WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
One finds it hard to believe that a law is just and right and proper
which so many splendid minds consider otherwise. There have been
numerous societies formed to combat the Volstead Act, and in their long
lists of members one may read the names of honorable citizens who feel
impelled to express their views. Hundreds of influential newspapers
stand solidly against the Eighteenth Amendment. The fight has not
been taken up in one section of the country only. Mass meetings have
been held in far separated localities, and protests have been voiced
everywhere.
In the last election--that in November, 1922--the voice of the people
was heard in several States. Prohibition was an issue, and the victory
was almost overwhelmingly for the wets. Wisconsin, for instance,
elected seven candidates who had declared themselves for a modification
of the Volstead Act. Senator Reed, of Missouri, an avowed foe of
Prohibition, and Governor Edwards, of New Jersey, an even more ardent
“wet,” won over their opponents, having made their views definitely
known. Edwards now goes to the Senate.
[Illustration: The Prohibitionists fail to realize that Prohibition,
for them, is in itself a debauch, a kind of wild orgy, a sadistic
spree. To strap us all to the water-wagon, snap the whip and keep us
there for life seems to be their idea of a good time.]
The citizens of Massachusetts defeated a bill for additional State
machinery to make the Volstead Act more effective; and in Illinois
there proved to be a feeling of three-to-one in favor of light wines
and beer. The rural districts of Ohio caused the Prohibitionists to
gain a victory in that State; but there is little doubt that a change
is sweeping through the country. In New York State the Democratic
candidate for Governor ran on a light-wine-and-beer platform, against
a Republican candidate who had signed the wretched Mullan-Gage Act.
The former won by a vast majority. The people were well aware that
the federal laws would not be changed simply because the Empire State
wished a return to moderate drinking; but thousands of Republicans
voted for the avowedly “wet” candidate as a matter of principle. They
felt that at least a splendid gesture had been made, and that those
who looked on from other parts of the country, sensing the will of the
people of New York, might come to realize that hereafter the candidate
for office who announces his stand on the topic which is forever being
discussed has the better chance of victory. The time for equivocation
has gone by. The people want to know how politicians feel about
Prohibition; and the defeat of Mr. Volstead himself for re-election was
a significant circumstance.
The Anti-Prohibitionists now know that they will have to organize and
fight--and fight hard. It requires no tremendous amount of vision
to see that, if both the big parties at present in power refuse to
consider a change in the interpretation of the Volstead Act, a third
party will arise, with Prohibition as the foremost issue before the
people.
President Harding has said that whether the country is to remain wet
or dry will be a political issue for years to come. Statesmen and
politicians alike are beginning to see and admit a change in the
feeling of the people on the all-important subject of Prohibition.
It is nonsense to say that a matter which is discussed everywhere
at all times is a dead issue. Wherever men--and women--congregate;
around every dinner-table; in every club; at every evening party, the
topic invariably comes up. Is no significance to be attached to this
circumstance? And not long ago the English and French were complaining
about American visitors, since they found it rather boresome to listen,
day in and day out, to nothing but their talk on the engrossing
subject. We eat, sleep and (I was going to say drink) Prohibition.
We have made a ghastly mistake. The unforeseen evils that have come
in the wake of Prohibition far outweigh the good. We have never had
anything but Poor Man’s Prohibition; and if it is true that those who
feel the pinch of poverty have derived benefit from the closing of the
saloon--as indeed they have--it is equally true that the moderately
well-to-do have had their expenses increased. Used to drinking all
their lives, they were not to be whipped into obeying a law with which
they had no sympathy. They intended, humanly enough, to continue to
get their grog--at any price. And they have done so, even though they
afterward had a rendezvous with debt.
The poor do not get their liquor, simply because they cannot afford it.
I have seen clerks buying beer at seventy-five cents a bottle, which
must have made quite a hole in their pay-envelopes. The honest laboring
man could scarcely afford that extravagance; and so he goes beerless
to bed, not because he wishes to, but because he has to. And you and
I, whenever we desire liquid refreshment, know where we can obtain
it. If an investigation were made of the savings of the great middle
class during the past three years, I doubt if a good showing would be
discovered. And is it not of some importance that this great group, who
are the mainstay of the Republic, should be laying aside something for
the future?
The Prohibitionists will say that they have no sympathy with anyone who
willfully breaks the law. But you cannot argue with people who count it
no sin to disregard a statute. With clear consciences a vast body of
people take not the slightest heed of the Eighteenth Amendment. They
are simply bent upon getting what they wish, despite the Volstead Act,
and nothing will convince them that they are not right. A law is of
absolutely no value unless it meets with response from those whom it
seeks to improve. After a long trial, anyone but a blind person must
see that our Prohibition laws are violently opposed by millions of
otherwise good citizens. The situation, instead of becoming better, as
the Anti-Saloon League has all along predicted, has become steadily and
obviously worse. There are danger signals confronting us. But there is
a way out of our mess. That way lies through compromise.
The Prohibitionists compromised, as of course they are well aware,
when they did not make it against the law to drink in private homes.
As I have said, they did not dare go quite that far. Had they done so,
serious consequences would have followed. They likewise compromised
when they gave us one-half of one per cent of alcohol in our beer. Why
even that? To make it a little more distasteful, perhaps.
The fact is that the American people are tired of Constitutional
Amendments. I have heard sound-thinking men say that when our own
private constitutions need an amendment, we can be depended upon to add
one. We are not fools--in spite of the reformers. We still believe that
there is something in the old judgment of the survival of the fittest.
The worthy emerge; the unworthy remain where they belong, or sink to
the depths.
It is all very well to say that those who become blind through the
drinking of wood-alcohol deserve their wretched fate; that if one takes
such chances he deserves to lose his eyesight, if not his life. For
myself, I cannot look at the matter quite so coldly. I have the deepest
sympathy for those who, in good faith, drink something which turns out
to be something else. They have simply humanly slipped; and but for
this one lapse from grace they may be most estimable citizens. I think
it is far more terrible that a decent manufacturer should go blind
because an unreasonable and unenforceable law is on our books than
that a million worthless imbeciles should lie in the gutter, drunk.
I have known only a few “reformed” drunkards who ever amounted to a
continental in after years; they were hardly worth saving. It is not
very pleasant to think of an able citizen stricken at the height of his
career; and his loss to the community is much more important than the
so-called salvation of a dozen roustabouts.
During the Christmas holidays of 1921, in and around New York City
alone, there were twenty-six persons made blind, or killed outright,
through wood-alcohol poisoning. And during another Christmas season
wood-alcohol caused fifty-nine deaths in Massachusetts alone. Somehow
I do not like to contemplate such catastrophes. But the professional
reformers may be made of sterner stuff than I.
Let us have done with the folly of something so radically false as
Prohibition. In the old days, when a man got drunk, he broke the social
code; now, he breaks not only that, but the penal code as well,
thereby committing two offenses against society. But it is curious how
little he cares about the second offense. With an easy conscience he
deliberately goes about it--in fact, rather rejoices that he has proved
himself such a devil.
Drink, as no one will deny, is an inherently evil thing--a terrible
force. But so is electricity a terrible force. Yet, rightly used, both
are the reverse of evil.
But just as the Prohibitionists will not recognize the good to be found
in alcohol, they refuse to admit the evils resulting from the present
drastic laws. They fail to realize that Prohibition, for them, is in
itself a debauch, a kind of wild orgy, a sadistic spree. To strap us
all to the water-wagon, snap the whip and keep us there for life, seems
to be their idea of a good time.
But it is hardly ours. We have begun to think that this strange and
perverted conception of a Bacchanalian orgy has lasted quite long
enough. And when the tide turns, the Prohibitionists may know something
of the horrors of a hangover, and wonder if they are on the verge of a
nervous breakdown. “The morning after” some approaching election may
not be a pleasant one for them.
But why not compromise before the inevitable day arrives? Rid of the
saloon, the Prohibition triumph is complete enough. Local option will
continue; and if the little places elect to go dry, of course they may
do so; but as for the great cities, especially the metropolis, looking
at the skull of its oldtime happiness one can but say, with _Hamlet_,
“Alas! poor New Yorick!”
Senator Frelinghuysen of New Jersey said not long ago that Prohibition
was one of the most serious problems with which the American people
have to deal. “In the country districts the people are in favor of
upholding the Volstead law,” he made it clear. “The church people also
are against any modification of the dry law. But when it comes to big
industrial centers and to the working classes, to say nothing about the
foreign-born population, they are all clamoring for a change in the law
to permit the sale of light wines and beer.”
If we would enact laws tomorrow giving the various States the right to
control the liquor traffic within themselves, corruption would cease,
and a sense of peace and happiness would descend upon the country.
The constant agitations of this hour cannot go on. There is a nervous
tension in the air; and so long as the Volstead Act remains, there will
be disturbances comparable to the rumblings of earthquakes.
Those of us who love America yearn for a return to truth and sanity.
The present conditions are intolerable. Each political party is
striving to evade this big issue. Each claims that neither the
Democrats nor the Republicans gave the people Prohibition; yet the
people are looking to one or the other party to take a stand on the
question. The last elections proved that.
Not forever can there be a process of evasion. A third political party
will come out boldly and strong with a wet plank, and as soon as the
politicians sense the will of the people there will be an immediate
change. But how long will it take them to sense that will?
Recently, a number of doctors brought suit to test the
constitutionality of the Volstead Act as it affects the limitation
on liquor which they may prescribe. Not all physicians oppose
Prohibition--indeed, many have stated that whiskey is not essential in
the practice of medicine; others hold a divergent view. But no one can
deny that things have come to a strange pass when Congress, and not our
doctors, treats patients ill with pneumonia and other diseases. Surely
an issue as clouded as this should be cleared up.
Light wines and beer will return--there is little doubt of that; but
many people hold that we should adopt the Swedish and Canadian methods
of Government Control. We have seen that, with the federal authorities
managing the liquor traffic, a decent business is done, bootlegging is
practically stopped, and revenue pours into the governmental coffers.
Contentment takes the place of discontent, and those who drink pay the
price--which they are more than willing to do. It is so obvious that
this is the right method to pursue that it seems strange there should
be any argument, that there should be any line-up of opposition.
Yet the Prohibitionists, in the light of their failure in the United
States, continue to make prophecies of a “bone dry” world in the years
to be. With amazing clairvoyance a member of the World’s Women’s
Christian Temperance Union has predicted that in 1924. Uruguay will
go dry, and likewise Argentine; Austria and Denmark in 1925; Chili in
1927; Great Britain in 1928; Germany in 1929; France in 1933; Japan in
1936; Italy in 1938; Spain and China in 1939; and Cuba in 1940.
Foreigners have frequently been heard to say that they cannot
understand why Americans have not protested with a louder voice against
the legislation which concerns Prohibition. They forget--or they do not
realize--that the United States is a vast melting-pot, and that there
are, alas! too few Americans left to make much of an impression. The
links that draw together the individual nations of European countries
are lacking in our own land. We have absorbed every race on earth; and
these aliens do not know how to band together. They are not really part
of us, and they are naturally confused at our methods of government.
Many of them are strangers in a strange land, and perhaps they do not
feel justified in protesting, even though they are citizens now, saying
to themselves that if the Americans tolerate such rigid reforms, who
are they to utter words of rebellion?
Is it not self-evident that Prohibition has miserably failed when the
President finds it necessary to call a solemn conclave of Governors
to see what can be done, after three years, to force the people to
obey the law in the various States? The Federal authorities, by that
gesture, admit their inability to cope with the situation, which has
now become intolerable. Scandal after scandal is being unearthed in
sanctimonious Washington, the seat of the Government, and the home of
Prohibition. It is being revealed that many Congressmen and Senators
preach one thing and practise another. Is it not high time that
their dishonesty is shown up? They should be made as ridiculous as
possible. They should be made to see that they are the worst Americans
in existence, pretending to be virtuous, invoking the law for their
constituents, and bootlegging in secret. For at least the rest of
the people who conscientiously break the law, are not on record as
approving it.
No one is sacrosanct on this flaming issue. Government buildings are
said to contain plenty of liquid refreshment for the parched throats of
these eloquent advocates of a “dry” country. So long and loudly have
they proclaimed their insincere doctrine that at the end of a forensic
day they doubtless require a long, cool drink. Let them be seen in all
their inglorious hypocrisy. Let the whole land laugh at them; for it is
only through laughter that they can be reached and hurt. A law that is
winked at by those who framed it is not worth the cost required to set
it up in type.
But of course nothing will be done. No names will be named. The
same hypocrisy will be practised here. When someone higher up is to
be uncovered, the loudly proclaimed “investigation” will come to a
sudden end. There are too many criminals in exalted places. We are
the laughing-stock of the world as it is; but if the whole truth were
known!...
Economically, the people will have to have it driven home to them that
Prohibition is a mistake. We are forever talking about the tariff;
yet the most that our tariff can bring in is about $350,000,000 a
year gross. The year 1914 was the banner year in the United States
in producing beer. There were 66,000,000 barrels sold. If we had not
had Prohibition thrust upon us, the normal growth would have been
a production of about 100,000,000 barrels. The Government always
collected revenue at the source--there was no bookkeeping, merely a
stamping, a labeling of each barrel, and that was all there was to it.
Think of the tax upon this one product alone which we are losing!
In 1918 Canada imposed a tax of 15c on a gallon of beer. In 1922 it
was 42½c a gallon. There are thirty gallons in a barrel, which means
$13.60 a barrel now, or more than two and a half times as much as
before. Multiply 100,000,000 barrels by $13.60, and you arrive at
$1,360,000,000 revenue collected at the source, with no obstructions.
This is four times as much as our tariff bill would give to the
country. Moreover, if beer were restored, innumerable collateral
businesses would be given new life. The bottling industry, corking,
glassware--all these would be resuscitated, everyone would be happy,
and personal taxes would be immeasurably lessened. As things now are,
we are burdened with surtaxes, etc., which impoverish all kinds of
industries and make for intense ill-feeling.
Crying out for no change in our laws, it is the Prohibitionists
themselves who have altered our statutes. Can they not be changed again?
It may be that the Eighteenth Amendment will never be annulled. There
are those, however, who are hopeful even of that. But Congress is
privileged to define what constitutes an intoxicating beverage; and the
Volstead Act is not static. The people will elect men to represent them
at Washington who will liberally interpret the Eighteenth Amendment.
Therein lies the remedy for much of our discontent.
Prohibition rose, like a great wave; it is falling back now. The tide
comes in, but it goes out again. And one can begin to hear the surge of
a mighty people. They will speak at the polls, in every election; for
Prohibition, until it is modified, will never be taken out of national
politics.
A sane compromise would clear up the situation almost overnight. And
when the people speak, the Government must heed their voice.
Transcriber’s Notes
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.