defiers of the law just as one would carry on a campaign against a foreign enemy.  The generals in charge of the campaign decide whether they shall or shall not attack a particular body of the enemy; and their decision is controlled by the same kind of calculation as that made by the generals in a war of arms—­a calculation of the chances of victory.  Where the enemy is too numerous, or too strongly entrenched, or too widely scattered, they leave him alone; where they can drive him into a corner and capture him, they attack.  To realize how thoroughly this policy is recognized as a simple fact, one can hardly do better than quote these perfectly naive and sincere remarks in an editorial entitled “Government Bootlegging,” in the New York Tribune, a paper that has never been unfriendly to the Eighteenth Amendment: 

That American ships had wine lists was no news to the astute Wayne B. Wheeler, generalissimo of the Prohibition forces.  He was fully informed before Mr. Gallivan spoke, and by silence gave consent to them.  He was complaisant, it may be assumed, because he did not wish to furnish another argument to those who would repeal or modify the Volstead act.  He has made no fuss over home brew and has allowed ruralists to make cider of high alcoholic voltage.  He saw it would be difficult, if not impossible, to stop home manufacture and did not wish to swell the number of anti-Volsteaders.  He was looking to securing results rather than to being gloriously but futilely consistent.  Similarly the practical Mr. Wheeler foresaw that if American ships were bone-dry the bibulous would book on foreign ships and the total consumption of beverages would not be materially diminished.  For a barren victory he did not care to have Volsteadism carry the blame of driving American passenger ships from the sea.  Prohibitionists who have not put their brains in storage may judge whether or not his tactics are good and contribute to the end he seeks.

Now from the standpoint of pure calculation directed to the attainment of a strategic end, in a warfare between the power of a Government and the forces of a very large proportion of the population over which it holds sway, the Tribune may be entirely right.  But what is left of the idea of respect for law?  With what effectiveness can either President Angell or President Harding appeal to that sentiment when it is openly admitted that the Government not only deliberately overlooks violations of the law by millions of private individuals, but actually directs that the law shall be violated on its own ships, for fear that the commercial loss entailed by doing otherwise would further excite popular resentment against the law?  It has only to be added that since the date of that editorial (June 18, 1922) the Anti-Saloon League has come out strongly against the selling of liquor on Governmentowned ships—­a change which only emphasizes the point I am making.  For, in spite of the Tribune’s shrewd observations, it