The rise and fall of prohibition : the human side of what the Eighteenth amendment and the Volstead act have done to the United States

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BOOK 178.5.T66 1R c 1
TOWNE # RISE AND FALL OF

PROHIBITION

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THE RISE AND FALL
OF PROHIBITION

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd-

TORONTO

I have seen hulking men enter a shop at nine in the morning, hastily teai
ofif 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-fi^nd is a sensualist, knowing nothing of the healthy
ecstasy of comradeship. He is a solitary drinker of the worst sort.

THE RISE AND FALL ^5_
OF PROHIBITION \\^

THE HUMAN SIDE OF WHAT THE EIGHTEENTH

AMENDMENT AND THE VOLSTEAD ACT HAVE

DONE TO THE UNITED STATES

BY

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

CO

en

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1923

Discarded CSL

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Copyright, 1923,
By the MACMILLAN COIHTANY

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

1341.31

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 Maga-
zine, for his kind permission to include portions of
E. S. Martin's article, and to the Rev. W. A. Craw-
ford-Frost, for his consent to reprint extracts from
his sermon.

Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have been most help-
ful 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 prepara-
tion of this volume.

Two chapters are reprints of articles which origi-
nally appeared In the New York Times.

I must also thank Mr. Markham, Mr. Le Gal-
lienne and Mr, Montague for the use of their poems.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Phenomenon of Prohibition . . i

II Our Great Unhappiness lo

III Our Endless Chain of Laws .... 17

IV Too Much "Verboten" 26

V Making the World Safe for De-mock-

ery-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 Robert 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 '^

ix

Contents

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

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."

2 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 pos-
sibly 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, Washing'
ton, 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 dis-
tricts, we knew, which chose the path of so-called
virtue; and they were welcome to their sanctimoni-
ousness. 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

The Phenomenon of Prohibition 3

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 incon-
venience 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 for-
bade 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, 19 14. We came
to take such happenings for granted. We grew ac-
customed 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

4 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 won-
der 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 appe-
tites of a scattered few.

There is no doubt in my mind that there will be
a reaction. The pendulum has swung too far, as

The Phenomenon of Prohibition 5

any observer must admit. The present conditions
throughout the country are so disgraceful that some-
thing 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 for-
eigners, who, confused and confounded, ask us what
it all means; we are confused ourselves at the mud-
dle 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

6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

only in rare instances will the finer type of young
manhood enter politics. We leave the high busi-
ness 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 realiza-
tion of the peril that confronts us through our spirit
of laissez-faire we shall deserve, as Plato says, ex-
actly 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 profes-
sions 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-Ameri-
can grocers and butchers, clerks with little imagina-
tion, played-out failures and cab drivers and chauf-
feurs who are morons. Even the women, who were
so anxious for equal suffrage, find, in nany 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

The Phenomenon of Prohibition J

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 slo-
gan. Thus has a stupid PoUyanna optimism pene-
trated our civic thought, our political consciousness,
our spiritual being; and the false doctrine is screamed
from every housetop from Manhattan to Gopher
Prairie. PrettyLittle 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

8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 re-
luctant 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 photog-
rapher 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 locali-
ties 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 con-
fession that we are inferior. And in allowing re-
striction 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

The Phenomenon of Prohibition 9

most governed people in the world today. There
are plenty of laws, but little order; and the millen-
nium 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

10

■"^''l^i^ tv> JStct*'*-^ I "

At the trial, the package in evidence was placed on a large trreen-covered
table, in the presence of the jury and the court. The_ prosecuting attorney
vvorked himself into a fine fury of eloquence. The majesty of the law must
be upheld.

Our Great Unhappiness 1 1

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 sm©idering dis-
content and anger Is bound to rise in a great tide one
of these days.

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 llquorless home. She has never
attended a real dinner-party, poor dear; and some-
how 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 in-
quired blandly of her audience. "Some are making
candies, some soft drinks, some other things; but
they are all making money, and are happy. Pro-
hibition 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 speak-
ing, 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 doreCj who could tell you and

12 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 min-
ions of the sacred law were openly served with high-
balls, 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 be-
havior, 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 con-
sume his daily quota of Scotch. I don't believe any-

Our Great TJnhappiness 13

body 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 hus-
band 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 news-
papers when he was running for office, declaring
that wine was a mocker, and that whosoever was de-
ceived 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 con-
sistent. Were I a W. C. T. U. worker or an Anti-
Saloon member — or even a judge who tried boot-
leggers— 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.

14 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 them-
selves. 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 Conserva-
tive; yet I confess that were I a workingman de-
prived 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 Pro-
hibition 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 pos-
sess, 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

Our Great Unhappiness 15

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 pre-
cincts 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-roon)
to ascertain If drinking Is going on. It is unthink-
able, 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

i6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 some-
thing big enough to cause most of us inconvenience —
and the American people do dislike to be inconven-
ienced. We could get together on this burning sub-
ject, where we would fail to dovetail on lesser ques-
tions. Our heterogeneous citizenry is inflamed, as
one man; for the German-American wants his beer,
the Italian-American his red wine, the Irish-Ameri-
can his grog, the English-American his ale and port,
the Russian-American his vodka, the Swedish-Ameri-
can 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 RepubHc.

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 slothful-
ness 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 Eight-
eenth Amendment and the Volstead Act,
we lose sight of other laws equally tyran-
nous 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 smqking,
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.

17

1 8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

^'I am getting so that I cannot take any law
seriously," was my natural answer — as it undoubt-
edly 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 every-
thing 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 I

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.

Our Endless Chain of Laws 19

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, meta-
phorically, 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 mahgnant little weeds had never been
opened.

And so the money of the good citizens of Utah
is being spent on such opera-bouffe 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.

20 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 re-
port 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 uni-
form 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 happi-
ness"?

Who shall define that last phrase today? I won-

Our Endless Chain of Laws 21

der 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 suggest-
ing 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 dig-
ging in go on ; let the teeth of the law sink into pur
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-pic-
ture 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 gen-

22 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

eration — so interested, in fact, that the present
generation is forced to give up its harmless toddy,
that the children of tomorrow may be robust super-
men 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 cppe with them. Be-
sides . . . 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 enfran-
chised, and should be permitted to vote. That is the
law of the land. It is part of our glorious Consti-
tution.

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 lit-
tle to us that they are denied that privilege which be-
longs 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.

Our Endless Chain of Laws 23

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 mo-
ment 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 be-
fore 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,

/7 5-.; r^^i

24 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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. Some-
how 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.

Our Endless Chain of Laws 25

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 sud-
denly 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 Amend-
ment were "put over" on the American
people. It is true, as I have said, that the legisla-
tion 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 uni-
form 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.

26

Too Much ''Verboten'' 27

One believes, with St. Paul, in "moderation in all
things." Youth, in a period of stress, needs direc-
tion, 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
19 14 and 19 1 8 — 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

28 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

from an autocratic Kaiser, and, during their neces-
sary 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 Miinchner 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 citi-
zenship, with their young wives and families.

But no, say a delegation of legislators on the pier
(a charming comic chorus this!), with palms ex-
tended 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-^/-tion 1"
(Curtain, amid general consternation.)

Now, if a libretto with this plot development had
been offered to a Broadway manager six years ago,

Too Much ''Verboten' 29

it would have been turned down at once as impos-
sible. 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 de-
scends, *'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 ! Amer-
ica 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. Amer-
ica, my good sir, is the land of the spree no longer;
it is the home of the grave." (Business of laughter.

30 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 Prus-
sians 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

Too Much ''Ferboten'' 31

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, un-
yielding 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 conscious-
ness.

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 Intoxica-

32 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

tlon 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 pre-
sented 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 con-
tribute 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 expe-
dient 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

Too Much ''Verboten'' 33

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 noth-
ing 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 con-
genital 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.

34 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 drink-
ers— omitting always those few and necessary ex-
ceptions which only serve to prove the rule.

Yet, as a nation, we were indicted, held up to ridi-
cule and scorn. We were told that we could not
control our appetites, and so our benevolent Govern-
ment 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 I 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

Too Much ''Verboten'' 35

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 any-
thing at all about liquor. Of that number, how
many, do you think, are what might be called immod-
erate 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.

36 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 drunke^iness 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

Too Much *'Verhotev!' 37

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 drink-
ing, people are thinking of nothing hut 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 — par-
ticularly 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 good-
ness— 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 mis-
takes it for applause.

The fact that Americans were taking care of them-

38 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

selves, 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 patho-
logical 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 Eng-
lishman exclaimed, looking our country over, "Pro-
hibition?— 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

Too Much ''Verboten' 39

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

40 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 Govern-
ment 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 ex-
tremes 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 sym-
bolical 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

Too Much ''Verboten' 41

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 can-
not 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 Constitu-
tion 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

42 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 sp^nd 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^

Too Much ''Verboten'' 43

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 ques-
tion 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 citi-
zens, as we are privileged to do under the Constitu-
tion (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 com-
fortable 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

44 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 condi-
tions. 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 man-
date because we have neither the courage nor the
energy to speak loudly against a stupid law foisted

Too Much ''Verboten'* 45

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 chew-
ing-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 think-
ing 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 chil-
dren's children? Drunk, they might not be re-
sponsible; sober, to their higher selves they are ac-
countable for their shortcomings in regard to our
statutes. A lack of veneration for an orderly carry-
ing out of a mandate is a serious thing. But to hear
the young people talking these days about the sanc-
tity of the Eighteenth Amendment is not a hearten-
ing 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

46

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 47

an ex- Judge or jurist who came out strong for Pro-
hibition sitting night after night in a certain restau-
rant, 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 whaf 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

48 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

as I can, that these pernicious laws, this spirit of
verhoten, 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

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 49

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 na-
tional anthem — since we are seriously looking for
one to take the place of the too-dlfficult-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 coun-
tries? 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 becom-
ingly 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,

50 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

There was some wild talk, not so many months
ago, that it might become lawful to dispense gov-
ernment-approved beer from the soda-fountains;
but sensible people who care for their toddy — de-
lectable 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, *'0h,
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 confection-
ery 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 horri-
fied. Gluttony, pure and simple. And what of
dyspepsia, and indigestion, and complexions, after
partaking for a few weeks of such stuff? Does no

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 51

one care enough for the coming race to do some-
thing 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 pre-
fer 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 prac-
tice 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 per-
mitted. 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

52 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 In-
quires how she spends her allowance. And young
Bobby, who formerly was so rosy and plump, de-
teriorates 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 some-
thing 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. Par-
ents 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 I
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?

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 53

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 tum-
mies— 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 Briider-
schaftf 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 Minne-
apolis 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

54 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 In-
hibitionlst? — with a soft job at some desk. He
would never be happy anywhere ; but in such a posi-
tion, 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 in-
telligent people in every community are forever
allowing themselves to be duped by fortune-tellers
and oulja-board manipulators, table-tippers, snake
doctors and bell-tinkling "mediums."

A dog-in-the-manger spirit is in the land. "I

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 55

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 interest-
ing 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 in-
dulges 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 idee 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

56 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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.

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 57

They come back from any one of these "dissipa-
tions" 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 inhibi-
tions 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 satis-
faction in this stupid disciplining of himself. The
remorse of the morning-after is unknown to him.
But without realizing it, every morning he experi-
ences 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 temper-
ance 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

^8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 com-
plex. They have the delusion of greatness. And
when we venture to question their methods and mo-
tives, 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 legis-
latures 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

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 59

gleam In their eyes, see their lips twitch, watch how
nervous they become ! Yes, pathological cases, every
one of them I

When will the hard-shelled prohibitionists under-
stand 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 bliss-
fully 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.

6o The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

You remember that wonderfully satirical story of
Mark Twain's, "The Man That Corrupted Hadley-
burg," 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 vil-
lage 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 re-
formers 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 at-
tack 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 strait] acket, and sweep out,
as Goldberg says, padded cell No. 7,894,502,431.

Making World Safe for De-mockery-cy 6i

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 I"

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 man-
date 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 at-
tempting to have this vicious law obeyed and re-
spected 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 ob-
served— perhaps by one's next-door neighbor, or
the janitor in one's basement. There is no telling

62

The Infamous Volstead Act 63

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 I
"O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are com-
mitted in thy name!" cried Madame Roland; and
Bertrand Barere 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 thernTJ^ I won-
der 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 emo-
tions 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, delight-
fully 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 dliiicult
to follow the gypsy patteran and patter; yet some-
how 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 donjon-

64 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

keeps; 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 prescrip-

The Infamous Volstead Act 65

tion shall be filled more than once. Any pharmaci«;t 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 at-
tach to every container thereof, as the same is manufac-
tured, a label stating name of manufacturer, kind and
quantity of liquor contained therein, and the date of its
manufacture, together w^ith the number of the permit
authorizing the manufacture thereof; and all persons pos-
sessing 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 pro-
vides ! —

66 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"It shall be the duty of every carrier to make a record
at the place of shipment of the receipt of any liquor trans-
ported, and he shall deliver liquor only to persons who pre-
sent to the carrier a verified copy of a permit to purchase
v^^hich 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 per-
son 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 char-
acter 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

The Infamous Volstead Act 67

one shall permit any sign or billboard containing such
advertisement to remain upon one's premises."

"Section 18. It shall be unlawful to advertise, manu-
facture, sell, or possess for sale any utensil, contrivance,
machine, preparation, compound, tablet, substance, for^
mula, 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
w^e 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 ex-
emplary 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."

68 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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. Drunk-
enness is rampant in the land; and I suppose drunk-
enness 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 In-
stead 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 him-
self 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

The Infamous Volstead Act 69

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, in-
spectors, or any officer of the law shall discover any person
in the act of transporting in violation of the law, intoxi-
cating 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 prop-
erty, 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 priori-
ties, which are established, by intervention or otherwise at

70 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

said hearing or In other proceeding brought for said pur-
pose, 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 pro-
ceeds 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 applica-
tion of the United States attorney to order them delivered
to any department or agency of the United States Govern-
ment 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."

The Infamous Volstead Act 71

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 Barley-
corn.

Section 37 — or a part of it — reads as follows:

"A manufacturer of any beverage containing less than
one-half of i per centum of alcohol by volume may, on
making application and giving such bond as the commis-
sioner shall prescribe, be given a permit to develop in the
manufacture thereof, by the usual methods of fermentation
and fortification or otherunse a liquid such as beer, ale,
porter, or wine, containing more than one-half of i 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 i 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 per-
sons other than the manufacturers of beverages containing
less than one-half of i 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 sub-
ject 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."

72 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 At-
torney General of the United States are hereby respectively
authorized to appoint and employ such assistants, experts,
clerks, and other emplo5^ees 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 ap-
pointed by the Commissioner or the Attorney General to
have immediate direction of the enforcement of the pro-
visions 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 per-
sonal services in the District of Columbia, and for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, there is hereby appro-
priated, 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."

The Infamous Volstead Act 73

And how Is the law enforced?
COuT journals do not make pleasant reading for
good Americans these days. They are filled with
headlines, which concern the Prohibition law, morn-
ing 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. 7

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 prem-
ises; 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 tax-
payers' money, I wonder? It was all-important that
an arrest should take place, but there was no evi-
dence, 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:

74 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"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 certif-
icate. 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 ap-
proved of the Eighteenth Amendment, the country
could be made bone dry tomorrow. But when the
politicians who voted for Prohibition have no re-

The Infamous Volstead Act 75

spect for the law they put upon our statutes, why
should we expect integrity and honesty down the
line?

L^ow 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
1 6th. "Drastic regulations for dealing with police-
men 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!

"i. To the commanding officers:

"The following memorandum from the Police Commis-
sioner 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 pit an end to violation of the Prohibition law.
The plan seems to work out successfully in Mount Vernon.

"2. Intoxicated members of the force:

76 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"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 w^here 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 i 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 restau-
rants 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 dis-
gusting. 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 exhibi-
tion. It is outrageous. Only one officer was in the

The Infamous Volstead Act 77

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 every-
where. 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

yS The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

water would be poured swiftly and deftly into va-
rious 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 state-
ment 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 pro-
nouncing 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 caba-
rets— another confession of the failure to enforce
the law.

But New York is full of insincerities. Conven-
tions take place there, and we read a sanctimonious

The Infamous Volstead Act 79

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 sus-
tenance which they desire and demand. The author-
ities, 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

8o The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 ap-
proval. 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

The Infamous Volstead Act 8i

Inner Voice. Then I happened to go to a manu-
facturing 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 for-
get in just w^hat 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 mo-
ment; 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 I

How terrible is his condition!
He wouldn't be that way at all

If only we had prohibition!"

82 Rise and Fall of 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 Pro-
hibitionist. He was temperate in all things.

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 dis-
satisfaction ; 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

83

84 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

fd(KAJUA/^

A Triumvirate Against Prohibition 85

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 organi-
zation 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 lan-
guage, 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). 1 will admit you boys do not lack morals. As

86 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 ques-
tion, 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.

** 1 am, however, sorry that they are pressing Prohibi-
tion 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 any-
thing serious, for after all is said and done, the fact re-
mains that the American workman is a law-abiding indi-
vidual.

" 'When it comes, Prohibition may or may not be per-
manent. 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

A Triumvirofte Against Prohibition 87

squarely upon the shoulders of the liquor dealers good and
bad.

" 'Some liquor dealers I have known,' said he, Vere
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?

CHAPTER VIII

"the fear for thee, my country'*

THE Prohibitionists contend, when we who
are but human suggest that the Eighteenth
Amendment and the Volstead Act should
be changed, that the Maw is the law; and now that
these are part of our statutes, they are there to stay,
that they must not be tampered with or altered in
any way; that it is up to every good American to
accept them, not to complain, not to make any utter-
ance which would be apt to disturb the sweet peace
these laws are intended to bring to us.

They forget that it is they themselves who saw
fit to change our laws. Are they bad Americans
because they did so? When the shoe is on the other
foot. . . . But the analogy is so obvious that there
can scarcely be any necessity of arguing the matter.

I have written, in a previous chapter, about a
few of the laws which are disobeyed. Am I a bad
American, a poor sport, for instance, because I re-
fuse to believe in capital punishment? It is the law
of my State that a man found guilty of murder in
the first degree must go to the electric chair. Called
to serve upon a criminal jury, I plainly say that I do
not believe in capital punishment. I am excused.

88

''The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 89

My conscientious scruples are taken Into considera-
tion. I imagine that only a small percentage of us
believe in sending a man to his death, even for so
serious a crime as murder; yet the statute abides.
We continue to send men to the gallows, or the chair
— though some States have been wise enough to
abolish the barbarous habit.

I have conscientious scruples about trying a man
for violation of the Volstead Act; for it would
hardly be possible for me to convict a fellow citizen
who had been spied upon by a detective in a bathing-
suit, as I read not long ago that one man had been.
I am against the manner in which evidence is ob-
tained; and I would distrust, even under oath, state-
ments of witnesses who hired themselves to the
Government as plain-clothes men to visit beaches
and bathing pavilions in order to discover some un-
lucky devil in the act of taking a nip from a pint
bottle after he was shivering from his plunge in the
ocean. There is a human element in such a case.
I may be too emotional for perfect jury service.
Granted. But that is something beyond my control.
I cannot change my temperament. I loath the spec-
tacle of one part of the population striving to dis-
cover something evil In the other part. It seems un-
necessary to me. Peeping Toms are a far greater
menace than the people peeped at. I do not feel
morally bound to respect a law which so many re-
spectable fellow citizens likewise disrespect. I think
stupid legislation Is an abomination; that the world

90 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

would be a happier place were It not for censorship
of morals and manners. I think that most people
instinctively know the difference between right and
wrong, and that, through education, they can be
made to understand and see all those little differences
and shades which sometimes confound us.

There are divorce laws upon our Statutes which
millions of people violently and bitterly oppose. Is a
good Roman Catholic a bad American citizen be-
cause his conscience refuses to let him condone the
rulings of our Courts in divorce trials?

On April 24, 1922, in St. Mary's Protestant
Episcopal Church, Emmerton, Maryland, a sermon
was preached by the Reverend W. A. Crawford-
Frost on the subject of "Obeying a Disreputable
Law."

The minister took as his text the verses from
Esther i 7 and 8 : "And they gave them drink in
vessels of gold, (the vessels being diverse one from
another,) and royal wine in abundance, according
to the state of the king. And the drinking was ac-
cording to the law; none did compel: for so the
king had appointed to all the officers of his house,
that they should do according to every man's
pleasure."

He said In part:

"Recently President Harding and Secretarj^ Hughes
have made pathetic appeals to the people of America to
respect the law. That such a request should have been
considered necessary is itself a sad commentary on the state

^^The Fear for Thee, My Country^^ 91

of affairs existing in our republic. There is a difference
between obedience and respect. All good citizens are called
upon to obey the laws, whether they respect a particular
law or not; but they are not called upon to respect a law
that is not respectable.

''There are disreputable laws just as there are disreputable
men.

''When is a man properly looked upon as disreputable?
That depends on the time and place and the people who
do the looking, but in most ages and countries there are
some things that the universal conscience of man holds to
be not respectable. Thus lying, robbing, cruelty and
blasphemy are disreputable, and a man who lies, robs, is
cruel and blasphemes is a disreputable man.

"Accordingly, if a law can be shown to lie, to rob, to
be cruel, and to blaspheme God, it is a disreputable law and
does not deserve respect, though all good citizens should
obey it until it is repealed.

"To call upon the people of America to respect a law
that is not respectable is fundamentally dishonest, for it
breaks down the distinction 'betw^een what is respectable and
what is disreputable and calls upon us to admire and look
up'to'that which we should despise and abhor.

"No-w I will give you reasons why I consider that the
Volstead Act lies, robs, is cruel and blasphemes God. It
may be that my arguments are not sound, but they appear to
me to be so, and all that a man can do is to go according
to his conscience and his common sense.

"It seems to me that it is a lie to say that all beverages
containing more than one half of one per cent of alcohol
are intoxicating. No man's stomach can hold enough of a
drink containing twice that proportion of alcohol to be-
come inebriated thereby. It is a physical impossibility. He
would have to absorb at least a gallon at one time to do
it. . . .

92 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"The Volstead Act robbed thousands of men whose capital
was invested in what they considered to be an honorable
industry and one that promoted the health and happiness
of mankind on the whole, even though five per cent injured
themselves by it.

"It robbed them by taking away their property from them
without compensation. It robbed their employees of their
living by throwing them out of work. It robbed the tax-
payers, who now have to pay out of their own pockets by
compulsion the billions of dollars that were formerly spent
cheerfully and voluntarily by the users of alcoholic bev-
erages.

''The Volstead Act is cruel to invalids who under it
cannot afford to get the proper alcoholic beverages needed
to preserve their lives. I could quote scores of the highest
medical authorities to prove this, but only have space for a
few:

"Dr. Paul Bartholow, of the Jefferson Medical College:
'Beer, ale and porter are much and justly esteemed as
stomach tonics and restoratives in chronic, wasting diseases.
Alcohol is an important remedy in the various forms of
pulmonary phthisis. In convalescents from acute diseases
there can be no difference of opinion as to the great value
of wine as a restorative.'

"Dr. Samuel C. L. Potter, of the Cooper Medical Col-
lege, San Francisco: 'In anemia and chlorosis good red
wines are almost indispensable. It is an absolute necessity
in the treatment of lobar pneumonia. In fevers, alcohol is
often most serviceable.'

"Dr. Frederick C. Shattuc, of Harvard University: *In
typhoid fever if the heart shows undue weakness I consider
it a grave error in judgment to withhold alcohol. The
danger of forming the alcohol habit is practically nil in the
subjects of acute general infection. They are more likely
to acquire a distaste than a liking for it.'

''The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 93

"Dr. Daniel M. Hoyte, formerly of the University of
Pennsylvania: 'Alcohol has long been used to abort a cold.
The patient takes a hot bath, and after getting into bed
drinks a hot lemonade containing one or two ounces of
whiskey. This produces diaphoresis and aids in the elimina-
tion of the toxins.'

"Dr. Binford Throne, writing in Forschheimers Thera-
peusis: 'All cases of diphtheria have more or less myo-
carditis, and all should be given stimulants from the first.
The best is good whiskey or brandy.'

"Dr. Charles P. Woodruff, Surgeon in the United States
Army in the Philippines, wrote in the Nem York Medical
Journal, December 17th, 1904, as follows:

" 'In 1902 I obtained a mass of data on the physical
condition and drinking habits of a regiment of infantry
which had about three years in the Philippines. I must
confess to being somewhat disconcerted and disheartened
at first by the total ; the excessive drinkers were far healthier
than the abstainers, only one half as many were sent home
sick and one sixth as many of them died. I had hoped
to prove the opposite. . . . The damage done to these
young men by occasional sprees is not so great as the damage
done by the climate to the abstainers. What a lot of mis-
statements have we received from our teachers, text books,
and authorities!' He concludes:

" 'I suppose some medical editors would advise hiding
these figures on the ground that they would be an advantage
to the whiskey dealers who buy Kansas corn from Prohibi-
tion farmers. They would no doubt rather see our soldiers
die than let them know that a drink of wine at meals might
save their lives.'

"In his report he had stated that approximately 11 per
cent of the abstainers died, while about 3^ per cent of
the moderate, and less than 2 per cent of the excessive,
died. About 15 per cent of the abstainers were invalided

94 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

home, about 9 per cent or 10 per cent of tHe moderate,
and about 8 per cent of the excessive drinkers.

"And yet in the light of stupendous facts like these the
Volstead Act is passed, hampering physicians in their work
of mercy and making it sometimes impossible for them to
give the remedies that God intended to prevent suffering
and preserve human life. Could diabolical cruelty go
further than that?

"To torture an invalid is as devilish as it is to burn a
w^ell man at a stake.

"More. It is a thousand times worse because it is so
much more widely spread. Hundreds of invalids are being
tortured all over the United States to-day for every white
man that ever was burned at the stake by the Indians.

"Every loyal member of the Protestant Episcopal Church
should hold that the Volstead Act is a blasphemy against
God. Jews, Unitarians and others who do not consider
that Jesus was God, are entitled to hold different views
from us regarding the religious aspect of this Act, but for
us there is no escape. We believe that Jesus was God,
and we believe that He made wine at Cana and that He
ordered it to be drunk publicly in His memory for all time
to come. Our Church has declared that unfermented grape
juice is not wine and should not be used for it in the
Sacrament of Holy Communion. A law to say that wine
containing more than one half of one per cent alcohol
should not be allowed to be made and carried about freely
from place to place, implies that Jesus did wrong in making
it and ordering it to be used publicly by Christians. If
He did wrong. He was not God. Therefore, the Vol-
stead Act from the standpoint of our Church, blasphemes
God.

"Every true Churchman, consequently, should despise
and abhor the Volstead Act as lying, robbing, cruel and
blaspheming and unworthy of respect, although it must be

''The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 95

obeyed by all good citizens till it can be repealed. We
give it obedience, but not respect.

" 'But,' some will say, 'if this is so, why should we obey
such a law? Would it not be better to rebel against it,
to flout it openly and take the consequences?' It is unjust.
It is tyrannical. It is un-American. It is due to a com-
bination of religious and universal ignorance of physiology.
It is the result of active political propaganda carried on by
money of persons who are financially interested in prohibiting
alcoholic beverages. The weapons used have been trickery,
deception, falsification of statistics, lobbying, slander and
abuse. It has been forced on legislators by intimidation
of the grossest kind. Good men have been afraid to oppose
it, for fear of being called 'boozers,' 'bootleggers,' 'law-
breakers,' and other opprobrious epithets. It was smuggled
in as a war measure when our young men were overseas,
and later on was made more and more stringent, till it
far surpassed in tyranny any thought entertained by its
supporters in the beginning. Why should we obey such a
law? Would it not be more American to treat this piece
of iniquity as our forefathers treated the Stamp Act?

"No. It is our duty to obey it. We could not repeal
the Stamp Act, and we can repeal this. In the case of the
tyranny of George III there was no legal redress. All
that freedom-loving men could do was to rebel. That
tyranny was forced on us from the outside. This we have
allowed to be imposed on us in our supineness by tyrants in
our own household. The two cases are not similar. We
must obey the Volstead Act till we can repeal or amend
it. . . .

"Bolingbroke declared, 'Liberty is to the collective body
what health is to every individual body. Without health
no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty no happi-
ness can be enjoyed by society.'

"I refuse to be silent when I see America, the hope of

g6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

mankind, likely to be bound hand and foot by the tyranny
of ignorance and religious fanaticism. . . .

"The maxim of John Philpot Curran, 'Eternal vigi-
lance is the price of liberty,' was never needed in America
more than it is at this moment. This is no time for patriots
to be silent.

"According to Burke, the people never give up their
liberties but under some delusion. In this case the delusion
is that they are following Christ while they are really
following Mahomet, the anti-Christ. That delusion must
be exposed until ever>^body sees it clearly.

"We must not forget what Colton said: 'Liberty will
not descend to a people. A people must raise themselves
to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned to be en-
joyed.'

"How can this be done? Listen to Savonarola: *Do you
wish to be free? Then above all things love God. Love
one another and love the common weal; then you will have
liberty.'

"It is all right to regulate drinking by law, provided it
is the right kind of a law.

"The extraordinary thing about our text is that it shows
the legal regulation of drinking to be no new thing, for it
existed in the time of Queen Esther, 510 B.C., or just 2432
years ago, because our text says 'and the drinking was ac-
cording to the law.'

"But the law allowed all the liberty that was right and
proper. It says: 'None could compel; for the king had
appointed to all the officers of his house that they should
do according to every man's pleasure.'

"It was a joyful and festive occasion, like the wedding
at Cana, and Ahasuerus then, as did Jesus later on, recog-
nizes that the proper use of wine w^ould promote happiness
and health and that the guests present would be trusted not
to abuse it.

''The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 97

**But though laws regulating drinking may be necessary
to well ordered society, these laws must be equitable and
sensible, regulation, according to the scriptures, not pro-
hibition. The drinking should be 'according to the law/
One great trouble about the Volstead Act is that the drink-
ing goes on just the same but it is not 'according to the
law,' and instead of getting pure liquors people are being
poisoned by the thousands all over the country.

"Would it not be better to follow the Bible and have
the liquor drunk according to the law?

"This can only be done by modifjing the law so as
to make it conform with the Bible. If the law is dis-
honest, cruel or unjust, we must vote to change it if we
love God, and love our neighbor and love the common
weal. We must either repeal it altogether or amend it,
so as to make it honest, kindly and fair, so that we may
have law and liberty at the same time.

"And Americans will do it. In the immortal words of
Daniel Webster: *If the true spark of religious and civil
liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot
extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be
smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; moun-
tains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable
force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some
time or other, in som.e place or other, it will break out
and flame up to heaven.' "

This is powerful language which strikes at the
very root of things, but D.r. Crawford-Frost is
not the only fearless clergyman who has spoken his
mind on this all-absorbing question. Archbishop
Glennon, of St. Louis, has scored the Eighteenth
Amendment. In an interview given at Atlantic City
in August, I9'22, he bravely said:

98 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"The Constitution has been considerably weakened by
the addition of the Eighteenth Amendment, for the Pro-
hibition clause limits rights, while the rest of the Consti-
tution grants rights. Matters referring to alcohol and
drugs should be left to the police courts of the various cities
and states."

'^ When he was asked If he thought Prohibition a
benefit to the country, he said:
"For those who drink too much, yes."

The Most Reverend James Duhig, D.D., Arch-
bishop of Brisbane, Australia, interviewed in New,
York, in the late summer of 1922, deplored the dry-
few. He admitted that he had not observed any
drunken men in the streets of the metropolis, but
that fact, he said, was beside the issue, because it
was the principle of Prohibition with which he took
issue. He said:

"In Australia they are against Prohibition. I myself
have written strongly against it, and all that I have been
able to learn of the results of it in the United States has
only served to confirm my belief that Australia has taken
the right view.

"Australia was amazed at America going dry. You
cannot make men sober by an act of Parliament. What
we need is a reasonable control of the liquor trade, not its
total abolition. Extremes are always dangerous, and I
consider Prohibition an extreme course."

In the State of Nebraska recently an attempt was
made to put through the legislation many autocratic

^^The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 99

laws. People were not to be allowed to speak a,
foreign language, and certain restrictions were to be
placed on the wearing of religious garb, etc. A
visitor to that State, George A. Schreiner, of South
Africa, deprecated such legislation, and stated that
"laws of intolerance defeat their own ends." It is
interesting to see the reactions on those who come
to our country for the first time. Mr. Schreiner
expressed himself wisely when he said:

"It all reminds me of the attempt recently made in Japan
to put a law on the statutes against bad thoughts. Of
course, that was very absurd and still, in a way, it was a
very honestly meant piece of legislation. The author of the
bill wanted to get at the root of what he considered an evil —
a danger to Japan. Elsewhere and in your own State the
same thing has been attempted by being aimed at, as it were.
I feel that a great deal of intolerance has been born of the
War, but we ought to be fair even with Jupiter and Mars.
Much is blamed on the War, when, in reality, the War
served simply as an excuse to waken latent passions in man."

The Outlook, which is certainly a sane periodical,
whose editorial integrity cannot be doubted, sees a
menace in too much legislation. Only confusion and
distrust can result when the people are confronted
with a mass of judicial arguments and interpreta-
tions of those arguments. In a sensible editorial
recently, entitled "Why Not 'Limitation of Legisla-
tion'?" the editors spoke their minds thus:

''This harassed old world needs 'limitation of legislation*
as well as limitation of armaments.' Statutes, laws, and

lOO The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

regulations of all sorts make each year confusion worse
confounded. It has been asserted that every person in the
United States, unwittingly, in 99 cases out of 100, violates
every day some Federal State or local law or regulation ;
perhaps the honest judge himself in going from his home
to the court room where he hands down every day his
judgments of justice breaks some minor regulation, for
which ofcense a policeman, if he were nearby and had
studied his book of regulations carefully enough, could place
the eminent judge under arrest.

"A leading authority on American police administration
recently estimated that the average policeman, to enforce
the city ordinances. State laws, and Congressional enact-
ments, committed in whole or in part to his charge, must
have a working knowledge of at least 16,000 statutes. This
fact was pointed out in a recent speech in Washington by
James A. Emery before the American Cotton Manufac-
turers' Association.

*'Why not a Congress sometime which would subtract
500 useless or foolish or annoying laws from the statute-
books, instead of adding 500 laws to those same bulky
volumes? Such a Congress might earn recognition as the
greatest the world had yet seen.

"In one of our State legislators a few years ago an
extreme illustration occurred of the desire of a member to
have his name attached to some piece of legislation. This
particular member was sent to the Legislature from a
more or less rural district. He introduced a bill providing
that a bounty of five dollars be paid by the State for the
hide of every loup-cervier (the Canada lynx or wild cat)
killed in the Commonwealth. Most of the members did
not know what a loup-cervier was and had to consult the
dictionary, or some other member who had beaten them to
the dictionary, to find out what this particular animal (popu-
larly known in some places as Lucy Vee) was. The legis-

^'The Fear for 'Thee, My Country'' loi

lator who desired to have his name go down in history
as the author of an addition to the laws of the State
is said to have traded his vote on practically every other
piece of legislation which came up at that session for votes
on his pet measure, which was passed. The State pays as
much as twenty or thirty dollars some years for the animals
killed on which this bill offered a bounty!

**If there is one place above all others where there is
pride of authorship, it is in the halls of America's State and
National capitols; and, as in the field of belles-lettres, there
is plenty of plagiarism. Similar bills also are frequently
introduced by a half dozen or more members, each hoping
his may be the one which will stick and bear the mark
of fame.

"The United States 'easily holds first place in the manu-
facture of statutory law,' declared Mr. Em.ery in his speech.
*A single Congress,' he added, 'usually receives some
20,000 bills. Many of the States consider not less than
1000. During the year 1921, 42 legislatures were in
session. Judging from past years. Congress and the States
annually enact an average of 14,000 statutes. The State
and National legislation of a single year recently required
more than 40,000 pages of official print.'

"Certainly, it is time for a Congress on limitation of
legislation."

The same paper has this to say, editorially, on
"The Achilles Heel of Prohibition" :

"National Prohibition has not been long on trial. The
final effect of the fundamental change in our Constitution
involved in the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment
has not been, and cannot be, yet determined. All the
evidence which we have seen, however, tends to show that
the nation is better off materially and physically under

I02 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Prohibition than under the system which permitted the
sale of intoxicating beverages. Benefits to be derived from
the elimination of the drink traffic did not wait upon our
National experiment for demonstration. They have been
obvious for centuries in the experience of peoples from
whom alcohol has been barred by religious authority. There
remains, however, a very serious problem confronting the
defenders and advocates of national prohibition. It is the
problem of maintaining the respect for law and order and
that mental habit of ready acceptance of legal enactments
which is one of the strongest bulwarks of applied democ-
racy.

"We do not doubt for a minute that the majority of
the people of the United States are in favor of national
prohibition. Even in great cities where the liquor interests
have had their stronghold we suspect that the number of
men and women who would vote for national prohibition,
were it put to the popular test, is much larger than the
Svets' are willing to admit. We say this in order that this
editorial may not be considered as an argument for the
repeal of prohibition amendment by those who are working
for such ends upon premises which we regard as distinctly
unsound.

''To say that there is a majority in favor of the amend-
ment does not imply that there is not a large and active
minority in favor of its repeal. The greatest problem con-
fronting advocates of national prohibition lies in the fact
that this large minority has not accepted the amendment
with that good faith and willing spirit which we have
grown to look upon as characteristic of the spirit of the
losers in our political controversies. There have been
great changes in our government prior to the enactment
of the Prohibition Amendment, but almost invariably these
changes, once effected, have been acquiesced in by their
most ardent opponents. We are not speaking of indi-

^^The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 103

vidual violators, but of the public attitude towards the
law.

"One of the strongest denunciations of those who have
failed to acquiesce in the Eighteenth Amendment was
recently voiced by Judge Ben B. Lindsay, of Colorado, in
a statement to the press. Judge Lindsay said:

"'Is the Eighteenth Amendment going to be enforced?
At the present time it is not being enforced with any degree
of success, but has raised up a trail of evils in its wake
which are as bad, if not worse, than those it sought to
avoid.

" *So far the great majority of prosecutions have been
against the poor and uninfluential people who are victims
of the tremendous temptations afforded by the example
of the rich.

" 'Just what do I mean ? I mean that the wealthy and
more favored class in this country must accept a respon-
sibility which is now being ignored. They must be willing
to give up their pleasures and abide by the law intended
for the good of all. So far they have not set the example.

" 'The theaters, jokesters, and parodists are encouraged
in making a mockery of the Constitution of the United
States. When a rich or influential citizen fills his cellars
with smuggled liquor and the police are called off, in
nearly every case the "conspiracy of the rich" is imme-
diately set in motion. What is this "conspirac>'" ?

" 'It consists of their influence in reaching officials and
suppressing newspaper publicity concerning themselves. So
long as some of these officials and some newspapers are
lending themselves to this "conspiracy," they are creating
class prejudice. An example of this occurred in our city
within the past week. A friend of one of our most influ-
ential newspapers became involved in a bootlegging case
and was successful in suppressing all mention of it in that
particular paper which pretends to be against this evil.

I04 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

" 'The greatest need In this country to-day is to abolish
"special privileges," and the new "special privilege" w^hich
the Eighteenth Amendment has created is the right of
the rich to have their booze w^hile the same right is denied
to the poor.'

"Judge Lindsay has laid his finger upon a moral danger
which exists in the widespread levity towards an important
section of our National Constitution. The same menace
was singled out for warning by Prohibition Commissioner
Haynes when he recently said : 'One of the greatest dangers
now confronting the Republic is that \ve may lose our
vision of the sanctity and majesty of the law.'

"How shall we guard ourselves against this menace?
The protection cannot be found merely in increased activity
of the enforcement officials. It cannot be wholly met by
the vigilance of the police. It is a moral danger, and it
must be met with moral weapons.

"If we turn to the States which experimented with pro-
hibition prior to the enactment of the National Amend-
ment, we shall find precedent an uncertain guide to an
understanding of the situation which confronts us. Maine,
which has the longest record under prohibition, has almost
the poorest record in maintaining respect for its prohibi-
tion laws. Kansas, on the other hand, after a generation
of disturbance and conflict, settled down to obedience to
the law backed by a wholesome and widespread public
opinion.

"Will the Nation follow the precedence of Maine or of
Kansas? The determination of this all-important fact!
depends on the sum total of the attitude of our individual
citizens towards the maintenance of our fundamental law.
It is the right of any one to work for the repeal of the
Eighteenth Amendment if he or she so desires, but it is
the bounden duty of every one to see that so long as the
Eighteenth Amendment is part of our Constitution It is

''The Fear for Thee, My Country'' 105

accorded that respect upon which the whole structure of
democratic government rests."

But here we get right back to where we started.
Citizens cannot be forced to respect a law for which,
inw^ardly, they have a great contempt. Even a spirit-
ual energy cannot be brought to bear, I fear, which
is strong enough to bring about this desirable end.
The youth of our land, at least in our great cities,
laugh at the Eighteenth Amendment — which means
that they will laugh at other laws, and finally express
nothing but derision for the Government.

This concentrated feeling is far more serious than
scattered inebriety. It strikes at the very base and
roots of society, and, once having gained a sure hold
on the people, cannot be checked. An observer who
loves America cannot but see in the youth of the
land a total disrespect for order and the old sancti-
ties; a violation of moral codes, and a failure to
establish rectitude In niches of the heart. There are
no convictions, no principles among the young and
growing population. There is no desire to conform,
no aspiration for a betterment of conditions as they
are. Instead, there is intolerant laughter, and one
is called an old fogy who attempts to assert that
marriage vows mean something and that girls who
drink cocktails in taxicabs out of thermos bottles
are in grave peril.

There Is a studious avoidance of responsibility.
Yet one should not be surprised. The example set

io6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

is none too worthy. It is known that hypocrisy
exists in high places; that inconsistency is a national
trait; that men in office say one thing and do another.

I heard a young man remark not long ago : "Oh,
they think it's wrong, do they, to drink? Well, how
many Congressmen in Washington have replenished
their wine-cellars, do you suppose, since Mr. Vol-
stead ran this country, eh? I'd like to get affidavits
from bootleggers in Washington, as to just what
stock has been laid in."

That feeling — how can one counteract it? One
has no answer for such a sage youth. Alas ! he does
some thinking, after all; but our silly legislation has
caused his thoughts to run in a direction from which
we would gladly divert his mind. The fact of the
matter is that most of his elders have thought long
and solemnly on these same things.

It is not a pretty topic to consider. We will not
face the facts — that is the trouble with America,
as I see it. I know one Assemblyman in New York
State who bravely ran on a wet platform in a dry
community, as a matter of principle. He was weary
of lying to himself, and to his constituents. He said
that as long as he kept a wine-cellar, and deliberately
transported some of its contents when it suited him,
in his car, he could not face his friends. He must
come out in the open and accept their blame or their
approval. He ran for office with a clear conscience;
but others will not thus declare themselves. Behind
veils of verbiage they discreetly conceal their politi-

^^The Fear for Thee, My Country'* 107

cal faces; alone with one another, or with you and
me, they will speak their true mind on Prohibition —
particularly if their tongues are loosened by one or
two glasses of whiskey.

These are the men who are a danger to the Re-
public they pretend to serve. Janus-faces have they.
They are all things to all men. The time will come
when, before we go to the polls, we shall know just
where each candidate stands on every Issue. There
win be no equivocation. Declarations must be made.
Masks must be off.

Of the menace of hypocritical office-holders and
senators, Edwin Markham has spoken eloquently In
these ringing lines. They should be known to us
all In these times of shattered dreams and false
avowals. The old established Ship of State could
weather the gale If the crew were honest and re-
mained on deck.

THE FEAR FOR THEE, MY COUNTRY

In storied Venice, where the night repeats

The heaven of stars down all her rippling streets,

Stood the great Bell Tower, fronting seas and skies —

Fronting the ages, drawing all men's eyes;

Rooted like Teneriffe, aloft and proud,

Taunting the lightning, tearing the flying cloud.

It marked the hours for Venice: all men said
Time cannot reach to bow that lofty head:
Time, that shall touch all else with ruin, must
Forbear to make this shaft confess its dust.

io8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Yet all the while, in secret, without sound.

The fat worms gnawed the timbers underground.

The twisting worm, whose epoch is an hour,
Caverned his way into the mighty tower;
Till suddenly it shook, it swayed, it broke,
And fell in darkening thunder at one stroke.
The strong shaft, with an angel on the crown,
Fell ruining: a thousand years went down!

And so I fear, my country, not the hand

That shall hurl 'night and whirlwind on the land;

I fear not Titan traitors who shall rise

To stride like Brocken shadows on our skies:

These we can face in open fight, withstand

With reddening rampart and the sworded hand.

I fear the vermin that shall undermine
Senate and citadel and school and shrine;
The Worm of Greed, the fatted Worm of Ease,
And all the crawling progeny of these —
The vermin that shall honeycomb the towers
And walls of State in unsuspecting hours.

CHAPTER IX

DRYING UP THE OCEAN

THERE is a little town in W>oming which,
outwardly, is as arid as that waste of
desert not so many hundreds of miles away
from it. Yet for a consideration one may obtain all
the moonshine and gin one desires at another village
near by. The lady prohibitionists, all members of
the W. C. T. U., as they pass the erstwhile village
drunkard (on their way to some sanctimonious
meeting), remark what a wonderful thing the clean-
ing up of the town has been. Poor devil! only a
little while ago he was literally in the gutter. Now,
look at him, as he sits in the merry sunshine on the
porch of the post-office, whittling his life away,
where aforetime he drank it away. (They do not
know that the poor devil is about the only person,
in the village — except themselves — who fails to ob-
tain whiskey, though his reasons for the lack are
hardly similar to theirs. He simply cannot afford
the price.) It costs a few pennies to get to that
neighboring wet village; and, after one is there,
it costs a little more to procure the stuff he once
drank with such avidity. But the flappers — oh,
yes, they have them even In Wyoming small towns !

109

no The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

— and the boys who are their friends, can dash over
in a Ford and get all they want. Concealed on the
hip, they feel no lack of stimulation when the evening
shadows fall. They do not get tight in public, as
the town drunkard used to do — not at all. But they
are up to all the tricks of sly drinking. If they were
burglars, they would be called sneak-thieves. Amer-
ica has taught them a thing or two ; and where the
previous generation, at their age, never dreamed of
taking a cocktail, they think of nothing else, and will
get it at any price. This is true the country over.
But the obviously enforced reformation of many a
village souse is pointed to as perfect evidence that
all is well. I suppose those virtuous W. C. T. U.
ladies go to bed o' nights and sleep serenely, happy
in the consciousness that they have helped the race.
And even as they slumber, hip-flasks are opened,
corks are popping, and an enjoyable time is being
had by all.

Thus do reformers blind themselves to conditions
as they are. The village drunkard, tottering to his
grave, has been reformed — if he was worth reform-
ing at all — while the arriving host of youth is danc-
ing and singing and jazzing its way "down the prim-
rose path to the everlasting bonfire."

This is but another evidence of our national
hypocrisy. And not content with making the land
dry — which we haven't done at all — we must go out
and make the sea dry. Our holier-than-thou attitude
has caused us to lose our sense of humor, verily; for

Drying Up the Ocean iii

to dry up the ocean Is going Moses and the children
of Israel one better. Moreover, the day of miracles
is past.

It was In the early Fall of 1922 that we suddenly
discovered that our ships were a part of sacred
American soil. International law had long since
told us so, but somehow, in the confusion following
the passage of Mr. Volstead's vaudeville act, we had
forgotten it. Perhaps we were too busy, like the
Wyoming ladies, trying to make our citizens good
on shore to get around to those sensible enough to
leave the country for an ocean voyage. That is the
American way.

At any rate, our boats continued, under Mr.
Lasker, to be pleasant oases on the desert of the
sea ; and fortunate indeed were those who lived
along the coast and could jump aboard if things be-
came unbearable at home — which they hadn't. Yet
it was good to know that there the ships lay in har-
bor, ready for each and all of us, stocked with
pleasant and rare vintages. Again the rich were in
luck. If one's pocketbook were fat enough, one
could obtain anything one desired. God pity the
poor worklngman, but life was life, and there were
plenty of luxuries which had always been denied the
impoverished, but which the wealthy took as a part
of the strange scheme of things, and oh, yes, it was
awfully unfair, but that was that, and after all what
was one to do about it, and it was too bad, and oh,
dear, and oh, my, and goodness gracious and a lot

112 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

of other stuff which I have overheard but merci-
fully forgotten.

It took us two and a half years to discover in one
minute that Uncle Sam himself had been a bootlegger
at sea. A long, long time to have had our own
eyes sealed ! But when Attorney General Daugherty
finally issued his decision that American boats must
be dry, all sorts of complications arose. We told
foreign governments that their ships, too, must not
enter our ports with liquor aboard. All the ocean,
within the three-mile limit prescribed by interna-
tional law, was to cease to be wet. It mattered not
that Italian sailors were supplied with red wine as
part of their fare; they must throw it overboard be-
fore they came into our sanctified precincts. And
even if foreign bars were sealed and padlocked and
double-padlocked, they would be anathema to us.
Whether the liquor brought over on them was in-
tended to be sold here, or merely kept on board
for the return voyage, mattered not. We were
going to put a stop to rum-running, and now,
Mr. Foreigner, what are you going to do about
it?

As this is written, England has already protested
against such drastic and high-handed action. One
of the British ships has been seized, and a test case
is to be made of her seizure. We, who held aloof
so long from all sorts of entangling alliances; we
who preached the doctrine of staying at home and
minding our own business, suddenly find ourselves

Drying Up the Ocean 113

rushing in where angels fear to tread; and, losing
our humor, we may likewise lose our friends.

The powerful Anti-Saloon League is responsible
for our foolhardiness. We will ruin American ship-
ping, we will commit maritime harikari ; but it is all
right, since, having slipped our heads into the noose
of the fanatics, what difference does it make how
soon or how slowly we strangle to death?

Of course there will be all sorts of confusion, all
kinds of delays in the courts — for naturally other
nations will make test cases, and It will be many
months — perhaps years — before America knows
how she stands with Europeans and how Europeans
stand with her. It is one thing to manage our own
citizens — quite another to guide the conduct of our
neighbors.

It is curious how ships and shipping enter into
our governmental affairs again — how history repeats
itself. Deny it though we will, we got into the
World War only after our shipping had been inter-
fered with. We accepted German insults and taunts ;
but the moment our business interests were at stake,
we took up our guns and rushed to save the Allies
and make the world safe for democracy. A utili-
tarian reason for saving our own necks — that is all
that it was; and we cannot close our eyes to our
spiritual shortcomings.

Now we have the effrontery to Interfere with the
ships and shipping of foreign countries. Let us see
what will happen to us. Remember that there is no

114 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

War going on, to fill people with emotion and
ecstasy. This is to be a cold, steel-like remedying
of troubles. Why should our laws be respected,
and those of other nations treated with contempt?
Who are we to say that a Latin sailor should not
consume a glass of red wine with his rations?

No one can tell what the Supreme Court will do;
but it is rather obvious that If America has closed
up the saloons on shore she should close them up on
sea. If, walking a street In one of our cities, you are
under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, you are
also under that protection pacing the deck of an
American liner. Prohibition must follow the flag.

But some of the American lines are talking of
changing the flag under which they have been sail-
ing! Here's a howdy-do, here's a pretty mess. It
is unthinkable that a liner should alter her citizen-
ship, just to carry a bit of beer. Yet that Is what
those staid old ladies are contemplating. To what
dreadful deportment are we driven, with Mr. Vol-
stead ruling us !

If our ships have to go dry, we will cut off the
large freight business In the West Indies, since much
rum Is exported from these islands. There can be
no transportation of wine to countries like France,
Spain and Italy; and, with such loss in revenue, how
can our boats ply to and fro? At this writing, hun-
dreds of passengers have cancelled their sailings on
American vessels, incensed at the Attorney Gen-
eral's ruling.

Drying Up the Ocean 115

The New York Worlds which has been a con-
sistent and fearless enemy of Prohibition, has pub-
lished many fine editorials on the subject of a dry
sea; but none states the case better than this:

"Despite Mr. Lasker's protest that it will ruin
the American merchant marine, the opinion of At-
torney General Daugherty regarding the sale of
liquor on vessels flying the flag of the United States
is fairly certain to be upheld by the Courts. There
is plenty of law and precedent behind it. But every
phase of law and precedent that supports the opin-
ion as it touches American shipping runs counter to
the opinion as applied to liners under alien flags.

"Ships chartered in the United States, according
to Mr. Daugherty, are subject to the laws of the
United States, are, in fact, American territory; but
ships chartered in foreign countries are not foreign
territory. As soon as they enter American waters
all vessels subject themselves to American law, which
means, of course, the Volstead Act. How this
comes about is not clearly explained. It would nat-
urally be supposed that if an American ship were
American territory a British ship would be British
territory, and so on. Mr. Daugherty cannot have
It both ways. On one point or the other he must
change his mind or have it changed for him.

"But even though the enforcement law did not
apply to European vessels within the three-mile limit,
it is difficult to discover in what way they would
violate it by carrying a sealed supply of liquor.

Il6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Possession of liquor, as defined by the courts, must
include a change of ownership. It is not legal for a
manufacturer to ship liquor to a consumer through
the United States, but it is legal for an owner of
bonded liquor to remove it from one place to an-
other within this country. Alien ships traversing
American waters with sealed liquor aboard would
be guilty of nothing which American citizens are not
allowed on land by judicial decision."

Well, if the bars are closed forever on American
ships, it will but add to the present discontent; and
again there will be an expression of our national
hypocrisy. It does not take much vision to see what
will inevitably happen. For just as people drink
now on land when they feel so inclined, they will
drink upon the ocean; and every steward on every
American liner will become a bootlegger, whispering
into the ears of passengers something like this :

''Say, I have some fine old Scotch — the real thing
— only twelve dollars a bottle. Want some? I'll
see that it's brought to your state-room. Oh, no;
there's not a particle of danger. Everybody's doing
It."

And thus will the comedy go on; thus will the
playing of the farce be extended beyond the three-
mile limit, and within it, too; and once more we will
appear before the world in our cap and bells. No
arrests will be made. Things will simply drift
along; and by and by, even though the Eighteenth
Amendment remains in the Constitution, and the

Drying Up the Ocean 117

Volstead Act continues to be a part of our laws, both
may be forgotten, just as some of the old statutes of
the Puritans, still upon the Massachusetts records,
have been allowed to float into a limbo of dreams.

The quandary which a ship finds herself in, sail-
ing from Great Britain to the United States, is laugh-
able. John Bull demands, under his democratic
laws, made for freemen, that a certain amount of
brandy be a part of every cargo; whilst Uncle Sam,
a tyrant now — refuses to permit even a single jug
of ale to enter the sacred three-mile limit. Between
Scylla and Charibdis the hardy mariner finds him-
self. On what reefs of the mind a captain plunges
as, dazedly trying to obey both laws, he reads first
one ruling and then the other. If he follows John,
he is out with Sam; if he sticks to Sam, he is the
laughing-stock of John.

This might be the sad song of any sea-captain
these days :

Tweedledum and Tweedledee,

Battledore and Shuttlecock!
Alack ! alas ! no more at sea

Is one allowed his rolling-stock!

But the end is not yet. Of course there will be
concessions, many wise shakings of the head, a
profound slumber over tangled legal documents,
and then — perhaps — an awakening to the fact that
after all a holier-than-thou attitude scarcely pays in
these times of human frailty. We may realize, with

ii8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

our native intelligence, that we have made a foolish,
a terrible, a hideous mistake. Worse than being
hated by other nations is being laughed at by other
nations. Can America stand up against the mirth
of Europe over our pig-headedness and smug sancti-
moniousness? If laughter has killed politicians, can
it not kill nations? If ridicule can end a career, can
it not end national nonsense?

But somehow, despite heavy mandates and injunc-
tions on the part of the drys, something tells me that
the ocean is going to remain indubitably, irreme-
diably, habitually, irritatlngly and everlastingly wet.

No one seems to know just where we are destined,
as a nation, to take our way. We fuss and fume and
fret. In the race of life, we put endless obstruc-
tions along the track, and leap the hurdles clumsily,
falling now and then, picking ourselves up, falling
again and otherwise behaving rather ridiculously.
What it all means no one seems to know. Instead
of letting well enough alone, we seem obsessed with
the idea of interfering incessantly with goodly folk.
Suppression is in the air. The skies are clear, but
we put clouds in them — clouds that rise from the
earth because they are of our making. The dust of
the world shuts out the clean prospect ahead of us.
We run about in circles, when, so simply, we could
march on a straight line. We are very, very stupid;
and though we know it now, we are afraid to admit
it to ourselves.

Again our hypocrisy. Unable to respect ouf'

Drying Up the Ocean 119

selves and our own institutions, how can we ask
other peoples to do so?

In their eagerness to make the ocean round about
the United States dry, Prohibition officials even sug-
gested to the Government that the Bahama Islands
be purchased from Great Britain, In this heavenly
haven, it was pointed out, rum-runners foregath-
ered; perhaps England would help us to make such
conditions impossible In the future, and would be
willing to let the Islands come to us, in part pay-
ment of the old War debt. But our own territory
in that direction — Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands
— are still far from dry. With the problem of
these localities still unsettled, it would seem to be
a piece of folly to lay hands on the Bahamas, In the
hope of ''cleaning them up."

Yet why stop, In our fanatic zeal, at the Bahamas?
Why not reach out and get the Canary Islands — In-
deed, everything everywhere. We who preached
aloofness until we were blue In the face, seem sud-
denly bent upon Interfering with all countries, no
matter how remote they may be. When men were
actually, not potentially. In danger of death and de-
struction, we would not lift a finger to aid them In
Europe ; but now, with a mock holiness that 111 com-
ports with our attitude of a few years ago, we are
for saving a handful of drunkards from a terrible
end.

And the pity of it Is that we do not see how
funny we are !

CHAPTER X

THE MULLAN-GAGE LAW, THE VAN NESS ACT AND-
THE HOBERT ACT

THE Empire State, not certain that the teeth
of the Volstead Act were biting it hard
enough decided on April 4, 192 1, that it
would pass what is known to the man in the street
as the Mullan-Gage Law. It begins as follows :

"Sec. I. The penal law is hereby amended by inserting
therein a new article, to be article one hundred and thirteen."

It goes on to say: "The possession of liquors by any
person not legally permitted under this article to possess
liquor shall be prima facie evidence that such liquor is kept
for the purpose of being sold, bartered, exchanged, given
away, furnished or otherwise disposed 'of in violation of
the provisions of this article; and the burden of proof shall
be upon the possessor in any action concerning the same to
prove that such liquor was lawfully acquired, possessed and
used."

As every one knows, in ordinary cases a defendant
is considered innocent until proved guilty. But here
we see a dangerous reversal of that idea in juris-
prudence. Anyone carrying a flask would be con-
sidered, in the eyes of this law, a bootlegger, a pur-
veyor of illegal goods — in fact, a 'criminal 'even

though no evidence had been produced to prove him

120

The Mullan-Gage Law 121

so. In our anxiety to purify the nation, we have dis-
torted old established laws, turned reasoning topsy-
turvy, and once more made ourselves ridiculous—
in the Empire State at least.

"Of making many laws there is no end," one
might paraphrase Ecclesiastes. In his remarkably
interesting book, "Our Changing Constitution,"
Charles W. Pierson points out the growing dangers
which confront us, because of our repeated amend-
ments and addenda. He sounds many a warning,
and every American should read his brief but pro-
found volume.

"Whatever view one may hold to-day," he writes, "as
to the question of expediency, no thoughtful mind can
escape the conclusion that, in a very real and practical sense,
the Constitution has changed. In a way change is inevit-
able to adapt it to the conditions of the new age. There
is danger, however, that in the process of change some-
thing may be lost; that present-day impatience to obtain
desired results by the shortest and most effective method
may lead to the sacrifice of a principle of vast importance.

"The men who framed the Constitution were well ad-
vised when they sought to preserve the integrity of the
states as a barrier against the aggressions and tyranny of
the majority acting through a centralized power. The
words 'state sovereignty' acquired an odious significance
in the days of our civil struggle, but the idea for which they
stand is nevertheless a precious one and represents what
is probably America's most valuable contribution to the
science of government.

"We shall do well not to forget the words of that staunch
upholder of national power and authority, Salmon P. Chase,

122 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

speaking as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in a famous
case growing out of the Civil War:

" 'The preservation of the states, and the maintenance
of their governments, are as much w^ithin the design and
care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union
and the maintenance of the National Government. The
Constitution in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible
Union composed of indestructible states.' "

Yet today what do we find? The States re-
nouncing their sovereignty, abrogating their author-
ity to the central government, time and^ again di-
minishing their own strength, losing sight of one of
the very things on which the safety of our country
depends. Worse than that, some of them have at-
tempted to pass laws which seem totally unnecessary,
in the light of the already rigid Volstead Act. Wit-
ness the State of New Jersey, for instance, with the
Iniquitous Van Ness Act, which, fortunately, was
deemed unconstitutional.

Early in 192 1, Mrs. Frank W. Van Ness, while a
member of the New Jersey Assembly from Essex
County, of which Newark is the county seat, intro-
duced the act which provided that "whenever a com-
plaint is made before any magistrate that a person
has violated one or more of the provisions of this
act, it shall be the duty of such magistrate, and
every such magistrate is hereby given full power and
authority to issue his warrant to arrest any such per-
son so complained against, and, summarily, without
a jury and without any pleadings, to try the person

The Mullan-Gage Law 123

so arrested and brought before him and to deter-
mine and adjudge his guilt or innocence."

The Volstead Act plainly states that anyone
violating the provisions of that act is guilty of a
crime. Mrs. Van Ness's Act was an attempt to have
such persons, in the State of New Jersey, guilty of
disorderly conduct, which would not require a trial
by jury.

The New Jersey Legislature passed the Van Ness
Act, and other State prohibition laws, at its session
of 1921; but on February 2, 1922, the Court of
Errors and Appeals of New Jersey held that a num-
ber of the provisions of the Van Ness Act were un-
constitutional. The prevailing opinion was written
by Chancellor Walker, but there was a difference
among the judges as to the constitutionality of some
of the different provisions of the act, and other opin-
ions were also written. The Court of Errors and
Appeals is the Court of last resort In New Jersey,
and by Its judgment It reversed the Supreme Court
finding which had theretofore held the Van Ness
Act to be constitutional.

Mrs. Van Ness was a candidate for reelection in
the fall of 192 1, but was not reelected. Is there no
significance in this fact?

As old as Magna Charta Is the right of any citi-
zen to a trial by jury, when convicted of a crime;
and as old, too, as that sacred document, Is the
theory that one Is innocent until proved guilty. Yet
the Volstead Act has paved the way for politicians

124 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

without vision to seek to destroy these inalienable
rights.

*'Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Among other things, in the opinion handed down
in 1922, Chancellor Walker wrote :

"The act entitled 'An act concerning intoxicating liquors
used or to be used for beverage purposes,' passed March 29,
1 92 1, the short title of which is 'Prohibition Enforcement
Act/ commonly called the Van Ness Act, authorizing con-
victions for violation of its provisions by magistrates with-
out trial by jury, violates Article i, Sec. 7, of the Con-
stitution of New Jersey, 1844, which provides, inter alia,
that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate; and
also Id. Sec. 9, which provides, inter alia, that no person
shall be held to answer for a criminal offense unless upon
the presentment or indictment of a grand jury."

And another judge rendered this opinion:

"The Van Ness Act is invalid to the extent that it makes
violations of its provisions disorderly acts as distinguished
from those which are criminal in their nature because, prior
to its enactment, the Congress of the United States had
already declared by necessary implication in the federal
statute, commonly known as the Volstead Act, that a person
who violated any provision of the Eighteenth Amendment
to the Federal Constitution, should be guilty of crime."

The constitutional provision in the State of New
Jersey has long been known to be as follows :

"The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate; but
the legislature may authorize the trial of civil suits, when

The Mullan-Gage Law 125

the matter in dispute does not exceed fifty dollars, by a
jury of six men."

Chancellor Walker further pointed out that the
Constitution of 1776 had contained this provision:

"And . . . the inestim.able right of trial by jury shall
remain confirmed as part of the law of this colony, without
repeal, forever."

But though the Van Ness Act was declared un-
constitutional the work of suppression went on. The
Robert Act took its place. The Association Against
the Prohibition Amendment (New Jersey branch)
protested to Governor Edwards when the Bill was
passed. They pointed out that Chancellor Walker,
in his opinion in the Court of Errors and Appeals,
on page 18 of the decision dated February 2, 1922,
had said:

"New Jersey need not have passed any enforcement act
and could have left the field wholly to Federal endeavor
under the Volstead Act."

They likewise pointed out that there were no ad-
vantages whatsoever to the State of New Jersey
proceeding from such an act; but the disadvantages
were numerous and severe. It put upon the State
courts all the work, and upon the citizens of the
State all the expense of enforcing the national law.
They also showed how tyrannical the Act was in
certain sections. Section 16 reads as follows:

126 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

"Any officer engaged in the enforcement of this act who
shall search any private dwelling, as herein defined, which
is occupied as such dwelling, without a warrant directing
such search, or who, while so engaged, shall, without a
search warrant, maliciously and without reasonable cause
search any other building or property, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be punished
for a first offense by a fine of not more than one thousand
dollars, and for a subsequent offense by a fine of not more
than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not
more than one year or by both such fine and imprisonment."

It was shown that this section had been taken,
word for word, from the Amendment, forced upon
the United States Senate by the House in the Willis-
Campbell Bill and passed by the Senate on Novem-
ber 1 8, 192 1. The Stanley Amendment originally
offered In the Senate for the purpose of serving as
an enforcement act to the Fourth and Fifth Amend-
ments to the Constitution was passed unanimously
by the Senate after a thorough investigation and
after having been accepted by Senator Sterling who
had charge of the Bill. The House refused to ac-
cept the Amendment and put into the Bill the follow-
ing section:

"That any officer, agent, or employee of the United
States engaged in the enforcement of this act, of the na-
tional prohibition act, or any other law of the United
States, who shall search any private dwelling as defined in
the national prohibition act and occupied as such dwelling,
without a warrant directing such a search, or who while so
engaged shall without a search warrant maliciously and

The Mullan-Gage Law 127

without reasonable cause search any other building or prop-
erty shall be guilty of a misdemeanor," etc., etc.

Senator Ashurst, of Arizona, a dry Senator, and
one who said he had never cast a wet vote in his
life, refused to sign the conference report on the
ground that the language of this section did not pro-
tect the people in their rights. He was joined by
other dry Senators for the same reason. Senator
Reed, of Missouri, than whom there is no greater
Constitutional lawyer in the United States, in call-
ing attention to the words, "shall without a search
warrant maliciously and without reasonable cause,"
had this to say :

*'What is the plain inference to be drawn from that
language? First, you must have a warrant to search the
house. Second, if while you are searching the house you
proceed without a warrant to search the other building or
property you are not guilty of offense unless two things
concur: First, you must have been without any reasonable
cause to search the other buildings or property, and, second,
you must have acted maliciously. Notice the language. It
is worth your while. You are legislating for 110,000,000
people and you are putting this authority into the hands of
irresponsible men, proceeding without bond, armed with
big guns, and sent out among the people."

The Robert Bill invites Prohibition agents and
officers to go anywhere they desire without a search
warrant, with the absolute assurance that in their
unlawful occupation they are immune under the law.
"Malice" is the most difficult thing in the world to

128 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

prove — with the possible exception of "without rea-
sonable cause."

As a friend of mine, William L. Fish, says, "The
Van Ness Act was the Bill Sykes of legislation, while
the Hobert Act is the lago.^* Between two such
arch villains there is little choice. We are not re-
forming the country, but deforming it.

If the people are to lose such cherished rights,
there is little hope for America. Blind indeed are
those who cannot read the writing on the wall.
.Surely there must come a reaction against such in-
tolerable legislation.

Already one senses a change of feeling; for mil-
lions of us cannot be wrong when we claim that
disregard of the laws of the land is as serious a prob-
lem as the old problem of the corner saloon. If, in
correcting one evil, we bring to life greater evils,
are we on the right track?

Solemnly up and down that room the officer walked, glancing here and
there, after the manner oii a soldier in the late war standing guard over
military prisoners.

.."yws'wwpiWB^.'.i'jW'-^'-'^

CHAPTER XI

BOOTLEGGING AND GRAFT

PROHIBITION, being a phenomenon, has in-
evitably bred other phenomena. The most
ardent fighters for a dry United States are
the Prohibitionists themselves — and the bootleggers.
A new industry, which flourishes every day, despite
the honest attempts of the Government to suppress
it, has arisen. It brings in a fat profit to those who
enter it. An incredible army of active workers is
marching — or rather driving in motor-cars — through
the land, doing a prosperous business. They do not
deposit their earnings in our banks; for if they did
so, the federal authorities could force them to pay
an income tax. Instead, they put them in the pro-
verbial stocking; and after a suflicient number of
bank-notes — for it is usually a cash business that is
carried on — are available many of the bootleggers,
who are mostly foreigners, sail for parts unknown.
There they intend to spend the rest of their days in
peace and comfort and opulence. Why not?

I am writing of the evils of bootlegging not only
as they apply to a great city like New York. In a
certain western city of some 250,000 inhabitants —
a city in a State which went dry long before the con-

129

130 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

stitutlonal amendment— a woman told me that all
she had to do was to ring up her favorite bootlegger
when she was giving a dinner-party, and practically
anything she desired would be delivered at her door
within fifteen minutes. It is very difficult to get
evidence against these diligent business men, and I
have encountered only a few people who have con-
scientious scruples about dealing with them. It is
hard to be consistent concerning Volsteadlsm. If
the Act itself plays merry pranks on sea and shore,
why should not human beings likewise forget their
dignity once in a while?

The bootlegging evil has begotten another evil.
Graft is stalking^brqugh the land, hand"iri hand
with it. They are boon companions. They are in-
separable. Where one is, there you will always find
the other. Brothers in sin ; Siamese twins. Damon
and Pythias, Ruth and Naomi, were not more de-
voted. But their unholy alliance has none of .the
virtues of those ardent and ancient friendships.

There is always, in any illicit transaction, a man
higher up who must reap his share of the illegal
profits. Usually, the American public rebels at the
middleman, resents his grasping proclivities; but
nowadays, being humanly thirsty, it has no time to
quibble ; and so long as It gets its modicum of spirits,
it has little fault to find with the humanly fallible
protector of the bootlegger who must receive some
attention. It is willing toj)ay almost anything for
whiskey or gin, and ^ used to being^QneT^lt gooH-

Bootlegging and Graft 131

naturedly recognizes the authorities. along^ ^he way
who are in a position to open stores of the desired
stuff, aiid see tliat it is delivered_to^ the crowding
bootleggers. It is an endless chain; and to become
wealthy overnight has always been the dream of the
average American. With Prohibition, he sees an
02£ortunity such as never existed beTore, ^^nd thou-
sands are taking advantage of the situation.

When one considers the amount of revenue which
formerly poured into the coffers of the United States
treasury because of the tax on alcohol, and what the
loss of that money must mean today to the Govern-
ment, one realizes that in some manner the deficit
must be made up. The good old genial public is
again the goat, to fall into the vernacular. Prices
have risen since the passing of the Eighteenth
Amendment. Hotel proprietors, who formerly
counted upon a considerable income through their
bars, now find themselves forced to charge higher
prices for food. Time was when, if one failed to
order wine with .one's meals, an extra twenty-five
cents was asked. It was taken for granted that red
or white wine was a part of one's ration, as it were;
and those who failed to indulge in the luxury were
looked upon as rather curious specimens of hu-
manity. A table d'hote, with vin rouge^ was the reg-
ular thing; and the wine was included in the price
of the dinner. With the going out of all forms of
drinks, naturally there had to be a readjustment of
menu-cards. There is a tax now almost everywhere

132 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

for bread and butter; and a cover charge is made in
practically all the metropolitan restaurants. Grad-
ually, one notes, these "extras" are creeping in. One
cannot blame the hotel-keepers. Rents and wages
have increased since the War; therefore they must
ask more for their rooms, as well as for their dining-
room service. And where one formerly tipped in
moderation, the average waiter scorns anything less
than fifteen or twenty per cent of the amount of one's
check. The good-natured and long-suffering Ameri-
can people are imposed upon at every turn. And,
denied the privilege of consuming liquor openly, they
give dinners in their homes, where at least there
can be a semblance of harmless gayety. This causes
fewer people to go to the smart restaurants in a city
like New York; and generally there is no supper
crowd at all. Lights are dimmed early; and while
I am holding no brief for late hours, I do think that
human beings should be permitted to organize their
own lives, and decide for themselves whether a
supper-dance after the theater or the Opera is harm-
ful. At luncheon time the hotels present another
aspect. They still do a thriving business; but, as I
have said in a previous chapter, for many and many
a year there had been little drinking in the middle
of the day.

With fewer people to serve, and fewer meals to
serve, hotel men have been driven to ask more for
that service which they continue to render. The one
bright thought in this painful readjustment is the fact

Bootlegging and Graft 133

that the Prohibitionists must help the rest of us to
make up the loss of revenue. Their checks, hitherto
much less than ours, are now quite the same. But,
then, I imagine few of them have ever cared for
brilliant lights and smart napery, preferring to dine
in the dim sanctity of basements and back rooms at
an hour so early that daylight has hardly gone when
the "supper bell" rings. The color and joy of the
Ritz or the Plaza would scarcely appeal to a fanatic.

But to get back to the bootleggers. There are
many degrees of them. Some are honest; others are
not. Once in a while a gin bottle will contain noth-
ing but water ; and sometimes whiskey will have been
diluted, and near-beer sold as the regular thing. Yet
with an established trade, and recognized business,
conditions are improving. Even as there is honor
among thieves, the latest model of bootlegger must
play the game squarely; and those of the better class
frown upon chicanery, and are disgusted when
spurious material is sold. They realize that if in-
ferior liquor is delivered, sales may soon cease alto-
gether. Therefore those who have their best inter-
ests at heart — and their name is legion — are cautious
and painstaking, and will honestly tell a customer
whether he is buying synthetic gin or pre-Volstead
stuff.

I do not pretend to know the workings of this
nefarious trade ; but I do know this : that rnany Ital-
ians and Germans and h'vej[^.chvry^n^^^rruv^^
doing a thriving business, and are only too glad to

134 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

donate part of their enormous commissions to th^
local ring who, in return, offer them complete pro-
tection. And from talks which I have had with
various restaurant proprietors who likewise pay
graft regularly, I know that our Government has
lost the respect of practically every foreigner; for he
sees not only his own people defying the law, but the
Americans disobeying it under his nose. He says
that so long as there are grapes on vines and apples
on trees ; so long as fermentation is a natural process,
there will be drinking in the world; and he cannot
understand why it is against the law to take a sip of
red wine with one's spaghetti, or a nip of brandy
with one's coffee. It is all incomprehensible to him.
His children grow up, seeing him have no reverence
for the laws of the country he has adopted.

Of course the Prohibitionist will say that there
is a very simple solution of this. These foreigners
within our gates should succumb to the inevitable,
and obey the law. True. I wish that everyone
would obey the law. The way for children not to
be punished at school is for them to behave them-
selves. But it is difficult to force people to do some-
thing which it is inherently distasteful for them to do.
We invite immigration. We welcome hordes of
people to our shores — people who, we know, are
accustomed to taking wine and beer with their meals ;
and then we impose strict measures upon them, sud-
denly, and expect them to fall into line. We should
educate them first. We should let them know what

Bootlegging and Graft 135

the Constitution means, what it stands for. We
should insist that they learn our language, study the
history of the United States, absorb the meaning of
America before they attain citizenship. We are
loose with them; why should they not be loose with
us? They see that we are none too careful when we
allow them to cross our threshold; why should they
help us tidy up the house after they are safely
within it?

The truth is, if we would but face it, that we are
thorough in few things. We make a great pretense
at civic virtue and national righteousness, and we
neglect the fundamentals. To the core of things we
seldom wish to go.

The bootlegger, laughing in his sleeve at the
boasted and vainglorious spiritual integrity of
America, is but the natural result of our own folly.
He is as inevitable a part of so-called Prohibition as
feathers are a part of birds. As time goes on, his
business now conducted in secret may be conducted
openly. He may become a recognized figure in soci-
ety, since we can never suppress him utterly. He is
like the bounder in every club, the nouveau-riche in
every drawing-room. He has come to stay, more's
the pity. For an enormous percentage of Americans
approve of him, the while they disapprove of him.
They know his faults; but they say to themselves
that even Congressmen have faults; and they know
down deep in their hearts that many a Congressman
and many an exalted Judge patronize the bootlegger,

136 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

receive social calls from him, and even speak to him
on the telephone when they are "out" to others.
The bootleggers know all this. Why should they,
therefore, venerate a system which Is not treated
seriously by those In the highest places? We are
asking of them something superhuman. And the
latest development Is that the bootleggers are now
paying Income taxes, openly stating the source of
their earnings, with no fear of getting into trouble.

Meanwhile, the propaganda of the Anti-Saloon
League goes on in the newspapers, with this and that
report of how a "ring of bootleggers" has been
wiped out. We read of sensational raids in the big
cities; and there Is a cry that federal officers have
"broken" the whole system to pieces. Thousands of
quarts of Scotch have 'been confiscated — where It is
placed, no one seems to know. Dry agents. In their
zeal, even search hearses, and make the undertakers
— to say nothing of the bereaved relatives of the
deceased — quite angry. The time may come when
X-rays may be taken of innocent citizens, to dis-
cover whether they have been drinking liquor. Do
not smile. Anything Is possible when a great coun-
try allows itself to be governed by an organization of
fanatics who have intimidated Congress and seem
bent upon ruining our shipping Industry.

But it would appear almost Impossible to get
honest men to act in the capacity of spies. There Is
an everlasting "shake-up" of federal officials who
are supposed to see that the Volstead Act Is en-

Bootlegging and Graft 137

forced. Here again the human element enters —
that element which the fanatics never recognize.
The temptations are too great for the average
man. He knows that bootleggers are getting rich.
And soon he sees that if he closes his eyes and opens
his hand, he too can become a Croesus. At first, it
may be that he hesitates. There is danger of being
caught. Well, why not take a chance? he says to
himself. Others are doing it. After all, one has to
live, and a six-cylinder car would be nice. Thus Is
the voice of conscience quieted; and soon it ceases to
whisper at all. That little Italian restaurant in his
district — ah, yes ! they dispense drinks to the favored
few who know the ring the bell must be given. It
would be so easy to pretend that he does not know of
its existence; and Tony, after all, is not such a bad
sort. He'll hand over the kale, without a question,
without a murmur.

And so one more federal official goes to the dogs,
a man who until yesterday was honest. Knowing
that his lucrative career may be brief, he has deter-
mined to make hay while the sun shines. And Pro-
hibition has created another crook in the wicked
city, though of course it has cured a drunkard in the
virtuous country. And the Anti-Saloon people are
perfectly satisfied.

Are you ?

CHAPTER XII

**don't joke about prohibition''

NOT content with forcing us to close our lips
to liquor, the Prohibitionists recently sent
out a request, which amounted to an order,
that no one should open his lips to speak dispar-
agingly or in jest of the sacred Eighteenth Amend-
ment. We were to be denied the blessed privilege
of laughing at ourselves, even! I suppose that a
few fanatics — oh, merely to study life, bless their
hearts ! — had gone into a vaudeville theater and
had been incensed at the ribaldry of the actors and
the shrieks of mirth of the audience over Prohibition
wheezes. I have seen an assemblage in convulsions
when some light mention was made of Mr. Volstead;
and whenever a flask is displayed on the screen of
some movie house, there never fails to follow a
round of loud applause.

Our comic weeklies and newspaper supplements
continue to print Prohibition jokes, much to the
delight of their readers. One fearless periodical,
Judge, has come out openly for light wines and beer
— and lost a valued contributor thereby. Another
paper, on the contrary, solemnly prints this editorial,
headed "There Are Jokes and Jokes" :

138

'^Don^t Joke About Prohibition' 139

"A great concern operating vaudeville theaters in
most of the large cities has issued an order that all
performers must cut out their jokes about Prohibi-
tion. This is progress. It should be followed by-
orders to eliminate Prohibition jokes from our legis-
latures, courts, police stations, city halls, and all
other places where men supposed to be serious and
doing serious work are to be found. The outstand-
ing fact about Prohibition seems to be that people
forget that It came about through an amendment to
the United States Constitution."

Meanwhile, the mother-in-law joke is tolerated,
and roared at. It is perfectly all right for a man to
make fun of his wife's mother, since there is no
formal statute against such jests; but it is unthink-
able that he should laugh at himself because he can't
get a simple glass of beer. The country he fought
for, and was willing to die for, denies him an ancient
form of enjoyment. He could make fun openly of
negroes, though the Fifteenth Amendment tells him
that they are his peers.

The reformer, you see, never counted upon the
chaffing which the Volstead Act would have to stand.
Ridicule can kill anything, and they know it now.
Therefore, they must stop ridicule by mandate.
Heaven knows there is little to smile at these days —
except Prohibition. Are we to have that luxury
taken from us too?

It looks that way. Yet no law can control peo-
ple's innermost feelings. No request — amounting to

140 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

an order — can coerce a nation to do something it is
not impelled to do, of Itself. One remembers a sad
time, not so long ago, when we were begged to
remain neutral in thought, word and deed; and
notices were printed In theater programs, urging us
to make no demonstration when the troops of the
Allies crossed the screen; to give no sign when the
German army did likewise. Yet there was a burst
of applause or a burst of hisses, just the same. The
minds of a people cannot be controlled. It Is non-
sense to try to control them.

Now the fanatics would seek to rob us of the joy
of laughter. For of course they despise and detest
laughter. Laughter — ridicule — Is a sword that can
be used against them. We can make this whole
business of Prohibition so ludicrous that we can
laugh It out of the statutes. Guffaws have disturbed
many a solemn meeting; and a single cartoon has
broken many a promising politician. One may be
able to stand up against a serious argument; but
lampooning has destroyed even men of genius.

All was to be well the moment the Eighteenth
Amendment became a fact. Everyone was going to
sit still and take it very seriously, just as the Prohi-
bitionists had planned. The lid was on, and on it
would remain — forever and ever. Puritans have no
sense of humor, or they would not be Puritans.
They had not dreamed that someone would over-
turn the can on which the lid was placed, and,
through sheer joy of living, shout and sing as of old.

''Dont Joke About Prohibition' 141

The habits of generations cannot be changed in a
moment. We who had been accustomed to decent
drinking did not intend to stop at once. We would
"taper off," as the topers put it. We had laid aside
a little supply of jollity, and the word would go
about that So-and-so had a large enough and deep
enough cellar to permit him to entertain for at least
three or four years.

One of the strange things about Prohibition was
the fact that, with its coming, everyone imagined
that everyone else would turn miser concerning
treating. But here again the human element was
forgotten. Everyone seems more anxious than ever
to prove ihat his bootlegger has an exhaustless sup-
ply; and a certain pride is taken in handing out innu-
merable drinks. An aristocracy has arisen that even
serves liqueurs after coffee — as though a plethora of
creme de menthe and yellow and green chartreuse
were in the land. The proverbial generosity of the
American was never more in evidence. Where one
was niggardly, perhaps, in the old days, one can
scarcely afford to be so now; and those who accept
drinks without returning them are frowned upon as
unworthy. They are the outcasts of a new society,
the lowest form of hanger-on. Of course they are
not nearly so numerous as of old; therefore they are
more conspicuous.

And so the laughter goes on; but even when the
reformers do not hear it, they writhe, knowing of its
existence. Once in a great while some echo reaches

142 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

them, no doubt. Things have not ''straightened
out" as they had anticipated; and so they squirm,
and rage, and puff up, and devise ways and means to
call a complete halt on all merriment, whether it is
directed at them or not.

In all seriousness a woman's temperance society
sent a mandate to every editor in the United States
not long ago, bidding them cease satirizing Prohibi-
tion. It would not do, they contended, to continue
to smile at the sacred Eighteenth Amendment. Mr.
Volstead, also, was sacrosanct; and it was outra-
geous the way piety was pooh-poohed, and what did
the editors mean by such conduct, and why didn't
they stop it and obey teacher and be good?

And every government official, when he gets up
at a banquet to make a speech, begs his hearers to
heed the law — though he knows full well that down
the street another banquet may be going on, at-
tended by officials equally high, where the law is
never thought of. It is a sad commentary on our
government when it is necessary thus to address the
people. "We must be one people, one union — and
that the American Union," shouted one representa-
tive of the government speaking in Chicago before a
business men's convention. And he went on to say,
"Whenever a newspaper ridicules a law, plays up a
policy of contempt for law and its enforcement and
in its news and editorial columns fosters law-break-
ing, that newspaper is doing more to destroy Ameri-
can Institutions than a Federal Judge can do to main-

''Dont Joke About Prohibition' 143

tain them. . . . No man In public life who is pos-
sessed of vision and realizes his responsibility to
Government would favor regulation of the public
press by law, but it is obvious that the power of the
press must- not be used to foster disrespect for our
Government and disobedience to its laws."

Free speech will not be tolerated, if the fanatics
have their way. Yet the first article In the Amend-
ments to the Constitution says :

^'Congress shall make no law respecting an estab-
lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances."

In order that the Eighteenth Amendment may be
upheld, the First may be forgotten.

But to get back for a moment to the ladies of the
somethlng-or-other temperance society. A brilliant
writer, Mr. Edward S. Martin, answered them de-
lightfully in Harper^s Magazine; and with the kind
permission of the editors of that periodical, I am
privileged to make extracts from his article. Mr.
Martin never loses his temper, as the ladies certainly
did. He remains, as ever, the tactful, urbane, pity-
ing occupant of the editor's easy-chair. He does not
even frown. He speaks from a long experience,
gently but to the point :

"The enforcement of Prohibition meets with
some obstacles and furnishes food for thought to

144 I'he Rise and Fall of Prohibition

two large groups in the community — the people who
want it enforced and the people who occasionally
want something to drink. Just at the moment it
seems as if the people who want a drink are some-
what ahead of the other group in the competition;
at any rate, the group that wants enforcement seems
to think it necessary to make extra effort. To
Harper^s Magazine^ as doubtless to hundreds of
other periodicals, has come a communication from
the Committee for Prohibition Enforcement of a
much-respected and powerful organization of
women, which announces that the committee has
adopted a program, the items of which it communi-
cates. The fifth item Is to the effect that all the
ministers be urged to preach and teach the necessity
for respect for and observance of the law. The
sixth item runs, 'That every theatrical manager,
movie manager, and editor, whether of a daily,
weekly or monthly publication, be requested to see
that all jokes ridiculing Prohibition and its enforce-
ment are eliminated from any production, film, or
article coming under his jurisdiction, and that the
matter be treated with that seriousness that the sub-
ject merits; and that this resolution be thrown on
the screen and printed in the different papers and
magazines throughout the country.'

"The demand for protection from jokes is often
made and always Implies that there is something
that needs to be joked about. There is a sin called
'sacrilege.' If we joke about things that are sacred

''Dont Joke About Prohibition' 145

to enough people, It gives a kind of offense which,
even if the law does not punish it, it is not safe to
excite. There is a sin of blasphemy, which we sup-
pose the law will still punish if it is gross enough. It
will be agreed that the considerate people do not
jest about sacred things, nor even about things
which, though not sacred to themselves, are sacred
to the people they are talking to. Well, then, is
Prohibition one of these sacred things we must
not talk about? Are amendments of the Consti-
tution and the Volstead law to rank with the
Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the
Mount as not being safely subject to derisive com-
ment?

'^Something like that seems to be in the minds of
the women whose communication we have received,
who include item six in their program, but if so, their
attitude is wrong. A constitutional amendment is
not sacred, much less a Volstead Act. It is the
Volstead law that the jokes on Prohibition are aimed
at more than the amendment. If we cannot joke
about an act of Congress, then indeed things have
come to a restricted pass. If a law is bad, one of the
ways to beat it is to laugh it out of court. If that is
being done about the Volstead law, the ladies who
want that law enforced would do well to examine it
and see why it is not enforced, rather than try to
stop jokers from laughing at it.

"A letter writer to a newspaper says, 'If it is true
that a community gets the kind of government it

146 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

deserves, it is equally true that a law gets the kind of
obedience it deserves.' His assertion may be dis-
puted, but still, if the Volstead law is not being
respected, is it certain that it deserves respect? It
is a law in the process of being tried out. If it is
good we want it enforced. If it is bad we want it
amended, but we do not want to be choked off from
discussing it or testing it. There is no power in
Congress to say what is right or wrong. The most
that Congress can do is to say what is lawful or
unlawful. The distinction is important. The prac-
tical judge of whether a law is right or wrong is the
general community to which the law applies. If that
community will not back up the enforcement of the
law, it will not be enforced. It is yet to be demon-
strated how far the Volstead law, as it stands, is
enforceable. If its fruits do not please a majority
of the people who live under it, it may have to be
modified so that it will stand for something that is
near enough to be the popular judgment of what is
right to win popular support. There is a great deal
of good in the present Prohibition movement. It
put the saloons out of business. It checked the
brewers and distillers in their over-strenuous efforts
to sell their products. It accomplished benefits
which probably could not have been accomplished
except by the kind of clean sweep that the amend-
ment was. But it was necessarily a rough job — an
experiment to be tried out in practice. If its rules
need modification, they may get it or they may not,

''Dont Joke About Prohibition' 147

but if not, they may be practically modified in
enforcement.

"Who is boss in this country? Is it the President,
the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, the state
authorities, the newspapers, the lawyers, the minis-
ters, the doctors, or possibly the women?

"None of them! Public opinion is the boss. In
the long run, what public opinion demands it gets.
Laws to be of any worth have to have sanction.
That is, there must be something to make people who
violate them feel that they are doing wrong. The
laws of nature have abundant sanction. If you fool
with the law of gravitation, you get bumped. There
Is no trouble about the enforcement of the law of
gravitation. Nobody goes around begging you not
to ridicule it. It takes care of itself, and if you flout
it you pay the consequences. The Ten Command-
ments have a sanction of long experience. Some of
them are obsolete, but the others are respected, and,
though they are not directly enforced by the courts,
laws based on them are so enforced. Public opinion
hereabouts rests very considerably on the Ten Com-
mandments. They have shaped the habits of
thought and deportment of many millions of people,
including most of those now living in this country.

"The trouble with the present enforcement of
Prohibition Is that It has not yet got moral sanction
enough to make It effective. Public opinion will back
up the law in closing the saloons and restricting and
regulating the sale of intoxicants, but it does not

148 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

follow it, for one thing, in defining a beverage with
an alcoholic content of one half of one per cent as
intoxicating. When it comes to that, public opinion
laughs, because that is contrary to its experience.
Furthermore, public opinion shows as yet no par-
ticular fervor about achieving a total stoppage of
alcoholic supplies from those who want them. No
serious stigma attaches to violations of the Volstead
law by private buyers. Fines and like embarrass-
ments may result, but not disrepute. A good many
fairly decent people seem to buy what they want,
and do not conceal it. The people who thought
before the law was adopted that it was wicked or
inexpedient to drink intoxicants, still think so. The
people who thought otherwise continue to think
otherwise. Many people drink less than before the
law began to operate, but a good many other people
drink more, and buy much worse beverages at much
higher prices. To some extent Prohibition seems to
have made drinking popular by diminishing the indi-
vidual discouragement of it and putting the responsi-
bility for the maintenance of temperance on a law
and the officers who enforce it. That may be only
a temporary effect, but if it turns out that the
Volstead law, as it is, cannot be enforced at the
present time, there may possibly be an effort to tinker
it — to put it into such shape that public opinion will
stand back of it and give it a sanction. The alter-
native would be to wait and see what effect time will
have on men and habits. There is no one to tell us

''Don't Joke About Prohibition' 149

that we shall be damned if we disobey the Volstead
law, and so long as juries refuse to convict persons
who violate it, it stands modified in practice. . . .

"The organizations, political, commercial, reli-
gious, that seek to shape public opinion all use propa-
ganda. We all know what that means because we
have all had such a surfeit of it. During the War
we were flooded with it and everyone learned what
it was and how to use it. It is put out by speakers,
on the movie screens and in print wherever possible.
Organization secured Prohibition, but organization
is not public opinion and may for a time override it.
Organization works on the run with noise and big
headlines and meetings and even with threats. Pub-
lic opinion slowly takes form in the minds of indi-
viduals. There comes in Lincoln's saying about the
impossibility of fooling all the people all the time.
Propaganda may overwhelm private judgment for a
time, but private judgment keeps on working after
propaganda ceases. It digests what has been offered
to it. The common facts of life continue to appeal
to it and impress it. It views what propaganda has
accomplished and slowly and deliberately considers
whether it is good, and if it concludes that it is not
good it ceases to back it and then there has to be
something different, something that looks like
improvement. . . ."

CHAPTER XIII

HOW CANADA HAS SOLVED THE LIQUOR PROBLEM

Sing a Song of Montreal,

A barrel full of rye ;
Four-and-nventy Yankees

Feeling rather dry;
When the barrel was opened

They all began to sing,
"Oh, to hell with Mr. Volstead —

And God save the King!"

THE Dominion of Canada has solved its
liquor problem, for the most part. It is
interesting to note that in those Provinces
which are technically dry, a wretched state of things
exists, as in the United States; and those Provinces
which have government control are well ordered.
For instance, Nova Scotia has absolute Prohibition.
I went there in May and June, 1922, and, as in the
States, I never lacked for a drink when I desired one.
Practically every chemist is a bootlegger.

To show you how badly the system works, let me
tell of a personal experience. I found myself one
week-end in a little village which shall be nameless.
I inquired of the inn-keeper if it would be possible to
obtain a bottle of whiskey. ^'Certainly,*' he said.
"Simply go to the drug-store, tell him you are a

150

How Canada Solved the Liquor Problem 151

guest of mine, and I think you will have no difficulty
in getting a good brand."

I was surprised, to say the least. It chanced to be
a Sunday morning. The church bells were ringing,
and as I got to the door of the shop, the druggist
was just leaving it — he lived above it, I believe — for
morning service. I told him my errand; and imme-
diately, without the slightest hesitation, he opened
the door, took me in, and sold me what I wished.
He hadn't the slightest idea who I was; yet perhaps
it was evident that I was an American traveler. No
questions were asked, and openly I carried my bottle
through the streets back to the inn.

In New Brunswick I obtained ale openly In a
hotel; and the waitress told me that almost on every
other corner of the city in which I was stopping, a
bootlegger could be found; and if I made my wishes
known there would be no difficulty in purchasing any-
thing I wanted. As it happened, I wished nothing
there; but it was good to know that it could have
been bought any time of the day or evening.

But in the Province of Quebec and in British
Columbia quite another state of affairs will be found.
The Government controls the liquor trade, and
guarantees the quality of the alcohol sold. Neat
little Government Liquor Stores, as they are called,
are in every city and town, and a vendor has charge
of each one— a regular Government employee who
is ^'responsible for the carrying-out of the Govern-
ment Liquor Act and the regulations so far as they

152 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

relate to the conduct of the store and the sale of
liquor thereat/'

Everything Is done In a most orderly and system-
atic way. If one wishes to purchase whiskey, he
merely applies to the vendor In his neighborhood.
A small fee Is charged; and It Is a gratification to
know that this fee goes directly to one's Govern-
ment, and not into the pockets of bootleggers. Sup-
plies are delivered in sealed packages, duly Inscribed;
and again It Is a gratification to know that one is In
no danger of drinking poison, with the added fear
of death or blindness.

There are restrictions — a great many. Indeed;
but they are wise and for the best Interests of the
Province. For Instance, It Is against the law to
drink In the Government stores; but one may, of
course. In an Inn have a supply of liquor In one's
room, or drink light wines and beer In the public
dining-room. Drunkenness Is taboo, and one sees
very little of it. The people are prosperous, and
everyone is as happy as one can be In this troubled
world. Canada had enormous war debts. I was
told that British Columbia had paid her quota, and
in addition had made many improvements of public
highways — all through the revenue derived from
the Government's sale of liquor.

In British Columbia, great care Is exercised that
no spurious permits are received at the stores. The
law provides that "no permit shall be delivered to
the applicant until he has, In the presence of the

How Canada Solved the Liquor Problem 153

Vendor or official to whom the application is made,
written his signature thereon In the manner pre-
scribed, for purposes of his identification as the
holder thereof, and the signature has been attested
by the Vendor or official under his hand."

Permits are not issued to corporations, associa-
tions, societies or partnerships. Therefore the op-
portunities for fraud are diminished. And on poll-
ing days all the stores are closed. In pre- Volstead
times In the United States the law distinctly said
that our saloons should remain closed on Election
Day in many of the big cities; yet was this regula-
tion— a very wise one — ever enforced? That Is one
reason why we have Prohibition today — we simply
would not obey even those moderate and salutary
laws enacted for the welfare of the community.
The saloon-keeper paid not the slightest heed to
them; in fact, he scoffed at them; and that is why he
has no sympathy from the rest of us, now that his
foul places are gone forever.

One would not be so foolish as to assert that a
state of perfection has been reached in the Govern-
ment-controlled Provinces. Bootlegging goes on —
but principally because this country is dry. If the
States were also under Government control in the
matter of the liquor traffic, there would be no temp-
tation to transport stuff illicitly over the border. I
imagine that the Canadians are quite as guilty as the
Americans when it comes to these secret transac-
tions; for if it takes two to make a quarrel, it is

1^4 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

equally true that It takes two to consummate a sale
of any kind. There would be a cleaner slate if we
had the common sense to do as, say, Quebec has
done. There are no swinging-door saloons; but
there are tidy shops where one is not ashamed to go.
No one is drinking on the sly, pretending to be con-
suming coffee out of a cup which really contains a
high-ball. ''In vino demi-tasse" is not the motto of
Canada, as it is that of the United States.

It is significant to note that in British Columbia,
when that Province was completely dry — even with-
out beer — 141,057 prescriptions for liquor were
issued; yet in the fiscal year which ended March 31,
1922, only 6,568 prescriptions were Issued.

And while our own Government continues to ask
for mighty appropriations for the enforcement of
Prohibition, the reports from the Province of Que-
bec state that for the fiscal year ending in June, 1922,
a profit of $4,000,000 was realized, and that the
regulations have proved quite as successful morally
as financially.

Can we say that, in the matter of morals, the
Volstead Act has worked advantageously? It has
undermined the whole country; and under fanati-
cism, we have shown ourselves to be a total failure.
The New York World says :

"The Quebec law Is a good law because it has city and
country solidly behind It and It can be enforced. It pro-
vides for local option, It restricts the purchase of spirits, it
allows the sale of wine and beer in cafes and it creates no

How Canada Solved the Liquor Problem 155

enforcement problem. It affects every legitimate reform
advocated by the professional Prohibitionists of the United
States, but quietly, sensibly, profitably and without friction."

If we could but come to the sanity of Canada, in
her Government-controlled Provinces !

p

CHAPTER XIV

CRIME AND DRUNKENNESS

ROMISES were made by the reformers that
with the advent of Prohibition the country
would witness a great lessening of crime and
drunkenness. Pur prisons ~were to be almost
emptied. Unemployment would be practically un-
hearJ^of; and the health of the people would be
infinitely better.

Never has the country suffered more from strikes
than during that period between 1920 and the pres-
ent time. Labor is still restless, for all the sancti-
monious predictions of the Anti-Saloon League. We
see, then, that law and order do not come when we
harness a people's will. Would that they did ! Life
would be simple then. People are bound to burst
their bonds and fetters now and then. The spurt of
the geyser goes on, no matter how we seek to sup-
press it. Old Faithful performs every hour in
Yellowstone Park; and I suppose that until time is
no more, men will go on shouting about their rights,
despite such empty reforms as Prohibition; will go
on holding grievances, demanding a remedy of
wrongs, and generally raising Cain. Obstreperous
behavior is not the result of drunkenness — always.

156

Crime and Drunkenness 157

People are humanly fond of cavorting, even without
the aid of a stimulant. And so the strikes go mer-
rily on, and workingmen who were placid under beer
are found to be thinkers under Volsteadism.

The headlines in our papers continue to be sensa-
tional, in these times that were to be so quiet. Mjiir.
ders still occur, strangely enough; and hold-ups of
the most brazen kind take place everywhere. Dia-
mond ear-rings are snatched from ladies driving in
the Park of an evening, houses are entered by
ruffians who tie up the servants and the master and
mistress and calmly go through the premises, taking
what they wish. It is all very shocking, very ter-
rible ; but human nature has a way of remaining what
it is. It was thqughtjluit-only^r^mkands. committed
such heinous crimes. \VejBnd that men of sobriety
are equally culpable. The millennium has not ar-
rived; and our prisons are still densely populated,
much as the reformers may deny the disconcerting
fact. One is shocked at the continuance of out-
rageous crimes; and if, after three years of experi-
ment with the abolishment of booze, we still face a
wave of disorder and confusion, there seems little
hope of that future of roses and sweetness and light
so glibly prophesied.

Hard times continue to confront us, though the
fat pay-envelope to the wife and children of the
workingman was to be a weekly event. Ananalysis
qf^official. figures shows an increase of 44 per cent in
the arrests for drunkenness in 192 1 over 1920, and

158 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Stuyvesant Fish has shown that the largest industrial
life insurance company reports a^increase of 50 per
cent^in deaths due to alcoholism in 192 1, the second
''dry" year. The statistical Bulletin of the Metro-
politan Life Insurance Company, April, 1922, con-
tained these words :

"There have been marked increases in the death rates
for heart disease, B right's disease and apoplexy In recent
months among the Industrial policyholders of the Met-
ropolitan Life Insurance Company. Small increases in the
mortality from these diseases had been noticed early in
November of last year, but the change attracted little at-
tention and caused little comment. The possibility that it
marked a definite check in the favorable tendency shown
for several years for each of these diseases was not seriously
considered. By December, howes^er, the death rate had
taken a more decided upward turn for each disease. Organic
heart disease registered a rate of 124.9 as compared with
1 18.4 In November; the apoplexy rate rose from 62.9 to
70.6, and that for Bright's disease from 69.1 to 71.9. By
January It had become apparent that for two of these
diseases, at least, a definite upward tendency was in progress.
The heart disease rate Increased sharply from the December
figure of 124.9 to 137.2, and that for chronic nephritis
went up nearly three points over the December figure.
The apoplexy rate for this one month fell somewhat. In
February the heart disease figure rose even more sharply
than for January (to 153.4), the nephritis rate again
Increased slightly (to 75.8) and that for apoplexy returned
to approximately the December level. By March the rate
for organic heart disease had reached 168.2 per 100,000,
one of the highest figures ever recorded In any one month
among Metropolitan Industrial policyholders. The March
rates for chronic nephritis (87.5) and for apoplexy (75.8)

Crime and Drunkenness 159

are both the highest registered for those diseases since
March, 1920."

The Association Against the Prohibition Amend-
ment, Inc., has collected statistics to prove that crime
has by no means diminished since the passage of the
Volstead Act; and with their kind permission I
give a tabulated list of twenty cities In the United
States, which, under Prohibition, have revealed an
increase In arrests for all sorts of crimes. These are
the^officlal figures In each city.

At random I have taken some statistics from vari-
ous parts of the country, to show how drunkenness
has not disappeared since the passage of the Elght-
eenth Amendment. Rather, has it increased. In
Baltimore, Marylandi" for instance, the arrests for
drunkenness during the period between January and
April, 1922, were over two-thirds as many as for the
entire year of 192 1.

April, 1922 354

April, 1 92 1 238

April, 1920 69

January to December, 192 1 3,258

January to December, 1920 1,785

In the State of Wyoming, the total number of
prisoners In jail on July i, 1922, was 561. On
July I, 19 17, there were but 452.

Judge Cavanagh of Chicago estimated that there
were from 7,500 to 8,000 cases of murder and
manslaughter In the United States in 1921. But the

i6o The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

CRIME UNDER PROHIBITION IN THIRTY AMERICAN

CITIES

Drunkenness and

Arrests Disorderly

Population All Causes Conduct

1920 1920 1921 1920 1921

Philadelphia 1,823,779 73,015 83,136 20,443 27,115

Detroit 995,678 43,309 50,676 5,989 6,349

Boston 748,060 58,817 72,161 22,341 31,794

Baltimore 733,826 41,988 54,602 13,443 20,496

Pittsburgh 588,343 36,572 41,820 14,373 16,990

Buffalo 506,775 24,436 32,377 8,491 9,650

San Francisco 506,676 26,672 30,106 2,794 6,005

Milwaukee 457,147 10,545 15,520 2,400 3,481

Cincinnati 401,247 14,175 21,973 2,062 3,106

Minneapolis 380,582 10,608 17,874 2,982 6.051

Portland, Ore 258,288 18,445 30,856 3,654 4,379

Denver 256,491 12,947 19,649 1,847 3,163

Louisville 234,891 7,857 9,6oi 1,092 2,361

St. Paul 234,698 5,638 10,077 1,902 4,319

Oakland, Cal 216,281 3,706 4,497 1,261 2,191

Akron, Ohio 208,435 12,558 10,104 5,228 3,939

Birmingham 178,806 16,786 21,488 2,886 4,612

Richmond 171,667 12,706 15,532 1,563 i,953

New Haven 162,537 7,934 8,465 3,186 3,184

Dallas 158,976 26,058 35,848 1,219 1,338

Hartford 138,036 8,072 7,395 4,057 3,207

Paterson 135,875 4,058 3,809 1,637 i,509

Springfield, Mass. . . 129,614 3,757 4,574 625 920

Des Moines 126,468 4,465 4,982 1,530 1,598

Trenton 119,289 5,693 5,577 1,550 1,426

Salt Lake City .... 118,110 7,728 7,505 883 909

Albany 113,344 3,216 4,168 578 900

Cambridge, Mass... 109,694 3,822 4,664 871 1,423

Spokane 104,437 6,478 7,237 933 1,311

Kansas City, Kas... 101,177 4,774 4,129 45 133

Total 10,417,227 516,835 640,402 131,855 185,808

Total in 30 Cities 1920 1921 Increase

Violation of Prohibition Laws 9,375 18,976 102.0%

Drunken Autoists 1,513 2,743 81.0%

Thefts and Burglary 24,770 26,888 9.0%

Homicide 1,086 2,124 12.7%

Assaults and Battery 21,147 23,977 i34%

Drug Addictions, etc 1,897 2,745 44.6%

Police Department Costs $31,193,639 $34,762,196 11.4%

Crime and Drunkenness i6i

Special Commission on Law Enforcement of the
American Bar Association, In Its official report made
on August loth, 1922, stated that there were no less
than 9,500 "unlawful homicides" In this country In
192 1. The average per day was twenty-six. In the
previous year there were at least 9,000 such homi-
cides. In the first nine months and a half of 1922
there were 10 1 ''unlawful homicides" in Philadelphia
alone, as compared with the same number during all
of 192 1. In the same city, the arrests for violation
of the dry law numbered 32,281, for the period
between January and September, 1922. Of these,
25,925 were "drunk and disorderly."

In Providence, Rhode Island, drunkenness has
increased 85 per cent since 19 19. In Rochester,
New York, crimes of violence In 192 1 numbered
607, as against 488 In 19 17. In the latter year there
were 323 arrests for burglary, while In 192 1 there
were no less than 502. It has been reported that the
western part of the State has become the victim of a
new crop of young, educated and what are called
"polished" crooks.

Sing Sing prison deported no less than sixty pris-
oners to Auburn In May, 1922, because of over-
crowding.

The warden of Sing Sing, to whom I wrote, asking
for figures as to the Inmates received at his prison,
very graciously and with unprecedented promptness
sent me the following report, and told me I could
make my own deductions :

1 62 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

((

tl

u

«

((

Fiscal year ending June 30th, 1917 1071

" 1918 1197

" 1919 1073

" 1920 1490

" 1921 1414

" 1922 1613

Figures do not lie.

Yet the Prohibitionists insist that conditions are
better than ever before, and I have seen otherwise
intelligent citizens take it for granted that the figures
given by a speaker at some uplift meeting were
correct. Few of us go to the trouble of verifying
statistics. But the fact remains that passionate
crimes continue, murders of unprecedented cruelty
are committed all the time, and a heaven on earth is,
I fear, remote from us.

CHAPTER XV

THE LITERARY DIGEST'S CANVASS

THE cry has gone up from time to time since
the passage of the Volstead Act that the
country at large wanted — nay, had de-
manded, Prohibition. The Literary Digest, hearing
and noting these reiterations, decided to investigate
the feeling of the land. They would have a referen-
dum of the people through a straw vote; and they
would get, in that way, at the truth.

Many of us were not at all sure of the sentiment in
communities like the Far and Middle West. We
knew that the South, for reasons best known to itself,
had favored large arid territories; but the East had
remained insistently wet. Therefore, It was a big
surprise, when the Literary Digesfs returns began
to come In, to discover that In many sections a re-
verse feeling flourished from that which had been
anticipated. It must have proved a shock to the
Anti-Saloon League, In Its smug complacency, to
learn that many citizens, like a man I met In Omaha,
declared that he was greatly In favor of Prohibition
— until we got it.

Indeed, many feel just like that. Conditions are

163

164 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

certainly intolerable wherever I have been. Drunk-
enness may have disappeared from the sidewalks,
but it has taken to the taxicab ; and though the corner
saloon has gone (I hope forever) the hip-flask has
taken its place, on the south-east corner of many an
individual.

So much had been said and written of the feeling
of the country, that the Digest (the editor-in-chief
is a Prohibitionist, if I am not mistaken) went right
to the heart of the thing, in no uncertain manner.
Much discussion had taken place as to the temper of
the people, and there seemed no way of arriving at
the truth.

Ten million blanks were sent out, to every kind
of voter. The Bonus for Soldiers and Sailors was
more or less tied up with Prohibition. Therefore it
was deemed wise to try to get the popular sentiment
on both questions at the same time.

The questionnaire, in the form of a ballot, was as
follows :

Secret Ballot on Prohibition and Soldiers' Bonus

No Signature — No Condition — No Obligation

Mark and Mail at Once

PROHIBITION : (Put a cross (x) in the square only
opposite the policy you favor)
A. Do you favor the continuance and
strict enforcement of the Eighteenth
Amendment and Volstead Law?

The Literary Digesfs Canvass 165

B. Do you favor a modification of the
Volstead Law to permit light wines
and beers?

C. Do you favor a repeal of the Prohi-
bition Amendment?

Mark (X) in ONE
Square Only

SOLDIERS' BONUS: (Put a cross (x) in the square

Yes No

Do you favor a Federal Bonus for all
American Soldiers and Sailors who
wore the Uniform during the World
War?

It is important to Mark and Return This Ballot Imme-
diately.

Every precaution was taken to obviate dishon-
esty; but I suppose as there never was an election
without trouble at the polls — It would be expecting
too much of human beings to believe otherwise — so
In this solicitation there may have been a few dupli-
cate votes to swell the general average, one way or
the other. Yet the Digest had confidence In the
returns; and through their canvass of the various
States we have come to see that there are not only
"wets" and "drys," but a third enormous party of
what we might call *'moIsts." By this term Is meant
the people who wish a modification of the Volstead
Act, permitting the sale of light wines and beer.
Indeed, this party predominated in the final returns.

1 66 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

The Anti-Saloon League has scorned the Digests
figures; yet one has a feeling that if the showing
had been in favor of a strict observance and uphold-
ing of the present Prohibition law, a different atti-
tude might have been observed on its part. It is but
human, after all, to wish the tide to turn in the di-
rection one has spiritedly advocated. Even the
"moists" must have been surprised at their own bril-
liant showing.

It was in July, 1922, that the first reports were
made ; and the Digest was amazed when the ballots
of the first hundred thousand poured in.

Those in favor of a strict enforcement numbered

32,445-

Those in favor of a modification numbered
39.665.

Those in favor of a repeal of the Prohibition
Amendment numbered 22,547.

As to the Soldiers' Bonus, the vote was almost
even. Yes, 46,609. No, 47,469.

"Dampness seems to predominate," the Digest
said. "The most startling fact revealed by this first
tally is that the early voters are against the con-
tinuance and enforcement of the present Prohibition
law by the proportion of nearly two to one. On the
other hand, the voters show themselves in favor of
the Prohibition Amendment, or, in other words, in
favor of some sort of a Prohibition law, by the even
larger ratio of 72,000 to 22,500."

The editors were exceedingly fair in their ap-

The Literary Digest's Canvass 167

pralsement of conditions. They stated that "In Kan-
sas, the votes run iii for strict enforcement, 34
for modification and 14 for repeal of the Amend-
ment. Thus the Prohibitionists, it is seen, outnum-
ber the combined 'moists' and 'wets' by almost three
to one, a situation that is duplicated in no other
State. Since this early vote was tabulated, a large
number of returns have come in for Kansas and,
even though we may be anticipating next week's
report of votes, it may be mentioned that this large
vote is a striking verification of the conditions indi-
cated by the small vote shown here. Kansas is for
Prohibition, by approximately three to one. It is a
significant fact, also, that this State has tried a dry
regime for a number of years, and knows better than
most others how it works."

But here again no thinking man, it seems to me,
has a right to find fault with a State which wishes
earnestly to go dry. Local option is sensible and
reasonable; a certain territory could fence itself in,
as it were, guarding itself from a menace, making
all the strict laws it desired to protect Its people
from what it considered a tremendous evil. But it
has no right to inflict its statutes upon Its friendly
neighbors, any more than the United States has a
right to restrict drinking on the ocean, forbidding
foreign vessels to enter our ports with cargoes of
sealed spirits.

It is interesting to note how the various States
voted in this preliminary canvass.

1 68 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

DETAILED TABULATION OF THE FIRST RETURNS ON
PROHIBITION

NEW ENGLAND For

STATES Enforcement

1— MAINE 24

2— N. H 16

3— VT 16

4— MASS 4,242

5-R- 1 7

6— CONN 34

TOTAL VOTES 4,339

MroOLE ATLANTIC STATES

I— N. Y 6,169

2 — N. J 29

3— PENN 8,307

TOTAL VOTES 14,505

For

For

Modification

Repeal

17

17

13

3

6

6

4,862

2,805

14

17

39

20

4,951

2,868

9,315

45
9,139

4,966

27

6,573

i»,499

,566

^ST NORTH CENTRAL STATES

I— OHIO

829

716

250

2— IND

152

73

33

3— ILL

9,312

12,012

6,621

4— MICH

125

84

36

5— Wise

75

69

22

TOTAL VOTES 10,493

12,954

6,963

WEST NORTH CENTRAL STATES

I— MINN

2_I0WA

3— MO

4— N. DAK

5— S. DAK

6— NEBR

7— KANS

TOTAL VOTES

89

"3

100

16

21

72

ZII

82

17

88

23

67

33

17

I

9

2

44

19

34

14

522

341

109

SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES

1— DEL

2— MD

3— D. C

4— VA

6

15
14
28

4
27

27
27

3

36

8

9

The Literary Digest's Canvass 169

For For For
Enforcement Modification Repeal
South Atlantic States — Cont'd.

5— W. VA 18 3o 4

6— N. CAR 33 14 7

7— S. CAR 10 n 4

8— GA 24 27 12

9— FLA II 4 8

TOTAL VOTES 158 161 91

EAST SOUTH CENTRAL STATES

I— KY 27 25 28

2— TENN 42 17 10

3— ALA 23 19 5

4— MISS 13 II 5

TOTAL VOTES 105 72 48

WEST SOUTH CENTRAL STATES

I — ARK 15 12 1

2 — LA 12 13 3

3 — OKLA 43 29 7

4— TEXAS n6 62 21

TOTAL VOTES 186 116 32

MOUNTAIN STATES

I— MONT II 16 8

2— IDAHO 9 13 5

3_WY0 2 5 —

4— COLO 31 30 II

5— N. MEX 5 5 I

6— ARIZ 8 3 —

7— UTAH 8 16 6

8— NEV I I I

TOTAL VOTES 75 89 3a

PACIFIC STATES

I— WASH 830 951 347

2— OREG 28 22 6

3— CALIF 1,204 ^»509 586

TOTAL VOTES 2,062 2,482 839

GRAND TOTAL 32,445 39,665 22,547

170 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

After the first and second polls had been taken by
the Digest, — that Is, after 200,000 votes had been
classified, — the editors asked for an expression of
opinion from William H. Anderson, State Superin-
tendent of the Anti-Saloon League of New York
and President of the Allied Citizens of America.
He admitted the honesty, good faith and fairness of
the canvass, but deemed It "unwise." And he went
on to say :

"There is a clear and fundamental distinction between
taking a poll on a question which is yet to be decided and
taking a poll on a question which has been decided. In
the latter case the issue inevitably presented to many minds
is whether the law which represents the decision shall be
enforced."

There are millions of citizens who look upon the
Eighteenth Amendment as cause for a grievance;
and the First Amendment states very clearly "the
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of
grievances."

Surely it is no breach of the peace to ask for an
expression from voters concerning a matter so seri-
ous as Prohibition, on which they never voted. How
else could a clear comprehension be gained of the
wishes of the people, save through the press In a
country so vast as ours? Naturally, there would be
resentment In the dry camp at any attempt to repeal
the Eighteenth Amendment; but I hope there are no

The Literary Digest^s Canvass 171

Americans who would honestly favor a supine obedi-
ence to a law which is abhorrent to such a number of
us. Intolerance is not a worthy sentiment. It is a
healthy sign when people disagree. The clash of
minds leads to larger prospects of final understand-
ing; and if it is found in the end that Prohibition is
ardently wanted by the majority, we shall continue
to have Prohibition, with, I trust, a perfect carrying
out of the law. The Digesfs desire to learn the
truth is an admirable one. The advocates of Mr.
Volstead have nothing to fear from it. If they are
right, and people like myself are wrong, then right
will prevail. Meanwhile, nothing is gained by can-
tankerously bidding us behave ourselves, and bow to
the inevitable. This is but an added form of Pro-
hibition which only serves to stir up enmities, to
create further discords, and muddle matters even
more. Your honest opinion and mine are quite as
valuable to the country as that of Mr. Volstead and
Mr. Anderson.

And so the Literary Digest evidently thought.
For it continued to publish returns as they came
flooding into the editorial office. Innumerable let-
ters accompanied the votes. People from all sections
of the country "spoke out in meeting," advocating
Government control of the liquor traffic. From
Omaha and New Jersey this advice came, and from
practically every State of the Union. The people
were being heard from.

The second hundred-thousand voted as follows :

172 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

For strict enforcement 76,597

For modification 85,151

For repeal 45,646

A poll was taken in many factories where both
men and women are employed. In the Edison works
in New Jersey, the poll was taken under the super-
vision of Charles A. Edison, 'Svho saw to it that the
ballots were distributed one to each worker. They
were marked secretly, and deposited by the indi-
vidual workers in sealed ballot boxes, later opened
by representatives of the Digest. The result shows
a proportion of slightly more than twenty to one
against the continuation and enforcement of the
present liquor laws." This is the vote:

For enforcement 93

For modification 976

For repeal 966

A careful poll of the establishment of Parke,
Davis & Company, manufacturing chemists, of De-
troit, revealed the following results :

For enforcement 218

For modification 1,081

For repeal 211

Combining these two polls, the attitude of the
workers in two representative factories would be
summarized as follows :

The Literary Digest's Canvass 173

For enforcement 311

For modification 2,059

For repeal I)i77

In connection with factories and labor, one inevi-
tably thinks of Samuel Gompers. The Digest asked
him for an expression of opinion, wishing to get all
sides of all subjects, and he sent this strong state-
ment:

*'In addition to the vile and poisonous substitution
for whiskey so largely consumed, and in addition to
the increased drug habit since Prohibition, Prohibi-
tion has made a nation of grouches. It has taken the
joy out of the American people, as can be attested by
almost every social gathering. The whole scheme is
unwarrantable interference with the personal free-
dom of the people, and increases discontent and
resentment in the knowledge that those who have it,
have it. I firmly believe that a modification of the
Volstead Act so that beer and light wines may be
manufactured and sold under proper regulations
would solve the whole question rationally and help-
fully."

The discontent of the worker is something to be
considered — even by fanatics who would rule us by
force, and seek to restrain too thoroughly man's
natural appetites. One must take into account the
wishes of that vast army who do the drudgery of the
world; and it does not require an immense amount

174 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

of imagination to understand what the years may
bring. If there is an apparent stolid indifference
now in the realms of labor, the Digesfs poll would
seem to contradict any such belief. That the work-
Ingman is beginning to realize that a distinct form
of class legislation has taken place there can be no
doubt. I think the authorities would never dare to
encroach upon a laborer's rights in the matter of
home brew. Yet they must be aware that, deprived
of his only club, the corner saloon, the workingman
who still desires a glass of beer occasionally is
methodically producing it. Against the law? To
the devil with the law, says the hard-working day
laborer, when the rich disobey it every hour of their
lives.

Another factory, which employs women, was also
canvassed. This was the establishment of the Camp-
bell's Soup Company in New Jersey. Approximately
30 per cent of the workers polled were women; yet
the vote is against the present laws by a proportion
of 9 to I. This is how the voting ran :

For enforcement 162

For modification 720

For repeal 750

But the final figures are the most interesting of all.
A summary of 922,383 ballots revealed this result,
which must have proved disheartening to the Anti-
Saloon League :

The Literary Digest's Canvass 175

SUMMARY OF 922,383 BALLOTS ON PROHIBITION

For Enforcement For Modification For Repeal

Main Poll 3o6,255-(38.5%) 325,549-(4i.i%) i64,453-(2o.4%)

Women's Poll 48,485-(44.5%) 39,9i4-(36.7%) 20,448-1 18.8%)

Factory Polls i,453-( 8.4%) io,87i-(62.i%) 4.955-(29.5%)

TOTALS 356,i93-(38.6%) 376,334-(40.8%) i89,856-(2o.6%)

Is it necessary for anyone to say anything further
about the temper of the country? Facts are facts.
To repeat what my friend in Omaha said :
^'Prohibition was all right — until we got it!"

CHAPTER XVI

LITERATURE AND PROHIBITION

THE Young-Old Philosopher has recently
been traveling over the country as far west
as the Coast. He had heard that condi-
tions, so far as Prohibition was concerned, were
excellent out there; but he wished to observe for
himself.

He found them quite the contrary. In states like
Oregon and Washington, which went dry long before
national Prohibition became an established fact, the
people were obtaining anything they desired. Close
to the border, there is plenty of bootlegging, endless
daring adventuring in the liquor traffic, many a bold
plunge over the Hne to bring whiskey and gin into
United States territory.

And they certainly bring It. Meanwhile, the
propaganda of the Puritans goes on — or, rather,
the impropaganda ; for it is not true that people are
behaving themselves. There is just as much discon-
tent and disorder among westerners as among east-
erners, so the Young-Old Philosopher observed.

But in cities like Omaha, which is about in the
center of the country, there is a dryness which is de-
pressing. Passing through a hotel corridor one day

176

Literature and Prohibition IJJ

at noon, the Young-Old Philosopher heard male
voices, chanting in unison. He stepped to the open
door of a private dining-room, and was much amused
to see a group of forty or fifty solid business men,
all wearing little badges proclaiming their allegiance
to some organization or other, standing about the
tables, lifting high their glasses of water, and
shouting these words:

"With the feed on the ta-huW,
And a good song ring-ing clear!"

There was a desperate attempt at gaiety, a look in
the eye of each prospective luncheoner which seemed
to say, "We will have a good time — in spite of Pro-
hibition!" But my friend turned away at this
travesty on mirth and good fellowship. He won-
dered if Richard Hovey was not turning in his grave
at the cruel editing of his deathless "Stein Song," and
he counted it a pity that pewter mugs had been super-
seded by ice-water goblets; and he saw that Gopher
Prairie was indeed a dreadful reality. Not that he
would have wished to see the law disobeyed. He
merely deprecated the tragic fact that this v/as the
pass we had come to ; this was the drab social order
we had definitely arrived at. He went disconso-
lately down the hallway, brooding of all those ancient
poets who had held it no shame to sing of the vine
and the flowing bowl. No one had ever written a
song in praise of food. And he thought if Hovey
could be edited, soon the Bible itself would hear the

1 78 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

snip-snip of the shears, as certain boisterous pas-
sages were cut out; and as for poor old Omar, he
wondered how soon it would be before he was
paraphrased by the reformers somewhat in this
manner:

Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Milk, a Book of Verse — and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Ah! Paradise were Wilderness enow.

And of course quatrains like this would soon be
omitted from all editions:

Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?

A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse — why, then. Who set it there?

The story of the Marriage Feast at Cana must
make sorry reading for any Prohibitionist; and the
Young-Old Philosopher doubts not that it will be
torn from the records in years to come. We shall
not even be given the pleasure of reading about the
jubilations of vanished times — times rich in ban-
quets. Think of imperial Rome without golden
goblets ! They were as much a part of the feast as
the fruit and the lights; and if we are to be de-
prived of the vicarious joy of dipping into the pagan
past, might we not just as well renounce life en-
tirely? Red wine will be as antiquated as the ermine
and crowns of kings, my friend believes ; yet who can
deny the picturesqueness of the scepter and the court

Literature and Prohibition 179

fool? They may not have been important, but they
gave a glamour to dreary days. "And some of us
may prefer them," says the Young-Old Philosopher,
"to the dandruff-covered collars of stupid senators
and congressmen.'*

There is an old song of Abraham Cowley's, writ-
ten somewhere between 16 18 and 1667, which must
give pain to any Prohibitionist. Will they strive to
Bowdlerize the anthologies, erase from literature so
true and human a poem as this, which voices a
thought almost as old as the world? It is after
Anacreon.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking, fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy sun (and one would guess
By's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and, when he's done,
The moon and stars drink up the sun:
They drink and dance by their own light;
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in nature's sober found,
But an eternal "health" goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high —
Fill all the glasses there; for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, men of morals, tell me why?

l8o The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Think of losing from English literature lines like
these, from the "Last Poems" of A. E. Housman:

Could man be drunk forever

With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning

And lief lie down at nights.

But men at whiles are sober

And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten

Their hands upon their hearts.

And so modern and exquisite a poet as Richard Le
Gallienne has had much to say metrically of the
follies of attempting to regulate by law the natural
appetites of man. He sounds a warning in this
tragic-comic ballade, spurning the busy-body re-
formers :

They took away your drink from you,

The kind old humanizing glass;
Soon they will take tobacco too,

And next they'll take our demi-tasse.

Don't say, "The bill will never pass,"
Nor this my warning word disdain ;

You said it once, you silly ass —
Don't make the same mistake again.

We know them now, the bloodless crew,

We know them all too well, alas!
There's nothing that they wouldn't do

To make the world a Bible class;

Though against bottled beer or Bass
I search the sacred text in vain

Literature and Prohibition

i«i

To find a whisper — by the Mass!
Don't make the same mistake again.

Beware these legislators blue,

Pouring their moral poison-gas
On all the joys our fathers knew;

The very flowers in the grass

Are safe no more, and, lad and lass,
'Ware the old birch-rod and the cane!

Here comes our modern Hudibras! —
Don't make the same mistake again.

ENVOI

Prince, vanished is the rail of brass,
So mark me well and my refrain —

Tobacco next! you silly ass,

Don't make the same mistake again.

It would be sad indeed to lose such a song as
^'Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes!" How
much poorer the garden of Poetry would be without
such bibulous planters of rhyme as Burns and Poe
and Verlaine! I suppose the paid Puritans would
have even our poets walk the humdrum way, so that
we would have no news of life from taverns and
Inns. The picturesque vagabond, the rapscallion
son of song must be pulled In from the pleasant high-
ways and made to "conform."

Conform to what? A three-room flat with kitch-
enette and running water, and a clerk's desk down-
town, with methodical rides on a heaving Subway
train at eight In the morning and again at six In

1 82 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

the evening. Well, there are other modes of living
that seem a trifle sweeter to the dreamers of dreams,
the makers of beauty. Art is not produced like so
many bricks or like so many waffles in a waffle iron.
It is shot with wonder; and just as the water-lily
emerges in its white perfection from dubious slimy
stems, so a great work of loveliness may sometimes
rise from the meanest sources. That is what your
Pharisee does not — and cannot — understand. He
would cast us all into one mess-pot, stew us all in
the same juice, and bid us all conform to some stupid
"ideal" which he has the effrontery to hold before
the artist as the ultimate goodness.

CHAPTER XVII

AMERICA TODAY

MY friend, the Young-Old Philosopher, is
worried about America. He sees a drift
toward old-time Puritanism — with the
hood of hypocrisy used as a general covering. He
knows a distinguished judge who recently sentenced
a little bootlegger to thirty days in jail, and exco-
riated him in the court-room with all the power of
language at his command. Then he dismissed court
for the day, as he had an important social engage-
ment uptown. On the way, he suggested to the
Young-Old Philosopher that they drop in at a smart
club. He was very weary after his heavy day's
work, and needed a bracer. He got It.

On an evening a little later, this same personage —
a man greatly respected in his community, whose
utterances on civic affairs are often quoted in the
papers — attended a dinner at one of the big hotels.
Many eminent jurists and publicists were gathered
together to do honor to one of their number. A
little bar, with a man in a neat white jacket in
charge, had been set up in a room not too remote
from the dining-room; and thither the Great Men
repaired to refresh themselves after the arduous

183

184 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

duty of imposing fines and prison sentences on ruf-
fians who dispensed alcohol through the city to those
who, like the Great Men, could pay for it. But —
*'Judge not, lest ye be jugged."

And the Young-Old Philosopher told me that
once he stood in the private office of a well-known
lawyer when the telephone bell rang. He could not
help hearing the conversation, which ran somewhat
like this:

"Yes? That you, Pete? ... A dozen cases of
the same — you know. Tonight, if possible. Try to
get it there. Same price, of course. . . . Without
fail; and I have a friend who wants to see you.
Here's the address: 000 Sherman. Call him up.
He's all right. Good-bye, Pete."

The Young-Old Philosopher has himself told me
that he has no scruples about disobeying the liquor
law; yet somehow it gave him no little pain to listen
to this monologue, uttered by one whose life is
given to forensic pleadings, whose maledictions pour
forth in cataracts of eloquence when some shudder-
ing nobody stands at the Bar of Justice. It is as
though a priest left the altar to abscond, immediately
after a high-minded sermon on the duties of Chris-
tians.

In a far western State my friend saw the Gover-
nor take many highballs during and after a banquet
in a public room. He saw the Mayor of the city
do likewise ; and he was conscious that a gentleman
of the cloth was slowly but surely growing uncon-

America Today 185

sclous as the dinner went on its merry way. He had
never before seen this happen.

He was told by a fellow traveler, whose word he
could not doubt, that all but 25 per cent of
the Legislature of another western State went out
and got beastly drunk, after they had voted for
Prohibition.

He has heard the jibes that foreigners, seeing
what he has seen, fling at us every day; and he has
had no answ^er to give them.

He has come upon boys trying to open the lockers
In country clubs — not little rowdies, but the sons of
influential members — that they might steal some of
the old man's whiskey. They have boasted of their
attempted and successful thefts.

He has seen flappers disgustingly Intoxicated. He
has observed them putting their hands up to the
hip-pockets of their boy companions, to see if a
flask was there. Alas ! it was.

As limousines and taxis have flashed by him, he
has caught glimpses of youngsters who, five years
ago, would not have been allowed to go out without a
chaperone. In such close proximity that for a mo-
ment he thought it was but one strange enigmatic
form in the car.

He has seen college boys In groups of three and
four disappear into a small compartment on a train
— and emerge ten minutes later with downcast eyes
and sheepish grins, flushed with liquor; and he has
seen the same boys repeat the proceeding ten or a

1 86 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

dozen times on a journey lasting but a couple of
hours.

He has seen a woman, injured in the streets of
one of our big cities, lying almost unconscious. A
hotel was close by, and a doctor in the crowd sug-
gested that someone rush to get some brandy. The
man who volunteered to go came back without any
— none was available, nor could the proprietor be
induced to send any out, even if he had had it. He
was suspicious of a stranger, making such a request
— he was suspicious of everybody. Police in civilian
clothes — oh, they were all too common these days,
that he knew; and no one was going to catch him^
even though a wounded woman lay prone and groan-
ing at his door.

He has heard the social service worker in a New
York hospital say that, while conditions had slightly
improved during the first few months of Prohibition,
they were now worse than ever. In the old days, a
workingman spent, say, $2.50 on grog out of his
weekly wages, and was content to let it go at that;
now he spends ten and twelve dollars — he'll get his
liquor at any cost; and the wives and families of
such men are in despair. With the passing of time,
the people have learned how to get drinks, and how
to make them, and they are becoming more expert
every day. But they drink poison — anything they
can lay their hands upon — and become all but raving
maniacs for a while.

He has seen form letters from bootleggers in New

America Today 187

York, giving price lists, just as though there were
no law forbidding such transactions. Deliveries
were promised within the city, at rates commensur-
ately low. It was even stated that ''prices were go-
ing down," and that the best gin could be obtained,
as well as other materials of alcoholic content. A
printed address was given, and the mails were boldly
used for this questionable business.

He has known friends who had been on the water
wagon for years to take to home-brewing as a nat-
ural course. Their excuse was that they could not
afford the prices asked by professional bootleggers;
and they were certain that they could not possibly
give a dinner party now — of all times — without of-
fering some stimulant to their guests. In the old
days they would have ventured to do so. Since Pro-
hibition people expected — and usually received —
plenty of wet refreshment. They did not care to be
segregated from their acquaintances; they did not
relish the idea of having their invitations refused.
So they gladly became law-breakers, and swiftly
acquired skill in the preparation of all sorts of wines,
gin and beer.

He has seen, in a Southern city, the wife of a
leading judge serving a punch made of apple juice
and peach juice — oh, a very heady punch indeed ! —
to State officials, who had no qualms about accepting
it, though they were aware that the law was being
broken. And he saw young men made quite tight
on this same punch.

1 88 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

He has observed people entering a restaurant in
New York with packages which obviously contained
bottles. These, under the eye of a policeman in
uniform, were taken from them by the employees of
the hotel. One, a bottle of champagne, was poured
into a great pitcher — the customers were graciously
permitted to watch the process in a private room —
and then served openly, again under the officer's eye
and nose, in the main dining room. So twisted has
become our legal logic, that it seems it is one thing
to drink from a bottle and quite another to drink
from a pitcher. A nation of sophists, as well as
hypocrites.

He has seen motors searched on public highways,
without a warrant; and he has known innocent occu-
pants of the car to be told that "they could go on —
the police had nothing on them."

He entered a small police station in California
with a friend who had lost a valuable cigarette case
— a friend of distinction. The officers instantly
recognized him, opened a desk, exposing dozens of
quarts of whiskey, and offered both the Young-Old
Philosopher and his friend a drink. These officers
were quite drunk. They Taughingly told the com-
plainant that they had just "pinched" a roadhouse,
and were going to sell to another roadhouse the stock
which they did not consume — and "pinch" the second
man in due season, taking the pre-arranged graft
which would come out of his profit.

He remembers the case in the State of New York

America Today 189

— no doubt others have forgotten it, as they forget
much that they should remember — of an innocent
farmer driving his motor through the countryside
one day at dusk. He was ordered to stop by an offi-
cer who suddenly appeared on the road, and when he
refused to do so he was instantly shot. Senator
Wadsworth aired this frightful incident in the Sen-
ate, and the chief Prohibition enforcement officer of
the State announced that it w^as the duty of auto-
mobilists to halt when they were ordered to do so,
or they might suffer a like fate.

He has seen in many a woman's club, bottles of
liquor smuggled in, cocktails made by the employees
and served in private rooms. Then, because it was
strictly against the rules to drink openly, like cats
who had just stolen the cream, the ladies and their
men guests walked guiltily but airily into the dining
room, imagining that there were no evidences of
their wrong-doing. The neat little leather or silver
cases which contained the forbidden alcohol were
automatically returned to their owners, who in turn
handed them to their waiting chauffeurs — the latter,
of course, were omitted from the happy function —
and were taken home to be replenished at the next
gathering.

He has known an old lady, very ill, who craved,
as she had never craved anything, a single glass of
champagne; but even her druggist could not get it
for her, at any price, on a doctor's prescription.
And she was denied the exhilaration of this simple

190 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

luxury, in order, so my friend supposes, that some
worthless drunkard who might better be under the
sod, should be saved.

Indeed, he has known many an invalid who might
have gone to his grave a bit happier for some mo-
mentary stimulant which stupid reformers saw fit to
withhold.

He was told by the proprietor of several supper
places in one of our great cities — and he cannot
doubt his word, since he has known him for a long,
long time — that one of the federal Prohibition offi-
cers who live on graft receives not less than five
dollars for every case of wine which passes the
Customs. Very swiftly this official is growing un-
believably rich; he does not wish, naturally, to see a
return to what might now be considered the old,
calm days. Not long ago, this grafter decided that
it was about time to make a spectacular "raid"
and close up, for a while, the cabarets along the
route where he acted as supreme czar. For Wash-
ington might take his long inaction as neglect of
duty. Therefore he set a night when he visited
various restaurants in a limousine, warning the pro-
prietors that they must shut down. But he added,
in the ear of each, "Don't worry! this is only a bluff
— a spectacular gesture. You'll all be free to sell
stuff in a little while." He meant that phrase, "a
little while," for, of course, his graft ceased during
the interval of grayness. But the federal govern-
ment, getting his report, seemed pleased at his at-

merica

Today 191

tention to his duties, and all was serene for him.
Champagne was purchased soon afterwards in all
these cabarets, and the jazz struck up a livelier tune,
and everybody was happy.

He has read with astonishment that the student-
governing body in several of our colleges has found
it necessary to take formal action for the suppression
of intoxication among under-graduates. Was this
ever done In *'the good old days"? Think of it!
Your boy, whom the Volstead Act was to protect
from the scandal of drunkenness, must have what is
comparable to the Mullan-Gage Act and the Robert
Act pressed upon him in his college, so that he may
be made to see the dangers that lurk in alcohol.
The great and holy Government cannot control him;
a minor form of tyranny and suppression must come
into existence to aid the already heavy machinery
of the law to run smoothly.

He has known of an exalted judge who purchased
liquor from a police officer, had it delivered at his
door in a patrol wagon ; and that wagon was guarded
by a man in uniform.

He has known another minion of the law who
admitted that, though he had not violated the Vol-
stead Act, for conscientious reasons, had never so
much as had a case of bought-and-paid-for whiskey
or beer carted to his door, he had somehow "found"
a bottle or two in his home, left there by sympathetic
friends, he supposed; yet he did not inquire. "Con-
science doth make cowards of us all," as Hamlet

192 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

said; but how one absolves himself is a matter of
private concern. Rationalism could go no further
than this minion's processes of reasoning. Strange
indeed are the ways of powerful public officials,
obeying one law to the letter, and letting their ethics
slip and slide when it comes to some other law which
they do not really wish to keep, and do not really
wish to break.

He has heard a dapper young society man in
Massachusetts glibly state that the best bootlegger in
his town is a federal Prohibition officer, who can
"get him anything he wants from beer to whiskey
and liqueurs." And the dapper young man thought
this was "perfectly all right, and rather good to
know in these arid days." Moreover, one was per-
fectly certain that what one purchased from this
scoundrel was the real thing — no chance of wood-
alcohol blindness, or anything of that sort.

You will notice that what the Young-Old Phi-
losopher has seen is not confined to any one section
of the country. He has traveled considerably to
make his observations.

This is the America of today, as the Young-Old
Philosopher sees it. He says he is not so worried
about the present generation as about the generation
that may come after it. Surely the potential mothers
and fathers of children a decade hence are not fit
to take upon themselves the responsibilities and bur-
dens of parenthood. What kind of offspring will
they produce? So long as we are looking ahead,

America Today 193

providing for the welfare of the race to be, let us
wisely look far enough ahead so that our eugenics
may mean something. It is folly to pretend to be
altruistic, to dip into the Immediate future, at the
expense of the present. We will produce a de-
cadent race if we are not careful.

Do you like this America of today? The
Young-Old Philosopher says frankly that he does
not.

Neither do I. And neither do you — If you are a
good American.

And what about the America of tomorrow?

CHAPTER XVIII

OTHER REFORMS

WHEN books of the quality of "Jurgen"
can be suppressed — happily this romance
of James Branch Cabell has been restored
to the libraries and book-stalls of the land — we are
facing a dangerous precedent. "Casanova's Home-
coming" was likewise censored. But the Vice So-
ciety might be about better business. I could name a
dozen volumes which they have stupidly imagined
should be withdrawn from circulation, but it would
be merely an idle repetition. The principle remains
the same.

Publishers and authors have become frightened.
If the realm of art is to be invaded by reformers
who fail to distinguish between beauty and filth, it
is self-evident that there will be precious little art in
America in the next hundred years. The pictures
that we hang upon our walls may be torn down next,
and the passion for dreariness may cause the entire
United States to become one sad Sahara of utili-
tarianism, with no gleam of loveliness. The mania
for standardizing us is growing; it is strange that
the authorities do not pounce upon a play like
*'R. U. R.," lest it put false notions into the minds

194

Other Reforms 195

of the simple people. There is a tremendous lesson
in that drama. Crush us too much, make too many
automatons, and one day the lifeless, bloodless,
unimaginative host may rise in sudden might and
defeat the very purpose of their masters.

The easy triumph of Prohibition gives the re-
former little to do — save to seek other avenues of
sadistic expression. If we are to be dictated to as
to which books we shall read, we will find a way to
discover smut — and nothing but smut — just as we
have found synthetic gin. And if the lifting of an
elbow — a necessary gesture when one takes an old-
fashioned drink — got on a Puritan's nerves, I cannot
think that the smoke curling from your cigarette and
mine gives him anything but pain and genuine
anguish of mind. Tobacco companies are worried,
and some of them have been spending vast sums to
offset the crusade against the weed. Meanwhile,
the easy-going American says, *'Well, of course, they
did put Prohibition over on us, but — oh, they would
not dare rob us of our cheroots. We simply wouldn't
stand for that J*

But I am afraid that we are as spineless as ever.
When meetings are organized to protest against the
reformers, they are often ill attended. A dash of
rain dampens the ardor of the lackadaisical citizen
who prefers his own fireside to speeches that hit
hard at this and that false cause. The trouble is
that the fanatics have not made things quite hard
enough for us. If there were a real lack of liauor;

196 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

if complete drouth settled down over the land, we
might rise in a great body and speak what we in-
wardly feel. But most of us are too lazy to fight
back. Meanwhile, the organized minority gird on
their armor, devising ways and means to torture us
further. And in slippered comfort we sip our home
brew or our dearly bought bootleg toddies, and de-
cide that the effort required to get together is too
great. We will let things drift. There must come a
change; and after all, so long as Prohibition hasn't
really succeeded, what's the use of worrying?

The reformer knows this characteristic lethargy
of the American people, and he smiles, assembles his
cohorts, calls us, in the vernacular of the day, "easy
marks," and proceeds with his reforming.

The return of Blue Laws is not improbable. A
few towns have already adopted them, and in these
movies are not tolerated on the Sabbath, newspapers
are not allowed to be sold, even the trolley cars are
stopped. A man may be arrested for painting his
roof on Sunday; and as for a game of baseball on
that day — it is unthinkable in many a community.
One may not walk — except to church. The Puritan
spirit is not dead. It lives in many a hamlet, dreary
enough under the best conditions. The American
people have come to a point where it is a matter of
living or existing.

For my own part, I am perfectly willing for the
Babbitts of this country to do as they please; all I
ask Is that they let me alone as I certainly shall let

Other Reforms 197

them alone. I have said elsewhere that I firmly
believe in local option. That is because, perhaps, I
think that contrast is the greatest thing in art and in
life. I have never cared for regions of perpetual
sunshine, just as I have never cared for localities
where it rains, seemingly, forever. Give me a little
of each. The Gopher Prairieite must feel an im-
pulse to see a metropolis now and then; just as we
who live in tremendous cities feel the urge every so
often to seek the stillness of the woods.

It so happens that a few people — nay, a great
many — prefer to hive In cities, because there they
find a certain amount of culture. They like the
opera, and good plays, well acted — the sparkle
which city life gives to them. They like dining out
in restaurants, and they happen to care for the
jeweled beauty of, say. Fifth Avenue or Michigan
Avenue on a winter evening. The monotony of the
life of a Kansas farmer does not appeal to them.
They can scarcely understand that passion for se-
clusion which he craves. But they find no fault with
his mode of living. They even look with a sort of
amused tolerance upon those curious beings who
sneer at women who smoke cigarettes. They know
perfectly well that there are many virtuous w^omen
who smoke cigarettes, and It is difficult to understand
why everyone cannot be possessed of the same
knowledge. But they do not seek to Impose their
beliefs upon others. They do no proselytizing. They
are not anxious to convert people to a way of think-

198 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

ing and reasoning that seems to them simple and
natural. They understand that what is one man's
meat Is another man's poison; but they do resent
being told that what they consume as meat should
be labeled poison — by someone who has never
tasted it.

The Eighteenth Amendment tells us, practically,
that It Is wrong to drink. You and I know that It
is not wrong to drink. But we do know full well,
without being told, that it is very wrong to get
drunk.

In Kansas, the people are told that it is wrong
to smoke; whereas anyone at all knows that it is
in no wise wrong to smoke; but It is exceedingly
wrong to over-smoke until one's nerves become shat-
tered and one's hands tremble.

The reformer, seeing only the 111 effects upon
those who overdo anything, and refusing to note
the normal lives of those of us who never overdo
anything, cannot differentiate. Hence the hullabaloo,
the trouble, the mess the world is In today.

Reformers, you see, lack discrimination. One
might as well deplore Niagara Falls because a few
fools plunge Into Its roaring torrents; cease to enjoy
its beauty because suicides have taken advantage of
its power and height to hurl themselves Into eternity.
One might as well say that no more skyscrapers are
to be built, simply because now and then a man leaps
from the top of one, and makes a ghastly mess of
himself on the pavement below.

Other Reforms 199

Robert Louis Stevenson used to say that the little
superfluities of life were what made it lovely —
yes, and bearable. Living does not consist in a mere
drab drudgery from day to day, proving oneself
"efficient," turning out, in orderly fashion, so many
mechanical instruments, with no release from hum-
drum. Life must contain zest and ardor and variety.
That zest and ardor and variety we human beings
ourselves give or bring to It. There must be a
garnishing of the dish of existence once in a while.
We cannot have our days served up monotonously
on a dull platter, see them flung upon the banquet
table without a surrounding decoration of loveliness.
Ugliness must be hidden ; and sane fun must play its
part In the scheme of things.

Now it Is obvious that drunkenness is a form of
bestial ugliness, and should never be encouraged.
Even we who are not professional reformers recog-
nize that. But the right kind of mild drinking — the
drinking of wines, which helps digestion by giving
the proper spur to the gastric juices — is a salutary
habit, and does no one any harm. In France I have
never seen anyone intoxicated — except a visiting
American; and I fear, with Prohibition, that more
than ever will the cafes and streets of Paris be lit-
tered with shameful and shameless fellow country-
men of mine. The French learn from childhood how
to drink; and a picture In a recent Parisian journal
showed a group of three generations of wine-grow-
ers chosen at hazard from among many others. I

200 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

never looked upon sturdier representatives of what
some of our forlorn know-nothings would doubtless
call a "decadent" people.

Alcoholism is practically unknown among the
Latin races. To go over the border into a sodden
state of imbecility is v/ell-nigh unthinkable to them.
France got rid of absinthe when she realized the
danger of that fiery liquid. She did not have to close,
up and seal and nail down every cafe In every city
and hamlet just because a handful of ribald artists
thought It smart to sit all afternoon and dream
dreams of pink elephants. And, the Instant absinthe
became unlawful, the French obeyed the edict, ac-
cepted the truth that a menace had been removed,
and went on consuming an occasional aperitif and
light wines — never cocktails and highbaUs.

But the American people, through their reformers,
always have to go to extremes. We could not see
the wisdom of cutting out or controlling hard drink-
ing. We had to slam every door of every saloon;
and, not content with that, we had to "mop up" the
entire country — or ridiculously try to do so — until
there should be no drop of beer, even, on anybody's
premises. Then, the moment we had done that,
we forthwith craved a little liquor — because we
couldn't get it. Humanly enough, we were sorry
that we had been so rash. True, we had rid our-
selves of one of the most abhorrent evidences of our
so-called civilization — the saloon with the swinging-
door ; but In doing so we had destroyed, or attempted

Other Reforms 201

to destroy, the harmless pleasure of men and women
who had never entered a saloon. We punished
everybody, in order to punish a few.

This was not the right process. The folly of our
reformers is working incalculable harm to the entire
country. And the end is not yet.

CHAPTER XIX

IS EUROPE GOING DRY?

IF William E., otherwise known as "Pussyfoot,"
Johnson has his way, Europe, too, will know
the great drouth. It is something to have lost
one's eye in a cause, and still to retain one's nerve
and enthusiasm.

There is no doubt that the liquor interests in
Great Britain have become frightened, just as the
tobacco interests have become alarmed here; and
there are rumors of large sums being spent to con-
travert the propaganda of the temperance advocates
in England. Lady Astor has come out strong for
Prohibition.

The London "pub" is a notoriously shocking
place. In the meanest sections of the city, I have
witnessed scenes which made one realize that Dick-
ens did not exaggerate when he drew a character like
Bill Sykes, I have seen thinly clad, anemic children
waiting on the steps of a public house for not only
their fathers, but their mothers, to emerge. And
when they finally did so, they were so drunk that they
could scarcely toddle to their wretched homes. The
British could find a way to shut up these disreputable
resorts without interfering with the liberty of that

202

Is Europe Going Dry? 203

portion of the population which knows how to drink
in moderation.

During the war, and long after it, the hours were
rigidly regulated with respect to bars. One could
not obtain a drink until noon; then the bars were
tightly closed again at 3 130 P.M., and not reopened
until 6 o'clock, closing again at 9. There was little
disorder, less drunkenness than ever before in the
history of the country; and, with true British loyalty,
everyone obeyed the law. No one even thought of
disobeying it. That is a way they have over there.
I don't suppose one could have tempted an inn-
keeper to sell one glass of ale, though he offered him
a thousand pounds. I remember the shock of a bar-
maid in a tiny town in the south of England when I,
a visitor, not knowing the regulations, asked for a
beaker of beer. "Why, we're closed, sir, until sup-
pertime," she informed me; and turned away, not
expecting — and not getting — any argument.

Had we respected our laws we would not have
had Prohibition today.

In Sweden, in the summer of 1922, a referendum
was taken on the all-important question of Prohibi-
tion; and the wets won. The returns were as fol-
lows:

Against 930,655

For 901,053

As in America, certain localities were decidedly
in favor of complete Prohibition; but in the large

204 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

cities one found the desire for what might be termed
"dampness." The female vote was preponderately
anti-Prohibition.

A sensible system has been evolved in Sweden.
They regulate the liquor traffic under what is known
as the Bratt system. Only one organization in the
country is permitted to dispense alcoholic beverages.
This is known as the Wine and Spirits Central, and,
as in the Province of Quebec, tickets are issued to
citizens, and it is almost impossible to acquire more
than one's allotted quota. There is a widespread
desire for a continued restriction of alcohol, but
naturally quiet forces are at work all the time to
bring about complete Prohibition. Certain reform-
ers are attempting, by means of local option, grad-
ually to make the whole of Sweden as dry as a
desert; but Dr. Bratt is equally firm for the present
system, which he contends — and figures would seem
to confirm his contention — that it is better for the
people than anything which could be devised. He
has pointed out that in 19 13, before liquor restric-
tion, drunkenness was amazingly common. In 192 1,
drunkenness decreased 27 per cent. Arrests for
drunkenness have gone down 49 per cent under his
system. There is little doubt that government con-
trol in Sweden, as elsewhere, has worked remarkably
well.

Russia went dry. Now the Soviet government has
decided that Prohibition is a complete failure, re-
sulting in the secret manufacture, as in the United

Is Europe Going Dry? 205

States, of much vile hootch. There will be a return
to good vodka, and the proceeds coming from the
sale of it will be used to educate the people. Doesn't
this sound sensible?

It is unthinkable that Europe will ever be a
Sahara; yet a few years ago it was likewise un-
thinkable that our own country would come to the
arid state it now pretends to know. Anything is
possible, and most things are probable in these days
of delirium and stress. But a wineless France or a
beerless Germany does seem rather grotesque. I
have been told that many French wine merchants,
certain that America's going dry is but a phase that
will pass, are keeping vast stores of champagne in
readiness to ship to us as soon as our laws are
rescinded. They simply cannot understand our
Eighteenth Amendment; yet perhaps they will have
written into their own statutes some equally drastic
article in the not very distant future.

That is how the Prohibitionists feel, at any rate.
"Pussyfoot" Johnson at this writing is working hard
in Australia to bring about this consummation.
France knows already the Ligue Nationale Contre
L'Alcoolisme, with offices in Paris; Switzerland has
the Ligue Suise des Femmes Abstinentes; and both
countries are being well peppered with depressing
posters, showing the evil effects of booze. Such
works of art take the place of old songs Hke '^Father,
Dear Father, Come Home with Me Now," and
plays like "Ten Nights in a Barroom." They

2o6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

have their definite function, they will prove a power
among the lower and middle classes, scorned though
they may be by the manufacturers and dispensers of
liquor.

But as yet the economic questions involved tease
and torment the thrifty Latin. He is wise enough
to see that his country will suffer in another way if
wine and other drinks are totally abolished; and, as
always, he looks to America for some solution of his
problem.

The question therefore arises. Are the drys in
the United States strong enough financially to aid
Europe in her campaign against liquor? That the
movement has started there in deadly earnest cannot
be denied by anyone who has his eye on the situa-
tion. But it will require capital to keep it going,
and just now all the European countries are notori-
ously poor. Is the cause of temperance deep-rooted
enough to grow and flourish, despite the handicap of
lack of funds? There may be multi-millionaires in
the United States who will finance campaigns abroad,
just as it has been rumored repeatedly with what
regularity certain rich advocates of Prohibition have
contributed to the American cause. In this event,
the European movement would gain a tremendous
impetus; and what the result will be cannot, of
course, be foretold.

The thing happened to us. It is ridiculous to
prophesy that it cannot happen to Europe. The
pendulum having swung all the way for us would

Is Europe Going Dry? 207

seem to Indicate that it may swing all, or part of the
way, for Britishers and Latins alike.

It will be interesting to watch and wait. Then
we shall learn whether benevolent autocracies are
better than autocratic democracies; whether crowns
and ermine are more to be desired than top-hats
and frock-coats.

Europe dry? Do not smile. This Is an age of
unexpected events, a period of transition, the like
of which has not been known before.

But would Europeans obey laws that infringed
upon their personal liberty? There were those who
held that there would never be rebellion and riots
In Germany, since the Germans were too docile a
people to rise up against their government. Yet we
know what the Germans did, and where the Kaiser
Is today.

The spectacle of America's going bone dry is not
a heartening one. Ambassadors from other lands
have seen our contempt for the law; and it is doubt-
ful if any of them would recommend to their coun-
tries a counterfeiting of our methods and manners.
We have come to little else than disruption and
heart-breaking failure in this matter of Prohibition.
Imitation of our ways would amount almost to mad-
ness.

CHAPTER XX

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 in-
fluential newspapers stand solidly against the Eight-
eenth 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 pro-
tests 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 al-
most 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 Pro-
hibition, 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.

208

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 eoo<i time.

What Are We Going to Do About It? 209

The citizens of Massachusetts defeated a bill for
additional State machinery to make the Volstead Act
more effective; and in lUinois there proved to be a
feeling of three-to-one in favor of light wines and
beer. The rural districts of Ohio caused the Pro-
hibitionists 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 candi-
date for Governor ran on a light-wine-and-beer plat-
form, 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 mod-
erate 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 de-
feat 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 re-
quires no tremendous amount of vision to see that,

2IO The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 Prohibi-
tion as the foremost Issue before the people.

President Harding has said that whether the coun-
try 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 feel-
ing 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 complain-
ing 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) Prohibi-
tion.

We have made a ghastly mistake. The unfore-
seen evils that have come In the wake of Prohibition
far outweigh the good. We have never had any-
thing but Poor Man's Prohibition; and If It Is true
that those who feel the pinch of poverty have de-
rived benefit from the closing of the saloon — as in-
deed they have — It Is equally true that the mod-
erately well-to-do have had their expenses Increased.
Used to drinking all their lives, they were not to be

What Are We Going to Do About It? 211

whipped Into obeying a law with which they haH no
sympathy. They Intended, humanly enough, to con-
tinue to get their grog — at any price. And they have
done so, even though they afterward had a rendez-
vous 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 la-
boring 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 Re-
public, 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

212 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

improve. After a long trial, anyone but a blind
person must see that our Prohibition laws are vio-
lently opposed by milHons of otherwise good citi-
zens. 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 com-
promise.

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 con-
stitutions 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

What Are We Going to Do About It? 213

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 some-
thing 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 con-
tinental in after years; they were hardly worth sav-
ing. It is not very pleasant to think of an able citi-
zen 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 192 1, 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 pro-
fessional 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.

214 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 ter-
rible 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 ad-
mit 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 ap-
proaching 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 con-
tinue ; and if the little places elect to go dry, of course

What Are We Going to Do About It? 215

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 seri-
ous 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 can-
not 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 in-
tolerable. Each political party is striving to evade
this big issue. Each claims that neither the Demo-
crats nor the Republicans gave the people Prohibi-
tion; yet the people are looking to one or the other

2i6 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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 Gov-
ernment Control. We have seen that, with the fed-
eral 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

What Are We Going to Do About It? 217

be any argument, that there should be any line-up of
opposition.

Yet the Prohibitionists, in the light of their fail-
ure 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 pre-
dicted that in 1924 Uruguay will go dry, and like-
wise 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 melt-
ing-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 Ameri-
cans tolerate such rigid reforms, who are they to
utter words of rebellion?

2i8 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Is it not self-evident that Prohibition has miser-
ably 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 in-
tolerable. Scandal after scandal is being unearthed
in sanctimonious Washington, the seat of the Gov-
ernment, 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 con-
scientiously break the law, are not on record as
approving it.

No one Is socrosanct on this flaming Issue. Gov-
ernment buildings are said to contain plenty of liquid
refreshment for the parched throats of these elo-
quent 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 re-
quire 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

What Are We Going to Do About It? 219

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 prac-
tised here. When someone higher up is to be un-
covered, 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 19 14 was the banner year in
the United States in producing beer. There were
66,000,000 barrels sold. If we had not had Pro-
hibition thrust upon us, the normal growth would
have been a production of about 100,000,000 bar-
rels. 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 19 1 8 Canada Imposed a tax of 15c on a gallon
of beer. In 1922 it was 42^ c 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

220 The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

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, in-
numerable 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 indus-
tries 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 elec-
tion ; 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.

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