Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-07-20
AS ONE WOMAN SEES IT
~ Might Have Done Better" the
Last Words Of Mother, Give
Her Son Much Food
for Thought
BY SARAH d. LowRIE

| for Thouaht
BY SARAH ID. LOwR1E
WHAT is the good of opinion collecting?
w oh, WELL it helps you in the end to form
one OF your own, a modification and as
similation Of all the opinions YOU have
listened to, or ut least enough arguments
Tor or against your original opinion 70
stabilize IL into a conviction.
worked this process out on the question
OF the Volstead act and after considerable
inwnrd wobblng think l now know what
my opinion is Of it and its results and Of
its future.
OF course. one did not have 70 go hunt.
ing for opinions on that subject; one was
pelted with them
But I never heard any that was really
interesting, except that OF the chauffeur of
a friend of mine. He was driTing a party
OF us ON an all-dny trip and Twas scheduled
for. the front seat, and he and fell to
talking. and presently without any con
scious volition on my part his opinion on
the Folstead act was added to my really
vast collection. Whether / agree with 1t ia
part or In toto is a question that l do not
propose TO discuss. but j put his first in
Importance In my collection because he
spoke with the authority of experience,
without rancor, yet with no lack of cou-
viction. He was not aware of giving an
opinion; he was hardly aware Of summing
or another reminding him of 1t he was medi.
tating on the subject aloud.
His talk was not actually n monologue.
but i give 1t here as though 1t had been,
for my part was merely that Of response
to show my interest and had no value ex-
cept TO make his story come simply and
naturally.
MY MOTHER would have done anything
1Vl for me. he said IL had needed her
help. Mothers will fight rs fierce as would
animals for their children.
He went on to say that she had died
within the month and that he could not feel
the same about anything. 1t was very lonely
being without ones mother to think well
Of YOU and to think often of you-all the
time in way, as you might say. Her last
words as she lay dying had made him
wonder too what She had in her mind:
might have done better she had
said. Whatever she had meant by that.
Sometimes he thought she may have meant
done better for herself and then
again--"done better with life But what
ever it wns. she meant what she said, for
she said slow and considCringly-"I might
have done better"'
7 OOKED at one way you could see what
- she might have meant Keeping
saloon was hard every way. In the early
days Of the free lunches she had that
does bringing up children and mindng her
husbands wishes. 1t was hard and rough
work and done at hard and late hours. Then
when the business grew to having two high
paid barkeeps and other people to take
over the rough work, it wasn't what It was
in the old country. No one over here thought
well OF the business or gave you much
credit for succeeding in it. In raising your
self by the money part of II you could not
get well thought of. Not but that having
one OF the show bars Mt Atlantic and having
his own motor and his own bungalow and
being elected n member of the regatta COM
mittco-not but that his father in n way
stood high, but II all came though the
saloon business, and maybe it was true that
there was curse on it, seeing that it was
the spsndings OF men who ought to have
used their wages differently, and seeing It
meant some man gone deeper into the habit
every day that would ruin him in the enc
WHAT they were selling now by law was
w terrible stuff, enough to make any one
sick to more than touch it. so the real stuff
had to be there still TO satisfy the demand
for it. Profits. Why, most any bar YOU
could name down the whole coast made
profits, more this year than last, and more
last year than in the old days. 1t was the
same way wherever you went. This city.
New York. Boston-you could always get
1t, but you paid eight times what it was
worth in the old days. And some of the
stuff would knock YOU into a dead state or
maybe kind Of beside yourself because you
never knew what you were taking and
could not calculate.
There was a petition going the rounds 10
be signed asking for the old way back. There
was rule that 10 man should sign il that
was IN the liquor business, but there was n
standing order In most places that those
who signed IT should not do it for nothing.
And the men in the business footed the bill
for what you got for giving your name.
There were plenty of places to sign it
| where YOU got something and plenty Of men
back Of it who would get something But
| not all the men who were back Of it or who
signed it were that way. Some thought that
| the way it was now was too far. Some
| thought 1t had been done as a war measure
| and then kept on without the voters really
having meant that. Some thought that light
wines and beer with the whisky and the
| brandy cut out would be what the ma oril \
! Of the voters would stand to and sec kept
| There was no use having a law that the
! voters had not meant and would not SEE
| kept. There was no use doing even II good
thing by law unless the people who made
the law understood and wanted what wa,
| done. The money that had gone to pushing
through the law and keeping it there was
money, not votes. Which was why it wa:
not being backed, even by such as he who
| hated the stuff and turned his back on tn,
business when he was boy.
THAT happened this way: He and hi,
i mother and father were making roo!
wages in the potterics. They had bee,
brought from England by the old boss o.
| the pottery because they were noted in tn,
J old country. There wasn't week that the,
| did not make a bonus for more work thai
| was barSaIncd for-Somctimcs It would b,
80, sometimes more. With those savings
n little tobacco shop was bought chcap--th,
parties owning it died. 1t was tobacco OF
week days and speak easy on Sunday
and what had turned him against the Who'll
business was having his Sundays taken 70
running the shop while his father ant
mother took a regular rest off. And what ST.
him to like some of the ways Of the temper
ancc people was the way his Sunday schoo
teacher sailed into his father for keeping
growing boy at thnt job on Sunday aftcr
moons. She worsted the old man every wa,
he argued, and she got him set free iron
the shop. He had never forgotten what sh
said Cithpr md Looking nj the whole hug