Washington, June 8.
The long delayed and anxiously awaited decision of the United States Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the prohibition amendment and__ the measures adopted for its enforcement has at last been rendered and the interminable struggle of which it is an important feature now enters upon a new stage. Entirely aside from their bearing upon those urgent public questions that from time to time render them necessary, decisions of the Supreme Court always possess an academic interest for the student of constitutional history, and the decision regarding prohibition was no exception. Article V of the U. S. Constitution provides that amendments shall become valid when adopted by Congress and ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (or by a state convention), and it was not until 130 years after the adoption of the Constitution that any question arose as to the limitations, if any, attending the presen! mode of ratification. But within the last few years a number of states have embodied in their own constitutions referendum lay specifically designed to apply to constitutional amendments such as the prohibition amendment now the subject of so much controversy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.