The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-28
WHEN A NATION
 SWEARS OFF
Wonderful Change Among Russians After Quitting Vod- ka Abstinence Came About Through War.
CHRISTINA MERRIMAN
Exclusive Service The Survey
 Press Bureau.)

miracle has happened in Russia a. miracle that has put bread in the cupboards of the poor, fires on the hearths, reformed the wife-beater, lift ed q people from sullenness and des- pair to happiness and seH-respect
 And the miracle. strangely enough was made possible by Russia's auto cratic form of government under which the Little Father. by one stroke of the pen put vodka and it's tenpta-z lions beyond the reach Of the pe0ple-' by prohibiting the sale of stEonG 4f&nk In any part of the empire.
 } WHAT AN AMERICAN
 ,F BUSINESS MAN SAW.
 Henry W. Hitler, who for the last thirty-one years hes spent half of each eyar in Russia, managing silver shops for Tiffany & Co.,, told me Of the won derf1il change that had taken place. there. and explained that there was nothing halfway about this rohiot-s tion.
 q had just landed in Moscow he said. felt { little chilly and sent put for some rum to put in my tea Not drop was to be had.
 .4I hadn't heard till then of the. Czar,s ukase. but soon saw the ef- fects of it upon the men whom want to the shops. T want to say that never lived through a miracle before, but the regeneration that saw there was nothing short of miracu1ouEs
 esrIfl9 RlSE1an p66S8LlIS SE1Se1kAt eNANN a = If Black Monday in Russia for they usually come 10 work soddan, stupid and depressed after a day spent tT the wine-shops. And they're lucky too, if they don't miss at least one cay through the working week for the same reason-drink- On pay day the wives who cane-so underfed. so bad Iy cIothed-to wheed1e from them part of their earnings to buy food for the children, usually came too late-aH s
 BETTER WORK AND LIVING.
 ..Now.' continued MT Hitler, this marvellous change has swept over Rus sis like a cyclone. .-1with the noise lefe out It is wonderful The men come fo work cheerful, sober; their work has iraproved incredibly And the uonnen-as met them on the streets g great burden was gradually lifted from me They ceased coming after their husbands pay and as the weeks wore look-wen, as if they had had meal two mea1s-hnal1y, three meals a day.
 s.This is the outward and visible sign Of the changea change from a. people starving. hopeless, inefficient, slaves to drink, to people WelI-nour- fsfled industrious re8enerated.
 ssAnd. mind you-1 left Moscow the last of october-this was the result of skless than three months under this re- s gf1ne.
 .srhe chief of police of Moscow was 5t1biEant over the almost incredible decrease of crime-ss My job is sfi11e.S he said genially. here's coEnpara- f lively no crime It used to be corn- mon thing to see men and women, too. T am sorry to say-lying dead drunk on the side streets. You don't see a drunken man now and women can ssRaIlx about without being insulted- tasr ssIshe Russian peasant, you know is the k1ndIiest fellow in the worId--but { let him get two or three drinks of vod- ka fsswodkys' MT. Filler pronounces it) and he's the devil incarnate. When . lived in Siberia had 8 cook who was the gantlest sort of fellow. ordin- arfIy. but who had been spunished' 61ve times for murder after drinking and he'd have committed another if | hadn't knocked him senseless with 9 log one day.
 Don't think said MT Hitler. ''that this regeneration came in a moment from the Czar or his despots. The Fsussian government gives only where i it has to. It owns the liquor trade 1and gets from it 8 yearly revenue of a 5i1l1on dollars. Now, the peasant knows that his glass of vodka is not good for him, and eats up his money and his ambition but 1t has a terrible
 CARS ACT MAKES REFORM.
 Wears ago great movement against liquor started, an expression of re- eentmen& against government that
  Then came the war. The anti-aIcoho1 peopIes said: Now is the time to str1lxes 1t win help modification. and moreover the Cxar will be afraid now to refuse us. And the Car had the power to accomplish at one stroke what some have been working for for yearB.
 s.Doyou hear ers1n1bling2 No very much. or course, there are always those who think they must drink or die, and they DID die-some of them for they even took to wood-alcohoI, poor fellows. in place of vodka These eases, however. were few in number. As a class the peasants were jubilant beyond the reach of temptation. They could not but acknowledge that 1t was 8 most benencial thing.
 As I heard this story of g remarka- ble national reform fell to wonder ing If this marvellous change has come about in Fepssfa, don't you sup pose the other countries must be fore a as matter of 1ogfc and self-pres- ervation to adopt strnAar 1aws?''
 well ?. said MT. Hfller eznphaticalIy. T don't believe in the emotional meth ods of temperance sQctetdesL But if any woman can stop the sale of liquor in this country, Jeanne dsArc won't be mentioned in the same breath with her.r
 Striking confirnatory evidence Of MT. Hiier's cbservattons in Russia were brought forward at the annual meet ing December 10, of the Association of Life Insurance Presidents, by Ar thur Hunter. actuary of the New 14Ork Life Insurance Company. Reporting on an exhaustive mortal fty investigation covering two million insured lives in the last twenty years MF- Hunted said that among men who admitted they had taken alcohol occa- sfona1ly to excess in the past but whose habits were considered satisfas. l tory when they were insured, the nor talfty was 50 per cent greater than among men who did not use nduor.