The evening world., 1921-01-10
THE FRUITS.

h The national life.
Everybody knows what has happened on the
material side:
Liquor is still freely sold and easily Obtaiuable.
Proteering booteggers get incredible prices for low
grade stuff that nobody would have thought Of
drinking three years ago. Poisonous oOncocions
and Oscillations are being made and drunk in untold
quantities.
Only last week Bird S. Coler Of the Department
Of Public Welfare in New York reported to the
Mayor that since National Prohibition became eff
fective the number OF patients treated in the dtys
alcoholic wards has approximately doubled. Here
IS what Dr. Mortimer Jones Of Kings County Hos
pital says about it:
1T is interesting TO note that the number
Of alcoholic cases for the 1920 period doubled
that Of the 1913 period notwithstanding the
high prices, the DrOhibitve sale and the sup
posed dmculty in getting the liquor. From
July to Dec. /, 1913, there deaths
in our alcoholic ward. During the same pc
y, riOd in 1920 there were eleven deathR"
But aside from the notorious failure of Prohibition
TO prohibit, the whole wetched farce of National
Prohibition is creating in millions Of Americans a
new and unnatural attitude toward their country and
. its laws.
Temperate, aw-abding citizens VINO, without en-
dangenng the health Of their bodies or their souls,
used to take an occasional drink without shrinking
from the gaze Of their feIlow4nen are now con-
verted into ftHtive, Hptosng breakers Of a law they
find il impossible to lake Seriously law that
makes it a crime to DO something which reason
cannot be convinced Is wrong.
The wohlingman who can no longer buy glass
Of beer in any open, lawful way grows more resent
ful of the rich man who commits no wrong in con-
sHning champagne from his well-StOcked private
cellar.
Doctors are appalled, at the difficulties Hgotry and
nanow-mindedneSs have put m the way Of obtaining
alcohol for medicinal uses.
All over the country temperate, ciean-lfved, self
controlled Americans are in state of disgust that
all too readily shades into contempt for the new
aspect in which their native land appears.
1t is serious and tragic thing to find Americans
particularly young ArDericans-in such frame of
mind.
The Evening World believes, as Il has believed
from the first, that even worse than Nationwide
Prohi5iton itself is the effect upon the national spirit
Of the way in which the thing was done.
Nobody has ever denied that many communities,
and even many States, had adopted Prohibition be-
fore The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified or even
proposed
But the adoption Of Prohibition by tins process Of
local discussion and decision was natural, normal, in
accord with American tradition.
What caused the grave slump In national self
respect was the sudden success of the Ant-Saloon
League in making legislators believe that Federal
tyranny could and ought to be established over all
communities and States, regardless of their local
votes or wishes
Nationwide Prohlbton struck at an instinct of
local self-government that lay deep in the American
fibre II was the earliest principle of liberty America
knew The whole political development Of the
Nation proceeded from II.
The blow was the more dangerous because n hit
the nerves Of personal liberty and selfFellanco-boh
formerly regarded as essential to American character.
The nature, composition and needs Of a com.
munlIy Ike the CITY Of New York are not the
nature, composition and needs Of a community OF
5000 N Kanas o. Nebraska,
The plan q llhsFy and pslf.goysnmeDl In mo