Wet For Temperance

From its name one might guess that the Church Temperance Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church is an official Episcopal organization and a supporter of Prohibition. It is neither.

Last week, in The Churchman (Episcopal liberal weekly) the society denied, as it has before, any official affiliation with the Church. The Rt. Rev. John Gardner Murray, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S., is, however, president ex officio, and the society claims to represent more than 1,500 of the Episcopal clergy. The society has always denied having an official character, notably in 1917 when it championed the Prohibition movement. Last week, however, as for some time past, the Society attacked Prohibition.

The C. T. S. P. E. C., closely paraphrasing Alfred Emanuel Smith, declared:

". . . The Volstead Act is not an honest or scientific attempt to define an intoxicant.

". . . The Prohibition laws cannot be enforced in the States where a majority or even a large influential minority of the public opposes it without resorting to methods of the most extreme oppression and cruelty.

". . . There can be no excuse for the complacent violation. . . . There are only two honorable courses open to us: either modify the law or squarely face the sacrifices . . . of enforcement. The third course is the policy we, as a nation, are pursuing: namely, to keep the law regardless of whether it is enforced or not. This is . . . nullification."

The C. T. S. P. E. C. of course favors modification. Chief mover of the society's activities is the Rev. James Empringham. Born in England but naturalized a U. S. citizen he is a onetime vice president of the Anti-Saloon League of America. As an author he has published Dangerous Deceits Exposed, Intestinal Gardening.