The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-04
REPEAL OF STATE LAWS

in days gone by
 REPEAL OF STATE LAWS | Another contention heretofore unmen- I toned is that for one year after the | 36 states have ratified the amendment all state laws relating to prohibition and l regulation will be repealed and there may 1 be unlimited sale and disposition of l liquor. MT. Johnston said it is a well established principle that when the gov
 ernment takes Jurisdiction of a certain 1 matter all rights of the states cease, and I that as the prohibition amendment pro- vides for one year during which there may be an adjustment to the change, there will be no state laws regulating the handling of liquor and no federal regulation either as the federal juris- diction will not be established until tht | end of one year.
 | He also insisted that the amendment | means prohibition for the poor man and | no prohibition for the rich. He said that as no mention is made of the keeping | or storage of liquors a rich man may 1 stack his cellars with liquor in expac- I tancy of the long drouth, while the poor man will be unable to prepare for the coming of those days. He insisted that l the amendment was in no way demo- | cratic.
 l MT Johnston quoted extensively from l speeches and writings of President Will son on the rights of states and showed | that the President, while governor ot | New Jersey, had insisted that an effort | to take away the rights of the states and place them under central author l ity was against the spirit of the times l Mr Johnston declared that no country in I the world has such provision as the prohibition amendment in its constitu- 1 tion, not even Prussia, and that Von Hertling and Won Jagow at the peace table will have a good argument in sup | port of Prussianistic methods if the states give the central government au- thority to handle the liquor question or any other question involving police reg ulations. CITES OTHER AMENDMENTS he brought out the fact that all other | amendments to the federal constitution do not seek to take away the powers of the people, He mentioned that the negro slave amendment did take away certain powers of the legislature, but no amend
 ment has ever taken away the power of the people to handle local affairs. "The ratification of the amendment stitutionai authority from the people" insisted MT Johnston. He contended that even the Irish people, who have been fighting for freedom for TOO years, in recent convention agreed that the power of the proposed Irish assembly should be second only to the power of the British Parliament, but that Parlia-
 ment should continue to be the supreme legislative power of Ireland.
 When President Wilson in his mes
 sage to Congress on May 27, said that politics is adjourned he referred in ex~ press terms to those legislators who had no consideration except for the national situation and the duty which it com pels. He did not refer to the parties responsible for the submission of the federal amendment.
 With them politics is never adjourned
 Because of their attitude which recog-
 nizes legislation on the liquor problem
 as paramount over every consideration
 of state or national action. as dominant over the great war measures at the
 special session. and as more worthy for
 the contributions and the political con- centration of the people than the pros- ecution of this war or the future destiny
 or the international relations of the
 whole world, we are compelled to go
 before the people and defend the consti- tuition through the only political pro-
 cesses which are available. make that
 apology for the necessity of this meet ing and for my participation in any
 function at this time which has no di- TSCb T6ldllOI lO lu6 NdI
 'The federal amendment has been ex-
 plotted as war measure. It Is war measure, just as the children bred by German soldiers on the bodies of Bel gian women are war babies-and has about the same relation to the winning of this war for America and her CO., belligerents. When we hear of the Teu- ton practices the soul of a Gree people urges us to greater sacrifoN and to a daanar ira fi0n and " those n us who still believe in the fundamentals of government proven by a century and half of American trial and experience see that system and the principle of self government for which American youths are being martyred on the west ern front, discredited and degraded by an amendment which convicts our civil ization of failure, our existing govern ment of incompetency and our people of maudlin weakness and degeneracy and calls up out of a forgotten past a feudal limitation upon popular freedali. then, indeed, does every democratic 6lpulse in us react against the thing ao ded
 icate us anew to the war of libeiNtion.
 IS NO WAR MEASURE
 I've must strip the sheep's skin from the political wolf. It is no war meas ure in the interest of American arms It is not even a measure that would pro- mote temperance during the period fol- lowing it's adoption. I propose to make those points clear
 ''The President has plenary power to stop the manufacture of beer or wine
 He has already stopped the making or spurious liquors. The Anti-Saloon league is now harassing him and holding mass meetings to embarrasS and criticize hin for not interdicting beer. Our own H. lustrious Hobson got in trouble in a pa- triotic Florida community by working up a sentiment of condemnation for the President.
 The Anti-Saloon league, through It's journals and other propaganda, is carry ing on that work, and the most active of all of their officials has issued for nal statement in which he uses these words: It is now known that President Wilson, who was not in favor of the sun-