The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1915-05-25

DI OnAos EDWAhD hUOSEAII.
Copyright, 1918, by the News
paper Enterprise Association.
LONDON, May 25.-On April
z the announcement was officially
promulgated that because Of the
evils created by the drinking hab-
its of British workingmen, His
Gracious Majesty George the
Fifth had banished all alcoholic
beverages from his table.
The connection was not perfect
ly apparent, since the king isn't
a workingman and could not be
charged with any share of the
evils mentioned. The idea was
that as the British workingman
holds his king in great awe and
reverence. II the king should quit
the booze the British workingman
would quit it also.
Down the Drink.
What particularly led the gra-
cious king to ascend THE Ora
CIOUS WATER WAGON for this
pious purpose was a sudden and
horrible outcry about the ineffi-
cheney of the workingman, and
what led to the horrible cutlery
was the bitter complaint of the
war office that it could not get
the tools of war. As thus:
The war is not actively prose-
cuted because we can't get NUM-
tions. We can't get the NUM-
lions because the British work
ingman is inefficient. The Brit.
ish workingman is inefficient be-
cause he drinks.
Therefore, down with the drink
but not in the way favored by
the registering old song.
Only q Dream.
A violent agitation sprang up
against drink-for .workingmen
and many persons dreamed
dreams, not to be realized, of ma
tional prohibition. II we cannot
have both drink (fOr working
mem and death-dealing NUM-
lions, why, cut out the drink (for
workingmen) because the death
dealing munitions we have plumb
got to have!
Increased war taxes had al
ready driven up the prices of
beer and ale, and very likely the
best way was to pile on more
taxes and thus make the beastly
stuff (beer and ale) cost SO much
the workingman couldn't buy 1t.
Nothing was said then about
putting up the prices of drinks Mt
our club SO that we couldn't buy
them, but, of course, those drinks
don't interfere with efficiency nor
with supplies of the deal
ing. ..sfs4.
A promising movement to get
moral support for the abstience
proclaimed by the king failed to
get very far because it failed to
awaken that chord of enthusiasm
that you might expect to be
struck. The house of commons
contemptuously refused to throw
down the Rum Fiend, in its pre-
cincts, and only two of the cabi-
net followed the king into the
grape juice contingent.
Meanwhile, in the hysteria,
three salient points had been
overlooked.
1. How on earth can you ex-
pect men to be efficient when
they live in caves and never have
enough to eat?
2. The German workingman
is admitted to be very efficient,
and yet he drinks.
3. Assuredly, IL British work
ingmen drank to excess they did
so chiefly because their lives were
SO bleak and miserable that drink
was forced upon them.
Too Little to Eat.
| The real trouble seemed to be
not that the British workingman
drank too, much, BUT THAT HE
ATE TOO LITTLE!
In other words, here was pow
erty, the internal foe, striking
once more at the vitals of the
nation.
Nevertheless, the singular
delusion fingered that IL the king,
surrounded with every luxury
and provided with every diver
sion, could get along without
beer, the workingman, ill-fed,
ill-nourished, leading a monoto-
nous life in squalid surroundings,
could easily be SATISFIED WITH
MORE TEA.
Helps Government Plan.
AS matter of fact, while the
agitation neither increased the
supply of munitions nor visibly
daunted the rum fiend, it helped
the government otherwise. for n