Article November 4, 1922 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Edward W. Bok

[From The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass.]

"Such is the law" should be the only guide of those who are charged with the great responsibility of administering the law. The highest and most inviolate law is expressed in the Constitution. The Constitution is the very foundation of government. No statute can become effective which violates the Constitution of any state or nation. Yet the appalling situation is presented of a law being violated openly—the Volstead Act, regulating the sale of liquor, which act was passed to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and the violation of that law is based upon the alleged conclusion that "it cannot be enforced."

The issue before the people of the United States is whether law can be enforced, or whether those who disregard the law and the Constitution are powerful enough to violate law and secure the repeal or amendment of the law which they maintain cannot be enforced by reason of their own violation thereof. Such a preposterous design could not succeed if the people were awake to the grave situation. They have been lulled into indifference by gentle ridicule of prohibition, even though the ridicule is strictly directed against the law, against the Constitution of the United States, and especially against the enforcement of law by reason of its alleged failure. If the Volstead Act cannot be enforced, then the law against counterfeiting cannot be enforced. But Americans know that the law against counterfeiting can be and is enforced. Then the Volstead Act can be enforced; and those who deny this are propagandists, not only against prohibition, but against enforcement of all law. Enforce the law! Let those who would ridicule the Constitution know that it is held sacred now, as it was in the days of Washington and Lincoln.

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