Comparative Annual Cost of Liquor and Other Things in the United States
Intoxicating liquor ........................ $1,752,000,000
Tobacco .................................... $1,200,000,000
Iron and steel ............................. $1,035,000,000
Jewelry and plate .......................... $800,000,000
Printing and publishing .................... $750,000,000
Lumber ...................................... $700,000,000
Cotton goods ............................... $675,000,000
Automobiles ................................ $500,000,000
Woolen and worsted goods ................... $475,000,000
Flour ....................................... $455,000,000
Boots and shoes ............................. $450,000,000
Panama Canal ................................ $400,000,000
Public education ............................ $371,000,000
Sugar and molasses .......................... $310,000,000
Furniture ................................... $245,000,000
Silk goods ................................... $240,000,000
Potatoes ..................................... $210,000,000
Confectionery ................................ $200,000,000
Church and home work ........................ $175,000,000
Soft drinks .................................. $120,000,000
Tea and coffee .............................. $100,000,000
Brick ........................................ $100,000,000
Millinery .................................... $90,000,000
Patent medicine .............................. $80,000,000
Chewing gum .................................. $13,000,000
Foreign missions ............................. $12,000,000 The total consumption of alcoholic liquors in the United States for forty-two years (1870-1911) was 43,611,000,554 gallons. The drink bill of the United States for 1911 was estimated at $1,833,653,425, or nearly twice the national debt. The number of liquor dealers in the United States in 1910 was 255,765, or over a quarter of a million. The capital invested in the manufacture of liquor in the United States in 1850 was less than $10,000,000. In 1910, sixty years later, it had increased to over $770,000,000, or more than 7,700 per cent. The total internal revenue received by the United States for liquor for forty-nine years, or from 1855 to 1911, was $5,245,916,047.01. The use of whisky, beer, cigars, and cigarettes in the United States increased enormously in 1912. During the three months of July, August, and September of this year alone, 33,150,000 gallons of whisky were used, an increase of 450,000 gallons over the corresponding period of the previous year; 18,800,000 barrels of beer were drunk, an increase of 320,000 barrels over the same month of 1911; 1,950,000,000 cigars were smoked, a record consumption; and more than 3,800,000,000 cigarettes were consumed, an increase of 1,000,000,000 over the same period of the previous year.