Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-22
7 Wenty Years Needed to
Reach Mature Judgment
on Value of Prohibition
Law, Is Opinion 4
BY DAVID LAWRENCE

BY DAVID LAWRENCE
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal.)
Copyright, 1921
(This is the first of a series Of several
| dispatches written after an exhaustive
study of the prohibition question in
which President Harding, Prohibition Com
missioner Roy Haynes, Assistant Attorney
of the Anti-Saloon league, Capt. w. H.
| Stayton, of the national association OPP
posed to prohibition, and other leaders
submitted to private interviews with the
! writer and gave their candid opinions on
law enforcement and the outlook)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20. - To
many people in the United States
prohibition is a novelty, something
new, something suddenly imposed.
But it isn't. The libraries are full
of books, pamphlets, speeches, legal
records of prosecutions and stats
tics all the way back to 1927. All
kinds of prohibitory laws from local
option to licensing of saloons and
drug stores have been put on the
/ statute books of the various states
of the American union for nearly
| century.
You can talk to the leaders of both
sides today, and both groups will
| insist that, before you make up your
mind whether prohibition is a good
thing or bad thing, the experience
of the past should be carefully eX-
amincd.
AS for conclusions, the wet will
argue that the record shows prohibit
| ton cannot be enforced, and makes
for a gradual diminution in public
respect FIR law and the oath of pub
| lie officials.
Conversely, tho dry will say
that when vol have read all that has
| hammered on the subject in the last
fifty years you will be convinced
| that the movement has b" 81" from
! the outset the inspiration of the best
citi7enry of the nation, and that the
varied forms of restriction imposed
bv the states did not always permit
of real enforcement because the
power of the federal government
was lacking. and that everything
which occurred before 1920 was only
an argument for the need of an
amendment to the federal constltu-
ton.
The Actual Situation
So the writer will concentrate, not
on the moot question of the past,
| DuL OIL Tie dClud1 S1IOtIC1OlA GO%SNJ >
now that a liquor amendment is in
the federal constitution and an en-
! forcement law is on the federal
statute books,
To get at the facts he sought the
aid of both sides in the hope that
| the information obtained might en-
able the reader to form his own con-
illusions. For the object of this Sc
ries is not to champion either the
viewpoint of the extreme prohlbl'
ZIONIST. who doesn't even like to dis
cuss the hypothetical circumstances
under which light wines and beer
! might be made an exception to the
constitution and law, or the view
noint of the "wet" who makes no
distinction between one kind Of in
toxicant or another, and says the
whole thing is an invasion of the
personal liberty of the individual
who knows how to drink with mode
ration.
The question Of prohibition en-
forcement itself, however, really
doesn't have two sides to it. Even
the National Association Opposed to
Prohibition comedies that the Vol
stead law and the federal amend
ment should be obeyed as long as
thew are in effect. This association
has it's doubts whether the law can
he enforced and their arguments
will be set forth subsequently, but the
controversy over the repeal of the
amendment is separate and distinct
from the question OF Whether pro-
hibition can really be made etfec-
tive.
The first thing the prohibitionist
draws. to your attention IS that be.
fore 1920. two-thirds Of the United
States was dry, that is, dry laws
were on the statute books of more
than thirty states in which two
thirds Of the American people lived
He will admit that enforcement IN
those states was not all that could
have been desired but he will argue
that prohibition can be made to work
and that it has long since ceased to
be a matter of public controversy IN
most of the original dry states.
IT is important to remember this
group of dry states because, When-
ever the subject of modification
comes up, the prohibition advocate
shrues his shoulders and gives an
impression of utter hopelessness-he
saws the original dry states are nu-
merous enough to Drevent>change.
Committee Report
|. However that may be, it is inter
esting, in getting ones bearings on
the prohibition problem, to go back
to the report of the famous com
mittee of fifty, on which men like
Charles w. Eliot, Seth Low, DR..
Felix Adler, Dr. Washington Glad
den and others served from 1898 to
1897, and read this extract:
'"Prohib!tion legislation has sue
ceeded in abolishing and preventing
the manufacture on a large scale of
distilled and malt liquors within the
areas covered by it. In districts
where public sentiment has been
strongly in its favor, i has made
it hard to obtain intoxic9nts, there
by removing temptation from the
young and from persons disposed to