354 ELEMENTS OF GENERAL SCIENCE 



responsible. An increasing number of people believe that 

 alcohol is such a deadly enemy of society that its sale should 

 be forbidden exactly as are the sales of other habit-forming 

 drugs like cocaine and opium. In this country many states 

 have already passed laws prohibiting the manufacture and 

 sale of alcoholic beverages of all kinds, and scarcely a year 

 passes without new states being added to the list of those 

 that are dry. Recently the United States National Congress 

 passed an amendment to our constitution prohibiting the 

 manufacture and sale of alcohol as a beverage. This amend- 

 ment, in order to become a law, requires the ratification of 

 thirty-six states. 



The Great War has made people think about efficiency as 

 they have never done before. Russia led the Allies in pro- 

 hibiting the manufacture and sale of vodka, a distilled liquor 

 of high alcohol content. In certain parts of Russia the sale 

 of wine and beer is prohibited. In England the manufacture 

 and sale of beer is still permitted in spite of its recognized 

 evil effects. David Lloyd George, the prime minister of that 

 country, has been quoted as saying of the war: "We are 

 fighting Germany, Austria, and Drink, and so far as I can 

 see, the greatest of these deadly foes is Drink." 



350. Alcohol and the food supply. When we face the prob- 

 lem of a world shortage of food, alcohol appears in a still 

 different light. In the year 1915 there were consumed in 

 the United States more than 32,000,000 gallons of wines, 

 almost 2,000,000,000 gallons of malt liquors, and more than 

 100,000,000 gallons of distilled spirits. It seems a social 

 injustice to permit our grains and fruits to be converted into 

 these drinks at a time when people are starving for food. 

 It is estimated that the grain which could be saved in a 

 year by national prohibition would be sufficient to feed an 

 army of 7,000,000 men for a year. Such estimates may or 

 may not be entirely accurate, but that enormous quantities 

 of food would be saved if manufacture of alcohol for drink 



