The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1931-02-01
THE PRICE OF PROGRESS
Democracy Had Same Road of OPP
position to Travel That Pro-
hibition is Now En-
countering

PATRIcK II. CALLAHAN, in address before
City Club dinner, st. Louis, Dee 90 1880
Colonel Patrick H. Callahan of Louis
vile, Kentucky, a prominent and influen-
tial manufacturer spoke at dinner at
the City Club in st. Louis. on Thursday
evening. December %. The dinner was
sponsored by the Anti-Saloon League of
Missouri and many of the leading min
listers and laymen Of ST. Louis, and was
held in honor of the eleventh. anniversary
of the Eighteenth Amendment.
Colonel Callahan, who is the general
secretary of the Association of Catholics
Favoring Prohibition in his Speech said
that the first experiment in this country,
Democracy. had the same road to travel
before achieving popularity that the sec
ond, Prohibition, is now experiencing.
Both, he said, found an obstacle in the
partisan press. He mentioned articles in
foreign newspapers in 1925 which re-
ported that Democracy in the United
States had resulted in dishonesty in gov
erument and corrupt elections-a condi-
ton which was said to be particularly
true in New York, Philadelphia and Bos-
ton. Three cities" said Col Callahan,
(which seem TO have the same delinquency
in dealing with that later experiment"
Metropolitan newspapers, he said had
never been sympathetic toward the prohi-
bition movement largely because they
think the urban population is against it.
The amount of transformation about pro-
hibition published in metropolitan news
papers, he said, was startling.
WICKERSHAM REPORT Salts
FACTORY
He expressed satisfaction with the
Wickersham report and said that dry or
CARNATIONS were able to lay facts before
the commission which turned the minds
of ten of the eleven members. "Only one,
Judge Kenyon, was an acknowledged dry
when the commission was appointed" he
said. THE commission was made up of
the type of men who cannot be influenced
by misleading propaganda"
"At the time of the great fire in the
Ohio penitentiary, the Chicago Tribune
blamed prohibition, which. it said, had
oyercrowded our prisons. There were 1900
unfortunates there, and only eighteen of
them for violation of the liquor laws Yet
the Chicago Tribune is a great newspaper,
and is read by far more than will hear
my voice. In all of our prisons there are
less than 5 per cent confined for violat-
inc the prohibition laws. But newspapers
would have you believe that prisons are
bullying with prohibition law violators"
When I appeared before congress
sional committee last spring, I was able
to state that during prohibition more lives
had been saved by the decline in deaths
from alcoholism, cirrhosiS of the liver and
Brights disease than were lost in the
Great War. I was able to cite census fig
ures to prove this Yet, Arthur Brisbane
in his column says that deaths from alco-
hoism have increased 500 per cent. What
happened in 1920? Cirrhosis of the liver
and alcoholism deaths were almost wiped
out. Was it a change of treatment, in the
atmosphere, or in water? No. liquor was
taken away, yet how few know that that
was responsible"
Speaking of the economic benefits of
prohibition, he said that Louisville his
home city, before the Eighteenth Amend
ment was adopted, had 80 distilleries and
paid more federal taxes than any city eX-
cept New York. whisky was to Louisville
what automobiles are to Detroit" he said.
with its elimination and the substitution
OF other industries, we were surprised
when the recent census revealed that in
the ten years of prohibition we have
shown more growth in population bank
clearingS and new building than in the
previous forty years combined" Calculat-
ing on a basis of federal taxes formerly
collected on liquor. he estimated the
United States spent $2,246, 900 a year
for liquor before prohibition. Prohibition,
he estimated, had released this almost
50 500 600 600 annually into the channels