The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-06-10
PROHIBITION UPHELD.
And Generation of 1t Will Establish
1t in Favor. "

That the United States supreme
court would sustain the 18th amend
ment to the federal constitution was
never in real doubt. The legal theory
developed for the occasion by the
''wets" that the constitution could new
er be amended at certain hallowed
points where the police powers of the
states might be affected was too fan
tastic to impress the court seriously.
The whole doctrine of "an uneonstitu-
tionsl constitutional amendment,
which the opponents of the 18th
amendment contended for, has as much
foundation as the doctrine of an un-
constitutional constitution. The peo-
pie can make an entirely new consti-
tuition, ii they want one, by perfectly
constitutional methods; and they can
make over the old one by the amend
ment process, as it pleases them to.
In unanimously sustaining this
sound principle the court has per-
formed an enormous service to the
constitutional republic and as we'll to
the cause of true conservatism in gov
eminent. The opposing principle, which
the court has fortunately condemned,
would in part at least have trans
formed our constitution into a rigid
system of law beyond the power of
any generation to change, and govern
meHt by the dead hand would have
been established beyond the hope of
rs modification by constitutional
means.
II is impossible to imagine anything
in governmental system more provoe-
ative than that of revolutionary vio-
lence, especially among people who
have always lived under the inspira.
ton of the democratic creed that their
government was elastic and free
enough to respond to the changing
needs and ideals of each successive
generation. We now, happily, can al
ways proclaim the fact that our fed
eral government can be altered by
the regularly prescribed constitutional
method in accordance with the public
demand, and that consequently revoln-
tions and coup d'etats TO please short
cut reformers or restless and adven-
turous radicals are inexcusable attacks
on American institutions.
More in doubt was the courts in
depreciation Of the concurrent power"
clause of the 18th amendment. II il
fortunate for the practical success of
national prohibition that the court has
fully upheld the Volstead act The
federal law is supreme whenever a
state law conflicts with tan old es-
tablshed principle-and efforts by any
states TO make lawful a trade in bev-
erages having higher alcoholic con
tent than the content fixed by the fed
eral act must hereafter stand con
demned.
But this Interpretation still leaves
90 the states concurrent power TO en-
force the 18th amendment. Their duty,
however, is TO enforce prohibition on
the basis of the definition of ''intoxi-
eating established BY Congress. n
the majority sentiment Of the people
in this country fayors a legal defini-
ton permitting a higher alcoholic con
tent than one-half of one per cent in
Notwithstanding drink, the people
can secure from Congress an amend
ment to the NOlstead act Congress
i obviously the legislative BODY 20
appeal to. II notifications in prohibi-
tion are deemed reasonable or Just.
The real test Of national prohibition
must come now that these confusing
legal questions have been swept away
and the relative powers Of the fed
tral and the state governments have
been clearly defined The Only ques-
ton left i one of simple Law enforce
ncnt. The prohibition forces have all
the law they could possibly ssk for;
there remains the task Of reconciling