To fight hard and long merely to get a concession like this, which is in substance no concession—­to get permission to drink beer that is not beer and wine that is not wine—­is surely not an undertaking worth the expenditure of any great amount of civic energy.  A source of comfort was, however, furnished to advocates of a liberalizing of the Prohibition regime by the very fact that the Supreme Court did sanction so manifest a stretching of the meaning of words as is involved in a law which declares any beverage containing as much as one-half of one per cent. of alcohol to be an “intoxicating liquor.”  If a liquor that is not intoxicating can by Congressional definition be made intoxicating, it was pointed out, then by the same token a liquor that is intoxicating can by Congressional definition be made non-intoxicating.  Accordingly, it has been held by many, if Congress were to substitute ten per cent., say, for one-half of one per cent., in the Volstead act, by which means beer and light wines would be legitimated, the Supreme Court would uphold the law and a great relief from the present oppressive conditions would by this very simple means be accomplished.  What the Supreme Court would actually say of such a law I am far from bold enough to attempt to say.  That the law would not be an execution of the intent of the Eighteenth Amendment is plain enough; and it would be a much more substantial transgression against its purpose than is the one-half of one per cent. enactment.  Nevertheless it is quite possible that the Supreme Court would decide that this deviation to the right of the zero mark is as much within the discretion of Congress as was the Volstead deviation to the left.  Certainly the possibility at least exists that this would be so.  But whether this be so or not, it is quite plain that Congress, if it really wishes to do so, can put the country into the position where Prohibition will either draw the line above the beer-and-wine point or go out altogether.  For if it were to pass an act repealing the Volstead law, and in a separate act, passed practically at the same time but after the repealing act, enact a ten per cent. prohibition law (or some similar percentage) what would be the result?  Certainly there is nothing unconstitutional in repealing the Volstead act.  There would have been nothing unconstitutional in a failure of Congress to pass any act enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment.  The Supreme Court can put out of action a law that Congress has passed, on the ground of unconstitutionality; but it cannot put into action a law that Congress has not passed.  And a law repealed is the same as a law that has not been passed.  Thus if Congress really wished to legitimate beer and wine, it could do so; leaving it to the Supreme Court to declare whether a law prohibiting strong alcoholic drinks was or was not more of an enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment than no law at all—­for the only alternative the Court would have before it would be