Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1918-12-23
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Test for Nationwide Prohibition.

New York, Dec. 14.-To the Editor
of The Bee: In the existing ccndi-
ton of national legislation, includ-
ing In that expression the executive
orders which such legislation has
authorized and which, pursuant
thereto, have been made, argument
Of the strongest has been provided
why the legislatures which assemble
in 1919 should stay their hands on
the subject of the federal prohibition
amendment and await the results Of
the laws now, or soon to be put IN
force. These results will De ire
mendously informing. No leglsla-
ture can act at its coming session
with any 1.-THE Of the knowledge that
will avail to it within the next two
years. 1t Is always easier to do a
thing than to undo it. Federal pro-
hibition will be hard to repeal and
state prohibition has been so often
repealed as to afford abundant
proof that laws taking from people
their rights are unsteady laws, laws
that provoke restlessness, trouble,
prejudice and, when they are really
difficult to get rid of, revolution.
Thirteen states have at one time
or another adopted prohibition and
have later changed their minds and
repealed the law. These are Ala
bama, Connecticut, Delaware. ILL
nois, Maryland, Massachusetts
(twice) Michigan, Nebraska. New
Hampshire, Ohio. Rhode Island
(twce). South Dakota and Yer
mont, states so widely distributed
over the country as to prove that the
will to repeal relates not to section
nor industrial occupation nor to city
or mountain or plain.
Already the manufacture Of spir-
ituous, vinous and malt beverages is
forbidden. Already the dstillery and
the brewery are outlawed, their capt.
tai sacrificed, their business do
stroyed, their employees thrown out,
and the industries on which they
drew for raw material shorn of their
market. On July l, 1919, it becomes
crime, punishable by a years i'm
prisonment and heavy fine, for any
person to sell to another any alco-
holic beverage in any quantity from
a drop to hogshead. Long before
that time the supply of beer will be
been consumed or exported. The
supply of western wines, If any then
remains, will have become a total
loss.
And, until the war Is officially
over and our armies demobilized
(the date of their rehabilitation to
be announced by the president)
there will exist throughout this
country absolute prohibition. 1t is
entirely within the discretion of the
president to say when the war is
over. 1t is equally within his dis
erection to say when rehabilitation
has ended.
So, we are inevitably bound to
have a considerable period of ma
tionwide prohibition-and without
the federal amendment 1t would
be the exercise of the merest COM
mon sense for our legislatures, be-
fore acting on the federal amend
ment, to seek the instruction that
they will so certainly obtain from
the experiment in nation wide dry
ness that these present laws have
imposed. They can then see by ac
tual operation what prohibition
costs and what 1t comes to. They
can then act with full knowledge of
what they are doing-and they have
six years from now within which to
act.
Is 1t too much to say that, when
a man is called upon to render a de-
cision that he knows must be mo-
mentous. the full effect of which
by no possibility can he presently
determine, when he or the man in
succession to him for the purpose of
rendering this decision has six
whole years within which to consider
and act, and when the opportunity
is presented to him to ascertain by q
preliminary experiment, an exact,
complete, sufficient experiment, pre-
cisely what his decision will in
volve in consequence that he knews
will profoundly affect capital, in
dustry. public resources and per-
sonal rights, is it too much to say
that nothing will prevent him as a
reasonable man, from taking to him
self, or to his successor in duty, the
benefit of all the information that
this experiment will bring. unless it
be, a timidity that is contemplate
or prejudice that is vicious?
JOHN Nee. BOWMAN.