The Idaho Republican., 1916-12-22

and the relief from the cessation OF
the drink evil seems sufficient to
pay 1t. 1t would be little wonder II
the empire should stand united on
banishing booze absolutely. The men
in the munition factories are not
drinking. The MN in the cannon
factories have quit. The people at
large have been ordered to eat only
brown, whole-wheat bread, and the
grinding of white -four is under the
ban. In Germany, the greatest beer
drinking country in the world, they
have found that it is such great
sacrifice of foodstuffs to make malt
liquors, that a great movement has
been started to stop the manufacture
of liquors by giving every person his
bread tickets or receiving the scant
amount of beer that could be made
from as much grain as would make
the allowance of bread. And it is
said to be a knock-down argument
AGAINST beer. When man is given
his choice between loaf of bread
and a sip of beer, he doesn't repeat
choice of beer many times; he
takes the bread. Therefore 1t might
seem strange but not out of the
range of probability at all for the
German nation to just go on without
beer after the war and use the grain
for food and the liquor money for
paying the war debt. Russia has al
ready banished their vodka, which is
their word for liquor, and it is likely
that the other beligerents are learn
ing the same economic lessons re-
garding the use of liquor
Among the states of North America,
great strides are being made in favor
Of temperance. Many states are go
ing dry by popular vote and by con-
stitutional amendments. The num-
Der is increasing each year, and none
are going back. The wet states are at
a constantly increasing disadvantage
each year because the criminal ele-
ment that flourishes in saloons
gather in from the states that go
dry and over-run the neighboring
wet states. 1t greatly increases
crime, taxes and common danger,
and makes desirable communities
very undesirable placessto live. This
condition puts great pressure upon
action in the states that are yet wet,
and things are moving toward a
crisis. California, the land of grapes
and wine presses. comes nearer pro-
hibition with each succeeding elec-
tion, and in the past year over 100,-
900 went over to the dry column at
the polls. Seattle, the seaport, one
of the wettest of the very wet cities,
city adjacent to the great lumber
regions, on the line of world travel
and the gateway to Alaska, a city
presided over by mayor who has
trained with the vets all his life,
man who favored a wide-open
town, Seattle with all these things
to make it an impossible place to
make dry, has not only gone dry
but by tremendous majority voted
to stay dry after trying it year.
Hi Gill, the mayor of old wet Seattle,
Gill, the former drinKer, gambler and
believer in a restricted district for
S cial outcasts, is now standing up
to be counted among the drys who
wants his boy to live in dry town.
Under these conditions at home
and abroad it does not seem i'm
possible that we shall have universal
prohibition within the experience of
the present generation. Perhaps no
power in the world is doing more
to defeat prohibition than the United
States government is doing by sell
ing revenue stamps and authorizing
men to sell whisky in states that
have been voted dry by all it's in
habitants and made as dry as pos