“A great deal of whimsical imagination is shown by the author; but the American people are very sensible, and even Barrie and Gilbert could not be allowed to take such liberties with life as it is. Isn’t it too bad that writers do not know the public better? What a pity it is that they cannot evolve plots that will be a revelation of life as it is, not as it might be in a mad, whirligig world of fancy? This is not good, even as satire, for the situation could not exist, even in a realm of dreams.”
But see what has happened! This plot would have proved a prophecy and made several fortunes for the author and the manager.
“What!” I hear some character saying in the course of the first act, just before the curtain descends, “do you mean to say that the boys who fought for this democracy stuff had no voice in the passing of the law that made it a crime to sip a glass of good beer?” And the answer would be, “Of course not! How behind the times you are! America is a free country, you know. The people who dwell in it boast of their superiority of intellect, and rejoice in their form of self-government—though they abrogate their votes to a pack of politicians who are—well, to put it bluntly, dishonest. For they drink themselves, while they bow to lobbyists who don’t believe in drink—for the other fellow. America, my good sir, is the land of the spree no longer; it is the home of the grave.” (Business of laughter. Solemn music is heard, and the entire chorus of legislators pass with stately steps to the Capitol, dressed in heavy mourning.)
But nothing is being done about anything. The American people, whipped into obedience, as Prussians were never whipped, take their medicine (from which all but one-half of one per cent of alcohol has been extracted—and why this modicum should be permitted to remain is only another joker in the whole stupid business) and obey the law.
Only, they don’t. They go out and break it to bits, as I have shown; and our legislators wonder why they have so many bad children on their hands, and isn’t it a strange world, and why is it that folks won’t be good and do as they are told, and what are laws for, anyhow, and this disrespect of the law is awful and must be punished, and someone has got to go to jail, and why is Bolshevism growing when we are all so happy?
Ah! there is the answer in one word! We are not happy—every one is decidedly, unequivocally, wretchedly, miserably, gloomily, stonily, fearfully, terribly unhappy!
And why? Because one has to fight so hard for his fun nowadays. A lot of laws have been passed, and more are threatened, which blast one’s hopes of the simplest kind of good times. These laws are based on a complete misunderstanding of poor old human nature, which needs, every now and then, say what you will, an escape from the dreariness, the tedium of life. The harmless diversions which in childhood take the form of playing ball and cricket and tennis experience a metamorphosis as we grow older—a perfectly natural metamorphosis; and we crave just a tinge of excitement after the harsh, unyielding day’s work. Most Americans work hard—there is no doubt of that. Except for a Cause. But, seriously, American business is a strenuous, glorious thing—a delightful game, if you will; but it is also a serious note in the scale of our national consciousness.
We need relaxation after eight or nine hours at a desk; and the lights of a great city are the lure that lead us forth—not to get drunk, God knows, but to get just that fillip the weary body and brain need when an honest day’s work is done.
The people who don’t understand this, and who are trying to rule and run America, are in a class with those who fail to understand the psychology of Coney Island, or any other simple pleasure resort; who are unable to distinguish between a happy sobriety and filthy gutter intoxication; who never heard Stevenson’s line about Shelley, “God, give me the young man with brains enough to make a fool of himself.”
How a glass of light wine or beer is going to hurt a fellow is more than I, for the life of me, can see; and if he takes his wife along, as he usually does, or wishes to do, there is precious little danger that one will ever fall over the terrible precipice of intoxication and go down into the bottomless pit of complete disaster.