And so the laughter goes on; but even when the reformers do not hear it, they writhe, knowing of its existence. Once in a great while some echo reaches them, no doubt. Things have not “straightened out” as they had anticipated; and so they squirm, and rage, and puff up, and devise ways and means to call a complete halt on all merriment, whether it is directed at them or not. In all seriousness a woman’s temperance society sent a mandate to every editor in the United States not long ago, bidding them cease satirizing Prohibition. It would not do, they contended, to continue to smile at the sacred Eighteenth Amendment. Mr. Volstead, also, was sacrosanct; and it was outrageous the way piety was pooh-poohed, and what did the editors _mean_ by such conduct, and why didn’t they stop it and obey teacher and be good? And every government official, when he gets up at a banquet to make a speech, begs his hearers to heed the law--though he knows full well that down the street another banquet may be going on, attended by officials equally high, where the law is never thought of. It is a sad commentary on our government when it is necessary thus to address the people. “We must be one people, one union--and that the American Union,” shouted one representative of the government speaking in Chicago before a business men’s convention. And he went on to say, “Whenever a newspaper ridicules a law, plays up a policy of contempt for law and its enforcement and in its news and editorial columns fosters law-breaking, that newspaper is doing more to destroy American institutions than a Federal Judge can do to maintain them.... No man in public life who is possessed of vision and realizes his responsibility to Government would favor regulation of the public press by law, but it is obvious that the power of the press must not be used to foster disrespect for our Government and disobedience to its laws.” Free speech will not be tolerated, if the fanatics have their way. Yet the first article in the Amendments to the Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In order that the Eighteenth Amendment may be upheld, the First may be forgotten. But to get back for a moment to the ladies of the something-or-other temperance society. A brilliant writer, Mr. Edward S. Martin, answered them delightfully in _Harper’s Magazine_; and with the kind permission of the editors of that periodical, I am privileged to make extracts from his article. Mr. Martin never loses his temper, as the ladies certainly did. He remains, as ever, the tactful, urbane, pitying occupant of the editor’s easy-chair. He does not even frown. He speaks from a long experience, gently but to the point: