PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22064, 21 September 1933, Page 5

PROHIBITION IN AMERICA

A “GLORIOUS EXPERIMENT” FAILS By T. C. L. The repeal'ofj the Prohibition Amendinent to the Federal Constitution at an early date may be taken for granted. So far every State, including former enthusiastic “ dry ” States, that has taken a poll on the question has declared in favour of repeal, and it is likely that before the end of the year the necessary 36 States out of the 48 will have voted out prohibition from America. Attenuated beer, 3.2 alcoholic content, has been declared by Congress to be nonalcoholic and permitted to be sold, and sold it is in ever increasing volume throughout the States to the satisfaction of the public and the. discomfiture of the bootleg rings, who see in it the thin edge of the wedge to their illegal but lucrative business. . Few will be sorry to see the end of prohibition that never prohibited and could never prohibit with ; American human nature constituted ns it is. Enforcement could' not be effected, because in the first place public opinion was not .sufficiently strong behind it, and in the second place because of the corruptibility of the officers concerned with its enforcement. What it has -done is to produce a host of scandals and problems from the corroding effect of which the country is acutely suffering, and is likely to suffer, for many a day. A VERITABLE GOLD MINE.

Prohibition gave gangdom in the big cities a veritable gold mine it was quick to exploit, and money is power which they used with debauching effect on the public service and the life oi the community. It is estimated their gross profits have amounted to over £400,000,000 sterling a year, half of which has had to be devoted to “ buying off ” officials and men in municipal and political life. But their income did not end with the sale of liquor. They had their “rackets,” tribute they levy on people and industries under threat of financial loss, physical injury or downright murder. It is authoritatively stated that in New York alone from £60,000,000 to £100,006,000 sterling (not dollars) annually is -collected by a small ■ gang of criminals from racketeering. Rackets have secured such a stranglehold on die nation, it is claimed, that nearly 5,000,000 persons are involved in the several hundred branches of this flourishing illegal business, ■ The racketeers’ money power has been used to subsidise the funds of the Prohibitionists and to corrupt the police and the politicians. There has never been a more sinister element in the body politic than the bootlegger-racketeer, for it is a joint business. And how it is to be removed now that, it has such a strong and widespread grip upon the community is one of the many ' problems that is exercising the minds of the best elements of the "United States at the present time. A movement of young people, «the crusaders,” already over a million and a-quarter in number, has been launched over a nation-wide front to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment as a preliminary to making open war on the bootleggers, racketeers, and corrupt politicians, i They i believe that if they can reach the door-steps of the political section of the racketeering army they will account for 95- per cent, of' the trouble. They have a big and difficult job ahead of them, for in municipal State and Federal political life agents and principals in the unlawful; work are securely entrenched and to discover and dislodge them will severely try their skill and resource. A LAWLESS PEOPLE. American historians and commentators confidently affirm that their people have never been distinguished for their obedience to the laws of the land, a legacy of the pioneering spirit that, developed independence of thought and action and a" resistance to anything that curbed or interfered with individual rights and relations. But open violation of the prohibition laws has done more to create contempt for the law as a whole than any other agent. Quite good law-abiding citizens have never felt the slightest compunction over breaking a law that interfered with their way of living, and the younger element openly defied a law that attempted to put out of their reach something that their elders had enjoyed. What effect this disregard for law has had and is likely to have in the years to come time alone can show, but there is good reason to believe that already the effect has been most serious and farreaching. IDEALISTIC YET PRACTICAL.

The Americans are an idealistic as well as an essentially practical people, and there is no doubt that when at a time of great national outpouring of spirit, when the nation was organising itself to throw its manhood and resources into the war, they enacted prohibition they sincerely felt all the evils attending the liquor traffic would be completely and effectually removed. But they did not realise that the removal of one set of evil conditions might easily produce another and a worse lot. And that has really happened. Bootlegging, racketeering, graft, and corruption are the reactions, with consumption of liquor probably in no way diminished, with baneful results arising from the drinking itself' no less pronounced, and with the country minus the revenue it had formerly received, from its regiilarisation. To-day that revenue, and more, is pocketed by an army of the lowest elements of the country elevated into authority by its financial resources over hundreds of thousands of subjects and constituting a law unto themselves, with a. code of correction and punishment as brutal and fiendish as it is unerring and comprehensive. LOSS OF REVENUE. Times of trouble and economic stress turn the minds of most people to a close and careful examination of their affairs with a view to ascertaining where savings and improvements can be effected, and the present determined move to end the prohibition fiasco ,is largely attributable to a desire on the part of the American people to secure for the National Treasury, the large revenue from the sale of liquor now going into the pockets of the bootleggers. They estimate that the loss is anything up to a year, which would more than take care of the interest on capital payments under the Industrial Recovery Act and go a long way towards relieving other burdens on the people. , It is estimated that at the present rate of consumption the sale of beer for a full year will amount to 50,000,000 barrels, on which will' be levied taxation of 300,000,000 dollars, and that on this basis the industry will consume 70,000,000 bushels of barley and corn, that fuel requirements will be a million and a-half tons of coal, providing full employment for 3000 miners, and supplying the railways of the country with 200,000 carloads of freight. Other industries .will also benefit. Hardwood will be required for barrels, glass for bottles and glasses, sugar, pumps, and dozens of others that in the last 12 or 13 years have been inactive or become almost obsolete. SALOONS NOT WANTED.

It is certain, however, that the old time saloon, with its many evils, will never again be tolerated. Shops, chemists, and restaurants are now selling the 3.2 beer. Some of the States, such as Maine and Tennessee, though they have voted for repeal, are not likely to vote for the introduction of hard liquor. Their people are apparently quite con-

tent with the 3.2 beer. But the form the sale of “hard” liquor will take in such of the other States which declare in its favour is not yet known. Probably stores for its sale will be licensed as well as hotels —there is no apparent desire to create a monopoly in connection with the sale of liquor.