The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1917-06-06
Our Young Men Meet Their
Duty! Will the Country Now
Meet Its Duty To Them?

81 nave IeGlntSltu.
They have met the first requirement
of them by their country at war-they
have heard the first call OF duty
From the number of registrations
Tuesday. the United States viii draft ITS
first 100000 men for service IN the
trenches.
These win first present themselves for
physical examination and those answer
ing the requirements in condition VIII
be the first chosen.
Amcng other things the government
will expect all eligibles to report for duty
nj their sober senses.
Rut our representatives ia Washing
ton are doing little toward helping theI
eligibes in this respect.
There seems to be no disposition IN
our national capitol 20 hear the appeal
of a great patriotic majority Of the coun-
try's people, that for the purposes Of
spreading democracy, and making a
quick Job of it and a success of 1t, the
nation SHOULD co 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 10 cents a loaf.
More Americans sense, however, that
the country has a 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 It's /
breath or with a hangover from long
spree
It requires time for nation to sober
up and regain its feet, the same as it re- !
quires 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 a sorry show
ing Il 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 /
viii meet the situation.
The finance committee of the senate |
has decided that prohibtive 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 $500
per gallon on liquor a tax of $50 per
bushel is recommended on all grain
used in the manufacture of whisky, and
So gallon on molasses.
This may have a 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
It would have little effect upon the
economic side and no effect whatever in
meeting the moral phase Of the issue.
A prohbitive 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 20 the peo-
pie as 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
SUMFRS 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 toll
skin cat but there is positively only
one way to dry up a country that faces
the danger of going into war in an alec /
holic state, and that one way is to DRY |
IT Up.
The Young men who registered yester /
day net their duty unhinchingly
The government now owes them a /
duty and that duty is to put whisky on
of their reach and out Of reach Of those
they will leave in charge of things at (
hmm while they are away