PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17338, 9 December 1919, Page 11

PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.

REPLY TO TRADE CRITICS. THE DUTY OF FATHERS. ' ADDRESS BY MRS. WHEELER. (Published by Arrangement.) An address on Prohibition was given by Mrs. Eva C. Wheeler, of Los Angeles, in the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle, last evening. There was a large attendance, and Mr. 0. E. Burton presided. Mr. H. Hinton referred to the liquor trade advertisement appearing in a certain newspaper, in which it was stated that nnkfis voters strike out the two lower iines their vote will be invalid. He stated that the editor of the paper concerned had promised.'to publish an official editorial disclaimer this week. They knew deJJnitely that the advertisement had been inserted purposely. Mr. Hinton moved: " That this meeting of electors records its emphatic protest against the flagrant untruth contained in a liquor trade advertisement, stating that unless the voter votes for continuance by striking out the two bottom lines, his vote Vill be invalid. It further demands that action be taken by the authorities to prevent a repetition of such practices." The motion was carried unanimously, amid acclamation., Mrs. Wheeler, who was received with applause, entertained the audience for about half-an-hour with some amusing narratives. ''Daddy" was the title of the prohibition address which she afterwards delivered. It was the father, she said, who blazed the path the boy would tread. EVery boy was stepping in some man's tracks. The reason there were so many splendid young men in this land was because some'older man blazed the right trail. If there were some young men who went in the wrong road, who, she asked, blazed that trail? Dealing with the large number of divorce cases in Paris and Sydney, Mrs. Wheeler said she wondered if the fathers of the wives in these cases were as particular in inquiring into the past records and the "wild oats" of the young men as they were in inquiring into their banking accounts. In the United States 68 per cent, of the divorces granted until now had been granted because of alcohol. "What does the word 'father' convey to your child?" the speaker inquired. When you teach him about God the Father, what does that convey to him? Some man either represents or misrepresents God to some child." She wondered if women gave the fathers, their due hon- | our in the home. Were the children taught to caro for their fathers as they loved their mothers? One Code of Morals.

Dealing in the temptations which beset young girls, Mrs. Wheeler said the time was coming when one standard of morality would exist for men and women. Repentent men were sometimes heard giving their story in the pulpit, but she had never seen a fallen woman brought there to tell her tale. If there was to be one code of morals, she appealed to them not to send her boy where their girls could not go. There was no more excuse for her boy to be degraded than for their girls. The baby boy's hands were as clean and as white and his heart as pure as any little girl's that night. Were the men of New Zealand making it easy for their sons to grow up into the right kind of fathers, and their girls into the right kind of mothers? After all, that was the highest mission in life. Were they making it as difficult as possible for them to go wremg? United States fathers—there were 31 States where men did all the voting as compared to 17 where women had the vote— begun to study the child, and not only the child but the Church and the home. They realised that a great deal of time had been devoted to legislation, making it easy to produce thoroughbred horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, or cats, but that they could not produce a thoroughbred race of men and women, because they allowed alcohol to become such an evil in their midst that almost every home was tainted by —either directly or indirectly. One drinking place lowered the whole moral tone of the community. One did not need to have a drinking father or grandfather to be affected. What the Church Discovered. There were some points put forward against Prohibition which required answering. In the United States every phase of the national life had been touched in an evil way by the liquor trade. Even the States that had had Prohibition for a long time were affected. When churchmen in the United states began to study Prohibition it was found that a 2,000,000dollar brewery plant had been transferred from Los Angeles to China. More temperance missionaries were sent out, with the result, she believed, that the brewery would never be allowed to do business. The United States had been shipping drink to India until they were told they would be disgraced out there as much as Great Britain had been over the opium traffic. They also found that for every black man saved in Africa they had sent enough drink there to kill ten. If they had not curled Mexico with liquor the country would not have been where she now stood. The United States had sent out an evil influence which had been damning the whole world. These men, therefore, realised they could never pose as a Christian nation as long as they put up with that state of things. To vote out the trade, the Church wanted enough voting power merely to hold the balance of power, because there were good men in New Zealand outside the Church who would vote for prohibition. People in every Church, Roman Catholics included, supported the cause. The United States Stand.

New Zealand newspapers wore stating that the people of the United States were going to abolish prohibition and that the drug habit was increasing. Either untruthful news was coming from the United States or some one here was writing who knew nothing about the United States. There was no accredited daily paper in that country that would stand for the liquor traffic now. (Applause.) The liquor men of the United States had gone over to Mexico, and they claimed that, they could sell to New Zealand and the rest of the world cheaper than anyone else. She had a letter from an American liquor man who stated he was writing to every liquor dealers' association in New Zealand, and was offering to help them to defeat prohibition. The letter was stated to be "very confidential," and it had come to her from a trader who had been converted recently to prohibition. Regarding the drug habit, in San Francisco—one of the three '"wettest" States— there were, ten drug users to every one in Los Angeles. The great causes "for the drug habit were taking drugs as medicine and abusing it. and taking it as a pick-me-ir.') after a drunken debauch. Thirty thousand Germans in the United States, all interested in the liquor business —there was not one man in ten in the trade who was a full-blooded American — had been cleared out of the country. In the United States there had been invented a box to catch the alcohol germ. It was the ballot-box. (Applause.) She urged every nun and woman who believed in prohibition to put the right vote into it on Wednesday week. They must kick over the.devil's trap. (Applause.) Mr*. Wheeler, in conclusion, called for more prohibition workers in the rtiy, and over 100 volunteers were secured from the audience, which numbered about. 400. A >„t,. of thank* to the. speaker arid to the chairman concluded the proceedings.