Middletown transcript., 1915-07-17
THE DOOM OF THE RUM EVIL

We noted several months ago the |
temporary eclipse, by the war, of the
great program of social betterment in |
Great Britain, of which David Lloyd |
George had been the inspiration and the
champion; and we told, as it had been
related to us, how he was saddened by
the realization that perhaps the work
would not be resumed in his lifetime.
While the nation is fighting for its very
exstance, problems of righting domestic
wrongs and adjusting inequalities must
be put aside.
Because the influence of the war is
world wide, this is measurably true of
all countries. No nation, however re-
mote from the conflict, is free to pur-
sue its own aims unhampered. Ameri-
cans are aware that their interests are
vitally affected, if, indeed, their civili-
zation is not threatened. Considerations
of national unity and national security
are uppermost in the public mind; and
/ here, as in Great Britain, the cause of j
social and industrial justice has had to
give way.
The movement is by no means halted;
the momentum it had gathered in re-
cent years is still producing results. as
IN the child labor and workmens com
pensation acts in Pennsylvania. But in
general the demands, however just and
important they may be, must await
settlement of the greater issue.
This was recognized long ago not only
by advocates of the cause, but by the
supporters of reaction. The latter
were persuaded that special privilege
would have respite, and perhaps even
a chance to regain some lost ground.
| Chief among these forces have been
the hard-pressed liquor interests. They
comforted themselves with the belief
that public attention would be diverted
from the rum evil by the overshadowing
possibilities of the war; and they
counted a good deal upon the need for
war tax revenues to discourage the anti
liquor campaign, as it did during the
civil war.
Their miscalculation is less important
as evidence of bad judgment than as a
reminder that moral revolutions rarely
are accomplished on schedule time or in
conventional ways.
The movements against the salosn and
in behalf of social justice arose about
the same time. Both aim toward the
economic betterment of the people, and
each, has furnished recruits for the
other. This interrelation has been so
marked that many observers looked for
both forces to subside, as they had
arisen. together.
But events have proved the eXpecta-
ton unfounded. While the war has
checked, for time, the cause of social
betterment, it has given enormous i'm
petus to the anti-liquor movement.
For nearly year the European con-
hct has obscured almost every other
event. Yet during that period federal
p! exhibition amendment received a ma
jorty in the national house of repre-
sentatives; the number of dry" states
has increased from nine to eighteen,
and the proportion of the population
living under prohibition has grown Is
to "a per cent.
More significant even than the pro-
gress here have been the changes
abroad. Russia, which suffered hu-
initiating defeat from Japan largely be-
cause of incompetent leadership due to
drunkenness, obliterated the vodka in
dustry at one blow and has adopted
absolute prohibition in large territories.
France struck down the deadly absinthe
traffic. And Great Britain, despite
the frantic resistance of the tre-
mendously powerful liquor interests,
has been compelled to enforce drastic
restrictions of the evil that is sapping
the nations defensive strength.
Andit is in the midst of the world
war that the greatest anti-liquor con-
vention in history assemblies. The
gathering in Atlantic City, in numbers,
enthusiasm and practical results, sets a
new record and discloses a sentiment
here in harmony with that which has
doomed the saloon abroad
The forces of human progress operate
in mysterious ways. 1t may be that
the one great compensation for the
dreadful losses of the war will be the
final extinction of this monstrous evil,
not only from the nations whose exist
ence it has imperiled, but from this
country North -lmericdn.