Evening star., 1926-04-13
DRINKING AND VICE In MINE
DISTRICT PICTURED BY PRIEST

were made Drunkenness took an
astonishing drop in those years. At
the very tail end of 1919 the Volstead
act went into effect. In 1920 there
was a further drop in the number Of
arrests for drunkenness, but immedi-
ately afterward in 1921 there was an,
enormous increase. This increase con
tinued in 1922 and later years with
the result that by 1924 arrests for
drunkenness rebounded just about to
the pre-prohibition level.
ITO be exact, arrests for drunken
ness in 1914 in the $50 places from
which figures were obtained were
506,737. dropped to 226.O7O in 1920.
and In 1924 rose to 493.752. The
same rise occurred in 457 places, IN
creasing from 25S,974 in 1920 to 566,-
026 In 1924"
Quotes Harding Statement.
The witness continued:
"A noteworthy feature is that dur
ing the l9l8.1919 restrictions (Which
amounted to semidryness, not bone
dryness). there was an enormous ue'
crease in drunkenness in spite OF the
business boom of those years, ana
that thereafter, during the severe
bone-dry years of the Volstead act,
there was such an astonishing in
crease that drunkenness just about
reached the level of the old saloon
years by 1924
"One of the interesting things dis
closed bv the survey Is that While
conditions in former wet states
are now about the same as in lsl4,
in former dry States; /. e.. States
which had some form of a State pro
hibition or semi-prohibition law be-
fore the eighteenth amendment was
adopted. conditions are worse today
under the bone-dry Volstead act than
they formerly were under their own
State dry laws. President Harding
sensed this condition shortly before
his death, when he said in his Den
yer speech, in June, 1928: 1t is a
significant fact that some States
which successfully enforced their
own prohibition statutes before the
eighteenth amendment was adopted
have latterly gone backward in this
regard
Perhaps one reason for this great
increase in drunkenness in the dry
States is that most of these so-called
dry States were not really so-but
were, in the main, merely restrictive.
1t is not generally known that at the
time the eighteenth amendment was
ratified-January 16, l919-only 6
States, containing AZ per cent of the
population of the United States, were
bone-dry by popular vote; 6 other
States, with 76 per cent of the pop
ulation, were bone-dry by legislative
act, and IS States, with 55.7 per cent
of the population, were wet.
THE remaining Is States, with 32.5
per cent of the population, We're
neither wet nor dry in any Vol.
e,f< ltnrA
State wide restrictive laws. varying in
degree, but which in all cases, while
intending to abolish the saloon, af-
forded some lawful method for cti-
zens to obtain alcoholic beverages.
Says Drunken Drivers Increase.
Mr.. Shirk told the committee there
had been a great increase In the mum.
ber of arrests of drunken drivers of
motor vehicles in the prohibition
years. This increase. he said, had
been 354 per cent, while the increase
in the number of motor vehicles had
been only 1872 per cent.
Drunken drivers have increased
222 per cent faster than the automo-
biles," he said.
He cited the number of arrests of
drunken drivers in number Of cities.
among them Washington. where, he
said, there were SO arrests for drunk
en- driving in 1918. and in 1924 this
number had increa sed to GIG, an in
crease of 1862 per cent.
Mr.. Shirk read TO the committee n
letter he had received from the chief
of police of Reading. Pa, declaring
that there was more drinking by
minors and young people than ever
before at private dances through the
hip flask route. and that there had
been instances of boys taken from
school drunk.
Asks for Repeal.
Another letter he received from
Martin F. Amorous Of Marietta. Ga,
who declared he personally favored
the eighteenth amendment and would
not change it. said that under the Fed
eral prohibition act conditions so far