Arizona republican., 1909-06-29
BUSINESS METHODS IN MODERN "0RY" MOVEMENT
ONE REASON FOR SUCCESS OF ! LATEST PROHIBITION WAVE.
Man Behind the Movement and His Methods of Control.

New York. June 22.-(Special Cor
 respondence of The Republican.) )-
 In twenty-five years there will moi
 be legalized saloon in the United
 States" is the prediction of the Anti
 Saloon league, the organization which
 is fighting in every state of the Union to secure. the enactment of
 prohibitory laws.
 'In twenty-five years the states
 that have adopted prohibition as a re-
 suit of the Anti Saloon leagues agi-
 tation will have rescinded these laws
 and the league itself will be for
 gotten" reply the leading represen-
 tatives of distilling and brewing in
 terests.
 It is impossible, of course, to de-
 eide which of these diametrically op-
 posite interests. is the correct one.
 The anti-saloon leaders base their
 hope of annihilating the saloon, so far as its sanction in law is con cerned, upon what they have accom-
 plished already. Their opponents on the other hand point to the history of past prohibitOry waves which have swept over the country, and then have 'suhsided leaving scarcely any trace of their temporarily wide effect These two precedents form the only material on which the average man can base even a guess as to the pos sible course of events in connection with this subject. Even this method provides no exact basis of cOnjec- ture, for the present organized attack on the liquor trade presents clements of strength and weakness not present in former cruSades
 Even the severest critics of the Anti Saloon league admit that there has been during the past few years a remarkable expansion in the extent of territory in which liquor selling is forbidden. Five of the southern states have outlawed the liquor traf- fic by statutory prohibition. North Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma have state prohibitory laws, in addition to Maine. which has remained steadily in the prohibition column throughout the fluctuations of this movement for half a century. Many other states contain a large proportion of mo- license territory under the operation of local option laws. In all of these states the anti-saloOn propaganda is being carried steadily on by the train ed and salaried workers of the league. Taking into account the towns and counties in wet" states that have adopted no-license, the claim of the league that over one-t third of the pop ulation of the country is living under prohibitOry laws at the present time seems to be well within the facts. As to the extent to which these laws are observed authorities differ Obvious ly there has not been a decrease of one-third in the consumption of liquor.
 More than fifty years ago an even greater proportion of the people of the United States had adopted pro- hibition, apparently as definite poli- cy. That was during the temperance wave" of 1S50-55, when all the New England states except Massachusetts besides New York. Delaware, Michi- gan, Indiana and Iowa went dry" At that time, it will be observed, the was strongest, roughly speaking, in the states where it is now. It persisted for varying hNtAOdS III NhNSt uiAAElNlil ,Nelltos buA all of them except Maine went back to the system of regulating the sale of liquor by law.
 There are some noteworthy differ ences between the movement that att tained such proportions in the early fifties an dthat of the present day. The earlier crusade was primarily a campaign. 1t was an ap- peal to the individual to stop the use )f drink and was accompanied by the formation of many temperance so- ,ieties and the signing of the pledge )y tens of thousands of persons The adoption of prohibition laws followed | IS a result of the change that took place, temporarily at least, in the con- rictions of a large proportion of the In theSpresent campaign | he procedure is exactly opposite. Ef- | ort is concentrated on the enactment | f prohibitory laws on the theory that | the sale of liquor can be stopped | ,y law the individual will be forced | O practice abstention. The success f this theory depends ultimately upon he question whether prohibition is or an be fully enforced. The experi nent is young in most states and here is abundant evidence that the avs are widely evaded as is indi- ated by the official revenue figures shich show the displacement of 'eer and the lighter beverages in hese states by whiskey and similar iquOrs that can be transported and encealed easily.
 The fact that the recent legislation gainst the liquor traffic has not been ttended by any such expansion in he membership of the numerous tenn erance societies or any such sudden in the consumption of liquor s the rapid transformation of whole tates and wide stretches of territory ,ould indicate and actually has been ccompanied by decrease in the vot-