Exposition

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

This morning I received a brief note from an assistant in the University to the effect that the Harvard Debating Council Plan for the Enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment is too simple. Possibly other members of the University are of the same opinion. I think that impression arises from too casual an examination of the plan. The effects of the Harvard Debating Council Plan are numerous and far-reaching. I am giving below some of the less obvious effects ofeach item.

Item 1. It does not repeal the Eighteenth Amendment (that requires a two-thirds majority in the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, as well as a two-thirds majority in Congress).

It does repeal legislation providing a penalty for infractions of the provisions of the amendment.

It also removes any legislative definition of "intoxicating".

Item 2. It makes operating a saloon, or any other establishment selling alcoholic beverages by the single drink, a federal offense. (Thus the saloon, wiped out by the prohibition laws, is unlawful under the Debating Council Plan.)

Item 3. Provides genuine enforcement of prohibition where the people want it. Does not force an unpopular law upon states where the majority of the people oppose it. Lightens the task of the federal government, which does not have adequate machinery to enforce the prohibition laws.

Places on each state the burden of solving its own liquor problem. (The state has the police forces, the courts and all the necessary machinery, while the federal government has few facilities).

Allows for an increased expansion of enforcement whenever public sentiment wants it.

Item 4. Gives to the cause of temperance and abstinence the only effective tools they ever had.

Substitutes reason and persuasion for coercion.

Provides a means of creating and increasing public sentiment necessary to the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment.

Item 5. Places the burden of federal enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment upon people who drink beverages which are not necessaries, but are luxuries. If alcoholic liquor in itself is an evil, it makes the traffic pay for its own eradication.

Wednesday evening at the Harvard Union, each of the above effects will be treated: other possible developments will be discussed. The Debating Council welcomes any question upon the plan and its possible or probable results. Yours very truly.   Edward M. Rowe.   Harvard Debating Council.