“The trouble with the present enforcement of Prohibition is that it has not yet got moral sanction enough to make it effective. Public opinion will back up the law in closing the saloons and restricting and regulating the sale of intoxicants, but it does not follow it, for one thing, in defining a beverage with an alcoholic content of one half of one per cent as intoxicating. When it comes to that, public opinion laughs, because that is contrary to its experience. Furthermore, public opinion shows as yet no particular fervor about achieving a total stoppage of alcoholic supplies from those who want them. No serious stigma attaches to violations of the Volstead law by private buyers. Fines and like embarrassments may result, but not disrepute. A good many fairly decent people seem to buy what they want, and do not conceal it. The people who thought before the law was adopted that it was wicked or inexpedient to drink intoxicants, still think so. The people who thought otherwise continue to think otherwise. Many people drink less than before the law began to operate, but a good many other people drink more, and buy much worse beverages at much higher prices. To some extent Prohibition seems to have made drinking popular by diminishing the individual discouragement of it and putting the responsibility for the maintenance of temperance on a law and the officers who enforce it. That may be only a temporary effect, but if it turns out that the Volstead law, as it is, cannot be enforced at the present time, there may possibly be an effort to tinker it--to put it into such shape that public opinion will stand back of it and give it a sanction. The alternative would be to wait and see what effect time will have on men and habits. There is no one to tell us that we shall be damned if we disobey the Volstead law, and so long as juries refuse to convict persons who violate it, it stands modified in practice....