On Prohibition, Moderation and Excessive Spending

On Prohibition, Moderation and Excessive Spending A look at the website belonging to the Calgary and Southern Alberta, Applied History Group, U of C (webpage prohibition) shows a bit of historical revisionism. Under a photo of a barroom counter of a Calgary saloon is an article carefully avoiding mentioning that Calgarians voted like most elsewhere in the province for Prohibition in 1915, as if Edmonton Liberals forced it down Calgary`s throat. Truth is Calgary voted heavily in favour of Prohibition, with a majority of 3000 votes, a lot in those days when Alberta`s cities were much smaller than today. And as I point out in my wide-ranging book Old Strathcona Edmonton`s Southside Roots, immediately there were social benefits. Banks reported more savings in famiy accounts (but obviously less in barkeepers`accounts), other institutions reported less insanity, less public drunkenness, less drunken driving (some cars, but also wagons - I have seen an old Canadian novel in which  a drunk wagon-driver caused a collision but as the author pointed out (obviously not a recent observation) it is the sober victim who often suffers more than the intoxicated one. So the point being that drunk driving can be dangerous even if it is not a car involved. and the incidence of drunk driving went down, even as under Alberta Prohibition drinking at home or of low-percent beer was still allowed. But Prohibition is bad for business, the business of selling intoxicating liquor, and business interests fought against the restriction, finally gaining traction when they professed they merely wanted to replace it with Moderation. Local Moderation Leagues proliferated and collected signatures calling for a referendum on the issue. Some such as Irene Parlby, UFA cabinet minister in the previously-Prohibitionist UFA government, and Nellie McClung, a Liberal MLA, were aghast when the government accepted the signatures without question and called a referendum on the issue. Sale of full-test beer in beer parlours was chosen along with government sale of beer, wine and liquor, and that came to pass in 1924. However now 90 yeas later you can hardly say that we have Moderation. Now through successive loosening and privatization (opening the industry to the profit motive and cutthroat competition) we have pretty much the situation that we had exactly 100 years ago, with people hanging out of bar windows accosting passersby, liquor stores and bars open at almost all hours including mornings and Sundays, gambling (in casinos and at ubiquitous machines, not to mention lottery tickets). It seems to me people do not drink shooters to enjoy themselves, they drink to numb themselves. Drink, not religion, has become the opium of the masses, or should I also include TV, or radio, or movies, or celebrity news, Today there is no end of distraction, Corporate world will do anything to prevent people thinking of their life-situations. That kind of thinking slows down the wheels of enterprise, and if the wheels slow or stop people will see much of it is fakery, The Luddite today is someone who does not try to keep up with the Joneses. A pithy quote I read the other day is often people have so much stuff they are poor. Another: nothing will ever be enough for those who think having enough is nothing. Anyways those are some of my thoughts for today.