Milford chronicle., 1927-12-09
IS PROHIBITION w.,
COMING OR GOING?

editorial Chicago Evening Post)
There came into this office yes
terday a man from a city on the
Ohio rivera city Of about 100000
population. He is prosperous to-
bacco manufacturer. A certain
popular brand of cigarets is among
the products of his factories. He
has been more or less active in
politics. He is a good fellow in the
better sense of that much-abused
designation. He was here to at
tend the debate which was held
last night at Soldier field.
We talked about that; about the
tobacco business; about politics,
and finally the conversation drifted
around to prohibition. Said he:
an ten or fifteen years this coun-
try will have forgotten about liquor
1 used to want a few drinks every
day. When the eighteenth amend
ment was enacted I stocked up well.
For a while 1 kept up the old hab-
it's, but now l don't take drink
oftener than once in six months. I
just don't think about it any more,
and that's true of my friends.
at has made big difference to
the workers in my factory. Fellows
who couldn't own a white collar
now have their own homes paid for.
They are buying gasoline with the
money they used to spend on booze,
and the family, that didn't have
shoes to walk in when the saloons
were busy, now goes driving in the
car every Sunday.
mo, sir, you can't induce me to
vote for liquor to come back in any
way, shape or fashion. The only
vote I'll cast on that question would
be to make the law stronger"
And there are thousands of men
thruout America who have reached
a like conclusion for a like reason.
We who live in the big cities, where,
in the nature of things, the out
lawed liquor interests will make
their last stand, do not realize to
what an extent America is really
drying up in the smaller cities, the
towns and villages.
Here is the testimony of differ
ent sort of witness, but in his own
way no less competent-a preacher,
John Andrew Holmes, who writes in
the current issue of the Congrega-
tionalist.
Having lived my entire half-cen-
fury of life with not single full
years exception in dry towns and
cities from Massachusetts to Cali
fornia, in every one of which there |
was notification by the authorities |
and law-breaking by the people
bad enough in themselves but cum |
ningly magnified by false propa- |
ganda until the very elect were de- |
ceived and discouraged-but in ev-
cry one of which the cause of law |
and order triumphed in the end, |
call upon all enemies of drink to J
bear up, keep up the fight and wait |
patiently for God. All the present |
hue and cry, with the horrible sto-
ries of atrocities which we always |
have to hear in such times of war,
Is old STUFF to me. heard it for |
years in a township, but we mud
lied thru it. 1 heard it for years |
in a county, but it died down.
heard it for years in a city, but it |
was finally conceded that the city |
should be run without license mon
ey. 1 heard it for years in state, |
but it did not last a generation.
Now that I hear it in a larger area,
how we'll know it's raucous voice!
That voice, however loud, cannot |
deceive me-"
The cigaret manufacturer and the |
preacher are agreed. Each from his |
own viewpoint sees the same thing |
happening. Prohibition is coming, |
not going; it is winning, not losing.
The clamor we hear is the clamor |
Of the defeated; it is not the voice |
If America.