The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1922-09-08
Statement That No Drunkenness
is Seen in Europe is All
Buncombe
BRITAIN TO ACT FIRST
Says Liquor Interests Greatest
Prohteers This Country
Ever Knew


toxieation; yet dry Europe predicted.
Mr.. Currie says that he walked
through miles OF streets in London.
Paris, Rome Naples, Florence and
Venice and got the impression that
there were from two to three wine
shops and bars to every other retail
dispensary where non-aleohelic liquor
was sold. Booze bll-boards assail the
eye above all other advertising i'll Eu-
rope"
He thinks, 1--WE may be milksops
and mollycoddles i'll surrendering our
rights and privileges to a minority of
cranks and fanatics 49,. yet
even SO, we have lot better sense
of proportion when it comes to
dividing the worth while from the
comparatively superhuous. -
It's the difference between the
constructive and value received and
the destructive and an incentive to
an acute bilious attack"
He makes the positive statement
that it is all buncombe that you never
see drunken person in Europe, and
gives specific instances of seeing
dozen DRINKS in a London pub" in
one evening and about as many later
in the evening i'll the lobby of all ex-
elusive hotel. "On the Continent it
was common, everyday event to en-
counter all alcoholic breath that would
devarnish a near mahogany side
board"
AS to the European custom TO take
two or three hours for the midday
meal and to consume IRON pint to
two quarts of wine with your food, he
says, Possibly the extra hour or so
is required to sleep it off, but alas,
where do efficiency and clear-headed-
ness come in? Isn't this wine soaked
Midday meal one of the greatest ham
dicaps that Europe is suffering from
right now in her terrific struggle to
escape bankruptcy and chaos?"
Could Mr. Currie not have added,
"Perhaps these billions of bottles and
millions of quarts and the refined in
toxication and all the rest are the rea-
son why France can not why Italy
can not, why England does not, come
down to earth and realize the changed
conditions after the war and seek
peace and the we'll being OF their
neighbors knowing that no more. can
a nation live to itself alone" ..
Mr.. Currie still has the illusion that
the liquor interests sell less HARM
full drink in Europe than they did in
America. He should read the Wine
and Spirit Gazette and other liquor
papers to see how miserable stuff even
according to their own ideas are I'M
posed on long suffering public, even
in the well regulated public houses"
and high class hotels of England.
In regard to profits he hits the nail
squarely on the head. "Of all insid-
:, ious prohteers our country has ever
known land, as the boys say, we'll tell
the world that America has known
| some-Ed. of Issue) the so-called liq-
uor interests were probably the worst,
J and any man that would vote to re-
turn them to power and preferment in
the u. S. A. would be promoting an
unspeakable crime" ans
Mr.. Currie is more optimistic than
some of us are who know conditions
in Europe, for he says: Prohibition
will some day come to all of Europe
as it has come to America. 1t is al
ready a very great economic success
here, though it may not be overwhelm-
ingly popular The vets haven't
enough money or brains to ever set
it aside again. The Continental vets
haven't enough money OF brains to do
more than delay its inevitable APP
preach to their shores. A wine
soaked Europe can not compete with
dry America for many generations
and survive. Sober thinkers over
there are beginning to debate this
great problem more and more UNI
easily, so much so that they are stir
: ring UP the savage rage of the
/ brewery-owned and distillery
press"
/ Mr.. Currie predicts that the first to
: follow our lead will be the British
. Empire. Most of the great Domin-
: ion Of Canada is now dry. Progress
: sive Australia and New Zealand are
! on the way. The Free State of Ire
land may beat England, Scotland and
e Wales to it. There would be de-
5 licious irony in this 1t may
, seem jest to many-but it is not un-
/ likely that Germany may be the first
Q country on the Continent to adopt
: Prohibition"
n District ao1ice and the courts ia COS