THE LAW OF EXCEPTIONS

Over the week-end, delegates from fifty colleges will hold discussions, conferences, lectures and all sorts of things to thresh out definitely and finally whether the Eighteenth Amendment ought to be enforced. The chief objection of this New England Citizenship Conference is to influence student opinion on the Prohibition question, and incidentally to give the student body a chance to express itself.

Almost any discussion is a good thing. A real argument indicates mental activity at least, whether either side knows any relevant facts or not; one is forced to think, and think fast if one means to impress a critical--often hypercritical audience. This is more particularly true when there is vigorous opposition, so the maximum benefit on this score may not be obtained at the Citizenship Conference, when everyone will probably represent the same point of view.

The most interesting thing about this Conference, however, is that there should be a Conference at all on the subject of Prohibition enforcement. Certainly Prohibition was made the law of the land by the Eighteenth Amendment, and machinery of the usual kind was set to work to enforce it. Why then, should there be any discussion? Why isn't this law enforced exactly as every other law is enforced? There are no conferences to discuss whether the law against burglary should be enforced, or whether the law against bigamy should be enforced, although there are constantly violations of these laws, and surely not all the violators are languishing behind prison bars. It appears that there is some difference between this particular law of prohibition and all the others which have gone before it.

This difference may be realized from the subject of Professor Hart's address. "Our Moral Duty toward the Prohibition Law". Now imagine an address on "Our Moral Duty toward the Burglary Law." In the first case, the law creates a moral duty. In the second, the law is merely coincident with a moral force which would see that burglary was punished whether a law prohibiting it existed or not.

There should be no question as to the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. While it remains law, it must be enforced--mechanically and relentlessly, like any other law. If indeed any question exists, it concerns not the enforcement but the repeal of the Amendment.