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jpist 29th, 1023, at the portoffic* at
lfekotaa, Alaska, —it the Act of
■ant 3, ire.
Takotna, Alaska. May 3, .l#3d.
BROH1BITION AND THE 18TH
AMENDMENT, AS VIEWED BT
NEW JERSEY CONGRESSMAN
(An oustanding speech, pertaining
9 prohibition and the Eighteenth
amendament, whicn has occasioned
nucb comment, was that made in
Congress several weeks ago by Rep
resentative Franklin W. Fort of New
Jersey, as taken from tue Congres
sional Record.
Eleven years ago the. American na
tion, through the procedure pre
scribed for such action, adopted the
Eighteenth Amendment-to the Con
stitution of the. United States, thus
enacting prohibition .aa. a national
pplicy. One-year thereafter the Vol
stead. Act was passed to carry out
the provisions of the amendemtn.
The further.in retrospect the amend
ment and. the law become,, the more
violently does controversy wage and
the more futile and superficial the
debate, today 1 doubt if one person
in a thousand in the nation—includ
ing many who speak or write most
frequently on .one side or the other—
have anything but. a very confused
idea of uie real, contents of the
amendment or the law and even less
V to the purposes wuich caused their
enactment,.
To discover the purpose, of its en
actment, let us first delve somewhat
into history. The use of some form
of intoxiiant .dates becak to the be
ginning of .the .recorded story of our
race. It is found J&.our earliest and
all intermediate literature—including
our sacred hooka. Not only the use
but the abuse existed.. in all times
and climes—and with, so far as lit
erature discloses, slight, .if any pro
test.
Some time in the last century,
hjwever, with the simultaneous
spread of education and of an indus
trial system that included large em
ployment, organised effort to produce
temperance in tte use of alcohol be
ipm-For. many years the teachers of
temperance were the butts of contin
ued -and unpleasant ridicule. Finally,
hpwfcver, the teachings took root in
creasingly and the churches—then
the chief,if not only, centers both of
social contact and ethical study—rap
idly? passed from a stage where
drunken„ preachers were quite com
mon to one where every preacher
thundered condemnation of alcohol
agd every congregation had its
Woman’s Temperance Union or its
Father Matthew Total- Abstinence
Spciety.
Major movements idt lives
epme in giea waves, and .when one is
in theih midst he can see only the
whitecaps that not the surface. To
me it is entirely clear now that the
agitation did not reach its powerful
■weep through it sown-' internal
strength, did not lift itself.by.it* own
bootstraps, but was created by two
irresistible ground swells in ourna
tifnak.lifc. far which it was but the
^hairneU
o*fc*«f£tMiie,wM the crowing
' treed toward the mechanization of
W. whole life and the systematizing
of our industry.
Jttnt this was not the only major
trend of our past fifty years as a na
tion. Side by side with education,
and industrialization—creature and,
perhaps, creator of our new civiliza
tion—marched a new code of social
ethics. . . .
The combined pressure of our eco
nomic needs and our idealism—both
fanned to unusual power by. the ex
citement of war—was irresistible,
and Congress subnutted the Eight
eenth Amendment to the States while
efficiency was the nation’s greatest
need and chivalry its compass. . . .
1 think all of us were surprised—and
many deeply grieved—when f«ty
hve States ratified within about a
year.
So now we had prohibition, .and a
law must be passed to define and en
force it, ... Well, Congress
tackled the job and produced, the Vol
sthead Act. What doea-that, say?
Most of its language relates to the
method and means of. enforcement
and i am not going to, discuss those
provisions today, The. real. legisla
tion in the act is in Tour or five, sec
tions. First, it. defines the word
“liquor” and the phrase “intoxicat
ing liquor” as. meaning, anything fit
for use as a.beverage which contains
one-half per cent or more of alcohol.
Then it prohibits, anyone from*1 man
ufacturing, selling, bartering, trans
porting, importing, exporting, deliv
ering, furnishing, or possessing" any
| intoxicating liquor except as author
ized in the law. When it comes to
the matter of possessio no fliuor, it
provides tha such possession is prima
facie evidence that it is kept for sale
in* violation of law but that “it shall
not be unlawful to possess liquors in
one’s private dwelling—provided such
liquors are for use only for the per
> sonal consumption of the owner
thereof and. his family,. and of his
bona fide guests when entertained by
him therein."
But puts upon the possessor, the
burden of proving lawful acquisition
of the liquor. Finally, there is no
definition, of what the ward, “manu
facture" means, but.the.penalty sec
tion says:. “The penalties, provided
in this chapter against the. manufac
ure of. liquor without.uu permit. shall
not apply to a person for. manufac
turing nonintoxicating cider and.fruit
juices exclusively for use in- his
home.”
1 da not prtetend to be. much.of .a
lawyer these days, i did think. 1 .was
once, but 1 reformed and went into
business, but it. does seem to me,
from my recollections of the law,
that this latter provision rather clear
ly lifts cider and light wines, hone
made for.home use, out of the one
half of one- per cent definition and,
as to them, .to apply the test of in
toxscstion in, fact. And, of course,
if they can be lawfully made, they
can be. lawfully possessed in the
home of .the maker and used by him,
his family, and his guests. Whether
this language can be stretched to
cover home brew, aonintoxieating, in
fact,, is another question; but clearly
the making, the possession, and the
use of home-made, non intoxicating ’
tight wines and. ciders are not prohib-,
ited by the act. , - ..
Bo that is the hisory and legal1
status of prohibition. What have
been its effects? Well let us look
first at the bad sides and then at the'
bad sides and see what way we have
a surplus to dispose of.
First, we have the. loss of revenue
from licenses, taxes, an dcustoms du
ties and the cost of enforcemen.
Next, we have the argument that
prohibition is creating.a.new class of
law-breaners out of what were to
merly law-ahidtng citajens. This is
serious. taJhm extent *that it. is true
and-it ‘is true morwefftea in intent
than in 1*0. By thatil mean-that, the
makers aad :drinkevs o£ home-made
and home-naed liquors believe them
selves, in many leases, ta be breaking
and braving the Jaw. . But.they.are
wrong in thinking themselves crim
inal. As I have shown above, the
law permits such manufacture, per
mits such possession, and permits,
such use by themselves and guests..
And right here may 1 say that, iir
my judgment sincere friends of. tem
! peranee have done the causer of. pro
| hibition its greatest injury by insist
ing that the use of alcohol since the
j Eighteenth Amendment has become
j immoral. The confusion comes from
i the foci, on which h have commented,
I that be organization of the temper
| ance movement centered in the
i churches, but this was in their capac
ity as ethical and social centers, not
! as religious and moral ones. And
1 were it otherwise, morals are not
i coded by the passage of laws; they
are defined by the conscience of the
individual. We are here dealing with
a social habit whose qrigin is buried
in antiquity. To say to the man
whose family for countless genera
tions has been accustomed to this
habit that they and 'he, if. he follows
their example, have violated a moral
duty brings a justified resentment.
And now we come to personal Lib
erty—and in my nqtes I spell those
words with capitals. What is- the
American’s right of personal liberty?
Weil, first, he may think as he
pleases—and when he has done, that
there is not another hing he can. do
as he pleases.Thu law does.
not let us park our. car where we
want to; w* can not lawfully smug
gle anything—not only liquor;; we
can not have our relatives, and
friends join, us if they happen to. be
aliens; we caa not leave our property,
away from our f%aily, nor leave our
family if we tire of them; we can-not
own slaves; and now. no one can.law
fully sell uss liquor/. Why.?. Because
ours is an ordered freedom-wh^r- >.
individual self-centered wishes, is;.::
not be permitted o nterefere with.-.v.-.
interests of others,, ru^ those, to
others with ours. .
Then, we are told our youth are
reing ruined by prohibition- It is an
interesting- thing that this- story, is
Assays tnUt about somebody else’s
children- 1.wonder how many, fathers
can honestly look, their sons ini the
eye. and say that , there is more drink
in gamong the hoys today, than in our
day. Moreover they also say there is
more among the girls. That I think
is true. Bat is that the only liberty
the modern girl claims ? She smokes
quite generally—her mother did- not
before the war. She goes to dances
at midnight with a boy—her mother
went home then, and with a chap
erone at that—and now chaperones
are as extinct as the dodo. - . .
finally, a serious case is made of
the noa-renforcement situation—and
it does, look had with graft rampant,
shootings frequent, police regnant,
and the public apparently acquiesc
ent. Well, mm 1-have shown, none of.
McGrath!
PoolHall
- - ■■ i
Fresh Fruits
Candies
Tobaccos
Pipes
Cigarettes
>Soft Drinks
Cigarette Hbklers
FRANK MNUE
this is new. One moving cause of
great potency for the adoption of
prohibition was the fact that all
•base things existed under the old
aye tern. The flood, of illicit liquor al
ways moved from license to no-license
terrtory. Bootleggers like speakeasies
i antedated the Volstead Act and their
methods were the same.
Perhaps I seem to’ minimize the'
evils, if so, 1 a msorry. They are
real—they are important—they, must
be checked. And they must be
checked not only because they are
real and important but because the
law under which they occur iB here
to stay without substantial change, I
say that soberly—not as argument,
but my sincere conviction..
Now, what are the benefits??
1 have #aid that prohibiton was tne
result o fa combination: of industrial
evolution and the new view of the re
lation of. the law to women and chil
dren. Unless it has been effective in
these directions it has failed to
achieve its purposes. What, then, Has
our economic experience been for ten
yeaisf
Well, atbng w'ta adl the nations of
the world, we ran into a serious 'in
flation: in: 1920 and, 1921. Unemploy
ment was very serious in many sec
tions. But we got through without
soup houses and recovered more rap
idly than any other people, swinging
into a full tide of prosperity by the
end of 1922. Frans 1022: until 1929,
with only very moderate'declines, our
production continued large and our
industrial prosperity unprecedented,
and this despite quite unsatisfactory
conditions among our fanners and
coal miners with consequent, reduc
tion of their buying power. The. in
come of the nation increased, from
$63,U0U,0000,000 in 1921 to |89,Q00r
0110,000 for 1928. Our motor oars
trebled in number; our life insurance
policy holders jumped from 13,000,006.
to 27,000,000; our savings accounts,
from 18,000,000 in 1919 to 53,000,00ft
in 1929, and the amount deposited!
(Continued on Page 3.) %
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Frank J. Guskey
| Notary Public
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VfrJireth, Aiariw
Takotna Fool Hall
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Apjries Oranges
harfie QUalloran - - Prop.
Max Simel : Ex1
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