Read "In the American Jungle" by Waldo David Frank online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is prevalent and poisonous. And the land is proud of it. Its manufacture is a huge industry; its sale is a popular art. Billions of dollars are spent in making it: millions more go to the appurtenances of its use: and billions are paid in wages to men and women who devote their lives, openly, to its production, distribution, upkeep. The states all license it, turning a tithe of the wealth spent for it by our people to their own coffers. Great magazines and newspapers grow fatter with its advertisements. Some papers, indeed, are entirely given to its commercial and esthetic aspects. And no publication, however ethical in editing its columns, however adverse to such drugs as coffee or tobacco, refuses to display its blandishments for money.
All America lives under its influence, and does not suspect that it is enslaved by a drug. "Shows" are planned yearly in great towns to propagate its sales and sing its praises. Special sections of the dailies detail its progress. Schools teach the beginner how to enjoy it. And everywhere ordinances and officials tune the whole life of the land to the needs and habits of those who use it.