WCTU Demands Halt In College Drinking

"College men should begin right now to stop drinking and free themselves from this drug," said Mrs. Doris Putnam of the Women's Christian Temperance Union yesterday. "They are our future draftees and we are fighting now to teach the boys in camps the dangers of being drunk while they hold military secrets."

Though there is a Massachusetts law providing for alcohol education in schools and colleges, there is no way of specifying how or by whom it should be taught. The principal difficulty, she added, is that most of the professors don't believe in total abstinence.

WCTU Educating Soldiers

Stressing the fact that an army is not fit for marching or fighting while it is still in the grip of the drinking habit, Mrs. Putnam, pointed out that the Union was trying to educates the boys with modern, interesting advice.

The principal task of the Temperance Union now is to create favorable sympathy for the Sheppard Bill, now before Congress, to prohibit prostitution and drinking in and around training centers. Draftees, away from their families for the first time, are often initiated into Army circles with a good drunk, Mrs. Putnam said.

National Prohibition Seen

Although all efforts are now being directed towards passage of the bill, the W.C.T.U. feels that it will be a stepping stone to nationwide prohibition.

Of special interest to the beer-drinking Harvard population is the Union's assertion that two steine of beer have the same effect as a glass of whiskey, and that a person can easily get drunk on beer. A beer-drunk, according to Mrs. Putnam, is the most bestial, low type there is.

The ladies admit that they are very busy now with their bill which is now is a Congressional Committees, but they still have a regard for the colleges. Much of the drinking has been brought on by the war, and the W.O.T.U. feels that this bill, if pasted, would have a nation-wide effect on drinking.