THE OUTLOOK

ELTOWER

he quit smoking thirty years ago and now sleeps like a baby, and that long before prohibition was enacted he ceased to drink champagne "for his stomach's sake." Furthermore, he says that he is alive to-day because fate bilked him out of a large fortune when in 1876 he had a chance to acquire an interest in the Bell Telephone Company, then organizing, and kept out of it because he was advised that "it would never be anything but a toy."

To the father of Zuloaga, the Spanish painter, the world is indebted for the revival of the Moorish art of damascening, according to an article in "Conquest," a British magazine of popular science. Señor Zuloaga himself made many fine pieces and inspired other workers in this beautiful craft. "Toledo damascening," as it is often called, is a process of incrusting gold upon steel. Fine lines are cut upon a blackened steel plate, and into these lines thin gold wire is beaten with pointed tools. The shining gold produces a brilliant effect against the background of dark steel, and when skillfully wrought into the flowers, beasts, birds, and scrolls in

which the Spanish artist delights, the result is said to be extremely beautiful, and examples of the ware are highly prized by collectors.

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The "Nebraska Farmer," which was established in 1859, republishes in current issue some prices from one of its numbers that appeared in 1862. Apparently "war prices" had not yet come to prevail in Nebraska at that time, judging from these quotations: "Wheat still sells here at 30 to 50 cents per bushel; flour at from $2 to $2.25 [a barrel]; corn at from 10 to 101⁄2 cents cash-in trade sometimes as high as 20 cents; butter 8 to 10 cents [a pound]." Potatoes were 35 cents a bushel. The only item quoted that was higher in Nebraska in 1862 than at present is sugar, the price of which is given as being then from 10 to 122 cents a pound.

A subscriber writes from Soochow, China, to say that the automobile is not at all likely to displace the ricksha in China, as prophesied lately in a paragraph from "Japan" quoted in this column. Few streets in the cities of in

land China, he says, are wider than eight or nine feet, and even the ricksha finds it hard going on these narrow lanes when there are many pedestrians abroad. Such is the conservatism of China, our correspondent adds, that until very recently the ricksha itself was tabooed in Soochow as an undesirable foreign novelty. Only since 1921 have the city authorities of Soochow allowed the ricksha to compete with the traditional sedan chair and the patient donkey as a means of transportation.

When the king of the movies and a prince of the blood royal are to meet, who shall have precedence? This question of etiquette appears to have prevented Charlie Chaplin and Prince Mohammed Ali Ibrahim, nephew of the newly created King of Egypt, from knowing each other personally. A despatch says: "The only celebrity the Prince did not see when he visited Hollywood was Charlie Chaplin. Prince wanted Charlie to visit him and Charlie wanted the Prince to come to see him. A deadlock ensued." Will the Genoa Conference find time to take up this international incident?

The

ELICITS AN ANECDOTE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

DR

R. ABBOTT's recent article on Edward Everett Hale brings to mind a lit tle incident which may be of some inter est.

He had a lecture on Washington in his home life in which were many inter esting intimate stories which would no be considered of enough consequence t print in a formal history, but which gave glimpses of that great man wher he was not on dress parade. Thinking he might make use of it, I sent him the following, told to me by an old lady in 1848:

Colonel David Schomp was one of Washington's scouts, living in a little hamlet in central New Jersey. One day it was announced that Washington was coming to see Colonel Schomp, and that he would stay over night. To the chil dren this was much like saying that a circus was coming, for they had heard so many wonderful stories about him that it seemed he must be something more than a man. While he was al supper a little girl of the hamlet pushed her way into the dining-room and, look ing at Washington, said: "Humph! he's only a man, after all."

This she said in a patois which the General did not understand. He felt sure the remark was concerning him, and insisted upon knowing what she said. When told, he turned toward her and said, "Yes, my child, only a man and a feeble one at that."

Next morning, while waiting for his horse, he was pacing up and down the porch, his scabbard dragging on the floor. A little child of the household picked it up and began to cluck to the General, desiring to play horse with him The members of the household were greatly scandalized, and came to take the child away. But he forbade it, and looking over his shoulder with a broad smile, continued the amusement with his little companion until his horse arrived Dr. Hale sent the following letter in acknowledgment:

Matunuck, Rhode Island,
June 28, 1901.

My dear Mr. Vosseller:

I am more obliged to you than I can tell you for your anecdotes regarding Washington.

Hannibal Hamlin told me when he was first in Congress, he met a good many old Virginians who remembered George Washington personally. He said that all of them seemed to think of him and liked to talk of him as a good neighbor, a practical leader in the business and prosperity of that region, without referring to him as President or as a great military commander. Neither you nor I had the pleasure of visiting him or Lady Washington at Mount Vernon. But it is not long since I was lecturing on his home life at Philadelphia, and one of the audience asked me if I were personally acquainted with him. With thanks for your letter, I am truly yours, EDWARD E. HALE.

ELIAS VOSSELLER,

Corresponding Secretary Hunterdon County (N. J.) Historical Society

PERSONAL LIBERTY? YES-BUT THE SALOON? NEVER

P

ROHIBITION is a legitimate subject for argument. In a democracy no question of government is beyond the reach of debate. Although prohibition is established not only by statutes but by the Constitution, there is no reason why any citizen who thinks that it is worth his while may not do all he can to advocate the legalizing of the liquor trade. He has the same right to urge unrestricted trade in opiates and poisons. He may argue for the repeal of any law or any Constitutional provision.

In the exercise of this right, the New York branch of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment called meeting at Madison Square Garden recently.

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If the people of the metropolis are as discontented with prohibition as some of the anti-prohibitionists seem to think, if they are chafing under what they regard as a tyrannous outrage upon their freedom, they did not use this occasion to show it. Preparations had been made, not only to accommodate an audience to fill the big structure, but also to enable any crowd that might pack Madison Square itself to hear the speeches by means of amplifiers. The evening, however, was rainy, and, under that circumstance, New York's sense of outrage was not keen enough to send out an audience that would even quite fill the huge Garden.

What seemed to surprise the reporters from the press was apparently the decent character of the audience. It was not an assemblage of roughnecks. The speakers were James Speyer, former Congressman E. W. Gray, Hudson Maxim, Samuel Gompers, and James P. Holland, President of the New York State Federation of Labor.

Most of the arguments were those already made familiar by public discussion and innumerable private conversations. Prohibition was "put over" when the people were engrossed in the war and the boys were fighting overseas; it interferes with personal liberty; it is a sumptuary law, dictating to people what they shall drink; it is the product of hypocrisy, as proved by the fact that some men who voted for prohibition get drunk; it was passed because legislators are cowardly and are afraid of their constituents; it was put through by the bulldozing tactics of the Anti-Saloon League; it is the precursor of other laws

MAY 17. 1922

which fanatics and ascetics would foist upon the people, such as laws against drinking tea and smoking tobacco; it makes it impossible for the workingman to get his beer, but leaves it possible for a rich man, either by bribery or by a provident accumulation of liquor, to continue his habit of drinking spirits; it fosters corruption by putting a premium upon liquor so that it is worth while for men to take chances in violating the law; it has brought into existence an army of "bung smellers and cellar weasels" as the agents of the "priesthood of prohibition;" it is costing the Nation an enormous amount in loss of revenue and in enforcement; it has diverted men from legal employment to the illegal business of bootlegging; it has turned thousands of homes into miniature distilleries and breweries; it has infected the people with a spirit of lawlessness by bringing all law into contempt; it has actually increased drunkenness; it has already been repealed by the people through their refusal to obey the law; it has introduced into the Constitution, which ought to be a charter embodying general principles, specific legislation which is the province of statute law. First on the list of objectives which these anti-prohibitionists desire to reach is the repeal or radical modification of the Volstead Law. their opinion, this law is far more restrictive than even the Federal amendment warrants. Ultimately they hope, or say they hope, to secure the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment itself. Almost unanimously (at least as far as the open public argument would indicate) they disavow any intent of bringing back into existence the saloon. No one seems ready to befriend this discredited, disgraced, disreputable, ostracized institution.

SOME GRAINS OF SALT FOR THE WET ARGUMENT

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In

HOSE who think that they can secure a Congress that will pass an amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment by a two-thirds vote of each House and that they can then persuade threequarters of the States of the Union to approve by legislative enactment this repealing amendment are welcome to try. If they succeed, we do not imagine that there will be many who will seriously complain that the repeal was put over while the people were thinking about something else-baseball, for in

stance, in which, as everybody knows, the people can become much engrossed. The fact is that hypocrisy is not a monopoly of the virtuous or the puritanical. Many of the arguments of those who are against prohibition are quite as disingenuous as anything to be heard on the other side.

When the prohibition amendment was before Congress, we expressed our disapproval of its form. We were not in favor of an amendment making prohibition mandatory; we were in favor of an amendment placing prohibitory legislation within the powers delegated to Congress. We are not at all satisfied that the Volstead Law, designed to enforce the provisions of the amendment, is in all respects wise or practicable. We should have liked to see a different form of amendment in the Constitution and a different law on the statute-books. We think the time may come before long when the law may be modified, but we see no prospect of ever changing the amendment. Whether people like the law and the amendment or not, however, has nothing whatever to do with the question whether they shall obey it or not. They are bound to obey it or else be willing to take the consequence that comes to rebels.

Gome

To object to a law because there are people who break it is to object to all law. Laws are meant for those who but for the penalties in the laws would do what they forbid. Minorities who do not conform to the public will as expressed in law, and excuse themselves merely because they do not like to be forbidden to do what they want to do, have the psychology of the criminal.

To hear some of the anti-prohibitionists argue that they want prohibition repealed, but protest that they do not want the saloon back, is a temptation to cynicism. Was it they that banished the saloon? Is it anything but prohibition that keeps the saloon out of business to-day? Until the anti-prohibitionists who are against the saloon have some practical proposal for doing with the saloon what prohibition has done their protestations will not carry much weight. As a matter of fact, we are much inclined to believe that ninetenths of those who want to do away with prohibition would welcome the return of the saloon, and they ought to have the courage to say so. Of course the argument about tea and tobacco can hardly be accepted as anything but a