American Notes of the Week
(By Cable)
[The SPECTATOR hopes to publish week by week a survey of 13e11.8 and opinion in America, cabled from New York by our American correspondent.]
LAW AND CITIZENSHIP.
President Hoover has approached the problem of enforcing the Prohibition law with a step which promises to be more effective than any punitive police measures. President Wilson many years ago pointed out that the greatest power of the President of the United States arose from his access to avenues of publicity. President Hoover has accordingly undertaken a vigorous propaganda in support not merely of Prohibition law as such, but of what he calls " the relation- ship of the individual citizen to law itself." In a speech delivered on Monday in New York, the President pointed out that it was time for the American people to realize " the possibility that respect for law as law is fading from the sensibilities of our people." So sharp and candid a statement from such a source is bound to have a profound influence on such citizens as may be inclined to be careless in their attitude towards the Prohibition Amendment. The President, however, was at pains to emphasize that it was not only the Prohibition question which he had in mind, but the whole subject of law enforcement. He stated among other things that " twenty times as many people in proportion to population are lawlessly killed in the United States as in Great Britain."
* * *
Previous page
