The eighteenth amendment is law. Christian America fought for it to become a law. This as all other laws, is broken—broken too often. It is not enough to write a statute. Enforcement is the thing that counts. Officers have their duty in the matter of enforcing prohibition or any other law, but the American citizen has a duty to perform along this line as well. Public sentiment goes a long way in carrying out the law. If the people of a community sanction stealing, the officers will have a hard time stopping this practice. If the people of any section sanction making and selling and drinking whiskey, the officers will have a hard time to put down this evil. The report of the Resolutions Committee presented to the Anti-Saloon League Convention and unanimously adopted by the convention, verily expresses the truth when it states that the real need of the hour is the revival of a campaign of education for the enforcement of the prohibition laws of this state. We recall the time when prohibition was the liveliest issue in the state. A prohibition speaker drew a large crowd. When North Carolina went dry, when the eighteenth amendment was passed, if a speaker announced he was going to talk on prohibition, only a handful would greet him. The public considered the matter settled. It was fed up with prohibition talk. During the World War out people were patriotic to the nth degree, but now one can hardly get a soldier to speak of his experiences and a great many folks absolutely refuse to read a book that deals with the War. If our young men were in danger again, our folks would become interested in warfare again, even though it took a lot of newspaper talk and public speeches to help accomplish it. Our husbands and brothers and fathers and sons and yes, even our girls, are in danger—not of facing cannon or poison gas, but in danger of a poison that saps manhood and womanhood, a poison that leave sin its wake suffering and distress. If an educational campaign along this line is what we need, and we know it will help, then let christian North Carolina, christian Johnston county, christian Smithfield not delay in thus upholding the hand of the law. We have law enough. What we need is enforcement, and a healthy public sentiment will have its weight.
The lead editorial from the Editorial page of The Smithfield Herald, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 1925. The newspaper didn’t capitalize “Christian” in the last paragraph.
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1925-02-03/ed-1/seq-4/
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