PROHIBITION 



4835 



PROHIBITION PARTY 



16, 1919. By proclamation of the Secretary of 

 State of the United States, January 16, 1920. 

 was therefore fixed as the date when national 

 prohibition should be in full force and effect. 

 Eventually forty-five states ratified the amend- 

 ment. 



In Canada. A local-option measure, known 

 as the Canada Temperance Act, was passed in 

 1878, prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors 

 in places that should adopt it. In the years 

 that followed a number of counties and munici- 

 palities throughout Canada put the law into 

 force, but the greatest advance in prohibition 

 was made after the outbreak of the war in 

 Europe. Saskatchewan "blazed the trail" in 

 1915, when the provincial government closed 

 every bar in the province and greatly reduced 

 the number of dispensaries. A referendum of 

 the people was taken in December, 1916, and 

 as a result the remaining dispensaries were 

 voted out of existence by a majority of seven 

 to one. In March, 1916, Manitoba voted for 

 prohibition, to become effective on June 1, and 

 in July of the same year prohibition went into 

 effect in Alberta. In September a referendum 

 was taken in British Columbia, and prohibition 

 won. The soldiers in the trenches were also 

 permitted to vote on the question, and they 

 voted dry by a substantial majority. Pro- 

 vincial-wide prohibition was introduced into 

 Ontario in the same year by a legislative enact- 

 ment. A referendum for the reestablish ment of 

 the liquor traffic will be taken in June, 1919. 

 On Janifary 1, 1917, England's oldest colony in 

 America Newfoundland became dry territory. 

 In Europe. The liquor traffic in Europe has 

 met its heaviest assaults since the outbreak of 



ureat war. Probably the most spectacular 

 blow it received was the ukase of 1914, issued 



he czar of Russia, which prohibited the sale 



odka, the national drink. Though the gov- 

 ernment was deprived of a large source of reve- 

 nue by this measure, the improvement in the 



ical and economic condition of the people 

 which followed more than offset the financial 

 loss. In France beer and light wines are still 

 popular drinks, but the sale of absinth has been 

 prohibited (1915), and placards have been 

 posted in police stations advising the people 

 not to use whisky or brandy. In Germany the 

 percentage of foodstuffs available for the brew- 

 ers has been greatly reduced, so that restriction 

 of the manufacture of liquor has come about 

 automatically. England has adopted drastic 

 regulation of the liquor traffic, instead of out- 

 right prohibition, though a strong prohibition 



movement is being pushed. Treating is now 

 unlawful, and dramshops and public houses can 

 be kept open only during specified hours. No 

 liquor can be bought after ten o'clock at night. 

 The number of public houses has been greatly 

 reduced in the factory districts, and in some 

 sections the business of liquor selling has been 

 taken over by the government through boards 

 of control. The alcoholic content of beer has 

 also been greatly reduced. Lloyd George, in 

 one of his speeches, said, "Drink is doing more 

 damage to this country than all the German 

 submarines put together." This statement is 

 typical of war-time sentiment everywhere. 



One other European country, Sweden, is ap- 

 proaching national prohibition. Soon after the 

 war began the ''Stockholm system" was adopted, 

 whereby each citizen is allowed a fixed quan- 

 tity of alcoholic drink. This system was ex- 

 tended by government order to the whole of 

 Sweden on January 1, 1916, and it has resulted 

 in a marked curtailment in the sale of liquor. 

 In a test vote on national prohibition the vote 

 stood 1,884,298 for and 16,715 against. B.M.W. 



Consult Hayler's Prohibition Advance in All 

 Lands; Fernald's Economics of Prohibition. 



Related Subject*. In connection with this 

 discussion of prohibition the reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Alcoholic Drinks Local Option 



Anti-Saloon League Prohibition Party 



Good Templars Temperance 



License Woman's Christian Tern- 



Life Extension, page perance Union 



3415 



PROHIBITION PARTY, a political organiza- 

 tion in the United States, formed in 1869, whose 

 object was to prohibit by legal enactments the 

 manufacture, sale and use of intoxicants as a 

 beverage. The Grand Lodge of Good Tem- 

 plars in session at Oswego, N. Y., in May, 

 1869, appointed a committee to arrange for the 

 calling of a national convention to organize a 

 party pledged to the principles of prohibition. 

 The convention met in Chicago in September 

 of that year and organised the National Pro- 

 hibition party. The first Presidential campaign 

 in which the party took an active part was that 

 of 1872, and in that contest it polled 5,608 votes. 

 The number of votes increased in subsequent 

 campaigns until the maximum was reached in 

 1892, when 264,133 prohibition votes were cast; 

 after that time its strength declined, being only 

 221329 in 1916. Probably the greatest man 

 among the leaders of the movement was John 

 P. St. John, former governor of Kansas, who 

 was the party nominee for President in 1884. 



