I have never drunk a cup of coffee, so I do not know what its effect on me would be. But some fifteen years ago I drank a glass of very weak iced tea at eight o'clock in the evening, and did not get to sleep until four or five the next morning. So I know that there is really a drug in tea. I know also that I might accustom my system to it, just as I might learn to poison my lungs with nicotine without being made immediately and suddenly ill; but why should I wish to do this? Life is so interesting to me that I do not need to stimulate my brain centers in order to appreciate the thrill of it. And when I am tired, I can rest myself by listening to music, or by reading a worth-while novel--things which I have found do not leave the after effects of nicotine. I remember the first time I met Jack London. Our meeting consisted in good part of his "kidding" me, because I was lacking in the congenial vices of the cafe. He told me how much I had missed, because I had never been drunk; One ought to try the great adventure, at least once! Poor Jack is gone, because his kidneys gave out at forty; and nothing could seem more ungracious than to point out that I am still alive, and finding life enjoyable. Yet, in this book we are trying to find out how to live, and if there are habits which wreck and destroy a magnificent physique, and bring a great genius to death at the age of forty--surely the rest of us want to know about it, and to be warned in time. I mention Jack London in this connection, because he has said the last word on the subject of alcohol. Read "John Barleycorn," and especially read between the lines of it, and you will not need my argument to persuade you to be glad that the Eighteenth Amendment has been written into the Constitution, and that it is your duty as a Socialist, not merely to obey it, but to vote for its enforcement. I am proceeding on the assumption that your life is of importance to you; that you have a job to do which you know to be worth while, and to which you desire to apply your powers. You agree with me that the workers of the world are suffering, and that it is necessary for them to find their freedom, and that this takes hard work and hard thinking. You may say that I exaggerate the amount of harm that is done to the system by tea and coffee, alcohol and tobacco. Well, let us assume that in moderate quantities they do no harm at all: even so, I have the right to ask you to show that they do some good; otherwise, surely, it is a mistake for the workers to spend their savings upon them.