Debate Between Dickie and Rose on Prohibition
By Editor
A SERIES of five debates on Prohibition was recently arranged for between Hon. David S. Rose, mayor of Milwaukee, and Prof. Samuel Dickie, president of Albion College, on the challenge of the former. The first of these was held in Milwaukee, March 26, before an audience of 4,000. Admission was by ticket, free, but "some men paid $5.00 or more for seats. Judge Tarrant presided." Professor Dickie's power as a platform orator is well known. Mr. Rose read his speech from manuscript, and endeavored to base his argument in part on Bible authority. He claimed that when Prohibition prevailed, mortality, insanity, drunkenness, divorce, pauperism increased. From meager reports, we should gather that Professor Dickie based his argument on an economic basis, and argued against liquor selling as a producer of crime, an enemy of law and order. The Associated Press reports are quite colorless, and the opposing sides seem to be quite evenly balanced. But from an editorial in the "Milwaukee Free Press," of March 28, Mayor Rose had much the worst of it. We quote: "It became very evident to the unbiased and thoughtful listener at the Rose-Dickie debate Friday night that the antagonists of the Prohibition movement will have to adopt a vastly different line of argument than that employed by Mayor Rose if they wish to make headway against the facts and figures of its 'dry' advocates. "The latter have the economic argument so potent and convincing, as applied both to the manufacturers and consumers of intoxicating beverages, as well as the non-participants, that the champions of regulation will have to elaborate some line of attack in an equal degree and effectiveness if they would not continue to come out of the small end of the horn in every verbal battle. "The stock arguments of anti-Prohibition from time immemorial, such as the hypocritical reference to the Bible, the pathetic appeal in behalf of personal liberty, the stress laid on the value of the liquor traffic as an economic and industrial factor; all these will no longer prevail against the modern bulwark of Prohibition, which declares the liquor business to be not a wealth producer but a wealth consumer, which creates nothing valuable; affords a low average of employment, and taxes the citizen not only directly through his pocketbook, but indirectly through the crimes and diseases for which it is responsible. "It was observed at the debate in question that the enemies of the saloon no longer bolster up their argument with sentimental imagery and emotional word play. The Prohibitionists deal with facts—facts either drawn from common human knowledge or the figures and statements of authorities. "It will not do to attempt their refutation with buncombe, with generalizations and deductions drawn from inconsequential and inapplicable census figures. To argue that because a 'dry' state has more insane than a 'wet' state, Prohibition breeds insanity, is to talk the veriest rot. A clever speaker like Mayor Rose delivered this sort of thing effectively, but it does not last in sober second thought. "Public sentiment just now is strong against the liquor traffic, and the average citizen will want grounds more relative and convincing than moonshine like this to woo him from the glamor of Prohibition."