Let us take another example. Let us suppose a person has some pre-Prohibition brandy in his house. Such possession is quite legal; but his father, living across the street, has a sudden heart attack and the family telephones over for the brandy. If the man takes it over, under the last law passed by Congress on the subject, he becomes a felon and is liable to ten thousand dollars’ fine or five years in prison—or both. Should he leave his father to die while waiting for the law[Pg 134] to be repealed, or should he become a felon in the eyes of the law? For the reasons noted above, we have ceased to have much respect for ordinary laws; and now, under the teaching of Congress, we are likely to have no fear of even felony. The effect is subtle. Heretofore no self-respecting man could have borne to think of himself as genuinely a legal felon, for this term was applied only to those who committed arson, rape, homicide, and similar crimes. But no man is going to think that by breaking the Eighteenth Amendment he places himself in that category, although the law declares that such is his classification. The result will be to make the word “felon” lose its damning character. IV When laws are just and wise, they ought to be obeyed and are likely to be; but when they are not, they open very genuine problems in ethics for the decent citizen. I wonder if Mr. Hoover himself, with his love of efficiency, his sense of organization and efficient government, to say nothing of his racial pride, would under all circumstances insist upon an absolute observance of the Fifteenth Amendment? Should the negro race largely outnumber the white in any state (in Mississippi there are already 935,000 negroes to 854,000 whites), would he insist upon a strict observance of that amendment, even if it resulted in a negro government permanently set up over the whites? The situation, being a local one, would hardly result in a nation-wide repeal of the constitutional amendment. If Mr. Hoover were a resident of the state, what would he do? Would he live under the negroes, would he move away, or would he disobey the law?[Pg 135] Many cannot move away, and even if they could, I doubt if Mr. Hoover would willingly abandon any considerable number of states to negro republics.