was pardoned, but with the warning that if he took one drink he might be returned to prison to complete his sentence. An excellent illustration of the slight influence of fear upon the alcoholic is furnished by the fact that within a very short time he was arrested for public drunkenness. Punishment breeds rebellion, and when you make a man rebellious you are most unlikely to reform him. Punishment has never yet cured a disease. The inflamed brain not only carries grudges, but is almost sure to intensify them. If a man is discharged from his employment or arrested at a time when he is in the abnormal alcoholic state, the effect on him cannot be reformatory; it must be to arouse his resentment, not his repentance. The employer who discharges a good man from his position because of drunkenness not only fails to deal intelligently with the man or with the subject, but may very likely be committing a crime against society by robbing it of a useful citizen and at the same time forcing a useless one upon it. A man taken to court for drunkenness should with great care be properly classified. It should be determined whether he is an habitual drunkard, an occasional drunkard, or an accidental drunkard. There may be hope for the occasional drunkard, there is invariably hope for the accidental drunkard. If one of these is found to have employment at the time of his arrest, great care should be exercised not to let the fact that he has been arrested prejudice his employer against him, and as far as possible he should be spared humiliation. Nothing will more quickly unfit a man for anything worth while than humiliation. To punish such a man with a prison term will help no one.