PROHIBITION LAW

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 194, 12 May 1924, Page 7

PROHIBITION LAW

EFFECTS IN UNITED STATES EVIDENCE OF ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE’S COUNSEL By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. (Rec. May 11, 5.5 p.m.) Washington, May 9. Mr. Wheeler, general counsel for the Anti-Saloon League, replying to the intimations that Dr. Butler, President of Columbia University, would liberalise the Republicans’ prohibition principles and seek the insertion of a so-called wet plank in the party platform, has issued a statement saying: “No party can slip into power on a wet plank. Besides, if, as Dr. Butler claims, it will take a ‘wet’ plank to save eleven States for the Republicans, what will it take to save twice as many ‘dry’ States?” Mr. Wheeler, testifying before the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, which is considering the 59 identical “Beer Bills,” said,: “Why should Congress favourably consider the legalising of 2.75 per cent, beer, when tliree-iourths of the States forbid it? Beer has caused much crime, insanity, and pauperism among the saloon patrons. Furthermore, in the past, brewery-owned saloons were centres of vice and corruption, but when we stopped legalised beer, the death, poverty, and crime ratios declined. We had in four ‘dry’ years 873,000 fewer deaths, many thousand fewer arrests for drunkenness, and 74 per cent, decrease in poverty due to intemperance.” —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. ENFORCEMENT CRUSADE GENERAL BUTLER’S WORK IN PHILADELPHIA (Rec. May 11, 5.5 p.m.) New York, May 9. A Philadelphia message reports that figures published in Montreal by General Butler relating to the prohibition enforcement crusade, reveal that there were 39,000 arrests for various offences during the past four months, representing 5000 more than in the same period of 1923. Arrests for intoxication lead the list with 18,869, showing an increase of 4000. The report further states that there were 1818 arrests for illegal possession of liquor, 781 arrests for illegal sale, and 112 arrests for illegal transportation. , Medical authorities, commenting on tho figures, deporc the rising figures relating to alcoholic insanity due to the enforced patronage of bootleggers, whose produce is often liquid poison, but prohibition’s proponents assert that such insanity alone can deter wilful violators of the law.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

[General Smedley Butler became director of public safety at Philadelphia in January last, and proceeded to whip the police force into shape, threatening to discharge every officer who permitted illicit liquor establishments and disorderly houses within his jurisdiction. After 48 hours’ activity General Butler had discharged c"VJIt police captains and announced that 900 saloons had been shut and hundreds of persons arrested.]