PROHIBITION, used in a special sense, means the interdiction by law of the manufac ture and sale of intoxicating liquors for use as beverages. Various forms of regulation or control over the liquor traffic have been adopted from time to time, but prohibition is the most drastic of them all. A prohibition wave swept over the Northern States about the middle of the 19th century, beginning in Maine, where the first State-wide prohibition law was en acted in 1846. A more stringent law was en acted in 1851 in the same State, and subse quently a prohibition amendment to the State constitution was adopted. Up to 1906, 18 States had adopted State-wide prohibition, but the wave had receded so that, by that year, only three States — Maine,. Kansas and North Dakota — still remained in the prohibition column.
The recession of the prohibition wave indi cated that the movement had proceeded too rapidly and that the goal must be won by slower steps. State-wide prohibition in many States undoubtedly was contrary to the wishes of a considerable minority of the people throughout the State and probably of a major ity of the people in certain localities of the State. It is axiomatic that, in a democracy, sumptuary legislation is difficult to enforce un less supported by public opinion. Consequently, the line of least resistance in the movement for effective prohibition lay in introducing it only in those localities where the majority of the people favored it. This plan is carried out through what is known as local option, which is found in all but a few States where State wide prohibition has not been adopted. Local option represents an effort to adjust the State liquor law to the sentiments and wishes of the majority of the people in particular localities. It enables such local majorities to vote out the open saloon from their neighborhoods. In States allowing local option, some or all of the various political subdivisions, such as town ships, precincts, cities, villages and counties, are given the privilege of voting out the saloon. Local official bodies, such as city councils, are also given by law in some States the authority to license, regulate or prohibit the sale of in toxicating liquor within their jurisdictions. As a result of the spread of local option, a num ber of States not having State-wide prohibition are largely dry. Such dry territory in local op tion States, however, is only relatively dry. Where wet and dry townships or counties exist side by side in the same State, the introduction of liquor into dry territory from adjoining wet territory is difficult to prevent. Open sale of liquor in dry territory is usually prevented, but clandestine sales undoubtedly continue to be made to a considerable extent.
The comparative failure of local option in bringing about thorough prohibition has been one influence affecting the movement for the enactment of State-wide prohibition laws and constitutional amendments. Various prohibi
tory liquor laws of a partial character have been enacted in a number of States. Thus, we find laws prohibiting saloons to remain open on Sundays, election days, or after certain hours, and prohibiting the sale of liquor within a certain distance of educational and religious institutions. Congress has also prohibited the sale of liquor in the District of Columbia and on Indian reservations. Partial laws, however, have not been considered sufficient, and re cently a new movement for State-wide prohibi tion has been under way, beginning with the enactment of the Georgia law in 1907. This movement spread especially in the South and West, so that, by the year 1918, more than half of the States had in force State-wide prohibi tory liquor laws or constitutional provisions.
Dry States have experienced difficulty in enforcing their prohibition laws for various reasons. Too often they have depended largely on local officers to enforce the State law and such officers have frequently been influenced by anti-prohibition sentiment in their localities either to ignore the law or to enforce it in a very lax and inefficient manner. This difficulty has to some extent been avoided in a few States by the provision of special State machinery of enforcement. But, in North Dakota, an act authorizing the governor to appoint an enforcement commissioner to enforce the prohibition law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the State on the ground that it violated the reserved right of the people to have such laws enforced by officers of their own selection. Difficulty in enforcing the State-wide prohibition laws has also been experienced on account of the in ability of the States to prevent the introduc tion of liquor from wet States through the channels of interstate commerce, over which the States have no direct control. Congress, however, has done what it could to remedy this difficulty and to enable the dry States to enforce their prohibition laws. Thus, under the Wilson Original Package Act of all intoxicating liquor transported into any State was made, upon its arrival, subject to the operation of the laws of such State enacted in the exercise of its police powers. The Webb Kenyon Act of 1913 prohibited the shipment from one State into another of intoxicating liquor intended to be used in any manner in violation of State law. The Webb-Kenyon Act is strengthened by a recent act of Congress prohibiting the solicitation of orders for liquor in dry territory by sending advertising matter through the mails and forbidding any person to order or cause intoxicating liquor to be transported in interstate commerce for beverage purposes into any prohibition State.