What Prohibition Has Done to America | Page 8

Amendment, or to a realization of the vast amount of
discontent it has aroused, or to something else that was not in the minds
of the majority when the Amendment was put through. But really the
question is of very little importance. From the standpoint of
fundamental political doctrine, it makes no difference whether 40
million, or 50 million, or 60 million people out of a hundred million
desired to put into the Constitution a provision which is an offense

against the underlying idea of any Constitution, an injury to the
American Federal system, an outrage upon the first principles both of
law and of liberty. And if, instead of viewing the matter from the
standpoint of fundamental political doctrine, we look upon it as a
question of Constitutional procedure, it is again--though for a different
reason--a matter of little consequence whether a count of noses would
have favored the adoption of the Amendment or not. The Constitution
provides a definite method for its own amendment, and this method
was strictly carried out--the Amendment received the approval of the
requisite number of Representatives, Senators and State Legislatures;
from the standpoint of Constitutional procedure the question of popular
majorities has nothing to do with the case. But from every standpoint
the way in which the Eighteenth Amendment was actually put through
Congress and the Legislatures has a great deal to do with the case.
Prohibitionists constantly point to the big majority in Congress, and the
promptness and almost unanimity of the approval by the Legislatures,
as proof of an overwhelming preponderance of public sentiment in
favor of the Amendment. It is proof of no such thing. To begin with,
nothing is more notorious than the fact that a large proportion of the
members of Congress and State Legislatures who voted for the
Prohibition Amendment were not themselves in favor of it. Many of
them openly declared that they were voting not according to their own
judgment but in deference to the desire of their constituents. But there
is not the slightest reason to believe that one out of twenty of those
gentlemen made any effort to ascertain the desire of a majority of their
constituents; nor, for that matter, that they would have followed that
desire if they had known what it was. What they were really concerned
about was to get the support, or avoid the enmity, of those who held, or
were supposed to hold, the balance of power. For that purpose a
determined and highly organized body of moderate dimensions may
outweigh a body ten times as numerous and ten times as representative
of the community. The Anti-Saloon League was the power of which
Congressmen and Legislaturemen alike stood in fear. Never in our
political history has there been such an example of consummately
organized, astutely managed, and unremittingly maintained
intimidation; and accordingly never in our history has a measure of
such revolutionary character and of such profound importance as the

Eighteenth Amendment been put through with anything like such
smoothness and celerity. The intimidation exercised by the AntiSaloon
League was potent in a degree far beyond the numerical strength of the
League and its adherents, not only because of the effective and
systematic use of its black-listing methods, but also for another reason.
Weak-kneed Congressmen and Legislaturemen succumbed not only to
fear of the ballots which the League controlled but also to fear of
another kind. A weapon not less powerful than political intimidation
was the moral intimidation which the Prohibition propaganda had
constantly at command. That such intimidation should be resorted to by
a body pushing what it regards as a magnificent reform is not surprising;
the pity is that so few people have the moral courage to beat back an
attack of this kind. Throughout the entire agitation, it was the invariable
habit of Prohibition advocates to stigmatize the anti-Prohibition forces
as representing nothing but the "liquor interests." The fight was
presented in the light of a struggle between those who wished to coin
money out of the degradation of their fellow-creatures and those who
sought to save mankind from perdition. That the millions of people
who enjoyed drinking, to whom it was a cherished source of
refreshment, recuperation, and sociability, had any stake in the matter,
the agitators never for a moment acknowledged; if a man stood out
against Prohibition he was not the champion of the millions who
enjoyed drink, but the servant of the interests who sold drink. This
preposterous fiction was allowed to pass current with but little
challenge; and many a public man who might have stood out against
the Anti-Saloon League's power over the ballot-box cowered at the
thought of the moral reprobation which a courageous stand against
Prohibition might bring down upon him. Thus the swiftness with which
the Prohibition