New-York tribune., 1918-04-17
Accost the Demon

amcnOInenC is elIIleI IdoiiieO VI A0J0N"oA
The Legislature that has just ad-
iourned had not the courage to do either.
A new Legislature will have to face the
question again next January. Mean
while it is desirable that public opinion
or must we say feeling ng?-should express
itself as coherently as possible.
Neither wetness nor dryness Will win
the war. But in bitter, long protracted
prohibition controversy there might be
wasted enough public energy to build
span in the bridge to France. Therefore,
the sooner the Federal amendment can
be intelligently disposed Of, in this state
and in the country, the better.
The Tribunes policy is already we'll
known.
1t excludes the advertising of wines,
beers and liquors.
The reason for excluding such advertis-
ing is the conviction that good business
and alcohol are incompatible.
On business principles, therefore, The
Tribune is for absolute prohibition.
That would be enough to say if it were
a business question only. But it has
many other aspects, emotional, political
and scientific. Indeed, the controversy is
so ramified in every department of
knowledge, opinion and tradition that it
is unbounded except by the limits of
human experience.
We prefer for the present to waive the
vanity of disclosing our own emotional
reactions. They are irrelevant.
+. But on some other aspects of the ques-
ton we have been taking thought.
Absolute prohibition of all alcoholic
beverages would be such an adventure in
human restraint as has never been at
tempted in the modern world save in
Russia, whence no data of any use may be
derived, as both the practice and the con-
sequences of prohibition have been lost
in chaos.
No good can be achieved without the
payment of some price. We mean by this
not money price, but the moral social
and economic price which society in gen.
eral has always to pay. Nobody yet
knows what the price of prohibition
would be, nor how it would have to be
paid, nor by whom the most. There is
no experience to go on, because no people
before have ever purchased wholesale
and absolute release from alcohol.
In view Of the radical nature of the
experiment proposed and the absence of
any data of consequence, it is natural
that conservative people should say:
"Let US consider the cost. We have seven
years in which to ratify the Federal
amendment. Why the haste?"
1t is inevitable, on the other side, that
the emotional prohibtionists should say:
Never mind the price. 1t will be cheap
at any price. Besides, there is no price
except to the wicked and corrupt The
plea for delay is subterfuge."
The rightness of cause is not suf
ficient excuse for intolerance. Virtue, to
its own disadvantage, is often more in
tolerant than vice. The wicked NAV be
all on the side of the saloon, but it does
hot follow that all who oppose the ratifi-
cation of the Federal amendment, or pro-
hibition in principle, are given to wick
edness.
One may be opposed to the Federal
amendment, or to the impulsive ratifica-
tion of it, or to prohibition itself, for
proper reasons.
There has never been a vote on utter
prohibition in this state; and to insist
upon referendum before the Federal
amendment is ratified by the Legislature
was not to put ones self beyond the pale
OF decency. We say this in fairness.
The possibility Of imposing absolute
prohibition upon nation of 100000, 900
people by Constitutional amendment has
come upon US suddenly. Nobody serious
ly thought of it two years ago. What
was abstract now is concrete. Perspec-
tives have been altered by the imminence
Of change the consequences of which
must be farreaching and perhaps irrev-
ocable.
Az to the scientific aspects, The Trib-
tne's attitude is one of open and un-
biassed curiosity. The psychologist par
ticularly deserves to be heard lie has
Uncovered some new and unexpected rca-
sons for the hold of alcohol upon the race.
The Tribune, as was said in the be-
ginning, iz for prohibition on business
principles. But, besides having opinions,
II has a journalistic function.
Ecver before was there greater need
for forum in which the whole question
Of prohibition may be Illuminated. The
Tribune purposes To have in it's columns
forum for that purpose. 1t will begin next
Sunday. Contributions are invited from.