The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1934-04-14
HAS REPEAL IMPROVED LIQUOR
TRAFFIC CONDITIONS?

A communication in yesterdays Times
News, signed by E. w. Ewbank. indicates
that he is not satisfied with conditions I'M
der prohibition in this county and State
To that extent Mr.. Ewbank and the prom
bitionists occupy common grounds. Inc
prohibitionists are not satisfied with con-
ditions. They believe we ought to have
better enforcement of the prohibition law
in North Carolina. There is where prohl-
. bitionists and Mr.. Ewbank separate. He
believes the State should not have pro
hibition law. He would repeal the prohlbl-
ton law, legaIize the manufacture and
sale of alcoholic beverages, and undertake
to control the liquor traffic.
We wonder if Mr.. Ewbank would be
satisfied with conditions where that course
has been taken. Only few months ago
the 18th Amendment as repealed and
much of the country opened up to the le-
palized traffic in liquor The records tina;
have been made in this liquor-soaked ter
ritory are Illuminating. Mr.. Ewbank may
be interested in reading about it. Here is
an infniteSimal part of that record:
The Evening Bulletin of Philadelphia, Jan.
Is, 1884. under the caption, drunkenness To-
tai Has Increased Ten Times" presents figures
showing how drunkenness increased IN the city
of Philadelphia more than 1000 per cent during
the Christmas holidays of this yeer over the
previous year.
All police records of Cambridge, Mass, have
been broken for persons arrested FOR drunken
ness since the repeal of the Eighteenth Amend
ment
The Cleveland Plain Dealer of January %,
1884, says: "Since the first of the year the en-
rollment at several nationally known (iquor
cure) resorts has surpassed all previous rec
ords' and the liquor cure sanatoria are book
ing their patients in advance again.
An Associated Press report from Boise says
that automobile fatalities in Idaho have in
creased 500 per cent since liquor has been le-
galized.
The Morning Oregonian of Portland, Oregon,
January IT, 1884, says that traffic deaths due to
drink increased 80 per cent in the State of
Oregon for the month of December, 1888, as
compared with the month of December, 1882.
Here is another slant on conditions I'M
der the legalized liquor traffic. Bruce
Cation, nationally known writer, captions
an article, Repeal is New Factor in Traf-
tic Problem" and says:
"The traffic commissioner of a representative
metropolitan police department, pointing to the
fact that this years traffic fatalities are sub
stantially higher than last years. asserts blunt
ly that the most significant single factor is the
novelty of legal drinking and goes on to
add that alcohol has figured in a larger percent
age of fatal and less serious traffic accidents
during the first three months of 1884 than in
the first three months of 1888
1T is not only the fact that drunken drivers
get out on the road that complexities matters
although this of course, is the worst part of it.
Drunken pedestrians reel out into the street
and get hit.
"And there is still another angle to it. There
is more night life in the averare city. More
people are on the streets after midnight than
used to be the case-and not all of them are
cold sober.
Empty roads on the edge of town are more
dangerous now, along about in the morning,
than they used to be; exhilarated jewellers
homeward bound, zip along such houlevards at
breakneck speed and all too often reap the lit
eral reward of such speed-broken necks.
"All in all, the evidence is pretty strong to
show that repeal has introduced an ominous
new factor into the traffic problem"
The foregoing is unbiased testimony
Mr. Cation is not known as prohibitions
list or propaganda for the drys.
The fact is that the records show tn,