Diplomatic Drinking Due for Probe; Drys Consider Colleges Temperate

Traditionally liquor-laden college students have abdicated their alcoholic throne in favor of the State Department.

Diplomatic drinking is due for a probe by the American Temperance Society. W. A. Scharrfenberg, executive secretary of the organization, is embarking on a world tour to check personally on the amount of liquor consumed by envoys.

State Department officials do not owe their bad habits to college experience, however, according to Mrs. Elizabeth D. Whitney of the Boston Committee on Alcoholism. Very few students numbered among the several thousand alcoholics studied by the committee.

"I know Harvard men and other college students like to drink and drink quite a lot, but their alcoholic problems are very few," she said. "There is no real problem of alcoholism in universities. A few college students do get into the basic stages of alcoholism, but I know of none who have reached a chronic stage."

American diplomats are decidedly intemperate, holds Scharrfenberg. Cocktails consumed by State Department officials over a nine-year span amounted to 122,000,000. "You'd be surprised at what the expense accounts show," he added. "The gin bill alone came to $6,000,000."