New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-19
The Prohibition Amendment

The ETOnlDlIlOn
The submission by Congress Of a prohi-
bition amendment to the Constitution tes-
tifes TO revolutionary change in public
sentiment 1t would have been visionary
to expect such action by the two houses
five years ago, or even two years ago. In
fact, a prohibition amendment was re-
iected in the House of Representatives on
December %, 1914, by vote of 1877 for
it to 100 against it. And on the affirma-
tive side on that occasion were many
statesmen who, knowing that the amend
ment would fail, went on record in favor
of it only as a matter Of window dressing.
Such was the attitude Of the House
three years ago, and it undoubtedly re-
fiected the sentiment of the country at
that time Our point of view has changed
enormously since 1914. The obvious eX-
PLANTATION of the change is the pressure OF
war conditions. War efficiency and the
liquor traffic have been treated in all bel
ligerent countries as irreconcilable enc
mics. Every military administrator rec
ognizes this. Congress recognized it when
it inserted in the selective CONSUMPTION
law a provision forbidding the sale of
alcoholic liquors to soldiers and sailors.
And when Congress went that far it adj
mitted the logic of attempting to check or
abolish the use Of intoxicating liquors in
every other field of war effort, in the in
dustrial sphere as well as in the fighting
zones and the training camps.
The necessities of war made the sub
mission of a prohibition amendment pos
gible. That was because war had accent
uated the military and economic handicap
of the liquor traffic as no other condition
could have accentuated it. And the pa
triotic feeling aroused by war has made
the non-military part of the popula-
tion-that least affected by the dilution
of eficency-more willing to sacrifice per-
sonal freedom to the effort to develop the
fullest measure Of national energy.
The oldtime Prohibitionists made their
fight on moral grounds They pleaded for
a stoppage of the sale of liquors because
it degraded the individual morally and So
cially. The country gave little heed to
their propaganda. People generally are
much less interested in moral values than
they are in economic values. And it was
only when they began to discover the eco
monte waste involved in non-restriction of
the liquor traffic that they turned to the
idea of eliminating that waste with some
thing like cold-blooded organization and
purpose.
The Southern people were certainly not
moved to make their section dry by the
moral feTvor of the early Prohibitionists.
They saw the economic necessity of pro-
tecting their laboring class from democrat
ization, and to accomplish that end they
were willing to waive theories of indi-
vidual and personal freedom which for
generations had gone hand in hand with
Jeffersonianism in the older South.
1t is pathetic to hear our neighbor "The
World" declaring that prohibition has now
been forced on the North by the South,
and saying that "this means, as sla-
very and secession did, the disruption of
the Democratic party" The South alone
could not force prohibition on the rest of
the country. Nor can the small states
force prohibition on the more populous
states. For the big, populous states have
much more than one-third representation
in the lower branch Of Congress, and with
out their assent, at least in part, the
amendment approved on Monday could
never have received two-thirds majority.
The sentiment behind the amendment is
not partisan or sectional or even political
in the ordinary sense. 1t certainly cares
nothing whether the present Democratic
party is disrupted or not by division on
what seems TO it an economic measure,
brought TO the front by the developments
Of the war. The electorate in this state
has just been doubled in size. The new
increment has its own ideas about prohibit
ton, and those ideas, it is safe to say, have
no relation TO the possible precipitation
Of another schism In the Democratic party.
Old ideas are being sloughed off. The
community theory is trenching every day
upon old-fashioned individualism. The
energence Of prohibition In the form Of Q