Evening star., 1925-11-29

as myself, who are anxious to have
that question finally settled. They.
like myself, do not believe that the
Nolstead standard that any liquor
with more than one half of / per
cent alcohol content must be account
ed Intoxicating" is either true or
reasonable. 1t Is the insertion of that
drastic and irreducible minimum of
alcoholic content that has caused mill
lions of men in America to pronounce
the standard a ''palpable lie on its
faCe and TO resist, or C0ndone those
who do resist. such a definition of an
Intoxicating liquor"
The answer of the Anti-Saloon Lea
guers and dry legislators is that the
law does not say that any liquor with
more than one-half of per cent of al
cohol in. in fact. intoxicating" but
they hold that there must be a base
line of alcoholic content from which
to project enforcement and that one
half Of l per ment alcohol content has
been found In State experience to be
the most ascertainable and feasible
standard for enforcement purposes
The reply made to that is the double
one. that while one-half of ! per cent
| may be feasible for taxation it is not
indubitable for intoXication, and, sec
ond, what a State esta ablishes as a
standard for itself is not to be gen
orally accepted as an incontestable
standard.
What Is the Way Out.
There were men who have been
long in Anti-Saloon League service
and are yet. but who will not consent
to be personally quoted and so get
in bad" with their league leaders. who
are puzzling over the way out" of
Z 10 oF l.,
official derelictions and corruptions,
and the broken hopes of those who
brought prohibition into the national
policy. Incidental benefits to indi-
viduals, families, industries and NOR
ais they publish and emphasize. but
the criminal increases. the perjuries
murders, moral poisoning of officials
judicial truculencies and social de-
| moralizations they do not attempt to
deny and deplore.
Unless l have utterly lost all my
| half-century experiences as news
paper man and evangelist in gauging
public sentiment. l can say with
surety that the discontented public,
whether for or against prohibition
per Sc, is anxious to have a thorough
and honest investigation of the pres.
ent status Of prohibition and how to
make it enforcible and satisfying.
Congress and the friends of the
eighteenth amendment should cease to
camoufage actual conditions and face
them frankly and fearlessly, seeking
| and applying whatever solution may
be found rational and constitutional.
The Line of Approach.
This question of why prohibition is
not beine effectively enforced is the
| most universal and acute issue being
| discussed by our American people
and press. 1t is up to Congress to
find out the answer and legislate upon
| the facts to the satisfaction of the
people.
Congress and the people know that
both personal and partisan politics
have honeycombed and rotted the ma
hour that the prohibition unit" was
formed in the Treasury Department
after the enactment of the Eolstead
law. l have inquired into the oper-
ationS of the unit in more than 20
States and found in all of them the
agreement that lax enforcement and
immunities for law-breakers are al
| most wholly due to the power of poll
ticians to nominate and control the
enforcement officials. This is capable
! of irrefutable proof-but will Congress
cure the corrupting evil by divorcing
prohibition enforcement from all po.
litical control? l doubt it.
Another thing that persons who
| want practical prohibition, and whose
| jobs, personal or political, are not de-
| pendent upon the Anti-Saloon League,
would ask of Congress Is a full and
comprehensive investigation of the
2.75 beer proposition. What they
want Congress to find out definitely
and finally is whether that sort of
| beer is, or is not, Intoxicating; and
deal with the subject accordingly. In
| plain words:
If such beer Is intoxicating, keep it
| under the amendment ban.
| If it is not intoxicating. let those
! States have 1t that want 1t, but rig.
idly prohibit them from exporting it
into other States that do not want it.
The charge by the anti.saloon
leaguers that such action would be
| "a surrender to the outlaws" is plu-
perfect poppycock. The demand for
a decision of this widely mooted ques-
| ton is not Influenced by what brew
ers, beersuckers, bootleggers or booze
| politicians want. Their outcries are
| negligible and taken en- bloc would get
| no attention or response from any
type of prohibitionists. Certainly
| they do not affect me.
The demand comes, in fact, from
those who want that truthful and rea.
sonable legislation that will make
| prohibition appeal to the honesty
loyalty and law-abiding spirit Of the
commonality Of our American citizens
Until we can get that popular re.
action, prohibition will be a delusion
and failure.
| Copyright, 1e25.)