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109 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 1 (1923)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0109 and id is 1 raw text is: The Relationship of Alcohol to Society and to Citizenship By EUGENE LYMAN FISK, M.D. Medical Director, Life Extension Institute J AT is citizenship? It can only arise when two or more people are close enough for their lives to touch. A single individual on a desert island or otherwise removed from his fellows is not a citizen, but an inhabitant. Let another individual land on that island and a convention must arise and citizen- ship is called for. This necessarily in- volves a restriction of personal liberty -so called. WHAT Is PERSONAL LIBERTY? In the story of creation, Adam is merely an inhabitant until Eve appears and then Adam becomes a citizen; and along with his rib, he loses a consider- able part of his personal liberty, never to be regained by any of his male de- scendants except Robinson Crusoe. Just what is personal liberty? Ab- solute personal liberty is the right to do anything that one has the power or in- clination to do, regardless of the conse- quences to one's self or to others. This is not a prerogative of citizenship in a free republic. This is a truth that needs to be burned into the brains, not only of aliens who seek citizenship under our Constitution, but of every existing citizen who really loves his country. There is always more personal liberty in a despotic monarchy than in a free republic, paradoxical as this may seem. In a semi-civilized or despotic monarchy there is less law, less restraint upon the lawless, more license and arbitary ex- ercise of power than is possible in an enlightened and well-governed repub- lic. In fact, the despot and his satel- 2 lites and the innumerable little despots that flourish in a semi-civilized state are examples of the nearest approach to personal liberty that exists in human society. But even the despot must yield to certain conventions, supersti- tions or traditions, and dare not over- step certain lines laid down by the customs of his people. Many years ago Huxley, one of the most ardent ad- vocates of individual freedom of speech, thought and action, wrote: It is a necessary condition of social ex- istence that men should renounce some of their freedom of action. There is no coun- try or nation in which an adult man has exclusive possession of himself. In fact, the very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits that be is not the exclusive possessor of himself and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act to some extent as his master. THE SELF-INDULGENT There is much talk in these days of personal liberty. Is this cry raised in behalf of freemen, of men who stand out as types of rugged, independent spirits untrammeled by the chains of habit, bowing to no petty tyrant such as bracers, appetizers, pick-me- ups, and other slave-holding indul- gences? Not so. The cry is raised in behalf of a limited section of our popu- lation, which includes as its core the self-indulgent men who really have less personal liberty than they who are physically free because they are healthy, because they are not bound in the shackles of some indulgence and can dig up out of their inner resources 1

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