ery
possibly a majority, of the people regard the thing it forbids as
perfectly innocent and, within proper limits, eminently desirable; the
only moral sanction that it has in their minds is that of its being on
the statute books. What can that moral sanction possibly amount to
when the administration of the law itself furnishes the most notorious
of all examples of disrespect for its commands? There is another
aspect of the enforcement of the law which invites comment, but upon
which I shall say only a few words. I refer to the many invasions of
privacy, unwarranted searches, etc., that have taken place in the
execution of the law. I f this went on upon a much larger scale than
has actually been the case, it would justly be the occasion for
perhaps the most severe of all the indictments against the Volstead
act; for it would mean that Americans are being habituated to
indifference in regard to the violation of one of their most ancient
and most essential rights.

But in fact the danger of public resentment over such a course has
been the chief cause of the sagacious strategy which has characterized
the policy of the Government; or perhaps one should rather say, the
Anti-Saloon League, for it is the League, and not the Government, that
is the predominant partner in this matter. For the present, the League
has been "lying low" in the matter of search and seizure; but if it
should ever feel strong enough to undertake the suppression of home
brew, there is not the faintest question but that it will press
forward the most stringent conceivable measures of search and seizure.
Accordingly, there opens up before the eyes of the American people
this pleasing prospect: If the present struggle of the League (or the
Government) with bootleggers and moonshiners and smugglers is brought
to a successful conclusion, there will naturally be a greater resort
than ever to home manufacture; and equally naturally, it will then be
necessary for the League (or the Government) to undertake to stamp out
that practice. But obviously this cannot be done without inaugurating
a sweeping and determined policy of search and seizure in private
houses; a beautiful prospect for "the land of the free," for the
inheritors of the English tradition of individual liberty and of the
American spirit of '76--sight for gods and men to weep over or laugh
at!

CHAPTER VII

NATURE OF THE PROHIBITIONIST TYRANNY