Page:Notes on democracy - 1926.djvu/175

 professional patriots, they seldom encounter this embarrassment. Instead, they turn the officers of the law to the uses of their mania. More, they reinforce the officers of the law with an army of bravos sworn to take their orders and do their bidding—the army of so-called Prohibition enforcement officers, mainly made up of professional criminals. Thus, under democracy, the normal, well-behaved, decent citizen—the Forgotten Man of the late William Graham Sumner—is beset from all sides, and every year sees an augmentation of his woes. In order to satisfy the envy and hatred of his inferiors and the blood lust of a pack of irresponsible and unconscionable fanatics, few of them of any dignity as citizens or as men and many of them obviously hypocritical and corrupt, this decent citizen is converted into a criminal for performing acts that are natural to men of his class everywhere, and police and courts are degraded to the abhorrent office of punishing him for them. Certainly it should not be surprising that such degrading work has greatly diminished the authority of both—that Prohibition has made the courts disreputable and increased general crime. A judge who jails a well-disposed and inoffensive citizen