PROHIBITION IN AMERICA. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—There
has been so much misunderstanding of the Wet and Dry question in America by British commentators that I venture to send you a very clear and honest editorial by H. L. Meneken—at least in the December number of his Smart Set, by Meneken or Nathan. It is a clear and honest defence of the saloon, despite all its sarcasm. Meneken sees clearly. Wets are those who arc for the saloon. They are about one-third of the voters. Drys arc those who are against the saloon. They are about two-thirds, by referendums taken repeatedly all over the United States for years and recorded in State and local legislation. This is the real battle-line. The only question ever put on any ballot has been " Shall this become anti-saloon territory?" The majority has voted " yes " over and over again for the last twenty years, everywhere. California has just voted " yes " again, though a wine-growing State. The issue, and even the plain record of the legislation, has been confused by fanatics on both sides. I hope you care to reprint this editorial, and of course my letter if it helps, though I think a paraphrase from you would be a better comment. Meneken has stated the Wet position well and clearly. Wets and Drys should face the truth !—I am, Sir, &c.,
VACIIEI. LINDSAY.
Hotcl Vancouver, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
[The article to which Mr. Lindsay refers contains the following :—
" The plain fact is, of course, that the saloon, at its worst, was a great deal better than any of the substitutes that have grown ui► under Prohibition—nay, that it was a great deal better than the ideal substitutes imagined by the Prohibitionists : for example, the Y.M.C.A. And it must be equally plain that light wines anti beer would not always satisfy the yearning of the normal man for alcoholic refreshment—that there are times when his system, if he is sound in body, craves far stronger stuff. To say that such :a normal man, at five o'clock in the afternoon, wants to drink. a Humpen of beer, or that, on a cold winter morning, his inner urge would be met by half a bottle of Pontct Canct is to say something so absurd that the mere statement of it is sufficient refutation.
The case against the saloon, as it is voiced by both Prohibitionists and anti-Prohibitionists, is chiefly based upon a recollection of what the thing was at its lowest and worst, which is just as sensible as arguing against Christianity on the ground that a certain minority of the rev. clergy are notorious swine. The utterly vicious saloons were always relatively rare, even along the water-front, and an honest execution of the laws in force before Prohibition would have exterminated them in ten days. Their existence was a proof, not that the saloon itself was inherently evil, but simply that it could be made evil by corrupt politics. To blame it for that fact would be like blamirr, the Constitution for the fact that Palmer and Burleson violated it.
The normal saloon, I am convinced, was not an evil influence in its vicinage, but a good one. It not only enabled the poor man to effect that occasional escape from wife and children which every -man must make if he would remain sane ; it also threw him into a society palpably better than that of his home or his workshop, and accustomed him to refinements which unquestionably improved him."
Spectator.]
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