Bwiew of Revieivs, II 121 lo. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



987 



Commission has passed a resolution to 

 grant no licenses for the sale of intoxi- 

 cants as a beverage after that date. 

 There have been as many as sixty-three 

 saloons in the Canal Zone There are 

 only thirty-five now. 



The liquor traffic has made an im- 

 perious and insistent demand for Sun- 

 day opening of saloons in the various 

 States of the Union. 



Many persons believe that it is impos- 

 sible to enforce Sunday-closing laws m 

 large cities, but an investigation revealed 

 the fact that of the thirty-nine largest 

 cities of the Union, only fourteen have 

 what might be called a lax enforcement 

 of the Sunday-closing law, and that the 

 other twenty-five cities enforce their 

 Sunday-closing laws. 



The liquor dealers have an enor 

 mously powerful machine whose juris- 

 diction embraces -every State, city, and 

 village in the countr)-, including the 

 capital at Washington. They have more 

 saloons than there are churches, more 

 bar-tenders than ministers of the Gospel, 



and have a yearly business of a billion 

 and a-half dollars, against the few mil- 

 lions devoted to religious purposes. De- 

 spite the defeats they have suffered in 

 the last fifteen years, they are still tre- 

 mendously strong. The Government 

 statistics show that while there were 

 1,108,218 barrels less of fermented 

 liquors used in 191 2 than 191 1, there was 

 actually an increase m the consumption 

 of distilled liquors in the same year of 

 1,226,596 gallons over that of the year 

 191 1, which figures, discouraging as they 

 are, would be much more so to temper- 

 ance people if it were not for the fact 

 that the Government statistics show that 

 the increase of consumption is in the 

 license territory only, especially in the 

 large cities, and that there is in the while 

 districts alwa)-s a reduction, and that 

 the brewers, who, it is thought, own 80 

 per cent, of all the saloons, have multi- 

 plied the drinking places abnormally, 

 and have made the question of self- 

 government in the largest cities of the 

 countr}- a serious problem. 



THE ATLANTIC END OF THE PANAMA CANAI/. 



The tug-boat ' Gatun " approaching the great locks which reach from sea level to the great 



Gatun Lake. 



