ABOUT four years ago a series of meet~L~ings entitled first industrial 1k. conference on was held in Chicago. The group of industrial and health leaders who met together gave official recognition for the first time to the problem drinker in business and industry. The significance of this event must be considered in the light of a broader social movement. During the last decade there has been a marked change in social response to alcoholism in the United States. The problems of alcohol are emerging from under a cloud of misconceptions, subjectivity, and emotionally charged attitudes which have acted in the past to obscure the facts in this field. Only recently these problems have become the objects of scientific investigation and are being approached with programs of research, therapy, and public education. This transition in society's response to alcoholism can be compared with similar movements through which such disorders as tuberculosis, cancer, and mental disease have only recently been freed from a veil of ignorance, stigma, and taboo and have become accepted as worthy of publicly supported scientific endeavors at therapy and prevention. Alcoholism has at various times been classified as a moral problem, an economic problem, a problem for education, a public health problem, a problem of the family, psychiatric problem, and a medical problem. Actually, of course, like many other complex aspects of human behavior, the problems of alcoholism cannot be categorized under a single heading. Because they affect total behavior, they are bound to be felt in all of the major cultural institutions, including the family, religion, education, health, government, business, and industry. Traditionally, alcoholics have been punished, ridiculed, hidden, shunned, and neglected by society. Public facilities for their treatment have been limited until very recently to the jail, the mission or shelter, and the mental hospital. Private drying-out sanitariums have been available only to the few who could afford the charges. Popularly held stereotypes have tended to categorize all alcoholics as either derelicts or psychotics and have fallaciously overlooked uncontrolled drinkers who have been regularly employed or otherwise still socially integrated. Employers, keeping the derelict or psychotic stereotype in mind, have often stoutly denied that alcoholics might be in their employ. A dilemma which many employers feel in facing this question is summarized by Dr. John Norris, medical director of the Eastman Kodak Company.