Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-03

Cney must De SOLO somewhere. what
difference does it make what the place
Is called. If available under law it
would be served in some way or an
other along our streets and along our
roads where all could get It. More
than 10000, 600 automobiles and trucks,
and the number Is increasing rapidly,
every one an engine Of death, would
pass by places where liquor would be
sold and every drinking driver would
be menace bringing death and injury
to countless thousands. They would
endanger your life and mine and the
lives of our wives and children. Do
the employers of the thousands of
truck and bus drivers, carrying millions
of people, want intoxicants freely at
hand along streets and highways?
Their business depends largely upon
carrying people safely. Are they will
ing to risk ruin by damages resulting
from killed and injured passengers and
travellers that they may crafty their
appetites for something that does them
no good physically or otherwise? Do
you want to buy an airplane or auto
mobile built or o. KID by intoxicated
workmen or inspectors? We are all in
terested in that phase of this question
regardless of our personal views on
prohibition. Employer and employee
should for his own material benefit
seek for economic industry and public
safety. The public welfare as we'll as
individual interest demands this. BY
prohibition no one Is depriving any one
else Of anything of value or that will
do him or the country any good but
we are seeking to prevent that which
cannot help but injure many directly
and indirectly, in the factory or on the
roads and streets and permanently in
crease the perils of travel.
Money for Better Homes.
Most of the millions formerly ex-
pended for liquor are now spent for
better homes, better schools, higher edu-
cation, automobiles and other comforts
and luxuries, creating better business.
demanding more labor and bringing in
creased happiness to the great mass of
the people. The return to liquor selling
means less business, fewer and poorer
homes, less education, fewer automobiles
and more misery, poverty and suffer-
ing. Let those who resent the inter-
ference with what they may term per-
Sonal liberty reflect upon these things
and ask themselves whether their own
interest and property. their own money
and their own standing in the COM
munity will not suffer by the breaking
down OF the law which they now resent.
Some say there is more drunkenness
today than ever before. Figures of all
sorts can be produced for and against
this assertion. This statement cannot
be sustained when all the facts are
honestly considered. Massachusetts, is
often cited to show that drunkenness is
on the increase. How Is 1t done? Charts
are made up showing arrests made for
drunkenness in different places. It is
easy to take the arrests in a rapidly
growing city, and, by not correcting for
the growth in population. to show that
arrests for drunkenness are increasing.
An able gentleman made up q chart
from the annual reports of the COM
missioner of corrections of Massachu-
sets, showing the facts relating to the
entire State. This chart shows that,
taking the State as a whole, arrests
for drunkenness are steadily decreasing.
This is another significant fact that
fair minded people should consider:
While the great dailieS gladly publish
full page OF charts showing special
cases where arrests for drunkenness
increased, they refused to publish SINH
lar charts showing that in the State
as whole such arrests were decreasing.
The great newspapers of the country
should be fair to the people in discus
sing matter of such vital importance
as this. To refute the assertion often
MADE. however, appeal solely to you on
personal knowledge and experience. You
and I may not 60 about places where
DRINKS are apt to be, but we 90 about
now as we always have. I know that
l do not see one drunken man now
where l saw half-dozen when we
had liquor under law. have been
over the country a great deal during the
last year and the number Of DRINKS I
nave seen can be noted on my two
hands. WV
The Drinking Glass.
Grant that there is more drinking
today than heretofore among a certain
class OF our people. What class is it
the extra well-to-do, the class that
should be most Scrupulous in observing
and respecting law. I may be wrong
about 1t, but many of the fathers and
mothers who set their children the
example Of non-observance will some
DAY greatly regret that they have not
set different example and given their
children a different teaching The
young people who drink are not under
the influence of prohibition. It can
not justly be blamed for their actions.
Inc influences of the World War. our
unexampled prosperity, different
mode OF living from ever before and
q siackening up of proper home in
nuences, in my Judgment, account very
largely for the conditions that con-
front us, and these conditions would be
much worse without prohibition.
Deaths from alcoholism are sought
10 be blamed on prohibition. This is
unwarranted by the facts as well as by
reason. The facts are that deaths from
alcohol have decreased under prohibit
ton. From 1901 to 1917, deaths from
alcoholism averaged Sc for every million
OF our population. Under national pro-
hlbition the highest rate in any year
mas been 80 per million. If the average
rate OF alcohol deaths from 1912 to
1917 had prevailed during the first seven
years OF prohibition, there would have
oeen 10000 more deaths than there
were. In 1926 there were fewer deaths
from alcohol among our hundred mil
mons OF people than there were in 1916
With our 70-odd millions. We have good
reason to believe that a more careful
scrutiny OF alcohol deaths has been
made since prohibition than before. The
JOINT alcohol death rate in 1925 in Is
former non-prohibition States was 40:
IN II former prohibition States it was
70 per 100000 population. Twenty
three States in 1925, With a population
OF two and one-half times the State of
new York, had 545 deaths from alcohol
while New York had 788. Twenty of
these States had adopted prohibition
before national prohibition came. These
are few of the facts given by Cora
Frances Stoddard after careful and
impartial study of this situation. She
sums up in these words:
1T Is evident that in general the alco-
holiSm mortality program is most seri-
Gus IN the former wet States; is below
the average in the former prohibition
States"
After some additional facts. she saws .
1T appears, therefore, that both in
alcoholism death rates and In death
rate increase the problem centers chiefly
In former wet States and in the great
cities"