 CHAPTER XVI. The young old philosopher has recently been traveling over the country as far west as the coast. He had heard that conditions 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 adventure in the liquor traffic, many a bold plunge over the line to bring whiskey and gin into United States territory. And they certainly bring it. Meanwhile, the propaganda of the Puritan goes on, or rather the impropaganda, for it is not true that people are behaving themselves. There is just as much discontent and disorder among westerners as among easterners, 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 depressing. Passing through a hotel corridor one day 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 businessmen 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 tabool, and a good song ringing 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 prohibition. But my friend turned away at this travesty on mirth and good fellowship. He wondered if Richard Hovey was not turning in his grave at the cruel editing of his deathless steinsong, and he counted it a pity that pewter mugs had been superseded by ice-water goblets.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 was the pass we had come to. This was the drab social order we had definitely arrived at. He went disconsolently 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 snip snip of the shears as certain boisterous passages 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 bow a flask of milk, a book of verse, and thou. Beside me singing in the wilderness, ah, paradise, we're wilderness enough. 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 said 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 banquets. 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 deprived of the vicarious joy of dipping into the pagan past, might we not just as well renounce life entirely? 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 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 Cowleys written somewhere between 1618 and 1667, which must give pain to any prohibitionist. Will they strive to boudlarize 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 anacryon. 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 overflow the cup. The busy sun and one would guess, by drunken's 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 rubble all the night. Nothing in nature's sober found, but in 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? Think of losing from English literature lines like these from the last poems of A. E. Hausman. Could man be drunk forever with liquor, love, or fights? Leaf should I rouse at morning and leaf lie down at nights. But men at wiles 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 Leigh Gallien 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 ballad spurning the busy body reformers. 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-tas. 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 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 wear the old birch rod and the cane. Here comes our modern hudibra. Don't make the same mistake again. Envoy 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's son of song must be pulled in from the pleasant highways and made to conform. Conform to what? A three-room flat with kitchenette and running water and a clerk's desk downtown with methodical rides on a heaving subway train at eight in the morning and then at six in the evening. While 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. End of section 19 Section 20 of the Rise and Fall of Prohibition. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phyllis Vincelli. The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Charles Hansen Town. Section 20. Chapter 17. 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 bootleger to 30 days in jail and excoriated him at the courtroom 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, with the 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 remote from the dining room. And thither the great men repaired to refresh themselves after the arduous 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 judged. 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 beat. The dozen cases are 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. 0000 Sherman. Call him up. He's all right. Goodbye, 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 unconscious 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 twenty-five percent 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 answers 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 proceedings ten or a dozen times on a journey lasting but a couple of hours. He has seen a woman injured in the streets and in the cities lying almost unconscious. A hotel was close by and a doctor in the crowd suggested that someone rushed 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 and 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 working man spent say two dollars and fifty cents on grog out of his weekly wages and was content to let it go with 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 but they drink poison anything that they can lay their hands upon and become all but raving maniacs for a while. He has seen form letters from bootleggers in New 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 males 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 lawbreakers 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 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. 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 pinched the second man in due season taking the prearranged graft which would come out of his profit. He remembers the case in the state of New York. 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 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 is seen in many a women'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 wrongdoing. 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 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 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 for a long time and for a long time he has known many times 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 his long inaction as neglect of duty therefore he set an eye 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 to be full of grayness but the federal government getting his report seemed pleased at his attention 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 action for the suppression of intoxication among undergraduates 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 mullen gauge act and the hobart act pressed upon him in his college so that he may be made to see the dangers that lurk in alcohol the 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 is 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 is 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 carded 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 some let's said but how one absolves himself as 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 bootleger in his town is a federal prohibition officer who can get him anything he wants from beer to whiskey and liquors 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 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 and of section 20 section 21 of the rise and fall of prohibition this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Richard Ooty the rise and fall of prohibition by Charles Hanson Town 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 bookstalls of the land we are facing a dangerous precedent Casanova's homecoming was likewise censored but the vice society 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 utilitarianism 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 of the simple people there is a tremendous lesson in that drama crushes too much make too many automatons on one day the lifeless, bloodless unimaginative host may arise in sudden might and defeat the very purpose of their masters the easy triumph of prohibition gives the reformer 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 a 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 guard 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 easygoing American says well of course they did put prohibition over on us they are robbers of our sheroots we simply wouldn't stand for that 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 liquor, if complete drought settled down over the land we might rise in a great body and speak what we inwardly 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 our dearly bought bootleg toddies and decide 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 lords 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 a 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 babbits of this country to do as they please all I ask is that they let me alone as I certainly shall let them alone as I am aware 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 prairie I must feel an impulse 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 dual beauty of say fifth avenue or michigan avenue on a winter evening the monotony of the life of a cancerous farmer does not appeal to them they can scarcely understand that passion for seclusion 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 women who smoke cigarettes and it is difficult to understand why everyone cannot be possessed of the same knowledge they seek to impose their beliefs upon others they do know proselytizing they are not anxious to convert people to a way of thinking 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 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 shattered and one's hands tremble the reformer seeing only the ill 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 hollabaloo 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 and desires 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 Robert Louis Stevenson used to say that the little superfluities of life were what made it lovely yes and bearable living does not consist of drudgery from day to day proving oneself efficient turning out in orderly fashion so many mechanical instruments with no release from humdrum life must contain zest and ardour and variety that zest and ardour 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 recognize that but the right kind of mild drinking the drinking of wines which helps digestion by giving the proper spur to the gas with 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 with the cafes and streets of Paris be littered with shameful and shameless fellow countrymen of mine the French learn from childhood how to drink a picture in a recent Parisian journal showed a group of three generations of wine growers chosen at hazard from among many others I never looked upon sturdier representatives of what some of our forlorn know-nothings would doubtless call a decadent people Algaholism is practically unknown among the Latin races to go over the border into a certain state of imbecility is well nigh unthinkable to them she was not 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 ribbed 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 accepted the truth that the menace had been removed and went on consuming an occasional aperitif wine's never cocktails and high balls 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 drinking 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 ourselves 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 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 end of section 21 section 22 of the rise and fall of prohibition this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Richard Ortie the rise and fall of prohibition by Charles Hanson Town section 22 is Europe going dry if William E. otherwise known as Pussyfoot Johnson at his way Europe too will know the great drought 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 rumours of large sons being spent to contravert the propaganda of the temperance advocates in England has come out straw for prohibition the London pub is a notoriously shocking place in the meanest sections of the city I have witnessed scenes which made one realise that Dickens 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 drunk that they could scarcely total to their wretched homes the British could find a way to shut up these disreputable resorts without interfering with the liberty of that 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 3.30pm 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 innkeeper to sell one glass of ale though he offered him a thousand pounds I remember the shock of a bar made down 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 suppertime 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 prohibition and the wets won the returns were as follows against 930,655 for 901,053 as in America certain localities were decidedly in favour of complete prohibition but in the large cities one found the desire for what might be termed dampness the female vote was preponderantly anti-prohibition a sensible system has been evolved in Sweden they regulate the liquor traffic under what is known as the BRAT system only one organisation in the country is permitted to dispense alcoholic beverages this is known as the wine and spirit 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 reformers are attempting by means of local option gradually to make the whole of Sweden as dry as a desert but Dr. BRAT 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 it is pointed out that in 1913 before liquor restriction drunkenness was amazingly common in 1921 drunkenness decreased 27% arrests for drunkenness have gone down 49% under his system there is little doubt that government control in Sweden as elsewhere has worked remarkably well Russia went dry now the Soviet government has decided that prohibition is a complete failure resulting in the secret manufacture as in the United States of much vile hooch there will be a return to good vatka 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 unthinkable that Europe 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 is going dry but a phase that will pass are keeping vast stores of champagne in readiness to ship to us and the prices are rescinded they simply cannot understand our 18th 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 prohibitions feel at any rate Pussyfoot Johnson at this writing is working hard in Australia to bring about this consummation France knows already the league national contralalcalism with offices in Paris Switzerland has the league Swiss des femmes abstinente and both countries are being peppered with depressing posters showing the evil effects of booze such works of art take the place of old songs like father, dear father, come home to me now and plays like ten nights in a bar room they have their definite function they will prove a power among the lower and middle classes scorned though they may be 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 drives 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 situation but it will require capital to keep it going and just now all the European countries are notoriously 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 seem to indicate that it may swing all or a part of the way for Britishers and Ladins 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 of people to rise up against their government yet we know what the Germans did and where the Kaiser is today the spectacle of America is going bone dry is not a heartening one ambassadors from other lands have seen our contempt for the law and it is doubtful if any of them would recommend to their countries a counterfeiting of our methods and manners we have come to little else than disruption and heartbreaking failure in this matter of prohibition imitation of our ways would amount almost to madness End of section 22 section 23 of the rise and fall of prohibition this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Richard Ortie the rise and fall of prohibition by Charles Hansen Town what are we going to do about it one finds it hard to believe that the 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 honourable citizens who feel impaled to express their views hundreds of influential newspapers stand solidly against the 18th 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 to be part of the modification of the Volstead Act sent it a reed of Missouri and a vowed foe of prohibition and Governor Edwards of New Jersey and even more ardent wet won over their opponents having made their views definitely known Edwards now goes to the senate the citizens of Massachusetts defeated a bill for additional state machinery to make the Volstead Act more effective and in Illinois a meeting 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 a democratic candidate for governor ran on a light wine and beer platform against a republican candidate who had signed the wretched mullin gauge 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's 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 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 announces his stand on the topic which is forever being discussed has the better chance of victory the time for equivocation has gone by the people want to know how politicians feel about prohibition and the defeat of Mr. Volstead himself for re-election was a significant circumstance the anti-prohibitionists now know that they will have to organize and fight and fight hard it requires no tremendous amount of vision to see that if both the big parties at present in power refuse to consider a change in the interpretation of the Volstead Act a third party will arise with prohibition as the foremost issue before the people President Harding has said that whether the country is to remain wet or dry will be a political issue for years to come statesmen and politicians alike are beginning to see and admit a change in the feeling 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 and every evening party the topic invariably comes up is no significance to be attached to this circumstance I'm not long ago the English and French were complaining about American visitors by the borsum to listen day in and day out to nothing but their talk on the engrossing subject we eat, sleep and I was going to say drink prohibition we have made a ghastly mistake the unforeseen evils that have come in the wake of prohibition far outweigh the good we have never had anything but poor man's prohibition and if it is true that those who feel the pinch of poverty have derived benefit from the closing of the saloon as indeed they have it is equally true that the moderately well-to-do have had their expenses increased used to drinking all their lives they were not to be whipped into obeying a law with which they had no sympathy they intended, humanly enough to continue to get their grog at any price and they have done so even though they afterward had a rendezvous with debt with a liquor simply because they cannot afford it I have seen clerks buying beer at 75 cents a bottle which must have made quite a hold 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 does body of people take not the slightest heed of the 18th amendment they are simply bent upon getting what they wish despite the Volstead Act and nothing will convince them that they are not right a law is of absolutely no value unless it meets with response from those whom it seeks to improve after a long trial anyone but a blind person must see that our prohibition laws are violently opposed by millions of otherwise good citizens the situation instead of becoming better as the anti-saloon league has all along predicted has become steadily and obviously worse there are danger signals confronting us but there is a way out of our mess that way lies through compromise the prohibitionists compromised as of course they are well aware when they did not make it against the law to drink in private homes as I have said they did not dare go quite that far had they done so serious consequences would have followed they likewise compromised when they gave us one half of one percent 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 needs an amendment we can be depended upon to add one we are not fools in spite of the reformers we still believe that there is something in the old judgment of the survival of the fittest the worthy emerge the unworthy remain where they belong or sink to the depths it is all very well to say that those who become blind through the drinking of wood alcohol deserve their wretched fate that if one takes such chances he deserves to lose his eyesight if not his life for myself I cannot look at the matter quite so coldly I have the deepest sympathy for those who in good faith drink something which turns out to be something else they have simply humanly slipped 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 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 last of 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 26 persons made blind or killed outright through wood alcohol poisoning and during another Christmas season wood alcohol caused 59 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 but 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 petal code as well thereby committing two offenses against society but it is curious how little he cares about the second offense with an easy conscience he deliberately goes about it in fact rather rejoices 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 evil resulting from the present drastic laws they fail to realize that the 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 a little place is elect to go dry of course they may do so but as for the great cities especially the metropolis looking at the skull of its old time happiness one can but say with Hamlet alas poor New York Senator Freeling Heisen 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 favour of upholding the Volstead Law he made it clear the church people also are against the dry law but when it comes to big industrial centres and to the working classes to say nothing about the foreign born population they are all clamouring 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 and the present agitations of this hour cannot go on there is a nervous tension in the air and so long as the Volstead Act remains there will be disturbances comparable to the rumblings of earthquakes those of us who love America yearn for a return to truth and sanity the present conditions are intolerable each political party is striving to evade this big issue each claims that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans gave the people prohibition yet the people are looking to one or the other party to take a stand on the question the last elections proved that not forever can there be a process of evasion a third political party will come out boldly and strong with a wet plank and as soon as the politician sense the will of the people there will be an immediate change but how long will it take them to sense that will 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's little doubt of that but many people hold that we should adopt the Swedish and Canadian methods of government control we have seen that with the federal authorities managing the liquor traffic a decent business is done bootlegging is practically stopped and revenue pours into the governmental coffers contentment takes the place of discontent and those who drink pay the price which they are more than willing to do it is so obvious that this is the right method to pursue that it seems strange there should be any argument that there should be any lineup 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 Christian Temperance Union has predicted that in 1924 Uruguay will go dry and likewise Argentine Austria and Denmark in 1925 Chile 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 perhaps they do not feel justified in protesting even though they are citizens now saying to themselves that if the Americans tolerate such rigid reforms who are they to utter words of rebellion is it not self-evident that prohibition has miserably failed when the president finds it necessary to call a solemn conclave of governors to see what can be done after three years to force the people to obey the law in the various states the federal authorities by that gesture admit their inability to cope with the situation which has now become intolerable scandal after scandal 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 practice another is it not high time that their dishonesty is shown up they should be made as ridiculous as possible they should be made to see that they are the worst Americans in existence pretending to be virtuous invoking the law for their constituents and bootlegging in secret for at least the rest of the people who conscientiously break the law are not on record as approving it no one is sacrosanct on this flaming issue government buildings are said to contain plenty of liquid refreshment for the parched throats of these eloquent advocates of a dry country so long and loudly have they proclaimed their insincere doctrine that at the end of a forensic day they doubtless require a long cool drink let them be seen in all their inglorious hypocrisy let the whole land laugh at them for it is only through laughter that they can be reached and hurt a law that is winked at by those who framed it is not worth the cost required to set it up in type but of course nothing will be done no names will be named the same hypocrisy will be practiced here when someone higher up is to be uncovered a publicly 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 million a year gross the year 1914 was the banner year in the United States in producing beer there were 66 million barrels sold if we had not had prohibition thrust upon us the normal growth would have been a production of about 100 million barrels the government always collected revenue at the source there was no bookkeeping merely a stamping a labelling of each barrel that was all there was to it one product alone which we are losing in 1918 Canada imposed a tax of 15 cents on a gallon of beer in 1922 it was 42.5 cents a gallon there are 30 gallons in a barrel which means $13.60 a barrel now or more than 2.5 times as much as before multiply 100 million barrels by $13.60 you arrive at 1.360 million revenue collected at the source with no obstructions this is four times as much as our tariff bill would give to the country moreover if beer were restored innumerable collateral businesses would be given new life the bottling industry corking, glassware all these would be resuscitated everyone would be happy and personal taxes would be immeasurably lessened as things now are we are burdened with surtaxes etc which impoverish all kinds of industries and make for intense ill feeling crying out for no change in our laws it is the prohibitionists themselves who have altered our statutes can they not be changed again? it may be that the 18th amendment will never be annulled there are those however who are hopeful even of that but congress is privileged to define statutes and intoxicating beverage and the valstead act is not static the people will elect men to represent them at washington who will liberally interpret the 18th amendment therein lies the remedy for much of our discontent prohibition rolls 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 who holds 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 end of section 23 end of the rise and fall of prohibition by Charles Hanson town