San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-09-14
A MASTER OF ABSURDITY

General Counsel Wheeler of the Anti
Saloon League is out with another
bright idea. Bright ideas are Just what
General Counsel Wheeler hasn't pro-
duccd anything else but since he became
professional prohibitionist One might
have thought that his supply had been
about exhausted at the international
Anti-Alcohol Congress held recently at
Copenhagen, from which he has just re-
turned; but apparently his productivity
was stimulated by that meeting. The
delegates representing the older nations
didn't become infatuated with American
"prohibition" Some of them actually
had the effrontery to suggest that al
coholism might be more successfully
conibated by the 1egalization Of light
wines and beer than by the enactment
of "dry" laws which result in the con-
sumption of extremely strong liquor.
Wheeler simply had to do or say
something by way of offsetting such
suggestions. Therefore, unable to think
of anything less absurd, he asserted,
upon his return to this country, that
Europe could pay her war debts merely
by 'going dry"
England, he said, is paying about $40
per capita annually for drink; England,
with her million or so of unemployed
Now, if England would only ego on
the water wagon" she would be able to
meet all her obligations, and there would
be no unemployed. The same, of course,
for France, and Germany, and all the
rest-just like that Blah-blah-blah |!
What becomes of the money that Eng
lishfnen are spending for drink? Wheeler
would have one think that it is poured
into bottomless hole; or, perhaps, that
it is going into the Golfers of the United
States, which are already full to over
flowing. Or possibly he would say, if
pressed, that if Englshmen did not
drink so much they would be able to
manufacture more goods for sale to the
United States, this country's prohibitive
tariff to the contrary notwithstanding
or would be able to buy more of our
goods, since it is so plain that England,
even if she cannot sell her products here,
would gain an inexhaustible source of
income, magically, by the simple expe-
dent of abandoning liquor-making, one
of the few English industries which in
terest Americans OF means. With that
industry cast off. England would, of
course, have no unemployed; those who
now have no jobs might gain employ
ment in the attempt to enforce "prohibi-
ton" as it is admitted that an army
would be required for that purpose.
Then consider the case OF Germany.
Germany can't pay the reparations which
the French are demanding because the
Germans are spending all their money
for beer. That money, too, is being
dropped into a bottomless hole; the
minute thirsty Herr planks few
thousand marks upon the bar, the wealth
of the nation is reduced by Just so
much-of course the bartender takes the
marks and chucks them down the bot
tomless hole. Now, if Germany were
dry" she could produce every mark
of the total amount of Preparations which
France demands and which neutral econ,
omists have said she cannot possibly pay
Even with armed Frenchmen at Their
throats, the Germans, under "prohibi-
tion," would become super-producers.
Finally. consider the case of France
The trouble with the French, Of course