PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20988, 17 October 1933, Page 5

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

"GLORIOUS EXPERIMENT" FAILS | £•100,000,000 TAKEN BY | BOOTLEGGERS I ..Sl'Ei 1A1.1.V WRITTEN- FOI! TUB I'll ESS.) ißy T.C.L.i XV. The repeal ol' the Prohibition Amendment to the Federal Constitution at an early date may be taken for granted. So far every State, including former enthusiastic " dry " States, that has taken a poll on the question has declared in favour of repeal, and it is likely that before the end of the year the necessary 36 States out of the 48 will have voted out Prohibition from America. Attenuated beer, 3.2 alcoholic content, has been declared by Congress to be non-alcoholic and permitted to be sold, and sold it is in ever increasing volume throughout the States to the satisfaction of the public and the discomfiture of the bootleg rings, who see in it the thin edge of the wedge to their illegal but lucrative business Few will be sorry to see the end oi Prohibition that never prohibited ana could never prohibit with American human nature constituted as it is. Enforcement could not be effected, because in the first place public opinion was not sufficiently strong behind it. and in the second place because of the corruptibility of the officers concerned with its enforcement. What it has done is to produce a host of scandals and problems from the corroding effect of which the country is acutely suffering, and is likely to suffer, for many a day. A Veritable Gold-Mine. Prohibition gave gangdom in the big cities a veritable gold-mine it was quick to exploit, and money is power which they used with debauching effect on the public service and the Hie of the community. If is estimated their gross profits have amounted to more than £400.000,000 sterling a year, half of which has had to be devoted to "buying off" officials and men in municipal and political life. But their income did not end with the sale of liquor. They had then-

"rackets." tribute they levy on persons and industries under threat of financial loss, physical injury or downright murder. It is authoritatively staled that in New York alone from £60.000,000 to £100.000,000 sterling mot dollars* annually is collected by a small gang of criminals from racketeering. "Rackets have secured such a stranglehold on the nation, it is claimed, that nearly 5.000.000 persom arc involved in the several hundred branches of this flourishing illegal business.

The racketeers' money power has been used to subsidise the funds of the Prohibitionists and to corrupt the police and the politicians. There has never been a more sinister element in the body politic that the bootlegger-racke-teer, for it is a joint business. And bow it is to be removed now that it has such a strong and widespread-grip upon the community is one of the many problems that is exercising the minds of the best elements of the United States at the present time. A movement of young people. " the crusaders," already more than a million and a quarter in number, has been launched over a nation-wide front to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment as a preliminary to making open war on the bootleggers, racketeers, and corrupt, politicians. They believe that if tiiev can reach the door-steps of the political section of the racketeering army they will account for 9a per cent, of the trouble. They have a big and difficult job ahead of them, for in municipal. Slate and Federal political life agents and principals in (he unlawful work

Liquid manure, too. should be given in abundance to assist the plants in producing a good crop. Care must betaken to see that no pods are allowed to remain on the plants after the former arc much more than halfgrow n. 1 I.OWI-KN Bedding out—ln these days, when the popularity or gardening as a hobby is at its zenith, the number and variety of plants at the disposal of the amateur are so great as to be utterly bewildering. If he consults a llorist's catalogue, he is confronted by a list of plants with the vast, majority of whose names he is unfamiliar. lie is sorely tempted to indulge in reckless experiment—to try to cultivate in his own little plot some of the horticultural marvels be sees displayed in public gardens -but if he is'wise In: will overcome the temptation perhaps with a momentary regret, though none the less firmly. In bygone days "summer bedding" had a very definite meaning. It, suggested formal flowerbeds in which only a few subjects were employed and in which the changes were rung with monotonous iteration.

Now the scene is changed. The old simplicity is in danger of giving place to a complexity which threatens to baffle even the expert, and certainly to bring dire confusion to the beginner. Let the beginner start on quite simple lines, confine his interest and labour to the cultivation of plants with which he is familiar, and add one or two new subjects to his collection cvc.iy season. He will thus make steady progress. To adopt the policy of growing things he knows nothing about will probably bring little pleasure and less profit. It will be seen that 1 am making a plea for simplicity and cautious progress. If the beginner in gardening will only be content to be guided by these principles he will have gone a long way towards the solution of the problems and perplexities associated with summer bedding. In the first place, it is necessary to have a plan. 11 is useless to raise a large number of plants, and then expect to arrange them and plant them in perfect, order in a single Saturday afternoon. Put your ideas down on paper. Determine the shapes and sizes of the beds that are available for summer decoration. Carefully mark (;.-: the plan the plants you intend to grow and the places in which you intend to grow them, and as you carry out your ideas do not depart from your plan except for some really valid reason.

j It may scorn unnecessary to suggest '--I have done it so often before- -ihat the beginner should take rare to study the height and habits of the plants lieintends to use, but it. is so vitally essential that I make no apology for emphasising its importance. As a general rule tall growing plants must be kept, for conspicuous positions, the centres of beds or the backs of borders, and the dwarf plants for edgings. Medium sized plants will, of course, take intermediate positions. The following combination of colours are considered bad, and should be avoided: —Red and yellow, blue and yellow, violet and red, scarlet and yellow, and crimson and orange. Here are some good combinations:—Shades; of pink, rose, salmon, and scarlet; purple, lilac, and yellow: crimson, blue, and white; and yellow and orange. If, in addition, it is remembered that scarlet and blue harmonise well together, that a blending of mauves and purples is particularly attractive, and that white is an exceptionally forceful colour which should be carefully employed in conjunction with scarlet, blue, or purple, the novice will have a few of the essential rules for the effective employment of colour schemes in summer bedding.

are surely entrenched and to discover and dislodge them will severely try their skill and resource. A Lawless People. American historians and commentators confidently affirm that thenpeople have never been distinguished for their obedience to the laws of the land, a legacy of the pioneering spirit that developed independence of thought and action and a resistance to anything that curbed or interfered with individual rights and relations. But open violation of the prohibition laws has done more to create contempt for the law as a whole than any other agent. Quite good law-abiding citizens have never felt the slightest compunction over breaking a law that interferred with their way of living, and the younger element openly defied a law that attempted to put out of their reach something that their elders had enjoyed. What effect this disregard for law has had and is likely to have in the years to come time alone can show, but. there is good reason to believe that already the effect has been most serious and far-reaching. Idealistic I'ct Practical. The Americans are an idealistic as well as an essentially practical i>coplc, and there is no doubt that when, at a time of great national outpouring of spirit, when the nation was organising itself to throw its manhood and resources into the war, they enacted prohibition they sincerely felt all the evils attending the liquor traffic would be completely and effectually removed. But they did not realise that the removal of one set of evil conditions might easily produce another and a worse lot. And that has really | happened. Bootlegging, racketeering, graft and corruption are the reactions, with consumption of liquor probably in no way diminished, with baneful results arising from the drinking itself no less pronounced, and with the country minus the revenue it had formerly received from its regularisation. Today that revenue, and more, is pocketed by an army of the lowest elements of the country elevated into authority by ils financial resources over hundreds of thousands .if subjects and constituting a law unto themselves, with a code of correction and punishment as brutal and fiendish as it is unerring and comprehensive. Loss of Revenue.

Times of trouble nnd economic stress turn the minds of most people to a close and careful examination of their affairs with a view to ascertaining where savings and improvements ear: be effected, and the present determined move to end the Prohibition liasco is largely attributable to a desire on the pari of the American people to secure for the National Treasury the large revenue from the sale of liquor now going into the pockets of the bootleggers. They estimate that the loss is anything up to £400,000,000 a year, which would more than take care of the interest on capital payments under the Industrial Recovery Act and go a long way towards relieving other burdens on ;he people. It is estimated that at the present rate of consumption the sale of beer for a full vear will amount to 00.000,000 barrels] on which will be levied taxation of :?00,000.000 dollars, and that on this basjs (he industrv will consume 70.000.000 bushels of barley and coin, that fuel requirements will be a million and a half tons of coal, providing full employment f">' 3000 miners, and supplying the railwavs of the country with :»00.0n0 car-loads of freight. Other industries will also benefit. Hardwood will be required for barrels, glass for bodies and glasses, sugar, pumps and dozens of others that in the last 12 or ],'{ years have been inactive or become almost obsolete.

Saloons Not Wanted. II is certain, however, thai the old lime saloon, with its many evils, v.'ii! never again be tolerated. Shops, ehcmists and restaurants are now sellin?,' the H.l! beer. Some of the States, such as Maine and Tennessee, though they have voted for repeal, are not likely to vote for the introduction of hard liquor. Their people are apparently quite content with the 3.2 beer Pui the form the sale of the " hard " liquor will lake in such of the other Stales which declare.' in its favour is not yet known. Probably stores for its sale will be licensed as well as hotels-there is no apparent desire to create a monopoly in the sale of liquor.