The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1911-05-23
TIMELY TOPICS


What's tho Matter With Memphis?
What's the matter with Memphis3 asks the
Houston Post. 1t quotes the Commercial Appeal
as follows:
This town needs a general moral bath.
Up with the law; put a premium on decent
living"
The trouble with Memphis is organic. 1t is
deep-seated. But it may be remedied.
Memphis has a large population and does an
immense business. In a material way it has
taken high rank. 1t controls the trade Of an
immense region of the richest agricultural south.
Since its last fever epidemic Memphis has been
busy growing rich.
Its people are about like the people Of other
cities of the south but they have paid more at
tentlon to the material than the spiritual.
There are over one thousand saloons in Mem
phis which are run wide open. night and day,
Sunday too, in violation of law.
Too few people demand the enforcement Of
the prohibition laws.
The officials pay no attention. They say 1t
would be a hopeless task to enforce the law. SO
no effort has been made.
But crime Is rampant. Even those who favor
saloons are becoming aroused to conditions. A
hopeful sign is that the Judge who held that fed
eral licenses were not prima facie evidence Of
violation OF the liquor laws this week reversed
himself. He now takes the position that every
other decent Judge in the State takes. and he
has instructed the grand jury to indict.
In Memphis. as everywhere else. the liquor
traffic has outdone itself. The breweries have
set up saloons all over the city. They run them
at all hours and with no restraint The sound
OF cash register is music for the owners. The
liquor octopus has Memphis by the throat.
u ID last Lhere Is Il Cndnge,
We believe a stronger moral sentiment is grow
ing IN Memphis. So 1t did in Nashville where
eleven thousand citizens signed petitions against
q mayor who would not enforce the law. In
Chattanooga the sentiment has backed up a fear
less Judge, and conditions are greatly improved,
The lawlessness that grows out OF such con-
ditions as exist in Memphis leads to riots and
anarchy.
Atlanta had it's lesson in the Decatur street
riot growing out OF the unspeakable condition
in the dens in the negro section.
The saloon doesn't pay. 1t is the heaviest
tax we have.
Editor Mooney is beginning to see Il. He Ia
now g prohibitionist fer Sundays. Some day he
will extend his time.
He finds that the traffic cannot be compromised
with. He will follow the course of most Of tho
other editors Of the State. because In Memphis we
merely have in exaggerated form what all other
cities Of the State have gone through with, till
they ~turned on the liquor traffic and suppressed
No doubt some day a legal method Of selling
liquors for medicinal or home use will be found.
But the state has had its lesson as to saloons
and saloons must not be allowed to exist
Knoxville Sentinel.
The Court Reverses Itself.
Justice Harlan charges that In reaching its con-
clusloTl in the case Of the Standard Oil, our SUI
prefne court has given q Hat reversal OF two IRE
vfous decisions and that to do so 1t has in
lected into a statute language not put into 1t by
legislative enactment but expressly denied place
in it. We are not criticising the decision. but
we are considering as q matter OF the gravest
Importance the criticism Of Justice Harlan. be-
cause only on some such superstition can we an
pTtClhte Inc OPINIONS reached by several succaS-
sive attorneys general-opinfons first contro-
verted from the department of the judiciary by
Mr.. Boneparte. In view Of the final endorsement
or the Bonaparte view by the court. we are not
bound to conclude that as a lawyer Mr.. Bona
parte has not been appreciated at his proper
value and that we must now reverse ourselves
as the court has done and hail him as greatly
the superior of half a dozen lawyers heretofore
held TO be imrneasurahly, his saperiors in legal
lore.
Taking the opinion of the court in connection
with the criticisms OF Justice Harlan, we are
compelled to see that the law as written could
not be enforced. as Mr.. Olney declared. except at
serious peril to the business of the country. TO
escape this conclusion. Mr.. Roosevelt said that
we had good as we'll as bad trusts and the law
should be applied only to the bad: Mr.. Roosevelt
proposed that as Steward of the Public Welfar e
the president should be empowered TO discrtmi-
nate between the sheep and the goats, Another
solution of the difficulty is found, saws Justice.
Harlan. in the courts assumption of authority
to take a reasonable view Of the law as writ
ten and the consequences are thus depicted:
The supreme court In several OF its decisions
has declined to read into the statute the word
unreasonable" before restraint of trade" on the
ground that the statute applies to all restraints
and does not intend to give the court the dis
erection to determine what is a reasonable re-
straint Of trade.
Jefferson charged that Justice Marshall as
surned the right In giving interpretations of the
law to pervert plain language to Interior views
the danger has often been proclaimed as the
weakening OF the links all down the chain which
binds us together. Formerly the supreme court
has often resisted popular demands and insisted
upon constituting the law lterally-for the first
time In our history has the court openly declared
for a policy" in It's decisions.
II the law were such that it could not be en-
forced, what should follow? Not that it should
be adapted to particular uses- by the court,
many. but that the legislative branch OF the gov
that one or some should be made to suffer for
many. but that the legislative branch of thegov-
eminent take better heed Of what 1t does. The
attorney general is right in demanding that every
statute be enforced, but 1t is not for the court
to declare that since the law as written cannot
be applied, therefore congress must have meant
somthing quite different from the legitimate
meaning carried by the words it uses.
President Roosevelt declared that the court
could be compelled to accept his views by "legisla-
ton and construction" the most obvious method
Of influencing the court is to supply vacan-
cies by the appointment Of lawyers holding the
views whose enforcement is desired. m Since the
court has now reversed itself" so notably can
we forget that many vacancies have been lately
/ Rlled aad that Justice Harlan lis a. survival or the
olden time ?-Florida T~imes-Union.
Spring In Maine.
Mrs. Hattie Hoyt, of Phillips, took some dirt
from her flower garden last fell and kept 1t IN
the cellar until last week, when she took II TO
her sitting room and planted flower seeds. 1t
was not long before grasshoppers, began to
crawl out of the earth and jump around over