But is this undeniable fact really a proof of the wisdom of prohibition? The railroads of the United States injured last year more than one hundred thousand persons and put out seven thousand hopeful lives; does any sane man argue that we ought to abolish railroads? The stock exchange has brought in the last year economic misery to uncounted homes, but even at the height of the panic no one wanted to destroy the market for industrial stocks. How much crime and disaster and disease and ruin have come into the lives of American youth through women, and yet who doubts that women are the blessing of the whole national life? To say that certain evils come from a certain source suggests only to fools the hasty annihilation of the source before studying whether greater evils might not result from its destruction, and without asking whether the evils might not be reduced, and the good from the same source remain untouched and untampered with. Even if a hollow tooth aches, the modern dentist does not think of pulling it; that would be the remedy of the clumsy village barber. The evils of drink exist, and to neglect their cure would be criminal, but to rush on to the conclusion that every vineyard ought therefore to be devastated is unworthy of the logic of a self-governing nation. The other side has first to show its case. "_Better England Free Than England Sober?_" This does not mean that every argument of the other side is valid. In most of the public protestations, especially from the Middle West, far too much is made of the claim that all the Puritanic laws and the whole prohibitionist movement are an interference with personal liberty. It is an old argument, indeed, "Better England free than England sober." For public meetings it is just the kind of protest which resounds well and rolls on nobly. We are at once in the midst of the "most sacred" rights. Who desires that America, the idol of those who seek freedom from the tyranny of the Old World, shall trample on the right of personal liberty? And yet those hundreds of singing-societies which have joined in this outburst of moral indignation have forgotten that every law is a limitation of personal liberty. The demand of the nation must limit the demands of the individual, even if it is not the neighbor, but the actor himself who is directly hurt. No one wants to see the lottery or gambling-houses or the free sale of morphine and cocaine permitted, or slavery, even though a man were to offer himself for sale, or polygamy, even though all wives should consent. To prevent temptation toward ruinous activities is truly the State's best right, and no injury to personal liberty. The German reflects gladly how much more the German State apparently intrudes upon personal freedom: for instance, in its splendid State insurance for old age and accidents.