Classic Mode

Presto

Issue: 1925 2037

16
PRESTO
August 8, 1925.
PROHIBITION, PIANOS, PHILOSOPHY AND PROGRESS
Lively Tilt Between Rev. Irving E. Putnam and Mr. Geo. P. Bent, in Which There Is a Feast of Reason and a
Flow of Opportunity for Enlightenment, Resulting in Good Vacation Reading
A great deal of discussion has followed the address
by Geo. P. Bent at his "Dinner to the Aged" at the
Drake Hotel, Chicago, on June 13. And of all that
has been sa : d, or written, as a result of Mr. Bent's
speech, his reference to the Eighteenth Amendment
has awakened most widespread comment.
As a further result, the following letters by the
ex-piano manufacturer and the Rev. Mr. Putnam, of
Joliet, 111., are so illuminating that Presto departs
from the beaten track of its regular function to pre-
sent them. Besides, prohibition concerns the average
piano man almost as much as the quality of his
favorite instruments, or any other of the things to
which he looks for the results of his hard work.
And we believe, also, that what follows will make
especially good reading for the balance of the vaca-
tion days.—Ed. Presto.
REV. MR. PUTNAM STARTS IT.
Richards Street
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
Joliet, Illinois.
Irving E. Putnam, Minister.
July 22. 1925.
Mr. George P. Bent,
Bent Building,
Chicago, Illinois.
My dear Mr. Bent:—Your letter of July 20 was re-
ceived yesterday.
This morning the magazine,
"Presto," arrived, giving your full address and the
write-up of the felicitous occasion where it was de-
livered.
I thank you for giving me the privilege of reading
those very happy toasts and particularly the address
of Mr. Atwood. I have read a number of his ad-
dresses in recent years and always with profit.
Also allow me, sir, to congratulate you upon this
splendid social event.
But this glimpse of your relationship to such a
splendid group of older men, and their apparent love
for you, has made it all the more regrettable to me
that you could take such a stand regarding the great-
est reform movement in the history of the world. I
am truly sorry to learn that you were accurately
quoted by the Chicago Tribune, for I had confidently
hoped to find that, as is often the case, you had been
misquoted.
If these are your true sentiments, permit me to
say that I have no disposition to argue with you
about your personal stand in the matter. I only hope
that you mighi see the folly of promoting this kind
of propaganda before the public. It is almost a par-
rot-repetition of the "stuff" sent out by the promoters
of the "wet" interests in this country. Evidently,
judging from your speech, you are a conservative of
conservatives—one who is against any progressive
movement which smacks of "radicalism"; and yet
history shows that every forward movement of civ-
ilization has been started by men and women who
were counted "radicals" in their day, whether in
science, politics, government, or religion. (However,
I venture to guess that you have been a "progres-
sive" in the art of piano manufacture).
I am not surprised, therefore, to see aho in your
speech a "knock" against the Child Labor Amend-
ment which the thoughtful people of the country
(except those related to "Big Business") were pro-
moting.
Your argument appears to be: the young people of
the country are "going to the devil" very rapidly; this
is done through cabarets and joy-riding; this is a
condition developing since 1919, when prohibition
went into effect; the "hip-pocket flask" iS [ a new in-
vention—a product of prohibition; this "flask" has
brought about a strange, irresistible power which
young men wield over young girls, and which did not
exist prior to the Eighteenth Amendment; the rem-
edy lies in repealing that Amendment. This is all I
can see in your speech or your letter, and that runs
almost para'llel with the sophistry of papers like the
"Tribune" and organizations like the "Association
Against Prohibition."
The Road to Ruin.
One would think to hear these social calamity-
howlers that men did not have hip-pockets before
1919. I am forty-seven years old and also have seen
something of life in the former generation. In my
boyhood days, in a locality noted for its good citizen-
ship, it was no unusual thing for some farmers round
about to come home Saturday night, and on holidays,
lying dead drunk on the bottom of the wagon; some
of the High School boys drank like fish; High School
girls "went to the devil"; and the "jug" and the
"flask" Were common pieces of personal property.
This was in the country and country towns. In the
cities, the corner saloon was making a fortune out
of cashing the working-man's check with the "com-
mission" of either cash or "booze" purchases—often
treating the whole line-up at the bar—the much de-
pleted balance going home to the wife and children.
The fellow that got so drunk that he couldn't go
home without being a bad advertisement for the
institution (in other words, the finished product of
the saloon of "the good old days" for the return of
which your anti-prohibition colleagues plead) was
lodged in the back room until he sobered up. Today
the "drunks" are turned out on the street. That is a
part of the tactics of the "wets" to break down
prohibition sentiment, and all too frequently the po-
lice officers do not even arrest them, because they
too are in sympathy with that gang. Even with
these let loose on the street, one seldom ever sees
a reeling, vomiting, drunken man any more in the
United States. One of our greatest educators who
travels all the while in various directions and dis-
tances over the country said that he had only seen
one man noticeably under the influence of liquor in
eighteen months. (Here see contrast between here
and Wet Montreal, as revealed in enclosed clipping )
(From "Montreal (Can.) Herald," June 15, 1925.)
FIFTY FOUND IKYING DRUNK.
The week-end was a thirsty time for Montreal. The
heat, although the temperature was not as high as it
has been, seems to have been aggravated by tht: rain
and the humidity. For the true statistics as to heat
and the city's thirst one looks not to the observator
at McOill or the sales records of the lemonade booths,
but the Recorder's Court, where one turns over the
list of charges for the day to determine how many
quench their thirst unwisely and too well.
This morning was something of a record achievement.
There were exactly half a hundred drunks reported dur-
ing- the week-end, and policemen have been busy all
Saturday and Sunday night.
In they came—old gray-bearded topers, young and
thirsty ones, fat ones and thin. Some came quietly,
half asleep, hardly knowing where they were being led
—"found lying on such and such a street" was the
charge against these. Some were obstreperous, they
showed fight, and refused to come quietly. "Drunk and
disorderly" was the charge against these.
This morning- all trooped into the dock, one by one,
as their name was called, the whole fifty, and pleaded
guilty to the charge. Some, were bleary-eyed and
ashamed, rome apologetic, one or two defiant, most of
them old hands, too used to the proceedings to show
any emotion.
They heard their sentence, "Five dollars and costs or
five days," and shuffled out again, shepherded by the
policeman at the door.
Fifty—in one morning.
Sees Better Day.
No, brother, you are wrong. Things are a lot
better. There isn't one-fifth as much drinking and
not one-fifth as many deaths due to alcohol as under
the old regime. When the "old topers" die off and the
old promoters become enfeebled, and the government
gets in earnest about enforcement, as it is beginning
to do under a real "Yankee Doodle" President, things
will become so much better still that even your "blue
goggles" will be changed to amber and gold.
Senator William B. McKinley, of Illinois, the
other day told a group of his constituents that the
Eighteenth Amendment was here to stay; that the
employers liked it (even though some of them were
themselves wet) because of its salutary effects upon
the laboring man—less loss of time, fewer accidents,
better home-life, etc., and the laboring man was in
favor of it because he saw his savings bank deposits
growing and with it more comforts and luxuries for
his family and himself. A seasoned politician like
Senator McKinley should know. 1 think he does
know—both the facts and the kind of arguments
which get votes.
I wish to rebut the statement that the young folks
are "going to the devil, etc." That has been the
observation of age about youth in every generation.
One cannot possibly measure any person or age
or movement properly when one is so close to it. It
takes a generation or so to even approximate a just
evaluation of the same.
I am dealing with young people all the while and
I never saw a finer type than are now attacking the
great tasks and responsibilities that fall to youth.
The "youth-movement" of America, Europe and of
Asia is the most hopeful sign on the horizon of the
dawning day. True, it is a somewhat "radical" move-
ment, but it is earnest, wholesome, open-handed,
great-hearted and conscience-foundationed.
(There
are also "flappers" and "shieks," but only a frac-
tional proportion. Human society always has had a
certain quota of "fools" and I suppose always will
have.) I say with great caution, that in thirty years
of intimate association with young people, I would
rather have the group who are functioning today than
any I have known previously.
Effect Upon Youth.
That the "boys and girls" are going at a swifter
pace today than formerly everyone recognizes. But,
pray, sir, why shouldn't they? Their elders are "hit-
ting the road" ahead of them. Please don't expect
exuberant youth to ride at the trot of "Old Dobbins"
while their seniors "step on the gas" and break the
speed limit. While men of 40, 50, 60, and 70 years
carry a "hip-flask," don't expect boys of 18 and 21 to
be satisfied with a nursing-bottle. If men and wo-
men of position, wealth and influence are permitted
to keep "57 varieties" of contraband goods in their
cellars, do not expect the lads and lassies to be con-
tent with milk-shake and orangeade.
It is just men like yourself who stand up in public
places and "roast" the 18th Amendment, thereby
making good "copy" for the paid "wet" journalists
that are producing this reaction among the young
people of America. When such speeches are made in
favor of Law Enforcement, including the 18th
Amendment and the law-breakers, instead of the law-
makers, become the target of attack, we will get
somewhere with this great reform. That is exactly
why 1 wrote protestingly to you, to President Nich-
olas Murray Butler, and others whose reputation I
dared to believe put them above the plane of the
chronic curbstone ranter against good government,
religion, and reform.
Says War Did It.
Apparently you are not aware of the best thought
regarding the influences which are causing such a
slump in morals among certain classes of our popu-
lation and resulting in a wave of carelessness and
crime. No worthy sociologist or student of the
times credits this to the Eighteenth Amendment, or
any other amendment, to the Volstead act or
any other act of legislation, but rather to the nat-
ural let-down following the war, such as has charac-
terized every post-war period of history. It would
have happened regardless of any "Prohibition" legis-
lation just as it did following the Civil War when
the "liquor lid" was off till the fumes smclled to
Heaven. So serious was the situation that my de-
nomination, in general conference assembled, sat up
nights trying to find a way to cope with it.
If you wish to do something, brother, worthy of a
man of your standing, quit berating the moral laws
of the country and get into the movement to outlaw
war, which has sent more "young people to the
devil" directly and indirectly than all of the prohibi-
tions ever proclaimed since Mt. Sinai thundered with
the Ten Commandments.
The cigarette which is cursing this country with its
pestilential virus got a new birth during the war.
We "sowed the wind then and we shall reap the
whirlwind." According to your logic the amazing
practice of smoking among boys, women and girls
should also be credited to the poor old "Eighteenth"
for this inundation of nicotine has come in the
United States pretty largely since 1919. I am not a
"crank" about tobacco, but I do know its physiologi-
cal effects upon youth especially and view it with
alarm as it relates to posterity. (I note that you
served this subtle poison in both forms at your recent
banquet.)
And Naughty Movies.
Another influence which you entirely overlook, but
which leading educators and psychologists credit with
much of the moral laxness of these times, is the
rotten MOVIES which we tolerated for a decade and
which flourish to quite an extent yet. We allowed
boys and girls of tender years to feast their eyes and
minds upon "holdups," "gun-play," "murder," "har-
lotry," "domestic infidelity/' "drunkenness" and all
kinds of "debauchery" before the screen night after
night, and then apparently are surprised when we
reap a harvest of crime and moral shame ten or fif-
teen years after. Men like yourself are not brave
enough to look the hard facts in the face and admit
that they were citizen-"slackers" about this matter
and now, looking for an explanation—and an alibi—
complacently lay the blame on the shoulders of the
big popular buffer for social critics—the Eighteenth
Amendment. (But I suppose you would have op-
posed any "censorship" of the movies, too.) The
crowd with whom you are now shouting always have
—and they have always been consistent advocates of
"prize fighting" and kindred "manly" (?) sports.
The remedy, my dear sir, lies, not in a better brand
of beer or whisky, but in a better brand of homes,
parental training, and moral education in our public
schools. The girls and boys of a former generation
had quite largely a spiritual training which gave
them power to resist temptations and those who get
these same advantages today are not yielding to
"flask-light" allurements. That is the secret and you
know it as well as 1. Clergymen as well as authori-
ties upon child-life everywhere agree about this.
Speed-Cars and Saloons.
One more thing and I shall dismiss the discussion.
You have been away from Chicago six years, there-
fore, you are to be excused for ignorance at this
point. You evidently did not know that few think-
ing persons any longer take the "Chicago Tribune"
seriously upon the Prohibition question, or I might
sorrowfully add, any other moral issue. Time was
when they did, but that was before 1919. (You
quoted this "World's Wettest Sheet" several times
in your speech, which practically amounts to an argu-
ment for the effectiveness of the Eighteenth Amend-
ment, for when the "antis" run out of other argu-
ments, they usually quote the "Trib" or refer to its
cartoons, which once were things of power for good.)
I am glad to have had this "conversation" with
you, Mr. Bent. I pray it may result in good for the
ideals which we each wish to see dominant in the
world. I give you credit for being sincere, but I
believe sincerely wrong, just as I believe Mr. Bryan
is on Evolution. Publish as much_ of my corre-
spondence as you like so long as it is accurately
quoted and any one argument is given in full. I
insist upon that. I cannot see that the publication
of your letter could do any good to the cause. If I
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August 8, 1925.
17
PRESTO
should use it in any way, I shall give the whole set-
ting and contents. I remain,
Most cordially,
IRVING E. PUTNAM.
P. S.—By the way how would you like to ride in
our system of hard roads with their hundreds of
autos, if Chicago had nearly 8,000 open saloons and
Joliet had 140, and other towns in proportion? I
think I'd trade in my "Lizzie" for an "airship."—
I. E. P.
MR. BENT'S REJOINDER.
Superior, Wis., July 25, 1925.
Rev. Irving E. Putnam,
Richards Street Methodist Episcopal Church,
306 Richards Street,
Joliet, 111.
My dear Mr. Putnam: Your epistle to me and my
"crowd" and "gang" came just as I was leaving Chi-
cagO' with my wife to visit here with her sisters. I
did not have time to answer it before leaving Chi-
cago.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and who-
soever is deceived thereby is not wise.
As I said at my dinner, June 9th, and I now say
again, the pity about prohibition is that nothing but
strong drink can be had.
Nothing in the way of laws or amendments can
make people good. They must wish to be good for
goodness sake, or they won't be good.
Laws have not stopped murder, theft, rape, or
seduction, and never will. Prohibition doesn't pro-
hibit, never has, or will. The states tried to make
effective prohibition laws long before the Eighteenth
Amendment and the Volstead Act, but prohibition, as
you must know, if you know history at all in prohibi-
tion matters, never has proven effective in any state
or country in which it has been tried.
The bootleggers and enforcement officers (many,—
yes, most of them) wish the Eighteenth Amendment
to continue and are all of them opposed to its repeal.
The bootleggers and those who are delegated to en-
force prohibition laws, including the Eighteenth
Amendment and the Volstead Act, are rapidly grow-
ing rich. I said long before the Eighteenth Amend-
ment was passed that it never could be enforced—
(it had been repeatedly tried and failed, by states)
unless each suspect could be watched by three en-
forcement officers in eight hour shifts every moment
of the twenty-four hour day, and furthermore every
one of those three men would need to be absolutely
honest and unbribeable, if prohibition was to be effec-
tive.
Pity 'Tis, 'Tis "Strong."
The making and selling and using of alcohol by
those who wish it can never be stopped unless you
stop the sun, for as long as grain and grapes and
fruits grow it is easy enough for anyone who wishes
it to make alcohol. Furthermore., I believe that the
more a thing is forbidden and prohibited, the more
the young will test and try the thing forbidden or
prohibited—each one for himself. Eve and the apple
is a good illustration of that.
The enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment
and the Volstead Act has developed into a farce,
as everyone knows, who knows anything at all and
doesn't shut his eyes and his ears to what is going on.
I have attended some fifteen or twenty dinners since
the Eighteenth Amendment, at various places over
this country, and at every one of those dinners there
has been plenty of strong drink for those who wish
it. The pity of it is that it is strong—always strong
—not mild like wine.
There is quite as much in the Bible, if I remember
aright (I read the Bible when I was a boy all
through three times, under compulsion. I did not
like it then, but have since come to prize the wisdom
it contains) favorable to the use of wine as there is
against its use. Even Christ turned water into wine,
and I think it was Paul who advised Timothy to take
some for his stomach's sake.
Don't you see that you must stop the sun if you
ever stop the making of alcohol? Can that be done
unless Joshua returns? Drinks with a kick have
always been made and used, and it is my opinion that
this will always be so in spite of all the laws that
can ever be thought of.
I earnestly and honestly favor both temperance
and tolerance, but am absolutely and utterly opposed
to bigots and bigotry—to those who have in all the
ages said to others, "Believe and do as I do or die,
or be tortured into hypocrisy and into saying that
khey believe what they don't." Someone asked in the
Bible, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
In Public Dry, Private Wet.
You must know that the politicians and lawmakers
who have put forth the effort to make our country
dry at the behest of the voters whose support they
keek, are almost every one of them wet in private
and only dry in public. They are hypocrites and,
because they are so, are most despicable in making
laws which they break themselves.
I You mention McKinley and what he says about the
Eighteenth Amendment, and also say that he knows
now to talk in order to get votes, and you mention
some one who has only seen one man drunk in
eighteen months. There is no wonder about that, for
low—today—under dry laws, here and there and
ponder, it is the "still" drinker and drunkard, who,
laving to buy this drink by the quart instead of by
he drink, doesn't show in public for various reasons,
:
or he takes his bottle of booze to the cellar, or
voodshed, or barn, or garage, or behind a hay stack,
>r out into the timber, and drinks until the bottle is
;mpty and he is drunk. Of course he doesn't show
in public. He might be called upon to tell where he
got his strong drink and have his source of supply
cut off. He also might have to pay a fine or go to
jail. I will grant you that the Eighteenth Amend-
ment has done one good thing in the midst of all the
evil it has wrought, for the ones who must drink do
it in private, not in public.
I maintain that the drunkard has less to take home
to his family today than in the saloon days, for his
drink now costs about three or four times as much
as it did in those days and is strong and vile, and he
takes a quart instead of a drink.
Worse Than Saloons.
I agree with you that the cabaret is not absolutely
new, but it has multiplied since the Eighteenth
Amendment went into effect until now in Chicago
there are almost as many cabarets as there used to
be saloons, and almost all of them are selling strong
drink and are taking the place of the saloons, and
are drawing into their net the youth which never
used to visit saloons at all. Especially is this true
of young girls. I maintain that the cabaret, and joy-
riding, and petting parties, are worse vice breeders
and are using more booze than the saloons ever
thought of being or doing. When you say that there
is less drinking now than formerly, you simply dis-
play your ignorance. You simply don't know. You
have a theory and talk to it. Unless you can demon-
strate that a quart is less than a drink, you should
back up the statements you make in this and your
former letter to me.
Don't you know that there is much more drunken-
ness today than when the Clergymen almost uni-
versally drank and preached temperance instead of
prohibition.
Theory is one thing—facts quite another. It is very
evident to me that you don't know the evil prohibi-
tion has done and is doing. The facts don't agree
with your theories. You seem not at all to know
what is going on, and if you do know your ideas as
to the cause of it all are wrong.
I did, as a boy, everything I was forbidden to do
or that was prohibited. I was reasoned with and
used my own reason as to smoking and drinking. I
did not smoke until I was twenty-seven years old
and did not touch alcohol until I was over forty,
and probably would never have used either had not
doctors advised me to do so.
I followed a very different course with my own
seven children from that of my parents with me.
I did not forbid or prohibit. I reasoned with my
children, and by example tried to teach them to walk
in the proper path, and, if I do say it, I have as fine
and good a family as anyone can boast of.
Temperance in Speech.
The morning after I gave the dinner at the Drake
Hotel, on June 9th, a lady approached me in the
rotunda of the Drake Hotel, extended her hand and
shook mine most cordially, saying that she was glad
that there was one man at least who had the courage
to tell to the world the effect prohibition was having
upon our young people. Evidently some one had
pointed me out to her, for she did not give her
name, and she evidently had seen the account in the
Tribune which you saw. I do not quite understand
why it took you from June 9 to July 3 to formulate
your first letter.
I think since you call those who agree with my
sentiments, my "crowd" or gang," I will adopt the
same words, "crowd" and'"gang" to those who sup-
port your sentiments. Perhaps you don't know it.
but you are intemperate—in speech. You do your
own thinking and so do I.
The clipping you sent me shows that what I say is
true, that there is more drinking now than ever be-
fore, but in Canada it is open, whereas here it is still
and under cover.
The Tribune account of my dinner w T as correct as
far as it went, but they did not allude to some re-
marks about the so-called socialistic progressive ideas
which have been prevalent for the last twenty or
twenty-five years, and which are working and have
worked a great harm to our country, just as prohibi-
tion has.
Mr. Atwood's speech was great—the speech of the
occasion—and I know now he is one of my "crowd."
He is for the enforcement of laws which can be
enforced. So am I. And he is in favor of the repeal
of laws which are not enforceable, and so am I.
I don't recall that he alluded in his speech, or
ever once mentioned, prohibition. He was free to
say his thought just as you are, and I humbly ask
the same privilege.
Thank God, he has taken to his bosom (or sent to
hell) La Follette and Ladd, since my dinner, but a
new lot of fools with their foolishness no doubt will
follow. It is an old, but very true saying, that a
fool is born every minute, but only one dies each
Fourth of July.
My wife and I are giving dinners to old friends
July 27 at the Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, and again
July 31 at the Winneshiek House, Decorah, Iowa,
and I shall be glad to have you attend either or both,
as my guest, and speak your mind on matters to
my other guests. I shall probably have something
to say myself.
Reform Must Have Reason.
I note with interest what you say about the sa-
loons cashing pay checks in the old days, for work-
men. I discovered that and at high cost and risk
changed to paying in cash, but it did not stop the
drinking of those who wished to drink. However, I
did help matters greatly by letting them rush the can
for beer at the luncheon and noon hours, I spent a
great deal of time in Germany, where they use beer
from babyhood up, as we use coffee or tea, and in
all my many visits there I have seen only two
drunken men. In England, where strong drink is
used extensively and constantly, I have seen hun-
dreds drunk on the streets. Even women drunk with
babies at their breasts. You should learn something,
from that, as I have, for prohibition is driving all
America to "strong drink," which is "raging."
How do you figure that you can make prohibi-
tion effective when, as you yourself say, the opinion
of the public, police, enforcement officers, lawyers,
courts, wink at its violation? How do you figure
that making, selling and using alcohol can be stopped
so long as the sun shines? How do you figure that
politicians who made the laws and now have enforce-
ment jobs to dole out to their constituents, are going
to be cured of their evil ways—either the lawmakers
or the enforcement people, so long as there is big
money in bootlegging, and enforcement officers hold-
ing out their hands and looking the other way when
violations are going on? You cannot make people
honest by law any more than you can make them
good by law, and there are not enough honest, un-
bribeable people in our country to even attempt the
enforcement of prohibition laws. Your own letter
seems to me to show the futility of any longer con-
tinuing the farce and making the attempt.
I will agree with all you say as to the evils of
young women smoking cigarettes; also young men,
but that is a habit that has grown immensely since
the Eighteenth Amendment came in. So also has
the taking of drugs of many kinds grown rapidly,
and all the time the bootleggers and dope-peddlers,
and cigarette makers and enforcement officers, who
make money their God, are growing rapidly rich,
and more and more powerful every day.
Child Labor and Fads.
I agree with all you say as to the evils that the
movies have done and am highly in favor of rigid
censorship there. I do not agree at all with you as
to the Child Labor Law, nor do I see at all how you
can support or favor such a law. Nor do I under-
stand how you can favor other fads and fancies of
the radicals and so-called progressives. What are
you going to do to save the youth of this country—
boys and girls—if you don't let them work? Are
you going to let them be idle and take to drugs,
drink and deviltry generally because they are idle?
What is the farmer to do if he cannot have the aid
of his boys and his girls? What is the orphan to do
if he cannot work? Must he be idle and the state
support him and he go to the devil meanwhile?
What are you going to do for the widows left with
five or six children to support? Are you going to
cut off the help that her children could give her in
her wish to do for them, give them an education, and
keep them off the streets, and out of trouble and
evil ways?
Is it not fine we do not all think alike, and love the
same one, or thing? What a row there would be if
all men loved one particular woman. What a drab
world it would be if there was only one universal
taste for food, drink, dress, duty and deeds?
I shall enclose with this some clippings and car-
toons from the Tribune and wish to ask if you con-
sider them "garbled truth"? I have not always
agreed with the Tribune, especially not in its ten-
dency towards some of the socialistic ideas they at
one tirtie seemed to favor. Now they seem to have
had a change of heart, for the paper, like many
others, seems to have seen that those ideas, like the
I. W. W. people, won't work. However, I think the
paper is as much entitled to its "think" and "say" as
you or I. You don't agree with Bryan on evolu-
tion, but do agree with him on prohibition, showing
you that even wise men do not always agree on
everything. I happen to know both Bryan and Dar-
row (the latter I have known well for thirty or forty
years), and I think very little indeed of either of them.
Bryan is a bigot, and, lacking real principle, Darrow
will do anything to win his case. Both of them like
the limelight and front page.
Quotes Josh Billings.
Your first letter to me and my reply appear in
Presto of July 25th and in Chicago Tribune of July
24th, and I presume this last correspondence between
us will also appear in print somewhere. But depend
upon it, I shall not garble your letters in publishing
them.
The Tribune can well take care of itself, but let me
ask you if it has garbled the truth in reporting and
commenting on the trial of the Scopes case at Day-
ton, and why should you call it "The World's Wet-
test Newspaper" for telling the truth and facts as to
the folly and foolishness of fanatics?
I am obliged to call your "crowd," your "gang,"
the "driest disciples of Christ and Christianity."
I am going to send you a copy of my auto-
biography. In it you may find something more to
which you may take exceptions.
In closing let me tell you that Josh Billings said,
"It was better not to know so much, than to know so
much that isn't so r "
Very truly yours,
GEO. P. BENT.
After writing the foregoing letter, which awakened
no response from the Rev. Mr. Putnam, Mr. Bent,
feeling 1 that the subject was too large to cover In a
single writing, dictated further discussion, all of
which appears in the following pages.
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