BLUE BLOOD AND BEER

Mrs. Henry W. Peabody's latest attack indicts the Democratic congressmen who hope to pass a bill legalizing three or four per cent beer as a revenue measure which will give the Federal Treasury $200,000,000 annually. "To insure such revenue," said Mrs. Peabody, "would compel everybody, men, women, and children, to drink several gallons of beer weekly." This single sentence will suffice to make her a national figure.

With little prejudice Mrs. Peabody obtained the statistics of pre-prohibition drunkenness. Ninety per cent, she found, were intoxicated by beer which Congress may legalize again. With logical reasoning one infers that if everyone, including the innocent children, must drink several gallons a week, since the mathematical odds favor the capacity of the saloon habitue as compared to the post-war drinker, more than ninety per cent of the people would be drunk every week. Continuing in this vein, if only about ten per cent were left to manufacture the beer, it is doubtful if they could supply the consumers. The belligerent beer drinkers might revolt; they might even try manufacturing their own beer.

Oddly enough, the people have not sufficiently appreciated the ingenious solutions of the militant dry crusader. However, she should not lose courage. Twenty years hence, the young girls of today, still slender if Mrs. Peabody's latest movement is successful, will chip in and have a statue made of this twentieth century reformer. Brewers will, without thinking, curse Mrs. Peabody. They are a simple group if they do, for they can very easily change their occupation to that of the wine and whiskey manufacturers. As Mrs. Peabody pointed out, it was beer that caused most of the drunkenness, so it should not be difficult now to legalize wines and hard liquors.