Presto
Issue: 1925 2037 - Page 18
18
August 8, 1925.
PRESTO
FACTS VS. THEORIES.
Decorah, Iowa, August 1, 1925.
Rev. Irving E. Putnam,
Joliet, 111.
My Dear Mr. Putnam: I was very sorry that you
did not accept my invitation to attend and speak at
the dinner party I gave to friends here last night.
You will see from the menu enclosed that you were
named as one of the speakers. I had another "rev-
erend" on the bill, and, as I told some I had invited
you to come and speak, they thought the Rev. Mr.
Payne was you. I think, if put to a vote, that at
the dinner last night you would have had more sup-
porters than myself. However, I found quite a few
here were members of my gang or crowd and were
heartily in sympathy with my sentiments.
I noticed in two yesterday's Chicago papers a
statement made by Coroner Oscar Wolff that r five
persons now die in Cook County of alcoholism, w here
one person died from the same before prohibition.
Perhaps you saw this in the Tribune. The same
matter appeared also in the Herald-Examiner of July
31. In the Herald Mr. Wolff says in large type:
"I challenge any man in the United States to read
my figures and then prove to me or to himself that
prohibition has been a success."
Then statistics are given showing that in the years
1918 and 1919 there was a total of 40 deaths from
alcoholism, while in the years 1924 and 1925 the
deaths are 212 This ought to show you that many of
the statements you made to me in your letters are
not correct, and ought to convince you that the theory
on which you preach is one thing, while the facts in
the matter are entirely different
I hope you will read carefully what Mr. Wolff has
to say. There are some very significant facts and
figures which I trust will bring about a change of
heart on your part and it ought to bring about an
apology from you to the Tribune for calling it "The
World s Wettest Newspaper" and "The Greatest
Garbler of the Truth."
I am going to send you a full report of the remarks
at the dinner last night as soon as same is printed by
the papers here. One of my guests last night, Miss
Clara Rollins, who was one of the speakers, sur-
prised me by saying that she attended the same
school with you and not only knew you but also
your brother. She told me that he also was a clergy-
man.
I have not seen yet that the Tribune has published
your letter of July 22 to us, nor my reply of July 25
to you. Quite likely you may see it either in the
Tribune or in this week's issue of the Presto. At all
events you will see your letter in print along with my
letter in reply, in the Decorah Republican, which will
be sent to you; also reports of the dinner in each of
the other two papers, the Decorah Journal and the
Public Opinion.
Piffle of Pacifists.
In answer to your question in the letter of July 22,
"How would you like to ride on your system or hard
roads, etc.?" I would say that I prefer to ride with
one who has taken a drink rather than one who has
taken a quart and has a quart in his pocket or car.
I also noted your remarks in that same letter in
regard to the "Youth Movement" and in reply to
that will ask you to read what was said of it by the
"Massachusetts Public Interests League," 280 Dart-
mouth street, Boston, Massachusetts, in March, 1924,
and at the same time read their report on "Pacifist
Oaths and an Oath for Pacifists," of which the fol-
lowing is an exact copy:
At the International Congress of Women at
Zurich, May 12-17, 1919, of which Jane Adams was
president, the following resolution was moved by
Yella Hertzka, seconded by Madeline Doty, and
voted:
".The International Congress resolves that the Na-
tional Sections be urged, in case of the threat or the
declaration of war, to organize women to refuse their
support in money, work or propaganda."
It was voted to send a delegation to the Socialist
Congress at Lucerne, with this resolution for an in-
ternational strike against war.
Mrs. Harriet Conner Brown, chairman of the Re-
search Committee of the Woman's International
League for Peace and Freedom and a member of its
Board of Directors, gives another form of this
"Slacker Oath" in her booklet, "America Menaced
by Militarism" (page five), which is circulated and
sold by the W. I. L. P. F., of which Jane Addams
is president:
"Go to war, if you want to, but know this: We
have pledged ourselves not to give you our children,
not to encourage or nurse your soldiers, not to knit
a sock, or roll a bandage, or drive a truck, or make a
war speech, or buy a bond."
Kirby Page, in a pamphlet, "War—Its Causes,
Consequences and Cure," which is being circulated
by the thousands among women's clubs, churches,
etc., proposes the following similar pledge:
"We will never again sanction or participate in
any war. We will not allow our pulpits and class
rooms to be used as recruiting stations. We will
not again give our financial or moral support to any
war. We will seek security and justice in other
ways."
Peace without Honor.
Mr. William Howard Gardiner, vice-president of
the Navy League of the U. S., makes the following
comment upon Mr. Kirby's pacifist proposals:
"Had our forefathers developed so strong a peace
complex as Mr. Kirby Page and his associates cher-
ish, we should have had no Revolution, and would
now be a dominion of the British Empire, instead of
a free and independent nation. Had Abraham Lin-
coln developed such a peace complex, instead of the
United States we should have two nations separated
by an imaginary line. And if we had been content
to be governed by such a peace complex and had held
aloof from the World War we should now probably
be a part of the Imperial German Empire."
The pacifists who take the slacker oaths quoted
above are a menace to our country. The true lovers
of peace should realize with Dr. C. H. Levermore,
secretary of the New York Peace Society, that "the
only peace worth having must be a by-product of
international justice," and that peace to be of value,
must insure freedom and right among the nations.
The Rev. Richard J. Cooke, Bishop of Athens,
Tennessee, M. E. Church, says: "The 'pledge' you
quote from the book by Mr. Kirby Page, is un-
American, disloyal and if taken seriously places
every one who takes it in opposition to the Consti-
tution. However, in order that everyone who accepts
it shall fully realize the consequence I am in favor
of sending it around to all the churches and bodies
mentioned in the letter, providing that the following
pledge shall go with it and shall be taken by every
one who signs that 'pledge' or in any manner en-
dorses it or encourages the Anti-American spirit that
produced it.
"1. Having 1 thus pledged ourselves to prevent the
Government of the United States from engaging in
war of any kind in defense of our homes, our liber-
ties, or our lives, which we now enjoy under the
protection of the Government, and
"2. Whereas, having thus pledged ourselves not
only to hamper and destroy the efforts of the govern-
ment, but also not to fight for or in any way assist
the government in defense of our Country, our politi-
cal rights and civic liberties to which we have no
right, except as conferred upon me by the laws of
the United States, nor to any privileges of any kind
which may be preserved to us and our children by
the results of war.
"3. Therefore, Resolved, should the United States
engage in any war of any kind we solemnly pledge
ourselves individually and collectively to surrender
and cancel all rights to citizenship, our homes and
possessions, all privileges and opportunities which
have been made possible for us by the American peo-
ple and secured to us by government protection, our
laws and institutions, and for the defense of which
others have suffered and died, and we furthermore
solemnly pledge ourselves to seek some other coun-
try from which we may obtain something for noth-
ing, or at the cost of the blood and treasure of other
people."
"Youth Movement" Propaganda.
Your talk about WAR and "Youth Movement" in
this letter of July 22 shows as clear as day that you
have true Communistic and Socialistic Pacifist ideas.
In your letter of July 22, you say the "Youth Move-
ment of America, Europe and of Asia is the most
hopeful sign on the horizon of the dawning day." In
reply I would quote from "The Youth Movement"
issued by the Massachusetts Public Interests League:
"The Youth Movement was started some years
before the war, among young people of Germany.
"First boys, and later girls and boys together,
formed themselves into groups, calling themselves
'Wander-Vogel' (birds of passage) for the purpose
of getting away from the towns, into the fields and
woods.
"These young people took a strong stand against
drinking, against immoral movies, books, pictures and
immodest dances.
"The Youth Movement, as started in Germany, was
a revolt against conditions in that country. It is now-
being transplanted in this country.
"But as time went on the movement became the
vehicle for propaganda, notably for communism,
which brought with it a revolt against home restraint
and family ties, the carrying of freedom in education
to a ludicrous extreme, the cult of nudity, and rela-
tions between the sexes which threaten moral chaos.
"The leaders of this movement in this country are
less frank, and the result is that a serious study of
the movement in the LInited States leaves one with
the overpowering sense of insincerity. It pretends
to be one thing and is in reality something quite
different. It works under the guise of education and
religion, while striving to ally American youth with
the Young Communists of Europe, who are the ene-
mies of religion.
"The real menace of the movement in this country
lies in the fact that it is revolutionary propaganda in
romantic disguise subtly preaching to immature
youth the 'ecstacy of demolition' of the foundations
of civilization."
Can Not Always Agree.
As I am out of business now, and both tired and
retired, it does not seem to me that this publicity that
is being given to me and my sentiments can possibly
be of any financial value, but I trust it will help you
greatly. I shall certainly hope to meet you sometime
and have a talk with you face to face. I always try
to keep my temper so long as anyone is logical and
reasonable, and I gather from the tone of your let-
ters that your nature is somewhat like my own,
though 1 think you are not quite as willing to let the
other fellow have his say and thought and ideas,
as I am. That simply goes to prove what I said
to you in my last letter—the wise ones do not always
agree upon everything, as exemplified by your agree-
ing with Bryan on prohibition but disagreeing with
him on evolution.
I shall always believe in and advocate temperance
and tolerance, and talk against the days of the In-
quisition, and the worst days of bigotry generally.
I shall be in Chicago Monday and expect to remain
there until the 14th of August, and shall be glad to
have a call from you at the Illinois Athletic Club,
should you happen to be in the city during my stay.
Yours very truly,
GEO. P. BENT.
MR. BENT ASKS QUESTIONS.
Illinois Athletic Club, Chicago, August 2, 1925.
Rev. Irving E. Putnam,
Joliet, 111.
My Dear Sir: Yesterday, at Decorah, la., I dic-
tated a letter to you which was not written in time
for me to sign before I came away, and, as since I
came here I have received a bundle of letters support-
ing me in what I said as to prohibition, I thought I
would write to you at once and tell you how dis-
appointed my friends were at the dinner I gave in
Decorah the evening of the 31st at your not being-
present, as I had hoped you would be after I invited
you to come as my guest and speak.
The people at Decorah, with whom my wife and I
grew up, had heard of this correspondence between
us and were very much gratified when they saw that
you were on the list of speakers. I talked again in
support of my sentiments to my old friends, and I
fear that if you had spoken in reply to me you would
have had out there a majority in your favor. In
greeting these old friends with whom my wife and I
grew up, on the ground where we were married, as
they left us after the dinner (it was after midnight
before the program was finished), some of them ex-
pressed high approval of your sentiments and dis-
approval of mine, whereas quite a number in saying
good-bye told me that what I said had their hearty
approval.
The whole proceedings at the Decorah dinner will
appear in the Decorah Republican, and I left word to
have a copy sent on to you.
When I got back here I saw a copy of the Presto
of July 25, in which your letter of July 3 and mine
of July 20 appear. 1 had seen in the Tribune the
correspondence between us, as published in their
issue of the 24th, and I also saw your note thanking"
them for publishing this correspondence. I also re-
ceived your letter thanking me for having the corre-
spondence appear in the Tribune.
It seemed to me that your letter of thanks to them
was rather, as we say in California, "unusual," after
your having called them "the World's Wettest News-
paper" and "Greatest Garbler of the Truth."
I sent to the Tribune a copy of your letter to me,
to which I made reply at Superior, Wis., July 25. I
also sent a copy of that correspondence to Presto.
So far as I know, neither paper has published it, but
I shall know tomorrow morning as to Presto. I
have not had time yet to look over today's Tribune,
and so do not know whether they printed this corre-
spondence or not.
Cites Presto Editorials.
In seeing your letter in type in Presto, I discovered
that there are several things in yours of July 3 to
which I did not allude in my letter to you of July 20.
I am enclosing two pages from Presto, issue of
July 25, thinking that possibly you may not have
seen same, though I asked Presto to send on to you
a copy as soon as they printed the correspondence,
as they said they would.
As to your remark that more people by far are
buying musical instruments since prohibition went
into effect thaa ever before, please note the two edi-
torials entitled "A Live Dead One" and "Who Said
This?" which appeared in the same issue along with
our letters.
It is a fact that business in pianos has been very
dead for the last four years. You think otherwise,
but don't know, as I do, although I have been out of
business for nine years and made all of the fortune
you think I have (but
don't know) when the coun-
try was absolutely w 7 et.
The fact of the matter is. though you don't know it,
that most all the business in the piano trade today is
with bootleggers and enforcement officers. They
are buying houses and automobiles and high-priced
pianos and reproducing pianos and self-playing
pianos, while the supporters of the eighteenth amend-
ment and the Volstead Act, those of sobriety, seem
to have forgotten for a time that there is such a thing
as a piano.
I have said to you over and over again that the
bootleggers and the enforcement officers are becom-
ing rapidly rich. This is a fact. You have a theory
to the contrary, but again you don't know.
You will remember that in my.letter to you from
Superior, Wis., of July 25, I closed my letter by quot-
ing Josh Billings, who said that it was better not to
know so much than to know so much that "warn't
so."
Opposes Strong Drink.
Doubtless you have seen the account of the rob-
bery of the Drake Hotel a few days ago, resulting in
the death of two bandits, crazy drunk with moon-
shine, who had previously shot down one of the hotel
clerks in cold blood. It isn't at all likely that they
would have perpetrated this crime had they been able
to get a mild drink like wine or beer, instead of hav-
ing to load up on strong drink, "which is raging," as
per the Scriptm ?s which I quoted to you in my letter
of the 25th.
You perhaps have noticed that I bore down hard in
that letter, or at least tried to make it clear to you.
that the Bible in many places seems to favor the use
of wine (beer, I think, was not then known). But
according to said Bible, everyone who spoke at al',
on the matter of drink opposed drunkenness anc
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August 8, 1925.
PRESTO
FACTS VS. THEORIES.
Decorah, Iowa, August 1, 1925.
Rev. Irving E. Putnam,
Joliet, 111.
My Dear Mr. Putnam: I was very sorry that you
did not accept my invitation to attend and speak at
the dinner party I gave to friends here last night.
You will see from the menu enclosed that you were
named as one of the speakers. I had another "rev-
erend" on the bill, and, as I told some I had invited
you to come and speak, they thought the Rev. Mr.
Payne was you. I think, if put to a vote, that at
the dinner last night you would have had more sup-
porters than myself. However, I found quite a few
here were members of my gang or crowd and were
heartily in sympathy with my sentiments.
I noticed in two yesterday's Chicago papers a
statement made by Coroner Oscar Wolff that r five
persons now die in Cook County of alcoholism, w here
one person died from the same before prohibition.
Perhaps you saw this in the Tribune. The same
matter appeared also in the Herald-Examiner of July
31. In the Herald Mr. Wolff says in large type:
"I challenge any man in the United States to read
my figures and then prove to me or to himself that
prohibition has been a success."
Then statistics are given showing that in the years
1918 and 1919 there was a total of 40 deaths from
alcoholism, while in the years 1924 and 1925 the
deaths are 212 This ought to show you that many of
the statements you made to me in your letters are
not correct, and ought to convince you that the theory
on which you preach is one thing, while the facts in
the matter are entirely different
I hope you will read carefully what Mr. Wolff has
to say. There are some very significant facts and
figures which I trust will bring about a change of
heart on your part and it ought to bring about an
apology from you to the Tribune for calling it "The
World s Wettest Newspaper" and "The Greatest
Garbler of the Truth."
I am going to send you a full report of the remarks
at the dinner last night as soon as same is printed by
the papers here. One of my guests last night, Miss
Clara Rollins, who was one of the speakers, sur-
prised me by saying that she attended the same
school with you and not only knew you but also
your brother. She told me that he also was a clergy-
man.
I have not seen yet that the Tribune has published
your letter of July 22 to us, nor my reply of July 25
to you. Quite likely you may see it either in the
Tribune or in this week's issue of the Presto. At all
events you will see your letter in print along with my
letter in reply, in the Decorah Republican, which will
be sent to you; also reports of the dinner in each of
the other two papers, the Decorah Journal and the
Public Opinion.
Piffle of Pacifists.
In answer to your question in the letter of July 22,
"How would you like to ride on your system or hard
roads, etc.?" I would say that I prefer to ride with
one who has taken a drink rather than one who has
taken a quart and has a quart in his pocket or car.
I also noted your remarks in that same letter in
regard to the "Youth Movement" and in reply to
that will ask you to read what was said of it by the
"Massachusetts Public Interests League," 280 Dart-
mouth street, Boston, Massachusetts, in March, 1924,
and at the same time read their report on "Pacifist
Oaths and an Oath for Pacifists," of which the fol-
lowing is an exact copy:
At the International Congress of Women at
Zurich, May 12-17, 1919, of which Jane Adams was
president, the following resolution was moved by
Yella Hertzka, seconded by Madeline Doty, and
voted:
".The International Congress resolves that the Na-
tional Sections be urged, in case of the threat or the
declaration of war, to organize women to refuse their
support in money, work or propaganda."
It was voted to send a delegation to the Socialist
Congress at Lucerne, with this resolution for an in-
ternational strike against war.
Mrs. Harriet Conner Brown, chairman of the Re-
search Committee of the Woman's International
League for Peace and Freedom and a member of its
Board of Directors, gives another form of this
"Slacker Oath" in her booklet, "America Menaced
by Militarism" (page five), which is circulated and
sold by the W. I. L. P. F., of which Jane Addams
is president:
"Go to war, if you want to, but know this: We
have pledged ourselves not to give you our children,
not to encourage or nurse your soldiers, not to knit
a sock, or roll a bandage, or drive a truck, or make a
war speech, or buy a bond."
Kirby Page, in a pamphlet, "War—Its Causes,
Consequences and Cure," which is being circulated
by the thousands among women's clubs, churches,
etc., proposes the following similar pledge:
"We will never again sanction or participate in
any war. We will not allow our pulpits and class
rooms to be used as recruiting stations. We will
not again give our financial or moral support to any
war. We will seek security and justice in other
ways."
Peace without Honor.
Mr. William Howard Gardiner, vice-president of
the Navy League of the U. S., makes the following
comment upon Mr. Kirby's pacifist proposals:
"Had our forefathers developed so strong a peace
complex as Mr. Kirby Page and his associates cher-
ish, we should have had no Revolution, and would
now be a dominion of the British Empire, instead of
a free and independent nation. Had Abraham Lin-
coln developed such a peace complex, instead of the
United States we should have two nations separated
by an imaginary line. And if we had been content
to be governed by such a peace complex and had held
aloof from the World War we should now probably
be a part of the Imperial German Empire."
The pacifists who take the slacker oaths quoted
above are a menace to our country. The true lovers
of peace should realize with Dr. C. H. Levermore,
secretary of the New York Peace Society, that "the
only peace worth having must be a by-product of
international justice," and that peace to be of value,
must insure freedom and right among the nations.
The Rev. Richard J. Cooke, Bishop of Athens,
Tennessee, M. E. Church, says: "The 'pledge' you
quote from the book by Mr. Kirby Page, is un-
American, disloyal and if taken seriously places
every one who takes it in opposition to the Consti-
tution. However, in order that everyone who accepts
it shall fully realize the consequence I am in favor
of sending it around to all the churches and bodies
mentioned in the letter, providing that the following
pledge shall go with it and shall be taken by every
one who signs that 'pledge' or in any manner en-
dorses it or encourages the Anti-American spirit that
produced it.
"1. Having 1 thus pledged ourselves to prevent the
Government of the United States from engaging in
war of any kind in defense of our homes, our liber-
ties, or our lives, which we now enjoy under the
protection of the Government, and
"2. Whereas, having thus pledged ourselves not
only to hamper and destroy the efforts of the govern-
ment, but also not to fight for or in any way assist
the government in defense of our Country, our politi-
cal rights and civic liberties to which we have no
right, except as conferred upon me by the laws of
the United States, nor to any privileges of any kind
which may be preserved to us and our children by
the results of war.
"3. Therefore, Resolved, should the United States
engage in any war of any kind we solemnly pledge
ourselves individually and collectively to surrender
and cancel all rights to citizenship, our homes and
possessions, all privileges and opportunities which
have been made possible for us by the American peo-
ple and secured to us by government protection, our
laws and institutions, and for the defense of which
others have suffered and died, and we furthermore
solemnly pledge ourselves to seek some other coun-
try from which we may obtain something for noth-
ing, or at the cost of the blood and treasure of other
people."
"Youth Movement" Propaganda.
Your talk about WAR and "Youth Movement" in
this letter of July 22 shows as clear as day that you
have true Communistic and Socialistic Pacifist ideas.
In your letter of July 22, you say the "Youth Move-
ment of America, Europe and of Asia is the most
hopeful sign on the horizon of the dawning day." In
reply I would quote from "The Youth Movement"
issued by the Massachusetts Public Interests League:
"The Youth Movement was started some years
before the war, among young people of Germany.
"First boys, and later girls and boys together,
formed themselves into groups, calling themselves
'Wander-Vogel' (birds of passage) for the purpose
of getting away from the towns, into the fields and
woods.
"These young people took a strong stand against
drinking, against immoral movies, books, pictures and
immodest dances.
"The Youth Movement, as started in Germany, was
a revolt against conditions in that country. It is now-
being transplanted in this country.
"But as time went on the movement became the
vehicle for propaganda, notably for communism,
which brought with it a revolt against home restraint
and family ties, the carrying of freedom in education
to a ludicrous extreme, the cult of nudity, and rela-
tions between the sexes which threaten moral chaos.
"The leaders of this movement in this country are
less frank, and the result is that a serious study of
the movement in the LInited States leaves one with
the overpowering sense of insincerity. It pretends
to be one thing and is in reality something quite
different. It works under the guise of education and
religion, while striving to ally American youth with
the Young Communists of Europe, who are the ene-
mies of religion.
"The real menace of the movement in this country
lies in the fact that it is revolutionary propaganda in
romantic disguise subtly preaching to immature
youth the 'ecstacy of demolition' of the foundations
of civilization."
Can Not Always Agree.
As I am out of business now, and both tired and
retired, it does not seem to me that this publicity that
is being given to me and my sentiments can possibly
be of any financial value, but I trust it will help you
greatly. I shall certainly hope to meet you sometime
and have a talk with you face to face. I always try
to keep my temper so long as anyone is logical and
reasonable, and I gather from the tone of your let-
ters that your nature is somewhat like my own,
though 1 think you are not quite as willing to let the
other fellow have his say and thought and ideas,
as I am. That simply goes to prove what I said
to you in my last letter—the wise ones do not always
agree upon everything, as exemplified by your agree-
ing with Bryan on prohibition but disagreeing with
him on evolution.
I shall always believe in and advocate temperance
and tolerance, and talk against the days of the In-
quisition, and the worst days of bigotry generally.
I shall be in Chicago Monday and expect to remain
there until the 14th of August, and shall be glad to
have a call from you at the Illinois Athletic Club,
should you happen to be in the city during my stay.
Yours very truly,
GEO. P. BENT.
MR. BENT ASKS QUESTIONS.
Illinois Athletic Club, Chicago, August 2, 1925.
Rev. Irving E. Putnam,
Joliet, 111.
My Dear Sir: Yesterday, at Decorah, la., I dic-
tated a letter to you which was not written in time
for me to sign before I came away, and, as since I
came here I have received a bundle of letters support-
ing me in what I said as to prohibition, I thought I
would write to you at once and tell you how dis-
appointed my friends were at the dinner I gave in
Decorah the evening of the 31st at your not being-
present, as I had hoped you would be after I invited
you to come as my guest and speak.
The people at Decorah, with whom my wife and I
grew up, had heard of this correspondence between
us and were very much gratified when they saw that
you were on the list of speakers. I talked again in
support of my sentiments to my old friends, and I
fear that if you had spoken in reply to me you would
have had out there a majority in your favor. In
greeting these old friends with whom my wife and I
grew up, on the ground where we were married, as
they left us after the dinner (it was after midnight
before the program was finished), some of them ex-
pressed high approval of your sentiments and dis-
approval of mine, whereas quite a number in saying
good-bye told me that what I said had their hearty
approval.
The whole proceedings at the Decorah dinner will
appear in the Decorah Republican, and I left word to
have a copy sent on to you.
When I got back here I saw a copy of the Presto
of July 25, in which your letter of July 3 and mine
of July 20 appear. 1 had seen in the Tribune the
correspondence between us, as published in their
issue of the 24th, and I also saw your note thanking"
them for publishing this correspondence. I also re-
ceived your letter thanking me for having the corre-
spondence appear in the Tribune.
It seemed to me that your letter of thanks to them
was rather, as we say in California, "unusual," after
your having called them "the World's Wettest News-
paper" and "Greatest Garbler of the Truth."
I sent to the Tribune a copy of your letter to me,
to which I made reply at Superior, Wis., July 25. I
also sent a copy of that correspondence to Presto.
So far as I know, neither paper has published it, but
I shall know tomorrow morning as to Presto. I
have not had time yet to look over today's Tribune,
and so do not know whether they printed this corre-
spondence or not.
Cites Presto Editorials.
In seeing your letter in type in Presto, I discovered
that there are several things in yours of July 3 to
which I did not allude in my letter to you of July 20.
I am enclosing two pages from Presto, issue of
July 25, thinking that possibly you may not have
seen same, though I asked Presto to send on to you
a copy as soon as they printed the correspondence,
as they said they would.
As to your remark that more people by far are
buying musical instruments since prohibition went
into effect thaa ever before, please note the two edi-
torials entitled "A Live Dead One" and "Who Said
This?" which appeared in the same issue along with
our letters.
It is a fact that business in pianos has been very
dead for the last four years. You think otherwise,
but don't know, as I do, although I have been out of
business for nine years and made all of the fortune
you think I have (but
don't know) when the coun-
try was absolutely w 7 et.
The fact of the matter is. though you don't know it,
that most all the business in the piano trade today is
with bootleggers and enforcement officers. They
are buying houses and automobiles and high-priced
pianos and reproducing pianos and self-playing
pianos, while the supporters of the eighteenth amend-
ment and the Volstead Act, those of sobriety, seem
to have forgotten for a time that there is such a thing
as a piano.
I have said to you over and over again that the
bootleggers and the enforcement officers are becom-
ing rapidly rich. This is a fact. You have a theory
to the contrary, but again you don't know.
You will remember that in my.letter to you from
Superior, Wis., of July 25, I closed my letter by quot-
ing Josh Billings, who said that it was better not to
know so much than to know so much that "warn't
so."
Opposes Strong Drink.
Doubtless you have seen the account of the rob-
bery of the Drake Hotel a few days ago, resulting in
the death of two bandits, crazy drunk with moon-
shine, who had previously shot down one of the hotel
clerks in cold blood. It isn't at all likely that they
would have perpetrated this crime had they been able
to get a mild drink like wine or beer, instead of hav-
ing to load up on strong drink, "which is raging," as
per the Scriptm ?s which I quoted to you in my letter
of the 25th.
You perhaps have noticed that I bore down hard in
that letter, or at least tried to make it clear to you.
that the Bible in many places seems to favor the use
of wine (beer, I think, was not then known). But
according to said Bible, everyone who spoke at al',
on the matter of drink opposed drunkenness anc
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