Could Washington, Madison, and the other framers of…

Could Washington, Madison, and the other framers of the Federal Constitution revisit the earth in this year 1922,it is likely that nothing would bewilder them more than the recent Prohibition Amendment. Railways, steamships,the telephone, automobiles, flying machines, submarines all these developments, unknown in their day, would fill them with amazement and admiration. They would marvel at the story of the rise and downfall of the German Empire; at the growth and present greatness of the Republic they themselves had founded. None of these things, however, would seem to them to involve any essential change in the beliefs and purposes of men asthey had known them. The Prohibition Amendment, on the contrary, would evidence to their minds the breaking down of a principle of government which they had deemed axiomatic, the abandonment of a purpose which they had supposed immutable.