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 excoriated 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 engagement 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 arduous184 duty of imposing fines and prison sentences on ruffians 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 shuddering 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 christians.
in a far western state my friend saw the governor 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 unconscious185 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 answer 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 moment 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 a186 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 suggested 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 groaning 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 new187 york, giving price lists, just as though there were no law forbidding such transactions. deliveries were promised within the city, at rates commensurately low. it was even stated that “prices were going 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 natural 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 offering some stimulant to their guests. in the old days they would have ventured to do so. since prohibition 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.
188 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 occupants 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 laughingly told the complainant 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—no189 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 officer 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 senate, and the chief prohibition enforcement officer of the state announced that it was the duty of automobilists 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 simple190 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 momentary 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 officers 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 unbelievably 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 washington might take his long inaction as neglect of duty. therefore he set a night when he visited various restaurants in a limousine, warning the proprietors 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 government, getting his report, seemed pleased at his attention191 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 hobert 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 volstead 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. “conscience doth make cowards of us all,” as hamlet192 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 perfectly 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 philosopher 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 burdens of parenthood. what kind of offspring will they produce? so long as we are looking ahead,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 decadent 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?
