o characterization can be too severe. And it is something more than
an atrocity; the Eighteenth Amendment is not only a perversion but
also a degradation of the Constitution. In what precedes, the emphasis
has been placed on the perversion of what was designed as a safeguard
of liberty into a safeguard of the denial of liberty. But even if no
issue of liberty entered into the case, an amendment that embodied a
mere police regulation would be a degradation of the Constitution. In
the earlier days of our history --indeed up to a comparatively recent
time--if any one had suggested such a thing as a Prohibition
amendment to the Federal Constitution, he would have been met not with
indignation but with ridicule. It would not have been the monstrosity,
but the absurdity, of such a proposal, that would have been first in
the thought of almost any intelligent American to whom it might have
been presented. He would have felt that such a feature was as utterly
out of place in the Constitution of the United States as would be a
statute regulating the height of houses or the length of women's
skirts. It might be as meritorious as you please in itself, but it
didn't belong in the Constitution. If the Constitution is to command
the kind of respect which shall make it the steadfast bulwark of our
institutions, the guaranty of our union and our welfare, it must
preserve the character that befits such an instrument. The Eighteenth
Amendment, if it were not odious as a perversion of the power of the
Constitution, would be contemptible as an offense against its dignity.

CHAPTER II

CREATING A NATION OF LAW-BREAKERS

IN his baccalaureate address as President of Yale University, in June,
1922, Dr. Angell felt called upon to say that in this country "the
violation of law has never been so general nor so widely condoned as
at present," and to add these impressive words of appeal to the young
graduates:

This is a fact which strikes at the very heart of our system of
government, and the young man entering upon his active career must
decide whether he too will condone and even abet such disregard of
law, or whether he will set his face firmly against such a course.

It is safe to say that there has never been a time in the history of
our country when the President of a great university could have found
it necessary to address the young Americans before him in any such
language. There has nev