The Washington times. [volume], July 31, 1917, NIGHT FINAL, Editorial Page, Image 16

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
' uvmt" ,. mv' '$.
EDITORIAL PAGE
k3s OF THE
VWSHtN5PSNHVES
JULY ,31. 1917
WASHINGTON
- -f
cfSSSkz EDGAR D. SEAW, rubl!her. BIflji
Entered ai tecond class matter at the Postofflce at Washington. D. C
Published Eery Evening (Including Sundays) By the
Washington Times Company, Munsey Building, Pennsylvania Ave.
One Tear (Including Sundays). 00. Three Months. tl.OO. One Month. 3Sc
TUESDAY. JULY. Jl. HIT.
What Will the Senate Decide
On Prohibition?
Will It Decide for REAL Temperance, or for the Fanatical
Extreme That Means Whiskey 7
How Do They Do It?
Badgered, button-holed, irritated and in some cases
politically blackmailed and frightened by the prohibition or
ganization, the Senate has apparently decided to take action
on a Constitutional amendment for- nation-wide prohibition.
We repeat, that the power to change the Constitution
was not intended to be used when simple police regulations
and State legislation would answer for the purpose.
However, if the Senate is determined to use this great
power in a case of this kind, to be rid of the importunities
of prohibitionists, we urge this course upon them
Legislate for REAL TEMPERANCE. The temperance
that prevails in France, Italy, Germany, in all regions where
the inhabitants use light wine or light beer and do not use
whiskey. Forbid by Constitutional amendment if you
please, although that is not necessary or wise forbid ab
solutely making, selling or possessing distilled spirits. En
courage the light wine and light beer, draw a sharp line be
tween the two as you would between tobacco and morphine.
Do not be bullied or worn out in your patience by prohibition
urging, however well meant, sincere and ignorant.
The Government of the United States fortunately has
about made up its' mind to say to all citizens, especially to
the tens of thousands of drunkards that lack intelligence:
"Matters shall be. arranged so that you will get no more
whiskey."
At this moment Congress is discussing the drink ques
tion. If you believe that the suggestions made in this
editorial are sound, cut it out and send it to one of the Sen
ators from your State, telling him that this represents your
views.
This is the drink situation as it exists ALL OVER THE
WORLD.
There are MDLD stimulants, light wine, and beer, there
are alcoholic POISONS, whiskey, gin, brandy, etc.
There are mild narcotics, tobacco, the cigars, cigarettes.
There are the poisonous and deadly narcotics, opium,
morpnine, cocaine.
Entire populations use tobacco temperately and with
complete self-control. Populations or individuals that use the
poisonous narcotics are doomed.
That tobacco in antixaly haxxaloBX. not all Agree. Cer
tain prohibition extremists would forbid the use of tobacco.
One interesting military hero in New York State named
O'Ryan even issued an order that no soldier should smoke
on the street.
The common sense of the whole people, however, makes
it clear, that all the force of Government should be used to
suppress making, selling, and using poisonous narcotics,
while the use of tobacco, comparatively if not absolutely
harmless, should be permitted and encouraged.
Experience proves that if you forbid the open legal use
of tobacco, some harmful drug more easily concealed would
be used secretly. Thousands of men, for instance, become
drug fiends in prison when smoking is not allowed.
What is true of dangerous narcotics, and the tobacco
used temperately, used nearly always, is equally and liter
ally true of the alcoholic poisons and the light wine and
beer that are generally used temperately and harmlessly
where whiskey and the other poisons are not drunk.
A country should legislate on the subject of alcoholic
stimulants precisely as it legislates on the narcotics, for
bidding the poisons that form a drug habit, permitting the
mild tobacco.
Whiskey, gin and brandy, and ALL DISTILLED
SPIRITS SHOULD BE FORBIDDEN ABSOLUTELY.
They are the poisons that cause alcoholism, delirium tremens,
chronic drunkenness and all the ills that follow in the train
of drunkenness poverty, crime, insanity.
The milder stimulants, light beer, containing not more
than four per cent of alcohol; light wines, drunk diluted
with water, with a maximum of fourteen per cent alcohol,
and a heavy additional tax on all wine containing an alco
holic percentage above ten per cent SHOULD BE PER
MITTED. A maximum as high as fourteen per cent is suggested
because many great vineyards produce a grape that will
not yield a wine of less than fourteen Der cent of alnolinl
But this should be taxed more heavily than the lighter wines
within a reasonable number of years, allowing for .the plant
ing 01 uguier grapes or 01 vineyards on lignter soil; the
maximum alcoholic strength should be fixed rigidly at ten
per cent.
Tens of millions of human beings in Italy, and other
tens of millions in France, drink light wines temperately
every day of their lives, from childhood to old age, and do
not know what drunkenness means.
Tens of millions in Germany drink light beer all their
lives and do not suffer from drink or inefficiency. Nine hun
dred and ninety out of a thousand soldiers in the German
army drink beer and the government supplies it and
their record does not show that they are drunk or inefficient.
Where there is drunkenness in Italy it is caused by
Italians that return from America, HAVnjQ ACQUIRED
THE WHISKEY HABIT HERE.
Where drunkenness exists in France it is due to criminal
legislation for which the fool Napoleon ILL was responsible
jciuutnug resiuems in nonueni x ranee, wnere tney have
apes ana no rea wine, 10 manuiacture tneir own vile
or Dranay, or applejack in their own houses to th
if so many gallons a year.
re is no drunkenness m the wine-CTowine- nina.
region of France.
out the alcohol poisons in America, enforce the
(Continued at Bottom of Last Column.)
Winifred Black's Article on Women on Juries
THEY are going to have
women on the juries out
in California.
Hurrah!
They grow big ideas in Cali
fornia as well as big trees, don't
they?
Women on juries? Why, of
course! Why not?
What man on earth would con
sent to be tried by a jury of
women?
Why should women want to
be tried by a jury of men?
Pretty women? Oh, well, of
course, no elderly man who ever
sat cooped up in a jury box ever
lived who could resist a pretty wit
ness. But that isn't the sort of
woman who wants justice, and
doern't care whether she gets i.
or a pretense at it by being pretty
or by being plain.
As a matter of fact, it's as ridic
ulous to try a case with a woman
in it before a man jury as it would
be to make a man cook wear pet
tiskirts just because he is doing a
woman's work.
No man on earth really under
stands a woman, and no woman on
earth can ever really deceive an
other woman.
Oversympathetic, overemotional,
too easily swayed by prejudice?
Fudge and fiddlesticks!
The Modern Woman Just As
Sane and Steady As
a Man.
That sort of woman went out
with the hoop-skirts and beau
catchers. She is as out-of-date as
the old-fashioned buggy with the
red tires and the whip in tre sock
et tied with a red ribbon.
The modern woman is just as
sane and just as well balanced
and just as sensible as the modern
man. That may not be saying
such an awful lot, but, such as it
Is, it's perfectly true, every sylla
ble of it.
The old-fashioned woman who
was jealous of every other woman
on earth and never could bear to
hear any praise of any one but
herself, is as extinct as the fur
bearing seal, and quite as unpleas
ant to remember teeth, flippers,
slimy creepings ov.r slimy rocks
and all.
Don't remember what your
grandfathers told you or the
things that your -reat-grand-uncle,
who was at the same time
a great ladies' man and a terrific
woman-hater, was always saying.
They didn't mean half of it, and
what they did mean isn't true any
longer. I know dozens and doiens
of the prettiest girls in the world,
and they are clever and good
matured and sensible as well as
pretty.
And I know dozens and dozens
of girls who are not pretty at all,
but they are sensible and broad
minded and tolerant. You couldn't
get one of them, to make fun of
another girl because she was jeal
ous of her to save your life.
Women ari through with that
kind of petty sm:l'ness. They
haven't time for it any longer.
Smelling Bottles Out of Date
Prove the Change in
Woman.
Twenty years ago every woman
on earth who had monev enough
to keep her own pocketbook had
some kind of a smelling bottle
somewhere in the ' jnily. Either
she bought it herself or some one
gave it to her. She was expected
to faint every once in a while
just as she was expected to be
small-minded and jealous, and in
tolerant and prejudiced.
Hunt for that smelling bottla
today. You will have trouble
finding it, and nine chances to ten,
when you do find it, it will be
twenty years old, handed down
with the family album and the old
what-not in the corner with the
shell Great-Uncle Alner brought
home front the Sauth Seas, and the
picture frame Aunt Abigail made
of pine cones dipped in glue and
gilded that summer she wasn't
very well and tool: her cough to
the Piney Woods.
Smelling bottles are no longer
the mode. No one would knotr
what to do with the: if they had
them.
The modem woman doesn't
faint, and she doesnt go into hys
terics, and she doesn't shut her
self up in the house and "pine
away,'' the way father's sister did
when the man she was engaged to
sent word that it was all mistake
and went out and married the rosy-
cneeked girl in the candy shop.
She cries a little, no doubt, when
she is alone, but it doesn't take
her very long to .alize Cat she
owes Rosy-cheeks rather a big
debt of gratitude, after all. And
if she isn't courageous and self
forgetting, really, she does her
best to make peopli think she is,
anyhow
Hurrah for California!
(Copyright, HIT. by Nawapoptr Ftatur Srr
lce. Ice. Grc&l Britain rlshu rtMrred.)
From Your Point of View, Mr. Reader
The Sunday Evening Times is your Sun
day paper.
You CAN read it all through and you
WILL read it all through.
The Sunday Evening Times is not pre
pared early Saturday evening to get out a
mass of reading matter that you haven't
time or inclination to-digest on Sunday morn
ing. The Sunday Times is written, printed, and
published with the latest news.
It is the paper that you read in the even
ing on Sunday, after you have been to
church, driven your automobile, taken your
exercise, and enjoyed the sunlight.
For you, Mr. Reader, there is in The Sun
day Evening Times all the news that you
want,, and features for an entire evening's
reading.
For you, Mrs. Reader, there is the news,
writing by the most intelligent women of the
country, and the very latest bargains of the
stores.
The merchants on Sunday morning can
see the bargains that each of their competi
tors has offered, and on Sunday evening in
THE TIMES they can DO A LITTLE BET
TER. When you read the advertisements in The
Sunday Evening Times, you get the very
latest and best bargains.
For the children, there are the amusing pic
tures, the best of "comics." And very often
the father takes his child to the comic page
as he used to take him to the circus because
father wanted to see the circus himself.
The Sunday Evening Times at two cents,
is THE Sunday newspaper of Washington.
If growth Interests you, WATCH IT
GROW, and recall this prediction. The Sun
day Evening Times circulation will equal
that of ALL the Washington Sunday morn
ing newspapers combined.
i
i - i i -j .i i o..,. on- i i ,- r
as PKtsrartT or tup. - x NAuSiVfli, ahest w.w . or the subumr
OFSnOWiUG THESE fUHEKT J GloBE- TRoTTER t L RftPTORt oVtRFXoWljW HIS r
VISITORS THE SUBlWEr-j J "C V '-Mi ,S001- '
Bits of SCEKERY riCZ , a .aOSTg-, . .ssi. JSL. rS.
ftROOrlD THIS stftcoftsrj felF Mttiy - ABn, "W7UT
fft. TC? t Mi L :3x- SHH&LJ
r SWL THE BEftUTlFUl. 1 J Krtow yoO ftRfc ftlLTttRaiW) v
I Bfty -below you tf L. By the. superb view you jJ ? I
i griurj1- -n outrrftiHS , p y j ,
ltk: "laV-A-
. ..criJg-aaSfN ,
3 3K2 1 JU I I . r-af'
KL. " BW jPVWlg-tlilWL JHIL e- 2X
I Jj55iNJyl ' totor- I
'We're Making yar, While The
MaMtg Love" .
By DA'D LAWRENCE.
Masculine strength big called to the front, the Gov
ment must needs depend of the feminine for aid at home, nmpy
of the departments have i'creased their staffs and the majoril
of the new employes arc from the gentler sex. Such a thiq
could not but have certn effects, best described in the plail
tive remark of a Cabineoff icer the other day: "We're makiij
war, while they're makng love."
That the proximiy of young .women should divert the j
tention of young menand old in the departments is not so 1
Drisinir. Time was Wien the spirit of youth beckoned nuBWof
us, but there was no war then. It might be apropos to jTflpeat
the invitation recesuy extended to the suff ragettes-vi The
Times building. Its spacious corridors are trysting plajifs ex
traordinary. So irtent are the thousands who pass then! daily
on the sober side of their tasks that hardly would thejfaotice
the couples as thy strolled its busy halls.
But the subect of love is a serious thing, and the maxim
that "all's fair ii love and war" Is ages old. Thrones have been
lost by too stect an adherence to such a tenet. Mar Antony
fell victim tthat alluring philosophy. Charlemagne lost an
empire thatway.
Younflr women in the Government departments,we are at
war I
Some of you may not realize it
Because we are at war, a great many men have left their
comfortable offices and you are doing their work, it is a serious
work, and it is necessary for the sake of our military success
that it be taken seriously.
It is said to be natural for youth to make love. It is also
said to be pleasant But certainly the time and the place for it
are not in the Government buildings and on these critical days.
If you must make love and probably you mmst postpone it
until the days work is done.
What Will the Senate Decide
On Prohibition? '
(Continued from First CoInn.)
law strictly and you will eliminate drunkenness in this
country.
Distinguished Congressmen know this, but they frankly
confess that they are terrorized by the threats of the sincere
fanatical.prohibition minority and by the lobbying of a well
organized business organization called the Anti-Salooa
League.
The trouble with many legislators and many so-called
big men who lend their names to prohibition literature is
HYPOCRISY.
Of the lawmakers who vote so readily for pure water, not
more than ten out of a hundred are total abstainers. This is
the statement of a Senator who knows the facts.
How can a body of which 90 per cent use and intend'tb
continue using stimulants pretend to believe what they do
not believe. One of the ablest men in the House, chairman
of one of the three most important committees, has intro
duced bills for absolute prohibition. Yet this m, in the
presence of the Washington correspondent of the Chicago
Herald, said to this writer:
"I know that you are right. If from the beginning noth
ing hut light wine and light beer had been drunkr in the
United States, there would not be a prohibition State in the
Union, and there would be no need of any. Why don't you
try to persuade the Anti-Saloon League to adopt your view?
Although I know you are right, I do not dare incur their
enmity."
Congress passed a law making the city of Washington
' ' dry, ' ' but it does not intend to be dry itself. The law allows
individuals to bring into Washington everything that they
want to drink. Only .the "little man" will be controlled by
the law, and plenty of criminals will be ready to supply him
with whiskey secretly sold and unusually bad and poisonous.
Well meaning, sincere fanaticism, ignorant of facts and
paying no attention to the world's experience, demands abso
lute prohibition, which is impossible, and forces secret
whiskey upon the public.
Congressional hypocrisy, fearing the threats of a well
organized lobby, courting cheap popularity, advocates laws
which it knows will be violated, laws that Congressmen them
selves KNOW THAT THEY WILL NOT OBEY.
Where whiskey and the other alcoholic poisons are used
there is drunkenness.
Where prohibition drives out the milder stimulants,
whiskey still persists, and there is drunkenness.
Where light wine and light beer are the only drinks
manufactured and sold the people are temperate, there is no
drink problem, and no thought of prohibition legislation be
cause there is no need of it.
Class whiskey with opium and forbid both.
Class light wine and beer with tobacco and allow the
sale, not as representing human perfection if you will, but
as representing real sobriety.
You cannot make the human race perfect over night, but
you can make it sober. You can drive out the vile alcoholic
poisons and the dangerous narcotic drugs, and settle the
drink question, on basis of common sense and REAL TEM
PERANCE. You cannot settle it on the basis of absolute prohibition,
or rule a great majority against its will on the say-so of a
small minority.
The workers of this country, the great mass of the popu
lation, would gladly vote to abolish whiskey and gin. They
will not be put on pure ice water by a Congress of which
ninety per cent does not drink ice water.
And as the Congressmen well know, if they vote for
absolute prohibition, they vote for a national "WHISKEY
DIET."
If you agree with this, write a letter to your Congress
man and your two Senators and tell them so.
u-