The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-19

IS Stlll m the ring ana CndC lI IS yet CIe best hope for public benefit from the Muscle Shoals project.
 WEAKENING LAW ENFORCEMENT.
 The forces of public morality should be concerned in the pronouncement of the Birmingham Evening News last Monday that the prohibition laws are impossible of enforcement. This procurement is a challenge to law and order, for it sug- gests the position of the Evening News as one of encouragement to law violation rather than to support of law enforcement authorities. It also tends to bring into sharp issue in Alabama the propaganda the liouor forces of the United States are spreading to destroy faith in the laws supremacy, and pave the way for such modification of the Volstead act as would nullify the prohibition amendment.
 It may be only coincidence, but Ii so a notable one, that this pronouncement of the Birmingham Evening News comes at the very moment Governor "Ar' Smith of New York defiantly throws down the gauge of battle in Behalf of the forces of intemperance. Said Governor Smith in speech in New York last week: There is an abundant volume of medi-
 cal testimony to the effect that 2.Io per
 cent. beer and light wines of similar
 alcoholic content do not lntoxlcate, ana
 therefore they should no more be pro-
 fbor
 gress should adopt this reasonable deflni-
 tion of what constitutes an 1ntoxlcant
 and give to each state the right to deter
 mine for itself whether or not it desires
 to legalize the sale, manufacture and dis-
 tribution Of beverages of an alcoholic
 content within the definition prescribed
 by congress, so that Kansas can be as
 dry as Sahara if it wishes and New York
 can have light wines and beer of non
 intoxicating character.
 Says the Evening News in it's leading editorial of last Monday:
 While legislation proclaimed the death
 of the open saloon and the official death
 of the liquor traffic, other problems
 quite as serious, if not more so, have
 been evolved and stare us in the face.
 .... The ostrich sticks its head in the
 sand and thinks it is concealed. Good
 jealous persons think that, by the pas
 sage of the prohibition amendment and
 the VoIstead act, all is well and the
 forces of the law have the situation ln
 hand. Those who face the cold facts
 know that fatuous optimism is not get
 ting us anywhere.
 These two exhibits of sentiments de- structive of law enforcement are not iso- lated incidents. On the contrary they synchronize remarkably with a nation wide effort to destroy the enforcement of these laws. It has been observed quite generally that the program for weak ening of the prohibition laws has relied on the propaganda designed to lead the people into the belief that the law can not be enforced, and covertly to build sentiment that the only remedy is to modify or repeal it.
 The pronouncement of the Evening News falls in Alabama at time when the attorney general of this state is bringing impeachment charges against two county sherffs for failure properly to discharge their duties under the law. It falls at time when >~Sre is general stiffening of the prosecutions and the penalties for liquor-law violations. Thus it comes opportunely to suggest to judges and to juries that they should deal leniently with these officers on the pre- posterous theory that they have been asked to do something that cannot be done, namely, to enforce the laws of the land. Instead of affording encourage ment to defenders and officers of the law, the opinion of the Evening News tends to discourage and belittle their efforts.
 When there is crisis between the forces of law and order and the forces that would dethrone law, shall the pub lie officials sworn to uphold the law and government be insidiously informed that it is the better part to surrender to vio- lators? Or shall the officers of the law be given the sympathetic support and announcement of right-thinking citi- zens and public journals? Shall the pro- liquor effort to undermine the authority of courts and of officers of the law and of the law itself be permitted to succeed? Or shall it be resisted? Shall those who secretly join in the efforts to spread de- structive propaganda be permitted to continue covertly thus to do, or shall they be detected and publicly required tc state their real position?
 The Evening News says that the "fact' must be faced" So they must, and moi distorted in the process. Those who counsel surrender to law-breakers mus at the same time give up title to defend CTS of orderly government
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