(c) The liquor trade is the most powerful of all “interests” in the corruption of politics, one of the most demoralizing phases of our American life. [Footnote:  H. S. Warner, op. cit, chap.  XI.] The saloon power is in politics with a grim determination to keep its business from extermination.  It is able to throw the votes of a large body of men as it wills.  It maintains a powerful lobby at Washington and at the state capitals.  In many places it has had a strangle hold on legislation.  The trade naturally tends to ally itself with the other vicious interests that live by exploiting human weakness-the gamblers, the fosterers of prostitution, the keepers of vile “shows”; it has a vast revenue for the purchasing of votes, and, in the saloon, the easiest of channels for reaching the bribable voter.  Corrupt political machines have been glad to use its support, and have derived a large measure of their strength there from.  Were the liquor trade destroyed, the greatest obstacle in the way of political reform would be removed.  In sum, we can say that the evils caused by alcohol, instead of having been exaggerated, have never until very recently been sufficiently realized.  The half hath not been told.

What should be the attitude of the individual toward alcoholic liquors?

In the light of our present knowledge, the attitude toward liquor demanded by morality of the individual admits of no debate.  He may love dearly his wines or his beer, but his enjoyment is won at too dear a cost to himself and others; his support of the liquor trade is very selfish.  He has no right to poison himself, to impair his health and efficiency, as even a little drinking will do.  He has no right to run the risk of becoming the slave of alcohol, as so many of the most promising men have become; the effect of the drug is insidious, and no man can be sure that he will be able to resist it.  He has no right to spend in harmful self-indulgence money that might be spent for useful ends.  He has no right to incur the, however immeasurable, moral and intellectual impairment which is effected by even rather moderate drinking.  He has no right to bequeath to his children a weakened heritage of vitality.  He has no right, by his example, to encourage others, who may be far more deeply harmed than he, in the use of the drug; “let no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.”  The influence of every man who is amenable to altruistic motives is needed against liquor, to counteract its lure; we must create a strong public sentiment and make it unfashionable and disreputable to drink.  Happily the tide of liquor-drinking, which has been rising rapidly in the last half- century, owing to the increase in prosperity, the great influx of immigrants from liquor-drinking countries, and the stimulation of the trade by the highly organized liquor industry, has at last, by the earnest efforts of enlightened workers, been turned.  Men of influence are standing