little more than two million barrels of beer were produced in the United States. The annual production now is about sixty million barrels. The consumption of beer in that time has risen from four gallons per capita to twentytwo, that is to say, the consumption of beer has grown five times as fast as pop

ulation.

The consumption of distilled spirits has for a time been on the decrease, but in the ten years from 1897 to 1906 the quantity of distilled spirits deposited in distilleries and bonded warehouses has risen from 63 million gallons to 147, also an increase far beyond that of population.

That is the net result of "one hundred years' battle with the poison trust," of which Charles R. Jones, chairman of the National Prohibition Press writes in the December issue of THE ARENA.

Is it true, as Mr. Jones asserts that "the day of the legalized liquor traffic and its twin cause and effect, greed and appetite is passing?"

Proudly Mr. Jones exclaims: "The five prohibition states now have a population in excess of 7,000,000 and it is estimated that 25,000,000 others live in local prohibition territory of thirty-five other states."

I have before me the three latest publications of the census bureau giving statistics of cities, Bulletin 45 of cities between 8,000 and 25,000 inhabitants in 1903, bulletin 20 of cities of over 25,000 in 1902 and 1903, and Special Report of cities of 30,000 and over in 1905, and what do I find?

Of the 154 cities of 30,000 inhabitants and over in 1905 only 10 had no licensed

bama and four of Georgia, having since become prohibition states, there are among the 154 cities of that size only 17 without saloons.

Of the 368 cities between 8,000 and 25,000 inhabitants, only 51 had no saloons in 1903; added to these three cities in Alabama, four in Georgia and two in Oklahoma, there are in cities of that size only 60 out of 368 without licensed saloons.

Of the thirty cities between 25,000 and 30,000 inhabitants only one was without saloons in 1903, none of them being in the newly created prohibition states. So we have among the 552 cities of 8,000 inhabitants and over only 78 without saloons, and among these only one (Atlanta) that belongs to the cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and only six belonging to the group of cities between 50,000 and 100,000, so that only seven of the 78 are cities with not less than 50,000 inhabitants. Besides one of these seven (Charleston, South Carolina) has a dispensary and is, therefore, not prohibition territory.

I have a very strong suspicion that a close examination of the large prohibition territory of which prohibitionists boast will reveal the fact that it covers cities in so close proximity to others not under prohibition laws, that they practically form one city, as for instance, Cambridge, Malden and Boston, or Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri; that it also covers such, usually aristocratic, residence parts of the cities, in which no saloons are allowed, and in which none would find support anyway, and that the principal part of that extensive territory consists of villages and

hamlets in which, with or without law, saloons would find no paying existence.

And if we examine that territory a little closer still, we will find that, considered by the number of inhabitants, of course, that part of it which is only theoretically but not practically under prohibition is very small, indeed.

Or, does any unsophisticated person, any one knowing the character and the habits of the Southerner, believe for a moment that prohibition in Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma is intended for the Whites? Of its effect upon the negroes and the Indians it is too early to speak.

I do not intend to quote the opinion of anybody on the enforceableness of prohibition. Mere opinions are plentiful on either side and how shall the reader know which is more reliable than the other? I will confine myself to statements of facts, and as Mr. Jones states also a number of facts to show "what prohibition has done for Maine," "how prohibition works in Kansas" and what "the experience of Kansas City, Kansas," is, I will take up some of the facts as he stated them, probe them and supplement them.

Mr. Jones says "Maine has more savings banks and $22,000,000 more money deposited in them than the great manufacturing license state of Ohio with six times as many people."

This statement, intended as it is, as proof that this is the result of prohibition, is amazing. A sociologist would never have made such a statement; to do it one must be possessed of only one idea to the exclusion of everything else.

Capitalists ordinarily use no savings bank; the deposits in these represent the savings of people with little or moderate means.

The population of the United States in 1900 was 76 millions in round figures, that of Maine 700,000. The total value of distilled, malt and vinous liquors produced was 340 millions. If we are liberal and quadruple this amount to arrive at

the amount expended for consumption of liquors, we find the amount to be 1,362 million dollars; this would be for Maine in proportion to population twelve and a half millions. Even if the total amount in the United States would be somewhat larger if there were no prohibition laws, thirteen million dollars is all that could by any possibility be directly saved in Maine if not a drop of liquor were sold, which we know is not the case in Maine, where in Portland ) Bangor and other cities there are even open saloons, not to speak of the blind tigers and bootlegger. And yet we are asked to believe that $22,000,000 of deposits in savings banks over and above the deposits in the savings banks of Ohio are due to prohibition.

According to the census of 1900 the whole amount of salaries and wages paid in Maine was 29 million dollars and yet it is claimed that prohibition saved-22 millions ?-no 22 millions more than in Ohio where the whole amount of salaries and wages paid was 154 millions.

The average total annual earning in Maine was, according to the last census, $381.31, in Ohio $445.13, a difference of nearly $64 annually for each wageworker, and still we are asked to believe that the 75,000 wage-workers of Maine saved annually 22 million dollars more than the 346,000 wage-workers of Ohio, all through the operation of prohibition. Truly, truly amazing.

A thinker would arrive at another conclusion. He would from the start perceive that there must be other causes, and the fact that the average annual earning of the workers in Maine is pitifully small, $64 less than in Ohio, would point the way to the solution of the problem.

Large deposits in savings banks are often not a sign of prosperity, but of comparative poverty. say compartive poverty, because absolute poverty needs no savings bank. They are frequently the proof that the earnings are too small for the acquisition of homes,

or that trade is so poor that the small merchant has no use for the money in his business, or that there are few opportunities for business investment, or that farming is so unremunerative that the farmer does not make enough to increase his possessions; in short that the people who in wealthier and more prosperous communities have many opportunities for the investment of their money, have in poorer and less prosperous communities none other than to deposit it in savings banks. This explains why in the poor state of Maine savings bank deposits are larger than in the rich state of Ohio and other similarly rich

states.

"Of the 9,350 murders and homicides in the United States in 1906, Maine furnished but three," says Mr. Jones. I do not know where Mr. Jones got his information. In 1903 the number of arrests for homicide in all the cities of the United States with 8,000 inhabitants and over was, according to Bulletins 20 and 45 of the census office, 1,432; in 1905 the number in all the cities of 30,000 and over was, according to special report of the census office 2,239. As most murders are committed in the large cities (in 1905 group 1, cities of 300,000 and over

furnished 1,393 of the 2,239) I cannot see where the 9,350 came from in 1906. In 1903 the city of Portland, Maine, alone furnished three, in the same year the large cities of Pittsburg, Hartford, Connecticut, Reading, Pennsylvania, and other cities with saloons furnished not one murder; Fall River, Massachusetts, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and others only one. Of what value then is Mr. Jones' statement?

The conditions in the very large cities, of which neither Maine nor Kansas has any, are, in respect to composition of population, to opportunities and kinds of occupation, to modes and habits of living, influx of strangers and other things so vastly different from those of smaller cities and towns that all statistical comparisons in reference to crime and school attendance are valueless.

In the following statistical table which I have prepared, I confine myself therefore to cities of between 8,000 and 25,000 and selected three licensed states, two prohibition states and one semi-prohibition state. The figures are taken from Bulletin 45 of the Census Bureau, the computation per 1,000 inhabitants is my own.

either Illinois, Indiana or New Jersey. A few weeks ago I read in the Kansas City, Missouri, Journal the following item:

"The Kansas City, Kansas, council at a meeting last night passed a resolution instructing Chief of Police Bowden to increase the present police force twelve men. The action was taken on account

of the present epidemic of crime in the city.

"The department was reduced several months ago on account of threats made by Assistant Attorney-General Trickett to the effect that if the mayor and council did not curtail the running expenses of the city enough to keep within revenue income he would bring ouster proceedings against them. At the time Mr. Trickett argued that since he had closed the saloons of the city there was no longer need for a big police department. His theory was that most of the crime was due to the existence of the saloons. However, the many robberies and murders committed during the past two or three months exceed in numbers and viciousness any reign of crime in the city during the days of the dramshop.'

Whether these figures speak for prohibition or not and whether the roseate statement in reference to Kansas City, Kansas, is justified or not, I leave to the contemplation of the reader.

"Turning to educational figures, Maine has in its public schools the largest percentage of the total population of all the North Altantic states, including New York." So says Mr. Jones.

I have not the statistics for the whole states on hand, and if I had I would not care to use them, for the reason above stated, that comparisons between the very large cities and small cities and towns are of no statistical value. But using again Bulletin 45 and using only statistics of cities of between 8,000 and 25,000 inhabitants, I prepared the following table:

So we find that of these states Maine

has the smallest school attendance of all and Kansas the smallest among its western neighbors.

In reference to the rise of valuation of

property, I might show that this is only a rise of tax-valuation, but I am afraid the article would become too long.

I have given the prohibition question a great deal of study and have found that the prohibitionists' statistics, even where true, never bear close scrutiny, because of the entire neglect of other because of the entire neglect of other possible influences than prohibition.

In reference to its moral influence I confine myself to a quotation from a book entitled: The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects, an investigation made under the direction of Chas. W. Eliot, Seth Low and James Carter,) sub-committee of Committee of Fifty, etc.

There it is said on page 5: "The efforts to enforce it during forty years past have had some unlooked-for effects on public respect for courts, judicial procedure, oaths, and law in general, and for officers of law, legislators, and public servants. The public have seen law defied, a whole generation of habitual law-breakers schooled in evasion and shamelessness, courts ineffective through fluctuations of policy, delays, perjuries, negligences, and other miscarriages of justice, officers of the law double-faced and mercenary, legislators timid and insincere, candidates for office hypocritical and truckling, and office-holders unfaithful to pledges and to reasonable public expectation.

PHILIP RAPPAPORT.

Washington, D. C.

I

AM NOT a pessimist. I believe most thoroughly that everything makes for good and Wrong is always conterbalanced by the stupendous weight of Right. I believe in our Government, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. But, insomuch as it is all of this, just so far can it be guilty of wrong-doing. Not intentionally, but as we have grown up out of the order which has endured since the beginning, following the established things, unthinkingly repeating the sins of our fathers, we are loath to tear away what they have builded and erect new structures on the revered foundations.

To one who loves his country, to whom honor and life are of equal value, the word deserter has an ugly sound. Yet, to-day, the desertions from our Navy have caused for it a diminished respect among foreign powers and a Chicago professor declared that patriotism is dead among us. But let it be borne in mind that there are two kinds of deserters. The first holds duty cheap and turns his back upon it; the second, enduring until his strength is exhausted, lets go his grip, thinking to fight with renewed force should the occasion come. An officer who at one time was captain on a training ship has this to say regarding the deserters from the Navy:

"A large proportion of the enlisted men are boys ranging from 17 to 20 years. They come on board for their trial trip full of energy, ambition and patriotism. We give them shore leave and instead of welcome they receive neglect and insult. They become discouraged and homesick, then 'jump ship. For the sake of discipline we must punish and oftentimes that is as

hard for the officers to give as for the boy to receive.”

What is the punishment? From six months to a year in a Naval prison? Then what?

Meet some of these boys who have been inmates of a Naval prison from any cause and when you have gained their confidence, learn the other side of the story from them. Many will confirm the remark of the training ship captain, speaking of a longing for home, a weariness of monotony which developed into a distaste for the service. The story will usually end with this:

"The Department is not to blame even when we think officers are unjust They would n't stand for that a single instant in Washington. Officers are obliged to treat their men white. I'm sorry I did n't stick it out; I only wish I might have been restored to duty but that 's against the law when you 're charged with desertion and I got a dishonorable discharge."

In Charlestown Naval prison during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, 516 prisoners were confined. Of these 176 were deserters and 129 absence without leave (a distinction without a difference from desertion), the remaining 211 were guilty of various offenses ranging from murder down. The prison originally built for 150 has held anywhere from that number up to 300. Among these are boys who, while conscientiously endeavoring to do their whole duty, stumbled and fell over a mistaken idea as to what constituted duty; boys who had scarcely left their mother's apron strings before driven back to her by a consuming homesickness; deserters from reasons of every