SOCIAL v. PERSONAL LIBERTY.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 377, 18 December 1926, Page 5

SOCIAL v. PERSONAL LIBERTY.

The Mayor, Editor of the “St. Pau! Pioneer Press,” w’rites thus, “Prohibition is a great experiment in social control. The object is to improve the social fabric by abolishing intoxicating liquor and it is intended to abolish intoxicants, because it has been the uniform experience of mankind that the use of intoxicating liquor is detrimental to society and because we have learned there is no way of compromising with this evil. It must be dug up by the roots and cast forth.”

The mayor further stated that the Eighteenth Amendment w r as adopted “in the belief that such a step had become essential to the welfare of society, and though there has been persistent criticism of the propriety of such an interference with personal liberty, it must be perfectly obvious that whenever society conceives that anything essential to its well-being is at stake there can be no question of its obligation to act, whether the offender be opium, war or alcohol.” It is a mistake to talk about personal liberty when the true issue is social liberty.

“Surely there is no cause for discouragement if in six years it has not been possible completely to root out an evil which has existed for generations. Nothing has happened which was not discounted in advance. Prohibition is not a failure. It is in fact enough of a success to inspire one with perfect confidence for the future.”