The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1923-07-27

the ban of the law and would call
for no specific reference in this adj
dress, were it not for the fact that
far-reaching propaganda is hard
at work to discount the advant-
ages of prohibition and to break
down the morale of the American
people in their determination that
the legaiized saloon and all the
vile, debasing evils that thrive
within it shall never come back in
these United States. l fear that
the public in general does not
realize the extent of this prop.
uganda, nor the tremendous sums
of money being spent to foster il.
1t is incumbent upon the Grange
universal to be eternally on guard
in this critical time, that the ad-
vantage already gained is not lost
and the fruits of our great prohi-
bition victory nullihed
at was at this meeting that Worthy
Master Lowell was reelected for hiu
second term in the Mastership OF
this, the largest farmer organization
in the world. Later on in the samO
session the following resolution waN
passed:
Resolved, That we emphatically
protest and deplore this tendency
to laxity in prohibition enforce
ment and that we stand absolutely
united for a rigidly dry construc-
ton and a drastic enforcement of
our prohibition law.
National Master Lowell in his ar>
nual address at the 56th annual session
of the National Grange at WichitS
Kans., in November, 1922, said:
The National Grange should
speak again in no uncertain
language its vigorous support of
the splendid prohibition victory
so recently gained in this coun-
try, and pledge all the energies of
our organization to protect that
victory against the vicious attacks
OF its enemies, who cannot seem to
understand that the United States
has turned over a clean, white
page in its history, which will
never be reversed. 1t is probable,
however, that we shall have to
keep our fighting clothes on in
the prohibition struggle for at
i least a decade if we are to sue
cessfully resist these attacks; nor
have the Grange people any inten- ..
ton of ever taking them off until. .
the fight is over. -
"At the session the Grange passed
the following resolutions W.
Resolved that we are opposed to
amending the Volstead law, to
permit of the sale of wine and
beer containing over one-half of
one per cent alcohol, and further
demand a strengthening of the =
enforcement of the Eighteenth
Amendment.
"These quotations from the Journals
of Proceedings of the National
Grange are typical of the expressions
which have marked practically every
session of the National Grange in
recent years.
"The arguments of the wet ad-
vocates, dressed in their most at
tractive form by the wet governor OF
New York state, have but one answer.
This is the application of President
Lincoln's dictum that This country
cannot exist half slave and half free,
to the present issue. There can be no
such situation as the United Stateo
half wet and half dry.
THE Grange is opposed to the traf.
fc in and use of Intoxicating liquors
and will not support any subterfugs
behind which this traffic or use can
exist. Should a higher limit of aico-
holic content be permitted by federal
law, as Governor Smith so cleverly
argues for, it will result in only ono
thing and that is the legal sale either
in licensed saloons or in every dram.
shop, corner grocery or near-beer ss-
loon of such beverages as are within
the limits and illegitimately of all such
other beverages as the INSCRIPTIONS
law-evader can concot and dispense.
1t would be absolutely impossible az
a practical matter to prevent any sa- q
loon licensed to sell 3 per cent beer
from selling as beer beverage re-
inforced to any per cent of alcohol
that the buyer may want. The
practical impossibility of preventing
this practice is what made national
prohibition necessary.
THE reason for prohibition is in 4
sphere outside the specious reasoning
and apt phrase-making of the wet ad.
vocates. This has been fully in-
Dictated by the National Grange state
ments on this subject. The action Of
the New York state legislature with
Governor Smiths aDprovai has fnada,