Polls

Many a college student has been polled on what he thinks about Prohibition. Last week occurred the first poll of what he does about Prohibition. The Yale Daily News announced the result of a questionnaire sent to each & every Yale student asking: Do you drink and if so how? When? Where? Chiefly responsible was William Anthony Lydgate, News chairman, who editorialized:

"Twentysix out of 31 university presidents in this country say that student drinking is not general. . . . With due respect for the judgment of those presidents, we cannot help feeling that their opinion is of slight value unless checked by facts. And so far as Yale is concerned, the News proposes to have a look at the facts."

Each Yale man was asked, in a set form, to describe his drinking habits. No signatures were required but accuracy was maintained by numbering the blanks and checking them off against a list of the recipients. Out of 3,129 blanks issued, 2,643 were filled out, returned.

Results: 769 or 29% said they did not drink; 1,874 or 71% said they did drink.

Of the drinkers, 852 drank frequently (more than once a fortnight); 1,022 drank occasionally.

Preferred drinks: whiskey 24%, gin 24%, beer 20%, wine 12%, rye 10%, applejack 3%.

Seventeen per cent favored full enforcement; 83% asked for repeal.

Prohibition polls of opinions, not actions, announced last week included the following:

P:The Literary Digest tabulated the first 291,588 answers to 20,000,000 questionnaires sent out, found 118,934 for repeal, 91,915 for modification, 80,739 for enforcement. Drys had been loudly warned by Dr. Ernest Hurst Cherrington, publicist for the Anti-Saloon League, not to vote in the Digest-poll, which he flayed as "uncontrolled, valueless." Wets accused Dr. Cherrington of trying to set up an alibi.

P:The Union League Club of Manhattan,, citadel of conservative Republicanism, queried its 1,800 members, found 932 for repeal, 264 for modification, 109 for enforcement.

P:The Pathfinder, a weekly published in Washington, with two-thirds of its 960,469 circulation in communities of 10.000 or less, received 444,628 replies of which 171,802 were Wet, 272,826 Dry. Of the Drys, 214,873 demanded stricter enforcement.*

*For a report of other magazines' treatment of Prohibition, see p. 42.

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