when we sit back and rail at the eighteenth amendment and the volstead act, we lose sight of other laws equally tyrannous which, however, do not happen to affect us.
is it generally known, for instance, that in the state of utah there is a statute which makes it a misdemeanor to purchase, sell or smoke cigarettes? one may not puff in a public place; yet one may do so in private, the law contends. the mormon church is opposed not only to drinking and smoking, but to coffee-drinking as well; and as the elders in that church are the big property owners in salt lake city, controlling the hotels and other public buildings, when i went there not long ago i wondered if i would be permitted to light a weed.
with soda-fountains gracing the lobbies of the smartest caravanseries, i had my doubts; but when i casually asked where the cigar-stand was, i was directed to a garish counter, and beneath gleaming glass cases i saw, to my amazement, all brands of cigarettes on sale. i asked how this could be.
“you don’t take this law seriously?” a native said to me.
18 “i am getting so that i cannot take any law seriously,” was my natural answer—as it undoubtedly would have been yours, dear reader. yet you and i call ourselves perfectly decent, god-fearing american citizens, do we not?
i hadn’t the slightest trouble in purchasing everything that i wanted; yet a new fear possessed me. after dinner, would it be possible to smoke in the main dining-room?
to make a long story short—it was. everyone was doing it, just as though a law had never been heard of; and i saw mormons consuming coffee, too. think of it!
for almost two years now the farce has gone on. no one thinks it curious any more that the mandate is not obeyed.
they told me of a case recently tried out there. a small tobacco merchant—an italian, if i recall correctly—was arrested for selling a package of cigarettes to a detective. (to remind people of the august legislature and to give the tax-payers another reason for being taxed, a minion of the law must go about now and then, on a fat salary, to investigate conditions.) at the trial, the package in evidence was placed on a large green-covered table, in the presence of the jury and the court. it was all very incriminating. the prosecuting attorney worked himself into a fine fury of eloquence, denouncing the pitiful little culprit in high-faluting language that the wretch on trial could not possibly understand.19 the majesty of the law must be upheld. this was terrible; it was atrocious—though nothing was said of the fact that down in the heart of the city, every hour of the day, this same law was openly violated. the judge solemnly charged the jury—and hastened out to luncheon.
but the twelve good men and true were out only a few moments. they brought in a verdict of not guilty.
“how can this be?” cried the court, in wrath. and the counsel for the people tore his hair, metaphorically, if not literally. the detective looked blank. then the foreman arose and said that the jury had had no evidence presented to them that cigarettes had been sold, as the package covering the alleged malignant little weeds had never been opened.
and so the money of the good citizens of utah is being spent on such opera-bouffé trials—and they continue to stand for it.
a delightful state of affairs, my masters. such incidents should get into the papers more frequently. for we can all stand anything but ridicule. and when the law is thus made ridiculous, it is to laugh, isn’t it?
or should one remain serious in the face of such nonsense—as of course the reformers would have us do.
well, i am afraid they will have to pass laws against smiling before i can be brought to terms.20 and even then i may break another law—and go to jail for it. or more likely remain peacefully at home, as i do now, breaking so many that i have stopped counting them.
i fear that i break the speed laws—as do you. i am afraid that most of us do. yet i am not conscious of good ladies of any n. s. l. s. (national speed law society) giving up tea-parties that they may get out on the highways to watch us, and report us, and, if need be, arrest us themselves. yet when you and i dine at a restaurant in a city like new york, we are apt to note a policeman in uniform standing in the doorway, his eagle eye upon us, to see that we do not take flasks from our pockets. i wonder what would happen if, under the very nose of this representative of law and order, one should pour from a bottle some harmless iced-tea. alas! i fear that the law is not to be trifled with in that way. the dignity of our jurisprudence must not be disturbed. one might be hauled up and arraigned for disorderly conduct, or for some such trumped-up charge.
but it is a pretty picture, isn’t it, to see perfectly good tax-payers watched and spied upon while they eat their meals? ye gods! and in a supposedly free country! how our ancestors must turn in their graves—they who wrote something, didn’t they, about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?
who shall define that last phrase today? i wonder21 what it means—what anything means—in these topsy-turvy times.
not long ago, in solemn conclave in an eastern city, a holy body of men and women aroused the whole country to its first volume of fury by suggesting that gatling-guns be used to enforce obedience to the prohibition law. in their fanatical zeal, they were seriously for murdering a number of us, and they saw no humor in their announcement. what were a few lives, if the law was upheld?—a law, by the way, which millions of thinking people do not believe should ever have been put upon our statutes. no more shameful resolution was ever made at a public meeting; yet i would not have been surprised had it been passed, to such a state of imbecility have we come. why stop where we are? let the digging in go on; let the teeth of the law sink into your flesh until we groan in agony. let the busybodies and the cranks become as thick as flies and locusts in time of pestilence. let them gather in battalions around us, sting us, flay us, torture us—until at last the vestige of manhood which is left in us may cause us to turn upon them.
i fear that the law which makes it illegal for a minor to be admitted to a theater or a motion-picture palace is broken every day in every city of our broad and beneficent land. yet i do not find pickets from children’s societies, standing about to see that the letter of the law is obeyed. we pretend to be deeply interested in the welfare of the coming generation—so22 interested, in fact, that the present generation is forced to give up its harmless toddy, that the children of tomorrow may be robust supermen and superwomen.
the fact is that, to the fanatic, no law is sacred except the eighteenth amendment.
the fifteenth? oh; why talk of it? the south knows its problems, and can cope with them. besides ... well ... ahem!... that’s another matter, and has no bearing upon the issue at hand.
why hasn’t it? yet if you ask ten people in the street what the fifteenth amendment is the chances are that only one will be able to tell you.
if the negro was enfranchised, he was enfranchised, and should be permitted to vote. that is the law of the land. it is part of our glorious constitution.
but do you hear anyone raising a row over the fact that no one pays any attention to it in certain parts of the south? few zealots work for the rights of negro voters—none, i should say. it matters little to us that they are denied that privilege which belongs to every citizen here, whether he is black or white, or what his previous condition of servitude.
why should we respect one amendment to the constitution, and be allowed to hold in contempt another?
truly, the logic of the fanatic is hard to follow. if one of them reads these words, he will merely smile and pass on, and do nothing at all about it.23 for just now he is fearfully concerned over mr. volstead and the carrying out of his policies. one thing at a time, please.
his interest may keep him busy for so many years to come that he will have the excuse of no free moment to study the fifteenth amendment. but all the amendments should be enforced, or wiped off the books.
riding in a train once through the sanctified state of kansas, where long they have refused to let you and me buy a cigarette, i asked for a package in the dining-car.
“can’t let you have ’em,” was the answer of the steward. “we’re on kansas soil.”
“then why don’t you inform passengers before we cross the state line, in order that they may stock up?” i inquired—humanly enough, i thought.
“they should look out for themselves,” was his rather unkind reply.
i thought a moment. i did want a smoke, and i was determined to have one, despite all the laws in christendom. i told my feelings to the steward. he saw that i was in earnest. in fact, he came to see the justice of my suggestion that passengers, unaccustomed at that time to so many restrictions (this happened in the halcyon, prehistoric days before prohibition) should be given some hint of the approach of the state line.
he came over and whispered in my ear, first looking about him—as we are all doing nowadays,24 the while we laugh at russia and prussia: “say, if you’ll drop a quarter on the floor, i’ll pick it up; and there’ll be a package of cigarettes under your napkin in a minute.”
thus was another holy law disobeyed.
and it is done every day, o proud fanatics, who think you are cleaning us up. and it always will be done. for poor old frail human nature is just what it is; and spiritual reformation can never come, as you would have it, from without, in. we must all work out our own destinies, from within, out. somehow we like the little battles with our souls. they add a piquancy to life. they give a spice and zest to the level days. our appetites are our own affairs. the moderate drinker is not a drunkard; and to place restrictions upon him, in order to cure the ne’er-do-well is as unjust as it would be to put the petit larceny prisoner in the death chair along with the murderer.
gertrude atherton, who is wise and broad-minded, once wrote an article against prohibition, which began with these sharp, incisive sentences:
“i am a woman. i never drink. but i am against prohibition.”
my own sentiments, exactly.
temperance—yes; but never absolute restrictions. and if we continue to place them upon the people, we shall have nothing but broken, shattered laws all down the line; and finally something else will be broken and shattered.
25 i mean the dream of this great republic. i mean the illusion which all of us had that we were not to live under despots. i mean the hope of a race which believed in democracy, and finds itself suddenly in the grasp and under the domination of bitter tyrants, who seek to chain us, and imprison not only our bodies, but our very souls.
