One day I chanced upon a book in the hands of a moujik, which
treated of the harmfulness of alcohol. It stated among other things that
vodka was a poison.
"I was so impressed with this, knowing that everybody drank vodka, that
I asked the first physician I met if the statement were true. He said
yes. Men drank it, he explained, because momentarily it gave them a
sensation of pleasant dizziness. From that time I decided to take every
opportunity to discover more about the use of vodka.
"At the end of the eighties there came famine in Russia, followed by
agrarian troubles. I saw a crowd of peasants demand from a local
landlord all the grain and foodstuffs in his granary. This puzzled me; I
could not understand how honest men were indulging in what seemed to be
highway robbery. But I noted at the time that every man who was taking
part in this incident was a drinking man, while their fellow villagers,
who were abstemious, had sufficient provisions in their own homes. Thus
it was that I observed the industrial effects of vodka drinking.
"At Samara I decided to do more than passively disapprove of vodka. At
this time I was an Alderman, and many of the tenants living in my houses
were workingmen. One night a drunken father in one of my houses killed
his wife. This incident made such a terrible impression on me that I
decided to fight vodka with all my strength.
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