U.S.A.’S EXPERIENCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19436, 23 October 1925, Page 11

U.S.A.’S EXPERIENCE

PRODUCTION OF ILLICIT LIQUOR INCREASED. (By Wm. H. Stayton, graduate of Washington University, Admiralty Lawyer, President and Director of many Corporations, etc.) Prohibition law abandons persuasion to reach the hearts and minds of men, and employs force and punishment to effect allegedly moral objects. “When the’Prohibition laws went into effect there were 34 distilleries in the United States; employing 1380 men (see Anti-Saloon Year Book. 1925, page 13). Since then the Federal Government alone has seized 40,675 distilleries up to June, 1924. Probably the States, forty-five of which have enforcement laws of their own, have seizcd as-many more.

i But besides these distilleries there : arc stills and auxiliary hooch-making ; devices. The Enforcement Unit itself reports that in 1921 it seized 10,991 stills; that it has seized an even greater number each succeeding year, and that the total seized by it in four years has been fifty-one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight (51,838). It is doubtful if more than one still in ten has been seized. But how much hooch will 51.838 stills make? i The seizures from the date when the Volstead Act went into effect up to i June 30. 1924, less than four and a-half I years, aggregate 44,584,879 gallons. The output seems to be steadily increasing. as the quantities seized have become larger every year. Thus, in the. first half-vear the quality captured was onlv 153.735 gallons; the next full year , it rose to 5,805,895 gallons, and last ' year it reached 15,786,570 gallons. : These figures include wine, bee*, etc. “Then the annual output of the 1924 ; captures equals the huge quantity of I 173,965,272 gallons of 100 per cent. 1 proof whisky, or considerably more i than the total quantity consumed in I the United States in any pre-Prohibi- ' tion year. , “These figures represent, as before, ; seizures by Federal officers. ’ ’ —The North American Review. 1925. Prohibition has proved a disastrous ■ experiment. After U.S.A.’s experience you cannot afford to trust any fanatic’s promises. Help the present majority, i which intends that, such disgraceful I conditions shall never prevail in New ' Zealamt—LAAvU) 20