THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESULTS OF PROHIBITION It is, in the last analysis, as a social and economic problem rather than a moral or legal problem that national prohibition should be judged. Upon that judgment its ultimate success or fail ure depended. There was practically substantial agreement among those who favoured as well as those who opposed national prohi bition that the passing of the saloon was a distinct gain for which it was responsible. No one desired its re-establishment. The boot legger and the illicit liquor traffic had, it is true, produced some thing worse than the old saloon. Yet the speakeasy was not quite so omnipresent. It was more restricted in its economic exploitation and made no pretence at rendering social service.
The low priced automobile, home ownership, an expansion of the family budget so that it included much that formerly was the luxury of the few, the increase in investment of surplus earnings in income-producing shares in the working capital of the country, were all factors in the welfare of thousands of families to which prohibition made a contribution. The fear that any plan proposed for the liberalization of the Prohibition Law, such as the pro posal to permit light wines and beer, or that for State control, would endanger this prosperity led many persons who were not fanatical prohibitionists to oppose any change in the National Prohibition Law except one leading to its stricter enforcement.
Many attempts have been made to appraise the economic and social results of national prohibition. The records did not exist for a sufficiently long period, nor did they give comparable data for a sufficiently wide area to measure objectively, statistically and by scientific methods enough tests such as arrests for drunken ness, alcoholic psychoses, deaths from alcoholic diseases, etc., in order to arrive at positive conclusions. Most of the statistics available cover only the few years under national prohibition and those mostly during a period when the economic life of the coun try was operating under exceptional conditions of post-war adjustments to excessive economic disturbances and upheaval, and during periods of unprecedented prosperity and depression.
The fourteen years of national prohibition were altogether too short to determine trends, even if under normal conditions, in so complicated a problem where it is difficult at best to isolate and measure many of the controlling factors.
The Federal Council report does furnish some significant sam ples of data carefully selected from good sources and scientifically handled as far as the samples go. The results of a questionnaire that brought a io% return from 2,700 members of the National Conference of Social Work—a group of persons enjoying unusual opportunities for careful observation—showed a large preponder ance of favourable replies as to the effect of prohibition on the homes of working people in better furnishing of the homes, larger proportion of the husband's income going to the wife and family, improved marital relations, better sanitary and health conditions in homes, better mental health of the home as shown by better family co-operation, respect of children for parents and of par ents for children and by higher educational ideals. Favourable replies also preponderated with respect to community effects such as less children's delinquency, less malnutrition among young children, and liquor for minors less accessible; on the contrary, more drinking by young people as compared with pre-prohibition times, and a worse attitude toward law enforcement and respect for laws in general.