Never has the country suffered more from strikes than during that period between 1920 and the present time. Labor is still restless, for all the sanctimonious predictions of the Anti-Saloon League. We see, then, that law and order do not come when we harness a people’s will. Would that they did! Life would be simple then. People are bound to burst their bonds and fetters now and then. The spurt of the geyser goes on, no matter how we seek to suppress it. Old Faithful performs every hour in Yellowstone Park; and I suppose that until time is no more, men will go on shouting about their rights, despite such empty reforms as Prohibition; will go on holding grievances, demanding a remedy of wrongs, and generally raising Cain. Obstreperous behavior is not the result of drunkenness—always.157 People are humanly fond of cavorting, even without the aid of a stimulant. And so the strikes go merrily on, and workingmen who were placid under beer are found to be thinkers under Volsteadism.
The headlines in our papers continue to be sensational, in these times that were to be so quiet. Murders still occur, strangely enough; and hold-ups of the most brazen kind take place everywhere. Diamond ear-rings are snatched from ladies driving in the Park of an evening, houses are entered by ruffians who tie up the servants and the master and mistress and calmly go through the premises, taking what they wish. It is all very shocking, very terrible; but human nature has a way of remaining what it is. It was thought that only drunkards committed such heinous crimes. We find that men of sobriety are equally culpable. The millennium has not arrived; and our prisons are still densely populated, much as the reformers may deny the disconcerting fact. One is shocked at the continuance of outrageous crimes; and if, after three years of experiment with the abolishment of booze, we still face a wave of disorder and confusion, there seems little hope of that future of roses and sweetness and light so glibly prophesied.
Hard times continue to confront us, though the fat pay-envelope to the wife and children of the workingman was to be a weekly event. An analysis of official figures shows an increase of 44 per cent in the arrests for drunkenness in 1921 over 1920, and158 Stuyvesant Fish has shown that the largest industrial life insurance company reports an increase of 50 per cent in deaths due to alcoholism in 1921, the second “dry” year. The statistical Bulletin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, April, 1922, contained these words:
“There have been marked increases in the death rates for heart disease, Bright’s disease and apoplexy in recent months among the industrial policyholders of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Small increases in the mortality from these diseases had been noticed early in November of last year, but the change attracted little attention and caused little comment. The possibility that it marked a definite check in the favorable tendency shown for several years for each of these diseases was not seriously considered. By December, however, the death rate had taken a more decided upward turn for each disease. Organic heart disease registered a rate of 124.9 as compared with 118.4 in November; the apoplexy rate rose from 62.9 to 70.6, and that for Bright’s disease from 69.1 to 71.9. By January it had become apparent that for two of these diseases, at least, a definite upward tendency was in progress. The heart disease rate increased sharply from the December figure of 124.9 to 137.2, and that for chronic nephritis went up nearly three points over the December figure. The apoplexy rate for this one month fell somewhat. In February the heart disease figure rose even more sharply than for January (to 153.4), the nephritis rate again increased slightly (to 75.8) and that for apoplexy returned to approximately the December level. By March the rate for organic heart disease had reached 168.2 per 100,000, one of the highest figures ever recorded in any one month among Metropolitan industrial policyholders. The March rates for chronic nephritis (87.5) and for apoplexy (75.8)159 are both the highest registered for those diseases since March, 1920.”
The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, Inc., has collected statistics to prove that crime has by no means diminished since the passage of the Volstead Act; and with their kind permission I give a tabulated list of twenty cities in the United States, which, under Prohibition, have revealed an increase in arrests for all sorts of crimes. These are the official figures in each city.
At random I have taken some statistics from various parts of the country, to show how drunkenness has not disappeared since the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Rather, has it increased. In Baltimore, Maryland, for instance, the arrests for drunkenness during the period between January and April, 1922, were over two-thirds as many as for the entire year of 1921.
April, 1922 354
April, 1921 238
April, 1920 69
January to December, 1921 3,258
January to December, 1920 1,785
In the State of Wyoming, the total number of prisoners in jail on July 1, 1922, was 561. On July 1, 1917, there were but 452.
160
CRIME UNDER PROHIBITION IN THIRTY AMERICAN CITIES
Population Arrests
All Causes Drunkenness and
Disorderly
Conduct
1920 1920 1921 1920 1921
Philadelphia 1,823,779 73,015 83,136 20,443 27,115
Detroit 995,678 43,309 50,676 5,989 6,349
Boston 748,060 58,817 72,161 22,341 31,794
Baltimore 733,826 41,988 54,602 13,443 20,496
Pittsburgh 588,343 36,572 41,820 14,373 16,990
Buffalo 506,775 24,436 32,377 8,491 9,650
San Francisco 506,676 26,672 30,106 2,794 6,005
Milwaukee 457,147 10,545 15,520 2,400 3,481
Cincinnati 401,247 14,175 21,973 2,062 3,106
Minneapolis 380,582 10,608 17,874 2,982 6,051
Portland, Ore. 258,288 18,445 30,856 3,654 4,379
Denver 256,491 12,947 19,649 1,847 3,163
Louisville 234,891 7,857 9,601 1,092 2,361
St. Paul
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