Looking at the results of prohibition from the point of view of a social worker with nearly 40 years' experience in one of the most congested immigrant neighborhoods of Chicago, Miss Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, presented the facts as she knows them to the Chicago [Woman's] Club, and gave her conclusion:
"I'm for it; I'm very much for it," she said.
Families getting a fuller share of the wage earner's income, thanks to the abolition of "treating" at the bar; mothers relieved of the anxiety of awaiting drunken husbands; children more regular at school; politics taken out of the saloon, are some of the benefits Miss Addams said were observable in her own neighborhood.
Enforcement is far from what it should be, she indicated in a report of bootlegging activities as they came under her observation. Yet, she pointed out, lack of enforcement is a poor argument for repeal.
"To give up the Eighteenth Amendment now would not even be to get a negative result," she said. "We would never be clear as to the real effect of prohibition. In this aspect the present failure is like the failure of the first attempts in the South after the abolition of slavery. Yet in three generations no one would venture to say that the descendants of slaves are not enormously better off."
"People say there is as much liquor consumed now as there used to be," she continued, "but I've never known any reputable statistician who says so. Think of the great trucks that stood all up and down the street, before prohibition, trucks that took a half hour to unload. It can't be possible that bootleggers have the facilities for doing anything on that scale.
"Disreputable dance halls were formerly drenched with liquor, she continued, in citing changes under prohibition. There has been a surprising increase of large and decent dance halls where liquor is not permitted. On the other hand there has been a large growth of cabarets and roadhouses.
"In our neighborhood we have seen a change of custom among foreign people, who now use temperance drinks for their festivities. We rent Bowen Hall at Hull House for these events.
"For a time drinking liquor was considered rather sporty by the younger people but there is a general impression that this braggadocio movement is spending itself.
"The care of children has improved. Mothers have been relieved of much anxiety, for there is no greater anxiety for a mother than that of expecting her husband to come home drunk.
"Crime among the bootleggers and the ['hijackers'] who live by holding up the bootleggers, has resulted in amazing violence because neither group can look to the police for protection, the whole trade being outside the law. It would be an enormous gain if all firearms could be taken out of the situation, removing them from private citizens first and then from the police, as in England."
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