The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-08-23


 I7f1HE question whether man is l II capable of elf-governIncnt
 has yet to be decided. We are 1 often told that in wise dictatorship we may look for the best government But wise dictatorship has rarely 1 existed and can never be assured, nor It's tenure. if it should be, so that after centuries of misgovernment of I the world inclines toward what is called republican.
 I find in a recent issue of the World an editorial screed entitled, "A Nation of Children" This takes for It's text certain condition in Wiscon- sin and Kansas attending legislative statutes enacted by those states, each of which should be entitled, An Act to Make the People Good by Law" Thus says the Oracle of the Golden Dome:
 Kansas has suffered It's first | wholesome cigarette raid under tho | cigarette prohibition law. In Wiscon- sin a. state law abolishing bars pro- I vides that even tho purchasers of non alcoholic drinks must stand far enough away from the counter so that they can neither raise foot to the rail nor set down tieir glasses. | This Is one days news, but every nther m Q fCheq if with n q of useless and tyrannical govern. l mental interference with individual morals. When 1t isn't the over-offi- cious beach censor it is the film cen- sor, the suppressor of books, the raider of private dwellings. the in-, spector of baggage or the advocate of blue Sunday. Throughout all these activities runs a single creed--the be- lief of fanatics that the pursuit of happiness Is vicious and that personal liberty endangers the state"
 This is true enough. as 50 is the following:
 No other country except Russia has put up with so much bounding from petty officials acting under pet. | Jaws as has the United States. It | is doubtful if even Russian citizens under the bolshevik bureaucracy have so little freedom of action In social matters as Is left to the citizens of this independent republic. The na- tion is chaperoned by purity leagues | v ian icfu There Is not legislative body in the country that hxes up to the puritan ical laws it passes. Prohibition and the legislation that follows ;n its train comprise one gigantic and offensive fraud. But the peopleso of the United States take it all sittinx down. their rebellion goes no further than grum-
 bling. Unless they decide quickly that the liberty their fAthers had is worth a struggle they VII. have none. They will live, and pernaps tacy will like it. as children under dictator ship of the rigidly righteous"
 Are we "a nation of children" or are we a nation of hpocvrites: Or are we simple victims of the 'cussed- ness we call "lifA2. Or hay 1t not be that our world, having reached the apex of humen achievement. is veering toward the collapse that over-. took the Jewish world, the Greek | world and the Roman world?
 In nothing more has modern inven- tion surpassed itself than Tn the creation of destructives. Through the agency of these London and Paris yea, New York-misht be put out of commission in single night. The ancient weapons carried q limitation. There Is none upon dynamite, little if any ulpon, the carrying airship.
 The war between the north and south was not q civil war. It was a war of sections. Europe is already ;n chaos. Set on by class hatred Community against community, neigh Dor against neishbor--how long, with these destructive agencies, would be
 required to convert America into d desert waste?
 Prohibitionism-exce as to crime lis a combine of ignorance and
 greed. The honest prohibitionist we
 may dismiss as an intolerant fool.
 The professional rolitician of varying degrees of corruption. being out for votes, will get them how he may. In I suffering the fanatic and the dema-
 sogue to go as far as they have gone 1 the average citizen through his indif-
 ference has shown himself unedua' io Il the duties Of self -Sovsrnment. as sil as unfit for It's blessings.
 sl The conditions which the Neril