"The Ethics of Total Prohibition"

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 47, 30 November 1922, Page 9

"The Ethics of Total Prohibition"

(By Rev. J. M. Pren’dergast, S.J., in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.)

AN ANSWER TO THE REV. P. COFFEY.

The I. E. Record for December, 1918, presents the strongest case that the writer has yet seen made out for Prohibition. Rev. P. Coffey, S.T.L., Ph.D., is the ‘advocate. The word clever applies to the article- in. every detail. The advocate hints where it is best to hint; he glosses over the points against him which it would be unwise eitherto omit, or to emphasise; he characterises as “puerile”, an adverse argument, against which he finds ho better answer; and he presents his main contention in abstract terms which only a rash man would deny as they stand without opportunity given him for a lengthy explanation. This opportunity the writer proposes to take unto himself herewith. May he also take opportunity to make his . plaint that as in this article, so everywhere else in the controversy, it is assumed that cold, detached, scientific accuracy, the unbefange wissenschaftliche view, which the Germans of the higher. criticism delighted -in assuming as their own, is all on the side of the Prohibitionists, while the others are necessarily biased by inherited prejudices, personal likings for the winecup, and a great unwillingness to see the question objectively. May the writer first remind all concerned that there is an immense accumulation of knowledge about the use (for the moment transcat the abuse) of liquor? It extends from Noah to the present day, and is the common traditional heritage of educated and uneducated alike. It may be said safely, that the broac conclusion of that experience is, that in the use— not the abuse of liquor, there is much pleasure, promotion of good fellowship, help to digestion, brightening of the spirits, and no appreciable bodily harm or degeneration. “Let us wait and educate,” says the reverend Father pityingly. Will the education undo tile experience of the ages? And if it does, alas! shall we have unlearned an error, or merely have added another to our list? For education can inculcate error as well : as ; truth. Witness the Protestant teaching of History for the last four hundred years! As to the liking, for the winecup, which is insinuated—not asserted as one of the “factors of, error,” the » writer respectfully ■ recalls ; to the mind of all such objectors, that it is natural to the intellectual animal, termed man, and therefore forms an a priori presumption, that the upholder of fermented drink has the saner position, just as the natural tendency of , men and 1 women to mate furnishes a strong a priori presumption that the Manichean position against marriage is wrong. Nor is the reputation of , cold-blooded, scientific objective conviction from the force of the facts, quietly assumed for the Prohibitionist, justified ' either by the writer’s experience or (by history. Not to go outside of my ; opponent’s article, Father Mathew (God rest his soul !) had anything but cold scientific impersonal motives for his hatred of liquor. Enough of a disagreeable subject f"' ’ - v -- v.',-“r With this preliminary plaint off his mind,' the writer : again expresses; his admiration for the cleverness with which the contributor to the I. E. Record has put Catholics . in the .wrong for - not sustaining Prohibition. -y It - was because,'they, exercised their liberty in net sustaining it,

that laws were passed prohibiting the Mass. .- It was when the Protestants discovered, to their surprise, that Catholics objected to these laws (or was it after Prohibitionists found that the courts would ■ not uphold these laws?) that the Anti-Saloon League declared that it had no intention, of doing anything against 1 the ; Mass. And then Catholics are reproved for not seeing how fair all this is, and warned to bear no • false witness against their neighbor! My opponent may not know that,, in America at. least, though men may differ in opinions about the ; results of the Prohibition drive, about the methods used in the drive there is much more unanimity. A sentence of Cardinal, Newman, with an altered ending, best, expresses it: “It is by wholesale, retail, systematic, unscrupulous lying, that the many rivulets are made to-flow for the feeding” of Prohibition. The original ending of Newman’s sentence calls to mind the first of a long‘chain of presumptions against. Prohibition from a Catholic viewpoint. My opponent need only consult his own list of the countries which have adopted it, to recognise that the movement is essentially Protestant. Now;, if Protestantism has originated one good movement, history fails to show it. It has indeed carried on good movements which it took over from Catholicity; for example, the suppression of slavery. But what it originates,’ like the originator, has been merely destructive. “Ich bin der Gcisf, der slots vemeint.” “Granted !”* my opponent may say, “but let not that stand against it,-fin. God’s name, when it has originated a good one But has it originated this one? .It has not. Within tiny, times of historical Christianity, the movement for Prohibition has twice appeared markedly in the world. Its originators, the Manicheans, were condemned by every Roman emperor, who stood for the civilisation of the Western world, from Constantine the Great to Theodosius the Great. They were forbidden by Imperial decree to bequeath or inherit. Their' property was confiscated. “This kind of men,” , says one decree, “has nothing in common with other men either in customs or in laws.” The Dualistic doctrine of-the Manichees about God, and their teaching that wine is the creation of the Evil God, is commonplace historical knowledge. Though the Manichean writings have been all destroyed'by Imperial order, as baneful, the writer has not the slightest doubt that the Prohibitionists give a pretty accurate reproduction of them as far as liquor is concerned. They have, in America, dropped all the usual names which define .and distinguish the various fermented liquors, and picked up a slang expression from the gutters to serve for all, and at the same time to reprobate all, “booze.” “The demon rum,” “the devil’s brew,” “the drink devil,” fare the ordinary - characterisations of liquor, and that from Catholic temperance orators, as well as Protestant. ' The distinction between the use and the abuse of a good thing is made seldom, if ever. In fact, the word, good, in any reference to liquor, is sedulously avoided. All this is plain Manichean. “A good cause,” my opponent 'reminds me, “may be championed (and injured) by bad arguments.” Without doubt! But it. is precisely the “goodness” of this cause which is the question at issue; Mtyis no . argument for it to put the epithet “good” in front of it. And the universal use of the Manichean epithets and reasonings to support it furnishes a strong presumption against its “goodness.” My opponent,-even, though.hejcfir.efiilly disclaims any Manichean bias, has not quite cleared his lungs from its mephitic gases. He puts the question ; t “Could it possibly bo right or lawful for the State, in the warmer wine-growing, countries, ' for;' instance/ where wine has been the staple daily, drink of the people from time, immemorial, to enact a law which would interfere so gravely with their personal liberty and give such a violent wrench to their habits of life,, destroy a great industry, and entail a- world of turmoil and confusion? To which the prudent Prohibitionist will reply that, in the case contemplated, a Total Prohibition Law would have no chance of passing. ’ ij-:., '• ‘ V; \'■ But why not make the obvious reply that, since in the wine-growing countries . the abuse of liquor is almost unknown, the pretext of an excuse for prohibiting a good is away. Why say, “Moses, by reason of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you” ?, Why t bring other . reasons : for-/ ward, ; .when - this ; ; great one stands knocking -at the door, unless the. Manichean /error. sits'; inside reluctant to open i it? ’, “Alcoholic ; beverages are: not intrinsically evil,” he concedes elsewhere ;in the article. Why use two negations

to express an affirmative, except that he is reluctant to say / plainly, .. “Alcoholic beverages are good”-?■[ _• f ' ' Again, - he asserts that “many of the popular beliefs, ■-still widely ’prevalent in these countries in favor of alcoholic indulgence, are inherited prejudices, long since scientifically exploded.” He seems to forget that the doctors of these /northern countries (not, so far as the writer is aware, the physicians of the south), are taking a position against the Universal medical tradition of the ages! Why not mention that the sons are in rebellion against their medical fathers, and that the chances are, to say the least, equal that the past is right and the present wrong? He might even strengthen this argument by mentioning a few of the many fads which medical science has adopted and rejected, within his own memory. For instance, a few years ago, physicians vehemently advocated prepared milk for babies in preference to the natural sustenance from the mother., * That, they have already given up. Again, infant I specialists have been advocating a regime for the baby which forbids him to be removed from, the cradle, allows him to be fed only at stated periods, and generally disregards his infantile wails and protests. The writer has noticed that while mothers obey in the case of the first child, their common sense usually comes to the rescue of the second child, and disregards the faddists’ theories in obedience to the ' dictates of Mother Nature, which seems to have the better of the argument, even in the growing opinion of these same specialists. At present there is a- widespread belief in the domain of medicine that all diseases may be remedied by pulling the patients’ teeth; that, also, has received a few strong shocks. /.Why may not this doctrine of the harmful effects of liquor be in the same class of fads, and why is he so sure that it is'among the great truths “that have been discovered and established by scientific research in recent years, and -which were still either ignored or doubted or disbelieved because they ran counter to the drinking prejudices of our social habits and traditions”? Can there be a slight taint of the Manichean atmosphere lurking even in his clear brain? As a matter of fact, it is impossible for an unbiassed observer to escape , from the conclusion that the total Prohibition movement is permeated and motived by the conviction that fermented drink is an evil, not a good. We pass on now to the method of the Prohibitionists. In this they take a lesson from Mohammed. Mohammedanism has the unenviable distinction of being the connecting link, evolutionary and historically, in this meddlesome trinity, Manichean, Mohammedan, and Methodist. One needs but to mention the fact— it requires no proof —that Mohammedanism stands condemned by all Christianity, by. western civilisation, and by its own history of degeneracy and decay. From Mohammedanism our presentday' Prohibitionists have added to their store, the idea of governmental and forcible suppression of wine and its use. They are the finished product of Manichee and Mohammedan. ■ . - This leads the writer to his instinctive antipathy for Prohibition reason shared by almost all Catholics. It is the light in which this condemnation of liquor places the Mass. My opponent vigorously protests against any attempt by the State “to interfere in a- matter of religious worship which falls wholly and exclusively within the competence of the Church.” He even elaborates the point, giving it ,a whole paragraph and terming it an “unwarrantable trespass of the State on a domain which is beyond its jurisdiction.” But though he may convince Prohibitionists that it is best to keep their hands off the Mass, for reasons of prudence, with what argument will ho meet their murmurs tha* if the Church sanctions what is ethically V wrong, it should be coerced by the law, like any other wrongdoer? If the thing is bad in itself and this, the writer maintains, is at the bottom of all the present Prohibition -. agitation— the Church which uses its position to pro- / tect iniquity falls within the condemnation of every good v man, whether he be able or not to carry that condemnation into effect. - . - ' ' » V' -, v • v And now,, the writer, presents an assertion which seems ..to him to be self-evident to any Catholic. He will take a leaf from'his opponent’s bodk and italicize: There is "some-] : thing radically wrong about any movement which makes it ' criminal to do outside the Church door what the Lord God has commanded'to be done within, as a supreme remembrance of Him. And those who oppose the Mass have but , two reasons. ;. He may take 'either ■ horn of the dilemma.

Either they consider liquor to be evil in itself, or they are moved by a diabolic. hatred of the Mass. In both cases, a stigma is cast by their action on Jesus Christ. .-.//■ V The writer now approaches the central contention of his opponent’s article. (“Why not have approached it long ago, says my opponent. “You would have found me saying indirectly that liquor is a good.” But the defence submits that what an advocate says indirectly in a short proposition, and what he insinuates throughout a long article are very different things. Moreover, what the animus of total Prohibition is, apart from any individual presentation of it, is something which cannot be judged by one man’s remarks.) “It is the function of the State,” he says, “to promote the main good and social well-being of the community. If, in order to accomplish this, the State finds it necessary to deprive the individual citizens of all access to the enjoyment of certain temporal or material goods or conveniences which axe in themselves lawful but not indispensable, the State has the moral power to do so.” .This, he says, “is an ethical principle or thesis which will scarcely be disputed.” As .Shakespere says, “That would be scanned,” together with the next proposition equally em- ! phatic, which completes my opponent’s argument. (The writer quotes it now to put the whole in one view before - his readers.) It is also italicized. “Even if such a measure be not the only possible means of promoting the common good— remedying grave and widespread evils — neverthe- : less, if it is believed by the majority of the community to he the most efficient means, and as such is demanded by them, then, too, the State has the moral power to enforce' the measure and to impose on the individual citizens the resulting inconvenience of so far restricting personal liberty.” May we call attention to the fact before beginning any , discussion, that for the phrase “deprive the individual citizens of all access, to,” etc., which is euphemistic for “sup- , press;” in the first proposition, the ; advocate substitutes in the second proposition, “restricting personal liberty,” as if restriction and suppression. were equivalent terms. Of course they are not, and he knows it. For a while, the italicised exactness of these two propositions, their stern challenge of invulnerability, almost overwhelmed the writer. Add to this the assertion of the one who formulated themthat they were “beyond all dispute,” and one has a situation to make the boldest shrink. However, the writer learned long ago from Cardinal Newman that an abstract or notional proposition is,• at best, but probable, hanging in the air from a multitude of assumptions, any one of which, if proved untrue, invalidates it; moreover, that its best test is to reduce it to the concrete and real. Let us test out this Hindenburg line. There occurs to the writer’s mind the proposed law in one of the western States, giving prison doctors the right to render impotent certain male prisoners. Our advocate’s first proposition makes the law good beyond question. . Take even the proposed laws of Euthanasia, i.e., giving doctors the right to put out of misery hopeless cases of disease. Of course our advocate will object that life is more thaii “a lawful convenience.” It is “indispensable.” 'Cifßufi who is to say so in the case of the hopelessly sick"? If the French judge of far renown declared “je ne vois pas la necessite” to the prisoner, who maintained “il faut wore,” why may not “the majority of the community”^** - whom all power is given in the second,proposition, decide that the sick man’s necessity to live is merely a foolish prejudice in favor of a useless thing, , just as '■ the Prohibitionists hay (I decided about liquor?- But these things are against the moral law! someone will say. There is nothing said about the moral law in these Hindenburg propositions; nay, even before the writer finishes, he will try to*show that the propositions run counter to a great moral law. But let us imagine some .more concrete cases. 1 ’' «• x ' - Let us suppose that the State finds that, too many pedestrians are injured by 7 ; automobiles oh- the public streets. ; It, therefore, deprives pedestrians; of the right to walk in public and. compels , them to use some'"other means of conveyance. ; Again, let us suppose that the State is agreed that the long hair of women is a menace to health by reason, of its uncleanness, arid" by law compels all women to cut their hair short, as the writer believes has been done with school children in England. „ Let us /suppose,, again f that the v State; following the advice of doctors, concludes that it would be better “for the health of the community to

:«wear wool both in summer and in winter,, and passes a law. making it'compulsory to do so. All this falls within the ' scope of his “notional proposition,” when reduced Vto the concrete. ; But he may say this in foolishness. We simply quote in answer to him his further proposition, in his own ■ words, “beyond all dispute” : “If it is believed by a majority of the community to be the most effective means and as such is demanded by them, then too, the State has the right to enforce the measure and to impose on the individual citizens the resulting inconvenience, of so far restricting personal liberty .” • , / f: r So that if these propositions be correct as they stand, there is absolutely no limit which may be set for the State in suppressing the personal liberties of its citizens; and this, it seems to the writer, opens up the real defect in i these principles. There are two! /■■ : - The remark of an old priest put him on the track of one, and his limited personal intelligence has already pointed out the other. The old priest (a Pole, I believe, from whom such a remark comes pregnant with its full ' meaning), in a diocesan conference in Baltimore, said, Maximum bonum, libertgs — “Liberty is the greatest common good.” The religious is told that he makes his great sacrifice, in voluntarily giving up his liberty. Some eager, but, foolish, Prohibitionist would interpose here ; “That is exactly the sacrifice we ask men to make.”.” Not at all! You don’t ask.; you force! Men don’t sacrifice; they are sacrificed. But to proceed. My opponent puts “the common good” over against and beyond personal liberty. On the contrary, personal liberty is the greateset common good. The writer would hot be a demagogue, but he is perfectly sure that if he appeared on the hustings in Ireland, or elsewhere, at present, with this proposition on his lips, the cheering that greeted it would rend the heavens. Any common good, therefore, which limits personal liberty must be carefully weighed in the scales against the liberty restricted, and it must be proven to be of such importance that the restriction is justified. Mark the use of “restriction” as opposed to “suppression” of personal liberty, which my opponent wishes to skim over but which is a. most important distinction. (“The law which regulates the liquor traffic by license,” he declares, “already deprives me of my liberty to manufacture and sell alcoholic drinks. As between the two laws [the license law and total Prohibition] it is r a question of degree.” This is simply untrue. .One restricts the right to drink, and the other suppresses. There is an essential difference.) Any law which suppresses personal liberty suppresses the greatest common good, preferring a lesser good in its place. It is for this reason that few laws attempt to suppress personal liberty, contenting . themselves with restricting it. For example, the drastic law against spitting on the streets, in the cars, or in public places, in force in.the City of New York, still leaves men the right to spit, if they wish, in their handkerchiefs. The Sullivan law in force in the same city, against the possession of weapons, whether at home or abroad, sins by this total suppression of a personal liberty, and a such, so far as the writer knows, is quietly disregarded. ,' .The writer’s first proposition is, then, that laws for the common good, as all laws are supposed to be, may restrict the use of any particular good, but may not sup- ' .press the use. Furthermore, there must he some personal liberty secured or augmented, to compensate the personal liberty which is restricted, through the same low which restricts, and the comparative value of the-two must be carefully ■weighed, before the law is passed. As an instance of my meaning, the restriction of game-shooting to'; certain seasons must give, .as it does, more people liberty to shoot game, in return for the restriction on liberty. If there . were- no such>.law there would soon be no game to shoot. Supposing for the . moment, as my opponent supposes, that : suppression and restriction are the same thing, can he point out a personal liberty, which is secured or .augmented ; by the suppression of drink? The writer sees but one: the liberty secured to Prohibitionists to impose their personal convictions through force." The liberty to do good work, to support - the family, to' put money in the bank,' - etc., urged by Prhibitionists, arc all there already, . and,, in addition, ■. the God-given - liberty to enjoy .in moderation one of.his creatures, drink. / - • * * ' v; u ■ : The writer has already pointed out that; in these two

propositions there is no mention- of the moral ;lawv-wBH| has shown now that there is a denial of the natural law, .' of ; which : the moral law is a part, since the propositions suppress the ; . greatest “common good,” personal liberty, at the will of a majority, which, moreover, is responsible to no one for its judgment,M‘i/ it is believed by the majority to be the most effective means, and as such, is. demanded'by them.” No common good, however 1 great, can be weighed in tfehalance against entire suppression or personal liberty, in things which, before the State forbade them, were legitimate. (All this holds ' for • ordinary times. In time of. war, when the ’ existence of the State is 'threatened, all else yields to the “Salus publics, suprema lex.”) - : .' 1 Now, for tome final remarks. The writer has not followed. our advocate in his discussion whether Prohibition, in certain countries and under certain conditions, would be “unethical,” for the simple reason that it is always unethical, or, in plain Anglo-Saxon, had. The question is one of essentials, not of circumstances. ' The old rhetorics had a line designed to furnish topics to orators : “quis, quid, übi, quibus au-xiliis, cur, quomodo, quando.” To follow the line* there is question of a “quiddity,” not of the other circumstances. It is a question of the ethics of the suppression of the virtue of temperance. ,■ The word “temperance” brings up the fact that my opponent passes by as “puerile”the argument against Prohibition, that it destroys the feasibility of the virtue of temperance, without mentioning his reasons for s this epithet. Surely, even within the limits of his article there was room for stating those reasons. Temperance deserves better treatment at his hands!. From, the time of Aristotle it has been termed one of the Four Cardinal Virtues. To say that we are given opportunity at the expense of temperance to practice obedience, is rather a cavalier treatment of a greater virtue, by suppressing it altogether, in order to give opportunity to practise a lesser, for whose practise plenty of opportunity is alrealy afforded. The writer could fill a book with Arguments against the fallacy •which makes a desert void of weeds at the expense of the, loss of the flowers, and thinks it has done well in the result. The book would be called “a parable for rulers,” and it Avould simply expound the parable of the “wheat and the tares,” as Our Lord gives it in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew. The central theme would be; “lest perhaps, in rooting out the cockle, you root out the wheat together with it.” “Suffer both to grow until the harvest.” What, in face of this teaching about the proper spirit of government, are we to think of the effort at Prohibition, as a Divinely instigated movement? Though the other way, about' to be mentioned, fail, still it is the way recommended by the Great Legislator, God Himself. He expressly forbids His servants to root out the evil at the expense of the'good. Even though the good be unintentionally destroyed in rooting out the evil. He holds that the loss overbalances the gain. What -would He think of a deliberate intention to root out the good plant of temperance in order to destroy thereby the evil weed / of intemperance? The writer recognises, as does every sane man, among whom he trusts the Lord, counts him, the many abuses of . liquor. But “abusus non tollit usum.” A much more experienced and greater man than himself, Cardinal Gibbons, gives, his voice in favor. of stringent restriction of the abuse. “But restriction has failed as a remedy,” urge the Prohibitionists. Restriction has not failed as a remedy, but the remediststo coin a .term—-have failed to restrict. So have Christians failed to realise - Christianity. The answer is to keep on' trying in both cases. The other answer, to which the three last - Popes , have devoted briefs,. is . to teach men insistently with the Catholic Church the -nobility of the virtue of. •temperance;, the virtu© of the Son .of Man, whoV “came eating and drinking.” tThe, writer fears that the truth; is, though perhaps it would ; be more . charitable not to say rit, that the Cardinal /Virtues of/ Prudence, /Justice, and : .Temperance seem to be little , esteemed by Prohibitionists, in comparison with the vision of a Sahara-Nirvana, in which/' alone they; deem that mankind may. safely -enjoy .“the marriage, supper.;.of the Lamb!” " "'' * ' /| -