And they did it. I ask the reformers to deny this if they can. There has been no menace from drink in this country for many and many a year. We never drank as the English laboring man drinks--or even as the Germans consume beer. We were, as the whole world is aware, a race of moderate drinkers--omitting always those few and necessary exceptions which only serve to prove the rule. Yet, as a nation, we were indicted, held up to ridicule and scorn. We were told that we could not control our appetites, and so our benevolent Government would control them for us. And this in the face of the fact that we _had_ learned to control them. I can likewise recall the time, not so long ago, when crowds of children would follow some forlorn drunkard being hauled to the station-house. Even though the corner-saloon continued to flourish long after you and I grew up, how many years is it, I ask anyone, since we have seen this sorry spectacle? And as for seeing a man lying prone in the gutter--that seems a prehistoric incident to me. Yet such incidents ceased long before national Prohibition became an outrageous fact. Taking care of ourselves, still we had to be taken care of! Ah! in our frenzy to become too pure, let us remember the dangers of benevolent autocracies. The State has one definite function, the Church another. The mingling of Church and State--is not that one of the pitfalls we have long sought to avoid? If the former looks after our souls, the latter should be satisfied to see to our bodies--and that would be duty enough. Let us do a little figuring. There are, approximately, 110,000,000 people in the United States of America. Of these, let us say that 40,000,000 are men and 40,000,000 women. Of minors there are perhaps 30,000,000 more. Among the last named there would be very little drinking. I imagine that of the male population, a considerable number do not imbibe at all. I would rather err, giving the opposition the benefit of the doubt; and so I will say that 20,000,000 males drink in moderation, and that 10,000,000 females do the same. This gives us, out of a total population of 110,000,000, only 30,000,000 people who care anything at all about liquor. Of that number, how many, do you think, are what might be called immoderate drinkers? Five million? That, it seems to me, would be a fair estimate--more than fair. But let us be generous to a fault. Of that five million, how many are congenital drunkards? A million? Perhaps; though I doubt that even that number have sunk so low. But let us say that two million have done so. Then it has become necessary to deprive 30,000,000 people of a simple form of pleasure because 2,000,000 do not know how to manage their souls and bodies. It would be equally ridiculous to put an end to connubial bliss because there are a few libertines in the world.