That is how the Prohibitionists feel, at any rate. “Pussyfoot” Johnson at this writing is working hard in Australia to bring about this consummation. France knows already the Ligue Nationale Contre L’Alcoolisme, with offices in Paris; Switzerland has the Ligue Suise des Femmes Abstinentes; and both countries are being well peppered with depressing posters, showing the evil effects of booze. Such works of art take the place of old songs like “Father, Dear Father, Come Home with Me Now,” and plays like “Ten Nights in a Barroom.” They have their definite function, they will prove a power among the lower and middle classes, scorned though they may be by the manufacturers and dispensers of liquor.
But as yet the economic questions involved tease and torment the thrifty Latin. He is wise enough to see that his country will suffer in another way if wine and other drinks are totally abolished; and, as always, he looks to America for some solution of his problem.
The question therefore arises, Are the drys in the United States strong enough financially to aid Europe in her campaign against liquor? That the movement has started there in deadly earnest cannot be denied by anyone who has his eye on the situation. But it will require capital to keep it going, and just now all the European countries are notoriously poor. Is the cause of temperance deep-rooted enough to grow and flourish, despite the handicap of lack of funds? There may be multi-millionaires in the United States who will finance campaigns abroad, just as it has been rumored repeatedly with what regularity certain rich advocates of Prohibition have contributed to the American cause. In this event, the European movement would gain a tremendous impetus; and what the result will be cannot, of course, be foretold.
The thing happened to us. It is ridiculous to prophesy that it cannot happen to Europe. The pendulum having swung all the way for us would seem to indicate that it may swing all, or part of the way, for Britishers and Latins alike.
It will be interesting to watch and wait. Then we shall learn whether benevolent autocracies are better than autocratic democracies; whether crowns and ermine are more to be desired than top-hats and frock-coats.
Europe dry? Do not smile. This is an age of unexpected events, a period of transition, the like of which has not been known before.
But would Europeans obey laws that infringed upon their personal liberty? There were those who held that there would never be rebellion and riots in Germany, since the Germans were too docile a people to rise up against their government. Yet we know what the Germans did, and where the Kaiser is today.
The spectacle of America’s going bone dry is not a heartening one. Ambassadors from other lands have seen our contempt for the law; and it is doubtful if any of them would recommend to their countries a counterfeiting of our methods and manners. We have come to little else than disruption and heart-breaking failure in this matter of Prohibition. Imitation of our ways would amount almost to madness.