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NO - LICENSE FIGHT

FACTS FROM AMERICA PROFESSOR NICHOLLS'S ADDRESS DETAILS ABOUT MAINE (Extended Report-Published by Arrangement.) Professor John A. Nicholls delivered an address in St. Thomas's Hall, Newtown, last night, under the auspices of the New Zealand Alliance, in connection with the no-license campaign being carried on by that body, along with the National Efficiency League. The hall was crowded.

Mr. C. M. Luke, who presided, introduced the speaker.

Professor Nicholls recapituated . briefly some of the facts he ] had given in his address of the previous night regarding the pro- i gross made in the fight asainst the traffic ] in the United States. The enlightened democracy of the United States .tad at I length adopted .prohibition, because the ] people thought it would make their conn- " try. a better placo to live in. Prohibited Territories. i When the first Government of the ; United States was set un the District of Columbia was established, anil within ' this district tlie National Capital, Washington, was built. This city and this territory were directly under the control of Congress, and some years ago the Congress, of the United States decreed that there" should be no dram shops in the district, of Columbia. So also Congress applied prohibition to Alaska; after giving to the people of the territory a risrht to vote on it the people voted far it by three to one, and the territory went dry.' The same process was adopted with regard to Porto" Pico, where the people also had an onportuuity of voting on the law as passed by Congress. A strange system of voting had to be adopted because many of the people of Spanish extraction were illiterate. The lwllot paper had upon it, instead of questions, signs. The signs were chosen by the two contending interests.- The trade chose a Mack bottle, aivl the prohibition peoplo a coconut, the milk of which was an excellent drink. The people of Porto Tfico voted by a majority o'f 38,00(1 for the milk in the coconut. The result had been that crime had been reduced arid\tV> district was more prosperous since the elr«in,? of the liquor shnns. Everywhere it. had been tried inhibition had Wen a success in spite of what had been said to the contrary. Wot and Dry Cities. He would that evening give some facts about the successful working of prohibition. It'had been said that prohibition increased taxation, increased the deat'h-rate, and so on. lie would controvert this statement by records of his own State, collected by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics. These figures showed that the death-rate averaged H per cent, higher in the license than in the no-licenjo cities. There wore five times as many drunken women in tlio license cities as in the no-license cities; there was 50 per cent, more crime other than drunkenness in license cities; Hired times as many peoplo in the poorhouses in the license cities as in the no-licenso States; 30-por cent, more money spent in maintaining people in '■nourlioiisos in license cities than in no-license cities. Jlost important of all, there was 150 per cent, more child labour in the license cities than in ilie cities where there were open dram shops. What did this mean? It meant, that where dram shops were open the people sant their children out earlier to fight the battle of life, and that whoro tho dram shops were closed the children were sent longer to school before lwing sent out into the world to battle- for existence. (Applause.) Ono peculiar feature about the liquor traffic was tlv.it it was always the enemy of tho child. If for i» other reason he would always hate the liquor traffic because it had written lines of care on the face-.; of many children sent out ill-equipped and poor into a cruel world. A business that could not live without marking lines of care on the face of. the child ought to be blotted cut forever. (Applause.) The Taxes Argument. And he had nevor found in tho whole of the United States a place where prohibition had put up the tax rate. In his own State of Massachusetts, whero Ihere were wet cities and dry cities under local option, it was found that tho tax rate was lower and the value of property higher in tho dry cities than in the viiA I cities, although by going dry a city lost . all ite liquor license revenue. The liquor traffic never lifted the burdens from socioty, but always added to them. There were 30 per cent, fewer children in the high schools in the lioensed cities than in. no-liccnse cities of Mtissaeheusetts. The obvious reason was that in. the dry districts the parents were able to send their children longer to school instead of having to send them prematurely to work. The earninscs of labour were greater in the no-license cities, the reafon lining that in a place whore the dram shoos were closed labour took better care 1 of itself. , And in those days labour needed nil its energies and all its intelligence if it was to set its fair share of ' the prod not" of tho world's industry. ' .Tolin Mitchell, the greatest Labour ' leader America had ever known, had de- ' dared that liquor was the greatest of " all the enemies of labour. Statistics ; showed that the growth of manufactures \vas~7S per cent, slower in license dis--1 tricts, growth of population was 26 per ■ cent, lower, nnd municipal indebtedness I had increased more rapidly in license t districts.

About Drugs. Hβ challenged the statement that prohibition increased tho drug habit. The liquor champion in the newspapers advertising on behalf of the trade had written of the increase of the drug habit in New York. He did not believe that there had been any such increase of the drim habit in New York, but if tho statement were true it was an argument against the drink traffic, and not against prohibition, for New York was a wot State and not a dry one. He insisted, however, that the drink habit was a drug habit, and alcohol in its effects was the worst drug of all. Others might kill a man moro quickly, but death, was not necessarily tho worst thing that could come to a man. There were, in fact, nioTe drug users in the license centres in America than in prohibition areas. Alcohol was a drug which led to the use of other drugs. Every competent authority was prepared !to support this statement. The statement that in no-licenso areas in America there were 350,010 women addicted lo cocaine wjvs, he believed, an absolute falsehood. Another statement made was that Abraham Lincoln had been against prohibition. This was an infamous slander on the reputation of a xreat man. whoso memory was respected in every home in the United States. Abraham Lincoln was all his life a temperance reformer and a prohibitionist. Ho challenged anv man on earth to show where and when Abraham Lincoln had made the statement attributed to him. Lincoln was a lifelonsr total abstainer, and one of tho greatest temperance advocates as well as one of the greatest men America had ever known. Maine. Ho denied also (lie statements about prohibition in the State of Maine, a. State which ho knew from end to end as well as he knew his own oitv. Ho wniild give sonic facts ntoiit tho .Slate of Maim.'. He declare! thai; statistics showed there had been a great increase in the value of land, slock, and farm property of tho people. In this, Maine, the Slate ivhich was nllceed to have boon impoverished by prohibition, stood in the highest position among the Status of Hit Union. (Professor Nicholls gave the figures for all his assertions.) In other departments also tho wealth of Maine had increased more rapidly than that of other States (and ho quoted the figures to show)—in manufactures, a? woll as in farming pursuits, Maine was al-

most in the lead of Ihe Stales in education, had more school teachers in proportion to population than any State Hi the Union. And ho would rather have school teachers than far-tenders. Ihe comparisons between Maine aud a tew Southern States, where the conditions were so different, from those of (he New England States, were all vicious. By comparison with other Now England Mates Maine under prohibition showed to advantage over license States. He quoted other statistics to show that liaino. far from being an impoverished, unhappy Stale was odd of the most successful in the Union, with a happy, thrifty population, having more private savings and less private debt than the people in any other State in the "Onion. Before Maine went dry it had only one savings bank, which had burst a little time bofore, ami the State was almost bankrupt. These facts lie had cited showed what the real effect of prohibition had been in Maine. He read numbers o testimonies from judges, senators, and Siaip governors to show that from every point of view prohibition had been fl. success in the States of Maine and Kansas. The latter State, Kansas, was the only State in the I'nion which had not a dollar of bonded indebtedness. The Last Battle? The trade was putting up a great fight in this campaign in New Zealand. Jiiit ho had faith in the intelligence of the people of this country, and he had faith that on April 10 they would put the liquor traffic under the ban ot the law. (Applause.) The people ol America had tried the 'liquor traffic very thoroughly, had in fact given it special privileges, AVhat had it given them in return? It ha/'l degraded , their homes, corrupted their politics; it had tried to get control of the powers of the Government, not to protect the people, but to protect the breweries and the distilleries and the dram shops. Now the people of America had determined to-treat, the trallic with slern force, and had put laws on the Statute Book to safeguard the lives of the people and drive this liquor traliin out of the country in orner that it might be a better land to live iil from Labour leaders in all the "dry States he read testimonies in favour of prohibition conditions, as against those which had existed in license times. And, ho eaid. testimonies such as these were far better worth notice than tho efforts of some men in a down-town office writing advertisements for the liquor trade, and incidentally 'ranking untrue statements .about Abraham Lincoln Drink was the enemy of the home, the enemy of childhood, tlio enemy of all the agencies going to make the people hotter, and civilised , people ought to set rid of it as soon as possible. Prohibition aimed not to hurt anybody, not oven the men in tho liquor business, they were out for the good of the coming generation. He was glad that the whole North American Continent had declared for the overthrow of the traffic, aui the people there had their faces turned to New Zealand to see whether she would join them in the forward march. Hβ beJteved that the time was coming when tho enlightened conscience of the civniseoV world would shake off this burden of alcoholism, ju.st as. it had now shaken off the burden of militarism, and so make this- world a better place to live in. (Applause.) On the motion of Colonel M'lnnes, Salvation Army, a vote of thanks was accorded to 'Professor Nicholls for his addross.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19190327.2.78

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 156, 27 March 1919, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,923

NO – LICENSE FIGHT Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 156, 27 March 1919, Page 6

NO – LICENSE FIGHT Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 156, 27 March 1919, Page 6

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