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


of the beverage liquor traffic, by one {
international Policies are Evolved
from National Experience
The history of radical changes in
governmental policies records the fac,
that in practically every such case il
has been given to one nation first to
try out the experiment and that in
that nation. in every case, long pc
Rod OF years has been required to con-
form ancient domestic customs and
life to the imperative requirements OF
the new order, and another long pc
riod has been required for the evolu-
ton OF such national policy into an
international policy, recognized, adopt
ed and followed by other nations.
Three hundred years ago the ideal
OF popular government was only a
dream arising out of the misty sleep
OF an age called modern but which i'll
reality was but the aftermath of the
awakening from the long night of the
Middle Ages. Popular government
had its birth as an ideal in the stirring
and eventful years of the seventeenth
century, in England and France, but it
became a living reality as great ma
tional policy of government in the
adoption of the Constitution of the
United States of America.
For one hundred and fifty years
America has been struggling to adapt
its life and its institutions to the sys-
tenn of popular government. For a
similar period the struggle for recog-
milton and adoption of that policy has
been carried on throughout the world,
until today instead of such a govern
mental policy being strange or pc
culiar or rare it has become the rule,
and thus the stone ''cut ont of the
mountain without hands" more than
two centuries ago has become the cor
nefstofie of governmental structure
in practically all nations.
Truth the Only Possible Foundation
for Prohibition
The reason for prohibition of the
beverage liquor traffic must rest abso-
lutely upon fundamental truth. In the
last analysis, Prohibition must find its
sanction in scientific knowledge of the
relation OF alcoholism to the economic,
social, political, moral and religious life
of the world. If tomorrow the con-
sensus of opinion among the scientists
of the world should be to the effect
that beverage alcohol is helpful and
beneficial; in fact if that consensus of
opinion should even be that beverage
alcohol is not harmful, there would not
be the slightest excuse in reason for
any further effort of any such move
ment as the world movement against
alcoholism. In fact, the only possible
foundation for any movem.n mt against
beverage alcohol is in itself the only
hope for SUCCESSIVE shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you
free"
Science, history and philosophy
moreover, have all fully demonstrated
the fact that the same truth operates
in every realm. Good business is good
politics and good morals alike. What
is bad in morals is fundamentally bad,
economically, socially and politically.
There is not one code for the business
world, another for the social world, an
other for the political world, another
for the moral world, and still another
for the religious world. There is but
one code--"one law, one God, one ele-
ment, and one far off divine event. to-
ward which the whole creation moves"
America-The World Laboratory of
Prohibition
No nation, past or present, is SO re-
markedly suited to the testing of Pro-
hibition as is America. This is true,
not only as to the Prohibition policy
itself, but as to the possible applica-
ton of that policy to the different con-
ditions to be found in different sections
Of the world.
America is the melting pot and the
laboratory of the nations. The peo-
Piles of every race and cline that make
up the American nation hold their ira
ditiLn5 behind them and keep their
ideals before them, but they are bound
with peculiar cords to peoples OF all
countries whence they came.
and dialects in all the world. Africa
has 276, Europe 587. Asia 937, while
America has 1,624. One hundred and
sixty foreign language daily newspa-
pers, with a daily circulation of more
than two and half millions, are pub
lished in America. here are, in fact,
i.404 foreign language periodicals, with
4 combined circulation OF almost
100000.
The Country of All Races
America has one-tenth as many ne
Hroes as the entire continent of Africa
America has three and one-half mil
lion Jews, or one-third as many as all
the rest of the world. One and half
million Jews are in the single city Of
New York. There are as many Jews
in America as in Russia; there are SO
per cent more Jews in America than
in both Austria and Hungary. There
are Eve times as many Jews in New