The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1924-06-27
PROHIBITION PROGRESS IN YUCO-SLAYIA
Little Temperance Legislation Has
zatons Are Active and Enling Total Abstaines Rapidly
Youth Especially Aggressive; Government Shows
Especial correspondence for The American Issue)
BY N. r. Heriod
Belgrade, May l, 1924.


hoping to find there advanced anti-liquor
legislation would be greatly disappointed.
The state has done very little to combat
alcoholism by means of the law and the
numerous drinking places to be met with
in the smallest village show that the con-
sumption of liquor is great. But if the
state has not yet taken its part in the
struggle private organizations are at
work. In Yugo-Slavia one has to dis
tinguish between the different parts of
the realm. There is Slovenia with Ro-
man Catholic population and her own
language; then Bosnia with very large
Moslem population then Croatia which,
before the war, was dependency of
Hungary, and finally, old Serbia AL
though united into che state, each part
preserves its own characteristics.
In Slovenia the fight against alcoholism
is less developed, although the evil is
greater than in other parts of the realm.
There is a Catholic organization, the
"Sveta Vojska" (Holy Army which does
some good and edits a monthly paper,
but the soil is very hard, for the popula-
ton is home distilling and greatly given
to drinking.
In Catholic country it is imperative
to have the help of the clergy in order to
advance. The two bishops are said to be
favorable to the temperance movement,
but many Of the lower clergy do not rec
ognize the importance of the question.
Temperance Forces United
In the other parts of the realm things
are in better shape. Until last year there
was no real union between the different
forces at work for temperance; the socie-
ties were completely independent of one
another and were hardly in touch at all.
But last year it was decided to unite the
total abstinence societies into one body,
the Yugo-Slavian Temperance Union.
The headquarters we're transferred to
Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Systematically or
ganized work undertaken. Many pamph-
: lets are published as we'll as a good
monthly paper Trezvenost (Total Absti-
nencc).
A characteristic feature of the fight in
YugoSlavia is the so-called temperance
year all the organizations are morally
obliged to make special effort. Their
methods are varied: Here, meetings are
organized with lantern slides or films
there, the teachers in the schools are in
vited to draw the attention of their pupils
to the alcohol danger, and of course
many articles on the question are pub
lished in the daily press. This year the
temperance week took place from the
9TH to the 18th of April and as l was in
Yugo-Slavia just at that time l could see
how the different workers were trying to
do their duty. At Zagreb (Agram), the
capital of Croatia, the students temper
ance society had organized a very good
exhibition; at Sarajevo the eliminating
point was procession through the
streets and the same took place at Kra-
gujevats where after had spoken for an
hour on American prohibition, process
sion of 300 young people, all members of
the Union "a respectable number for
such small city,, paraded the town. AT
r = II