Docs Prohibition Prohibit ?

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1921, Page 3

Docs Prohibition Prohibit ?

OPINIONS FROM AMERICA. SAN FRANCISCO, May 23. Rev. I. Goshen, of Salt Lake City, j has been attracting wide-spread notice j of his statements on the subject oi i American prohibition, by declaring: i “Prohibition has failed to prohibit, has ! filled tho gaols with a worse type than I could be found in the “wet” days, has . inspired a wholesale contempt for tho « law, and has increased the drug addicts | by 360 per cent. -The only good thing ] prohibition has done is to abolish the I saloon, but it has brought evils that j are costlier; evils that may undermine j the very foundations of our govern- | ment ” j Ex-President William Taft predict- j ed that prohibition would make Amen j ea a nation of lawbreakers, and Rev j Mr Goshen declares that it lias done j so. Federal .Prohibition ♦Commissioner j Kramer, in an explanation ns to why j prohibition does not prohibit, says tfe I state of the public mind is the chief -difficulty. He admits that the measure i as “forced upon whole States, and es- ; pecially upon large cities in which the : peoplo had no sympathy whatever with the idea,” is going to have a hard 5 time even with a yearly appropriation j of 7,500,000d015. He regards the fin- | ancial problem as less important than j that of educating the people up to obeying the law. Speaking of the home-brew habit, he believes it will die out, and perhaps the quicker if the law is not too active against it. Commissioner Kramer says:- “There is no question in my mind that quite a good many families have been manufacturing “home-brew.” This, to my mind, is a fad, an adventure. Many also engaged in it have already censed, and it will, as I view it, die: out from it's own results. We haven’t devoted much attention to this question. In fact, we are somewhat afraid to do so, lest we might thereby create a reactioh against the law. To invade a man’s home is a serious matter, especially in those communities in which the sentiment for prohibition is not nt this time strong.” The attitude of public opinion is also a matter of opinion, but Commissioner

Kramer shows better judgment than som e of his subordinates in recognising it as a factor in the successful ndmirp istrntion of tho law.