HV UC-NRLF SB Ebfl 7M5 I ERNEST GORDON RUSSIAN PROHIBITION STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS OF THE ANTI-ALCOHOL MOVEMENT. No. I RUSSIAN PROHIBITION By ERNEST GORDON The emancipation from this fearful evil will form an epoch in the life of humanity, and that epoch is, I believe, dawning." Count Lyof Tolstoi. "Warum die Menschen sich betauben." 1916 THE AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING CO. WMtcrvllle. Ohio S- Copyright, 1916, by AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING CO. WESTERVILLE, OHIO Russian Prohibition THE Iconastasis, or great screen back of the altar in Russian churches is pierced by three doors. The officiating priests alone are allowed to go through the central one. Once, however, in his life, the ruler of all the Russias is also permitted to pass within. This solemn priv- ilege might well have been exercised after the signing of the vodka Prohibition rescript, for no other single action of the Tsar's life can ever have the far-ramify- ing moral influence that this already has had. His great ancestor, Peter the Great, in building the capital city on the Neva is said to have opened a window for his people to look out upon Europe. The Tsar of pres- ent-day Russia has cut through a window upon our most baffling social problem and the light from it is streaming not out of, but into Europe. There is a commonplace observation in all social agitation which contrasts governmental willingness to do for animals with its extreme reluctance to care properly for human beings. One recalls the power- ful passage in Octave Mirbeau's novel, where a Pa- risian carpenter is summoned into the country to build hen-houses on a rich man's estate. In a bitter soliloquy the workman contrasts the light and roomy quarters of the fowls with the sordid warrens in which the proletariat of his arrondisement are crowded. The Russian peasant temperance leader Tchelichov was wont to describe how quickly the authorities, on finding that the naphtha leakage from Volga steam- ers was killing the fish, intervened to make the com- panies substitute steel for wooden barges. How much better is a man than a fish! In burning words he 44841.7 r ';/,,//,'. RUSSIAN PROHIBITION would upbraid those in power for their indifference to the systematic poisoning of the Russian masses with vodka. But at last the people have been consid- ered and it is doubtful if any edict or act in their favor peace proclamation, declaration of emancipation, revolution has brought with it such widespread and immediate relief as this simple prohibitive word. The greatest social revolution of our generation has come into being as quietly as the dawning of a summer morning. If the question had been drafted before the fact there would have been plenty to insist that the river of vodka, the mightiest alcoholic flood flowing through the social life of Europe, could no more be stopped by fiat than Mother Volga herself in her vast windings. Russian Prohibition has shown beyond the possibility of appeal, that no natural law is back of the drink shop's existence, making this inevitably and fatally present among us, but only moral laziness, tradition, and above all, the determination to make money out of the alcoholic misery of men. And if, by any great mishap, Prohibition should not continue after the war a thing extremely unlikely it will at least have furnished the proof on an imperial scale and never to be gainsaid, of its social value. I. ST. VLADIMIR, after a victory over the Tartars, was wont to throw open all the drink shops to his loyal subjects without charge that they might duly celebrate, and there was much of St. Vladimir's spirit in the way the Russo-Japanese war was conducted. From one point of view, at least, the campaigns in Manchuria resembled a scuffle between a drunken guardsman and a sober policeman. All the evidence goes to show that vodka had the right of 8 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION way as unquestionably as Milwaukee beer in the Span- ish-American war. Perhaps more so. One recalls the Russian naval attack on the trawlers of the Dogger Bank, an episode which awakened the hilarity of the whole world. It has usually been attributed to al- coholized visions of Japanese warships. An eye-wit- ness of the Manchurian campaign (Ulrich, Die Fetter- probe der Russischen Annee) describes in various passages the drunkenness among Russian army offi- cers. Thus (p. 196) "In Vladivostock I entered a cafe one evening with a German merchant. It was filled with officers, the most of whom were drunk, one old captain, so much so that he fell off his chair and slept, lying on the floor. Meanwhile, in one corner of the cafe, a quarrel had broken out. There was a regular explosion of revolvers and two officers, apparently wounded severely, were left lying." Again (p. 198) at Charbin "I saw to my astonishment at the police sta- tion 83 officers' swords. On my question as to what this meant the Chief of Police at Charbin, Colonel Dun- din, replied that they were the swords of officers taken up in the preceding night for gross disorder. Only the worst cases were arrested." That these instances were typical seems clear from the statistical reports of the campaign. The official statement of sicknesses of a psychical nature among army officers in the Asiatic service assigns to epileptic, hysteric, neurasthenic, traumatic and other psychoses relatively insignificant percentages. When we come to alcoholic psychoses, however, we have another story. These amounted to 34.56 per cent of the total. Adding to this figure per- centages for acute alcoholism, 5.63, we have a total of over 40 per cent. This goes far to explain the misman- agement, bad generalship and final debacle on the steppes of Manchuria in 1904. 9 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION One can hardly say that the Russian government gave more than tardy heed to the warning which these experiences presented. It was not until the middle of 1914 that a ukase was issued putting rigid anti-al- cohol regulations into force in the army. In the nick of time, indeed ! Two months later came the crash which was to tax Russia's morale and resources as at no period since Napoleonic days. The decree for alcohol reform ran as follows : "His Majesty, the Emperor, in his constant care for the welfare of the army, to protect it from the in- jurious consequences of the use of alcohol, proved such by science and experience, commands that the following measures against the use of alcoholic drinks in the army be strictly followed. In this way the strength, health, and psychic vigor of the army, which are so necessary, both in peace and war time, will be held to an ever higher standard. "THE MINISTER OF WAR, "General Adjutant Sukhomlinov." The regulations which follow would seem rev- olutionary if they had not been rendered almost in- significant by the later general Prohibition regime in Russia. As it is they give the impression of an elec- tric light shining full strength after sunrise. A A It may be worth while to record some of the regulations as fur- nishing a standard for other armies and navies. The first paragraphs deal with officers; the later ones with enlisted men. "Army officers, especially those of the highest rank, are under obli- gation to carry out all measures which will diminish the use of alcoholic drinks in military units under their charge. In every officer's papers must be particularly entered what his relation to alcoholic drink is. In the attests of military officials of all ranks it must be mentioned what their attitude is to the task of lessening the use of alcoholic drinks in vthe army divisions under them. ... At all times of service order of the day, watch, drills, shooting practice, review of troops, manoeuvers, alarm-can, mobilization and all other military service the use of alcoholic drink is forbidden. . . . The officers' casinos are not to be places for drinking. The serving of alcoholic drinks can occur only at the chief meals. There can be no buffets for the sale of wine and liquors. . . . Officers' co- operatives cannot deliver alcoholic drink on credit. Branches of such co-operatives in war areas are absolutely forbidden to sell alcoholic drink. . . . Commanders of army divisions have, with the aid of regimental 10 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION On July 30, 1914, the Russian government ordered the mobilization of its army. Some days later a tem- porary vodka Prohibition went into effect. This im- mensely facilitated the gigantic task. According to M. Bark, the Minister of Finance, in an interview with a representative of the Petit Parisien, the mobilization went off with a regularity which surpassed all expec- tations. "There had been difficulties in the Russo- Japanese war and we looked for a certain minus in the number of men called out. But there was none. More soldiers presented themselves than were expected. " B chaplains, to arrange for the organization of temperance unions. ... In order that the officers may be familiar with the injurious action of alcohol upon the human organism the regimental physicians are obliged, at least twice yearly, to hold lectures upon the subject in the presence of all officers. . . . The commanders of divisions must enter in their yearly reports what has been undertaken in the course of the year in every army unit for the lessening of the use of alcoholic drink. "The use of alcoholic drink is prohibited to enlisted men of all classes during active service, including the reserves and the Landwehr during their training. ... It is not permitted to send soldiers into restaurants, wine-shops, etc., to get alcoholic drinks (i. e., for the officers). ... It is forbidden to promote any soldier to the rank of non-commissioned officer who has been punished for the use of alcoholic drinks ; in fact to raise his rank at all. . . . Men in the ranks in whom a tendency to drunkenness is observable must be entered in special lists. They are to be under the constant observation of their superiors, are to forfeit privileges of free time and must be invited by the regimental chaplain and physician to in- struction. The families of such men are requested not to send money to them. In case money comes it must be entered in a savings bank book and given out only under control of the company chief. On the dismissal of troops from active service it is forbidden to make payment for those who have been so listed. . . . Lectures by the physicians on the injuri- ousness of the use of alcohol must be given to the men at least once monthly: to the listed men once weekly. These must be accompanied with demonstrations with lantern, diagrams, tables, etc. Such tables and pictures must be hung on the walls of the cantonments. Books of anti- alcohol tendency must be procured for the regimental libraries." Int. Monats. zur Erforschung d. Alk.. 1914. B The contrast between the two mobilizations is strikingly pictured by Miss Brush in the Saturday Evening Post article: "In the mobilization for the Japanese war the soldiers were carried, dead with intoxication, to the trains. When they came to stations, those who could walk tore wildly out of the coaches for the saloons, and if bar- keepers refused to sell they broke bottles over their heads. In terror the drilled troops in charge of recruits telegraphed ahead to stations to have two hundred or more soldiers on hand when the train went through. Even under such surveillance the men sometimes broke open the doors of the trains and tore up the railroad stations. Several commanders in one quarter were terrified at getting three hundrd men without convoy and all drunk. "An article was printed recently in a paper called the Voice, of Moscow, which stated, 'The reservists searched every man as he entered the barracks. All had vodka. The searchers always threw it into the 11 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION The government, for some time previously, had had measures under consideration for the checking of the colossal disaster which the Spirits Monopoly had brought upon the nation. A strong local option law had received favorable treatment in the Duma. The Emperor himself, in calling M. Bark to the Ministry of Finance, had impressed on him the imperative ne- cessity of alcohol reform. In a rescript addressed to the new Ministry, the Tsar had written: "I have come to the firm conviction that a duty lies upon me before God and Russia to introduce into the management of the state finances fundamental re- forms for the welfare of my beloved people. It is not meet that the welfare of the Exchequer should be de- pendent upon the ruin of the spiritual and productive energies of numbers of my loyal subjects." 1 The elements of a great reform, therefore, were all present and it needed but a sudden shock to throw down the precipitate and to clear the solution. This came in the declaration of war which has proved to be the overture to one of the most beneficent social emancipations which history has yet seen. Mr. Wil- liam Watson has described "War's red cup" as "Sa- tan's chosen drink," but one can almost say that by its association with Prohibition it has proved a cup of blessing to Russia. street. In one peasant's rags eleven bottles were found. His eyes ran with tears when he saw them broken. The heap of shattered glass grew. A dirty stream of vodka flowed through the courtyard. Many threw them- selves on their knees and, in spite of the dirt, tried to drink from the pools. They were kicked back. Three truckloads of broken glass were transported.' "There is nothing in the present mobilization to remind one of that disgraceful scene. Men in the cleanest and newest of long tan coats walk erect and in sturdy lines. As you pass them on the pavements they scan you with a child-like gaze, alert with intelligent wonder." 1 Quoted in the London Times, Russian Supplement, Jan. 15, 1915. 12 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION II. THE evidence is practically unanimous. It is of every type and from every section of the Empire. The consumption of vodka in Sep- tember, 1913, was 9,232,921 kegs. In Sep- tember, 1914, the first complete month of Prohibition, it had dropped to 102,714 kegs. In the same months financial receipts of the Monopoly collapsed like a pricked bladder. The decrease was actually 98 per cent. Naturally, drunkenness declined pari passu. The writer recalls some years ago watching the passers on the square in front of the Nikolai Station in Petro- grad, on Sunday afternoons. Every other one seemed to be lurching at an angle of 30 degrees from the nor- mal pose and the general effect was that of a group of small yachts, tipping and twisting, in a rough sea. "We wandered day and night in the Russian metrop- olis," wrote Dr. Helenius, in the fall of 1914. "We visited hotels, restaurants, side-streets, alleys. We felt like rubbing our eyes. It seemed as if we were walking in a dream, for of what one formerly saw there was nothing. We found no drunken people." "Who would have expected a few months ago," wrote the Petrograd correspondent of (Stockholm) Svenska Dagbladet, "that present-day Petersburg, the home of pleasure, of excesses, of vices, would, so to speak, vanish, to emerge under a new name and a new ap- pearance as perhaps Europe's most temperate and safest city. Those who have not seen this mighty metamorphosis with their own eyes will have diffi- culty in believing in its possibility." And another journalist, Renzo Larco, writing in the Carrier e della Sera, adds : "The Russians cannot believe their eyes. We who read descriptions of the previous era find it hard to trust the witness of these pessimistic observers. 13 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION In two months I doubt if I have run across more than two intoxicated." "The bear who walks like a man" now walks like a man and not like a sot. Moscow was for many years overrun with an army of professional beggars dubbed "hunters," and estimated at no less than 30,000 in number. They were drunkards, thieves, victims of disgusting diseases. Half of them begged "in Christ's name" pretending to be crippled, a fourth exploited children as beggars, some operating with five or more little ones. The authorities would arrest them, send them to the workhouse, and later despatch them into distant villages, but after a few weeks they would be back, often with assumed names, in their old haunts. Prohibition has reduced the number of these parasites amazingly, the most moderate estimate I can find (Official Police Report quoted in Vestnik Tresvosti, January, 1915), being a reduction of 70 per cent. The night asylums of Moscow know them no more. Thus the Morosov Asylum, with 1,100 sleeping places, has at present but 250-300 guests; the Syromiatnik, one- half the usual number. The municipal asylums also have few inmates now and these are usually of the honest sort. Petrograd was overflowing with Polish refugees during the weeks that the writer was in the city and one of the sights of the war was the motley, dejected crowd of women and children on the steps of the Polish church on the Nevsky Prospekt. These C It is delightful to observe how people accommodate themselves to the new situation. A Prohibition city of approximately two million peo- ple seems, apparently, to the inhabitants themselves, the most natural thing in the world. "One would be inclined to imagine." writes the Petrograd correspondent of Svenska Dagbladet. "that the taking away of everything alcohol'c would have caused marked difficulties among those accustomed to it from youth. Yet neither among the laboring class nor among the cultivated could anything of the sort be detected. Although I myself, for more than 30 years, have taken my glass, I cannot affirm that the deprivation has been hard. Nor do I notice any desire for the 'good old times. One feels better in one's head, more elast ; c, and fitter for work. I believe this has been the general experience. It is only the first step that seems hard. One has not the energy to break the habit of y;ars. But with the support of the autocrat's will all goes well." 14 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION refugees have been temporarily placed in quarters usually occupied by the beggars and tramps of the city. When the question was put to one of the work- ers as to where the dispossessed tramps now lodged, the answer came "People of this class have disappeared since Prohibition." The city of Tula has had a house near its hospital, where extreme cases of drunkenness were taken to sober off. We place the number of pre- Prohibition and Prohibition admissions in parallel. 1913. 1914- August, 30 admissions. [August, 8 admissions. September, 30 admissions. [September, 3 admissions. October, (Not given.) JQctober, 3 admissions. November, 96 admissions. | November. 3 admissions. December, 141 admissions. [December, 3 admissions. The place has been changed into a reception room for the hospital ! A Kasan temperance society ran a hospital for alcoholists. In the report for 1914, 178 al- coholists are mentioned as in residence and 1,421 cases as having been treated in the course of the year. Aftei the beginning of the war no new ones came so that by January I, 1915, all were discharged. The drunk- ards have not only left but have taken their children and wives out of other asylums and set up family life again. Not more than one-half of the former number oi night lodgers come now to the shelter attached to this work. In the Society's restaurants there were 123,830 gratis tickets for food distributed in 1914, and 100,029 free tea tickets. After Prohibition the num- ber diminished by 50 per cent. 2 No one knows more about these alcoholic wrecks than Father Mirtov, the pastor of a large church on the Obvodny Canal, near the Warsaw Station. Father Mirtov is a man of sympathetic personality, of tall figure, vigorous, fresh manner, flowing brown beard 2 Vtstnik Tresvosti. March, 1915. 15 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION and leonine mane. The kindly eyes flash with inter- est through the horn-rimmed spectacles. He is the apostle of anti-alcoholism in the Russian Church, and a man of power as orator and leader. Behind him is the Alexander Nevsky Temperance Society with local groups running up to 3,000 in number. It was through their preliminary agitation, he tells me, that the way was prepared for vodka Prohibition. Father Mirtov receives letters every day from mothers begging that Prohibition continue. They tell him in many cases that their boys, who had disappeared as vagabonds, have come home again. In other instances sons driven away by the violence of drunken fathers return when they learn that their father is now sober. "Hos- pitals formerly overcrowded with sick drunkards, have so few of them now that there is provision for wounded soldiers in addition to the usual sick. In the villages there is a mighty cry for literature where once lucre was little or no reading. The people who for- merly lay around drunk on holidays now ask for lec- tures on these church days." In the old horrible days Father Mirtov used to provide free temperance din- ners to the alcohol outcasts of Pebrograd. A hundred would gather daily on week days and at times on Sundays, the number would go as high as two thou- sand. Now nobody turns up. D A similar story comes from the Dom Evangelia, the great mission church of the Russian Baptists in the Vassiliostrov quarter of Petrograd. The long Lenten fast terminates in Rus- sia with a feast on Easter morning. First .here is a service "when it is yet dark." After this remir.iscenre D In passing into the parish house connected with the church one could see a long line of hundreds of women, the wives 01 soldiers at me front, who were waiting for their government allowances. This is dealt out to them, after due inquiries, by a group of volunteer clerks women students from the university. The recipients are sober, decent women thanks, in many cases, to Prohibition. One could not but contrast them with the slatternly daughters of Anglicanism boozing away their war relief in the gin palaces of London. 16 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION of the women at the tomb the Orthodox go to their homes to tables loaded with food and Russian deli- cacies. In this mission church it has been the custom for several years back to hold the early morning serv- ice and afterwards to spread a table for the tramps and drunkards of the quarters. In 1913 and 1914 the large hall, seating 700 or more, was crowded. In 1915 there was no one present. The beautiful suburban woods of Lisnoi, just out of Petrograd, were formerly invaded on Sundays and Saintdays by armies of roughs and drinkers who would carry huge bottles containing a quarter of a vedro and in addition would stuff their pockets with smaller bottles. Many would come alone with the purpose of getting drunk and lying in delicious coma under the trees. Others preferred to fight like a whole pack of Ivan the Terribles. On such days it was very un- safe for women and children to go into the woods. But this is now all changed. The women and chil- dren at last have a place in the sun and in the shades of Lisnoi. It is Circe's miracle reversed swine made men ! Of illustrations there are no end. Here is one from Mile. K., who describes to me the pre-Prohibi- tion condition in the village near her estate, 140 versts from Petrograd. There were 16 vodka shops in the district. A single one took in 20,000 rubles yearly. Holy days were great days for drunkenness and fol- lowing the drinking came the fighting. There are 12 great feasts of the church in the year. For years back each of these has been marked with a murder. The villagers would, on these church days, engage in pitched battles with clubs and knives. E And the vic- E Mr. A. of Petrpgrad told me of a fishing trip to which he was invited by a landed proprietor before the war broke out. Fifty peasants were also asked along to help in the handling of the seines. The host brought several vedros of vodka with him and the day ended in a free fight between the groups from rival villages. 17 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION tory of the one party would leave a rankling feud to be fought over again on subsequent saint days. It was a Scythian paganism with a veneer of alcoho-cler- ical Christianity. One finds like types of alcoho- clerical phenomena in Catania, in Italy, in the annual excursion to the shrine of St. Alfio with the "return procession of the drunkards" and its accompanying knife-play. But these multitudinous knife dramas have been ended in Russia by a pen stroke. My informant tells me of peasants who, in the pre-Prohibition days, would start out to market with horse and a team loaded with produce and return with neither horse nor cart and with pockets void of any re- turn for the hard-earned produce. Now they are prospering. Moujiks, who never possessed purses be- fore, now carry them with pride and have money in them. A journalist reporting on Prohibition in the Novoe Vremya (August 28-September 10, 1915), cross- questions certain "haulers-on-land" in a teashop. These are sinewy, sunburnt fellows covered with the dust from the lime and chalk which they team from the Yeletz deposits. When their interrogator sug- gested that they might be longing for vodka they an- swered emphatically: "No! It is better without it. We should have had Prohibition before. Had there been no vodka from the time of the Liberation (of the serfs) we should have lived like lords long ago. It is only now that we understand that. Only now are we beginning to get a little sunshine in life." As a matter of fact the peasants in Monopoly days bitterly cursed vodka while -drinking it. Mme. Y. described to me a visit to a night asylum of the type which Gorki has pictured. She spoke to the men about re- ligious things. This, however, only elicited the bit- 18 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION terest recrimination's against a 'government which could make money out of the extreme misery of the drinkers. The vehemence and almost demoniac bitter- ness of this victim of the Monopoly was so intense as to frighten her. A report of the Statistical Bureau of the Government of Poltova states that former drunkards are the greatest friends of the new order. It was hard at first for them, but now they live a new life. Some reports speak of their new "mania for work." Those who tried denatured spirits soon gave it up as too repulsive. One correspondent marks that there is now no more strife but peace everywhere as "among the early Christians." 3 Peasant correspond- ence in the Russkia Viedomosti is full of quaint obser- vations on the great change. "The war has taken much from the village but has replaced it by some- thing new and beautiful ; we see each other always so- ber." . . . "There were some tears when our boys were going out (to the war) but they were different from those which our wives and children used to shed when we came home drunk. The new tears are beau- tiful." . . "The spiritual uplift is simply incredible," adds a teacher.* III. IN the machinery for mass alcoholization the pawn- shop is an important factor everywhere Reports from Moscow assert that "the Lombards" the mediaeval title for the pawnbroker still survives in Russia have seen their business decline by one- half. In both Petrograd and Moscow pawnshops there has been a general discharge of clerks corre- sponding to the increase of the clerical staff in the sav- 3 How Vodka Prohibition Has Influenced the Life of the Popula- tion. Poltova, 1915. Quoted in the Int. Monats, z. Erforsch. d. Alk. p. 188. 1915. 4 Quoted by Mme. Jarintzoff, Contemp. Review, September, 1915. 19 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION ings banks. But with a decrease in loans has gone along an increase in the sale of pledged articles, es- pecially of furniture. The home, the social unit, is being rehabilitated. This decrease in loans has been chiefly in small loans between one and four rubles indicating how relief is coming to the desperately poor and to the most hopeless victims of alcohol. "Mos- cow usurers have, as a class, disappeared," writes Vesinik Tresvosti (March, 1915). Like reports are sent in from the country. In the old days (so I am in- formed by a close observer in Central Russia) there was always, at the country banks, an excess in appli- cation for loans and a minus in deposits. Now the deposits outnumber the loan applications. Women formerly ran constantly to the banks to negotiate small loans during the absence of husbands or to complete the purchase of a horse or for this or that other cause. This habit is disappearing. The Birzhevya Viedomosti (July 10, 1915) states that while, in late years, some 19,000 poor persons have been helped annually by the city of Petrograd, the number now is but five or six daily (perhaps 2,000 a year). Statistics of this sort must, for the present, be taken with reserve. But even when ruthlessly dis- counted they contain an impressive balance so great is the margin of difference between the old and the new. Prohibition is making itself felt in an enhanced economic output. "It is as if Russia had added mil- lions of laborers to her labor reserve without even increasing the expense of maintaining them," said Mr. Lloyd-George in the House of Commons, February I5th. The Russian Minister of Finance is quoted as saying: "In the coal regions we have sent 30 per cent of the male inhabitants to the war and yet the output of work is greater by 30 per cent, because everyone 20 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION is sober." It must be remembered, however, that the coal miners of the Don have been an especially alco- holized group. Factory inspectors reporting on a marked decline in fines (also about 30 per cent) in fac- tories and other industrial enterprises, remark es- pecially on the striking fall in the number of fines im- posed on Don miners. The English foremen of the Thornton Mills, Schliisselburg, are enthusiastic over the men's new promptness and efficiency. Rope- makers are declaring that it would simply have been impossible in the pre-prohibition period to turn out the product they are now delivering to the army. Re- ports of this character are general. One can imagine how favorably they will react later, on the movement of capital to Russia. A special study made in the Moscow industrial area shows results from prohibi- tion very substantial, though falling below the per- centages reported by M. Bark. Mr. Henry Dunster Baker, the commercial attache of the American Lega- tion, is, as his name indicates, a descendent of the Puritan first president of Harvard, but he does not fancy prohibition and "would vote against it in the United States." Yet he is satisfied that it has inten- sified industrial efficiency and enormously increased popular savings. He also called my attention to the considerable increase in the amount of land which has been put into cultivation since prohibition. This is accounted for by the heightened energy of the peas- antry and is the more remarkable in that the most ef- fective workers on the land have been drafted ir f ~ the army literally by millions. M. Faressov gives in the Novoe Vremya illustrations from the Bolkhov dis- trict. "Formerly the peasant here would lease one dessiatin of land. Now with the money saved from vodka he is able to hire three or four." 5 The em- 5 Xovoe Vremya. Aug. 28-Sept. 10. 1915. 21 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION ployer is not the only one who profits from increased efficiency. The price of labor has gone up in a very remarkable manner. The war has played an import- ant part in this rise, but so has prohibition also. The laborer saves his capital and is able to bargain more advantageously with his employer. In the vodka era he had to work on any terms offered him. F To a heightened earning power corresponds nat- urally a heightened spending power. Legitimate in- dustries clothing shops, grocery stores, meat mar- kets, experience unlocked for sales. In Petrograd, in a street car, when a passenger expressed his satisfac- tion with the new conditions, a man stood up and boasted that he had now whole boots he who never had had such, even in coldest weather. Early in the winter when there were rumors of German advance through Finland large crews of men were hired to throw up earthworks near the capital. One contin- gent after working long enough to accumulate a con- siderable sum decided to visit Petrograd in a body F In the Int. Monats z. Erforschung d. Alkoholismus, Sept., 1915. is a study of a Russian document entitled "The Sobering of the Workman : Statistical Investigation of the Influence of Alcohol Prohibition Upon Work: Made Under the Leadership of Ph. J. Kubatzky, Moscow, 1915." This inquiry was undertaken at the instance of the industrials of the Moscow Government, embracing ten Russian administrative circuits. It covered the months of August, September and October. 1914. The statis- tics were drawn from 172 factories employing 214.700 workmen. Com- plete answers were obtained concerning 189.250 workmen 114,606 em- ployed in cotton spinning. 42.354 in metal industries. 13.469 in wool and 5.307 in food industries. The investigation studied, first, the difference in loss of time before and after Prohibition. This loss is ordinarily due to drunkenness, sickness or to family troubles. During the three months of 1913 mentioned, the number of thousand hours lost were 4,347, or 23 hours per workman: in 1914. 3001.8, or 16.5 hours per workman. This was a decrease of 31 per cent in 1914. When the male operatives alone are considered the decrease is found to be 36.8 per cent (2,455,600 hours in 1913 and 1,308.000 in 1914). The decrease among women is naturally far less (1.661.300 to 1.526.800). The investigator reckons that the increase of productivity because of Prohibition is. for the male workman, about 9 per cent. The report states that in the textile industry of Russia, thanks to improvements in technique productivity increased between 1900 and 1910 by 5.5 per cent, or .55 per cent yearly. "What better technique has been able to attain with infinite exertion alcohol Prohibition has brought about almost auto- matically." In 1913 27 per cent of all male absence from work was on days after Sundays and holidays: 18.6 per cent female. The difference is obviously 22 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION to celebrate in the old way. But vodka was not to be procured for love or money. Every man of them, therefore, invested in a new suit of clothes. "Peas- ants who in vodka days never put by a kopek are buying good plows and drills and harvesting machin- ery." "In Tambov the zemstvo shop has sold out its entire stock." "Village stores never had so much trade." The Report of the Statistical Bureau for the Government of Poltova writes : "The peasant works more, is able to buy more live stock and to undertake repairs. Some state that they have been able to buy a wall clock or a sewing machine. Debts are being paid rapidly." The Swedish Consul in Petrograd, Mr. K. E. Widerstrom, in reporting to his government the due to drink. In 1914 this difference had practically disappeared (19 per cent male and 18 per cent female). In the Prohibition period the men worked as much on days after holidays as on other days. The statistics of lost time after pay day tells the same story: Aug.-Oct., 1913 Aug.-Oct., 1914 Number of workmen answering 63,314 62,968 Number of days after wage payments 234 195 Loss of hours of work on days after payment of wages 133,200 51,400 There has been a slight increase in accidents recorded, which is at first perplexing. The workmen explain it by the fact that the war has called from the factories thousands of experienced and reliable workers who have been replaced by inexperienced, raw hands. To the Prohibition law is due the fact that the number of accidents has not been far greater. Follows a special investigation concerning productivity and Prohibi- tion. Here it is found, studying Z.646 men and 712 women workers, that the total productivity has increased 7.1 per cent: of men alone 8 per cent, and of men in the metal industries by 12.4 per cent. The third part of the Moscow report gives expressions of opinions from employers concerning the economic value of Prohibition. The judg- ment is unanimous. Prohibition has had an extraordinarily favorable ac- tion upon productivity. One reports as follows : Number of persons employed 619 Loss of time in 1913 19,061 hours Loss of time in 1914 7,138 hours Decrease 11,922 hour* Loss of time after holidays, 1913 5,339 hour* Loss of time after holidays, 1913 , . 398 hours Decrease 4.940 hours Loss of time after paydays, 1913 5,335 hours Loss of time after holidays, 1914 278 hours Decrease 4,958 hours Loss of time because of sickness, 1913 8,491 hours Loss of time because of sickness, 1914 6,467 hours Decrease 2,024. hours 23 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION various causes which have led to an increase of the price of wheat in Russia, says: "3. Prohibition has also been a factor. The peasant needs no money for whisky for he cannot get it. He therefore prefers to hold his grain for a rise in price. It must not be for- gotten that, thanks to prohibition, the people eat more bread. Money formerly spent on spirits is used for food, clothes and savings." 66 In the Birshevya Viedo- mosti, September 9, 1915, an article attributes the shortage of milk in Petrograd to increased demand caused by the presence of great numbers of Polish fugitives and wounded soldiers in the city, and thirdly, "to the greater consumption of milk since the prohi- bition of vodka." A "substitute" drink which anti- prohibition press agents have not cared to report! It is interesting to learn that while more food is being- 6 Kommersiella Meddelanden, No. 13, 1915; p. 437. G Mr. Widerstrom continues : "The Prohibition of spirits, which has been in operation since tht outbreak of the war. has had an unspeak- ably great influence on the growth of Russia's home industries. . . . The horrors of war will be forgotten after a generation, but the blessings of Prohibition will endure forever. . . . The nation and the government have learned that it is possible to live without spirits. They have, to their astonishment, seen the humbler classes' purchasing power, instead of greatly decreasing as was generally expected, actually increase in certain directions after the war's outbreak. . . . The situation is especi- ally striking in the harbor and at loading points. The ragged figures are almost all gone and instead of asking alms for whisky and night lodgings these formerly degraded persons are contributing to collections for the relief of war victims. In many places where no one could show himself after dark without risking life there is now no danger, and the number of crimes has fallen enormously. Every effort of the brewers and dealers in wine and beer to have the sale of wine and beer allowed, is met with the strongest opposition from many city governments, from the clergy, and from the industrials. These last look with apprehension to the time when vodka shall be allowed sale again. Those who complain of Prohibition are the financially hit brewers, distillers and sellers. Those who thank God and the Tsar are the millions of women and children in this great land." The consul further reports on the magnificent system of elevators which is being put into operation to save the peasantry from speculators and usurers. He describes this as the most important blessing which has come to the Russian people after emancipation in 1861 and Prohibition in 1914. Kommersielle Meddelanden, July 15. 1915. pp. 435-438. I had at my country place Stegalovka. a perfect blacksmith, famous for his work: but no peasant wanting to have his horse shod was admitted unless he brought along a bottle of vodka. While formerly, in. summer and winter, Simon the Dog. as he was called, wore nothing but rags, now he is well clad , and when people fail to recognize him in his new gar- ments he smilingly cries out: "It is I. indeed, Simon the Dog, and I praise the Lord." Novoe Vremja. Aug. 28-Sept. 10. Multiply this by the million and calculate the effect on the clothing trade ! 24 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION consumed generally, there is a decline in the con- sumption of food in prisons, due naturally to a fall in the number of prisoners. The Petrograd district courts up to July i, 1914, sentenced 9,717 persons to jail for all crimes; during the second half of 1914 (chiefly prohibition months) the number fell to 3,817- A contractor who supplied one prison in Petrograd with meat found his sales cut down by about 12 poods (435 Ibs.) daily. The Swedish professor, Dr. Hjalmar Sjogren, who stands in close relation to the Nobel Brothers, great dynamite and petroleum industrials of Petro- grad and Baku, wrote as early as the fall of 1914, after a two months' visit to Russia : "One knows the Russians no longer since the vodka traffic has closed down. The Russian workman and peasant are now a wholly different type from that which one was accustomed to see before. The peo- ple hitherto have carried an unmistakable stamp of poverty. Now the working people are well-clothed and well-fed. During the four months prohibition has existed they have succeeded in repairing both the inner and the cuter man. "Formerly workmen seldom came to work on Mondays. Now they are in their places daily. Then they went with their wages Saturday evening to the saloon. Now they buy food and clothing. The re- sult has been a magnificent and wholly unexpected boom both in the clothing and food-stuff industries. This in spite of the war. Formerly a Russian worker could not buy eggs and butter, wear good clothes on Sundays, possess good shoes and rubbers. Now he is able to procure them all. This is a peculiarly grati- fying result of the severe prohibitory decrees. This strikes one immediately. As a result, sympathy for the new order grows day by day. The protests of 25 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION brewers and distillers are remarkably weak since they know their petitions, under present conditions, will be without effect. Public opinion among the masses, in the city governments, in the country zemstvos, is so universally favorable to the new order that it would be difficult, indeed, to oppose it. The blessings which abstinence brings with it are too obvious. Prohibi- tion has revolutionized Russia and no one who has not seen it can conceive how advantageously it works." 7 The wealth of the nation instead of running off into the sewers began now to be conserved. Enor- mous increases in popular savings were directly ob- servable. The deposits in the state savings banks for the first nine months of prohibition are displayed in the following table from the Times Russian Supple- ment, June 28, 1915 : 1914 Rubles August -|-io,iod,ooo September - -25,800,000 October - -21,700,000 November - -24,800,000 December - -35,200,000 1915 January - -59,800,000 February - -43,900,000 March - -45,900,000 April - -49,300,000 It will be seen that while more money was with- drawn than deposited in the first four months of 1914 the increase in deposits for the corresponding period of 1915 was 198,900,000 rubles. The entire increase in deposits in the last vodka year, 1913, was 38,600,000 rubles, or an average of 9,600,000 per quarter. The 7 Dagens Nyheter. Dec. 8, 1914. 26 1913 Rubles -700,000 -1-1,100,000 -1-1,500,000 -1-5,100,000 -1-700,000 1914 -1-1.900,000 -800,000 -2,300,000 -200,000 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION average increase of 1915 as compared with that of 1913 is, therefore, more than 20 fold. The treasures of the Monasteries compared with those which prohibition has brought, are but a bagatelle. There has also been a marked growth in the monetary resources of institu- tions of small popular credit. The insurance opera- tions of the state savings banks also report expan- sion. 11 The Monopoly brought in such huge incomes to the state that it was commonly said its abolition by the government would be like the chopping off of one's own legs. Nothing so serious, however, has occurred. "The budget has been much less affected," said M. Bark in the above quoted interview in the Petit Par- isien, "than one would have believed. The produc- tivity of labor has increased on an average 50 per cent and all the fiscal resources which come from direct or indirect taxes have greatly developed. The tax on H Mr. Corse, the Manager of the N. Y. Life Insurance Co in Petro- grad, writes me: "In the first seven months of 1915 the deposits in the state savings banks amounted to Rr. 360,800,000 more than for the cor- responding seven months of 1914. Further, during these seven months of 1915 over Rs. 99.000,000 of state papers were deposited with the state savings banks in excess of what was deposited for the same period of the preceding year, making the total effective deposits in the savings banks for the first seven months of 1915 Rr. 460.000.000 in excess of the cor- responding seven months of the previous year. There is every reason to believe that the deposits in the savings banks would have shown still more favorable results had the governments on the western frontier of Russia been normally functioning. Military operations in large sections of Poland and the Baltic province have naturally made savings impossible and para- lyzed the domestic and economic life of this territory. Mr. Sherwell describes these increases in savings as "considerable." More impartial observers would use a far stronger term. It is interesting to observe the little rills which make up this rising flood of wealth. Mr. Clare, pastor of the British-American Church in Petrograd, illustrates from the case of his housemaid. Russian girls of this class are very loyal to their parents and are wont to carry their sayings with them when they go to the country from Petrograd on home visits. This year this particular girl brought the money as usual to the old folks but found they did not need it. She therefore deposited it in a savings bank on her return to Petrograd. I was told that this is no isolated occurrence. The increase in savings has obliged the government to open new dis- trict savings banks in Petrograd. Some of the old vodka shops have been utilized in this fashion. Others have become collecting centers for Red Cross and relief work : at others stamps are sold : at others industrial alcohol. Some, their walls pitted with innumerable dints where the wax seals of the vodka bottles were broken, are closed altogether. The cur- tains are drawn. One thinks of an evil, pock-marked face when the eyes are shut forever in death. 27 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION sugar, for example, has brought in much more than in preceding years. The less alcohol the more sugar consumed by the taxpayer." "Before, when we de- rived our revenues from vodka, it was as though we were forever drawing out, drawing out" he made a gesture as though milking a cow "the vitality of the Russian people. Now at the end of two months of temperance we seem to be taking merely the interest on their stored-up strength and resourcefulness." 8 The Bureau of Statistics of Nijni Novgorod estimates that the savings of the peasants in the five Prohibi- tion months of 1914 would enable them to pay the usual taxes twice over. 9 'The land tax," reports a judge in the Luga district, "formerly always in ar- rears, is now promptly paid." Prof. Westergaard, the Danish political economist, has said somewhere of na- tional Prohibition that "its introduction would occa- sion no greater economic disturbance than when one throws a large stone into a strong current. The next moment the stream flows over it as if it had lain there for centuries." How perfectly the figure conforms to fact in Russia ! And one must further always remem- ber how inauspicious the time for broaching so radical a reform seemed to be. Yet so successful has it proved even in war time that one can almost compare it with the ether of the operating table. Wealth has been conserved in unexpected ways. One of the most interesting by-products of Prohibi- tion has been the diminution in disastrous fires. In the peasant religion of Russia there is much animism. The moujiks know of Vodiavoi, or water spirits, who haunt marshes and drag men into the depths, of Domovoi or barnyard spirits, who torment animals, of Polevoi, who strangle peasants in the fields and annoy 8 Miss Brush, Saturday Evening Post, 14. Interview with M. Bark. 9 Quoted in L' Abstinence, March 13, 1915. 28 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION drunkards, of the spirits of pestilence and many more. One can safely predict that the disappearance of vodka will have an effect on these sprites comparable .to the morning note of chanticleer. One of the most dan- gerous of all, the Ovcnnik, or barn spirit, is the author of fire in hamlet and farmhouse. On winter days the peasants are wont to burn straw and wood in the open air to appease his malice. But since August, 1914, he has shown a marvelously restrained temper. In Petrograd itself the fire department has had rela- tively little to do. In the country the flame cry of the "red-rooster" is heard night-times with far less fre- quency. The Russian insurance publication Strahovje Delo reported comparative statistics for August and September in the vodka and Prohibition years, 1913 and 1914, respectively. 10 In the government of Vo- ronesch the number of fires were 542 and 152, respec- tively, and the payments on policies, 106,077 an d 1 5>953 rubles. In the government of Jekatcrinoslav 310 and 147 fires and 28,893 an d 13,287 rubles. In Minsk the number of fires fell from 169 to 77. In Orlov from 464 to 215, in the government of Moscow from 490 to 235. Up to the Prohibition months the number of fires in these governments had for some years been in constant ascendence. One company doing busi- ness in these five provinces reported in 1914 a surplus of 400,000 rubles and is now proposing to lower its insurance rates. In a document from Poltava these statistics are given. Number of fires in August-Sep- tember, 1914, 330 as against 437, in the corresponding period of 1913 ; of houses burned down, 402 as against 707, of money loss 44,216 rubles as against 64,401 in the earlier year. Such figures give new meaning to the saying that drink is the worst enemy of the home. One finds the tendency general. Thus in Rjazan 10 Quoted in Fram, Feb. 12. 1915. 29 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION there were 873 fires in August, 1913; in the Prohibi- tion August of 1914, 462. In the government of Tam- bov the Septembers of 1913 and 1914 registered 480 and 221 fires, respectively. The chairman of the most important committee of the Imperial Duma quoted to Prof. Simpson, of Edinburg, statistics of the zemsti'o* to the effect that in all the governments of Russia there was, in the first three months of Prohibition, a diminution of 47 per cent in the number of fires and of 56 per cent in amount of damage done. Compared with the banning of the vodka the Russian function of the blessing of the Neva is a trivial thing, indeed. One hears of social betterments of the most varied types. In the Ardatov district near Moscow, for example, an increase in the number of marriages is reported. 1 Formerly the consumption of much vodka was indispensable on such occasions. This brought the expense of the ordinary marriage up to 200 rubles; of the "better" marriages to 300. Now a good marriage can be celebrated for 100 rubles. In the government of Minsk, before Prohibition, the potatoes were made into vodka. Since Prohibition starch and potato meal factories have come into oper- ation and there is a large export of potatoes to other provinces. "Formerly in the country districts," writes an agronomist employed by a semstvo near Moscow to give agricultural instruction to the peas- antry, "it was always unpleasant to hold talks because of drunken interruptions. Now there is quiet and or- der and close attention at the meetings." Prof. Simp- I Prostitution is also said to have fallen off markedly. This is a natural movement in view of the intimate co-operation between lust and alcohol. Feminine degradation helps sell beer, and beer finds a market for feminine degradation. In Petrograd women of this class have found their trade diminish and have had to go to honest work. Those who combined it with running a wine shop have had to quit since prostitution alone has not paid financially. The Birzhevya Viedomosti reports a Nijni Novgorod physician as having had 250 cases of prostitute girls needing medical assistance during the Fair period of 1915 as against 600 in 1914. Similar reports come from Warsaw and elsewhere. 30 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION son's Duma informant tells a similar story. "Latterly the old men did not come to the village assemblies because they were continually subjected to insult by the younger men when half-drunken. Now they lis- ten to the older men so that the latter say, 'We have again become fathers for the young men respect us/ ' : In Tambov agricultural societies meet more often and pay their secretaries better. There are fewer bad debts. "Formerly when I shoed a horse for 50 kopeks," said a blacksmith, "the owner would ask, 'Shall we have a bottle over it?' The bottle would be bought with the shoeing money and the price of the work charged. In this way debts accumulated. But it is never so now." Employees do not run after ad- vances as formerly. Mr. Valonskiy, the owner of leather factories at Tchernaya Sloboda speaks of one of his mechanics who received 80 rubles a month and free lodging, but who formerly always insisted on advanced pay. Now he lets his wages accumulate for two or three months before asking for it. One curious result of Prohibition has been the great growth in membership of temperance societies. Thus the accessions to the Alexander Nevski Society in Petrograd ran in the last months of 1913, 51, 31, 45, 53* 50, but in the last months of 1914 with such fig- ures as 2,759, 3,046, 2,203. The immense significance of the alcohol question seems to have dawned on the popular consciousness after a few weeks of experience of the prohibitory period. "In the country one gets the impression that the peasant has awakened out of century-long sleep to a new life," writes the Petrograd correspondent of Rit- zau's Telegraph Bureau. "The schools are overfilled. Even grown-ups, those who did not know reading and writing before, have joined. They flock in such nutn- 31 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION bers to the evening readings on agriculture and en- gineering that they have to sit on the floor." 11 This renascence of self-respect and of intelligence is de- scribed in Politiken, of Copenhagen, (April 4, '15), by a Russian correspondent, M. Lubinsky. "Before the war broke out the village folkmotes passed off in utmost quiet. All the peasants took part in these meetings, but the rich peasants decided every- thing and elected the village leader. The vote of the village was simply bought up with free vodka. It was cast for the man who was able to supply the most drink. But what a change now. There is life and go in the discussions. Votes are not purchased be- forehand. The rich peasantry no longer dispose over a medium by which they can buy their way to power. The result is altogether astonishing. Most of the former village representatives have been replaced by people from the moujiks' own body temperate, in- telligent persons, who understand their business. That the secret ballot was introduced the same time with vodka Prohibition is also not without signifi- cance. "Another remarkable consequence of Prohibi- tion has been the abolition of the kolak supremacy in the villages. The kolak was the village usurer who loaned poorer peasants money for their seed at stag- gering rates. When the borrower had gotten in his crop in the fall he had to sell the last straw to pay his creditor. He stood then with empty hand and was obliged to borrow again of the kolak and to work on the latter's land. The word kolak signifies "the clenched fist." The kolak was the bloodsucker, the autocrat of the villages. To make sure of his grip he was wont to set up little drinkshops where the peasant could drink on credit. 11 Russkia Viedomosti. quoted in Contemp. Review, Sept. 1915. 32 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION "With the disapearance of the vodka has come the entrance of the newspaper. The peasants sub- scribe for one in common a phenomenon, hitherto practically inconceivable in a Russian village." IV I called on Prof. Dr. Bechterev, of the Imperial University, and the head of the Psycho-Neuro- logical Institute of Petrograd. Dr. Bechterev is the leading neurologist of Russia and the private physician of the Tsar. He will be remembered by newspaper readers as the psychiatrical expert in the famous Beilis case. His home is on the lovely, peaceful Kamenoi-Ostrov, with its memories of Rubin- stein and the "Twelve Portraits" (op. 10). For a whole hour he sat in his chair recounting to me the amazing success of the new order. "Hospital wards for 'the white fever' (the Russian name for delirium tremens) are practically empty. Suicides have fal- len to a minimum. The jails are void of hooligans. J The Duma is nearly unanimous in favor of permanent Prohibition. If, by any chance, wine is allowed re- J For some time past the hooligans of Petrograd have been as dis- quieting a social phenomenon as the Apaches of Paris. It has been sug- gested that they were at first organized by the Black Hundreds, but later got out of the control of these political reactionaries. Regular gangs, armed with Finnish knives, prowled about, making it dangerous, especi- ally for women, to travel through certain quarters and back streets. The police were becoming both afraid of and unable to handle them and were often stabbed by them. The struggle for their suppression promised to be both long and formidable. The authorities arrested these youthful ruffians and would often send them into exile into the villages. Coelium non animum mutant. They not only displayed the same activities but taught the village boys their evil ways. Then came Prohibition and, as early as the 26th of August. Prof. Bechterev could write in the Birzhevvia Viedomosti that hooligans had disappeared as by a magic wand. It will not do to say that the war took them off for the mobilization at that early date had hardly touched this class. Roughs in the villages who had been wont to make country roads unsafe with lead set in thongs of leather with which they slung-shotted harmless passers seem also to have abandoned these practices. "Crime has everywhere diminished," said M. Bark to the Paris cor- respondent of the Daily Telegraph. (Feb. 4. 1915.) "In some districts it has disappeared altogether." The Ekaterinoslav zemstvos are said to have considered the feasibility of suppressing police appropriations in <33 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION entrance it will be so heavily taxed as to be a class drink. No beer above 2 per cent alcohol in strength will be permitted sale. Coming state monopolies upon matches, sugar and other staples will make good the financial deficits caused by the suppression of the vodka monopoly. The war Dr. Bechterev believed to have proved helpful to Prohibition in that it had put millions of drinkers under temporary discipline. He anticipated, however, no reaction when they returned home. Opinion favorable to Prohibition has so de- veloped that it will not be possible to break it down later. The movement has, in fact, safely passed the crest of the hill. Then I rode with him to the Psycho-Neurological Institute at the other side of the city and talked with his assistant, Dr. Gorielov. "The blessings of Prohi- bition," averred Dr. Gorielov, "cannot be exaggerated. They are, in fact,, so great and so varied that it is im- possible to enumerate them all. The people could not be more satisfied. There was a certain opportuneness in choosing the outbreak of the war as the time for try- ing the experiment. Everybody accepted the new or- der as a matter of patriotism. There were no long discussions; no ups-and-downs of agitation. Then view of this fall in criminality, deeming the amount granted by the central government sufficient. The whole phase of criminality before and after Prohibition will be the object of careful official exposition. The following figures for Moscow indicate what statistical conclusions will probably be reached: Offenses Public Against Assaults Scandals Authorities May (vodka) 230 1,243 242 Tune (vodka) 199 1,306 265 July (half-Prohibition) 121 810 148 August (Prohibition) 68 447 72 Various types of crime in the Kostroma government are reported as follows : April-June, '14 Aug.-Oct, '14 Crimes vs. public order 2,344 442 Indecencies 89 8 Murder , 74 24 Offenses vs. public officials 325 174 34 pt Bloody assault 305 164 Theft 1,429 944 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION when the proofs had been delivered ad oculos for 15 months public opinion was made up both as to the feasibility and the value of Prohibition." When the war broke out the hospitals of the In- stitute were taken over for the use of insane soldiers and arrangements were made for the reception of a number of such cases far larger than in the Russo- Japanese war, since the number of troops engaged in the present war is so much greater. But, strange to say, the number of insane has been actually less be- cause of the almost entire absence of alcohol psy- choses. In fact the northern armies have furnished just one case of alcoholic insanity and the record of the southern armies, whose hospital is in Moscow, is equally good. This is in marked contrast to the French and German armies, where the number of al- cohol psychoses has been very large. Attached to the Psycho-Neurological Institute is a special hospital for alcoholists. K While hundreds came to it before Prohibition, tens only now apply. At its opening some years ago a press of 5,000 applicants sought treatment. "We hope for the time," said Dr. Gorielov quaintly, "when, thanks to Prohibition, there will be only dogs to experiment on in our studies of alcohol- ism." Prof. Bechterev has spoken (pp. 99-100 Vovlos Alkoholisma) of "the futile and infinite discussions in scientific congresses and commissions," as nothing more than "little islands in the vast sea of popular drunkenness." In Russia the sea has drained away and the congresses and commissions can continue their K This Institute hospital has an unique record for the treatment of alcoholists a very high per cent of its cases having been cured. It is this success in eliminating the apnetite which leads Dr. Gorielov to believe that Prohibition will overcome all the transitional difficulties from substi- tute drinks. "There is no natural craving for narcotics." The treatment uses suggestion (in a hvpnotarium a dark room with low lights, a sopor- ific jingle of music, a dial plate with moving colored spots which induce hypnotic drowsiness, etc"). The diet is wholly vegetarian with a pre- liminary milk period. No tobacco s allowed. There is much open air work, hvdrotherapy, continuous baths, etc. 35 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION deliberations upon dry land. The brackish residue of this deluge is, according to Dr. Gorielov, inconsider- able. "Only one-third of i per cent of the Institute cases are due to denatured spirits. In comparison to the immense calamity of legalized vodka the damage from illicit substitutes is negligible." Dr. Gorielov affirmed his belief that "in 25 or 30 years, with Prohi- bition, all the terrible consequences of the era of al- coholization will have disappeared and a nearly com- plete regeneration of the nation will have taken place." L "There has been," said Dr. Alexander Mendels- sohn, at the meeting (March 29, '15) ,of the Russian Society for the Preservation of National Health, "a reduction of alcoholic sickness in Petrograd and of the attendance at the anti-alcohol ambulatoria, a decline in the number of the dipsomaniac insane at the Obuk- hovsky Hospital; also of general cases of mental af- fection in the capital. An asylum for drunkards in Tula reports that the average number of alcoholists received monthly up to August I, 1914, was between 400 and 500. In the first six months of Prohibition (August-January) the total received was but 537. Only eight of these were sent monthly to hospitals as against an average monthly shipment of 100-150 before Prohibition. 12 These were denatured spirit cases. A friend of the writer, a former Red Cross sister, living in this government of Tula, 140 vcrsts from Moscow, remarks that the epidemics which came periodically out of Moscow, spreading through the country, are L Prof. Simpson of Edinburg quotes "one of the most distinguished (Russian) professors of economics" to the same effect. "What I have seen compels me to ask for absolute restriction (i. e., Prohibition) of beer as well as of vodka. If we can arrange that for twenty or twenty- five years the population will not have the opportunity to drink. Then the question is solved. If we can do that and I am not unhopeful Russia will be saved." 12 Vestnik Tresvosti, April, 1915; p. 22. 36 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION far rarer than formerly. This is due, no doubt, to the increased resistance of a de-alcoholized and bet- ter-fed population. The same thing is, she reports, noticeable in country families when in the spring time children are taken with cramps and bowel trou- ble from eating green fruits, etc. Once the sickness would bring down the whole family. This is no longer the case. The Bacteriological and Medico-Sanitary Organization for Fighting Epidemic Diseases During the War confirms the opinion of this observer. It has formally expressed its satisfaction and thanks to the Tsar for closing the drinkshops, "in view of the great aetiological influence which alcohol has on the causes and course of infectious disease." Equally important is the fact that the Medical Faculty of the University of Moscow has, as a corporation, thanked the Tsar for Prohibition. "Our land is now temperate." The Russian Imperial Society for the People's Health, through its sub-committee on the alcohol question, has issued a pro-Prohibition statement. The Pirogov Society, the leading Russian medical society, after three days of deliberation on the subject, has done the same (see Appendix pp. 71-79). Russian officers are quoted (Die Alkoholfrage Zcitimgskorrcspondenz, April 15, '15; similar statements in Vestnik Tresvosti, Feb., 1915). "Etherizing of the wounds takes place quickly and without disturbance. The healing of wounds is speedier. The disappearance of alcohol has had a wonderful effect on the general health condi- tions of the army. Forced marches of an incredible length are undertaken, with battles between, and yet our men are not exhausted. In spite of the exception- ally unfavorable conditions the number of sick is less than in ordinary barrack life. Wherein lies this miracle 37 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION of physical resistance? The doctor says, "The strength of the body is not destroyed by indulgence in alcohol." In the huge Morosov factories in Moscow, which em- ploy over 10,000 persons, a fall of nearly 40 per cent in the number of accidents was registered in the first three months of Prohibition. The statistics of trau- matic lesions of the Obukhovsky Hospital, Petrograd, tell a similar story. During the last half year of 1913 there were 710; of 1914, 237. On the morning on which the writer left Petro- grad his attention was called to the press items of the Imperial University, which appeared in the Birzhcvya Viedomosti for that day (Sept. 9, '15). It was stated that the medical department was finding great diffi- culty in securing bodies for the dissection rooms. The same report is mentioned from other places. It is cus- tomary to send bodies of persons dying on the streets, if they are not asked for, to the medical schools. Dr. Grigoriev has made a striking chart of suicides and attempted suicides in Petrograd between 1906 and 1915. The curve which rises to a great height after 1906 as a consequence, it is alleged, of the disillusion which followed the abortive revolution of 1905, fell abruptly in the last months of 1912. The figures are as follows : " 1906 903 1 191 1 2962 1907 13771 i9 12 3 I2 3 1908 2268J 1913 2614 1909 23791*1914 1523 1910 3196 *With only five months of Prohibition. 38 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION The statistics for 1914 and the six months of 1915 are as follows: 1914. Men Women January 1 10 72 1915. Men Wo Tanuarv - - i^ men 39 25 49 22 17 21 r of was war half February ..114 65 February . . . .24 March 146 57 March . . 1$ Aoril 144. 67 April ...26 May 129 64 May ...28 Tune 1 20 ss June . .27 Tulv . . 64. AS ndelssohn, the the first half i, but 205, and n came in the nnmbe of 1914 yet the second August 18 19 September . . . . 16 31 October 24 29 November .... 29 26 December .... 26 41 According to Dr. Me suicides in Warsaw during 419; during the second hal terror of the Polish campai of the year. V. THE societies for the protection of animals re- port better times for the lower creation and the women and children are as gratified as the horses and cows. Why shouldn't they be? In hundreds of thousands of Russian homes the noise of drunken fracas and broken glass has died away. M One hears now only the peaceful hum of the M The Chief of Police of Yeletz exhibited the register of drunkards to Mr. Faressov. a correspondent of the Novoe Vremya. From this it appears that, in 1913-14, up to the outbreak of the war, from 400 to 500 drunks were recorded every month at police quarters. After Prohibition they fell to between three and four. "The drunkards' register," said the Secretary of Police, "is more eloquent than words. Formerly I was called on for assistance by women who had been beaten and tortured by drunken husbands. Now there is an end of bruises and livid wounds." 39 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION samovar. The whole carillon of Ivan Veliky, with its 30 joy-bells and the great bell's bass thrown in, would not suffice to express the satisfaction of Russian wo- men with the new emancipation. The Petrograd cor- respondent of Svcnska Dagbladet, from whom we have quoted elsewhere, has described the sights on pre-Prohibition paydays outside Russian factory en- trances. "Hundreds of women could be seen waiting for their husbands in order to rescue a little of the weekly pay before it was too late. The greater part of the wages earned both by laborer and peasant were raked into the Monopoly shops." Now the women are able to visit the markets regularly on Saturdays. In the Baltic provinces during the first few weeks of Prohibition they went over and over again to the newspaper offices to inquire "if it would be so for- ever." "The little father is beginning to be good to his children," they would say; "he is giving them honey." In Archangel 3,000 women ask the city gov- ernment to petition for the Prohibition of the sale of all alcoholic drinks for all time and the council de- cides so to do by a vote of 30 to 7. When the Rus- sians occupied Tilsit, they extended Prohibition to the East Prussian town. "For the Prohibition of all kinds of intoxicants," says the Mitteilungcn dcs Dciitschcn Frauenmissionbundes, (Nov. 2, 1915), "we were thankful from the bottom of our hearts. Many poor wives of drinking men were tempted to wish that the Russians might stay on for good." Prohibition would have meant a Peace of Tilsit of indefinite dura- tion in many Tilsit homes. It is freely remarked that any attempt to reinstate vodka in the Russian villages would provoke a fighting spirit among the women beside which the stormiest demonstrations of the English suffragettes would be but zephyrs. 40 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION The children, too, soon felt the change. From the first days letters from the peasantry began pour- ing into the Imperial family. Fathers would write to the Tsar, mothers to the Tsarina. The children ap- pealed to the Tsarovitch. "Thank your father that we also have a father" would run their letters. "Ask your father that we may not lose our father again through drink." Mme. , the daughter of a Russian admiral, has a day nursery in Petrograd for 65 or more boys and girls of from three to twelve years of age. Formerly there was much misery among them. Now, she tells me, the children both of whose parents live, have nearly all left and the nursery is practically devoted to orphans and half-orphans. The first class does not need further help; they are well fed and cared for. From different reporters I learn that formerly peasant children in a family would frequently have only one pair of shoes among them. They were, therefore, obliged to take turns going to school in cold weather. Now it is common for each child to have its own footgear. Delegations of peasants traveled to Petrograd to petition the Tsar to continue the Prohibition regime. When they could not go in person they sent letters from their poor villages. "We know neither how to write nor read, but we will pay to the Minister of Finance the money which he receives from the sale of vodka and with joy. They can impose new taxes. They can lay a special drunkards' tax. Everybody will pay. The government will then get its millions and we shall be in good health and prosper." 13 "Heads of large concerns employing labor," said the Minister of Finance, "have said they would pay in cold cash the sums necessary to cover the deficit in revenue, and could afford it easily from the larger 13 L f Abstinence. No. 6. 1915. 41 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION incomes derived from the increased capacity of em- ployees." When the Tsar's telegram proclaiming per- manent Prohibition was published it was greeted with jubilation. "It is as the resurrection from the dead!" "I could kiss the Tsar's feet !" Thanksgiving services were held in churches all over Russia. Newspapers without regard to party color devoted articles to the new emancipation. Mr. Hamilton Fyffe, after re- marking on the strangeness of the strange phenom- enon the sudden disappearance of all alcoholic drink from a nation in which it had bulked so largely for centuries, continued: "Yet there is one thing stranger. Nobody makes any audible complaint. The truth is nine-tenths of the nation are convinced of the benefit of giving up (vodka)." 14 But this, indeed, is a very negative statement of the general content. The intensity of sentiment is expressed far more sharply by M. Bark: "This law is felt by the Russian people to be, not a restriction, but an incalculable boon con- ferred upon them by their provident monarch." (In- terview with the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Feb. 4). "If I should propose to annul Prohibition there would be a revolution in Russia." (Interview with Mr. Lloyd-George.) 15 A steady stream of appeal for the retention of Prohibition has come from the local governments. These are directed against wine and beer, as well as against vodka. On the 27th of September, 1914, cities and rural communes were given permission to forbid the sale of these drinks during war time. On the I3th of October similar powers were extended to the zemstvos. The Petrograd City Duma, by a vote of 96 to 39, passed wine and beer Prohibition. The Moscow Duma did the same by an even larger majority (112 14 Daily Mail. Feb. 4. 1915. 15 Speech at Bangor, Wales, Feb. 2X). 1915. 42 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION to 26.) Hundreds of communes, in taking similar ac- tion, passed resolutions in addition favoring the permanent suppression of these two drinks, in the protocols of great numbers of workmen's co-opera- tives, peasants' unions, societies of lawyers, and sci- entific societies, one finds resolutions urging perman- ent wine and beer Prohibition. Some also make sug- gestions as to methods for effectively checking im- proper sale of denatured spirits. In reading the re- ports pouring in from all quarters of Russia one gets an impression of an unanimity of sentiment not un- like the overwhelming democratic sentiment in the France of 1789 as depicted in Taine's studies of the documents of the Revolution. Bishop Nikander, of Viatka, telegraphs to the Viatka zemstov thanking it for its decision to suppress wine and beer. The Wait- ers' Aid Union of Moscow, on the pth of November, sends word to the Moscow city goverment stating that the temporary difficulties into which Prohibition has brought the waiters are as nothing, compared to the misery which wine had brought on others. They bespeak, therefore, the continuance of Prohibition. 16 When the wine interests of Moscow appeal secretly to the central government to rescind the city's Prohi- bition of wine, the Mayor, Tchelnokov, protests against any interference and, going over to the of- fensive, sends circulars to the city governments all over Russia, urging them also to adopt wine and beer Prohibition. Unique and admirable Mayor ! The head of the Russian railways sends out a circular to all sub-managers giving them permission to prohibit wine and beer at all railway restaurants and buffets and the permission is promptly acted on. When the city Duma of Kansk, in Siberia, suggests allowing the sale of wine up to 16 per cent strength, the people 16 Vestnik Tresvosti. Jan., 1915. 43 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION call a mass meeting and oblige them to close up everything in sight. Bishops and clergy appeal to the Holy Synod to bring its powerful influence to bear in favor of permanent Prohibition and the Synod responds magnificently (see Appendix pp. 69-71). When the city authorities in Vladimir propose that all vodka dispensed for medicine shall be sold from one shop, a physician arises in the council protesting that vodka is no medicine and that physicians should have no right to prescribe it. Staroff, an anti-Prohibitionist, in the Kursk semstva, remarks that he has sat in zemsti'os for 30 years and vodka has never been men- tioned. "Now the talk is everywhere about Prohibi- tion. It is a true epidemic !" 17 Already up to March, 1915, 8,390 rural communes and 467 cities or govern- ment zemstvos had petitioned the government on the subject. Eighty-seven per cent of all resolutions asked for permanent Prohibition and the inclusion of wine and beer in the Prohibition. At times expressions of fear lest the good thing should slip through the fin- gers and escape, have come to utterance. Citizens of Nijni Novgorod, disturbed by rumors, besought the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch, as honor- ary citizen of their town, to send some statement from the Tsar on the matter. The Tsar wrote on the tele- gram which Constantine sent him: "The people need not fear! No sale of beer and wine will be allowed during the war!" and the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikol- aiovitch issued a statement (July 21, 1915), through General Krupenski to the effect that "the rumor spread by evil-minded men that the sale of wine was again to be permitted was a false rumor." Russian anti-alcoholists are concerned to see other nations pass into the same great experience. At a private conference, at which the writer was present, they 17 Vestnik Tresvosti, Jan.. 1915. 44 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION said : "We must appeal to temperance men in all lands to hurry, hurry! They do not know how good a thing Prohibition is." Two utterances, one from a peasant, the other from a savant, sum up sufficiently well the general feeling. Mr. Romanoff, an owner of factories in Louchek, is, although a millionaire, an illiterate moujik. "There have been two happy events in my life," said the old peasant ; "the emancipation of .the serfs and their emancipation from drink. I could weep for joy! I would prefer death to seeing the peo- ple drinking again," and he crossed himself reverently when he learned that the government was determined never to reopen the vodka shops. Dr. Ramstadt, decent in Asiatic languages in the University of Hel- singfors, recounted to the writer a conversation which he had in Petrograd with Dr. Rudnev, the vice-secre- tary of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The meat of the latter's remarks was contained in one forcible sentence: "Anyone agitating for the return of drink in Russia ought to be lynched. " N N The Imperial Duma opened on the 9th of February, 1915. Presi- dent Rodsjanko in his address for the day referred to vodka Prohibition as follows : "In the midst of the present world-war the Russian people are ex- periencing' a transformation such as has never before happened in the history of the world. Our honored ruler has sought to exterminate one of its worst enemies and has given a new direction to the people's 1'fe. Through this, the most important action of our day that of curing the people of a deep, ingrown evil a decisive step has been taken. The whole land of Russia turns with the feelings of deepest gratitude to the Tsar with the prayer, 'Accept, great ruler, our deepest appreciation. Thy people believe fully and firmly that thou hast made an end of all this past evil.' There are many striking illustrations of the high valuation of Pro- hibition. Michael Tchelichov was much ridiculed some years ago for his fiery anti-alcoholism. In 1915 he died, after seeing his great ideal realized. Prof. Golubov of the medical faculty of the University of Moscow, while lecturing to his students upon alcoholism as a cause of disease, took oc- casion to pay a tribute to this unwearied and self-sacrificing life now closed. At the end of the lecture the students rose in a body in respect- ful tribute. The city of Samara, which Tchelichov represented in the Duma, decided by the unanimous vote of its municipal council to place his portrait in the legislative chamber, to found a memorial anti-alcohol museum, to erect three memorial stipendia in the middle schools, and to change the name of the street Saratovskaija to Tchelichovskaia. Then they appointed a commission to elaborate more detailed plans for hon- oring the great antagonist of alcohol." 45 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION There is little to record in the way of counter- opinion. In Estonia and Courland the people have been unable to forbid the sale of beer and wine to the same effect as elsewhere, because of (Baltic) Ger- man influence. In Libau the proposal failed by a tie vote in the city council 25 to 25. Of the opposition 24 were Germans and one Russian (a paedagogue!) "Specifically German," said their prophet, Nietzsche, "is the alcohol-poisoning of Europe." 18 With the ad- vance of the German armies in Poland the beer holes have reopened. It is intimated by some that "society" wishes the return of wine. If this incomparable moral triumph is to be nullified and become a dream of the past we may be sure it will be because of this element. Wine is the thin edge of the anti-Prohibition wedge and the people who drive it in are ever "the culti- vated." Certain of the upper class in Petrograd are described as the most obstinate in their adhesion to drink, going across to Wiborg (in Finland) to get wine in the first-class restaurants, where its sale is allowed. And yet, if the privileged but knew it, Pro- hibition, by relieving extreme misery and by check- ing the spirit of violence, really constitutes one of the best safe-guards against excess, both revolution- ary and otherwise, and, therefore, naturally one of their most respectable defenses. For example, Mr. Bartchenko, a notary public at Yeletz, remarks that if after the surrender of Przsemysl to the Austrians it had been possible for the peasants to have gotten hold of vodka their suspicions would have led them to attack the authorities and the well-to-do in their neighborhoods. 18 Nietzsche, Zur Geneologie der Moral, p. 150. 46 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION VI IF ever anything deserved the title of a bolt from the blue for the international poison interests it has been Russian Prohibition. As soon as they got their wind after the first surprise they began setting up their familiar shabby scare-crows in the international press. Russian Prohibition was "a failure." An American resident in Russia reported to me seeing half-page advertisements in newspapers of the American Central West affirming, from alleged official documents, the Muscovite fiasco. These docu- ments were saucy fabrications. Listen to the Giornale d' Italia: "The consumption of denatured alcohol has passed all bounds. Numbers have intoxicated them- selves with shellac. Traveling peddlers circulate through the country selling all kinds of mixtures. The. people, instead of drinking the scientifically dis- tilled products of the great government distilleries, among the most perfect in the world, are drinking all kinds of lurid drinks. Vodka, compared with these substitutes, appears a minor evil, perilous drink to be sure, but relatively honest." One risks getting one's feet w r et in such floods of crocodile pathos! It is obvious that all this can be true and false at the same time. True, because such phenomena do actually appear, being the natural and expected sequelae of the preceding period of alcohol satura- tion ; false in the attempt to prove them of decisive, or even considerable, importance in the general situ- ation. The Vestnik Tresvosti (April, 1915) quotes O In the Int. Monats z. Erforsch. d. Alkoholismus. Sept., 1915. is a translation from "The Voice of the People, an Official Investigation by P. E. Termitin in the government of Penza, 1915." concerning the atti- tude of the population towards the Prohibition of alcoholic drinks. This is based on an enquete in 206 Penza parishes from which 2,167 answers were received. Of these 64.8 per cent declared that they found no diffi- culty in p&ssinjf to enforred abstinence : 22.6 per cent declared that it was hard at first but easy afterwards, and 12.6 per cent that it was still 47 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION statistics to the effect that 1825 illicit stills were sup- pressed in the Russian Empire in the last six months of 1914 (five months of Prohibition). Of these 160 only made spirits, 92 rectified varnish, and 60 rectified denatured spirits. But in 1912 there were discov- ered in the whole year 3,073 illegal stills alongside of 2,913 legal ones. There has been, therefore, no clearly proved increase in the amount of illicit distill- ing. It is further, in the nature of the case, easier now to detect illicit distilling than formerly. A striking illustration comes from Riga, where a large distiller. Von Zur Muhlen, was, for years, defrauding the ex- cise with ingenious arrangements of subterranean pipes. Not until the Prohibition months was he dis- covered and given the generous fine of 1,300,000 rubles. There is reported to have been a certain amount of smuggling of spirits into Siberia from China as of opium into China from Siberia. It is also said that "Monopol Vodka" from America has been seen in Siberia. But if these things really occur they occur on a very small scale. Mr. Sherwell speaks of "the pushing of the sale of a so-called grape wine, a poisonous liquid." This is apparently none other than Laddevin of his blessed Christiania, the Tarragona of his peerless Gothenburg, the Blud-- dervin of his impeccable Stockholm. We heard noth- hard for them. The next question had to do with the consequences of abstinence (better appetite, better health, greater desire to work, better family relations as against weakness, disinclination to work, irritation, loss of appetite). Eighty per cent spoke for the first category of results: 20 per cent for the latter. When it was asked how many had used substi- tute drinks for the alcoholic ones 259 confessed to having done so against 1,626 who had not (14 per cent and 86 per cent, respectively). Kvass, a slightly fermented drink like root beer, was mentioned by 125 of the 259, a kind of barley beer in 30 cases, wine 22, denatured spirits 51, Hoffman drops 10, etc. But the majority of these after a short trial stopped. "Of 1,885 men, after a trial of two months' time, only 54, or 3 per cent, sought to get around the law and the most of these satisfied, their thirst with fermented drinks: 1,656, or 84 per cent of those asked, desired per- manent Prohibition of both vodka and fermented drinks. A similar en- quete was made by the officials of the Government of Charkov. Only 59 out of 1,352 (4.3 per cent) yere mentioned as using denatured spirits. 48 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION ing- of it in Petrograd. p The single critic of Prohibi- tion the writer met, an American, added to the old formula: "One can get it in the hotels. There is no trouble," the important qualification : "It will cost you 50 rubles." Denatured spirits are drunk some- what, as in other lands. One recalls, for example, the 30 or 40 persons poisoned by methyl-alcohol in a Ber- lin night refuge three yeafs ago, some of whom died. Whatever drinking of denatured spirits exists in Rus- sia at present is chiefly in the factory districts, not among the peasants. Yet one informant tells me that 10 years ago denatured spirits were not infrequently drunk by peasants because they were cheaper than vodka. The government is honestly preparing to plug up all the rat holes. It has offered prizes up to 30.000 rubles for the best method of rendering de- natured spirits repulsive to the taste and of causing vomiting or diarrhoea to those drinking it, together with a great number of other prizes for the better utilization of alcohol for power, light and manufactur- ing purposes. These are to be awarded in 1916. When Prohibition first existed it was very easy to separate denatured spirits by straining through char- coal or fine glass. Other elements have now been added which make the process more difficult. A skull P Prof. Simpson of Edinburg University mentions having "conversed with more than a hundred men whose positions entitled them to speak with authority." "There was not one who did not speak approvingly of the vodka Prohibition, and most of them simply on empirical grounds because of the results." The only adverse comment we have seen con- cerning Russian Prohibition comes from Mr. Sherwell. a gentleman with a touching, old-fashioned faith in the Gothenburg System, but who gen- erally gets the spy-glass to h-'s blind eye when the question of Prohibition is under consideration. From his distant watchtower on the British Isles he discovers that the prisons of Kursk are full of drunkards, that mor- tality from drunkenness in Petrograd has increased under Prohibition, etc.. etc. (Contemporary Review, May. 1915.) He further mentions a great increase in card-playing (!) as one of the deplorable consequences of Prohibition. Count Skarsczynski of the Russian Alcohol Monopoly, with whom Mr. Sherwell has been in correspondence, told the writer in his office in Petrograd that men were even eating yeast in Russia to satisfy tVieir alcohol cravings! Such statements have value as indicating how difficult it is for anti-Prohibitionists to find anything with which to dis- credit the Russian experiment. 49 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION and bones is placed on the label of every bottle with the words : "Pure Poison ! Beware !" and it is ex- plained that it can ruin eyes and even kill, since it is a corrosive poison. Freeing it from denaturing ele- ments is strictly forbidden. It is sold only to respect- able persons, in some places only to women, and only between the hours of from 9 to 12 and from 2 to 5. These are hours when factory workers cannot easily get it. The shops are closed on all Sundays and holi- days and on the days preceding Sundays and holi- days. As holidays are very common in Russia, this is a tremendous restriction. Thus, a lady told me that on the preceding week when she tried to buy spirits for burning purposes she found that Wednesday and Friday with Sunday were holidays. This made conse- quently a closed period from Monday night to the next Monday morning. Plans are under way for al- lowing the sale of denatured spirits only to those pos- sessing a sales book provided with coupons. In many instances men arrested for drunkenness from methyl- ated spirits are exiled to the country and told not to return to the city. All this shows the tremendous earnestness of the government in its determination to uphold the Prohibition system. Vodka is sold for medicinal purposes (compresses, etc.) by druggists, but these are very disinclined to handle it. It can be obtained only on prescription from druggists and the druggist must telephone to the doctor to make sure that the prescription is valid. One must often wait several days before one can fin- ally get it. A register of sales is kept and if any doc- tor has over-numerous vodka prescriptions it is in- quired into. Two Petrograd doctors are said to have been despatched to the front for having filled too many prescriptions of this type. Dr. Gorielov thinks the tendency to hunt substitutes is on the retour. 50 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION Abnormal craving seems to be subsiding. "Let them drink it and kill themselves," say the common people of incorrigible alcoholists. "We shall then be quit of the whole thing." A statement, which the writer heard, but could not verify, affirmed that the police even had recourse to the stomach pump to frighten those who insist on drinking impossible liquids. Drunkenness, as well as the illegal sale of wine and beer, is punishable with fines up to 3,000 rubles and with three months' imprisonment. Petrograd and Kronstad apothecaries who have ventured to sell Hoff- mann drops or other substitutes have been treated in the same way. These Draconian penalties certainly imply an unbending decision on the part of the au- thorities. VII IT may be suggested that such impressive conse- quences of Prohibition could only appear in a land whose previous alcoholism had been of an extreme type. That this is not altogether true is clear from the experience of Finland. Finland had, before Prohibition, the lowest per capita alcohol con- sumption in the world. All that regulation and re- striction has accomplished anywhere had been there carried out. It is instructive, therefore, to see how far the best that can be done by palliative falls short of Prohibition. Prohibition in Finland quickly brought the latent and surviving alcoholism to light and remedied it. The average monthly consump- tion of spirits dropped from 423,244 liters to 37,391, of which 20,000 were used by apothecaries for legiti- mate purposes, leaving only 17,391 liters disposed of in first-class restaurants (Kylvaja, p. 313, 1915). It must be remembered that for the first months of the war the privilege of selling spirits was allowed in 51 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION first-class restaurants. It is now prohibited, but beer and wine are still sold, a concession to the upper classes, ever the most virulent enemies of Prohibition. Wine and beer can also be purchased in quantity 25 liters of the first and 24 bottles of the latter. The im- port of spirits from abroad is also permitted. Finland is, therefore, under a defective Prohibition only, al- though Dr. Helenius is undoubtedly right in his esti- mate that the consumption of alcohol in Finland now stands nearer o than I liter per capita. The official statistics of drunkenness are given in Finland's Sven- ska Nykterhetsforbund Arskrift, 1915, p. 186.) In the TO chief cities the total arrests for drunkenness for the period August-December in 1912, 1913 and 1914 were 18,272, 18,616 and 4,408, respectively. In 14 smaller towns the arrests for drunkenness for the same months in 1912, 1913 and 1914 were 2,337, 2 >37 T and 529. The statistics for all other crimes during the same August-December period in the 10 cities were 4,273 in 1912, 4,374 in 1913, and 2,557 in 1914. while in the 14 small towns it was 1,017 in 1912, 976 in 1913 ,and 392 in 1914. The spirits barometer could not speak more plainly.Q The economic effects of Prohibition find illus- tration in Finland as in Russia in the statistics of loans from pawnshops. The number of such for all Finland was, in 1914, 485,302 against 539,543 in 1913. It must be remembered that only five months of 1914 were Prohibition months. The Wiborg Loan Office O Attempts have been made to minimize the successes of Russian Prohibition by reference to the fact that great masses of men are at the front and away from drink. But in Finland all the men are at home. The writer, on his wav to Petrograd, passed through TTmea and across Finland on a fifty-hour ride on trains stopping at every station and full of soldiers and a rather rough third-class traveling public. He was also in Petro- grad when the streets were full of troops at the calling put of the reserves. Nowhere in e'ther Finland or Petrograd did he see drinking or drunken- ness. But at Umea, where he passed the last night on Swedish soil, the hotel was stormed in the night by young and very drunken conscripts clamoring for lodgings. 52" RUSSIAN PROHIBITION gives the months August-December separately. There were 6,939 loans of 91,979 marks in the 1914 period against 10,829 loans of 132,501 marks in 1913. The smallness of these loans shows that they are made chiefly to the very poor (Arskrift, 1915, p. 188). In 1912 an enquete was held in Helsingsfors to get the impressions of the leading citizens as to what Prohibition would mean to Finland. The then direc- tor of poor relief, Colonel Melart, prophesied "an im- mense increase in police expenses for the checking of illicit sale with no corresponding decrease in drunken ness." R These lions in the way have, on approach, vanished into thin air. Mr. Breitholz, of the Poor Re- lief Department, Helsingfors, expressed to me the satisfaction of his office with present conditions, ("fewer applications for help ; children better cared for") and arranged interviews with various of his char- ity visitors. The testimony of these deaconesses was always the same. "There is no question that the pro- hibitory law has been a blessing. The women espe- cially are gratified and want it continued. There is a marked improvement in food., clothing, and furniture of the homes. The children, being better fed and clothed, are much quicker and brighter in school. R Other contributors offer the usual anti-Prohibition wisdom. Thus Prof. Victor Heikel, "A general Prohibition law would, in my opinion, be only a misfortune for our land, for we should only be swamped with Russian spirits instead of Finnish, not to speak of moonshining and smuggling. . . . Those who teach the workmen's wives to cook good food and keep a pleasant home do far more for temperance than those who cry for a Prohibition law. The same can be said for all work which encourages saving." (As if Prohibition, as in Russia, were not the best encouragement to saving among hundreds of thousands.) In the answer of Mr. Jacques Ahrenberg, architect, we get the meta- physical dogmatics of the moderationist. "Evil is eternal and neces- sary as good. A mechanical removal of vice is of no value. (Russia again?) There must be an inner transformation. (But do not outer transformations contribute to inner ones?) Pastor Collan. of the Poor Relief, Helsingfors. has a wiser story. He tells of his home town in Karelia. "When beer was sold in the hotels there was much drunk- enness. This ceased when, under local option, it was prohibited. Then the railways came and it was possible to import it from other places and drunkenness began again. Men drink when they can get drink and forget about it when it is not accessible. The thing is simple enough." 53 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION Christmas, 1914, was one such as very many homes in Helsingfors never saw before. Former drunkards tell us that they have not had, for a dozen years, whole shoes until now. They are glad that they cannot get drink and wish the same experience for the Herrene (gentry). We see very little of violation of law." I talked with Dr. Heilimo, the Secretary of State for the government of Nyland (of which Helsingfors is the capital). He affirmed that the high officials of Finland were satisfied with Prohibition. There had always been considerable violation of excise laws in Finland in the past, but Prohibition made it easier to secure evidence against violators. The authorities are now aware of the devices of such persons and are enforcing the law with strictness. 8 As soon as partial Prohibition was ordered by the government the Finnish people began starting peti- tions that it be made complete and permanent. In Helsingfors (a city of 160,000 people and the strong- hold of the Finnish alcohol interests), they had al- ready collected the signatures of 43,215 persons over 21 years of age when word came from the Russian Governor stopping the movement. I was interested to learn from Prof. Dr. Robert Tigerstedt, the physi- ologist of the University of Helsingfors, that he had hurried from his laboratory on the last day to the store where the petition had been placed for signing, in order to add his signature before it should be too late. "I did not believe Prohibition possible and was, therefore, opposed to it," he said to me. "Now I re- alize that it is both a feasible and a satisfactory S Thus the Governor of Wiborg Province condemned six persons in Mohla to three months' imprisonment each for having bought malt, sugar, and yeast and brewed therewith a drink called "kilju." which on analysis was found to contain 3.5 per cent alcohol. The Governor of Tevastehus province fined three apothecaries 1,500 marks apiece for having sold cologne water for drink. The drug-mixers begged permission to make, instead, a contribution of the same amount to the Red Cross if the matter should be kept quiet, but without avail. Fram, Tan. 15 and Feb. 12, 1915. 54 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION policy." Other professors in the university expressed similar opinions. Baron Korff, professor in the Rus- sian Civil Law, was only troubled lest people in Rus- sia and Finland should not be sufficiently on their guard against the alcohol interests, who were even then carrying on mole-work to undermine confidence in Prohibition. Prof. Laitinen, now at the head of the whole medico-sanitary system of Finland, while warning against premature conclusions, called atten- tion to the fact that there had been a sharp decline in mortality in 1915 in Finland (from 15-16 in the thousand to 13 plus.) Finland has long had the start of Russia in the matter of alcohol reform. For the well-to-do of Petro- grad it plays the part of the Maine coast to New Yorkers. Its lakes, its woods, its long "white nights," are its summer recreation capital, but there is, as in the Maine villages, another asset. A little guide to Russia speaks of the Russian country districts within reach of the metropolis as unattractive, because the peasants are too often "dirty, poor, and on Sundays and holidays drunken." Those in the Finnish coun- try districts on tb other hand "are, because the sale of alcohol out of the towns is prohibited healthy, in- telligent and sober." When the burghers of Petro- grad have gone back to their offices Mondays they are not anxious for their wives and daughters on the country roads of Finland. For in Finland the long alcohol tentacles have been chopped off. The head and glaring eyes of the octopus have lived along in the Company System shops of Helsingfors and some other larger places, but their days are drawing to a close. It is hard to believe in view of the rapid ad- vance of Prohibition sentiment in the present genera- tion, that the most terrible famines known to Finland were, so late as 1866-67, due to tne excessive distill- 55 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION ing of grain in 1865; that at least a fifth of the grain supply of this naturally poor country went ordinar- ily, into the still, while the people ground up beech bark for use in preparing bread. T VIII RUSSIA, we may fairly say, has "solved the drink-problem." She has done more. She has discovered to the world how simph the problem really is. It is the old story of Columbus' egg. Russia has demonstrated that we need no graded course regulation, Gothenburg Sys- tem, local option, "education of sentiment up to Pro- hibition." No people had less anti-alcohol education than the Russians. The law itself is schoolmaster. Nothing educates more effectually either upwards or downwards. The best education for .Prohibition is Prohibition. Only the law must be enforced. In Rus- sia enforcement is possible through centralized auto- T Here is another illustration of the advance of afcohol-free culture in Finland. The magnificent students' club on the Henriksgade, Hel- singfors a club in which both men and women students share without the slightest embarrassment, allows no alcohol. The bar, which is served by girl students in rotation, provides fruit syrups, Russian tea, chocolate, buttermilk, etc. It is all so cleanly, so high-toned, so charming, and in such contrast to the beer brutality of German academic life with its bloated student faces and pale, overdriven waitresses. But it was not always so in Helsingfors. The hygienist. Prof. Sucksdorff, gives a picture of his student days before university life was purged of alcoholism, which, in view of the immense improvement, offers encouragement to anti-alco- holists everywhere. "It was the first of May more than 30 years ago," he writes. "At that time it belonged to the order of the day that May Day celebrations should end in a free fight in the Brunnshus Hall, a fight of which it was said 'It begins with the students, draws in the docenten, and ends with the professors.' "There was a long table in the hall on which stood glasses and bot- tles with all kinds of drinks. The May celebrants joked and chaffed each other and the feeling was so friendly that a fight seemed impossible. But without a fight no First of May feast could properly end, so certain young polytechnicians took it upon themselves to go around and sharply cuff those sitting at the tables. This naturally awakened annoyance and, before one was aware, a general fight was agoing. In a moment the long table with glasses and bottles was removed by the waiters and the whole hall filled with a violent tumble in which acquaintances and strangers tore and smote each other to heart's cohtent." (P. 66, Arsskrift.) 56 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION cracy; in the United States it will be possible by federal action backed by the women's vote. The more radical and general the Prohibition the more successful. Prohibition "fails," not because there is too much of it, but too little. We have never had more than a partial Prohibition in any American state for no state forbids importation for private use, Russia has shown us a genuine and nearly complete one. Russian Prohibition has its lesson for Socialists. This is that alcoholsm is a consequence of alcohol and not primarily of the capitalist system. It can be cured by removing alcohol. It has nowhere been remedied otherwise. When alcoholism is out of the way economic questions will be susceptible to far easier and quicker solution. No Prohibitionist, how- ever, proposes that reform should stop at Prohibition; that the producing classes should live on land in an eternal steerage such as one sees in the melancholy Schliisselburg suburb of Petrograd, with its cotton mills, stearine factories, and iron works. They only insist that their own pressing reform be neither neg- lected nor deferred, and Russian Prohibition, the midwife to a new social order, justifies their insist- ance. Also for the social talkers has Russian Prohibi- tion its lesson. The theory of these people is that the drink evil can be competed out of existence by "substitutes." This has never been done and after the Russian experience we may be sure will never be done. For the substitute experiment was tried in Russia during pre-Prohibition days on a scale which will forever discourage imitation. The Offi- cial Temperance Committees were given the pres- tige of the highest official patronage. Governors of provinces, noblemen, the metropolitans of the church, 57 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION served as chairmen or members. At one time the yearly appropriations for their work reached as high a figure as five million rubles. In 1912 they supported 3,598 alcohol-free tea and eating houses, u 307 inns, many of them with stables for horses, 174 night asylums, 4,115 loan libraries, 380 people's book shops, 531 evening schools, 6,840 places where lectures were given, 374 people's theaters, 1,087 municipal societies, 43 bureaus, where free legal advice was dispensed, 13 employment bureaus, 13 private hospitals for alco- holists, and 28 other places where drunkards were aided and provided with medical advice. These places were visited yearly by more than 90 million persons. The Norodny Dom, or People's House, near the Peter-Paul Fortress in Petrograd, together with the five branches in the city, is equipped with the greatest lavishness. Theaters, concert halls, res- taurants, carrousels, a wide range of deliciously haz- ardous "American amusements" welcome people of all tastes and by the ten thousand. Tickets are sold at low prices with large blocks of free seats. Great artists, like Shaliapin, the Russian baritone, constantly appear for the benefit of this public. In short, every- thing has been done to combat alcoholism indirectly by so-called "positive" agencies. There is said to have been a considerable decline in the consumption of vodka in Petrograd as a consequence of these great expenditures. This we can well believe, although in Moscow, where similar enterprises were initiated on a large scale by the Grand Duke Sergius, there was in the same period a rise in consumption in spite of the committee's efforts. But no one could call the activities of the Russian committees of temperance a "solution" in the sense that national Prohibition has U Meals were provided in the village restaurants for 5, 8 and 10 kopecks. For tea with sugar and bread, 3 kopecks (11-2 cents) were charged. 58 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION proved a solution. Court plaster is good and has its uses, but it is no remedy for galoping consumption^ The whole substitute theory is a brilliant illus- tration of traveling with the cart before the horse. The Russians have transposed the two successfully. Nor have they abandoned the cart. Committees, Prof. Bechterev tells me, are being formed to pro- vide substitutes for the banished drinkshop in all cities and throughout the country districts. It is not necessary to press these substitutes upon a half-nar- cotized people. They are eagerly demanding them. "The zemsivos of Tambov and Kiev find it impossible to establish all the libraries asked for in the country." "In the Viterbsk government the district semstvos are petitioned by the people for lectures." And gen- erally large sums of money are being already ex- pended by semstvos for such cultural purposes. The Kanov zemstvo (government of Kiev) has appropri- ated 10,000 rubles for instruction on the alcohol ques- tion (that the people may realize the fate they have escaped!) Concerts, theaters and cinematographs are being started in places which never before had them. During the autumn of 1914 there was an increase in attendance of 30 per cent at two of the Moscow Norodny Doms in spite of the war. The saving on vodka enabled laborers to attend these places and to take their families with them. Similar reports come from Moscow theaters and Moscow churches which last are reported as "so full that an apple would have no place to fall." Best of all, the people are in many V We would not minimize what substitute work accomplished. Neither can we minimize what it is unable to accomplish. P r .*- Fortunatov assembled statistics from state records and those of cities and zemstvos, which make clear the steady advance of alcohol 1 ' sm at least up to 1912. (Vestnik Tresvosty, May-June, 1915). In 1903 74.500 in all Russia visited doctors for alcoholism. In 1912 145.000. In 1902 there were 3,548 reported alcohol psychoses; in 1912, 9,173. One can see from such statistics that these recreative provisions were, after all, little more deep-seated or permanent in their effects than water drops falling on a red-hot stove. 59 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION places no longer depending on aristocratic or moneyed patronage, but are initiating their own substitutes. In the Gustovar village of the Bolkhoff district, for example, the peasants, after the Prohibition of vodka, collected money among themselves and purchased a cinematograph with 12 films. With this they not only earned money to cover the original investment but to buy a fire engine for the village. By justifying the claims which Prohibitionists have made for Prohibition Russia has given us a measure by which to mete the profound injury those professors, editors, and politicians have done to our social and public life who, for two generations, have sneered at and blocked this policy. There are some men the American people ought never to forgive. Whether they are now conscious of it or not they have made war on women and children. They have bur- dened tens of thousands of lives with a crushing weight of inherited degeneracy. They have made our municipal public life a public stench. They have done all this by delaying a bitterly needed major operation and they are so far responsible for the so- cial gangrene resulting. Russian Prohibition will give an impetus to Pro- hibition enactment elsewhere. It is already proving an object lesson to other countries. The mutes are coming off the violins. When the wonderful five weeks of national Prohibition during the 1909 Swed- ish general strike first showed the world what na- tional Prohibition would do for a people, not a whis- per of this profoundly interesting demonstration got to the American public. But everybody knows of Russian Prohibition. One reads long and sympathetic accounts of it even in such hitherto reactionary, an- ti-Prohibition papers as the N. Y. Times and N. Y. Outlook. The wider results of the Russian move- 60 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION ment will develop presently. If Russia and the United States become permanently Prohibition na- tions other states will be bound to follow as a re- sult of economic pressure. These two mighty eco- nomic units will be as upper and nether mill-stones to all states retaining their alcohol commerce. APPENDIX Dr. Anton Karlgren on Vodka Prohibition The well known newspaper of Stockholm, Dagens Nyheter, has proved itself in late years, one of the most uncompromising and dangerous enemies of Prohibition in Sweden. When, therefore, we find in its pages (Oct. 7, 1915), a five-column panegyric of Russian Prohibition, we can believe that the facts in regard to that movement are of a truly compelling character. This panegyric is written by Dr. Anton Karlgren, the responsible editor of the paper, a man who possesses a thorough knowledge of both the Rus- sian language and of the general conditions in Russia. He begins by affirming that "the great Russian tem- perance reform has not, in Sweden, been taken with full seriousness. A people with the experience of de- cades of what temperance work implies, finds it un- deniably difficult to believe that the way to popular sobriety is so easy as that which the Russian has taken . . . But one who, as the undersigned, travels to Russia to make some little study of Rus- sian Prohibition and who only expected to get some affecting experience of Russian trick and device for evading Prohibition, finds the scepticism with which he had regarded this Russian Prohibition measure powerfully shaken. At first he is greatly surprised and at the end seriously impressed. ... A wholly superficial examination of the reform's work- ings confirms the fact that the influence of vodka Prohibition to date has been of an almost revolution- ary character." Dr. Karlgren then proceeds to point out that this is not a reform which has been forced on the people 63 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION from above against their will. There have been for a long time back, constant appeals from the communes and city governments for prohibitory measures. In thousands of Russian towns temperance organizations had been established under the leadership of so-called bratsy, "little brothers." Large numbers of drink- shops were closed in reply to the demands of the agi- tation. When the rescript forbidding vodka sale dur- ing the mobilization was published there came a sing- ularly unanimous appeal from zemstvos, co-operative unions ,and societies of the most various kinds, that the Prohibition should endure for the war period and, if possible,, forever. In the beginning of September the ukase appeared which forbade the sale of alcoholic drinks during war time. A month later in return to a congratulatory telegram from the "Union of Chris- tian Abstainers in Russia" the Tsar gave assurances that he had determined to end permanently the sale of vodka in the Russian dominion. After a year of enforced abstinence questions arise as to the present situation. "In those quarters within and outside of Russia where, from the begin- ning, men looked with disfavor on Prohibition it is affirmed that it has already lost all practical signifi- cance. Whisky drinkers in Russia, they assure us, have known how to arrange things. The consump- tion of drink under Prohibition is not much less than under the monopoly. Certain Russian newspapers do all in their power to spread this idea by making a great noise about violations of Prohibition which have been discovered. Their items on the unearthing of il- licit distilleries, the arrest of makers of substitute drinks, etc., are then accepted in foreign lands as a proof that the experiment has already ended in fiasco." Such reports Dr. Karlgren explains are greatly exag- gerated. "It is absolutely impossible to get either 64 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION vodka or beer." In some cases wine and cognac can be purchased illegally, but at absolutely 'hair-raising' prices. Russian restaurant life bears the stamp of complete sobriety.* Otherwise it has not greatly changed. Night life in the restaurants has, indeed, vanished. The great Moscow and Petrograd estab- lishments are entirely empty at n o'clock. But day- times one cannot observe that Prohibition has scared away the guests or lowered perceptibly their good hu- mor. Russians have, even in gloomy days, a good load of high spirits aboard and require even less than other peoples to seek them in the glass." "They have learned in the past year to prepare extraordinarily pleasant varities of Kvass bread kvass, crust kvass and the rest, which outdistance all Swedish tem- perance drinks and might well be introduced in Sweden." "During the first period of the war illegal distilla- tion and sale of vodka flourished . . . but the raids which were made upon this traffic have been, as we have learned from various informants, entirely ef- fective. At present Russian temperance men look on the widespread use of substitutes as the real dan- ger." . . . "But the use of these substitutes con- cerning which the enemies of Prohibition make so much noise should not be over-estimated. Those who have studied th^ question more closely have shown clearly J !,at it is only the worst alcoholists who have resorted to them, in many cases continuing the use to which their corrupted taste had brought them before Prohibition. These are persons who, if they should poison themselves as soon as possible, would but thereby benefit society. The great over- whelming majority of the Russian people, we are as- * Tips, according; to a merchant who travels widely through the country, are described now commonly as nacofe, or coffee money, instead of by the earlier name navodka, vodka money. 65 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION sured, have absolutely nothing to do with the use of these substitutes." "One does not have to turn to statistics to prove that Russian popular sobriety is no bluff! Even the most cursory visit to Russia gives an extremely power- ful impression of this fact. During three weeks' stay in Petrograd and Moscow I saw only a single drunk. It was a laborer out in one of Petrograd's suburbs who, one evening, sailed across the boulevard spread- ing around him an odor of denatured spirit which, for a good hour, stifled all the various other aromas of a Russian street. But in the proletariat quarters where formerly at certain hours of the day one could scarcely find a sober person, everywhere model con- duct as to drink reigned conduct which the Swedish capital might well envy. The so-called Skalm Market Place of Moscow, the most degraded meeting place in Russia, had become as sober as a Swedish Good Templar lodge. "When one talks with Russians about the work- ings of vodka Prohibition one hears almost invariably the same assertion. The temperance reform can be compared in importance only with one other great re- form in Russian previous history the emancipation of the serfs." While calling attention to the danger of prema- ture conclusions in judging from one year's experience only, Dr. Karlgren continues: "On tV other hand one must admit that the results of Prohibition which one can oneself observe and which are reported from reli- able persons are really of an astonishing order." "Never have Petrograd and Moscow offered such pictures of relative prosperity as now, although one would have expected that the war and the high prices would, on the contrary, have intensified the chronic poverty of the large cities. It is actually difficult to 66 RUSSIAN PROHIBITION recognize Russian streets. One of the most charac- teristic types of Russian street life, the repulsive beg- ging proletariat, which before dogged every step with prayers for "bread pennies in Christ's name." (i. e., money for vodka), has disappeared without leaving a trace. The lower population strikes one as better fed and without question better clothed than formerly. Even the Russian isvostjik (cabman), that incorrig- ibly alcoholized bunch of rags, has rigged himself up so that one is almost embarassed to speak familiarly to him. 'In any case, and here Russian opinion is unani- mous, it is in the country districts that the full ex- tent of the blessing of vodka Prohibition clearly ap- pears. One knows no longer the Russian village this is the invariable opinion of all who have studied the thing closely. The hundreds of millions which, before, went into whisky, now remain in the peasants' pockets. Millions of working days, before lost be- cause of drunkenness and its after-effects, now bring their profit to the peasantry. The consequence is that the Russian village is, so to speak, rolling in money. Peasants have begun to eat meat a luxury which formerly they enjoyed but once o