Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-11-24
Editors Letter Box
FREE AMERICA
OR SPREE AMERICA?

Booze or Babies? The milk bottle
or the beer bottle? The great
American home or the tenement
house. jails, insane hospitals Of
penitentiary?
The President Of the United States
has set aside the week of November
1924 as American Education week
There is no line of educational work
more necessary. more vital today
than that bearing on the Prohibition
Amendment.
The important feature of the en-
forcement of the prohibition amend
ment is the education of the people
The whole campaign IL one Of
education, of constructive informa-
ton and it Is up to all of US to teach
both the children and the adult just
what are the issues involved in this
question.
1t is the duty of those of us who
do believe in Law and Order versus
Lawlesness, to state our case SO
clearly and convincingly that new
generation will grow up with clear
understanding of the real shame OF
conditions as they exist today. The
way to get rid of the darkness is ia
turn on the light and education is
light. ,. ~sal -
Drink has filled more graves than
all the war Is the statement Of those
who have made study of conditions.
Connie Mack. the great baseball
magnate has said Not all of the
umpires together has put out of the
gone as many men as has old man
booze
Attention has been called by the
opposition to the alleged fabulous
sum of IS, 100000 appropriated for
the Federal Prohibition work during
the past year. They fail to call at
tention to the fact, however, that in
the days of the open saloon drink
cost the nation annually $4,000, 900, :
600, which would have built $4,000
homes at $500 each, three times
the amount spent on the schools and
twice the value of all the church
property.
We used to eulogize the full din
ner pail now 1t is the humble but
Illuminating Garbage can which at
tracts attention.
The crusade today is the milk bot
tie against the beer bottle. Is the
milk bottle or the whisky bottle more
desirable or more important in the
home? One fills the tenement
houses. jails, insane hospitals and
penitentiaries. the other the schools,
colleges, churches and homes with
happy, well fed, well clad mothers,
fathers and children. Shall 1t Be
bread for the babies or booze for the
buns. Light wine and beer are twin
wolves in sleeps clothing. The
antidote for anti-prohibftion is facts,
administered in hypodermic doses,
easily digested. Concrete, 'indisput-
able facts for the education Of the
people that they may realize that
even with prohibition only partially
enforced there has never been such
progress made in any crusade for
civic, economic or moral welfare
and tt has been said by visitors from
foreign countries who have come to
the United States as students OF
conditions that the Eighteenth
amendment is the miracle Of the
nineteenth century.
4 The eyes Of the world are. focused
upon the United States for the
Emancipation Of the people from The
bondage of drink and as the United
states goes so goes the World. The
Eighteenth Amendment was written
INTO the constitution by the greatest
majority of any of the nineteen
amendments and 1t Is only a disloyai
citizen who will not support the con !
sstution of the United States.
furtner educational and enIigfitening
hypodermic doses of facts NAV Ne
secured by writing the Constructive
INFORMATION Bureau, Prohibition Trait
d. B Streets, South West, Wash :
ington, d. c., without money and
without price, for use in schools
Clubs. pulpit and press, which viii
prove beyond the shadow of q per-
adventure that nothing has been
more open and constant than the
growth of prohibition sentiment II,
the last half century and that as an