The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1923-09-21
What The Shrinsrs Have Learned

(From Christian Science Monitor.)
Several hundred thousand Shriners,
together with their families and
friends, have been given an impress
sive illustration of the extent to
which the campaign Of falsehood and
utilization carried on by the liquor
interests has been developed at the
expense of individual regulations.
For a week before the great gather
ing of this organization at Washing
ton certain papers were filled with
stories of the preparations made by
the bootleggers to convert the con-
clave into a gigantic orgy. AS the
ceremonies progressed the world was
told by dispatches in the newspapers
that are trying to break down the
prohibition law, of the delivery of
alcoholic liquors in case lots to hotels
and Shriners' headquarters. The ac-
Invites of the bootleggers were de-
scribed in graphic and, as it turns
out, wholly imaginative terms, and
their profits were estimated at only
less than those of a moving picture
star. The world was asked to believe
that gentlemen high in the Masonic
order, who, with their families, have
been in the habit of enjoying a ma
tional outing of this sort, were to a
man violators of law and victims of
dipsomania The campaign against
prohibition assusmed the form of a
campaign of personal SANDER against
all who wore the red fez.
But with the close of Shriners'
week, the truth was told even in
those newspapers which had found
| pleasure or profit in the publication
of malignant gossip. 1t became
known that the arrests for drunken
ness in Washington during the week,
despite the presence there of perhaps
100000 strangers on pleasure bent,
were barely so per cent of normal.
The Shriners' own court, which was
established for the purpose of enforc-
ing order, had practically no business,
except the benevolent task of look
ing up lost children. The chief of the
District of Columbia police said that
there was not the slightest doubt
that prohibition was responsible for
the general orderliness that prevailed.
There were fewer automobile acct
dents during the week than the nor
NAL number in Washington-a fact
indicative of general sobriety.
These were conditions only to be
anticipated. The vast and over
whelming majority of the people of
the United States not merely approve
of but practice prohibition, and a
great organization, such as that of
the Shriners, being a representative
slice of the more prosperous in So
ciety, afford fair index to the SEN
timent of the whole. 1t is perfectly
evident that at Washington the pro-
| hiOAIiOil law was 1SSpSStSO, IlOI ulSIS-
| ly because it was the law, but because
of the increasing habit of abstention
from liquor which that law has en-
couraged.
| The tens and even hundreds of
thousands of Shriners who are able to
contrast the conditions which they
observed at Washington with the
falsehoods set out in certain of the
newspapers will in future be better
able to estimate the truth of stories
of wholesale violation of the law.
Moreover, they will be able to Judge
from their own unpleasant experience
| of the extent to which the LIQUOR
press is willing to go in vilifying
individuals and organizations in the
endeavor to build up a sentiment that
may be useful to the liquor interests,
which is on its last legs.
-K-K-K