PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Allow me to express my dissent from the statement in your issue of May 29th that Prohibition in this country "was the imposition of the will of _a fanatical minority." Those who favoured Prohibition were -not fanatics. Blue law considera- tions were nowhere manifest. That we may have wished people to be good in this world, or their souls to be saved in the next, did not influence. The eye of our effort looked solely to practical consequences here and now. Appeals were made to reason, not sentiment. The movement had been systematically organized. For at least one generation Prohibition had been moving forward with steadily increasing momentum. These are not the indicia of fanaticism. Neither was its adoption the work of a minority. Still less is the sentiment now in its favour that of a minority. As it was with slavery, so is it now with the liquor business. Largely, at least, those who opposed its abolition would not favour its restoration. They have been reading the statistics which show the result of its adoption. An overwhelming majority would oppose the return of the saloon.
I especially question the correctness of your statement that Prohibition was opposed to all efforts to improve the saloons as a means of creating prejudice against them. It was only after a lifetime of unsuccessful efforts to keep the saloons half- way decent that many of us became Prohibitionists. No, we did not kill the liquor business. It committed suicide. Always and everywhere the saloon has been a lawbreaker. To create a prejudice against the saloon was not necessary. It did not have to be worked up. In this connexion I recall a statement of the most bitter anti-Prohibitionist I ever knew. When asked what objection he would have to having a saloon inhis neigh-
bourhood, provided it were kept by the right kind of a man, his response was, "I wouldn't be willing to have a saloon in my neighbourhood if God kept it." Prohibition in this country has come to stay. If for no other reason, woman's advent in the political arena makes this assurance doubly sure. It has come to stay. Wherever it goes it will go to stay. There, as here, statistics will justify its adoption. The saving of national resources, which Prohibition brings, will offset the interest, at least, on the indebtedness war brought. Prohibition will stay.
—I am, Sir, &c., L. W. KEPLINGER. 710 Minnesota Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas.
[The statements to which our correspondent refers were not made by us, but by the author of the book reviewed. We sum- marized the contents of the book. Our own opinion has always been that, however public opinion in America may have been rushed or manipulated, there was none the less a decisive majority for Prohibition. That is a wonderful fact. The saving on the drink bill will make America a much more formidable opponent in trade than ever before. But Prohi- bition can be enforced in any country only with the free consent of the people. We do not believe that consent would ever he obtained here.—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
