The Alaska citizen., 1916-06-12
WOULD BUILD SIX PANAMA CA.
 NAILS EACH YEAR

WOULD BUILD SIX PANAMA CA
 NAILS EACH YEAR
 The cost of the Panama canal the most gigantic engineering feat in history. was about four hundred millions of dollars. Is it not ap- palling to think that We spend for drink every year something like six times the cost of the Panama Canal?
 THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT
 SPENT FOR EDUCATION. have endeayored to secure an ac curate estimate of the amount of money spent on education in this country. and the figure given nr is seven hundred and fifty milli ons of dollars. This pays all the teachers who instruct the children from the Kindergarten to the uni versity. in this land of more than ninety millions. It provides salaries for the great intellectual army whoso ILtSl lIuldDle StINICt IIO iISuIt9 IdH describe Ii We were to cease these expenditures this nation, so con spiCuous in all that contributes to the civilization of the world, would lapse into barbarism. And yet We spend for drink more than three times as much as We spend for edu- cation.
 DRINK BILL DOUBLE THE Ex-
 PsNsEs oF FEDERAL GOVERN MENT
 The annual appropriations of the Federal Government are a little dollars This sum includes the sal aries of all O the public officials from the President down. It in cludes the salaries and expenses of our Ambassadors and Ministers ! through whom We maintain diplo matic relations with the entire world; it covers the cost of our con sular service which looks after our commerce in foreign lands. IL in cludes the expenses of the treasury which handles our money, collects our taxes and supervises the bank ing system of the nation. It covers the expenses of the army and the expenses of the navy II provides means for enforcing the laws of the United States. It includes the opo rations of the postoffice department which carries mail to every villag'. hamlet and city, with it's fifty-siX thousand postmasters, its nineteen thousand railway clerks and it's seV- enty-five thousand mail carriers in the cities and in the country. II covers the expenses of the interior department, with it's multiplied agel cies for dealing with pensions, with the public lands of the coun- try, with irrigation and with Indian affairs. It covers the expenses Of the agricultural department, with is experimental work and it's search throughout the world for that which can be profitably grown in this country. It supplies the needs of the rapidly increasing department Of commerce and the yitally important work of the department of labor It supplies the funds needed by the Interstate Commerce commission for the regulation of railroads and | by the new Federal Trade commis- sion for the prevention of monopoly
 All of these governmental agen- cies employed in administering the Federal government are operated at an expense of less than a billion and quarter of dollars. Think, if the mind can comprehend it, of this nation spending twice that amount for alcoholic liquor.
 ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS PER FAMILY.
 Here are four comparisons. Do they help you to understand what drain on this country the driak l habit is? Acc ording to the estimate given, the average tax laid upon each citizen by the use of liquor is more than twenty-five dollars a year, or, counting five to the family, more than one hundred and twenty-five dollars to the family annually If any political party attempted to make an annual increase in the taxes upon the people to the extent of one-fifth of that sum, it would be turned out of power by an indie- nant public When it is remembered that this tax Is not uniform, but is on the average, heaviest upon those least able to bear it, is it not our duty to consider how the na- tion can be relieved of this enor- nous burden?
 THE SUREST REMEDY
 The object of this meeting is not to discuss the governmental phases of the liquor traffic, but rather to deal with remedies that can be ap-