The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1918-07-05

thS Sishidh popuidliou dill OVcI Tie
country should not put the same re-
straint upon themselves during the
war. 1t seems to me that that is a
sound proposition, and not open to
debate.
Tells of Mare Island
Now you take the question, as
say, at Mare Island. Perhaps there
was no town in America where there
were SO many saloons in proportion
to the population, or where the condi-
tons have been more wretched. The
brewing interests there seemed to
dominate the city government. To our
appeals for some measure of cleaning
up, they turned deaf ear, and con-
ditions were SO deplorable that it was
a crime to let them continue.
For several months before we is
sued this so-called dry zone order,
upon his own motion, but with my ap-
proval, Captain George, who is in
charge of that yard, had issued an
order that no man in uniform should
put his foot in the town, and for
some months, although they were just
across the river, not a man in uniform
visited that town because the condi-
tons there were regarded by the COM
mandant as demoralizing to young
men,
Since then, the conditions have i'm
proved so much that it has been a
revolution. Mothers all over the coun-
try who have given up those boys for
training. have lost their alarm, and
the efficiency of the yard is steadily
improving
Now, | did not propose that order
becauseI felt that there was any more
11necd for -ssfoonfess -distritt fdf men
employed in the yards than l did for
men in uniform. Men who labor in
the shipyards are just as wholesome,
just as clean and free from drinking,
as men who are in uniform, or as law
yers or merchants or anybody else.
Newport Conditions Were Protested
! At Newport, r. L., last year, we had
10000 men under training. We had
about 5000 men making torpedoes.
The conditions there were so depior-
able. because of the saloons, that /
had not one but scores and hundreds
of letters from fathers and mothers
of boys who were being trained in
Newport protesting that something
ought to be done. l referred the mat
ter to Captain Bryan. who was the
commandant of that district, and after
trying by every possible method to
get the people in the city and the pro-
prietors of saloons to cooperate in
securing a better condition, and fail
ing, Captain Bryan recommended
earnestly the fve-mile zone.
Captain Beach, who is the Com
mandant of the Torpedo Works, and
to whom is given the duty of making
torpedoes, the most essential instru-
ment in this war, wrote not only once
but several times, and earnestly ap-
pealed to have fvc-mile zone in that
district, because he feared that if one
or two or three men at the factory
should become intoxicated something
might happen to the works; and he
regarded it as the best influence for
the carrying on of this important in
dustry that dry zone should be ere
ated around Newport.
Workmen Approve Dry Zone
This was done, and some of the
people who opposed it, some people
who doubted the wisdom of it, believe
that it was wise act. There is not a
skilled workman or unskilled work
man in Newport, whether he believed
in it or not, who has not said, by his
acts, II am just as willing to make
sacrifice if need be, for the war, as
expect my brother in uniform to
make"
SENATOR KENYON: Did that
decrease the efficiency of the yard?
SECRETARY DANIELS: 1t in
creased it.
SENATOR GRONNA: Our atten-
ton has been called to the conditions
on the Pacific Coast, Mr.. Secretary,
and to the fact that the men who work
in the shipyards there are Americans,
whereas on the Atlantic Coast good
many of them are what we call for
eigners. Have you taken that matter
into consideration; could you give the
committee some information as to
that?
Coal Miners For Prohibition
SECRETARY DANIELS: My OBJ
servation on that would probably be