Such, I am bound to believe, is the probable cost of your "moderate" indulgence in alcoholic beverages. Part of that cost you must pay in person; the balance will be the heritage of future generations. As a mere business proposition: Is your glass of beer, your bottle of wine, your high-ball, or your cocktail worth such a price? [Illustration] EDITORIALS THE PEASANT SALOON-KEEPER--RULER OF AMERICAN CITIES [Illustration] The great wave of temperance which is now sweeping Europe and America has its chief impulse, no doubt, in ethical and religious sentiment. But a new force is operative--the force of an exact knowledge of the evil physical effects of alcohol. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of this new element in temperance reform. The story of the modern series of scientific experiments with alcohol, begun about twenty-five years ago and still in progress, is given by Dr. Henry Smith Williams in this number of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. These investigations, largely conducted in Continental Europe, include experiments on the senses, upon the muscles, and upon the different human intellectual activities, from the simplest to the most complex. Without exception they show that every function of the normal human body is injured by the use of alcohol--even the moderate use; and that the injury is both serious and permanent. This knowledge is of concern to all the world. But there is in America a particular and special concern over a condition which may be believed to be unparalleled in human history--certainly in modern civilization: the power of the saloon in American government, especially the government of cities. The fact is notorious; yet the condition is not clearly understood. Sixty years ago, with the first flood of European immigration, the character of American city governments changed suddenly and entirely. A great proportion of the peasantry who arrived here from the farms of Europe stopped in our cities. They were isolated from the rest of the population; their one great social center was the saloon. And out of this social center came their political leaders and the manipulators of their votes. The European peasant saloon-keeper, for more than half a century, has been the ruler of a great proportion of American cities. The case of Tammany Hall, for so many years the real governing body of New York, is most familiar. Its politicians for half a century have graduated into public affairs through the common school of the saloon. Its leaders at the present time are perfect examples of the European peasant saloon-keeper type, which has come to govern us. The same condition exists to a large extent in nearly every one of the larger cities in the country. An analysis of the member-ship of the boards of aldermen in these cities for the past few decades shows a percentage of saloon-keepers with foreign names which is astonishing.