The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1915-03-11
PROHIBITION IN THE
WO r L ID VIE w

1t is question if the people of the
United States realize the rapidity with
which the country is moving toward
prohibition, and this notwithstanding
the refusal of the national legislature
to submit the question, in the form of
a proposed constitutional amendment,
to the electorate at large. In this con
! nection it is interesting to take up a
few very recent news items. By a vote
Of 80 to 10 the state senate of Iowa
has passed the constitutional prohibit
ton amendment. The house is conf
IDENTIFY expected to pass it at the present
session. 1t must be adopted by the next
Legislature before it can go to the peo-
| pie. The state senate of Utah has passed
the Wooten statewide prohibition bill,
IA to 3, and the measure is considered
| certain to pass in the house. The Colo
RADIO senate has passed a state wide
prohibition bill. The lower house of the
Montana legislature has passed bill
providing for statewide prohibition
The veto of the prohibition bill by Gov
Charles Henderson of Alabama on the
ground that it was unconstitutional has
been overridden by the legislature and
therefore is law. If all the states now
working toward prohibition shall sue
coed in putting their measures through
the number of prohibition states in the
Union, fourteen last fall, will probably
be increased to twenty within the next
two years
Prohibition is to he perhaps the prin-
cipal issue in the next Kentucky
campaign. In several states the consti-
tutional prohibition amendment simply
awaits confirmation by second legis-
lature. In the prohibition states the
work of enforcing the law more rigor-
ously against the business interests
bent upon violating or defying it is
progressing satisfactorily both legally
and morally. Kansas affords a striking
example of the inutility of the trade
attacks upon prohibition. The other day
the senate at Topeka passed strong and
dignified resolutions proclaiming its
entire satisfaction with the operation
of the prohibition law.
Touching some statements always
made and repeated whenever the ques-
ton of national prohibition becomes
acute, to the effect that the United
States treasury would suffer great loss
from reductions in the internal revenues
should the traffic in alcohol be com
pletely abolished. it is of great interest
to learn now from some of the ablest
economists and general observers in
Europe that prohibition in Russia has
marked the Bargaining of the real and
evidently permanent prosperity of that
nation. Notwithstanding the sacrifice
of revenue involved in the prohibition
decree, the credit of Russia, even in
the midst of one of the most costly wars
of history, is so good that a Russian
loan of $50,000,000, according to Chan
cellor Lloyd George of Great Britain,
has been oversubscribed in London
within the last few days. 1t is becom-
ing MISUNDERSTOOD fact, says the
Boston Monitor, that the credit of the
state or nation that gets itself into a
right position on the prohibition ques-
ton, like the credit of the individual
who has taken the wise attitude in
the same respect, is greatly strengthen
ed and may be greatly extended