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06 - What Prohibition Has Done to America by Fabian Franklin · What Prohibition Has Done to America

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six of What Prohibition Has Done to America. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. What Prohibition Has Done to America by
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  Speaker 1: Fabian Franklin, Chapter six. The Law Enforcers and the Law.
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  Speaker 1: Day after day, month after month, a distressing, a disgusting
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  Speaker 1: spectacle is presented to the American people in connection with
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  Speaker 1: the enforcement of the National Prohibition Law. No day passes
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  Speaker 1: without newspaper headlines which feature some phase of the contest
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  Speaker 1: going on between the government on the one hand, and
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  Speaker 1: millions of citizens on the other, citizens who belong not
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  Speaker 1: to the criminal or semi criminal classes, nor yet to
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  Speaker 1: the ranks of those who are indifferent or disloyal to
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  Speaker 1: the principles of our institutions, but who are typical Americans, decent, industrious, patriotic,
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  Speaker 1: law abiding. It is true that the individuals whom the
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  Speaker 1: government hunts down by its spies, its arrests, its prosecutions
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  Speaker 1: are men whom me make a business of breaking the
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  Speaker 1: Prohibition law, and most of whom would probably just as
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  Speaker 1: readily break other laws if money was to be made
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  Speaker 1: by it. But nonetheless, the real struggle is not with
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  Speaker 1: the thousands who furnish liquor, but with the hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: thousands or millions to whom they purvey it. Every time
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  Speaker 1: we read of a spectacular raid or a sensational capture,
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  Speaker 1: we are really reading of a war that is being
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  Speaker 1: waged by a vast multitude of good, normal American citizens
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  Speaker 1: against the enforcement of a law which they regard as
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  Speaker 1: a gross invasion of their rights and a violation of
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  Speaker 1: the first principles of American government. The state of things
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  Speaker 1: thus arising was admirably and compactly characterized by Justice Clark
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  Speaker 1: of the United States Supreme Court in a single sentence
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  Speaker 1: of his recent address before the alumni of the New
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  Speaker 1: York University Law School. As follows, the Eighteenth Amendment required
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  Speaker 1: millions of men and women to abruptly give up habits
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  Speaker 1: and customs of life which they thought not immoral or wrong,
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  Speaker 1: but which, on the contrary, they believed to be necessary
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  Speaker 1: to their reasonable comfort and happiness. And thereby, as we
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  Speaker 1: all now see, respect not only for that law but
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  Speaker 1: for all law, has been put to an unprecedented and
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  Speaker 1: demoralizing strain in our country. The end of which it
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  Speaker 1: is difficult to see upon all this. However, as concerned
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  Speaker 1: with the conduct of the people at large, perhaps enough
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  Speaker 1: has been said in previous chapters. What I wish to
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  Speaker 1: dwell upon at this point is the conduct of those who,
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  Speaker 1: either in the government itself or in the power behind
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  Speaker 1: the government. The anti Saloon League are carrying on the
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  Speaker 1: enforcement of the prohibition law. They are not carrying it
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  Speaker 1: on in the way in which the enforcement of other
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  Speaker 1: laws is carried on in the case of a normal
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  Speaker 1: criminal law. And it must always be remembered that the
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  Speaker 1: Volstad Act is a criminal law, just like the laws
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  Speaker 1: against burglary, or forgery or arson. Those who are responsible
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  Speaker 1: for its enforcement regard themselves as administrators of the law,
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  Speaker 1: neither more nor less. But the enforcement of the prohibition
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  Speaker 1: law is something quite different. It is not a work
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  Speaker 1: of administration but of stry, not a question of seeing
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  Speaker 1: that the laws obeyed by everybody, but of carrying on
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  Speaker 1: a campaign against the defiers of the law, just as
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  Speaker 1: one would carry on a campaign against a foreign enemy.
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  Speaker 1: The generals in charge of the campaign decide whether they
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  Speaker 1: shall or shall not attack a particular body of the enemy,
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  Speaker 1: and their decision is controlled by the same kind of
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  Speaker 1: calculation as that made by the generals in a war
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  Speaker 1: of arms, a calculation of the chances of victory. Where
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  Speaker 1: the enemy is too numerous, or too strongly entrenched, or
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  Speaker 1: too widely scattered, they leave him alone, where they can
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  Speaker 1: drive him into a corner and capture him, they attack.
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  Speaker 1: To realize how thoroughly this policy is recognized as a
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  Speaker 1: simple fact, one can hardly do better than quote these
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  Speaker 1: perfectly naive and sincere remarks in an editorial entitled government
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  Speaker 1: Bootlegging in the New York Tribune, a paper that has
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  Speaker 1: never been unfriendly to the Eighteenth Amendment. That American ships
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  Speaker 1: had wineless was no news to the astute Waine B. Wheeler,
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  Speaker 1: Generalissimo of the Prohibition Forces. He was fully informed before
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  Speaker 1: mister Gallivan spoke, and by silence gave consent to them.
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  Speaker 1: He was complacent, it may be assumed, because he did
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  Speaker 1: not wish to furnish another argument to those who would
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  Speaker 1: repeal or modify the Volstead Act. He has made no
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  Speaker 1: fuss over home brew, and has allowed ruralists to make
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  Speaker 1: cider of high alcoholic voltage. He saw it would be difficult,
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  Speaker 1: if not impossible, to stop home manufacture and did not
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  Speaker 1: wish to swell the number of anti volstetters. He was
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  Speaker 1: looking to securing results rather than to be ingloriously but
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  Speaker 1: futilely consistent. Similarly, the practical mister Wheeler foresaw that if
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  Speaker 1: American ships were bone dry, the bibulous would book on
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  Speaker 1: foreign ships, and the total consumption of beverages would not
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  Speaker 1: be materially diminished for a barren victory. He did not
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  Speaker 1: care to have Volstetism carry the blame of driving American
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  Speaker 1: passenger ships from the sea. Prohibitionists who have not put
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  Speaker 1: their brains in storage may judge whether or not his
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  Speaker 1: tactics are good and contribute to the end he seeks.
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  Speaker 1: Now from the standpoint of pure calculation directed to the
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  Speaker 1: attainment of a strategic end in a warfare between the
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  Speaker 1: power of a government and the forces of a very
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  Speaker 1: large proportion of the population over which it holds sway,
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  Speaker 1: the Tribune may be entirely right, but what is left
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  Speaker 1: of the idea of respect for law? With what effectiveness
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  Speaker 1: can either President Angel or President Harding appeal to that
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  Speaker 1: sentiment when it is openly admitted that the government not
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  Speaker 1: only deliberately overlooks violations of the law by millions of
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  Speaker 1: private individuals, but actually directs that the law shall be
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  Speaker 1: violated on its own ships, for fear that the commercial
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  Speaker 1: loss entailed by doing otherwise would further excite popular resentment
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  Speaker 1: against the law. It has only to be added that
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  Speaker 1: since the date of that editorial June eighteenth, nineteen twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: the Anti Saloon League has come out strongly against the
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  Speaker 1: selling of liquor on government owned ships, a change which
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  Speaker 1: only emphasizes the point I am making, for in spite
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  Speaker 1: of the Tribune's shrewd observations, it soon became clear that
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  Speaker 1: the Volstead Act was being so terribly discredited by the
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  Speaker 1: preposterous spectacle of the government selling liquor on its own
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  Speaker 1: ships that something had to be done about it. And
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  Speaker 1: it was only under the pressure of this situation that
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  Speaker 1: a new line of strategy was adopted by the Anti
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  Speaker 1: Saloon League. What it will do if it finds that
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  Speaker 1: it cannot put through its plan of excluding liquor from
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  Speaker 1: all ships, American and foreign, remains to be seen. Now
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  Speaker 1: it may be relied to do all this, that a
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  Speaker 1: certain amount of laxity is to be found in the
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  Speaker 1: execution of all laws. That the resources at the disposal
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  Speaker 1: of government not being sufficient to secure the hunting down
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  Speaker 1: and punishing of all offenders. Our executive and prosecuting officers
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  Speaker 1: and police and courts apply their powers in such directions
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  Speaker 1: and in such ways as to accomplish the nearest approach
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  Speaker 1: possible to a complete enforcement of the law. But the
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  Speaker 1: reply is worthless because the enforcement of all laws is
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  Speaker 1: in some degree imperfect. It does not follow that there
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  Speaker 1: is no disgrace and no mischief in the spectacle of
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  Speaker 1: a law enforced with spectacular vigor and even violence in
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  Speaker 1: a thousand cases where such enforcement cannot be successfully resisted
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  Speaker 1: and deliberately treated as a dead letter in a hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand cases where its enforcement would show how widespread and
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  Speaker 1: intense is the people's disapproval of the law. There are
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  Speaker 1: many instances in which a law has become a dead letter.
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  Speaker 1: Where this is generally recognized, no appreciable harm is done,
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  Speaker 1: since universal custom operates as a virtual repeal. But here
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  Speaker 1: is a case of a law enforced with militant energy
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  Speaker 1: where it suits the officers of the government to enforce
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  Speaker 1: it systematically ignored in millions of cases by the same
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  Speaker 1: officers because it suits them to do that and cynically
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  Speaker 1: violated by the direct orders of the government itself, when
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  Speaker 1: this course seems recommended by a cold blooded calculation of policy.
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  Speaker 1: If the laws against larceny or arson, or burglary or
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  Speaker 1: murder were executed in this fashion, what standing would the
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  Speaker 1: law have in anybody's mind? Yet, in the case of
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  Speaker 1: these crimes, the law only makes effective the moral code,
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  Speaker 1: which substantially the whole of the community respects as a
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  Speaker 1: fundamental part of its ethical creed. And accordingly, even if
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  Speaker 1: the law were administered in any such outrageous fashion, as
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  Speaker 1: is the case with prohibition, it would still retain in
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  Speaker 1: large measure its moral authority. But in the case of
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  Speaker 1: the prohibition law, an enormous minority and very possibly a majority,
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  Speaker 1: of the people regard the thing it forbids as perfectly
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  Speaker 1: innocent and with improper limits eminently desirable. The only moral
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  Speaker 1: sanction that it has in their minds is that of
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  Speaker 1: its being on the statute books. What can that moral
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  Speaker 1: sanction possibly amount to when the administration of the law
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  Speaker 1: itself furnishes the most notorious of all examples of disrespect
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  Speaker 1: for its commands. There is another aspect of the enforcement
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  Speaker 1: of the law, which invites a comment, but upon which
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  Speaker 1: I shall say only a few words. I refer to
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  Speaker 1: the many invasions of privacy, unwarranted searches, et cetera, that
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  Speaker 1: have taken place in the execution of the law. If
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  Speaker 1: this went on upon a much larger scale than has
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  Speaker 1: actually been the case, it would justly be the occasion
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  Speaker 1: for perhaps the most severe of all the indictments against
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  Speaker 1: the Volstead Act. For it would mean that Americans are
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  Speaker 1: being habituated to an indifference in regard to the violation
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  Speaker 1: of one of their most ancient and most essential rights.
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  Speaker 1: But in fact, the danger of public resentment over such
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  Speaker 1: a course has been the chief cause of the sagacious
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  Speaker 1: strategy which has characterized the policy of the government, or
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  Speaker 1: perhaps one should rather say the Anti Saloon League, for
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  Speaker 1: it is the League, and not the Government, that is
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  Speaker 1: the predominant partner in this matter. For the present, the
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  Speaker 1: League has been lying low on the matter of search
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  Speaker 1: and seizure. But if it should ever feel strong enough
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  Speaker 1: to undertake the suppression of Homebrew, there is not the
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  Speaker 1: faintest question but that it will press forward the most stringent,
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  Speaker 1: conceivable measures of search and seizure. Accordingly, there opens up
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  Speaker 1: before the eyes of the American people. This pleasing prospect.
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  Speaker 1: If the present struggle of the League or the Government
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  Speaker 1: with bootleggers and moonshiners and smugglers is brought to a
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  Speaker 1: successful conclusion, there will naturally be a greater resort than
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  Speaker 1: ever to home manufacture. And equally naturally it will then
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  Speaker 1: be necessary for the League or the Government to undertake
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  Speaker 1: to stamp out that practice. But obviously this cannot be
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  Speaker 1: done without inaugurating a sweeping and determined policy of search
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  Speaker 1: and seizure in private houses. A beautiful prospect for the
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  Speaker 1: land of the free, for the inheritors of the English
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  Speaker 1: tradition of individual liberty, and of the American spirit of
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  Speaker 1: seventy six. A site for gods and men to weep
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  Speaker 1: over or laugh at end of chapter six