The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1914-01-19

than any other country has never
succeeded in accomplishing such re
duction in the nation as whole, eX-
cept temporarily in times OF iinan-
cial depression
1T may surprise YOU to know the
extent of the demand for alcoholic
| liquors in this country.
Seventeen years ago the annual
per capita consumption of liquors
was about seventeen gallons. Now
the annual average consumption OF
liquors in the United States is above
twenty-five gallons for every man,
woman and child in the United
States.
In other countries, it appears,
moral suason, in behalf of temper
ance and abstinence have had the
desired effect In this country po-
litical agitation and legislation have
been .elied upon, with the result thai
according to the unimpeachable com
mittea of fifty, many immoraliti's
and crimes have been developed.
Foreign countries have shown
that temperance and voluntary absti-
nence are strong enough to make
progress by themselves. This coun-
try has shown that attempts to
make people temperate or abstinent
by law have been worse than use
less.
The Ladies Home Journai TOOK
up the liquor question and selected
Henry Smith Williams, NJ. d., ILL.,
d. to tell why prohibition has not
solved the liquor problem DIR. Will
liams, a distinguished scholar and
educator, probably struck the Key
note when he said:
ITO me at least it seems obvious
: that the only thing which has kept
the prohibition movement before the
people of the United States is the
simple fact that prohibition does not
prohibit.
Prohibition that did interdict
the sale of liquor over large terri
tories would quickly sound the death
knell of the prohibition movement as
national issue
He bases this on the deeply root
ed demand for alcoholic beverages
and in this connection he says;
3 1--WE cannot in day or In a
decade convince the eight or ten
million men of the United States
who consume certain quantity Of
liquor each day (the vast majority
Of them, let it be conceded, never
drinking to the point of intoXication)
that they will be happier and better
off for the foregoing of their indul-
gence.
"'Hence a general prohibition law
would from the outset have to deal
with a population among whom prac-
tically half of the adult males would
|
crying out in no certain terms
against the infringement of their
sacred personal liberties.
- Add that the heads Of families
, aggregating probably not less than
three million people would suddenly
+ BE- deprived of their sole means Of
livelihood, and that properties valued
in the aggregate at perhaps Two
billion dollars would as suddenly
become worthless, and the serious
ness of the social and economic
: crisis that would be appreciated be
gins to reveal itself in something
+ like its true proportions.
Personally l am at a loss to
, understand how anyone who has the
slightest grasp of economic questions
can contemplate with equanimity the
anarchistic possibilities-nay certain
ties which reveal themselves
through the slightest use of the
, Imagination in connection with these
figures
D The evils that are produced by
prohibition are the results of at
tempts to force men to be good ac-
, cording to the prohibition interpre-
q tation of the word good whereas
it is we'll established principle
that men cannot be made good by
force, else the penitentiaries would
I release none but saints.
"One distinguished minister the
Rev. DR.. Z. L, Powell, pastor of the
First Christian church Of Louisville,
I was formerly an officer of the Anti
T. Saloon league, but resigned when
, he became convinced that prohibi-
, tion is not means OF making men
temperate.
y In a letter to Mr. Henry Wat
terson, editor of the Courier-JOur-