, 1921-09-13

every citizen to be secure in his home and person
against unreasonable searches and seizures
The bootlegger's tender solicitude for the ssnctity
Of the home and its preservation from the so-calied
depredations by officers Of the law is truly Astonish-
ing to those who recall before the law was passed the
baleful influence of these same bootlegeer-then open
saloonists-over every family circle in the land. There
was not a home that wholly escaped its debasing md
destroying force; it crossed every threshold even more
cruelty than the deep shadow Of death; every prison
was crowded with its victims; every galiows was the
altar of its sacrifices; every ruined household the scene
of its tragedies. On every street corner it could pre-
ernpt by rentals that decent business could not afford,
this degrading influence waylaid men and women with
is Family Entrance" lure, robbing them of their
senses and their self-respeet as well as Of their money.
II 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
at is this influence that is now filing the columns
Of newspapers and debates in congress with absurd
tiles about the violation of the fourth amendment in
the enforcement of a law that stiles its nefarious call
ing. Citizens, they brazenly declare, are no longer
sack homes at will, stop and search innocent automo-
bile parties, aecost citizens on the public highways and
insist upon searching them for liquori
"Who knows of any home that has been so in
vaded? Who knows of any citizen who has been so
held up? And if here and there some persons knows
of one or two or three instances in which overzealous
officers have trespasseG, let your mind run hack to
the not distant time when all about you we've scores
Of homes and families whom you knew were brought
to ruin by the saloon; recall the Mondays when the
police courts were crowded with Sunday drunkards,
when every resort to Hhich you brought your family
for an outing was made impossible by the presence Of
drunken 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 highest phase of that hor-
ribe past and contrast it with the worst that can be
charged against law-enforcing officers; then, in the
quiet of your own conscience, ask yourself where you
stand as between the two.
There never was such hypocrisy as this cry from
the saloonists to protect 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 in control
of legislatures and congress; when they arrogantly
dictated to governors, senators and mayors whether
they would or would not be kept in Office; when de-
cent citizens kept far from the saloonist's corner be-
cause he feared a knife in the back or a pistol shot
from the dark.
"The men who until the anti-liquor 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 violated
that their homes are in peril Of the law. Here and
there senators and congressman are used as stage
dressing in this last desperate effort to drive a wedge
in the nti-liquor-selling law; but back of those
dummy figures stand the real sponsors of the move
ment-the saloonists."