Evening star., 1938-12-04
Fioures Disclose Less
Legal Drinking Than
Before Prohibition
Vets Blame High Taxes
While Drys Soy People
Are Tired of Stuff
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
Five years after drinking was
made lawful again American drink
ing Of legal liquors has tapered of.
Both temperance people and the
liquor trade agree that consumption
Of legal intoxicants seems to have
leveled of to where drinking per
capita is about two-thirds what it
was before prohibition.
But the 5th anniversary Of the
proclamation repeating the 18th
(prohibition amendment on Mon
day will find the two sides in dis
agreement over why consumption
declined this year after reaching
q post-prohibition peak in 1887.
The trade blames bootlegging, en-
couraged by high taxes.
The temperance organizations de-
clare people have tired of the stuff.
Meanwhile governments continue
to collect their billion-dollar tax
take from the liquor business.
Distillers Blame High Taxes.
The distillers claim high taxes
are driving drinkers to the boot
leggers with their illicit, inferior and
tax-free goods. The Distilled Spirits
Institute, trade organization, said
this explains the decline in con-
sumption, as reckoned from legal
Withdrawals from warehouses. that
began in November, 1887, and has
been maintained.
Distiller organizations, basing their
calculations on the number of illicit
stills seized annually, estimate that
bootleggers are selling at least 25,-
100000 gallons of whisky annually.
The distillers declare bootleggers
increased as State and Federal
bodies laid the tax burden heavier
and heavier on legal goods and that
expected increased revenues there
fore never materialized.
The business recession was another
reason for the drop, they said.
But temperance groups replied
that gasoline consumption has gone
up steadily throughout the period
and that soft drink sales in 1888
will reach an all-time high.
incidentally, temperance or
CARNATIONS have carefully pre-
pared tables showing that the
number of automobile accidents
In America began to decline in
the exact month that liquor sales
fell off and the curve downward
is in proportion to the drop in
liquor consumption)
Relieve Trend Permanent.
At the Methodist Board of Tenn
perance, Prohibition and Morals
officials said they believed people
had grown tired and somewhat
disgusted with drinking and that
the downward curve that had set
in was a permanent one.
The Methodists recently reported
increasing interest in anti-liquor
activity among young people. a
noticeable change in social habits
and rising sentiment against pre-
vailing methods of dealing with the
liquor problem.
Most temperance organiza tions
now are working on educational
programs of abstinence rather than
prohibition of liquor. Among off,
cials in Washington there is senti-
ment that repeal probably has come
to stay, and work must be aimed at
control and regulation of the drink
evil rather than another attempt
to prohibit it.
Temperance organiza tions with
headquarters here have not as yet
embarked on any national program
Most of them took no part in recent
elections. The distillers declared
there was no material increase in
dry sentiment throughout the United
States as indicated by local votes
in November.
In North Dakota, a referendum
to repeal the law legalizing the
sale of spirits and wines was de-
feated,
There now are four States where
sale of distilled spirits is forbidden,
Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and
Mississippi.
THE result of the elections on