THE manufacturers of strong drink, and those who stand on the brink of the pit and deal out damnation by the dram, claim that prohibition does not prohibit. If not, why are they so active in opposition to prohibition measures when they are proposed? Their actions give the lie to their words. They know better.
Laws against murder, theft, and adultery do not entirely suppress the commission of these atrocious crimes; but is this an argument that we shall have no laws against these things?—Hardly. Though prohibitory laws may not completely suppress the rum traffic, they reduce it to a minimum, and crime and deeds of outlawry correspondingly decrease.
For Smith, Arkansas, has been “dry” for some months. Collier, in a recent issue, quotes the following details furnished by the editor of Arkansas Fruit and Farm, which shows the results of prohibition:
“The liquor interests advocate that prohibition does not prohibit, but the record here in Fort Smith shows that the curse has been eliminated to a point where our jails are empty, our police half of what it was when we had saloons, the cost of feeding prisoners is less than fifty dollars per month as compared to nearly a thousand a month under wet conditions, and our city jail is now used as a lodging house for the transient poor. No arrests occurred in Fort Smith from Thursday morning to Saturday morning, which included New Year’s day.”
The same excellent results will be experienced elsewhere by abolishing the saloon. Both the manufacture and the sale of intoxicating beverages should be prohibited in all parts of this great republic. Let us all be sober. G. B. T.