The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1929-02-01

Writer'S OF Wild West stories for gen.
Grafton of readers now mostly in the mid
die nfties, used to tell how, when the
miners. prospectors, sour doughs ana
camp followers had lined up before the
bar in the Palace saloon. at Dead Eye
Gulch. the bartender used to say:
Name your pi'zen. gents.
If T. q. Afford were bartender in
stead Of a chemist inspector in the Fed
eral prohibition service in Columbus,
Ohio and II the storeroom OF the COM
nlissioner's Office were a barroom instead
of a cache for bootleg liquor, Mr.. Afford
might ask customers 20 name their
favorite poisons. and literally serve them
with poison5 selected at random from his
stock.
Mr. Afford has on exhibition at least
$50 samples of such seizures. These were
gathered up all over the United States,
from the hills of Kentucky and Tennes-
see. from the Everglades of Florida, from
the downtown section of New York City,
and from rural and urban Ohio
There is not one single, solitary, genu-
the, pre-war. pre-Volstead, pre-prohibi-
ton. honest to-eoodness sample of liquor
In the whole outfit, and these samples
were picked at random. Roughly divided,
this booze falls into three classes, namely,
real hauor free from poison but adulter-
ated Wi h coloring matter and cut so that
two bottles now bloom where but one was
intended synthetic liquor, only potential
~ poisonous: and connections that are
frankly and dangerously poisonous.
DRUG STORE WHISKY. TOO
"Ah. but" you inquire: How about
liquor purchased ON prescription, and OBJ
tanned at respectable, law-abiding drug
storeS?"
Mr. Afford smiles and submits half
pint of Old Log Cabin, properly labeled,
cork covered with a genuine government
stamp bottle bearing the printed O. K.
for medical purposes, and the liquor man
ufactured and bottled in a Kentucky dis
tllery which has legal authority TO make
and sell whisky for medicine. The bottle
and its contents have not been tempered
with; the liquor was purchased at thor
oughly reliable Columbus pharmacy; the
package was Just as it left the distillery;
but it wasn't all whisky. The thrifty dis
tiller. bottling under bond, and sending
out his product under government stamp,
decided that it was a Saving for him to
take out a third of the whisky and sub
stitute for il an equal volume quantity of
coloring matter, which, though fairly
harmless, nevertheless doesn't contribute
TO the Well-being of the human system; at
least if whisky has value in curing the
flu, the fin patient is entitled to a full
half-pint of actual whisky, for which he
pays a good price. and ought not to be
gypped into paying for hah-pint and
getting only a third of pint.
HOW ABOUT CANADIAN?
yves" you say, "But how about that
good. governmental controlled Canadian
uouer that slips over the border?"
Then Mr. Afford tells you that while a
great deal of that liquor has been seized
he has never, never seen among the
samples an unauthorized drop of Ca
madam liquor In fact, So-called Cana
dian LIQUOR often never saw Canada, but
Is a synthetic product manufactured in
the United States, with bottles success
fully initiated labels counterfeited, and
even, If necessity requires sales slips,
manifests etc. exhibited to show that
synthetic stuff was Canadian made.
Why, one of the interesting pieces OF
his exhibit is a sheet of Canadian revenue
stamps. counterfeit of course printed in
America, from dies made in America and
on paper made in America, and so clever
" gotten up that 1t would take a fine