The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-12
AMERICA'S DRY EXPERIMENT GREATEST IN HISTORY AND
 WATCHED BY ALL NATIONS
Commissioner Haynes Quotes Some Of Worlds Great Men To Show Far-Reachng Effects-Dry Movement Grows Stronger Day By Day In Various European Countries
By ROY 4. HAYNES L. z. Prohibition Commissioners


 ica. What of prohibition? What does the future hold?
 Lloyd George said it:
 America is making very bold experiment to deal with probably the greatest curse of modern civil lization. She has tried many experi. ments but they have been only com paratiVe successes.
 She has made her decision with the courage that characterizes a great people, to try the prohibition experiment-one that has never been made on this earth before. Let us give her a fair chance. Let us be quite frank. One of America's great est difficulties has been the liquor which has been pouring in by sur reptitious means from Europe
 
 There is no doubt fortunes have been made by smuggling liquor into the United States in defiance of a law which passed by a greater ma jority than any other law in any country.
 Give it fair trial. They are a great, practical, courageous, resolute people. Don't let us interfere with them. They are people of more than hundred million, highly ed ucated and progressive. Therefore, it is in the interest of civilization that they be allowed full time to test this effort to solve problem which is just as much ours as theirs."
 "Enginnd Is Watching"
 That was his utteransce when America risked her long friendship with her kinsmen across the seas in sober decision to stand by her laws even if it came to breaking the Kings seal on intoxicating liquor aboard British ships in American waters. Long before that he spoke of England watching the progress of America's bold bid for sobriety with hopeful. if anxious eyes. What Bri- tain does,' he added will depend entirely on the success or failure of what America is doing now"
 Yes, England is watching; and France and Germany, and Italy, and Scandinavia, and Turkey, and India.
 Men who think are saying things men who act are doing things. While the German police authorities early in the summer of 1923 were exhibit ing publicly in an effort to curb the crime wave, the deadly weapons used by criminals, a bill providing for local option was carried victori- ously through the Reichsart and the economic conference and into the Reichstag. In the same month came uiSpdlNHtS Sdy HE that q SlTOnS movement for prohibition had laid hold of France, while the Ministry of Labor was in the midst of an in- Vestigatlon to discover whether French production was being ham pered by alcoholism.
 We in America have not been con scious of the benefits that have come to us and the advantages We have gained in the family of nations even Tn ell fr1n hnt l,,y enga ged in our great venture. Keen analytical minds from other lands have come to our shores. traveled through our country, gone back home, ard spoken out.
 O O o
 An Engifskmnn's Comment.
 They talk more about prohibition than they do about the League of Ma tions," said Sir John Foster, one of Englands most distinguished jour. naliSts, on his return home after a three years stay in the United States There was a lot of contentment. In the industrial districts people were getting used to going without liquor Manufacturers told me that the men Were working better. l talked tC many workingmen; they resented be- ing deprived of their liberty; they thought they ought to be allowed tc decide for themselves. Then they.gen erally added omething like this. Well. we have got used to 1t by now and if. we had to vote again l would vote that we remain dry I may be wrong; l am not q prejudiced teeto- taler, but 1 wandered all over the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Canadian bor. der down to the Mexican. and the conclusion l came to was that, right or wrong, America has become dry and she is going to remain dry,
 Again and again, wandering about the country, not only in the q agricul- tural districts, but in the industrial districts, l saw how healthy the pco- ple looked. how the men. and particu- larly the women, carried themselves how bonnY the children were. Ere quently 1 had to listen to criticisms about Ing land, about our being a docadent, played -ouc people, and when l came home 1 kept my eyes open.
 T have not been particularly hap py since l have been back. The phy- sicue of our people is rot to be com pared with the physique of the cor responding classes in the United States. Since my return l nave been struck by the frequent sight of poor wan women, wretched and evidently ill-led, and the poor children with skimpy hair showing the lack Of proper kinds of food; and have noticed the bad teeth which dis figure so many of our people--;i thing you rarely see on the othel side of the Atlantic.
 America and ourselves are going to be very severe competitors in the immediate future in regard to com merce, and while We think we are going to hold our own, and while nc doubt we are as well equipped mem tally as the Americans, We are not going to hold our own unless we de- Velop in our general population d better physique than they now have An Economic question.
 That is part of it-competition tC come. The economic side of what is going on in this country since prOhi bition became factor in our daily lives is what other nations have been first to take account of. As far back as October, 1922, one of England's foremost economists, Sir George PaiSh, saw it, and voiced IL.
 "Prohibition IS an economic ques- tion," he fold his 'colontiyrisn. There are two reasous for this. First, we must all admit that the working classes will command from now on '- greater share of the worlds gC
  fore. Second. the difficulty of se- curing capital from the classes that formerly supplied capital will be eX- ceedingly difficult because of taxes and fear of the future.
 Therefore, unless the working people make savings and provide capital, world business will be at d standstill. They can only make say ings by denying themselves pleas ures, which include drink. In Eng land today they spend annually from 00,000.000 to '.00,000,000 pounds on drink. If halt that amount were saved in England and elsewhere among the nations the problems ot the world would be solved As an economist. l consider prohibition to he necessary and inevitable"
 He added that if the eighteenth amendment shoeid psove successful in America Great Britain would have it within a few years.
 If" Men of this mans calibre see a dry world. If
 "In America to stay"
 But there is no if. Prohibition as