262 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



products are high, while corn is cheap. Here, at least, denatured 

 alcohol may be expected to displace gasoline. What applies to North 

 Dakota applies equally well to many semi-isolated agricultural dis- 

 tricts far from large markets, provided the alcohol can be made on 

 the spot. 



Whether or not the denatured alcohol business will become the 

 property of a trust which will regulate prices is an interesting ques- 

 tion. If the Standard Oil Company looks with such perfect equa- 

 nimity at the advent of denatured alcohol upon the market, as Mr. 

 Young attributes to it, it is strange rumors should so constantly ap- 

 pear in the newspapers that the Standard Oil Company is buying up 

 the distilleries. These rumors might, indeed, be ascribed to the 

 agitation in favor of the bill before it was passed, but this does not 

 explain the persistence with which these rumors have been repeated 

 during the last few months, since the passage of the act. The ex- 

 perience of. other countries is worth noting in this connection. During 

 the last year or so an alcohol trust has been formed in Spain, with 

 headquarters at Madrid, and another was formed a year ago in Greece, 

 with headquarters at Pyrseus. Even one of the oldest of countries 

 appears willing in these days to learn the tricks of trade from one of 

 the youngest. 



Any monopolization of the business of making alcohol would be 

 totally impossible if nature were allowed to take its course. The 

 process of manufacture is so simple and so readily carried out, and 

 on a small scale requires so small a capital outlay, that groups of 

 farmers could easily associate themselves and construct distilleries to 

 convert their surplus crops into alcohol. Nearly every county in an 

 agricultural district could have such a distillery and its products 

 would find a ready market at home for light and power. The Com- 

 missioner of Internal Eevenue, Mr. Yerkes, is reported to have been 

 asked, some months ago, if there was anything in the free alcohol bill 

 to prevent farmers and smaller merchants from so banding together; 

 whether any provision of the bill would result in throwing the new 

 industry into the hands of the distillers or of any other trust. He 

 replied, ' Nothing whatever.' 



A study of the rules and regulations which were issued September 

 29, 1906, to govern the manufacture, denaturing and sale of denatured 

 alcohol, leads one to believe that he has supplied this omission; with- 

 out a doubt unwillingly, and through a sense of his duty as custodian 

 of the revenues, because Mr. Yerkes is well known to favor the ' free 

 alcohol measure,' but none the less effectually. Such a labyrinthine web 

 of restrictions and obstacles is surpassed in no other country or lan- 

 guage, and is equaled only by the present United States Government 

 restrictions on the distilling of spirituous liquors. It is more than 



