The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-06-26
ARTICLE "
From Liberty to Prohibition

From Liberty to Prohibition
THE people of the United States
l. were promised a millennium
a veritable paradise hearth, once
the business of making and selling
liquor was abolished.
Among the predictions, I choose
one of the nildest. The Rev
Charles Sickle, a minor, but accred-
tied prophet, wrote in 1918:
When saloons are closed
a good many policemen will lose
their jobs. So will some jail
keepers. Some judges will not be
so busy Policemen, judges
and jailkeepers will be more
profitably employed than when
they punished booze-soaked men.
Lawyers will not have SO many
cases Of certain kinds which grow
Out of the liquor business, direct
ly and indirectly. Doctors will
not be called upon so frequently
by those who now suffer because
the saloons are wide open.
These quotations are taken from
Mr.. Stelzle's book, "Why ProIibi-
tion," used as a textbook during the
submission Of the eighteenth amend
ment to the states. I fear they will
not increase his value as prophet.
There is not a community where
these glowing words of hope and
cheer have not been refuted
dismally.
The record of the first ten years
Of prohibition in the United States
is written in three words, folly,
crime, and failure.
Courts jam1ned with liquor cases
and their corridors swarming with
bondsmen and flxers of the under
world, penitentiaries crammed to
overlooking with mutinouS convictS,
organized bands of criminals COM
peting with one another for an ex-
elusive monopoly over murder and
extortion, bootleggers plying their
trade among high school children,
the energy of the police detected
from its real purpose, when not
shamefully debauched; corruption
SO general in high place and low
that it no longer shocks the citizen,
staggering sums of the peoples
money frittered away on enforce
ment," the complete failure of con-
gress. court, or President to enact,
interpret, or enforce any adequate
measure to relieve the intorable sit
uation-these are only a few of the
grim facts of prohibition after ten
years.
IF it be thought that I exaggerate.
l. read the word picture of today
painted by one of the outstanding
apostles, DR.. Ernest H. CHEERING
ton, executive secretary and pub
Lefty director of the Anti-Saloon
league.
For thirty-f1ve years Ernest Cher
rington has been a professional pro-
hibition reformer. He has done
little else during his entire life. He
is perhaps the most tolerant of all
his brothers.
Read what the worthy doctor calls
the picture of today:
The picture of prohibition at its
worst is not a pleasant picture.
We read, see and hear much today
regarding the bootlegger, the
rum runner, hip-pocket TASKS,
drinking by girls and young
women, the part which beverage
alcohol plays at public dances and
in automobile parties, corruption
in government enforcement cir
cles, poison liquor, feuds among
bootleg kings, the fragrant viola
ton of the law by the liquor in
terests in cities, and the serious
disregard of law by the people.
Surely today's picture is dark
enough. Surely the beverage-al-
cotol problem IN American is far
from solution. Surely the road to
complete victory is yet long,
long trail.