one finds it hard to believe that a law is just and right and proper which so many splendid minds consider otherwise. there have been numerous societies formed to combat the volstead act, and in their long lists of members one may read the names of honorable citizens who feel impelled to express their views. hundreds of influential newspapers stand solidly against the eighteenth amendment. the fight has not been taken up in one section of the country only. mass meetings have been held in far separated localities, and protests have been voiced everywhere.
in the last election—that in november, 1922—the voice of the people was heard in several states. prohibition was an issue, and the victory was almost overwhelmingly for the wets. wisconsin, for instance, elected seven candidates who had declared themselves for a modification of the volstead act. senator reed, of missouri, an avowed foe of prohibition, and governor edwards, of new jersey, an even more ardent “wet,” won over their opponents, having made their views definitely known. edwards now goes to the senate.
the prohibitionists fail to realize that prohibition, for them, is in itself a debauch, a kind of wild orgy, a sadistic spree. to strap us all to the water-wagon, snap the whip and keep us there for life seems to be their idea of a good time.
209 the citizens of massachusetts defeated a bill for additional state machinery to make the volstead act more effective; and in illinois there proved to be a feeling of three-to-one in favor of light wines and beer. the rural districts of ohio caused the prohibitionists to gain a victory in that state; but there is little doubt that a change is sweeping through the country. in new york state the democratic candidate for governor ran on a light-wine-and-beer platform, against a republican candidate who had signed the wretched mullan-gage act. the former won by a vast majority. the people were well aware that the federal laws would not be changed simply because the empire state wished a return to moderate drinking; but thousands of republicans voted for the avowedly “wet” candidate as a matter of principle. they felt that at least a splendid gesture had been made, and that those who looked on from other parts of the country, sensing the will of the people of new york, might come to realize that hereafter the candidate for office who announces his stand on the topic which is forever being discussed has the better chance of victory. the time for equivocation has gone by. the people want to know how politicians feel about prohibition; and the defeat of mr. volstead himself for re-election was a significant circumstance.
the anti-prohibitionists now know that they will have to organize and fight—and fight hard. it requires no tremendous amount of vision to see that,210 if both the big parties at present in power refuse to consider a change in the interpretation of the volstead act, a third party will arise, with prohibition as the foremost issue before the people.
president harding has said that whether the country is to remain wet or dry will be a political issue for years to come. statesmen and politicians alike are beginning to see and admit a change in the feeling of the people on the all-important subject of prohibition. it is nonsense to say that a matter which is discussed everywhere at all times is a dead issue. wherever men—and women—congregate; around every dinner-table; in every club; at every evening party, the topic invariably comes up. is no significance to be attached to this circumstance? and not long ago the english and french were complaining about american visitors, since they found it rather boresome to listen, day in and day out, to nothing but their talk on the engrossing subject. we eat, sleep and (i was going to say drink) prohibition.
we have made a ghastly mistake. the unforeseen evils that have come in the wake of prohibition far outweigh the good. we have never had anything but poor man’s prohibition; and if it is true that those who feel the pinch of poverty have derived benefit from the closing of the saloon—as indeed they have—it is equally true that the moderately well-to-do have had their expenses increased. used to drinking all their lives, they were not to be211 whipped into obeying a law with which they had no sympathy. they intended, humanly enough, to continue to get their grog—at any price. and they have done so, even though they afterward had a rendezvous with debt.
the poor do not get their liquor, simply because they cannot afford it. i have seen clerks buying beer at seventy-five cents a bottle, which must have made quite a hole in their pay-envelopes. the honest laboring man could scarcely afford that extravagance; and so he goes beerless to bed, not because he wishes to, but because he has to. and you and i, whenever we desire liquid refreshment, know where we can obtain it. if an investigation were made of the savings of the great middle class during the past three years, i doubt if a good showing would be discovered. and is it not of some importance that this great group, who are the mainstay of the republic, should be laying aside something for the future?
the prohibitionists will say that they have no sympathy with anyone who willfully breaks the law. but you cannot argue with people who count it no sin to disregard a statute. with clear consciences a vast body of people take not the slightest heed of the eighteenth amendment. they are simply bent upon getting what they wish, despite the volstead act, and nothing will convince them that they are not right. a law is of absolutely no value unless it meets with response from those whom it seeks to212 improve. after a long trial, anyone but a blind person must see that our prohibition laws are violently opposed by millions of otherwise good citizens. the situation, instead of becoming better, as the anti-saloon league has all along predicted, has become steadily and obviously worse. there are danger signals confronting us. but there is a way out of our mess. that way lies through compromise.
the prohibitionists compromised, as of course they are well aware, when they did not make it against the law to drink in private homes. as i have said, they did not dare go quite that far. had they done so, serious consequences would have followed. they likewise compromised when they gave us one-half of one per cent of alcohol in our beer. why even that? to make it a little more distasteful, perhaps.
the fact is that the american people are tired of constitutional amendments. i have heard sound-thinking men say that when our own private constitutions need an amendment, we can be depended upon to add one. we are not fools—in spite of the reformers. we still believe that there is something in the old judgment of the survival of the fittest. the worthy emerge; the unworthy remain where they belong, or sink to the depths.
it is all very well to say that those who become blind through the drinking of wood-alcohol deserve their wretched fate; that if one takes such chances213 he deserves to lose his eyesight, if not his life. for myself, i cannot look at the matter quite so coldly. i have the deepest sympathy for those who, in good faith, drink something which turns out to be something else. they have simply humanly slipped; and but for this one lapse from grace they may be most estimable citizens. i think it is far more terrible that a decent manufacturer should go blind because an unreasonable and unenforceable law is on our books than that a million worthless imbeciles should lie in the gutter, drunk. i have known only a few “reformed” drunkards who ever amounted to a continental in after years; they were hardly worth saving. it is not very pleasant to think of an able citizen stricken at the height of his career; and his loss to the community is much more important than the so-called salvation of a dozen roustabouts.
during the christmas holidays of 1921, in and around new york city alone, there were twenty-six persons made blind, or killed outright, through wood-alcohol poisoning. and during another christmas season wood-alcohol caused fifty-nine deaths in massachusetts alone. somehow i do not like to contemplate such catastrophes. but the professional reformers may be made of sterner stuff than i.
let us have done with the folly of something so radically false as prohibition. in the old days, when a man got drunk, he broke the social code; now, he breaks not only that, but the penal code as well,214 thereby committing two offenses against society. but it is curious how little he cares about the second offense. with an easy conscience he deliberately goes about it—in fact, rather rejoices that he has proved himself such a devil.
drink, as no one will deny, is an inherently evil thing—a terrible force. but so is electricity a terrible force. yet, rightly used, both are the reverse of evil.
but just as the prohibitionists will not recognize the good to be found in alcohol, they refuse to admit the evils resulting from the present drastic laws. they fail to realize that prohibition, for them, is in itself a debauch, a kind of wild orgy, a sadistic spree. to strap us all to the water-wagon, snap the whip and keep us there for life, seems to be their idea of a good time.
but it is hardly ours. we have begun to think that this strange and perverted conception of a bacchanalian orgy has lasted quite long enough. and when the tide turns, the prohibitionists may know something of the horrors of a hangover, and wonder if they are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “the morning after” some approaching election may not be a pleasant one for them.
but why not compromise before the inevitable day arrives? rid of the saloon, the prohibition triumph is complete enough. local option will continue; and if the little places elect to go dry, of course215 they may do so; but as for the great cities, especially the metropolis, looking at the skull of its oldtime happiness one can but say, with hamlet, “alas! poor new yorick!”
senator frelinghuysen of new jersey said not long ago that prohibition was one of the most serious problems with which the american people have to deal. “in the country districts the people are in favor of upholding the volstead law,” he made it clear. “the church people also are against any modification of the dry law. but when it comes to big industrial centers and to the working classes, to say nothing about the foreign-born population, they are all clamoring for a change in the law to permit the sale of light wines and beer.”
if we would enact laws tomorrow giving the various states the right to control the liquor traffic within themselves, corruption would cease, and a sense of peace and happiness would descend upon the country. the constant agitations of this hour cannot go on. there is a nervous tension in the air; and so long as the volstead act remains, there will be disturbances comparable to the rumblings of earthquakes.
those of us who love america yearn for a return to truth and sanity. the present conditions are intolerable. each political party is striving to evade this big issue. each claims that neither the democrats nor the republicans gave the people prohibition; yet the people are looking to one or the other216 party to take a stand on the question. the last elections proved that.
not forever can there be a process of evasion. a third political party will come out boldly and strong with a wet plank, and as soon as the politicians sense the will of the people there will be an immediate change. but how long will it take them to sense that will?
recently, a number of doctors brought suit to test the constitutionality of the volstead act as it affects the limitation on liquor which they may prescribe. not all physicians oppose prohibition—indeed, many have stated that whiskey is not essential in the practice of medicine; others hold a divergent view. but no one can deny that things have come to a strange pass when congress, and not our doctors, treats patients ill with pneumonia and other diseases. surely an issue as clouded as this should be cleared up.
light wines and beer will return—there is little doubt of that; but many people hold that we should adopt the swedish and canadian methods of government control. we have seen that, with the federal authorities managing the liquor traffic, a decent business is done, bootlegging is practically stopped, and revenue pours into the governmental coffers. contentment takes the place of discontent, and those who drink pay the price—which they are more than willing to do. it is so obvious that this is the right method to pursue that it seems strange there should217 be any argument, that there should be any line-up of opposition.
yet the prohibitionists, in the light of their failure in the united states, continue to make prophecies of a “bone dry” world in the years to be. with amazing clairvoyance a member of the world’s women’s christian temperance union has predicted that in 1924. uruguay will go dry, and likewise argentine; austria and denmark in 1925; chili in 1927; great britain in 1928; germany in 1929; france in 1933; japan in 1936; italy in 1938; spain and china in 1939; and cuba in 1940.
foreigners have frequently been heard to say that they cannot understand why americans have not protested with a louder voice against the legislation which concerns prohibition. they forget—or they do not realize—that the united states is a vast melting-pot, and that there are, alas! too few americans left to make much of an impression. the links that draw together the individual nations of european countries are lacking in our own land. we have absorbed every race on earth; and these aliens do not know how to band together. they are not really part of us, and they are naturally confused at our methods of government. many of them are strangers in a strange land, and perhaps they do not feel justified in protesting, even though they are citizens now, saying to themselves that if the americans tolerate such rigid reforms, who are they to utter words of rebellion?
218 is it not self-evident that prohibition has miserably failed when the president finds it necessary to call a solemn conclave of governors to see what can be done, after three years, to force the people to obey the law in the various states? the federal authorities, by that gesture, admit their inability to cope with the situation, which has now become intolerable. scandal after scandal is being unearthed in sanctimonious washington, the seat of the government, and the home of prohibition. it is being revealed that many congressmen and senators preach one thing and practise another. is it not high time that their dishonesty is shown up? they should be made as ridiculous as possible. they should be made to see that they are the worst americans in existence, pretending to be virtuous, invoking the law for their constituents, and bootlegging in secret. for at least the rest of the people who conscientiously break the law, are not on record as approving it.
no one is sacrosanct on this flaming issue. government buildings are said to contain plenty of liquid refreshment for the parched throats of these eloquent advocates of a “dry” country. so long and loudly have they proclaimed their insincere doctrine that at the end of a forensic day they doubtless require a long, cool drink. let them be seen in all their inglorious hypocrisy. let the whole land laugh at them; for it is only through laughter that they can be reached and hurt. a law that is winked at by219 those who framed it is not worth the cost required to set it up in type.
but of course nothing will be done. no names will be named. the same hypocrisy will be practised here. when someone higher up is to be uncovered, the loudly proclaimed “investigation” will come to a sudden end. there are too many criminals in exalted places. we are the laughing-stock of the world as it is; but if the whole truth were known!...
economically, the people will have to have it driven home to them that prohibition is a mistake. we are forever talking about the tariff; yet the most that our tariff can bring in is about $350,000,000 a year gross. the year 1914 was the banner year in the united states in producing beer. there were 66,000,000 barrels sold. if we had not had prohibition thrust upon us, the normal growth would have been a production of about 100,000,000 barrels. the government always collected revenue at the source—there was no bookkeeping, merely a stamping, a labeling of each barrel, and that was all there was to it. think of the tax upon this one product alone which we are losing!
in 1918 canada imposed a tax of 15c on a gallon of beer. in 1922 it was 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 revenue220 collected at the source, with no obstructions. this is four times as much as our tariff bill would give to the country. moreover, if beer were restored, innumerable collateral businesses would be given new life. the bottling industry, corking, glassware—all these would be resuscitated, everyone would be happy, and personal taxes would be immeasurably lessened. as things now are, we are burdened with surtaxes, etc., which impoverish all kinds of industries and make for intense ill-feeling.
crying out for no change in our laws, it is the prohibitionists themselves who have altered our statutes. can they not be changed again?
it may be that the eighteenth amendment will never be annulled. there are those, however, who are hopeful even of that. but congress is privileged to define what constitutes an intoxicating beverage; and the volstead act is not static. the people will elect men to represent them at washington who will liberally interpret the eighteenth amendment. therein lies the remedy for much of our discontent.
prohibition rose, like a great wave; it is falling back now. the tide comes in, but it goes out again. and one can begin to hear the surge of a mighty people. they will speak at the polls, in every election; for prohibition, until it is modified, will never be taken out of national politics.
a sane compromise would clear up the situation almost overnight. and when the people speak, the government must heed their voice.
