The Prohibition Law and the Political Machine

SENATOR REED of Pennsylvania recently addressed the members of the Union League of Philadelphia on the subject of the enforcement of the national prohibition law. The meeting was not open to the public, but from the reports in the press it is evident that he spoke with courageous frankness. He urged the men,-and his audience was exclusively masculine, -not to be hypocrites, not to uphold the Amendment in public and privately disregard it. Give the law a fair chance, he said. It has never had a fair chance. By exempting enforcement officers from the operation of the federal civil service law the Volstead Act turned them all over to political patronage and made enforcement a political game. As originally presented to Congress the Volstead Act conformed to the federal law. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee, where it was amended, and when resubmitted to the House the section relating to the civil service read as follows, the Amendment being the clauses in italics

Democracy · Economics · Law and economics · Political economy · Political machine · Political science · Politics · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · Law

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