Results in Other States There is no reason for selecting Illinois for this comparison excepting that it is the state where the writer resides. The same line of facts appears in other states, the results varying in approximately the exact proportion in which such states approach the standard of Maine in faithful enforcement of prohibition. The limits of this article allow only the most compact statements as to other states, omitting comment on each. California Ratio: 4.72; Carpenters, 15,916; Maine standard calls for 42,187; shortage, 26,271. Salesmen and Saleswomen, 17,149; Maine standard calls for 25,025; shortage, 7,876. Retail Merchants, 24,653; Maine standard calls for 40,719; shortage, 16,066. Dry Goods, 1,238; Maine standard calls for 2,360; shortage, 1,122. Men's Clothing and Furnishings, 417; Maine standard calls for 1,420; shortage, 1,003. Massachusetts Carpenters, 33,011; Maine standard calls for 57,113; shortage, 24,102. Retail Merchants, 40,994; Maine standard calls for 55,126; shortage, 14,132. Business Concerns, 53,431; Maine standard calls for 93,683; shortage 40,252. Bankers and Brokers, 3.291; Maine standard calls for 3.642; shortage, 351. New York Retail Merchants, 118,896; Maine standard calls for 158,132; shortage, 39,236. Business Concerns, 146,322; Maine standard calls for 268,736; shortage, 122,414. Groceries, 20,650; Maine standard calls for 42,360; shortage, 21,710. Men's Clothing and Furnishings, 3.785; Maine standard calls. for 5.517; shortage, 1.732. Ohio Carpenters, 37,390; Maine standard calls for 65,783; shortage, 28,393. Retail Merchants, 45,180; Maine standard calls for €3,494; shortage, 18,314. Business Concerns, 84,478; Maine standard calls for 107,904; shortage, 23,426. 996. Drygoods, 2,684; Maine standard calls for 3,680; shortage, The writer can give similar information regarding every line of occupation in every state. It is not denied that once in many times the preponderance may be the other way, yet it is so generally in favor of Maine that the rare exceptions prove the rule, and the honesty and accuracy of the figures as well. The assertion of this article is broadly that a correct and reliable standard has been found, that it is tremendously in favor of the greater prosperity existing in Maine, and that business men and workingmen alike can find in these figures food for careful thought which will suggest appropriate action. Further developments along this line may be expected, as its economic significance and importance shall become impressed upon the business mind and the business judgment of the world. THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PROHIBITION BY ALPHONSO ALVA HOPKINS, Prohibition insists, through its advocates, that the beverage liquor business is not a producer of wealth; that it is a prolific breeder of taxation; that it multiplies the non-taxpayers and consumers; that wealth can have no equitable distribution while such business is perpetuated; that the burdens of government cannot be equitably borne while the saloon constantly increases them; that on the plane of pure economics alone the policy of prohibition should be established, for state and nation, as the only just policy possible between man and man and between man and government. The limits of this article forbid any extended analysis of what wealth is, and of who its producers are. Wise political economy denies that anything is wealth, the destruction of which would benefit mankind. They cannot be true producers of wealth whose production is consumed only or mainly to mankind's losing cost, in comfort, in money, in productive power. If the teachers of political economy were mere theorists alone, the plain facts of social and political experience, the common admissions of men who have not posed as political economists, would be sufficient to prove true, on economic lines merely, what is claimed for prohibition. Drunken labor, even drinking labor, is not the most productive. Production cannot be at its best where the drink habit. prevails. Demand for the fruits of production cannot insure prosperity where the demand is widely discounted by that habit. The fruits of production are found most largely in the homes of the rich; they should be found, far more largely than they are, in the homes of the poor. Prosperity can be general and constant only as these fruits are generally and widely found. In the interest of producers, purely as a business matter, and without regard to sentiment or patriotism, there should be suppression of whatever limits legitimate demand. It is the right of labor to meet the demand of a sober world. "At all hazards, and no matter what else is sought or accomplished," declared Theodore Roosevelt in his Letter of Acceptance when nominated for the Presidency, "the American workingman must be protected in his standard of wages, that is, in his standard of living." And the President would doubtless agree that this must be done not only for the sake of the workingman himself, for his own individual comfort and that of his family, but also for the sake of all productive industries which are behind the home where the workingman and his family live, for the sake of the capitalists who are interested therein and whose investments contribute thereto. The "standard of living" in the home of a dollar-a-day hod carrier— a man earning only a dollar a day but soberly spending it—may be as high as that of the boss mason who gets three dollars a day when he works, but who is drunk four days out of the six. Demand for the products of labor, and this demand alone, will insure fair wages. This demand for these products can be insured only by the sobriety of the laborer and the higher standard of living which this will insure to his home. Make the laborer's pay as high as by any method you can, and then let the saloon rob him of its largest part, and you have not preserved the standard of living that should be his, which, "at all hazards," according to Mr. Roosevelt, should be maintained. Multiply this one laborer by a million. like him, and you have robbed a million men of comforts and luxuries they should have had. Multiply this one laborer's home by a million, and you have robbed other millions of workingmen of a demand that should have been theirs, for the products of their sober industry, to supply these million homes with earthenware, woodenware, tinware, silverware; with cotton wear, woolen wear, linen wear, head wear, foot wear; with beds and blankets and bolsters; with chairs and carpets and coal; with stoves and sofas; with pictures and pianos; with music and magazines; with books and brightness; with cheerfulness and content; with all the gladness and satisfaction which come from and are comprehended in the standard of living for which Mr. Roosevelt contended. Where that standard of living most pitifully fails for the workingman is not where the tariff or free trade defends him least, but where the saloon, the liquor bar, has license to prey upon him most. Find the places in this country where the workingman's highest standard of living prevails, and you will not see an open saloon. Inspect any town where other agencies and influences have done their best for the laborer, but where saloons live and saloon-keepers wax fat, and you will find a lower standard of living. Close the saloon doors, and other doors will open. Even if you close them only on Saturday night the savings-bank doors will open that night, as has been demonstrated, to the gain of all but the saloon-keepers. Multiply saloons and you decrease all places of legitimate trade, or you decrease their profits. Reduce these legitimate places below what should be their number for normal supply, and you prove, by such reduction, that the standard of living upon which trade properly thrives is not maintained. Considering only trade and manufactures, and leaving taxes and the cost of government entirely out of account, prohibition of the beverage liquor business is demanded in the interest of every tradesman and every manufacturer; and there is not a merchant or a mill owner anywhere, there is nowhere a man employed in mill or store, in the factory or on the farm, in the forest or at the forge, whose own direct and immediate selfish and personal benefit does not require that he stand for prohibition of the beverage liquor traffic. It would seem as if common logic and common sense would be sufficient to attest this claim if there were not a single concrete illustration whereby to prove it. If not a tradesman or a manufacturer, a merchant or a mechanic, had anywhere certified or seen the comparative economic results of trade and manufacture with and without the liquor business to help or hinder, it would seem as if all producers and sellers would apprehend the great percentage of improvement where prohibition is applied, and would insist upon its application as a matter of pure commercial instinct and self-defense. It appears indisputable, from a large number of authoritative reports, that wherever prohibition has been tried, even under adverse conditions, labor has prospered more generally than before or after under license; that wages have more equitably distributed wealth; that the standard of living has been preserved more widely, with increase of bank deposits, decrease of taxes per capita, increase of taxable values, reduction of municipal and state debt, and the general betterment of both labor and capital. The prevailing testimony runs about like this: Shenandoah, Iowa-Four thousand people; no saloons; no dis |