The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1920-01-19
THE REIGN Of LAW

THE REIGN Of LAW
---eGentinset from Page -oHea -
history down to the I. w w. IN the
United States.
Representatives Of the national gov
eminent have asked the churches to
devote this service to intoxicating the
principles of law enforcement Evil
IDENTIFY there is urgent need or such re-
quest would not be made, Certainly
! the churches should comply. for they
I are the conservators of morals and OF
order. They are In real sense the
atoms reservoirs. supplying strength
and character.
| On Friday, January Is. at midnight,
| the eighteenth amendment to the con-
! stitutioh OF the United States went into
I effect II sounded the death .k nell of
! political bully. moral coward.
! 81 ameless profiteer: it is natural that
! his friends and relatives should Vow
revenge. They are saying:
! What though the field be lost
All is not lost: TIL unconquerablA VIII,
| And study of revenge. immortal hate,
z And courage never to submit or yield
; Again. the temper of the times gives
i announcement to the en- e II m
| friends of John Rarieycorn, Europe Is
Iafame with anarchy. Law lessness is
rampant in sections of America The
/ liquor crowd is swept along, by the
! winds that blow from Russia and be-
come Bolshevists. ere they know il.
Once more thousands of the liquor
dealers. of foreign birth. are. not accli-
mated in America and are true 70 their
nature in their efforts to defy or. nnl :
!. q NC LOT a al xayf, ri a
tc escape oppression. but they would
hind on us an intolerabie iron yoke Of
fiawlessness. They are unframed in
self government and many are UNIT.
! They compose in part America list
lof undesirable citiZeus"
/ Genuine Americans should be mind
full of the rock whence they sprung.
Ours is the largest and most successful
experiment in free government known
to history The trainers of our con-
stitution were wise above their pre-
decessors; they builded better than
they knew, Under the cementing ties
and wholesale restraints of the consti-
tuition we have grown to be large.
strong. influential and great The con-
stttution is the Palladium of our lib
eTty-
Article I the constitution provides
how Ii may he amended There are
two. and only two, ways. An amend
ment may. be initiated either, upon the
application of the legislatures of two
thirds of the several states to congress
! to call Il convention for proposing
amendments: or. whenever two-thirda
of both houses of the congress shall
deem it necessary they shall propose
amendments.
/ An amendment may be ratified either
by conventions in three-fourthS of the
several states or by the legisist lures of
R<~,,r re tbn Aasa 10
1.-The one or the other mode of ratifca-
ton may be proposed by the congress,
| The uniform method has been for the
congress to propose and the legislatures
to ratify, This was the way with the
prohibition amendment. 1t was done
Iaa the constitution prescribed and every
good citizen should accent it as his law
and insist upon it's enforcement.
4 hard TO AMEND.
4 1t is not easy to amend the federal
constitution. Since 1889. il has been
mended only eighteen times and ten
OF those amendments were ratified two
years after the constitution was adopt .
ed and for the purpose of perfecting
the new document For a period of
, sixty years there was no amendment.
So that, not only was the eigh-
teenth proposed and ratified in the
: manner prescribed, but the fact
that it was ratified, and by forty
I'VE ont of forty-eight states, in
dicates that an overwhelming ma
: jority of the American people ia
vored it. No other question in
volved in amendment was ever
so thoroughly discussed by the peo-
/ ple--not even slavery.
For seventy years prohibition has
been discussed pro and con, in the
pulpit, the press, on the hustIgs, on
] trains. on the highways, in hotels
st homes schools and
niversities--everywh and by every
r hody--untii in the bounds of our vast
domain there is not 81. voter, and
, scarcely not a child, that has not heard
, of this question and formed an opinion
, King Alcohol was indicted according
ito law upon a criminal charge. He was
represented by the ablest counsel
money could employ. He secured con-
tnuances of his trial times without
number. AT last the case was set for
trial. He did not lack witnesses. No
tachnicality of the law was overlooked.
: / In his defense. The jury of the Amer
lean people having heard the law and
the evidence and the argument. rem
ecred their verdict: Guilty" according
sA$fvfhe Ind tctnaspaA and punishable with
death"
Therefore gang of 1awless fellows
attempted to break down the prison and
rescue the condemned criminal. Being
foiied in their desperate attack, they
are now trying to exhume and resds-
citate his corrupt corpse.
The same people who said He must
die" say You shall not open that
= grave; aye. many good men who did
not agree with the verdict but who do
believe in the orderly process of gov
eminent, in the enforcement Of law
and the preservation Of order, now
Bay. 'Dislnter not those diseased
bones"
A few law-abiding bat undiscrimi-