Poison

A coincidence created a controversy. As everyone knows, a certain amount of spirited celebration goes on between Christmas and New Year's Day. In New York City alone, 46 deaths due to alcoholism were reported during the holidays this year; a proportionate number of deaths occurred throughout the land; the alcoholic wards of hospitals were full. Then on Jan. 1, the new Government formula for denaturing industrial ethyl alcohol went into effect. It doubles the amount of poison which manufacturers are required to use.* The old argument of whether or not the Government has the right to use poison to enforce the Prohibition law raged.

Wayne B. Wheeler, paid advocate of the Anti-Saloon League, at once found himself the villain of the story. His statements through the week fluctuated between the rabid and the sensible arguments of the Drys. Said he:

"The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it. The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide. . . . To root out a bad habit costs many lives and long years of effort. . . .

"Some of the bootleg liquor is just as deadly as denatured alcohol. It is strange logic to insist that if a person buys bootleg poisoned alcohol and is killed by using it he is a martyr. But if he buys carbolic acid and drinks it he is merely a suicide. . . .

"In fact, it [the new formula] is less dangerous. The other ingredients in it, alcohol or pyridine, make it less drinkable and neutralize in part the poison effect. It tastes like the seepage of a garbage can flavored with overheated oil. One drink will turn a normal stomach inside out. . . ./-

"All denatured alcohol containing poison is labeled poison. The bootlegger who takes that label off and substitutes his fake label is as guilty of murder as the man who would sell arsenic as sugar. . . .

"Prohibition has saved more lives than any other single policy of government. The drop in the death rate in the first seven years of prohibition has been equivalent to the saving of more than a million lives. Bootleg liquor has killed its hundreds, but licensed liquor killed its thousands yearly."

Wet Congressmen, not the least of whom is Senator Edwards of New Jersey, demanded that "legalized murder" by the Government be stopped. Secretary of the Treasury Mellon announced last week that he was opposed to the use of poison to enforce the law, but that formula "No. 5" would have to stay until a nonremovable, nonpoisonous denaturant* could be found by Government chemists.

The only other course for the Government would be to announce that it can enforce the Prohibition law so well that it does not need to put any denaturant in industrial alcohol.

*The formula "No.5" adds 4 parts methanol (wood alcohol), 2.25 parts pyridine bases, 0.5 parts benzene to 100 parts ethyl alcohol. Three ordinary drinks of this may cause blindness.

/-Mr. Wheeler did not present evidenced of this fact.

*It has been suggested in Washington that Congress appropriate $100,000 to be awarded to the first person who can produce such a denaturant.