Prohibition and Drunkenness by Pasadena Board of Labor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 6, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 39.

Prohibition and Drunkenness

By Pasadena Board of Labor

From Address by Pasadena Board of Labor

It is argued that drunkenness is greater in prohibition territory. This is not a fact in Pasadena, it being very rarely that an intoxicated man is seen on the street. Of course this would not hold good in newly made prohibition communities, as it takes some years for men who have drunk freely all their lives to lose the habit. We do not believe that this charge is true in any "dry" territory; for if more liquor were consumed, then more men in the liquor industries would be employed, not discharged, and prohibition would be welcomed by the brewing interests.

The rising generation in this city is not acquiring the drink habit, because of the absence of constant temptation; and down in your own hearts, brothers, you know they are better off...

The claim is also made that local option is the proper method of settling the liquor problem, in spite of the fact that when local option is proposed in a community, the same interests tell us that local option does not prohibit, and that we should have a national law governing the matter.

We know that local option does cut down the use of intoxicating drinks, and we believe that national laws will cut it down still more.