The capitalizing of a war to the advantage of a trade depending for its profits on human weakness had an outstanding instance at the time of the Civil War. However wise a provision for the Federal finances the leaders of that day may have thought they were making, the fact is that the internal revenue on intoxicating liquors fastened the business on the country for many years. It so got its fingers upon our throat that we have not yet wholly shaken them loose. It has robbed us of far more money than it ever gave us. It has at the same time ruined what was worth much more to us than all our gold—the life and happiness of our people. There are those among us who suspect that much of the late demand for tobacco did not come from the army at all but that it was conceived in the minds and fostered under the guiding care of representatives of the tobacco trade. So successful was this effort and so meekly did the country as a whole fall into line with the program that it now looks as if another taint is fastened upon us for at least the lifetime of the present generation. Though it may be admitted that the evil is less serious than that of Civil War days, it is by no means to be considered negligible. The facts disclosed by the physical examination of millions of our men should have made us more careful instead of less so. The physical unfitness of much of our male population for service overseas had a number of reasons behind it. There is no doubt in many thoughtful minds, however, that among these reasons were the consumption of adulterated soft drinks and the widespread use of tobacco. Instead of discouraging these things in a time of national crisis, we encouraged them more than we ever did before. No reasonable person is contending that the use of tobacco is a mortal sin. If no worse sins were committed, ours would indeed be a wonderful Nation. This, however, is no excuse for that which is a physical evil and, to some extent at least, a moral and religious evil. The real question is as to why we should encourage it at all. We do not get at the danger of any evil by comparing one evil with another. The question for a vigorous Nation in a trying time is not as to what is the harm in a thing but as to what is the good. At least three undisputed facts must be recorded about the tobacco habit. We have allowed the war to make each of the three more outstanding than before. The first is that it is unclean. If it were true that neither physical nor moral questions were involved, some very important sanitary ones would still remain to be considered. It is not easy to see why anyone should insist upon making more stained teeth, repulsive breaths, malodorous bodies, and unclean mouths.