The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1917-12-28
Dear William Jennings Bryan
Will You Answer One Prohibition Question:

/
We would not willingly disturb Colonel Bryan, who is
now eating oranges and cusard pie in the pleasant climate
Of Miami Fa after having forced Congress to pass Con-
sttutonal amendment that would put wormen on an ice
water basis.
We disturb him only moment to quote an extract from
his little article prohibition recently published:
The law against selling soldier: i. itself terrible in
oef because ca S Rea Sn the nS S the pick of
young It would be insult to our soldiers to say that
xfcoIoE
sd to Support Prohibition Rom: %s IS in lie army
Since you wrote that Colonel Bryan You and the rest
of the country have heard from General Perhng in charge
of the American army In France
You learn that General Pershing who has the intel
gence lacking in certain prohiboniss and knows enough
to discriminate between deadly poison and the harmless
LIGHT WINE AND BEER.
He denounces whiskey as this newspaper and Thomas
Jefferson and the President Of the United States and all
men have always done.
He permits the use of light wine and light beer that
European nations have taken for centuries without
and Endorses by his official action the Of those mild and
harmless smulants-just exactly Thomas Jefferson did
and those who understand the subject have always done
Now dear Colonel Bryan put down your orange, push
back your custard pie, and tell US this:
How do you for the fact that General Pershng
who probably knows about soldiers than you do
decides that the soldier may have light wine and beer and
can take it without harm?
the iron mills blast furnaces, shpyards and elsewhere
should be deprived Of that which they want that to
accustomed, that winch does not
and that which THE CoNIMANDER-M CHIEF OF OUR
FORCES IN EUROPE ALLOWS THE SOLDIERS TO
HAVE?
Don't you think there is halfway station Of common
between ignorance Of facts called prohibition, and
vicious criminality, called the whiskey trade?
We have very intelligent friend with good deal more
experience of real life than Colonel Bryan possesses Mr.
G, Liebold, of Detroit
Mr. Liebod said on Sunday last:
1.-The trouble with the drink question in the United
States is this:
ION side there the 'drys going to their kind
of an extreme.
ION the other side there the VETS going to another
extreme
'What the country needs is between the
two to control both and prevent either extreme"
That is the kind of that the country does
need and that the of upon which the
legislatures of the States they WISE will agree.
Let Colonel Bryan spend the winter in Florida eating
custard pie sucking oranges drinking ice water and suffer
ing from dyspepsia if he wishes-that is his right
Let the workingman who wants his glass Of beer the
worker of Latin race who wants his light wine have that
which he wants and which does not hurt hmthat is HIS
right.
Let the smoker smoke if he wants to.
Forbid the whskey, gin, brandy, alcoholic poisons
Cut opium morphine, cocaine, habit forming drugs
Whiskey and morphine belong in one class.
Tobacco light wine and beer in another
The fanatic SIDE and the criminal the other
work against and in favor of the drugs and
the whiskey.