The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1922-12-01

period of state and national Prohibit
ton, even the suggestion of a return
TO the days OF alcoholism is startling.
What would happen to millions of in
surance risks, to the insurance COM
panies themselves, and to the vast
financial interests of America, in which
those insurance companies now play so
Significant a part, were the beverage
liquor traffic to be restored. with its
attendant results through the use of
alcohol, upon millions of policy hold
ers, and its even more far-reaching
effect upon mortality statistics that
would inevitably result from accidents,
disease and crime that would follow
like an avalanche in the wake of alco-
holism?
Aeronautics Demand Sobriety
The airship is in its infancy, yet the
development Of the past FIVE years is
prophetic OF a day not many years
ahead when the airship will be one of
the most important factors in the life
OF the world. What class of
employees i'll connection with the air
ship, from the pilot to the man in the
shop who makes the final examination
of minute adjustments before the ship
takes the air, can be considered as in
terested in the repeal of Prohibition?
Alcoholism an Impossibility in the
New Age
The liquor traffic may have been
possible in the agricultural world in
the age of the horse-drawn pillow and
the mule teamster; it is not possible in
the age OF the tractor the great wheat
header and the auto truck. The liquor
traffic may have been possible in the
days when the wood-chopper' AK was
the only means of telling trees; it is
not possible i'll the age when electrical
operations are so essential to the rap
idly increasing lumber industry. The
liquor traffic may have been possible in
the age of the drunken sailor and the
drunken engineer and the age when
manufacturing concerns were not re-
sponsible for the health and safety OF
employees; it is not possible in the age
of the industrial development which
has revolutonized railroad operations,
the mining industry, the manufactur-
ing interests, international commerce
and trade activities, and other great in
dustries and enterprises which figure
III economic progress. The liquor
traffic may have been possible in the
age of the ox-cart. but it is not possible
in the age of the automobile. The liq-
uor traffic may have been possible in
the age of the stage coach, but it is not
possible in the age of the airship. The
liquor traffic may have been possible in
the age of the water mill, but it is not
possible in the age of the electric
dynamo.
These significant facts suggest some
thing of the economic cost inevitable
to pro-iquor nations which insist upon
continuing to harbor the liquor traffic
and upon attempting to harmonic its
operations with the new age of skilled
workmen and the application OF brain
power and nerve energy to even the
simplest processes of industrial activi-
ties. If these facts are evident in
America, where is the nation, large or
small, located anywhere on the face OF
the earth. which in this age of rapid
economic progress and economic COM
petition, can afford to bubble about
the problem of alcoholism?
The Right of Self Determination for
Small Countries
No provision of the international
code is more firmly established in the
recognized law of nations than that
which insists upon the right of small
countries to be protected from unjus-
tihablc aggression by more powerful
nations. The international sense of
equity and justice is always outraged
by the aggressions of a strong nation
against weaker one. As result Of
scientific development conditions pre-
vail in the world today, however. which
make the economic weapon even more
effective than military operations.
[Dr. Cherrington cited the instance
of Spain compelling defenceless Ice
land to suspend her Prohibition law
for one year and similar situation
now presented in the case Of Norway
by the demands of France, Spain and
Portugal, and continuedl:
Suppose Spain succeeds in perina-
nently defeating Prohibition in Ice
land. Suppose Norway is brought to
her knees. Suppose Finland is COM
PEELED to yield. Suppose the economic
pressure succeeds in the case of Po-
land and suppose that by virtue of such
reverses for Prohibition and such sue
cesses for the international liquor traf-