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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