PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.
NO clear-headed man in America thinks the Prohi- bition amendment will ever be repealed. It is as deeply embedded in the Constitution as are those conferring unrestricted suffrage upon the negro, and while it may be abhorrent to a large element of the people, talk of rooting it out is merely academic discussion and a complete waste of time. That is not the fight at all in the United States to-day. The thing at issue is not the amendment—it is the Federal law enforcing the amend- ment, known as the Volstead Act, which defines as intoxicating any beverage of more than one-half of one per cent. alcoholic content and declares its sale, purchase or manufacture to be in conflict with the Constitution.
Raging with resentment over what they believe to be offensive infringement of their personal liberty, but disclaiming any desire to return to the open saloon or public-house, the wet forces hurl themselves against the Volstead Act in a tremendous and determined, but thus far unsuccessful, effort to amend it so as to let in light wines and beer. With equal energy the drys battle to hold the ground gained after a twenty-year fight. This is the issue that permeates politics in all parts of the country, saturates State as well as National campaigns, is destructive of rational voting, prevents public men from being measured by their merits, promotes political insincerity, and presents unparalleled opportunities for the fraud, the faker and the humbug.
The country is ablaze with the fight, and the subject is uppermost in the minds of all classes of people in all sections. "Are you wet or are you dry ? " is the first question that confronts the candidates in every community, except those great farming States of the Middle West, which have been dry for years, and in which Prohibition is an accepted and settled matter. On the Eastern seaboard, the attitude of the voters is emotional rather than rational, and the clamorous cries of the wets grow louder as the days pass.
The facts of the situation are these : The Federal authorities have thus far found it impossible to enforce the Volstead Act. It has been flouted in every large city by the best, as well as the worst, type of citizens. In the rural districts, thousands of persons are engaged in the illicit making of whisky, and the art of "home brew" is being practised by an increasing multitude. The boot- legger flourishes like a green bay tree ; wet goods come pouring in over the Canadian border and are unloaded at every port on the Atlantic coast. Enormous profits are being made by the traffickers, and a great part of the United States is drenched with liquor—most of it bad. That is the situation, but there are two ways of looking at it—the wet way and the dry way. Recently I completed an investigation of conditions that carried me into twenty-three States. I know of no intelligent man, not wildly fanatical on one side or the other, who has any save the vaguest idea as to the ultimate outcome. As to the future, there is a general absence of clear conviction and a lamentable lack of reason or remedy in dealing with or even discussing the problem.
As the drys see it, we are passing through a period of appalling and turbulent, but natural, law violation, which will wear itself out in the course of five years. It is contended that we are going through now, as a nation, exactly the same thing experienced by the individual States that went dry years ahead of the Federal Prohi- bition. In these States the first flush of State Prohibition was followed by a wave of bootlegging, law-breaking and crime. People said : "Why this is worse than the old days of the saloon." In many cases there was a revulsion of feeling, and States that had voted dry swung back to the wet side. There then ensued a period of licence and debauchery which re-solidified the Prohibition forces, and the State at the next election again became dry and stayed dry. This, say the dry leaders, happened in State after State and this is what they believe will happen in the Nation. In five years the politicians, they argue, will have convinced themselves that liquor is not a winning Political issue, and efforts to change the law will cease.
There will then follow a ten-year period in which the wet effort will be concentrated upon the nullification of the law through the election of complacent and non- enforcing officials. After the dry forces have made that sort of thing politically unprofitable, they still think another ten years of education will be required in order to change Volstead violations from a habit sanctioned by the best people to a crime carrying with it social ostracism. In brief, the dry leaders see a struggle stretching ahead twenty-five years before Prohibition is universally accepted in America and sinks completely out of politics, but they arc militantly equipped and eager for the fight.
It is true, they say, that the forces usually considered as moulding public opinion in America are against Prohibition to-day, just as they have always been against it. These forces are enumerated as the Press, the Political Organizations, the Labour Unions, the Intel- lectuals, "Society," and the traditionally established Roman Catholic and Episcopalian churches. But, they say, it is an error to believe that these elements constitute, represent, or reflect the real America. The real America —the backbone of the Nation and its vital political force— is not contained in any of these groups, but is lodged in what is usually referred to as the Evangelical churches scattered throughout the country, strongest in the smaller communities and embracing in their membership the great bulk of the Christian church-going men and women of the United States. It was this element, say the drys, that put Prohibition into the Constitution, and "because it is right and sound, it will in the end triumph over all obstacles and be generally accepted."
That is one side of the picture—now take the other. The wets believe that Prohibition was forced on the country ,by a narrow and bigoted minority, operating through the astute Anti-Saloon leaders, who terrorized and bullied Congress and Legislatures into the acceptance of their programme. The revolt against the offensive illogicalities and incongruities of the Enforcement Act, they assert, is daily growing. National Prohibition under such an Act has been tried out for three years and has admittedly failed. The Federal Government is powerless to enforce it; there is more drinking since Prohibition than there was before, and there have followed In its wake official corruption, contempt for the law, religious hatred, class feeling, a weakening of the public morale and a whole brood of evil things that tend to break down the higher civilization. The spirit of it is repugnant to men everywhere who cherish personal liberty, and resentment against the methods by which it was achieved, so far from dying, is rapidly increasing. They believe Prohibition has been proven a failure and that the effort to enforce it has broken down. They believe that, unless modification of the Volstead Act is secured, the deplorable conditions now existing will grow continuously worse and that the settlement of this issue is the most vital internal problem with which the American people have had to deal in a generation.
A few days ago President Harding, alarmed by the situation, called a futile and fruitless conference of Governors of States in Washington. At this conference some Governors expressed optimism about the law and pledged co-operation in its enforcement. Others—notably the Governor of Maryland—plainly told the President it could not be enforced in their States and that it was repugnant and offensive to their people. A significant fact about the conference was • that of the forty-eight Governors invited only fourteen attended in response to the Presidential invitation. For one reason or another, mostly political, the other thirty-four dodged the issue by staying away.
That Prohibition enforcement will be a real issue in the next Presidential campaign is beyond question. There are, to-day, unmistakable indications that Mr. Harding, whose native State of Ohio recently registered dry in a test vote on the light wines and beer proposition, is seeking the leadership of the dry forces, and the belief is will be their standard bearer in the event of his re- nomination. Almost inevitably this will drive the Democrats into naming a man who, while not avowedly wet, will still be sufficiently liberal in his views of the enforcement Act to gain the wet support.
The truth, as I see it, is that the attention of the country, which in former days was concentrated on the evils of the liquor traffic, is now concentrated on the evils of Prohi- bition. The dry view is that Prohibition, even under existing conditions, has tremendously lessened drinking among the masses of the people. They contend that no violent revolution in the habits and customs of a people, such as has been wrought by the Prohibition amendment, can be accomplished without a following wave of rebellion, but that, if given a chance, it will work out. The wet view is that the chance has been given and Prohibition has miserably failed. Not the least interesting phase of the situation is that the bootlegging fraternity is undoubtedly in active sympathy with the drys and wants no modifica- tion of the law. There is too much profit for them as things are to want a change.
FRANK R. KENT (Vice-President of the Baltimore Sun).
Previous page
