The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1928-05-01

NSAAS NN@ANN
be careful about rushing in where angels
fear to tread" Not SO, however, with
Pierre S. du Pont. Perhaps a lifelong
contact with dangerous commodity has
made him reckless in dealing With other
DANGEROUS subject matter. It may nave
engendered a spirit of courage and driven
out fear.
AS one reads Mr.. Dupont's article, "T'he
Eiq1lteentb Amendment not q Remedy tor
the Drink Foil" in the April, 1928, number
of Current History, one Is somehow orlVen
to feel that men of great affairs who
usually like to be considered hard-headed,
cold-blooded, clear sighted, logical ana
certain, seem to leave behind all their
native and acquired characteristics which
have made them SO successful in the bust
ness and industrial world when they enter
upon the consideration and discussion of
the drink question. Facts which must be
ordinarily sifted to the last grain in de-
termining the business course OF cor
poration may be utterly ignored or &C
cepted without que lion If liquor is IN
yolved. Conclusions are hastily drawn.
Generalities are broadly and frequently
stated, and when there is no other corner
in which to hide, indefinite and elusive
questions are resorted to. The whole his
tory of the drink evil and the attempts
to restrict or eliminate it are briefly
ignored. Such at least is the impression
one gets in reading the above article by
Mr. Pierre S. du Pont.
RECOGNIZES EXISTENCE OF
DRINK EVIL"
Mr.. du Pont at least furnishes one COM
mon ground for agreement in the state
ment of his subject, in that he does
recognize the fact that there is such
+Io ttfiY-iT1E OWL ~ Now that,
being admitted, then the questions which
naturally arise are, What are the causes
producing the drink evil? What are the
methods which have been tried to reduce
or eliminate the drink evil? What is the
history of that evil? And have we found
the best remedy to date? Or is there some
other method that as yet has not been
proposed and thoroughly tried?
1t may be interesting to take up one by
one the statements made, propositions adj
vanced or questions asked by Mr. du
Pont and find to what extent there Is
degree of truth in what he says, a sound
ness of logic in the proposals he makes
and the legitimate character of the ques-
tions which he asks. And we shall eX-
pect to hold Mr. du Pont to as strict &C
count for what he says as If he were
advising the Board of Directors OF E. l.
dll Pont de NemOurS and Co. In fact we
should hold him to much Stricter account
for the issues involved are incomparably
greater than any issues which Mr.. du
Pont has ever been called upon to pass
Judgment upon or rather advise upon.
The matter about which he SO smoothly
writes involves the happiness, the health,
the wealth, the material and the spiritual
prosperity of 100 millions of people, pos
siblv of the world, whereas a right or
wrong policy of the du Pont Co. deter
mines only matter of dividends for a
handful of people.
THE POWER TO PROHIBIT
Mr.. du Pont launches into his article
with a broad sweeping statement that
during the past eighty years it has never
been proposed in any of the United States
to forbid the use of intoxicating liquor
for beverage purposes" Mr.. du Pont
could just as truthfully have said that no
state prohibits the use of putrid meat or
decaying oysters or the drinking of water
with typhoid germs in it, but Mr.. du Pont
and everyone else knows that the sale OF
any kind of food deleterious to health,
whether the individual to whom it might
be sold knows of its dangerous character
and is willing or not to take the risk OF
eating it, is nevertheless subject to the
most rigid kind of regulatory and prohibit
tory laws. One may eat putrid meat if he
is foolish enough to do it, but one may
not sell it to one who may be foolish