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Show OBSERVATIONS By Jan After a decade of experiment whether or not it may be consi-deerd consi-deerd as noble, prohibition still looms as a question of major importance im-portance in national, state, and municipal politics. Is it not a-gain a-gain a question of whether this government of the people for the people and by the people, so apt ly decrbed by Lincoln at Jettys-burg Jettys-burg shall not perish from the eartli, for certainly it is a tool of a powerful minority composed of the illicit liquor interests with their infamous criminal cohorts, aided, nadvertantly perhaps, by misguided fanatics of the protes-tant protes-tant churches. . Together they form a terrible trinity and a force difficult to. cope wjth.' ," These forces set up by the eigh teenth amendment, described by J)r. -Nicholas Murray Butler as an impertinant invasion of the constitution, con-stitution, have a powerful influ ence, in the selection of our public pub-lic officials. We all are fully a-,Ware a-,Ware of the fact that in every city, town -andJ village from Maine to Florida, from New il'ork to California, oiie can readi ly obtain. any quantity of intoxi .eating liquor, amazing in quality '(from good imported stock to vicious vi-cious white mule. This situation could not exist but for the knowl edge and . consent of our public officers and therefore one may speculate upon the tremendous amount of bribery and graft existent ex-istent throughout the land. It is growing to dangerous propor tions and we seem to be growing into a nation of ' hypocrites, governed gov-erned by those who will yield to the will of the psalm singing fan at'ic and the guu toting gangster. There seems to be nothing that !he average citizen, who is inclin od to respect law can do about it. Surely the eighteenth- amend 'ment and the volstend law are en tilled to little or no respect. Rep resentative Beck of Pennsylvania in an address before Congress stated that 'it is contrary to the 'spirit of the American people to concede the infallibility of any law. A law to be enforced must fnd its justification in the conscience con-science of the American people." j The Reverend John Ryan, Cath olic University sociologist stated before the judiciary committee of Congress that he did not believe there was a duty of conscience on the citizen to obey the prohibition prohibi-tion law!. And so we have gone on for ten years and so we will go on indefinitely indef-initely or until we will elect to public office men with courage to lead into a happier solution of this age old problem. |