The Wilmington morning star., 1944-05-12
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
NEW YORK.-The man doesn't live who
can truthfully say that these dispatches ever
gave aid or comfort to prohibition, but I do
say nevertheless that public and official
alarm over the shortage of liquor is pathetic
in people who are supposed to be adult This
situation is entirely different from that which
provoked the long and finally triumphant
peoples rebellion against Eighteenth Amend
ment. In the present case, the denial is due
to the misfortunes of war and it is put to
us that if the current, vanishing supply is to
be replenished then there must be a CORES
ponding curtailment of the production of some
of the materials needed for the fight. Under
prohibition there was no question of any short
age of grain or facilities and the majority of
the people, particularly the demobilized war
veterans, felt that they were victims of an
organized and sadistic political minority's pet
prejudice. But not even the bitterest opponent
OF the drys ever was silly enough to argue
that whiskey, rum, or gin was good for anyone
except in illness, and then only in small doses,
and the fight was waged on the issue that
subject to certain limitations regulations and
taxes, people should have right to drink
Moreover, when President Roosevelt was
first elected, largely because with fine timing
and his alert political instinct he promised
repeal Of the foul amendement, the common
understanding was the old corner saloon would
never return and most of the citizens were
willing to settle for 4 formula known as light
wines, whatever they may be, and beer In
stead we got good, solid grog, on sale in some
types of places which in the old, pre-prohibi-
ton days, never handled hard liquor, including
even chaste and demure restaurants; and we
have been pouring it on our breakfast food
and squirting it on our lapels ever since All
that has stood between us and all the liquor
we can hold have been the price and personal
restraint which we possess in contrasting pro-
portions. This was repeal beyond our greatest
hopes.
Meanwhile, as this war has gone along, the
soft drink trade has suffered much more than
the liquor, business, but with no noticeable
protest or discomfort although I believe the
icecream soda and the chocolate matted milk
were at least as strongly established in the
appetities and habits of the public. These
strange delicacies, American inventions and
institutions, are sadly diluted nowadays where
they are to be had at all and many stores
which sold them as specifics have simply had
to close although there has been no percepti
able reduction in the number of saloons. They
are regarded as luxuries, and for lack Of first
class ingredients and because of the short
age Of even the substitutes, the supply to the
people is relatively meagre and quite notice
ably inferior. In their true form they are
completely innocent and there never was any
problem Of Father, dear Father, lushing ice
cream sodas as the clock in the steeple struck
one, because two of them was about the limit
Of the normal capacity and most customers
were content with one at a sitting. Yet no
control board takes any notice of this denial,
as is done in the case of liquor at the moment
by various authorities, fearful of bootlegging;
and while one does hear much personal ap-
prehension of liquor drought and consider
able talk Of rising prices, due largely to tax
aion those who have put soda-fountain drinks
out of their lives have submitted so quiet
1y that they seem not even to realize that
they are doing without. 1t seems to be accept
ed thought that the ingredients, particularly
the cream, are somehow going to ''the troops
or possibly to the Russians and the Greeks,
and that this just has to be until better times
Yet these were not merely occasional drinks.
One chain of drug stores made its soda foun-
tains enormously popular with an uncommon
ly rich chocolate matted milk served, for an
innovation that was widely copied, in large,
clean glasses, and the annual volume of the
soda fountain business under normal conditions
certainly gave it the dignity OF an industry.
Incidentally, in the story of the late It. Col.
Dyess, who escaped from the Philippines, it
was related that one of his greatest desires
on reaching the United States again was
chocolate matted milk. These are not neces-
sarily unmanly delights.
&c. if liquor must eventually be dealt with
interests of the war effort, the case is hardly
one to call for the release of supplies which
may be needed for explosives, tires or other
essentials. This is another minor deprivation
of non-essential civilian diet
V
~ T11s NJ