122 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



perance lectures were delivered under government 

 auspices to audiences totalling seven and one half 

 million people. 



To safeguard the movement from fanaticism, the 

 government prohibited the formation of societies 

 advocating prohibition and set aside further profits 

 from the new venture to the support of a national 

 temperance society which adhered strictly to moder- 

 ation. Two uncles of the Czar joined the movement 

 and the moral uplift of the saloon began under ideal 

 conditions. 



One may wash a black cat, but one cannot make it 

 white. So the plunge into respectability failed to 

 remove a whit of the blackness of the liquor traffic. 

 Within two years the would-be reformers learned 

 that restriction is a foe to profit. The number of 

 vodka shops was increased, the restrictions were 

 withdrawn, and thereafter the business was run for 

 revenue only. During nineteen years of nationaliza- 

 tion the revenue from the sale of vodka doubled, but 

 the consumption increased threefold. 



Restriction illogically forced vodka shops upon 

 villages that had heretofore been immune from its 

 ravages; and the inculcation of moderation resulted 

 in such inebriety among children as to demand 

 investigation by the Moscow City Council. In a 

 word, Russia's effort for the moral uplift of its people 

 through the government control of drink brought 

 about the degradation of the nation until its drunken- 

 ness resulted in ignominious defeat by a people whom 

 it outnumbered ten to one. 



