Post-Prohibition U.S.A.

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 230, 26 June 1935, Page 11

Post-Prohibition U.S.A.

Sir. —You report a statement by Mr. David Latimer that “America is soberer than it was in prohibition days.” Police records d 0 not bear out this, statement. Tlie figures from 226 cities disclose that compared with the first year of prohibition the first year of repeal showed an increase of 244.30 per cent, in arrests for drunkenness. Arrests for drunken driving have increased in cities up to as high as 380 per cent. In Los Angeles arrests of women for drunkenness have increased 178 per cent. Dr. Geo. F. Bowerman, public librarian of AVashington, D.C., complains that since repeal there has been a great increase in the number of drunken persons it has been necessary to eject from the buildings. The Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota has instructed the athletic director to take any necessary steps to check drinking and drunkenness at football games: “this evil has developed, to intolerable proportions since, repeal.” The Keeley Institute at Dwight, Illinois, an institution for the treatment of inebriates, reports that there has been an increase of 65 per cent, in the number of inmates; while the Chief Highway Patrol of California states that there is an increase pf 40 per cent in fatalities due to drunken driving. It would appear that Mr. Latimer is ill-informed, since he has not apparently heard of the astounding revelations that appeared in the Chicago press of wild, drunken orgies by high-school boys ana girls, nor of the newspaper protests in San Francisco against the saloons for serving liquor to young girls of 14 and 16 who are subsequently betrayed by male frequenters of these places.—l am, etc., J. MALTON MURRAY. Wellington, June 25.