Temperance and Public Opinion

...Thus membership shall consist of representative men and women in all spheres of thought, industry and labor regardless of political and religious affiliations...

...To be non-partizan in aim it must be so in composition...

...2. The consideration of federal legislation providing for the reasonable use of light wines and beer (fermented beverages) and the use of hard (distilled) liquors for commercial and medicinal purposes only...

...It should, of course, solve the problem of both wets and drys in those states which under his plan would permit "fermented beverages...

...As the issue is a national one, membership shall be confined to citizens of the United States and shall be national in scope...

...Hoyt were a federal judge, assigned to a court with a prohibition docket, he would not be officiating in that capacity long if he insisted upon practising the differentiation which he so ingeniously imputes to Congress, but which lacks the sanction of the official and unofficial backers of prohibition...

...This title was later changed to one asking for, A practical plan, as a substitute for prohibition, which will secure better actual temperance conditions, which will be more easily possible of enforcement by state and federal authorities, which will offer less encouragement to crime and tend less to debauch the public service, and which will not so outrage and violate the fundamental rights and personal liberties of American citizens...

...Thirdly, Judge Hoyt refuses to feel concerned over the question whether the powers responsible for the present prohibition system would ever consent to a plan surrendering what they consider their most glorious achievement, national as distinguished from state prohibition—and prohibition along the entire line covering not only "distilled liquors" but "fermented beverages" as well...

...It demands disinterestedness and independence from organized agitation for or against prohibition, and lastly, unqualified adhesion to the legal method of repeal or emendation of undesirable legislation as differentiated from nullification by evasion or violation...

...And so, as far as these dry states are concerned, the Hoyt plan would introduce dozens of petty tyrannies in the place of the one huge tyranny with which we are cursed today...

...Whether the character of the membership and the work and findings of such a body would be able to impress the public and to command its confidence is a question to which no generally convincing answer can be given in advance...

...311...

...The Council shall operate through committees charged with the investigation of particular phases of the larger issues such as: 1. The treatment of inebriety as a pathological rather than a criminal problem...

...4. The effectuation of agreements between employers and employees for the reasonable abstention from alcoholic beverages in all occupations affecting the ethical, physical and material well-being of human society...

...As was to be expected under the terms of the contest, the winning plan, offered by C. P. Mills, former prohibition administrator for New York City, ignored the fitness of the law to be enforced and confined itself to the problem of its more effective enforcement...

...In short, Judge Hoyt is decidedly too optimistic concerning the most vital factor of all— public opinion...

...For he adds: It suffices to say that distillation is the act of man and has been responsible for practically all the evils which "liquor" has inflicted upon the human race, while fermentation is the act of nature, and that to many must mean, in the most reverential sense, the act of God...

...James Doran is quoted as having remarked that Mr...

...It requires the moral courage to be the creators of public opinion, not its followers...

...There is apparent today a ruthless determination on the part of those favoring prohibition to force upon their opponents a policy practised by only a minority of their own following...

...Judge Hoyt states that "the Eighteenth Amendment prohibits 'the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes.' " He for one is of the opinion that "despite popular belief, it [Congress] does not refer to 'alcoholic beverages' " and that "what it bans is 'intoxicating liquors.' " What he proposes is this: Let Congress repeal the Volstead Act and substitute a law defining the words "intoxicating liquors" as "all alcoholic products of distillation...

...Both titles imply a concern over the fitness of the law in question and the winner of the Hearst contest, Franklin Chase Hoyt, Presiding Judge of the Children's Court of New York City, devotes his efforts chiefly to elaborating a substitute for the Volstead Act, implying that the modification suggested will per se solve the question of enforcement...

...As it seems, even the official commission of inquiry promised during the last presidential campaign is to investigate, not the fitness of the law, but its more effective enforcement...

...Those who believe that such an enterprise would meet with success, can point to the fact that public opinion has always proved only too prone to follow determined leadership...

...Qualification for membership shall be ability and integrity...

...The author of the following paper is a prominent student and historian of that opinion...

...He examines the two "solutions of prohibition" to which prizes have recently been awarded, and proposes machinery for accomplishing the work imperatively needed before any "solution" can be thought of...

...Furthermore, unless Judge Hoyt's plan implies a certain degree of enforced abstention even from fermented beverages, there is to be found in it no guarantee for the protection of society as a whole against the consequences of inebriety in modern industry and traffic...

...No less an authority on enforcement than Federal Prohibition Commissioner Dr...

...The Council, or whatever it may call itself, should work for the reorientation of public opinion in the direction of a rational approach to the problem of practical temperance instead of the present emotional attitude for or against prohibition...

...One might thus make bold to propose that someone endowed with the vision, the faith, the means, in short, the wherewithal of the genuine philanthropist, promote the creation of something like a National Council for the Study of the Temperance Problem...

...Integrity means honesty of purpose to harmonize precept and practice...

...What ought public opinion to do, and how can it do anything...

...Under the circumstances his plan, and for that matter any plan which does not embody a definite effort to harmonize public opinion, is nothing but a mirage in the desert...

...So much for the practical value of that differentiation...

...5. The enactment of legislation dealing with inebriety in traffic as it deals with any other prohibitive disability...

...But whether their judgment proves right or not, until public opinion has been modified to the extent of assuming a more tolerant and rational outlook, there can be no hope for any reasonable substitute for prohibition...

...Ability signifies experience in dealing with questions affecting the relations of man to man and appreciation of human personality from the aspect of social rights as well as duties...

...Nor does Judge Hoyt bother with the question whether the wets would agree to accept a plan promising relief to some, but leaving a large number of their brethren to the none too tender mercies of the dry states in which fate has forced them to reside...

...The second contest, held under the aegis of William Randolph Hearst, originally called for the best plan to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment and substitute in place of prohibition a more liberal and more American measure...

...What, then, is the present state of public opinion that it should be so effective an obstacle...

...As to the merit of the Hoyt plan there are several things to be said...

...Still, what must be done before any substitute for prohibition can be found and applied is precisely that a large number of both camps be brought to agreement on the salient points of the problem...

...Let it ban the manufacture, sale and transportation of such products throughout the country, except for commercial and medicinal Current discussion of prohibition too frequently ignores the essential aspects of the problem to be solved...

...Least of all could one individual be sufficiently resourceful to reconcile the two opposing camps by any plan persuasive enough to gain legislative and executive sanction by federal and state authorities...

...It implies a sense of proportion in balancing man's need for wholesome recreation and society's claim to security for modern industry and traffic...

...The Council shall be organized with a view to the early establishment of regional, state and local councils or branches for the popular dissemination of its findings and program, through the usual channels of the press, lectures, radio and the like...

...In the study of these and other phases the investigators shall draw upon reliable information available in this country, and upon the actual experiences of other nations who have dealt or are dealing with the same problems...

...In the states which would continue dry, however, the wet minority would still be deprived of those beverages which by "the act of nature" or "the act of God," have been allowed to become fermented...

...3. The elaboration of a system of supervision or control of the manufacture, sale and transportation of such beverages and liquors by state or federal agencies...

...For legislators will continue to vote as they have done until they are made to see that they must vote differently to maintain their commissions...

...It is evident that no remedial action by way of an effective majority in favor of a reasonable substitute for prohibition can be expected from any one of these opposing forces, fired as they are by the zeal of the religious or mercenary reformer, or with the hostility of the non-conformist, each bent on enforcing upon the other its partizan interpretation of the citizen's duties and rights...

...He also discredits any belief that a government which treats prohibition as a political problem, can hope to solve it.—The Editors purposes, but at the same time let it permit each state to regulate and control the manufacture and sale of all malt, brewed and fermented beverages within its own borders...

...Mills had changed a "lot of old stuff for some good new money...

...Enforcing agencies indulge in an orgy of criminal rowdyism, only halfheartedly discountenanced by the constitutional guardians of the civil rights of the offender as well as the innocent but injured bystander...

...If there is any hope of bringing about such an agreement, it must be sought in the enlightening and moderating effort of a body or institution whose members stand aloof from the present partizan organizations and who thus are capable of looking at the situation objectively, of ascertaining the facts involved and of forming conclusions on the basis of these facts...

...They must, above all, be made to realize that, on the one hand, indiscriminate prohibition as we have it today offends the sensibilities of most self-respecting men and women, and that, on the other hand, the changed conditions of modern industry and traffic demand the utmost constraint in the use of even fermented beverages...

...Nor can such action come from a government which feels constrained to view the problem as a political rather than a social issue...

...There is manifest an equally determined will of many of those opposing prohibition to circumvent existing prohibition legislation by nullification and violation of its inhibitions...

...First, if Mr...

...And if Judge Hoyt, with more optimism than regard for reality, concludes that congressional action as proposed by him "would solve the whole problem," we, with more regard for reality than optimism, are of the opinion that it would do nothing of the sort...

...Secondly, the entire Hoyt plan is nothing but a restatement in a combination of judicial and clerical idioms of the more popularly phrased demand, repeated ad nauseam, for the granting of light wines and beer under a system of local option...

...For, admitting that these consequences may not be as serious and frequent as under the free or surreptitious use of distilled liquors, they nevertheless must be considered in 310 any reasonable plan aspiring to become a substitute for prohibition...

...The first, sponsored by W. C. Durant, prominent industrialist, called "for the best and most practicable plan to make the Eighteenth Amendment effective...

...For public opinion, divided as it is today, is the one great obstacle to the application of any reasonable substitute for prohibition...

...For, obedient to the demand of an assumed but unproved popular majority clamoring for prohibition, legislators write into the statutes, and judges assess fines and penalties out of all proportion to the offense...

...For while the wets would thus have the beverages they desire, the drys could, without molestation from public or private sources, refrain from taking what they did not want...

...Concerning the merit of the Mills plan public opinion naturally disagreed...

...An effort shall be made to secure the cooperation of such organizations as the Social Science Research Council, the American Medical and Bar Associations and others of equal reputation...