Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-12-18
WHAT WILL GOVERNORS
DECIDE ABOUT LIQUOR?
If the President and the State Execu.
tives Consider the Promotion of Tenn.
perance They May Get Somewhere

perance They May Get Somewhere
SOMETHING may come out of the
~ prohibitory-law conference between
the President and the Governors today
if the conferees approach the considera-
tion of the subject from the point of
view Of realists
They know as all other well-informed
persons know that large amount of
liquor is being sold and drunk. They
know that it is on the tables at public
dinners attended by officials in Washing
ton and in every other considerable city
They know that it is served in the private
houses, not only of public officials sworn
to enforce the law, but of some leading
citizens of the great communities. They
know. too, that it is sold illicitly to any
one who wants it and has money enough
to pay the prices asked. And they cannot
be ignorant of the fact that men intrusted
with the enforcement of the lav; have
suddenly become rich through eontribu
tions from the Illicit dealers who buy
immunity from punishment.
And they are familiar enough with
the cassticatons Of the law to know
that the prohibitory statutes are. sump-
tuary laws intended to regulate the
habits of the people. They do not need to
be told that it has always been difficult to
enforce sumptuary laws, and that it is
especially difficult to enforce law which
suddenly makes a crime of that which
a considerable number of people have
been in the habit of regarding as an
innocent act.
If it had not long been generally
known, the course of events since the
passage Of the Volstead law must have
made it manifest to every one that large
numbers of people refuse to regard
themselves as criminals because they
continue a habit which the law has at
tempted to stop.
So. as Grover Cleveland said in con-
nection with another matter. the Presi-
dent and the Governors are confronted
by condition and not theory.
The advisablity of temperance is not
in dispute. But there are many citizens
who doubt whether the Government has
gone about it's promotion in the right
way. While many insist that it is a
moral question, every one admits that it
is also an economic question.
1t does not pay to be intemperate.
This fact was becoming increasingly
evident before the Eighteenth Amend
ment was adopted The man who wanted
to hold his job had to be temperate
The pressure Of competition forced it
upon him, whatever his inclinations
might be. There are thousands of men
in every large city who have given up
that if they wanted to get on they must
have their senses about them at all times.
1t would not have been many years be-
fore economic pressure would have
banished most Of the abuses growing
out of the use Of stmuants. But the
prohibitionists could not wait. They
wanted the thing to happen at once.
The Volstead law has not worked as it
vas hoped it would, and it has developed
a lot of abuses which every one must
regret. Whether it will work in the
course of time does not yet appear. But
when there are tens of thousands of law
breakers in every populous State and
when Illicit stills are turning out whisky
in all parts of the country, the possibility
of it's rigid enforcement at once is remote
indeed.
If the conference in Washington can
devote itself to the broader question of
the promotion Of temperance instead Of
the narrow question of ways Of enforcing
the existing law it may reach some con-
clusions that will commend themselves
to every one except extremists,