The experience of the states that have tried it raises the question whether strict supervision and regulation of the traffic is not more effective than prohibitory laws. The attempt to force puritan ideas of right and wrong upon all must prove futile, and without public sentiment back of it any merely penal law is certain to prove a failure."

(Record, Hackensack, N. J., Dec. 28, 1914-Rep.)

THE PROHIBITION FIGHT

"The states have thus far shown themselves competent to handle the subject. Wherever there is sufficient public sentiment in a state, there is local option, to the degree desired."

(Evening News, Newark, N. J., Dec. 23, 1914-Ind.)

PROHIBITION AMENDMENT'S DEFEAT

"Opposition to the amendment was based principally upon the ground that regulation of the sale of liquors is a matter of purely state regulation, which is an eminently sound doctrine. Indeed, it is an open question whether even the State is not too large a unit in which to attempt to enforce absolute prohibition and whether it is not wiser on the part of the State to permit of a wider freedom of action by smaller divisions of territory, thus providing for home rule under such police regulations as experience has proved advisable."

(Evening Star, Newark, N. J., Dec. 21, 1914-Rep.)

A VOTE ON NATION-WIDE PROHIBITION

"Before an amendment that affects millions of people, thousands of millions of property interests and immense public revenues, national, state and municipal, is submitted, a congress should be elected on that question only. The issue before the people should be distinct. The election should be by popular referendum."

(Evening Star, Newark, N. J., Dec. 23, 1914-Rep.)

PROHIBITION SHELVED

"The performance in the House yesterday was really a bit of comedy. At least one-half the men who voted in the affirmative on

the amendment do not have the slightest sympathy with its object. "One principle reason is the violation of the sovereign rights of the states by taking away from them the power over the manufacture and sale of liquor. If this could be done the federal government could have authority to prohibit the growth of cotton or any kind of traffic. But the underlying sentiment against nationwide prohibition is its denial of personal liberty."

(Knickerbocker Press, Albany, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1914—Ind.)

HOBSON'S SUPPORT IN THE HOUSE

"It is a mistake to make prohibition a political issue. It is a social and moral issue. Prohibition ought to be kept out of politics, surely out of national politics. The liquor question ought to be dealt with by separate community units, the smaller the community the better."

(Press, Binghamton, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1914-Ind.)

PROHIBITION AS A NATIONAL ISSUE

"The workers for absolute prohibition find their strongest argument in the abuses of the license system and the excesses tolcrated under it. And even though three-fourths of the states should never combine in support of an amendment to coerce the other twelve, the threat of such action may exert a wholesome influence upon a traffic which even those engaged in it admit has been productive of many evils."

(The Citizen, Brooklyn, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914-Dem.)

THE PROHIBITION DEFEAT

"The opponents of the liquor traffic ascribed most of the ills of humanity to the drinking of alcoholic beverages. Mr. Hobson, particularly, revelled in amazing statistics which are not susceptible of proof.

"Experience has shown quite conclusively that the denial by the State to the individual of the right to eat and drink what one pleases does not work out in practice the way the Prohibitionists believe. In so-called 'dry states' the illicit sale of liquors is common. Even were the amendment to pass and the legal manufacture of alcoholic beverages cease, people would make their own liquors and brew their own beers as their ancestors did centuries ago."

(Standard Union, Brooklyn, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914-Rep.)

WISELY VOTED DOWN

"The constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor throughout the United States was properly defeated in the House of Representatives at Washington last night. There is sufficient power in the people of each and every state to prohibit the sale of liquor if they wish.

"What the prohibitionists should do is to carry on their campaign of inducing the people in as many states as possible to put away intoxicating liquor, both by individual abstinence and, whenever the majority is converted to that view, by legal enactment and genuine enforcement. For thirty-six states to attempt to enforce prohibition in twelve unwilling states would surely bring into discredit the efficiency of Federal law and enforcement, now fortunately so high. To violate a Federal statute now means punishment. To attempt to enforce a Federal prohibition law in states that cannot be induced to enact prohibition for themselves would be to bring the United States laws into contempt.'

(Times, Brooklyn, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914-Rep.)

PROGRESS OF PROHIBITION

"The Brooklyn Times believes, and always has believed that the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, strict regulation, or a freer hand in the dispensing of such compounds, are purely community concerns, and that such issues have no place in the discussion of Congress."

(Commercial, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914-Rep.)

PROHIBITIONISTS BEATEN

"The resolution should not be associated with a genuine movement to promote temperance. On the contrary it sought to regulate by law a traffic that laws cannot reach unless backed by public sentiment. It brought into politics an issue that is essentially a moral one. Such an amendment would give to certain states in the union the right to impose prohibition upon the city and commonwealth of New York no matter what public opinion might be there respecting the advisability of such legislation.

"It would, moreover, do a rank injustice to a class of men who

have invested their capital in a legitimate business, in that it would be tantamount to a confiscation of their property without compensation."

(Courier, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec 22, 1914-Dem.)
HOBSON'S HOBBY

"Although Congress must finish its work by the fourth of March and has as much or more than it can do in the remaining time, to-day in the house may be wasted with ventilation of Hobson's fad.

"Apparently Mr. Hobson feeds on notoriety. He will soon have to ride some new hobby, for this one is knee-sprung."

(Enquirer, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec 21, 1914-Dem.)

VOTE ON HOBSON BILL THIS WEEK

"Kansas or Georgia may be satisfied with conditions existing within their borders. They are dry states, but have their representatives in Congress any moral or legal right to say what the people of New York or Pennsylvania shall do or shall not do?

"New York state is preferably able to take care of itself upon questions affecting the people from whom it accepts revenue to carry on its government and until those people by direct vote express themselves as being in favor of prohibition, the state should be permitted to carry on its affairs without interference from the outside.

"The Hobson amendment has political bearing of great importance. While the government realizes a revenue of from $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 a year from the distilling and brewing interests, the financial aspect of the situation is not everything.

"The Hobson bill provides that 'Congress shall have power to enforce this article by all needful legislation.'

"If the United States should undertake to enforce a nation-wide prohibition law, it would require an army of officials which would mean millions of dollars in salaries to raise by taxation, in addition to what would have to be raised to cover the loss in revenue. It would require thousands of officials to enforce the law in New York city alone."

(Evening News, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec. 22, 1914-Rep.)

HOBSON'S DANGEROUS MEASURE

"The enforcement of the Hobson amendment would mean the creation of an enormous army of federal spies, inspectors, clerks, a vast array of place-holders appointed by the political powers that happened to be in control and used as the party bosses might find convenient for their purposes, for nothing can be kept out of politics in a free country.

"Americans who value the liberties that have been inherited will do well to see that those liberties are not gathered together bit by bit until the whole system of government of this vast continent is centered in Washington."

(Evening News, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1914-Rep.)

HOBSON DEFEATED

"The more one considers the effect of measures which call for an army of place-holders to make them effective, the more the people ought to hesitate and probably will hesitate before agreeing to such measures."

(Express, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec. 21, 1914, Ind. Rep.)

PROHIBITION AMENDMENT

"The Express has frequently pointed out that the proposed prohibition and woman-suffrage amendments to the United States constitution are objectionable on general political grounds aside from any question of the merits of prohibition or woman-suffrage. They represent an attempt to assert the imperial power of the federal government over the states and minor civil divisions which is entirely alien to the principles on which the republic was founded."

(Times, Buffalo, N. Y., Dec. 23, 1914-Dem.)

HOBSON BILL BEATEN

"The proposed resolution sought to interpolate in the Constitution an issue which always has been and always ought to be, decided by states and localities—a principle which is absolutely correct, and whose application resulted, as it should, in the defeat of the bill."