Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-07

safeg1larded by constitutional limita-
tionS or not, there is limit to the
power of government to regulate private
conduct" He insisted that even an
amendment to the Constitution did not
forecloSe controversy upon any subject.
He said:
I'VE are constantly reminded by the
fanatical drys that to question the wis
dom of the eighteenth amendment is a
challenge to the Constitution itself. I
deny 1t. They would not think so If the
it is a fanciful upposition-that the
eighteenth amendment read that the
manufacture and use of alcoholic bev-
erages should be encouraged, and that
every citizen was commanded by its
terms to drink an alcoholic beverage
once q day. Would the fanatical dry, in
that event, have the same feeling as TO
the sanctity of the Constitution and its
infallible wisdom? Would they not
argue, as the vets now argue, that such
an amendment goes beyond the fair
province of government? Certainly, the
leaders of prohibition showed Scant re-
Spect for the Constitution when they
wrote this Legitimate amendment into
that noble instrument and thus de-
stroyed its perfect symmetry and turned
wise compact Of government into a
mere police CODE"
Progress Marked by RevOlts.
Mr.. Beck said that the political
progress Of the human race has been
marked by revoltS against unjust and
oppressive laws, and that it Is signif1-
cant that in the long run the spirit of
the individual has been triumphant.
Rome, the greatest empire in the world
trfa ~ IN ct0 ~,
out q little group who were proposing to
the world new religion. Eventually the
Roman Emperor Constantine abandoned
the effort to suppress Christianity, but
actually raised the cross as the con-
quering symbol of the Roman Empire.
The most ruthless governments the
world has seen, that Of Russia under
the Cars and OF Russia under the
Soviet, have failed to make prohibition
effective in that country. Mr.. Beck said,
even though the people had accepted
deSpotic rule in other respects as q
matter of course.
TT was Edmund Burke" said Mr..
Beck, "who said that you could not
indict a people, but he might have
gone further and said that you can
not indict a substantial portion of the
people The fact that, after 10 years
of enforcement, with the expenditure
of hundreds of millions of dollars and
a CHASTITY sacrifice of many lives, the
prohibition law is still largely unen-
forced damnS it beyond any defense
and the only remedy suggested by the
gentleman from New Jersey proves its
futility."
Holds People Are Loyal.
Mr.. Beck defended the American
people from the charge Of lawlessnesS
which has been hurled against them
frequently.
IF law has any reasonable justi-
fication," he said, "or is even within
the reasonable province of government,
then the American people are as loyal
to it as any other people, but they re-
fuse to believe that a law Is either in
fallible or omnipotent."
He said that the American people
themselves have never directly placed
prohibition in the Constitution, but
that Congress and the State legislators
had accomplished that.
THE people have never had an OPP
portunity to pass upon the question, u
said Mr.. Beck. He admitted that per-
haps majority OF the people would
favor it.
1T matters not to me If they do" he
declared, for the reserved rights OF
the individual under the higher law of
human liberty are not dependent upon
heeting majoritieS."
Mr.. Beck continued that an increaS-
ing number Of Americans are turning
away from prohibition and no longer
believe in it after the practical test 1t
has had in 10 years.
Making Nation Of HypOcrites.
Discussing the effect of prohibition
upon the American people, Mr.. Beck
said he did not care If It was making
them a few per cent more etflcient and
wealthy. He said it was making them
nation Of hypocrites.
That is has not increased their re-
SSpect for law" said Mr.. Beck, (which
IS the vital spirit of any government,
must be conceded, but it is of far
greater consequence that prohibition
mas organl1eo our country upon a vast
scale OF collective hypocrisy, and, like
a cancer, this spirit of double-dea
is eating away the moral fiber of the
american people. The more YOU try
10 enforce 1t, the greater the spread
OF hypocrisy. The proposed addition
10 the Volstead law will have as little
erect as putting mustard plaster on
a cancer. 1t will not cure the cancer
IL VIII only intensity its activity and
cause 1t to spread more rapidly through
the body polite"
Breaking Down Relations.
Mr.. Beck told the House that prohibi
tion was breaking down the relation, of
the States to the Federal Government
and that 1t was making Of the States
little more than police provinces. ="
The indisSoluble union of indestructible
states" he said has become little more
than rhetorical phrase.
He drew q distinction between the
clauses OF the Constitution that in
themselves are a mandate to Congress
ana tnoSe which are a merely delega-
ton 10 Congress of power to do q thing.
He said that the Constitution grants
70 congress many powers but often
leaves to the Congress the question of
the manner OF their exercise.
Inc second section of the Eighteenth
Amendment, he said, shows that it is
not self-enforcing, for it vests in Con-
greSS and the several States concurrent
power to enforce the article by appro-
pirate legislation. He pointed out that
the constitution had given the Federal
through congressional en-
actment, the right to control interstate
commerce, but that for a century, the
people were satisfied that the commerce
power OF the Constitution should not be
exercised by affirmative legislation. Each
generation, Mr.. Beck said, can deter
mine for itself whether they will pass
arirmative legislation to enforce the
eighteenth amendment. He continued:
Even If this were not so, Congress
could, without any violation of the Con-
stitution, reach the conclusion that the
method OF enforcement and the actual
enforcement of the eighteenth amend
ment were best left to the States.
The American people often think
slowly, but surely. They are Zoo wise
not to acknowledge a demonstrated
error. Above all, they have not lost
their love of individual liberty and their
jealousy OF governmental power and If
tAey do rS4, In tls-:1 own good time, end
the otXuitches1 Sahhafhn Of moral darna-