National Prohibition

Improvement Era Vol. XIX MAY, 1916 No. 7

National Prohibition"

BY GLADYS OREM

Agreat moral wave is sweeping over the nations of the world, including not only our own country, but the leading pow- ers of Europe. One of the main forces instrumental in bringing on this movement is the attempted elimination of the liquor traffic. Prohibition first took form in what was known as local option, but this is too local and too optional and has already proven a failure. On the other hand, where there has been state-wide prohibition, these States have enjoyed beneficent and lasting results. One of the many evils of the day, which has created more crimes and low- ered the standard of mankind, is the use of alcoholic drinks. In order to do away with the evil, you must first do away with the root of the evil. So, in order to destroy the consumption of alco- hol, we must do away with its production, and the only way pos- sible to do this is to enact and enforce throughout the land, na- tional prohibition. To form an adequate idea of the ill-effects of the use of alco- holic drinks, let us consider its effects, physically, mentally and morally on the human being. During the Boer war it was noticed that the English army was deficient in both vitality and endurance. This became so apparent that the English government appointed a commission to investigate and report the cause. After a long and thorough search the commission declared it was due to alcoholic poison. The matter excited so much interest that many cities throughout the united kingdom, by placarding their streets, called upon the peo- ple in thename of their nation, to desist from alcoholic drinks. France and other nations immediately followed with a like cam- paign. Since then scientific organizations and individual scien-

*Delivered at the Westminster College Chapel, Salt Lake City, 1915, and published in the Era by special permission of the author.

;

578 IMPROVEMENT ERA tists have confirmed the report of the English commission. In this present war the czar of Russia, remembering the effects of alcohol on his army during the last war with Japan, prohibited the use and sale of liquor for not only the war period, but to remain a fixed law of the empire. It has been said that the main reason for the Germans not succeeding in taking Paris in the recent in- vasion, was the excessive amount of drunkenness when the Ger- man army reached Champagne, famous for its wine cellars. Fol- lowing this the kaiser prohibited the use of liquor in the German army. In 1911 the kaiser made this statement: "The nation which takes the smallest amount of alcohol will win the battles of the future." The distinguished King Albert of Belgium converted many people to the cause by attending personally a meeting of the Bel- gian anti-alcoholic movement. The famous French General, Gal- lini, whom the French government placed in command of Paris

when that city was in imminent peril, owes his good health and abilities as a general to strict temperance principles. He also is a booster of the cause. Liquor not only reduces vitality and endurance, but the insur- ance tables show that it reduces average life. A man at twenty will live to be sixty-four if he is a total abstainer and remains such to the end of life. These statements are mathematically cor- rect on the law of average. A man at twenty who is a moderate drinker will live to be fifty-one years old. Thus we see that mod- erate drinking reduces the life of a man thirteen years, to say noth- ing of the impairment of his usefulness during his life. The so- called drunkard at twenty, if he continues to drink, will live to be only thirty-five. Mr. Hobson, in his great speech entitled, "The Destroyer," declared there were 20,000,000 moderate drinkers in this country. To be conservative in our statement we will say there are but 10,000,000. Ten million times thirteen years is 130,- 000,000 years of the most useful part of these men's lives cut out of one generation. Why should this nation spend millions of dol- lars educating the youth of this country for useful citizenship and at the same time license a traffic which tends to defeat the object of their education ? On the other hand, it is estimated that one child in five born of a drunken father is insane and one child in three is epileptic one in four, feeble-minded where both parents are dissipated, the ;

ratio is much greater. Why should the state spend millions of dollars for insane asylums, homes for the feeble-minded, and charitable institutions, and then license and dignify as a business a crime which produces the poor, insane and feeble-minded, to fill these institutions? A leading question of the day is the labor problem. Take the laboring man of today earning approximately ten dollars a week.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION 579

He reasons that he has worked for it and can spend it as he wishes. He goes to the saloon, instead of returning home. Do you know that only eight cents of ten dollars spent for whiskey returns di- rectly to the wage earner, and forty-nine cents to the farmer for grain? A total of fifty-seven cents, leaving nine dollars and forty-three cents to go into the profits of the business. If, on the other hand, instead of spending his money for whiskey, he should buy furniture, three dollars and fifty-three cents will go directly to the wage-earner, and one dollar and eighty-five cents for ma- terial, a total of five dollars and forty cents. Four dollars and sixty cents of it goes to encourage a legitimate manufacturing industry. There were over 200,000,000 ten-dollar bills spent for liquor last year. Capital naturally seeks investment. If the millions engaged in the liquor crime were driven out of that business, they would seek investment in other industries using from two to five times as many men as they now employ. Oh, that the laboring men of this country would invest their money where a larger proportion of it would come back to the wage-earner. This would go a long way toward solving the labor problem. Let us mention the poor widow who pleads with the saloon- keeper not to sell her only son liquor, which has caused the de- struction of their once happy home. The saloon keeper points to his license hanging on the wall, and says :"There is the au- thority for my business I am not responsible for your son." There ;

should be no war made on the saloon keeper. His business is en- titled to as much credit as the license which decorates the wall of his saloon. The license is entitled to as much respect as the Board of Commissioners, who grant it, and they are as creditable as the law under which they act. The law is entitled to as much respect as the legislature which enacted it, and the legislature is as the voters who elected the legislators. Hence, we see that the respon- sibility in the ultimate analysis rests upon the voter. We cannot shift this responsibility. We hear much these times about child labor in our factories, and during the last campaign, many of our spell-binders made this subject the burden of their eloquence. I wish to say to you that if we prohibit our factories and in-

dustries generally from employing child labor we have not solved the problem so long as we make drunkards of the fathers of these children. Their fathers are their natural providers, and the legal- ized liquor traffic is constantly robbing them of the natural sup- port. We must not forget that these children have bodies to be clothed and sheltered, stomachs to be fed. If you deprive them of their natural provider and strip them of the right to provide for themselves, you turn them out to suffer and starve. Refusing

;

580 IMPROVEMENT ERA to let children work when they have no other means of support is not solving the child-labor problem. Now, again, modern people are thorough believers in educa- tion. It is conceded that our public school system is the strong- est pillar in our American institutions. By physical education we develop the body; by mental education, the intellect. Activities along moral and religious lines develop the moral nature. The proper education physically, mentally and morally, of the masses, will surround the nation with a fortress of protection more secure than can be provided by iron-clad fleets and standing armies. You can hardly imagine anything that would be a greater blow to our American liberties than the destruction of our educational institu- tions. Where is the consistency in spending millions of dollars edu- cating the youth of this country for efficient and useful citizenship, and at the same time encouraging an institution which impairs their productive efficiency and shortens their lives ? Who does not recognize the importance of the church and its great work in the nation? You are church people, and most of you have supported some church all your lives, but I wish to ask, why support churches to save men and then license shops to de- stroy them? Does it pay to call ministers to preach the gospel of love, and then, license other men to engage in a traffic which fosters hate and destruction? Why send missionaries to the heathen to preach salvation and at the same time send liquor for their damnation? Last, but not least, is the effect on the nation. In this day of high cost of living we are concerned greatly with the economic question. It is estimated that there are 10,000,000 non-producers in this country made so by the liquor traffic. If you will destroy this infamous business, many of these people will become pro- ducers. This increases the amount produced and decreases the high cost of living. There was enough grain swept down in the alcoholic flood last year to have made 6,000,000,000 pound-loaves of bread. This does not mean much in the abstract. Allowing these loaves to be each one foot in length, they would make a pile of bread forty-five loaves high, encircling the earth at the equator or they would furnish one loaf a day for one year to each of 15,000,000 families. I maintain that a traffic which destroys so much grain in one

single year, at a time when the high cost of living is the burning question of the hour, is a problem of sufficient importance to com- mand the attention of the wisest statesmanship. Again, there were over $2,000,000,000 spent for drink in the United States last year. This sum alone would pay off the entire national debt, and furnish an educational endowment fund of $27,000,000 for each of the forty-nine States in the Union. This

NATIONAL PROHIBITION 581

amount of money spent for drink annually would pay for six Panama canals. They tell us prohibition does not prohibit. Prohibit means to forbid. It does not entirely prevent. Neither does a law against stealing or murder entirely prevent. They say there is more liquor drunk in prohibition territory than in license territory. If this is so,why is it that the liquor interests will spend millions of dollars to defeat prohibition? It is a fact that although we have eighteen prohibition states, the consumption of alcohol has scarce- ly diminished. To this we answer we have never had national pro- hibition in this country. A careful investigation will reveal the fact that the increase has been in license territory and large cities, and the decrease has been in prohibition or partially prohibition territory. In Kansas a law went into effect by which the common carriers are required to report the shipments of liquor into the state, giving the name of the party to whom it was consigned and the amount and kind of liquor. A careful estimate of the amount of liquor consumed in that state proves that the per capita consumption is 3.69 gallons, while the consumption in the whole United States is about 22 gallons per capita. On this basis Kansas saves $29,000,000 annually over and above what it would save if it took its per capita proportion of the liquor drunk in the United

States. For over fifty years we have tried the license and regulation system in this country, and under that system consumption has gradually increased from four gallons to twenty-two gallons per capita. Hence, regulation does not regulate. In ante-bellum times the question of slavery was a living question, an act known as the Squatter Sovereignty Act, allowing each state to prohibit or legalize human slavery, was presented to Mr. Lincoln. He said : "If slavery is wrong, it is wrong alto- gether, and no majority, however great, has a right to enforce it upon a minority, however small." Mr. Lincoln also said : "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I am convinced that r this country cannot remain permanently half slave and haK ree." What Mr. Lincoln said in regard to the slavery question can be said with equal force and emphasis regarding the legalized liquor traffic. This country cannot long exist half license and half pro- hibition, half drunk and half sober. Every person who exercises the sacred right of the ballot is responsible for the conditions which exist. Our Government is in partnership with the liquor crime and shares in the emoluments that grow out of it. How can you expect to be held guiltless if you walk up to the ballot box and vote the same ticket as the brewer does? Many of our people pray on Sunday for the crime to stop when they have already voted in favor of licensing the crime. Fred Douglas, the great colored orator of the Civil war,

582 IMPROVEMENT ERA said that he succeeded best in praying for his freedom when he prayed with his feet. The Christian voter will succeed best in praying for the destruction of this crime when he prays with his ballot.

Do not forget that this is a government of political parties. If you are a member of the party that has been shaping the destiny of the country for the last fifty years, you are entitled to share in the honor of its achievements, but you cannot escape the censure which rests upon it in consequence of its licensing crime. The en- couraging outlook is that all the prohibition forces of this country seem to be joining hands. We have had enough Republican pro- hibitionists, Democratic prohibitionists, party prohibitionists, and non-party prohibitionists to have long ago, if they had acted in unison, overthrown the legalized liquor traffic. Do you know that only last year Uncle Sam appropriated, in a bill signed by the President, $500,000 to stop the hog cholera in the middle West ? And the Secretary of Agriculture already has expended over a million dollars, and expects to spend millions more, for the hoof and mouth disease of the cattle. Is it good common sense and good statesmanship for the national govern- ment to spend millions of dollars in this capacity, while not a cop- per goes to suppress the demon drink which is rilling our prisons and destroying our homes? Is it good common sense for the federal government to spend millions of dollars determining how to treat the hoof and mouth disease of the cow, while nothing is done for the hoof and mouth disease of millions of human be- ings — — our own countrymen a mouth disease that is ever occur- ring, which destroys its victims, and a foot disease which sends every year 1,000,000 drunkards and 4,000,000 heavy drunkards from neglected duties and unembraced opportunities to homes de- spoiled by their misdoings and dishonored by their misdeeds? The argument of some anti-prohibitionists is, that if saloon keepers' business is destroyed they will be idle and many buildings will be vacated. When the sugar bill was up before the House it was said : "Why don't you turn your rich soil into the growing of other crops, for which it is better adapted, and which will bring you greater profits ?" Why not answer the brewers as you did the sugar growers? Tell them to turn their energy along other lines that do not produce broken-down wrecks of humanity, but rather produce something which will bring them relatively greater re- turns. Our method in dealing with the liquor traffic has been to li- cense the cause and punish the effect. Did it ever occur to you that our attitude toward liquor is different from any other crime? We do not license murder, yet we do license alcoholic drinks, which produce more murderers than all other crimes combined

NATIONAL PROHIBITION 583

produce. It is the source of a multitude of crimes and its legal- ized protection is the greatest crime of the age. The agitation for the destruction of the liquor traffic is an irrepressible conflict. It is not only a battle, but a series of bat- tles, a war of extermination. It will never cease till the evils which the traffic inflicts upon mankind are removed or until the human race is destroyed. There is no education, no authority that can revive the nobility and the greatness of the national spirit to such an extent as national prohibition.

The Dawn

The spring has come at last. Soft strains, as from the aeolian harp, Each dawn come from the meadow lark; While lo! the placid ember's spark bays, death to life has passed.

Kind nature smiles to-day. Though seeming dead, she only slept, The law of her control well kept, To bless anew the hearts that wept, And give us faith to pray. Do we sense well the dawn? Ah! spring would be but gloomy days, If we had balmy spring always. Cold winter tunes the heart to praise The birth of spring's bright morn. Say not God's ways bring strife, E'en though the seasons come and go; To find friends 'neath the frozen snow, That seeming state of death and woe Wakes to a greater life. So hail we, then, the morn. Let every soul his anthem bring; In one grand chorus join and sing; With nature let our voices ring And thank God for the dawn. O. F. Ursenbach iaymond, Canada