what psychological effect will this constant contempt for the law of the land have upon us as a people? surely something dire and dreadful is seeping into the national spirit, and we are in grave danger of coming to a human dislike of all laws, in consequence.
we talk of prohibition as a good thing for the generations to come; but how about disregard for the law as it will affect our children and our children’s children? drunk, they might not be responsible; sober, to their higher selves they are accountable for their shortcomings in regard to our statutes. a lack of veneration for an orderly carrying out of a mandate is a serious thing. but to hear the young people talking these days about the sanctity of the eighteenth amendment is not a heartening experience. they jeer at it, and openly roar with laughter when it is mentioned.
no one wishes danger to overwhelm us; but it will, unless something is done to remedy the present abhorrent conditions, which, i repeat, are making most of us unhappy. we are entangled in too many legal nets; and it is not pleasing and edifying to see47 an ex-judge or jurist who came out strong for prohibition sitting night after night in a certain restaurant, imbibing his cocktail, creating scandal in a more than crowded room. he is not in his cups these days—only in his demi-tasses. i wonder if he knows what an example he sets to the flappers down the room, and with what derision his high-and-mighty public utterances are now greeted whenever he opens his mouth to speak between drinks?
i hear men and women saying all the time, “america is no place to live now. the streets of our large cities at night look like villages in some remote district. dull, dull, and drab, drab. one more tyrannical law, one shadow of that deep blue which imperils us, and we will go and live abroad—anywhere but here.”
is that pleasant talk to listen to? does it make one proud to be an american? it is not well to have such feelings fomenting in the hearts of those who honestly and sincerely love their native land—love it so much that during a terrible war they were proud to offer to die for it, or allow their sons to die for it.
but this is not the time to desert the old ship of state. now, as never before, the united states needs its best blood, its best workers, its best citizens, to put the country back where it belongs.
it is because i love america so, that i do not wish to see her make a complete fool of herself—as she is doing every day now. and i say it as loudly48 as i can, that these pernicious laws, this spirit of verboten, is only making the world safe for de-mockery-cy.
it was montaigne who said that he was “of the opinion that it would be better for us to have no laws at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.” and that was how long ago? what would he write and think of america if he could live among us today?
and further he said, knowing human nature as few of us know it: “there is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.”
yet the silly law-makers go on with their silly codes, piling pelion on the top of ossa, till all sight of man’s frailty is lost. “a little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.”
yet the letter of the law must be upheld, and the very men who make our statutes continue to break them.
the joke may go too far. the american people may remember that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” and be willing to watch and wait, lest that most precious of all things be taken away from them.
there can be no disputing the fact that a law that is not enforced is worse than no law at all. law and order—that is the phrase. but america is a country of law and disorder; and the worst of49 it all is that the reformers refuse to stop where they have. they are preparing to plunge us into even deeper gloom. why should they rest, having been so eminently successful already?
we used to laugh tolerantly at the compulsory military service of the germans, under the kaiser; but isn’t a compulsory seat upon the water-wagon just about as autocratic?
“dry country, ’tis of thee,” should be our national anthem—since we are seriously looking for one to take the place of the too-difficult-to-sing “star-spangled banner.” but no; the words would not ring true. for there is a wetness all around us, and the lyric of a national anthem should at least seek to express the ideals and aspirations of a people, in terms of truth.
yet before prohibition, who would have thought of picking out america as the wettest of all countries? we were just moderately so. we had no desire to get a reputation for excessive dampness. it is the drys who have given us that reputation—against our will. and the pity of it is that the tag will remain—even after we are sanely and becomingly wet again.
the reformers wish no going back to even a semblance of the old ways and days. they wish us to conform, sedately, forgetting that emerson once wrote, “whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.”
and somehow i go on believing in emerson.
50 there was some wild talk, not so many months ago, that it might become lawful to dispense government-approved beer from the soda-fountains; but sensible people who care for their toddy—delectable word!—were not thrilled. they no more wish beer served from soda-fountains than they wish soda-water served from soda-fountains. they want their toddy. and when they say so, firmly, “oh, dear!” and “oh, my!” and “this is awful!” cry the prohibitionists.
i always somehow get back to that argument of the upholders of the eighteenth amendment to the effect that prohibition is a good thing—particularly for the next generation. i feel like asking them, in absolute seriousness, then why not look to the soda-fountain?
when i was a lad we used to drink simple little things like vanilla, strawberry and chocolate sodas—at five cents apiece. and we were happy over harmless lemon and cherry phosphates. yet the other day when i chanced to step into a confectionery shop, i was nonplussed to hear sophisticated flappers (what tautology!) ordering raspberry nut sundaes and banana splits with chocolate sauce, and other concoctions which my bewildered brain refuses to remember. and when i saw the little silver dishes heaped with these vicious sweets, i was horrified. gluttony, pure and simple. and what of dyspepsia, and indigestion, and complexions, after partaking for a few weeks of such stuff? does no51 one care enough for the coming race to do something about it?
i have seen hulking men enter such a shop at nine in the morning, hastily tear off an ice-cream soda, containing i know not what flavoring, and dash out again into the world of business. what must the lining of their stomachs be like? no habitual drunkard could show a worse record, i imagine. and of the two evil-doers, i would prefer the latter. at least he is human. the soda-fiend is a sensualist, knowing nothing of the healthy ecstasy of comradeship. he is a solitary drinker of the worst sort; and though he may not stagger out of the place, he is certainly unfit to begin his day’s work—just as unfit as the fool who makes it a practice to take a nip of scotch before breakfast.
seriously, here is work for the reformers. let them investigate the kind of mixtures that are served to our youngsters at soda-counters. one-half of one per cent of raspberry should be all that is permitted. a solemn bill should be introduced into the next legislature, and carried by an overwhelming majority. it is unthinkable that our youth should be exposed to the evils of sundaes, sold openly all along our avenues and boulevards, in every city and town and hamlet. it is madness to let this traffic go on.
and there are not even any swinging-doors to hide the sundae fiends. shamelessly they imbibe their drinks with the world passing the unshaded52 windows, looking in at them. a shocking state of affairs. yet who is doing anything about it? no wonder little alice, of the pale face, does not eat much luncheon. her mother worries over her anemic condition; yet she will not take the time to investigate the child’s daily habits. she never inquires how she spends her allowance. and young bobby, who formerly was so rosy and plump, deteriorates into a consumptive-looking boy. no, he doesn’t smoke; and as yet he has not acquired the hip-flask habit. what, then, is the matter with him, that he drops out of baseball and has no heart for tennis; that he is backward in his studies, and sleeps restlessly? on his way to school he stops in at the soda-fountain. and on his way home, he stops in once more. surely the government should issue cards, and make it a misdemeanor for a clerk to serve more than one soda a week to minors—and grown-ups. the board of health should do something about it.
you see, if it isn’t one thing it’s another in this troubled world. no sooner do we mop up the saloon than we find other places in need of mopping. parents and social workers, here is a job for you. get at it, at once. forthwith. instanter. immediately. the future welfare of the race is at stake.
if it were only ginger-pop that the children drank! but here again one cannot control the appetites of human beings. we have closed the corner saloon. is there no way of closing the corner soda-fountain?
53 it is curious, in these days when there is so much understanding, even among flappers, of psycho-analysis and complexes, that no one seems to have called attention to the fact that the prohibitionists are the greatest living examples of certain distressing inhibitions.
that the majority of us should find ourselves suddenly dictated to—told, literally, what we should and should not put into our own little private tummies—is beyond belief. what does a man who has never taken a drink know of the psychology of drink? what does he know of good-fellowship, of the poetry of the toast, of the beauties of brüderschaft? i would as soon think of dr. mary walker telling romeo and juliet how to make love.
the set lips of the fanatical reformer are the outward evidence of an interior set of corroding inhibitions. unable to get relief from the tedium of existence in, say, a town like gopher prairie, the subject moves, in his or her later years, to minneapolis or some other larger city, and is next heard of as a professional reformer of one sort or another.
i remember a young man in my class at school who was impossible as a playboy because he always wanted to rule the roost, to dictate everlastingly the manner in which any game we sought to enjoy should be played. he was never content to be just one of us. oh, no! he must run things, order us about, be a dictator and a little czar, an autocrat of the most unbending kind. we despised him. he could54 never fall into line and be boyishly human. he could not yield; he could not adjust himself to the spirit of fun which we others abandoned ourselves to with youthful ease. he was just a common scold.
he disappeared from our school-yard, and from our lives. years later, when the war broke out, he turned up in a remote town as a shrieking radical. nothing was right. he had worked out his destiny in the only way such a nature as his could possibly do. he wasn’t a good sport. worse, he wasn’t even a good citizen. he didn’t amount to a row of pins. he wasn’t even worth interning. he wasn’t interesting enough to get the slightest notoriety—he wasn’t what the newspapers term good copy; and that broke his heart.
i have no doubt that now, with the war over, he is a professional prohibitionist—or do i mean inhibitionist?—with a soft job at some desk. he would never be happy anywhere; but in such a position, interfering with normal people’s happiness, he would be as happy as he could be.
it is exactly men and women like him who have slipped over some of the laws we now have and who are planning statutes against staying away from church on sunday. but it’s an old story. the intelligent people in every community are forever allowing themselves to be duped by fortune-tellers and ouija-board manipulators, table-tippers, snake doctors and bell-tinkling “mediums.”
a dog-in-the-manger spirit is in the land. “i55 don’t like a glass of wine—i’ve never tasted the nasty stuff—so i don’t want you to taste it!” this is the cry of the paid reformers who eke out a living by taking up some fad, and, having nothing interesting of their own to reveal, peep and eavesdrop and reveal the interesting traits of their innocently jovial and erstwhile happy brothers.
we have enough complexities in our modern life without having the complexes of these would-be and self-constituted evangelists made public day by day. of course, the natural human being is he who indulges in everything—in moderation. show me the man who constantly denies himself something, and i will show you an abnormal man. he becomes obsessed with his “goodness,” as he dares to call it; and he cannot talk ten minutes without mentioning his idée fixe. he revels in it. he gloats over it. he delights in it, just as the monks of old delighted in the hair-shirt and self-flagellation. he thinks he is better than we are. soon he begins to preach. he is like the old woman who committed a sin in her early youth and still loves to talk about it. he does not know how boring he is. he does not know how little a part he plays in society. he is just a bit “off,” a trifle queer.
the next step in this form of madness is to try to impose one’s own ideas upon one’s neighbors. soon proselytizing must be done. the pent-up energy of years must be released in middle age. steam must be let off. blood pressure must be reduced. if56 these “cases” would only lock themselves up in cells and flagellate themselves, they would find comfort and release from their agony of mind, and a weary world would be grateful. but no! they must stalk through the land, imposing their so-called moral rectitude upon the rest of us.
good-naturedly we have, up to now, humored them, smiled tolerantly at them, secretly pitied them. but with shrewdness and cruelty they have plotted and planned for years, quietly banded together, until now they are joined in a great brotherhood; and instead of locking themselves up, they have locked us up—and maliciously, gleefully thrown away the key. we should have been their keepers. instead, they are ours.
an occasional little spree, as a wise frenchman once said, never hurt anybody. it is necessary for people of imagination to romp and play once in a while. what form that romping and playing takes is their own affair—so long as they do not injure their neighbors. they may express themselves in terms of smoking, of flirting, or sitting up all night and talking their heads off; or they may take a long walk in the rain; or go to the movies for several hours; or read an exciting but impossible detective story—which is by no means a waste of time; or dance; or go fishing; or attend an elks picnic; or buy their wives a diamond bracelet; or indulge in an after-dinner speech; or see a foolish musical comedy. there are a thousand and one ways to let off steam.57 they come back from any one of these “dissipations” a hundred per cent better in mind and body, and plunge into the serious business of life with a fresh stimulus, a new zest.
but the prohibitionist—what form do his inhibitions take? his orgy is one of complete surrender to an orgy of holding in, forever. he never lets go—never—not for one second. and just as the hermit enjoys his self-imposed solitude, he revels in his self-inflicted punishment; and, without wishing to be cynical, i say that he gets a certain drab satisfaction in this stupid disciplining of himself. the remorse of the morning-after is unknown to him. but without realizing it, every morning he experiences a mental hang-over. he has never lived through one normal day. the pendulum, for him, swings completely in the other direction; and he is happy only when he is unhappy. but—and here’s where you and i come in—he is not content with this exquisite unhappiness. he wants us to be unhappy, too!
pathological, you see. heretofore, the temperance people looked upon all drinkers, heavy or light, as wounded souls—medical cases. but we who drink and smoke and laugh in moderation are the normal people of the world. the others are those who are in need of treatment. the tables have been turned, thanks to psycho-analysis, and freud, and the open door that leads to the light of medical science. a bunch of sour grapes have robbed us of58 our sweet grapes. why? because they could not stand the thought of joy being in the world. they want everyone to be as miserable as they are.
having succeeded so easily in taking away one of our joys, do you think these fanatics are content? if so, you know them not. their victory has been accomplished so simply that, of course, they are now looking about for new worlds to conquer. they set their mouths, grit their teeth, look us over, impale us on a pin and see where next they can turn on the screws. they take a fiendish delight in inflicting punishment. that is part of their disease. their suppressed desires find expression in robbing us of our natural pleasure. they are cunning and keen and wise, with the curious and dangerous wisdom of the insane. they think they are sent into the world to redeem it. they have the messiah complex. they have the delusion of greatness. and when we venture to question their methods and motives, they hurl invectives back at us and cry, “you are persecuting us!” they have paranoia, you see. they would kill us, actually, rather than give us one sip of beer.
and these are the people who have, temporarily, gained the upper hand! mad on one subject, they appear perfectly balanced while lobbying in the legislatures of the land. obsessed with one idea, they can talk intelligently on every other subject; but sooner or later they will switch the conversation to their pet theory—and then i ask you to note the59 gleam in their eyes, see their lips twitch, watch how nervous they become! yes, pathological cases, every one of them!
when will the hard-shelled prohibitionists understand that it is not drink per se that thinking people are fighting for? the people are roused to action and alarm because of the dangerous precedent that has been set. if we, as a nation, are to be deprived of legitimate and friendly egg-nog (lovely word again!) when new year comes round, why, in the name of heaven, can we not be deprived of eggs? they make one bilious, i am told. and biliousness is bad for one. come, let us correct it.
but, having taken away the dangerous egg, let us poke about and see what else one can remove. ah! there it is, of course! coffee! coffee makes one nervous. nervousness is awful. coffee keeps one awake. but why remain awake in a world that has lost its glamour? remove our coffee, then! gladly we permit you to take it; for then we can go blissfully to sleep and forget our worries and cares.
it has been loudly denied that lobbying is being done to bring about the passage of further drastic laws; but the busybodies are secretly working, night and day. the deadly work goes on, unabated. of course they are not crying their methods from the housetops. sinister forces are burrowing deep, and frightened legislators will be forced to follow the path they took before the eighteenth amendment went through.
60 you remember that wonderfully satirical story of mark twain’s, “the man that corrupted hadleyburg,” don’t you, and what happened to a town that imposed righteousness upon the inhabitants? all temptation having been beneficently removed, when one little chance came to misbehave, the entire village leaped at it and was thoroughly corrupted.
there is some fun in passing a saloon, in going voluntarily on the water-wagon, in refusing that extra cocktail; there is none whatever in having someone else do it for you.
our prayers may be dictated to us next. but something tells us that if prohibitionists formulate them, they have no more chance than ours of being heard in heaven. a world made safe for us by reformers is the last kind of world we care to dwell in. for reformers are the kind of people who paint heaven as a stupid city of golden streets and pearly gates, and incessant singing and playing of harps. well, as omar said, “thy heaven is not mine.”
prohibitionists, i am genuinely sorry for you. you need not pity me, for i shall go on doing as i please, despite you. and so will millions of other good americans. does that make you frantically desperate? does that make you have another attack of your symptoms? do you puff up with rage and despair when you hear me say such things in open defiance of you?
keeper, bring in the straitjacket, and sweep out, as goldberg says, padded cell no. 7,894,502,431.61 for the pathological ward is overcrowded today. they have just brought in a frightfully red-faced man who believes in the blue laws; and he must have gone quite mad, for he is singing what he claims is the new national anthem, “three cheers for the red, white and blues!”
