Early in 1921, Mrs. Frank W. Van Ness, while a member of the New Jersey Assembly from Essex County, of which Newark is the county seat, introduced the act which provided that “whenever a complaint is made before any magistrate that a person has violated one or more of the provisions of this act, it shall be the duty of such magistrate, and every such magistrate is hereby given full power and authority to issue his warrant to arrest any such person so complained against, and, summarily, without a jury and without any pleadings, to try the person so arrested and brought before him and to determine and adjudge his guilt or innocence.” The Volstead Act plainly states that anyone violating the provisions of that act is guilty of a crime. Mrs. Van Ness’s Act was an attempt to have such persons, in the State of New Jersey, guilty of disorderly conduct, which would not require a trial by jury. The New Jersey Legislature passed the Van Ness Act, and other State prohibition laws, at its session of 1921; but on February 2, 1922, the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey held that a number of the provisions of the Van Ness Act were unconstitutional. The prevailing opinion was written by Chancellor Walker, but there was a difference among the judges as to the constitutionality of some of the different provisions of the act, and other opinions were also written. The Court of Errors and Appeals is the Court of last resort in New Jersey, and by its judgment it reversed the Supreme Court finding which had theretofore held the Van Ness Act to be constitutional. Mrs. Van Ness was a candidate for reëlection in the fall of 1921, but was not reëlected. Is there no significance in this fact? As old as Magna Charta is the right of any citizen to a trial by jury, when convicted of a crime; and as old, too, as that sacred document, is the theory that one is innocent until proved guilty. Yet the Volstead Act has paved the way for politicians without vision to seek to destroy these inalienable rights. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Among other things, in the opinion handed down in 1922, Chancellor Walker wrote: “The act entitled ‘An act concerning intoxicating liquors used or to be used for beverage purposes,’ passed March 29, 1921, the short title of which is ‘Prohibition Enforcement Act,’ commonly called the Van Ness Act, authorizing convictions for violation of its provisions by magistrates without trial by jury, violates Article 1, Sec. 7, of the Constitution of New Jersey, 1844, which provides, inter alia, that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate; and also Id. Sec. 9, which provides, inter alia, that no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense unless upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury.” And another judge rendered this opinion: