The national prohibitionist. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1907-1911, 1907-12-12
THE NATIONAL pRoHIB1TIoNIsT
December 10, 1907

public, would never have produced the evils that
give rise to the demand for Prohibition and fur
nish basis for the Prohibition propaganda.
Good" whisky, they would have us believe, tends
to home comfort moral upbuilding and religious
progress, but the "vi1e connections that have
taken the place of whisky-in them do dwell all
the devils that torment the world.
1t almost makes the readers blood run cold to
see this train of horrors pass in review as the
Press presents it. Read and tremble:
can examination showed that the suggestion
correct That most of the whisky passed
over the saloon bars in the cities, both north and
south, is bad is the belief of many persons to-
day. That it is criminally bad in the rural Sec
tons of the South is borne out by the report OF
the distillers' committee. The exposures of DR..
Harvey w. Wiley, the government pure food
expert are mild in comparison with the findings
of the committee. 1t reports that an enormous
quantity of the stuff with which the South and
West have been supplied, contains cocaine, wood
alcohol creosote or sulphuric acid. Disregarding
the first three named elements, with their known
deadly qualities, the statement that sulphurc acid
alone is often put into liquor is enough to appal
any one familiar with its effects Suphuric acid
is one of the two strongest acids known to science
today. There are few substances which it will
not affect One has only to watch the virulence
with which it attacks piece of iron to be
minded of what its effect must be on the lining
OF the human stomach.
1t seems to dawn upon these gentlemen that it
is not alone cheap saloons of the South and
West" that known to produce mischief and
(who can tell with what pangs) they drive the
knife into the heart of the heightened trade in
New York itself, failing to see, perhaps, that in
doing 50 they confirm of the contentious of
the Prohibitionsts for years past, that the stuff
that comes the bars of Fifth avenue, at high
price, is the same cursed poison that is passed
out from Bowery dives in return for the dirty,
worn nickels of tramps. The article says:
"The average New Yorker probably thinks that
New York city is outside the bad whisky belt but
one of the members of the committee that
ported to the dstllers regarding the cause of the
Prohibition wave in the South is authority for the
statement that, generally speaking, conditions in
this city only shade better than in the South
or West And the sale of bad whisky is not con-
fined to groggeries of the East Side or the ex-
IRENE West Side.
Zone of the largest and most prosperous hotels
IN New York, an establishment that pays approxi-
mately 80 percent year on the millions invested
in it, has for its bar whisky poisonous compound
Whisky Trust and for which it pays $40 a gal
lon. This is sold for fifteen cents drink The
one good thing about it is that it is we'll watered
before it is served. It is estimated that the hotel
gets a return of $45 from every $40 gallon
This whisky is no better than that sold in the
barrel houses of the Bowery for five cents a
drink.
Even the stuff obtained in the glittering re-
treatment palaces of Broadway is suspiciously bad
Most OF 1t is as cheap and as poor as that put
over the bar of the hotel in question"