Coutarander Gene Tunney

 

definite problem connected with the con-
sumption of alcoholic beverages in high
schools that needs the attention of all edu-
cators,” Tunney tells me.

High School athletes in training rarely
drink. There is a wholesome respect among
them and among non-team members for
the no-drinking rules of the coach. “But
somehow or other,” the Commander says,
“the belief is becoming established among
young high school athletes that it is quite
appropriate to break training by getting
intoxicated. This is a mighty destructive
idea to go unchallenged.”

It indicates that neither high school
athletes themselves nor the rank and file
of students understand why they should

not use alcoholic beverages. It suggests,

too, that many parents who drink moder-
ately and have experienced no unfavorable
reactions lack the facts about the effects
of alcohol on the adolescent.

“Tam convinced,” says Commander
Tunney, pointing behind him to the ac-
cumulation of Navy records, “that the
consumption of alcohol in any form is

NAVY DATA SHOW

by W. Roy Breg

NCLE SAM is being kept up to date

on the drinking situation through

data collected by a number of important

military and federal agencies. One of these

is the U. S. Navy. Another is the Federal

Bureau of Investigation. And there are
many others

For some time, I have been correspond-
ing with the officer in charge of the
Navy’s physical fitness program. He is
concerned, I find, about the amount of
drinking that is being done by young
people of high school age and older; and
he believes that Allied Youth is approach-
ing the problem of drinking through the
channel that is most apt to get substantial,
long-term results: education of high school
students.

“When you are next in the vicinity of
this building,” wrote Commander Gene
Tunney of the United States Naval Re-
serve, in charge of physical fitness, “drop
in for an informal chat.”

One day recently I did.

An armed guard checked me in outside
the big Navy Building across the river
from Washington, and gave me a badge.
Then a guide escorted me through long
corridors, up stairs and into an elevator,
and finally into a large room filled with
working men in the uniforms of the Navy.
Tunney had a desk in a corner. Behind
him, between the open windows, were the
file cases whose thousands of records,
compiled throughout the country, gave
weight to his words.

“These records show that there is a

Page Four

many times as destructive to the adoles-
cent as to the adult. The nervous system

‘has not fully developed until long past

one’s majority, and to ply it with alco-
hol in its formative stage merely means
a curtailment of proper development,
which in turn can bring about emotional
instability in adult life. Boys and girls of
high school age should be made acquainted
with this fact, and with the added fact
that ending training with an alcoholic spree
is only shortening their effectiveness as
athletes and as citizens.”

Parents, educators and other leaders
of youth who encourage young people to
wait to decide about drinking until they
have reached maturity, then, are taking
the long view about future usefulness.

We require young people to wait before
making up their minds and taking action
about other matters that affect their fu-
ture. The law requires them to wait for
physical maturity before granting them a
driving license or a piloting license. There
is a national age limit which young people
must reach before they can vote in federal,
state, county and municipal elections.
Regulations govern the age at which young
people may marry, may go to work, may
be held accountable before the courts for
their behavior.

There is no inconsistency in asking them

to wait until they have reached maturity °

of the nervous system to decide about
drinking. There is a reasonableness about
this attitude that young people can under-
stand.

Many high school students are familiar
with the policy of the Japanese in the last

Olympic contests in which their swimming

stars participated. Boys of 15 and 16 were
specially trained to give excellent perform-
ance in the gruelling dashes . . . but they
collapsed afterward, victims of deliberate
over-development, physical derelicts for
the remainder of life. Japanese athletic
directors were known to be so desirous of
winning coveted “firsts” in the interna-
tional contests that they were willing to
sacrifice individual performers in so far
as their long-term physical condition was
concerned. Contestants from other coun-
tries were quick to realize that the Jap per-
formers were in no sense sportsmen.
American young people expect—and re-
ceive—a different attitude on the part of
those who have their welfare in charge and
at heart. They take for granted the no-
drinking regulations of the coach during
the training period. It is his job to know
what is necessary to produce a strong,
winning team. And the coach is holding the
line for abstinence during the period in

An interview with Commander Gene
Tunney, in charge of the physical fitness
program for the Navy—and his advice
to high school youth.

which the athletes are under his super-
vision. There is no doubt about this fact.

In a nationwide poll conducted by AIl-
lied Youth to find out what young people
know and think about the use of beverage
alcohol 90 percent of those polled, re-
gardless of their own drinking habits,
stated that athletes should not drink dur-
ing the training period.

The challenging question is this: Who is
responsible for youth during the post-
training period, and for those who do not
participate in the athletic program of the
school?

If Commander Tunney is right in his
belief that drinking before maturity means
“curtailment of proper development”—and
there is evidence from Dr. Haven Emer-
son* and other men of science to support
his contention—then educators have an
obligation to youth to be as insistent for
abstinence during immaturity as coaches
are for abstinence during training.

The reports on which Commander Tun-
ney bases his opinion about youthful
drinking are the confidential property of
Uncle Sam’s Navy Department. They are
not available for our scanning and ap-
praising. There are other reports, how-
ever, collected from comparable sources
by accredited officials and representatives
which give strong support to the opinion
of the Navy officer.

The Uniform Crime Reports of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the an-

 

*ALCOHOL: ITS EFFECTS ON MAN, by
Haven Emerson M.D., page 100

The Allied Youth