“1. To the commanding officers:
“The following memorandum from the Police Commissioner is for your information and guidance.
“In Mount Vernon any person found publicly intoxicated is arrested and required to make an affidavit stating where he obtained the liquor causing the intoxication. This affidavit is made the basis of a search warrant, directing a search of the place selling the liquor.
“This is but one of the many means which might be employed to put an end to violation of the Prohibition law. The plan seems to work out successfully in Mount Vernon.
“2. Intoxicated members of the force:
“Hereafter when members of the force are found to be suffering from alcoholism to such an extent as to warrant charges signifying the liquor has been obtained from persons who are violating the State prohibition law, request the officers to make an affidavit stating where they obtained this liquor. Take appropriate action in the premises. If it is found that the officers have failed to take proper action where the law has been violated additional charges should be preferred against them and if the case is a serious one they should be suspended from duty.
“3. Cabarets and dance halls:
“Cabarets and dance halls having resumed business for the Fall and Winter season will be carefully inspected from time to time and properly regulated. The majority of these places disregard provisions of the prohibition law and should be given rigid supervision.
“Commanding officers will see that music and dancing at these places is stopped at 1 A.M., and that these places do not harbor an undesirable element after that hour.”
I have spoken of uniformed men standing guard over a roomful of citizens in New York restaurants and cabarets. Alas! it is shockingly true. It is as though no other law existed, as I have said. To one who loves his country, his city, it is disgusting. The people writhe under the presence of the officer—but do nothing about it. What can they do? Could they not request the Mayor, or the Police Commissioner to stop such nonsense? And if the thing occurs in one restaurant, why not in all of them?
With my own eyes I have seen this petty exhibition. It is outrageous. Only one officer was in the place I visited. Yet I could not believe I was in free America.
The room was filled with beautifully dressed men and women. The dance floor was crowded. Upon every table, directly under the eye of the officer, was a drink. I am not saying that in each tumbler there was an alcoholic beverage—and probably the man in uniform did not wish to think so, either. But I wonder how any intelligent being could imagine that a lot of sophisticated Manhattanites would go out of an evening to a gay cabaret, and order lime-juice—unless they intended to mix something with it? Such folk are not plain ginger-ale consumers, as a rule—they purchase it to mingle with gin. White Rock is not their favorite beverage; neither is Clysmic. Yet bottles of these were evident everywhere. Anyone save a moron would have known why.
Yet solemnly up and down that room the officer walked, glancing here and there, hobnobbing now and again with a friendly waiter—who seemed to be on excellent terms with him. His journeys were rhythmically conceived and executed. For a moment or two he would stand glaring about him, his arms folded, after the manner of a soldier in the late War standing guard over military prisoners. Then he would amble, almost to the time of the music, to the farther side of the room. Instantly two hundred hands would slip under the tables, and flasks would be drawn forth, and a liquid that was certainly not water would be poured swiftly and deftly into various goblets. Then, when the officer swung back again on his rounds, the folk at the other side of the room would go through the same unbelievable performance. The man in uniform had eyes, but he saw not.
You see, the authorities had come out with a statement not long before, to the effect that it was not the man with the hip-flask whom they were after—only the citizen foolish and daring enough to slam his flask down openly upon a cabaret table. In other words, so delicate are the nuances of the law, that it is not an offense to drink behind your napkin, or behind a closed door; but it is a very terrible crime to reveal the fact that you have a container of alcohol on your person. Think of seriously pronouncing such a ukase, with the Mullan-Gage law still upon the records. I do not understand how City Magistrates, in New York, know how to interpret the law.
I was told that almost every evening an arrest or two is made in these hitherto happy cabarets; but generally the case is dismissed. The proprietor bails his patron out, and then the merry-go-round starts again next evening. Since this was written, the police have been withdrawn from New York cabarets—another confession of the failure to enforce the law.
But New York is full of insincerities. Conventions take place there, and we read a sanctimonious announcement in the papers that of course nothing alcoholic will be served at the banquets—that goes without saying. But up in Eddie’s room, on the eighteenth floor, a lot of grown-up men, in the city to discuss solemn business problems, find that sustenance which they desire and demand. The authorities, alarmed at the influx of so many virtuous men, give out the statement that it is well that they are so virtuous, and not the kind of fellows who crave a drink; for the hootch in New York is notoriously foul (of course it isn’t, but that makes no difference to a Prohibition officer) and it would be unsafe to consume any of it. Many of these safe and sound business men, from all parts of the country, came out strong for the Eighteenth Amendment. They were Puritans—when it came to the other fellow’s habits. The little clerk would never rise to a position of importance—like theirs—if he took so much as a glass of beer. They forgot that they, in their youth—and ever since—had taken a daily nip. I am not saying that they are any the worse for it. I do know, however, that they are none the better, judging by their public utterances and their private behavior.
If there is one kind of human animal I have a supreme contempt for it is the so-called man who believes in Prohibition for you and me—but not for himself. I have heard bankers and Wall Street potentates hold forth with fervor on the salutary effects of the Volstead Act, since it has forced the poor laboring man to give up his ale and beer. He gets to work early now—there’s no need to worry about Monday morning in the factories throughout the land. There is no Saturday-night debauchery; and the bulging pay-envelope is taken home to the wife and children, with no extractions on the way at the corner saloon. Happiness reigns where penury and travail abided before. Production is mounting; there are no strikes to speak of, the prisons are emptying, crime has diminished, wife-beating is unheard of, and so on, ad infinitum.
Which would be delightful if it were true. Home brew goes rapturously on; and if Tim doesn’t bother to make it himself, he has a pal who does, and he purchases all the gin and beer he needs.