Putnam patriot., 1929-03-28
THE KING IS DEAD
 LONG LIVE THE KING J

(Collier's for March 30, l9Z91
 The obstinate stupidity of the sa- looms in the old days brought about their own doom Prohiblti0nists VIII do well to profit by their example.
 Saloonkeepcrs, brewers and dlstil- lers formed an unholy alliance. They had political power and they thought they could do whatever their money interest dictated.
 They were lawless and above the Jaw. They disregarded every effort at public regulation. Saloons were allied with vice, gambling and sometimes CTS were honest men, but the saloon became intolerable.
 It's abuses were not removed or cor reeted because the organized liquof interests thought they were too strong to be seriously hurt They had many powerful political allies. The old saloonkeeper was influential in poli- ties.
 The arrogance of the liquor deal CT was his own destruction The sa- loon was not destroyed by fanatics or even by the Anti-SaloOn League. The great body of temperate Ameri- cans finally lost patience with the saloon.
 But the passing of the saloon did not end the traffic in liquor. On the contrary national prohibition stim- ulated drinking among many classes throughout the country.
 In some ways the liquor traffic IS q worse evil today than it was before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment.
 Drunkenness certainly is more re- speetable than it was in the days of the saloon.
 Those employed in the illegal traf- iic are infinitely worse than their pre- decessors. Every man and woman involved is a violator of the law. The bootlegger escapes the penalties of the courts by bribing public officials. He settles his controversies with others in the trade by violence and murder. No more ghastly picture of wholesale crime can be found than in the records of bootlegging and it's al lied business of robbery.
 The illegal traffic exists because millions of otherwise good Americans believe that prohibition is an unjust ard an unreasonable restraint of their liberty.
 They may be mistaken but they are convinced. They provide the hun dreds of millions of dollars which mas.e possible the bootleg industry.
 To say that they are themselves violators of the law gets precisely nowhere. When millions of people disregard q law, ordinary arguments do not prevail Whole sections of the United States are in tacit rebel lion against the Eighteenth Amend ment. Great classes of people throughout the nation are aligned with them.
 This Is the condition with which President Hoover's prohibition com mission must deal No harder respon- sibility has ever been given a group of American citizens. By the same token no band of men and women have ever had q greater opportunity to serve their country.
 Nothing that the commission may recommend and nothing that Presi- dent Hoover may sponsor, however, will have the slightest chance of sue cess if the organized prohibitionists close their minds to any reform. Politically the Anti-Saloon League and it's allies today occupy a posi- ton fairly comparable to that held by the saloon men fifteen years ago.
 Then the licuor dealers thought they could not be beaten. Today the Anti-Saloon League imagines that il is invincible.
 The saloon men were routed be- cause the public would no longer endure the abuses of the old liquor trade. The prohibition group of to- day will be scattered just as soon as public opinion is convinced that their obstinacy is standing in the way of real reform.
 The bootleg trade is entrenehed in the prohibition amendment and the bootleg trade cannot permanently en- dure. No self-respeeting people will endiessly put up with such infamy.
 Those who put the welfare of their country above any partisan or secta- rian consideration look to Mir. Hoov- CTS commission for constructive and practicable suggestions. The commits sion cannot help. however, unless it's members are free to use their eyes and minds. No one committed by prejudice or a closed mind, either for prohibition or against it, can be useful in such an emergency.
 The one goal is temperance. Actual conditions and not the dreams of