CATT, Carrie Chapman Speech, Article, Book File Article: "Observance and Enforcement - Not Repeal" OBSERVANCE AND ENFORCEMENT--- NOT REPEAL Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Commissioner For two hundred years our entire country has been covered by liquor laws. No law has ever been popular or approved. This has been the history of temperance procedure in our country from the beginning. Other countries also have experimented with liquor laws with the same result. No law has been enforced and an attempt to repeal every and any liquor law has been the experience everywhere. When, therefore, a minority desires to repeal the 18th Amendment in our country, they do what other minorities ave done since the first liquor law was established. Wets never approve liquor laws because they think them too severe; Drys like liquor laws but never find them drastic enough. What, then, would happen if the 18th Amendment were repealed? Another law would replace the present one. What law? No one knows. Some say, "It will not, it shall not be the saloon." Who knows? The party politician likes the saloon. There is a commission to be collected; a headquarters for the party discussions; and a handy addition to political machinery. Who knows what that law will include? The drinker will put drink in the next law if he can. The dry will keep it out if he can. The safest policy is that recommended by the Wickersham Report, the slogan being taken from the W.C.T.U., that is, "Observance and Enforcement--Not Repeal." Let the difficulties in executing the prohibition law be whatever they may, they will be no greater than those for enforcing any other law. I believe in prohibition because it is a better law and better enforced than any other liquor law I have observed. I shall continue to think it is the best law for this land until a better law appears. No such law has come as yet. Facts from Report of Woman's Commission for Law Enforcement. Price $1.00 per thousand. If you like this sample buy the Report, 140 pages, 25 cents. Facts from Report of Woman's Commission for Law Enforcement. Price $1.00 per thousand. If you like this sample buy the Report, 140 pages, 25 cents. THE SPIRIT OF CANADA? Toronto Globe A popular Canadian periodical has a full-page advertisement of Canadian liquor. A happy, carefree boy in working clothes stands behind a bottle of Canadian rye. With a smile, he offers a glassful to the readers of the magazine. Beneath the boy and the bottle we see a shadowy outline of homes and factories. Behind all, a background of color like the glow of a beautiful sunset. The advertisement is called, "The Spirit of Canada." "Every effort is being made to tackle the tremendous problem of reforming those who have gone astray." One hundred and fifty-eight penal institutions are full to capacity. In Ontario alone there were 29,980 commitments in 1930---an increase of more than 2,000 during 1929. "Because the most serious aspect of the crime problem is furnished by youth, which supplies the greatest proportion of our criminals. Mr. McIlroy has concentrated most of his time and energy upon the boys and young men of the Ontario Reformatory at Guelph. Chief Constable D. C. Draper, in an address on February 4, made the following statement: "There is an alarming increase in crime. During the last eight or nine years crimes committed by youthful prisoners throughout North America have increased greatly, youths from 16 up perpetrating the type of crime that a few years ago was confined to men 40 and 50 years of age." Miss J. V. Moberly, Executive Secretary infants' Home, "There is an increase in the number of illegitimate children. We had 71 more cases this year than last. A few years ago the average number of unmarried mothers who came under our care was 108. Last year we had 800." Do these figures and tragedies convey no warning to thoughtful men and women in Canada? The Ferguson Government put liquor into the homes of Ontario, gave Ontario 122 liquor stores, 105 brewery warehouses, and 52 wineries. The home brewer and the bootlegger flourish. Two men are paid $10,000 each a year, and one man $20,000 a year, to see that the 482,500 permitholders get their full allowance of liquor to debauch the homes and fill our jails and reformatories with youthful criminals, Of course, they have $55,000,000 to pay their fine salaries. From the 1,000,000 children and young people in Sunday schools today will come the permit-holders, home brewers, yes, and bootleggers, of the future, for Canada is the whiskey and beer saloon of the world. IS THIS " THE SPIRIT OF CANADA ?" IS IT BETTER THAN PROHIBITION ? Order from N. A. Lindsey & Co., Inc., Marblehead, Mass. Make checks payable to Hilda L. Olson, Treas., Marmion Way, Rockport, Mass. Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.