PROHIBITION AT WORK

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15788, 9 April 1919, Page 11

PROHIBITION AT WORK

(Extract from New York Times, January 20. 1919.) To tlio Editor of the New York Times. The prohibitionists are to be congratulated on their success in making the country safe for hypocrisy. None but the most verdantly unsophisticated believe that our legislators, national and State, will practice the total abstinence from intoxicats which they are forcing on the people. Already Senators and Representatives here are rapidly providing oases for the future Sahara. Lockers in the Capitol and cellars in homes are being replenished. Limousines roll in from Baltimore daily with the precious freight, and the Adams Express office, transformed into a wholesale liquor establishment, is a social gathering place where the best-gowned women in Washingtoo wait patiently to receive their packages. Which means that the Solo ns of every State, as well as of the nation, as well as all other persons of sufficient means, will he able to procure, before prohibition becomes effective, enough liquor solace for a long time ahead—in the case of the wealthy for the remainder of their lives. The great mass of the plain people, the mechanic, the poorly paid clerk, the small storekeeper, whose drab lot of hard toil, or monotonous occupation is somewhat relieved and brightened by an occasional glass of beer partaken in cheerful and congenial company, will be deprived of what their more fortunate fellow-citizens can still enjoy—those to whom many sources of physical and mental exhilaration—travel, golf, art, opera—are open. A year from now Senator Croesus will have ten thousand dollars worth of champagne in his cellar; John Smith will, maybe, have a dozen bottles of beer in his ice chest. Is this a square deal ? Is John Smith going to submit to it ? A CLERGYMAN. Washington, D. C., Jan 20,1919.t