PROHIBITION RAISES STANDARD

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 2 November 1925, Page 9

PROHIBITION RAISES STANDARD

OF AJIERICA'S WORKERS,

(Published by Arrangement.)

(Extract from tbe "Christian Science Alonltor," Boston, Tuesday, September 8, 1023.)

Dr. Howard A. Kelly, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland and other foremost associations of medical men, sees the Eighteenth Amendment as "undoubtedly the greatest community health measure ever enacted by any nation."

"Of AU Bans the Best." "The veto placed upon intoxicating barrages is of all bans the best entitled to a place in the list of restrictions and prohibitions which have poured out their blessings upon mankind," he says. And again: "That better part of our profession which takes greatly to heart the present great moral problems which threaten the \"ery life of so many nations view with no little alarm any parley whatever or the slightest compromise with the liquor fraternity, which are obviously continually plotting to wreck our government for their own miserable profit. We extend this feeling also to the predatory rich allies of the liquor men and the indifferent of all classes.

"We insist with every energy at our' command that the State has the inalienable right to restrict any action whatever, whether it concerns our eatinc or drinking or other personal habits," in order to promote the public welfare. If the Government controls our use of ophirh and of cocaine, then why not, by parity of reasoning, alcohol? Communities have frequently been forbidden to drink from suspicious wells and such wells have repeatedly been closed to the great inconvenience of their nearby patrons, and yet no doctor has appeared to insist on reopening such a well to exploit his personal liberty. Prohibition and Prosperity. "We believe that this ''due regulation' of our. conduct for the benefit of the social boly is clearly implied in the very word 'government,' and so as citizens who esteem the public welfare as an obligation his-her than our personal : tastes we cheerfully render due obedii ence to all laws. . .' ." • Thomas Nixon Carver, professor of political economy at Harvard University, recites economic facts to prove that prosperity has gone hand-in-hand with pro'iibit'on; that it has been one of the factors in this prosperity. He shows how savings deposits "multiplied 2i times from 1914 to 1924. while the number of depositors increased more than 31 times." He says that "the investment of wage workers in the shares of corporations is increasing so ram'dlv that 'all statist : cs are out of date before they are published," and concludes: "Anyone who attempts to explain all these amazing signs of prosperity among our working classes without mentioning prohibition seems to mc as extreme as the one who would explain them on the ground of prohibition alone. I cannot e-xpla ; n them except by bringing ; n prohibition as a contributing factor."