There are, approximately, 110,000,000 people in the United States of America. Of these, let us say that 40,000,000 are men and 40,000,000 women. Of minors there are perhaps 30,000,000 more. Among the last named there would be very little drinking. I imagine that of the male population, a considerable number do not imbibe at all. I would rather err, giving the opposition the benefit of the doubt; and so I will say that 20,000,000 males drink in moderation, and that 10,000,000 females do the same. This gives us, out of a total population of 110,000,000, only 30,000,000 people who care anything at all about liquor. Of that number, how many, do you think, are what might be called immoderate drinkers? Five million? That, it seems to me, would be a fair estimate—more than fair. But let us be generous to a fault.
Of that five million, how many are congenital drunkards? A million? Perhaps; though I doubt that even that number have sunk so low. But let us say that two million have done so.
Then it has become necessary to deprive 30,000,000 people of a simple form of pleasure because 2,000,000 do not know how to manage their souls and bodies. It would be equally ridiculous to put an end to connubial bliss because there are a few libertines in the world.
I remember, as a boy, an unjust teacher who kept the whole class in because one pupil whispered—and she could not discover the culprit. I never could understand her perverted sense of justice. We were guilty along with the disloyal little rascal who had violated a rule. We must suffer because he would not declare himself.
But drunkards cannot conceal their wickedness. We know them. We spot them. They are obvious in any community. “The town drunkard” was as well known as the town pump. It has always been on our statutes that intoxication in public constituted a misdemeanor. The penalty for a misdemeanor is arrest, trial, and, if found guilty, imprisonment or the payment of a fine.
Few would get drunk if they knew they would be arrested. We had that law; we failed to enforce it. Hence the present inelastic laws—heaps of them—which only complicate matters, and make public morals no better than they were before.
No better? Worse. For drunkenness is rampant in the land, as it never has been. Prohibition does everything but prohibit. The very thing it sets out to do it fails to do. That is as self-evident as the misery in crowded tenement districts in great cities. There is no denying it. People who never drank before, drink now—in enormous numbers.
Why is this? Because it is perfectly human to wish to do what one is told not to do. You know the story of the woman who, just before leaving the house, said solemnly to her children, “Now, my dears, while I am gone do not play with the matches.” When she came back the house was on fire.
All the emphasis having been placed on not drinking, people are thinking of nothing but drinking. Public bars have been transferred to public coat-rooms, and we have the spectacle of numerous “souses” before a banquet, premature roisterers who become so tight that they can hardly get through a course dinner. It is disgraceful, but I fear it will never stop. For impositions breed contempt for all law and order.
Passive content finally breeds active rebellion. Our lawmakers should have the wit, the vision, the common sense to realize that. For a whole nation to be forced to be moral by statute and mandate is so ridiculous that it must make the gods laugh—particularly the goddess Hebe when she brings in the flowing bowl. She must almost spill the contents of her famous cup which she has been carrying these many cycles.