Soft Drinks

It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The enactment of prohibition ruined many breweries and distilleries, and even some short-haul railroads which almost exclusively carried their products. On the other hand, it greatly stimulated some new enterprises--particularly those relating to human thirst and its legal gratification.

In the last few years there has been almost an epidemic of temperance-drink companies, following in the highly successful wake of Coco Cola of Atlanta. Once considered local and insignificant concerns, they have sought capital in the Wall Street financial markets. Speculators are now accustomed to buy White Rock on margin or--if they dare--sell Canada Dry Ginger Ale short. Some of those temperance-drink shares have done very well by their holders in this year's stock market. Recently the Welch Grape Juice Co. for the first time since February, 1921, resumed common stock dividends by a payment of 25-c- a share.

Some of the "prohibition beverage" securities, however, are not so much, competitors of alcoholic drinks or supplanters as accessories thereto. If bootlegging were suddenly abolished, many temperance-drink companies would be hurt rather than helped, since much of the present demand for their products arises from the desire of consumers of green Scotch whisky to mitigate its "iodine" and "nicotine" taste.