New Britain herald., 1914-11-19

!, CndnCeQ upon DOCK Tn the nanQS or i a moujik which treated of the harm fulness of alcohol. It stated among other things, that vodka was poison. l was so impressed with this, knowing that everybody drank vodka, that I <, asked the physician I met if the state ment were true. He said yes. Men drank it, he explained, because of nom entarily' it gave them a sensa- tion of pleasant dizziness. From that time I decided to take every oppor- tunity to discover more about the use of vodka.
 At the end of the sos there came famine in Russia, followed by agra rian troubles. 1 saw crowd of peas ants demand from local landlord all the grain and foodstuffs in his gran ary. This puzzled me; I could not un- derstand how honest men were indul- ging in what seemed to be highway robbery. But I noted at the time that every man who was taking part in this incident was drinking man, while their fellow villagers who were abstemious had sufficient provisions in their own homes. Thus it was that I observed the industrial effects of vodka drinking.
 At Samara I decided to do more d. this time I was an alderman, and many of the tenants living in my houses were working men. One night drunken father in one of my houses killed his wife. This incident made such terrible impression on me that I decided to fight vodka with all my strength. s~-.
 Rejected uy the Government.
 "On the supposition that the gov ernment was selling vodka for the revenue, I calculated the revenue re- ceived from it's consumption in Sam ara. then introduced bill in the city council providing that city give this sum of money to the Imperial Treas ury, requesting at the same time that the sale of vodka be prohibited This bill passed, and the money was appro- priated. It was offered to the govern ment, but the government promptly refused it.
 Ut then dawned upon me that Rus sian bureaucracy did not want the people to become sober, for the req son that it was easier to rule auto cratically a drunken mob than a sober people. .@..
 Bill Passed Douma.
 This was seven years ago. Later I was elected mayor of Samara, capital of the Volga district, a district with over a quarter. of million inhabj- tants. Subsequently to holding this office I was elected to the Douma on an anti-vodka platform. In the Dou- ma I proposed a bill permitting the inhabitants of any town to close the local vodka shops, and providing also that every bottle of vodka should bear a label with the word 'poison.' At my request, the wording of this label, in which the evils of vodka were set forth, was done by the late Count Leo Tolstoy. This bill passed the Douma and went to the Imperial Council, where it was amended and finally tabled.
 II then begged an audience of Emperor Nicholas. He received me with great kindness in his castle in the Crimea, not far from the scene of the recent Turkish bombardment He listened to me patiently. He was impressed with my recital that most of the revolutionary and socialist ex- cesses were committed by drunkards and that the Sveaborg, Kronstadt and Seba astopol navy revolts and the Pe- trograd and other mutinous mili- tary movements were all caused by inebriates. Having heard me out, his majesty promised at once to speak to his minister of finance concerning the prohibition of vodka.
 Regarded as Dangerous.
 Disappointed at not having been able to get through government bill regulating this evil, I had abandoned my seat in the Douma. It was evident