THE RISE AND FALL
OF PROHIBITION
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[Illustration: I have seen hulking men enter a shop at nine in the
morning, hastily tear off an ice-cream soda containing I know not what
flavoring and dash out again into the world of business. No habitual
drunkard could show a worse record. The soda-fiend is a sensualist,
knowing nothing of the healthy ecstasy of comradeship. He is a solitary
drinker of the worst sort.]
THE RISE AND FALL
OF PROHIBITION
THE HUMAN SIDE OF WHAT THE EIGHTEENTH
AMENDMENT AND THE VOLSTEAD ACT HAVE
DONE TO THE UNITED STATES
BY
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1923
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1923.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
TO MY FRIEND
JOHN M. DENISON
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The chapter from Mr. John J. Leary, Jr’s, book, “Talks with T. R.,”
entitled “On Prohibition,” is used in this volume by permission of, and
by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized
publishers.
Thanks are also due the editor of _Harper’s Magazine_, for his kind
permission to include portions of E. S. Martin’s article, and to the
Rev. W. A. Crawford-Frost, for his consent to reprint extracts from his
sermon.
Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have been most helpful in permitting the use
of their files of _The Literary Digest_; and Mr. William L. Fish, Mr.
Frederic J. Faulks, Mr. Thomas K. Finletter and Mr. Herbert B. Shonk
rendered much assistance in the preparation of this volume.
Two chapters are reprints of articles which originally appeared in the
New York _Times_.
I must also thank Mr. Markham, Mr. Le Gallienne and Mr. Montague for
the use of their poems.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE PHENOMENON OF PROHIBITION 1
II OUR GREAT UNHAPPINESS 10
III OUR ENDLESS CHAIN OF LAWS 17
IV TOO MUCH “VERBOTEN” 26
V MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DE-MOCKERY-CY 46
VI THE INFAMOUS VOLSTEAD ACT 62
VII A TRIUMVIRATE AGAINST PROHIBITION 83
VIII “THE FEAR FOR THEE, MY COUNTRY” 88
IX DRYING UP THE OCEAN 109
X THE MULLAN-GAGE LAW, THE VAN NESS ACT AND THE HOBERT ACT 120
XI BOOTLEGGING AND GRAFT 129
XII “DON’T JOKE ABOUT PROHIBITION” 138
XIII HOW CANADA HAS SOLVED THE LIQUOR PROBLEM 150
XIV CRIME AND DRUNKENNESS 156
XV THE LITERARY DIGEST’S CANVASS 163
XVI LITERATURE AND PROHIBITION 176
XVII AMERICA TODAY 183
XVIII OTHER REFORMS 194
XIX IS EUROPE GOING DRY? 202
XX WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? 208
THE RISE AND FALL OF PROHIBITION
CHAPTER I
THE PHENOMENON OF PROHIBITION
The strange phenomenon of Prohibition, after an appearance amongst us
of over three years, is still non-understandable to the majority of a
great, and so-called free, people. It is one of the most astonishing
manifestations the world has ever witnessed. It came upon us like a
phantom, swiftly; like a thief in the night, taking us by surprise. Yet
the Prohibitionists will tell you that no one should be amazed, since
for years--for almost a century--quiet forces have been at work to
bring about this very thing.
Most of us can remember how, not so many years ago, when we wished
to throw away our vote, we cast it for the Prohibition ticket. Some
unknown “crank” was running for office on a dry platform. “What a
joke,” we said, “to give him the weight of our affirmation, to enlarge
his pitiful handful of white ballots! It will be a good way to get even
with the arrogant Mr. So-and-So.”
And into the box we laughingly dropped the bit of paper which might
cause a mention to be made of the crank in the next morning’s news
columns. Delightful, insincere flattery, which could not possibly do
any harm. How well, how thoroughly, how consistently we gave it, never
dreaming that the solemn hour would strike when our gesture would no
longer be a joke.
The morning came when the headlines in our newspapers proclaimed
the fact that State after State was following the road of Kansas,
Washington, Maine and Oregon, to mention only a few States which
for some time had elected to make laws that were almost blue. Local
option--yes, we had heard of it in the effete East. There were
districts, we knew, which chose the path of so-called virtue; and
they were welcome to their sanctimoniousness. In our hearts we rather
approved of them for the stand which they had taken--particularly
when we learned, on an occasional visit, that it was mighty easy to
give a dinner-party with plenty of liquid refreshment. All one had to
do, it seemed, was to lift the telephone receiver in Bangor, and ask
that Boston send over a supply of whatever one desired. There were no
restrictions against the transportation of liquor over the State line,
though it was impossible to purchase wines and spirits in the holy
community itself.
Our national insincerity began right there. The hiding of the ostrich’s
head in the sands--that is what it amounted to; and we all smiled and
laughed, and went on having a perfectly good time, and we told one
another, if we discussed the matter at all, that of course the worst
could never, never occur. What rot even to think of it; what idiocy
to take seriously a state of affairs so nebulous and remote. It was
like predicting a world war--which eventually came about; it was like
dreaming of the inconvenience of a personal income tax--which also
came about; it was like imagining that man would be so uncivilized as
to break all international law--which, only a few years later, he did.
Who foresaw the use of poisonous gas in the most frightful conflict of
history? Who had vision enough to tell us that noncombatants would be
killed, as they were in Belgium, though treaties had been signed which
forbade such wanton cruelty? Who could foretell the bombing of cities
far beyond the firing line? Yet these atrocities occurred with singular
regularity once the world entered upon that stupendous struggle which
began in August, 1914. We came to take such happenings for granted. We
grew accustomed to terror, as one grows used to pain; and all that we
had built and dreamed went crashing to dust and ashes.
Prohibition, I venture to say, was the last thing in the world the
American people expected to have come upon them. Though temperance
advocates were thick through the country, the brilliant bar-rooms held
their own; and we came to look upon them as an essential part of the
pageant of life, especially in cosmopolitan cities, with Salvation Army
lassies entering them to pass the tambourine. Men in their cups gave
generously; and I often wonder if the revenue of pious organizations
has not seriously diminished, now that there are no haunts of vice
for holy workers to penetrate. Surely they must miss this casual
liberality--the coin or the bill cast with a grand and forgotten
gesture into the extended hand.
But do not imagine I am holding a brief for the corner saloon. The sins
of an enforced Prohibition are many, as I shall seek to prove; but the
passing of the common drinking-place cannot be deprecated. No sane,
thinking citizen wishes to see a return of promiscuous debauchery.
A glimpse now of the London “pubs” in the poorer districts of the
English capital is enough to convince any American that he should
thank his stars--if not his three-stars--that one phase of our social
consciousness has vanished forever. If we could have sensibly rid
ourselves of these rum-hells, without punishing a vast multitude of us
who knew how to drink wisely, much good would have been accomplished.
But, American-like, we had to go the whole gamut; we had to make
ourselves ridiculous before the rest of the world, in order to bring
about a check upon the gross appetites of a scattered few.
There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a reaction. The
pendulum has swung too far, as any observer must admit. The present
conditions throughout the country are so disgraceful that something
must be done to remedy them. Our personal habits became a matter for
federal investigation; our daily conduct is now given to the scrutiny
of the authorities--to our everlasting discredit. We are a nation of
self-appointed law-breakers, rejoicing alike in our secret and open
wrong-doing. We are the laughing-stock of Europe; we are the jest of
Canada and Mexico, our neighbors, and decent Americans feel that a
stigma has been put upon them. We stammer explanations to visiting
foreigners, who, confused and confounded, ask us what it all means;
we are confused ourselves at the muddle our Government is making of
the whole wretched business; and yet, being Americans who tolerate all
kinds of injustices, we meekly submit, the while we complain, and are
too lazy, most of us, to lift up our voices, to utter one word publicly
in derision of this monstrous foolishness.
What is to happen to us? Are we to become a race of machines, supinely
submitting to autocratic mandates? We have always allowed ruffians to
rule us in our civic politics; and though once in a while we bitterly
cry out, the ruffians, knowing our weaknesses only too well, pay no
attention. We are like the worm that turns; but who cares, since no
change is evident when the worm shows its other side?
One of the great troubles with America is that only in rare instances
will the finer type of young manhood enter politics. We leave the high
business of running the Government to men of inferior caliber, whereas
in a land like England, a political career is a distinction, as much to
be chosen and sought as the Church. Until we come to a realization of
the peril that confronts us through our spirit of _laissez-faire_ we
shall deserve, as Plato says, exactly the kind of Government we get.
With all our recognized national gusto and verve, there can be no
denial of the tragic fact that we are mentally indolent when a
political cause is in the balance. I have known men of worth in the
professions and in the world of business to neglect the polls on
Election Day in order to indulge in a game of golf; yet these are the
first to cry out when the low-brow politicians triumph. We permit our
jury-boxes to be filled by incompetent German-American grocers and
butchers, clerks with little imagination, played-out failures and cab
drivers and chauffeurs who are morons. Even the women, who were so
anxious for equal suffrage, find, in many cases, that civic duties are
a burden, and avoid their obvious responsibilities. We let George do
everything which we find in the least unpleasant.
Well, there is a price for such lethargy. It is terrifying to read
over the names of the judges and magistrates on the American Bench,
and see how many are of foreign origin. Listen to the roll-call in
any court-room. The Poppelfingers and Morinos and Sauerkrautzers
predominate. Where are our first American families? It might be well to
ask, indeed, where they will be in another generation or two.
You and I walk along the streets and see a man suddenly stricken.
A crowd quickly gathers about his pitiful form, stares into his
countenance. A policeman calls an ambulance. A gong rings, and he
is carried off to a hospital. You and I go our way, with perhaps a
momentary tug at our heart. But it never occurs to us that the man in
the street might have been ourselves. Such things happen to others--no,
they could never, never happen to us. The lightning may strike a
neighbor’s house or barn--but not our own. Death or disaster may come
to the other fellow--never to us.
“It never can happen” might be our national slogan. Thus has a stupid
Pollyanna optimism penetrated our civic thought, our political
consciousness, our spiritual being; and the false doctrine is screamed
from every housetop from Manhattan to Gopher Prairie. Pretty little
poems, printed in neat frames, greet us wherever we turn. They urge us
to cheer up, that it is not raining rain, but only flowers, and that
God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world--forgetting that
Browning, when he penned his immortal line, referred to a particular
morning for a particular man of vision, and by no means intended to
be quoted out of his context, as a basis for the silly “gladness” of
hoards of people who think they think. Our music-halls are crammed
with comedians who sing, in loud voices, something about what’s the use
of worrying, it never was worth while, and bidding us smile, smile,
smile. And we clap and giggle and stamp our easy-going feet, and go
out into the night, and are shoved and pushed into an over-crowded
subway train, and still fondly cherish the delusion that we should
keep on smiling, though a brutal train-guard’s boot is jammed into our
reluctant back, so that we may become one more sardine in the steel box
he is so expert in packing.
It would all be very amusing were it not so serious. Sinclair Lewis,
who is becoming the best photographer this country ever produced, has
not given us a false picture of our towns and cities. He tells the
brutal truth, bravely. But we read him, smile, and say that of course
it’s all very well, and such localities may exist, but they are not
those in which we dwell. And all the while, about us, are the very folk
his deft pen has drawn. _Babbitt_--what a stupid old fool he is, and we
may have seen him in smoking-compartments; but we never will admit that
he is our next-door neighbor.
The day may come when we will have to admit that he is our very self.
We have the superiority complex. Which of course is nothing but a
confession that we are inferior. And in allowing restriction after
restriction to be put upon us, how, in the name of common sense and in
the words of the man in the street, do we get that way? We are the
most governed people in the world today. There are plenty of laws, but
little order; and the millennium that the Prohibitionists promised with
the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment is farther away than ever.
Let us wake up, and face conditions as they are. Let us not try to
delude ourselves into a state of false happiness, when, at heart, we
are the most unhappy nation now breathing the celebrated air. It is
high time we did some solemn thinking. The writing is on the wall. It
is our business to read the words inscribed there in letters of fire.
CHAPTER II
OUR GREAT UNHAPPINESS
Are the American people any worse than other people, that they should
be put _en masse_ upon the water-wagon? Who is it that sits in judgment
over them? What unseen Kaiser, Czar, autocrat passes sentence upon
their morals? We fought a War to get rid of such leaders and rulers;
and now, ironically enough, we find ourselves under the domination of
far stronger task-masters.
I have recently been traveling through a great portion of this great
country. Everywhere I found a curious unhappiness. People may not be
articulate about their sorrows, just as the poor may not speak of
their poverty; yet the canker is there, the worm i’ the bud is eating
away the heart of the flower. Perhaps I should use the word discontent
rather than unhappiness. Or restlessness. Or resentment. At any rate,
the feeling, whatever it is, exists; and there is a new menace over
our days. The placid reformers, resting between reforms, smack their
lips in sadistic glee. In the face of repeated and open violations of
the law, they give out interviews to the effect that all is moving
serenely; that the people are under beautiful control--though they
have to admit that they squirm once in a while. Here again it is a
case of stupid optimism. They _want_ all to be well, and they fondly
imagine that all _is_ well. They will have a great awakening; for this
smoldering discontent and anger is bound to rise in a great tide one of
these days.
[Illustration: At the trial, the package in evidence was placed on a
large green-covered table, in the presence of the jury and the court.
The prosecuting attorney worked himself into a fine fury of eloquence.
The majesty of the law must be upheld.]
Listen to a lady reformer in Chicago, speaking after a church league
meeting, in September, 1922. Evidently she is out of touch with the
world, secure in the sanctity of a liquorless home. She has never
attended a real dinner-party, poor dear; and somehow my heart goes out
to her.
“The law is being enforced, and the results are more than satisfactory.
The brewers are skulking opponents. What are they doing now?” she
inquired blandly of her audience. “Some are making candies, some soft
drinks, some other things; but they are all making money, and are
happy. Prohibition is a wonderful thing, and I am proud to be a citizen
of the country that has adopted it.”
How sweet and cheerful! But as she spoke, I wonder if she knew that
almost around the corner real beer and whiskey were easily procurable.
That as she uttered her oracular words, men with hip-flasks passed the
door behind which she was speaking, on their way to joyful occasions.
The law was never less effectively enforced, dear lady. You are living
in a world of dreams and fancies. You should get about more, and meet
the flappers and _jeunesse dorée_, who could tell you and show you a
thing or two. Your rhapsodies are all very well; but your smug delight
in conditions has a note of pathos to one who has observed the country
as it is, and not as you would have it. Alas! you are but deluding
yourself, and my heart goes out to you in your simplicity.
Is the law being upheld when, at a dinner-party at a certain country
club, two policemen in uniform were sent by the local authorities
to “guard the place” while much liquor was poured? These minions of
the sacred law were openly served with highballs, and they laughed
at the Constitution of the United States. I saw them and heard them
myself. They came to get drunk--and certainly succeeded. Everyone at
that party deplored the company’s behavior, was loud in denunciation
of Prohibition and what has come in its wake; yet went on eating
and drinking and dancing with the casual remark that it was of no
consequence whether or not they broke the law, since everyone was doing
it.
Is there any veneration for the law of the land when advocates of the
Eighteenth Amendment, men who sponsored it publicly, in private deride
it, and, at the mention of Mr. Volstead, sneer and jeer, and purchase
cocktails in New York restaurants at a dollar apiece, gulping them down
openly?
I asked such an advocate--a politician who would like to be called
a statesman--why it was that, if he believed in the Volstead Act,
he continued to consume his daily quota of Scotch. I don’t believe
anybody had ever ventured to put such a frank question to him. His
wife, on my left, blanched--she, by the way, never touches a drop; but
her exalted husband is fond of the cup that cheers--and inebriates.
He has held high office, and has been loud in his advocacy of
Prohibition--for the other fellow. He glared at me when I rashly put my
question to him, lifted his glass high and cried out, intending to be
witty (I thought him merely disgraceful, and drunk, as usual), “I drink
as much and as often as I can, in order to lessen the supply!” And then
he had the effrontery to add: “Of course I mean to see to it that the
law is upheld, when liquor cases come up before me.”
Yet I had read a statement of his in the newspapers when he was running
for office, declaring that wine was a mocker, and that whosoever was
deceived thereby was not wise. Oh, yes, he could quote Scripture with
a vengeance, this minion of the law. My lady friend in Chicago, seeing
him on the street, would count him as among the holy band who have put
their O. K. upon Volstead, Anderson, et al. Yet behind closed doors
he is a Mr. Hyde who takes a fiendish pleasure in his dual nature. I
like him not. The lady in Chicago is at least consistent. Were I a
W. C. T. U. worker or an Anti-Saloon member--or even a judge who tried
bootleggers--I think I should strive for a similar state of holiness,
and always be willing to let my left hand know what my right hand was
doing.
The truth is that laws of intolerance defeat their own ends. The
instant you tell people not to do something, they have an irresistible
desire to do it. There cannot be laws greater than the people
themselves. And that law is the most insidious and dangerous of all
which discriminates between the rich and poor.
I am, by temperament and training, a Conservative; yet I confess that
were I a workingman deprived of my beer, I would find it hard to remain
calm, when, returning from my day’s labor, I was forced to go to an
arid tenement, passing the homes of those who possessed well-stocked
cellars--and who replenished them at will.
Those who labor ceaselessly for the cause of Prohibition will tell you
that it will not always be possible to obtain liquor; that the rich,
too, will come to a state of drouth; and I have even heard some of them
say that, after all, there are many things the rich have always had
which the poor could not possess, and drink is but another symbol.
For such light arguments I have no use. I could only say to so profound
a student of human nature and the humanities that he, along with his
kind, is sowing the wind, and will reap the whirlwind. With money, we
seem to be able to purchase anything we desire in this land of lost
liberty. One of them is a wine-cellar. Mr. Volstead did not quite dare
to make it illegal to drink in one’s home. There might have been a
serious exodus from the country had such a drastic law been passed--or
even seriously considered. Since Magna Charta a man’s house has been
his castle; and an invasion of the sacred precincts would cause
unlimited chaos. Yet in certain of our States, John Doe search-warrants
may now be obtained, and officials may enter one’s dining-room to
ascertain if drinking is going on. It is unthinkable, but it is so.
But, then, there are many foolish legislative blunders made from year
to year, and a placid and long-suffering people pay little attention
to them. I have heard men complain of the laws in their community, who
would not lift a finger to see that they were changed.
In the Far West recently, learning of a certain intolerable mandate, I
could not resist asking a lawyer why his State stood for it. His only
reply was that they gave it little thought--until someone from outside,
like myself, came along and drew its horrors to their attention. Then,
with the going of the stranger from their midst, they settled down
once more to calm acquiescence; or else they openly disobeyed the
law, and, when they thought of the possible consequences, roared with
laughter. For no one had ever been put in prison for a violation of
the statute--and of course no one ever would be. Then why have it on
the books? Oh, well, what difference did it make? The women wanted it
there, but of course they didn’t mean it, and it was a joke anyhow, and
it wasn’t worth worrying over, when you came to think of it, and maybe
the Legislative body had to earn its salary, and how about a little
game of golf to forget it?
I suppose we have come to be such a hodge-podge nation that we are
losing sight of all the old ideals our forefathers fought for. The
passage of the Eighteenth Amendment may have been the best thing
that could have happened to us, since it has, in a sense, aroused
us to the point of anger, whereas piffling restrictions put upon
our liberty have left us cold and indifferent. But here, at last,
is something big enough to cause most of us inconvenience--and the
American people do dislike to be inconvenienced. We could get together
on this burning subject, where we would fail to dovetail on lesser
questions. Our heterogeneous citizenry is inflamed, as one man; for
the German-American wants his beer, the Italian-American his red wine,
the Irish-American his grog, the English-American his ale and port,
the Russian-American his vodka, the Swedish-American his punch, the
French-American his champagne and light wine, and so on down the line
and through the maze of races that go to form our vast Republic.
Is it too late to get together? Here again we may fail to act in
concert; for the foreigner within our gates, feeling the contagion of
our national slothfulness in a Cause, and waiting to get his cue from
us, sits back and wonders why we do not act.
And many an American waits and wonders too.
CHAPTER III
OUR ENDLESS CHAIN OF LAWS
When we sit back and rail at the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead
Act, we lose sight of other laws equally tyrannous which, however, do
not happen to affect us.
Is it generally known, for instance, that in the State of Utah there
is a statute which makes it a misdemeanor to purchase, sell or smoke
cigarettes? One may not puff in a public place; yet one may do so
in private, the law contends. The Mormon Church is opposed not only
to drinking and smoking, but to coffee-drinking as well; and as the
elders in that church are the big property owners in Salt Lake City,
controlling the hotels and other public buildings, when I went there
not long ago I wondered if I would be permitted to light a weed.
With soda-fountains gracing the lobbies of the smartest caravanseries,
I had my doubts; but when I casually asked where the cigar-stand was,
I was directed to a garish counter, and beneath gleaming glass cases
I saw, to my amazement, all brands of cigarettes on sale. I asked how
this could be.
“You don’t take this law seriously?” a native said to me.
“I am getting so that I cannot take any law seriously,” was my natural
answer--as it undoubtedly would have been yours, dear reader. Yet you
and I call ourselves perfectly decent, God-fearing American citizens,
do we not?
I hadn’t the slightest trouble in purchasing everything that I wanted;
yet a new fear possessed me. After dinner, would it be possible to
smoke in the main dining-room?
To make a long story short--it was. Everyone was doing it, just as
though a law had never been heard of; and I saw Mormons consuming
coffee, too. Think of it!
For almost two years now the farce has gone on. No one thinks it
curious any more that the mandate is not obeyed.
They told me of a case recently tried out there. A small tobacco
merchant--an Italian, if I recall correctly--was arrested for selling a
package of cigarettes to a detective. (To remind people of the august
legislature and to give the tax-payers another reason for being taxed,
a minion of the law must go about now and then, on a fat salary, to
investigate conditions.) At the trial, the package in evidence was
placed on a large green-covered table, in the presence of the jury and
the Court. It was all very incriminating. The prosecuting attorney
worked himself into a fine fury of eloquence, denouncing the pitiful
little culprit in high-faluting language that the wretch on trial
could not possibly understand. The majesty of the law must be upheld.
This was terrible; it was atrocious--though nothing was said of the
fact that down in the heart of the city, every hour of the day, this
same law was openly violated. The judge solemnly charged the jury--and
hastened out to luncheon.
But the twelve good men and true were out only a few moments. They
brought in a verdict of not guilty.
“How can this be?” cried the Court, in wrath. And the counsel for the
people tore his hair, metaphorically, if not literally. The detective
looked blank. Then the foreman arose and said that the jury had had
no evidence presented to them that cigarettes had been sold, as the
package covering the alleged malignant little weeds had never been
opened.
And so the money of the good citizens of Utah is being spent on such
opera-bouffé trials--and they continue to stand for it.
A delightful state of affairs, my masters. Such incidents should get
into the papers more frequently. For we can all stand anything but
ridicule. And when the law is thus made ridiculous, it is to laugh,
isn’t it?
Or should one remain serious in the face of such nonsense--as of course
the reformers would have us do.
Well, I am afraid they will have to pass laws against smiling before I
can be brought to terms. And even then I may break another law--and go
to jail for it. Or more likely remain peacefully at home, as I do now,
breaking so many that I have stopped counting them.
I fear that I break the speed laws--as do you. I am afraid that most
of us do. Yet I am not conscious of good ladies of any N. S. L. S.
(National Speed Law Society) giving up tea-parties that they may get
out on the highways to watch us, and report us, and, if need be, arrest
us themselves. Yet when you and I dine at a restaurant in a city like
New York, we are apt to note a policeman in uniform standing in the
doorway, his eagle eye upon us, to see that we do not take flasks from
our pockets. I wonder what would happen if, under the very nose of this
representative of law and order, one should pour from a bottle some
harmless iced-tea. Alas! I fear that the law is not to be trifled with
in that way. The dignity of our jurisprudence must not be disturbed.
One might be hauled up and arraigned for disorderly conduct, or for
some such trumped-up charge.
But it _is_ a pretty picture, isn’t it, to see perfectly good
tax-payers watched and spied upon while they eat their meals? Ye gods!
and in a supposedly free country! How our ancestors must turn in their
graves--they who wrote something, didn’t they, about “life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness”?
Who shall define that last phrase today? I wonder what it means--what
anything means--in these topsy-turvy times.
Not long ago, in solemn conclave in an eastern city, a holy body of
men and women aroused the whole country to its first volume of fury
by suggesting that gatling-guns be used to enforce obedience to the
Prohibition law. In their fanatical zeal, they were seriously for
murdering a number of us, and they saw no humor in their announcement.
What were a few lives, if the LAW was upheld?--a law, by the way,
which millions of thinking people do not believe should ever have been
put upon our statutes. No more shameful resolution was ever made at a
public meeting; yet I would not have been surprised had it been passed,
to such a state of imbecility have we come. Why stop where we are? Let
the digging in go on; let the teeth of the law sink into your flesh
until we groan in agony. Let the busybodies and the cranks become as
thick as flies and locusts in time of pestilence. Let them gather in
battalions around us, sting us, flay us, torture us--until at last the
vestige of manhood which is left in us may cause us to turn upon them.
I fear that the law which makes it illegal for a minor to be admitted
to a theater or a motion-picture palace is broken every day in every
city of our broad and beneficent land. Yet I do not find pickets from
Children’s Societies, standing about to see that the letter of the law
is obeyed. We pretend to be deeply interested in the welfare of the
coming generation--so interested, in fact, that the present generation
is forced to give up its harmless toddy, that the children of tomorrow
may be robust supermen and superwomen.
The fact is that, to the fanatic, no law is sacred except the
Eighteenth Amendment.
The Fifteenth? Oh; why talk of it? The South knows its problems, and
can cope with them. Besides ... well ... Ahem!... That’s another
matter, and has no bearing upon the issue at hand.
Why hasn’t it? Yet if you ask ten people in the street what the
Fifteenth Amendment is the chances are that only one will be able to
tell you.
If the negro was enfranchised, he was enfranchised, and should be
permitted to vote. That is the law of the land. It is part of our
glorious Constitution.
But do you hear anyone raising a row over the fact that no one pays any
attention to it in certain parts of the South? Few zealots work for
the rights of negro voters--none, I should say. It matters little to
us that they are denied that privilege which belongs to every citizen
here, whether he is black or white, or what his previous condition of
servitude.
Why should we respect one Amendment to the Constitution, and be allowed
to hold in contempt another?
Truly, the logic of the fanatic is hard to follow. If one of them reads
these words, he will merely smile and pass on, and do nothing at all
about it. For just now he is fearfully concerned over Mr. Volstead and
the carrying out of his policies. One thing at a time, please.
His interest may keep him busy for so many years to come that he will
have the excuse of no free moment to study the Fifteenth Amendment. But
all the Amendments should be enforced, or wiped off the books.
Riding in a train once through the sanctified State of Kansas, where
long they have refused to let you and me buy a cigarette, I asked for a
package in the dining-car.
“Can’t let you have ’em,” was the answer of the steward. “We’re on
Kansas soil.”
“Then why don’t you inform passengers before we cross the State line,
in order that they may stock up?” I inquired--humanly enough, I thought.
“They should look out for themselves,” was his rather unkind reply.
I thought a moment. I did want a smoke, and I was determined to have
one, despite all the laws in Christendom. I told my feelings to the
steward. He saw that I was in earnest. In fact, he came to see the
justice of my suggestion that passengers, unaccustomed at that time to
so many restrictions (this happened in the halcyon, prehistoric days
before Prohibition) should be given some hint of the approach of the
State line.
He came over and whispered in my ear, first looking about him--as we
are all doing nowadays, the while we laugh at Russia and Prussia:
“Say, if you’ll drop a quarter on the floor, I’ll pick it up; and
there’ll be a package of cigarettes under your napkin in a minute.”
Thus was another holy law disobeyed.
And it is done every day, O proud fanatics, who think you are cleaning
us up. And it always will be done. For poor old frail human nature is
just what it is; and spiritual reformation can never come, as you would
have it, from without, in. We must all work out our own destinies,
from within, out. Somehow we like the little battles with our souls.
They add a piquancy to life. They give a spice and zest to the level
days. Our appetites are our own affairs. The moderate drinker is not
a drunkard; and to place restrictions upon him, in order to cure the
ne’er-do-well is as unjust as it would be to put the petit larceny
prisoner in the death chair along with the murderer.
Gertrude Atherton, who is wise and broad-minded, once wrote an article
against Prohibition, which began with these sharp, incisive sentences:
“I am a woman. I never drink. But I am against Prohibition.”
My own sentiments, exactly.
Temperance--yes; but never absolute restrictions. And if we continue to
place them upon the people, we shall have nothing but broken, shattered
laws all down the line; and finally something else will be broken and
shattered.
I mean the dream of this great Republic. I mean the illusion which all
of us had that we were not to live under despots. I mean the hope of
a race which believed in democracy, and finds itself suddenly in the
grasp and under the domination of bitter tyrants, who seek to chain us,
and imprison not only our bodies, but our very souls.
CHAPTER IV
TOO MUCH “VERBOTEN”
One hears a great deal about the way the Volstead Act and the
Eighteenth Amendment were “put over” on the American people. It is
true, as I have said, that the legislation came upon us suddenly;
but everything was done in a perfectly legal and orderly manner. The
people did not realize how far the Anti-Saloon League, and kindred
organizations, had gone in their work. Also, deny it as they will, the
advocates of Prohibition used the War as an excuse, as a cloak for
their propaganda. It was perfectly right for the Secretary of War and
the Secretary of the Navy to forbid the sale of liquor to our men in
uniform after we got into the conflict. We were at War; and it would
have been as foolish for our boys to get drunk as it would be for an
actor to go on the stage intoxicated. Moreover, in the heroic glamour
of those now happily vanished days, it was so easy for soldiers and
sailors to be “entertained” by any and everyone. Better, then, to clamp
the lid on tightly. It was a time for efficiency; and no one is so
foolish as to contend that the consumption of whiskey in large doses
makes for a hardier race. One believes, with St. Paul, in “moderation
in all things.” Youth, in a period of stress, needs direction, just
as children do. Having arrived at an age of reason, man should be
permitted to go his own way. But just as we needed discipline in the
ranks--physical discipline--we needed spiritual discipline in wartime.
There can be no real argument about this, I think.
But even here we failed, partly. Liquor _was_ sold to men in uniform.
And men in uniform wanted it, and found many ways to obtain it. The
forbidden apple is always the sweetest; and the more we restrict and
preach and restrain, the more eager certain natures will always be to
achieve the very thing we decry and withhold.
The war, of course, was responsible for many upheavals. We could not
enter such a fiery conflict without feeling its bitter after effects,
any more than one can drink immoderately and not feel ill the next
morning. That we fought to make a weary world safe for democracy is now
nothing but a joke--a Gilbert and Sullivan joke worthy of a deathless
lyric. Indeed, a short time ago, had a librettist put into a comic
opera some of the happenings between 1914 and 1918--only some of them,
mind you--his book would have been hissed off the stage.
There are some things that are true to life, but not true to fiction.
For instance, think of the irony of our boys being sent across the seas
to shoot guns at the Prussians and begging them to free themselves
from an autocratic Kaiser, and, during their necessary absence, being
deprived of a glass of beer when they came back home.
It would be the most laughable farce comedy were it not the deepest
tragedy. I can conceive of a brilliant first act, wherein some
doughboys, parched and thirsty, arrive in a German village and for the
first time in their lives taste real Münchner beer--the beer of their
enemy--learn to like it, decently enough, get the recipe, and decide
to take back to their home town the one good and harmless thing the
enemy country gave them. Then, as a climax, they arrive, wounded and
depressed, a tatterdemalion battalion, glad that the filthy war is over
and done, and ready now to drop back into calm, blissful citizenship,
with their young wives and families.
But no, say a delegation of legislators on the pier (a charming comic
chorus this!), with palms extended upright,
“You are all wrong, bo,
And you really ought to know,
That we’ve rearranged the show,
And it’s bone-dry you will go,
And though honors we bestow,
Now, alas! no beer will flow!
For we’ve put one over on you--
Pro-hi-_bi_-tion!”
(Curtain, amid general consternation.)
Now, if a libretto with this plot development had been offered to a
Broadway manager six years ago, it would have been turned down at once
as impossible. I can see the first reader’s report:
“A great deal of whimsical imagination is shown by the author; but
the American people are very sensible, and even Barrie and Gilbert
could not be allowed to take such liberties with life as it is.
Isn’t it too bad that writers do not know the public better? What a
pity it is that they cannot evolve plots that will be a revelation
of life as it is, not as it might be in a mad, whirligig world of
fancy? This is not good, even as satire, for the situation could
not exist, even in a realm of dreams.”
But see what has happened! This plot would have proved a prophecy and
made several fortunes for the author and the manager.
“What!” I hear some character saying in the course of the first act,
just before the curtain descends, “do you mean to say that the boys
who fought for this democracy stuff had no voice in the passing
of the law that made it a crime to sip a glass of good beer?” And
the answer would be, “Of course not! How behind the times you are!
America is a free country, you know. The people who dwell in it
boast of their superiority of intellect, and rejoice in their form
of self-government--though they abrogate their votes to a pack of
politicians who are--well, to put it bluntly, dishonest. For they drink
themselves, while they bow to lobbyists who don’t believe in drink--for
the other fellow. America, my good sir, is the land of the spree no
longer; it is the home of the grave.” (Business of laughter. Solemn
music is heard, and the entire chorus of legislators pass with stately
steps to the Capitol, dressed in heavy mourning.)
But nothing is being done about anything. The American people, whipped
into obedience, as Prussians were never whipped, take their medicine
(from which all but one-half of one per cent of alcohol has been
extracted--and why this modicum should be permitted to remain is only
another joker in the whole stupid business) and obey the law.
Only, they don’t. They go out and break it to bits, as I have shown;
and our legislators wonder why they have so many bad children on their
hands, and isn’t it a strange world, and why is it that folks won’t be
good and do as they are told, and what are laws for, anyhow, and this
disrespect of the law is awful and must be punished, and someone has
got to go to jail, and why is Bolshevism growing when we are all so
happy?
Ah! there is the answer in one word! We are not happy--every one is
decidedly, unequivocally, wretchedly, miserably, gloomily, stonily,
fearfully, terribly unhappy!
And why? Because one has to fight so hard for his fun nowadays. A lot
of laws have been passed, and more are threatened, which blast one’s
hopes of the simplest kind of good times. These laws are based on a
complete misunderstanding of poor old human nature, which needs, every
now and then, say what you will, an escape from the dreariness, the
tedium of life. The harmless diversions which in childhood take the
form of playing ball and cricket and tennis experience a metamorphosis
as we grow older--a perfectly natural metamorphosis; and we crave just
a tinge of excitement after the harsh, unyielding day’s work. Most
Americans work hard--there is no doubt of that. Except for a Cause.
But, seriously, American business is a strenuous, glorious thing--a
delightful game, if you will; but it is also a serious note in the
scale of our national consciousness.
We need relaxation after eight or nine hours at a desk; and the lights
of a great city are the lure that lead us forth--not to get drunk, God
knows, but to get just that fillip the weary body and brain need when
an honest day’s work is done.
The people who don’t understand this, and who are trying to rule and
run America, are in a class with those who fail to understand the
psychology of Coney Island, or any other simple pleasure resort; who
are unable to distinguish between a happy sobriety and filthy gutter
intoxication; who never heard Stevenson’s line about Shelley, “God,
give me the young man with brains enough to make a fool of himself.”
How a glass of light wine or beer is going to hurt a fellow is more
than I, for the life of me, can see; and if he takes his wife along, as
he usually does, or wishes to do, there is precious little danger that
one will ever fall over the terrible precipice of intoxication and go
down into the bottomless pit of complete disaster.
One might say to the reformers that for the most part our ancestors
imbibed a bit; and here we are, thank you, and doing very nicely.
There has never been a particle of evidence presented to prove that
teetotalers live longer than moderate drinkers; indeed, one doubts if
they live as long. And it is well known that those races which refuse
absolutely to drink do not produce anything of importance in the way of
art; and surely they contribute nothing to the cause of science. Take
the Mohammedans. Name one great artist among them, if you can, known to
you and me.
Had Americans been a race of drunkards, I could understand this sudden
drastic legislation against booze. But we were far from that. Drink was
beautifully taking care of itself. It was _infra dig_ to consume too
much; and the young business man who made it a practice to indulge in
even one glass of beer at luncheon, lost caste with his employer--yes,
and with his fellow workers. He soon discovered the error of his ways,
and no longer found it expedient to feel sleepy in the afternoon, when
others were alert and thoroughly alive. It was only honest to give to
the concern for which he worked the flower of his brain and heart; and
so he passed up the casual glass, with little if any reluctance, and
joined that great army of temperate men--and women. He did not wish to
be left behind in the race for glory; and where he had taken, without
a qualm, four cocktails before a dinner-party, now he took only one,
and sometimes left a drop or two of that in the glass.
I can recall the time, not so many years ago, when everyone drank like
a glutton. Country clubs were but excuses for dissipation, locker-rooms
were nothing but bars, with waiters running in and out with trays of
refreshing drinks. (Alas! they are worse than that now, thanks to our
reformers!) But this brief era passed--through the common sense of the
people themselves. We did not require legislation to cause us to see
whither we were drifting. Out of our own consciousness we knew--all but
a few congenital drunkards--that “that way madness lies.” And so we
quit, of our own volition, this heavy and stupid drinking. The “society
fellow,” worthless from the beginning, was cut out; the man of sterling
qualities and action took his place. The “lounge lizard” became a
deservedly abhorrent creature, unfit for the companionship of decent
men. We came, as I see it--and I have observed American life in many
spheres--to a sense of our own foolishness.
Big Business didn’t want the toper. Big Business scorned the young
clerk who followed the gay lights along the gay White Way--the fool who
sat up all night, taking chorus-girls to lobster palaces. With that
alertness for which the American is famed, our young men realized that,
to succeed in the realm of business, they would have to turn over a new
leaf.
And they did it. I ask the reformers to deny this if they can. There
has been no menace from drink in this country for many and many a year.
We never drank as the English laboring man drinks--or even as the
Germans consume beer. We were, as the whole world is aware, a race of
moderate drinkers--omitting always those few and necessary exceptions
which only serve to prove the rule.
Yet, as a nation, we were indicted, held up to ridicule and scorn.
We were told that we could not control our appetites, and so our
benevolent Government would control them for us. And this in the face
of the fact that we _had_ learned to control them.
I can likewise recall the time, not so long ago, when crowds of
children would follow some forlorn drunkard being hauled to the
station-house. Even though the corner-saloon continued to flourish long
after you and I grew up, how many years is it, I ask anyone, since we
have seen this sorry spectacle? And as for seeing a man lying prone in
the gutter--that seems a prehistoric incident to me. Yet such incidents
ceased long before national Prohibition became an outrageous fact.
Taking care of ourselves, still we had to be taken care of! Ah! in our
frenzy to become too pure, let us remember the dangers of benevolent
autocracies. The State has one definite function, the Church another.
The mingling of Church and State--is not that one of the pitfalls we
have long sought to avoid? If the former looks after our souls, the
latter should be satisfied to see to our bodies--and that would be
duty enough.
Let us do a little figuring.
There are, approximately, 110,000,000 people in the United States of
America. Of these, let us say that 40,000,000 are men and 40,000,000
women. Of minors there are perhaps 30,000,000 more. Among the last
named there would be very little drinking. I imagine that of the male
population, a considerable number do not imbibe at all. I would rather
err, giving the opposition the benefit of the doubt; and so I will say
that 20,000,000 males drink in moderation, and that 10,000,000 females
do the same. This gives us, out of a total population of 110,000,000,
only 30,000,000 people who care anything at all about liquor. Of that
number, how many, do you think, are what might be called immoderate
drinkers? Five million? That, it seems to me, would be a fair
estimate--more than fair. But let us be generous to a fault.
Of that five million, how many are congenital drunkards? A million?
Perhaps; though I doubt that even that number have sunk so low. But let
us say that two million have done so.
Then it has become necessary to deprive 30,000,000 people of a simple
form of pleasure because 2,000,000 do not know how to manage their
souls and bodies. It would be equally ridiculous to put an end to
connubial bliss because there are a few libertines in the world.
I remember, as a boy, an unjust teacher who kept the whole class in
because one pupil whispered--and she could not discover the culprit. I
never could understand her perverted sense of justice. We were guilty
along with the disloyal little rascal who had violated a rule. We must
suffer because he would not declare himself.
But drunkards cannot conceal their wickedness. We know them. We spot
them. They are obvious in any community. “The town drunkard” was as
well known as the town pump. It has always been on our statutes that
intoxication in public constituted a misdemeanor. The penalty for a
misdemeanor is arrest, trial, and, if found guilty, imprisonment or the
payment of a fine.
Few would get drunk if they knew they would be arrested. We had that
law; we failed to enforce it. Hence the present inelastic laws--heaps
of them--which only complicate matters, and make public morals no
better than they were before.
No better? Worse. For drunkenness is rampant in the land, as it never
has been. Prohibition does everything but prohibit. The very thing it
sets out to do it fails to do. That is as self-evident as the misery
in crowded tenement districts in great cities. There is no denying it.
People who never drank before, drink now--in enormous numbers.
Why is this? Because it is perfectly human to wish to do what one
is told not to do. You know the story of the woman who, just before
leaving the house, said solemnly to her children, “Now, my dears,
while I am gone do not play with the matches.” When she came back the
house was on fire.
All the emphasis having been placed on _not_ drinking, people are
thinking of nothing _but_ drinking. Public bars have been transferred
to public coat-rooms, and we have the spectacle of numerous “souses”
before a banquet, premature roisterers who become so tight that they
can hardly get through a course dinner. It is disgraceful, but I fear
it will never stop. For impositions breed contempt for all law and
order.
Passive content finally breeds active rebellion. Our lawmakers should
have the wit, the vision, the common sense to realize that. For a whole
nation to be forced to be moral by statute and mandate is so ridiculous
that it must make the gods laugh--particularly the goddess Hebe when
she brings in the flowing bowl. She must almost spill the contents of
her famous cup which she has been carrying these many cycles.
There is always a reaction against enforced goodness--against enforced
anything. But no sour-visaged sarsaparilla drinker ever realizes that.
He puts over his “reform” and imagines that all is well. He cannot hear
the shuffling of feet, the movement of armies in the dim distance. If
he does, he mistakes it for applause.
The fact that Americans were taking care of themselves, so far as
the drink question was concerned, makes the sudden appearance of the
fanatics all the more non-understandable. They came upon us with gusto.
They are pathological--any doctor will tell you that. And the American
people, who believe, I am told, in life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, permit themselves to be governed by a pack of pathological
cases who, themselves, should be in wards, if not in padded cells.
And they are not content with this initial victory. As the Irishman
put it, “If this is Prohibition, why didn’t we have it long ago?”
And a visiting Englishman exclaimed, looking our country over,
“Prohibition?--When does it start?”
They are going after our tobacco, our golf and motoring on the Sabbath;
and they are going to dip into our cellars and rob us of that which
we used to keep there, oh, so seldom, but now have in great and wise
abundance.
It never occurred to any of us in the old, halcyon days when one could
loll on the back platform of a horse-car or trolley with the glorious
multitude, and smoke there, to keep a supply of liquor in our homes. If
we were giving a dinner, and wished to oil the social wheels just a bit
to start the machine going, we may have sent to the corner and bought
a bottle of gin and a little vermouth, and perhaps a quart of simple
California claret, and let it go at that. No one disgraced himself. It
was all very quiet and serene and sane and nice. We hurt no one; we
did ourselves no injury (any physician will tell you that; he needs
whiskey in his practice, if he is the right kind of physician), and a
pleasant time was had by all, as the country newspapers say.
But from that undramatic drinking what, because of Mr. Longface, have
we leaped to? To the hip-flask, the sly treating in coat-rooms--and
other places I need hardly mention--long before dinner begins, so that
one may be sure of a sensation which no decent man should care to
experience.
A nervous tension is in the air, putting us all back twenty years. I
assure the reader that never once in my life did I carry a flask of
brandy, even when I was going on a long and dusty and tedious journey;
yet my dear mother was as certain that I should take one as that I
should wear rubbers when it rained; and I let her believe I did both,
for the sake of her peace of mind.
Was my mother a criminal, for her quiet advice? Not then; but she
would be considered so now, with Mr. Volstead’s act on the records of
my beloved land. Actually, I am a criminal if I take a sip outside
my home--in my club, in my travels. If I transport a little of that
whimsical stuff of which poets have sung so beautifully and often, I
can be dragged to jail--if I am caught. Boo! What a mockery of personal
freedom it all is!
I heard a fine citizen say not long ago--a man of wealth and position,
a publicist, a man of affairs (I am using the word in its proper
sense!), a man who loved, very definitely, the great America that
used to be--that for the first time in his life he had the despicable
thought that he would like to withhold something, if he could, on his
income tax. He felt little compunction for the base thought. Why should
he hand his hard-earned money over to a Government which deprived him
of so much of his personal liberty and held over his head the dire
threat of further deprivations?
What was this man getting out of America? he asked me. Just a dull
time, to be truthful. He was but one more waffle from the great
national waffle-iron. When he wanted diversion he must pack up and
fare to other lands, where living is still living, crave a passport,
swear that he had paid last year’s tax, produce a receipt he had never
received, and promise to pay this year’s, and either not stay away too
long or see to it that his lawyer attended to it for him.
Everyone is ticketed, docketed, labeled, put in a card-index. This
tabulation of citizens--how we smiled at it when the Prussians carried
it to the extremes they did! Poor creatures, we said of them, to stand
for such arrant nonsense.
A jolly state of affairs! It makes one feel so loving toward one’s
Government, doesn’t it? We are all children, and Uncle Sam is no longer
a symbolical old figure, but an avuncular autocrat who goes about,
nosing everywhere, almost invading the sanctity of our homes (ah! he
may do it yet!) in his senseless quest for this and that. But just as
Santa Claus could never get down every chimney in the world, one feels
certain that Uncle Sam cannot pry into every wine-cellar, and examine,
if he had all eternity, every tiny bank balance. Moreover, my friend
will not cheat on his income tax. He, at least, is decent.
Let us not delude ourselves that we are living in a democracy any
longer. Laws were passed from time to time in the history of our great
country, without the people’s vote; but they were laws that served
our best interests and did not interfere with our personal liberty.
When our rights as citizens were molested, we got up on our hind legs
and yelled. “What is this?” we naturally inquired. “Why, it is what
has always been done,” came the answer from the bar of injustice. And
that was literally true. Only we didn’t know it. “You can’t break the
Constitution,” was a further argument. “Once a Federal Amendment,
always a Federal Amendment, you know.”
And why, pray? If the good old iron Constitution cannot be tampered
with, it is high time that it was. If our forefathers who framed it
meant it to be an utterly inelastic document, they didn’t count on
the elastic minds of the American people. “New occasions teach new
duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,” said the wise James Russell
Lowell once; and nothing is more certain than the fact that the moment
has come when the people should be heard, and not a handful of
legislators, who rushed madly to lay in a stock of wine and spirits
when they saw which way the wind was blowing their straws.
It grieved me, as a good American, to hear an Englishman say the
other evening before a lot of my fellow-countrymen that his idea of a
complete life would be to spend nine months of the year in England as a
British _citizen_ and three months in the United States as an American
_subject_. There was much mirth; but somehow I could not laugh and I
hope these Constitutional Amendments, coming so thick and fast, are not
causing me to lose my sense of humor.
It was a statement in which so much of truth was compressed that I
shuddered; and I thought of all the forms of _verboten_ that have
lately been foisted upon us. I recalled how, ten years ago, a friend
of mine had returned from Germany and told me, laughingly, how the
poor subjects of the Kaiser were eternally forbidden to do this
and that. It was _verboten_, _verboten_, _verboten_ everywhere the
eye turned--in the parks, in restaurants, in the galleries, in the
theaters--everywhere. Always some petty restriction, some tyrannical
interference with the masses. And he said then how contrary to the
broad American spirit was this constant stress on “Thou shalt not.” We
both smiled over it, and pitied the much-ruled and controlled Germans.
“What a glorious land we live in,” we said, in unison, lifting our
glasses, “and how proud we are of our freedom.”
But could we honestly say that now? Do not let us be hypocrites. Before
foreigners, we bravely and loyally uphold our form of Government,
because one does not like to cleanse his soiled linen in public or
reveal a family quarrel; but deep down in our hearts--I hear it
discussed everywhere I go--is a feeling of apprehension; and the
everlasting question is being asked, “Whither are we, as a people,
being led?”
If the political machinery is being clogged with too many foolish and
unnecessary laws that are merely jokers and venemous restrictions, why
do we not speak out in meeting, call together groups of citizens, as we
are privileged to do under the Constitution (unless another Amendment
has been added since this was written), and protest against this
extravagant misuse of power?
The reason England has always been such a comfortable country to live
in is because of the spirit of constructive criticism that has filtered
through the nation. If a Londoner does not like the service on the tram
roads, he writes to the _Times_ about it, and the matter is adjusted.
He has the backing of all his neighbors--and ten to one they have
written, too. But how many Americans, insulted in the subway or by some
public servant, will sit down and write a letter of complaint?
We stand meekly like droves of cattle behind tapes in motion-picture
“palaces,” pressed by eager little ushers endowed with a momentary
authority, until released and permitted to fumble our way down dark
aisles to such seats as we can find. We allow grand head-waiters to
hold us in check when we enter a smart restaurant, not indeed behind
tape, but behind a silken cord--which does not mitigate the insult,
however; and we humbly beg them to see if they can get us a table--and
some of us slip them a greenback to gain their august favor.
We allow ticket speculators to buy up all the best places in our
theaters, adding what profit they demand, and say nothing--though there
is a statute forbidding such extortion. “Ah, we’re here for a good
time, and we don’t care what it costs us,” is the answer of the average
visitor to the metropolis when he is asked why he does not protest
against such unjust measures. I have known only one rich man to refuse
rooms at a fine hotel, simply because he felt it wrong to pay seventeen
dollars a day, no matter what his bank balance. It is people like that
who help the rest of us to a return to normal conditions. He thinks of
someone but himself.
Yet we talk of Prohibition as though we were manfully trying to save
the next generation from the perils of drink! We are doing nothing of
the sort. We are merely bowing our craven heads to a mandate because
we have neither the courage nor the energy to speak loudly against a
stupid law foisted upon us by an organized minority. Our altruistic
purpose is not apparent, for it never existed.
“Ah, but,” someone whispers, “the majority want this and that; so we
must give in to them.”
Even so, why should we give in to them? The majority of people prefer
flashy, meaningless movies and Pollyanna and Harold Bell Wright and
chewing-gum and cheap jewelry and Gopher Prairie and slapstick humor
and loud laughter and a crowded beach on Sunday, and hideous neckties
and shirts and summer furs, and a hundred and one other things entirely
foreign to my desires; why, then, should I walk in their path, jump
over the hurdles that the multitude puts in front of me?
Arnold Bennett once said that the classics were kept alive, not by
the man in the street, but by the passionate few. He was dead right.
In the words of your beloved majority, he said a mouthful. Now,
because my neighbor and my neighbor’s neighbor have a weakness for the
best-sellers (not the best cellars), and find a robust pleasure in
never thinking of anything beyond baseball, I do not see why I should
be forced to indulge in a stupid Pollyanna optimism and forget and
neglect my Keats and Shakespeare.
CHAPTER V
MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DE-MOCKERY-CY
What psychological effect will this constant contempt for the law of
the land have upon us as a people? Surely something dire and dreadful
is seeping into the national spirit, and we are in grave danger of
coming to a human dislike of all laws, in consequence.
We talk of Prohibition as a good thing for the generations to come;
but how about disregard for the law as it will affect our children and
our children’s children? Drunk, they might not be responsible; sober,
to their higher selves they are accountable for their shortcomings in
regard to our statutes. A lack of veneration for an orderly carrying
out of a mandate is a serious thing. But to hear the young people
talking these days about the sanctity of the Eighteenth Amendment is
not a heartening experience. They jeer at it, and openly roar with
laughter when it is mentioned.
No one wishes danger to overwhelm us; but it will, unless something
is done to remedy the present abhorrent conditions, which, I repeat,
are making most of us unhappy. We are entangled in too many legal
nets; and it is not pleasing and edifying to see an ex-Judge or
jurist who came out strong for Prohibition sitting night after night
in a certain restaurant, imbibing his cocktail, creating scandal in
a more than crowded room. He is not in his cups these days--only in
his demi-tasses. I wonder if he knows what an example he sets to the
flappers down the room, and with what derision his high-and-mighty
public utterances are now greeted whenever he opens his mouth to speak
between drinks?
I hear men and women saying all the time, “America is no place to live
now. The streets of our large cities at night look like villages in
some remote district. Dull, dull, and drab, drab. One more tyrannical
law, one shadow of that deep blue which imperils us, and we will go and
live abroad--anywhere but here.”
Is that pleasant talk to listen to? Does it make one proud to be an
American? It is not well to have such feelings fomenting in the hearts
of those who honestly and sincerely love their native land--love it so
much that during a terrible war they were proud to offer to die for it,
or allow their sons to die for it.
But this is not the time to desert the old Ship of State. Now, as never
before, the United States needs its best blood, its best workers, its
best citizens, to put the country back where it belongs.
It is because I love America so, that I do not wish to see her make
a complete fool of herself--as she is doing every day now. And I say
it as loudly as I can, that these pernicious laws, this spirit of
_verboten_, is only making the world safe for De-mockery-cy.
It was Montaigne who said that he was “of the opinion that it would be
better for us to have no laws at all than to have them in so prodigious
numbers as we have.” And that was how long ago? What would he write and
think of America if he could live among us today?
And further he said, knowing human nature as few of us know it: “There
is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions
to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.”
Yet the silly law-makers go on with their silly codes, piling Pelion
on the top of Ossa, till all sight of man’s frailty is lost. “A little
folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.”
Yet the letter of the law must be upheld, and the very men who make our
statutes continue to break them.
The joke may go too far. The American people may remember that “eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty” and be willing to watch and wait,
lest that most precious of all things be taken away from them.
There can be no disputing the fact that a law that is not enforced
is worse than no law at all. Law and order--that is the phrase. But
America is a country of law and disorder; and the worst of it all is
that the reformers refuse to stop where they have. They are preparing
to plunge us into even deeper gloom. Why should they rest, having been
so eminently successful already?
We used to laugh tolerantly at the compulsory military service of
the Germans, under the Kaiser; but isn’t a compulsory seat upon the
water-wagon just about as autocratic?
“Dry Country, ’Tis of Thee,” should be our national anthem--since
we are seriously looking for one to take the place of the
too-difficult-to-sing “Star-Spangled Banner.” But no; the words would
not ring true. For there is a wetness all around us, and the lyric
of a national anthem should at least seek to express the ideals and
aspirations of a people, in terms of truth.
Yet before Prohibition, who would have thought of picking out America
as the wettest of all countries? We were just moderately so. We had no
desire to get a reputation for excessive dampness. It is the drys who
have given us that reputation--against our will. And the pity of it is
that the tag will remain--even after we are sanely and becomingly wet
again.
The reformers wish no going back to even a semblance of the old ways
and days. They wish us to conform, sedately, forgetting that Emerson
once wrote, “Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.”
And somehow I go on believing in Emerson.
There was some wild talk, not so many months ago, that it might become
lawful to dispense government-approved beer from the soda-fountains;
but sensible people who care for their toddy--delectable word!--were
not thrilled. They no more wish beer served from soda-fountains than
they wish soda-water served from soda-fountains. They want their toddy.
And when they say so, firmly, “Oh, dear!” and “Oh, my!” and “This is
awful!” cry the Prohibitionists.
I always somehow get back to that argument of the upholders of
the Eighteenth Amendment to the effect that Prohibition is a good
thing--particularly for the next generation. I feel like asking them,
in absolute seriousness, Then why not look to the soda-fountain?
When I was a lad we used to drink simple little things like vanilla,
strawberry and chocolate sodas--at five cents apiece. And we were
happy over harmless lemon and cherry phosphates. Yet the other day
when I chanced to step into a confectionery shop, I was nonplussed to
hear sophisticated flappers (what tautology!) ordering raspberry nut
sundaes and banana splits with chocolate sauce, and other concoctions
which my bewildered brain refuses to remember. And when I saw the
little silver dishes heaped with these vicious sweets, I was horrified.
Gluttony, pure and simple. And what of dyspepsia, and indigestion, and
complexions, after partaking for a few weeks of such stuff? Does no
one care enough for the coming race to do something about it?
I have seen hulking men enter such a shop at nine in the morning,
hastily tear off an ice-cream soda, containing I know not what
flavoring, and dash out again into the world of business. What must the
lining of their stomachs be like? No habitual drunkard could show a
worse record, I imagine. And of the two evil-doers, I would prefer the
latter. At least he is human. The soda-fiend is a sensualist, knowing
nothing of the healthy ecstasy of comradeship. He is a solitary drinker
of the worst sort; and though he may not stagger out of the place, he
is certainly unfit to begin his day’s work--just as unfit as the fool
who makes it a practice to take a nip of Scotch before breakfast.
Seriously, here is work for the reformers. Let them investigate the
kind of mixtures that are served to our youngsters at soda-counters.
One-half of one per cent of raspberry should be all that is permitted.
A solemn bill should be introduced into the next legislature, and
carried by an overwhelming majority. It is unthinkable that our youth
should be exposed to the evils of sundaes, sold openly all along our
avenues and boulevards, in every city and town and hamlet. It is
madness to let this traffic go on.
And there are not even any swinging-doors to hide the sundae fiends.
Shamelessly they imbibe their drinks with the world passing the
unshaded windows, looking in at them. A shocking state of affairs.
Yet who is doing anything about it? No wonder little Alice, of the
pale face, does not eat much luncheon. Her mother worries over her
anemic condition; yet she will not take the time to investigate the
child’s daily habits. She never inquires how she spends her allowance.
And young Bobby, who formerly was so rosy and plump, deteriorates
into a consumptive-looking boy. No, he doesn’t smoke; and as yet he
has not acquired the hip-flask habit. What, then, is the matter with
him, that he drops out of baseball and has no heart for tennis; that
he is backward in his studies, and sleeps restlessly? On his way to
school he stops in at the soda-fountain. And on his way home, he stops
in once more. Surely the Government should issue cards, and make
it a misdemeanor for a clerk to serve more than one soda a week to
minors--and grown-ups. The Board of Health should do something about it.
You see, if it isn’t one thing it’s another in this troubled world. No
sooner do we mop up the saloon than we find other places in need of
mopping. Parents and social workers, here is a job for you. Get at it,
at once. Forthwith. Instanter. Immediately. The future welfare of the
race is at stake.
If it were only ginger-pop that the children drank! But here again one
cannot control the appetites of human beings. We have closed the corner
saloon. Is there no way of closing the corner soda-fountain?
It is curious, in these days when there is so much understanding, even
among flappers, of psycho-analysis and complexes, that no one seems
to have called attention to the fact that the prohibitionists are the
greatest living examples of certain distressing inhibitions.
That the majority of us should find ourselves suddenly dictated
to--told, literally, what we should and should not put into our own
little private tummies--is beyond belief. What does a man who has
never taken a drink know of the psychology of drink? What does he
know of good-fellowship, of the poetry of the toast, of the beauties
of _Brüderschaft_? I would as soon think of Dr. Mary Walker telling
_Romeo_ and _Juliet_ how to make love.
The set lips of the fanatical reformer are the outward evidence of an
interior set of corroding inhibitions. Unable to get relief from the
tedium of existence in, say, a town like Gopher Prairie, the subject
moves, in his or her later years, to Minneapolis or some other larger
city, and is next heard of as a professional reformer of one sort or
another.
I remember a young man in my class at school who was impossible as
a playboy because he always wanted to rule the roost, to dictate
everlastingly the manner in which any game we sought to enjoy should be
played. He was never content to be just one of us. Oh, no! He must run
things, order us about, be a dictator and a little czar, an autocrat
of the most unbending kind. We despised him. He could never fall into
line and be boyishly human. He could not yield; he could not adjust
himself to the spirit of fun which we others abandoned ourselves to
with youthful ease. He was just a common scold.
He disappeared from our school-yard, and from our lives. Years later,
when the War broke out, he turned up in a remote town as a shrieking
radical. Nothing was right. He had worked out his destiny in the only
way such a nature as his could possibly do. He wasn’t a good sport.
Worse, he wasn’t even a good citizen. He didn’t amount to a row of
pins. He wasn’t even worth interning. He wasn’t interesting enough to
get the slightest notoriety--he wasn’t what the newspapers term good
copy; and that broke his heart.
I have no doubt that now, with the War over, he is a professional
prohibitionist--or do I mean inhibitionist?--with a soft job at some
desk. He would never be happy anywhere; but in such a position,
interfering with normal people’s happiness, he would be as happy as he
could be.
It is exactly men and women like him who have slipped over some of
the laws we now have and who are planning statutes against staying
away from church on Sunday. But it’s an old story. The intelligent
people in every community are forever allowing themselves to be duped
by fortune-tellers and ouija-board manipulators, table-tippers, snake
doctors and bell-tinkling “mediums.”
A dog-in-the-manger spirit is in the land. “I don’t like a glass of
wine--I’ve never tasted the nasty stuff--so I don’t want you to taste
it!” This is the cry of the paid reformers who eke out a living by
taking up some fad, and, having nothing interesting of their own to
reveal, peep and eavesdrop and reveal the interesting traits of their
innocently jovial and erstwhile happy brothers.
We have enough complexities in our modern life without having the
complexes of these would-be and self-constituted evangelists made
public day by day. Of course, the natural human being is he who
indulges in everything--in moderation. Show me the man who constantly
denies himself something, and I will show you an abnormal man. He
becomes obsessed with his “goodness,” as he dares to call it; and he
cannot talk ten minutes without mentioning his _idée fixe_. He revels
in it. He gloats over it. He delights in it, just as the monks of old
delighted in the hair-shirt and self-flagellation. He thinks he is
better than we are. Soon he begins to preach. He is like the old woman
who committed a sin in her early youth and still loves to talk about
it. He does not know how boring he is. He does not know how little a
part he plays in society. He is just a bit “off,” a trifle queer.
The next step in this form of madness is to try to impose one’s own
ideas upon one’s neighbors. Soon proselytizing must be done. The
pent-up energy of years must be released in middle age. Steam must be
let off. Blood pressure must be reduced. If these “cases” would only
lock themselves up in cells and flagellate themselves, they would find
comfort and release from their agony of mind, and a weary world would
be grateful. But no! they must stalk through the land, imposing their
so-called moral rectitude upon the rest of us.
Good-naturedly we have, up to now, humored them, smiled tolerantly at
them, secretly pitied them. But with shrewdness and cruelty they have
plotted and planned for years, quietly banded together, until now they
are joined in a great brotherhood; and instead of locking themselves
up, they have locked us up--and maliciously, gleefully thrown away the
key. We should have been their keepers. Instead, they are ours.
An occasional little spree, as a wise Frenchman once said, never hurt
anybody. It is necessary for people of imagination to romp and play
once in a while. What form that romping and playing takes is their
own affair--so long as they do not injure their neighbors. They may
express themselves in terms of smoking, of flirting, or sitting up all
night and talking their heads off; or they may take a long walk in
the rain; or go to the movies for several hours; or read an exciting
but impossible detective story--which is by no means a waste of time;
or dance; or go fishing; or attend an Elks picnic; or buy their wives
a diamond bracelet; or indulge in an after-dinner speech; or see a
foolish musical comedy. There are a thousand and one ways to let off
steam. They come back from any one of these “dissipations” a hundred
per cent better in mind and body, and plunge into the serious business
of life with a fresh stimulus, a new zest.
But the prohibitionist--what form do his inhibitions take? _His_
orgy is one of complete surrender to an orgy of holding in, forever.
He never lets go--never--not for one second. And just as the hermit
enjoys his self-imposed solitude, he revels in his self-inflicted
punishment; and, without wishing to be cynical, I say that he gets a
certain drab satisfaction in this stupid disciplining of himself. The
remorse of the morning-after is unknown to him. But without realizing
it, every morning he experiences a mental hang-over. He has never lived
through one normal day. The pendulum, for him, swings completely in
the other direction; and he is happy only when he is unhappy. But--and
here’s where you and I come in--he is not content with this exquisite
unhappiness. He wants us to be unhappy, too!
Pathological, you see. Heretofore, the temperance people looked upon
all drinkers, heavy or light, as wounded souls--medical cases. But
we who drink and smoke and laugh in moderation are the normal people
of the world. The others are those who are in need of treatment. The
tables have been turned, thanks to psycho-analysis, and Freud, and the
open door that leads to the light of medical science. A bunch of sour
grapes have robbed us of our sweet grapes. Why? Because they could not
stand the thought of Joy being in the world. They want everyone to be
as miserable as they are.
Having succeeded so easily in taking away one of our joys, do you think
these fanatics are content? If so, you know them not. Their victory has
been accomplished so simply that, of course, they are now looking about
for new worlds to conquer. They set their mouths, grit their teeth,
look us over, impale us on a pin and see where next they can turn on
the screws. They take a fiendish delight in inflicting punishment. That
is part of their disease. Their suppressed desires find expression in
robbing us of our natural pleasure. They are cunning and keen and wise,
with the curious and dangerous wisdom of the insane. They think they
are sent into the world to redeem it. They have the Messiah complex.
They have the delusion of greatness. And when we venture to question
their methods and motives, they hurl invectives back at us and cry,
“You are persecuting us!” They have paranoia, you see. They would kill
us, actually, rather than give us one sip of beer.
And these are the people who have, temporarily, gained the upper hand!
Mad on one subject, they appear perfectly balanced while lobbying in
the legislatures of the land. Obsessed with one idea, they can talk
intelligently on every other subject; but sooner or later they will
switch the conversation to their pet theory--and then I ask you to note
the gleam in their eyes, see their lips twitch, watch how nervous they
become! Yes, pathological cases, every one of them!
When will the hard-shelled prohibitionists understand that it is not
drink _per se_ that thinking people are fighting for? The people are
roused to action and alarm because of the dangerous precedent that
has been set. If we, as a nation, are to be deprived of legitimate
and friendly egg-nog (lovely word again!) when New Year comes round,
why, in the name of heaven, can we not be deprived of eggs? They make
one bilious, I am told. And biliousness is bad for one. Come, let us
correct it.
But, having taken away the dangerous egg, let us poke about and see
what else one can remove. Ah! there it is, of course! Coffee! Coffee
makes one nervous. Nervousness is awful. Coffee keeps one awake. But
why remain awake in a world that has lost its glamour? Remove our
coffee, then! Gladly we permit you to take it; for then we can go
blissfully to sleep and forget our worries and cares.
It has been loudly denied that lobbying is being done to bring about
the passage of further drastic laws; but the busybodies are secretly
working, night and day. The deadly work goes on, unabated. Of course
they are not crying their methods from the housetops. Sinister forces
are burrowing deep, and frightened legislators will be forced to follow
the path they took before the Eighteenth Amendment went through.
You remember that wonderfully satirical story of Mark Twain’s, “The Man
That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” don’t you, and what happened to a town that
imposed righteousness upon the inhabitants? All temptation having been
beneficently removed, when one little chance came to misbehave, the
entire village leaped at it and was thoroughly corrupted.
There is some fun in passing a saloon, in going voluntarily on the
water-wagon, in refusing that extra cocktail; there is none whatever in
having someone else do it for you.
Our prayers may be dictated to us next. But something tells us that if
prohibitionists formulate them, they have no more chance than ours of
being heard in heaven. A world made safe for us by reformers is the
last kind of world we care to dwell in. For reformers are the kind of
people who paint heaven as a stupid city of golden streets and pearly
gates, and incessant singing and playing of harps. Well, as Omar said,
“thy heaven is not mine.”
Prohibitionists, I am genuinely sorry for you. You need not pity me,
for I shall go on doing as I please, despite you. And so will millions
of other good Americans. Does that make you frantically desperate? Does
that make you have another attack of your symptoms? Do you puff up with
rage and despair when you hear me say such things in open defiance of
you?
Keeper, bring in the straitjacket, and sweep out, as Goldberg
says, padded cell No. 7,894,502,431. For the pathological ward is
overcrowded today. They have just brought in a frightfully red-faced
man who believes in the Blue Laws; and he must have gone quite mad, for
he is singing what he claims is the new national anthem, “Three Cheers
for the Red, White and Blues!”
CHAPTER VI
THE INFAMOUS VOLSTEAD ACT
There are seven Articles in the original Constitution of the United
States of America.
There are nineteen Amendments (to date).
The Fifteenth Amendment has never been taken seriously in certain of
the Southern States; and the Eighteenth Amendment has caused more
dissension than any law ever placed upon our statutes. The Volstead
Act, which is but an enforcing act of the Amendment, is highly
unpopular. After three years of trying to coerce the people into
obeying a mandate in which millions of them do not believe, are we to
continue to do so, or are we, sensibly, to wipe it out?
The money consumed by the Government in attempting to have this vicious
law obeyed and respected should cause every American to blush. We are
gradually--nay, swiftly--getting to a point where practically every
citizen will be watched and guarded by another. One’s daily habits will
be observed--perhaps by one’s next-door neighbor, or the janitor in
one’s basement. There is no telling who is a detective nowadays. And
there is no telling who is a bootlegger. Maybe one is the other.
How far away we have wandered from those early principles of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence and the makers of the
Constitution! “O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy
name!” cried Madame Roland; and Bertrand Barère exclaimed, “The tree of
liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants.”
The Volstead Act is the most tyrannous document a people have ever had
thrust upon them. I wonder how many Americans have read it, studied
it, pondered over it? I wish we might read the thoughts of all the men
who cast their votes for this infamous piece of legislation. I wish we
might search their consciences, know of their secret emotions when they
assented to its restricting sections.
It would be folly to reproduce the entire document here, with its
tangle of legal verbiage, its intricate twists and turns, its
complicated sentences which, to the layman, mean so little, but to the
law-makers mean so much! Through a thick underbrush of paragraphs the
legal mind wanders at will, delightfully and miraculously at home,
and finally imagines that it emerges into the sunlight of knowledge
and wisdom. Plain folk like you and me find it difficult to follow
the gypsy patteran and patter; yet somehow we get the sense of this
appalling mass of words--words that seem to have handcuffs attached
to them; words that hint of prison cells and donjonkeeps; words that
mystify and frighten us. We feel so guilty as we traverse them; and
remembering the violations of this sacrosanct paper which we have
witnessed since its solemn passage, we marvel at the energy expended to
make us all good and holy--citizens, I was going to say; but I think,
with the Englishman, subjects would be nearer the truth.
For a high and mighty absolute monarchy never weighed its people down
with heavier bonds. No Kaiser-ridden land ever knew more complete and
devastating tyranny. The burdens heaped upon the shoulders of the
already weary tax-payers so that the “dignity” of this Act may be
upheld--ah! few of us ever consider these. We have grown so used to
added packs that one more dollar seems to make little difference. But
it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back; and who knows how
much longer we can stand these accumulating and distressing burdens?
Section 7, of Title 2, reads as follows:
“No one but a physician holding a permit to prescribe liquor shall
issue any prescription for liquor. And no physician shall prescribe
liquor unless after careful physical examination of the person for
whose use such prescription is sought, or if such examination is
found impracticable, then upon the best information obtainable, he
in good faith believes that the use of such liquor as a medicine
by such person is necessary and will afford relief to him from
some known ailment. Not more than a pint of spirituous liquor to
be taken internally shall be prescribed for use by the same person
within any period of ten days and no prescription shall be filled
more than once. Any pharmacist filling a prescription shall at the
time indorse upon it over his own signature the word ‘canceled,’
together with the date when the liquor was delivered, and then make
the same a part of the record that he is required to keep as herein
provided.
“Every physician who issues a prescription for liquor shall
keep a record, alphabetically arranged in a book prescribed by
the commissioner, which shall show the date of issue, amount
prescribed, to whom issued, the purpose or ailment for which it is
to be used and directions for use, stating the amount and frequency
of the dose.”
This would be ludicrous were it not so serious. But let us pass on to
Section 12:
“All persons manufacturing liquor for sale under the provisions of
this title shall securely and permanently attach to every container
thereof, as the same is manufactured, a label stating name of
manufacturer, kind and quantity of liquor contained therein, and
the date of its manufacture, together with the number of the permit
authorizing the manufacture thereof; and all persons possessing
such liquor in wholesale quantities shall securely keep and
maintain such label thereon; and all persons selling at wholesale
shall attach to every package of liquor, when sold, a label setting
forth the kind and quantity of liquor contained therein, by whom
manufactured, the date of sale, and the person to whom sold; which
label shall likewise be kept and maintained thereon until the
liquor is used for the purpose for which such sale was authorized.”
And Section 13 specifies again about records--I wonder if these are
carefully kept, as the law provides!--
“It shall be the duty of every carrier to make a record at the
place of shipment of the receipt of any liquor transported, and he
shall deliver liquor only to persons who present to the carrier a
verified copy of a permit to purchase which shall be made a part of
the carrier’s permanent record at the office from which delivery is
made.
“The agent of the common carrier is hereby authorized to administer
the oath to the consignee in verification of the copy of the permit
presented, who, if not personally known to the agent, shall be
identified before the delivery of the liquor to him. The name and
address of the person identifying the consignee shall be included
in the record.”
“SECTION 14. It shall be unlawful for a person to use or induce
any carrier, or any agent or employee thereof, to carry or ship
any package or receptacle containing liquor without notifying
the carrier of the true nature and character of the shipment.
No carrier shall transport nor shall any person receive liquor
from a carrier unless there appears on the outside of the package
containing such liquor the following information:
“Name and address of the consignor or seller, name and address of
the consignee, kind and quality of liquor contained therein, and
number of the permit to purchase or ship the same, together with
the name and address of the person using the permit.”
How simple they make it for us! And of course free speech on the
billboards has been squashed. For Section 17 has this to say:
“It shall be unlawful to advertise anywhere, or by any means or
method, liquor, or the manufacture, sale, keeping for sale or
furnishing of the same, or where, how, from whom, or at what
price the same may be obtained. No one shall permit any sign
or billboard containing such advertisement to remain upon one’s
premises.”
“SECTION 18. It shall be unlawful to advertise, manufacture,
sell, or possess for sale any utensil, contrivance, machine,
preparation, compound, tablet, substance, formula, direction, or
recipe advertised, designed, or intended for use in the unlawful
manufacture of intoxicating liquor.”
How the very stills themselves must tremble at these ominous words!
But I think for its far-reaching effects, Section 20 takes the palm:
“Any person who shall be injured in person, property, means of
support, or otherwise by any intoxicated person, or by reason of
the intoxication of any person” (though we thought intoxication was
to be wiped out with the passage of the Volstead Act!) “whether
resulting in his death or not, shall have a right of action against
any person who shall, by unlawfully selling to or unlawfully
assisting in procuring liquor for such intoxicated person, have
caused or contributed to such intoxication, and in any such action
such person shall have a right to recover actual and exemplary
damages.” (Yet it is not quite clear how a dead man can bring an
action in the courts!) “In case of the death of either party, the
action or right of action given by this section shall survive to
or against his or her executor or administrator, and the amount
so recovered by either wife or child shall be his or her sole
and separate property. Such action may be brought in any court
of competent jurisdiction. In any case where parents shall be
entitled to such damages, either the father or mother may sue alone
therefor, but recovery by one of such parties shall be a bar to
suit brought by the other.”
So Mr. Volstead anticipates trouble for years to come--as long as it
would take to settle an action for damages in our already-clogged
courts. We make laws, it seems, which we expect to be broken. Deep
down in his heart, then, Mr. Volstead feared that people would go on
being--just people. Drunkenness is rampant in the land; and I suppose
drunkenness will always be rampant in the land. Even Mr. Volstead
cannot stop it. What a pity!
But do not think for a moment I am putting in a plea for drunkenness.
I am bitterly opposed to drunkenness. Prohibition has not cured it.
We have had it long enough now to see its terrible errors. The lions
have heard the crack of the whip, but instead of being overcome,
overpowered, cowering in corners, we have the spectacle of a
determination to pay no attention to the lashings of the law. Half of
us willfully disobey this iniquitous legislation--and are proud of our
disobedience. What is to be done about it? The more teeth that are put
into the Volstead Act, the more teeth the lions show. They growl and
fight. They will not be mastered.
Read Section 23.
“Any person who shall, with intent to effect a sale of liquor, by
himself, his employee, servant or agent, for himself or any person,
company or corporation, keep or carry around on his person, or in
a vehicle, or other conveyance whatever, or leave in a place for
another to secure, any liquor, or who shall travel to solicit,
or solicit, or take, or accept orders for the sale, shipment,
or delivery of liquor in violation of this title is guilty of
a nuisance and may be restrained by injunction, temporary and
permanent, from doing or continuing to do any of said acts or
things.”
Have our army of bootleggers read this Section? But they are worth a
whole chapter to themselves, so important a part have they become of
our national life.
“SECTION 26. When the commissioner, his assistants, inspectors,
or any officer of the law shall discover any person in the act of
transporting in violation of the law, intoxicating liquors in any
wagon, buggy, automobile, water or air craft, or other vehicle, it
shall be his duty to seize any and all intoxicating liquors found
therein being transported contrary to law. Whenever intoxicating
liquors transported or possessed illegally shall be seized by
an officer he shall take possession of the vehicle and team or
automobile, boat, air or water craft, or any other conveyance, and
shall arrest any person in charge thereof. Such officer shall at
once proceed against the person arrested under the provisions of
this title in any court having competent jurisdiction; but the said
vehicle or conveyance shall be returned to the owner upon execution
by him of a good and valid bond, with sufficient sureties, in a sum
double the value of the property, which said bond shall be approved
by said officer and shall be conditioned to return said property
to the custody of said officer on the day of trial to abide the
judgment of the court. The court upon conviction of the person
so arrested shall order the liquor destroyed, and unless good
cause to the contrary is shown by the owner, shall order a sale
by public auction of the property seized, and the officer making
the sale, after deducting the expenses of keeping the property,
the fee for the seizure, and the cost of the sale, shall pay all
liens, according to their priorities, which are established, by
intervention or otherwise at said hearing or in other proceeding
brought for said purpose, as being bona fide and as having been
created without the lienor having any notice that the carrying
vehicle was being used or was to be used for illegal transportation
of liquor, and shall pay the balance of the proceeds into the
Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts. All liens
against property sold under the provisions of this section shall
be transferred from the property to the proceeds of the sale of
the property. If, however, no one shall be found claiming the
team, vehicle, water or air craft, or automobile, the taking of
the same, with a description thereof, shall be advertised in some
newspaper published in the city or county where taken, or if there
be no newspaper published, in said city or county, in a newspaper
having circulation in the county, once a week for two weeks and by
hand-bills posted in three public places near the place of seizure,
and if no claimant shall appear within ten days after the last
publication of the advertisement, the property shall be sold and
the proceeds after deducting the expenses and costs shall be paid
into the Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts.”
“SECTION 27. In all cases in which intoxicating liquors may be
subject to be destroyed under the provisions of this Act the court
shall have jurisdiction upon the application of the United States
attorney to order them delivered to any department or agency of the
United States Government for medicinal, mechanical, or scientific
uses, or to order the same sold at private sale for such purposes
to any person having a permit to purchase liquor, the proceeds to
be covered into the Treasury of the United States to the credit of
miscellaneous receipts, and all liquor heretofore seized in any
suit or proceeding brought for violation of law may likewise be so
disposed of, if not claimed within sixty days from the date this
section takes effect.”
One is happy to realize that the Government may, even while the
Volstead Act is in force, receive some small emolument and revenue from
John Barleycorn.
Section 37--or a part of it--reads as follows:
“A manufacturer of any beverage containing less than one-half of
1 per centum of alcohol by volume may, on making application and
giving such bond as the commissioner shall prescribe, be given a
permit to develop in the manufacture thereof, by the usual methods
of fermentation and fortification or otherwise a liquid such as
beer, ale, porter, or wine, containing more than one-half of 1
per centum of alcohol by volume, but before any such liquid is
withdrawn from the factory or otherwise disposed of, the alcoholic
contents thereof shall under such rules and regulations as the
commissioner may prescribe be reduced below such one-half of 1 per
centum of alcohol: _Provided_, That such liquid may be removed
and transported, under bond and under such regulations as the
commissioner may prescribe, from one bonded plant or warehouse to
another for the purpose of having the alcohol extracted therefrom.
And such liquids may be developed, under permit, by persons
other than the manufacturers of beverages containing less than
one-half of 1 per centum of alcohol by volume, and sold to such
manufacturers for conversion into such beverages. The alcohol
removed from such liquid, if evaporated and not condensed and
saved, shall not be subject to tax; if saved, it shall be subject
to the same law as other alcoholic liquors. Credit shall be allowed
on the tax due on any alcohol so saved to the amount of any tax
paid upon distilled spirits or brandy used in the fortification of
the liquor from which the same is saved.”
Don Marquis’s Old Soak must rejoice when he reads such stipulations!
And, being a tax-payer, like the rest of us, Section 38 must fill him
with added delight:
“The Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the Attorney General of
the United States are hereby respectively authorized to appoint and
employ such assistants, experts, clerks, and other employees in the
District of Columbia or elsewhere, and purchase such supplies and
equipment as they may deem necessary for the enforcement of the
provisions of this Act, but such assistants, experts, clerks, and
other employees, except such executive officers as may be appointed
by the Commissioner or the Attorney General to have immediate
direction of the enforcement of the provisions of this Act, and
persons authorized to issue permits, and agents and inspectors
in the field service, shall be appointed under the rules and
regulations prescribed by the Civil Service Act: _Provided_, That
the Commissioner and Attorney General in making such appointments
shall give preference to those who have served in the military or
naval service in the recent war, if otherwise qualified, and there
is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sum as may be required
for the enforcement of this Act including personal services in the
District of Columbia, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920,
there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated, the sum of $2,000,000 for the use of the
Commissioner of Internal Revenue and $100,000 for the use of the
Department of Justice for the enforcement of the provisions of this
Act, including personal services in the District of Columbia and
necessary printing and binding.”
And how is the law enforced?
Our journals do not make pleasant reading for good Americans these
days. They are filled with headlines, which concern the Prohibition
law, morning after morning. Not long ago I picked up my newspaper and
found no less than seventeen columns devoted to stories of what the
police in New York City alone were doing, or trying to do, to make the
Volstead Act anything but a huge joke.
Up the State, where farmers are paying good taxes, I found a delicious
item in a newspaper, to prove the sincerity of the Federal authorities.
It seems that in a small town near Utica, an Italian was suspected of
having some whiskey on his premises; and three stalwart officers, in
plain clothes, pounced down upon his shop (it was not a rum shop) to
see what they could find. The man was out; but his wife was at home,
and a careful search of the pitiful premises revealed a quart of
Scotch, which may or may not have been on sale.
It took three husky men three hours to make this startling discovery.
And how much of the taxpayers’ money, I wonder? It was all-important
that an arrest should take place, but there was no evidence, and
nothing further was ever heard of the matter.
And this which sounds as though it had occurred in benighted Russia,
greeted my eyes at breakfast one morning, in the New York _Times_:
“ACCUSE JERSEY POLICE OF BRUTAL DRY RAID
“Formed Way into Women’s Rooms and Insulted Them, Resort Residents
Charge.
“The conduct of eighteen of the New Jersey State Police who
participated with Federal prohibition agents in liquor raids on
hotels and other places in Lake Hopatcong, N. J., Tuesday night,
was such that indignant residents threatened yesterday to complain
to Governor Edwards.
“At the Great Cove Hotel at Nolan’s Point, the police are alleged
to have gone to the room of a waiter and his wife and demanded
that they show their marriage certificate. It is also charged
that they went to the room of two girls, one of whom was praying,
and insisted that they open the door. The police searched the
belongings of the girls for whiskey.
“It is charged that at the Espanol Hotel, Nolan’s Point, the police
went to the room of a mother and her three children, awakened her
and charged there was a man in her room. She was compelled to open
her door.
“Rented cottages, it is charged, also were visited and searched. It
is charged by the complainants that the State police drank the beer
and whiskey they seized.”
But of course this is all right--to a prohibitionist. The law must be
enforced. It makes no difference how enforcement is accomplished.
If the police were honest, if they themselves approved of the
Eighteenth Amendment, the country could be made bone dry tomorrow. But
when the politicians who voted for Prohibition have no respect for
the law they put upon our statutes, why should we expect integrity and
honesty down the line?
How can there be any respect for a law which the minions of the law
disobey, repeatedly? In a great city like New York, in the Autumn of
1922, innumerable policemen were found drunk while on duty--so much
drunkenness had occurred that it was said on reliable authority that a
murder a week occurred.
“POLICE MUST TELL HOW THEY GOT RUM”
was the heading in the New York _Times_ on October 16th. “Drastic
regulations for dealing with policemen who drink” have been framed, and
have been circulated in the Police Department. This is the text of the
orders. Think of their being necessary!
“1. To the commanding officers:
“The following memorandum from the Police Commissioner is for your
information and guidance.
“In Mount Vernon any person found publicly intoxicated is arrested
and required to make an affidavit stating where he obtained the
liquor causing the intoxication. This affidavit is made the basis
of a search warrant, directing a search of the place selling the
liquor.
“This is but one of the many means which might be employed to put
an end to violation of the Prohibition law. The plan seems to work
out successfully in Mount Vernon.
“2. Intoxicated members of the force:
“Hereafter when members of the force are found to be suffering from
alcoholism to such an extent as to warrant charges signifying the
liquor has been obtained from persons who are violating the State
prohibition law, request the officers to make an affidavit stating
where they obtained this liquor. Take appropriate action in the
premises. If it is found that the officers have failed to take
proper action where the law has been violated additional charges
should be preferred against them and if the case is a serious one
they should be suspended from duty.
“3. Cabarets and dance halls:
“Cabarets and dance halls having resumed business for the Fall
and Winter season will be carefully inspected from time to time
and properly regulated. The majority of these places disregard
provisions of the prohibition law and should be given rigid
supervision.
“Commanding officers will see that music and dancing at these
places is stopped at 1 A.M., and that these places do not harbor an
undesirable element after that hour.”
I have spoken of uniformed men standing guard over a roomful of
citizens in New York restaurants and cabarets. Alas! it is shockingly
true. It is as though no other law existed, as I have said. To one who
loves his country, his city, it is disgusting. The people writhe under
the presence of the officer--but do nothing about it. What can they do?
Could they not request the Mayor, or the Police Commissioner to stop
such nonsense? And if the thing occurs in one restaurant, why not in
all of them?
With my own eyes I have seen this petty exhibition. It is outrageous.
Only one officer was in the place I visited. Yet I could not believe I
was in free America.
The room was filled with beautifully dressed men and women. The dance
floor was crowded. Upon every table, directly under the eye of the
officer, was a drink. I am not saying that in each tumbler there was
an alcoholic beverage--and probably the man in uniform did not wish to
think so, either. But I wonder how any intelligent being could imagine
that a lot of sophisticated Manhattanites would go out of an evening
to a gay cabaret, and order lime-juice--unless they intended to mix
something with it? Such folk are not plain ginger-ale consumers, as
a rule--they purchase it to mingle with gin. White Rock is not their
favorite beverage; neither is Clysmic. Yet bottles of these were
evident everywhere. Anyone save a moron would have known why.
Yet solemnly up and down that room the officer walked, glancing here
and there, hobnobbing now and again with a friendly waiter--who seemed
to be on excellent terms with him. His journeys were rhythmically
conceived and executed. For a moment or two he would stand glaring
about him, his arms folded, after the manner of a soldier in the late
War standing guard over military prisoners. Then he would amble, almost
to the time of the music, to the farther side of the room. Instantly
two hundred hands would slip under the tables, and flasks would be
drawn forth, and a liquid that was certainly not water would be poured
swiftly and deftly into various goblets. Then, when the officer swung
back again on his rounds, the folk at the other side of the room would
go through the same unbelievable performance. The man in uniform had
eyes, but he saw not.
You see, the authorities had come out with a statement not long before,
to the effect that it was not the man with the hip-flask whom they were
after--only the citizen foolish and daring enough to slam his flask
down openly upon a cabaret table. In other words, so delicate are the
nuances of the law, that it is not an offense to drink behind your
napkin, or behind a closed door; but it is a very terrible crime to
reveal the fact that you have a container of alcohol on your person.
Think of seriously pronouncing such a ukase, with the Mullan-Gage law
still upon the records. I do not understand how City Magistrates, in
New York, know how to interpret the law.
I was told that almost every evening an arrest or two is made in these
hitherto happy cabarets; but generally the case is dismissed. The
proprietor bails his patron out, and then the merry-go-round starts
again next evening. Since this was written, the police have been
withdrawn from New York cabarets--another confession of the failure to
enforce the law.
But New York is full of insincerities. Conventions take place there,
and we read a sanctimonious announcement in the papers that of course
nothing alcoholic will be served at the banquets--that goes without
saying. But up in Eddie’s room, on the eighteenth floor, a lot of
grown-up men, in the city to discuss solemn business problems, find
that sustenance which they desire and demand. The authorities, alarmed
at the influx of so many virtuous men, give out the statement that
it is well that they _are_ so virtuous, and not the kind of fellows
who crave a drink; for the hootch in New York is notoriously foul
(of course it isn’t, but that makes no difference to a Prohibition
officer) and it would be unsafe to consume any of it. Many of these
safe and sound business men, from all parts of the country, came out
strong for the Eighteenth Amendment. They were Puritans--when it came
to the other fellow’s habits. The little clerk would never rise to a
position of importance--like theirs--if he took so much as a glass of
beer. They forgot that they, in their youth--and ever since--had taken
a daily nip. I am not saying that they are any the worse for it. I do
know, however, that they are none the better, judging by their public
utterances and their private behavior.
If there is one kind of human animal I have a supreme contempt for it
is the so-called man who believes in Prohibition for you and me--but
not for himself. I have heard bankers and Wall Street potentates hold
forth with fervor on the salutary effects of the Volstead Act, since it
has forced the poor laboring man to give up his ale and beer. He gets
to work early now--there’s no need to worry about Monday morning in the
factories throughout the land. There is no Saturday-night debauchery;
and the bulging pay-envelope is taken home to the wife and children,
with no extractions on the way at the corner saloon. Happiness reigns
where penury and travail abided before. Production is mounting; there
are no strikes to speak of, the prisons are emptying, crime has
diminished, wife-beating is unheard of, and so on, _ad infinitum_.
Which would be delightful if it were true. Home brew goes rapturously
on; and if Tim doesn’t bother to make it himself, he has a pal who
does, and he purchases all the gin and beer he needs.
I am not saying this with any intention of approval. I am merely
stating conditions as I have observed them. Those who shut their eyes
to the facts and go blandly on their way, announcing that the country
is bone dry when it is nothing of the sort, do immeasurable damage.
I remember when the Volstead Act first went into effect that I had a
serious talk with myself. I came to the conclusion that nothing was
more dangerous to this land of ours than a state of things which made
it possible for the rich to drink continuously and the poor to be able
to obtain nothing. I felt that I could not, with a clear conscience,
go on having an occasional cocktail, if the laboring man down the
street was deprived of his grog. For a month I absolutely followed
the whisperings of that Inner Voice. Then I happened to go to a
manufacturing town near Boston, and the work I was doing brought me
into contact with the men in the shops there. Somehow the subject came
up--I forget in just what way; and when my plan became known, a laugh
greeted my ears.
“Don’t be such a jackass!” one of the fellows cried. “Why, we’re
getting all we want, in spite of Mr. Volstead--we’re making it
ourselves!”
My self-inflicted martyrdom ceased from that moment; and I must confess
that I felt a bit foolish.
More people are drinking heavily now than in the old days--and,
drinking inferior stuff, they are suffering more in consequence. The
results of this have been put into a delightful rhyme by the clever
James J. Montague who, in his way, is a genius. He turns out happy and
technically fine verses every day for a syndicate, until one is amazed
at his cleverness and seemingly endless chain of ideas. Listen to him:
_THE ELUSIVE MORAL_
Before there was a Volstead law
The village gossips used to mutter
In pitying accents when they saw
A friend and neighbor in the gutter:
“How dreadful was the fellow’s fall!
How terrible is his condition!
He wouldn’t be that way at all
If only we had prohibition!”
They knew the drunkards all by name,
And when they came around with edges
Some elderly and kindly dame
Would get their signatures to pledges.
And if they all appeared next day
Still far too merry and seraphic,
The troubled townsfolk used to say
Hard things about the liquor traffic.
To-day, when some good man goes wrong,
The villagers with whom he’s mingled
Observe his frequent bursts of song
And thus discover he is jingled.
“Too bad about that chap,” they cry,
“He might have kept his high position
If Volstead hadn’t made us dry--
What ruined _him_ is prohibition!”
There is some moral in this tale--
I fancied so when I designed it--
But I have searched without avail
For nearly half an hour to find it!
CHAPTER VII
A TRIUMVIRATE AGAINST PROHIBITION
How many Americans know that on August 6, 1833, Abraham Lincoln, with
two other men, took out a license to sell liquor? Through the kindness
of my friend, William L. Fish, I am permitted to reproduce it (see page
84).
Times were different then, it is true; but one has the feeling that
Abraham Lincoln was not a Prohibitionist. He was temperate in all
things.
[Illustration: (liquor license)]
In his amazingly interesting book, “Talks with T. R.,” Mr. John J.
Leary, Jr., includes a chapter wherein Theodore Roosevelt speaks in no
uncertain manner about the prospect of the country going dry.
“Colonel Roosevelt was not of those who favored the Eighteenth
Amendment,” Mr. Leary points out. “To his mind Prohibition was
certain to cause unrest and dissatisfaction; he doubted the
fairness of removing the saloon without providing something to take
its place in the life of the tenement-dwellers; and he was inclined
to think the liquor question was settling itself.
“‘You and I can recall the time,’ he said to me one day, ‘when
it was not bad form for substantial men of affairs, for lawyers,
doctors--professional men generally--to drink in the middle of the
day. It is good form no longer, and it’s not now done. It is not
so long ago that practically every man in politics drank more or
less, when hard drinking, if not the rule, was not the exception.
Now the hard drinker, if he exists at all among the higher grade,
is a survival of what you might call another day.
“‘Take Tammany. No one holds that up as an organization of model
men, yet I am sure that were you to make a canvass of its district
leaders, you would find pretty close to a majority if not an
actual majority are teetotallers. Tammany no longer sends men
with ability, and a weakness for liquor, to Albany. It may and it
probably will send another of Tom Grady’s ability, but it will not
send one who drinks as hard.
“‘This, you may rest assured, is not a matter of morals. It is,
however, a matter of efficiency. Tammany wants results and it is
sufficiently abreast of the times to know that drink and efficiency
do not go hand in hand in these days of card indexes and adding
machines.
“‘It is the same in your profession. Not long ago most of the
boys were fairly competent drinking men; some I knew were rated
as extra competent by admiring, perhaps envious, colleagues. Now
the drinking man, at least the man who drinks enough to show the
effects, is rare. The reason: your editors won’t stand for it. As
Jack Slaght put it the other day--I think it was Jack--a reporter
in the old days was expected to have “a birthday” about so often
and nothing was thought of it. Now, as Slaght puts it, he is
allowed but two. The first time, still quoting your friend Slaght,
who at times is inclined to use plain language, he gets hell; the
next time he gets fired. That is so, is it not?’
“I assured him that Slaght was substantially correct.
“‘It’s not a matter of morals there, though’ (with a laugh). ‘I
will admit you boys do not lack morals. As with Tammany, it is a
question of getting results, exactly as it is with the doctor, the
lawyer, and the judge.
“‘Drinking declined once it became an economic question, or at
least as soon as it was recognized as an economic factor. It then
began to be unfashionable--at least to overdrink--and the man who
never drank at all ceased to be unusual in any trade or calling.
“‘I am, however, sorry that they are pressing Prohibition so hard
at this time. It is, I think, all right, desirable, in fact, to
limit or perhaps prohibit the so-called hard liquors, but it is a
mistake, I think, to stop or try to stop the use of beers and the
lighter wines.
“‘If this thing goes through, where does the social side of life
come in? We both know that a “dry” dinner is apt to be a sad sort
of affair. It will make dining a lost art.
“‘Likewise, I do not know how the working-classes will take to the
change. You and I have no need of the saloon. We have other places
to go. But you and I know that the saloon fits into a very definite
place in the life of the tenement-dweller. I do not know what he
will do without it; what substitutes the reformers will think they
can give him for it. I do not believe they have thought of that, or
that they care much.
“‘Frankly, I do not know what will be the outcome. Prohibition,
if it comes, will cause ill-feeling and unrest--it will be a
disturbing factor--but I do not look for anything serious, for
after all is said and done, the fact remains that the American
workman is a law-abiding individual.
“‘When it comes, Prohibition may or may not be permanent. You may,
however, be sure of one thing--it will be extremely difficult to
repeal, once it becomes part of the Constitution.’
“Responsibility for Prohibition Colonel Roosevelt placed squarely
upon the shoulders of the liquor dealers good and bad.
“‘Some liquor dealers I have known,’ said he, ‘were good,
well-meaning citizens, who kept decent places. Take the Oakeses,
father and son, who own the Oyster Bay Inn. I should be very sorry
to see them lose their license. Theirs is a clean, respectable
place. Again, there is John Brosnan’s place in New York. No one
ever heard a complaint against John. His place has been no more
offensive than if he sold dry goods.
“‘I shall take no part in the contest one way or the other. It must
be settled without me. I shall not allow it or anything else to
swerve me from the work we’re now in.’
“The ‘work we’re now in’ was the effort to speed up the war by
arousing the American people to the necessity of winning a ‘peace
with victory.’”
Thus Theodore Roosevelt.
Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act. He saw at once its undemocratic
features, its danger to the country.
As to following Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow
Wilson--do you prefer their leadership, or that of Mr. Volstead and the
fanatics?