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Show I DRYEST STATES HAD LOCAL ENFORCEMENT BEFORE FEDERAL ACT Kansas Soberest, Cleanest and Best Ruled, Is Boast of Gov. Allen Delaware Rated in Van bv Washington Officials Tennessee a Backslider After Overcoming Over-coming Liquor Gradually in Eleven Years West Virginia in Midst of Wet Area. Copirioht, lOit, bv Tub New York Herald When that part of the United States that is back from the borders is considered separately with reference to the conditions prevailing after two years of prohibition, it Is found that there is a difference in conditions. Tho drier spots are inland, away from the coast, away from the Canadian border, away from .Mexico, but even they are not entirely dry There are exceptions, of course Just as Delaware is (lie exceptional State on the Atlantic coast, a dry area in wet territory, so Missouri is the exception to the rule generally goerning most Inland States. It is almost as wet as the majority of the States along the Atlantic The purpo?e hero Is to deal with some of the driest of the States. The number of Stales away from the borders is comparatively small, especially if Illinois and Indiana are counted as border States, though, rightly, they should not be To the south, too. Alabama and Mississippi have so short a coast on the Gulf of Mexico that they micht be regarded as Inland States But for the purpose of this article all four of the States I mentioned are eliminated, and there remain West Virginia, Tenn?ssce. Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mis-souri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska. South Dakota. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. Tcnnrncf a HacUltdcr. West Virginia, adjacent to Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio all very wet States Is also wet So is Tennesson, which likewise borders Kentucky and Is adjacent to wet Geor- j gla. Tennessee appears to be one of the States that has "backslid," for the correspondent at Nashville wires: "The effects of prohibition In Tennessee Ten-nessee have been cumulate e. accord-' Ing to various State and city olflclals hero who were asked their opinions. Tennessee went dry July 1, 1509. For several years thereafter it was dry In name only, as saloons continued to flourish openly In all the cities Gradually, Grad-ually, however, the open violations of the State prohibition law were diminished dimin-ished until a short time before national na-tional prohibition became effective the Stats was apparently dry in fact, with a Very few moonshiners in the mountains moun-tains and a very few bootloggr-rs 'With the advent of national prohibition, prohibi-tion, however, the bootlegging and the moonshine businesses suddenly took on now life, until now they have grown to vuch an extent that It is beyond the ability of the Federal, State, county or city officers to cope with them. Two years ago the Federal forco under the control of the Collector of Internal Revenue w;is quite sufficient to raid I the few scattered stills that were learned of. Now these same officers are helpless In the face of the fact that there are countless stills In every part of the State, and moonshtnlng 1 even in tho cities. 'Tho effect of prohibition on the State's prosperity has been negligible. Tho effect, as far as crime 19 concerned, 1 has been to reduce the number of "pub-lie "pub-lie drunks." but to vastly Increase the number of bootleggers and moonshiners, moonshin-ers, making the total of law violators .larger Instead of smaller." ncnrflolnl in "V j-omlnn. Tennessee is taken as a good example, ex-ample, of a typical Southern State away from the coast and the border. A Stato very similarly located Is Wyoming. The correspondent in Cheyenno wires: "While prohibition has not been a cure-all in Wyoming, there is no question as to its benefit to the State Gov. Robert D. Carey says: " 'We still have our bootlegging problem, but thnt was to be expected, and the fact that it exists does not mean that the passing of trie Kaloon has not greatly benefited this State.' "Tho effect of prohibition," concludes con-cludes the correspondent, "on the prosperity of the State cannot be gauged, aa there are too many economic eco-nomic factors to be considered. Bu; no one claims that tho saloons had anything to do with tho prosperity of the Stato before the recent degression, de-gression, nor does any one claim thnt the lack of saloons has had any thing to do with the lack of prosperity. Mayor Edwin P. Taylor of Cheyenne says: " T bellevo there is a close correla- ' j tlon between tho enactment of the' H, prohibition law and the decreased commitments to prisons, reform a- ' H torles ami Jails. It Is quite likely that the prohibition law Is being enforced as efficiently at this time as was the B anti-slavery law during the same pc- I b rlod after enactment. It will be rig- j idly enforced when the people decide 1 to frown upon its violation." This correspondent figures from the H records that there are about one-nine- B teenth as many arrests for drunken- H! ness In Cheyenne now as there wre before the passage of the prohibition LLI ! M IVebraaka iang Dryeat. Nebraska and Kansas appear to be i 1 really as dry r. any part of the coun- try. judging from the correspondents 1 i reports, though this does not wholly coincide with tho rating given these n I ' States by the officials In Washington and referred to In the first article ct this series. Tho correspondent In Lincoln, Neb., home of one of the best l.nown prohibitionists, writes In part: f "Prohibition haa been in effect in ; j this State rlnee May. 1917. and since H. national prohibition was enacted a no- i rlceable Increase in the effect! veneM of the law has been apparent. Illicit manufacturing has lcn axrlcd on In some of the country districts and rj-mote rj-mote sections of the State, and organ-I organ-I ZCd bootlegging is to be found In M nome of tho cities. These activities are greatly restricted, however, .by the maintenance of a state constabulary j thnt makes Impossible any local pro- tcctlou for boose-runliers" The correspondent notes a decrease in the number of arrests for Intoxica tion and an increase recently In the amount of major crime such os Is reported re-ported from nearly everywhere else He also quotes Gov. Samuel R. McKcl-vle McKcl-vle as saying-: I "In this Stato we hac made :i very thorough effort to enforce the laws relating to piohibition, and we have had more than measurable success. This does not mcan7sf course, that there Is not still some illegal traffic In booze, and the efforts of this traffic traf-fic are baneful in the extreme. But with the rigid enforcement of the law and the cultivation of tastes that :ir foreign to intoxicants wo hope ultimately ulti-mately to overcome this condition."' The directness of this statement seems to warrant calling special attention at-tention to the fact that Nebraska has been, by law, a dry State for nearly five years. "Knniiaa Soberest In T'nlon." In Kansas there Is a situation somewhat some-what resembling that In Nebl I ka The correspondent write0: "Twoaears of national prohibition of tho liquor trafllc has shown no material ma-terial change In conditions in Kansas, This State was the pioneer in outlawing out-lawing this traffic. Forty years ago tho people by popular vote declared I for prohibition. Kansas had won her fight against the saloon twenty-live j years before the nation seriously turned to prohibition. What had been ; accomplished by this State was held u n as an exam Die for the nation to follow." The correspondent then quotes Gov. ! Allen In part as follows: ' Kansas is the soberest, cleanest and best ruled Stato In the Union. The banishment of the saloon has greatly lessened crime and has coi. - i tributed more to right living, to edu- I catlonal advancement, to religious thought and to home building than , all other agencies We have within! our borders thousands of young men and women who never saw a saloon i or the sign of a bar. Llko other States, 1 a few Illicit stills arc found by th officers of the law. These and tho ; vile brew they distill arc quickly de-i de-i stroyed and the violators of the law ! promptly punished. There need be I no doubt ubout Kansas taking care of any violators of the prohibition law.' Much Spent on Enforcement. The correspondent continued with the statement previously referred to in this series of articles: "By reason of Topeka's nearness to Kansas City, Mo. through all these yean a wet city, the fight against the Mquor trafllc has been continuous. In splto of this fact Topeka Is rated as one of the cleanest towns of 50,000 population, as far as the liquor business busi-ness goes between the two oceans. "At every session of the Legislature Legisla-ture special appropriations are mado for the use of the Attorney-General and other officers in hunting down violators of the State prohibition law In the laat twenty-five years probably prob-ably 5100,000 has been appropriated for this purpose, In addition to tn regular salaries of officials'' The correspondent in outn lukoul, dwelling on the economic conditions prevailing and the increase in crime, says flatly that It would be unfair to connect either with prohibition. He also writes: There Is considerable booze running and peddling, as well as Illicit manufacture manufac-ture In this .state, and a number of arrests have been mado on tlue.s charges. On the other hand, to see a drunken man Is a rarity In this part of tho country, and while drunks were numerous and the police court records full of arrests for that offense in the old days, these records fall to make any such showing now. Not the man who drinks liquor but the man who Is trlng to manufacture It or to sell It is the one now oftcnest noted as an offender." DelaWAJTe rrcl, I'ewcr. The special reports Indicate th;it tho States just dealt with, Wyoming, Ne-hraska. Ne-hraska. Kansas and South Dakota, are as dry as any other area of else greater than a single State. They appear to constitute, in fact, the dryest section of the country, and the conditions toted there are, gen. rally speaking, a: fa-vorablo fa-vorablo us may be found St this ''me In any territory of size. The renditions rendi-tions In Delaware, which, being O" the seaboard. In not quite In the am category-, are substantially bettei. as has been noted. The correspondent In Wilmington writes: "Gov. Ocnney of Delaware, asked concerning the effect of prohibition lu this State .ifter two years, said- "Prohibition "Pro-hibition In Delaware cannot bo overestimate) over-estimate) ' "The total number of arrests fo drunkenness In 1917 waj :.;is .ic.orU- I I Ing to the police records. The rum- ber of arrests for 1921 was 498. This latter figure, however, shows an Increase In-crease of 203 arrests when com', aredi with the figures for 1920. The record ! for five years stands thus: 1917 2.71 1918 1.59.6 1919 3,62i 1920 295 1921 498 "Wilmington Rid of Saloone." "Prohibition Director Klliott attributes attrib-utes the increase last year to the un-enrpIoed. un-enrpIoed. who either found tlmo to make their own liquor or else drank what they could got 'to drown their sorrows." In Wilmington, where the effect of the saloon was most noticeable notice-able before prohibition, not only has tho saloon been abolished but the wholesale and retail liquor stores as well and there Is virtually no liquor obtainable. The number of inmates In the New Castle County Workhouse Is now 44 per cent, below tho high record, with 341 inmates as compared with fi07 The court records for the two lower counties of the State show few rases of drunkenness and very few lolatlons of the law against tho manufacture and sale of Intoxicants Delaware Is rated by the officials in Washington as the dryest of all tho States, With Kansas holding next place. There is given here therefore, tho best showing that can be mado from the reports received. None of the States de nt with are border Stales. none, except Delaware, which has j the host record of all. Is a seaboard State. Thus smuggling directly Into these States Is not an easy matter. It should also be stated that every ono of tho States dealt with In t'ls article, West Virginia, Tennessee, Wyoming, N' braska, Kansas South Dakota and Delaware, were "dry" before the Volstead Vol-stead Act went Into effect two years i ago to-day. Comparison of Federal Arrct. In view of this fact It Is Interesting to note the number of arrests made by Federal agents in each of tho States In question, as shown In tho Internal Revenue report for the fiscal -i the States being mentioned in the order in which they have been taken up in this article: Arrests West -V irclnla 52S Tennessee 998 Wyoming 200 Nebraska 221 Kansas 42 Scuth Dakota 70 Delaware 1 Two States, considered separately, I rank very well Indeed In comparison I with most of those in tho above group One is Vermont, with only 79 arrests recorded In the year, and the other is I Nevada with 6fi arrests. But in Ver-I Ver-I mont 51 stills wero seized and in Nevada Ne-vada 32 stills were seized, while no still was found In Delaware, but 1 In Kansas. Kan-sas. 1 In South Dakota and 1 in Nebraska Ne-braska In Wyoming 91 stills wero 1 found, in West Virginia 27 and In , Tennessee 651 |
