“TRAGIC JOKE.”

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1929, Page 6

“TRAGIC JOKE.”

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA. SYNTHETIC GIN MADNESS. 'FRISCO, Doc. 20. Americans have been oargerly awaiting the verdict of the party of British editors who recently made translontinential pilgrimage through the United States under the auspices of the Carnegie Eoundation for .International Peace, eagerly awaiting an expression of opinion of the Britishers on several subjects, hut, more especially on the latest phases of Prohibition as they found that “noble experiment” as designated by Herbert Hoover in his acceptance speech at Palo Alto, California. The British editors made a two months’ tour of the United States* and were headed by Ralph D. Blumenfeld, editor of the London “Daily Express,” the present chief of the British Institute of Journalists. Mr Blumenfeld is out-and-out Britisher despite his American birth in Wisconsin many years ago. In the course of a carefully prepared statement on his return to London he described American Prohibition as a “most tragic joke.” “I have observed the working of the Volstead Prohibition Act in the United States during the two months’ tour across the continent and back; and I regret sinceroly to have to say that it is perhaps the most tragic joke that any nation ever played upon itself in the history of civilisation,” wrote Mr Blumenifeld. “I went to many private dinners in all parts of the country,” he added, “and with one exception—in Chicago— I nevei* saw a Prohibition table. “I went to cocktail parties attended by State officials, United States Legislators, Judges, and College Presidents, and with the fewest possible exceptions they all drank as much or more than they did before Prohibition. DEGRADING FARCE. ‘ All of them said that Prohibition is a sad and degrading farce. Many said that before the law was passed they never touched liquor. “ In one town we visited there was a great football match. We never expected to see what we did, nor do I ever wish to experience it again. In the evening, at a dance at the hotel whore we stayed, the place was crowded by 11 o’clock with young couples in evening dress, shouting, roaring, riotous. By midnight the place was a bedlam. From every window, shouting across the hotel wings, leaned young men and women, singing, hooting, catcalling, and worse.

“ 'I lien they began throwing things—bedroom furniture,- bottles, glasses, trays, pillows, chairs; anything movable. The fury was maintained through a sleepless night. “ l asked a doctor who was busy there next monring how it happened. ‘lt’s gin,’ he said, ‘synthetic gin. It drives them temporarily mad. The most, pathetic thing is that so many young girls are affected, and have begun to think that it is the right thing to drink.’ “ This deadly gin has ruined more homes, wrecked more young li\es. showered more misery on a great and generous minded country than all the vears of straightforward drunkenness on pure spirits ever witnessed during the generations before prohibition bit itself into the vitals of the nation. “ Now these are plain facts winch have come under my observation. I do not think that the appointment- ot ,-,0.000 sleuths would put down the evil. ]!ut 1 do think that modification of the Act. so that sale of light wines and beer would be made permissable, would restore the people’s self respect. •<The American people are sober, moral, and decent. The vast majority deliberately defy the Volstead Act, not because they want to drink spirits, but because they resent the curtailment of their individual liberty.” - -