Evening star., 1933-12-17

for a dozen years preceding 1919. after
cities, counties and States comprising
nearly two-thirds of the geographical
| area and more than half OF the popu-
| iation of the United States had sue
ceeded fairly well in the prohibition
experiment, it was imposed by Federal
statute on the rest Of the country,
Prohibition succeeded only where
public sentiment produced observance.
It failed in those communities. largely
urban, where public sentiment required
enforcement.
The failure of prohibition produced
| intolerable conditions. The gangster
! went into the liquor business. Where
once we had the organized liquor traf-
fc under the saloon interfering with
city administrations and State Legis-
latures, we acquired under prohibition
the gangster, who threatened life and
liberty operated as an outlaw, organ
lied his own rather complete govern
ment in rebellion against the American
Government and produced a condition
so intolerable that prohibition disap-
peared almost overnight and the work
Of rs years TO control the American
liquor business was undone. Humpty
Dumpty fell off the wall.
Changes Stupendous.
Now 1t is the business of the country
to put Humpty Dumpty together again
under new name. Moreover. Humpty
Dumpty should have not only a new
name, but new form. For the world
has changed more completely in the last
20 years than it ever has changed in
three decades since man came upon the
planet. And the change in America has
been greater than elsewhere.
The machine age has produced a new
world In those 20 years, different In its
social and economic aspects. Even with
our unemployed millions, we still have
more than 100000 automobiles. Even
with our economic stagnatiop, the radio
Is available to nearly every one in one
way or another in this country, and
the moving and talking picture is a
part OF the common life Of even the
most underprivileged of cur citizens.
These mechanical devices would be
direct competitors of the cid saloon II
1t could return. The platforms Of both
major parties in America last year de-
nounced the old saloon. That was more
or less unnecessary. The old saloon
cannot survive in its former state to-
day. 1t will appear in another form.
Doubtless the new form will be objec-
tionable and anti-social, and if left un-
regulGted II Will be devastating, but not
so devastating as its ancestor in anti
prohibition days.
Slate Clean.
Doubtless, also. Americans will have
intelligence enough today, beginning
with clean slate. to impose such regu-
lations upon the liquor traffic that the
booze barons will not be able to get
the Strangle hold upon America they
had in the last decades of the old CEN
tury.
If the various proponents of repeal
thought repeal would usher in the un-
restricted sale Of liquor, they were sadly
deceived. Although a new generation
has come which does not know of the
old fight, there is intelligence enough in
America to reject the laissez-faire
theory of liquor distribution
1t is interesting to note that so far
the most intelligent method OF ham
ding the liquor business in an urban
community has been worked out in
New York. The New York method Is
founded upon the theory that until he
is proved innocent. any man offering
to sell liquor is under suspicion. Hence
the flngerprints Hence question:
naire compelling him to tell when,
where, and for what he has been ar
rested, If at all. Hence it is necessary
for restaurateur to have been in a
business year before Obtaining q