THE VOLSTEAD ACT ANNOTATED AND DIGEST OF NATIONAL AND STATE PROHIBITION BY ARTHUR W. BLAKEMORE OF THE BOSTON, MASS. BAR Editor of Schouler on Wills, Executors and Administrators, sixth edition; Schouler on Marriage MB ALBANY, N. Y. MATTHEW BENDER & COMPANY INCORPORATED PREFACE. The passage of the National Prohibition Act of 1919 marked the end of a long struggle for prohibition legislation but also meant the beginning of a new struggle for enforcement of the law. The situation of this law is peculiar as most criminal laws are passed with the full consent of the public and in response to a general public demand but in the case of prohibition while it is safe to say that the majority of the people in this country were in favor of it, still there has always existed a large number of temperate, decent citizens who believe that the law is an unwarranted invasion of personal liberty which set back the cause of temperance a generation and has resulted in increasing the disrespect of all laws. Prohibition has come however because the great majority of earnest, sober minded citizens, including large employers of labor, saw clearly the baneful effect of the liquor traffic on all portions of the community and they have placed intoxicating liquor in the same class with drugs as being one of the great evils of the human race. This wide divergence of opinion has led to a bitter conflict waged in the courts since the enactment of this law over its validity and construction and this conflict has been so actively carried on by both sides in the struggle that it may be said now that practically all possible questions in relation to the Act have been already definitively settled by our highest court and the time therefore seems ripe to present to the public a reflection of the legal results of this conflict. The law itself exhibits an earnest attempt to avoid the unjust provisions of certain State Laws and it is probably as fair a law as could be drafted to enforce the Eighteenth |