The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-06

l III Jlle WcULcI SIdJco IL IS pcT haps not fully understood tha the Twenty-first Amendment doe
 not merely repeal the Eighteenth It contains second section which prohibits the importation, trans. portation of liquor into any state where the effect would be to vio. 1 late the laws of that State. Thi. prohibition has to be enforced by ,, the Fe deral Government. Tn: obligation will give rise to many complicated problems. There are for example, eleven states, contain ! ing about. 20 million people which still have state constitutional pro- | hibition. There are also about seventeen more states which have statutory prohibition, though sev- eral of them are about to repeal their statutes. There are per- haps an additional 45 million peo- ple in these states. Thus for a long time to come the Federal gov ernment will have to do what it can to stop all liquor from en- tering territory containing from one sixth to one-half the popu- lation of the country. Nor is that all In each state where liquor is legalized, the Federal govern ment is bound to do what it can to prevent any one in another state from violating the local law across the state boundary.
 It is evident, then, that the h- uuor law did not last Tuesday, cease to be a Federal problem. Each state becomes the judge as to whether and how liquor shaI be made and sold within it's boun- diaries. But whaeever law any state decides upon the Fe d CT government is bound to support at the state boundaries.
 The Federal problem would be relatively simple if all the dry states were in one well defined re- zion. all the strict control states in another, all the loose control Tn a third. That will not be the situation. The different kinds of state laws will be distributed hel- ter skelter. Consequently Federal enforcement might be confronted with four different duties on the four sides of any one state. Op- viously, the attempt will have to be made to simplify this business by attempting to persuade states to adopt at least some kind of regional uniformity. But as long as we ad- here to the principle of the Twen- ty-first Amendment, which is that each state may control liquor and that the Federal government must help each state, the Federal prop lem will take a lot of untangling. If we ask ourselves what is the essence of this Federal problem, this much at least is plain. The reason why liquor will be illegally imported into states is that some people within the state will want the illegal liquor and liquor deal CTS outside the state will see profit in supplying them. In oth- CT words. the motive of profit will be the force behind violation of the Twenty-first Amendment. II nobody could make a profit by selling liuor there would be no | effective incentive to violate the law. The thirsty man in a dry state would have to get his liquor by appealing to the charity of a
 friend in a wet state. Nobody would have any other reason to help him.
 Now. of course, this way of put
 ting it simply serves to illustrate a principle. In real life nothing is so logically pure. But it does bring out a fundamental truth in
 this whole problem, which is that
 in SO far as you really wish to
 regulate liquor you must deal with
 the profit incentive to break the law. Ideally, therefore, the man.
 ufacture and sale of liquor should
 be carried on without profit. Mo-
 body should be any richer be-
 cause he sold more liquor. There
 would then be no temptation to
 supply liquor in violation of any
 regulation which any community chose to set up.
 For my own part am con- vinced that a permanent solution
 of the liquor problem is impossi-
 ble except by taking the path
 which leads to the eradication of
 the motive of private profit. The
 liouor industry differs from other
 industries in that its commercial
 expansion is not in the public in-
 terest. Generally speaking, al-
 though there are important ex-
 ceptions. the continual increase of
 production of all kinds of goods
 means a continually higher stand
 ard of life. But the increased
 production of liquor would soon
 reach a point where it was a nui-
 sanca rather than a benefit, and
 the effort to sell the increase to | 1, z~1~ x,,o,,1J ba dicti1,n nt1,r ,,,,-