OPPOSING U.S. PROHIBITION.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17470, 2 June 1922, Page 13

OPPOSING U.S. PROHIBITION.

UNIQUE NEW YORK DEMONSTRATION. (rUOM OT7B OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 5. A late telegram received from New York just prior to the sailing of the mail steamer from San Francisco for New Zealand affords a striking illustration of the temper of the American publio anent the present prohibition Jaws of the United states. This particular gathering was held tinder tne auspices of the New York branch of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, and Samuel Gompers, the veteran president of the American Federation of Labour, wflo addressed the crowd which jammed the spacious Madison Square Gardens, asserted that "labour must make the fight now and we will never stop fighting until the rights of the people have been restored to them." Mr Gompers, who is English by birth, was cheered by immense crowds both inside and outside the big paivilion, for those who could not get into the hau heard the various speakers througn i voice amplifiers. The meeting was largely attended by members of union labour, representatives of more than thirty labour organisations being present. There also were many men prominent in the city's business and financial circles, who occupied places on the stage. A large part of the audience was composed of women. "I and the Federation I represent, Mr Gompers said, "are in favour of beer and light wines, and against any attempt to enforce sumptuary laws aimed at the personal liberties of our people. "Temperance was the rule of the great mass of organised labour, but the prohibitionists and <±he so-called AntiSaloon Leaguers have done more to undermine the morality and temperance of the workingman than any other agency I know. "I have travelled all over the United States, before prohibition, including its so-called dry territories, and to-day as I pass through these sections I have found more drunkenness than ever before. • There are no stronger or more powerful supporters of the Volstead Act than the distillers and bootleggers," Mr Gompers added to the accompaniment of ivdciterous applause. "With the Volstead Act and prohibition replaced by a little light wine and beer bill, the bootleggers would go out of business." Mr Gompers declared further that there are "no greater violators of the Volstead Act end the prohibition amendment than those who voted for the enactment." James Speyer, the well-known international banker of New York, who opened the meeting, said what he personally disliked more than anything else about the Volstead Act was that "it is fast degenerating into class legislation, favouring the well-to-do as against the less fortunate of our citizens." Hudson Mnxim, the famous inventor, another speaker, said that "the Blue Law fanatics of prohibition are a new priesthood, as intolerant and merciless as those responsible during the Spanish inquisition."