PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 15

PROHIBITION COLUMN

t Published by Arrangement with tha Luted Temperance Reform Council.] A man has no personal liberty to disgrace, debase, and bring to want those dependent upon him. AMERICA EIGHT YEARS DRY. [By Guy Hayler, hon. president, World Prohibition Federation, London.] The people of America celebrated the eighth year of Prohibition on January 16, 1928. It was in the midst of difficult economic and industrial problems, much intensified by tho liquor traffic, that Congress approved of the amendment to the Constitution which prohibited the manufacture, importation, transportation, exportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in the United States and its dependencies. This amendment was adopted without delay by 46 out of 48 State Legislatures. By this Act some 1,500,000 workers—if we take the brewery returns—were thrown out of work, thus adding to the millions already unemployed, which then numbered, so Mr Hoover said, more than 5,000,000 at tho close of the “ wet ” regime. With neither dole nor unemployment insurance benefit for the worker, such a condition of things would have appeared calamitous alike both to statesman and leader of industry, yet, as by a miracle, America met tho difficulty ia an amazingly short tinie._ Work was found for tho worklcss millions already in the country, and for many millions more who poured over the frontiers from impoverished Central Europe and elsewhere TRADE REVIVAL. -Within two years of the closing of about 180,000 liquor saloons and hundreds of breweries and distilleries there was a great change which not only brought work but a higher standard of efficiency and general uplift all mind. For while the nation had smashed the liquor traffic, which had an income of more than two thousand million dollars annually, trade throughout the whole country received an impetus, and there was an enormous revival. Apart from the great export trade, the home trade was never more prosperous, showing that the abolition of the liquor traffic meant the diversion of moneys into staple industries and other charnels of sen ice and utility, PROBLEM OF POVERTY SOLVED. After eight years of Prohibition—whatever its shortcomings—so great is the national prosperity that all persons with small incomes are free from income tax, while other taxpayers have also benefited. President Coolidge, speaking at the Union League on November 17, 1927, said that-millions of taxpayers had been entirely relieved and heavy reductions granted to ethers, thus saving the nation over 6,000,000d0l per day. No wonder that Professor Irving Fisher should suggest that “ all problems of poverty will be solved by 1932.” Why do not other nttions seek the some remedy? CONTINUED GOOD ASSURED. The future of America is bright with the promise of continued prosperity. Tho banks aro full of money, much of it being to the credit of tho toiler, while, similarly, in the interests of millions of ordinary workers there ia an accumulation of property in the form of houses, furniture, motor cars, etc. Tlio increased facilities for day school education, college and university training are phenomenal, and would indicate foresight and purpose on the part of a great thinking people. CAPITALIST, MASTER, AND MAN. One most significant phase of the industrial activities of America fraught with many possibilities is the tens of thousands of employees who have become shareholders in railways, steel, iron, and other concerns. The capitalist is master and man in one. There is a lessening of the probabilities of strikes and lock-outs, and the time is hastening when trade and other disputes will be amicably settled in the board room. Thus this social reform of such widespread influence among a population of over 120,000,000 has more than “ made good ” ; has justified the claims of its promoters; and has brought to hearth and home, to factory, workshop, office, and store the blessings of exceeding value an example right worthy of extension to other lands. BRITISH POLITICS. At the annual meetings of the National League of Young Liberals, held this year at Cardiff, there was an insistent demand that the Liberal Party should at once inaugurate a crusade throughout the country against the drink traffic, and thus bring this burning moral question into the forefront of British politics. Many of the speakers at the conference demanded that the party should go to the extreme and raise the cry of Prohibition, and the vote was lost by only a narrow margin. However, after much discussion under the able chairmanship of Walter Runciman, late Cabinet Minister, temperance reformer, and ship owner, the meeting agreed to an amendment in favor of Local Option ; club regulation on the same grounds as those relating to public houses, and all-day closing on Sundays, The moderates pointed out that in America Local Option preceded Prohibition. When the great mass of thinking people saw the enormous gains resulting from Local Option they immediately voted for Prohibition. This argument carried many of the audience, and in consequence Local Option as the “thin edge of the Prohibition wedge” was adopted as an election cry.

THE WORKING MAN AND PROHIBITION. Writing in a Dallas (Tex.) newspaper Dr D. H. Hancock, of that city, says: “What has the Volstead Law done for the laboring man? Let ns see. At the beginning of Prohibition there were 5.000. unemployed wage earners in the country (U.S.A.). This vast army of unemployed was absorbed quickly by the increased demand for all kinds of manufactured materials. The ‘Union Labor Advocate,’ of Chicago, should be able to speak with authority for the working man. In its January number it states: ‘Prohibition United States is the richest and happiest nation in the world.’ It further states; ‘The Labor banks in the United States have on deposit by laboring men and women more than 111,000,000 dollars.’ ” ■ NEW YORK AND PROHIBITION. Last Monday, September 5, 1927, the New York City papers repeated what has become an old story of millions of people going out to the beaches and elsewhere for holiday trips, with hundreds of thousands of automobiles, with substantially no disorder or drunken brawls, and exceedingly few accidents—remarkably few. considering all things. Three hundred thousand at Coney Island. Why, a single old-time beer garden would have furnished more police news for the Monda’-,'’ papers than the whole of this great concourse. Mr Charles M. Hay, solicitor, of St. Louis, writes: “The ‘dry’ majority in •Missouri at the last election was over 275.000, not 100,000, as stated in your last issue. The majority in 1920 on the same question was approximately 62.000. “The political party that wobbles on the question of Prohibition in the United States will go down, to well-de-served defeat.”—Mr Fred B. Smith, of New York, chairman of the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand for Law Observance. The Rev. Henry Worrall, of Ballarat, Victoria, says; “I think that Prohibition is coming more quickly in Australia than.the liquor party would have ns believe. The success of Prohibition in America has made a great impression on'i.tlie -people i^LAnstralia.’l