New Britain herald., 1927-01-28

assail so loudly"
 He declared the eighteenth amend ment by it's very wording leaves no chice for state legislatures or con- gress in the matter of providing en- forcement laws.
 Tt is itself, a positive prohibition, operating by its inherent force to prohibit absolutely the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicat- ing liquors within the United States"
 Supreme Court Ruling
 He pointed out that the supreme court has upheld the Volstead provi- sion of one half of one per cent, and that If there should be 8 substi- ute for the volstead law, with a provision for higher alcoholic con tent, 1t necessarily would be uncon- stitutional.
 "Under the constitution as It now stands, there is no possibility of en- acting valid regulatory legislation which will permit the traffic in liquor containing a percentage of alcohol high enough to be intoxicat- ing.
 T believe that If an attempt were made to repeal the Volstead act, and to substitute therefor an uncon- stitutional statute, or no statute at all, the supreme court would be constitutionalIy bound to hold that the attempt repeal was void and of no effect and that the Volstead act would still remain the law of the land until there was substituted for 1t some other statute equally con- sistent with the eighteenth amend ment and which could be held to provide the essentials of effective en- forcement,"
 But Two Questions
 There are only two questions which properly can be considered by the American people at the present time consistently with the principles of their established institutions; and those are first, whether they desire to repeal or modify the eighteenth amendment by the means provided in the constitution: and second, un- less and until such repeal or modifi- cation is affected, what duties and obligations under the eighteenth amendment, rest upon the different departments of the federal and state governments. What act on by those governments Is lawful under the amendment, and what would be un- lawful and unconstitutional"
 There are two outstanding symp- toms of lawless and disorder in the country, he said. He listed one as the campaign against the eighteenth amendment and the other as the prevalence of crime.
 The most disuieting feature of the prohibition question, he declared, 'is the failure on the part of public officials to realize or live up to their constitutional obligations under the eighteenth amendment"
 He asserted crime was increasing with alarming rapidity" long before the days of prohibition.
 Beginning with 1913" he con- tinued, i've know that there were s. 902 homicides reported to the police. In 1925, there were TITS homicides, a large decrease in view of the in crease in population. The figures should indicate that the evil is one of long standing and that there has been no such surprising increase since the adoption of prohibition as to form any basis for regarding pro- hibition as the cause or even one of the causes of the general prevalence of crime in the United States.
 "The reason must be sought else where, and perhaps the crime wave itself is due to the same causes which lead to the present fanatical opposition to prohibition and the present widespread violation of the prohibition laws.
 Regulated. unregulated, or ab- solutely prohibited, the liquor traffic is the very heart and center of the spiders weh of corruption. dis honesty and dereliction of public duties, which has for so long under mined the effectiveness of popular institutions throughout large part of the nation."