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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven 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 seven. The nature of the prohibitionist tyranny
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  Speaker 1: That there are some things which, however good they may be,
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  Speaker 1: in themselves, the majority has no right to impose upon
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  Speaker 1: the minority is a doctrine that was I think, I
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  Speaker 1: may say, universally understood among thinking Americans of all former generations.
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  Speaker 1: It was often forgotten by the unthinking, But those who
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  Speaker 1: felt themselves called upon to be serious instructors of public
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  Speaker 1: opinion were always to be counted upon to assert it
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  Speaker 1: in the face of any popular clamor or aberration. The
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  Speaker 1: most deplorable feature, to my mind, of the whole story
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  Speaker 1: of the Prohibitionist Amendment, was the failure of our journalists
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  Speaker 1: and leaders of opinion, with a few notable exceptions, to
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  Speaker 1: perform this duty which so peculiarly devolves upon them. Lest
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  Speaker 1: any reader should imagine that this doctrine of the proper
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  Speaker 1: limits of majority power is something peculiar to certain political theorists,
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  Speaker 1: I will quote just one authority, where I might quote
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  Speaker 1: scores as well, to which it is impossible to apply
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  Speaker 1: any such characterization. It ought, of course, to be unnecessary
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  Speaker 1: to quote any authority, since the Constitution itself contains the
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  Speaker 1: clearest possible embodiment of that doctrine. In the excellent Little
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  Speaker 1: Book of half a century ago referred to in a
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  Speaker 1: previous chapter Nordhoff's Politics for Young Americans, the chapter entitled
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  Speaker 1: of Political Constitutions opens as follows. A political constitution is
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  Speaker 1: the instrument or compact in which the rights of the
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  Speaker 1: people who adopt it and the powers and responsibilities of
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  Speaker 1: their rulers are described, and by which they are fixed.
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  Speaker 1: The chief object of a constitution is to limit the
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  Speaker 1: power of majorities. A moment's reflection will tell you that
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  Speaker 1: mere majority rule unlimited, would be the most grinding of tyrannies.
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  Speaker 1: The minority at any time would be mere slaves, whose
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  Speaker 1: rights to life, property, and comfort no one who chose
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  Speaker 1: the majority would be bound to respect. All. This is
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  Speaker 1: stated in the central point put in italics by mister
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  Speaker 1: Nordhoff as a matter that must be impressed upon young
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  Speaker 1: people just beginning to think about public questions, and not
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  Speaker 1: at all as a matter of controversy or doubt. The
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  Speaker 1: last sentence, to be sure requires amplification. Mister Nordhoff certainly
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  Speaker 1: did not intend his young readers to infer that such
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  Speaker 1: tyranny as he describes is either sure to occur in
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  Speaker 1: the absence of a constitution or sure to be prevented
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  Speaker 1: by it. The primary defense against it is in the
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  Speaker 1: people's own recognition of the proper limits of majority power.
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  Speaker 1: What mister Nordhoff wishes to impress upon his readers is
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  Speaker 1: the part played by a constitution in fixing that recognition
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  Speaker 1: in a strong and enduring form. The quotation I have
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  Speaker 1: in mind, however, from one of the highest of legal authorities,
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  Speaker 1: has no reference to the United States Constitution or to
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  Speaker 1: any constitution. It deals with the essential principles of law
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  Speaker 1: and of government. It is from a book by the
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  Speaker 1: late James C. Carter, who was beyond challenged, the leader
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  Speaker 1: of the Bar of New York, and was also one
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  Speaker 1: of the foremost leaders in the movement for civic improvement.
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  Speaker 1: The book bears the title Law its origin, growth, and function,
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  Speaker 1: and consists of a course of lectures prepared for delivery
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  Speaker 1: to the Law School of Harvard University seventeen years ago,
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  Speaker 1: which it is to be noted, was before the movement
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  Speaker 1: for national prohibition had gotten under way. Mister Carter was
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  Speaker 1: not arguing for any specific object, but was impressing upon
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  Speaker 1: the young men general truths that had the sanction of
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  Speaker 1: ages of experience, and were the embodiment of the wisest
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  Speaker 1: thought of generations. Let us hear a few of those
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  Speaker 1: truths as he laid them down. Nothing is more attractive
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  Speaker 1: to the benevolent vanity of men than the notion that
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  Speaker 1: they can affect great improvement in society by the simple
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  Speaker 1: process of forbidding all wrong conduct or conduct which they
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  Speaker 1: think is wrong by law, and of enjoining all good
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  Speaker 1: conduct by the same means, page two twenty one. The
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  Speaker 1: principal danger lies in the attempt often made to convert
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  Speaker 1: into crimes acts regarded by large numbers, perhaps a majority,
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  Speaker 1: as innocent, that is, to practice what is in fact tyranny.
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  Speaker 1: While all are to agree that tyranny is a very
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  Speaker 1: mischievous thing, there is not a right understanding, equally general,
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  Speaker 1: of what tyranny is. Some think that tyranny is a
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  Speaker 1: fault only of despots, and cannot be committed under a
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  Speaker 1: republican form of government. They think that the maxim that
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  Speaker 1: the majority must govern justifies the majority in governing as
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  Speaker 1: it pleases, and requires the minority to acquiesce with cheerfulness
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  Speaker 1: in legislation of any character, as if what is called
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  Speaker 1: self government were a scheme by which different parts of
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  Speaker 1: the community may alternately enjoy the privilege of tyrannizing over
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  Speaker 1: each other page two forty six. Speaking in particular of
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  Speaker 1: the evil effects of that particular species of criminal legislation
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  Speaker 1: to which sumptuary laws belong, mister Carter, after dwelling upon
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  Speaker 1: the subject in detail, says, an especially pernicious effect is
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  Speaker 1: that society becomes divided between the friends and the foes
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  Speaker 1: of repressive laws, and the opposing parties become animated with hostility,
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  Speaker 1: which prevents united action for purposes considered beneficial by both.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the worst of all is that the general regard
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  Speaker 1: and reverence for law are impaired, a consequence the mischief
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  Speaker 1: of which can scarcely be estimated page two forty seven.
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  Speaker 1: To prevent consequences like these, springing as they do from
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  Speaker 1: the most deep seated qualities of human nature, by pious
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  Speaker 1: exhortation is a hopeless undertaking. But if it be so
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  Speaker 1: in general, if the consequences of majority tyranny in the
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  Speaker 1: shape of repressive laws governing personal habits, could be predicted
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  Speaker 1: so clearly upon general principles, how vastly more certain and
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  Speaker 1: more serious must these consequences be when such a law
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  Speaker 1: is fastened upon the people by means that would be
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  Speaker 1: abhorrent even in the case of any ordinary law. The
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  Speaker 1: people who object to prohibition are exultantly told by their
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  Speaker 1: masters that it is idle for them to think of
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  Speaker 1: throwing off their chains, that the law is riveted upon
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  Speaker 1: them by the Constitution, and that the possibility of repeal
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  Speaker 1: is too remote for practical consideration. Thus, the one thought
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  Speaker 1: that might mitigate resentment and discountenance resistance, the thought that
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  Speaker 1: freedom might be regained by repeal, is set aside, and
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  Speaker 1: the result is what we have been witnessing on this
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  Speaker 1: phase of the subject. However, enough has been said in
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  Speaker 1: the previous chapter. What I wish to point out is
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  Speaker 1: some peculiarities of national prohibition which make it a more
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  Speaker 1: than ordinarily odious example of majority tyranny. National prohibition in
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  Speaker 1: the United States, granting for the sake of argument that
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  Speaker 1: it expresses the will of the majority. Is not a
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  Speaker 1: case merely of a greater number of people forcing their
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  Speaker 1: standards of life upon a smaller number, in a manner
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  Speaker 1: in which such coercion by a majority is in its
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  Speaker 1: nature tyrannical. The population of the United States is, in
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  Speaker 1: more than one respect, composed of parts extremely diverse as
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  Speaker 1: regards to the particular subject of this legislation. The question
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  Speaker 1: of drink has a totally different aspect in the South
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  Speaker 1: from what it has in the North, a totally different
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  Speaker 1: aspect in the cities from what it has in the
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  Speaker 1: rural districts or in small towns, to say nothing of
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  Speaker 1: other differences, which, though important, are of less moment. How
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  Speaker 1: profoundly the course of the prohibition movement has been affected
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  Speaker 1: by the desire of the South to keep liquor away
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  Speaker 1: from the Negroes needs no elaboration. It would not be
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  Speaker 1: going far beyond the truth to say that the people
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  Speaker 1: of New York are being deprived of their right to
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  Speaker 1: the harmless enjoyment of wine and beer in order that
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  Speaker 1: the Negroes of Alabama in Texas may not get beastly
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  Speaker 1: drunk on rotgut whisky. If the South had stuck to
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  Speaker 1: its own business and to its traditional principle of state autonomy,
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  Speaker 1: a principle which the South invokes as ardently as ever
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to any other phase of the negro question,
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  Speaker 1: there would never have been a prohibsibition Amendment to the
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  Speaker 1: Constitution of the United States, And at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: the South would have found it perfectly possible to deal
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  Speaker 1: effectively with its own drink problem by energetic execution of
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  Speaker 1: its own laws, made possible by its own public opinion.
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  Speaker 1: Nor is the case essentially different as regards the West.
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  Speaker 1: The very people who are loudest in their shouting for
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  Speaker 1: the eighteenth Amendment are also the most emphatic in their
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  Speaker 1: praises of what Kansas has accomplished by enforcing her own
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  Speaker 1: prohibition law. Thus, the prohibitionist tyranny is in no small
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  Speaker 1: measure a sectional tyranny, which is of course an aggravated
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  Speaker 1: form of majority tyranny. But what needs insisting on even
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  Speaker 1: more than this is the way in which the country
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  Speaker 1: districts impose their notions about prohibition upon the people of
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  Speaker 1: the cities, and especially of the great cities. When attention
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  Speaker 1: is called to the wholesale disregard of the law, contempt
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  Speaker 1: for the law, and hostility to the law, which is
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  Speaker 1: so manifest in the big cities. The champions of prohibition
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  Speaker 1: in the press, including the New York Press, never tire
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  Speaker 1: of saying that it is only in New York and
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  Speaker 1: a few other great cities that this state of things exists.
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  Speaker 1: But everybody knows that the condition exists in not only
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  Speaker 1: a few, but in practically all of our big cities,
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  Speaker 1: And for that matter, it exists in a large proportion
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  Speaker 1: of all the cities of the country, big and little.
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  Speaker 1: But if we confine ourselves to only the thirty four
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  Speaker 1: cities having a population of two hundred thousand or more,
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  Speaker 1: we have here an aggregate population of almost exactly twenty
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  Speaker 1: five million, nearly one fourth of the entire population of
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  Speaker 1: the country. It is a trifling matter that these communities,
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  Speaker 1: this vast population of large city dwellers, should have their
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  Speaker 1: mode of life controlled by a majority, rolled up by
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  Speaker 1: the vote of people whose conditions, whose advantages and disadvantages,
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  Speaker 1: whose opportunities and mode of life, and consequently whose desires
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  Speaker 1: and needs are of a wholly different nature. Could the
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  Speaker 1: tyranny of the majority take a more obnoxious form than
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  Speaker 1: that of the sparse rural populations scattered over the whole
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  Speaker 1: area of the country from Maine to Texas and from
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  Speaker 1: Georgia to Oregon, deciding for the crowded millions of New
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  Speaker 1: York and Chicago that they shall or shall not be
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  Speaker 1: permitted to drink a glass of beer. Nor is it
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  Speaker 1: only the obvious tyranny of such a regime that makes
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  Speaker 1: it so unjustifiable. There are some special features in the
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  Speaker 1: case which accentuate its unreasonableness and unfairness. In the American
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  Speaker 1: village and small town, the use of alcoholic drinks presents
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  Speaker 1: almost no good aspect. The countryman sees nothing but the
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  Speaker 1: vile and sordid side of it. The village grog shop,
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  Speaker 1: the bar of the small town hotel in America has
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  Speaker 1: presented little but the gross and degrading aspect of drinking.
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  Speaker 1: Prohibition is meant to the average farmer. The abolition of
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  Speaker 1: the village groggery and the small town bar room. That
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  Speaker 1: it plays a very different part in the lives of
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  Speaker 1: millions of city people, and for that matter, that it
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  Speaker 1: does so in the lives of millions of industrial workers
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  Speaker 1: in smaller communities, is a notion that never enters the
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  Speaker 1: farmer's mind. And to this it must be added the
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  Speaker 1: circumstances that the farmer can easily make his own cider
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  Speaker 1: and other alcoholic drinks, and feels quite sure that prohibition
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  Speaker 1: will never seriously interfere with his doing so. Altogether, we
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  Speaker 1: have here a case of one element of the population
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  Speaker 1: decreeing the mode of life of another element, of whose
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  Speaker 1: circumstances and desires they have no understanding, and who are
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  Speaker 1: affected by the decree in a wholly different way from
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  Speaker 1: that in which they themselves are affected by it. Many
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  Speaker 1: other points might be made further to emphasize the monstrosity
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  Speaker 1: of the prohibition that has been imposed upon our country.
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  Speaker 1: Of these, perhaps the most important one is the way
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  Speaker 1: in which the law operates so as to be effective
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  Speaker 1: against the poor and comparatively impotent against the rich. But
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  Speaker 1: this and other points have been so abundantly brought before
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  Speaker 1: the public in connection with the news of the day,
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  Speaker 1: that it seems hardly necessary to dwell upon them. My
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  Speaker 1: object has been rather to direct attention to a few
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  Speaker 1: broad considerations less generally thought of. The objection that applies
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  Speaker 1: to sumptuary laws in general has tenfold force in the
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  Speaker 1: case of national prohibition, riveted down by the Constitution and
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  Speaker 1: imposed upon the whole nation by particular sections and by
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  Speaker 1: particular elements of the population. A question of profound interest
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  Speaker 1: in connection with this aspect of prohibition demands a few
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  Speaker 1: words of discussion. It has been asserted with great confidence
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  Speaker 1: and denied with equal positiveness, that prohibition has had the
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  Speaker 1: effect of very greatly increasing the addiction to narcotic drugs.
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  Speaker 1: I confess my inability to decide from any data that
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  Speaker 1: has come to my attention which of these contradictory assertions
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  Speaker 1: is true, but it is not denied by anybody. I
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  Speaker 1: believe that, whether prohibition has anything to do with the
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  Speaker 1: case or not, the use of narcotic drugs in this
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  Speaker 1: country is several times greater per capita than it is
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  Speaker 1: in any of the countries of Europe, six or seven
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  Speaker 1: times as great as in most Why this should be so,
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  Speaker 1: it is perhaps not easy to determine. The causes may
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  Speaker 1: be many, but I submit that it is at least
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  Speaker 1: highly probable that one very great cause of this extraordinary
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  Speaker 1: and deplorable state of things is the atmosphere of reprobation,
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  Speaker 1: which in America has so long surrounded the practice of
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  Speaker 1: moderate drinking. Any resort whatever to alcoholic drinks being held
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  Speaker 1: by so large a proportion of the persons who are
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  Speaker 1: most influential in religious and educational circles to be sinful
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  Speaker 1: and incompatible with the best character, it is almost inevitable that,
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  Speaker 1: in thousands of cases, desires and needs which would find
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  Speaker 1: their natural satisfaction in temperate and social drinking are turned
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  Speaker 1: into the secret and infinitely more unwholesome channel of drug addiction.
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  Speaker 1: How much of the extraordinary extent of this evil in
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  Speaker 1: America may be due to this cause, I shall not,
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  Speaker 1: of course venture to estimate, but that it is a
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  Speaker 1: large part of the explanation I feel fairly certain. And
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  Speaker 1: my belief that it is so is greatly strengthened by
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  Speaker 1: the familiar fact that in the countries in which wine
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  Speaker 1: is cheap and abundant and is freely used by all
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  Speaker 1: the people, drunkenness is very rare in comparison with other countries,
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  Speaker 1: as easy and familiar recourse to wine prevents resorts to
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  Speaker 1: stronger drink. So it seems highly probable that the practice
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  Speaker 1: of temperate drinking would in thousands of cases obviate the
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  Speaker 1: craving for drugs. But when all drinking, temperate and intemperate,
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  Speaker 1: is alike put under the ban, the temptation to secret
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  Speaker 1: indulgence in drugs gets a foothold, and that temptation, once
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  Speaker 1: yielded to the downward path, is swiftly trodden. Finally, there
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  Speaker 1: is a broad view of the whole subject of the
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  Speaker 1: relation of prohibition to life, which these last reflections may
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  Speaker 1: serve to suggest. When a given evil in human life
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  Speaker 1: presents itself to our consideration, it is a natural and
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  Speaker 1: praiseworthy impulse to seek to effect its removal. To that
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  Speaker 1: impulse is owing the long train of beneficent reforms which
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  Speaker 1: form so gratifying a feature of the story of the
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  Speaker 1: past century and more. But that story would have been
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  Speaker 1: very different if the reformer had, in every instance undertaken
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  Speaker 1: to extirpate whatever he found wrong or noxious, To strike
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  Speaker 1: with crusading frenzy at what you have worked yourself up
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  Speaker 1: into believing is wholly in accursed. Thing is attempting short cut,
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  Speaker 1: but is fraught with the possibility of all manner of harm.
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  Speaker 1: In the case of prohibition, I have endeavored to point
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  Speaker 1: out several of the forms of harm which it carries
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  Speaker 1: with it. But in addition to those that can be
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  Speaker 1: so plainly pointed out, there is a broader, if less
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  Speaker 1: definite one. When we have choked off a particular avenue
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  Speaker 1: of satisfaction to a widespread human desire. When foiled, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: in one direction, we attack with equal fury the possibility
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  Speaker 1: of escape in another and another. Who shall assure us that,
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  Speaker 1: debarred of satisfaction in old and tried ways, the same
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  Speaker 1: desires will not find vent in far more injurious indulgences.
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  Speaker 1: How different if instead of crude and wholesale compulsion, resort
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  Speaker 1: were had, as it had been had before the prohibitionist
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  Speaker 1: mania swept us off our feet to well considered measures
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  Speaker 1: of regulation and restriction, and to the legitimate influences of
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  Speaker 1: persuasion and example. The process is slower, to be sure,
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  Speaker 1: but it had accomplished wonderful improvements in our own time,
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  Speaker 1: and before what it had gained was solid gain. It
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  Speaker 1: did not invite either the resentment, the lawlessness, or the
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  Speaker 1: other evils which despotic prohibition of innocent pleasure carries in
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  Speaker 1: its train. End of Chapter seven