The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1928-05-01

laws prohibiting beverage alcohol? II he
means only the latter. Mr.. du Pont ought
to get away from his Eastern Philadelphia
environment long enough to know that
there are many millions of adults in the
United States who believe in prohibition
Just as conscientiously and have just as
much respect for their theories about the
Eighteenth Amendment. ProYincialiSm
is no longer n distinguishing Characters
tic of the EociWo0dsman. OF the per-
centage of the people who believe in this
we viii say something later in connection
with Mr.. du Points other statements re-
garding the maiorities back of prohibition.
Mr.. du Pont further says:
Those who formerly drank to ex-
cess may now do so and, If the record
of drunkenness is a criterion, they are
still active in their old time pursuits"
If any one is really interested in know
ing something about the barest facts on
this particular phase OF Mr.. du Points con-
tention. one should read the companion
article in the same number of Current
History in which Mr.. du Points article ap-
pears, by "Pussyfoot" johnson, the title Of
which is European Drink Evil an Object
Lesson to America" There are tables
showing that in 1926 the total number Of
arrests per ten thousand population in the
city of New York itself was only 1926 as
against actual convictions for drunkenness
in greater London of 48 per ten thousand, or
less than one-third, even assuming that all
of those arrested in London were convicted.
If they were not, the ratio would be larger.
Even Paris shows from 1920 to 1924, in
elusive, nearly three times as many ar
rests for intoxication per ten thousand Of
population as were made in New York, and
this is the capital city of the greatest wine
country of the world. Glasgow, Liverpool
and Edinburgh show q much larger per-
centage of arrests for drunkenness than
does New York City. If one were to accept
the force and follow the logic of Mr.. du
Points reasoning, all ws-regulatory, adj
ministrative or rohibitive-should be re-
pealed because, perforce, people scott at
the law and get drunk now.
Prohibition may not be perfect 1t may
not be accepted 100 per cent any more
than the Ten Commandments are. And
yet, according to the tables of Mr.. john
son, or even those to be found in the 1928
World Almanac, published by the wet New
York World, there is only a small portion
of the same number of DRINKS in that
great cosmopolitan city of New York where
people really must be voluntarily obSerD-
ing the Constitution because there is no
state law to be obeyed and there is only
handful of federal agents to enforce the
IeQeIdl law.
DU POINT ON THE CONSTITUTION
MIR, du Pont says that after the adoption
of the Eighteenth Amendment Congress
proceeded to disregard the Constitution of
the United States just as the legislatures
had disregarded the mandates of the state
Constitutions and expressed wishes of the
people" The best, the only complete an
swer to MIR. du Points ideas about the con-
stitutionality Of the acts of Congress is the
series of about fifty decisions of the United
States Supreme Court which has passed
upon every phase of the Eighteenth
Amendment and the laws for its enforce
ment which the ingenuity of man could
bring up for discussion All of those de-
cisions have held both the amendment
and the laws constitutional in every de-
tail. Yet Mr. du Pont says they are I'M
constitutional.
BEGGING THE QUESTION
Mr.. du Pont is apparently not above
begging the question, for he says:
Though sale for all beverage pur-
poses is forbidden by Constitution, this
law CVolstead Act permits it if the
beverage be sacramental in charac-
ter"
We submit that this is a plain begging
of the question, for Mr.. du Pont to insist
that the sacramento use of alcoholic hq-
uors is beverage use.
Then, again, Mr.. du Pont is much dis
turbed by the fact that the Constitution