Old dwellings for new. Effect of the lawson act in New York
John Ihlder
1917
National Municipal Review
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS The experience of Tennessee demonstrates that any state which adopts state-wide prohibition should enact all those ancillary measures which have been found necessary to a proper enforcement of the law. A mere prohibition act in itself will not prohibit; it is a t the mercy not only of local sentiment but also of official indifference. It is necessary to have a statute similar to theTennessee nuisance act, which will allow aminority to bring offenders to the bar of justice in
more »
... spite of a hostile majority. It is necessary to have a statute similar to the ouster act, which will bring officials to a keen sense of their public responsibility. It is necessary t o put an end at once to interstate shipping houses, since these are mere breeding places for bootleggers and lawless saloons. If these sources of infection had not been allowed to remain, the state of Tennessee would have been spared much of the travail through which it has finally arrived at a genuine era of prohibition. The experience of Tennessee also justifies the general observation that, if a thorough-going legislative program is adopted, the duration of the economic disturbances incident to a readjustment of business will be much shortened, and the benefits of prohibition will be hastened. For Tennessee, at least, those benefits have been a marked diminution in poverty and crime and a healthier public sentiment which is manifesting itself along all the lines of progress. If a city as unfavorable t o the enforcement of prohibitory legislation as Memphis was until the year 1916 can within a year's time experience a complete revolution of public sentiment, and that, too, not as a result of moral suasion but as a result of coercion from without and a practical demonstration of the benefits of prohibition, the prospect for the successful inauguration of prohibition in other American cities is most promising.
doi:10.1002/ncr.4110060606
fatcat:2byra4ie4fh3dpqsmvpcazkbrq