Article on Prohibition
The above articles are about many discussions surrounding the issue of Prohibition. The first article goes over a series of statements from politicians and other important people of the time. They expressed their opinions on whether prohibition should happen and why they believed what they did.
One topic that was brought up repeatedly was the idea of how prohibition should be carried out. Many people believed it was the right of individual localities to enact prohibition in their localities, but that areas that didn’t want to prohibit alcohol should have the freedom to keep it legal.
Next, there was an article discussing the financial implications of prohibition. According to the article, prohibition would cost millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. That was followed up immediately by an article that went in-depth on the argument for letting each locality decide for itself whether it wanted to keep alcohol legal or not.
After that, the paper gave space to the other side of the issue. The next article was from a temperance committee explaining its reasoning for advocating for prohibition. They discussed the idea of the influence alcohol has on the public good and the concept of personal liberty.
Finally, there was a Q and A section addressing some of the issues people had with prohibition and giving reasons as to why the author felt prohibition was preferable.
The articles did a good job of addressing all angles of both sides of the prohibition issue. Although each article individually focused on one or two points of view, when taken as a whole, they paint a complete picture of how people felt at the time.
As a result of the varying viewpoints expressed, the article doesn’t really support or run counter to conclusions from background materials provided on the topic. However, it does relate to the two linked below in some ways. Each of the following articles explain how the situation and public feelings around prohibition progressed in the decade or so after the articles in the Perry County Republican were written.