He has seen motors searched on public highways, without a warrant; and he has known innocent occupants of the car to be told that “they could go on—the police had nothing on them.”
He entered a small police station in California with a friend who had lost a valuable cigarette case—a friend of distinction. The officers instantly recognized him, opened a desk, exposing dozens of quarts of whiskey, and offered both the Young-Old Philosopher and his friend a drink. These officers were quite drunk. They laughingly told the complainant that they had just “pinched” a roadhouse, and were going to sell to another roadhouse the stock which they did not consume—and “pinch” the second man in due season, taking the pre-arranged graft which would come out of his profit.
He remembers the case in the State of New York—no doubt others have forgotten it, as they forget much that they should remember—of an innocent farmer driving his motor through the countryside one day at dusk. He was ordered to stop by an officer who suddenly appeared on the road, and when he refused to do so he was instantly shot. Senator Wadsworth aired this frightful incident in the Senate, and the chief Prohibition enforcement officer of the State announced that it was the duty of automobilists to halt when they were ordered to do so, or they might suffer a like fate.
He has seen in many a woman’s club, bottles of liquor smuggled in, cocktails made by the employees and served in private rooms. Then, because it was strictly against the rules to drink openly, like cats who had just stolen the cream, the ladies and their men guests walked guiltily but airily into the dining room, imagining that there were no evidences of their wrong-doing. The neat little leather or silver cases which contained the forbidden alcohol were automatically returned to their owners, who in turn handed them to their waiting chauffeurs—the latter, of course, were omitted from the happy function—and were taken home to be replenished at the next gathering.
He has known an old lady, very ill, who craved, as she had never craved anything, a single glass of champagne; but even her druggist could not get it for her, at any price, on a doctor’s prescription. And she was denied the exhilaration of this simple luxury, in order, so my friend supposes, that some worthless drunkard who might better be under the sod, should be saved.
Indeed, he has known many an invalid who might have gone to his grave a bit happier for some momentary stimulant which stupid reformers saw fit to withhold.
He was told by the proprietor of several supper places in one of our great cities—and he cannot doubt his word, since he has known him for a long, long time—that one of the federal Prohibition officers who live on graft receives not less than five dollars for every case of wine which passes the Customs. Very swiftly this official is growing unbelievably rich; he does not wish, naturally, to see a return to what might now be considered the old, calm days. Not long ago, this grafter decided that it was about time to make a spectacular “raid” and close up, for a while, the cabarets along the route where he acted as supreme czar. For Washington might take his long inaction as neglect of duty. Therefore he set a night when he visited various restaurants in a limousine, warning the proprietors that they must shut down. But he added, in the ear of each, “Don’t worry! this is only a bluff—a spectacular gesture. You’ll all be free to sell stuff in a little while.” He meant that phrase, “a little while,” for, of course, his graft ceased during the interval of grayness. But the federal government, getting his report, seemed pleased at his attention to his duties, and all was serene for him. Champagne was purchased soon afterwards in all these cabarets, and the jazz struck up a livelier tune, and everybody was happy.
He has read with astonishment that the student-governing body in several of our colleges has found it necessary to take formal action for the suppression of intoxication among under-graduates. Was this ever done in “the good old days”? Think of it! Your boy, whom the Volstead Act was to protect from the scandal of drunkenness, must have what is comparable to the Mullan-Gage Act and the Hobert Act pressed upon him in his college, so that he may be made to see the dangers that lurk in alcohol. The great and holy Government cannot control him; a minor form of tyranny and suppression must come into existence to aid the already heavy machinery of the law to run smoothly.
He has known of an exalted judge who purchased liquor from a police officer, had it delivered at his door in a patrol wagon; and that wagon was guarded by a man in uniform.
He has known another minion of the law who admitted that, though he had not violated the Volstead Act, for conscientious reasons, had never so much as had a case of bought-and-paid-for whiskey or beer carted to his door, he had somehow “found” a bottle or two in his home, left there by sympathetic friends, he supposed; yet he did not inquire. “Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” as Hamlet said; but how one absolves himself is a matter of private concern. Rationalism could go no further than this minion’s processes of reasoning. Strange indeed are the ways of powerful public officials, obeying one law to the letter, and letting their ethics slip and slide when it comes to some other law which they do not really wish to keep, and do not really wish to break.