a class, been content to
obey the existing laws, instead of conniving to break them; had they kept
their meddling fingers out of local politics; had they realized more fully
their responsibilities as manufacturers and purveyors of potentially
dangerous products; had they been willing to cooperate with right-thinking
men in a sane and orderly campaign for the cleaning-up and the proper
regulation of the liquor traffic; had they seen that the common man's
inarticulate but very definite resentment against the iniquities of the
corner saloon system was tending to the legal abolition of the whole
business of licensed drinking, I believe we should have had no Eighteenth
Amendment saddled upon us and no Volstead act to bridle us.

In the final analysis, and stripping aside the lesser contributory causes,
I maintain there were just two outstanding reasons why this country went
dry after the fashion in which it did go dry: One reason was the
Distiller; the other was the Brewer. And for the woes of either or both I,
for one, decline to shed a single tear.

How a fellow does run on when he gets on the subject which is uppermost in
the minds of the American people this year! All I intended to say, when I
started off on this tack, a few pages back, was that if I absolutely and
completely cut out all alcoholic stimulant no doubt I should be reducing
my weight much faster than is the case at this writing. To-day practically
all the members in good standing of the Order of Friendly Sons of the
Boiled Spinach--I mean the dietetic sharps--agree that he or she who is
banting will be well-advised to drink not at all. For the most part they
do not make a moral issue of this detail. Some of them refuse to concede
that a teetotaler is necessarily healthier or happier or more useful to
the world than the moderate imbiber is. They merely point out that
whiskies and beers are, for the majority of humans, fattening things and
should therefore be eliminated from the diet of those wishful to lose
their superfluous adipose tissue. Here, again, they disagree with their
professional forebears. The experts of the preceding generations, being
mainly Englishmen and Germans, could not conceive of living without
drinking. Some advocated wines, some ales, some a mixture of both with an
occasional measure of spirits added for the sake of digestion. But among
the dependable dietetic authorities of the present day there appears to
be no wide range of argument