How glad I am that I have lived to see this wonderful reform
of prohibition at last accomplished in England. There is
something so difficult about the British, so stolid, so hard
to move.
We tried everything in the great campaign that we made, and
for ever so long it didn't seem to work. We had processions,
just as we did at home in America, with great banners
carried round bearing the inscription: "Do you want to save
the boy?" But these people looked on and said, "Boy? Boy?
What boy?" Our workers were almost disheartened. "Oh, sir,"
said one of them, an ex-barkeeper from Oklahoma, "it does
seem so hard that we have total prohibition in the States
and here they can get all the drink they want." And the good
fellow broke down and sobbed.
But at last it has come. After the most terrific efforts we
managed to get this nation stampeded, and for more than a
month now England has been dry. I wish you could have
witnessed the scenes, just like what we saw at home in
America, when it was known that the bill had passed. The
members of the House of Lords all stood up on their seats
and yelled, "Rah! Rah! Rah! Who's bone dry? We are!" And the
brewers and innkeepers were emptying their barrels of beer
into the Thames just as at St. Louis they emptied the beer
into the Mississippi.
I can't tell you with what pleasure I watched a group of
members of the Athenaeum Club sitting on the bank of the
Thames and opening bottles of champagne and pouring them
into the river. "To think," said one of them to me, "that
there was a time when I used to lap up a couple of quarts of
this terrible stuff every evening." I got him to give me a
few bottles as a souvenir, and I got some more souvenirs,
whiskey and liqueurs, when the members of the Beefsteak Club
were emptying out their cellars into Green Street; so when
you come over, I shall still be able, of course, to give you
a drink.
We have, as I said, been bone dry only a month, and yet
already we are getting the same splendid results as in
America. All the big dinners are now as refined and as
elevating and the dinner speeches as long and as informal as
they are in New York or Toronto. The other night at a dinner
at the White Friars Club I heard Sir Owen Seaman speaking,
not in that light futile way that he used to have, but quite
differently. He talked for over an hour and a half on the
State ownership of the Chinese Railway System, and I almost
fancied myself back in Boston.
And the working class too. It is just wonderful how
prohibition has increased their efficiency. In the old days
they used to drop their work the moment the hour struck. Now
they simply refuse to do so. I noticed yesterday a foreman
in charge of a building operation vainly trying to call the
bricklayers down. "Come, come, gentlemen," he shouted, "I
must insist on your stopping for the night." But they just
went on laying bricks faster than ever.
Of course, as yet there are a few slight difficulties and
deficiencies, just as there are with us in America. We have
had the same trouble with wood-alcohol (they call it
methylated spirit here), with the same deplorable results.
On some days the list of deaths is very serious, and in some
cases we are losing men we can hardly spare. A great many of
our leading actors--in fact, most of them--are dead. And there
has been a heavy loss, too, among the literary class and in
the legal profession.
There was a very painful scene last week at the dinner of
the Benchers of Gray's Inn. It seems that one of the chief
justices had undertaken to make home brew for the Benchers,
just as the people do on our side of the water. He got one
of the waiters to fetch him some hops and three raw
potatoes, a packet of yeast and some boiling water. In the
end, four of the Benchers were carried out dead. But they
are going to give them a public funeral in the Abbey.
I regret to say that the death list in the Royal Navy is
very heavy. Some of the best sailors are gone, and it is
very difficult to keep admirals. But I have tried to explain
to the people here that these are merely the things that one
must expect, and that, with a little patience, they will
have bone-dry admirals and bone-dry statesmen just as good
as the wet ones. Even the clergy can be dried up with
firmness and perseverance.
There was also a slight sensation here when the Chancellor
of the Exchequer brought in his first appropriation for
maintaining prohibition. From our point of view in America,
it was modest enough. But these people are not used to it.
The Chancellor merely asked for ten million pounds a month
to begin on; he explained that his task was heavy; he has to
police, not only the entire coast, but also the interior;
for the Grampian Hills of Scotland alone he asked a million.
There was a good deal of questioning in the House over these
figures. The Chancellor was asked if he intended to keep a
hired spy at every street corner in London. He answered,
"No, only on every other street." He added also that every
spy must wear a brass collar with his number.
I must admit further, and I am sorry to have to tell you
this, that now we have prohibition it is becoming
increasingly difficult to get a drink. In fact, sometimes,
especially in the very early morning, it is most
inconvenient and almost impossible. The public houses being
closed, it is necessary to go into a drug store--just as it
is with us--and lean up against the counter and make a
gurgling sound like apoplexy. One often sees these apoplexy
cases lined up four deep.
But the people are finding substitutes, just as they do with
us. There is a tremendous run on patent medicines, perfume,
glue and nitric acid. It has been found that Shears' soap
contains alcohol, and one sees people everywhere eating
cakes of it. The upper classes have taken to chewing tobacco
very considerably, and the use of opium in the House of
Lords has very greatly increased.
But I don't want you to think that if you come over here to
see me, your private life will be in any way impaired or
curtailed. I am glad to say that I have plenty of rich
connections whose cellars are very amply stocked. The Duke
of Blank is said to have 5,000 cases of Scotch whiskey, and
I have managed to get a card of introduction to his butler.
In fact you will find that, just as with us in America, the
benefit of prohibition is intended to fall on the poorer
classes. There is no desire to interfere with the rich.