The Political Religion

(The CRIMSON invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

I have just read the communication of Mr. Leonard which you published yesterday. If this were as innoffensive as it is amusing, I should consider it worthy of no further comment. But such a trade against the fundamental principles of constitutional government should not remain unchallenged.

Quoting from Mr. Leonard, "Prohibition is really nothing but an overgrown police regulation, puffed up with pseudo-religious bigotry and a dash of second-hand prairie Puritanism." I admire such an excellent command over the English language, but should like to point out that this statement is quite contrary to the facts involved. This "tyrannical decree" "In defiance of public opinion" was already in existence in thirty-three States of the Union before the Eighteenth Amendment was put before the people. The first Liquor Law was enacted in Maine more than fifty years ago. This was not an upstart regulation "put over" on the nation when the boys were at the front; it is an inevitable crystalization of a strong public conviction which has been growing for half a century.

Let those who are opposed to the amendment come out in the open, fight it, and repeal it if they can; but until they can, let them have the manhood to observe it.

I can do no better than quote those splendid words of Abraham Lincoln: "As the patriots of '76 rallied to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property and his honor-let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his childrens liberty. Let reverence for the laws become the political religion of the nations." JOHN P. HUBBARD '26.