y, and at the threshold of this question is another:
Can prohibitory laws be enforced? There are to-day in Kansas,--a
prohibition State--more saloons, that is to say, more places in
which liquor is sold, than there are in Georgia, a State without
prohibition legislation. There are more in Nebraska, according to
the population, more in Iowa, according to the population, than in
many of the States in which there is the old license system. You
will find that the United States has granted more licenses to
wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition States,--according
to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has
not been adopted.

These facts tend to show that it is not enough for the Legislature
to say: "Be it enacted." Behind every law there must be an
intelligent and powerful public opinion. A law, to be enforced,
must be the expression of such powerful and intelligent opinion;
otherwise it becomes a dead letter; it is avoided; judges continue
the cases, juries refuse to convict, and witnesses are not particular
about telling the truth. Such laws demoralize the community, or,
to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass such laws.

_Question_. What do you think of the prohibitory movement on
general principles?

_Answer_. The trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending
to reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are
compelled to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. For
the purpose of preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch.
Eyes and ears must become acquainted with keyholes. Every neighbor
suspects every other. A man with a bottle or demijohn is followed.
Those who drink get behind doors, in cellars and garrets. Hypocrisy
becomes substantially universal. Hundreds of people become suddenly
afflicted with a variety of diseases, for the cure of which alcohol
in some form is supposed to be indispensable. Malaria becomes general,
and it is perfectly astonishing how long a few pieces of Peruvian
bark will last, and how often the liquor can be renewed without
absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. The State becomes
a paradise for patent medicine--the medicine being poor whiskey
with a scientific name.

Physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind
figures in their prescriptions. Then in the towns clubs are formed,
the principal object being to establish a saloon, and in many
instances the drug store