The Port Gibson reveille., 1921-09-15
"sANCTITY OF THE HOME
The New York Mail Gives Facts
Which Are Quite Interesting.

UhiSH ere Quile interesting.
mo rogue e'er felt the halter draw
with good opinion Of the law. In the
same sense all bootleggers and many
who unwittingly sympathize with
their practices are united Just now in
q chorus of denunciation Of the anti
liquor selling law because of the op-
portunity it offers for violation Of the
fourth amendment to the federal con-
stltution, which guarantees the right
OF every citizen to be secure in his
home and person against unreason-
able searches and seizures.
The bootlegger's tender solicitude
for the sanctity Of the home and its
preservation from the so-called depre-
dations by officers of the law is truly
astonishing to those who recall before
the law was passed the baleful infiu-
ence of these same bootleggers- then
open saloonists--over every family
circle in the land. There was not a
home that wholly escaped its debas-
ing and destroying force; it CLOSED
every threshold even more cruelty
than the deep shadow of death; every
prison was crowded with it's victims;
every gallows was the altar of its
sacrifices; every ruined household the
scene Of its tragedies. On every
street corner it could pre-empt by
rentals that decent business could not
afford, this degrading influence way
lald men and women with its Family
Entrance" lure, robbing them Of their
senses and their self-respect as well
as Of their money. 1t made every
street corner the breeding place and
refuge Of thieves; far and away the
foulest blot on civilization, for it
tainted everything it touched.
1t is this influence that is now fill
ing the columns Of newspapers and
debates in Congress with absurdities
about thte violation Of the fourth
law that STILES tits nefarious calling.
Citizens, they brazely declare, are no
longer secure in their home! Off
GERS of the law may ransaclx homes
at will, stop and search innocent au-
tomobile parties, accost citizens on
the public highway and insist upon
searching them for liquor.
Who knows Of any home that has
been envaded? !? Who knows Of any
citizen who has been held up? And
if here and there some ersor knows
Of one or two or three instances IN
which oyerzealous officers have tres
passed, let your mind run back to the
not distant time when all about you
We're scores of homes and families
whom you knew were broughA TO ruin
by the saloon; recall the MONDAYS
when the police courts were crowded
with Sunday drunkards. when every
resort to which YOU brought your
family for an OUTING was made inn
possible by the presenc Of drunden
men and women.
Recall that picture of the recent
past, recall all that you personally
know Of the tragedies of the liquor
selling days; take the lightest phase
Of that horrible mast and contrast it
with the worst tha can be charged
agains law-enforcing officers; then,
in the quiet of your own conscience,
ask yourself where you stand as be-
tween the two.
There never was such hypocricy as
this cry from the saloonists TO pro-
tect the rights of citizens in their
homes from unwarranted search and
seizure. These new-found advocates
of the constitution never knew law
or morals in the days when they were
III tOAlbA0A VI tSE tnAdbtlto tltlu AfRlA~
gress; when they arrogantly dictated
to governors, senators and mayors
whether they would or would not be
kept in Office; when decent citizens
kept far back from the saloonist's cor
ner because he feared knife in the
back or a pistol shot from the dark
The men who until the antiliquor
selling law was enacted brought more
tragedies and sadder tragedies into
human life than all other influences
are the men who now seek to delude
unthinking people into fear that their
constitutional rights are being vio-
lated--that their homes are in peril
of the law. Here and there senator's
and congressman are used as stage
dressing in this last desperate effort
to drive wedge in the antiliquor
selling law; but back Of those dummy
figures stand the real sponsors Of the
movement-the saloonists.