DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 43, 13 May 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS (Copyright, 1927.) T ADY ASTOR the other day, without pointing at anybody, gave Nicholas -*-* Murray Butler and Senator Wadsworth something to think about. She pointed out the fact that all this movement toward Prohibition was really and at bottom a movement to remove the satisfactions of man from a physical basis and put them upon a moral or spiritual basis. Brushing aside for the moment all questions of how it is done and whether Prohibition is effective or not and all that sort of thing, we ask ourselves what is the object of Prohibition? The object simply is this: America has gone around for many years picking up victims of the saloons, and taking care of them. We have had Keeley Institutes and other institutions for looking after intoxicated people. We have had poor houses and orphan asylums for their victims. It suddenly occurred to us to do away with the evil which causes all these calamities.

We cut the whole alcohol business out. We cut it so thoroughly that we put it in the Constitution of the United States from where to date nothing has been put in that has ever come out. China did a similar thing some years ago in regard to opium. Tired of the evil effects of opium smoking, she abolished the whole business. Christian greed, backed by Christian guns, nullified this arrangement. To say that just as much liquor is consumed as ever is to say what is manifestly absurd. Thousands of corner saloons have been suppressed and the open and public sale of liquor has been stopped. The liquor interests, the distillers and brewers are all against Prohibition, and naturally they would not be against it if there was more liquor used than ever. The Prohibition laws we have may not be the wisest nor the best, but at least they are an effort in the right direction. The Prohibition law is on the side of the angels and those who are seeking to break it down or nullify it might do well to keep this in mind. gre moral cor -tion is back of Prohibition, and a moral conviction never yet went backward.