The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-10-19
Bv WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-The prospect that the War
Production Board will forbid the manufacture
of liquor until the is over is disqueting,
to be sure, but should not discourage people
who still include many resourcetul survivors
of the long rebellion against the hated amend
ment. Bootleggers, turned to unoneering, a
field in which they are beginning to feel some
heat would be welcomed back in their old
role of public servants and, while their product
doubtless would be crude at first, still, with
their old experience, they should be able to
provide from the very start much better dram
ming than those with which the veterans of
the early '20s offended their interiors and
refuted some of the most BILE medical
theories. The early hooches and the ports and
sherries were hurriedly improvsed by green
and cropping hands and some of them contained
too much creosote and burnt sugar and pepper
and paint in poor proportions. Time, expert
ment and experience served however to pro-
duce improved recipes SO that when repeal
came with vrtuouS liquors, bedight with au-
thentic revenue stamps and labels, the Gus
toners at first found them slightly insipid
1t should not be thought either, that all the
old bootleggers are dead, in prison or busy
in the defense of labor's gains, for the men,
bers of one fine old house of smugglers who
ran down liquor from Canada and cut it up
for wide circulation in the United States, have
remained and grown in the legalzed liquor
trade and could, and doubtless would, give
their felloW-men the benefit of their old wiz
ardry. They would require, of course, some
of the materials which are the pro-
scribed list or otherwise hard to get such as
radiator fluid sugar. varnish and I've but men
of the type who outwtted Wayne Wheeler and
1zzy and Moe, would be equal to any new
problems which would be- after all, only vari-
atoms of their old ones.
Applejack now almost forgotten, had be-
come gracious beverage by 1882 and even
now, in time of war, shortage and rationing
a vast tonnage of apples is rotting beneath
wild and neglected trees, wanting only to be
gathered, pressed and further processed by
the method which by 1926 had given the rebels
Jersey lightning to sustain them in their fight.
The Mexicans make several kinds of high
octane drinks out of various types of cacti
which also abound in Arizona, New Mexico
and Texas and We have also peanuts berries,
dandelons, potatoes, pruneS and pdrsnlps from
which the people of other lands have distilled
more or less nutritious and exhllaratlng drinks
down through the ages. The cactus liquor
may be little trying at first for Americans,
who like theirs with plenty Of power, and
tourists on the yonder side of the border have
been known to yell fire and dive out the
windows at their first experience with such.
But any people who could get used to the
mango cures and shoe polish that the Ameri-
cans learned to relish under the rule OF Bishop
Cannon would soon adjust themselves. After
all, people drink Chabls made with syrup
and sulphuric acid. We developed our re-
SiStance to a point at which we would not
refuse a consignment if the chemists report
said there were mere evldences' of the
presence of lead or steel filings, and no wife
was really good housekeeper who could not
go out in the kitchen and whip up batch
of gin when company came.
OF all the hooches, Washington had the best,
something called Maryland corn, which came
in Mason jars, by taxi, promptly when phoned
for, and a price no worse than the present
cost of lawful merchandise; and Kansas the
worst, that paralyzirg draught called Jake.
In between there were many grades and va
rietes, drawn from tanneries, silos and in
secticide factories, but we proved that we
of science since repeal, they doubtless would
be less hard to take again.
AS this threat becomes more serious, the
subject of the health of Al Capone will become
one for public solicitude. Is he well. does
his old organization still exists in skeleton
shape or BETTER and has he done anything
about passing on his secrets and mysteries
10 those who may be called on in the name
OF humanity, to take up where he was COM
pelleo by an migrate nation to leave off?
told them (the British) we intended to
oecolhe maritime nation and intended to
say say one: said we would do it by co-opera
tio,, Out II they didn't want to Cooperate
We stay one anyhoW.-Rear Adm Howard
- vlcKery, vice chairman Maritime Com.
mission. will