WHEN IS A LAW NOT A LAW?

Ever since the passage of the Volstead Act, the bewildered public has been vainly trying to discover the precise constitutional position of John Barleycorn. Every day new decisions and interpretations are given out, until one may be quite sure that today's ruling will be reversed somewhere else before the week is out. So completely are our law-making and judicial bodies in the hands of the lawyer class, that public life has degenerated into a mere contest to see whether one side can make laws faster than the other side can pick holes in them. "Diamond cut diamond" is a fascinating sport for every one but the tax-payer: all he wants is a little peace and perhaps a drink or two.

Not the least astonishing feature of the game is the extraordinary devotion to duty exhibited by the enforcement officers. The history of the last eighteen months indicates that they are by far the most zealous of all our public servants. But why? Surely the mere satisfaction of exposing the sins of their weaker brothers is not enough to account for it. Some other impelling force has more than once led the prohibition officers to pose as internal revenue collectors and thus obtain evidence of violations. In their eagerness to uphold the dignity of the eighteenth amendment, they cheerfully break every other law with a clear conscience. Yet why they should take prohibition enforcement so much to heart, is one of the enigmas of our commonwealth.

Frankly, however, the joke has gone quite far enough. The efficient drafting of the laws is the sine qua non of a rational civilization. It is time that we established enough coordination between the legislative and executive branches of the government so that the statutes on our books may possess at least a semblance of meaning. At present no one knows what many of our laws really say, and every one is aware of the fact. This do-as-you-please kind of statute is a menace to our national life, placing the public, as it does, at the mercy alike of official caprice and scheming lawyers. The American people have a right to know where they stand.