Current History on Prohibition

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Replying to yours of the 2nd, I do not believe that it would be possible to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.

Our experience with State regulation was disastrous. The states that wished prohibition were flooded with liquor from the wet states, and the federal laws were flouted very much more than the present law. My own judgment is that the present law should be enforced and should continue until the saloon idea has become as thoroughly discredited in this country as the slave-block. Meanwhile, the states should pass concurrent legislation as provided for in the Eighteenth Amendment, and then when the American people are thoroughly convinced that laws will be enforced and that our Constitution will be respected and that open deflance of the Constitution is a form of treason, it will then be time to modify the provisions of the Volstead Act and to declare that only beverages that are in fact intoxicating shall be forbidden.

I am sending you under separate cover a more elaborate presentation of my views which was printed in the Congressional Record at the suggestion of Senator Capper. Yours very truly,   George W. Ochs-Oakes.

New York, N. Y.