The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1921-08-26

Roies
The millennium has not arrived-as
yet. but it is on its way. One can
still be drowned, stabbed. shot. hit by
train or otherwise killed, but rec
ords will prove that it isn't being done
nearly as often as formerly. And
the reason is
Prohibition.
Upon the accuracy OF this statement
opinion will not be unanimous. Yet
there has never been less crime or
fewer serious accidents and other
calamitics than now, and this has
been true ever since Governor Miller
played his little April fool joke on
the people of New York state by
signing the Mulan-Gage law. which
is to the state presumably what the
Volstead Act is to the country at
large. Actually, though, the Mullan-
Gage law has done more to stop
traficking in liquor in New York
state than the Nolstead Act could
ever have accomplished. While it
has not put an end to drinking in
New York City, it has put an end to
the accidents and crimes that for
merly resulted, TO a large extent,
from overindulgence in alcoholic bev-
erages.
Ii you don't believe il ask any
police detective. Ask him if this isn't
the best summer he's ever had, as
viewed from the amount of work he
has had TO do. And then ask the
newspaper reporter assigned to crime
news whether this isn't the worst
summer he has ever experienced, as
judged the same way. When the po-
lice officials are happy the police re-
porters are miserable and vice versa.
The writer claims to know, for he
has been covering police news in one
of the largest boroughs of New York
City for fifteen yctrs, and he is dole
fully positive that this is the worst
summer that has ever happened.
Whether it is the worst that will hap
pen is the question that is keeping
him awake nights.
This, in the Old Days, was Crimes
Busy Season
Summer i'll the good old days OF
booze was the busiest and most
profitable season Of the year to the
police reporter. But now all is
changed since the enforcement of
Prohibition was put into the hands OF
the state and city authorities. The
federal enforcement agents in New
York City at least were a joke. No
body ever gave them thought. The
liquor business not only went on as
usual, but it actually improved con-
siderably, because the man who had
never drunk before thought it mildly
devilish to do so after he was told he
mustn't. So January and February
of this year, Tor instance, were good
months from the police reporters
point of view. In one city borough
alone there were eight bully good
murders in eight weeks. Then the
police commenced enforcing the Pro-
hibition law.
oh, no, it isn't just temporary
slump in crime, such as has been ex-
perienced before. No such luck. This
slump is here to stay. Never before
have three months passed without the
commission in a borough of nearly
100000 population of a serious crime,
The police reporters are mortgaging
their houses, pawning their watches
and looking forward to cold, hard
winter-those of them, that is, who
aren't seeking new jobs.
Dollar Beer Always Good for the
Riot Call
How easily one can recall the good
Oiu ddys, iOls dllCi dill, lIcy were
rather recent, There was, for exam
pie, the dollar beer racket a pro-
life source of news on Saturday and
Sunday nights. Queens Borough was
the native habitat of the dollar beer
racket. The dcvotees OF this unpeace-
full method OF passing AN evening
came chiefly from the two adjoining
boroughs of the city, and most OF
them were known technically to the
police as "seoovers" The origin of
this term has never been explained,
but that other, the dollar beer
racket" was always obvious, even to
the uninitiated. 1t was a function
held in picnic park or grove-and
they abounded in Queens--the chief
object of which was to drink all the
beer possible before the lights went
out or the ambulance came. The adj
mission to these<clitc affairs was 81,