This reversal of sentiment is due in general to one of two conditions — perhaps both. Either Prohibition has failed to achieve the results anticipated, or the people finding themselves in such desperate financial straits are being swept off their feet in their eagerness to grasp anything which offers relief.
When the world war broke out many men cried, "Christianity has failed." Just as they now cry, "Prohibition has failed." Others answered then that Christianity had never been tried, that it was the violation of Christian principles that brought on the war. So we answer today: Prohibition has not failed, it has not been sufficiently tested. If public sentiment is against it, Prohibition cannot be enforced, but if the majority of people favor it, it can be enforced. Now we are engaged in the struggle to test that sentiment.
Three reasons why the Eighteenth Amendment should not be repealed:
RESULTS OF HONEST INVESTIGATION
Because Prohibition is the most effective means of dealing with the liquor evil. I believe that the results of honest investigation and unbiased observation prove the truth of this assertion. For example, arrests for drunkenness in fifty leading cities, statistics of which were collected by Judge Gemmill of the Municipal Court of Chicago, fell from 302,071 in 1917 to 110,149 in 1920— a decrease of 63%.
Mr. Robert Carradini made a survey of 185 cities, the complete statistics of which show that the average annual number of arrests for intoxication per thousand of population in the four years preceding 1917 was 23,4% and that number in 1920 had fallen to 8.7%, a reduction of 62 % .
Figures presented before the sub-committee of the Committee on Judiciary, United States Senate, April, 1926, showed data covering statistics in 626 cities from 1917 to 1920. The number of arrests for drunkenness in all these 626 cities was less than 36% as great in 1920 as in 1917. From the same authority we learn that prison commitments decreased 59% and there was a decrease of crime of over 40%.
It is true that since that time anti-prohibitionists can cite statistics showing: (1) An increase of arrests for drunkenness since 1920. (2) An increase of deaths from alcoholism since 1920. (3) An increase in insanity since 1920. They can show further that yr 1924 the arrests for drunkenness were double what they were in 1920, but even then they were less than three-fourths of what they were before Prohibition.
MORAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS
Early in 1922 the Manufacturers' Record sent a questionnaire to hundreds of leading men of affairs including large manufacturers, employers of labor, bankers, and university professors asking their judgment about Prohibition. 98J/> % favored Prohibition in some form. Some of the moral and economic benefits as they appeared to these men follow:
Happier homes with more contentment. Cleaner and better social life.
Increased purchasing power of homes, food and clothes for women and children.
A change in the habits and expenditures of the workers. Men are buying their own homes, have savings accounts and own automobiles.
A tendency toward thrift, contentment, comfort and happiness. Families better cared for, and increased savings deposits.
More and cleaner recreation. Picture shows, parks, outdoor excursions.
Less loss of time. Fewer accidents, less incompetence, less carelessness, less inefficiency, better work, better homes. Children and young people getting a better education. School attendance improved. Public and Sunday School. Improvement in community morale.
An incalculable economic and moral blessing to millions of our people and to the nation as a whole.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE IN INDIVIDUAL GOVERNMENT
In my advocacy for Prohibition I keep ever in mind the importance of that great principle which Joseph Smith enunciated when he was asked how he governed his people so well. He answered : "I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves." That is the fundamental principle in the United States in individual government and when an individual becomes converted to a condition he can live up to it. When we get the majority of the people converted to a condition that will favor temperance the law will be enforced.
But there is another condition also. We are living in a democracy. The majority of the people determine the kind of laws by which the people should be governed. That being true we are now facing a proposition to determine what the majority of the people desire. I believe that the American people desire temperance. I have given one reason why I think that the retention of the Eighteenth Amendment will foster and favor temperance.
A STEP BACKWARD
There is a second reason which I will just name and that is the proposed amendment offers no new remedy for existing evils. If the Twenty-first Amendment is ratified the question of Prohibition is thrown back upon the states and that is one step backward in the cause of temperance. The smaller the prohibitive area, the greater the difficulty of enforcement. The wider the area, the more effective the enforcement.
You who were on the firing line in this Prohibition fight will remember how we first began to make towns dry, then counties, then states, and finally the question was made nation-wide. Now to step back and go into the states as proposed by the Twenty-first Amendment is merely to take a step backward.
IN NEED OF MOKE SPIRITUALITY
A third reason for my opposing the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment is this : The world today perhaps as never before needs more spirituality. Booze and depravity mingle together harmoniously, but booze and spirituality, never.
In an excellent editorial last Thursday morning one of our daily papers impressively said : "Excessive materialism stands indicted in the minds of men. There needs to be inaugurated a new era of mutual accord, a return to an appreciation of the finer things of life, to the basic principles of human existence."
No one will contend that intoxicating liquors contribute spirituality either to the individual or to the nation. Nearly everyone concedes that intoxicants develop the baser, not the finer things of life. "they shall not pass"
Sixteen years ago there was a terrific battle being waged at Verdun. On June 7, 1916, the French vacated the city Damloup under the hill on which Fort Vaux was situated. The defense of this Fort was one of outstanding heroism, and Major Raynal, the commander, was treated with every honor as a prisoner of the Germans.
Fort Vaux had fallen and other outer lines were broken through, but there was an inner circle of defense that was invincible. The words of General Petain, "They shall not pass," thrilled the heart and nerved the arm of every French soldier. For more than two long months the Germans hammered and battered at that inner defense in the most terrific conflict in the annals of war. In the last desperate assault of the Crown Prince, 40,000 German soldiers were slaughtered in a hopeless effort to break through the French curtain of fire. The inner circle of defense was impregnable. The main line held.
Today we witness the legalization of beer by the United States government. Qne of our outer defences has fallen and the enemy spurred on by victory will attack others. But the inner defence, the 18th. Amendment, must be defended at all costs. Let the words of General Petain, "They shall not pass," strengthen every heart and nerve every hand in defense of this part of the Constitution of the United States.
god's word given authoritatively
In addition to the fact that we believe that Prohibition is the best means of fighting the evil, that the proposal of the Twenty-first Amendment offers no other remedy which we do not have, and that the cause of spirituality demands that we retain it, I will add in conclusion this thought :
Out of the high plane of spirituality comes the message from the President of the Church given to the world that intoxicating liquors, strong drink, and tobacco are not good for man. That is God's word given authoritatively and on that truth we stand. I know I need not urge this upon you people. I believe with President Ivins that Utah will stand firm in accordance with its vote years ago in ratifying the Eighteenth Aniendment.
"For right is right since God is God, And right the day must win ; To doubt would mean disloyalty, To falter would be sin."
God help us to stand true to the principles of right as we know them in our souls and as God has revealed them to us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.