The copper era and Morenci leader. [volume] (Clifton, Ariz.) 1911-1929, 1914-10-23

GU 70 MI Lay IHdI LHS results SHOWOu
that the people of the State of Maine
want prohibition, but do not want. it
enforced.
Meantime Mr.. Cobb's efforts result
ed merely in the closing of the more
respectable bars in hotels and clubs,
their places being taken by bars of
the most disreputable character. In
Lewiston, for example, the Mayor
caused the police to investigate, with
the result of showing that more than
two hundred kitchen dives were
selling the most villainous compounds.
That this was typical is sufficiently
attested by the words of Ex-Governor
Cobb himself who, in an interview
with Mr.. Day, summed up the results
of his efforts in these words: IF l,
for the social, economic and moral
benefit of the rising generation of the
State of Maine, were to choose be-
tween the enforcement of prohibition
as have been able to enforce it with
my best efforts" land never any man
put forth such efforts) IF 1 were to
choose between prohibition as l have
been able to enforce it, and selling
rum as freely as sugar over the count
er of my store, I would unhesitatingly
declare for free rum. -
concomitant Evils of Prohibition.
the matter, then. we find no evidence
that the prohibition laws have in the
mast been effective in diminishing the
consumption of alcoholic bevera ges.
But the mere failure TO inhibit the use
of liquor does not tell the entire story.
1t is impossible for any one who has
studied the effects of the various pro-
hibition experiments in detail to avoid
the conclusion that positive evils have
in many cases resulted from prohibit
tory legislation The character of
these evils has, perhaps, nowhere been
more clearly and succinctly stated
than by the impartial witnesses Of the
Committee of Fifty, who, summarizing
the results of their Investigation of the
subject, conducted in the early COS
make the following assertion:
There have been concomitant evils
of prohibitory legislation. The efforts
to enforce it during forty years past
have had some unlocked for effects on
public respect for courts, judicial pro
cedure, oaths and law in general, and
for officers of the law, legislators and
public servants. The public have
seen law defied, whole generation Of
habitual law-breakers schooled in eva
sion and shamelessneSs, courts inef-
fective through fluctuations of policy,
delays, perjuries, negligences and
other miscarriages of justice, officers
of the law double-faced and mercenary
legislators timid and insincere, candid
ates for office hypocritical and truck
ling, and office-holders unfaithful to
pledges and to reasonable public ex-
pectatfon. Through an agitation which
has always had a. moral end, these i'm
moralities have been developed and !
made cons picuous.
The Expediency of Universal Prohi-
bition.
IT should be stated that many ar
dent advocates of prohibition admit
that even Statewide prohibition can
not produce the desired results so
long as surrounding States allow ; the
of alcoholic beverages
which may then be imported into re-
stricted territory. They affirm that
will not really be tested UNI !
til the entire territory of the country
is placed under similar restrictions.
This brings US to what seems to me
the most important aspect of the pro-
hibition problem-the question, name
ly, of the expediency of National pro-
that being the goal toward
which all the effort Of the past fifty
years has trended. But here obviously !,
we are shifted from the realm of his
tory to that of prophecy. Statewide
has been tried with results
above Outlined. National prohibition
is an untried experiment, the probable !
results Of which must be matter of
opinion. The facts above given sup
ply a basis from which any one can
answer to the question I shall give in
the most general terms.
Briefly, then, great as conceive the
evils of the use of liquor to be, find
nothing in the evidence to lead me to
believe that they can most advantage
ously be combated by so drastic c pro- /;
cedure as the enactment of a Federal
law 7 believe that there,
as elsewhere, the social organism must !
progress by evolution rather than by
revolution. We cannot in day or in
a decade convince the eight or ten
million men in the United States who
consume a certain quantity Of liquor
each day (the vast majority of them,
let it be conceded. never drinking to
he point of intoxication) thatthey will
be happier and better off for the fore
roing of their indulgence.
Hence a general prohibition law
would from the outset have to deal .
with a population among whom Dracti-
ally half of the adult males would be
IN rebellous frame of mind-crying
1ut in no uncertain terms against the l
of their sacred personal
iberties.
Add that the heads of families ag-
probably not less than three
million people would suddenly be de- .
orived of their sole means of liveli-
hood, and that properties valued at i
he aggregate at perhaps two billion 1
dollars would as suddenly become
worthless. and the seriousness of the
social and economic crisis that would
De precipitated begin to reveal itself
n something like its true proportions. I.
Personally I am at loss to under
stand how any one who has the slight