PROHIBITION COLUMN

Evening Star, Issue 19894, 16 June 1928, Page 14

PROHIBITION COLUMN

[Published by Arrangement with the United Temperance . Reform Council.] Commercial men and the Government require cutting out of waste, .. more production, greater efficiency. • £16,000,000 may be transferred into . reproductive and beneficial channels of trade each year by cutting out the liquor traffic. Give New Zealand a •. : chance., ■ • ■■■■ ■ PROHIBITION HELPED THIS. 11.000. DOLLARS IN LABOUR / BANKS. Deposits in labour banks in, the United Stales now run to a total of 11.000. 000dol. At the close of business. June 30, total deposits in thirty labour banks were 110,875,791d01. Accumulation of this enormous ■ total of money is the result of only six years of effort in the labour banking field, and it is only six years since the first labour bank opened its Union Labor Advocate,’ - Chicago, January, 1927. IRREFUTABLE TESTIMONY. FROM EVANGELINE BOOTH. Commander Evangeline Booth, of the Salvation Array, in an address in London last week, said the liquor problem in the United States will be a question of the past in another generation. ‘ With the ousting of the. American saloon, nine-tenths of the drunkenness has disappeared. Of all welfare workers none wore in closer touch with this burning thirst than my, faithful, officers and people, and their uniform and irrefutable’ testimony shows clearly that the chief source of former debaucheries is gone. WITHOUT LIQUOR LICENSES; 840 NEW' HOTELS : IN ONE DRY year, v . In 1926 S-10 hotels were erected in the United States, representing.au investment. of 400,000.000d01, and it i& estimated- an . additional ■ 300,000,000d0l will be spent this year on new hotel, buildings.-. This sum-.does, not include the cost of sites.- Moreover, old hotels will spend 50,000,000d0l in rebuilding and new apartment hotels costing 800,000,000 arc in prospect.—From an editorial in the * Chicago_ Daily Journal,’ publishedvin April, 1927. Wets used to say. before the Eighteenth .Amendment became operative that the hotel business would bo utterly ruined as result of outlawing the liquor traffic. It would bo difficult, indeed, to find any big hotel operator who for business reasons would be willing to go back to the old saloon days, which would mean, the establishment of a hotel bar. NATIONAL DEBT REDUCED. The New York ‘Times’ of July 1 reported a United States Treasury surplus of 630,000,000d01, and in the year end■ing at that time a reduction of 1,000,000,000 in the national debt. ’ NEW INSURANCE BUSINESS. Over three times ns much, industrial, insurance is written each month at present under Prohibition as was written in the entire year 1917 with the open saloon. * Even bank people aro impressed. “ Figures for last year’s insurance business road more like distances in astronomy than the data for a,single line of buiness,”-—* Savings. Bank, Journal.’. A.nd surely some of :it oari be credited to Prohibition.—Ed. DRINK CONSUMPTION . REDUCED ' 90 to 95 PER CENT, SAYS PROFESSOR FISHER, OF YALE UNIVERSITY. COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS REFUTE WET DECLARATION. The following incident is reported by a county prosecuting attorney of Washington ; A few days ago. in a popular tavernin Seattle, while five Elks (commercial travellers) were dining, Prohibition came up for discussion. The usual claim that, more- .liquor is being sold under: Prohibition than ever before was' made, and the statement was about to get over by common consent, when one of the :party objected. “Gentlemen,” ha said, “I challenge tho stiiteiiientJ There is not one-tenth of the liquor sold now that was sold before tho Eighteenth Amendment was adop ted’ Looking them squarely in the face,, ho asked;. “.Have any of you had 'a drink to-day ?” They were an orderly but liberal set of business men, but each admitted that he had hdd no drink that day. The challenging brother pursued his vantage: “ Have any of you had a drink in the last three days?” All of the party except one agreed that they had not tasted liquor in three days. This one had barely tasted some liquor at the hands of a customer; ho was afraid to drink tho stuff, he said. “ Now, don’t you fellows remember,” said the challenging brother, “ that before Prohibition by this time of tho day you would have had at' least ten drinks apiece, and that you could not have gone about your business selling goods for three days without inviting more than half of your customers to some saloon or to the hotel bar for a drink?” There w'as no answer. The party unanimously agreed they were; wrong in their claim that there was more h’quor sold now than in licensed days. This incident illustrates the absurdity of this exaggerated claim the wets are putting over by well-financed and scientifically-directed propaganda. Tho pretence that Prohibition does not prohibit is about the silliest claim that confronts the friends of Prohibition, A QUESTION. Will some booze booster, in plain and simple language, explain in what way ‘•he legalising of liquor will promote the general welfare? NEW ZEALAND UNIONS, PLEASE NOTE. TRUCK DRIVERS’ UNION PROSPERS. What did we have a few years ago? Worse than slave conditions. Who would believe twenty years ago that thousands of our members would be getting a vacation with pay as per our agreements? Who would believe that truck drivers of local 207 would have Lincoln cars, with officers at good salaries and over 200,000d0l in their treasury? Who would admit a few years ago that the milk drivers would bo working a six-day week and an eighthour day? Who a short time ago could conceive of the drivers in Cincinnati having fully paid for an office building worth over 100,OOOdol? So it is everywhere.—Daniel J. Tobin, president of the International Brotherhood of Team* sters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen, and Helpers, as quoted in th© 1 Union Labour Advocate ’ of Chicago, May, 1927.

The editor of the 1 Advocate,' by way of comment, says; 5 “Yes, brother Tobin, wo agree with you iu every particular. There has never been a time in the history of organised labour when everything looked so bright for the working people as it ,does to-day, and we predict that in-every way ;; we will continue" to improve; in tlioiuture. We further believe that the largest percentage of gain for- tetter conditions, in every way has been in the last seven years since the .Volstead Act became a law.”