Mr. J. B. Osborne, in “The Liquor Question—Political, Moral and Economic Phases,” says:

“The abolition of poverty and better education for the masses, are the only remedies for the disease of alcoholism.

“Alcoholism, however, is not as prevalent as Mr. Chafin or the usual advocate of Prohibition would have you believe. United States reports for 1909 show the average number of deaths attributed to alcoholism to be only 2811; from scalds and burns, 6772; from drowning, 5387; from poison, 3390; from suicide, 5498; while killed and maimed on railroads we have a total of about 18,000.

“Certainly no one would advocate the prohibition of water because 5000 people annually get drowned; nor the abolition of the railroads because 18,000 are killed and maimed annually.

“Thousands of workingmen lose their lives every year in the coal and lead mines, but no efforts are made by the prohibitionists to secure proper ventilation and inspection of the mines or safety appliances for the railroads. That the State has power to prohibit or abolish the legalized sale of liquor no intelligent person will deny. The State has power also to abolish the Church and transform its property into State property as was recently done in France under the direction of Premier Clemenceau.

“The action of the French government in this instance, however, did not reduce the amount of religion in France; on the contrary, it had the effect of making the lukewarm churchman more active and zealous in the church’s cause.

“Under laws prohibiting the liquor business we find the same results. In the State of Maine, the oldest prohibition State in the Union, we find more arrests for drunkenness, in proportion to the population, than in any State where we have the licensed saloon.

“All Christian nations have for centuries accepted the prohibitory laws of the ten commandments such as ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill,’ and yet it is the same Christian nations that have the largest armies and navies, and that have been doing nearly all the killing for thousands of years; likewise, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ while today the most respected citizens of every Christian nation in the world are, at the same time, the world’s biggest robbers.

“The power of government is limited when it comes to controlling or regulating the thought of the individual, nor is it in the province of government to say when, where, or what, citizens should eat, drink or wear. The wisest government would promote conditions under which the people would have plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to wear and good houses to live in. What he should eat and drink as well as the amount and kind, or the color of the clothes he should wear, should be the function of the individual.”