unavailing. But we must confess ourselves hopelessly outclassed by the material resources as well as the moral unscrupulousness of the enemies of our industry. And we might well despair of having our position rightly understood by the great public to which the agencies referred to have easy approach, were it not for our abiding faith in the essential justice and liberty-loving spirit of the American people. DROPPING PROHIBITION.-The most significant and, we think, the most favorable note in the literature of the past year concerning the liquor problem, is the very evident abandonment of the prohibition idea and the increasing affirmation of the license or regulation theory by disinterested writers. Taken together with the rejection of prohibition policies or the defeat of prohibition candidates in different parts of the country, this might be hailed as the most encouraging sign of the past year. Herein we believe the sovereign good sense of the American people, even of that section of the people temporarily led astray by the folly and fanaticism of the so-called prohibition "crusade," is at last asserting itself. CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROHIBITION. In our last report we covered this subject pretty thoroughly, showing that the Catholic Church is nowhere and in nowise on record as endorsing or commending the American theory of prohibition, whether personal or political, as regards the community or the individual. The prohibitionist likes to confound Catholic total abstinence with his own party, but the distinction is a very marked one. Thus the Rev. Father P. Ulrich F. Mueller, C. PP. S., of Carthagena, Ohio, takes exception to an editorial appearing in the periodical, America, where the editor places, in a certain sense, the Total Abstinence Union of America on the same level as the prohibition party of Ireland. He writes as follows: I "Your editorial makes it appear as if total abstainers were identical with prohibitionists. Yet this is by no means true. am a total abstainer for eight years, yet I cannot concede that I am a prohibitionist. Of course there are total abstainers who are prohibitionists, just as there are advocates of prohibition who do drink, hoping to quit when once the millennium of universal prohibition has been ushered in. "The Catholic Total Abstainers' Union of America has from the start repudiated prohibition. The seventh resolution of the first convention at Baltimore, February 22-23, 1872, declares its position as 'not deeming it expedient to take part in any political or legislative agitation, in reference to prohibitory liquor laws.' "And the 'Address to the Catholics of America,' issued by the same convention, says: "Our motto is: Moral Suasion. With prohibitory laws, restrictive license system and special legislation against drunkenness we have nothing whatever to do.' "I think that is plain enough. And to this policy the Union has clung. Of course attempts to hitch us as a tail to some other kite have been made repeatedly, for there are earnest prohibitionists and Anti-Saloon Leaguers in the Union. However, there is always a majority who insist that we stick to our first principle: Moral Suasion. I am one of this majority." In this connection it is interesting to note that Father Archambault, a priest of the Jesuit order at Lewiston, Me., has been denouncing prohibition as he finds it in its "rock-ribbed stronghold." He declares that no good could come from prohibition as it is found in Maine; that it is nothing less than a sham, a producer of crime and criminals, the ruination of homes, the debaucher of women and girls and the vehicle responsible for sending men to the insane asylum and the commission of all sorts of detestable crimes. Prohibition, he says, is responsible for the use of the most dangerous brands of whiskey in the State by manufacturers who look only to the high prices they get for their worthless goods, or it is made right there in Maine and peddled out as the rankest and deadliest of poisons. Fr. Archambault urges it as the duty of every prominent man in Maine to make a thorough study of conditions, to satisfy himself as to what a humbug prohibition is and what a detriment to the progress of the State, and to work for the overthrow of the prohibitory law. The Roman Catholic institution of the Mass, it is quite needless to point out, could not stand with prohibition. The Saviour, whom all Christians, irrespective of sectarian differences, worship, "came eating and drinking," and the wine cup has ever figured in the solemn rites commemorating His august promises. This consideration had due weight in the recent prohibition contest in New Zealand. The Catholic Archbishop Redwood felt himself called upon to issue a warning to his people that if prohibition carried preventing the use of wine, the celebration of the Mass would be rendered impossible in New Zealand. No doubt the Archbishop's monitory had a share in defeating the proposed law. It is only when the potentialities and possibilities of prohibition are thus applied to cherished religious rites and established social customs that people realize what it means to them. What was threatened in New Zealand came very near happening in this country lately through a ruling of the War Department that the permission granted to the Catholic church in Oklahoma to have wine shipped into Indian Territory for sacramental purposes had been revoked and rescinded by the decision of the Supreme Court in the Webb case. It held that railroad companies handling shipments of wine would be violating the law. This ruling by the War Department created a sensation in Catholic church circles and an appeal was made to Washington for relief. The same exigency has frequently occurred under the operation of prohibitory laws. (In the miscellany section of this Year Book an interesting chapter will be found on the use and justification of wine according to the Scriptural and other ancient records.) LUTHERANS FOR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. The Catholic Church is not the only, though it is the largest, religious body to decline association with the Anti-Saloon League in its political, incendiary, property-destroying crusades. At an important conference of the German Lutheran Church, held recently at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the question was discussed, "Can the Lutheran Church Co-operate with the Prohibition Party or Anti-Saloon League, and, if so, in what respect?" It was decided that the liquor question is not a religious, but rather a civic or political, question. It was declared "that the question, prohibition of license, or local option, or some other method of dealing with the liquor question by civil legislation, or the police power of the State, as best adapted to restrict the malum civile of temperance, must be committed to the private judgment of the citizens, or of those in whom the legislative power is vested, and no man's Christian character must be questioned or impeached when he votes or otherwise acts in accordance with such judgment.” VARIED VIEWS OF KANSAS. In the view of Harper's Weekly, the prohibitive mind is an interesting, and in these times a pretty serious, subject of considera tion. It holds habitually to the view that whoever disputes the superior efficacy of State prohibition over all other methods of regulating and restricting the trade in alcoholic drinks is the enemy of all that is good and the hireling of the liquor interests. Its deductions from facts are wonderful. Harper's then refers to a pamphlet entitled "Facts Proved by Figures, Showing what Prohibition has done for Kansas." It is in part a speech delivered in Chicago last year by Governor Stubbs, and is embellished by an outside portrait of the Governor “in the act of being sure that Kansas owes all it is to prohibition." Here is a sample of his reasoning to prove that prohibition brings prosperity: "Three years ago open saloons were abolished in Wichita. Since then the weekly clearances have increased from $1,400,000 to $3,200,000 this year. There were 1,800 new houses built in Wichita last year, and I was told the other day that there are now 800 new houses and $5,000,000 in public improvements in process of construction. According to latest estimates its population has increased in the past three years from 31,000 to 62,000 inhabitants. The story of the growth and prosperity of Wichita is the story of general business conditions in Kansas." What was it, says Harper's, that doubled the population of Wichita in three years we don't know, but certainly it was not prohibition. But a great many voters in Kansas probably think it was. In this connection the Atchison Globe has an instructive commentary which pointedly sets forth one result of prohibition: "How many foreign white population has Kansas? The foreign population hasn't decreased because of prohibition, as many suppose. The thirteenth decennial census, taken by the government in 1910, (these figures are just made public) show that Kansas had 134,716 foreign-born population in 1910, against 126,577 in 1900. However, the increase is not from the Fatherland. Kansas had 4,803 more Germans in 1910 than in 1911. We also lost a couple of thousand English and nearly 3,500 Irish, eighteen hundred Swedes and a few hundred Canadians. The gain is in Mexicans, Greeks, Austrians and Russians. Kansas had just 61 Greasers in 1900; we had 7,941 in 1910. We gained 1,395 Greeks and 5,486 Austrians during the past period. Kansas gained in foreign population between 1900 and 1910: it traded one good German for a couple of Mexican track laborers and Greek shine boys." J. B. BILLARD, Mayor of Topeka, Kansas, further discredits the Stubbs legend as to the blessedness of prohibition in Kansas. He asserts that prohibition has not decreased drunkenness in Mayor Kansas; that 90 per cent. of the Kansas men drink and that the "Prohibition has been a farce for thirty-one years. The law has been enforced as well as such laws can be enforced, and especially so in the last ten years. Many good citizens have been prosecuted, arrested, fined, put in jail with real criminals. They have been degraded, their families disgraced. Many more have left the State in disgust; drunkenness has not been stopped, has not even decreased. I believe that fully 90 per cent. of the men use liquor and evade or induce someone to violate the law to get it. The law is a farce and a disgrace to any civilized community. Nearly all county attorneys and attorney generals go out of office wealthy from the fees they get from liquor cases even in the regular way, but make much more by letting off easy those that have money to put up, then give them a chance to violate the law again and make them put up again, and so on." THE CANTEEN AGITATION. The Army Canteen continues to be the subject of active and wide-spread discussion. Fresh emphasis to the demand for its restoration is imparted by the recent petition of two hundred and seventy-five physicians in various parts of the country. There is general endorsement of this petition by the newspaper press. Says the New York World: "Once more a petition urging the passage of a bill providing for the establishment and maintenance of canteens at army posts has been presented to Congress. This time the petition is signed by 275 medical men, many of whom have had army experience not only in times of peace but in the civil war and in that against Spain. The argument in this as in other petitions is the simple but forceful one that the canteen system will promote temperance and efficiency in the army and reduce desertion, drunkenness and disease. "In its last analysis the canteen is nothing more than a club at which the private soldier can meet his mates and enjoy their companionship with such refreshments and amusements as are permitted under military regulations. The absence of a canteen means that the soldier must seek his enjoyment outside the post —that is, he must find it among the saloons and other resorts of the kind that spring up around barrack gates. "The post canteen system was abolished in 1901 in response to an agitation against the sale of liquor at the posts. The agitators were more zealous than wise. They knew little about the canteen system and almost nothing about the consequences that would |