The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1926-10-01
PROHIBITION Has WHOLLY JUSTIFIED Its Adoption
Usher Try is is
Says Moderation League Exaggerate ;


gerated impression has been created the alleged
failure of prohibition Some people imagine that We
actually have drinking, drunkenness, crime, vice
corruption, and disrespec for law than before prohb
ton. These people have certainly been misled, and
have carefully asceraned in what they and Tho
eminent members of the Moderation League have beer
msed. 1t is unfortunate that the Leagues members
failed to consult professor of mathematical statistics
before lending the prestige of their to the figure
of Mr.. Shrk.
STANLEY Shr, research director of the Moderate
League is a lawyer who evidently needs statistic.
training. The chief exhibit of his report sponsore
by the Moderation League charts the for drunk
in $50 cities and towns of the United States
from 1914 1924 inclusive. The curve of Mr.. Shirk
chart the period of the licensed saloon from 1911
to 1910, inclusive; of wartime restrictions of alcoholic
beverages from 1917 1910 inclusive, and, under the
national prohibition law of the first FIVE full years of its
Reporters and First Offenders
among all of his exhibits and charts Mr.. Shirk has
failed to separate the records of first convictions for
drunkenness from those of confirmed drunkards-old
FOUNDERS and repeaters who may be expected per-
sis in their rotations under any and all difficulties
til they sink into pauperdom and death These habue
will get bootleg liquor anyhow if it be got at all.
But what about the first convictions of offenders
mostly young Misunderstanding the years of time
restriction and national prohibition? Do the
ords show that they have increased diminished?
II am indebted to Karl G. Karsten, one of the best
American statistical authorities, for suggesting very
simple test to the effectiveness of prohibition. In
New York. which many the wettest city in the
United States, with population greater than that of
several States, computations, made for from data
of the Fingerprint Bureau New York City Mags-
trates Court show steady and pronounced decrease
Ill the number of singetme offenders for drunkenness
from 20 to 10000 population for the year 1914 only
per 10000 population for the year 1925.
"If under the tests obtaining in New York
City, find justification for the loud claim that
drunkenness in general, youthful drunkenness, and fe
male drunkenness, increasing; but, instead, find
that first offenders first convictions of old offenders
diminished from 1917 1926 by than one-ourth-
the main contention of the vets coapses at the
The startling fact stands out of primary Importance
that, in New York City, prohibition has succeeded
in weakening if not breaking, the chain of tradition by
which the alcohol habit has, for ages been handed down
from each generation to the next.
Referring to the dry issue in the Congressional
paign this fall and in the reerendums in New York and
other states Professor Fisher cites expert legal and
medical testimony to the effect that rs per beer
is Intoxicating, with this conclusion 1--WE conclude that
modification really evasion notification, that
so-caled Tight wines, and beer Intoxicating
both medically and legally, and be legally adj
mted under the Eighteenth Amendment"
"The New York referendum is fundamentally insin-
cere in the suggestion that New York should be al
lowed to fix far higher limit of alcoholic than
oneha of per cent and yet make believe that such
light wines and beer are Notwithstanding in fact Such
beverages are mountaineering in fact, only in
the fond imagination of those who want them for .
the very kick which makes them Intoxicating Let
one mistake. The referendum aims to intoxicat
ing liquors by means of legal pretense that they
notwithstanding.
t4r- L.