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Show o WILL COCA COLA FOLLOW KING ALCOHOL? The above question is one that can be asked with some assurance of being answered in the affirmative. It may be some time, and it may not be so long either. During the recent debate on prohibition in the U. S. senate it developed that no less a personage than Dr. Wiley says Coca Cola is a drug as dangerous as Peruna, and "one that should be barred from the drug shops as a beverage." During the fight in the U. S. senate there was a powerful power-ful lobby present favoring the prohibition bill, and Senator Sen-ator Martine is authority for the statement that the lobby represented the Peruna and Coca Cola interests, "in order to shut people off from other beverages and hence make them resort to their drinks." In speaking of Coca Cola Senator Martine said: I have here, from Georgia, the Macon Telegraph. Tele-graph. Most of you do not know that splendid wealth has been acquired through the manufacture manufac-ture of the decoction known as Coca Cola, and the owner lives in a princely home in Atlanta. This article says that there is a lobby there, and that 50,000 has been put up for the purpose of maintaining the Coca Cola interests. No less a gentleman than Judge Stark is quoted here. I inquired in-quired from some of my Georgia friends as to the standing of Judge Stark, and I am told that he is a man of great respectability and judgment and honesty. He says: A half dozen roputahlo physicians have stated that there are over 300 girls In Atlanta that aro Coca Cola fiends and nervous wrecks. Yet thoso fnnntlcal hypocrites, llko tho editor of the Commonwealth, could have this number Increased In Georgia and that among our women and children. . Coca Cola and such drinks not only mako physical wrecks out of our men, but destroy tho physical wolfare of our womon and children nnd mako nervous wrecks of them. Thcro nro over 2700 known Coca Cola and "dopo" fiends in this state, and If all could bo numbered It would amount to over C000. Mark you, this is in Georgia, the model of prohibition: , Judge Stark declared that when a similar bill to tax soft drinks was before tho legislature In 1913 ho had taken the ground tho Coca Cola, Chcro-Colo, niudwlno, and similar drinks wero doing tho womon nnd children of Ooorgla moro harm than heavy drinks woro doing tho men. "That proposition proposi-tion was truo then as It Is now. nut on nccount of a tremendous tremend-ous lobby backing of tho Coca Cola and similar drink influences that bill received tho, samo treatment that tho rocent prohibition prohibi-tion bills hod accorded them by tho rules commltteo an eternal cold-storago Bleep In tho arms of tho commltteo." The Utah legislature has a few days left. It has passed a prohibition bill. It is considering an anti-cigarette bill. I Why not take a step towards doing away with Coca Cola, and if it cannot be accomplished this time, the warning I will have been given so thatit can be done two years hence. |
