The Detroit times., 1917-06-06
Our Young Men Meet Their
Duty! VIII the Country Now
y Meet It's Duty To Them!

81 have registered.
They have met the first requirement
of them by their country at var-they
have heard the first call Of duty.
From the number Of registrations
Tuesday, the United States will draft its
first 100000 men for service IN the
trenches.
These will first present themselves for
physical examination and those answer
ing the requirements in condition viii
be the first chosen.
Among other things the government
will expect all ehgibles TO report for duty
nj their sober senses.
But our representatives in Washing
ton are doing little toward helping the
ehgibies in this respect.
There seems to be no disposition In
our national capitol to hear the appeal
of great patriotic majority Of the coun-
try's people, that for the purposes OF
spreading democracy, and making a
quick lob of it and a success Of II, the
nation SHOULD GO DRY JUST AS
QUICKLY AS IT CAN BE VOTED
DRY.
This appeal is based by some on food
conditions which demand that the grain
which is going into whisky is needed for
bread: needed to bring bread down from
price of Is cents loaf.
More Americans. sense, however, that
the country has moral as well as an
economic duty to face and meet, and that
it will stand less chance of prosecuting
its wal successfully with whisky on its
breath or with a hangover from a long
spree.
1t requires time for nation to sober
I'D and regain its feet, the same as it re-
uuires time for an individual to sober up
and be able to become one hundred per
cent efficient
We face a responsibility and foe
which deamnd one hundred per cent eff
cheney and we will make sorry show
ing if we take the field with eyes blood
shot. stomach upset and dark brown
taste in the national mouth.
The United States senate has taken
action-action which it seems TO think
will meet the situation.
The finance committee of the senate
has decided that prohibitive taxation
will turn the trick that so many in the
country assert will have to be turned
unless we are to take a whipping at the
hands of the kaiser.
In addition to the present tax of 1920
per gallon on liquor, tax of $50 per
bushel is recommended on all grain
used in the manufacture of whisky, and
So gallon on molasses.
This may have tendency to meet
the economical side of the issue.
The idea is to discourage manufac-
ture, but the tax would do nothing of
the sort.
1t would have little effect upon the
economic side and no effect whatever in
meeting the moral phase of the issue.
A prohibitive tax on the manufacture
of whisky will not interfere with its
CONSUMPTION nor solve the matter of
prohibition during the war any more
than high license settled the problem in
localities when it was handed to the peo-
pie as a compromise proposition for pro-
hibition.
High license came, but whisky kept
flowing down necks and making drunk
ards and paupers and criminals and
idiots and lunatics, because the CON
SUMERS paid the HIGH LICENSE, just
as the consumers will pay the prohibi-
tive tax placed on the manufacture of
intoxicants.
There may be more than one way 20
skin cat, but there is positively only
one way to dry up a country that faces
the danger Of going into war in an alco-
holic state, and that one way is TO DRY
IT UP.
The young men who registered yester-
day met their duty unfinchingly
The government now owes them
duty. and that duty is TO put whisky,out
of their reach and out Of reach Of those
they will leave in charge Of thing at
home while they are away.