A FEW of our readers have thought that sometimes we are a bit too vigorous in going after the “wets” for their unfair and unscrupulous campaign against Prohibition. Perhaps we have been; but we are still of the mind that it takes more than Cologne water to fight a polecat. As another instance of the unconscionable and grossly untrue “facts” broadcast by the anti-Prohibition press, we will cite the tragic case of the recent penitentiary fire at Columbus, when upward of three hundred prisoners were burned to death.
The “wet” press immediately came out with the glaring statement that the Ohio prison was greatly overcrowded (which was true), and that the cells were “crowded with Prohibition prisoners” (which is untrue).
INTERNATIONAL
Zaro Agha, a 156-year-old Turk of Istanbul, Turkey, has never taken a drink of intoxicating liquor in all his century and a half of life. He has recently toured the United States under the auspices of the American Anti-Alcohol Society.
Here are some of the figures on the classification of the 4,800 prisoners in that institution:
742 murderers
964 burglars
293 convicted of rape
1,018 robbers, bandits, safe-crackers
296 forgers
308 convicted of larceny
19 violators of the Prohibition laws
Nineteen out of 4,800 prisoners there because of liquor law infraction, yet the “wets” declare the overcrowding was due to those nineteen! The proverbial “drop in the bucket” was never better exemplified than in this case. And yet this is a fair sample of anti-Prohibition propaganda. The “wets” have no case, and so they have to make up one, and they do it by exaggeration, misrepresentation, half truths, and demagoguery. And yet many people, hitherto ardent “drys,” are undecided as to their attitude on the Prohibition question to-day, and all because they got their information solely from “wet” newspapers that employ such methods. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,” said the wise man; and that deception includes pro-booze newspapers too! B.
