Samuel McCune Lindsay

“ The movement for Prohibition was affected by new scientific knowledge, new views of industrial economics, and educational forces of great variety, considerably intensified, but not substantially changed in character, by the experience of the World War. The conviction had grown steadily in the United States that social and industrial efficiency, and national unity of purpose, could not be had at any cheaper price than the cost or sacrifices involved (whatever they might be) in national prohibition ”

“ Liquor Consumption.—Too much importance is often attached to actual statistics of the consumption of liquor as an evidence of the success or failure of local option, and of restriction or prohibition of manufacture and sale. They are by no means conclusive, and especially have slight bearing on the important question, involved in most local option and prohibition enactments, concerning the nature, character and number of saloons and places where intoxicating beverages are sold and consumed. ”

“ Americans of all classes in increasing numbers perceived that, quite irrespective of their personal habits or desires with respect to the consumption of alcohol, they could not secure the advantages of abstinence, or of moderate and perhaps harmless consumption, on the part of the weaker and more numerous members of any community, unless they themselves were willing to forgo the liberty of personal consumption, even though they belonged to the minority whose efficiency might not in any case be seriously impaired. ”

“ In Pennsylvania, where the licences were granted by the courts of quarter sessions and the judges elected by the people, local option virtually obtained, because elections of judges often turned on the question of whether or not licences should be granted in a given community; and in New Jersey some communities, by reason of the provisions of special municipal charters, enjoyed the privilege of local option. It was estimated in 1910 that the extent of the dry areas of the United States was to that of the wet areas approximately as seven is to five. ”

“ The most disinterested and intelligent observers, accustomed to judging public conditions and social facts, differed widely in their verdicts on prohibition, its economic results and general benefits or disadvantages to the public welfare in the first year of national prohibition. ”

“ The Supreme Court said that this “does not enable Congress or the several states to defeat or thwart the prohibition, but only to enforce it by appropriate legislation. The words ‘concurrent power,’ in that section, do not mean joint power, or require that legislation thereunder by Congress to be effective shall be approved or sanctioned by the several states or any of them; nor do they mean that the power to enforce is divided between Congress and the several states along the lines which separate or distinguish foreign and interstate commerce from intrastate affairs. ”

“ He said, “the experience of the seven American life insurance companies (and one Canadian company whose records had been studied) has proved that abstainers have from 10% to 30% lower mortality than non-abstainers, and there is no good reason for believing that if the other companies compiled their statistics there would be any different result, providing the companies exercised the same care in accepting abstainers and non-abstainers.” ”

“ In Philadelphia the total for the dry six months of 1919 compared with the wet six months of that year showed a decrease of 40% (47,000 to 28,530) , and the chief resident physician of the Philadelphia General Hospital stated that there had been no increase in the use of drugs since prohibition.
Fifty-nine cities of the United States having a pop. of 30,000 or over and a combined pop. of over 20,000,000 (including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia) give the following official figures for arrests for drunkenness in the four successive years 1917-20: 316,842, 260,169, 172,659 and 109,768. ”

“ Arthur Hunter, actuary of the New York Life Insurance Co., in a paper read before the National Conference of Charities and Correction in Indianapolis in 1916, presented a survey of this material in which he claimed that the American statistics, many of which were then only recently available in published form, corroborated the English data in indicating that total abstinence decidedly increased longevity. ”

“ Other provisions giving the enforcing authorities control over importations for non-beverage purposes make it clear that both this Act and the National Prohibition Act apply to all territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and specifically continue in force all laws in regard to the manufacture and taxation of and traffic in intoxicating liquor and their several penalties as in force when the National Prohibition Act was enacted. ”

“ Prohibition had its roots and causes outside of and far antedating these sentiments and experiences. The continuously rising standard of living of the masses in both urban and rural communities from 1910 to 1918 had much influence. The industrial demands for efficiency, and the growth of scientific knowledge about its requirements, had an important and increasing effect. ”

“ Quite apart, however, from war legislation, on Aug. 1 1917 the Senate adopted the resolution proposing to the states the National Prohibition Amendment by a vote of 65 to 20 more than two-thirds of the members present, and this resolution was adopted by the House with some amendments Dec. 17 by a vote of 282 to 128. On Dec. 18 1917 the Senate concurred in the amendments made by the House, and the resolution was thereupon submitted to the Legislatures of the several states for ratification. ”

“ Only three of those states had less than half their area under no licence; seven between one-third and three-fourths, and 16 more than three-fourths. Therefore, said this writer, “with 19 states wholly dry, 16 states more than three-fourths dry and 7 states more than half dry, it would appear from the map that national prohibition requiring the consent of 36 states is not far off.” ”

“ Enlightened opinion was also shown in the increasing regard for public health, and the measures which the nation as a whole, and the public authorities in most of its component divisions, were taking to promote it. The physiological effect of small doses of alcohol on physical strength and on mental processes had been studied by scientists for many years ”