The war has brought to Russia one change so beneficent, so extraordinary in effect, from which the results in a short space of time have been so marked and so cumulative, that not to observe and mention it apart would be to give it less emphasis than it deserves.

Russia has tried an experiment in nationwide prohibition; the impression it has made upon her social and economic structure is deep and permanent enough to make it impossible to say that of all the lessons of the war, from whatever corner of the conflict, any has a greater significance to the future of civilization.

Upon the theory that the function of government is only to adjust the rights and obligations between man and man, and not to adjust the obligations of an individual to himself, and upon the theory that no restrictive measure is wise until a people are not only willing to legislate it but also substantially to live it, I went to Russia an opponent of any national prohibition. I promised myself to be an impartial observer, but I was filled with the expectation and perhaps the hope that I might take away support for my beliefs.

I was routed.

The facts overwhelmed me; I cannot see how a national liquor dealers’ and manufacturers’ league could go to Russia and bring back an adverse report on national prohibition. Russia has been an example of what alcohol can do to gag the voice of progress and make the colors run in the fabric of social organism - her national prohibition is an example of how the abolition of alcohol will set the tide of life running toward regeneration - over night!

In America on my return I found even sincere seekers of the truth who had succeeded in obtaining from Russia bits of evidence that the prohibition was being avoided, that the most significant effect was evasion of the law, that the law had made it impossible for those who had learned to depend upon alcohol to obtain it and hence many had died from deprivation or had tossed off cans of varnish or other stimulating poison in agony, and that the government itself was slyly breaking its own ukase.