JUNE 15, 1916 



A. I. Root 



OUR HOMES 



Editor 



Come with us ; let us lay wait for blood ; let us 

 lurk privily for the innocent without cause ; let us 

 swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as 

 they that go down into the pit. — Prov. 1:11, 12. 



We have made lies our refuge, and under false- 

 hood have we hid ourselves. — Isaiah 28:15. 



The letter below explains itself: 



Mr. Boot: — I am sending you an article which I 

 took from the Fra. I should like to see it denied in 

 your Home department. Walter E. Wright. 



Ellwood City, Pa., May 29. 



I presume our readers are aware, or at 

 least most of them are, that both the whisky 

 party and the temperance people are send- 

 ing out large-sized sheets about once a week 

 to post the people in regard to this matter 

 of wet and dry, giving statistics as to what 

 is the result in states that have voted dry, 

 etc. As Kansas has been held up before the 

 nation as an example of the beneficent re- 

 sults of prohibition, The National Whole- 

 sale Liquor-dealers' Association has " got 

 busy " in hunting up everything that could 

 be said against prohibition in Kansas. 

 Sometimes their statements have a grain of 

 truth to start with; and the statements that 

 they make may be true; but their explana- 

 tion of the facts given is misleading. Here 

 is an illustration : 



"Kansas closed 220 schools in 1913." 



The above was given on the sheet our 

 friend inclosed. Now, I have not looked the 

 matter up, but I presume Kansas has been 

 in the forefront in consolidating her coun- 

 try schools, just as we are now doing here 

 in Ohio. But within two miles of where I 

 am now sitting, the old sehoolhouse where 

 I learned my A B C's has been moved 

 away, and is now used as a barn. Are we 

 to understand that this means that the ju- 

 veniles in that neighborhood have fewer and 

 poorer school advantages than they had 70 

 years ago ? Not by any means. An electric 

 railway runs close to the spot where that 

 old sehoolhouse stood ; and the pupils, not 

 only from that neighborhood but along the 

 electric line, attend the fully equipped and 

 up-to-date schools here in Medina. Think 

 of using that as an argument against pro- 

 hibition ! 



Some years ago Elbert Hubbard gave us 

 so many good things in his Fra magazine 

 that we subscribed for it. But shortly after- 

 ward he said so many things that were so 

 shocking and so irreverent and blasphemous 

 that we could not consent to have it come 

 any longer. My stenographer says the Fra, 

 like the Philistine, seems to oppose all mor- 

 al reforms. Well, our brother sends us two 

 pages; and these two pages seem to be 



crammed so full of false statements about 

 Kansas, and bitter denunciation of temper- 

 ance and temperance people, that I could 

 only wonder that anybody of decency could 

 tolerate it in the average home. Here is a 

 sample : 



After thirty-five years of trial, prohibition with all 

 the trimmings has given Kansas an enormous rate 

 of divorces granted wives for cruelty and drunken- 

 ness; an unusually high and increasing rate of 

 pauperism; school systems ranking only twenty-ninth 

 in efficiency ; .an extremely high and increasing rate 

 of insanity, and almost the lowest church population 

 in the Union. Kansas closed 220 schools during 

 1913. The 1915 census shows a population decrease 

 of 18,404 since 1910. 



I am surprised to find that there is a 

 magazine in the United States that would 

 give space in its reading-columns to any- 

 thing so much in line with the sheet that is 

 being sent out by the Liquor Dealers' Asso- 

 ciation. I have one of the latter in my 

 hand, bearing no date, but headed " Serial 

 22." The heading of the sheet is as follows : 



NINETEEN STATES ARE " DRY " ( ? ) , BUT ABOUT 10,- 



000,000 MORE GALLONS WERE USED LAST YEAR 



THAN EVER BEFORE,* 



Uncle Sam is drinking more whisky today than at 

 any time since he was born. The nation drinks 

 more whisky as a result of prohibition. Four dead, 

 one is dying. Six other youths of Plainview, Texas, 

 are seriously ill. Drank hair tonic. Seventeen sons 

 of prominent families swallowed stuff when they 

 could not get liquor in a dry town ; a barber was a 

 victim. 



It is evident from the above heading that 

 the liquor party are hard up in their efforts 

 to find fault with prohibition. Because 

 some boys drank some hair tonic and were 

 killed, they quote it as the result of not 

 having a legalized saloon where they could 

 quench their thirst. 



In regard to the statement that ten million 

 more gallons of whisky was used in one 

 year as a result of prohibition, one is led to 

 smile. If prohibition really results in an 

 increase in the amount of liquor used, why 

 in the world does not this liquor dealers' 

 association turn in and help us, tooth and 

 nail? I have not the figures at hand, but 

 I am quite sure the consumption of liquors 

 of all kinds is on the decrease. Brewers are 

 making assignments, and quitting the busi- 

 ness. Great stocks of liquor are accumulat- 

 ing, and nobody seems to know what is 

 going to be done with them unless we use 

 (hem for running automobiles. 



* In regard to the above ten million gallons, I 

 think I have seen it stated somewhere that more 

 whisky is being used as a result of cutting off the 

 beer and the ruin of the breweries. The whisky, on 

 account of its smaller bulk, can be easily kept out of 

 sight; but notwithstanding the above explanation I 

 am quite sure we have honest statistics to the con- 

 trary in regard to whisky. 



