PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 16

PROHIBITION COLUMN

[Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance Reform Council.] The man who votes for license ought to be willing that his son should die a drunkard. The open liquor shop, which his vote helps to establish, he knows will ensnare the feet of somebody’s boy; why should it not be, in the eternal law of fitness, bis own child? —Louisa S. Rounds. THE NEGRO AND PROHIBITION. [By Wilbur P. Tuirkiixd, of Chattanooga, Tenn., in. tho ‘ Christian Advocate.’] Identified as I have been with tho educational and religious life of the negro for over forty years, I am confident that the greatest help and blessing that has come to this race in the United States since emancipation has been tho closing of the open saloon and the prohibition of traffic in intoxicating liquors. Economically it has set the race forward in tho ownership of farms, homes, bank accounts, and in tho accumulation of all kinds of property, surpassing the record made by any backward peoples. Strong drink wastes the substance, corrupts the morals, and impedes the progress of any people. But especially is this true of any race with undisciplined powers struggling up from weakness and poverty. FORD AND LEYLAND TESTIMONIES. Mr Ford, in the New York ‘Sun,’ says; “There is_ one thing certain, however, Prohibition is a great benefit. It is here to stay, and it will stay. Alcohol is not good for any A survey of the workers in tho Ford plants was made at my instance. It developed that the force was better off in every way a$ a result of Prohibition. It is perfectly plain to me that they are better off, and that Prohibition is the best thing the country could have.” lu the same paper Henry Ley land, of truck fame, testimony is: “My very decided views on the dry law are based on my experience in operating large plants, employing from 1,000 to 0,000 men. I am convinced that the open saloon, tho brewery, and the distillery are far and away the most wasteful, tho most destructive forces in our country. “ I am convinced also that the Eighteenth Amendment has already been a great blessing to the United States, that it is largely responsible for, and should he credited with, many of the elements of present prosperity. . . . Surveys made in my own plant show this. The conditions among working men now compared with the period before Prohibition aro as different as is day from night. “The country is better off with Prohibition. Alcohol is no good for anyone.” VISITS DRY OFFICE TO QUENCH THIRST. Tho success attending General Andrews’s efforts to prevent the importation of alcoholic liquors, as well as the sorry straits in which the wets find themselves, is illustrated by the following;— NEW YORK CITY.—An exclusive Fifth Avenue club, disheartened by the admission of its bootlegger that no more good whisky was availaolo in the city, recently appointed a committee of one to search ciio entire municipality for somo “ really good liquor.” This committee, selected for his knowledge of just such matters, has so far searched in vain, it was learned when, in desperation, no walked fco'dly into prohibition headquarters, at 1 Park avenue, and told his troubles to Captain John W. Inglesby, of Administrator Mills’s staff. Captain Inglcsby was non-communicativo except as to what constituted a violation of the Volstead Act. The committee left tho office sadder, but perhaps a bit wiser as to the effectiveness of Prohibition enforcement even in New York. CANADIAN EXPORTERS FORGERS. BRITISH COLUMBIA EXPORTING INTERESTS HAVE BEEN FORGING UNITED STATES REVENUE STAMPS. Government control of the liquor traffic has failed to convert the liquor dealers of British Columbia into model law-abiding citizens. Sponsors for iiie system urge its adoption in this country on the ground that it will do away with the criminal element now dealing in Contraband liquor. According to a Vancouver, 8.C., Associated Press dispatch of January 14, British Columbia exporting interests have been forging revenue stamps and using them on Canadian bottled liquor. They have made payments of money to provincial officials, and have contributed to the campaign funds of the Canadian political parties. These facts were produced at a hearing before the Royal Commission investigating rum smuggling conditions. It sounds like the stories of corruption and law violation by the liquor dealers in license days in the United States, doesn’t it? PROHIBITION. Germany is becoming deeply interested in Prohibition. As a nation it is determined to “come back.” Many industrial leaders feel that the nation under Prohibition would become 100 per cent, efficient. Has anybody in the United States a better chance to study tho Prohibition law than Evangeline Booth? Well, hero is what she says about it: “ Why try to tell the Salvation Army that the park benches are crowded with drunken men, as they were before Prohibition, when we used to gather them in on Thanksgiving Day for example, and fight to salvage them? They are gone. Then benches still remain, but the occupants are not drunk any more, and are climbing upward to better things while the public rushes by all unheeding. Why try to tell us that working men spend their vages before their families can get the money for food, and that men beat their wives and children as in the old days. It simply is not the case.” Ought this not to still at once many voices that have discussed, in a wiseacre way, the question?—‘WatchmanExaminer.’ FEWER DRUNKS IN BOSTON. —Police Records Show Big Decline in Drunkenness Since Dry Policy Went Into Effect.— Li wet 1017 the population of the city of Boston was 732,103. That year arrests for intoxication numbered 73,393; for assault 58; for juvenile delinquence 3,121; for vagrancy 227. Arrests for all causes that year numbered 108,556. lu dry 1926 the population of Boston was 787,000. Arrests for intoxication numbered 38,882, or leas than half the 1 number in wet 1917, although the population of the city was increased by 55,000. Tho number of assaults dropped from 58 in wet 1917 to seven in dry 1936. Arrests for juvenile delinquency slumped to 2,015, and for vagrancy to 129. *