in this particular. Certainly they have now a vicious precedent ready for use. They may choose to go into politics. Some sects have succeeded in working into our national statutes one clause from their book of church discipline. Similar efforts may be made hereafter. The Catholics and the denominations now really opposed to mixing affairs of church and state may be forced to enter politics as a matter of self-protection, and, whether they go in from choice or necessity, the result will be evil and the blame must be laid at the door of the Protestant prohibitionists.

PROHIBITION'S EFFECT ON INDUSTRY

As to the great desirability of stopping the evils flowing from alcoholic excesses, all were in accord. Differences of opinion existed solely as to the wisdom and efficacy of the proposed remedies. If prohibition had brought no accompanying evils, and had proved efficacious to the point of accomplishing half the good predicted for it, none would regret the monetary cost nor cavil at the industrial damage done. But when prohibition laws fail, as they have failed, to bring either prohibition or sobriety, and when they father a horde of calamities, one may fairly count the financial figures. For a moral success, nothing that we pay is too much, but for a moral failure, anything we pay is too much.

We are paying enormously-with threats of more to

Taxes-national, state and municipal-are being sacrificed to the extent of a billion dollars per year, and bootleggers get the money that should go to reduce taxburdens. Millions are being spent on an enforcement division, and now they say that we must pay one hundred millions for an addition needed in New York alone. About one hundred and forty-six thousand men have been thrown out of employment in this country and their work is now performed by foreigners abroad who are making and smuggling into the United States the beverages formerly made here.

If the illegitimate drinks now being sold in this country were replaced by home manufacture, or if they paid legitimate duties, we would need no income tax law.

If the five million acres formerly given over to the raising of barley for non-intoxicating cereal beverages, now prohibited by the Volstead Act, were again put to their former use, every farmer would get a fairer price for his wheat and corn.

OTHER EVILS

The subjects here discussed by no means exhaust the list of indictments against national prohibition. Increase in crimes of violence, congestion in the courts, sale and use of narcotics, violations of civil service principles, prostitution of public bureaus to political ends, bribery and corruption among officials, growth of insanity and blindness, the degradation of the automobile, and the insidious moral dangers to which maidens and youths are subjected, all deserve more lengthy treatment than can here be given them.

Against these we must weigh whatever benefits these laws and conditions have brought, not neglecting what seems likely to be the one lasting blessing for which we must give thanks to the prohibitionist,-that is an aroused. public opinion as to the wisdom of the Fathers and the national necessity of returning to the paths they blazed in the great Constitution they devised for us. Too long we had neglected it, but now that violent hands have been laid on it, we realize that one sure way to destroy the precious document is to load it down with unenforceable provisions. Our eyes begin to see again, the states begin to resist unwarranted aggressions, and women and men are aroused to a new individuality and have a larger sense of tolerant liberty which promises to bring back to the nation even more than was lost through our negligent good nature.

WHY DOES NOT PROHIBITION

PROHIBIT?1

Is the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution, enforced through the Volstead Act, supported by the various and individual state acts of enforcement, successful today in solving the intoxicating beverage problem? I have asked myself this question and have kept my ear to the ground, like the farmer who comes to town to learn the news, and I still hestitate to reach a conclusion. Prohibition has solved the problem for those who have gone the wood alcohol route, the synthetic gin route, the poisoned whiskey route. These lives have paid a dear price and as a man I pity their untimely ending. I am not heartless enough, to think even for a moment, that they deserved their fate because they violated this law. No! A thousand times NO. We Americans have so many laws that it is impossible not to break one almost daily. If you drive an automobile you violate the law time and again. In the same manner, if we prohibit, by statute, "the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors," we make a law that, through lega. interpretation is impossible not to break. [sic]

The Eighteenth Amendment reads:

The manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States, and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. The language is simple, but far from plain.

It would appear that it was the intention of the framers of this statute [sic] to prohibit intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes in the United States. If one has ever attempted to write law, or to state in a few words something that affected a great many people, he will find that English is at best a difficult and trying language. Our foreign friends ask, What do you mean? They learn our

1 By Dr. S. Dana Hubbard. New York Medical Journal. 118: 108-11. July 18, 1923.

language from tutors and books and then come here and find that neither can they make themselves understood nor can they understand us. In thinking one's way through the prohibition problem one must be careful, cool and considerate. Nowhere is the judicial calm more necessary.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution is enforced by a Federal law known popularly as the Volstead law. The law was enacted by the process prescribed by the Constitution. No referendum was taken for the reason that no referendum is provided for by the Constitution. This amendment was adopted in precisely the same way in which the previous seventeen amendments were adopted.

So much for legal regularity.

Some people say "they put one over on us," another says "I had no voice in the making of this law and so I do not have to stand for it." Now my friends, all of you who can read, know that this law was debated as early as 1913, when in Columbus, Ohio, a movement was launched in behalf of national prohibition. All through 1915 and 1916 this subject was debated in church and platform [sic] throughout this country from every point of the compass and almost continuously discussed by the

press.

HISTORICAL FACTS

About fifty-three years ago the Prohibition Party was formed. About forty-nine years ago the W.C.T.U. was organized. It was about twenty-nine years ago that the Anti-Saloon League began its work. The state of Maine adopted prohibition in 1851, Kansas in 1880, North Dakota in 1889, and Georgia in 1907. By their own acts thirty-three states voted prohibition as a state policy before national prohibition was adopted. Before prohibition was nationally adopted the balance of fifteen states saw an added ten join these ranks. In 1918 there were 3,030 counties in the United States and of these 2,392 had voted "dry"! These records no doubt show to any open mind

1

what a good many of our voters actually think on this question from a political point of view.

HOW WAS THIS Amendment ACHIEVED

This is an important question, because it is by knowing "when and why" it is expected to determine what part of our people are behind this regulation.

The resolution submitting the amendment to the states was passed by the United States Senate on August 1, 1917, and by the House on December 17, 1917. The Senate voted sixty-five to twenty; the house voted two hundred eighty-two to one hundred twenty-eight. Forty-six of the forty-eight states have now ratified the amendment. In forty-five state legislatures the total vote for ratification was twelve hundred eighty-eight for to two hundred thirteen against in senates, while in the houses the vote for was thirty-seven hundred thirty-nine to nine hundred thirty-four against. Thirty-six legislatures are required for ratification.

So much for the economics [sic] of the situation. Now for the civics. Who did this? There are those who have analyzed the situation and are of the opinion that it was as usual, "the intelligent minority," who through publicity and money put it over. Who are the intelligent minority? If reading puts light on this subject I would indict all men and women behind big business. This includes life insurance interests, scientists, philanthropists, college men, physicians, teachers, public health officials, welfare workers, railway interests, mining interests, many important industrial groups, and lastly our churches and their allied helpers. Such are the facts as given in our statistics, our press, and our class [sic] journals. Informed and intelligent persons, believing in a democracy, a government "for, of, and by the people," [sic] know that what can be made legal by a due process, if a mistake has been made, can be amended or repealed, if necessary, to meet the wishes of the majority of those governed.