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............