Presto

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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