PROGRESS REPORT

White Ribbon, Volume 22, Issue 2, 1 March 1950, Page 5

PROGRESS REPORT

"DRYS' MAKE PROGRESS (From “Evening Post," Wellington, 31/1/50.) NEW YORK, January 17. Prohibition is making a big comeback in America. Statistics made public today show that nearly a third of the nation is dry again. . . There are 3,070 counties in the United States, and of them 959 have voted under local option laws to forbid the sale of beer or spirits or both. The “Drys" are even making headway in New York. Not York City, of course, where drinking is legal from 8 a m. until 4 the following morning. But in rural New York 66 townships have returned to some form of prohibition, and 50 of them have a total ban on drinking, either by glass or bottle. . , t “Wets" like Morris Alprin, counsel for the distillers, warn the public not to believe that prohibition is ‘ dead and gone for ever.” . The “Dry" movement has gone clever,” Alprin told me. Its members are no longer the “blue noses" and “pussyfoots" of the twenties. They are organising groups of youngsters now. and their propaganda is telling. They are not going after a national vote for prohibition, but they are fighting a step-by-step campaign to dry up town after town, and county after county. _ — C. V. R. Thompson.