Norwich bulletin., 1919-09-05
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
What Prohibition is Doing.

MT. Editor: In one of the issues of your paper last week your Danielson the wet forces were preparing for a contest this fall upon the license question, and it was intimated that they felt confident of securing quite a large vote.
 The same paper informed us that the statistics from half a dozen of the large cities of Massachusetts showed that during the month of July the ar rests for drunkenness were only just about one-third of what they were for the figures for August would show a the figures for Adjust would show a still larger contrast.
 In your paper this morning figures are given showing that the arrests in month of July 1919. were only g. whereas in July one year ago they were 91. That is. under the operation of wartime prohibition your city had one case of drunkenness where a year go it had ten.
 The Hartford Courant is authority for the statement that the arrests for drunkenness in that city were just about one sixth as large in July of this year as they were in July. 1918. The Bridgeport Post says the first four days of July there was but one arrest for drunkenness. where in years past there would have been at least 40 or 90.
 In Baltimore the last "wet" Satur- day night the number of arrests was 331; the first dry Saturday night the Arrests were only 50. and but three of these were for intoxica ton.
 Judge Hoyt of the city court Of New Haven says: Drunkenness in New Haven has fallen off materially since wartime prohibition became effective on July 1st. There were no cases of for the first F days of July" The mayor of Richmond Va. recently said : If the question of abandoning the dry policy were submitted today, only to those who tried by their vote to keep Richmond wet in 1914. the proposition would be overwhelmingly defea ted
 Hundreds of cities all the way from Boston to San Francisco report vast improvement since wartime prohibi- ton became effective. Governors who formerly opposed prohibition and voted against it, mayors of large cities, edi- tors Of leading papers and judges of city courts are uniting in saying that prohibition. which they once opposed is proving itself a great blessing Will I1mantic Putnam, Norwich and New London all report a great decrease in drunkenness since July 1st.
 A year ago the voters of the state were being advised to spend something like a million dollars upon their iails and penal institutions but already since July 1st the mum Der of prisoners in our jails has decreased to such an extent as to cause men to question whether all of these institutions need to be maintained
 And vet, at the very time when states and cities and towns without exception, and from one ena of the country to the other. are showing con- cusively hy facts and figures the ad- vantages brought in by wartime pro- hibition. we are told that large mum bers of citizens are ready to work and vote to bring back the conditions which existed before prohibition be- came effective. They know that if they are successful drunkenness and crime and poverty and wickedness e-iIl De increased. They can be as sure of it as they can that darkness will fol- low the setting of the sun Why. then should any sane man who loves his country and his fellow men use his in. huence and cast his vote to continue this curser
 CLARENCE H BARBER
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