The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-10-28
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE
(From Philadelphia Public Ledger.}

Apparently, the rail strike has
''blown." But the poison still turks
in the formula Every time the bottle
is shaken it will become active. We
can't help thinking it would have been
the part of wisdom 10 eliminate 1T
now. The rail controversy will not be
settled until somebody is licked to
FRAGILE
Be that as it may, we trust the New
York World, having/tacitly held Pres
ident Harding responsible for the i'm
pending strike. will. in the evenc that
it does>not take place, exonerate him
from any blame in the connection.
The Column Rouses n Kindred Spirit.
Sir-I have read your Macedonian
call for comradeship, and have taken
note of the qualities you demand as
sine qua non. Il don't know what that
means, but it has a, learned souId.Q
1 believe L can qualify. l have re-
fused for nearly a year to discHss the
booze issue with any one. md six
months ago I omitted from my morn
ing supplication the hope that God
would punish all bootleggers ana rum
hounds. Reforms and reformers-the
Philadelphia variety of both-weary
me beyond endurance; and the affairs
of the Nation at large do not intrigue
me in the slightest. Years ago, when
L was in school, was hailed as one of
the great tenors of the future. 7 think
probably have lost some of my bell
like notes. but 1 would have no in
superable objection to making an eX-
pertinent with the view of ascertaining
whether any and how many are left.
But 1 was for twenty years a sort
of peripatetic Journalist in the middle
west-Minneap polls, st, Paul, Duluth,
cipal stamping ground. My wife was
born in Nashua, Ia; my, step -daugh-
ter in Minneapolis, and ali of us love
the broad reaches OF the pra!rieS and
the men and women who people them
better than anything else. 1t may be
we have some friends in common out
there.
You say Adelaide is away. I say
Dollie is at home; and L can vouch for
her culinary skill. Why not come out
and have dinner with me some night
this week? E. B. S.
Let it be understood that we do not
wish entirely to eliminate the liquor
motif from conversation. 1t is a
throbbing topic upon which, from
time to time, we shall wish to make
observations. What we want to do is
to get away from it for a little while
now and then. At this moment GER
tain phenomena of the outlawed traf-
fic in liquor engross us. The psychol-
ogy of the urge for booze eludeS and
allures US. We are of a mind to put
the matter up to certain of our
learned friends at Penn State and the
University Of Pennsylvania. To do so
involves US in a personal confession,
but the need for light is great, the So
luton of the problem beyond the
reach OF the average mind.
Before liquor was banned we were
a moderate. a very moderate drinker.
Which is to say we drank a little at
dinners and on the occasion of social
evenings at home and abroad. We
/ had liquor in the house when friends
| gathered informally or were hidden
we served it in modest quantity. We
drank a little, too, when we attende1
| big events where Kindred spirits ga TIL
cred in great numbers. But we sell
| dom took a drink downtown and new
err during business hours. 1t was not
I matter of principle: it was simply
| that we did not care to drink. We be-
! longed TO clubs in which conViVial
| spirits gathered every afternoon and
| evening. We met with them frequent-
ly, but drank with them only OCCASION
ally. For every drink we took in pre-
prohibition days We probably declined
hundred jpvitations to liquor UP.
Just the other day it dawned upon
US that we were drinking five times
| as much-perhaps ten times as much
as in pre-prohibition days We are
asked oftener to drink; we never re-
fuse an invitation. The quality OF
| kind of liquor no longer matters
much. We are not a rum hound non
in danger of becoming one. We care
no more for liquor than in pre-pro-
hibition days. But we're drinking
| five or ten times as much. Will soml
| of our learned friends kindly elucidatt
the psychology of the prohibition guz-
zie?
It strikes US as an entirely pertinen
| subject for scientific speculation. Here
is a stolid, depressed person. even anc
Unconditional in mood and disposition
| with no taste for liquor, who is drink
ing five or ten times as much as a.
any previous time in his life. What
| effect are the unseen forces which i'm
pei him having on those of more en-.
thusiastic and eXuberant mood whC
really feel the urge of intoXicants? j
It a fever that will burn itself out and
grow cold as the lines of prohibition
tighten? Or is it a malignant habi
which finally will infect the entire
country?
And Vvbv is ito