PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19523, 2 April 1927, Page 3

PROHIBITION COLUMN

• t—: [Published by Arrangement with Hie United Temperance Reform Council] The man who votes for license ought to bo willing that his son should die a drunkard. The open liquor shop, which his vote helps to establish, ho knows will ensnare the feet of somebody's boy; wm should it not be, in the eternal law of fitness, his own-child? * —Louisa S. Rotlncls. ]n denaturing alcohol and pointing out that the United States is following the example of other countries; which insist upon the use of denaiufants in industrial alcohol products simply as a revenue measure and to protect industry against the diversion of tax-free industrial alcohol for beverage purposes. The most recent Treasury order on the subject of denaturing alcohol was issued August 10, 1926, and specified that one-half of 1 per cent, of gasolene should be added to alt denatured alcohol in the hands of industrial interests. The purpose of this, as explained bv Garrard "B. Winston, Acting Secretary of the Treasury,’was to make it impossible for bootleggers to “renature” industrial alcohol so that it could not be traced by the purchaser to the denatured product. No process lias been found by the bootleg industry by which the taste and smell of gasolone can be eliminated from deriatuied alcohol in which it has been mixed. “ Our continuous effort has been not to find some substance which would cause injury to the persons drinking the product, but to circumvent the effort of the bootlegger to make the source of supplies undetectable. To say that the Government is deliberately trying to poison its citizens is absolutely false.” , , P , Wet fancies fade before ary facts. Victor Hugo was right when ho wrote “ There is one thing _ stronger than armies, and that is an idea whose time has conic.’’ To-day the alca is everywhere becoming , regnant that John Barleycorn’s day has passed.

“ PROHIBITION AT ITS WORST.” Professor Irving Fisher is internationally known as a brilliant economist, liuring the early part of the year ho gave evidence before the. Special Judiciary Committee, in which bo stated that he estimated the annual savings to the United States from Prohibition amounted to at least £1,200,000.. Professor Fisher has recently published a book under the title, ‘Prohibition at its Worst’ (.the MacMillan Co.), in which he discusses the pros and cons of tho situation. Whilst he is of opinion that National Constitutional Prohibition was introduced somewhat prematurely, Professor Fisher says;— “After an examination of all the data, 1 have estimated that the flow of alcohol down human throats in the United States is at present less than 16 per cent., probably less than 10 per cent., and possibly less than 5 per cent, of tho pre-Prohibition consumption.” “OLD BOOZE MUST. GO.” [By Walt. Mason.] The moving finger writes; and we may rend the fateful lesson of its changeless screed, of which no man may cancel half a lino by . all his prayers, by all his flow of brine. All useless things must perish from the earth, which has but room for things of proven worth. In every ago some foolishness. is stopped, in every ago some worthless tilings are dropped. The worthless tilings may grow and flourish long, and long tho world endures some grievous wrong, but when their timo has come to bump the bumps, no power can save them from the divers’ dumps. And so Old Boozo is slipping day by day; nothing can stop him on his downward way; the world has had enough of gin and rye, nations and States and villages go dry. Friends of Old Booze are fighting for him hard, weapons in hand they stand upon their guard, but all in vain their brave defence of rum, Old Booze must go because his timo has come.—Tho ‘Farm Journal’

“ UNBLEMISHED CHARACTERS?” A month or so ago wo commented on the fact that Mr A. Rose, president of the Canterbury Licensed Victuallers, declared that in these days the licensee had to be a man of “ unblemished character.” Since then wo have noticed that nine hotelkeepers in Auckland have been convicted of adulterating whisky with water, and, despite a variety of ingenious explanations and excuses, the magistrate remained satisfied that these licensees were responsible for this offence. At Napier, on July 19, J. P. Murphy, licensee of the Railway Hotel, was fined £lO and had his license endorsed for Sunday trading. It is worth mention that ho apparently employed on his premises a man who, in February, was fined £lO for a breach of the Licensing Act ’ amd £lO . subsequently, and had other convictions. Murphy himself was previously fined £3 for selling liquor after hours, and £1 on another occasion. There was an increase of 58, a total of 560 prosecutions against hotelkeepers in 1925. “ Unblemished ” is a good word, but we do not think it applies to the character of the above individuals.—-‘ Vanguard. 1 DR MAYO ON BOOZE. Rightly designated as the interna-tionally-known surgeon of Rochester, Minn., Dr William J. Mayo is entitled to a respectful hearing on subjects that have come under his trained observation. And this is what he is reported as having stated the other day; “I have never known any great thing accomplished as the result of taking alcohol.” Commenting upon the Volstead Act, he urged that whatever happens as the result of tho measure, “ I am convinced that the next generation in the United States will be the better for that contentious piece of legislation.”. He continued: “That alcohol has no place in. medicine was proved in France during the Great War. The American troops received no rum ration, and they got on very well without it.”—‘Christian Science Monitor.’ A RABBLE OF NONSENSE. They wail that Prohibition is not being enforced; that bootleggers are selling poison; that people are getting all they want; end then, tho very next breath, they, shout that tho Government is a murderer because Prohibition compels men to drink poison liquor. All this sounds like a babble of nonsense A great wail went up about the “slaughter of innocents” at Christmas time, when the Associated Press despatches announced that twenty-one out of 6,000,000 inhabitants in New York and four out of the 3,000,000 in Chicago died of alcoholic poison at tne hands of the Government.

Then, according to the Associated Press desnatches,- a gentleman in Chicago, who has no possible check on the sale of bootleg hquor, announces that at Christmas time there was sold or given away in Chicago 10,000,000 dollars’ worth of liquor. This would be at the rale of 3 dollars per person in all the city. Surely arithmetic these days tells queer stories.. Now, really, the average citizen knows from his good common sense that this 3 dollars per capita is mere babble, and that a very small percentage of the rank and t file of even New York,'and, Chicago touched liquor at Christmas time.— 1 Union Signal.'