THE AMERICAN LIQUOR LAWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21599, 21 March 1932, Page 8

THE AMERICAN LIQUOR LAWS

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —My attention has been called to your editorial of the 16th on the above subject, Permit me to indicate some inaccuracies therein. In the first place you say that the legislation abolishing the legalised liquor trafiic “ has bred a spirit of’lawlessncss and encouraged corruption.' Well, there was nothing quite so lawless as the liquor traffic in the United States, nothing so busy about the business of corruption as the liquor traffic in the United States before prohibition. A special committee' of the judiciary inquired into that in 1919 and published findings condemning the traffic for secretly controlling newspapers and periodicals, secretly controlling political organisations and elections, violating Federal and State statutes by contribution of “enormous sums of money _ in political campaigns, controlling and dominating the foreign language press and subsidising authors of recognised standing to print articles of their selection in standard periodicals. In passing, I may say the liquor interests are still busy on the same secret press campaign trying to engineer a “ come-back.” As to “straws,” there arc others besides those of the Literary Digest brand. But, first, a word about that particular poll. On the last occasion 20,000,000 ballots were sent out by the Digest and less than 4,000,000 were returned, even under conditions without safeguard as to plural voting and other abuses. Actually the ballots were bought from schoolboys at 10 cents a time by ardent “ wets, ’ who encouraged the boys to bring them from homes whore they were lying around unused. But even so, 10 out of every 20 who got the ballots would not be bothered to use them. Now there are at least 40.000. voters in the United States of America. The Literary Digest gets opinions from about 2,000,000 so far and says they show three to one “ wet, ’ and this is telegraphed round the world as it it had real significance. In the last Digest poll Pennsylvania showed two to one “ wet.” Within a month or two there was a real vote to elect a Governor and a Senator, and the “ drys ” polled 83 per cent, of the votes, and the Governor and Senator elected were both outstanding “ drys.” So much for the' Digest straws. Permit me now to mention some straws which have probably greater significance than those set going by the Digest. Women’s organisations, representing 12.000. women, have recently adopted resolutions urging their membership to work for the retention of the Eighteenth Amendment and law enforcement. The National Education Association and the Parents and Teachers’ Association have again gone on record solidly in favour ot retaining the prohibition law and developing educational work against alcoholic beverages. The Farmers’ Grange, with a membership of 800,000, so. recently as November last, at its annual meeting pledged opposition to all attempts to nullify the law and reaffirmed its stand for national prohibition and law enforcement. But we never had any cables about these. The results of a worthless and liquor-inspired poll such as the Literary Digest conducts are telegraphed round the world as offering evidence of widespread public sentiment. But the considered resolutions of large and important public bodies upholding the Eighteenth Amendment are not considered worth mention by the news exporters in the United States. Thus is the public mind confused—l am,' etc., J. Malton Murray, General Secretary, New Zealand Alliance. March 18.