Charles Hanson Towne - The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

I have seen hulking men enter 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. No habitual drunkard could show a worse record. The soda-fiend is a sensualist, knowing nothing of the healthy ecstasy of comradeship. He is a solitary drinker of the worst sort.

TO MY FRIEND
JOHN M. DENISON

The chapter from Mr. John J. Leary, Jrs, book, Talks with T. R., entitled On Prohibition, is used in this volume by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

Thanks are also due the editor of Harpers Magazine, for his kind permission to include portions of E. S. Martins article, and to the Rev. W. A. Crawford-Frost, for his consent to reprint extracts from his sermon.

Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have been most helpful in permitting the use of their files of The Literary Digest; and Mr. William L. Fish, Mr. Frederic J. Faulks, Mr. Thomas K. Finletter and Mr. Herbert B. Shonk rendered much assistance in the preparation of this volume.

Two chapters are reprints of articles which originally appeared in the New York Times.

I must also thank Mr. Markham, Mr. Le Gallienne and Mr. Montague for the use of their poems.

The strange phenomenon of Prohibition, after an appearance amongst us of over three years, is still non-understandable to the majority of a great, and so-called free, people. It is one of the most astonishing manifestations the world has ever witnessed. It came upon us like a phantom, swiftly; like a thief in the night, taking us by surprise. Yet the Prohibitionists will tell you that no one should be amazed, since for yearsfor almost a centuryquiet forces have been at work to bring about this very thing.

Most of us can remember how, not so many years ago, when we wished to throw away our vote, we cast it for the Prohibition ticket. Some unknown crank was running for office on a dry platform. What a joke, we said, to give him the weight of our affirmation, to enlarge his pitiful handful of white ballots! It will be a good way to get even with the arrogant Mr. So-and-So.

And into the box we laughingly dropped the bit of paper which might cause a mention to be made of the crank in the next mornings news columns. Delightful, insincere flattery, which could not possibly do any harm. How well, how thoroughly, how consistently we gave it, never dreaming that the solemn hour would strike when our gesture would no longer be a joke.

The morning came when the headlines in our newspapers proclaimed the fact that State after State was following the road of Kansas, Washington, Maine and Oregon, to mention only a few States which for some time had elected to make laws that were almost blue. Local optionyes, we had heard of it in the effete East. There were districts, we knew, which chose the path of so-called virtue; and they were welcome to their sanctimoniousness. In our hearts we rather approved of them for the stand which they had takenparticularly when we learned, on an occasional visit, that it was mighty easy to give a dinner-party with plenty of liquid refreshment. All one had to do, it seemed, was to lift the telephone receiver in Bangor, and ask that Boston send over a supply of whatever one desired. There were no restrictions against the transportation of liquor over the State line, though it was impossible to purchase wines and spirits in the holy community itself.

Our national insincerity began right there. The hiding of the ostrichs head in the sandsthat is what it amounted to; and we all smiled and laughed, and went on having a perfectly good time, and we told one another, if we discussed the matter at all, that of course the worst could never, never occur. What rot even to think of it; what idiocy to take seriously a state of affairs so nebulous and remote. It was like predicting a world warwhich eventually came about; it was like dreaming of the inconvenience of a personal income taxwhich also came about; it was like imagining that man would be so uncivilized as to break all international lawwhich, only a few years later, he did. Who foresaw the use of poisonous gas in the most frightful conflict of history? Who had vision enough to tell us that noncombatants would be killed, as they were in Belgium, though treaties had been signed which forbade such wanton cruelty? Who could foretell the bombing of cities far beyond the firing line? Yet these atrocities occurred with singular regularity once the world entered upon that stupendous struggle which began in August, 1914. We came to take such happenings for granted. We grew accustomed to terror, as one grows used to pain; and all that we had built and dreamed went crashing to dust and ashes.

Prohibition, I venture to say, was the last thing in the world the American people expected to have come upon them. Though temperance advocates were thick through the country, the brilliant bar-rooms held their own; and we came to look upon them as an essential part of the pageant of life, especially in cosmopolitan cities, with Salvation Army lassies entering them to pass the tambourine. Men in their cups gave generously; and I often wonder if the revenue of pious organizations has not seriously diminished, now that there are no haunts of vice for holy workers to penetrate. Surely they must miss this casual liberalitythe coin or the bill cast with a grand and forgotten gesture into the extended hand.