their private capacity, Senators and Representatives and
Legislaturemen are precisely like their fellow-citizens in this
matter. They may possibly be somewhat more careful about the letter of
the law; they are certainly just as regardless of its spirit. With the
exception of a comparatively small number of genuine
Prohibitionists--men who were for Prohibition before the Anti-Saloon
League started its campaign--they would laugh at the question whether
they regard drinking as a crime. And they act accordingly. What degree
of moral authority can the law be expected to have in these
circumstances? Upon the mind of a man intensely convinced that the law
is an outrage, how much impression can be produced by the mere fact
that it was passed by Congress and the Legislatures, when the real
attitude of the members of those bodies is such as it is seen to be in
their private conduct? How much of a moral sanction would be given to
a law against larceny if a large proportion of the men who enacted the
law were themselves receivers of stolen goods ? Or a law against
forgery if the legislators were in the frequent habit of passing
forged checks? It happens that the receiving of stolen goods or the
passing of forged checks is a crime under the law, as well as the
stealing or the forgery itself; and that the Prohibition law does not
make the drinking or even the buying of liquor, but only the making or
selling of it, a crime; but what a miserable refuge this is for a man
who professes to believe that the abolition of intoxicating liquor is
so supreme a public necessity as to demand the remaking of the
Constitution of the United States for the purpose! Not the least of
the causes of public disrespect for the Prohibition law is the
notorious insincerity of the makers of the law, and their flagrant
disrespect for their own creation.

CHAPTER VI