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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19439, 27 October 1925, Page 10

What Prohibition Has Done. The Evils It Has Wrought. It s Enormous and Vain Expense And Civil War. , f An Open Letter to the Electors of New Zealand. 11/fl ■ KMfeV fl MK3OIII (The Hon. Wm. Cabell Bruce is a United States Senator from Maryland). WM. CABOX BRUCK MARYLAND SUCnHcb 4£>enale, WASHINGTON. O. C. 122.9 Munsey Bldg.,’ Bal t imo re , Lid. 10th April, 1925. TO THE ELECTORS OF NEW ZEALAND. Prohibition has proved itself in the United States to be the most despicable of all things—an artificial criminal statute without a moral sanction. In its effort to root out a natural human propensity, that before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment was, more and more, learning how to regulate itself, it has built up a tremendous organization international as well as national, which, in the prosecution of its illicit aims, enlists millions of dollars of capital, and maintains whole fleets of rum-running ships on our coasts. It has created a new underworld and extended the boundaries of the old. Under its perverting influence, for the first time in the history of the United States the most reputable members of human society have been brought into a close working alliance with the most disreputable. It has diverted into morbid and demoralizing courses the love of excitement and adventure which, within legitimate limits, is one of the most beautiful and interesting attributes of the youthful character. It has introduced the arts of brewing and distilling into the very heart of the home, and under the very eyes of young children. Instead of a temperate glass of wine or beer, we have now the pocket flask. Prohibition has filled the bowels of the people with deadly poisons. It has arrested the steady growth of temperance which was one of the most striking phenomena of our social life during the era immediately preceding the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. It has let loose upon the people a horde of snoopers, spies and raiders, many of whom are unblushingly venal, and not a few of whom have been known to seize the papers or to arrest the person of the citizen when they themselves were drunk. It has turned into the pockets of the bootleggers and high-seas and highway gunmen millions of dollars which should be in the coffers of the State and Federal Treasuries for the purpose of alleviating the almost intolerable burden of taxation under which we are groaning. Worst of all, it has brought not only itself, but all law into disrespect, and is breeding hatred of our government in the hearts of thousands of men who were ready a few years ago to die for it. And recently it has produced a state of things that can be pronounced nothing less than a war waged by our Government upon its own people. Many million dollars more were appropriated during the recent session of Congress than had ever been appropriated by Congress before the enforcement of prohibition. This money will simply be so much more waste for the prohibition rat-hole. Provision was also made during the same session of Congress for the detachment from the American Navy or for the construction of a great addition to the armed vessels now employed by the Government in running down rum-runners and slaughtering their crews. Yours very truly, PROFIT BY EXPERIENCE VOTE CONTINUANCE