The Federal Council report, however, does not support the theory that prohibition has caused a moral breakdown among young people, and in this position it is substantiated from many other sources. The wholesale charge that respect for law was broken down by the want of observance of the prohibition laws rests upon a gratuitous assumption. Finally, the report stresses as its most conclusive finding that social legislation is not a substi tute for social education and that "the illicit liquor traffic will be finally overcome only when and where education in temperate living strongly reinforces the arm of the law." Other Studies of Economic and Social Effects.—In 1925 the secretary of commerce, later President Herbert Hoover, was quoted in a statement published in the Christian Science Monitor (March 1), and repeating in part what he said in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as follows :— There can be no doubt of the economic benefits of prohibition. Viewing the temperance question only from this angle, prohibition has proved its case. I think increased temperance over the land is responsible for a good share of the enormously increased efficiency in production, which statistics gathered by the Department of Commerce show to have followed passage of the dry law. Exhaustive study from many angles of production . . . indicates that while our productivity should have increased about 15% due to the increase in population, the actual increase has been from 25 to 30%, indicating an increase of efficiency of somewhere from so to 15%. . . . There is no question in my opinion that prohibition is making America more productive.
Prof. Irving Fisher in Prohibition at its Worst (1926), and in his report to the American Economic Association (Amer. Econ. Rev. xvii., No. 1, Suppl. March 1927), and in Prohibition Still at its Worst (1928), marshalled a considerable array of statistical and economic facts on the basis of which he contended that the country was at least $6,000,000,000 better off as a result of prohibition. Many of his statistics and arguments were sharply challenged by E. Clemens Horst (Professor Fisher Re futed, San Francisco, 1927, p. 38), in pamphlets of the Modera tion League (New York), and by others, but their statistical methods were not convincing.
Prof. Herman Feldman has given perhaps the most compre hensive and best statistical inquiry (Prohibition: Its Industrial and Economic Aspects, 1927), based on a nine months' personal study of industrial plants, documentary material and question naires sent to over 1,200 concerns with more than a million and a quarter employees. His findings, cautiously and conservatively stated, show clearly that the economic gains from prohibition were much greater than the losses when both gains and losses were measured with the same yard-stick.
Dr. Feldman shrewdly remarks, and this might apply to other studies as well, that "the economic benefits of legal prohibition are based upon substantial prohibition in fact; on the actual abolition of the saloons, or their reduction to a negligible quantity, not on the mere change in name; on a greatly lessened consumption of alcoholic beverages; on a general influence in promoting temper ance and discouraging over-indulgence." It is precisely on these points rather than on the economic results themselves that opin ions differed so widely and controversy became so bitter in the days preceding repeal of the 18th amendment.
National Commission on Law Observance and Enforce ment.—President Hoover appointed May 20, 1929 a Commis sion of eleven eminent citizens, including jurists, former cabinet officers, Federal and State judges, former Federal and State Attorneys General, one ex-U.S. Senator, and one woman, the president of Radcliffe College, with a mandate to make "a thor ough inquiry into the problem of the enforcement of prohibition under the provisions of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution and laws enacted in pursuance thereof, together with the enforce ment of other laws." George W. Wickersham, Chairman, called
the Commission together for its first meeting at the White House on May 28th at which President Hoover stressed the broader as pects of the mandate as not confined to prohibition by saying: "Nor is this a problem confined to the enforcement and obedi ence of one law or the laws of the Federal and State Govern ments separately. The problem is partly the attitude toward all law." The Commission found, however, the prohibition problem enough of a task and confined its major efforts to that question in which it joined the problem of enforceability to that of en forcement of the prohibition laws and considered whether and how far the amendment in its then present form was enforceable, whether it should be retained, or repealed, or revised, and what would be a constructive programme of improvement. Its in quiries were ably conducted through hearings, special studies by experts engaged by the Commission, and assembling valuable data from unofficial as well as official sources representing experience and opinion of all sections of the country.
A Preliminary Report was made in less than a year (Nov. 1929), followed by a Supplementary Report, both of which dealt chiefly with procedural questions, legal and constitutional, which were submitted to Congress Jan. 13, 193o with a message from the President, accompanied by memoranda from the Attorney Gen eral and the Secretary of the Treasury, endorsing more centraliza tion of administrative responsibility for enforcement, more courts, and better judicial and prosecuting procedure (Prel. Rep. and Sup. R., 71st Cong. 2nd Sess. H.R. Doc. No. 252). Congress paid little attention to these suggestions, and like the public at large awaited the major Report of the Commission on larger issues involved. Dated Jan. 7, 1931 this report under the caption : "A Report on the Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the U.S." was sub mitted to the President Jan. 15th, and by him to Congress (71st Cong. 3rd Sess. H.R. Doc. No. 722) with a message on Jan. 2oth in which he said that he agreed with the large majority of the Commission opposed to repeal of the i8th amendment and "with the spirit of the report in seeking constructive steps to advance the national ideal of eradication of the social and economic and political evils of this traffic, to preserve the gains which have been made, and to eliminate the abuses which exist, at the same time facing with an open mind the difficulties which have arisen under this experiment." The Report was signed by ten of the eleven members but subject to the reservations in separate individual statements made by all eleven and annexed to the Report. This greatly weakened the authority of the Report and made it difficult for the average reader to determine just what recommendations, if any, had a reasoned group majority or minority opinion back of them. There were nine recommendations chief of which were : against repeal of i8th amendment, against light wines and beer modification, favouring increased appropriations and personnel for prohibition enforcement and modification of statutes for bet ter procedural facilities and removal of unnecessary restrictions on medicinal liquor, etc., and if with such changes and improve ments enforcement could not be made more efficient, then a re vision of the amendment giving Congress an exclusive grant of power coextensive with that of the amendment but not constitu tionally mandatory.