The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-07-30

Y ~ ~ ~
tenths of the prisons would be shut up
In view of the testimony from these
various sources we are warranted in
saying that most of the cost connected
with crime is chargeable to the liquor
traffic. License fees do not begin to
take care of all this expense. Add the
fines and there will still be much lack
ing. A large percentage of the crimi-
mails for which drink is responsible have
no money to pay fines and have to lay
them out in Jail, thereby adding to ex-
pense instead of relieving But on this
point [ do not need to offer simply my
say so. There are those in position
| to know what is the relation between
receipts and expenditures. Carroll D.
| Wright, Commissioner of the United
! States Department of Labor, is quoted
| as saying, every dollar received in
revenue from the liquor traffic costs the
government twenty-one dollars Judge
Fort of Missouri says that in his one
uIStTlCl diOue the dHuudf tOSL
growing out of the traffic exceeds the
license revenues by $4,000
By way of contrast with the preced
ing, note Shelby County, Missouri, where
the liquor traffic has been suppressed for
| eighteen years. What is the result
| They have no one in the state peniten-
tiary. They have no boys or girls in
| the reform schools of the state. And
! their county Jail is empty practically
all the time The criminal costs last
year amounted to 1903, and circuit
court sat but five days during the year.
The testimony from prohibition Kansas
is in harmony with that just cited, show
ing that while prohibition hasn't been
+: perfect it has nevertheless prohibited in !
marked degree.
Now, if we had space to deal with |
disease, pauperism and insanity, what
might we not add to the force of evil |
dence already given versus the liquor
traffic g tax-saving propaganda. Let |
me cite two testimonies. DIR. n. 5.
Davis, president of the International
Medical Congress, says there is no
greater or more destructive error than
the belief that beer and wine, and even
distilled spirits, do no harm if used in
moderation. Sir Andrew Clark, private
physician to the Queen of England, has
said that out of every one hundred
No oh Of OF tha ItnnHOn
Hospital, seventy of them owe their Ill
health to alcohol. He adds Health IS
always injured by it; benefited by it
never
Do the license fees lessen the cost of
government No. They don't even pay
the cost of prosecuting and caring for
the criminals growing out of the traffic,
to say nothing of providing for the pow
erty for which it is responsible, and sup
porting the fee ble-ninded and other
wise diseased whose condition IS trace
able to it, Add the fines and still the
cost is far from being met. Nor must
one forget the diIapidated homes and
the conditions in many slum district
which but for drink would make good
taxable property. Loss Of earning
capacity and productive power IS
direct cutting off of taxable assets.
And that is not all. Suppose our an
nual drink bill, or a respectable portion
of it. were turned into the legitimate
channels of trade Who could not at
ford to pay. more taxes than he now
pays? A writer in the Chicago Tribune
saws that the annual drink bill of eur
nation is S1,249, 191 ,253, or S15.4 for
each man, woman and child in the land.
We have been hearing a good deal OF
late concerning teachers salaries. This .
is a little more than eight times as
much as is paid for all the salaries OF
all the teachers in all the public schools Z
of our whole country. We hear ocea- ,
sionalIy of the money wasted IN mis-
effort This drink bill Is sew
times greater than the income
Of all the Protestant missionary socie- I