TWO FAST MEN

(Continued from page 2)

Dillon Field House in search of Gil
Dodds. He was getting his rub-down
when I presented a letter of introduc-
tion from W. Roy Breg, Allied Youth
Executive Secretary. I congratulated
Gil on his great race. He introduced me
to his coach, Jack Ryder.

In the half hour’s visit I had with
Gil Dodds, I had an opportunity to get
his views on several subjects. He
neither smokes nor drinks. He said, “To
me it is the easiest thing in the world
to be an athlete yet a Christian. If you
have high ideals and great ambitions as
an athlete you will remember at all
times that your body is the temple of
the Holy Spirit, therefore treating it as
such. All great athletes know that loose
living and success do not go hand in
hand. The use of intoxicants is injurious
to all youth, not athletes alone. The
satisfactions are not worth the cost.”

The next week, Gil told a reporter
that he was determined to run the fast-
est mile of his career in the Harvard
race. While he was running he was
thinking about his three preaching en-
gagements the next day in Worcester,
Massachusetts. “I preached my first
outdoor sermon on Worcester’s Com-
mon, and also spoke at meetings in two
churches,” he said. “You have no idea
of the thrill I got out of speaking for
the first time at an outdoor meeting
and reaching the types of souls one
would never reach in a church.”

I was anxious to get a statement from
Hagg about his attitude toward bever-
age alcohol. Gil Dodds graciously agreed
to ask him for me. We went to Hagg’s
dressing room and found him sur-
rounded by autograph seekers. Gil
pushed his way up to Gunder and asked
him to go outside to talk to him for a
moment. Hagg responded promptly, ap-
parently glad to be relieved of giving
autographs for awhile.

In my presence, Gil asked Hagg
through an interpreter if he would make
a statement for young people regarding
beverage alcohol. Gunder replied that

it would be a pleasure to do so. He

made the following statement: “I do
not smoke or drink. I don’t believe in
alcoholic beverages. They have no place
in athletics.”

Thus two champion athletes speaking
different languages unite in condemning
beverage alcohol. Millions of other
young people, who while not athletes
desire to live at their best and achieve
the maximum of efficiency, have like-
wise found that alcohol-free living
brings no regrets and offers the best
chance for achievement.

Page Eight

(Continued from page 3)

ings will be made available to Allied
Youth and to all others who are in-
terested.. Leading scientists, expert in
some phase of the alcohol problem, will
be available through Yale for large con-
ventions and gatherings of people. A
new textbook is being planned by Dr.
Jellinek and two members of the stu-
dent body. Important research projects
are in prospect. Very soon this School
will enter upon sociological studies be-
cause the Directors feel that for the
present enough has been done in the
physiological side of the alcohol prob-
lem.

Allied Youth has benefited greatly

from this unusual opportunity and will

continue to do so.

(Continued from page 5)
of developing clinics and hospital facil-
ities, training social workers, doctors,
teachers and ministers, so that the af-
flicted and their families will know the
resources which will bring help and
cure.

Tuberculosis affects about three per-
sons in every thousand. Social disease
affects about five persons in every
thousand. Although we have never
developed the accurate kind of statistics
that would be part of a treatment pro-
gram, it is estimated in responsible
places that alcoholism affects from
seven to nine persons in every thousand

' of the population.

Alcoholism is our greatest single
public health problem that is not re-
ceiving systematic consideration. Pre-
vention and treatment are two edges
of the same sword. As citizens, in our
civic activities, we must awaken the
community to using both sides of the
weapon with which we fight for a happy
and healthy world.

 

N EARLY summer report by the
A National Safety Council named
the motor vehicle as still the greatest
killer of American men, women and
children.

Even with the decline in vacation
traffic, the fatality rate has stayed
high.

The Council’s virtually complete fig-
ures for the early months of the year
complete a tally of 40,000 traffic deaths
since Pearl Harbor. The fatalities
chargeable to motor vehicles exceeded
in that period the death toll, in U. S.
forces in the war. While war wounded
and missing (not including prisoners)
totaled 70,689 in this same_ period,
1,400,000 had been injured in automo-
bile accidents, and one in every four-
teen of these was permanently disabled.
The toll of essential war industry per-
sonnel has been heavy.

A number of test figures show that
the ratio of liquor-caused accidents to
the total is steadily rising. With sober,
self-controlled drivers exerting more
care, and maintaining slower (patriotic)
speed, the drink-influenced motorist
and pedestrian are proportionately
more frequent in the highway casualty
lists.

The so-called moderate driver at the
wheel—who really believes he is driv-
ing carefully, because that’s the way
alcohol works—is apt to be a necessary
war worker “letting down” in a par-
ticularly injurious way. His victims
may also be men and women vitally
needed in winning the war. Never was
it more essential than now to reiterate
that science, statistics, and common
sense alike agree: :

“If you're driving, don’t drink. If
you're drinking, don’t drive.”

The Allied Youth