PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18131, 30 December 1920, Page 3

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

SUPPORTED BY ROMAN CATHOLIC

PRIESTS,

The Catholio Clergy Prohibition League concluded its sessions at the Fan-American building. Washington, on September Via. it adopted the following resolutions: — *i< , or the better euloiceinout of prohibition, wo lavour:

'•J.. Buying by the General Government of all bonded liquor, and tuo cousucjuciit olinuiiation 01 licensed wnolesalers.

"2. Disqualitymg a non-übstuunng judgo from passing sentence on a violator of tne proUibition law. "3. Disfrancliising Tor seven years anvono convicted ot vioiaung tiio prohibition law. "We urge the Government:

" 1. To devise unproved methods in Government laboratories and experimental stations, lor the manufacture of non-intoxi-cating beverages; "2. To prevent deleterious' ingredients and adulterations in beverages. "3. To exercise stricter supervision over industrial alcohol."

The proceedings included reports from various parts of tne country on the spiritual benefits of prohibition. A letter was read from Bishop M. C. Lenihon, of Great Sails, fylont., saying: '"I notice a real moral and religious awakening in all parts of tho State since the blessed law of prohibition went into effect. There is no hardship in securing all the altar wine needed." '''Priests and bishops in this part of the country," said Father P. J. JVliirphey, of Dalhart, Tex., "are thanking God for prohibition. To the average decent citizen one might as well talk about a return of negro slavery, as about a return of the liquor business. It is gone forever."

Several letters from absent members were read, urging continued vigilance. One wrote:

"Though the saloon night-life with all its revelry has ceased, many saloon-keepere and liquor dealers, living on their booty of recent years, sit tight, hoping with the devil that the gates of hell may <yet; prevail." * '"In our State," wrote Father M. J. Whyte, of Sunnyvale, Calif., "the fiercest fight between the wets and the drys is yet to be fought." "The liquor traffio dies hard," wrote another, "and hardest of all die some of the clerics who everlastingly boasted of being able to take a glass or let it alone, but never let it alone, and found it frightfully hard to be compelled to let it alone." "Many priests," said Father Peter Rice, of Minocqua, Wis;, "compromise the honour of the Church by companioning a great deal with our cheap Catholic wet politicians. The improvement produced by prohibition among lumbermen and other pioneer people of tho Middle West, is great, and so wonderful as to seem almost unbelievable and unreal."

Father-E. A. Hannan eaid: "Priests, like policemen, find that prohibition renders their work greatly more agreeable, and greatly less onerous," Father Joseph M'Namee, pastor of St. David's Church, in a poorer section of Chicago, reported that the first Easter collection under prohibition exceeded any other Easter collection by 700 dollars. Father P. Saurusaitis, the leading Lithuanian prohibition priest in America, held that the Lithuanians, like most Cathodes in America of foreign origin, have toarcely ever had any Opportunity to be educated on the prohibition question, except by the patent beneficient results of the eighteenth amendment.

father F. M. Sperlein argued that nothing can turn the average foreigner into a loyal American citizen as swiftly and effectually as prohibition. Tather E. W. J. Lindesmitib, 93 years old, the first officially appointed Catholic United States army chaplain since George Washington appointed a Catholic chaplain for the Canadian regiment under Washington's command, desired that his letter to last year's meeting might again be read. In it he says: "The dying advice of a priest 64 years in the service is: I urge all my eoreligonists and all my fellow citizens to be total abstainers and prohibitionists. I have been a total abstainer all my life, and have taught abstinence during the 64 years of my priesthood. I am perfectly persuaded that prohibition coming from the Church and the State, and enforced by both is the best remedy against drunkenness." Father C. P. Baron said: "All good people thank God sincerely that the liquor curse is condemned and gone, and pray earnestly that it may never come back, neither as we had it, nor what would eveetually be the same thing in the form of light wine and beer—now the treacherous cry of the old law-breakers." He also announced that many prohibition priests, formerly not affiliated with any prohibition organisation, _ now protest against those Catholip politicians who advocate a return of light wine and beer. Among the statistics gathered by the society are the following, taken from the official records of Bellevue Hospital. New York: Of the 225 patients sick from alcoholism admitted in that hospital in the first 10 days of January, February, and March, in 1919. under the liquor license regjfne,i 209 .were listed Catholic. Of the 122 patients sick from alcoholism, admitted on the corresponding-first 10 days of January. February, and March, in 1920, under poorly enforced prohibition, 82 were listed Catholics. In other words, prohiK-'-tion reduced the number of Catholics sick from alcoholism in Bellevue Hospital by 157 in 30 days, and at the same rate bv 1884 in 360 days.—The Catholic Citizen, Milwaukee.