Debaters' Handbook Series SELECTED ARTICLES ON PROHIBITION OF THE COMPILED BY LAMAR T. BEMAN, A. M., LL.D. THE H. W, WILSON COMPANY 1915 EXPLANATORY NOTE "There are few social questions," says the report of the Royal Commission on the Liquor Traffic in Canada, "which have been more anxiously considered than that of Prohibition, and so great and important is the question involved, that almost every civilized nation has given considerable attention to it." While the Civil War in this country diverted attention from Prohibition to other public questions, the present war in Europe has had exactly the opposite effect. "If drunkenness is dangerous in time of peace," says Guglielmo Ferrero, the eminent Italian scholar, in his article in the Pittsburgh Post of May 25, 1915, "it is much more so in time of war, when those who go to fight as well as those who remain at home have need of all their judgment and reflection for the common safety." The knowledge of this fact explains why the war in Europe directed attention to Prohibition. The day after war was declared the sale of absinthe was prohibited in all France by military decree, and this action was later ratified and made perpetual by act of the French Parliament. Russia prohibited the sale of vodka a few weeks after the beginning of the war. Somewhat less extreme measures have been taken by several others of the belligerent countries. In the United States within the same period of time the question has received more public attention than ever before. Since the beginning of the war ten states have adopted Prohibition as a state-wide measure while a number of others have considered and rejected it. It is now certain that Prohibition will come before the voters in several more states within the next year or two. Public attention has been directed to the question in other ways than by the act of a legislature or the popular vote on state-wide Prohibition. National Prohibition by amendment to the federal constitution has been debated and voted upon in the House of Representatives, and while defeated, yet it received a majority of the votes cast in that body. The National Anti-Saloon League has asked for $2,000,000 a year to carry on the contest, and has declared that it confidently 288933 |