The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-01-31
A REVOLUTION.
(From New York World.)


 After 12 o'clock tonight the Gov ernment of the United States as es- tablished by the Constitution and maintained for nearly 131 years Will sease to exist.
 In its place will be established new Government, under which the historic relations between the Fed eral authority and the several states and the historic relations between the Federal authority and the 1ndlVldual citizens are revoiutionized. The fun damenta1 principle upon which the Republic was established and the theory of popular government held by it's founders have been destroyed by the Eighteenth Amendment.
 Upon this new Government which will come into existance tonight and under which we shall be living to- morrow there has been conferred the most despotic powers to be found in any civilized community, unless we are to regard Bolsnevist Russia as civilized.
 Police powers hitherto distributed among forty-eight States are taken over by Federal authorities, which at the same time will proceed to regu- late the personal habits, customs and recreations of the individual citizen The housewife who permits jar Of fruit-juice to ferment until it's alco- holic contents exceeds one-haf o1 1 per cent. will be liable to arrest and Imprisonment as a criminal. The citizen who carries a glass of brandy to an unfortunate fellow-citizen who lies unconscious in the street will likewise be liable to arrest and inn prisonment He too will be crimi- nal. The citizen who ventures to re- move a bottle of beer from one habit ation to another without first obtain ing the written permission of the new United States Government is likewise criminal. Should the offender hap pen to be an alien resident, whatever his status, he will be subject to de- portation for this violation of the Constitution and the law of the land. Together with this assumption of sovereign power over the personal habits of the citizen there comes a new doctrine of property which is recognized nowhere else except in the Russia of Lenine and Trotzky It was the doctrine of the old Constitu- ton that no person should be de prived of life, liberty or property without due process of the law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensa- tion," It is the doctrine of the new Constitution that property may be confiscated and destroyed whenever a sufficient majority of Congress and a sufficient majority of the State Leg islatures decide that it shall be given It is enough to say that confiscation and destruction are a manifestation of moral forces and no vote of the moral or immoral forces need be al- lowed.
 Beginning at midnight we shall be living under a Government about which the people Of the United States have had nothing to say, a Govern ment created by omce-holders for office holders, a Government that has never known a ballot box or a refer endum and that can be perpetually maintained by the legislative majori- ties of thirteen of the smallest and most insignificant States of the un- ion.
 Nothing like this has hitherto been known in the history of human free dom. Such centralization of power over the lives and habits of the in dividual has never before been real ized outside of the boundaries of Rus sia. What the ultimate effect of this revolution will be upon the Unit ca states we do not pretenu 10 say No man is wise enough to foresee all the ramifcations of this new sys- tenn that has been decreed or to es- timate it's ultimate consequences in relation to free institutions. But rev. oIution it is, and only in terms of revolution can it be inteligenty be discussed.
 What we know definitely today is, and all that we know definitely today Is, that the fundamental principle of l the Government of the United States as defined and established by the | Fathers of the Republic has been overthrown by the Eighteenth l Amendment and at midnight will \ have been obliterated.