The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-01-20

If history tells us anything, it is that the wind
Of unpopular law enforcement begets the whirlwlnd
OF violence.
1t was so with the great English civil war in the
mid-seventeenth century. James I had found the
collection of tonnage and poundage dues difficult
and unpopular policy But his son, Charles l. learned
no lesson. He continued to levy and attempted to
collect forced loans
The people resisted The kings most trusted min
lister, Buckingham, assaSsinated. His councillor,
Stratford who encouraged Charles to continue his
hgh-handed acts, tried for treason by parlla-
ment. and executed
The king attempted an arrest of the parliamentary
leaders The nation drifted into civil war; Charles
lost his head. and the commonwealth was estab-
Ished under Oliver Cromwell.
In 1853, England came into possession Of vast
continent of the Mississippi river. She needed
more funds to administer and police this area. She
believed the coloniss should contribute Hence, she
revived the enforcement of the detested but long
dormant navigation laws.
stamp act was put on the books Settlement
of land west of the Alleghanies forbidden for
ten years. OTIS Adams, Dickinson, Quincy, Patrick
Henry and others protested. But the British per-
sisted Enforcement officers INSTRUCTED and
manhandled by the colonists The British sent
troops to America to aid and protect the officers,
who we're searching homes without warrants.
Then came the Boston massacre and in brief
time Lexington and Concord set off the civil war
within the British empire which gave us our
independence.
Next we planted the seeds of own civil war.
Slaves fled from their master to free SOIL hoping
to escape to complete freedom in Canada. The south
was strong enough to pass fugitive slave law. This
authorized federal marshals to run down escaped
Negroes and return them to their owners.
But that law could not be enforced. BY 1850 the
majority of fugitves captured by the marshas were
being away from those officers and borne safely
TO Canada. In 1852 mob at Syracuse, N Y, was
organized by Gerrit Smith and other citizens, who,
in their own home town, ranked as eminently
respectable.
The mob even invaded the courts and snatched
the runaway Negro from its jurisdiction 1t was but
a step from this to John Browns raid and to the
answer of the south in the bombardment of Sumter.
Many will pooh-pooh the parallel between those
past events and events occurring today Yet only
five were killed in The Boston massacre and more
than thousand have been slain in the course ot
prohibition enforcement to date.
Already mobs have gathered to protest against
enforcement. They have joStled and assaulted en-
forcement officers Coast guards, mistaken for the
crew of the boat that fired the Black Duck, were
beaten severely by an angry mob. Meanwhile, the
drys cry for more severe methods of enforcement.
England in the seventeenth century. the colonies
IN the eighteenth and the United States OF America
in the nineteenth drfted into fratricdal conflict
In each case the thing that seemed impossible few
years before happened.
The tempo of the prohibition pace is speeding up.
It's rate of motion is faster at the end of ten years
than was the rate of motion of the slavery question
In the corresponding ten-year span.
The question must be settled Let's not deceive
ourselves about the seriousness of it.