iSetu . gork’si 
 Bruntiennesis! 
 
 Bue . to . EebeEton 
 
 “©r- Norris, Chief ^Medical Examiner, 
 Attacks Wrong Source of 'Drunkenness; 
 Figures Prove that Drunkenness Decreased 
 When Prohibition Was Enforced .... 
 
 “If Dr. Charles Norris, chief medical 
 examiner for New York City, were to as. 
 sume the same attitude toward small pox, 
 and rabies, that he assumes toward alco- 
 holism, he would be asked to resign over 
 night,” said S. E. Nicholson, Associate 
 Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League 
 of New York. 
 
 “In the face of an epidemic of small 
 pox, rabies or any contagion,” continued 
 Mr. Nicholson, “Dr. Norris would make 
 every endeavor to enlist the co-operation 
 of the medical fraternity and the enforce- 
 ment authorities in the form of personal 
 action, education, preventive measures 
 and enforcement efforts to reduce and to 
 stamp out the plague. 
 
 Prohibition Reduced Drunkenness 
 / 
 
 “In the face of increasing alcoholism, 
 all he has to offer is a complaint about 
 conditions, a strongly implied conden^na- 
 tion of the prohibition law and an equally 
 implied endorsement of the movement for 
 its repeal. His own figures are a denial 
 of the implication that the removal of 
 prohibition will effect a reduction in alco- 
 holic deaths. For the eight years — 1910 
 to 1917 — the average annual deaths in 
 New York city from acute and chronic 
 alcoholism was 619. This was the period 
 of license which Dr. Norris endorses, and 
 of the supposedly pure liquors which are 
 said to be no longer in evidence. 
 
 “Then come the years 1918, 1919, 1920, 
 and 1921, which are war time and Vol- 
 stead years, when alcoholic deaths fell to 
 252, 176, 93 and 119 respectively. These 
 
were the years, and especially those of 
 1920 and 1921, which mark the best de- 
 gree of observance and enforcement 
 which New York has yet experienced. 
 These two years of 1920 and 1921 reveal 
 in no unmistakable terms what prohibi- 
 tion can and will do. The record justifies 
 ail that the friends of prohilition have 
 ever claimed for it. That alcoholic deaths 
 have increased during the past four years 
 is not due to prohibition but to open re- 
 bellion against prohibition. Is Dr. Norris 
 so credulous as to believe that the repeal 
 of prohibition would have reduced the 
 record of alcoholic deaths since 1922? If 
 so, why the heavy toll in deaths prior to 
 1917? 
 
 Present Drunkenness Result of Rebel- 
 lion Against Law 
 
 “The unmistakable fact is that the in- 
 crease is wholly due to the come-back of 
 liquor, and not to prohibition, and this 
 is attributable wholly to the organized -re- 
 bellion against prohibition, which cen- 
 ters here in this great city. 
 
 “The standard of prohibition is the rec. 
 ords of 1920 and 1921. Of this period Bird 
 S. Coler, Commissioner of Charities, said: 
 
 ‘The alcoholic wards in the Department 
 of Public Charities and Bellevue and Al- 
 lied hospitals are doing practically noth- 
 ing. We are closing most of the floors' 
 of the municipal lodging house. For the 
 past few weeks we have had more em- 
 ployes than patrons.’ 
 
 “Mr. Coler even discussed seriously 
 the probability of a reduced appropriation 
 for his department, saying that they had 
 only from twenty to thirty nightly lodg- 
 ers ‘in contrast to the overcrowded condi- 
 tions of former times.’ Mr. Coler is quot- 
 ed in the Evening Post of Mar. 18, 1920, 
 after two months of Volstead Prohibition, 
 to the effect that ‘suffering, dependency 
 and certain types of sickness have been 
 already appreciably lessened in New York 
 City as a result of prohibition.’ 
 
 “Even the then president of the City 
 Board of Aldermen, Hon. F. H. LaGuar- 
 dia, now Congressman, was so impressed 
 that he said, ‘the day of charity is past’ 
 and strongly advocated a change in the 
 name of the Department of public chari- 
 ties ‘to one more in accord with the spirit 
 
of the times.’ It was at this time that 
 Henry Rood, writer in the New York 
 World, admitted that ‘there has been a 
 decline in the alcoholic death rate in New 
 York City of extraordinary proportions,’ 
 which later in the article he asserted 
 amounted to ‘more than 500 per cent.’ 
 
 “In the light of these records of 1920 
 and 1921, the case of Dr. Norris falls 
 down completely, except as a basis for de. 
 manding a return to the prohibition 
 standards of these two years. This the 
 good doctor fails utterly to do. The most 
 he has been able to show is that the en- 
 larging us<* of what he terms poisoned 
 liquors, due to organized rebellion against 
 the law, has succeeded in producing a 
 record of deaths somewhat comparable 
 to the record of pre-prohibition years, 
 when the supposedly ‘pure liquors’ ruled 
 the market under all the restrictions which 
 legislative ingenuity could devise. 
 
 While He Guesses 
 
 “Dr. Norris guesses that recent deaths 
 are more numerous than the statistics re- 
 veal. Why not guess that this is equally 
 true of the pre-prohibition period? Here 
 is the testimony of a medical officer con., 
 nected with the Coroner’s office of a 
 large city; 
 
 ‘Prior to the passage of the Volstead 
 Act, it was political suicide for an office 
 holder in any way to show the evil of 
 drinking. Now the deputy coroner, in tak- 
 ing evidence, can go into the history of 
 alcoholism without fear of criticism.’ 
 
 “Dr. Norris would have rendered dis- 
 tinct public service had he chosen to set 
 forth in detail the real cause of the in- 
 creased deaths during the last four years. 
 He should have laid this mortality at the 
 door of organized lawlessness and willful 
 rebellion. When opponents of prohibition 
 were beginning to recover somewhat from 
 their amazement at the marvelous ef- 
 fect of prohibition as shown by statistics 
 and every survey made in 1920 and 1921, 
 they realized that if they did not make 
 a determined stand against it, the chance 
 to overthrow prohibition would be for- 
 ever gone. 
 
 “In that fact was born the organized 
 rebellion which is wholly responsible for 
 present conditions. Early efforts brought 
 
meager results. The repeal of the Mul- 
 lan-Gage Act in 1923 gave the wet move- 
 ment some encouragement, and this act 
 has contributed no small part to that mor. 
 tality increase which both Dr. Norris and 
 all friends of prohibition so deeply de- 
 plore. Discouraged in the Nation as a 
 whole, as each succeeding congress be- 
 came drier than its predecessor, the 
 sponsors for liquor became desperate, 
 with the result that a determined minority 
 of the American people have become ob- 
 sessed with the notion that the quickest 
 way to secure the repeal of prohibition is 
 to violate the law openly and with im- 
 punity. 
 
 Place Responsibility Where It Belongs 
 
 “No one questions the right of men and 
 women to work for the repeal or modifi- 
 cation of the law. But at a time when it is 
 clear that their attacks upon prohibition 
 are pouring oil on the flames of lawless- 
 ness and rebellion, they may well pause 
 until rebellion is suppressed. Then, if in 
 the clear light of reason and facts the peo- 
 ple want to liberalize their fundamental 
 law, the way to bring it about by orderly 
 procedure is provided in the Constitution 
 itself. To legislate at the behest of law- 
 lessness, however, is a blow at orderly 
 and constitutional government and does 
 ^ positive violence to the American spirit. 
 
 “Let Dr. Norris join the public and the 
 public officials in making war on the boot- 
 leggers, as he would do upon the source 
 of any other public pest, let him and all 
 others insist that the governor and our 
 legislature enact the legislation necessary 
 to restore the conditions of 1920 and 
 1921. Let’s face the situation as it is and 
 place responsibility where it belongs, and 
 the poisoned liquor agents will cease to be 
 a protected class and we will find a speedy 
 remedy for the fruits of organized rebel- 
 lion, 
 
 “Dr. Norris and the public ought to 
 see that it is the madness of rebellion that 
 is killing our people and that we have 
 remedied nothing when we legalize the 
 acts of its agencies.” 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 WESTERVILLE. OHIO 
 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A