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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three 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 three, Destroying our federal System. Thus far
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  Speaker 1: I have been dealing with the wrong which the Prohibition
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  Speaker 1: Amendment commits against the vital principle of any national constitution,
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  Speaker 1: the principle which alone justifies the idea of a constitution
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  Speaker 1: a body of organic law removed from the operation of
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  Speaker 1: the ordinary processes of popular rule and representative government. But
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  Speaker 1: reference was made at the outset to a wrong of
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  Speaker 1: a more special, yet equally profound character. The distinctive feature
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  Speaker 1: of our system of government is that it combines a
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  Speaker 1: high degree of power and independence in the several states
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  Speaker 1: with the high degree of power and authority in the
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  Speaker 1: national government. Time was when the dispute, naturally arising in
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  Speaker 1: such a federal union, concerning the line of division between
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  Speaker 1: these two kinds of power turned on an abstract or
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  Speaker 1: legalistic question of state sovereignty. That abstract question was decided
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  Speaker 1: once and for all by arbitrament of arms in our
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  Speaker 1: great Civil War. But the decision, while its strengthened the
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  Speaker 1: foundations of the Federal Union, left unimpaired the individuality, the vitality,
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  Speaker 1: the self dependence of the states in all the ordinary
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  Speaker 1: affairs of life. It continued to be true after the war,
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  Speaker 1: as before that. Each state had its own local pride,
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  Speaker 1: developed its own special institutions, regulated the conduct of life
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  Speaker 1: within its boundaries according to its own views of what
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  Speaker 1: was conducive to the order, the well being, the contentment,
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  Speaker 1: the progress of its own people. It has been the
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  Speaker 1: beloe of practically all intelligent observers of our national life
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  Speaker 1: that this individuality and self dependence of the states has
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  Speaker 1: been a cardinal element in the promotion of our national
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  Speaker 1: welfare and in the preservation of our national character. In
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  Speaker 1: a country of such vast extent and natural variety, a
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  Speaker 1: country developing with unparalleled rapidity, and confronted with constantly changing conditions.
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  Speaker 1: Who can say how great would have been the loss
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  Speaker 1: to local initiative and civic spirit, how grave the impairment
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  Speaker 1: of national conquered and good will, If all the serious
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  Speaker 1: concerns of the American people had been settled for them
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  Speaker 1: by a central government at Washington. In that admirable little
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  Speaker 1: book Politics for Young Americans, Charles Nordoff fifty years ago
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  Speaker 1: expounded in simple language the principles underlying our system of government.
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  Speaker 1: Coming to the subject of decentralization, he said, experience has
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  Speaker 1: shown that this device decentralization is of extreme importance for
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  Speaker 1: two reasons. First, it is a powerful and the best
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  Speaker 1: means of training a people to efficient political action and
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  Speaker 1: the art of self government. And second, it presents constant
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  Speaker 1: and important barriers to the encroachment of rulers upon the
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  Speaker 1: rights and liberties of the nation, every subdivision forming a
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  Speaker 1: stronghold of resistance by the people against unjust or wicked rulers.
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  Speaker 1: Take notice that any system of government is excellent in
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  Speaker 1: the precise degree in which it naturally trains the people
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  Speaker 1: in political independence. It habituates them to take an active
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  Speaker 1: part in governing themselves. Whatever plan of government does this
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  Speaker 1: is good, no matter what it may be called, and
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  Speaker 1: that which avoids this is necessarily bad. What mister Nordoff
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  Speaker 1: thus set forth has been universally acknowledged as the cardinal
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  Speaker 1: merit of local self government. And in addition to this
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  Speaker 1: cardinal merit it has been recognized by all competent students
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  Speaker 1: of our history that our system of self governing states
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  Speaker 1: has proved itself of an estimable benefit. In another way,
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  Speaker 1: it has been rendered possible the trying of important experiments
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  Speaker 1: in social and governmental policy, experiments which it would have
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  Speaker 1: been sometimes dangerous and still more frequently politically impossible to
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  Speaker 1: inaugurate on a national scale. When these experiments have proved successful,
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  Speaker 1: state after state has followed the example set by one
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  Speaker 1: or a few among their number when they have been
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  Speaker 1: disappointing in their results, the rest of the Union has
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  Speaker 1: profited by the warning. But highly important as is this
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  Speaker 1: aspect of state independence, the most essential benefits of it
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  Speaker 1: are the training in self government, which is emphasized in
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  Speaker 1: the above quotation from mister Nordhoff, and the adaptation of
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  Speaker 1: laws to the particular needs and the particular character of
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  Speaker 1: the people of the various states. That modern conditions have
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  Speaker 1: inevitably led to a vast enlargement of the powers of
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  Speaker 1: the central government, no thinking person can deny it would
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  Speaker 1: be folly to attempt to stick to the ex exact
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  Speaker 1: vision of state functions as against national which was natural
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  Speaker 1: when the Union was first formed. The railroad, the telegraph,
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  Speaker 1: and the telephone. The immense development of industrial, commercial and
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  Speaker 1: financial organization, the growth of interwoven interests of a thousand
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  Speaker 1: kinds have brought the people of California and New York,
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  Speaker 1: of Michigan and Texas into closer relations than were common
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  Speaker 1: between those of Massachusetts and Virginia in the days of
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  Speaker 1: Washington and John Adams. In so far as the process
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  Speaker 1: of centralization has been dictated by the clear necessities of
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  Speaker 1: the times, it would be idle to obstruct it or
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  Speaker 1: to cry out against it. But so far from this
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  Speaker 1: being an argument against the preservation of the essentials of
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  Speaker 1: local self government, it is the strongest possible argument in
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  Speaker 1: favor of that preservation. With the progress of science, invention,
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  Speaker 1: and the business organization, the power and prestige of the
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  Speaker 1: central government are bound to grow. The power and prestige
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  Speaker 1: of the state government are bound to decline under the
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  Speaker 1: pressures of economic necessity and social convenience. All the more
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  Speaker 1: then it does behoove us to sustain those essentials of
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  Speaker 1: state authority which are not comprised within the domain of
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  Speaker 1: those overmastering economic forces. If we do not hold the
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  Speaker 1: line where the line can be held, we give up
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  Speaker 1: the cause altogether, and it will only be a question
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  Speaker 1: of time when we shall have drifted into complete subjugation
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  Speaker 1: to a centralized government, and state boundaries will have no
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  Speaker 1: more serious significance than county boundaries have now. But if
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  Speaker 1: there is one thing in the wide world the control
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  Speaker 1: of which naturally and pre eminently belongs to the individual state,
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  Speaker 1: and not to the central government at Washington, that thing
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  Speaker 1: is the personal conduct and habits of the people of
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  Speaker 1: the state. If it is right and proper that the
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  Speaker 1: people of New York, or Illinois or Maryland shall be
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  Speaker 1: subjugated to the national laws which declares what they may
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  Speaker 1: or may not eat or drink, a law which they
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  Speaker 1: themselves cannot alter, no matter how strongly they may desire it,
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  Speaker 1: then there is no act of centralization whatsoever which can
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  Speaker 1: be justly objected to as an act of centralization. The
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  Speaker 1: prohibition Amendment is not merely an impairment of the principle
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  Speaker 1: of self government of the states. It constitutes an absolute
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  Speaker 1: abandonment of that principle. This does not, mean, of course,
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  Speaker 1: an immediate abandonment of the practice of state self government.
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  Speaker 1: Established institutions have a tenacious life and Moreover, there are
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  Speaker 1: a thousand practical advantages in the state self government which
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  Speaker 1: nobody will think of giving up. But the principle, I repeat,
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  Speaker 1: is abandoned altogether. If we accept the Eighteenth Amendment as
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  Speaker 1: right and proper, and if anybody imagines that the abandonment
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  Speaker 1: of the principle is of no practical consequence, he is
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  Speaker 1: woefully deluded. So long as the principle is held in esteem,
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  Speaker 1: it is always possible to make a stout fight against
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  Speaker 1: any particular encroachment upon state authority. Any proposed encroachment must
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  Speaker 1: prove its claim to acceptance not only as a practical desideratum,
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  Speaker 1: but as not too flagrant an invasion of state prerogatives.
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  Speaker 1: But with the Eighteenth Amendment accepted as a proper part
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  Speaker 1: of our system, it will be impossible to object to
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  Speaker 1: any invasion as more flagrant than that to which the
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  Speaker 1: nation has already given its approval. A striking illustration of
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  Speaker 1: this has curiously enough been furnished in the brief time
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  Speaker 1: that has passed since the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment.
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  Speaker 1: Southern senators and representatives and legislaturemen who, forgetting all about
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  Speaker 1: their cherished doctrine of states rights, had fallen over themselves
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  Speaker 1: in their eagerness to fasten the eighteenth Amendment upon the
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  Speaker 1: country suddenly discovered that they were deeply devoted to that
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  Speaker 1: doctrine when the nineteenth Amendment came up for consideration, but
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  Speaker 1: nobody would listen to them, they professed, and doubtless some
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  Speaker 1: of them sincerely professed to find an essential difference between
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  Speaker 1: putting woman's suffrage into the Constitution and putting prohibition into
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  Speaker 1: the Constitution. The determination of the right of suffrage was,
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  Speaker 1: they said, the most fundamental attribute of a sovereign state.
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  Speaker 1: National prohibition did not strike at the heart of state sovereignty,
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  Speaker 1: as did national regulation of the suffrage. But the abstract
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  Speaker 1: question of sovereignty has had little interest for the nation
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  Speaker 1: since the Civil War. And if we waive that abstract question,
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  Speaker 1: the Prohibition Amendment was an infinitely more vital thrust at
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  Speaker 1: the principle of state self government. The woman's Suffrage Amendment
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  Speaker 1: was the assertion of a fundamental principle of government, And
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  Speaker 1: if it was an abridgment of sovereignty, it was an
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  Speaker 1: abridgment of the same character as those embodied in the Constitution.
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  Speaker 1: From the beginning, the Prohibition Amendment brought the federal government
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  Speaker 1: into the control of precisely those intimate concerns of daily life, which,
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  Speaker 1: above all else, had theretofore been left untouched by the
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  Speaker 1: central power and subject to the independent jurisdiction of each
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  Speaker 1: individual state. The South had eagerly so swallowed a camel,
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  Speaker 1: and when it asked the country to strain at a gnat,
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  Speaker 1: it found nobody to listen. Our public men and our
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  Speaker 1: leaders of opinion frequently and earnestly expressed their concerns over
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  Speaker 1: the decline of importance in our state governments, the lessened
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  Speaker 1: vigor of the state spirit. The sentiment is not particular
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  Speaker 1: to any party or to any section. It is expressed
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  Speaker 1: with equal emphasis and with equal frequency, by leading Republicans
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  Speaker 1: and leading Democrats, by Northerners and Southerners, all feel alike
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  Speaker 1: that with the decay of state spirit, a virtue will
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  Speaker 1: go out of our national spirit, that a centralized America
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  Speaker 1: will be a devitalized America. But when they discussed the subject,
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  Speaker 1: they are in the habit of referring chiefly to defects
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  Speaker 1: in administration, to neglect of duty by the average citizen,
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps by those in high places in business, or
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  Speaker 1: the professions, to want of intelligence in the legislature, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: And for all this there is much reason. Yet all
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  Speaker 1: this we have had always with us, and it is
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  Speaker 1: not always that we have had with us this sense
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  Speaker 1: of decline of state spirit. For that decline, the chief
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  Speaker 1: cause is the gradual, yet steady and rapid extension of
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  Speaker 1: national powers and lowering of the comparative importance of the
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  Speaker 1: function of the state. However, the functions that still remain
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  Speaker 1: to the state and its subdivisions, the municipalities and counties,
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  Speaker 1: are still of enormous importance. And with the growth of
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  Speaker 1: public welfare activities, which are ramifying in so many directions,
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  Speaker 1: that importance may be far greater in the future. But
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  Speaker 1: what is to become of it if we are ready
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  Speaker 1: to surrender to the central government the control of our
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  Speaker 1: most intimate concerns. And what concern can be so intimate
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  Speaker 1: as that of the conduct of the individual citizen in
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  Speaker 1: the pursuit of his daily life. How can the idea
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  Speaker 1: of the state as an object of pride or as
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  Speaker 1: a source of authority flourish when the most elementary of
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  Speaker 1: its functions is supinely abandoned to the custom of a
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  Speaker 1: higher and stronger power. The Prohibition Amendment has done more
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  Speaker 1: to sap the vitality of our state system than can
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  Speaker 1: be done by a hundred years of misrule at Albany,
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  Speaker 1: or Harrisburg or Springfield. The effects of that misrule are
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  Speaker 1: more directly apparent, but they leave the state spirit untouched
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  Speaker 1: in its vital parts. The Prohibition Amendment strikes at the
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  Speaker 1: root of that spirit, and its evil precedent, if unreversed,
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  Speaker 1: will steadily cut off the source from which that spirit
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  Speaker 1: derives its life. End of Chapter three