The question next to be considered is, Can prohibitory laws be enforced? and if so, will they remove from the people the curse of drunkenness?

CAN PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ENFORCED?

As to the complete enforcement of any salutory law, that depends mainly on the public sentiment regarding it, and on the organized strength of its opposers.  If the common sentiment of the people were in favor of every man’s liberty to steal whatever he could lay his hands on, it would be found very difficult to convict a rogue, no matter how clearly expressed the law against stealing.  A single thief in the jury-box could defeat the ends of justice.  A hundred loop-holes for escape can always be found in the provisions of a law with which the majority of the people are not in sympathy.  Indeed, it often happens that such loop-holes are provided by the law-makers themselves; and this is especially true in too many of the laws made for the suppression of the liquor trade.

Is this an argument against the enactment of laws to protect the people from great wrongs—­especially the weaker and more helpless ones?  To the half-hearted, the indifferent and the pusillanimous—­yes!  But with brave, true men, who have at heart the best interests of humanity, this can only intensify opposition to wrong, and give strength for new efforts to destroy its power.  These have an undying faith in the ultimate victory of good over evil, and mean, so far as they are concerned, that the battle shall continue until that victory is won.

Judge Pitman has eloquently expressed this sentiment in the closing pages of his recent work, to which we have more than once referred.  Speaking of those who distrust the practicability of securing such legislation as will effectually destroy the liquor trade, he says:  “They are appalled at the power of the traffic.  They see that it has uncounted wealth at its command; that it is organized and unscrupulous; that it has the support of fierce appetite behind it and the alliance of every evil lust; that it is able to bribe or intimidate the great political parties.  All this is true; but still it is not to be the final victor.  It has all the elemental moral forces of the human race against it, and though their working be slow, and their rate of progress dependent on human energy and fidelity, the ultimate result is as certain as the action of the law of gravity in the material universe.  Wealth may be against us; rank may affect to despise us; but the light whose dawn makes a new morning in the world, rarely shines from palace or crown, but from the manger and the cross.  Before the aroused consciences of the people, wielding the indomitable will of a State, the destroyers of soul and body shall go down forever.”

THE VALUE OF PROHIBITORY LAWS WHEN ENFORCED.