WE WANT TO COME BACK.

White Ribbon, Volume 29, Issue 344, 18 February 1924, Page 6

WE WANT TO COME BACK.

“Wo want to come back,” plead Wine and Beer, through their spokesman, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. “We are not to be classed with the ‘intoxicating liquors’ referred to in the Eighteenth Amendment.*’ “It is the alcohol in whisky that intoxicates, and that is to Ik* found als • in l>eer and wines,” objects Science. “The only difference is In the amount, and beer and wine are usually drunk in larger quantities than is whisky. One individual drinks half a pint of light wine containing about 8 per cent, of alcohol; another takes three tablespoonfuls of whisky of 42 per cent, alcoholic strength; a third two glasses of 4 per cent. beer, and each gets about the same amount of alcohol.” “We want to come back,” cry Wine and Beer. “We never cause drunkenness, or any of the other evils that follow In the train of the stronger liquors.” “More than ninety per cent, of the alcoholic liquors consumed in the United States before national prohibition were l>eer and wine.” counters Experience. ‘The police courts of the big cities were filled with men in. toxicated by these liquors. A Boston policeman, after forty-one years’ service. has said. ‘My experience is that beer drinkers become more gluttonous, more degraded, and often more brutal than any other kind of drunk ard "We want to come back,” wail Wine and Beer. “The people are begging for us. Thousands ate dying for need of us.” "Prove that statement,” retorts hard headed Uommon Sense. “The people of Ohio did not seem to be pining away for you when in November, 1923, they voted by nearly 200.000 majority to keep you out. You pleaded that ‘the people' wanted you in the dry States of Oregon, Colorado, and Washington in 1916, and in Michigan in 1919, hut at the polls ‘the people,* by an overwhelming majority, voted to prevent your coming back.” "We want to come back.” beg Wine and Beer. “We‘ll conduct ourselves respectably. We’ll not bring with us the saloons ”

"We are compelled to distruct your assertions,” responds Close Observation. "The (Jovernor of New York, one of your champions, has remarked that he would do anything that made it possible for him to ‘put his foot on the brass rail and blow off the froth.’ Others of your advocates talk boldly of a chain of drinking places for the dispensing of wine and beer, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and whether they are given the name nf ‘saloon’ or one with a less objectionable history, they will in reality be centres for the sale of liquid poison.” "We want to come hack." insist Wine hnd Beer. "Until wa* are permitted to return the law can not be enforced. We will be law- abiding.” “Your past record belies your words.” replies History. ‘‘Dealers in alcoholic beverages never have obeyed the law-, not even those mild restrictions relating to the sale of liquor to minors and habitual drunkards. The history of your lawlessness is to be found in the report of the investigation of brewers' activities by the United States Senate, published in 1919, in the ‘Pongres sional Record.’ Tt tells of the large sums given by the brewers to control the press, and their contributions, in violation of Federal and State laws, to political campaigns. Listen to w-hat ex President Taft, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, has said about Wine and Reer as first aid’ to law- enforcement; ‘I am not In favour of amending the Volstead Law- in respect to the amount of permissible alcohol in beverages. I am not in favour of allowing light wines and beer to he sold under the Eighteenth Amendment. 1 believe it would defeat the purpose of the Amendment. No such distinction as that between wines and heer on the one hond, and spirituous liquors on the other is practicable as a police measure. Any such loop-holes as light wines and beer would make the Amendment a laughing stock.’ ”