The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1929-12-01

stimulation OF nome building. MOI only
does it register the Improvement in home
conditions and the higher standards of
living which have developed since prohi-
bition, but this increased volume of con-
struction means labor and employment
for host of men engaged in the building
trade.
THE AUTOMOBILES RELATION
TO PROHIBITION
The automobile industry has a very in
innate relation to prohibition Even be-
fore Henry Ford made his famous state
ment, eff booze ever comes back to the
United States, I am through with manu-
featuring" and gasoline and booze don't
mix; that's ALL thinking people realized
that intoxicating beverages could not be
safely permitted if we were to continue to
use high-speed automobiles on our public
highways The auto death list is already
too high. If the saloon would return or if
under any system drink should be legal
lied once more, few of us would care to
run the risks incident to travelling on
road infested with drinking drivers.
Since, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics in its August, 1929, study Of
Trend of Employment and Labor Turn
over" the number on the August payroll
in 217 establishments, producing automo-
biles, was 437,202, while the amount OF the
weekly payroll was $15,098 523, one is forced
to realize that any national policy which
threatens an industry of this caliber would
be a positive disaster to the business
structure of the country. If we add to
these figures the 1920 engaged in produc-
ton of automobile tires with the weekly
payroll of 81 ,695 .O32 and then add to these
those employed in filing stations garages,
accessory manufacturers and retailers, it is
quite evident that anything which serious
ly disturbs the automobile industry would
at the same time shake the very founda-
tions of our industrial life.
CRIME AND PROHIBITION
Prohibition has played an important
part in reducing the criminality in the
United States. Long before the adoption
of this national policy, Bar Associations
and other organizations concerned about
the future of our nation pointed with dis
may to the rising tide of crime and warned
us that it threatened to enguf our civil
lzation. Crime commissions and vice
commissions were formed in various parts
of the country to study the question and
suggest remedies. Prisoners Aid SOCIETIES,
probation and parole systems, prison re-
forms, and other panaceaS failed to check
over the nation. Those interested in the
abolition in the licensed liquor traffic
urged that the closing of the saloons and
the prohibition OF beverage intoXicants
would probably reduce the amount of
crimes. Their views we're secuted as the
pleas of too-enthusiastic partisans. Ma
tional prohibition did come however, and
the crime wave which had been mounting
so steadily for decades was checked and
began to decrease. This is the verdict not
only of ardent prohibitionists but of the
best informed experts in this highly
specialized field of sociology. DR.. George
W. Kirchwey formerly dean of Columbia
Law School and one of the leading author
tiles on criminology in the United States,
denying that crime is increasing in this
country declares that:
'As between 1910 and 1923, the latter
date being the high-Water mark Of reac-
ton against national prohibition, there
was a decrease of 37.7 per cent in general
criminality in the United States. in pro-
portion to population. The chief reduc-
tons were in public intoxication, 553 per
cent; diSorderly conduct, 51.5 per cent;
vagrancy, 52.8 per cent; fornication and
prostitution, 557 per cent; malicious mis-
chief etc., 68 per cent; larceny 53.1 per
cent, and burglary ia per cent"
PROHIBITION AND THE PUBLIC
HEALTH
upon the economic life of the country.
The effect of prohibition upon the pub