After thought and discussion one family has arrived at the following conclusions for the present:

First, that a certain proportion of income should be set aside for benevolence at home and abroad. That contributions to missionary boards and relief organizations are the last and not the first items to be cut down.

Second, that they will not give up altogether Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and the giving of Christmas presents, but that dinners and gifts shall be simple and not extravagant.

Third, that where incomes are reduced or financial obligations increased in the stress of the times that retrenchment must begin with household decorations, recreation, and "extra extravagances" in table and dress.

Still, we have not got Mrs. Kelley altogether out of her dilemma. Some Outlook readers, however, do not recognize any dilemma. They say that it is possible to make every dollar do double service-service here and service abroad. Of such opinion are the authors of the following two communications:

In answer to your request for suggestions as to the duty of a would-be generous consumer in times like these, I would make the following: Money given to the Vacation Relief Fund to be used for materials to be made into garments for the sufferers abroad would kill two birds with one stone, in that it would give employment to some of the girls at present out of work, and also relieve distress in Europe. New Brighton, New York.

A PATRIOT.

"The desperate plight of printers and publishers" is terribly real. Could not, however, every five dollars directed the other way do a double service-to the widows and orphans, also to those clerks and others in whose shops the money is spent? Are not these men probably as needy and worthy as the others?

Boonton, New Jersey. MARY EVA KITCHEL.

The truth is that Mrs. Kelley's query raises an issue upon which economists have argued since the days of Adam Smith or before, namely, whether the expenditure of

money for luxuries is justified upon the ground that it creates employment. One communicator, Mr. Moses Franklin, of Pue blo, Colorado, is apparently of the opinion that it does, for he writes:

Mrs. Kelley . . . rightly concludes that . . . unemployment is caused by denying ourselves certain satisfactions to help the afflicted. . . Increased expenditure furnishes increased employment and no one is injured thereby.

The majority of our correspondents, however, are in line with the best economic theory in rejecting the doctrine that extravagance is justified because it "makes work" for some people.

A very forceful and clear exposure of the fallacy under which, we believe, Mrs. Kelley has been in danger of laboring is the following letter:

The point raised by your question, "What ought the consumer to do?" is an interesting one, and throws light on what the writer believes to be a common fallacy. The position of the Consumers' League is simply another version of the old threadbare defense of every piece of extravagant luxury and waste-"it makes work." Heavens and earth! As if there were not always work enough to be done! What we want is not more work but less work, and this is to be achieved by turning our efforts to useful and enduring channels and not by frittering them away in every sort of waste. Pietro de Medici "made work" when he commanded Michael Angelo to squander his time and talent that might have been expended on enduring marble in making a statue of snow.

Let us consider the ultimate destination of the hundred pounds when expended in the maintenance of the British householder's ménage, and when given for, say, Belgian relief. In the former case its expenditure gives employment to butlers, chauffeurs, valets, maids, and goodness knows whom else, all of them taken out of productive work to render services of little or no value to the community. In the latter case the money will in all probability be expended for food and clothing-say, for flour and cloth. It will thus give employment to wheat and cotton growers, sheep raisers, millers, spinners,weavers, and a host engaged in transportation, brokerage, etc., besides. And in one case the ultimate product is food and clothing for the innocent victims of war, and in the other case superfluous personal services with which the British householder himself is quite ready to dispense. The fact of it is, whatever we do with the hundred pounds, we are going to hire somebody to do something; and to me, at least, it seems infinitely more worth while to hire a farmer to grow wheat, and a cotton planter to grow cotton, and the millers and weavers to manufacture it all

-1914

875

N

EVER before, perhaps, in the history of mankind has the prohibition of intoxicating liquor been so complete and effective as it has been in Russia since the outbreak of war, and never before, certainly, has the world had such an opportunity to see what results total abstinence may bring about. In the United States, and in many other parts of the world, prohibition has often been attempted; but it never had a fair trial, for the reason that it has never anywhere been effective. In our own country the sale of alcoholic liquor has often been forbidden in particular States or localities; but there were always illicit manufacture and sale; there was always importation into territory that was dry" from territory that was 66 "wet," and there was always more or less secret distribution and consumption. For these reasons prohibitionists have not been able to justify conclusively their attitude toward drink by pointing to the sociological results of total abstinence. Prohibition has never been successfully enforced; the sale and consumption of intoxicants have never been completely stopped; and total abstinence over a large area has never existed. Now in Russia for the first time we have an opportunity to see what nation-wide prohibition may accomplish, and what the sociological results of total abstinence may be.

Drunkenness in Russia has been more disastrous, perhaps, socially and economically, than in any other country of Europe. Eight or ten other nations consume more alcohol per capita than the Russians do; but in no other country is the consumption so injurious to the individual, to the community, and to the state. This is due to two causes, both closely related either to the manner of drinking or to the place of consumption:

1. It will be obvious, upon reflection, that the evil consequences of drink are largely dependent upon the way in which the liquor is consumed. A, for example, imbibes, say, five gallons of alcohol per annum, but divides it into about a thousand drinks, taken regularly every day at intervals of three or four hours. He never consumes enough at one time to intoxicate him, he never loses his judgment or self-control, and he seldom acts irrationally or commits crime under alcoholic influence. B, let us suppose, consumes exactly the same quantity of liquor, but divides it into only twenty portions, taken at time intervals of from two to three weeks. He drinks from a pint to a quart whenever he drinks at all, and consequently becomes drunk, loses control of his faculties, and sooner or later, in one of his periodical sprees, beats his wife, sells his property at half price, sets fire to an enemy's house, or commits some crime which brings ruin upon him and his family. Each of these two men consumes the same quantity of alcohol per annum, but the consequences in the two cases are wholly different. A escapes with physiological damage only, while B suffers not only the same bodily injury, but in addition thereto social and economic ruin. B's method of drinking is that of the Russian peasant; and this is one of the reasons why drunkenness in Russia is more common and disastrous than in many other countries where the per capita consumption of liquor is much greater.

2. The second reason for the demoralizing effect of vodka-drinking in Russia is related to the place of consumption. Since the Government established the vodka monopoly it has sold liquor on the dispensary plan only. The purchaser may not buy less than a bottle, and he is forbidden to drink it

on the premises. He therefore consumes it on the street, or, more commonly, takes it home and drinks it there. He thus carries it to his wife and children. Formerly there was very little intoxication among Russian women. The muzhik drank in the kabak, or village grog-shop, and that was a place where the women and children did not often go, unless they went there to bring home their intoxicated husbands and fathers. The dispensary system abolished the kabak, and almost inevitably forced vodka-drinking into the peasant households. The drunken husband often compelled or persuaded his wife and children to drink ("it made them behave in such a funny way !"), and the evil gradually spread to the families, and then to the public schools. Drunkenness among women became more and more common, and investigations made a year or two ago showed that in some public schools forty per cent of the pupils, both boys and girls, drank vodka more or less regularly, if not habitually. Russian life, or a large part of it, was thus poisoned at its source.

Russian society was fully conscious of these evils, and made every possible effort to limit them; but so long as the Government derived nearly a third of its revenue from the sale of intoxicants it gave no encouragement to temperance movements or temperance societies. On the contrary, it showed a disposition to regard every attempt to restrict the sale of vodka as a crime against the state. Hundreds, if not thousands, of town councils and peasant communes adopted prohibitory resolutions, but they were seldom confirmed either by the local officials or by the higher authorities in Petrograd. Few of them, therefore, became effective. The Government needed a larger revenue for military preparations and adventures, and instead of using the drink monopoly as a means of controlling and restricting intemperance, as was originally intended, it deliberately tempted the people to drink more, in order to swell its receipts.

Commenting last winter on the change in the purpose of the monopoly thus brought about, Count Witte said: "They call me the father of the drink monopoly, and I do not deny it. I am the father of the child that was born in 1903. But I wanted to make the girl an honest woman, whereas she has been brought up by other persons in such a way that she is now walking the Nevski Prospekt. I intended her for an honest life,

and not for one of vice. My heart aches on her account."

When the war broke out, the Government, in order to guard against the possibility of popular disorder during the period of mobilization, decided to suspend temporarily the sale of vodka. As it controlled absolutely both the sources of supply and the means of distribution, it was able to do this with unprecedented effectiveness, and in less than forty-eight hours the drinking of intoxicants practically ceased. Scores of peasants in the towns poisoned themselves to death with wood alcohol, denatured alcohol, or cologne; but vodka could not be had, because the Government controlled the whole supply, and there had been no time to organize illicit manufacture and sale. The closing of the Government dispensaries and the extraordinary results that followed gave not only the temperance workers but an overwhelming majority of the peasants an opportunity to show what they thought of the vodka traffic. Appeals and petitions begging the Government not to reopen the dispensaries at the end of mobilization poured into the Ministry of Finance from zemstvos, town councils, communes, societies, and individuals in all parts of the Empire. Even habitual drinkers, who knew that vodka was ruining them, but who had not will power enough to let it alone if they could get it, joined in the almost universal cry, "Don't reopen the shops !"

The Czar and his Ministers listened to the voice of the nation. They had suspended the sale of vodka only until the 25th of August (O. S.), but when that day came they continued the suspension until the 1st of October. Then, as the beneficent results of total abstinence became increasingly apparent, and the appeals of the people grew more and more insistent, the Czar and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armies extended the prohibition to the end of the war, and finally made it include not only vodka, but strong wines, light wines, beer-everything. At the same time the Czar himself made public the announcement that the sale of vodka by the Government would never be resumed. Then millions of muzhiks and tens of millions of peasant women crossed themselves devoutly and cried, "Slava Bokhoo!" (Thank God!)

Nearly four months have now passed since the drinking of intoxicants in Russia ceased, and the results of the reform are so extraordinary as to surpass the expectations even of the most sanguine prohibitionists and temper