The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1924-01-25
REV. THO. NICR0LSON,LL
Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church; President of the Anti
Saloon League of America
Is Prohibition a Failure?

rs prohibition failure? Well, ask
the bankers what prohibition is doing.
They will tell you that in a single
dry year savings banks depostors in
creased 10000 and the total OF their
savings bank deposits increased by
S338,000,000.
ASK the life insurance companies.
They will tell you that in the single
month OF April, 1922, they wrote L.
$4,000 new life insurance policies at
a face value OF S727,000000. This was
S287, 100000 more than in any previous
record. In addition, they wrote $685.
100000 of industrial life insurance.
ASK the merchants if prohibition is a
failure: in Chicago at least they will tell
YOU that business trade was never so
good. that Christmas trade Tor 1873
was the biggest Christmas. trade in
their history, and that i'll the day be-
fore Christmas and Christmas week
the department. stores on the Loop
had total sales exceeding Sl00,000,0O0.
Ask the laborng men. They will
tell you that the International Con
vention OF the brotherhood of Loco
motive Engineers, assembled in Cleve-
land in 1918 with S2S delegates, repre-
senting 10000 engineers, voted unani-
mously in favor OF worldwide prohi-
bition.
ASK the directors OF the Employ
ment Service, OF the Department OF
Labor, OF one OF our great cities. He
will tell you that in scores OF cities
labor temples have been built since
the Eighteenth Amendment went into
effect. Labor banks have been or
ganized in hall a dozen or more OF
our large cities. Union secretaries re-
port that dues arc paid more prompt
" than ever before.
ASK the employers OF labor il pro-
hibition is a failure, and they reply
that we used to be constantly an
noyed and our business would be in
terfcred with after pay day by drunk
enness and absentees. Under profit
btion we have neither.
ASK tho Christian churches. They
will tell you that i'll 1921 church mem-
bership increased 100000; that in
1922 they added a daily average of
more than $500 new members for
every day in the year. They will tell
you that church properties have in
creased by the millions. Benevolent
and missionary offerings have mounted
to such millions that they make the
contributions of other days look like
penny collections, placed alongside
the plates sent up by those living on
Millionaire Row.
Ask the charity organizations what
they think about prohibition. They
will tell you that their burdens have
been relieved anywhere from Is to Is
per cent or more.
ASK the big hotels and restaurants
which laughed at the law, whether en-
forcement is a fizzle. Then hear the
doleful chorus.
Let the Paradise restaurant on 5Sth
street, New York, sing bass, let Shan
ley's, Murray's and the Little Club
sing tenor let Cushman's and the
Monte Carlo sing alto; let belmont
cos sing soprano. and the words of
the music are We have been pad
locked, padlocked, padlocked.' The
famous Knickerbocker Grill sings
Amen, padlocked, amen and amen ,
Ask the fifty-hve convicted con-
spirators Of the whisky ring at Gary,
Indiana, through the former mayor of
Gary from the Atlanta Penitentiary,
and their doleful chorus is Pad
locked, padlocked. and padlocked.'
Let the curtain fall"