Evening star., 1926-04-19
By NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.

Two wears ago / offered a prophecy
about prohibition and gave FIVE years
for it's fulfllment. In less than half
the time allotted all that l foresaw
has come to pass-and more. Indeed.
the mass attack of the labor forces
of the country on the Nolstead act,
the public confessions of Gen. An
drews and District Attorney Buckner
and many other law officers. as to
the futility and utter failure of at
tempted enforcement" the support
ing evidence that came across the
border from leading Canadians as to
their sad but wholly confirming ex-
periences with prohibition-al these
have far outrun my prophecy of April.
1924.
The issue is now Squarely before
the country. No amount of fanatical
zeal for impossible enforcement" can
stem the tide of popular Indignation
and longer delay an honest examina-
ton of the whole question. Even the
almost hysterical appeals of the ear
nest but, as | believe, wholly misguid
ed and uninformed women who have
just appeared before the Senate COM
mittee in Washington can avail little.
Their testimony was discounted in ad'
vance of their appearance by the
strong evidence of Gen. Andrews and
others, who had been making long
and honest efforts to enforce the law;
and, in particular. their views had
been answered by the testimony given
as to the changed attitude of the
women of Cana da
Prohibition Not Temperance.
] have myself covered the women's
point of view few weeks ago in
replying 10 a letter from a woman
correspondent in my native State of
New Jersey. What ! then stated has
been confirmed by an overwhelming
mass of evidence presented before the
Senate committee in Washington.
The plain truth is that prohibition
has nothing whatever to do with
temperance. Indeed. being itself in
temperate. ii contradicts the suppress
sion of the liquor traffic. 1t has de-
veloped that traffic to an unheard of
extent and has brought TO those who
engaged in it unsupervised and un-
taxed profits so colossal that they
represent the revenues of kingdom.
1t has restored the liquor traffic to
states and sections from which 1t had
almost, If not entirely, disappeared
and it brought in its train a corrup-
ton and an immortality, public and
private, that never can be measured
The prohibitionists are about the only
effective friends of the liquor traffic
that are left.
Prohibition is something quite diff
ferent from the suppression of the
saloon. 1t Is true that the saloon
has almost everywhere disappeared
from view, but in tens of thousands
of cases it has only been driven out
of sight. In the Province of Quebec,
on the other hand, where a rational,
sensible and moral attempt has been
made to deal with the liquor problem,
there are no saloons and no liquor
traffic. Where the United States has
signally failed, the Province Of Quebec
has triumphantly succeeded, as was
so strongly established in the recent
testimony in Washington. We are a
hundred years behind our neighbors in
dealing with this social problem. They
have found a democratic and an ethi-
cal solution and one consonant with
common sense, with civil liberty and
with free institutions; we have re-
verted to the methods of the Dark
Ages and of czarist Russia, and are
daily violating fundamental and
righteous laws in the futile and law
breaking attempt to enforce foolish
and untruthful law.
Wine a Sacred Symbol.
Prohibition, in so far as it as
'sumes drinking wine to be a sin.
affronts both the Christian and the
Jewish religions. There are two ele-
ments, and only two, which the Lord
Jesus Christ both used and blessed.
One was bread and one was wine.
For nearly 1000 years wine has
been a sacred symbol in the Christian
Church. Under such circumstances
for mere human being to say that
the use of wine is immoral. is plainly
anti.Christian. There is nothing
more moral or immoral in the use
of wine made from grapes than there
is in the use of bread made from
wheat. Lack of self-control, excess
and overindulgence, which lead to
drunkenness and to gluttony, are the
immoralities; not the wine made from
grapes, not the bread made from
wheat.
No immoral and unreas asonable pub.
lie act can long stand. The same
argument was made for slavery as
years ago that is made for pronibi-
tion today. 1t, too, is in the Con-
stitution and the advocates of law
enforcement" were loud in its sup.
port. AS slavery was driven out of
, the Constitution and out of the
country, so prohibition will be. and
we shall develop plan TO abolish
the saloon, to suppress the liquor
traffic and to reduce drunkenness to
minimum. which will be in accord
t,.aI SNf