Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-06-28

| '""S0 feminine person
| following an age.old masculine calling
talks to hundreds of transgressors a
year. studies them. listens to their
tales Of temptation and of wrong
Judge Norris was reluctant at first
to talk of prohibition.
II am too close to it," she said. II
see the evils of the law too clearly"
But finally she did, commencing with
the sentence that opens this inter
view.
Says Drinking Was Declining.
''How we'll I remember in my lawyer
days back in 1909" she said, when
it was common practice to have a
| cocktail with lunch. one or two before
dinner, n couple of wines during the
meal and perhaps a cordial after cot
fee.
Gradually one saw fewer lunchers
taking cocktails. Often it was a glass
of beer or thin wine. Then it became
the way of the majority to have no
drinks at luncheon.
cit became bad form to carry in
business hours the Renaissance of
liquor on the breath. Cocktails We're
reserved for dinnertime and moderate
ly partaken of at that.
Hear of Prohibition.
eve began to hear vaguely of pro
bihition'-and how we scoffed at it.!
We told one another such a thing
would never be tolerated. in this free
country. Or, if it came at all, it
would be years and years hence, and
never to cities like New York.
"Then-almost with the suddenness
of collision it came, and bang! back
we went to drinking. 1t was a
war measure, and we were all for
that.
For a while after the eighteenth
amendment became part of the Con-
stitution on January 16, 1919, there
was less drinking. This was for the
simple reason that the bootleg in
dustry was not yet organized.
by the time the Volstead law went
into effect and every bar in the United
States closed at midnight, October 20,
1919, amid scenes of revelry that had
best be left behind veil, people began
to realize that the war measure was
a pretty permanent thing.
Refers to Decentralization"
at is said by those who have
studied the situation that no period
in American history was distinguished
by more decentralization and lawless-
ness than the four years following
the Volstead act. Many laughed, but
others set about seriously to find sup
plies of liquor, and the bootlegger
began to flourish in the land"
What distresses Judge Norris most
is that, so she declares, the normal,
intelligent reform from within halted
abruptly. Rebellion imposed from
without burst forth, in her opinion,
and the results, she thinks, speak
for themselves.
That prohibition advocates were
well meaning Judge Norris does not
doubt, but the law, she says. was
stupidity framed and far too drastic.
If the distilling of whisky had been
stopped, the saloon abolished and the
controlled sale of beer and mild wines
substituted, it would, says Judge Nor
ris, have been a good law, willingly
observed.
Sees Temptation Everywhere.
"The volstead law" Judge Norris
went on, has planted temptation
everywhere, debauched the weak,
made drinkers of the temperate and
opened the way to one of the saddest
spectacles l have ever seen-intoXl-
Gated boys and girls, blinded, para
lived men and women, and steady
flow to our police courts of youthful
lawbreakers.
when 1 came to the bench in 1919
I dealt with mature delinquents and
crooks. Now / am confronted with
college boys. and girls from good
families whose parents would be
aghast to know their children were
frequenting cabarets and night clubs.
Judge Norris thinks Canada has
met her problem well in the method
employed by the Quebec liquor com
mission. Five commissioners conduct
the trade in the name and for the
benefit of the government, to the ex-
clusion of all private interests.
Voted Against Prohibition.
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta
and British Columbia, Judge Norris
observed, abandoned prohibition, and
in 1923 20 per cent of the women in
Winnipeg are reported to have voted
against prohibition.
To the assertion of the drys that
law, once on the statute books, must
not come off, Judge Norris replies:
Simply childish! 1t is like refus-
ing to take an antidote for poison. A
nation is no more above making an
honest mistake than is an individ-
ual."