The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1922-09-07
"TURN ON THE LIGHT,

When a Dor is dark the best way
to see things is to turn on the light.
When the minds Of men are dark the
light of truth should be turned on,
then there will be no excuse for seeing
things in the wrong perspective.
Much is being said today about the
failure of prohibition. There are
many good citizens who, having heard
this statement very often, are begin
ming TO think that IL Is true. They do
not know that they are giving help
to the propagandists of the outlawed
liquor interests when they repeat their
lies. BY false statements misrepre.
sentation and concealments the vets
strive to make IL appear that since
prohibition has come in lawlessness
has increased on every hand. and we
are in a worse condition now than be-
fore 1920.
About the first of this year, or short.
ly before, a great cry was raised In
the wet" camp newspapers that six
men had been poisoned I'm New York
City from drinking wood alcohol
They pointed out that, had the saloons
been in operation, these men could
have gone there for their drink. Sc
prohibition was made the goat
But when a comparison is made be-
tween 1915, when New York had thou
sands of saloons, and 1921, when there
we're none in legal operation, we gel
something to set us thinking. In 1921
there we're about twenty-one deaths
from the drinking of wood alcohol, but
t. 1n1E thn~,I r "A d. N.u0 Vnrl
City.
The amount of data now on my desk
showing the great benefit that prohi'
bition has brought, directly and indir
ectly, would more than I'LL this front
page. This, remember, comes from
official and reliable sources and is moi
the report CT the biased.
Mr.. w. L. George, the English nov
elist writing Of conditions in the I'm
ted States, after a visit of nine month,
has this to say about prohibition:
eff one listened to the pessimist on'
would believe that everybody In Am
erica has his own bootIegger, that ev
cry dinner party is an orgy, but bet
the reader to ask himself this: :
have heard that there Is a lot of DRUM
enness at country clubs, dance halls
ETC.. but have I seen 1t? With my owl
eyes have I een it% One hears much
but one sees little. Let us consider
the actual figures of arrests for drunk
enness.
I'm 1920 in New York, a city with
population of $500, 900, the total ar
rests for drunkenness were 5,813
New York, therefore, supplied onl.
one arrest per thousand of population
that is to say about one tenth OF on
per cent! That Is not serious. Also
II should be observed That this one
tenth of one per cent refers to onl.
one arrest per annum To represen
the truth of the situation this figur
OF one-tenth of n pei cent per an
mum must be brought down to a per
centage per diem. II we divide by 80
(days per annum) we discover tina
the daily percentage of arrests TO
drunkenness to the population OF Ne'
York is next to nil, something Xix
three I'm 1OO, 900. II you dislike thes
percentages and refer gross figures,
reply that fifteen arrests a day In
, CITY getting on to 5000, 900 people ]
nothing to make a fuss about. Thin
how many there were ten years ago.
This applies to every form {
crime: I can not help being amaze
by the readiness with which publ
opinion allows itself to be rushed int
believing that there Is a crime wav
The amount of nonsense that is bein
talked about crime waves In Chicag
New York and big cities Is almost In
pudent when we consider the facts.
"Take the Borough of Manhatta
which / select on account OF its iart
, floating foreign population and Il
likelihood OF its harboring criminal