PROHIBITION IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2836, 20 January 1925, Page 4

PROHIBITION IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

OPINIONS FOR AND AGAINST. Washington, January 17. Prohibition to-day celebrated its fifth birthday. Senator Morris Sheppard, author of the Eighteenth Amendment, issued a statement saying that at every election since the. law came into effect, the people' had signified approval of prohibition by increasing the “dry” majorities for House and Senate candidates. Thus Congress evidently reflected accurately the public sentiment of the nation. During the operation of prohibition there had been a decrease of half a million annually in arrests for drunkenness. There had been 250.000 fewer industrial accidents a decrease in mortality rate had developed, adding three years to the average human life, 275 drink cures dwindled to 27, there was less poverty and a saving to the people of seventy-four million dollars annually. Prohibition had closed many orphanages, while it had crowded schools and colleges and doubled the number of investors. “Prohibition,” declares Senator Sheppard, “is the law of the land and it will remain so.” In expressing the opposition viewpoint, Captain Stayton, founder and head of the Association against the prohibition amendment, says: “Every person knows prohibition is universally disregarded and that the population, particularly the young have no moral scruples about breaking this law'. Every Congressman and every eighth grade student, knows that even the men who passed the law break it in the course of their daily lives in Washington, as was disclosed in a recent divorce case. A wave of indignation is

sweeping over the country against ilie law. The only arguments for prohibition are those from the propaganda hook of the Anti-Saloon League. Against this we have seen three thousand deaths IVor poisoned liquor in 1924, with approximately six thousand persons disabled. Most, of the fatalities occur in the so-called “dry cities.” There are more crimes now than ever before. Huge sums have been paid in an attempt to enforce the law, approximately 10,01(5 million dollars in live years. The, mounting list of arrests and convictions for liquor law violations is proof of the complete failure of Volsteadism.”