Government by the Brewers?

PREFACE.
When it was found impossible to suppress my writings by attempts to bribe me, men were hired to poison me. After the failure of this plot to dispose of me, I was subjected to almost unbelievable insults, persecution, humiliation and injustice in the courts.
A friendly federal judge was besought to stop me by an injunction. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals set it aside.
Four futile attempts were made to influence the Post Office authorities to deny me the use of the mails.
I was twice presented with the alternative of either agreeing to stop the publication of the truth or being thrown into jail on framed libel charges. I chose the jail rather than renounce the right of the freedom of the press guaranteed me by the constitution of my country.
When even the jail could not silence me, a diabolical attempt was made to bury me alive in an institution for the insane, but when it was found impossible to discover the slightest trace of insanity, or drive me insane during a sojourn of a month among maniacs, I was released.
I verily believe that the honesty of the alienists in charge of the institution alone saved me from a living death. THE AUTHOR
The very nature of the business of the brewer makes it imperative that they retain a strong hold on the ballot box. By those methods alone have they been able to exist in the past. By those methods alone, can they hope to save themselves
For about thirty years I have been closely allied with the brewing industry and was daily brought in contact with the brewers.
I have been interested in a number of breweries as a stockholder. I have been intimately associated with many brewers throughout the country. I am therefore thoroughly familiar with the inner history of the beer business and the political corruption, crime, vice and degeneracy closely interwoven therewith.
Naturally, I am not a prohibitionist. Nevertheless, I dispute the contention of the brewers that they did not oppose but, instead, actually approved the enactment of the recent bone-dry prohibition legislation forbidding transportation of alcoholic beverages into states which prohibit the sale and manufacture of intoxicants, on the ground that its drastic measure would have a reactionary effect and thus result in the return of a number of the present dry states into the wet column. Vaporings of this sort sound very much like the old sour grape story and have their origin in the fertile brain of the publicity manager of the beer trust.