commandment forbidding theft should be repealed in Detroit. There are
more murders in New York in any one year than in the whole of Ireland
in its most distressful year, but nobody suggests that the commandment
against murder should be repealed in New York. That a law is broken is
no argument for its repeal. And notwithstanding all the smuggling
there is no doubt but that the Prohibition Law is obeyed by 99 per
cent. of the American people. 'In Nebraska there are several times as
many men in the penitentiary for stealing automobiles as there are for
violating the liquor laws.' The persons who are convicted for breaking
the law are the aliens newly come to the country--Italians, Poles,
Irish, Spaniards. A native-born American scarcely ever is found among
the breakers of the Prohibition Law, and very seldom a Scotsman. But
the newspapers themselves are the proof of this. If the disregard of
Prohibition were the general thing, the newspapers would cease to
record it; for according to the Press news is the exceptional. To walk
to business every day is commonplace and receives no record; but to be
run down in the traffic and break a limb is news. That receives its
paragraph. It is the exceptional that receives the big headlines. And
the big headlines about smuggling across the Canadian border and from
the Bahama Islands or about wood alcohol are the proof that these
things are exceptional. Otherwise they would not be news. That
ethical passion which passed the 18th Amendment is now being diverted
to its enforcement. The traffic across the Canadian border is being
stopped, for Canada is now going dry. The traffic from the Bahamas
under the British flag is being dealt with. 'We shall move heaven and
earth to make Prohibition effective,' said the orator. 'You had
better move the Bahamas,' came the reply. It would be a disaster if
the false impression created in this country by the syndicated Press
regarding the working of Prohibition in the States were to lead those
in authority to imagine that the people of the States will regard with
no indignation the British flag being used for the flouting of the laws
and of the Constitution of the United States. It is impossible that
that can go on. Everywhere in the States the organisation for making
Prohibition effective is being tightened up. In social reform the
citizens of the States are determined to lead the world. I for one am
convinced that they will