When we find ourselves wondering at the German people for having tolerated the military system for so long, paying taxes for its maintenance and giving their sons to it, we suddenly remember that we have paid taxes and given our children, too, to keep up the liquor traffic, which has less reasons for its existence than the military system of Germany. Any nation which sets out to give a fair deal to everyone must divorce itself from the liquor traffic, which deals its hardest blows on the non-combatants. Right here let us again thank the Germans for bringing this so clearly to our notice. We despise the army of the Kaiser for dropping bombs on defenseless people, and shooting down women and children--we say it violates all laws of civilized warfare. The liquor traffic has waged war on women and children all down the centuries. Three thousand women were killed in the United States in one year by their own husbands who were under the influence of liquor. Non-combatants! Its attacks on the non-combatants are not so spectacular in their methods as the tactics pursued by the Kaiser's men, who line up the defenseless ones in the public square and turn machine-guns on them. The methods of the liquor traffic are not so direct or merciful. We shudder with horror as we read of the terrible outrages committed by the brutal German soldiers. We rage in our helpless fury that such things should be--and yet we have known and read of just such happenings in our own country. The newspapers, in telling of such happenings, usually have one short illuminative sentence which explains all: "The man had been drinking." The liquor traffic has outraged and insulted womanhood right here in our own country in much the same manner as is alleged of the German soldiers in France and Belgium! Another thing we have to thank the Kaiser for is that we have something now whereby we can express what women owe to the liquor traffic. We know now that women owe to the liquor traffic the same sort of a debt that Belgium owes to Germany. Women have never chosen the liquor business, have never been consulted about it in any way, any more than Belgium was consulted. It has been wished on them. They have had nothing to do with it, but to put up with it, endure it, suffer its degradation, bear its losses, pay its abominable price in tears and heartbreak. Apart from that they have had nothing to do with it. If there is any pleasure in it--that has belonged to men; if there has been any gain in it, men have had that, too. And yet there are people who tell us women must not invade the realm of politics, where matters relating to the liquor traffic are dealt with. Women have not been the invaders. The liquor traffic has invaded woman's place in life. The shells have been dropped on unfortified homes. There is no fair dealing in that.